There’s this thing called Hunan Hand. It happens to you when you work with hot peppers. The hotness in peppers is due to a chemical called capsaicin. This chemical can get on your hands (or elsewhere), and let me tell you, it is damn hard to get off. I cut up various kinds of hot peppers for some chili the other week, and my left thumb burned for days. I could taste spicy on it for about 6 days. I tried several things to get the shit off, including Goo Gone, ethanol, and acetone, which I’m sure can’t be good for your skin. The one recommended method for cooling things off involves rinsing your hands in bleach, and I’m not sure if that’s worth it.

It finally wore off after on its own after about a week. And to think that I didn’t even get it that bad.

No, this isn’t the fraud-Jones behind Being John Malcobitch, but the other Spike Jones. Spike Jonze, the 4th Beastie Boob, is and forever will be moronic just like the Cajun inspired spelling of his last name. Why people are always talking about Spike Jonze, the jambalayian-retard, and not the real Spike Jones is beyond me. Perhaps these people just don’t want to feel like they live in tiki-bungalow with Yosemite Sam. Well change is on the wind, and heralding that change is the Spike Jones Box Set, “Strictly for Music Lovers”. With the ludicrously cheap price tag of under 25 dollars, this excellent four CD set provides hours upon hours of musical hoots, whoops, shoots and WWII humor to boot. It is a matter of time before Jonze and all of New Orleans’s crawfish are sacrificed in the Wicker Man.

I mentioned the magical man in my review Kate Bush’s “The Kick Inside”; and now due to the current Lord of the Ring craze, all of Bo Hansson’s albums have seen a reissue by EMI International. Hansson’s “Music Inspired by Watership Down” has not only long been out of print, but to my knowledge it was never made available on CD (I had a copy of it on vinyl). Perhaps not Hansson’s strongest album, Watership Down is still far better then his frequently overrated Lord of the Rings album. The reissue of Music Inspired by Watership Down not only gets a nice write up on Bo in the liner notes (which on the upside is quite long, but on the downside focuses far too much on his Lord of the Rings album) it also receives a bonus track, the fabled Migration Suite. Straight up prog-heads probably won’t be too impressed by the freewheeling noodling session that the Migration Suite undoubtedly was and is, but for the tried and true acolytes of Bo, whoa – Migration Suite, RECORDED LIVE IN THE STUDIO, kicks Frodo’s fur-covered-ass, keeps the ring and throws Sam in the volcano for never being in Goonies 2. One of the track’s many highlights, somebody playing a foul note on guitar, makes me think that it is a virtual garentee one of the other album’s bonus tracks will include a drugged up Bo blurting something indecipherable and sounding like the Swedish Chef.

This album is FANTASTIC and is one of the best music purchases I’ve made in the last century. “The Kick Inside” is destined to become one of my all-time favorite albums. When I listen to it I not only feel like I live on Venus’s Moon, but the band who plays my daily Venusian BBQ is the Bo Hansson Elektric Light Orchestra with their singer, the starry elfin maid Kate. Why would I say such a thing? It is either what might be the highly mysterious narwhale mating calls introducing track two, or that fact that there simply is no accounting for taste. My roommates would have the latter. Screw them.

I just finished watching the film, Garden State and let me say this flick took me by surprise. The characters were well developed, the script well written, the acting was above average, the cinematography was superb, the soundtrack was great, and most of all the movie just felt real. I believe the movie is a time capsule of life in the year 2000 and it seems to speak to real problematic themes that ultimately have no correct solution.

If you haven’t seen Garden State yet, I highly recommend you watch it STAT. It clearly deserves any type of praise or support you may have heard or read.

Well I’ve finally decided to post. I thought I should share this monumental event with the whole world – I’ve now played Cyberball 2072 more than 100 times. I know it seems small, but I now consider myself the world’s most foremost authority on this brilliant, fantabulous offering from Atari Games circa 1989.

What’s not to like? Atari correctly predicted the not-too-distant future of robots fighting fierce contests of sport in hopes of gaining revenue to repair destroyed players and defeating the likes of mastermind coaches like Sky Rogers and I.M. Payne on the tech-heavy gridiron. Cyberball 2072? More like Cyberball 20-70-I Do! (i.e. I do play it again and again!)

Boy-oh-boy, I remember playing this game at the Pizza Hut on Mt. Hermon Road so many years ago. If only those tip-hungry bitches could see me now… They’d all totally know how hard I rock.

I know what you all are saying, “Grue, you wreck some rad shop, and now that you are on top of the mountain, what lies next in your snake-eyed sights?”

I’m glad you have asked. Atari Games has also brought us such classics as A.P.B. and 720. I would go after 720 but the controls are fucked up. A.P.B. has a special place in my heart-of-hearts and may be my next significant conquest.

I do however have another lost love. Baseball Stars by Neo-Geo.

I am in the process of completing the Pennant race of Baseball Stars 2 (16 games.) I may drop down and focus on ‘Baseball Stars Professional,’ as the Shadow Demons have a manager that looks like Anton LaVey. It gives me a lot to think about…

I’ve now beaten Shinobi and Alien Syndrome, and now that my Cyberball 2072 mastery is cemented, I am sure I can no longer reside with the common-likes of man. It is a great burden to be a God… But my travail continues onward…

Ops Please.