Search This Blog

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

The Dry-Erase Board Solution

You know, I drew the Professor Plum card for this week's Whatever Wednesday entry, and this means that I have to do a diary entry for today's piece.  That's cool.  Fair enough.  I've since recovered from that horrible cold I had last week, and my voice is finally back after temporarily disappearing for a little spell.

But being sick with the cold had me thinking...what if I had lost my voice on a day in which I was supposed to do a video diary entry?  What would I have done?

Oh, sure, I could have done something like write the diary entry instead.  It wouldn't have been that difficult.  But I wanted to do something a little more creative.  Something that would be unexpected.

And, then as I was wandering through the office supply section of the store I work at...it hit me.  These series of "selfies" will tell the tale...




Tuesday, March 11, 2014

March 11, 1956

Happy March eleventh, everybody!  It's hard to believe that in just a week and a half, Spring will finally be here.

(Seriously, in my neck of the woods, it truly is hard to believe.  We just got another snowfall a couple of days ago!  Enough with the snow, Mother Nature!  We're all sick of it!)

Okay, so anyway, today is March 11, and for today's blog topic, I've chosen a subject that many may not recognize by his face...but believe it or not, he's had a career that has spanned many decades.  And even though you might not know who he is...you will for certain know him for the roles he played.

Ponder that for a moment as we take a look at some of the historical events that took place on this date...

222 - Emperor Elagabalus and his mother, Julia Soaemias are assassinated by the Praetorian Guard during a revolt in Italy

1702 - England's first national daily newspaper - "The Daily Courant" - is first published

1824 - The United States Department of War creates the Bureau of Indian Affairs

1851 - The first performance of "Rigoletto" by Giuseppe Verdi is held in Paris, France

1861 - The Constitution of the Confederate States of America is issued

1867 - Exactly sixteen years after debuting "Rigoletto", Verdi premieres "Don Carlos" in Paris

1888 - The Great Blizzard of 1888 strikes the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, which kills 400 people and grinds commerce to a halt

1903 - Bandleader and variety show host Lawrence Welk (d. 1992) is born in Strasburg, North Dakota

1927 - The Roxy Theatre in New York City is opened by Samuel Roxy Rothafel

1945 - The Imperial Japanese Army attempts a kamikaze attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet anchored at Ulithi atoll

1946 - Rudolf Hoss - the first commandant of Auschwitz - is captured by British troops

1983 - The nation of Pakistan successfully conducts a cold test of a nuclear weapon

1993 - Janet Reno is confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in the following day as the first female Attorney General of the United States

2004 - Tragedy strikes Madrid, Spain as a series of simultaneous explosions rock the city's mass transit system, killing 191 people during rush hour

2009 - Sixteen people die and eleven more injured in the Winneden school shooting in Germany

2011 - A magnitude 9.0 earthquake strikes near Sendai, Japan, causing devastation to many Japanese communities and causes the second most devastating nuclear accident in history

And, celebrating a March 11 birthday are the following celebrities.  Happy birthday to Rupert Murdoch, Sam Donaldson, Joel Steiger, Bobby McFerrin, Susan Richardson, Jimmy Fortune, Curtis Brown, Cheryl Lynn, Elias Koteas, Jeffrey Nordling, Alex Kingston, Emma Chambers, Shane Richie, Jesse Jackson Jr., Wallace Langham, John Barrowman, Lisa Loeb, Terrence Howard, Johnny Knoxville, Benji and Joel Madden, Thora Birch, Lindsey McKeon, Melissa Rycroft, Anton Yelchin, and Demi Harman.

Okay.  Now for today's Tuesday Timeline date.  For some reason, I feel like going back to the 1950s for this one.



Like, maybe...March 11, 1956?  Sounds good?

Okay, so, as I was saying in the opening of this blog, today's subject is a man who happens to be celebrating a birthday today.  In this case, the birthday just happens to be number fifty-eight in a series of...well, who knows?  And, as I also stated, this man has had one heck of a career.  In fact, last year he celebrated thirty years in the business.  That's quite impressive, especially in a landscape where heavy emphasis is placed on reality television.

But here's the thing.  Would you recognize him if I posted a picture of him?  Here's his headshot below.



Okay, so I see some of you recognizing him right away (not really), and I see some of you trying to think about what television show or movie you might have seen him in (not really).  And, I am sure that many of you are wondering who this person could be.

Well, okay.  Let's play the name game.  What do all of these characters have in common?

Yakko Warner.  Raphael.  Steelbeak.  Pinky.  P.J.  Corky.  Donatello.

Well, obviously all of them happen to be cartoon characters from some of your favourite television shows.  Shows such as "Goof Troop", "Darkwing Duck", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", and "Animaniacs".  But here's the twist.  Did you know that all of the above characters were voiced by the same man?

And that the man who does the voices for all of these characters is the same one I featured in the picture above?



Well, this man has a name.  Rob Paulsen.  And, today happens to be the fifty-eighth anniversary of the day that Rob Paulsen was born!

Now, I'll be talking about some of the more memorable characters that he has voiced in his thirty plus years as a voice actor.  Believe it or not, there are more than seven.  Truth be told, in his entire career, he has voiced at least two hundred and fifty different characters in shows from "2 Stupid Dogs" to "Yo Yogi!" and everything in between!

However, it come as a surprise to you that voice acting was not Rob's first career choice.  Believe it or not, Rob's main goal in life was to play hockey professionally.  Had things gone his way, he very well could have found himself competing on the ice against Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, or Ray Bourque.  But somewhere along the way, his secondary love for the arts won out, and he opted to try and find work as an actor or singer (Paulsen sang in a children's choir growing up).



It did take a little bit of time and a lot of hard work, but Paulsen's persistence netted him his very first voice role in 1983's "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero" as "Snow Job" and "Tripwire".  Little did he realize that this would be the beginning of what would become his life's work so far.

Now, certainly Rob didn't initially set out to do just voice roles.  He did do some work in live-action films as well, which included the movies "Eyes of Fire", "Body Double", "Stewardess School", and "Warlock".  It's okay if you haven't heard of any of these movies before.  They're largely forgettable B-movies from the 1980s.  And, Rob's film career lasted a total of three or four years before Rob decided to make the switch to solely voice acting.  It was a decision that Paulsen was influenced to make by his then toddler aged son.  Because the roles he played in some of the movies were quite R-rated, Paulsen explained that he would not want his son to watch them, so he couldn't really feel any sense of pride in the work that he did do...which I can completely understand.

So, this caused Rob Paulsen to focus on cartoons...which allowed him to take on roles that his son could watch.  Ultimately, it ended up being a good decision as he has had steady work since 1983! 

But, what are some of his most famous roles?  Well, obviously I can't talk about ALL of them...that would make this Tuesday Timeline the same length as an Agatha Christie novel!  But believe me when I say that this man has truly been a huge part of my childhood.  He was one constant in nearly every cartoon that I watched, and I just hope he knows just how many kids grew up with him entertaining them for over three decades, and just how grateful we all are to him for all the joy and fun he's brought to the world of animation.  Well done, good sir.

So, for the conclusion of this blog, and because it is his birthday, let's post some clips (if possible) of some of Rob's most memorable roles.

And, what better way to begin with the one television cartoon that I was obsessed with as a kid?



Now, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" was definitely a show that I was hooked on.  I watched the cartoon (and own the first two seasons on DVD), I watched the movie (which I also own on DVD for nostalgic purposes), I had the toys, read the comics, even illustrated a series of Ninja Turtle books for my third grade classroom (which I unfortunately do not have...wish I could have saved them so I could scan them...just to see how childish the artwork was). 



And one of the reasons why I loved the cartoon was because of the actors who were a part of the show.  Now, when the show first debuted in 1987, Rob Paulsen played Raphael for the first nine years of the cartoon (he took Season 10 off and was replaced by Michael Gough).  But Paulsen holds an interesting claim to fame because Raphael isn't the only Turtle he would play.



When the series was rebooted for Nickelodeon in 2012, Paulsen was hired to voice the role of Donatello, as Sean Astin had already been cast as Raphael.  And, admittedly, Paulsen was apprehensive about taking the role, as he didn't want to take over the role if Barry Gordon (the original Donatello) wanted it more.  But with Gordon's okay, Paulsen assumed the role of Donatello for the new series, making him the only voice actor to voice two different turtles for two different series.



Another show in which Paulsen shined was in the television cartoon "Animaniacs" where he voiced two main roles.  He was memorable enough as Dr. Scratchensniff, but perhaps his more memorable and hilarious role was that of Yakko Warner.  Why, just have a look at one of the clips that featured Yakko singing a song about all of the nations of the world?  I warn you...the map is slightly outdated.  It was filmed back in 1993, after all.



Okay, are you convinced of Rob Paulsen's genius now?  Stay tuned.  There's more!

One of the spinoff shows that stemmed from "Animaniacs" was the hugely popular "Pinky and The Brain".  Of course, we all know that Maurice LaMarche voiced the role of "The Brain".  But Paulsen was absolutely brilliant in the role of Pinky, the lovable, but as dumb as a brick of moldy cheese partner-in-crime of The Brain. 



NARF!

And, who could forget all the minor roles he had over the years?  He was Marco Smurf on "The Smurfs".  He was Boober on the cartoon series of "Fraggle Rock".  He played Corky on "The Snorks", "Goof Troop"'s P.J., and villain Steelbeak on "Darkwing Duck".

And, that's not even counting the 1,000 television commercials he has made over the years, from when he was Mr. Opportunity...



...to a singing Mini-Wheat...




...to being in one of the most memorable "Got Milk" ads to ever air on television!
 



Is there anything this man CAN'T do?!?

Monday, March 10, 2014

Frozen - Convince Me To See It!

You know, working in the media section of a department store, I have a fair idea of which movies, albums, and video games are the most popular ones.  And, believe me, when it comes down to it, the more times that I have to restock a display of a particular movie or video game, the more popular I know it is.

I can't even begin to tell you just how many copies of "Grand Theft Auto V" I've rang through the register since it was released in September 2013.  I believe I lost count after ten dozen.  And, those were the copies that I am legally able to sell.  The number of people who I had to refuse sale to because they were underage is a fair number too.

(And, just on an unrelated note, I have to admit that I do get a high telling a 12-year-old kid that they can't buy an M-rated game.  Just a smidgen, though.)

The same goes for television series on DVD.  Chances are that if the television series have the words "The Big Bang Theory", "Sons of Anarchy", "Breaking Bad", and "Game of Thrones" in the title, I'm likely to sell a few copies a week.  And for movies, new releases always seem to sell quite well during the first week.  I imagine that when the second "Hunger Games" movie was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on March 7, I ended up selling quite a few copies.  Luckily, I was there an hour before the store opened to set it up, so that release day went very smoothly.

But, sometimes the anticipation of a film release on DVD and Blu-Ray is so great that some people will call the store or ask me at least ten times a day if it has been released yet.  I ended up getting it for "The Fast and Furious 6", "Despicable Me 2", and surprisingly enough "Bad Grandpa"! 

And the blog topic that I chose for today's Monday Matinee discussion is the one movie that people have been and are STILL asking me about today.  And once you find out what the movie is, you'll understand why I've made this entire blog bright blue in colour.

But here's the biggest twist of all.  This is a movie that I...have not seen yet.

Now, normally with a Monday Matinee feature, I have at least seen the film before I talk about it.  But this film is one that I never got around to seeing.  So, I imagine that you're wondering how I can comment on a film that I've never seen.

Simple.  I'll do a little write-up on the film just based on film reviews, synopses, and various clips and videos that I have seen, and I'm going to just do the best I can.  And, at the end of this blog entry, I'm going to ask all of you to convince me to see this movie.  The film comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray March 18, and has already been available on iTunes since February, and if people do a good enough job convincing me to check out this movie, then on the release date, I'll see about renting the film (or possibly even purchasing the film) to scope it out for myself.  And if that happens, I'll devote a future entry to the film and my own take on it.

(I'm trying a new format for the Monday Matinee.  Consider it an experiment of sorts.)

So, without further adieu, let's have a look at the film for discussion today, which was first released in theatres four months ago in November 2013.



Wait...WHAT?  I'm doing a Monday Matinee!  Not a Sunday Jukebox!  Madonna has absolutely nothing to do with this film whatsoever!  Sigh...I'm going to have to fire my video person...

...oh, wait.  That's me.  Never mind, then.  Oh, look!  Here's the clip I really wanted!



ARTIST:  Idina Menzel
SONG:  Let It Go
ALBUM:  Frozen
DATE RELEASED:  November 25, 2013
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:  #17

Yes, the song by Adele Dazeem...um, I mean, Idina Menzel recently won the Academy Award for Best Song.  And, as far as the movie goes, it is one of the most successful animated movies of all time, making over one billion dollars in the box office.  It's expected that when the film is released on DVD and Blu-Ray that the number will increase.  And, many people who have seen this movie have claimed that it is Disney's best movie since its renaissance period of 1989-1995.



Hmmm...this sounds like a very convincing argument for me to go and view "Frozen", doesn't it?  It is Disney's fifty-third animated feature, and is loosely based on the Hans Christian Andersen tale "The Snow Queen".  And, yes, Idina Menzel is one of the stars of this frosty animated feature, but the movie also stars "Veronica Mars" starlet Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, Jonathan Groff, Santino Fontana, and Alan Tudyk. 

You know, I gotta say...that cast list is mighty impressive.  Slowly getting convinced to watch it.  But, alas, I have to continue writing this blog.

Okay, so again, I stress that I have not seen this movie, so I can't really offer up any plot lines or spoilers (not that it matters anyway because I never reveal endings to the movies anyway), but what I do know is the reason why the film is called "Frozen" is because the film is about a pair of sisters - one of whom has the ability to create ice and snow with just the wave of a hand.  





Of course, it stands to reason that the sister that has the power to do that is the one that Idina Menzel portrays, Elsa.  After all, she's the one who sings the Oscar winning song!  And, from what I gather, something happens in which her powers cause her to become estranged from her sister, Anna (Bell).  And, then something happens that causes the whole world to become one gigantic snowball, and I assume that at some point the two sisters will have to come together to return the kingdom back to normal.  But, again, I'm just speculating.




Along the way though, the sisters will cross paths with several other characters.  For instance, they'll meet a man by the name of Kristoff (Groff) who along with his reindeer Sven becomes a person whom both sisters come to rely on...perhaps one more so than the other.  We also have Hans (Fontana), a prince who captures the attention of one of the sisters in the movie...but is all what it seems with this guy, or is there something darker to his personality?

And then there's the comic relief character of Olaf the Snowman (Gad), whose only dream is to experience what the season of summer is really like.  Oh, look, here's a convenient song clip of Olaf's singing in action.





Of course, I'm not sure how a full-fledged snowman can actually find a way to enjoy summer as the intensity of the UV rays coming from Mister Golden Sun would transform Olaf into a sopping mess of slush that is no longer lovable and huggable.  But, hey...it's a Disney movie, so I'm guessing that somewhere along the way, there's a compromise made, and Olaf can enjoy both worlds.




But you know, it's just absolutely crazy to me just how many people have fallen in love with "Frozen" over the last four months.  And, it's not just the movie that people have fallen in love with either.  Do you have any idea just how many times I've restocked the "Frozen" soundtrack in our CD section?  Enough times for me to realize that maybe the iPod hasn't completely killed off the compact disc star yet.  




And, that's not to mention the fact that the toy department around Christmas was completely raided by girls of all ages, desperate to get their hands on either an Anna or an Elsa doll.  The number of dolls I remember seeing in shopping carts around the store was just staggering!  




There's even a video game adaptation of the movie featuring Olaf that is available for both the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS.  Again, I have no experience of playing this game at all, but I do know that I have sold quite a few of them over the last couple of months.

So, I get that "Frozen" is a big hit film, and I understand that millions of you have seen it at least once.

So, now I turn the floor over to you.  Convince me to watch this movie.  Tell me why you think I should check out this movie when it is released on home video format.  Convince me to review this film for either a future Monday Matinee, or even a Whatever Wednesday or Thursday Diary entry.  I may even post some of your responses in a future blog entry.

So, for all of you salespeople out there...sell me on "Frozen".

Sunday, March 09, 2014

One Sweet Day

Okay, so I've got a lot to cover in today's Sunday Jukebox, so I won't waste any more time here.

Firstly, for those of you who were affected by the time change earlier today in which you set your clocks ahead one whole hour, I just want to say that there are some good points and some bad points for today.

To get the bad out of the way, I realize that some of you might be cranky about the lost hour.  Some of us (myself included) love to get our sleep, and having one hour of the day being taken away is not a good thing.  And, for those of you unlucky enough to have a March 9 birthday, your day will only last for twenty-three hours.  What a gyp!  I think that's worth an extra gift or a larger slice of cake, don't you?



But look at it this way.  The loss of an hour means the beginning of longer days, and longer days mean that we no longer wake up in complete darkness.  And, this means that spring is just around the corner...which is welcome relief for people in my neck of the woods, where we were all subjected to the evil "polar vortex" that made us wonder if winter was ever going to end.

As of right now, we're still wondering...



Secondly, I want to divert your attention to this Facebook page, if only for a moment.  It's a Facebook page for an eleven-year-old boy named Colin, whose mother started up a birthday page for him so that people from all over the world could wish him a very happy birthday.  The story can be found on the page if you click on it.  It will only take a couple of seconds, but if you could go on this page, and just wish Colin a very happy birthday, I think it would be a really great idea.  I already sent my greeting in, and I am hoping that he sees it.  At last count, the page had over two million likes!

Regardless, it's still a cool thing to do.

Okay, so now we're going to go ahead with today's Sunday Jukebox entry, and for this week's entry, we're going to be featuring a song that was recorded by not one, not two, but five different people!  It was a song that spent some time on the charts in two different calendar years, and it currently holds the record of being the longest running #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 charts!

But just how long did this song stay on the top of the charts?  Let's find out, shall we?



ARTIST:  Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men
SONG:  One Sweet Day
ALBUM:  Daydream
DATE RELEASED:  November 14, 1995
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:  #1 for 16 weeks!

No, that isn't a typo.  The song really did spent a whopping sixteen weeks at the #1 position between December 2, 1995 and March 16, 1996.  That's a little more than one-third of my whole ninth grade year, people! 

Though, I can see why the song was so popular.  It was recorded by two of the biggest artists of the mid-1990s, and the song subject is one that most everybody can relate to.



Just picture it.  One one side, you had Mariah Carey, who exploded onto the music scene in 1990 with her self-titled debut.  Between 1990 and 1995, she managed to get a total of nine #1 singles with songs like "Vision of Love", "Emotions", "I'll Be There", and "Dreamlover".  By 1995, she was easily considered to be one of the top female vocalists of the decade.



On the other side, you had the equally successful R&B group Boyz II Men, which included band members Michael McCary, Nathan Morris, Wanya Morris, and Shawn Stockman.  Although the group - which formed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and released their debut album in 1991 - didn't have as many #1 hits as Mariah Carey, the ones they did have certainly made an impact on the charts.  Their single "End of the Road" broke records when it lasted a whopping thirteen weeks on the top of the Billboard charts in late 1992.  Two years later, the group would break that record when "I'll Make Love To You" stayed on the pole position for fourteen weeks.

Who knew that when Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men collaborated together in late 1995 that the song would become Mariah's tenth #1 single, and Boyz II Men would break their chart record once more? 

Anyway, the song was written as a collaborative effort between Boyz II Men and Carey, and was inspired by the loss of one of Carey's dearest friends, record producer David Cole.  Cole had passed away in January 1995 due to spinal meningitis brought upon by complications from the AIDS virus, and it got Carey thinking about a way to honour Cole's memory, as well as the lives of all of those who passed away before their time from AIDS and other illnesses.  Carey had the melody and chorus already composed by the time she met up with Boyz II Men to polish the final song, and upon realizing that Boyz II Men had a similar idea for a single, they combined both their ideas to come up with the finished composition for "One Sweet Day".

Mariah Carey spoke about the songwriting experience in an interview with Chris Nickson, who wrote the book "Mariah Carey Revisited:  Her Story" in 1998;

"I wrote the initial idea for 'One Sweet Day' with Walter (Afanasieff), and I had the chorus...and I stopped and said, 'I really wanna do this with Boyz II Men,' because...obviously I'm a big fan of theirs and I just thought that the work was crying out for them, the vocals that they do, so I put it away and said, 'Who knows if this could ever happen, but I just don't wanna finish this song because I want it to be our song if we ever do it together. [The] whole idea of when you lose people that are close to you, it changes your life and changes your perspective. When they came into the studio, I played them the idea for the song and when [it] was finished, they looked at each other, a bit stunned, and told me that Nat (Nathan Morris) had written a song for his road manager who had passed away. It had basically the same lyrics and fitted over the same chord changes. It was really, really weird, we finished the song right then and there. We were all kinda flipped about it ourselves. Fate had a lot to do with that. I know some people won't believe it, but we wouldn't make up such a crazy story."

Here's something interesting to note about the music video.  Although the video you see for this song looks professionally done, it's technically not an official video.  Because Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey had both released albums in 1994 and 1995 respectively, and both artists were doing promotional tours for their respective albums at the time, so therefore, the window of opportunity in which both Carey and Boyz II Men would be free was very narrow.  So, as a result, director Larry Jordan was brought onto the soundstage where "One Sweet Day" was being recorded, and a film crew was there to film the whole session.  It was a simple video, but very effective.  Sometimes simplistic really is best.

Now, I've already mentioned that this song currently holds the record for longest time spent at the top of the Billboard charts, with sixteen consecutive weeks.  But did you know that the song also topped the charts in Canada and New Zealand?  And, that it hit the top ten in thirteen different countries overall?  And that the song sold over two million copies overall since it was released in November 1995? 

Now, here's where a little bit of controversy erupts.  It's not major, but it had a lot of people scratching their heads in bewilderment, especially Mariah Carey.  At the 38th Annual Grammy Awards which were held in 1996, the song "One Sweet Day" was performed live, and the song itself was nominated for six awards.  But in one of the biggest upsets in the history of the Grammy Awards, the song did not pick up one single award! 

But even so, the song was still a masterpiece in the world of Top 40 music.  It is easily the biggest hit of both Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men.  It was performed at the funeral services of Princess Diana in September 1997, and was performed at Mariah's BET Christmas Special in 2001.  And, all seven finalists on American Idol's seventh season performed this song during the season's "Mariah Carey" week. 

But most importantly, the song serves as a perfect single to remember those we lost way too soon.  I know I certainly have a few people in my life who have passed away before they were supposed to, and I am sure that everyone else here has someone that they lost and miss every day of their lives.

Therefore, this post is dedicated to those who left this world...and to all of us in hopes that one day, we'll be able to see them again.

Saturday, March 08, 2014

Perfection - Oh, How I Hated You, But Loved You...

Today's blog entry is going to be short and sweet.  It's going to feature a type of game that I used to play when I was a little kid, and it was one of those games that inspired a love-hate relationship.

I guess you could consider this game to be a marriage of convenience between two kinds of people.  On one side of the cake topper, you have the man (or woman) who is always pleasant to be around, who always makes people smile, and who everybody wants to get to know.  On the other side, you have the woman (or man) who is loud, obnoxious, angry, and who you would probably want to go out of your way to avoid.  You'd think that this couple has nothing in common and that it would be a marriage that is doomed to fail, and yet somehow, this couple still makes it work.

Well, in the case of this game, the marriage of convenience combines one thing I absolutely love, and one thing I absolutely hate, and turns it into a board game that simultaneously challenged and frightened children all over the world.



Okay, so let's start by talking about the thing about this game (which I promise I'll reveal in time) that I love.  As far back as I can remember, I have always loved putting together puzzles.  Even though there was that one traumatic incident in kindergarten where I was being a brat and purposely dumped every single jigsaw puzzle inside of one of the toy boxes inside the classroom and was forced to stay inside during recess to put them all back together, I still didn't mind it.  There was just something about putting puzzles together that made me feel calmer.  I think that's why I loved playing with Rubik's Cubes as a kid (even though I still can't figure out how in the world to solve the puzzle).  I think that's why I loved playing video games like Tetris and Final Fantasy.  I think that's why I like doing the occasional crossword puzzle, Sudoku puzzle, or even those juvenile Jumble comic strips in the newspaper.  Puzzles make me very happy, and I can't imagine a world where puzzles are taken away.

Now, let's talk about one thing that I hate more than anything in the world.  Being put under pressure to succeed.  I am one of those people who gets incredibly anxious when it comes to making deadlines.  If I don't get something turned in by the time it was due in class, it made for some interesting thoughts prior to turning in homework assignments.  It was as if I didn't turn in my eight-page essay on the War of 1812, something terrible would happen to me, and I would not be able to escape.

Which, granted, in reality, I would have likely gotten an F for the assignment, flunked the class, and had to repeat tenth grade history...which I suppose would sort of be like being unable to escape...oh, you know what, forget I said anything.



The point is that I get too incredibly anxious when it comes to performing any sort of task under pressure.  Even when I'm watching television and I have to see a character try to disarm a bomb, or when I am playing a video game and I only have a specific time limit to complete the task.  Those are moments in which I really struggle, and I would just rather not have the added pressure of having a limited amount of time to do something.

(Of course, if I'm serious about pursuing a writing career, I suppose having deadlines is something that I will have to get used to.)

So, here's what we have.  I have a love of puzzles, but a hatred of time limits.  So, I bet that a board game that makes you try to put a puzzle together in a limited amount of time would be one of the most frustrating things that I could ever play.

And, you would be correct.



I introduce you to the board game "Perfection".  A game that has made many people lose their minds, curse their timing, and saw kids go completely crazy since 1975.

And, wouldn't you know it?  I used to own this game.  I owned this game, but couldn't bring myself to play it the way it was supposed to be played because the sound the board would make when the time ran out scared me so much!  I would literally run screaming out of the room because it was so shocking!

Okay, so here's how the game of Perfection worked.  And, I realize that for most of you, this is a redundant exercise as you all know how to play it.  But in case you don't, here's the description.

You have a game board that features a platform which falls and rises.  Inside this platform are twenty-five different holes cut out in various shapes.  And, naturally, you have twenty-five puzzle pieces that fit into the various holes.  The object of the game is to take each of the puzzle pieces and put them into the platform so that all the holes are filled.  Sounds ridiculously simple, doesn't it?

But you see that little device on the top of the board game?  The one on the top left corner that resembles a microwave timer from the 1980s?  Well, you're supposed to push the platform down and set the timer for one minute.  You're supposed to then start the game when the timer starts, and you only have sixty seconds to get every single puzzle piece into their respective holes.  If you succeed before the time runs out, the clock stops, and your time is record.  It's only when you fail that the really bad stuff happens.






For the minute the time runs out, the platform pops up suddenly and sends puzzle pieces flying with a loud bang! 

That loud bang was what freaked me out every single time I played Perfection!  It got to the point where I would purposely cheat by stopping the clock at fifty-nine seconds just so I didn't have to hear that sound!  Terrifying!

But in all seriousness, this game was what people played before timed runs on video games and racing tracks.  When you had a group of people playing the game, it was cool to try and compete against each other to see who could get the fastest time.  And, admittedly when I was in my college years, there very well may have been a couple of instances in which people tried to play the game while intoxicated.  I never took part, but it certainly made for some interesting people-watching, let me tell you.





Oh, and for people who liked more of a challenge, there was a game called "Superfection", which played almost the same way as the regular game...only much harder.  Instead of twenty-five pieces of the same colour, you had thirty-two pieces of red, blue, green, and yellow that you had to piece together into sixteen multi-coloured cubes.  And, the timer was double to a two-minute limit.  But still...putting together thirty-two puzzle pieces into sixteen cubes in two minutes?  Could anyone do it?

(I did it in a minute fifty-eight.  Talk about cutting it close!)


EDITED TO ADD:  Don't forget to set your clocks ahead one hour at 2:00 in the morning on Sunday, March 9.  Unless you live in Arizona, where daylight savings time does not exist.