Pokémon GO Survival Guide!

Pokémon GO got released to the public last week.  If you saw what seemed like more people than usual walking around with their cell phones out looking down at the screen, there's a go chance they were trying to catch 'em all.  The game uses the phone's GPS and real world locations to play.  You go to landmarks to get items or battle in Pokémon gyms and the creatures pop up all over the place.  My wife snagged three Pokémon in a McDonald's drive thru.  The game is a lot of fun, but it makes you get out in the real world, so you have to be careful.

Here's a few tips for you.  Yes, many of these should be obvious, but a reminder never hurts.

People's property is their property.  The game tells you there's Squirtle nearby: YAY!  But its in someone's back yard: uh oh.  As tempting as it may be, it not a good idea to go roming through other people's yards and such in your hunts.  That person might be completely cool with what you're doing, but the neighbors might get nervous.  Best case is you get to explain the game to new person, possibly a police officer.  Worst case: crazy neighbor person comes out with shotgun.  Fortunately, the radius in the game for catching Pokémon is pretty wide so if a critter is in someone's back yard, you'll probably be about to snag it from the sidewalk.

When going out at night to play the game, remember that you are going out at night.  Wear some bright colors.  And like the song says: nothing good happens after 2 AM.  That guy on the corner might not be out hunting for a Zubat.

Look where you're going!  Seriously.  A little situational awareness goes a long way.  There's already been people bumping into each other and running into walls.

Go out in groups!  While this is a good safety tip, it also makes the game a lot more fun.  Go out as a family.  Find a buddy.  We hit a Pokéstop (place to get items in the game) at a park over the weekend.  There were about a dozen of us there playing the game.  Most everyone had a buddy with them.  Everyone was friendly and having a great time.  It was a blast.  On the flip side there's been a case of criminals staking out Pokéstops waiting for players who are out by themselves to rob them.  This gets back to being aware of your surroundings.  Also traveling in groups does cut down on the chances of being confronted by a potential mugger or worse.

Remember your common sense.  Its a neat idea, the thought of going on an adventure to play this game.  But if you're out somewhere and thinking about checking a spot that may not be safe.  Remember, its just a game and you'll have other chances to snag that particular Pokémon.

All that said, I think the game is really great.  There are a few risks involved, but there's always a risk when heading out your front door.  The fun and exercise you'll get out of playing the game do outweight those risks.  So head out, have fun, and be safe!

Feet Were Smelt

Its Wednesday, Nevember 2, 2011, I was planning on catching them all, but that required a lot of effort, and this is The Side.

Halloween has come and gone. I've got a ton of left over candy, which is probably going to make dropping those few extra pounds a little difficult. The girls raked in quite a haul between the Halloween event at the Norfolk Zoo, the trunk-or-treat at their preschool, and running around the neighborhood.

The girls were Ash and Pikachu, and were a huge hit with all the little nerdlings that were out and about. We did run into a few other Pikachus at the zoo event at which point I looked at my daughter and told her, "Its time for a Pokémon battle."

She did run up to one of the other Pikachus, struck a battle pose and yelled "PikaCHUUUUUU!" I told her to use tail whip. The other kid went to correct me that I meant iron tail. I told him that my daughter hadn't leveled up that far yet.

It was at this point that a mother pulled her daughter away who had watched the whole thing saying "C'mon, they ain't really gonna fight."

That went down Sunday, and unfortunately Monday, the hat which my wife spent a day hand sewing and I hand painted the design on it to look like the hat Ash Ketchem wears got lost. This was the cause of high drama in the house. I turned the entire house over looking for it. It looked like Ray was going to have to go trick-or-treating with out it. She was actually out the door a few seconds when I found it.

I think my cry of "HA!" scared a few kids, but it was Halloween.

MUSIC!!

Sometimes, you just need a little Weezer.



I was planning on this being a lot longer, but I spent an entire evening trying to salvage a room of the house. This meant leaving work earlier than planned, so I'm now going into work earlier than planned. See y'all Friday.

I choose YOU, King Shark!!

Worlds collide! Its Friday, May 6, 2011, everything is connected, except for my TV to cable, and this is The Side. Every so often you have something that crosses pop culture boundaries. Other time time you have those boundaries obliterated what everything just monkey piles onto something. For a long time manga and western comics have had a firm divide that has been crossed tentatively by creators with mixed reviews from readers and often raves from weeaboos.

But now we have an brave author standing proudly to destroy this divide. Gail Simone has married East and West into one comic!

COMIX!!

It is Secret Six week this week, meaning that the only comic out on the shelves in the known universe is SECRET SIX #33 ,and a bunch of other stuff that I don't read. So, the Secret Six are still where we left them last time: in Hell. I mean really Hell, I'm not making fun of Topeka, Kansas this time. Yep, Hell. And many of the residents seems to look like something from the SILENT HILL video games. Maybe with the splash of RESIDENT EVIL in there somewhere. Bane was kinda looking like the Tyrant from RE in his "Hell Costume". That's right, surviving the first level of Hell unlocks new outfits for your characters. Usually you have to beat Hell and then replay Hell for that option, but Gail Simone is a living, breathing cheat code. The team is in Hell because Ragdoll got the "Get out of Hell free" card and then kinda died. I'm not kidding about that part, there really is a card involved. We get to see some of the team's previous members who had a bad case of getting killed. Catman has a family reunion. There's big fights and such. The team each experiences a taste of personal torment. So, as you can surmise, its a kid's comic that you'll be able to find in between BETTY AND VERONICA and TINY TITANS. It is a good issue. Not loving the art, but Gail Simone's writing keeps me on board month after month, especially with good old King Shark.

THINGS TO KNOW!

If you haven't been reading SECRET SIX, and shame on you if you haven't, there's a few things you need to know about their newest team member.

* You have to have your Prince Guppy hold a King's Rock and trade it to get it to evolve into a King Shark.

* If you breed your King Shark even the egg knows Bite.

* As a water/fighting type it is strong again fire, bug, normal, and rock types but surprisingly resistant to psychic types to due low IQ.

* King Shark's version of Hydro Pump is rated "M" for Mature.

* If you don't have all of your trainer badges and attempt to use King Shark in your party it will chew your arm off.

* You can't find King Shark in any of the Pokémon games, but it can certainly find you.

* Giving King Shark Protein items will raise its stats, but not its happiness level as King Shark prefers its protein to be still twitching when it eats it.

* If you try to teach King Shark a move from a TM or a HM you'll likely receive a FU.

* If you are trying to catch them all, but feel like skipping King Shark, no one will really blame you.

MUSIC!!

Sometimes you have a song playing in the back of your mind and you're barely aware of your life's soundtrack being played. Then you're sitting at the end of the day and you get get the volume turned up on your personal cosmic stereo.



That's it for today. If you're on Twitter, please comment at #kingsharkisapokemon with all your King Shark love. Gail Simone will totally approve. Totally.

See y'all Friday.

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.