A Robhain for Roberto.

This week brought no new exciting genre stuff to geek out about. However, last weekend was one heck-o-roonie of a good time! It was the 40th celebration of Robhain (aka: my friend, Roberto's 40th birthday party) So sit back a bit and I'll tell you about it.

Every year my friend's wife throws him a HUGE birthday extravaganza that is usually theme oriented and involves lots of contests, beer and food. In years past we've had Horror themed ones. This year it was a WWII theme as the party goers were separated into two teams, Axis and Allies (as Roberto has been addicted to Call of Duty on the Xbox 360) . The competitions included a recreation of the bombings of Berlin/London with water rockets (none came close to the miniature cities we created out of cardboard boxes, but one nearly took out some roofing on Roberto's house, much to the chagrin of his lovely wife, Iris). There was also a code/cryptix treasure hunt, rocket cars, dwarves dressed as Churchill and Stalin doing a dance, a mine field race, smarming from Peej, a knee injury, an ankle injury, an ass injury (all incurred well before the festivities even started) and lots and lots of food prepared by the good Lady Peej, wife of Peej The Smarmer. (actually, the dwarf thing I made up. I was checking to see if anyone actually reads these friggin' blogs).

All in all, Robhain 2006 was a wonderful success. I'm already wondering what Iris is going to think up for next year. Dwarves?


Here's something I was pondering on a bit lately. What ever happened to Saturday morning cartoons? Do you remember when Saturday morning was the be all to end all? When I was a kid we had Scooby Doo, The Funky Phantom, Sid and Marty Kroft's Super Show, Super Friends, Clue Club, Jabber Jaw , Josie and the Pussycats (can you tell I loved the adventure and mystery cartoons?) and loads more cool as heck cartoon and children's programming. Now Saturday morning's are plagued with news shows and horrible infomercials.

I remember when Saturday morning was an event! Once the crisp fall air would waken us on a Saturday morning we'd race downstairs from our beds and watch all the new cartoon shows that the networks would come up with. Very few of them had anything to do with Poke-what's and Youh-Gi- Who's. The Friday night before the new cartoon season they'd have TV specials on each of the networks to showcase the new season! Then the next morning from as early as 7am on through, sometimes, 1pm all three major networks would regale us with hours of fun filled adventure. The commercials were a wish list of all the new toys, action figures and uber-sugarized cereals. It was a cornucopia of fun that stroked our youthful imaginations. The kids today are lucky if they get a couple of hours of corporatized cartoons disguised as crappy anime. But then again they have things like video games, iPods and internet porn to amuse them. Sigh....ahh, the good old days.


In gaming news.... I'm replaying through Return to Castle Wolfenstein on the Xbox. A fun FPS with lots of spooky, pulpy content. A fun one, but you can chew right through it within a day's worth of pounding on the controller.


The Octoberfests are starting to make their way to the store shelves, the local convenience stores are starting to stock Trick-or-Treat candies and the leaves are, indeed starting to change color. Labor Day is upon us already and these are all signs that the wonderful time of year when the undead rise from their graves and seek out the living is right around the corner. As usual, my Blog of Geekdom will be turned into a virtual Halloween Headquarters where you'll be able to share in the love of Halloween that I have.


Hopefully, very soon I'll have that announcement on the expansion tot eh Zangz's media empire that you've all been waiting for.


Well, I think I'm going to run on over to the local blockbuster and rent me some episodes of Deadwood. Since I don't have HBO, I check out the show on DVD. What an awesome, if not VERY adult oriented, show. That Al Swearengen is one nasty bastage!

So, see ya later.
Zangz.