27. Maze Woods Story 2: Defeat the giant spear man

Riding the moving turtles, introduced in this level, is refreshingly rare in this game, being used only twice mo’; & tho it is an autoscroll mechanic, a’least this level was laid out in a way that minimizes standing around doing nothing. Nor is it used too much or too li’l, hitting that sweet spot o’ 2 iterations, the 1st a simple tutorial where you just need to jump up a few short platforms & dodge slow-moving Pirate Gooms & a 2nd with mo’ complex layouts where you have to quickly plow thru cracked blocks & dodge much mo’ dangerous fire foxes.

Howe’er, while I get how cool it is to have to time entering a door while on the turtle, it’s lame that you have to redo the 1st half o’ the 1st turtle section when you do so, as leaving the door dunks you right into the currents that push you back to the start, especially since all that door holds is a bunch o’ coins and is the same general o’erused puzzle o’ jumping on an enemy while holding an enemy so you can jump off that enemy while on the 2nd storey to reach the 3rd storey — which is especially uninteresting, since it comes so soon after a very similar puzzle room but with 1 Pirate Goom replaced by a stove. They could’ve avoided this by having a tiny turtle section o’ currentless water where the only need for the turtle is to enter the door, allowing you to just swim onward after leaving.

Continue reading @ Level Rankings.com…

I was originally planning on avoiding talking ’bout the assassination o’ Trump’s right ear, — ¡typical leftist bias! — so I wouldn’t be put on a list when “Massive Dumps” Trump is coronated as CEO for Life o’ the new Patriotic States of America, or the reveal that Biden had a been an animated vegetable this whole time, or the twist that Biden is stepping down ’cause another Biden vs. Trump election is just cringe & so he can spend mo’ time playing as Luigi in Mario Kart, — ¿& who wouldn’t prefer that to giving missiles to Israel, who aren’t e’en grateful — or whate’er inane soap-opera twist comes up before this article comes out that will ruin my sweet jokes, but I just had to stumble ’pon this dumbass article by The Daily Beast: I shit you not, it’s called, “What Donald Trump’s Abandoned Shoe Reveals About Him and America” with a solemn photo o’ said “abandoned” shoe standing on velvet red carpet — albeit this goofy solemnity is ruined by the subtitle, “Sole Survivor” ( “ahaha, I don’t feel like they get that” ).

Sometimes a shoe is more than a shoe.

I’ll believe that as much as I’ll believe all those bronies trying to tell me that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic isn’t just a fun cartoon for kids but is a philosophical exploration as deep as Dostoevsky or that e’ery episode o’ the Pokémon anime after the 1st takes place in Ash Ketchum’s coma.

In the mayhem of the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a single black Oxford shoe was left behind, abandoned on the platform where the former president was wounded by a sniper’s bullet and smothered in a Secret Service protective scrum.

Programmers have ne’er felt as sympathetic toward Trump as during those last few words, shuddering as they imagine the former president having to hold 15-minute stand-up meetings e’ery day to explain the the Secret Service what he’d done the previous day to contribute to that fortnight’s sprint. I am not 1 o’ them & call “fake news”: there is no way the wildly disciplineless Trump could be tamed by e’en the most legendary o’ scrum masters.

Trump, it seems, lost one shoe in the melee on stage.

& this is where this writer publisher/CEO, if the bio is correct, gets led astray by his thesaurus: “melee” is not just a generic synonym for any kind o’ battle, but specifically a hand-to-hand fight, not a gun battle. Perhaps save your flowery language for the poetry you’re still sure any day now will be published in those big journals that don’t exist anymo’ ’cause it’s no longer the 50s & nobody reads poetry anymo’ & stick with just regular-ass words, please. Trump’s fucking shoe is the last thing that deserves poetic prose.

That shoe–a sole survivor–

“¡This pun is so great, I just have to use it again!”

[…] reveals a lot about Trump as a consummate performer who cannily thinks first about himself and then about his audience. Under fire and on camera, the events in Butler offer a remarkable window into Trump’s primal instincts and mastery of political theater.

No, I’m pretty sure that shoe only reveals that Trump probably wears a slightly too-big shoe size, which I guess could say something ’bout his ego & his delusions o’ bigness. I’m pretty sure anyone, if they left their shoe while being led away by the Secret Service, would have left it there. If Trump had somehow o’erpowered the Secret Service agents holding onto him & insisted on getting his shoe back on, that would be mo’ notable.

After some irrelevant details I don’t care ’bout, including the introduction o’ a pointless side character, “Hawkeye”, who I’m going to assume is a M.A.S.H. cosplayer, we finally get something resembling an answer:

The goal, in Secret Service jargon, is to get Trump off the “X” (the target) as fast as possible. But Trump doesn’t sound in any particular hurry.

“Let me get my shoes,” he says, “Let me get my shoes.”

So, ¿Trump leaving his shoe ’hind is indicative o’ his “master of political theater” because… he didn’t want to leave his shoe ’hind, but he was forced to?

A male agent says, “I got you sir, I got you sir.”

Trump repeats: “Let me get my shoes on.”

Another agent suddenly notices the former president has been wounded. “Hold on,” the agent says, “your head is bloody.”

“Sir, we’ve got to move to the car, sir,” an agent says. Trump is wounded and bleeding. Every second counts.

But Trump is undeterred. He insists for a third time in only nine seconds, “Let me get my shoes.”

A female agent says “OK” and another agent says: “We got to move, we got to move.”

This is the worst Tom Clancy book I’ve e’er read.

Making space with his hands in the middle of the phalanx so that he can see the crowd–and the cameras can see him–Trump mouths the words “fight, fight, fight” while pumping his fist.

Trump’s first thought: Himself. He needs his shoes for whatever reason–to run, to stand tall, they’re expensive. But then, his mind turns to his second thought: The crowd and what they really want. A gladiator rising back to his feet, his head bloodied and unbowed, shoes or no shoes.

So what Trump’s abandoned shoe reveals is that… it isn’t important @ all.

In a historic sense, of course, the shoe won’t matter.

As we’ve established, it also doesn’t matter in the symbolic sense, — or any sense — either.

For his supporters, Trump’s well-polished shoe left on the stage surely stands for his invincibility and indestructibility.

Considering the average demographic o’ Trump’s fans, I doubt this. They don’t strike me as the kind who would love to analyze the symbolism o’ Their Eyes Were Watching God in their language arts college class. @ best, they’re the kind who would reply like Flannery O’Connor when she was asked ’bout the symbolism o’ the hat the Misfit wore when asked ’bout the symbolism o’ Trump’s shoe: “it covers a foot”.

In this same moment, his opponent’s shoes may be perceived very differently: signs of President Joseph R. Biden’s potential vulnerability.

This makes no sense: ¿how is Biden, who still has both shoes, weaker than a man who only has 1 shoe now? ¡All Biden has to do is stomp on Trump’s uncovered foot to win!

For a politician who spent a half century in traditional black leather shoes, Biden’s recent footwear choices suggest an older man now focused on stability, steadiness and comfort: black Hoka Transport sneakers with cushioned soles, Sketchers slip-in sneakers, and Cole Haan Brogue Oxfords with rubber soles.

I’m glad to see that pundit hacks have developed their shallow wardrobe critiques from basic tan suits to these elaborate descriptions that seem to come straight from American Psycho.

Yes, shoes matter in politics. In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon tried to show his casual side with strolls on the San Clemente beach. On the white sand, he wore black wingtip dress shoes. That faux pas confirmed what many suspected about Nixon.

Yes, that is what made Nixon 1 o’ the most hated presidents: not that whole Watergate scandal, but the fucking shoes he wore. That’s why the billions o’ satires ’bout him in various media like Futurama always make sure to make a comment ’bout the shoes he wore — they’re as iconic as Abraham Lincoln’s top hat or George Washington’s “wooden teeth” he scammed off his slaves.

In 2008, the holes in Barack Obama’s shoes reminded voters of Adlai Stevenson soles with holes. Men of the people, those holey shoes proclaimed.

1st, the only people who care ’bout Adlai Stevenson or e’en remember that he existed are Final Fantasy VI conspiracy theorists; 2nd, nobody e’er talked ’bout the holes in Obama’s shoes. The rest o’ the world doesn’t share your foot fetish, sorry.

For Trump, one shoe is a reminder of his moment in crisis. His first impulse was that he needed his Oxfords and didn’t want to leave them behind. But then his second instinct took over, making an even more indelible mark. At this moment in American politics, it seems this enduring image of a raised fist in the midst of chaos and confusion may be winning over stability and comfort.

So the significance o’ Trump’s abandoned shoe is as a red herring in the article: the actually important symbol is his naked fist. In my high school language arts class I once bullshitted that Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was ’bout the failure o’ German & Italian territories to unite into singular nations till the late 1800s as symbolized by Nora & Torvald Helmer’s breakup, which doesn’t e’en make sense as that play was both published & took place after Germany & Italy finally succeeded in unifying themselves, & yet my 17-year-ol’ self did a better job o’ stretching that idea out than this cracker did with making up any kind o’ symbol for Trump’s shoe. In short, this essay gets an F, see me after class.

Tier: F

Can’t get enough of the Beast?

Unlock unrestricted access to our reporting with a paid subscription.

If this article is a representation o’ what “the Beast” is, ¡then sign me up! Or maybe I’ll just be a dirty pirate & hack thru your clever DRM by just removing the stupid banner you show & changing the CSS so the article can scroll ’gain. ( I realize the irony that just after this post will be asking readers to pay to my Patreon ). I do appreciate how “Can’t get enough of the Beast?” sounds like a nu-metal or post-grunge lyric, tho — probably the best writing I’ve read here so far, & it wasn’t e’en by this publisher/CEO.

33. One Noisy Morning Story 3: Let the water out!

A weaker version o’ the level that comes just before it. While I can understand the interest in wanting to develop the “story” o’ Wario’s castle flooding, taking up 2 / 5 o’ the 1st castle chapter with pseudowater levels is pushing it. This level does a’least use water in a different way, tho it’s less interesting: we have 1 use o’ a switch to make the water fall so you can reach a paltry 20 coins, & then have to switch it back on to reach a high-up shelf to continue the level. If you don’t feel like you absolutely need those 20 whole coins, you can just ignore the switch.

Kind o’ disappointing, considering this is the only level that has this precise gimmick, especially since they set it up to be mo’ meaningful near the beginning o’ the level, with the breakable block ’tween an early & late room, but underwater, & thus unbreakable, making one think that one needs to lower the water to break thru it; howe’er, the switch bizarrely doesn’t affect this room & you just get to the other side by going around doors.

Continue reading @ Level Rankings.com…

The elephant in the room

Before I start, I have to acknowledge the recent news that Disturbed’s lead singer, David Draiman, played an ultimate boomer move in signing an IDF missile for Israel, which means he’s a shoo-in to be invited to write an op-ed for Newsweek. As I proclaimed in that very same article, we ( me & my schizo mindvoices ) here @ The Mezunian support neither theocratic sides that worship the same made-up god, but believe that tasty black pepper should triumph o’er all, from the river to the sea. This puts David Draiman @ odds with my political views & therefore he must be purged from the council, the Englesist Magical Socialist Party hath spoken. Also, being serious, signing your name on a fucking missile, e’en if used gainst literal Nazi officials who are child molesters & took Drake’s side o’ the Great 2024 Beef War & not a bunch o’ poor people, is tacky as hell. There’s a difference ’tween somberly acknowledging war as sometimes a necessary evil & psychopathically cheering on the death o’ civilians with your cowboy hat hanging on your mitt like the end o’ Dr. Strangelove.

This article mentions that this album we will be looking @ is full o’ themes opposed to the US’s wars in the middle east, but I will go e’en further: those who had listened to “Liberate” from the previous album we looked @ will recall this Biblical recitation specifically mentioning Israel:

out of zion shall come the forth the law
& the word of the lord from jerusalem
nation shall not raise sword against nation
& they shall not learn war anymore
for the mouth of the lord hath spoken

I guess ol’ Yahweh changed their mind, as they do a lot, & decided, <Actually, fuck it, I want to see you crackas make each other bleed. I’m getting bored as fuck>. This is what makes this the ultimate boomer moment: someone who was cool when they were young growing to 180° into the same war-mongering reactionary they protested against when they were young. Ain’t goin’ be me: I’m going to grow into a curmudgeonly tankie, ranting ’bout how western propaganda just doesn’t understand how glorious China’s vanguard party is @ serving the people’s needs, — while not living there, ’course, since those crackas would put bullets in me if they saw what I was typing ’bout them — as opposed to bougie fake western democracies, thank you.

Anyway, so Freddie DeBoer doesn’t have a crying fit, I won’t cancel Disturbed by not making a mocking review o’ 1 o’ their albums ’cause their lead singer decided to try speedrunning his arthritic band back into the spotlight like Ronnie Radke making transphobic jokes. I’m not letting him or any dumb ethnoreligious war meddle with my schedule I spent a whole 10 minutes typing up in LibreCalc. Luckily I already wrote most o’ these song reviews before I learned o’ this news, so it didn’t affect my reviews & therefore this article ’bout an ol’ millennial nu-metal album that hardly anyone remembers will keep its integrity & this very political album won’t be tainted by a political review.

The actual start

The album we’re looking @ today is yet ’gain not The Sickness, but the 1st Disturbed album I heard, their 3rd album, Ten Thousand Fists, whose singles were all o’er the rock radio in late 2005 when I started to get into rock radio. ¿What stands out ’bout this album to make it worth dedicating a review to it? Nothing: it’s very standard alt metal. ¡Enjoy the review!

1. Ten Thousand Fists

This is definitely a banger, especially the bridge where Draiman puts on his whispery “Midlife Crisis” voice & the final chorus, where the song gets amped up. That said, the “power to the people” lyrics are vague, & lines like “leave the weak & haunted behind” & talk o’ “triumph of the soul” sound sus. ¿But who cares? Nobody listens to fucking Disturbed for Noam Chomskiesque cerebral political commentary.

Grade: B

2. Just Stop

This song is less interesting & less memorable, with its thudding riffs & verses & vague lyrics ’bout relationship problems, which don’t mesh well with the creepy voice Draiman puts on in the bridge. I dunno, it’s just funny to hear the lines, “all I ever wanted was to be a real source of compassion for the moment” sung in a daemonic voice. I do kind o’ like the soulful chorus, I guess. I dunno, I think there were better songs to be a single than this.

Grade: C

3. Guarded

This song is e’en less interesting, & was the lead single, to boot, & I may go far ’nough to say the shrill vocals in the chorus are annoying, especially the dragged out “deciiiiiiiiiiide” @ the end. We also get another weird mix o’ relationship troubles & the occult with talk o’ “guarding yourself from the love of another” followed by, “¿why does it sound like the devil is laughing?”. Surely the devil has mo’ treacherous deeds to pull than making people too afraid to commit. The only minor praise I can give is that I do find the weird rhythm/meter on the verses interestingly weird.

Grade: D

4. Deify

You can easily discern this song’s meaning right @ the beginning, where we hear spooky music o’er clips o’ George W. Bush being praised & saying some bullshit ’bout justice or whate’er. I do find it weird that the song includes the lines, “all my devotion betrayed” & “i was too blinded to see how much you’ve stolen from me”. ¿Was anyone truly surprised Bush would get us into wars, considering the US was already re-engaging in military attacks against Iraq after the Gulf War as early as 1998 & that the Bush administration was already making plans for ousting Saddam @ the beginning o’ his term, before 9/11 & was outspoken ’bout such goals in their 2000 platform? On the other hand, a’least this is slightly less vague than “Ten Thousand Fists” & I always liked the DUH-DUH, DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH riff.

Grade: B

5. Stricken

All right, we actually have a funny song here, thanks to the return o’ Draiman’s patented scat-singing:

ya come on lika woman in suffering
nah e’en mah mamma gonna tell me why

This is just ’nother song with ridiculously sinister diction given to what sounds like a mild relationship misunderstanding, with comparisons to “bloodstained hurricanes” & e’en the holocaust. No, I’m not making that last 1 up. Savor this 2nd verse:

you don’t know what your power has done to me
I want to know if I’ll heal inside
I can’t go on with a holocaust about to happen
seeing you laughing another time
you’ll never know why your face has haunted me
my very soul has to bleed this time
another hole in the wall of my inner defenses
leaving me breathless the reason I know…

& people call “Crawling” melodramatic.

This is not as good as Disturbed’s best songs, but is mo’ interesting than the songs we heard before & has iconic lyrics.

Howe’er, if you want a much better version o’ this song, I present to you:

Grade: ⚡

6. I’m Alive

Yeah, the repetitious “duh-duh, duh-duh” singing @ the start o’ e’ery line in the verses, many times just “ne-ver a-gain”, don’t really gel with me, nor the sing-songy chorus or the bland, “I’m alive”, repeated afterward. Lyrically, this is just a, “I’m-a gonna be myself” anthem, but sounding like it’s coming from a medieval monk, with such vague but grandiloquent diction:

— of living within the world of the jaded
they kill inspiration, it’s my obligation —

&

denying the sin, my art, my redemption
I carry the torch of my fathers before me

Usually when metal bands sing like this it’s when talking ’bout epic battles ’tween dragons & holy divers riding tigers, not people complaining ’bout how they’re not going to be a part o’ this system.

Grade: D

7. Sons of Plunder

This is a much catchier song, especially the internal rhyme in the middle o’ the 1st two lines o’ the chorus where Draiman slows down:

as the countless numbers hunger for worldwide renown
all the pimping sons of plunder will roll up their sleeves

That said, it’s kind o’ weird that they make this “fuck all these other uncreative hacks” song on what seems like a much less creative & much mo’ standard hard rock album than previous albums. I do now wonder if this “new sound” the singer feels surrounded by is in fact nu-metal. 2005 is ’bout when it started to peter out, so this rant that seems like an iconoclastic attack gainst this new fad, in fact, sounds mo’ like jumping on an already-swelling bandwagon gainst an already-dying genre.

Still, I’d take e’en a hypocritical jab gainst other nu-metal bands any day o’er more bland romantic drama songs, especially 1 as catchy as this.

Grade: B

8. Overburdened

¿Apparently this is ’bout soldiers? This seems weird given the lines, “¿how was I considered evil? / pleasures taken in this life”. I wouldn’t consider going off to war living off in hedonism. Still, I like the concept o’ humanity being so wicked that hell is o’erburdened with dead people. It’s a very slayeresque concept, which is now a high art concept I’ve invented. Musically, this is also the most interesting song on this album, with its slow but steady rhythm matching the steady march o’ people in a purgatorylike state. I don’t know if I’ve made this hot take before, but I think Disturbed is better @ saturnine songs than the “O YEA WE GONNA BEAT SOME SHIT BOYS” songs, — yes, that is the precise name o’ the genre — especially on a mo’ general hard-rock album like this.

Grade: A

9. Decadence

In a weird reversal o’ most albums I listen to for this series, this album seems to be getting better as it gets deeper into the deep cuts. I ne’er remembered this song that much before, & I do still find the verses repetitious, — tho that could arguably fit with the subject matter — but did always kind o’ like the sound o’ the chorus; but I ne’er realized till now that this wasn’t a generic song ’bout greed being evil, like the title implies, but uses the mo’ classical definition o’ decadence, literal decay, as imagery for the feeling o’ depression. I dunno, there are some stock phrases here & there, like the ubiquitous “dead inside”, but that metaphor feels both fresh & fitting. Basically, I’m saying Disturbed are mo’ serious artists than Radiohead.

Grade: B

10. Forgiven

I know this song is repetitive, but like “Liberate” from their 2nd album, it’s so catchy to sing along with, “FOOH-GIVAHN TO ME, FOOH-GIVAHN TO ME”. Plus, like the previous 2 songs, I like the story this song tells, this time ’bout a soldier forgiving a solider who killed them ’cause they know that soldier will likely die soon themselves: “you’re just another dead man living”. & the whispery repetitive chanting o’ this song matches this song’s meaning as essentially a death prayer.

Grade: B

11. Land of Confusion

That’s right: the official music video is an AMV. Disturbed knew what was hip with the edgy metal kids @ the time.

Here comes a hot take: while I definitely think Genesis’s original version o’ this song had better music, with its Sega-Genesis-like synths being much mo’ interesting than Disturbed’s plain hard rock riffs & drums, I think Draiman’s singing is mo’ interesting than Phil Collins, especially since Draiman is much better @ staying on rhythm, filling in the awkward pause in “the men of steel… men of power” with “the men of steel, these men of power”. But also Draiman has a mo’ forceful voice, being a metal singer & all, while Collins’ is much thinner & lighter, which certainly works better on softer songs, — I don’t want to imagine Draiman gruffly ah-ahing thru “In the Air Tonight” — but not a song that’s clearly s’posed to have as much force as this.

It actually surprises me that this is the 1st cover I’ve run into so far & only now do I realize how difficult ’twould be to grade it, since in terms o’ lyrics all Disturbed had to do was not pick a shitty song to cover, & they definitely didn’t do that here. I do like that they picked a song from a genre quite off from alt metal, but still fits the tone o’ this album.

Grade: N/A

12. Sacred Lie

While the lyrics are less interesting than some o’ the others on this album, with its standard fantasy/metal/biblical diction o’ “damnation”, “sacred”, “fear”, etc. — to the point that e’en Genius basically just calls it “another song that talks about war” — I do like the rhythm o’ the singing, especially the chorus & the way the pitch rises @ the end; & while the music under the verses is basic plodding, I do like the music under the chorus, especially the drum rhythm.

Grade: B

13. Pain Redefined

This song I’m less keen on. The verses’ vocal rhythm is interesting a’least, tho rather plodding, but the pre-chorus is way too repetitive & e’en mo’ plodding, & the chorus sounds like it should be sung in a church, especially with the line, “I have fallen again”. The music also sounds way too mechanical for the subject matter. I do like how Draiman has to clear something out o’ his throat @ the very end. I’m not sure why it’s on this song, but it is.

According to Genius:

“Pain Redefined” is a song about when your sensory abilities become overwhelmed, you lose control of your senses, and you can’t really trust them to make judgement of the world around anymore.

So it’s basically an emo song.

Grade: D

14. Avarice

You know you’re listening to a filler track when the 1st lines are such deep philosophical entreaties like, “politics & evil / all 1 in the same”. In contrast to “Decadence”, this song truly is just greed = bad. Also, the chorus barely sounds like a chorus, having a steady rhythm. The music under the verses & choruses are also plain, especially under the verses, where they’re just this bland “DUH DUH DUH, DUH DUH DUH”.

That said, I do kind o’ like the instrumental part after the 2nd verse, especially the horse-stomping drums, & the perishing bridge vocals.

Grade: D

Final thoughts

Yup, that sure was an album that existed. Join me next time as I troll y’all e’en mo’ & do Disturbed’s B-sides album ( spoiler alert: it’s actually better than this album ).

Final Grade: C