the Board Game Blog.

My mom loves board games...

Even to this very day, she buys at least one family board game 

every year for the holidays & everyone 

is required to play in and enjoy it.

Naturally, this meant i had a whole lot of board games

when i was a kid and to be honest, some of them where pretty

random, to say the least...

So, we're gonna take a trip down memory lane this morning

& take a look at....

Sam Famolaro's

Ten Most Memorable Board Games

from Back in the Day...

10. the Godzilla Game

Mattel (1978)

Let's be honest...

did you think this list wasn't 

going to contain at least one Godzilla reference?

I remember buying this game at a garage sale for $3

when i was a little kid, even thought it didn't work.

i really just wanted the box.

I also like how they tried to edit this pic to make 
it looks like Godzilla is just bro'ing out with these kids

...

while eating a spaceship.

and these kids are just totally oblivious to him 
cause the game is clearly way too much fun.

9. Tornado Rex

Parker Bros (1991)

Yeah, kinda random right? 

I don't think i remember any of my other friends

having this game, as a kid.

And i don't remember anyone wanting to buy it

once they played it at my house, either.

Here is the premise in a nutshell.

You play as 'generic explorer' walking up a plastic hill

until Tornado Rex (basically a C-List Tazmanian-Devil knock-off)

comes out of his cave to

FUCK. YOU. UP!!!!

like so...

That's literally the whole game.

hazzah.

8. Happy Days

Parker Bros (1976)

The only thing that matters in the Happy Days game

is to show Fonzie how coooool you really are.

And how do you do that?

well, you collect 'cool points' my good sir.

What's a cool point, you say?

that's actually irrelevant...

And how does one go about acquiring said cool points?

why, you polish Fonzie's motorcycle of course.

...Aaaaaaay!

on a side note, unless you enjoy being ridiculed unmercifully

DO NOT play the Happy Days game with these men...

...Heeeeey Neeeeeerds!

7. Crossfire
Milton Bradley (1971)

I could sit here & explain to you how
Crossfire works & why it's the balls...


but this is so much better than anything i could write myself...





Crossfiyaaaaaaaaaah!!!


brilliant.
Did Don Dokken direct that commercial?


that's the best thing, I ever saw.




6. Pop-O-Matic Trouble
Kohner Bros (1965)

Alright! Now we're talking.
My neighbor Kaitlyn used to come over at least twice a week 
to play Trouble with me.


why?
cause it was fucking fun, that's why.


Trouble, however is one of those games,
much like Sorry or Monopoly,
that needs to be played with people you have patience with
because you WILL get annoyed after you've been bumped
back to the start for the fifth straight time by your stupid
older sister who keeps picking on you & stealing your dinosaur
fruit snacks, cause her & her friends got high at the mall earlier.


...


you know what, let's just move on.




5. the Grape Escape
Parker Bros (1992)

Ahh, the Great Escape.
The game that made me a wino.


This game was kinda like Mouse Trap in the way
that i don't remember ever actually playing the game,
so much as just building the traps 
& killing the Play-Doh Grape people.





doesn't this seem a little similar to the game 'Splat!'?
let's compare the two....




hmmmm....
moving on.

4. Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur

Pressman Toys (1987) 

This game holds a special place in my heart
for a variety of reasons.

1. It has a dinosaur in it.
2. I like dinosaurs.

...that's it actually.



Surprisingly, I still have a the wind-up dinosaur
and it still works. 
So well, in fact, that the Dinosaur
(I'd imagine his name is probably Dizzy)
made an appearance in the 'DinoBros' videos.






3. Nightmare (a.k.a Atmosfear)
A Couple 'A Cowboys PTY (1991)

Oh man, i used to love this game.


If you're familiar with the game Nightmare
you're already aware of how terrifying it is
with it's live-action video host, the Gatekeeper.


if you're NOT familiar with the game
please, do yourself a favor & watch the first few minutes of
the video, that you're required to watch as you play the game.





...YES, MY GATEKEEPER!!!!!


oh my god.
i almost shit my pants that was so scary...

ok, so once you've moved out of the golden age-range
for a game like this, say 11-14 years old, it's comes off as kinda hokey.

This is a hard game to find now-a-days, but if you do come across it
& you have a few good bros who are wiling to play with the lights off
and not take the game too seriously, it's actually pretty entertaining.


2. Shark Attack
Milton Bradley (1988)

As you may know, i'm both terrified & intrigued by sharks.
When I was a little kid, i was so terrified by the movie 'Jaws'
that when i'd play this game & when the shark started to catch up with
my fish, i would get legitimately frantic.

...of course, i was a little nerd.


on a side note, Shark Attack wins my award for 'best game jingle'.





"Shark! Shark! Shark Attack.
This shark eats like a maniac."

Wow.
That's spectacular.
That could not have possibly taken them 
more than ten minutes to come up with.
Bravo, Milton Bradley. Bravo.

and god forbid you LOSE at Shark Attack...

"here's to swimmin' with bow-legged women..."

but, by now you must be asking...
"Sam, what game can possible be better than Shark Attack?"


well get ready, cause it's a classic...





1. Mall Madness
Milton Bradley (1988)

Yeah, i know it's a 'girls' game
but i had two older sisters
and boy, did they love to spend fake money.


And fuck all that 'counting', like in Monopoly.
Counting cash is for suckers.
Mall Madness cuts out all the bullshit & 
just gives you a fuckin' credit card.


That's right, kids.
Learn horrible money-managing skills at a young age.


seriously, just watch this...







Mall madness is the reason that the 
terrorists hate America.


catch ya'll later.

assorted nonsense II: electric boogaloo

Photo #1: "I bet their coffee tastes likes shit..."

so yesterday, I was walking from the subway

to my cousin's apartment on 34th & 1st in Manhattan.

somewhere along the way, i saw an establishment

with a big neon sign 
& it was called...

that's right...

ASS GRILL.

that seems like a great place to eat, huh?

a nice, hot, steaming plate of meatloaf

from the ASS GRILL sure sounds tasty doesn't it?

stay away from the gravy though...

this is the kind of error that you would imagine

any restaurant or a popular establishment

would fix as it's number one priority.

"what to do today, hmmmm...

order new place mats, check....

re-stock the "no pointy end" toothpicks in the handicap bathroom, check...

change the sign of my restaurant so it no longer reads ASS GRILL in neon letters...

fuck that noise, i'll do it tomorrow."

why do i feel like i've seen something like this before?

no no, not that one..

Yeeaaaaaaah.

"East Nasty Buffet" never gets old...

Photo #2: Godzilla & Mothra go to a baseball game...

"Hey, bro"

"Hey"

"Soooo, I had no idea you were a Red Sox fan when i invited you..."

"Oh, don't worry. I'm not really a "Sox Fan" per say..."

"Wait, what do you mean?"

"I just root for whoever is playing against the Yankees..."

"..."

"what?"

"You're a real piece of shit."

"Do you have any wool?"

Photo #3: Miscellaneous PhotoBooth Picture w/ Effects on it

I call this piece:

"Sam, Dano, Johnny Z. & Maunz Melting

during a Hot Summer Day while

Ingesting Mass Quantities of Opiates"

i think it's crazy that Dano only has one eye

& yet he still manages to looks very chill.

he's totally oblivious to the fact that John kinda looks like

a demon who's vomiting on Maunz's face before he eats him.

BONUS!!!

SHAQTASTIC PHOTO OF THE DAY

"oh yeah, dat's just how da' big Shaq likes it.

Shaq Daddy's gonna give it to ya' rough...

don't try to fight it, just accept the Shaq.

I'm bout to tape dis' here

picture of Kobe to your back...

whether you like it or not...

don't cry & afterwards da' big Shaq will take you

to da' ASS GRILL fer some nice chocolate soft serve"

"tell me how my ASS GRILL tastes..."

Coming Clean.

let there be much rejoicing.

the alias is no more...

so for the 2 people who didn't know who

"Baron Von Breakbeat" really was...

well, you're dumb.

my name is Sam Famolaro.

& this is the first day of the rest of my blog.

Extinction Theory.

so, i guess by writing this,
i'm contradicting the whole point
of what i'm about to say.

but i ain't 'fraid of no ghosts.
let's do it, to it.

i haven't thought about you in months.
even though i've talked to you
& even though you've crossed my mind,
it doesn't feel the same.
i used to sit home & think about the future.
"i wonder if she's gonna come back"
"how long can i honestly wait for her?"
but lately, the questions have changed.
i don't think about when you're coming back.
i think about whether or not i gave it all i could.
& i don't think about how long i can wait for you.
cause if i'm sure of anything anymore,
it's the fact that i've finally stopped waiting.

some one asked me last week,
"do you still love her?"

i don't really know.
i guess i'll always love her.
i'll love her for all the things she made me realize about myself.
& i'll love her for all the good times we used to have.
but falling in love with your memories
doesn't help you stay warm at night.

so as people we move on.
we bury ourselves in work.
we pretend we're invincible.
we get high.
we write music.
(we blog about it & hope you actually read it?)
we do what we need to do to feel normal.
some people just have a different definition of normal.

i'm moving out of my apartment today.
off to a far away land.
a land where i can't smoke weed in the living room
or stay awake watching infomercials until 6am.
to a land where i don't have wireless internet
& all the doors lock/unlock without having the need to viciously
swear at the key/locking mechanism for hours before it
magically decides to work.
a land where every room has "working over-head lighting".
but do ya' know what the best part is?
after i lug all my shit up there
after i spend three weeks trying to readjust to my surroundings
after i start to get comfortable...
i get to do it all over again.

fuckin' awesome.
i get a three-week vacation in my own personal hellhole.

things had better start to change for me.
& it needs to change soon.
i'm starting to feel older
but not necessarily wiser.
i'm starting to feel bigger
but not particularly stronger.

i've become slow & steady
& yet somehow, i'm still losing the race.

i also need to quit smoking.
these cigarettes are killing me.

i'll see ya'll soon, ok?














i take it all back.
temporary insanity.
what a twist!

(...and scene.)

Godzilla vs. Ed Rooney

fuckin epic right?
more like epic fail.

From 1978-1981
the Hanna-Barbera company produced a series of Godzilla cartoons
to cash in on the growing popularity of the franchise with all the kiddies.
at the time, the 30-minute cartoon was run in
conjunction with other famous
Hanna-Barbera characters such as...
-Hong-Kong Phooey
-Dynomutt
-Jana of the Jungle
-the Harlem Globetrotters...
yeah, that makes a whole bunch of sense right?

all things considered, it's not a bad cartoon.
but it doesn't have much to do with the Godzilla movies.
the general concept revolves around a team of
scientists & a random kid who travel around in a boat
lookin' for crazy shit.
for whatever reason, they have a button that makes Godzilla
appear & beat the shit out of whatever he finds.
my major issues with the series, even as a kid, was that it
made no effort to make it look like the Toho series of movies.
there are no famous Toho monsters for Godzilla to battle,
just random stock monsters from around the world.
Godzilla doesn't breath blue-radiation, now it's just straight fire.
plus for whatever reason, he has eye lasers....
yeah, ...like Superman.
but believe me,
there's another reason i hated this cartoon as a kid.


oh yeah.
fuckin' Godzooky...
the creators apparently wanted a "cute, cuddly" version
of Godzilla, so what we got was Godzooky.
basically, the bastard child of Godzilla & Scooby-Doo
Godzooky is by far the most annoying character on the show.
Jar Jar Binks thinks Godzooky sucks for god's sake.
i'm not surprised as i get older why the concept
of a Godzilla cartoon never took off.


cause honestly,
Godzilla fans like me only needed one Godzilla cartoon...

classic.

on a side note...
i figured out a way they could have made
the 1998 tristar Godzilla movie not only watchable, but awesome...
make it a sequel to Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
think about it for a second...
Ferris has grown up & now works for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
he comes to New York after taking a long overdue sick day.
Pan to the city where we discover that
Sloan is now a struggling TV reporter in Manhattan
& Cameron is her bumbling cameraman/platonic-bro.
They met up for a reunion lunch,
when suddenly a shitty looking, badly animated Godzill-iguana
show's up to ruin a parade downtown.
thankfully, Ed Rooney has quit his job as a principle
& now works for the French Secret Service.
Ed leads Ferris, Cameron & Sloan in a daring chase through the city
(obviously using Camerons' Fathers recently purchased replacement Ferrari)
until, when all seems lost, Jennifer Grey shows up to Save Ferris.
(get it?! Save Ferris?!...nevermind.)
she grows to enormous proportions & kicks Godzilla in the face.
Godzilla stumbles into the water & never returns.
Ferris & Sloan run off to get married.
Cameron goes back home to wait for his dad & tell him about his car.
Jennifer Grey goes back to having no career
Ed Rooney gets arrested for kiddie porn
...and there is much rejoicing.

we can call it Ferris Bueller's Day On (As a Dinosaur Hunter...)

either way, it sounds like a far more interesting film, right?
sounds like a million-dollar idea if you ask me.
i know i'd go see that movie.

you know what...
Godzilla is just misunderstood.
he's not evil,
he just wants to get his tail wet.

my secret identity (shhhh.)

i'm going down to new york city on monday.

heard about an "open-casting call" for a new play.

think i might be perfect for the part.

this is the casting line:

Male. 16-20s. Must have a great rock tenor voice. 

Can be nerdy w/ understated sex appeal & a good sense of humor.

it just seemed too good not to go...

oh, by the way.

the role is for Peter Parker/Spider-man.

that's right...

it's a motherfuckin' Spider-man musical.

seriously.

i'm not kidding.

it's like somebody stole this idea from my brain & gave it to Bono.

this is gonna be the worst play in Broadway history. 

worst play in Broadway history.

i need to be a part of this somehow

if nothing else, i'm just gonna go try out for the sheer enjoyment

of standing in line with 20,000 Bizarro versions of myself.

imagine, thousands upon thousands of nerdy kids w/ emohair,

black-rimmed glasses & sweater vests.

Grand St. will be rockin' on monday night, ya'll.

Rivers Cuomo would be rolling over in his grave. (if he were dead.)

i just want an excuse to wear the costume.

such a bad ass costume.

don't you think the world is too boring?

the real world i mean.

the world of politics

& baseball

& taxes

& community college

& AnCo

& shitty jobs

& stupid mainstream girls who don't "get it"

yeah, i'm a big nerd, & i spend too much time

thinking about comic books/dinosaus/new alias for Topix

but that doesn't change the fact that i wish i could get

a day off from work because

Magneto flipped my car over w/ his mind...

a tyrannosaurus destroyed the mall...

zombies return from beyond el grave (el grave is mexi for "the grave").

i could write a whole blog specifically about 

the return of the zombies & my airtight plan 

to not only survive, but to thrive/turn-back the invansion.

however,  i'll save that for another time.

what i'd like to discuss is superpowers in general.

i'm gonna try & keep this limited to one power at a time.

so none of that Superman nonsense 

where he has like EVERY power.

oh, yeah, that's alotta fun to see.

a dude who no one can fuck with.

unless they have a green fuckin' rock from space.

this is gonna be a really agro blog.

i can already tell.

("Bro, look out, your fan-boy is showing")

did you see Superman Returns?

what a boring fucking movie...

Sam Raimi should kick Brian Singer's ass. 

side note.

Brandon Routh was better as that 

gay pornstar in Zak & Miri.

that's not a joke. 

he was hilarious

on to the powers. 

Super Speed:

simple question.

would you rather...

a) drive to the corner & buy a dutch in 2 minutes.

b) steal a cigar from a Cuban Nationalist in 6 seconds?

what a great power.

i would fuck with people all the time.

literally.

all.

the.

time. (time takes time. ya, know?)

i'd pull up behind people at red lights, get out, run over

& open there gas cap latches, then be back in my car before 

they even notice.

then i'd yell out the window at them 

about how dumb they are

for not closing there gas caps.

what a great power.

Freezing Stuff:

this is really a power of convenience/getting laid.

it's a power made to help you score chix.

you ever see that x-men movie?

you'll always have cold beers. (to get chix drunk)

you can turn ponds into ice rinks. (to get chix wet)

& you can make an ice slide to quickly escape. (from ugly chix.)

on a non-chix related note.

being able to turn in to ice would probably mean one of two things

1. you are ALWAY cold (cause you're made of ice)

2. you are NEVER cold (cause you're made of ice)

if it's the first option i'm not buying, otherwise i'm all in.

Teleportation:

ok, i guess i'll just say it.

fuck flying.

everyone wants to fly.

i ask people all the time what superpower they would have

& 9 times out of 10, it's flying.

come one america, let's be a little more creative.

wanting to fly is the most boring, standard superpower ever.

so, i'm gonna go with teleportation.

that would be the balls.

if you want a grape soda?

BLAM!

you're at the fridge

BLAM!

you're back in bed.

you can literally be the laziest person in the world.

since i'm already lazy, does that make me a superhero?

if i have this power, do i automatically have to look like this guy?

nightcrawler is looking very emo-core in this picture.

lots of powers to choose from.

there really are a million different super powers & junk.

as i'm mentioned in the past, if i had a choice of powers

i'd be able to transform into a 13ft. version on this.

fuckin' boss.

BONUS!!!

SHAQTASTIC PICTURE OF THE DAY.

the big shaqtus.

shaq is looking incredibly creepy in this picture, right?

like he just sexually molested that cactus.

or he plans on using this cactus sexually on you.

he still can't shoot free-throws.