‘Kay, just so you know, The Incredibles: best Pixar flick… ever.

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I am, as it were, a ginormous Homestar Runner fan. I loved Homestar long before Homestar was cool. I remember the old Chinese takeout Toons menu. I remember the time before the scroll buttons. I remember the pre-VHS characters page. I was there, man.

Many now argue that fruits of the labors of the Brothers Chaps of the– Er, many argue that, um, the fruits have diminished in quality over the last year or so, much like The Simpsons has. I find myself defending my beloved terrific athlete more and more every day, but I’ll stick with him to the bitter end.

Which brings us to the new 3-disc DVD set, strongbad_email.exe - the first hundred strong bad emails. If there was ever a way to remind ourselves of how great Homestar once was (I personally think that it still is, and screw you for disagreeing with me), this is it. While the first few e-mails came long before Strong Bad had really started to fall into his character, most everything on it is golden. You get all your old favorites like Gimmicks (the one where the Tandy 400 exploded) and Invisibility (the one where Strong Bad got his Compy 386 that was just destroyed this past week in one of the funniest e-mails in a long time), not to mention enduring staples like Japanese Cartoon (where we met Stinko Man) and, of course, Dragon (the introduction of the ubiquitous Trogdor).

All of the Easter Eggs are intact, though the ones that you’re used to finding by clicking on stuff during the cartoon won’t be accessible until the ends of the individual e-mails. Some of the eggs just don’t work in the DVD format. For example, the Takin’ A Break egg, which is a hidden downloadable screensaver on the site, just shows the screensaver for about thirty seconds, during which time absolutely nothing happens. This is an exception, though, not the norm. Usually, when a case like this comes up, Strong Bad comes on and banters for a little bit to help alleviate the tedium. It’s clear that all of these Easter Eggs were included simply for the sake of authenticity, which I applaud.

The DVD’s are loaded with extras:

- Three unreleased e-mails, which are great

- A hidden, unfinished cartoon, which is also great

- All of the scroll button songs

- Karaoke videos for Trogdor, Nite Mamas (by Limozeen), the Dangeresque theme, and Everybody to the Limit, which really aren’t all that great, and the Nite Mamas and Dangeresque ones won’t make any sense at all if you don’t have the CD

- Videos for Moving Very Slowly (by Taranchula) and Secret Song (the hidden track on the CD). Once again, if you don’t have the CD, you won’t get it, and the Moving Very Slowly video is just awful

- Some puppet stuff, which I’ve always loved

- The making of sb_emailahundred (they just set up cameras on 5-minute-or-so timers in their studios)

- A bunch of other goodies (this list is getting too long)

All of the cartoons transferred beautifully to the DVD, and they look really great on a big TV. It’s also great to be able to listen to the cartoons before their sound tracks were ravaged by MP3 compression. It really does make a difference, especially to me. I’m one of those weirdos that rips all of my MP3’s at 192kbps.

The menu screens are all preceded by 3D animations featuring Strong Bad/Mad/Sad, The Cheat, and Homestar. They RULE.

Overall, the Chapman Brothers’ 3-disc tribute to themselves is by all means worth the money if you consider yourself a true fan, even despite a few disappointing extras. I do not in any way recommend it as a first exposure to Homestar, but for a trip down memory lane on your big screen TV, this puppy is a Godsend.

8.5 out of 10

P.S. At the end of the Suntan e-mail, you can hear the navigation click from Internet Explorer go off. Someone must have been surfing while that e-mail was being recorded for the DVD. I’m amazed they didn’t catch that. Tsk tsk. For shame.

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I’ve never had any problem with people attempting to reinvent the wheel. Let’s face it, the wheel has been around for ages. It’s time we moved on, you know? Where are my repulsor lifts and impulse engines, huh? Ah, whatever, I’m starting to digress.

See, trying to reinvent the wheel is all well and fine and skippy-doo. The problem is when someone tries and completely screws it up. That’s where Mountain Dew comes in, believe it or not, and they don’t even make wheels.

It started with the original Dew. It was sweet, it was citrusy, it was loaded with so much caffeine that your heartbeat would start to sound more like a drumroll, yay. I am proud to say that I am, in every way, very much addicted to the high octane concoction. Screw my sperm.

Then, somehow, some genius decided it was time to go the route of Pepsi and Coca Cola and every other freakin’ soda on Earth and try slappin’ some cherry in there. This time, they got lucky: Mountain Dew Code Red was, like its predecessor, dee-lish, and so so sooooooo sweet that it actually improved people’s vision. And it sold. Well, cool.

Now, PepsiCo Inc. or Co. or whatever they use found themselves at a crossroads. “Do we stay the course, sticking with two glorious variations of our beloved Mountain Dew, or do we create an appallingly disgusting new flavor? Ooh, I have an idea! Let’s make the appallingly disgusting new flavor! It’ll taste so Xtreme!”

So we got Mountain Dew Live Wire, a drink that was supposed to taste like orange, but ended up tasting more like liquefied gummie bears. Now, I love gummie bears, don’t get me wrong, they’re wonderful, but mein Gott im Himmel, this stuff was like pure syrup. The only bottle of it I’ve ever had lasted me through an entire three hour drive, because it tasted too awful for me to actually drink it until I was desperate.

With the numbers coming in, PepsiCo’s marketing division then sat and stared at each other, waiting for someone to teach them what numbers were so they could read said numbers. After several weeks of staring, someone actually went to the trouble to teach them, at which point one marketer said, “Ooh! This is working! People are buying it! Holy wow, I am SO stupid! Ha ha! Ooooooohhhhh, um, hmmm…” He then trailed off and fell into a deep trance for a couple hours. No one else seemed to notice. “BOOHML!!” he exclaimed when he snapped out of it, “Grape!” And with that sentence fragment, Mountain Dew Pitch Black was born.

Pitch Black looked like bile, but rather tasted like urine, with a little bit of Pez mixed in for what we in the biz like to call “good measure.” Supposedly, the intention was for the flavor to combine traditional Mountain Dew with “a blast of black grape flavor.” I can assure the reader, without him or her needing to go out and try the stuff, that it did no such thing. It was hoped that the originator of the idea for the drink would be able to comment on the flavor, but upon trying to contact him, I learned that his brain had exploded a few minutes after his epiphany when he thought too hard about whether grapes are vegetables or marsupials.

I just can’t forgive them for these two transgressions, not even after considering that Code Red was actually pretty good. Nevertheless, I will continue to drink Mountain Dew until it kills me, which it probably will.

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It has been previously established that I do not like to trust people if I can help it, thank you very much. One of the few people in whom I do allow myself to place a degree of confidence happens to be my barber. Time and time again, Sonia, er, wait, that’s not her name, is it? Um, I think it starts with an “S”… Or maybe an “N”…

Let’s call her Zelda. So anyway, time and time again, I have placed month-long quanta of self-image in Zelda’s able hands, never once having to stop off at a hat store on the way home. I’ve always maintained that every young man should form a lasting bond with a good barber early in life. After having been forced by academia to itinerate from one stylist to the next for five years, I had finally done so with Zelda.

Perhaps I am partially to blame. I suppose I should not have taken her humanity for granted. Nobody is perfect. But all the same, my sideburns have been taken from me, and I am now less of a man as a result.

If you’re reading this, Zelda, please know that I forgive you for your mistake. I am not one to hold grudges. I desperately hope that, a month from now, we can pick up from where we left off. Be strong. We will get through this. Just don’t fucking cut off my sideburns again.

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‘Kay, so I didn’t realize that no anonymous commenting meant you had to have a Blogger account to comment. I turned anonymous comments back on. Go nuts, you bloody cowards.

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