Old-Wizard.com - Part 20

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Ask Old-Wizard: May 24th, 2008

Written by Zeromage 5 Comments
Last Updated:: May 24, 2008

I’m back. Back from the future. And I’m taking “Ask Old-Wizard” to the future, and beyond. This week I answered a few questions about the NES, pretentious British music and Kilt etiquette. Hope you enjoy, and be sure to send any questions for Old-Wizard to oldwizard.com@gmail.com.

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Top 10 Most Powerful Superheroes of All Time

Written by Zeromage 5,568 Comments
Last Updated:: May 23, 2008

Here it is folks, the biggest debate on the whole interweb. Never has there been a more well thought out argument for a completely non-existent thing. Which superhero could beat up which other superhero. Never has a group of people spent more time drawing graphs, doing calculations, making charts, and writing computer programs to prove that the hero they love is in fact the toughest. These people do more literature searches than a graduate student writing their dissertation on literature. One can only imagine what world problems could be solved if comic book nerds would instead focus this same energy on say; poverty, healthcare, the climate, pollution, the economy, childhood obesity, cancer, sudden infant death syndrome, racism, genetic disorders, violence against women, the melting ice caps, sending a man to mars, depression, solving Goldbach’s conjecture, creating a unified field theory, un-raveling the mystery of DNA, figuring out what happened before the big bang, resolving religious tensions in the Middle East, finding peace on Earth, making cleaner cars, sustainable energy, nuclear fission, getting rid of hippies, and the million other things that would make this world a better place to live in.

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Mail Bag: May 22, 2008

Written by Zeromage 6 Comments
Last Updated:: May 22, 2008

Our Top 10 Worst Video Game Heroes List has stirred up quite a bit of controversy this week, and because of that, we’ve decided to address a few of the most common questions and criticisms people have left us.

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Ask Old-Wizard: May 21st, 2008

Written by Zeromage 1 Comment
Last Updated:: May 21, 2008

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve been able to get to your questions, but as some of you know, I’ve been pretty busy with work. Hopefully things will be slowly down now, and I should be able to answer some more later in the week.

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Top 10 Worst Video Game Heroes of All Time

Written by Zeromage 64 Comments
Last Updated:: May 18, 2008

The video game world has prided itself on it’s inordinate wealth of protagonists. Gamers would become attached to games solely on the personality of the protagonists. Somewhere along the line though, video game makers started creating heroes that were less than desirable for the game player to control. The gamer was confused on how these “heroes” were even able to make it past the designer’s desk.

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Board Game Review: Candyland

Written by bug 10 Comments
Last Updated:: May 15, 2008

Plumpy. Mr. Mint cutting down candy canes with a candy cane axe. Lord Licorice and the gingerbread house! Finally meeting Queen Frostine floating in the Ice Cream Sea before kneeling down to the all mighty King Kandy. Any of these fabled characters and places ring a bell? They sure do if you were tripping on acid and happened to wander through the psychedelic Candyland.

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How about I slash you with a knife!!!

Written by Zeromage 1 Comment
Last Updated:: May 12, 2008

Yesterday I am at the old supermarket in Berlin right after work. I was picking up some frozen pizzas for a little din din…if you know what I mean. Let me back track…its my fookin’ blog….really I can do anything I want! So at 2pm on the same day I visited the grocery store, I drank a mountain dew live wire. It’s simply a mountain dew that tastes like orange. But it was a 20oz. bottle and that stuff went straight to my crankcase(head)!!

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Top 10 Bands of The 90’s

Written by Zeromage 53 Comments
Last Updated:: May 9, 2008

When one reads or watches a “traditional” best bands of all time list, the assumptions get unquestioned. What happens is that people who profess to be “music listeners” accept these lists without ever asking themselves “Why the fuck should I listen to anything VH1 says”. When one list “argues” for its content, others will follow suit without ever questioning the quality of the bands on the list. This being utterly lost and absorbed in the publicness of the “they” solidifies the image of bands and best bands for decades and maybe even centuries to come. For example, you will get a “traditional” barrage of answers on what the best bands from the 90’s are from people who don’t realize they are simply restating what they saw or read on the most public of public media.

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Top 30 Seinfeld Characters

Written by Zeromage 16 Comments
Last Updated:: May 8, 2008

The staff members here at Old-Wizard are in unanimous agreement that Seinfeld is the best TV show ever created. While not ostensibly having anything to do with the prevalent “nerd” theme of the site, we can leap beyond the formal bounds of logic and make the connections regardless. George? C’mon, This guy has got to be the coolest uptight 4-eyed nerd we have ever seen on TV. Kramer? Who else in modern sitcoms has been described as a “Hipster Doofus”? Elaine? Only the nerdiest of nerds dances as poorly as Elaine does. The list goes on and on as nerds can be seen everywhere in the show from Newman to Babu. So while at first it seems like a “Top 30 characters of Seinfeld” list seems out of reach for the basic theme of the website, at closer inspection, it seems somewhat appropriate. Like all our lists, we thought long and hard about who would be included. For this “Top Characters of Seinfeld” list specifically, we had to increase the list to 30 after all the noticeable omissions we were making in the original top 20 list. Theoretically, we could have even made a top 40 list that would have included most of the minor characters in the Seinfeld series, but some of the roles were so small, it would be difficult to write anything on them, beyond their desiderate one liners. Being satisfied at 30, we present you with the definitive “greatest characters in Seinfeld” list

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Top 10 Philosophers of All Time

Written by Zeromage 110 Comments
Last Updated:: May 7, 2008

When making the list for the top 10 philosophers of all time, much dismay came over us when we realized how many great philosophers were not being included. More than any of them, Wittgenstein was the most difficult to omit. Aristotle was not so much of a problem because he was not as much of a “pure” philosopher as the ones on our list. If we were to make a top 10 scientists of all time, certainly Aristotle would be in the top 3 for creating the idea of experiential science in the first place. Augustine, Spinoza, Locke, and Schopenhauer were other figures that were difficult to omit. We feel that Wittgenstein more than any of the omissions, could be placed anywhere in our top 10, for having the same groundbreaking effect on philosophy that Hume had in absolutely challenging its truth claims and limiting its job to making language and thought less muddy from the philosophers who muddied it up in the first place. We share these thoughts with you before releasing our list in hopes of circumscribing the debate and argument to substantial content rather than defamatory gestures. When creating a list for the top 10 philosophers of all time, you have to expect an inordinate amount of passion and alacrity with others addressing where they think each philosopher should be in their placements. Philosophy, as the love of wisdom, hits at the core of all human beings. It defines them as a specific self in the face of everything else. When people discuss philosophy in a serious, rigorous manner, not only is there a conversation happening between a group of interlocutors, but a feeling of their own lives being on the line in defining the best way for the human being to live and the best way for the human being to describe his world. We welcome an endless and eternal dialogue. Let the games begin.

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