April 6th, 1999

Dave Perry Interview Thingy, Heavy Gear II Preview
The other guys over at 3DGN have been hard at work and have put up two new items. The first is an “Interview Thingy” with Shiny’s Dave Perry. If you’ve never read one of 3DGN’s Interview Thingy’s, be forewarned, they’re not a serious, straightforward interview. They’re generally pretty funny, though some people have termed them as “juvenile humor.” (I only mention this because my sense of humor, and senses of humor in general, seem to have been called into dispute ever since I decided to write a certain Mini-Raving).

Second up, 3DGN has a new preview of Heavy Gear II. If you liked any of the MechWarrior games, or the original Heavy Gear, Heavy Gear II is looking as if it’s going to be quite a cool game. Eric Rasmussen (fellow 3DGN Staff Writer) gives us the low down on this soon to be published game, including plenty of screenshots from a beta version of the game that 3DGN was able to coerce Activision into giving us. Oh, and something about flying pink monkeys.

Pointless Poll Topic Suggestions Wanted
It’s overdue for a new Pointless Poll topic, but I’ve been more concerned with the entire job-hunt situation lately and haven’t had any really creative ideas for it hit me, and the usual suspects (Bas and Smoke) haven’t been able to come up with any good ideas either. So, I’m going to beg you all for ideas. If you have an idea for something that might a good pointless poll topic, e-mail me and let me know. I can’t offer anything for your trouble other than your name being posted to the news page with my profuse thanks and gratitude.

Commercial Ponderings
Two TV commercials I saw tonight got me thinking, then laughing, in that order. Perhaps I’m just in a really strange state of mind today, but the new Shedd’s Spread Country Crock commercial really made me wonder. In this commercial the two voices and the hands and arms of the man and woman are commenting on this massive blueberry muffin the man made. The commercial ends with some suggestive innuendo about the woman being able to make “her own fire.” I saw this, and it struck me as somewhat odd . . . just what does it mean about our society that they’re using sex to sell butter spread?

The second commercial just struck me as pretty funny. It’s this guy ice fishing, and this platter of cheese appears. He bites into one of the little cheese samples on a hook, and it’s got a fishing line attached to it, and the fish try to reel the fisherman in. Yeah, I know, typing this it sounds lame, but it’s pretty funny at least the first couple of times you see it.