Peg Life

A Peg Life Supplemental, Part 2

2008-03-07T05:09:00.002-06:00

It's finally here. The resolution everyone was anticipating. I've finally finished the last twenty-five entries on my list of 50 Favourite Video Games and I pass it on to you, dear readers. All nine thousand words of it. Now you'll all have something to read when you get bored at work. Enjoy.

25) Super Star Wars (Honorable Mention: Super Empire Strikes Back, Super Return of the Jedi)
According to some people the Super Star Wars series is among the most difficult games on the SNES and some of the levels could be considered among the most difficult of all time. I don't know if I could agree with that. I remember playing through all three games with my cousin Jason and beating them. They weren't exactly a cakewalk, but still not excruciatingly frustrating or anything. The level in Super Star Wars where you have to make your way up the outside of the sandcrawler was generally pretty frustrating because you could get to the top and fall off and have to work your way back again, sometimes right from the beginning. The graphics were improved in the second two games and you could use the force when you played as Luke (after Yoda trained you that is) and they added that most physically impossible of video games feats, the double jump. Seriously, what's with the double jump? I can understand it if the character has a jet pack or rocket boots or just plain magic, but if they don't what are they pushing off of? Air? For the most egregious example of kind of gravity defiance check out the movie Final Fantasy: Advent Children. I believe the filmmakers' motto during the production was "Newtonian physics be damned."

24) Starcraft
Starcraft was simultaneously the high and low point of real time strategy games for me. I thought it was a great game, but I lost interest in RTS games when I realized how much better a large number of people were than I was. Playing online became an increasingly disheartening experience as Zerg rush after Zerg rush decimated my every attempt to amass a viable fighting force. Maybe I'm just a poor military strategist. Fuck it. I'm content to leave Starcraft to the South Koreans. It's practically the national sport there. Hmm. Maybe the problem isn't my strategy. Maybe I just don't have Seoul. Get it? Seoul, cause it sounds like soul. God, I'm hilarious! Wait, where are you going? Come on, that was gold. Fine, go. Who needs you? Philistines.

23) Unreal Tournament
This was a popular game during the early days of the Warsaw House. Yes, those were heady times. A glorious age of networked computers and media piracy. Before BitTorrent the go to place for downloading movies and games was Kazaa. Before $50 DVD burners there was DivX encoding and CD burning. I still have stacks of CDs with .avi movies burned to them. Most of them were downloaded from the internet, but we used to get a lot of coupons for Jumbo Video (which, on a side note, is apparently closing down) so we would rent DVDs, rip them to the computer, and burn them to CD. Steve even started using the handle Dexter DivX. How fucking geeky is that? But hey, we were young and independent and nothing could stop us. We had also started smoking pot and for the first few months any time we shared beer with Steve we were supplying alcohol to a minor. 634 was a veritable den of iniquity. Also of awesomeness. Suck it copyright and drug laws.

22) Harvest Moon
It seems a bit surprising how good farming simulation games are. Of course, I'm only speaking from the experience of two but still, who'd have thought that even two video games where you run a farm would be good? Apparently the actual cartridge for Harvest Moon is "notoriously rare." Thanks to the miracles of emulation I never had to deal with that. This game isn't nearly as concerned with economics and realism as SimFarm, but it is a lot more fun. You actually control a specific character and the point is to build up your little farm from nothing, make some scratch, get married, and have kids. And for the pruriently minded, no, the latter goals are not explicitly depicted. This is a kid's game. There was one thing that always bugged me about the gameplay. It had to do with raising crops. First you have to till the soil into 3x3 plots. Then you plant your seeds and water them. So far so good. The problem comes later on after the plants sprout. When the plants are seeds you can walk over them and water all nine squares in the field's plot. Once the graphics change from a flat ground tile to a growing plant tile they become impassable so you can only water the outer eight plants. This frustrated the hell out of me because I was invariably missing out on 11% of my potential harvest. That's more than ten percent! Fuck!

21) The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Easily one of the greatest games on the Super Nintendo, and if you don't believe that it means you haven't played it. True, there are several SNES games higher up on this list but you'll note that I said "one of" before "the greatest." Its greatness stems from one thing. Not the graphics. Not the story. Not the gameplay. The fact that when you repeatedly attack a chicken outdoors a swarm of them fly in from offscreen to defend their fellow poultry. If it wasn't for that fact the game would have flopped and the entire Zelda series would have died with it. Think about that the next time you're playing Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker or Twilight Princess. If it hadn't been for a chicken and a few dozen of her buddies those games wouldn't even exist. Wouldn't it be awesome if they made a Legend of Zelda movie and Link was played by Brendan Fraser? Then there would be two movies where we starred as a character named Link. What was the first, you ask? Apparently we're forgetting a little gem called Encino Man. You really need to take a deep breath and seriously reconsider whether your life is on the path you want it to be on if you could overlook any film in Pauly Shore's oeuvre. I think you should go home, maybe light a few candles, get comfortable, and watch Son in Law and In the Army Now. Let the Weez show you the way.

20) Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
Here's yet another game with a protagonist named Stone. Actually, as a character Serious Sam is one of the least original you could hope to come across. He's basically Duke Nukem without the self proclaimed gargantuan levels of virility. Nevertheless the game built around him is just about the most fun you can possibly have in a first person shooter. Eschewing the realistic-yet-scrotum-squeezingly-lame two weapon carrying capacity popularized by games like Halo, Sam is able to carry several weapons as big or bigger than himself (such as a minigun, flamethrower, huge chainsaw, and giant cannon) all at the same time. Such a massive arsenal is necessary given the extraordinary number of enemies to be burnt, blasted, and blown to bloody bits. The levels are enormous and populated by seemingly endless stampedes of skeletal horse-demon-things and headless suicide bombers that, despite having no mouth, are able to scream as the charge recklessly towards you, becoming louder and louder until they finally explode in your face. Not that dying is of particular concern since you have infinite lives to respawn and continue the slaughter.

19) Full Throttle (Honorable Mention: The Dig)
These were among the first games that I played to really show the cinematic potential of video games. In fact, when the first teaser trailers for Armageddon came out showing a space shuttle mission to an asteroid headed for earth I thought they had made a live action version of The Dig, which starts with a space shuttle mission to stop an asteroid headed for earth but then it turns out the asteroid is actually a kind of alien space ship that transports the crew to an abandoned alien planet from which they have to find a way to return. Then I went and saw the movie and it turned out to be Armageddon. The greatness of Full Throttle and The Dig really comes from their cinematic qualities. The gameplay isn't particularly exciting. Based on the LucasArts SCUMM engine, they are both point-and-click, puzzle driven adventure games. The writing and the animation though (coupled with fully recorded voice acting featuring Mark Hamill and Maurice LaMarche in Full Throttle and Robert Patrick in The Dig), are superb and make the games very much like interactive animated films.

18) Soul Calibur II
Each version of Soul Calibur II (GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox) got one character unique to the system. The GameCube version got Link (from Legend of Zelda, not Encino Man) which was pretty cool. He had moves using classic items like the bow and arrow and bombs. The Xbox version got Spawn which would have been a lot cooler if he had his cape as a weapon. Instead he is entirely capeless and for some reason gets a battleaxe (okay, technically the axe is his cape but shut up). The PS2 got shafted though. The idea of Soul Calibur was, like Bushido Blade, supposed to revolve around armed combat. Every character gets their own weapon and they're all questing for a sword called Soul Edge, whether to destroy it or use it for their own ends. So who do they get to face off against all the other sword/axe/staff/nunchaku/energy beam wielding warriors? Fucking Heihachi from Tekken. And what mighty armament does he carry into battle? His fucking hands. That is nine kinds of lame. Fortunately the rest of the game is not. This would be my favourite fighting game of all time if it was not for...

17) Mortal Kombat II (Honorable Mention: Mortal Kombat 1 & 3, Deadly Alliance, Deception, Armageddon)
While Street Fighter II was clearly the game responsible for increasing the popularity of fighting games, Mortal Kombat played a much greater role in increasing the awesomeness of fighting games. This entry is really for whole MK series, but the second iteration was the pinnacle when considered in its contemporaneous context. I quite enjoy the 3D games that came out for the fifth generation consoles as well. Deception was arguably the best of these, although Armageddon had a must larger cast of fighters (and possibly the largest cast of any fighting game). Mortal Kombat I and II had the advantage of greater novelty, however. Blood! Carnage! Tearing opponents' hearts out! Ripping off people's heads with the spinal cord still attached! It was all so new back then. Who knew that, after the furor they caused, fatalities would become so ubiquitous today? Answer: anyone with a memory longer than five minutes. Just like the music of Elvis and N.W.A., the writing of Voltaire and de Sade, the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama and Jesus of Nazareth, people realized that a few video games portraying some over the top violence, which had already been present in films for decades, would not destroy society and reduce humanity to feral beasts raping and murdering across the land in a globe spanning blood orgy.

16) Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon
This was the first ever game I owned that was specifically mine. I had Bart's House of Weirdness before this one, but that game belonged more to the family than just me. Eye of the Beholder was given to me by my uncle Jimmy in what must have been '91 or '92. When I first played it I didn't understand some of the Dungeons & Dragons rules on which the game is based. When creating your characters at the beginning you can modify their stats to whatever you want. When I saw that increasing the Dexterity attribute caused the stat labeled "Armor Class" to drop, I naturally (being younger than 10 years old) assumed that this was a bad thing. A higher number for Armor Class has to be better, right? WRONG! You stupid fucking piece of shit retard! God, kids are so dumb. So anyways, the first few parties I created were full of the clumsiest adventurers ever, which is probably why they got the shit kicked out of them by wolves. Trying to maximize my advantages (like creating a party of four half-elven fighter/mage/clerics) and inadvertently stacking the deck against myself was only one of the reasons it took me years to beat this game. The first major obstacle has become the stuff of legend. Among me and my cousin Jason, that is. In the Catacombs, Level 2 (Wait, should I mention that the game takes place in a large temple called Darkmoon? Probably) you start encountering skeleton warriors. Anyone familiar with (i.e. has actually played) Dungeons & Dragons will recognize that skeleton warriors are tough motherfuckers. They're resistant to magic and take reduced damage from all but bludgeoning weapons. Towards the end of the level there is a large room. When you open the door to this room all that is apparent is a pile of treasure lying on the floor. What lies out of sight from the doorway (and only reveals itself once you actually enter the room) is one of the tougher battles in the game: the Big Bunch of Skeleton Warriors. The best strategy that my nine year old mind could come up with was to pull a Leonidas and make the doorway my Thermopylae. This may work fine (sort of) for a few thousand Greeks against a couple million Persians, but for a half dozen mid-level adventurers against a couple dozen skeleton warriors and their priest masters, not so much. I was convinced that the only thing that would give me the knowledge and power to defeat these monstrosities, abominations in the eyes of the sun god Lathander, was the vaunted Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon Official Clue Book (advertised in the back of the game's manual). In the end all I needed to do was run away and head upstairs to the previous level where the enemies would not follow and I could rest, regain spells, and heal myself. I managed to figure this out on my own but by that time I had already ordered the Clue Book. In the end it was for the best because in all likelihood I would not have beaten the game without it. I did beat it though. Dran Draggore, the final boss who appears periodically throughout the game to mock you in the usual manner of villains, only took me one attempt. Also, turns out he's a dragon. Uh, spoiler alert.

15) Ultima VI: The False Prophet (Honorable Mention: Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire)
The Ultima series was one of the great RPG series on the PC and this game in particular made some significant advancements such as VGA graphics and use of a mouse. Impressive, I know. Many of the newer sandbox style RPGs owe as much to games like this as they do to ones like Grand Theft Auto III. While the game world isn't quite as a massive as, say, Elder Scrolls but it still provides an abundance of side quests and non-compulsory areas to explore. The volume of material that can be uncovered in this game helps its replay value immensely. I certainly appreciated this because for a long time it was one a relatively few video games that I had. It got to the point where I decided to try a speed run of the game, not to beat the game in the shortest amount of real time but the shortest length of in-game time. Beating the game eventually requires you to construct a hot air balloon so you can fly over a mountain pass to reach the final area. In addition to the mountains there is also a magic barrier between two statues that you have to pass through. However, if the wind is blowing from the southwest your hot air balloon will actually fly around one of the statues, bypassing the magic barrier. I don't know if this was a glitch in the game but by exploiting it I was able to complete the game in just four days of in-game time. After the normal end sequence a message came up with an instruction to "report thy feat to Lord British at Origin Systems." It didn't provide any details as to how to do this so I didn't do anything and nothing ever came of it. Recently I discovered the website speeddemosarchive.org which archives videos of speed runs on various games, many of which are on this list. They don't have one for Ultima VI though and after searching the internet I have not been able to find any record of a fastest completion time for the game, which makes me wonder if maybe I achieved something marginally significant.

14) Max Payne (Honorable Mention: Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne)
Max Payne was hella fun and had a superb story. When I was in London (yes, I've mentioned what I'm about to write previously in a Voice of London mailing, but I'm going to write it again because some people may not have read it and it's relevant) I went to the Science Museum where I saw Charles Babbage's preserved brain. My zombie companion wanted to eat it despite my protests that it would almost certainly taste sour and gross after soaking in formaldehyde for 135 years. You know zombies, though. Once they get fixated on something you might as well be talking to a corpse. When he started banging on the display case the security guards came and escorted him out. He just kept moaning, "Braaaaaiinsss... braaaaaaaiiiiinsssss..." and trying to lunge towards the glass. One of the security guards was holding him by the arm and when he tried to pull away the whole thing, right up to the shoulder, came off in the guard's hand. They eventually got him outside and he shambled away north on Exhibition Road towards Hyde Park but the whole sordid affair was terribly embarrassing. Then I went up to the exhibit they had on video games and saw Max Payne's famous leather jacket and Hawaiian shirt costume.

13) Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen
I've started playing this game upwards of half a dozen times. For various reasons I've never been able to finish it. Apparently only 25,000 copies were released in the U.S. so it's rare to find the actual cartridge. I always played it emulated on my computer (like many of the SNES games on this list) and on more than one occasion the save file got corrupted thus losing my game. On my latest attempt I managed to get farther than I ever had before but then my computer crashed in the middle of a level. Shit like that makes me abandon games for a long time. When I was playing through Chrono Trigger I got killed on my first attempt on the last boss which made me stop playing the game for almost a year. One day I realized I hadn't beaten the game yet so I loaded it up and killed Lavos on the first go. Damn. That's two sentences I won't be able to use for my entry on Chrono Trigger. Oh well, I'll probably just go and make up some stupid shit about how I got so into the game's concept that I built my own time machine and went travelling around through history and met James Woods on his way back from the 1920s where he was doing research for the movie Chaplin. Fuck. Now I gotta come up with something else.

12) Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
This is one hell of an addicting game. I tend to be skeptical of role playing games based on settings without an established mythology, particularly in the fantasy genre, because the settings more often than not turn out to be fucking lame. It's also much more interesting to take on the role of a character in a world that is familiar and can be explored in more detail. However, if the gameplay is strong it can mitigate the lameness or unfamiliarity of the setting enough to result in an overall great game or even in some cases to establish a setting that is worth exploring in future games. I've played many hours of Elder Scrolls IV and after becoming familiar with the world I can still say it's lame. It's a pretty generic sword and sorcery type of place. The game play is terrific though. There is such a huge variety of side quests and areas to explore that you could spend ages playing without ever getting to the main story quest. That's not to say the game is without its flaws. There are two major ones that I take issue with. The first has to do with the fact that all dialogue in the game is recorded by actors. This isn't a bad thing in and of itself. The problem is that there are only half a dozen different voices used. I don't mean there are half a dozen actors doing multiple voices for different characters; I mean that every person you encounter has one of six voices. The exception to this is a handful of characters that are part of the main plot for whom they got well known actors such as Sean Bean (famous for playing Boromir from Lord of the Rings), Terence Stamp (famous for playing General Zod from Superman II), and Patrick Stewart (famous for being fucking Patrick Stewart). For the amount of time you spend talking to characters who aren't these three people they should have saved the money casting famous actors and hired a bunch of voice actors who can do more than one voice. As it is, the entire continent of Tamriel sounds like it was descended from an inbred ancestry that resulted in severely limited vocal timbre for its progeny. My second peeve with the game doesn't become relevant until much later in the game. It relates to a more general issue I have with some RPGs. As you progress through any given role playing game one of the primary motivations (besides furthering the plot) is the prospect of advancement and improvement. This applies both to the characters themselves and the equipment they use. In a game like Oblivion, where you can conceivably play for hundreds of hours and still have stuff to do, it's hard to keep a steady slope on the advancement curve. My character is currently at level 31, which is approaching the level cap for the game, but my main complaint is that I longer find equipment that's any better than the equipment I had five levels ago. That's a long time given how slowly I level up at this point. Alright, I think I've filled enough space with thoroughly unentertaining rambling about a game that maybe three people who read this will care about. This entry doesn't deserve to be as long as the Darkmoon one.

11) Diablo (Honorable Mention: Diablo II)
Blizzard Entertainment has got to be one of the most consistently great video game developers ever. Probably the only other company that tops them would be BioWare, but I'll get into that in later entries seeing as how they're involved in about a third of my top ten. Back to what's really important. Satan! Mephistopheles himself is the primary reason for the success of this game. In an interview conducted with the Dark Lord in late 1999 his Most Unholiness described his demonic influence on Diablo and its subsequent critical reception.
"To be perfectly honest--which is a bit of a stretch for me, being the Great Deceiver and all--I was pretty heavily involved in the project right from the beginning," Beelzebub stated. "Now I don't want to discount the work that the guys at Blizzard did. They really put together a great game with intuitive mechanics and great replay value. I never was very good with all that computer stuff. I still send messages to my cacodaemons carved in the flesh of unbelievers, so I'm all for credit where credit is due. But in terms of the content I obviously provided a lot of the inspiration. Even when the designers weren't performing blood sacrifices to commune with my Unholy Spirit I would often send one of my imps or other minions to give them tips on the look and feel of my realms.
"Verisimilitude was very important to me," he added.
Lucifer's touch did not extend only to the production, however. The Lord of the Underworld's most direct intervention into the mortal plane on behalf of Diablo came during the voting for the 1996 Game of the Year Award.
"Oh yeah, that was definitely my doing. There were some strong contenders that year. Civilization II was an early favourite. Duke Nukem [3D] could have taken it, but they decided to make the opponents aliens instead of the fiendish denizens of Hell that catapulted Doom to widespread popularity. Quake came closer to what I was hoping for in a shooter but still, the enemies are more Lovecraftian than Satanic. In the end I had to back the game that got my Infernal visage out there with the most accuracy. Sometimes if you want a game done right you have to do it yourself, you know?"

10) Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (Honorable Mention: THPS 1 and 4)
If this list wasn't text only, for this entry I'd just play La Marseillaise on an infinite loop. That might be a little obscure for some people though. It's a reference to the third level of the game that takes place in Marseilles and the (theoretically) infinite combo line that you can do there. Back in the summer of 2002 (Joe knows where I'm going with this) the residents of the Warsaw House spent their days gasping for breath and moving as little as possible in the excruciating heat. It was a horrible, painful summer full of angst and unemployment. It was also full of Flight Simulator and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. Joe spent many, many hours flying around the world in real time. I still have the list of all the places he flew to. Brad and I spent not quite as many but still a lot of hours trying to execute a single combo around the Marseilles level. This same summer was when CUIF Radio really took off. It would be some time yet before the station reached its peak of popularity with the Friday Night Frenzy but these were the glory days when it was not uncommon to hear Sloan followed by Wesley Willis then somebody shouting in German to segue into Olivia Tremor Control and capping it off with a brief monologue about a vampire war in Prague. Maybe it's time CUIF Radio was resurrected.

9) Perfect Dark (Honorable Mention: Goldeneye)
This is the only game on the Nintendo 64 that made this list. Of course, that's not counting Mario Kart 64's honorable mention and any games that had versions on the N64 (for example, Starcraft and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2). At any rate, if there is any N64 game that deserves to be on a list of best/greatest/favourite video games it's this one. Goldeneye showed that first person shooters were viable on consoles, even capable of greatness, and Perfect Dark improved on it (Perfect Dark's superiority can be expressed in one word: Farsight). Sure, there had been FPS games on the Super Nintendo but they were weak ports of PC games. With the introduction of analog controllers that could (to some extent) emulate the precision of a mouse, first person shooters could reasonably be played on a console platform. Goldeneye had much to recommend it and, having come out first, is probably more beloved by gamers, but Perfect Dark is the game that I played most so it holds more memories for me. In the summer of 2000 my family moved from The Pas to Killarney. My dad actually moved down earlier in the spring to start work while my mother, sister and I remained to finish the school year. When the school year ended and my mom and sister went down to Killarney I stayed in The Pas at Steve Smith's for a couple of weeks before inevitably following. Much of those two weeks was spent playing Perfect Dark. We rented it from the local video store under my account and decided, because I wasn't going to be living there anymore, that we would just keep the game for the whole time I was there. Why should I care about late fees if I'm never going to be renting there again? But the best laid plans of mice and teenage boys go oft awry. Later the next year I was hanging out with Joe and Tim Banman at Joe's place in Killarney and received a phone call. It was my mom. She had gone to The Pas for the weekend or something and for some ridiculous reason tried to rent a movie on our old account. Even more ridiculously, she paid the late fees and made me reimburse her. Moms. Am I right?

8) X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse (Honorable Mention: X-Men Legends & Marvel: Ultimate Alliance)
X-Men Legends was a contributing factor to the failure of my second attempt at going through university. Well, that's not exactly accurate. It was more of an enabling factor. I had already lost interest in school and was skipping classes; the game just gave me something to do all day instead of writing an exam. The day in question was, after making up my mind not to go to school, pretty awesome. While it may not work out too well in the long run, recapturing a whole day from prior obligations (read abandoning responsibilities) is immensely liberating. With the freedom to do nothing you are free to do anything. On this day the anything that was decided upon was playing hours and hours of X-Men Legends and smoking copious amounts of marijuana. As I recall, it was Keith, Danny and I that were living in Warsaw at the time. Or maybe it was Danny, Trevor and I, and Keith was living at Other Warsaw. Doesn't really matter. The point is that for about sixteen straight hours there was constantly somebody playing the game. One of the hallmarks of a great game is the ability to play it for hours on end without ever getting tired of it. X-Men Legends definitely had this quality. So did X-Men Legends II. I've written most of this entry on the first game in the series because it had a more (but only barely) interesting story to go with it. The second game really is superior though. The replay value is fantastic because you can play through the game more than once with the same team of characters and continue to level up and get more powerful. Then you can mix the team up and play through with a bunch of other characters and level them up. Also, there's Iron Man.

7) Fallout 2 (Honorable Mention: Fallout, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel)
Now I'm not certain about anything I'm about to say or have said or might say or think about, but I could swear that years ago before the first Fallout game came out I saw, on a demo disc from PC World magazine or something like that, a video preview for a game that looked just like Fallout [would later come to look like] but was described as a computer adaptation of the pen-and-paper RPG G.U.R.P.S. published by Steve Jackson Games. I'm more certain now of what I just said after having looked up Fallout on Wikipedia, where it says that it was intended to use the G.U.R.P.S. system but after the deal fell through Black Isle developed their own system. In light of this corroborating evidence I am forced to conclude that I've been excited about the Fallout universe since quite early in its development. I'm a pretty big fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, retro-futurism, and Art Deco design. Being a fan of this style I was disappointed with the poor execution of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (despite admiring the visuals), and I would very much like to play BioShock which uses a similar aesthetic. The Fallout series blended these production elements into a grandly realized world of radiated mutants, nomadic raiders, giant scorpions and rats, and chock full of the kind of esoteric sci-fi references that made Futurama so great. The latter were even more present in the second game which, besides the improved graphics and expanded story, is the primary reason it’s occupying the slot rather than the first game. I think my favourite is a random encounter that you can find while travelling through the wasteland where you come across the splattered corpse of a whale and a broken bowl of petunias. Bethesda Softworks, who is developing Fallout 3 and was previously responsible for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, has said that they will be putting less emphasis on this type of referential humour but I'm still looking forward to it immensely.

6) Chrono Trigger (Honorable Mention: Chrono Cross)
Yeah, yeah, greatest game on the Super Nintendo, one of the best RPGs of all time, blah, blah, blah. It's a game that involves time travel. Do you really need to know more than that? Actually, this reminds me of the time I built my own time machine and went travelling around through history and met James Woods on his way back from the 1920s where he-- Oh, goddammit. Okay, gotta write about something else. Um... Uhhh... Hmm... One time I... Um... Shit.
Stephen Hawking has posited that the lack of time travelers from the future being here already and taking our jobs is an argument against the existence of time travel. It doesn't prove the impossibility of time travel though, as it's possible that a time travel technology could be invented in the future that allows travel to the past but only to points after the technology was developed. Another thoroughly unscientific and improbable explanation for the present's lack of time travelers that is entirely dependent on the acceptance of an extremely dubious premise is that time travelers from the future have come to the present but they are from so far into the future that evolutionary changes have rendered them unrecognizable as humans. Specifically, aliens and UFOs are actually human time travelers from the far distant future. This idea came to me years ago during a more credulous phase of my life after I read about the concept of neoteny. This can be described as the tendency for species to develop traits present in juveniles that are retained into maturity. In other words, the descriptions of aliens as having large, hairless heads, big eyes, and small nose and mouth are the result of neotenous evolutionary developments causing them to resemble infants or fetuses. But don't take my word for it. I'm the kind of guy who has the time to play enough video games to make a list of his fifty favourites rather than get an education or "accomplish things."

5) Civilization
"In the beginning the earth was without form and void..." I don't know how many times I've seen those words grace the bottom of my computer screen. Also the rest of the intro sequence, but I forget how it goes. I always played as either the Russians or the Romans in this game because if I didn't they were always the ones that ended up kicking my ass. I don't think I've played Civilization in the last ten years though, so maybe I'd be better at it today. Most of the time I played it when I was younger I would use despotism as my system of government. I didn't know how to utilize all the different features and manage my civilization properly so switching to communism or monarchism usually resulted in my populations revolting. Still, even under my despotic rule with the military enforcing order in the cities I was able to develop the technologies necessary for space flight and colonize Alpha Centauri. Although most of the colonists probably volunteered to escape six thousand years of martial law. Ingrates. Don't they know I need my huge palace to store the vast quantities of non-operational, diamond studded, gold helicopters that they toil in my factories to produce? I'm pretty sure no one important noticed that time that I allowed one of my cities to be invaded and occupied by a hostile force before retaking the city in order to eliminate part of the population. They were all malcontents anyway. You can tell because they dress in black and carry protest signs. Good riddance, I say. Damn hippies.

4) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Honorable Mention: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords)
When it comes to movies, sequels are almost invariably inferior to their predecessors. There are, of course, exceptions to this: The Empire Strikes Back, X-Men 2, The Godfather Part II, Terminator 2, Aliens, Spider-Man 2, Return of the King, Toy Story 2, Evil Dead 2, Star Trek II, Kill Bill Vol. 2, The Bourne Ultimatum. There are probably more, but I've already made my point with more examples than necessary. That point, to reiterate, is that movie sequels usually suck. The reverse is true about video games, however. Video games are perhaps more dependent on technical achievement than films are, and thus when the sequel to a game is developed it can take advantage of advancements in technology and the clarity of hindsight to create superior graphics and visual realism, as well as correct design flaws and improve gameplay. Sequels in film also take advantage of new technologies that allow for more spectacular visual sequences, but a film’s success hinges much more strongly on other factors, particularly the script. A movie can look fantastic but if the plot, dialogue, and character development are lame then the best special effects won't be able to save them (see the Matrix sequels, X-men 3, Alien Resurrection, Attack of the Clones). While I can truthfully say that The Sith Lords was superior in terms of graphics and gameplay, even the developers will admit that they were rushed to finish the game for a Christmas release and so the improvements don't help keep the game from feeling incomplete. The ending especially was a bit of a letdown. That's not to say it wasn't still a great game though. It's just that the first game was damn near perfect and so gets to take the official spot on the list. When I wrote earlier about how I enjoy RPGs that allow me to explore an established and familiar world in more detail, Knights of the Old Republic is what I was talking about. The game is so immersive with its seamless transitions between gameplay and cinematics that it feels like you're really walking around a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

3) Final Fantasy X (Honorable Mention: Final Fantasy IV, VI & VII)
This one could have gone to any of the games mentioned but in the end I think I had the most fun playing Final Fantasy X. So much fun in fact that one day I spent 24 straight hours playing it. I'm pretty sure it was the longest single session of video gaming I've ever played. Of course I took short breaks to make something to eat and go to the bathroom but besides those few brief interruptions I played continuously from when I got up in the morning to when I was too exhausted to stay up any longer the next. I find role playing games addicting like that. Also, I had taken the summer off and I had nothing else important to do. That was the summer that Danny, Stephen Harfield and I took mushrooms and wandered barefoot through suburban St. Vital for five hours in the middle of the night. We roamed through residential construction sites, climbing over the heavy machinery, and even found our way into one of the half finished houses. We knew the whole time that society was going to be so mad. Towards the end of our psychedelically fuelled peregrination we stopped at a convenience store where Harfield purchased a National Post. Upon our return home we made spaghetti and watched The Colour of Money. I discovered Sudoku for the first time in the aforementioned newspaper and spent a couple of hours completing it as I came down. Apparently I didn't get much sleep that summer.

2) Rock Band (Honorable Mention: Guitar Hero II)
For sheer unadulterated fun, Rock Band could just be the greatest game in existence. If this list were based solely on replayability it would easily take the number one spot. I have little doubt that I will be playing Rock Band and its sequels, spinoffs, expansions or other iterations for many, many years to come. I will tire of the game only to the extent that I tire of the songs that can be played on it, and this is assuaged by the fact that new songs and content are continuously being released, making the old new again. I never learned to play a musical instrument in real life (something I wish I had done) but Rock Band simulates the experience (with a much shallower learning curve) closely enough to soothe any regret over the myopic ambitions of my childhood. There are most definitely improvements that can be made in future versions, such as being able to play the Band World Tour mode solo or at least online and being able to change the leader of bands in this mode, but I still can't praise this game highly enough. I love it. If anybody ever wants to play, just give me a call. As long as I'm home I'll be down for it.

1) Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (Honorable Mention: Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Icewind Dale II)
It should come as little surprise that the number one game on this list is a role playing game. It should also come as little surprise that it is a Dungeons & Dragons game. I've always been a fan of fantasy fiction and in my teenage years I became nigh obsessed with the Dungeons & Dragons pen-and-paper RPG. Not so obsessed that I was into LARPing and couldn't tell the difference between the game and reality; that's a myth perpetuated by fear mongering religious fanatics (or at least an example of extreme psychosis that any idiot who was playing with such a person would notice). However, I was obsessed enough to name the email address that I still use to this day after my first D&D character, Kaydyn Lighthand. I played him up from first level all the way to tenth before he made a bad decision playing with a Deck of Many Things and decided to sacrifice himself by being teleported into a city of evil Red Wizards and activating a powerfully destructive artifact. Well, technically he was teleported above the city to circumvent an anti-teleportation field protecting the city and rode the artifact down a la Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove. It's kind of a strange, sad coincidence that I'm writing about Dungeons & Dragons today because Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of the game, died this morning as a result of heart problems. Despite the fact that I haven't played Dungeons & Dragons for a number of years, and Gygax was not directly involved in development of the game for even longer, there is no question that he had a significant impact on an important period in my life through the kind of games to which he had dedicated his life. He also made a great guest appearance on Futurama as himself. In the end, though, he wasn't able to make his last saving throw and shuffled off this mortal coil, perhaps to play Dungeons & Dragons for the next quadrillion years. Nobody leads such epic lives as are present in fiction and though literature can allow a vicarious experience of the fantastical adventures of its characters, role playing games (video game RPGs included but especially so with the more imagination intensive tabletop games like D&D) bring the experience so much closer that the memories can be like a second existence. I miss the unrestrained nerdiness of my youth. I haven't really changed so much since then, but few if any of my friends nowadays would be the least bit interested in sitting down with a bunch of dice and books to imagine themselves as a party of adventurers in some imaginary realm. Maybe I need to get some new friends. You hear that, you bastards? You're all jerks and I'm not going to be your friend anymore unless you set aside the time to play Dungeons & Dragons with me. And maybe the occasional Call of Cthulhu session. What's that? I don't need to abandon the friends I have to make new ones I can game with? Oh well, I stand by it.

The Also-rans
I could, if I felt so inclined, include a pretty comprehensive list of every video game I've ever played here but I've already mentioned a good chunk of them in the main list. Still, there are a few games that didn't make the top fifty (or their respective honorable mentions) that deserve some recognition either because they are good but didn't have enough of an impact on me to call them a favourite, or conversely because they had an impact on me but aren't very good. I'm just going to list a bunch of games and then I'll say a few words on ones about which I have something to say. A few words is likely going to end up being another couple thousand but you know what I mean.
Battle Chess
Lemmings
Lethal Enforcers
Arkanoid (Breakout)
Super Double Dragon
Traffic Department 2192
Parasite Eve
Super Mario Bros. 3
Shadow of the Colossus
WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth
Donkey Kong Country 2
Minesweeper
Phantasmagoria
Pokémon Blue/Red
Paperboy 2
Mafia
007 Nightfire
Neverwinter Nights
4-D Boxing
Ancients
Jill of the Jungle
Commander Keen in Goodbye Galaxy!
Epic Pinball
Number Munchers
Knights of the Round
Toobin'
World Class Leader Board
I'd also like to talk about Rise of the Triad a bit because I didn't get around to it when it was an honorable mention for the Duke Nukem entry. Back in grade seven when I was living in Roblin and attending Goose Lake High we used to install networkable games on the computers in the computer lab and play them at lunchtime. Whether or not we got away with this depended heavily on what teacher had supervising duties. When we could get away with LAN gaming at school Rise of the Triad was often the game of choice. It was one of the most advanced first person shooters of the time and it had a wide array of tremendously fun weapons including the "drunk missile," which was a rocket launcher that fired five heat seeking missiles at a time in random directions, a magical baseball bat, and Dog Mode, which turned you into a dog whose bark killed everything in sight. Everyone had their own login for the DOS based network and my password was finkerbucklinglittleshnoizlewankers. I'm proud to say that no one ever cracked it. Cause we all know what the demand for twelve year olds' school network passwords was like back in '95.
Traffic Department 2192 was a shareware game that I bought, as was Ancients, Jill of the Jungle, and Epic Pinball. I think Commander Keen was too, for that matter. I used to think it was cool because at the beginning you could choose between a "mature" version of the game's script and an edited version. Of course I picked the unedited version. Being an adolescent male I thought the writing was great. Recently, I downloaded and played through the full version of the game and realized that the writing was actually clichéd and repetitive and, well, kind of adolescent. An interesting fact about the game is that its soundtrack includes a composition by Owen Pallett, who did the orchestral and string arrangements for both Arcade Fire albums and, as Final Fantasy, won the first Polaris Music Prize.
Remember when Super Mario Bros. 3 was debuted in The Wizard? Have I already mentioned The Wizard in the course of this list? Seems like I should have. Anyway, remember how awesome The Wizard was? Remember how hot I think Jenny Lewis is? Anyone who was watching the Super Bowl at Danny's place this year does. And yes, it does have to do with the fact that I have a thing for redheads. Also, the fact that she's hot.
Pokémon seems like a strange game for me to like but the gameplay mechanics are actually quite similar to great console RPGs like Final Fantasy. Despite there being dozens of incarnations I am fully satisfied with having played the first game. Once you've played one you've basically played them all. I was also influenced to give the game a chance after seeing the episode of the television series entitled Bulbasaur's Mysterious Garden and finding it unintentionally hilarious. Maybe seeing that didn't influence me to play the game, but it definitely cemented my decision to select Bulbasaur as my starting Pokémon.
I don't think I ever got around to finishing Mafia. It was a pretty good game though. Basically Grand Theft Auto in the '30s but slightly more realistic. There is one part in the game that is next to impossibly difficult. The story is that the organized crime family that you work for is fixing an auto race but their driver is injured or sick or something so you have to replace him. In other words, the objective (which is not optional) that needs to be completed to progress is to win a car race. That's all well and good, except that if you go into a turn too fast your car will flip, you will die, and you have to start over from the beginning. And there are multiple laps. And it is really easy to flip. And if you've made it through every lap without flipping over and dying you probably haven't gone fast enough to beat the other racers. Fortunately if you are playing the game on a PC you can download a save file from immediately after the race and not have to deal with it at all. Yes. That is what I did.
Phantasmagoria has the most disks of any game I have ever played, and possibly the most of any video game, with seven.
What? You're surprised at the paragraph break here? That's all I had to say about. And besides, this thing is getting fucking long and I want to send it out. But before I do that I can't neglect to bring up SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth. I've never been a big fan of wrestling games, and only ever intermittently a fan of wrestling period. This game, though, almost made the list strictly on the basis of the inside jokes that emerged from the created characters based on my circle of friends from Killarney. It's enough for me just to mention it because the only people who will understand why it's funny will know what I'm talking about.
When I sent out the first part of this list I got a reply from my dad wondering if I would be including Toobin' in this second installment. If this counts, then yes. Otherwise, no. Toobin' was originally an arcade game but I first played it on one of those rare occasions (I think there were a total of two) when my parents acquiesced and rented a Nintendo. You control a guy sitting in an inner tube and float down various rivers--the Colorado, the Nile, the Amazon--avoiding obstacles until you get to the whirlpool at the end that takes you to the next level. I have it emulated on my Xbox now, but my memories of playing the game are better than the game itself. Something that my dad reminded me of that I forgot to consider when making this list was the Coleco Adam that we used to have when I lived in Wawanesa. The Adam was a computer system that connected to a television to use as a display and ran software off of cassette tapes rather than floppy disks. It had 64 kilobytes of RAM and a 1 MHz processor. There are pictures of it on Wikipedia but I remember it--along with so many other things from my childhood--being so much bigger. We had a Buck Rogers game (called Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom if said Wikipedia entry is any indication) that I played a lot. According to my dad we also had a game based on the comic strip B.C. but I have no memory of this. I do remember a game when you could move a turtle around the screen and draw things though. My best friend at the time, Ashley Cline, also had this game and I was envious because she had a colour TV to use as a monitor while I just had a 13" black and white. There's a verse in the Somaphore song Reunion that goes "In twenty years I'll probably remember the time / You climbed up on the table and tried to fly / So convinced those paper wings would carry you / If you flapped hard enough it would all come true." The person that climbed on the table with paper wings taped to their arms and leapt off flapping was me. Beside me on that table was the Coleco Adam.

Tony Hawkins looks like he hit the tree, Jim

A Peg Life Supplemental, Part 1

2008-03-02T03:14:00.001-06:00

Well, it's finally happened. After numerous false starts and failed attempts I've finally written something substantial enough to be worthy of the Peg Life moniker. So substantial, in fact, that it surpasses my previous record of longest email I've ever sent. And it's only half finished. That's right. It's even longer than my 100 favourite albums email. Over 5,000 words and still more to come. I figured it would be a good idea to break it into two parts for two main reasons. First, it will hopefully be more easily digested by the reader in slightly smaller portions. Second, it's going to be a little while before I finish the second half and I didn't want to wait to let people start reading it. So without further stalling for time, I present to you Tony Hawkins' 50 Favourite Video Games of All Time (50-26).

50) Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego
Kicking off the list is a game that many people (even non-gamers) are likely to have heard of even if they never played it. While it's not the only game on this list to have a television show based on it, it is the only whose television spinoff was a game show. O! how I wanted to be a contestant on that show. I would have kicked ass. Meeting the Chief, shutting out a couple of ignorant American kids, placing all those rotating light markers in the correct locations on the map and winning a trip anywhere in North America, and then sealing the deal by shouting "Do it, Rockapella!" Ah, childhood pipe dreams. Alas it went as unfulfilled as my Kidstreet fantasy. Anyways, after looking up the show on Wikipedia I discovered it was the longest running game show on PBS and TV Guide rated it number 47 on its list of the 50 greatest game shows. Maybe I should bump it up a few places to match. No, that doesn't make any sense. So did the game make a lasting contribution to my geographical knowledge? Well, I memorized the flags of all the countries you could go to in the game. So, you know, there's that.

49) 1942
My memories of this game are heavily influenced by not actually playing this game. I never had a Nintendo as a child. [Damn cheap parents. Barely even shelled out the cash to rent one after lengthy bouts of pleading and petulant sulking.] Instead I used Microsoft Paint (back in the days of Windows 3.1) to draw the game's P-38 Lightning and an unflyably massive bomber covered in guns and spewing little orange dots behind it. I wasn't content to merely recreate a still frame from the game however. Next I would select the colour-select eraser tool which, in the version of Paint at that time, had a + in it that made it look like a crosshair. Using orange as the colour to erase I would then shoot down all the bullets thus saving my aero-protagonist from their freeze frame threat. Switching to black, I could proceed to blast off the enemy airship's battery of guns protruding from every horizontal rear surface. Finally, I would set my eraser-cannon to the green of the plane and utterly destroy it. Thus was the Battle of Midway won.

48) Brix
People other than mother and sister might know this game better as Puzznic. Or not at all. That is also a distinct and probable-to-the-point-of-near-certainty possibility. Basically you have a bunch of blocks that you can move left and right and you have to match up pairs so that they explode and disappear. Some levels have three of a given type and you have to line them all up at once or one will be left over. Of course there is a host of variables that affect your ability to move the blocks, such as gravity, teleports, bricks that decay, acid pools, elevators, etc. It was a pretty standard puzzle game, really. I had a shareware version that I played on our old IBM computer. Recently I was able to find a full version on the internet that I can play with a DOS emulator. I haven't, but I can.

47) Bust-a-Move
The name of this game confused me for the longest time. I thought it was called Bubble Bobble (y'know, cause the coloured balls are like bubbles and bobble has something to do with it somehow that I don't understand). Turns out that's another game entirely and this one is called Puzzle Bobble. Because it's a puzzle game. And bobbles or bobbling are still involved but with no more explanation as to why. Although maybe it's just to indicate that the puzzle game is a spinoff of the bubble game. There's a pair of lizard things that appear in both. I don't really care what the actual explanation is. As long as those lizards keep loading the coloured ball launcher and squeak out a hooray when the level is clear that's all that matters.

46) Top Gear 3000
This is probably my least played game on this list. In fact I think I've only ever played it once. That "once" was for several hours, but I've never been able to play it since. I've downloaded several version of the rom but every time, without fail, it fucks up and the game is unplayable. Which is a shame because I remember it being one of the best racing games I've ever played. Of course, it's possible that the only reason it has made it onto this list is that I'm restricted to viewing it through the greased lens of my long term memory. Then again, the game did have an upgrade to your car that allowed you to tractor beam the car in front of you and slingshot yourself ahead of them. So, you know, there's that.

45) Police Quest II: The Vengeance (Honorable Mention: Leisure Suit Larry)
Police Quest is the F. Murray Abraham of video games. Don't ask me why, that's just the impression I get. Hey, remember the Mighty Mighty Bosstones? They were the Boutros Boutros-Ghali of ska bands. And ska is the Sierra text command based video game of musical genres. See how it all comes back around like that? That's just the way it is. I'll let you choose your own 2Pac metaphor to insert there. Have fun with it. Isn't that what the Police Quest series was all about? Well, actually the Police Quest series was a lot more serious than the King's Quest, Space Quest, or Leisure Suit Larry series. Apparently some police departments used some of the games as supplemental training tools. On a related note, the first Leisure Suit Larry game is the only training tool used by the Tony Hawkins Memorial School of Seduction. If you can get past the part where you have sex with the hooker and she leaves you tied to the bed in the hotel room then you pass the course. From there you can go on to get a graduate degree in Advanced Steve Smithery. Classes fill up fast, so if you're interested sign up soon. Axe body spray not included.

44) Solar Winds
In Solar Winds you take on the role of Jake Stone (probably the most common video game hero surname). Or more accurately, you take the role of his ship. Basically you fly around a lot, going from planet to planet investigating some kind of mystery or something. Sometimes you get into dogfights with other ships. These consist of flying in circles until you're behind the other ship and you can shoot them. Eventually you get to a part where you have to traverse the vast emptiness of space to another solar system. This isn't just a quick jaunt to a neighbouring planet with an enemy or two along the way. Vast and empty are the key adjectives in this particular section of the game. Be sure you have plenty of Proclaimers and Hootie & the Blowfish to listen to. It takes a while. From this description it may sound like a shitty game and I'm stupid and I don't know what I'm talking about. Well, you'd be right. Except about the game being shitty.

43) Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear
This was like a first person shooter except all tactical and shit. Excuse me: and sheeeeeit. It was a lot of fun when I played it multiplayer. Great graphics for the time. You could select from a wide variety of real weaponry and plan out your whole mission strategy. But the best thing about the game is how when you write about it years later you can hear the words in your head as if they were spoken by Joe Stover doing an impression of a black person. And sheeeeeit.

42) Alien vs. Predator 2
Actually, this might take the title from Top Gear 3000 as the least played game on this list. I only played through a few levels of the Marine section and first little bit of the Alien and Predator sections. What I played was pretty great though. It's probably the scariest game I've ever played, and that includes Silent Hill 3 and Resident Evil 1 and 2. I can grant that those games are creepier, but having a swarm of aliens charging at you over the walls and ceiling of a dark corridor is much more frightening than a few shambling zombies or even a mutant Doberman. There's a part that basically recreates the scene in Aliens where the marines go to find the colonists in the hived power plant and get attacked by the aliens, except there's just you and Ripley doesn't come crashing in with the APC when the shit hits the fan. You've got to get back on your own and by the time you reach the surface you're down to a sidearm and there are still dozens of aliens itching to sink two sets of teeth into your flesh. It got my adrenaline going.

41) The Simpsons: Bart's House of Weirdness
This is among the first (and probably one of the more obscure) Simpsons video games to be released. It came out in 1991 for the PC which was around the time my family got our first computer: an IBM PS/1 386SX. It had 2 megabytes of RAM, a 40 megabyte hard drive and a non-Windows graphical user interface. Bart's House of Weirdness was the very first game we got for it. Unfortunately the copy we purchased came on 5 1/4" floppies and our computer only had a 3 1/2" floppy drive. We had to take the disks to my grandpa's because he had a computer with both floppy drive formats and could copy the original disks to ones we could use. Even after the game was installed you had to use a boot disk to start the computer in the DOS prompt instead of the GUI in order to run it. The game itself is a pretty basic platformer. You have to go through various stages to collect a hat, shoes and sunglasses. Once you have these, a magical warp tunnel opens outside of Bart's window for some reason and you go through to defeat Sideshow Bob and rescue Krusty. It only stands up moderately well today, but firsts are often favourites.

40) Growl
More quarters found their way from my pocket into this arcade machine than any other. When I lived in Lac du Bonnet we didn't have a washer and drier for some reason (at least for a period of time) so I often had to accompany my mother to the laundromat when it came time to wash clothes. In the back room they had a few arcade games, including Growl. It's a Final Fight/Double Dragon style side scrolling beat 'em up but there's much more emphasis on using weapons than either of those games. The "story" is something along the lines of you being some kind of wildlife ranger but more hardcore (like Indiana Jones if he worked for the park service) and some poachers try to kill you so you have to kick their asses and rescue some animals. Obviously the rescuing is merely incidental to the ass kicking. In the opening scene you're sitting in a bar with your fellow fedora aficionados when some guy looking like one of the generic flunkies from Temple of Doom comes in and throws a grenade at you. You wisely duck beneath the brittle wooden table to shield yourself from the explosion then quickly grab one of the four rocket launchers that happens to be lying around. More poachers start coming in to finish off the job and the game begins in earnest. When you come across a guy whipping a tiger the brilliant line "Hey! Stop it!" is responded to with the equally Pulitzer worthy "What's it to you?" Such a dismissive riposte is clearly grounds for murderous action, never mind the animal abuse. When will poachers learn? Never insult a pissed off park ranger wielding a sword. Yes, a sword is one of the myriad weapons at your disposal, but it is not nearly as efficient as the poacher's own whip. With the whip you can strike enemies in front AND behind you. Because we all know how much damage a whip does when you swing it back. I never got there in the arcade (never got enough quarters from the creepy old man who used to hang out at the laundromat and watch kids play video games), but emulated on my computer I managed to reach the stage where the boss battle is against a tank. I'm not sure why poachers needed a tank, but I guess when the authorities routinely hang out in bars with bazookas at hand no one wants to mess around.

39) Blackthorne
There's nothing quite like a hero with a shotgun. Except a hobo with a shotgun. The best thing about this game (besides the smooth animation of running, jumping, and rolling) was the protagonist's physical attitude. He never raises his gun to aim. Every shot is from the hip. Unless you use the infinitely awesome no-look backwards shot where he just points the gun behind him and fires. It's not particularly useful in the game but it looks fucking cool.

38) Tetris
What is there to say about Tetris? It's Tetris. If you live in an industrialized nation and are not at least passingly aware of Tetris you probably died before 1985. You might as well ask what Pong or the Super Mario Brothers are. Or how about Pac-Man? Never heard of Pac-Man? You some kind of idiot? Is that what this is about? You're not some kind of idiot, are ya? You worry about people takin' yer jobs? Huh? Derk a derr? Maybe you'd be more comfortable playing with this rock. Here you go. Here's a rock. You have fun with that. No, wait! Don't eat-- You ate it. Well I hope you’re happy. I'm not giving you another rock. There's only so many to go around. It's a little thing called "limited edition." That's right. It was a limited edition rock. Don't ask me. I don't know how much it was worth. The market fluctuates. Supply and demand. Just dig through bowel movements for the next couple of days. If you wash it off real good it should be fine. Don't tell anybody where it's been though. Collectors don't look highly on items that have passed through someone's digestive tract. Depreciation. Look it up. And while you're at it, look up Tetris too.

37) SimCity 2000 (Honorable Mention: SimFarm)
This was pretty much the pinnacle of the Sim-whatever games. Plumbing was a goddamned pain in the ass though. Um, that's most of what I remember about this game. That and whenever I started a city I would customize the landscape with a small elevated area on the edge of the map surrounded by water so I could put the prison there. Come to think of it, I might have played SimFarm more than SimCity. It might not have been a better game, but I had a lot of fun playing it. Oranges and cows. That's the way to go. Cause nothing goes together like orange juice and milk.

36) Need for Speed: Underground
They should have made the title of this game more literal: racing through tunnels beneath the earth. With digging machines. And of course it has to be realistic so it takes several weeks to get a quarter of a mile. Now that's excitement! They could put in a historical mode where you recreate the construction of the Chunnel and the New York subway, and fantasy mode where you follow the plot of Journey to Centre of the Earth and The Core. Ok, that's a shitty idea. What else am I going to do? Talk about how the graphics are good and there's a wide variety of races and customization options? No! I refuse to toe the line! I'm going to talk about The Core! Wasn't Delroy Lindo awesome in that movie? And how about that Aaron Eckhart? Or was it Thomas Jane? Oh well, they're the same person anyway. Just like Sarah McLachlan and Dido. Think about it. Have you ever seen them in the same place at the same time? Watch Timecop and you'll understand why.

35) NBA Jam (Honorable Mention: NBA Street 2)
The greatest achievement in NBA Jam was if you could perform a flipping dunk while on fire that breaks the backboard and the announcer saying "Boomshakalaka!" Even better (though you had to use a cheat code) was to enable dunking from anywhere on the court and doing that from under your own basket. This was also one of the few Super Nintendo games that had full motion video. Granted, it wasn't anything more than a couple of thumbnail sized three second clips, but still.

34) The Oregon Trail
Ah, The Oregon Trail. How many times have I died of cholera, or dysentery, or typhoid after months of "meager" rations and travelling at a "grueling" pace? Too many to count. And then there are all the oxen, supplies, wives, and children lost to drowning when attempting to ford rivers instead of paying to take the ferry across. But come on, ferries are expensive. What do I look like, a banker from Boston? It's all worth it though. You get to hunt a few buffalo and carry back 100 pounds of food. Or maybe all you can get is a squirrel and carry back one pound of food. Either way you tough it out till you reach the final stretch where you can float down the Columbia River to the promised land of Eugene, Oregon. Congratulations, puritanical settlers. All your hardships led to the development of the state with the most innuendo baiting nickname in the Union: the Beaver State. Second place: Missouri, the Show Me State.

33) NHL 2002 (Honorable Mention: NHL 2005)
These were the glory days of the NHL, when the Ottawa Senators signed a young upstart rookie named Tony Hawkins and went on to a record breaking undefeated season. Patrick Lalime played more shutout games in one season than most goalies do in their careers. Who can forget the inconceivably frequent double hat tricks? Well, maybe some can. It's easy to lose track among the ubiquitous 15+ goal games. Early in the season Hawkins broke Teemu Selanne record for most goals by a rookie. Soon afterward he would surpass Wayne Gretzky's record for most goals in a season. The playoffs were still weeks away and Hawkins proceeded to violate both achievements in every orifice an intangible object can have on his way to a 200+ goal season. Yes, it was a wonderful time for the Senators. They had a less momentous, but still highly successful, season in 2005 which to this point has been the last of Tony Hawkins' NHL career. Perhaps he will one day return to dominate the league, making Gary Bettman's wettest dreams come true.

32) Syndicate Plus
There are a couple of problems with writing a list like this. Well, not the list itself. That's relatively easy and was actually quite a bit of fun to compile, having to think back over all the video games I've played in my life. The problems are with writing the parts like this, the individual entries. Because I'm not writing a greatest games list or something with any pretense of objectivity I can't rely on simply describing the qualities of the games that make them great. Spelling out the things that make the games my favourites doesn't make it much easier either. With anything so subjective there is often an indefinable je ne sais quoi that is of prime importance in labeling it as "favourite." Attempts at explication rarely make for entertaining reading: "I don't know. I just like it cause it's fun and I like it. I don't need a better reason. Shut up." So why is Syndicate one of my favourite video games? I don't know. I just like it cause it's fun and I like it. I don't need a better reason. Shut up. Also, there is a device in the game called a Persuadertron that makes people follow you around in a trance and pick up guns they find to shoot your enemies. I want one.

31) Worms Armageddon (Honorable Mention: Tank Wars, Scorched Earth)
Up until I started writing this entry the game in this spot was not Worms: Armageddon but Tank Wars. They're both the same type of game so I figured it's not much of stretch to just switch them out. When I got to writing I started thinking about the similarities and differences between Tank Wars and Scorched Earth, and then other games of the same type, and it suddenly occurred to me that I had overlooked Worms entirely when I was making the original list of games I've played. Since I'm not going to be writing about Tank Wars anymore I'll have to slip in one of the points I wanted to make about it here: the reason Tank Wars is better than Scorched Earth is that if rebounding walls are on and you set the power of your shot to 800 the shot will pass through the ground and ricochet around the screen until it hits somebody. That was always an awesome trick. But Worms Armageddon is better than both of them. Coming out almost ten years later, it's obviously better from a technical standpoint but the game's true superiority is in its selection of weaponry. Napalm strikes, flying sheep, exploding old ladies, Holy Hand Grenades. And nothing is so satisfying as walking up to another worm, lining up, and cracking him square in the face with a baseball bat to send him flying into the drink.

30) Super Mario Kart (Honorable Mention: Mario Kart 64, Rock n Roll Racing)
Not counting Super Mario World, which was bundled with the system, this was second only to Donkey Kong Country as the best selling game for the Super Nintendo. If you ever played a Super NES game, chances are this was it. There's a reason this is the top ranking racing game on this list. It's a shitload of fun to play. Mario Kart went 3D on the Nintendo 64, which definitely improved the battle mode (also contributing to this was the ability to have up to four players) but the 64 version has the disadvantage of having come out later and thus does not fit the First = Favourite equation.

29) Duke Nukem 3D (Honorable Mention: Shadow Warrior, Doom, Rise of the Triad, Wolfenstein 3D)
Anybody remember when Duke Nukem was a 2D platform shooter? No? Probably for the best. He got a lot more badass when he went FPS. Back in the day there were rumours of a Duke Nukem movie adaptation. Of course, at that point the films that had been based on video games included Double Dragon, Street Fighter, and Super Mario Bros. With such examples of sterling cinematic bravura how could they possibly go wrong with another video game based release? Hell, why isn't anybody snatching up this property today, what with the unqualified success of Silent Hill, Doom, the collected works of Uwe Boll? Oh right. Obviously no one has yet wanted to jump on that solid gold bandwagon. This is a shame because one of the most serious problems with the movies that have been based on video games is just that: they take themselves way too fucking seriously. This would hamper Duke Nukem considerably less than any other adaptations released to date. The game is essentially a parody already. A movie version need only concern itself with balls out, your-head-a-splode action and a few Evil Dead references and it would be massively entertaining. And speaking of Evil Dead, along with rumours of the Duke Nukem movie's existence it was speculated that Bruce Campbell would be cast as the lead. Unfortunately I think he may have gotten a little long in the tooth to assume the mantle these days, but at the time he would have been supremely perfect in the role. Oh well, at least we have Duke Nukem Forever to look forward to. If it doesn't spend another decade in production that is.

28) American McGee's Alice
And here we have another project that has plumbed the depths of development hell. Not the game itself, the movie adaptation. Wes Craven was initially attached to direct but eventually dropped out. Now it's in the hands of Marcus Nispel who directed Pathfinder (aka Vikings vs. Indians) and the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Esteemed stuff, I know. He also did the video for Bush's Greedy Fly and was second unit director on National Treasure. Still not impressed? How about this? Sarah Michelle Gellar is signed on to star. She's had a pretty flawless resume since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, right? Ok, I can see I'm not getting anywhere with this so I'm just going to blow your mind instead. Sarah Michelle Gellar played the voice of Andromeda in two episodes of Disney's Hercules television series and Kevin Sorbo, who played Hercules in a different television series, went on to star in a show called Andromeda. Huh? Was that psychedelic enough for you? And I'm pretty sure Kevin Sorbo will be playing the Cheshire Cat in the movie version of Alice. Actually, the cast is probably just going to be Sarah Michelle Gellar and Kevin Sorbo. She'll play Alice and he'll play everything else. The White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts. All of them Sorbofied. It will be an ideal opportunity to show his range. And his abs. It's in his contract. He gets at least five minutes of on screen shirtlessness in every project he's involved with. Also, the closing credits will not list his name but simply the character's name and "Sorbofied."
Alice - Sarah Michelle Gellar
Cheshire Cat - Sorbofied
White Rabbit - Sorbofied
Queen of Hearts - Sorbofied
Script - Sorbofied
Key Grip - Sorbofied
Producers - Sorbofied
I can't wait to see that movie. It will most certainly sweep the Oscars. Sorry, I mean the Oscars will be Sorbofied.

27) Heavenly Sword
Yes, I know God of War is supposedly a much better game but the fact is I haven't played God of War. I've played Heavenly Sword. The gameplay isn't even the reason it's on this list (although the levels that involve projectile weapons that you can guide to their targets using the motion controls of the Sixaxis controller are a hell of a lot of fun). The reason this game is on my list of favourite games is the dramatic execution. The acting in this game, which is not limited to just voice acting but includes detailed motion capture techniques, is superior to just about any game I can think of. Never before have I seen a video game come as close to recreating the cinematic qualities of film. A lot of people criticize the short length of the game, but I think it's actually kind of refreshing. Contrast it with something like Final Fantasy VII. It took me so long to go through that game that by the time I got to the end I had forgotten a lot of the plot from earlier on. Heavenly Sword, on the other hand, I was able to beat over a weekend which made for a much tighter narrative experience. That's not to say I don't enjoy games with long, complex plots. I do. Most of my top ten is comprised of these types of stories. But if the tradeoff to achieve the kind of presentation seen in Heavenly Sword, I'm willing to make that sacrifice once in a while.

26) Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (Honorable Mention: Command & Conquer)
It's hard to say which game should actually take this spot: Warcraft II or Command & Conquer. Warcraft would be the obvious choice, but I did spend a lot of time playing multiplayer C&C over a 33.6 kbps modem. Of course, I did the same with Warcraft. Good ol' dial-up. Did anyone else ever use Windows HyperTerminal to transfer files between two computers using dial-up modems? I sure did. That was old school. Windows 95 baby. Remember the background picture of a mountain lion that came with Windows 95? I think you had to have the Plus! add-on. It was in a theme called "Dangerous Creatures." That was an awesome desktop wallpaper. I'm going to find that picture and use it as my desktop. I hope I can find a widescreen version of it. Remember how on the Windows 95 installation disc they had the videos for Buddy Holly by Weezer and Good Times by Edie Brickell & New Bohemians? Remember Edie Brickell & New Bohemians? No? Remember how she married Paul Simon? Apparently they met when she was performing on Saturday Night Live. I think most people who have met Paul Simon met him on Saturday Night Live. Well, anyways, I'll give it Warcraft II because if you click on a sheep enough times it says "Bah ram ewe." Command & Conquer didn't have enough Babe references.

Tune in next time I send you an email when we will countdown from 25 to 1 to finish off the list. And please... Try the fish.

Tony Hawkins is resurrecting a dead horse

Peg Life Vol. 35

2006-09-21T16:04:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, we come to it at last. The final Peg Life. There will be no encore. And though Peg Life may be over, I would quote Alan Moore's seminal work Watchmen by saying, "Nothing ends... Nothing ever ends." The archived volumes of Peg Life can of course still be read at http://peglifeblog.blogspot.com and you will soon be receiving the first email in what I hope will be a long running series entitled The Voice of London. Astute readers will recognize this as another Alan Moore reference, albeit slightly modified. So what to say on this occasion? I hardly know. In twenty-four hours I shall likely be asleep on a plane, leaving behind this city, province, country, continent. I suppose one thing I would like to say is thank you. Thank you to all the people who participated in the merrymaking of this past Saturday and Tuesday. You reminded me of all the reasons I would want to stay. But there comes a time when I must leave Winnipeg to seek adventure and inspiration in far off lands. That time has come once again. As summer recedes and autumn arrives to take its place I leave not just this city but myself. Long in your memories will I remain. New, to new minds will I be. Farewell.

Tony Hawkins isn't

Peg Life Vol. 34

2006-09-10T15:20:00.000-05:00

On Friday I happened to be watching a 20/20 special about conjoined twins on ABC. The section I saw focused specifically on Lori and Reba Schappell. Chances are you've probably seen them if you've watched any kind of television documentary on conjoined twins in the last five years. They're fairly easily recognized by the fact that they are joined at the head and Reba is a country singer. It really doesn't matter if you don't know of them because this Peg Life is not about them, or even about conjoined twins, but the setup requires that I mention them. You see, at one point in the program the ABC interviewer asked them (or perhaps just Lori, as she was the one facing him at the time [Lori and Reba face opposite directions]) if they believed in an afterlife. Lori responded in the affirmative and the interviewer followed up by asking if she thought they would still be joined together in heaven (not the exact words, but you get the idea). She said no, because in heaven all your physical ailments are healed. This is actually irrelevant because it is the question that is of interest to me. It illustrates a lack of understanding on the part of the interviewer and, I think, a fundamental ignorance among North Americans regarding their own beliefs. Allow me to explain.
By positting a belief in the Christian conception of the afterlife you have already assumed a dualistic explanation to the mind-body problem. This statement may require some further elucidation for readers less familiar with the philosophy of mind. The mind-body problem is a longstanding puzzle for philosophers dealing with the nature of the mind and mental processes and their relation to the physical body and its processes. Dualism (more specifically substance or interactionist dualism), most famously espoused by Rene Descartes in the seventeenth century, argues that the mind and body are two separate and distinct substances. The body, it says, is composed of physical matter while the mind is of some other non-physical composition. Dualism has been widely rejected by philosophers but maintains adherents among laymen due to its appeal to most people's intuition regarding the mind, and its compatibility with Christian ideas of the soul. It is this last quality that relates to what I am talking about. If, as Christianity's doctrines state, the soul leaves the body after death and ascends to heaven or descends to hell then it is a meaningless question to ask conjoined twins if their bodies will still be connected in the afterlife. It would also be absurd to say that physical ailments are healed in heaven as there would be no physical body in heaven to have ailments.
This is the fundamental ignorance that I was alluding to earlier. It should be noted that I'm not referring to a lack of knowledge about one's beliefs, but a refusal to acquire it. As Karl Popper says, this is true ignorance. The willingness to hold an inconsistent set of beliefs while eschewing examination or even recognition of these inconsistencies is a serious problem and an unfortunate necessity to accepting much religious dogma. Perhaps if there was a movement to have logic taught in schools rather than intelligent design people would be able to distinguish fact from rhetoric.
Speaking of intelligent design, where we really need such a thing is not in high school biology classrooms but in Hollywood script writing. The following is a probably highly accurate account of "the producers of Underworld" conceiving the new movie The Covenant:
"Hey, when you were a teenager what movie star did you want to fuck most?"
"Uh, probably Neve Campbell."
"Phoebe Cates, totally. You know, from Fast Times at Ridgmont High."
"I don't know if she was really a movie star, but Robin Tunney."
"Man, remember that movie The Craft? That movie was awesome."
"Yeah, we should totally make that movie again."
"Do you think the studio will let us remake it. I don't remember it being THAT popular."
"Screw remaking it. We'll just replace witches with warlocks and say it's a new script."
"Don't you think someone will realize it's not an original idea?"
"..."
"..."
"BWAHAHAHAHA! Ooohh, heh heh. Good one."
In other news, the final send off party for Danny and I before we jet across the Atlantic will be held this Sunday, September 17th at the Gerard St. house. If you miss this you better be dead, or in jail. And if you're in jail, BREAK OUT!

Tony Hawkins intelligently designed this message

Peg Life Vol. 33

2006-09-04T11:56:00.000-05:00

It occurs to me that I haven't written a Peg Life in quite a while. Actually this has occurred to me several times and I just haven't bothered to do anything about until now. My excuse is that I've been busy getting moved out of my apartment (which I did four days ago now so I have had ample opportunity to write something since then) and I set up a profile on Myspace and have been writing on the blog there instead (but in truth I haven't written anything there for a while either). So now that I have explained (and discredited) the reasons for not sending out a Peg Life I can get down to the task of doing so. There are several things I have in mind to write about and I think I'll start on a sad note.
Earlier today Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin died while shooting a documentary in Australia. This may not be surprising considering his past exploits. The unexpected part comes when it is learned that he was not eaten by a crocodile or bitten by a cobra or mauled by a rabid koala, he was pierced in the heart by a stingray while filming an underwater documentary. Thus he becomes one of fewer than 20 worldwide recorded deaths by stingray. Steve Irwin, you will remain forever in our hearts. Just as that stingray barb will remain in yours. Ah, tastelessness. May you never come back to bite me in the ass. Or stab me in the chest.
In other news, there are now but seventeen days until Danny and I make our journey to the land of the Union Jack, bobbies, and jellied eels. With any luck I will not be returning until the spring of 2008. Of course, it remains to be seen how long my money will hold out. Anyone planning a going away party should schedule it sometime between September 17th and 20th as we must be at the airport by about 9:00 p.m. on the 21st. The 21st also marks the last valid day for the publication of Peg Life. I don't yet know what my new emailings will be called, but rest assured, I will be writing another series.
I guess that's it, actually. Apparently when I said "several things to write about" I meant two.

Tony Hawkins underestimated your ability to be offended

Peg Life Vol. 32

2006-08-06T02:29:00.000-05:00

Today boys and girls we discuss the 23 Synchronicity Principle. Now, now, I see all you rational empiricists jumping up and shouting that the entirety of numerology is nothing but a load of codswallop. But for the sake of politeness at the very least would you please sit down and shut the fuck up. Thank you.
I think we shall start at the beginning. It's as good a place as any and better than most. The beginning in this case is a question: What is the 23 Synchronicity Principle? One could argue that the beginning is actually an earlier question: Why write about the 23 Synchronicity Principle? However, to answer that question I must first address the other. And so we have begun...
The 23 Synchronicity Principle is "the belief that all incidents and events are directly connected to the number 23, some permutation of the number 23, or a number related to the number 23." Of course, using that definition presents a rather obvious fallacy in its use of the word "all." It would perhaps behoove us to say that most or many incidents and events are connected to the number 23. Assuming for a moment that you haven't already turned off your computer in disgust rather than waste your time reading about some ridiculous occultist nonsense (and you would be entirely within your rights to do so as I merely requested that you shut the fuck up, not read everything I have to say and take it as gospel), you are most likely wondering how exactly things are connected to the number 23. Well, the short (and probably correct) answer is apophenia. The long answer is something cosmic and New Agey. The true answer is I don't know. Anyway, that's all mostly beside the point because the interesting part of this whole discourse is the answer to that previously mentioned question: Why write about the 23 Synchronicity Principle? So here it is.
In a matter of days I turn 23 years old. Specifically, I turn 23 on the 9th of August, 2006. Let's break this down a bit. My age has an obvious and direct relation to 23, but the date reveals further connections. August is the 8th month, 8 being 2^3. The number 9, similarly, is 3^2. 8 + 9 = 17, another numerologically significant number. The digits in the year 2006 can be added up to get 8, again 2^3. The same can be done with 17. August 9th this year falls on a Wednesday. Wednesday starts with W, which is the 23rd letter of the alphabet and has 2 points facing down and 3 points facing up. Another interesting coincidence (unrelated to my birthday) is the fact that this is Peg Live Volume 32, which is 23 reversed. For those who want to know, the 23rd volume was a brief one in which I announced that I would be archiving all the Peg Lifes to a blog and advertised the '90s Dance Party that was hosted by the Victor Street Boys. Bringing up the Peg Life blog reminds me that the only comment posted to the blog thus far was in response to the 23rd post (actually Peg Life Vol. 22, the one about nipple piercing). And if that's not enough for you, there are currently 32 contacts on the Peg Life mailing list. I hope this has been sufficiently mind blowing for you.

Tony Hawkins sees more and more connections the harder he looks

Peg Life Vol. 31

2006-07-29T00:37:00.000-05:00

The book of John, chapter two, as interpreted by me:
Once upon a time Jesus and his mom and his friends went to a wedding. I don't know how they all knew the bride and groom, but apparently they did because they all got invitations. I guess people were having a good time at this wedding because they ran out of wine. Jesus' mom only had a bit of a buzz on so she complained to Jesus. Jesus was like, "I'm not in charge of the wine. Luke was gonna bring that. We gave them the dish set, remember?" And Jesus' mom said, "Ask the servants to get more. I'm too embarassed." Then Jesus saw some big jars and told the servants, "You should serve the stuff in those washing jugs. It'll probably get 'em drunk." So the servants took some to the head party guy and he drank it and was all, "Awesome!" And that's the first time everybody realized Jesus was a pretty cool guy.
After the wedding Jesus and his posse went to church. Turns out there was a farmers convention taking place with merch tables set up. Jesus went all psycho and started whipping everybody with some rope and yelling, "You jerks! You can't do that here!" So the convention guys are all like, "What the hell? What makes you so high and mighty?" And Jesus said, "If you demolished this place I could rebuild it in three days." And the convention guys went, "Yeah right." Then Jesus was all, "Oh, and by this place, I mean me." And then later he did it and everyone was all like, "Ooh, snap!"

And now the note I found in my Bible stuck between the pages of First Corinthians chapter three, verse two and chapter seven, verse twelve:
Dec. 18/03
Dwight,
I know right now you probebly don't even want to talk with me, and I don't blame you. Ill tell you how I feel. I'm down + doughting. But that's not major. You see, I don't know what's wrong. I'm in the mood to cry and I don't know why. The only thing I know is that all I wanted you to do was sit down and hold me. That's what helps the most. To hold me + pray + talk or tell me about your day. Girls come in that mood. It's the only thing we want to do. Someone that says it's okey + understands us even though he doesn't. I'm speaking in riddles I know. I don't even know how to explain my self. Please pray for me. I'm so sorry for hurting you again. I'm sorry.
Joanna

Bible quotes that are sexy when taken out of context:
"The enemy laid hands on all her treasures / she saw pagan nations enter her sanctuary"
"Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?"
"How long, O Lord?"
"You will groan, when your flesh and body are spent"
"Behold, I am coming soon!"

Tony Hawkins got his dollar's worth

Peg Life Vol. 30

2006-07-27T23:07:00.000-05:00

*Hey Tony,
First-time caller, long-time listener. Just finished watching a BBC documentary on acid and mescaline. Both look pretty fun. Only problem is, I don't know how to get any, and like a chump I refused to take organic chemistry in high school. Drag. Anyways, thought I'd email you on this matter since you seem to know what's what on many a psychedelic related issue. Thank you for your consideration.
S.H.
Topeka, KS*
Thanks for writing, S.H. It's always nice to get a letter from a fan. In regards to your inquiry vis a vis LSD and mescaline, these substances can be acquired with little to much trouble. LSD and mescaline in their pure forms are both prohibited by law in Canada and the U.S. Since LSD is only available in its pure form this effectively makes all LSD illegal. The legal status presents obvious obstacles in the procurement of such an hallucinogen. Mescaline, on the other hand, can be more easily acquired as a result of a legal technicality. While the chemical mescaline is indeed a scheduled substance, the plants containing it are not. Therefore one can possess, grow, and sell (for purposes other than psychoactive uses) cacti including Lophophora Williamsii (peyote [in Canada]), Trichocereus Peruvianus (Peruvian Torch), and Trichocereus Pachanoi (San Pedro). If the intention is to consume the mescaline contained within these cacti, their unscheduled status does not necessarily exempt one from illegal activity. Any mescaline extract made from the plant material would be considered prohibited. However, such an extract would generally be consumed promptly enough to avoid any serious penal repercussions. On a more practical note, all of aforementioned the cactus species are available to purchase through the mail from a number of online, as well as more analog sources. If specifics are required I can certainly elaborate upon request. It should be noted that while it is easier to obtain (with fewer legal ramifications) the necessary materials for the ingestion of mescaline, it much more expensive and time consuming than LSD. That concludes tonight's broadcast. We thank you for tuning in and wish you a pleasant evening.

Tony Hawkins is not a practitioner of Iron Panda jujitsu

Peg Life Vol. 29

2006-06-09T00:29:00.000-05:00

Holy FUCK! *SSKKKAAAAASH*
The time is 3:09 p.m. and I've just crashed my car. It is a warm June day but the Topaz, having been in the modest shade of the city's elms, is not uncomfortably so. The impact was uncomfortable, but not life-threateningly so. Iron & Wine's Muddy Hymnal still leaks from the stereo's three functional speakers. I turn off Paz's engine and step out. Upon asking, the other driver informs me she is uninjured. That is good. I walk up the block to flag down some police officers I had noticed in passing. They follow me to the scene and commence with appropriate procedures for their report. Information changes hands. Damage is assessed. Paz's front side is smashed. Likewise the other car, a Sunfire. Both are towed away, Paz likely to be written off. The police drive me to my aunt's house where I call in absent to work. My aunt drives me to the hospital where I wait three hours to be told everything seems fine and I should come back if any pain arises. The walk home takes me past Cousin's where I see Ellie on the patio reading a trade paperback of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's Preacher in the cooling evening. I stop for a few minutes to chat before proceeding home. I am going to have to take the bus to work tomorrow. Car crashes are awesome.

Tony Hawkins missed that last part and would like you to repeat it

Peg Life Vol. 28

2006-05-29T00:31:00.000-05:00

Last night I saw the (International) Noise Conspiracy and X-Men: The Last Stand. I was disappointed by one of them. Guess which one. Here's a hint. I spent most of my day today searching for my balls because they had been rocked off by the other one. So the question becomes where was I combing the ground for my displaced testicles, at the movie theater or the Pyramid? Maybe I'm getting too graphic, so I'll just say that the correct guess would be X-Men. Now, however, I am presented with a quandary. Do I write about the concert that was good or the movie that was not so much so? Come to think of it, it's hardly a quandary. I'm just gonna end up writing about both. Why do I need to waste your time writing about making my decision which one to write about first? To seem all self aware and postmodern? Because I think it's clever? I fucking do it all the time and I'll tell you right now, I'm not clever that often. So let's cut the bullshit.
⁂This paragraph break brought to you by Hamburger Helper™, and the estate of Guido Esperanza⁂
Back in Peg Life Vol. 4 I wrote about how Maynard James Keenan, Serj Tankian, and Cedric Bixler were the greatest rock singers around. Well, I stand by that, but I feel obliged to add that Dennis Lyxzén, while not quite in the top three vocalists, is still a consummate frontman. He's passionate, rockin', he's got charisma to burn, and the best stage moves I've ever seen. And he's Swedish. Put him in front of bands as kickass as Refused and the (International) Noise Conspiracy and your scrotum will rock itself open, dropping your gonads to the floor. I know it's not a pretty sight but that's the power these groups command. Don't worry about your nuts, though. I've found they're not too difficult to reattach.
⁂This paragraph break brought to you by Cliff's Auto Body, and shitake mushrooms⁂
It's here that I would start to write about X-Men 3 but it occurs to me that if I want to complain about it I'm going to have to get specific and I realize some of my nerdier readers may not have seen it yet. So to save them (and myself, really) from the whole spoiler thing I'll just say that Superman Returns had better be fucking awesome for Bryan Singer to make up for leaving the series in the hands of Brett Ratner. Thankfully, from the last trailer I've seen I'd say the odds look good.
⁂This paragraph break brought to you by the Windows® Character Map ‽℗¤℥∰≎⊁⋦☼⋇⋢※⁂

Tony Hawkins is growing a day older every day

Peg Life Vol. 27

2006-04-27T16:09:00.000-05:00

For the second time Pollstar.com has provided me the inspiration to write a Peg Life. This volume also has another minisculely interesting and wholly irrelevant distinction. Specifically, this Peg Life will be published first in its blog format rather than email. The reason being that I am writing it at work and I no longer have access to the Hotmail site here. Of course, this will have no effect on anyone reading it and will almost certainly go completely unnoticed by anyone other than myself. So now that I've wasted your time with several lines of thoroughly useless filler I should have the decency to move on to less jejune topics. However, I don't recall ever claiming any degree of decency and in fact I'm feeling a bit petulant just this moment so I'm going to continue wasting your time until I feel I have progressed into wasting my time. Fortunately for you all that last sentence managed to push me past that point.
And here's a third distinction this Peg Life can assert: a paragraph break. Happy now, Ellie? Can you read this without losing your place or do you need a finger to guide you? Cause I've got a finger for you right here you stupi-- Oh, uh, sorry. Guess I wasn't quite past the point of asperity yet. I'm pretty sure I'm done being a rancorous bastard now. What was I talking about? Oh, yes. Pollstar. Concerts. Now, you should all be aware that the mighty Constantines are playing mere weeks from now on May 17. As far as I can tell, the only valid reason for missing this momentous performance would be kneeling at the altar of the Prince of Darkness. And no, I'm not referring to the Alice Cooper show taking place the same night. I'm talking about the original Prince of Darkness, Satan. And if you end up summoning the Dark Lord in corporeal form, tell him I say hi. The next good show taking place in the Peg should draw in all the bitter, cynical punks out there as Alkaline Trio headlines a show at the Ramada Marlborough. Bloody faces are not required for entry, but if you want to be real legit you should leave with one. For those that fancy themselves less bitter and cynical than anti-capitalist, anarcho-dance punks, your show takes place the following day at the Pyramid when the (International) Noise Conspiracy play. The (Municipal) Noise Conspiracy couldn't be booked as they were completing their Interlake/Parkland regional tour. So we've covered the shows that will appeal to a few subspecies of the punk genus, but what about the horn-rimmed glasses/sweater-wearing, bangs-hanging-over-one-eye, depression-addicted emofags? Well, they'll be creaming their pre-faded designer jeans when they learn that their lord and saviour Conor Oberst (aka Bright Eyes) will be bleating his heart out on the stage of the Burton Cummings Theatre come June.
*Oooh, another paragraph. Maybe now I can start calling myself an essayist* That's all for this issue of Peg Life. Thank you for reading and may God have mercy on your soul.

Tony Hawkins can't be expected to remember all the infernal pacts he makes

Peg Life Vol. 26

2006-04-07T14:41:00.000-05:00

Where's the new Peg Life, Tony? When are you going to write another Peg Life, Tony? Haven't gotten a Peg Life in a while, Tony? Are you running out of ideas, Tony? How come you don't write anymore, Tony? ALRIGHT! Geez, if I keep pretending people are that interested in these things it's going to drive me mad. The only thing to do is get down to it. That's always the thing to do. Before I do that, or rather as a means of starting to do that, I should offer something by way of explanation for why I've taken so long to write this, as my phantom fanbase seems so eager to discover. It really comes down to respect for the element of surprise. Or more accurately, respect for people's wish to retain the element of surprise in both the role of surpriser and surprisee. Those that don't respect this, and the information they callously provide are known as spoilers. The reason the explanation for my prolonged period of non-action comes down to this is that the Peg Life I have been intending to write (that's correct, I am indeed not out of ideas) would, for those unfamiliar with the subject matter, be full of spoilers. So what is it that I have no wish to be spoiling? V for Vendetta. If you have not seen the movie I encourage you to do two things. First, stop reading this. Don't worry if you glance down the page a few lines. My ruinous revelations will not appear until later in the text as I intend to get to them in a rather circuitous way so as to provide a buffer of superfluousness between the warning and the spoiler itself. Second, go see the movie. Third, if you still haven't seen the movie go back to the first suggestion. I realize that in order to get to the second step you have to disregard the first, which is why I included this conditional loop. Perhaps it would becomer clearer if explained it more BASICally.
10 IF MOVIE = SEEN THEN GOTO 50
20 STOP READING PEG LIFE
30 GOTO THEATRE
40 WATCH V FOR VENDETTA
50 CONTINUE READING PEG LIFE
60 END
There. Now all the nerds understand what I'm telling people to do. Unfortunately it's the nerds who are most likely to have already seen the movie. That's more or less irrelevant but it does bring me to the beginning of my story. I don't go to see all that many movies in the theatre. To be sure, I go to more than many, but fewer than most. For me to shell out the cash to see a movie in the theatre it generally has to be a particularly good movie or have some other particularity about it that draws my attention. Case in point, the movie Doom. I wasn't expecting Oscar calibre filmmaking, but my fanboyism knew no bounds and I went anyway. I was severely disappointed and regretted the loss of my nine dollars but such are the perils of geekdom. A couple of weeks ago I got home from work and told Danny that we should go to see V for Vendetta. He was pleasantly enthused and we made our way to Polo Park. I enjoyed it. A lot. So much so that I went again the next day with Keith. And I enjoyed it. A lot. Again. So much so that I decided I had to read the graphic novel on which it was based. As it happens I was able to find a copy available for download on the internet. I downloaded and read all ten volumes. I enjoyed them. A lot. The comic book was even better than the movie. The story is much more complex, supporting characters are expanded and given more depth, and V's anarchist philosophy is delineated much more explicitly. Having read the books I can understand how the hardcores and the nitpickers would be dissatisfied with the film. However, I also understand that in adapting the story for the screen concessions need to be made for length, consistency, and *shudder* marketability. The changes that were made, while significant, I can only see as necessary. Or at least forgivable. There were three scenes that really made the movie for me. The first was V's introductory speech in which he alliterates with the letter V for a full minute. I've always been a fan of alliteration (especially back in the days when I was writing the material that would become Somaphore's album Typecast [in particular, see the lyrics to Deed and U R B an Isolate]) and Hugo Weaving's delivery is terrific. The second was after Evey is released from her imprisonment and V reveals that it was all an elaborate illusion designed to alter Evey's perception. When it starts to sink in Evey doesn't seem able to handle it and she starts having a panic attack. V tells her, "This may be the most important moment of your life. Commit to it." That line really convinced me of the intelligence of the script. The wisdom is also very apt when applied to psychedelic experiences. In that situation fighting the experience instead of releasing yourself and committing to it can make the difference between nadir and ecstasy. I was reminded of an especially intense mushroom trip I had, at one point in which I felt like I was going to be under the effects of the drug forever. This was extremely frightening. I thought, "Oh no, holy shit. I'm never going to be the same again. I'm going to be in this state for the rest of my life." The more I worried, the more horrified I became. Before my thought cycle degenerated into a catastrophically bad trip I was able to calm myself and accept the decision I had made to take the mushrooms. Instead of fighting the past and fretting over the future, I committed myself to the present and revelled in its wonder. The advice is not useful solely in the most life altering of experiences, though. I see it as a call to be aware of the present. Life is happening to you right now. Be there for it. The third scene to solidify my adoration for the film came as Evey was leaving the Shadow Gallery. V stands over the jukebox in wistful melancholy and reflects that although he has listened all of the hundreds of songs it contains he has never danced to any of them. Now, it wasn't the substance of the scene itself that struck me, but the song that V selects to punctuate his musing. He plays I Found a Reason by Cat Power. Not only does the song perfectly accentuate the mood of the scene, it also serves as an interesting parallel between the film and the comic book. The original song by the Velvet Underground is very different stylistically and has several more lyrical parts than are included in Cat Power's version. The compression and change of affect in the Cat Power version are, without too much of a stretch, analagous to the film's differences from the book. I have little reason to suspect the song was chosen to highlight this similarity, but I would not be terribly surprised if it was the case. But now let me move on by moving backward. I'd like to speak for a moment on something related to comments I made regarding the first scene. I said that Hugo Weaving's delivery of V's alliterative introductory exposition was terrific. While there seems to be a general consensus in reviews I have read that the performances in the film are quite strong (supporting players including as Stephen Fry and Stephen Rea are notably praised), every review has made a complaint about the mask. Yes, wearing an unchanging mask for the entire length of the film precludes the use of facial expressions to convey any kind of communication, but this should not be seen as an insurmountable impediment to the character's portrayal as James Purefoy seemed to think. Rather, it is a challenge for the actor to bring life to his role by other means, a challenge that I think Weaving rose to admirably. It's in the voice. Of course body language is going to be important without use of the face, but with a character like V, who is prone to Shakespearean quotation and dialogues with statues, the voice is paramount. Anyway, enough about V for Vendetta. Alan Moore's true masterwork has not yet been adapted to the screen. And for good reason. Watchmen is a story of such depth and complexity that Terry Gilliam (who was at one time considering directing a film adaptation) decided it was unfilmable as a feature length. He has said he would consider directing it as a twelve hour miniseries. And he's right. The first ten episodes of the twelve part graphic novel are packed with material that, if not critical to the unfolding of the epic plot, would be a travesty not to include in any adaptation. It all leads up to a cataclysmic ending of such shocking originality that it would never see studio approval without unthinkable modification. You may be thinking, "Come on. It's just a comic book. Sure, a movie version may suck, but Hollywood can adapt anything. After all, they made Elektra." If you think that, you'd be wrong. Watchmen is like no other comic book. Read it. It'll change your mind about what a comic book can be. If you've read it already, fuck it's awesome isn't it? Yes. So how 'bout it, kiddos? Was it long enough. I sure as shootin' hope so. This has turned out to be the third longest email I've ever written, surpassed only by the Fifth and Eighth Words from B.C. And the Eighth Words quoted Terence McKenna pretty extensively, so I can't really take credit for the length of that one. But this one was all me. Hopefully more than two people have been able to read it.

Tony Hawkins is geekier than thou

Peg Life Vol. 25

2006-03-23T15:31:00.000-06:00

First of all I'd like to thank everyone for all the thoughts and replies they took the time to send. If I measured success in volume of responses (and I do) then volume 24 has been the most successful Peg Life so far. I'd also like to thank Jerome for providing the inspiration for it. You may be thinking that my intention now is to expand on or clarify the comments I made that got so many people typing. I'm not going to do that. I would rather let my statements stand and allow the discussion to continue. As such, this issue of Peg Life will have little, if anything, to do with death or the war in Iraq. Instead I will focus on that old standby, music. I was looking over Winnipeg's upcoming shows on Pollstar.com today and saw that some choice bands will be making their way through our fair (or should I say "One Great") city. Which bands, you ask? Why the hell would you want to know that? Oh yeah, cause that's the information that I'm trying to make you interested in. Well, do the words Motley Crue get your engine revving? Ok, me neither. Now, Methods of Mayhem, THERE'S a band to get excited about. By the way, I've decided to replace the meaning of get with quickly, the meaning of excited with be, and the meaning of about with forgotten. But only when I talk about Methods of Mayhem. For example, I think all Methods of Mayhem CDs should excited thrown into a hole and about. For another example, that other sentence that mentioned Methods of Mayhem. So is there anyone coming to Winnipeg who is actually good? Yes. Deftones. Unfortunately they're playing with a bunch of bands who aren't. Jello Biafra will be doing a spoken word show at the West End on April 11th. If his last performance was any indication, this show will be entertaining, informative, and run about two hours longer than it's supposed to. Of course, if speaking isn't your thing you could always come back two days later to see Paper Moon keyboardist and Peg Life reader Nicole Pielou rock the house with Julie Doiron. Or maybe just quietly lull the house. Either way, a good show. For those that want some assurance of the rockingness of the show they will be attending, look no further than the Pyramid on May 17th where the almighty Constantines will be playing their first headlining show in Winnipeg since opening for the Foo Fighters at the MTS Centre. And if you're there you might even see Dead Kids director and Peg Life reader Brian Barnhart filming (if he can arrange things with the band's assumedly hot manager). Oh, and the Strokes are playing the Cumspot the week before. Folk Fest is looking good this year. Greg Macpherson's on the docket, as well as Greg Macpherson Band. Hopefully there are no scheduling conflicts cause I'd like to see both. But what's really got me excited for it this year is Low and Neko Case, whose new album is terrific. The biggest disadvantage to going to Folk Fest this year is that I won't be able to see Slayer and Children of Bodom deliver the thrash at the Phone Booth. Well, you win some, you lose some. I guess you just can't have your folk music and your death metal too.

Tony Hawkins apparently stole this gimmick from Wil Wheaton

Peg Life Vol. 24

2006-03-22T19:09:00.000-06:00

Some of you may have seen recently the email sent by Jerome featuring a video captured by the night vision camera on an American attack helicopter as it gunned down a trio men preparing an ambush on a road in Iraq. I hope everyone was as disturbed as I was that what they were watching was three human beings being blown apart and killed by the explosive rounds of the gunship's cannons. And I'm not just trying to vilify the Evil American Empire by being an apologist for the Iraqis who I'm sure would have killed the American gunners had their positions been reversed. My point is that when seeing something like that some people need to be reminded that when the commander comes over the radio saying, "Take him out," he's not referring to polygons in a video game. The "targets" that disappear into dusty explosions are not lifeless electronic simulacra generated for the purpose of being obliterated. They were born to mothers as we all were. To die is never wrong, but to kill is never right.

Tony Hawkins thinks he has more to say

Peg Life Vol. 23

2006-03-01T19:47:00.000-06:00

Not going to be too long this issue. Just have some news from the world of Peg Life. You may now read Peg Life in the form of a blog. To counter those who would call me a hypocrite for saying that blogs are stupid (if I ever actually said that, I can't recall for sure) I will say that the style and format will not change at all in this new medium. In fact, the blog is nothing more than the same emails cut and paste. It's really more of an online archive of past issues. I will still send out the mailing as usual and then post that mailing to the blog the following day. This probably won't change anything for people who are used to reading Peg Life in their email, but it does allow it to be shared much more easily. Instead of forwarding an email to someone who may be interested in reading it you can simply direct them to the website http://peglifeblog.blogspot.com/ and they can browse each volume at their leisure. In other Peg related news, the Victor Street Boys are hosting a '90s Dance Party on Friday, March the third starting at 9:30 p.m. You can check out the attached picture for the official invite. That's all I've got for right now. I'll try to make up for the lack of entertainment value with the next one.

Tony Hawkins scraping mold off his last meal

Peg Life Vol. 22

2006-02-27T14:07:00.000-06:00

Nipple rings. Now there's something I've never found to enhance the sexual appeal of the female body. I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm sucking on some titty I want my tongue to be feeling soft, warm flesh, not cold, hard steel. I guess I'm just old fashioned that way. Of course, that's not to say I would decline any invitation to suck some titty based solely on the fact that the titty in question has a metal ring though its nipple. But think about it. What if down the road you have children and you're breast feeding them? Is your baby going to favor one nipple over the other because one is pierced and one is not? What would you do in that situation? Pierce the other nipple to balance it out? What if your baby preferred the unpierced nipple? Take all your nipple piercings out? For how long, forever? Or just when the baby is feeding? That seems inconvenient. Is it worth it, or would you just get them pierced again after your child was weaned? Or would you get them pierced again at all? These are the questions that keep me up at night. And probably many of you as well. I don't pretend to have any answers. It's The Onion that has all the answers. They can see into the future. This oracle of modern time cast down in type its greatest premonition here: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930 And it was noted that the date appearing thereon was lo unto the 18th of February, 2004. And yea did Gillette put forth unto the land this proclamation: http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/14/news/fortune500/gillette/ The prophecy, fulfilled, was. Carry thee, therefore, the word of The Onion across all the lands. Be not troubled by those who "get it" not. The words of the meek of mind and unhip resound, "I just don't find it funny." But The Onion is the way, the truth, and the laughter. Praise be to irony. Bless you all. Goodnight.

Tony Hawkins joined that cult for some very good reasons

Peg Life Vol. 21

2006-02-27T14:06:00.000-06:00

Big John Waters (not the director, hence the "Big") made a career of debasement. Mostly in his basement. He tongue scrubbed toilets. Kept them clean, but only his own shit. It's a sanitary issue. He had issues. Wouldn't touch another person but through latex. Leather wasn't his thing. Didn't feel comfortable in something else's skin. He had five angles mounted with cameras to catch the feed. He had a handler for the duos. Occasionally a cameraman. Sometimes it went gonzo. He always said it's funny what people pay to see. He didn't say what people paid to see was funny. He wanted to be a dancer but he never got the moves right. So he switched leotards for plastic wrap and got paid for his hobby. He never did anything illegal but you could never really call him uptight. "Free men are free men," he'd say. "But I'm not a free man." No one really knew if he believed. No one even knows what that means.
Andrew Arthur was a technician. He installed Big John's cameras and didn't ask questions. He kept his thoughts to himself and he was born by Caesarian section. He didn't like his life till he found out where it was headed. He was otherwise a stand up guy until he rolled his van and ended up in a wheelchair. That's when he got happy. He got cared for and he got lazy. He got fatter but he didn't think it mattered very much. His wheelchair was electric and he had it wired for speed. He wasn't going anywhere but he wanted to be early. His girlfriend wasn't much for tact. She called him Rolex. She got married out in Boston but he lost the invitation. He played cards that night and lost the watch she gave him. It was Swiss. She was Irish. It never came to him if they had ever once connected. It wasn't ninety minutes before the first time they had bedded. He'd had his legs to use that time but now he just shrugged it off. His shoulders still worked fine.
In other news, the winners of the "Go to the Opium Exhibit with Tony" contest are Stephen Harfield and David Streit as they were the only ones who replied at all to the last Peg Life. Congratulations Stephen and David. And to all the other qualified readers who didn't even try to enter the contest: Fuck you too. I don't even want to go to the museum with you.

Tony Hawkins doesn't know what's wrong with your cat

Peg Life Vol. 20

2006-02-27T14:05:00.000-06:00

I'm sitting alone with no particular desire to do much of anything, even write this. I don't really have anything better to do at this moment, however, and I'm bored. Or maybe I just think I'm bored cause I haven't smoked any pot today. It's the first day that's happened in a while. It seems boredom is really the only significant withdrawal symptom of marijuana. But then that could just be by comparison. Being stoned makes it much easier to ignore or at least tolerate boredom, so when it comes during times of sobriety it is more apparent. I know I don't really have any reason to be bored. There are plenty of things I could do. I could read a book, I could watch a movie, I could play video games, I coud jerk off, I could clean my apartment, I could make and/or eat food, I could buy some booze and get drunk, I could sit in the dark listening to music, I could go to sleep, I could fold my laundry, I could videotape myself naked flexing my muscles, I could take a bath, I could make a list of things to do to not feel bored, I could rearrange my furniture, I could poke holes in my arm with a pin and pretend I'm a heroin addict, I could name and catalog all the insects that live in my bathroom, I could drink milkshakes until I vomit, I could shave all the hair off my body, I could go out and ride city busses for a few hours, I could get high for a few minutes off the weed crumbs I just found on my desk, or I could write my twentieth Peg Life. Obviously I decided to go with the latter. I mentioned heroin back there somewhere and that reminds me of something cool that would have been a great way to cure my boredom if it had been available at this time of day. There's a new exhibit at the Manitoba Museum right now about opium. Being that drug culture/lore/history is one of my areas of interest I'm very keen on seeing this exhibit. I've also been wanting to go to the museum anyway for quite some time so it only increases my desire to go. The problem is, no matter how good any particular exhibit is, going to a museum alone is not nearly as enjoyable as going with someone else. That's not to say it isn't enjoyable at all. I've done my share of solitary museum exploration, but these were primarily in distant cities where I didn't know anybody to go with. Here in Winnipeg it's slightly different as I know plenty of people with whom I could go to the museum, many of you among them. Therefore, I'm asking anyone who is in the city and available between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday, between now and March 19th to send an email telling me why you think you shoud be the one who gets to accompany Peg Life author and internet superstar Tony Hawkins to Opium: the Heavenly Demon at the Manitoba Museum. Don't delay! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for one luck Peg Life reader. It could be YOU! *No purchase necessary. Winners will be selected from qualified entries. See in store for details* Ok, so now that we've heard from the newly established Peg Life Contest Department let's see what's new in the Recommendations Division. Music is the item of the day as there are many albums that I have acquired recently that warrant recommending. Here they are:
Rogue Wave - Descended Like Vultures (Contrary to what All Music Guide says, I think this album is superior to their previous Out of the Shadows, which was actually more of a solo project of singer/guitarist Zach Rogue)
Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production of Eggs (The latest from a former member of Squirrel Nut Zippers which, instead of sounding anything like the swing revival of that band, is much better)
The Constantines - Tournament of Hearts (The third album that was brought to my attention by The Onion AV Club's year end music review, this is quite possibly The Constantines best album yet)
Smog - A River Ain't Too Much to Love (Bill Callahan's latest is a fantastic low key country/folk affair that gives Red Apple Falls stiff competition for the title of My Favourite Smog Album)
Red House Painters - Songs for a Blue Guitar (I downloaded the album because my sister wanted a song off of it and the whole thing turned out to be great)
Cat Power - The Greatest (No, it's not a greatest hits compilation but it is great [maybe not quite the superlative, cause that would have to go to Moon Pix])
The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday (A few issues ago I recommended their first album Almost Killed Me and at the time I was afraid to listen to this one for fear that it wouldn't live up to the awesomeness of that album. It does)
Lifter Puller - Half Dead and Dynamite (This was Craig Finn's band before he formed The Hold Steady and while I think The Hold Steady's albums are superior, both this and Fiestas & Fiascos are excellent as well)
Well, that's it for this issue. I was able to successfully defer my boredom and that's really what's important. So until next time, keep fit and have fun (I know that's your line Hal Johnson, but ParticipACTION shut down five years ago so you can kiss my ass with your $5000 fee for a one hour appearance at a corporate event).

Tony Hawkins never thought Joanne Macleod was hot enough to fantasize about

Peg Life Vol. 19

2006-02-27T14:03:00.000-06:00

This edition of Peg Life is rather a special one. This will be my last Peg Life as next week Brian will murder me in a fit of rage after reading my decimating review of his first completed film, Dead Kids. Actually, that’s likely not to be true. Brian knows I’m on the level (his words), but you can bet your ass I’m not going to be gentle. I’m also going to include in this volume the review I wrote for the movie Ju-On (that’s the Japanese film upon which The Grudge was based for all you cinematic philistines). So it’s going to be kind of a movie review themed issue. I also hope to go somewhere else with it at the end, but we’ll see how that goes. Let’s begin.

Ju-On
The movie starts with the nigh obligatory montage of scenes from the bloody event (read murder) that originates the premise. Proceed to introducing the first in a long line of victims that will die as a result of the curse started by aforementioned bloody event. Here we encounter the first problem with the film: rather mediocre acting. I realize that the language difference may affect this judgment, but I would maintain this conclusion even if comparing it only to other Japanese films. I could cite Tatsuya Nakadai’s performance in Kurosawa’s Ran as an example of much better acting. But enough name dropping. The acting really isn’t that terrible (in fact, the role of the ghost or cursed woman or whatever the hell she’s supposed to be is done pretty well) it just really could have been better. That being said, there are some redeeming qualities to this movie. The actual house that was used was a terrific find and the director made very good use out of it. There are some nice and quite effective camera moves both in the house and in other locations. These could have been made even more effective with a bit better editing, but I won’t piss all over the decent job that was done simply because it wasn’t fantastic. So what about the plot? Is there one? Hardly. What scattered story there is serves mostly as filler to connect the various creepy images. There are some jumps that are made through time without warning or explanation and really only serve to confuse the viewer and (as mentioned) add more creepy scenes. For all its faults, the film does do what it’s supposed to do. The creepy scenes are genuinely creepy (though none can match the girl crawling out the television in Ringu) and the sounds serve to create a suitably unsettling atmosphere. In the final analysis Ju-On is an average film that is still better than any American horror movie made in the past ten years. **1/2 out of *****

Except House of 1000 Corpses, which starts out as a grindhouse slasher homage and stays that way throughout the whole film until just before the credits it turns into the funniest comedy of all time. But enough about Rob Zombie. The Dead Kids review is what you all came for. And by that I mean it’s what Brian came for. And maybe Trevor too. So here it is.

Dead Kids
Let me begin by saying that I’m not going to be commenting on the acting in this film. The combination of the actors being amateurs and the actors being mostly people I know makes me reluctant to say I could give criticism without too much bias. I’ll just say that I did hear some of the acting compared to year book poetry, but that’s not what I’m concerned with. I’m concerned with the substance and technique of the film. I should probably note here that some of what I write here may be considered spoiler, so if you haven’t seen the film and you intend to you might want to save reading this for later. Otherwise, continue with the fun as I tear it apart. We open with the hardcore music that is so characteristic of Brian Barnhart’s films and a rapid dialogue laced with profanity between Sass and E.T. over top of the credits. So far so good, although I did have a hard time hearing what much of the dialogue was actually saying. After the credits we’re subjected to a sequence of frenetic editing that seems to suggest… the filmmaker’s desire to use frenetic editing. Or possibly just to patch something together from a small selection of footage. This is understandable given the time and budget restraints, but you can’t blast an audience with a rapid deluge of images without giving those images a reason for being there. Take for instance Sass and E.T.’s moment of tongue sparring in the car. There doesn’t seem to be any rationale for it being there other than to be “shocking.” It happens again later when they’re in the house, but it makes more sense then because it’s part of a larger scene. Here it’s isolated and irrelevant. And then we have Brock and Daisy being kicked out of somewhere, for what we can only imagine. It ends up seeming like a wasted opportunity to introduce one of the characters in more depth. There are some individual shots that reveal a good eye for camera movements in this beginning sequence. I see this as a definite sign of potential. The fundamental problem is that the script can’t decide if it’s simply a portrait of a group of degenerate youth or some kind of love story between the Jake and Pascal characters. It’s almost as if the script were written around Jake and Pascal’s characters but the film was edited around Brock, Sass, and E.T. In my opinion the script should have been written around those characters instead. As a result of this dichotomy in focus the character development suffers. When E.T., Sass and Brock are entering the house I can’t understand why Sass tells E.T. to be quiet. Loud and obnoxious seem to be E.T.’s defining characteristics. If this is made transparent to the audience it should be blatantly obvious to the other characters and thus Sass should realize that her plea is futile. Not only that, the fact that she says this (or at least the way that she says it: “Okay, be quiet” rather than “Shut the fuck up” or “Shut up, bitch”) suggests that she cares what someone else might think of the noise, which is very much out of character. The scene with E.T. talking on her cell phone is wholly unnecessary. While it does attempt to present the character as foul mouthed and sex obsessed, this has already been established and makes the scene redundant. The best part of the film is the end sequence, filtered in blue, emulating the dim, post-dawn light. The split screen of E.T. yelling at Brock from the window came as a surprise, but even more surprising in its effectiveness at portraying that moment. I can see vast improvements coming to Brian Barnhart’s films with bigger budgets, longer shooting schedules, and more experienced actors. As for his first effort, I would describe it as Larry Clark’s Kids minus the story, character development, and 90% of the running time. And the on-screen sex. ** out of *****

And the moral of the story is: Indie does not mean good. This applies at least as much to music as it does to film. People who use a band’s popularity or level of distribution as a measure of their quality are ridiculous. I once had a girl tell me that she didn’t like Propagandhi because they were “too pop.” After I got over my initial confoundment I laughed almost as hard as I did at House of 1000 Corpses. Her logic was that her cousin listened to 50 Cent and also listened to Propagandhi, therefore Propagandhi was pop music. What was really stupid was not how wrong she was but how she rejected a band’s music because of its association to something popular. Indie does not mean good. Popular does not mean good. Good means good. Music and film, good or bad, have to be judged on their merits, not their commercial success. So there it is. Straight up. I think I’m done.

Tony Hawkins is only in it for the money

Peg Life Vol. 18

2006-02-27T14:02:00.000-06:00

Back in '92 Screwball Jones drove down to Long Beach to pistol whip his second cousin A.J. in the back of the head. He was good that way. But maybe then again that's the wrong thing to say. He was dyslexic, had forty-two wallets. The one has little to do with the other. But he would hear none of it. His backward money collection was his prized possession. He showed it off to everybody. Crisp notes, corroded coins, cancelled cheques, U.O.I.s. Reality blindsided him, as it is commonly wont to do, with a truck. He fell hard for the driver and it lasted a month. It occurred to him as he was leaving the hospital that when she sped away leaving the pile of broken ribs and tibia on the pavement she had not left her phone number and he had no way to contact her. He fell hard again in the parking lot. This time he got up and walked away.
Sunset Perry fell for a waitress in teal. He'd never the seen the shade of red that colored her lips. Like chewed meat and brake lights. She slid a plate, two eggs and toast, onto the formica table. She even brought the syrup without him having to ask. How the hell did she know he liked syrup on his toast? He never found out. He paid his bill to the squat wrinkled lady behind the register and left. Turns out it was early onset senility. Perry came back and asked the waitress on a date. She said yes. And forgot. Perry stayed awake all night but it didn't help. She called when Perry had gone to the corner store. He ate canned soup in the salad days and now he was buying it again. He'd have bought youth in a can if it was 99 cents. He knows there's so much for you and he'll tell it like a secret. When you stop reacting to the word razorblade you can have it back.

Tony Hawkins is all about losing

Peg Life Vol. 17

2006-02-27T14:01:00.001-06:00

The following albums are recommended by me, Antony Matthew Hawkins (I would bet that even those people who knew my full name at one time have forgotten it until this moment):
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Shake the Sheets (Possibly the best album I've ever downloaded and forgotten about until recently)
System of a Down - Hypnotize (I would not find it difficult to say this is my favourite System of a Down album [Vicinity of Obscenity is their best song since I-E-A-I-A-I-O])
Propagandhi - Potemkin City Limits (See also Peg Life Vol. 11)
The Hold Steady - Almost Killed Me (Ask me the definition of rock and roll and I will name this album)
Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary (I forgot why I loved I'll Believe in Anything so much and then I remembered it's the best song on an already great album)
Lady Sovereign - Vertically Challenged (If you like this check out Dizzee Rascal, Wiley, and Shystie [if you don't I'm pretty sure you should go fuck yourself {if the reason you don't like it is that you don't like hip-hop in general you should learn to appreciate music on its own terms and/or go fuck yourself}])
Kaizers Orchestra - Ompa Til Du Dør (When's the last time you heard a band sing in Norwegian anyway?)
Somaphore - In the Hands of Everyone We Know (OK, so this one hasn't actually been recorded yet and I'm not even sure the title is final but when it does come out it is going to be incredibly awesome. So awesome in fact that upon its release I will have to take my own life as I will never accomplish anything else of comparable value. In actuality I probably won't kill myself. I'll end up getting married and having children and harboring bitter resentment towards them for not living up to the magnificence of "that album I wrote the lyrics for when I was in my twenties")
So Danny's gone for three days and I'm alone in the apartment. I feel simultaneously lonely and liberated. On the one hand I can do whatever the fuck I want, but on the other I have no one to talk to or otherwise interact with. Walking around naked can only maintain its novelty for so long. It hasn't run out yet, but it's only a matter of time.

Tony Hawkins isn't nearly as interesting as he makes himself out to be

Peg Life Vol. 16

2006-02-27T14:01:00.000-06:00

Have you ever had a stripper take off her clothes and then tell you to put them on? Wouldn't that be weird? Yeah, it kinda was.

Tony Hawkins is the new Wonder Woman

Peg Life Vol. 15

2006-02-27T14:00:00.000-06:00

Winter came on quick, like a shot in the back or a kick in the face. Everyone knew it was coming but no one suspected it. Even after the initial shock it didn't prevent hundreds of adolescent girls from donning midriff shirts and miniskirts in order to impress god knows who while attending Gwen Stefani's performance at the MTS Centre. In three days concerts at that venue have managed to break several records in my experience. While Nine Inch Nails was certainly louder in sheer volume Gwen Stefani's show (or rather the audience in attendance) was the most ear piercingly shrill thing I have had occasion to sit through. I had the misfortune of sitting directly in front of a girl who apparently took great pride in her ability to whistle at frequencies usually reserved for calling dogs or viewing fetuses in utero. While this audience could only come in at a tie at best with the NIN audience for amount of eye liner they did collectively bring enough sparkle makeup to paint a Cessna. The ratio of females to males was easily 4:1 and though it is improbable I would not doubt it if I was the only guy who was there alone. Whatever this says about me is surely irrelevant, so don't bother bringing it up. I paid my sixty bucks to see M.I.A. and I did. And it was enjoyable. Though it most likely would have been more so if the setting had been a warehouse full of people on ecstasy. Nevertheless, jumping at the rare opportunity to see one of my favorite British musical acts live has left me with no regrets. I even considered purchasing some merch, but I simply couldn't justify spending $40 on a t-shirt. I thought about asking "What can I get for 10 dollar" but I didn't think anyone would even get it, much less reply "Anyting you want." So I had to settle for simply hearing that from Maya Arulpragasam. As for the headliner herself, she put on a good show. It was very elaborate, though less stunning than NIN's eschatonic spectacular. There was some very impressive break dancing, however. And speaking of impressive moves, go here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6243945917683426336&q=joe+eigo I assure you you will either say or at least think "Holy shit." And speaking of shit, I was amused by the number of times Gwen Stefani said "fuck." Or "fucking" to be more precise. But she could have said she was a Bolshevik space monkey while baboons riffled through her platinum blonde coif and still have had complete control of the audience. Disappointingly, she did not do that. It was nice of her to bring a bunch of the audience up onto the stage during the finale of Hollaback Girl, though. I'm sure they were thrilled. They probably chattered about it constantly the whole ride home. As for me, I got on the bus and came back to an empty apartment to write this email... Oh god, I'm so alone. And that concludes this issue of Peg Life. As of right now, I've decided to put the mailings on hiatus for a bit. Why? I have my reasons. And no, it's not JUST because I bought a Playstation. If enough people tell me not to stop, then I'll reconsider but otherwise it may be a while before volume 16. So all you sniveling indie kids, HOLD STEADY!

Tony Hawkins recommends asking Trevor what that last line references

Peg Life Vol. 14

2006-02-27T13:59:00.000-06:00

My eyes burn and my ears ring. The grinding throbs still reverberate through my spine. Today Nine Inch Nails unleashed the most apocalyptic deluge of thrashing rock grandiosity ever to be seen on stage in Peg City. Even the godlike performance of System of a Down was bowled over by the onslaught of superdistorted guitars, pounding drums, mechanized keyboards, and the screams of Trent Reznor. Every song was a marvel of stage production, with enough lights, flashing and swirling, to induce seizures in a million epileptics. Everything was spectacle, Reznor throwing out his few "Thanks you"s to the crowd from the darkness between songs. Their performance was the brightest, loudest, and most awe inducing display I have ever had the privilege to witness. It never let up, coming back more than once from what I was sure would be the end to lay siege to the senses once more. After a relatively unostentatious (though no less gripping) performance of Hurt, NIN blasted through The Hand That Feeds to end on Head Like a Hole, tossing their guitars away in the finale to leave the audience bathed in spotlights and feedback. After today the only band that I could possibly be so amazed by would be Tool. Or possibly Radiohead, but Tool would rock harder. I'm afraid that's all I have to say today. Good night.

Tony Hawkins holds onto a hanging misstep

Peg Life Vol. 13

2006-02-27T13:58:00.001-06:00

For the past few days I've been toying with the idea of writing this issue as separate, unique emails to each person on the list. I thought it would be cool if I wrote it as 25(, 30, or however many readers there are) sections that make some sense on their own but require the other parts to get the whole message. Then everybody would have to communicate with each other to share the different parts of the story (if it had any story to it) and everyone would laud me for how clever my idea was and tell me how they really enjoyed collecting all the pieces and would I sign their printout of the completed email and did I want to go back to their place to make out with an unspoken agreement that this would lead to oral sex. But then I realized that I couldn't be sure which people on the mailing list actually bother to read these, so if I sent a piece to someone who never checks their email then the whole house of cards collapses. Checkmate. So then I thought, OK, maybe it's not feasible to try to unify separate versions in that fashion. I could still just write individual emails to the 25 or 30 people and not try to connect them at all. It would give Peg Life a more personal feel, if only for one issue. But whether or not Peg Life needs a personal feel is beside the point because if I did it like that it wouldn't be Peg Life at all. It would just be me writing to most of the people I know while having "Peg Life Vol. 13" in the subject line. On the other hand, that's essentially what I'm doing right now. My laziness pipes up and points out that the alternative would require writing 25 or 30 different emails. This way all I have to do is one. It was really the first idea that would have made the whole thing at all interesting. I suppose I could now ask everybody who reads this to reply to me and tell me if you would be willing/able to participate, but a large part of the appeal to such a little game would have been the surprise. I could have asked people to reply for a different reason and maintained an ulterior motive, but that rarely works properly. This way everybody knows what they're getting into, so you would have to be interested to play. I suspect the puzzle is still more fun knowing how it works than doing it with people who don't care or aren't there. And speaking of puzzles, go to www.deathball.net/notpron. It will make you feel something. Getting back on track, I'll base my decision to write a puzzle story on what I hear from people. And maybe I'll write individual emails to everybody anyway. Or maybe just some people. Or maybe no one. Who knows. Whatever happens, hopefully it's more interesting than this has been. Perhaps I haven't eaten enough Buick Skylarks today. And my pencil shavings are wearing awfully thin. I'd better have these things checked by an optometrist. It's no use going five days without a blender. I'll tell you one thing though; it's too bad they took away corduroy. I'm dolphin fermentarium. Scorch a ladle. Dressing parsed on flacid paste. Actuary.

Tony Hawkins chortles noisesomely a dirge

Peg Life Vol. 12

2006-02-27T13:58:00.000-06:00

It's late. It's after karaoke. I should go to sleep. But I made a commitment. To myself and, by extension, to all of you. I made a commitment to get something written today and Peg Life is going to be it. I also made a commitment to cleaning my room and rearranging our furniture today but instead I read William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and took a nap. Ah, well. Some things you get done and some things you don't. And since I'm doing this I'm breaking some records. Admittedly, they're records that only pertain to me, but if there was ever an excuse to use writing for ego-inflation, think of it and pretend I'm doing that. You should probably be aware of what I'm talking about as I mentioned it fairly explicitly in the last issue. A volume twelve is the farthest I've gone in transcribing a loosely connected series of brainwave patterns via the Information Superhighway as it unfortunately never maintained being called. So throw up your hands. And when your done vomitting, lift your bloody stumps into the air. There's very little meat in the hand. It's no wonder you had to eat both. But that's the way it goes in the wild, wild west. Well I'm a badass cowboy livin' in the cowboy days, eatin' my own hands cause I went mad from syphilis. I don't think Will Smith is in enough movies where he has to eat his own hands. I really believe they made a mistake in taking that scene out of Ali. And speaking of Muhammad Ali and syphilis, Friedrich Nietzsche died of syphilis. I guess Muhammad Ali doesn't really have anything to do with that. Except that at the University of Basel in 1869 Nietzsche's students would chant "Nietzsche, boombayay!" and he would shadowbox for them. I'm sorry if you were expecting more, but I simply can't come up with anything to top the image of Friedrich Nietzsche shadowboxing in front of a bunch of 19th century German academics so that's all I'm going write.

Tony Hawkins still hasn't thought of anything

Peg Life Vol. 11

2006-02-27T13:57:00.000-06:00

I had a pretty shitty day on Monday. It started before the sun was even risen. I wake up a little after 5:30 and walked down the street to the University of Winnipeg, as I do most Mondays, to co-host the Hangover Cure with Gavin on CKUW. I get there around 5:45 and Gavin isn't there yet. At this point I'm not really concerned because I'm usually there before he is. So I wait around for twenty minutes and still no one has shown up. I take a walk around the building and then decide to head back home, eager to grab some extra sleep. After I get home I get undressed and crawl into bed. I'm under the covers for less than half an hour when the phone rings and it's Gavin saying his alarm got fucked up and he'll be at the station in five minutes and blah blah blah. I sigh and say I'll meet him there. I go back to the university and we do the show minus forty-five minutes. During the show we cut my beard off on the air. It wasn't as entertaining as I had hoped it could have been, but for the next few hours the shittiness remits. After my post-show nap I get up, get showered, shaved, and all that shit. Then I get ready to go out and run some errands. My intention is to go pay a couple of MTS bills and take out some cash to pay rent. I run into the first snag when I go outside and find that my car is gone. My first thought is "Fuck," then I think "Fuck," and third I think "Ah, fuck." There's not a whole lot I can do so I walk down to pay the bills and that goes fine. Then I stop at the bank machine to get some money. Rent at my apartment is $405 so I punch $420 into the machine and wait for it to process. Moments later I'm reading a message on the screen saying I have exceeded my daily withdrawal limit and can't have that much cash. So I think "Fuck," and then I think "Fuck," and finally I think "Fuck it, I'm going to the police station to find out what the fuck happened to my car." I go there, talk to the cop at the counter, he looks up my license plate in the computer. He tells me that it's not stolen. Worse. It's been towed. Now I've got to spend $80 to get it out of impound and on top of that I've got a $35 ticket. At least if it was stolen I might have gotten some insurance money and I wouldn't have to pay to renew my Autopac. I end up taking the bus down to the impound lot, getting my car and driving home. I decide to write about how shitty my day was for Vol. 11. I write about halfway to this point and take a break to go to the bathroom. When I get back I find the computer is frozen and I haven't saved anything. I think "Fuck" a few more times then make my way down to Hooligan's to get drunk. I'm disappointed to find Maggie not hosting, but fortunately that's the last bad news of the evening as I play a few good games of pool and sing some cool songs. And that was Monday. On a different note, this issue brings Peg Life into a tie with Words from B.C. for Most Emails in a Series Written By Me. Words from B.C. still holds the titles of Longest Running Email Series Written By Me (eleven weeks) and Most Words in an Email Series Written By Me (approximately 75,000). If anyone has not (and would care to) read it, I have attached a Word document containing the Second through Eleventh Words from B.C. I leave it to each of your own devices to do with what you will. Potemkin City Limits is the fourth full length album release from Propagandhi, not counting the collection of rarities, live tracks, and covers entitled Where Quantity is Job #1. On first listen I was admittedly a bit skeptical. It was obvious from the very beginning that it followed the same progression in sound that began with Today's Empires Tomorrow's Ashes four years ago. In fact, when considered chronologically, their albums make readily apparent the linear path in the evolution of their sound. The latest album draws more from the hardcore and metal aspects that coloured Today's Empires, and while this takes it further from the poppier (though no less intelligent) sound of Less Talk, More Rock, it is a natural step forward. The harsher sound also complements the grim vision of the album perfectly. One almost feels as much sadness for those performing the music as for the subject matter they handle. Like Today's Empires, I found Potemkin City Limits to be slightly off-putting at first, but growing better and better with each listen. I highly recommend it. Next time, if I'm still really into it, I'll rave about Editors' album The Back Room. Until then.

Tony Hawkins having so much sepsis distracts

Peg Life Vol. 10

2006-02-27T13:55:00.001-06:00

Movies and/or television shows that have made me cry (also includes times that tears welled up in my eyes and I probably would have cried if I hadn't held back) in semi-chronological order:
Return of the Jedi - Even at a very young age I loved the Star Wars movies but there was a time when Jabba the Hutt frightened me to tears. There's also a scene where two Ewoks are running and there's an explosion and one of them gets up and tries to shake the other one to get him moving and then he realizes he's dead that's made me a bit misty once or twice
Cheetah - A mediocre Disney movie about some kids who raise a cheetah cub and then have to return it to the wild. I was about eight years old at the time and the sappy, emotional ending got to me. I should rent it again and watch it. But it would probably end up being like Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend; much more boring and horrible than I remember. And no, I did not cry when I watched Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, now or fifteen years ago.
Mississippi Burning - Indirectly. I didn't actually watch the movie but I remember hearing parts of it when my parents watched it years ago. One line that stuck with me was "Do you have any idea how much you bleed when you cut off a man's balls?" It gave me nightmares where I saw that happening and I closed my eyes but could still see it. The nightmares were what actually made me cry.
Chicago Hope - Back in the early seasons when Mandy Patinkin was still on the show. The episode where Peter MacNicol's character gets shot and killed in a robbery made me cry. I think that was the first time I invested enough attention to have an emotional connection with the characters of a television show.
Schindler's List - I can't imagine this needing any explanation.
Saving Private Ryan - Spielberg certainly has a knack for jerking tears with World War II stories. The beach sequence was horrifying, but not quite as emotionally devastating as Schindler's List
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - When Gandalf fell from the bridge of Khazad-Dum I wasn't the only one in the theatre with eyes not dry. Boromir's death scene too.
House of 1000 Corpses - With laughter. When the final frame of that movie came up The End and after a slight pause ? I nearly shit myself. The timing was absolutely perfect and it struck me in just the right way that I couldn't help but find it colossally hysterical.
Fahrenheit 9/11 - I was in kind of a Buddhist frame of mind when I watched it and I felt such empathy with all the sorrow I was seeing that I had to weep silently.
Millenium Actress - Probably the most heartbreakingly beautiful love story I have ever seen. Should be required viewing for anyone who doubts the dramatic resonance of animated films in general and anime in particular.
Six Feet Under - There are several episodes that have drawn it out of me. Especially the tenth episode of the fifth season, which I watched today. Besides the emotional impact of the story, there were scenes that inspired flashbacks to my grandmother's memorial at my uncle's in Ottawa. This only served to potentiate more sobbing and resulted in the whole affair being particularly cathartic. I had to lie in the dark and listen to Sigur Ros before I could sit down to write this. I think it was worth it.

Tony Hawkins is drained

Peg Life Vol. 9

2006-02-27T13:55:00.000-06:00

So we're up to nine now. If that has any significance let me know. I'll be leaving shortly to attend a live musical performance by The Paperbacks and The Organ. It might have been better to delay writing this until after the show so that I would have something to write about, but I wanted to get this out tonight and I'm not going to have time to do any writing later tonight. This, of course, presents the problem that I don't have a topic to go on for this email. However, that rarely stops me for long and I end up blathering about rather pointless subjects. Well, for that I apologize. There are a few things I would like to get into at some point but they can't be done tonight for various reasons. I've been reading a lot of short stories lately. Recently, I finished Charles Bukowski's Hot Water Music. I then began on a book of poetry by William Blake but I set it aside when I acquired a copy of Jerrad's self-published collection of short fiction entitled The Unfortunate Side of You. I've so far read half of it and would like to take this opportunity to ask Jerrad if he would be comfortable with me writing a review (once I've finished reading it) for one of the Peg Life volumes. If not, I understand. I would also be willing to write a private review if requested. Granted, I don't have extensive training in literary criticism so my opinion probably wouldn't help or hinder an emerging authorial career. It turns out I didn't finish this email and send it out before going to see The Organ so I do have the opportunity to write about it non-speculatively. I'm just not sure there's that much to say about it. Overall it was a good show. The Paperbacks rocked through their set quite effectively. One particular song caught my attention with a refrain of "Publish or perish." It got me thinking a little bit about why I write and whether I could write anything worthy of publishing and whether it would have any impact on anyone. I have a bit of a problem continuing with a single idea for an extended period of time. That's kind of why I prefer to write poetry over prose. A poem doesn't have to be very long. I often find it difficult to finish even a short story. Perhaps that's something that I should work on. These comments may serve to undercut some of the criticisms I would have of Jerrad's work as pretty much anything is more than I've done. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the thought that most literary critics are failed authors themselves. As I said, I'm no literary critic and I wouldn't exactly call myself a failed author (yet) but, you know, whatever, or something... So The Organ was great too. They grooved along their repertoire while I basked in their indie rock hotness. Their album is called Grab That Gun. Go out and get it. Especially if you're into The Smiths and Joy Division and more recent bands of that ilk such as Editors (Trevor can attest to their goodness). If you're more into hip-hop the other album that I'm recommending lately is Danger Doom's The Mouse and the Mask. The back to back songs Benzi Box and Old School are standouts. I'm about done for this week. Next week I'll tell you about the new Propagandhi album, and whatever else interesting comes up in the interim. Doop doopa doo.

Tony Hawkins alienated offhand strategies for living

Peg Life Vol. 8

2006-02-27T13:54:00.001-06:00

God fucking Christ ass bitch fuck. Fuck you cock smoking ass bitch mother fuckers. Son of a shit fuck whore bastard Jesus cunt. I hate you all I'm going to kill you shit fucks. Wait. No. I meant, GOD FUCKING CHRIST ASS BITCH FUCK FUCK YOU COCK SMOKING ASS BITCH MOTHER FUCKERS SON OF A SHIT FUCK WHORE BASTARD JESUS CUNT I HATE YOU ALL I'M GOING TO KILL YOU SHIT FUCKS!! But what the hell is the point of saying all that? The majority of it isn't even true. I've had so many ideas to write about this week that not only was I delayed in sending this out, I decided not to go with any of them. Actually, having a lot of ideas had relatively little impact on when I sent this out. Laziness and misplaced priorities would be more legitimate reasons. And by legitimate I mean true. I had this one idea that would have had the issue open with a dialogue between a guy walking down the street and another guy who is robbing him with a switchblade. It would have gone such that the guy getting robbed talks his way out of it with logic but I couldn't figure out how to make it seem realistic. It always ended with the mugger getting frustrated and killing the guy. I also had several ideas come to me as a result of a chat I had with Trevor about film. It started on documentaries and then moved on to historical fiction and I was multiply intoxicated so whenever I said anything it involved a lot of stuttering reconsiderations of wording that never come across in my writings. I generally try to keep some representation of the flow of my thoughts in these writings, but it's much more satisfying taking the time to express myself as accurately as I want. I got Wolf Parade's album Apologies to the Queen Mary recently. While I didn't enjoy it as much as Arcade Fire's Funeral, I did fall in love with the song I'll Believe in Anything. In the case of both bands listening to their albums is rather disappointing after seeing them live. I suppose after a while, when the memory of the event has faded, the recorded material will become more enjoyable again. On Tuesday (that is to say, yesterday) Harfield "requested" that I discuss the topic of "homo-sociality," but that's too gay. I don't know if I've told enough of the people that will receive this how great an album Pavement's Terror Twilight is. It is incredibly good. Every song has at least five things to offer. Major Leagues is a particularly great track and it was featured on the WB's unfortunately short-lived animated television show Mission Hill. I also recommend the WB's unfortunately short-lived animated television show Mission Hill. And Clone High is coming to DVD. That show's even better than Mission Hill. I challenge anyone to watch it and not end up quoting it incessantly. Did you see the pool? They FLIPPED the bitch! I hope this has been entertaining enough for you greedy pricks. And as I told Harfield, if you want to request a topic for me I want everyone to read it so do a Reply All. That's it you cock mongering shit face fuckwads.

Tony Hawkins losing more and more friends every day

Peg Life Vol. 7

2006-02-27T13:54:00.000-06:00

Last night I wrote what I thought would be Peg Life Vol. 7 in a state of theoretical sobriety. I hadn't drunk nor smoked (nor injected, inserted, insufflated or otherwise ingested) anything but I wasn't necessarily in a usual state of mind. Then again, what's a usual state of mind. *Irrelevant, that's what. Get back on track.* Right, so it ended up being really personal and confessional and when I thought about it in light of everyone I was sending it to I changed my mind and didn't. Then I'm browsing around the Wikipedia website today and I come across the Wikiquote page so I decide to peruse some quotes from literature. I click on a link for Atlas Shrugged and the third quote from the top is "It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener." This got me thinking, not about how the other version of this email could/would have been embarassing (embarassing confessions are different from embarassing opinions), but about something I got into briefly in that other version. That is, the nature of the audience. *Ooh, he's talking about the NATURE of something. Doesn't THAT sound deep and meaningful. Prepare to reexamine your entire concept of an audience. Let's hear it.* Fuck off. Well now I've got performance anxiety. I can't write about this topic. My philosophical hard on is withering. I also brought up not being able to do anything about the beginning or end of life and how it was just a really long middle. It was only slightly more clever than the way I just described it. Today I listened to William Shatner's 1968 album The Transformed Man. It was one of the most bewildering things I've ever heard. It consists of him reading Shakespearean excerpts and popular music from the sixties accompanied by musical arrangements that sound the score of a Star Trek episode. I'm not sure if I can actually recommend seeking it out, but if you do, his rendition of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds will either make you laugh your ass off or want to burn Shatner at the stake for blasphemy. If there is anything to be taken from the album it is gratitude that you've never seen William Shatner actually portray King Henry V, Romeo, or Hamlet. In fact, as a person who sees value in the potential of mystical experiences, I dare say the title track goes so far as to offend me. But I won't give Bill a hard time about it. He's had to endure so many nerds that I think he's suffered enough. Plus, that was almost forty years ago. He's gone on to do bigger and better things. Like Star Trek V. Rescue 911. TekWar. The children have to learn about TekWar sooner or later. That's it. I'm done. I have to sleep.

Tony Hawkins formed formica for me.

Peg Life Vol. 6

2006-02-27T13:53:00.000-06:00

After all was said and done I kind of felt like the whole Good Friday Experiment topic ended up being a little forced. I said I was going to do it and I put a time limit on myself by saying it would be in the next issue and I don't think I made it as interesting as I could possibly have done. In reality the reason I even thought of it in the first place was that I was reading the Winnipeg Sun one day (Danny keeps bringing them home from 7-11 [though I would much rather read the Free Press {but that is rather irrelevant }]) when I happened upon Miss Lonelyheart's column. Normally I would pass over this section rather quickly, but for some reason this one I read (it may have been the headline though I don't remember what it was). Getting straight to the point, the letter to the column consisted of an amateurish rant regarding how magic mushrooms can open our eyes to how shitty the world is and how good it could be and that's why they are made illegal and so forth. All very derivative of Bill Hicks (he was actually plagiarized directly if I'm not mistaken) but without the irony of satire. Miss Lonelyheart apparently just laughed at the kooky nutjob who had written in to her column. It made me want to write to her and restate the case with some measure of eloquence. Not that I wish to demean the person that wrote the letter because I respect the willingness to express such views, even to an obviously incredulous audience. I just hate it when people who do drugs do dumb things (or even just things that make them seem dumb) because it gives a bad name to all people who do drugs, even the ones that aren't dumb. I realize how that may sound awfully pompous and condescending of me, though to be fair I didn't give any explicit indication that I wasn't one of the dumb ones. Until now. I do drugs and I'm not dumb. Have I done dumb things? Yes. While on drugs? No, they weren't dumb while I was on drugs.

Tony Hawkins paints patiently your half-ton

Peg Life Vol. 5

2006-02-27T13:52:00.000-06:00

The unrefined marijuana smoker overlooks many glaring subtleties that dot the landscape of full enjoyment of cannabis consumption. The destitute smoker may simply sublimate some aspects of appreciation in order to acquire raw chemical sensation. "Scraping a pipe," "torching a bowl." These terms are marks of desperation to the true coinosseur. If a pipe is to be used, glass. Always glass. Delicate, yet firm. Natural, yet crafted by human touch. Simple, and pure. Giving nothing, taking nothing away. The glass reflects; feminine and phallic. The plant gives pleasure filtered by physical membranes ingrained in solidified bodies bordering consciousness. The will persists in giving orders, out to flooded sensory organs. Heavy weightlessness assists in maintaining motionlessness. And then out of nowhere I listen to Death Cab for Cutie's I Will Follow You Into the Dark and I have a new favorite song and I start thinking I don't know what love is anymore. I think I thought I did once, maybe twice. Then I listen to another Death Cab for Cutie song and I hear "Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole / Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound / But while you debate half empty or half full / It slowly rises, your love is gonna drown," but in moments I am hearing a song called Soul Meets Body and in a similar span my thoughts have swung back from love to psychological and metaphysical philosophy and how the religious demand answers to its most puzzling questions and cannot accept any that are not categorical. Then after rereading this later I figure this point would be a good one from which to segue into the Good Friday Experiment, as I said I would write about it this time because I received some replies. The Good Friday Experiment was a psychological experiment carried out on Good Friday of 1962 at Boston University by Walter Pahnke. It was designed to investigate the potential of psychedelic drugs to facilitate mystical experience and it worked like this: Before the church services began, twenty Protestant divinity students were given capsules to ingest. Half of students received a 30mg dose of psilocybin, half received a non-psychoactive chemical that produced sensations similar to the early physical effects of psilocybin. They were then divided into groups and accompanied by ten research assistants to a private chapel in which the main chapel's service was being broadcast. The idea was to compare the experiences of those under the influence of a psychedelic drug against a control group while in a setting conducive to religious feeling. The volunteers were interviewed immediately afterward, several days later, and after six months. A questionnaire of about 150 questions was given to each of the participants as well. This questionnaire was designed to measure the extent to which the subjects had demonstrated the criteria of a mystical experience. What was found was that these criteria were overwhelmingly more apparent in those students who had ingested the psilocybin. While the experiment is the most scientific investigation into the potentially mystical effects of psychedelic drugs ever carried out, it has unfortunately never since been able to be reproduced due to the illegality of the substances under examination. It is disheartening to know how politics and fear can disrupt and prevent learning and spiritual growth. So to all of you I say never enter politics and never be afraid.

Tony Hawkins missed half the pulpit waving

Peg Life Vol. 4

2006-02-27T13:51:00.001-06:00

I'm going to start this one off with some stuff that happened over the past week but later I'll be getting into a more specific and interesting topic so stay tuned. Three days ago I had the pleasure of witnessing two of my favourite vocalists and their respective bands deliver explosions of rock awesomeness to thousands of young Winnipeggers. Together with Maynard James Keenan (who I've been fortunate enough to see perform twice [albeit not in his greatest incarnation as the frontman of Tool]), Serj Tankian of System of a Down and Cedric Bixler of The Mars Volta (formerly of At the Drive-In) comprise the penultimate triumvirate of rock singers. Such a statement is likely to provoke disagreement punctuated by indignation at what I am about to say. One could argue that Mike Patton is a required entry on any list of greatest rock vocalists no matter the length. While there may be some truth to this I really don't care. Mike Patton does not make my list. Axl Rose comes up but then quickly descends when everybody realizes that he hasn't been relevant in at least fifteen years. Robert Plant's time is way past over. Ditto Ozzy Osbourne. A case could be made for Chino Moreno and I'd be tempted to agree. However, it is a triad and unfortunately he comes in fourth. Lemmy Kilminster defnitely has a badass factor that's hard to ignore, but he's certainly not the better singer. Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, and Chris Cornell could all suck my dick and they still wouldn't make my top three. The only real competition would come from Karen O. And if she sucked my dick I'd make it quaternary just to fit her in. Well I was going to write something about the Good Friday Experiment but I went longer than I figured I would so maybe I'll just leave it at that. Tell you what. If anybody wants to know what the Good Friday Experiment is without having to look it up, just send me a reply to this. Any reply at all. If anyone does I'll make it the subject of volume five. In the meantime I'll leave you with a short excerpt from an MSN conversation I had with Joe that contains an awesomely clever (if I do say so myself) burn. Enjoy.
Joe: i should have made my move
Joe: i saw how she looked at me
Joe: she always looked at my bulge
Me: too bad she didn't look a little farther down. she could have seen your penis
And that's all for this week. Tune in next time for more adventures in post-modernism with your host:

Tony Hawkins facing dead dogs on a barbecue grill

Peg Life Vol. 3

2006-02-27T13:51:00.000-06:00

In about five hours I have to wake up and walk down the street to the University of Winnipeg to co-host a radio show. And I had this whole idea for this thing I was going to write about, but then I went and reexamined the subject and realized that my idea no longer made sense so I had to abandon it. That can be kind of frustrating but I guess I shouldn't complain too much since this whole Peg Life concept seems to be coming along smoothly. Although there really isn't much of a concept behind it. In fact this edition may very well be driving it right into the ground. I don't have anything important or even that interesting to say. I don't know why I bothered trying to write a third issue so soon. Perhaps just because I'm bored but that's pretty stupid as I could be using this time to sleep for reasons I outlined in the opening sentence. I don't want this to be a total waste, though, so maybe I'll share with you all my recipe for bean dip. Some of you have already tried it and know it's pretty good. My methods for its preparation are no secret so it seems like a good idea to share them with everybody so they can all enjoy it. You start with a regular size can of brown beans in tomato sauce and one of black beans. Then you open the cans and drain the juices out of the beans (I like to rinse the black beans in a strainer but this isn't necessary). Put the beans into a pot and set it on the stove on low heat (the beans are a bit easier to mash up when they're warm). While the beans are warming up dice up some onion (I recommend red onion but any will do) and a couple cloves of garlic. You'll also want to dice some peppers as well. You could use green pepper but the sweetness of yellow and orange peppers is far superior. For those who aren't pansies and can take a little spiciness, throw a couple jalapenos into the mix (but don't handle its juices and then rub your eye cause fuck can that be painful [yes, I am speaking from experience]). For wussier folk I recommend serrano peppers instead. They're similar to jalapeno but not as hot. This is usually all I put in as far as vegetables but you coud add other stuff. Corn would work well (not creamed or popping) and even celery could be alright. Once you've got all your vegetables chopped up you'll be sauteeing them in some extra virgin olive oil (or whatever cooking oil you have around). You'll also need to get around to mashing up the beans into a paste. Some potato mashers work well for this, others don't. If yours is one of the latter figure something else out to use. As you're sauteeing your vegetables you can stir your spices into the bean paste. I like to mix a couple tablespoons of salsa in as well, though this is not critical. You can pretty much use whatever spices you feel like, just remember this is Mexican food, not Italian. Oregano will not work. Cumin, however, is absolutely necessary. You can never have too much cumin (note: this statement is not to be taken literally). Something I tried recently was to squeeze some lime juice over the sauteeing vegetables and mxing some cumin in there as well to cook the flavor into the vegetables. Once said vegetables are done, mix them into the spiced bean paste. At this point you could also melt some cream cheese into it. Vegans could, of course, skip this step and move on to the next step which is to squeeze about half a small lime into the dip (or more if you feel like it). Give it a final stir to make sure everything's mixed up good and you're done. It's a great dip for taco chips hot or cold, or you could wrap it in a flour tortilla and bake in the oven to have a bean burrito. And there you have it. My food of the summer. It's very simple and less work than it sounds like. If anyone tries making it, let me know how it turns out. Until next time.

Tony Hawkins borrowing fig newtons to sabotage ulcers

Peg Life Vol. 2

2006-02-27T13:50:00.000-06:00

I didn't expect to be writing a second edition of Peg Life so soon (less than 24 hours) after the first but I had some stuff to say, so here we are. I also didn't expect to be moved by your gravestone. And if you get that you're probably Joe. What is it that's so important that I feel I should fill people's mailboxes with even more garbage? I'm getting to that. I don't tell you how to do your job so just back off, alright. I recommend that everybody buy or download the Smog album Red Apple Falls (and no, this still isn't the raison d'etre of this issue) or alternatively just the song I Was a Stranger. As long as I'm recommending songs and you're all dutifully following my suggestions, you should also get John Wayne Gacy, Jr. by Sufjan Stevens from the ingeniously titled album Sufjan Stevens Invites You to Come On Feel the Illinoise. Being on the subject of music actually works out quite well as the stuff I had to say is on that very topic. So I'm at work today and the radio is tuned into "Today's BEST music, Q94 FM." I copy some Fiery Furnaces to one of the computers from my mp3 player and put that on while I'm setting up another computer as a display unit. I finish and go about working on some other tasks. After a while my music stops playing and I don't bother putting anything else on. Meanwhile Q94 is still playing in the background. Later in the evening I hear "Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit helpless and I'm lying like a child in your arms. Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit angry..." and I realize it's Total Eclipse of the Heart, but it's not the original version. So I turn around, right there and then I listen a little bit closer and I hear the techno beat so I think, "Oh, it's a techno remix. Or perhaps a techno cover would be more accurate cause it's not the original vocals either." I make a mental note about how the song sucks and go back to work. Then a little while later I'm tidying up one of the aisles and another song comes on the radio. It sounds like a teenage girl and I think "Lindsay Lohan? No. Avril Lavigne? No. Hilary Duff? Hmm." "Let the rain fall down and wake my dreams. Let it wash away my sanity." *shudder* "Yep... Wait a minute. What's with the vocoder? ANOTHER fucking techno remix?" And that prompted me to set my keyboard on my lap and start typing. I am really fucking sick of lame-ass techno remixes and covers getting airtime on the radio. It's especially bad when the remixed song was lame-ass to begin with. If I'm not mistaken, it started with that version of Gordon Lightfoot's If You Could Read My Mind that achieved ubiquity a few years ago. Then there was Bryan Adams' Heaven. Now Total Eclipse of the Heart and I've also heard a techno version of Don Henley's Boys of Summer. The Come Clean remix sickens me less because of butchery of a song than the fact that it gives radio programmers an excuse to play more Hilary Duff. So the next time you hear someone say "Hey, have you heard the techno remix of (insert song here)? It's awesome," punch them.

Tony Hawkins glistening like muttonchops on grocery bags

Peg Life Vol. 1

2006-02-27T13:49:00.000-06:00

So I'm sitting here at my computer listening to a playlist of Iron & Wine, Smog, and Sufjan Stevens and it occurs to me that I might just be intoxicated enough to write something interesting enough to email to a relatively large group of people and call it "Peg Life Vol. 1." And that's just what I decide to do. Sure it's getting on to 3:00 in the morning and I have to work tomorrow, but if I don't lay down the law and kick my ass into getting this business started then who will? No one. That's who. And don't give me that smug smile and say you knew that was the answer because everyone knew the answer so you really can't be so goddamned smug about it. This is the point where I check myself and think that maybe it's not such a good idea to be berating my readers right out of the gate. I'm pretty sure I waited eleven issues to do that last time (Note: Here we have a reference to the last series of regular mass mailings I authored. For more information on this literary milestone email Tony Hawkins at amh_kaydyn@hotmail.com). Of course when I did I got rather vicious so I suppose I don't have to be too hard on myself. And irrelevant as all that is it's not half as irrelevant as the sentence you're currently reading and if you don't believe me watchSee, that sentence was so unnecessary I didn't even bother to finish it. And it's not that I have a problem exploring asides and non sequiturs to ridiculous lengths as you will learn or already know. Why bother writing, then, if the content has such a vast majority of superfluous text? Well, as I said before, I had to get things started. The only way to have a series is to have a first episode. A pilot if you will (for a definition of pilot see Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction [for great film see same]). I've become quite enamored with Iron & Wine's Woman King EP. The title track and Evening On The Ground (Lilith's Song) are particularly fantastic. But that's neither here nor there (and thus not a bit out of place). I don't think I feel like adding any more to this right now, but let it be known that this shall not be the last useless though periodically clever (perhaps rarely would be more accurate) writing I send. You have been warned.

Tony Hawkins lighting a fire in face paint petulance

Peg Life goes blog

2006-02-27T13:44:00.000-06:00

Sort of. This is actually just going to be a cut and paste copy of the Peg Life email. So for all the people who said, "Why don't you post Peg Life as a blog?" you can quit your bitching and fuck off.