Derailed

     No really, its because of Magnetman. No idea what I’m talking about? Well, I was jealous of all of my interesting friends having interesting things to say on the internet. But then I actually read what they had to say and thought “Hey, you don’t have to be interesting at all! I can do that”. So I turned to Cyrus, who was far more willing than anyone else I know to put in all the necessary work to create and maintain a website, and I said “Cyrus, Blog me!”, and he was all like “Okay” in that anti-climactic way that just ruins any moment where you were all decisive and even went as far as to make a declarative statement about something. But true to his word I have been given in this space the means to express my every unwanted opinion to the world. Powerful and heady stuff this internet. But first I face two dilemmas: What to title my new electronic soapbox, and what colors to use for it’s scheme? The first is easy. There is a terrible gag that is said when someone forgets what they were about to say that goes “Train of Thought Derailed, Film at 11”. As this neatly describes my entire thinking process, I figured it would work handily as my Header. But a color scheme, oh a color scheme! What should I do? One just doesn’t go around thinking of these things all the time, you know. Then I thought “Magnetman, now there’s a fellow with a magnet on his head”. After additional thinking it occurred to me to use his color scheme as my own. “But wait!” you say, “Magnet man is primary red and white, and here you’ve used some darker red and some darker white” (although those of you with a college education may have said “grey” instead). Aha, you’d be right, he is and I did. But if you recall, when using Magnetman’s power, Megaman turns dark red and grey. Since I am stealing from him as well, I figured it was appropriate. So there. Magnetman is great and some manner of his greatness is now reflected here where it will dwell until such time as I stop posting and Cyrus becomes annoyed enough to remove me from his fancy Interpage. Magnetman himself will of course live on in our hearts and minds as a bastion of all things awesome and an eternal reminder of that awful ICP song via this image.

     That will not dampen my appreciation of him one bit however, nor of my fondness for the game from whence he came. Megaman 3 combined some of the best character design, game play, and level of difficulty of the entire franchise to date.   Not to mention the absolutely terrifying europeon box art.

  It’s one true flaw being only that Magnetman, the heart and soul of the eight master robots, was placed at the very bottom of the grid. The bottom! Surely he should have held the place of honor above Megaman, but somehow it was given to Snakeman instead. While I have no beef with Snakeman and believe that outside his deplorable performance on the Megaman animated series he was a fine, upstanding villainous robot, with canny mind and steel bite, he was upper left grid material at best. Then we get to Magnetman’s stage music. Second best in the whole game, beaten only by the truly magnificent 8 bit rhythm of Sparkman. Originally I thought to myself that it was okay that Magnetman didn’t have the best music, because then his stage would be so great that people would play it over and over, restarting the game just to wander through those fantastic scenes of floating magnet carriers and appearing/disappearing block jumping puzzles one more time, only to be confronted once again by Magnetman himself. No one would ever get through the game! But then I found out just how clever Magnetman is…he was waiting for the video game music remix craze to hit, so that his tune could be put to a western theme. Brilliant!

Magnetman: Even appropriate for Valentine's Day

    Sadly, the fellow who did the remix wasn’t quite up to the challenge of realizing Magnetman’s genius. But just the thought of Magnetman’s steel-shod boot crunching into the dust of a lonely street of a Nevada town in 18XX,  accompanied by the slight jingle of spurs welded directly onto his heels. Panning up would reveal a flash of red and white as his duster jacket stirs in the hot wind. Those cold, mechanical eyes perched beneath a ten-gallon hat with a comically placed magnet in front. It would be a scene to make Leone proud. That is Magnetman’s true vision, and that is to what I pay this homage of color, a beacon of red and grey like a magnet missile blazing away into the sky.

   Man, this is just not the time to be doing this.  Sore, tired, not thinking clearly at all.  I’m quite surprised that I’m able to type at the moment.  But it needs to get done so I guess I’m going to do it now…my first post that is…this, here, that I’m typing right now.  Sooo…yep.  Here it is.  I’m sure that this would be brilliant and thoughtful and catch the attention of readers worldwide if I weren’t on the wrong side of a disrupted circadian rhythm following a long night of extreme physical exertion.  No, wait.  I’m sure of no such thing.  My erratic mind and lack of writing skill would chatter out some meaningless nonsense that would cause most readers to lose interest immediately and junior high level English teachers to cluck their tongues disapprovingly.  So this is what I will be offering you, a chance to sit back and shake your head sadly at the largely incoherent thoughts that stumble forth from my head and land frightened and confused in this strange new electronic world.  Enjoy.