Daiboken no Laruki Pahka: Fainura Fantaji.

It's not literal (kinda like fake-y Japanese) but the above kinda says "Larky Parka's Great Adventure: Final Fantasy".

for whatever reason, i plan on playing the original Final Fantasy series from the NES/SNES era (FF's 1-6) and writing about it here. why not? i plan to do this until i get bored.

if you're unaware, Final Fantasy is a series of video game RPGs from Japan. it's influence on the video game world in general (and your humble author in specific) cannot be overstated. it spans four generations of video game consoles, and is one of the best selling franchises of all time. ironically, many of the games didn't appear in North America until much later (either on PS1, Nintendo DS, or Wii's virtual console), hence the series seemingly jumping from FF3 to FF7 (FF3 was actually FF6 in Japan; the original 3-5 didn't come over here until much later). i could ramble on and on about the importance of this video game legacy, but i won't. suffice to say, it's kinda a big deal (insofar as video games are a big deal to me; in the greater scope of humanity, probably not as important as other things, but whatever).
interestingly enough, i have never beaten a single Final Fantasy game. in fact, that i can recall, i've only ever beaten one RPG: Shining Force for Sega Genesis (tho i played it on an emulator, as i'll be doing with FF).
what usually happens is: i remember or hear about a video game, get it for an emulator, play it for a bit, and then it goes away. not this time. i plan to play each of these games solely, until they are beaten, and play them a little bit for a certain allotted amount of time every night (probably longer on weekends if i can manage it). i'll probably be checking in here and there with updates, etc. it'd be too long between entries if i just waited until i beat each game. P.S. this won't be the only thing i'm writing about here at The Dynamic Adventuring. no need to fret.

oh yeah, you might be asking "why stop at 6?" well, 7-13 are on much later consoles, and also i've actually played most of those. the NES/SNES years, which encompasses FF's 1-6 is really what i want to focus on. because it's rad. so, here's hoping all this goes well.
for more info, if you're interested, go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_(video_game)

also, here's this:
it's long, so just watched the first minute or so if you want to get a feel for it.

*Edit Face!*:
-i started FF1 last night. holy shit, it's hard as fuck! that's the thing though, old school games were harder. they had simpler graphics, which makes them look juvenile or whatever, but they were way more challenging. it's true. try playing Mega Man some time if it's been awhile. you're ass will be kick-ed right quick.
-above i stated it had been four generations of consoles. it has actually been seven generations. amazing.

Hey there, Hockey Puck! (Legendary Comedians: Are They Funny? part 2)

This man needs no introduction, which is good, because i don't feel like giving one *rimshot*.
seriously, folks, the next comedian to grace this blog is famed insult comic Don Rickles.

here's the deal, i'm not gonna go into huge amounts of depth on this one. everyone probably knows who Don Rickles is. suffice to say, he's old, and he got started millions of years ago. he was Frank Sinatra's favorite comedian, etc. i actually thought of this one whilst waking up one morning, literally half-asleep. to me, that's hilarious. he is best known for being irascible and for making fun of people to their faces. also, i guess he got away with telling these jokes because he would always say he loved the person whom he was defaming. all of the clips of him on youtube are interminably long. seriously, there are hardly any under 5 minutes, and for a Don Rickles clip, that's a goddam eternity. so here's this:

still got it...? i guess...?

but is he funny: frankly, no.

but whattayagonnado? he's old and legendary, so there it is.

The Comedy Legends: Are They Funny? (hopefully a multi-part series)

Hear me now and listen to me later: Humor is subjective. there are thousands of comedians from the days of yore that are name-checked and referred to, in fact, as Legendary. they indeed paved the way for your Louies, Your Pattons, Your Marons, et al.
but where they, in fact, funny?

i thought of this at work, because truth be told, i don't really know. some of them, to my way of thinking, are quite funny. some, well, not so much, but one may look at them in the context of their importance to the craft. but just because something is old and legendary, doesn't make it funny. conversely, that does not make it unfunny. i think we can only judge them by their merits. and here is where i begin. bear in mind, as stated above, that humor and comedy are almost completely subjective. this is, as ever, my opinion. you may not dig any of these artists at all. hell, I might not even dig any of them. we shall see.

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I'm starting with the following Comedienne because she is in the news a lot lately, having recently died at the ripe old age of 92. this of course is Phyllis Diller. a bit of context: Phyllis is incredibly well known as a personality. she did, in fact, get her start as a comedian, but i'm not sure if i was ever really conscious of that until maybe a couple years ago. i'm not especially old (despite how i feel/joke), so my knowledge of Ms. Diller is from her appearances in reruns of old game shows, stuff like Laugh-in, and random sitcoms. she even appears in the documentary Who Killed The Electric Car?, regaling the viewer with the knowledge that most cars were once electric. fascinating stuff, for my money.

but is she funny?

This short clip is probably not enough to make a judgment on such a long and storied career. in this 2:22 video, i think i actually laughed aloud 3 or 4 times. that's not a particularly high quotient, but it is a short video, and frankly, it's more times than i thought i would. in breaking ground for bizarre female characters to be comedic, i say i have the utmost respect for Phyllis Diller.
as for funny: yeah, kinda. sure.
that's the best i can do.