He touched my breast!

[vovat]

bethje and I watched The Wizard, the infamous film-length Nintendo commercial, On Demand last night. She'd seen it before, but I hadn't, maybe partially because I didn't actually get a Nintendo until a few years after it came out. Several IMDB threads point out the film's similiarity to Rain Man, in that it has a guy exploiting his mentally challenged brother in order to get some cash. The movie co-stars a young Jenny Lewis, who was probably right to give up acting for music. I'm sure everybody knows about how a bunch of kids who have never even seen Super Mario Bros. 3 know that it has magic warp whistles, and have a general idea as to where one of them is; and then Jimmy (whose full character name is apparently James Woods, although no one ever overtly mentions this fact) actually FINDS one of them on his first time through. At least it wasn't the one in World 1-3 where you have to duck down on the white block for five timer-seconds, because I don't know that ANYBODY, wizard or not, could have figured THAT out on their own. Oh, and the announcer kept referring to World 1-3 as "World 2." Sheesh, you'd think that with all the free advertising Nintendo was getting, the least they could have done was to hire a fact-checker!

The movie apparently inspired a dream of mine, where I was shopping at some video game store and trying to decide which issue of Nintendo Power to purchase. I also had a noteworthy dream the night before (albeit not one related to Nintendo), in which I was in a room with my brother, Eric Shanower, and David Maxine; and we were watching someone on TV that Eric and David hated. For some reason, the soundtrack for whatever was on was "I Wanna Be Sedated," by the Ramones.

Within the past few days, Beth gave me copies of Even Worse and Alapalooza, which means that I've been able to transfer all of Weird Al's albums to my MP3 player. I listened to them on random while on my way to my mom's house today. It had been a long time since I'd heard some of those songs. I remember when there was a commercial for syndicated episodes of Night Court and Cheers that played "You Make Me." Does anyone else remember this, or was it just a local thing?

Anyway, the reason I went to my mom's house was so I could give my siblings their Christmas presents, and receive the ones that my mom's side of the family had given me. Things I got included:

• From my grandmother, a sweatshirt with the slogan "Dangerously Overeducated" (which is pretty much true)
  
• From my Aunt Toni, a travel bag for toiletries, and some book called The Gift of Nothing, by the creator of the Mutts comic strip. (Apparently, she gave copies of this same book to both of my siblings as well. No, I really don't know why.)
  
• From my Aunt Sandy, a book on origami using dollar bills, and some dollar bills
  
• From my mom, various items including Wet Wipes and sticky tabs
  
• From my brother, the Simpsons Season 5 DVD (which Beth already had, but my brother didn't know that)
  
• From my sister, a Borders gift card and a copy of Chick-fil-A's 24-page abridged edition of Ozma of Oz. The introduction includes a section called "Valuable Footsteps," which starts out with: "Stories like Ozma of Oz are fun to read and think about, but can also teach us about the world and ourselves. Ozma of Oz is a great story to teach us about the word courage. Courage allows you to face danger or difficulty without giving up. You can learn more about the value courage by trying to understand what Dorothy and her friends are thinking or feeling and how they view the world." There's also an activity for kids, and set of discussion questions at the end. I wonder if it was intentional that Chick-fil-A chose to publish a book with a hen as the hero?
  

I also got an Amazon gift card from Dorothea, so I should probably look into using both that and the one that I got from my sister for my birthday.

I was listening to the oldies station this morning, and it mentioned the following musicians' birthdays:

• Bo Diddley, namesake for the SMB3 enemy Boo Diddley
  
• Jeff Lynne, a member of the Travelling Wilburys, whose song "Handle With Care" was recently covered by Jenny Lewis.
  
• Mike Nesmith and Davy Jones, who were both in the Monkees, a band that Weird Al toured with back in the mid-eighties.
  

See how I linked all those people to things I mentioned earlier in this post? Aren't I clever? :P

Comments

[amyawesome.livejournal.com]

I am in the middle of a blockbuster online aided jenny lewis marathon. We have watched The Wizard and Runaway Daughters so far, and Troop Beverly Hills and Foxfire are next.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Jeff Lynne is a genius. If I felt like it, I'd find one or another of the entries in which I expound upon this fact in more detail than anyone else in the world except maybe Jeff Lynne's family cares about, but I don't really feel like it, so I'll just leave it at that, just for the excitement of someone besides me actually mentioning Jeff Lynne in a post.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember your mentioning him before. I really don't know much about his work (ELO or otherwise), but I thought the idea of linking the celebrity birthdays to other stuff in the post was an interesting one, and that one wasn't hard to do.

Actually, I think the Decemberists covered a Jeff Lynne song the first time I saw them live. Did he write "Mr. Blue Sky"?

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Yep, my favorite song of his ever!

[kristenjarrod.livejournal.com]

I was just watching Simpsons Season 5 a few minutes ago, I got it too for Christmas.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Season 5 is probably my favorite season of the show. I just recently picked up Season 9, which I think was around when it started to go downhill, but every episode had its share of quality episodes.

[revme.livejournal.com]

I never actually saw the Wizard, but when it came out, I really wanted to because, y'know, OMG SNEEK PEEK AT SUPER MARIO 3!!!!!! Now I kinda wanna because of the Jenny Lewis connection. Though I have seen Troop Beverly Hills, which I liked quite a bit when I was like, 10.

Also, I think that's a local commercial, but a pretty cool one nonetheless. Being that I love both Night Court and Weird Al, and I am quite fond of Cheers as well.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Now I kinda wanna because of the Jenny Lewis connection.

Yeah, it's sort of a "Before They Were Famous" kind of thing.

Also, I think that's a local commercial, but a pretty cool one nonetheless.

I think I also remember one (possibly for the same shows, but I can't remember for sure) that used a Spike Jones song. At least I think it was Spike Jones; it was "You Always Hurt The One You Love" with sound effects, so who else would it have been?

[3x1minus1.livejournal.com]

the monkees toured with weird al in the 80's ? that would have been a dream concert for me then. woah. don't even tell me that debbie gibson was on the bill, too.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, back in 1987. The tour dates can be found here (http://www.weirdal.com/monktour.htm). And no, I'm pretty sure Debbie Gibson wasn't involved. {g}