Everyone loves lists on the internet.  Here are 5 things you should check out.

1. Balloonshop – Whips

That’s been worth a minute of my time at least twice a day for a couple of months now.

2. Anamanaguchi – Endless Fantasy

I really liked the Scott Pilgrim Game soundtrack by Anamanaguchi.  I like some tracks on this even more.  There are twenty-two tracks on here.  That I don’t 100% like all of them is okay.  I supported the kickstarter based on the Scott Pilgrim and have been happily rewarded.  There are going to be more music videos, which I guess I will watch.  I think I’m not hip enough for the first one, or internet enough to flip my shit about a pizza going to space.  I will enjoy Interlude (Total Tea Time) a lot and often.  And look at that, the entire album is on youtube courtesy of the band, you don’t even need my opinion to decide if it is worth money!

3. The Most Terrible Time in My Life (Kaizo Hayashi)

I guess I love weird artsy Japanese gangster films, because I keep watching them and I keep loving them a lot.  This might be my favorite so far, and it was made 30 years after all the others I’ve seen.  It’s got sweet jazz.  It has a bunch of silly stuff I’m not going to bother ruining for you.  It is like 10 bucks on amazon.  I wish it was on bluray, because the region 1 DVD is a terrible transfer.  Maybe one day.  If you’re a real big spender you can get both sequels (which I have since bought and not watched) for 30 in a trilogy box.  I wish video games had this much everything.

4. We Meant Well (How I helped lose the battle for the minds and hearts of the Iraqi people) by Peter Van Buren

Let me get political for sentence or two.  This isn’t really a political book.  Van Buren seems to have his head on straight, and is looking for whatever the best solution is.  As a State Department employee he never ever finds the best solution being carried out in Iraq.  The book is a constant stream of the industrial-military monster eating it’s own tail and being undermined by everyone.  I guaffed a thousand times reading it.  After 300 pages I leaned back, thought about it, and went “I don’t know what the fuck we should do about Iraq.”

5. Star Wars for the NES (Lucasfilm and JVC version)

No not the one where Darth Vader turns into a scorpion (that’s the Namco one, try the rom some time.)  This one has you spending a lot of time in caves before going into a 3D asteroid section from hell.  The game is incredibly hard.  I’ve never beatened it and have owned it for almost 25 years.  What it has going for it is controlling Luke is awesome.  It’s almost Mario good.  I wish every game in the last 25 years was as fun to run around in as this one.  You can also extract some pleasure trying to beat this bastard.  I might try on my PSP while I’m semi-homeless this summer.