Pepsi Throwback

I don’t even like Pepsi, but I like gimmicks and sugar, so I tried the new Pepsi products upon mass market release. In March of this year, Pepsi began selling Pepsi Throwback and Mt. Dew Throwback, both of the products using real sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. For a non-Pepsi drinker, I thought there isn’t much difference in taste between the old and the new (I’m not exactly sure which is which, with all this throwback coming back business.), and the only main difference I noticed was the decrease in the amount of carbonation. I don’t feel as guilty drinking pop with real sugar, but I couldn’t tell you the exact reason as to why HFCS is so much worse than real sugar, other than the fact that real sugar is a lot simpler to understand. Anyway, my conclusion on the pops: they’re cool, I guess.

Side note: At the same time, Pepsi released Pepsi Natural to select markets, but I’m yet to see a bottle on the shelf here…

Pepsi Throwback website

ninjagarden

Red Dead Redemption

I’m excited about this game: Red Dead Redemption. It’s from Rockstar and it’s a mission-based sandbox game like GTA or Bully but set in the OLD FUCKING WEST, inspired by Spaghetti westerns. It comes out later this year which means it’ll be cheap enough for me to buy in only 1.5 years!

Flexi disc memories

In my Faith No More post I casually mentioned ‘flexi discs’.  Do you remember flexi discs?  And don’t say they were before your time, Allison.

Flexi discs are basically records on really thin sheets of vinyl, usually packaged in a book or magazine.  When I was a toddler, we had a flexi disc of whales singing.  It turns out that was a really widely distributed record that was included in an issue of National Geographic.  Also, my “classes” in Vacation Bible School often used flexi-discs that I assume came with the books.  Fast forwarding several years to the late 90s, at least one issue of Grand Royal came with a flexi disc of the Beastie Boys and Biz Markie performing Elton John’s Benny and the Jets, which was later collected on their anthology.

Remember records?  lol

ANOTHER Faith No More Greatest Hits album

First, let it be known that Faith No More has nothing to do with these collections, save for the first one released back in 1998. You can blame Warner Bros. and Rhino Records for the tragic fact that, as of this year, there will be SIX Faith No More greatest hits albums. They only had six studio albums to begin with! Argh!

The first Faith No More greatest hits comp, Who Cares A Lot?, had some input from the band and consisted of 2 discs. The first disc contained a well-reasoned ‘best of’ listing but the real attraction for fans was the 2nd disc which featured several unreleased tracks. It was like a brand new mini-album. Even though the 2nd disc was advertised as a “bonus disc” right on the fucking packaging, many retailers sold the collection at a double album price.

Between 2003 and 2006, Warner/Rhino released THREE more comps, all single disc. Only This Is It contains anything of note; “The Perfect Crime” from Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey and a live version of “As the Worm Turns” previously available only on the video version of Live at the Brixton Academy.  In 2008 Rhino released another comp, The Works, spanning three discs!  Incredibly, the collection contains regular old album tracks almost exclusively.  WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS GODDAMN RELEASE?

Which brings us to 2009.  With the announcement of Faith No More’s reunion tour we will soon be presented with the admittedly, humorously titled The Very Best Definitive Ultimate Greatest Hits Collection.  The first disc consists of the usual hits and album tracks.  There’s a second disc which Rhino naturally fucked up but it’s at least semi-interesting.  It only has ten tracks, and FOUR of them are repeats from the 2nd Who Cares A Lot? disc.  Then there are four b-side tracks that had never been collected on an album release.  But most interestingly are two really rare tracks the 1980s that were only available on flexi-discs inserted in magazines.  I don’t know if I’ll buy this insulting collection but at least there will now be high quality versions of these 2 super rare tracks floating around on the internets.

Stuck on Repeat: Track 1 – “Loss of God” by Wolves in the Attic

With the introduction of Greg’s second regular feature, ” 70 Aspects of Batman,” it suddenly occurred to me that I was rapidly becoming the least productive member of Beati Paoli on this blog.  Lord knows that’s one title I do not want, so I have quickly produced this new column from out of nowhere.   I call it  “Stuck on Repeat.” It’s a fairly simple concept. I post a song that has recently been getting repeated play on my ipod/itunes/whatever and then I briefly write about it. Easy peasy.

“Loss of God” by Wolves in the Attic, taken from Electronic Hearts (2009 – Mission Freak)

[Full disclosure: I've been practicing a bit with these guys as I will be a fill-in bassist for a few weeks this summer.]  “Loss of God,” encompasses everything that I dig about the band and I suppose solid rock music .  Plenty of  fuzz, riffs/lead lines shooting off in every direciton, and group HEY!’s.  Oh yeah and check out the ol’ stop-short (one of my favorite moves in song writing) at the 2:10 mark which nicely sets the stage for everything to come back in and eventually leads to the previously mentioned fuzz, riffs, and HEY!’s.
Ryan

I guess this is famous but I just dickscovered it

fuck i’ve been beaten to it!

cecilpaoli

WHAAAAAAA?

cecilpaoli

National Game Registry 1983: Blaster

BLASTER
original platform
arcade
developer/publisher
Vid Kidz/Williams
key personnel
Eugene Jarvis
Larry Demar

Blaster is blessed with blocky 3D graphics on-rails flying action featuring giant, bipedal robots, gates that the player can fly through for points/bonuses, and a trip through an asteroid field.  With four unique stages the game features plenty of variety.  According to the game’s intro, Blaster is actually a sequel to much more successful (and much less ambitious) Robotron 2084.

Blaster was inducted on April 29th, 2009.

Return to the National Game Registry to view more inductees.

Comics/Music: When Kirby Met Macca

So, there was this one time in 1976 when ex-Beatle and then current Winger Paul McCartney met Jack Kirby, the King of Comics.

I’d read about this before once…on Wings’ follow-up to their smash hit Band On The Run album, (entitled Venus And Mars), McCartney featured a song called “Magneto And Titanium Man”. Both characters are Marvel Comics villains, and one (Magneto) was co-created by Kirby. This led to Kirby being invited to a Wings concert that was held in L.A. in 1976.

Kirby, his wife and his daughter went backstage and met McCartney and the rest of Wings, and Kirby gifted Paul and his wife Linda this picture:

So yeah, Kirby and McCartney.

G.