Top Eleven Most Viewed Posts

I- wow.  You know, sometimes you start something and you wonder if anybody will ever really think it's that great.  Maybe it's a painting, or a music track, or a short story, and you repeat to yourself over and over again "nobody else is going to care about this.  Nobody is going to want to see/hear/touch/taste/read/whatever this is."  But you go through it, and later you discover that, somehow, people have found what you made either by word of mouth or something else, and that they apparently shared it because it's somehow gone out and become something in the world.

When I started this, I was rather proud of some posts.  "Hey, my look at the American Rabbit movie has 115 views!  Huh.  My list of Xbox games I'd love if I was still thirteen got 212 views.  How the heck did part two of my Street Fighter review get nearly 110 more reviews than the first part?"

Then I realized that there were certain posts that blew those numbers out of the water.I started seeing posts in the upper two hundreds, then the three hundreds.  I kept going further back, and I found four hundred, five hundred, and more views on certain posts!  These were things I had no idea anybody would ever care about to click on if they found it on a Google search!  I think some of it might have to do with the person I talked about perhaps linking to my post, but a few I have simply no explanation for.

So, to celebrate my doing four years of this blog (with a few gaps here and there), I'm looking at the most-viewed posts I've ever written.  Some of them make no sense whatsoever.

Top Eleven: Things I Blogged About In 2014

Another year of writing, complaining, and commending down, hopefully many more to go.

Each year I've done this blog (read: last year) I've done a year end "wrap-up" where I scour through my archives and attempt to locate the eleven articles that mean the most to me.  Maybe they're connected to an important memory, maybe they were extremely emotional to write, or maybe I just had fun writing them.

And yes, there will also be a "bottom eleven" coming as well.

But for now, let's look back at the articles I'm the most proud of from the past year.

Top Eleven: Reasons Why Luigi Is Better Than Mario

There is no bigger video game mascot than Mario.  

Okay, actually, that's not correct.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Pac-Man is actually the most recognizable video game mascot/character of all time, with Mario a very close second.

However, while I've played so many of his video games that any time anybody says "Who is it?" in a movie, my brain automatically fills in "It's-a me, Mario!", he hasn't been my favorite brother.

No, that honor goes to Luigi.

So why is it the world's most standard second banana is my favorite?  Here's a list of eleven reasons why.

Plumbing Shallow Waters: Episode Nine (The final episode!)

Well, I guess I've put this off long enough.  Time to bite the bullet, face the music, cross the Rubicon, and use a bunch of other tired expressions while I watch the final episode of the Best Of The Super Mario Brothers Super Show.  The fact that this says "The Best of" will never be lost on me, because this might be some of the absolute worst animation I've seen in my adult life.

The only high points of the series so far has been the depth of characterization in King Koopa and Luigi, and so far King Koopa is the only one who hasn't come across as being either a) inconsequential, b) oblivious, or c) selfish to the point of being a villain themselves.

Also, I'm starting to understand why they don't give Mario a personality in the video games, any attempt to make him more than just a two dimensional character is probably still tainted by this show.

I'm just thankful I don't have to look at any of the terrible live action bits of the show.  For now, anyway.

So let's get this over with.

Plumbing Shallow Waters: Episode Eight

Two episodes left.

I'm now almost completely convinced that if I could go back in time and meet my younger self, I would have so much advice about things to do and things not to do.

Things to do:  Invest in Apple back when the stock was ridiculously low and the company was almost going under.  Hold on to this list of strategically timed lotto numbers.  Write this book series I'm handing you called "Harry Potter."  Use a fake name if you have to.

Things to not do:  Don't take that huge hill getting home from your job in the future at a movie theater, the light is hard to see.  Don't tell the girl you tutor your freshman year you like her, she won't talk to you again.  Don't attend the new learning program at George Mason University, it'll go defunct in a year and you need a year off anyway.  Never watch a cartoon based on Mario and his friends.  EVER.

Plumbing Shallow Waters: Episode Seven

Over the weekend I wound up with an extremely bad sunburn on my back.  It actually hurts to sit up straight in case my back touches the back of my chair.  I'm looking forward to being able to remove an entire layer of skin from my backside in one pull like I'm trying to pull the tablecloth out from under a family's dinner.

But in the meantime, because my suffering hasn't reached any actual extremes yet (though I do feel warm all the time, I wonder why sunburns do that), I've decided to continue my reviews of episodes of the Super Mario Brothers Super Show.

Because the sooner I get this over with, the sooner I can move on to something else.

Three episodes left, including this one, so let's see if the bar can get any lower than the last one's terrible retelling of a Shakespearean classic.

Plumbing Shallow Waters: Episode Six

When I first decided to take another look at the Super Mario Brothers Super Show episodes, I was really hoping they'd have held up as I got older.  Looking back at a lot of cartoons I used to really enjoy growing up, it seems there are those who are simply timeless and magical no matter what age you experience them at (Batman: The Animated Series, Gargoyles, Animaniacs) and there are those whose freshness runs out the moment the episode ends (Courage The Cowardly Dog).

You'd think it'd be rather easy to come up with a cartoon show based on Mario and Luigi and turn it into an epic quest, having each season take them through a story like in the games.  The goal is to rescue the Princess, and each episode (or every two, if you want them to be regular two-parters like how Justice League did it for a while) you could introduce a new world, new monsters, and a new "boss" for them to overcome.  Have a two-parter where they explore a haunted house, throw in a little joke where Luigi manages to capture a Boo in a vacuum cleaner.  Another episode or two takes place in the desert and they have to figure out how to fight an angry dive-bombing sun.  One more underwater where they have to deal with giant fish that can swallow them in a single gulp or a giant octopus creature.

But make it fresh and new, have us explore the world with the brothers, so when they're seeing something for the first time, people in the audience can hug their game cartridges to themselves and think "I know what that is, that's Wiggler!" or "That's Birdo!"  or "Holy- they put in that evil piano from Super Mario 64?  Those sick people!"

But no, instead we get pasta jokes, made up worlds that make no sense, and a complete lack of logic to anybody's actions.

So let's look at another one.