No Podcast This Week

Our brief streak of having a timely release of our podcast will be ending this week. It's been difficult to get everyone together. Mostly it's my bad because I haven't been around much during the evenings because I have to get up everyday at 5:30am to bring the wife to work which means I have to go to bed at a reasonable time. Also, this prevents me from getting really drunk, which I like to do during shows. Another reason that I haven't been around is because I'm playing lots of video games. The only time I've had available in the last two weeks is Friday night which is probably the worst night to do it because everyone goes out. I don't really know when we'll do another episode but once we do I'll keep you updated. We still plan to talk about "The Room" so sit tight podcast fans. Thanks again for listening.

Mad Cuddlez Goes to the Movies!

If you're in the Bay Area this weekend and you have nothing to do around midnight, come see the phenomenon that is "The Room." It's playing at the Red Vic Movie House on Haight. The guy who played Mark will be there. Hopefully I can snap a pic with him. Come hang out with us while we act obnoxious and throw spoons at the screen.

Mad Cuddlez Episode 6: Fred Boliba Murders Victims in Their Sleep

I'm trying to make up for the lack of episodes in February, so here you go, back to back. We talk about the Pacquiao fight, our friend Jtreds and his love for the Lost Boyz, and we rate the girls of ABC's TGIF lineup. Thanks for listening and show your love. Email the show at madcuddlez@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter(@spizarelli, @finethanksokay) and visit the blog runningcorrespondence.blogspot.com.

Songs featured:

"Air"(Barrett's Theme) - MF Doom from Vinyl Fantasy 7
"Don't Want Your Love" - Great Scots
"Softshock" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Music Makes Me High" - Lost Boyz
"Outrage" - Booker T and the MG's
"Getz Ya Grown Man On"(Remix) - San Quinn, Mistah F.A.B, Turf Talk, and Clyde Carson

Links

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From Hating Action Games to God of War III Slapping Some Sense Into Me

Up until this past February, I haven't ever played a God of War game. Nothing against the game, but I have never owned a Sony console so that would make playing God of War a problem. Today I just finished God of War III and that has to be one of the best game experiences I've ever had. It's crazy because after playing Dante's Inferno, and completely hating it, then God of War I, which I didn't finish because nothing compelled me to do so, I had no desire to play God of War III.

Let me briefly take you back to the beginning of the year. Actually I'll just sum it up like this because I really shouldn't waste energy on talking about this piece of shit. If you think it was a good game and you want to discuss it with me, we can do that but I have a feeling that I'm not going to get much argument. To sum all of that up: I got really frustrated playing this game. I died at times where I didn't think I should have because of the stupid fixed camera and simple platforming that had to be done miles away from the camera so I couldn't see where the fuck I was jumping, the combat was not interesting or satisfying, and the story/the environments we're meant to be enjoyed by 12 year olds. Fuck you Dante's Inferno, you piece of dog shit, and more importantly FUCK YOU FOR HINTING AT A SEQUEL.

You should play this game if you like tits though. I'll say that. And penises too. In case you didn't know, the Devil has a giant black cock that he just really wants to show Dante. So play this game if you like that kind of stuff. Oh, oh and in the Lust level, guess what? VAGINA'S ON THE WALLS! EVERYWHERE! Honestly, I didn't care for all of that. This is supposed to be Hell, you know? I wasn't afraid of it at all.

After that fiasco I was surprised by my wife with a Valentine's Day PS3 aka the greatest Valentine's Day gift ever. I mean, you don't expect that kind of a gift on Valentine's Day. Anyway my first desire was to just catch up with all the Sony exclusive games that I've been missing out on. I rented the God of War Collection and I eagerly dove in. Man, people weren't kidding about it being exactly like Dante's Inferno. I could still feel that scar that Dante's Inferno left on nut-sack while going through God of War I. It wasn't completely the same though. I would agree that what I was playing was slightly more enjoyable than DI, but there were still things annoying me about it. The fixed camera still bugged me. The combat was definitely better though I wasn't very good at it, and there were two situations that pretty much caused me to stop playing the game. *SLIGHT SPOILERS HIGHLIGHT TO VIEW* The first part was that conveyor belt part where you have to push the pillar across the screen against a conveyor belt while enemies are attack you. I spent awhile on that part and after I got past it I told myself, "If there is something like this later in the game, I'm going to stop playing." Sure enough, there is a part during The Challenge of Poseidon in which you have to push a caged human, up a hill, while enemies are attacking you, and make sure you put the caged human on one of the few random ledges that are strung about this giant hill. If you don't do that the guy slides all the way down to the bottom and you have to start over.*SLIGHT SPOILERS END* Sure enough, I stopped playing.

God of War was fighting an uphill battle to win my affection. I had just been heartbroken by Dante and now, I didn't have the patience to do anything difficult, so I stopped. I didn't even bother trying God of War II. I figured, "Same shit. It'll be cool but I'll just end up getting annoyed." I needed to step away from action games.

I went to my local Blockbuster to rent some gaming goodness and there it was. The last available copy of God of War III. I could have played something else, but I was really hoping that Heavy Rain was going to be available but it wasn't. HEY! If you rent from the Fair Oaks Blockbuster and you have Heavy Rain: Why the fuck do you still have it? It takes 8 hours to finish it. Can you PLEASE return it already? Reluctantly, I grabbed it and took it home. I told myself, "It's a new game. You can't pass it up. Maybe it'll be good," but yeah, I was reluctant.

GOD OF WAR III IS AWESOME.

I love almost everything about it. It's a 9 hour non-stop thrill ride that had me smiling the entire time. I enjoyed every death and dismemberment in the game. "You need that eye? Too bad, I'm pulling it out and I'm going to cover myself in your eye blood. Oh that's a nice head you have. Now, it's mine and I'm using it for a lantern." It was always something different and it had me going either, "FUCK YEAH" or "GAWWW DISGUSTING!" The puzzles are challenging but not too difficult, and I looooove the combat. So much to do, so many options to kill people with. It was like Kratos felt my pain these last few months and said, "You know what? I'm angry too man. Let's say you and me take out our anger on EVERYONE THAT WE POSSIBLY CAN." The scale of the game is amazing too. This game did in fact do a lot of that stuff that annoyed me in Dante's Inferno in terms of zooming the camera back to make you see how crazy this situation is, but God of War III never asked me to do anything extremely difficult. God of War III never made me feel insignificant either whereas Dante's Inferno made me feel like a wimp lightly scratching enemies with my little harvesting tool. The people who made God of War III(Sony-Santa Monica) I think really understand the craft of making a good game. They kept it interesting, constantly moving you forward, and completely masked any kind of sense of repetitiveness.

I think that because of Dante's Inferno, I can really appreciate God of War III. I understand what is shit and what is fucking genius in terms of action games. So thanks Dante's Inferno for sucking balls. Now I have to go back to Blockbuster to rent Heavy Rain. If they don't have that, maybe, just maybe I'll rent God of War Collection and try to play God of War II. Probably not though. I just want to let this good feeling soak in. My next rant I'm planning is talking about Modern Warfare vs. my new lover, Battlefield Bad Company 2. We'll see though, I need to get my blogging legs back.

MCP EPISODE 5: Wha Cha Doin is Stealin Ain't Cha Degenerate?

We're back after some time away. Pierre has been up to stuff and I got a PS3 so I've completely tuned out. We talk about St. Patrick's Day, answer a whole bunch of questions from our favorite listener, and hate on the Olympics and other shit. Listen, laugh, and enjoy. Please subscribe to the show in the iTunes store to get episodes instantly, and leave a review if you'd like. You can email the show at madcuddlez@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter(@spizarelli or @finethanksokay). Thanks guys and gals.

Songs featured in this episode:

EPMD feat. Redman, Method Man, and Lady Luck - Symphony 2000
Charmels - I'll Gladly Take You Back
Neon Indian - Terminally Chill
Daft Punk - One More Time
Kyeremateng Atwede & Kyeremateng Stars - I go die for you
Jenny Lewis and Elvis Costello - Carpetbaggers

Direct Download

and if u dont dance well then *SHRUGS ya no friend of mine!

u can dance if ya want to!

I'm Too Old to Be Good at Games

Recently, Namco Bandai released an iPhone version of Pac Man Championship Edition and even though it's one of my favorite games I was not interested in buying it because I knew that it wouldn't control as well as it's big brother on the 360. However when the iPhone version went on sale for a buck this past weekend, I couldn't pass it up. I can't pass up anything for a buck on the iPhone really anyway(I AM T-PAIN IS A BUCK RIGHT NOW GET IT).

I have been playing Pac Man CE on the iPhone more than I had planned. They did a really good job adjusting the controls to make it work on iPhone. They give you extra power pellets and they borked the dot patterns to compensate for the lack of control, so you can manage to get some satisfaction from playing it. Once it speeds up though it becomes impossible to play but one could argue the same thing about the 360 version.

My point to all of this is I have become obsessed with getting the high score on my leaderboard on the 360 version. All I want to do lately is play Pac Man so I can get that high score. The Championship Mode high score on my leaderboard is somewhere around the 340,000's. The highest I've scored so far is somewhere in the 280,000's. Another thing that has inspired me is that the person who owns the record feels threatened by me. He is near the top of all the leaderboards except for 3 out of the 6 modes. I am ahead of him in 3 of the 6 modes. Still he holds it over my head that I don't have the high score in Championship Mode.

I've watched videos trying to learn some strategies, and everyday I've increased my high score, but I cannot seem to crack 300k. Some of my runs start off really well and then once I get to the end, the game is moving way too fast for me. Once I hit around 250k I crumble. I crumble repeatedly. It gets frustrating after awhile. Knowing that you're wasting a good run fucking sucks.

I've started to ice my thumb. I'm experiencing serious pain in my left hand. Still I press on. My head aches. My eyes are spinning...

If only I were 10 years old again I could easily manage to break 400k in this game. I was the only person I knew that could pass the bike level in Battletoads. All my friends hated that game because no one could get past that level. I was the only one who was like, "Dude that game is so good. Have you done the snake level? It's freaking awesome." No one knew what I was talking about. "Bike Level? That's hella easy." I could beat Contra on the NES without the code. There's no way I could do any of those things now. Mega Man? Psssh. Not anymore.

My confidence is wavering now. I'm a year away from 30 and I'm sad because I can't game like I used to. I remember earlier in the year screaming at the TV while playing Street Fighter IV. "How could I lose to this person? He's obviously not good!" I used to rule the arcade because I learned from all the older kids at New Park Mall. I played Street Fighter Alpha in Reno for an hour and a half on one quarter. The only reason I lost is because someone cheap threw me. It's fine though, the feat said enough to all of those people. I shouldn't have fallen for such tactics anyway, but oh well.

I'm really starting to believe that there's no way I can beat that score. It gets way too crazy at the end of the game. I'm gonna keep trying to break 300,000 but 340,000 seems so far away. My hand is killing me. I've starting thinking about when I'm even older and my hands are ravaged with arthritis and I'll have to give up gaming completely. "But Spiz, you can play Wii games without your thumb! Just waggle the remote for the win!" SHAAAADUP!

Now, back to trying to break that record.

One Honorable Mention for Best Memes of the Decade

How could I forget this one. I always use it in real life and no one knows what I'm talking about. I don't know if I'd bump anything off my list but this one holds a special place in my heart because this meme has flourished with fans of Joystiq(it's a website) and members of the JPAG.

YEAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

The Middle Distance Runner Decade in Review: Internet Memes

I have been recently watching all of the "Know Your Meme" webisodes by Rocketboom and it inspired me to kick off this blog's review of the decade. I know I'm way overdue with writing my top lists of everything but thankfully no one reads this otherwise I would have a lot of angry readers. Anyway here are my top 5 favorite memes of the decade. If you've never seen these before I encourage you to check out all the remixes and variations of these memes. I'm sure most people have seen these before.