One of my favorite perks of being an anime reviewer for DVDTalk.com is that I have a good excuse to hit the anime conventions again. I used to go to these things all the time back in college. After I made my long awaited debut in the real world in 2004, I decided that I was a professional and stopped going. Actually, it just felt weird to go. When I first started hitting the cons, the panels and the dealer rooms were the main draw. Cosplayers made up a small, but noticeable, portion of the crowd. They were the freaks. The superfans. I always appreciated the effort that they put into their costumes and I loved that they usually roleplayed the part the entire day. They were fun, but I was never willing to take that step and join their ranks. Cosplayers now make up a majority of the crowd—sometimes like 80-90%. They proudly walk around with spiky hair, giant swords, ninja masks, magical fairy girl skirts, cat ears or some combination of all the above.

Now, it is my duty to attend anime conventions. Or so I tell myself. Truth is, I love this shit.

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In my previous reviews of Doritos 1st and 2nd Degree Burn, I lamented the fact that there was no 3rd Degree Burn to be found. 2nd Degree Burn, Buffalo Wing flavored Doritos, had a heat that increased exponentially with each chip until you were clamoring for something, anything, wet and diffuse the blaze. These 3rd Degree Burn Scorchin’ Habanero Doritos, if there were such thing, truly had to be something special.

The buzz was that they were discontinued and were no longer on store shelves. The window of opportunity had passed and my review would forever be incomplete. Mr. Dragon’s Fire Chips wasabi flavored Doritos were a suitable replacement given the circumstances, but still, there was no way in hell could live with this result. I searched gas stations, grocery stores, and convenience stores all over the city to find the elusive 3rd Degree Burn Doritos. All I could ever find were the normal Nacho Cheese, Cool Ranch, and 1st and 2nd Degree Burn Doritos.

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I can’t be the only one amused by the news stories that surfaced last week about kids i-dosing on “digital drugs.” Silly kids! The newscasters, as per usual, overreacted to a stupid kid trend and ran with the alarmist news stories that only cause even more kids to seek out “digital drugs.”

I never even knew such a thing existed until the video clips of some Oklahoma newscast warning about the dangers of digital drugs recently hit the internet. Digital drugs? What the hell is that? The story explained that digital drugs are monotonous binaural beats that you listen to with headphones, lying down in a relaxed state, with your eyes closed. You mean kids are…meditating?! Oh, sweet Jesus! The slippery slope is upon us! What will they do next? Yoga?

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In the late 80’s and early 90’s there were two distinct camps of gamers: Nintendo fans and Sega fans. There were no Sega fans in my circle of friends. In fact, I didn’t know of anyone who had a Sega. Yet we assumed they were out there because we, Nintendo fans, needed an enemy. There were rumors of friends of friends who had a Sega Master System. I never saw these friends or their Sega’s, so I called shenanigans on these claims. I was a staunch Mario 3 playing, Nintendo Cereal eating, The Wizard watching, Nintendo Power subscribing, Power Glove wearing Nintendo fanatic. Sega was crap. No, it was more than crap. It was shit. Nobody owned a Sega and if you did, you were an idiot. I had never actually played a Sega. My hatred was blind, but it was pure. Sega was anti-Nintendo, therefore I was anti-Sega. Then, the Sega Genesis was released.

My anti-Sega stance weakened every time I had to jiggle a cartridge back to life in the old Nintendo Entertainment System. You remember the ritual. You put the cartridge in the NES, press it down, and pray to the gaming gods that it worked the first time. Rarely would you achieve such a lucky press. More likely, the gaming gods shat on your prayers and laughed maniacally as they gave you a flicker of hope and then eternal blackness. You knew this would be a war. You took the cartridge back out, blew in it, and placed it back in the system. A flicker, perhaps a few random colored pixels, and then blackness. You jiggled the cartridge as it laid in the NES. Flicker, nothing, flicker, nothing. You began to sweat. You held the Reset button for 5 seconds. Nothing. 10 seconds. Nothing. You tried the little trick you learned in ‘Nam where you placed the cartridge in the NES as closely to the edge as possible and snapped it down. Nothing. You questioned how much you really wanted to play this game, but you gathered your wits, yelled out a giant “Fuck You!” to the gaming gods and entrenched yourself for the coming battle. You repeated these same steps perhaps 30 more times, cursing loud enough to vent your frustrations, but quiet enough to not get grounded for two weeks. Finally, the gaming gods decided that you had been punished enough for lying to Santa Claus about being a good kid and they blessed you with Nintendo goodness.

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Here’s an addendum to the synergistic explosion of flavor experiment that I conducted a few months ago between Doritos and Pepsi Max: Cease Fire. I was recently putting together a purchase at an online Japanese retailer when I discovered wasabi flavored Doritos on the site. Of course this snack would be added to my purchase, if for no other reason than to continue my Doritos experiments. However, I didn’t realize how outrageous shipping costs are when you order a bunch of shit from Japan. I needed time to rethink my order. Did I really need an ear cleaning scoop with a mini origami bird hanging from the tip? Well, yes I do actually. What about that microwave potato chip maker? Yup, that stays. The badass Starscream figure? Mine! I’m such a nerd. I could find most of the Japanese snacks at Epcot, though. Wasabi Doritos, along with the other Japanese snacks, would have to wait.

On the way up to Atlanta, Georgia last week, we stopped at a 7-11 for some snacks and gas. In the store, my eyes were immediately drawn to a lime green bag of Doritos called Mr. Dragon’s Fire Chips. Out of reflex, my arm snatched two bags for the 8 hour trek. It wasn’t until I gave the bags a second glance at the checkout counter that it dawned on me just what kind of treasure I had stumbled upon. These were Wasabi Doritos! Here! In America! Without the ludicrous shipping charge!

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A couple of weeks ago, while watching a UFC fight, I noticed that one of the fighters looked like a character from the old Nintendo game, Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. The resemblance was uncanny. Inspiration hit me to write a “Separated at Birth” article for that fighter and the Punch Out character, but then I started matching other people with Punch Out characters and decided to do the full cast. Unfortunately, I am not so brilliant that I am the first person to think of this article and ran into no less than five others with a quick Google search. But fuck it, I love the idea, I love the video game, so I’m doing my own.

I am going to do a little role playing here. I am the casting director for Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, a new summer blockbuster to come out in 2012—hopefully before the world explodes that year. Below is my wishlist for the film cast.

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Why is it that when somebody sneezes, we feel obligated to soothe them with words like, “Bless You,” “Bleshoo,” or serenade them with a German, “gesundheit.” Do you know what gesundheit means? Did you even realize it was German? For those that don’t know, gesundheit literally means “health.” A person who says gesundheit is allegedly wishing you good health. Probably unknowingly. They probably just heard their grandparents say that to them when they were a kid and it stuck.

I know the legends about the origins of blessing a sneezer, none of which are known to be 100% accurate. My question is why do you, specifically, bless a sneezer? Politeness? Habit? Are you truly blessing them every time they sneeze? Why only when they sneeze? You don’t bless people or wish them good health when they cough. You certainly don’t bless them when they fart, burp, or puke. Why is sneezing so different? Why is it considered rude when we don’t habitually utter some nonsensical blessing after somebody sneezes?

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As promised, below are the Honorable Mentions to my Top Ten Biggest Childhood Crushes list. These ladies all received consideration for inclusion in the top ten, but for one reason or another, didn’t quite make the cut. I still feel like they deserve a little spotlight. There were a couple who were really close to making the Top Ten and I just couldn’t pull the trigger and remove, say, Jennifer Connelly from my list. Here are eleven other celebrities that I had huge crushes on back in the day with a Then and Now picture.

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I count The Karate Kid (1984) as one of my favorite movies of all time and a bona fide classic piece of American filmmaking. It had everything: fighting, karate, romance, simple yet effective storyline, laughs, endearing characters, catch phrases, and a great ending. I have watched it hundreds of times and still make time for it every couple of months. When Columbia Pictures announced that they were creating a remake, my first reaction was why bother? The original was movie perfection. My second reaction was a full-blown midlife crisis. Am I really getting so old that my favorite childhood movies need to be updated? Then I realized that 1984 was indeed a long ass time ago, which made it all the worse. Still, I was dismayed by the announcement and immediately put up my wall of hatred. There was no way in hell I would ever see this travesty. Damn Columbia Pictures and everyone involved!

Then I saw the kick ass trailer a few months ago before seeing Alice in Wonderland at the theaters. I was charmed by the new sensei, Mr. Han played by Jackie Chan. Jaden Smith cracked a few funny lines that made me laugh and showed some great kung fu technique. Within minutes, my usually impenetrable wall of hatred crumbled to dust.

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