Note to self 331: 05/07/2008

 

THAT'S what it's all about! Mario Kart Wii (online) is exactly what the doctor ordered. No more assholes snaking through entire tracks (and yes, only assholes snake in online Mario Kart DS races), but blue (and GOLD) sparks abound! I am motherfuckin' ZEUS with gold sparks, bitch! Anyway, I've been sleep deprived lately, staying up till around 2AM every night since MKW came out (kicking the asses of my fellow Americans, some Canucks, Brits, Frogs, Mexicanis, Italianos, and Japaneeses in online battles), and I couldn't be happier... Well, I THOUGHT I could [be happier], and I tried to raise my jolly quotient into abnormal levels by getting the MegaPlayboy to steal some wheels (mopeds, go-karts, ATVs, whatever he could find) for a real-life kart tournament, but he only got two soap box cars and a skateboard. You can't have a kick-ass kart race with two soap box cars unless one of them is wired with TNT. And guess what else he forgot.

 

So instead I called up Carl, Angry Amy, Kuni, Marksy, Jaime and Kiff, and of course the MegaPlayboy, and told them all to meet me at the mall at 6 that evening ("or the pictures would go out!"... Actually, I didn't have any pictures on me for once, but they didn't know that). Once they got there I attached bombs to each of their cars (pretending I was inspecting their tires), and then I informed them that the race was about to begin!

 

There wasn't too much bitching from the peanut gallery as they all pretty much understand how things go nowadays. I quickly gave them a rundown of the course — three times around the beltway that encircles town — and told them that the guns, shuriken, live snapping turtles, and the mushrooms (for Marksy's sake) that were in the back of my Exploder were free for them to use against any of the challengers during the competition. If people tried to leave the course before their three laps were complete their car would explode. If they came in last place (not including anybody who may have exploded), their car would explode. And if they pissed me off during any part of the race, their car would explode. Angry Amy then threw 4 shuriken at me and tried to stuff a live snapping turtle down my pants, but missed on all those chances. She even missed trying to ram her Prius into my car at the starting line and instead took out Kiff and her own auto in a fantastic pyrotechnic display that would shame even the most ardent Chinese fireworks god! Then we were off!

 

Jaime took an early lead as we swept down the South-bound Loop at about 90mph. She threw a landmine into the path of Carl (I don't remember stocking those, and must remind myself to not steal her paper from her lawn anymore without a metal detector), and Marksy, Kuni and I were barely able to swerve around the fireball and the falling chunks of Jeep Cherokee. Then the MegaPlayboy shot out Kuni's rear tires with his personal glock, forcing the Asian wonder to actually drive straight for once. Unfortunately he drove straight into the backside of Marksy's Pinto and... Well, you know. Then the MPB in his Audi and I in my Exploder teamed up against Jaime. It took us almost another 2 full revolutions to catch up to her (she swore she was going the speed limit), but when we did we found out that she had installed a smokescreen on her car (actually, a mixture of a corroded engine, missing muffler, and a fill-up using diesel instead of unleaded), and the MPB and I slammed into each other and the rest of the traffic around us just before the exit ramp for the end of the race. I was too impressed with her to detonate her car bomb, and instead I just saluted her run as the MegaPlayboy's Audi erupted into flames, which actually melted a good twenty-foot radius of the Loop and caused a mile-wide forced evacuation from the fumes of all his latex toys in his trunk melting into a toxic pile of sexiness. All in all it was a good day.

Note to self 330: 04/23/2008

 

Hoe-lee fuck... I haven't had a dream that vivid (and that piss-me-offable) — like the one I had last night — in a long, long time. Things started out okay: I went to a movie, but soon found that the room I was in had somehow turned into the classroom of my favorite college professor (I took 3 of his classes and audited another; I knew it well). I thought nothing about this, as I usually go with the flow of my dreams (the best way to enjoy them and the only way to make sure nobody gets hurt). The prof. in question started talking about current events, but suddenly broke the class up into small groups so that he could leave to do something "urgent." I didn't join a group (since I fucking HATE school group projects), but as I looked around me I saw that there were only a few other people in the class after a little while, and they were all people I knew from East Bumblefuck High, not college.

 

For some reason THIS actually struck me as curious. Changes in locations, people, or things surrounding me never shake me in a dream, but this made me think something was going on. Then the professor returned (something else that was strange — once people leave my dream they never come back), and he had an announcement to make: He was getting married. Then he named his fiancee. It was my old high school girlfriend. It felt like somebody had grabbed my heart and RIPPED it out of my ribcage, which was really strange since I hadn't even seen her in years and years.

 

Anyway, after the announcement, my 50-something year-old professor brought her in, and there she was, just as young and gorgeous as she ever was in high school. I was much older than her now, but I found it preposterous that my ancient letch of a teacher could bag her at this time and not me! She smiled at me like she always used to, and I melted. I remember thinking, "It's not too late! I can still win her away from him," but before I could do anything she was holding on to the professor's arm, and soon my teacher was making the class (which was now being held in a different classroom than before) watch movies of he and my old girlfriend making out. I got up and left (brushing by her long blonde hair on the way out — getting a sniff of its mind-bendingly fantastic honey scent as I went), feeling like my life was over and there was no point in going on after that shock. It was then that my memory of Forgetting Sarah Marshall kicked in as I thought it would be a good idea to take a vacation to forget all the pain.

 

I found myself on a cruise ship after just walking down the hall from the classroom (which I still found odd, but I just wanted to get away so I didn't question it), and, just like the movie (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, you fucking simpleton) my old love kept bumping into me; at least she wasn't with that asshole of a professor anymore though. I refused to talk to her, and she seemed too shy to talk to me, but no matter where I went on the boat I'd still see her (she seemed just as surprised as me). I finally ducked into a big ballroom which had hundreds of seats set up to watch a movie... As long as it wasn't my old girlfriend fucking my old teacher I thought I'd be fine with whatever they showed. Well, the curtain went up but instead of a movie screen there was just a big old tube TV (the one from UGAnime's past named "the BEAST," which was our main entertainment source for our first year of the club's existence), and on the BEAST was some new reinvention of the Tenchi Muyo franchise, wherein the cast was involved in some sort of Sherlock Holmesian mystery -slash- adventure... Man, if I could tap my mind's unlimited imagination I'd be a fucking millionaire.

 

Anyway, so that shitty show was playing to a fairly full room, but my old love was sitting a just few rows behind and to the left of me, and that kept my attention away from the screen. She never looked at me, but the last time I looked back at her she was sitting in my professor's lap and he was at second base with her teenaged tits. That's when I woke up in a panic. But within seconds of waking up I came to the conclusion that I was a goddamn idiot! I should have stayed in the original classroom to see if the home movie that my professor was showing his class did in fact turn into a skin flick. Damn you, hindsight!

 

Anyway, the Chief (and founder of UGAnime) assuaged my fears when I told him of my horrific nighttime visions. "I would never have allowed such shenanigans during a screening during my term, you can be rest assured Rossman," he verbally patted me on the head. For some reason this made me feel much better.

Note to self 329: 04/16/2008

 

I've been sick for the past couple of days, but you don't want to hear about the vomiting, the blood from my eyes (among other orifices), and the parasites now do you... If you do, you can go here and be just as happy.

 

Anyway, other than being diseased, this past weekend I was rolling in the mad bank thanks in part to Jimmy Jammer coming to me for tax help. He, like usual and like all of my acquaintances, always waits until the last minute, and he always seems to forget that I hate him whenever he needs a huge favor from me. At first I was just going to try and convince him that he should try to write off his substantial pr0n collection due to its "psychological and physical healing properties," along with his shotgun because he shot that one illegal alien (who turned out to be Mr. Sanchez from Columbus, Ohio) with it last year, thusly saving taxpayers about 2-million Pesos a year on supporting him... But once I realized that I could file his return electronically — and send his rebates directly to my bank account — I decided to go a little bit more legit.

 

After Jimmy Jammer left he started spreading the word to all my other friends and enemies, and soon I had Kuni, the MegaPlayboy, Angry Amy, Robot Pedro, and Jimmy Jammer again (whom I convinced needed to file separately for his blow-up doll) all knocking on my door to have me help them with their taxes before the big deadline day. Combined I raked in about $13-thousand from all of them — surprisingly enough Robot Pedro earned the biggest rebate check despite the fact that he himself is an illegal alien, and a felon (with over 20-million confirmed deaths on his hands). Goddamn government...

 

So, I plan to enjoy all their hard-earned cash as best I can (I've had my eye on a nice 2-month-long vacation down on St. Andrews about when the refunds are set to be sent out... They have no extradition laws down there, and lots of bars and nude beaches), but I do realize the dangerous game that I'm playing — no, not with Jimmy Jammer, the MegaPlayboy (who I already convinced that he owed the government about 2 grand, and that I would take care of for him if he wrote the check out to me), or even Robot Pedro, but with Angry Amy. She can hunt down a flea in a doggie mange contest, I know she can find me wherever I flee. Though it wasn't out of greed that I screwed her over; I just didn't want her to be able to afford those new spiked, steel-toed boots that she had been pricing for the past few weeks. It was purely out of self-preservation... And ironically enough it may lead to my eventual downfall. Crap in a hat...

Note to self 328: 04/09/2008

 

Philly, Philly, Philly… A fun town to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. Nothing against Philadelphia itself mind you, I just detest big-city life. Though for being a big city, Philly wasn't that bad.

 

I spent almost all of last week “doing Philly” for all intents and purposes. Seeing the sites, hitting the best restaurants in town (well, my group never did find Iron Chef Morimoto's place dammit! So I never did see the best of the best), and pretty much drinking ourselves into a Philly-stupor most nights. Tuesday we arrived, did our meeting thing during the day, and then went for a big bite to eat at the Marathon Grill. That's where I had my very first taste of Yuengling Lager, and I never looked back. That stuff gives Billy Dee's Colt45 a run for its smooooth money! After that we took a nice, freezing, Philly walk back to our hotel.

 

Wednesday was a bit of the same: Meetings all day, and then party-time at night. Except on Wednesday we decided to grab some good Mexican food in Center City Philly at El Vez… 23 blocks away. It sounded like a fun thing to do in theory, but self-vacectomies sound good in theory too. We passed lots of pretty buildings, lots of homeless, and some reject from a Pat Benatar video (sparkling with leather, studs, and chains, with a wild green Mohawk) who was clawing for something underneath a Philly trash can with an eight-inch Bowie-knife. Not IN the trash can, mind you, but under it. We tried not to make eye contact, but one of our party just refused to look away… I think Mohawk ate her soul that night; she just hasn't been the same since.

 

Anyway, our restaurant d'jour that night was booked beyond capacity despite the fact that our Philly contemporaries swore up and down that we wouldn't need reservations. Always remember, people love to lie about this kind of shit. I think it makes them feel powerful and… I don't know… Assholic? Seriously, that's just a shitty thing to do. Instead we went to a Zagat-rated (rated what I never did ask) place across the street called Lolitas, which was pretty damn good despite its illegal-sounding name, and even more despite it not having a license to sell alcohol (though our waiter was very eager to point out at least 15 liquor stores within a 5 block radius of us so that he could then charge us a $25 uncorking fee). We made due with that food, then taxi-cabbed it back to our hotel where we found a pizzeria/bar with some college hoops playing, in which we each won Yuengling baseball caps, basketball jerseys, and our night's bar tab for betting on UCLA against Texas A&M with the bartender (who didn't seem to realize that the game was prerecorded from 3 nights previous).

 

Thursday was the day in which we wrangled a sight-seeing guide to take us around Philly and give us the Rocky Balboa/M. Night Shamalyanalian grand tour! First we hit Jim's for the best Philly cheesesteak (one whiz wid') I've ever had (you don't have to trust just MY endorsement, you can see all the autographs posted all over Jim's walls featuring everybody from Mr. T's “Jim's is the motherfucking BEST!” to Hall and Oates' signed support of “Thank you for remembering us, Jim's! We'll play your basement any day!”), then we walked down to the Delaware River and laughed at Jersey, then we checked out Tom Hanks' hospital room from Philadelphia (the MOVIE!) and laughed at the guy there now (telling him, “Ha ha! You're in the same bed that Tom Hanks died of the AIDs in!”), and then we went to the Art Museum. While our tour guide was parked oh-so illegally in front of the closed building (it was close to 11PM at the time) I raced up the stairs 4 at a time, and when I reached the top I pumped my fists in the air and screamed out “Adriaaaaaaaaan! Adriaaaaaaaaan!!!” along with about 50 other people who were doing the same thing. Goddamn copycats.

 

After that I stole the Liberty Bell for a cunning plan — one in which I had to do something so nefarious that I thought I needed "pure history" to accomplish my goals of… For the life of me I cannot remember what the fuck it was now. I'm sure it'll come to me, and in the meantime I still have the Bell in…. Oh fuck me sideways! I fucking left it in my hotel room! That bitchy little maid who got all uppity about me leaving painted-tit marks on the walls, mirrors and ceiling probably kept it and is using it as the ultimate hood ornament right now!

 

Whatever… -Sigh- After Operation Bell for Liberty took place (and we lost Johnson) we checked out the church where Haley Joel saw dead people and Bruce Willis (did you like how I scooted around stating that Bruce Willis' character in the 6th Sense was dead all along just in case somebody who never saw that movie was reading this? I'm great that way), and then we called it a night.

 

Friday we returned home and I had to try and figure out how to expense three guns, a samurai sword, 150 pounds of Beef-A-Roni, and a deed to an actual restaurant (I'm telling you, I LOVED Jim's!). I'm still working on it, but I think it may be possible if I just state that Philly is a “high cost of living environment.” I mean, my old job at the condom-testing lab allowed my friend Jenkins to expense that brothel outside of Vegas two years ago… I don't see how this is any different.

Note to self 327: 03/19/2008

 

Jesus! That old Roman witch was right when she said "Beware the Ides of March..." No political assassinations or anything this year, but nearly an Apocalypse or two.

 

Things started out a little iffy a few hours before the official Ides began. I had turned on my TV at around 10:30PM on the 14th and saw the aftermath of a fucking tornado that just struck downtown Atlanta — namely Centennial Olympic Park, the CNN Center, and the Phillips Arena where the UGA Bulldogs were playing in the SEC Championship Tourney. The storm that spawned that Twister veered South after ass-fucking the capital, and thusly missed my town, Athens... But God must have heard my mocking laughter (I take any chance I can get to make fun of anything bad happening to Atlanta — that cesspool of a latrine-city) because starting at 7AM on the 15th my house was rocked (ROCKED I say!) by a 24-hour bombardment of thunderstorms, hail, flash floods, and even a few funnel clouds (pussy tornado wannabes that never grew ballsy enough to touch the ground).

 

Off and on and off and on, all fucking day long. Tornado sirens at 3:30, hail the size of golf balls (FUCKING GOLF BALLS!) at 5:15, then, out of nowhere, the rain stopped and at 5:17 the clouds had blown away and there was nothing but blue sky and sunshine (well, for an hour or two). Was the Lord and Creator just on a bad meth trip? What the fuck causes something like that? To top it all off UGA won the SEC Championship that weekend too! Most people I know weren't even aware of the fact that UGA even had a basketball team before reading about the game that was hit by the twister that Friday. Nevermind the disappearing storms, where the fuck did that basketball team come from?!

 

The weirdest part of the whole Ides though was when that house dropped on my bitchy neighbor and that annoying little girl climbed out (of the house, not my neighbor) with her puntable lap dog that wouldn't stop yapping. I did use that confusion to take my ex-neighbor's shoes ($250 Air Nikes, bitch!) and blame that mentally screwed up child in the braids. Mrs. Thropp's feet were monstrously large, and those tennies fit like a dream! In the confusion of some other neighbors (a house full of midgets from what I could tell) who started break dancing and "steppin' up" with the confused girl, I looted the Thropp's house and left some of that lap dog's fur around the place to lead the police in the right direction (namely away from myself). Wow... What a world...

 

(Below you can see some pics I took of the flooding around my house just as the storm was letting up [at 5:15], and then the final image that I took at 5:17. It is what it is.)

 

Note to self 326: 03/05/2008

 

Well....... Last Friday was Team Greenwood's official "Leap Year Party," aka "The Fake Day Festival." Now, in accordance with ancient Greenwood texts it is stated quite clearly that any gathering of merry souls on "the day that does not-eth existeth that comes around but once a fourth year" is to be filled with revelry and spirits and illegal improprieties due to the fact that "real laws do not-eth counteth on faketh dayseth." So after I woke up on Saturday and got that mailbox removed from my... person... I bailed Mehve (along with that dog he got nakedly arrested with) out of jail, spent four hours trying to find the Chief with that GPS tracking collar I put on him for just such an emergency (he was stuck down some old guy's chimney and was still passed out — or dead, I never did check — when I found him), buried the parts of PsychoWeasel that I could find, unthawed the 9th clone I had made of the MegaPlayboy (one for every time he vanished without a trace) and told him that he was the one and only original... and that it was still 2001 (when his memories last left off... Trust me, it really fucks with their minds if they know the truth; I went through 3 before figuring out why they were clawing their eyes out with sporks), and dumped all those dead hookers on Angry Amy's lawn. Honestly, what is it with me and mailboxes?

Note to self 325: 02/27/2008

 

After seeing both Spiderwick Chronicles and Jumper this past weekend I think I got a little over excited in my explaining how much I enjoyed them both to Dr. Dave. He got it in his head that I wanted to "see invisible demons" and "teleport like a furry blue mutant" just like the kids in the flicks. After I initially woke up from the forced genetic-enhancement surgery that the good Doc knocked me out for, I was actually quite pleased. The teleporting part of my dual operation was pretty fucking awesome. I was hanging out with celebs in Hollywood (well, the non-douchey, non-Scientologist ones... Arnold and... Well it was really just him, and it was really just me making him say all of his catch phrases over and over for my answering machine until he got it right [I finally had to take the barrel out of his mouth so he could nail the final "So leave a message and I'LL BE BACK!"]), then I'd instantly transport myself to a high-class Beijing brothel (okay, maybe not high-class [contrary to popular belief they don't really exist]), then to the set of Kobe Tai's newest movie masterpiece, and then I rounded out my night by shooting on down to Rio for a nude beach party I had heard about back in some smoke-house in Amsterdam. That's when my second new ability made its appearance.

 

If you heard of any news reports of some gringo Americano running around naked on a Brazilian beach while swinging a bamboo sword at invisible monsters while screaming "OH MY GOD! Get them OFF me!!! NOOOOO! This isn't what I wanted! This isn't-- AAAAAAH! Their crawling inside of me now!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOO!" well, that was probably me... You know, that has actually happened to me before. If I had a couple of Jagermeisters that night then Dr. Dave may not be the one to blame for all that. Oooooooo... Now I feel kind of bad about teleporting into his place during his 2:30AM constitutional and throwing two pissed off male skunks, a shaved badger, and a wiener dog in his bathroom with him after locking his door from the outside. I may owe him a fruit basket for that one.

 

Change of topic: When the hell did Sola become one of the most highly anticipated anime releases of the goddamn year? I caught this had- to- have- been- based- on- a- hentai- game show a while ago, but it was just so bland and by the numbers that I didn't even bother to review it. That ending was just so fucking lame (the brother wasn't real, the sister was a vampire... sorry, but you didn't need to see it anyway), and so telegraphed. If you really didn't see that shit coming then you really need to start gargling with Clorox (The Rossman does not condone the ingesting — even to gargle — of bleach or any other chemicals that can cause bodily harm... Unless you're Jimmy Jammer). You've seen this type of shit many, many times in the past, and done much better too (Lunar Legend Tsukihime por ejemplo). Skip it, please. This is the same cardboard cut-out shit that US distributors pick up for a quick buck. There is much better stuff they need to release first though. Please, send them a message by NOT BUYING IT ("it" being Sola, morons).

Note to self 324: 02/13/2008

 

This has been a strange week. A good one, but a strange and melancholic one. It started out with me taking Steph out to see the movie Juno on Friday ('cause teen pregnancy movies make perfect date movies); as much as I didn't want to think about it, man, this movie really made me remember my high school days. No, I never knocked up a quirky and cute classmate, but I did know a girl back in high school who acted just like the lead character Juno MacGuff: Strong-willed, spunky, funny, and cute.

 

Then, the next day when I was at the gym they had nothing but early 90s songs on the radio. I was the only one there singing along to them... Punk-ass kids don't know nothin' about good music. Anyway, the nostalgia came flooding back upon me like a tourist watching a tsunami blast towards him on a SouthEast Asian beach. The final straw was when I watched Blade Runner on Sunday. That was it, I was back in my youth. Watching good sci-fi movies at Elliott and Chi-Chi's houses, cranking the car stereo as I drove some hotties home from school, just having fun.

 

Fun is a lot harder to come by when you're an adult. True, you can do a lot more (legally) once you're old enough to get your own place and work a real job that doesn't require a name tag, but once you come home after working said job you're too tired to do any of it. It's kind of depressing actually. And it got me so depressed that I thought it was time for a little vacation. So I called up Bob From the Future (I have to leave a message on a time-repelling voice-mail machine telling him when I'm calling, what I need his assistance with, and give a 10 page oral presentation about how I understand that time travel is not a right, but a privilege, and how I don't really plan to use his powers of temporal adjustment for petty or evil reasons... It's really a big pain in the ass) and told him of my plan: I wanted to reverse my age back to 16, go back to my junior year in high school, and live life right again (at least for a few days). Bob then appeared as soon as I was done with the recording, told me that he thought this was harmless enough, and so he went back first and sent my younger self of the true time period to an all-expence paid trip to Hawai'i for a few days (which I floated myself... With one of Jimmy Jammer's parents' expired credit cards [well, they're expired today, back in the past they were just pressed]), then he brought me back to fill in my younger self's shoes so to speak.

 

Holy SHIT. Everything looks so different the second time through. Sister Jaime and my parents both looked so young! Well, so did I after that futuristic youthenizing Botox that Bob From the Future shot me up with, but my family, and my friends! Damn! Chi-Chi hadn't started that heavy smoking and drinking yet, the Wolfman wasn't half as hairy as he is today, and Just Kidding... Holy fucking shit! No wonder I had the hots for her back then!

 

Everything else back then was sooooo much easier than it is now. Homework was a breeze, my job at Little Caesar's was stress free, gas was less than a dollar a gallon ($.77 per gallon for the cheap shit!), and all those high school hotties! Oh, life was so good back then. The only bummer part was when my younger self came back from his vacation. I had to kill him and stick that surgically implanted Lojak on him that Bob From the Future thought he was so clever in installing in my ass, and then convinced Bob From the Future that my older self ran away and tripped into oncoming traffic. Then I lived my life all over again (making minor alterations to certain preset elements in my once life when I saw fit). I put every penny I could scrounge into Apple, Yahoo! and Google stocks, became an instant billionaire, married Just Kidding (3 times, and Angelina Jolie once in between one of our messy divorces), and then I started my own movie studio where all I ever produced was sci-fi movies from Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg and James Cameron (and Cameron never made Titanic in my new world. You're welcome).

 

Unfortunately Bob From the Future eventually caught on and caught up to me just three months ago (November 2007, just before I was to accept my 5th Nobel Peace Prize for kicking Putin in the pud on live TV), and gave me a looooong fucking lecture about abusing time travel and yadda yadda yadda... Ugh, I HATE those speeches. Anyway, in order to try and teach me a good lesson Bob From the Future took me back in time again, to the day before he convinced my younger self to go to Hawai'i, and then he temporally merged the two of us together, but only left my younger self's consciousness able to make decisions and function while I observed everything but was unable to act. Then Bob From the Future forced me to live my entire life over again; every original bad decision and awkward situation back in place. I only came back in control the instant that I had picked up the phone to leave that voice mail for Bob From the Future to take me back to the past a couple of days ago.

 

I think with all the times I've had to relive my past or future I am now officially over 416 years old. I can recite my own life now I know it so well. It's like a well-worn piece of syndication to me. I need a nap.

Note to self 323: 01/30/2008

 

A long time ago I came across a show that sucked so bad, with not one character I could sympathize with or even LIKE in the least, that it simply blew my mind. I hated it so much in fact that I could not make it past 6 full episodes (and I had previously finished crap like Saikano, Melody of Oblivion, and Princess Nine). Blood + was that show, and at the time I thought I'd never see the likes of suck like that ever again. That was before I started the Cowboy Bebop wannabe known as Baccano! (the exclamation point is theirs, not mine).

 

Baccano! goes a little something like this: ......Actually I have NO FUCKING IDEA what it's about, and I made it 4 episodes into its 13 episode run. And then I looked up its episode synopses on Wikipedia. I still have no fucking clue (granted, near the end I wasn't even trying to make sense of it all).

 

The main problem with Baccano! is... Let me rephrase that. One of the thousands of main problems with Baccano! is that it's all style and no substance, but its style is just an annoying and pathetic rip-off of much better shows. It tries to ooze a hip and jazzy atmosphere, but it doesn't understand that simply placing the setting of the series in early 1930s America does not a groovy ambiance make. You need a good and solid plot first of all, and characters that the audience wants to get to know better. Baccano! by distinction has a convoluted plot (that's told in flashbacks and flash forwards that randomly occur every 2 minutes or so) and characters that are either psychotic or pure morons (the crazy fuck who likes to tell his fiancee how he's going to kill her and the tattooed wang who curls up into a ball and pisses himself when somebody tells a really pathetic ghost story stick out in my memory the most). Well, I guess some are both (psychotic and simpletons), but none are neither.

 

I wanted to pound the stupidness and craziness out of every single one of the characters... And there are something like 2 dozen freaks who we're following in this mess of a series. No, I'm not exaggerating (by much); just watch the opening animation and you'll be introduced to a metric ass ton of retarded characters all by name. Yeah, they all look different from each other, but when you're thrown into this impossibly lame world, shunted forward and backward through time every time you blink, and when no clear plot pokes its head out after four full episodes (30% of the entire series), it's obvious that it's all just one big mess. This is what I wrote down in my notes after initially getting through the first 4 episodes (and no further): The first ep. feels like 6 or 7 different eps (or series) edited together by a monkey on crack. And holy shit, Jacuzzi is the world's BIGGEST PUSSY. As a matter of fact there are no likeable people in this entire thing — not one cool or even appealing lead or side chara. The "story" skips forward and backwards through time, but only randomly. And it fails to tell you when it's the past or the future (or present, if there is one). It's not a gimmick, it's just annoying.

 

Please don't buy this crap when it comes out in the States. The sooner companies lose money on shitty shows like this, the sooner they stop purchasing them.