Pikachu Pinata Pizza Protest!

It's Wednesday, March 2, 2011, my Squirtle just fainted, and this is The Side. The week seems to be flying by, but when you're working hard it weeks tend to do that.

I pissed someone off pretty good the other day. She was crowing on about the Wisconsin protesters and how the Governor must be desperate if he's using such a lame excuse as them really needing to clean the capitol building to try to get them to go home. She was pretty smug when relating how the protesters had countered this ploy with their response of "We'll clean it ourselves!" That smugness turned to bile when I piped up with "What? A union worker actually doing work? No way!"

Of course it was hard for her to spew that bile my way with about five other people laughing at that comment. Expect them to demand pay and benefits for cleaning the place.

GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL!

A recent TV ad and Joe's latest entry has me thinking about Pokémon. I like Pokémon. It used to be just a weird cartoon that would come on before I went to work. It was neat, and the kind of thing I'd really be into if I was a kid. I even found a Japanese Pikachu t-shirt which I wore, because the cartoon had actually given people seizures in Japan. That's hardcore! But then the kiddies picked up on it, the fad exploded, and it became pretty annoying. But I still checked out the cartoon from time to time. The collectible card game baffled me a bit. I never really glommed the "collecting" aspect of it. Had a younger cousin who had a bunch of the cards but no clue whatsoever how to play the game.

Onward the thing went. Sequels to the game were released. There was new varmints to catch and battle. The gameplay didn't change much over the years, but it was a winning formula, so there wasn't much tweaking needed.

Joe touched on something interesting. The tagline was always "Gotta catch 'em all" and when there were 151 that was an achievable goal. It would take a while, but it was doable. You had to probably buy different games, or have a buddy you were willing trade the virtual varmints with, but if you were determined you could pull it off. But now its gone on to a whole new level.

Gamestop is doing a promotion this week in which if you go in with your Nintendo DS and one for the DS Pokémon games then you could get a special Pokémon, Celebi. I'm a bit torn on this. Part of me thinks that getting these little critters shouldn't involved stuff like this, but part of me does think its a pretty novel marketing gimmick.

So I ventured to a local Gamestop, minus the family's pink girlie DS, to inquire a bit about this. It was at this point I encountered Pokémon Pete. Pokémon Pete knows a shitload about Pokémon. So I asked about this here Celebi. I asked if it was possible to capture this Pokémon within the game without coming into a Gamestop. Nope, its a Gamestop exclusive.


This kinda reminds me about a promotion they did with Yu-Gi-Oh in which certain cards were included with some of the video game releases. The thing is one of the cards was "Harpie's Feather Duster", and there are leagues and tournaments which have significant prizes, and that card could be a serious game changer in a competitive deck. This led players to buy the video game only to get the card, and them promptly return the game.

So I did some research into Celebi, and he's not really much of a beast. He's got some useful moves, but he's not going to stomp all over an opponent's line up. So, its mainly a collector's item. Fine and well.

But I questioned Pete further. See, if you get Celebi and then buy one of the new Pokémon games coming out. You can beat that game, trade Celebi to it and that unlocks a special quest in which you can possibly get one of that game's "Legendary" Pokémon. Legendary in the Poké-vernacular translates into "Cool looking, hard as fuck to find, harder to catch, and typically not the best in a battle line up". However, it has to a Celebi from this event, and not a Celebi you got from somewhere else. But wait, if Celebi was Gamestop exclusive release where else could a player have gotten one?

Pete told me he knew that there had been an event in which you could get Celebi if you went to the Pokémon Store in Times Square up in New York.

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT! SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!

A POKEMON STORE? IN TIMES SQUARE?

Now, its not there anymore, its a Nintendo Store now, BUT STILL!

Part of me wonder if there was some kid back in the day in the middle of West Bumbleton, Arkansas who somehow talked his folks on taking him on a PokéPilgrimage to the Big Apple. Got see the Statue of Liberty? The Empire State Building? A Broadway show? Fuck that shit! I gotta catch 'em all!

Thus ended my conversation with Pokémon Pete. And I now know more about the world of Pokémon than I ever wanted or needed to know.

NOM NOM NOM!!!

I mentioned before that Domino's has redone their pizza recipe and that its pretty tasty. To help promote this they were doing a deal in which if you got two or more medium two topping pizzas they were only $5.99. Now they've upped that deal to where you can get a large two topping pizza for $5.99 with no minimum.

Now this is a company that really wants my business. Domino's isn't even my favorite pizza place. Sure, its good eatin', but there's other places I prefer. However when they're selling large pizzas for near the same price as I could buy frozen ones at the store and the economy being what it is, I'd be a moron to buy my pizza's anywhere else.

We got pizza last Friday night, and we've still got enough left over for a couple days.

MUSIC!!!

Educational moment: if you play a mean accordion, beware Mexican women driving hearses.



Thanks to Kat for the link to the video. That's the whole Pokéball of wax for this go around. See y'all Friday.