Ponder and Enlightening for 6/14/2014

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This is the newest Ponder and Enlightening comic! Click here to start with the first comic!

Slush Puppy Freeze and Eat Slush Bars! A Review from the Ponder Couch

I am a big fan of all things Bill and Ted, and being the kind of geek/nerd/dork that I am I wanted to surround myself with as much Bill and Ted as possible. This meant watching the movies, cartoons, and live action TV show, eating the cereal, reading the comics. When all of those were exhausted I moved on to adding things from each medium. One of these things was slush drinks.

In the cartoon they drink a slush drink from the Circle K. That was enough for me. I became a fan of slush drinks, from Icee to Slurpee, and remain one to this day. The slush drink that was readily available to me was Slush Puppie brand slush drinks. I got them at the local Tastee-Freez in Turtle Lake, ND and then at Wenzie's in Bowbells, ND. (I might've spelled Winzie's wrong...)

As I got older and moved further south I did not see Slush Puppie machines as often. So I started drinking other brands of slush drinks, most often Icee.

Last week I found a box of Slush Puppie Slush Bars at the new Marsh in downtown Indianapolis, IN!

I bought the box and decided to write a review comparing each of the 4 flavors to my memory of Slush Puppie drinks past.

First up is my favorite Slush Puppie flavor: watermelon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It was good! I think it tastes a little different than the drink, but I like it. The Slush Puppie drinks were always more like a drinkable Sno Cone than the froth of an Icee or Slurpee or Speedway brand frozen drink. This slush bar was more frozen froth than the freezer pops I grew up eating.

 

Watermelon used to be my favorite fake fruit flavor. Now it's strawberry. Or orange... or peach.

 

Next up is Blue Raspberry!

 

Again very good. It was also more frozen froth than ice chunky. I don't remember there being a blue raspberry flavor Slush Puppie drink, but then again I didn't often choose blue raspberry flavored anything back then.

Next is Cola!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yum! I think this is my least favorite of the 4 flavors, but it's still pretty good. I think I prefer the "frozen Coke" Icee of my youth to this slush bar, but I still like it for what it is.

And finally, everyone's favorite "fruit" flavor... it's CHERRY!

I like cherry enough, but prefer other "fruit" flavors. This cherry was very good, at least as good as cherry Icee. All cherry drinks taste kind of the same to me so this tastes exactly like I remember the cherry Slush Puppie drinks.

That is all the flavors in the box! I like these slush bars quite a bit, but I have to admit they make me miss the wax-protected paper cups full of syrup-soaked ice bits. The syrup sucked out of the ice, which all stuck together in a chunk at the bottom of the cup. Then I'd tip the cup towards my mouth, the bottom of the cup pointing to the ceiling, trying my best to tap out a few bits of ice without getting a face-full of it, and always failing miserably. Man, I miss that.

I recommend them! If you can't find them at your local grocer, check out the website here!

Happy birthday Sonic! A month long celebration. Part 2

In the spirit of Bryans review of the Sonic Sega emulator I have decided to chime in on Sonic with some of my own memories.

The first time I played a Sonic game was at my friend Noah VanNotes birthday party.  He got the original Mark I Genesis with the volume slider.  It was a lot of fun to set up the system and launch into some classic games.  That day we played Eternal Champions, Street Fighter 2, and Sonic the Hedgehog.  Out of those three I had played SF II at the arcades and had no idea of the others even though I read into every video game magazine I could get my hands on.  The game I had the most fun with was definitely Sonic.  The speed was mind blowing and the music was fantastic even ignoring the usual Sega issue of "tinny" music.

I remember going home and wanting a Genesis more than anything.  My Super Nintendo was collecting dust as I had played through Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past already as well as Super Mario Bros.  I finally got the Genesis Mark II that came bundled with Sonic the Hedgehog 2!  I was so excited I could not wait to play the game that I had waited sooo long for.  I expected just about the same thing as the first time but low and behold my expectations were shattered as Sonic 2 seemed faster and a little more fluid with the movements.  Sonic also got his sidekick Tails to join him for this version.  I was floored and spent a good chunk of my sad little life playing that game.  I eventually moved on to play the other Genesis "classics" but none of them ever held the magic that the first time playing Sonic did for me.  Sega unfortunately was way ahead of it's time for too long and its next systems released never recaptured that magic that the Genesis had.  That is not to say they did not have their share of excellent games but in the end after creating one of my favorite consoles of all time, the Dreamcast, Sega stepped out of making hardware but the did not stop Sonic from making appearances on other systems even going so far to appear on the Nintendo GameCube.  Until next time I leave you with the opening and closing of Sonic CD featuring the song Sonic Boom.  Thanks friends and see you again soon!

Project CALVIN and HOBBES: "Exploring Calvin and Hobbes" at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum!

Yesterday Princess Melawesome, Sprite the Stuffed Tiger, and I took a road trip to Columbus Ohio! Sprite wore his Peanuts "Great Pumpkin" tie with Linus on it for the occasion.

 

 

 

We piled into the car.

 

 

 

 

And we drove to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum!

 

 

 

 

 

 

To see the "Exploring Calvin and Hobbes" exhibit!!!

 

 

 

 

The library/museum had some pretty cool stuff.

 

 



 

 

Here we see Princess Melawesome and Sprite the Stuffed Tiger posing in front of Billy Ireland's drawing table!

 



 

 

 

They also had Chester Gould's drawing table! He used to light matches on the side of the table and hold them under his newly-drawn comics to help the ink dry faster!

 

 

 They have a gallery of lots of original comic drawings from comic strip legends and greats like Chic Young, Jeff Smith, Charles Schulz, George Herriman, Walt Kelly, and many others!

 

There was also an exhibit of Richard Thompson's work ("Cul de Sac" and "Richard's Poor Almanac"). He is good friends with Bill Watterson and his work is excellent. You should check it our if you are not already familiar with it!

 

The exhibit was set up perfectly. It wasn't too crowded with labels and it didn't feel too sterile. There was plenty to look at and enough room for everyone to comfortably stare at Watterson's masterpieces!

The first 3 comics are posted as well as the last one.

 

 

In between the comics were some wall decals of full color Calvin and Hobbes images that I would love to have for my study/office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The comics on the walls were divided into sections of things like how the different seasons were presented in the comic and devices used in the comic such as Spaceman Spiff, dinosaurs, and "Attack of the Tiger". 

 

 

 

One of my favorite sections was the Influences wall. There were many original comics and drawings by artists who influenced Watterson. There was a label for each picture in which Watterson explained how he feels each artist influenced him.

Such as Ralph Steadman:

Berkeley Breathed:

 

 

 

And, of course, Charles Schulz:

 

 

One of the display cases held a couple of the comics Watterson submitted before Calvin and Hobbes.

Some of his political cartoons, including this great self-portrait.

And the tools he used to make each Calvin and Hobbes strip. These were my favorite labels because they were in Watterson's own words and pretty funny.

My favorite part of the whole experience was having the chance to examine each comic. It was fascinating to see the size of each comic compared to how it appeared in newspapers and in the book collections. You can tell Watterson was very precise with his lines. Some comics had a lot of Wite-out.

And some had none at all that I could see. Watterson was very precise and some of the corrections were so slight that I don't think anyone would've noticed if he hadn't made the word balloon line slightly higher, left a few trees in the right corner of a panel, or let Hobbes have a hair out place on the top of his head.

The fact that Bill Watterson made mistakes and sometimes had to try many lines before he found the right one is very encouraging to me. It was also interesting to see the pencil lines that aren't fully erased and that the dark areas weren't always as uniformly dark as they appeared in print.

It is a great gallery that has inspired me to keep at all of my creative endeavors, and if you get the chance I highly, highly recommend that you check it out! Click here for more information!

Happy birthday Sonic! A month long celebration. Part 1

Sonic's birthday is this month so get ready for Sonic Stuff!!!!

A Sonic the Hedgehog themed game console? I want that! At least that's what I told my girlfriend I wanted for a Christmas present. Wouldn't you know it? She went back and purchased it later, without my knowledge. Merry Christmas to me! I love it because it's Sega but how well does this megadrive emulator by AT games really work?

At first glance you can see the slight  resemblance to Sonic. It definitely takes a note of shape and design from Sonic's famous profile and there's a nifty Sonic emblem on the top. That's a pretty good start.

But then I noticed a few things that were... less than desirable. For one thing, it only works with A/V cables which is fine but it only supports mono sound. No stereo, which is where the Genesis really shines. This can be overlooked though as the original Genesis took a lot of tinkering to even get it to play in stereo.

This is strange... where is my power adapter?  What's that? Not included? Oh it takes batteries. Four AA batteries to be exact. Ok, this isn't cool but I still want to give it a go.

How are the controllers? At least it includes two right? Yes but I would rather use almost any other controller available... ever! Wireless.. cool. Wait... IR technology.. Noooooo! These things work in the same way your tv remote works, which is to say, not good enough for a gaming controller. Not even close. They have "motion sensing" abilities for a few badly made tennis games but when you move it's just recreating a button press. Which makes it useless for motion games. Also these things just dont feel comfortable in the hand. There is a hole on the top that I imagine was intended for accessories like a golf club or tennis racket but I've never been able to find them.

I can at least strap the thing to my hand so I can wear it about town like a true Sega gangsta!

So lets pop the batteries in this bad boy and fire it up! It starts with a menu of Sega classics. A good selection too. It includes some top favorites such as Sonic 1, 2 and Golden Axe.The major problem here is when you try to play a game. They look alright but the sound is terrible when compared to the original Genesis. Sound wise, the emulation is far from perfect. The games are still very playable though and it includes a few games missing from my library which is good. The SD card reader also has the option of loading Rom files downloaded from the internet which is probably the best feature.

All in all its something to pick up for Sega collectors and sonic fans only. Other than that I would pass on this. Unless it's found cheap or almost free. Still, I'm glad to have another piece of Sega console history.

Check out the video review I did a while back!