And Now for Something Completely Different

OK, I feel like switching it up a wee bit before diving back into blogging about my other obsessions since the start of December. Basically, I went back and read some things I posted on Facebook. One of those posts was one of those "chain posts" where you are supposed to post something like twenty-five things about you that no one knows. OK... so I decided to redo this exercise. It's not much, but it may be amusing to whatever readers I may have, to see a little more into who I am. So welcome to the inner workings of LycoRogue:

• The large majority of cartoons that have ever watched were because I was interested in the romantic aspect of it. Yes, even when I was watching good old Nickelodeon, I would watch because I was waiting for Lead Male and Lead Female to finally confess their love... Here are some examples:
  - Doug Funnie and Patti Mayonnaise (Doug)
  - Helga G. Pataki and Arnold.... (Hey Arnold!) Another blog will soon follow...
  - Sam Manson and Danny Fenton (Danny Phantom)
  - Goliath and Elisa Maza (Gargoyles) Don't get me wrong, this was an AWESOME show... I just started watching because of the attraction between these two.
  - Aang and Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender) Another awesome show with merit beyond the romance...
  - Eduardo Rivera and Kylie Griffin (Extreme Ghostbusters) I even started writing a fanfic for this couple... perhaps I'll start that up again sometime...
  - Serena and Darien (Sailor Moon) Well... technically I couldn't care less for their relationship, this one I watched because Darien's voice actor sounded hot...
  - Kagome Higurashi and Inu Yasha (Inu Yasha)
  - Miroku and Sango (Inu Yasha)
  - Tenchi Masaki and Ryoko (Tenchi Muyo/Tenchi Universe)
  - Miaka Yuki and Tamahome (Fushigi Yuugi) The first episodes were kinda pathetic, but Remy and I cheering on this couple kept bringing us back until this became one of my favorite animes.
  - Dot Matrix and Bob (ReBoot) Yet another show that holds it's own beyond the romance... Well... you get the idea I think... next confession
• Ever since middle school I could not fall asleep without creating a story in my head. Well, it's actually more like creating a situation. I'd place myself as the main character and come up with some scenario dealing with me and the "male lead" in the story. Typically, these are either fanfics of whatever I'm obsessing at the time, or they're originals based on characters I hope to actually write stories about - such as my D&D character. These stories, depending on how far I move the plot before falling asleep, could last for months. Some story ideas have been:
  - A new Batman character called Black Panther. I was Catwoman's niece and the love interest of either Robin or a new character named Night Hawk, depending on whether or not I had a crush at the time...
  - I'm Sango and I create the long-awaited love confession between her and Miroku. This was before the American airing of the two-part InuYasha episode where Miroku and Sango officially become a couple.
  - There are quite a few more in which I create the "confession of love" scenario for almost every couple listed above. I think I spent a great deal of time with Extreme Ghostbusters, Danny Phantom, and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
  - A huge story where I am my D&D character on this intense race-against-time campaign with four other adventurers. The fighter is in love with me, but I'm cold to emotion and must slowly warm up to him throughout the journey.
  - A few "normal" stories consisting of either apartment neighbors, old lovers who are re-aquainted because of work, and co-workers who fall for each other.
  - The strangest I think consists of me and the love-interest being captives of aliens who are studying "human relationships" and our love grows as we are the only companion the other has...
• I have a not-so-secret crush on Link - yes, as in the main character from the Legend of Zelda game series. There is just something in the concept art of his "adult" form that makes me swoon. I mean, come on! Check these out!
  - Battle Stance for Ocarina of Time
  - My original "love": Link from Link's Adventure (used to have a Link figurine from this game...)
  - Twilight Princess Link close up
  - CGed image of Twilight Princess Link
  - Twilight Princess concept art - this one was a desktop wallpaper of mine for a while...
  - Attacking Link from Twilight Princess
  - Stoic Link from Ocarina of Time
  - Link and Epona from Ocarina of Time
  And none of these are the fanart! Depending on where you look, some of those can get pretty racey... ^_~
• My favorite candy consists of peanut butter and chocolate. Reeses all the way! Remember when they used to advertise them by asking how people ate their Reese's? My method was to use my tongue to push out the peanut butter center, eat that, and then eat the remaining ring of chocolate. ^_^ I also make what is called Peanut Butter Balls at Christmas. They're just like they sound... balls of overly-sugared peanut butter dipped in chocolate. I love peanut butter so much I sometimes eat it straight out of the jar. It's ok, I'm young enough to survive a stroke. ^_^
• I frequently imagine myself as a Neko and can sometimes almost feel my tail wag behind me. And especially now, when we have to keep a sharp ear out for customers coming in while we're away from the front of the store, I can just invision my ears perk up and turn slightly to hear better. In the same respect, my tailbone sticks out more than it’s supposed to and I sometimes envision myself getting a tail attached. It's a shame that I'm not as graceful... in fact, I'm a major clutz.
• I fancied myself a future music video director at one point. I blame this partially on Disney's Fantasia. This coupled with my image-driven mind results in me having an image in my head whenever I hear a song. Usually it is either the official music video, or it is a fan-made video. However, if I haven't seen a video put to music yet, I tend to come up with my own images. These are, more often than not, usually the start of my own AMVs. I actually have a collection of songs I have on "stand by" for when I have the time/video to make AMVs out of. Prior to being introduced to anime, and AMVs, I used to choreograph the songs. I have a whole little dance for "She's Like the Wind" by Patrick Swayze from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, as well as Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle". In fact... I think I could recreate them right now if someone asked. *blush* I also have an epic movie designed for Enya's CD Watermark. It is sort of like the movie Interstella 5555 for the Daft Punk CD Discovery.
• Onions don't make me cry. I'm actually the only person I know who doesn't at least tear up when slicing onions (at least the only one at work). Sure, my nose still burns from the smell. It's kind of like when you get water in your nose, that kind of burning. But the weirdest thing is that, instead of crying, I TASTE the onion. It's like I picked it up and just bit right into it like an apple. In fact, I have strong compulsions (which I overcome, thankfully since I can't stand the taste of onions) to actually pick up an onion and bite in to it. The worst part is that the taste stays in my mouth for at least an hour after I'm done slicing the onion. Doesn't matter what I eat or drink. The taste just lingers. Does anyone else have this problem?
• Biggest pet peeve? People not knowing how to use the word literally! Seriously, people? Literally... We'll go real simple here and give you the definition off of TheFreeDictionary.com. Literally: In a literal manner; word for word; In a literal or strict sense. Heck, TheFreeDictionary.com actually spells out for us what annoys me about people's use of the word literally:
  --- Usage Problem
  a. Really; actually: "There are people in the world who literally do not know how to
  boil water" (Craig Claiborne).
  b. Used as an intensive before a figurative expression.
  Usage Note: For more than a hundred years, critics have remarked on the incoherency of using literally in a way that suggests the exact opposite of its primary sense of "in a manner that accords with the literal sense of the words." In 1926, for example, H.W. Fowler cited the example "The 300,000 Unionists ... will be literally thrown to the wolves." The practice does not stem from a change in the meaning of literally itself, if it did, the word would long since have come to mean "virtually" or "figuratively"but from a natural tendency to use the word as a general intensive, as in They had literally no help from the government on the project, where no contrast with the figurative sense of the words is intended.
  Ok, so now that it's spelled out. Here's my two cents. No, silly advertiser, my money is NOT literally going out the door unless I'm seeing the actual bills sliding under the door frame. No, you did NOT literally have a heart attack when that person surprised you unless you were driven to the hospital for such a condition. Unless it ACTUALLY happens, you are using literally as in "virtually" or "figuratively" which is incorrect, and it annoys me. LEARN TO USE THE WORD CORRECTLY! Side Note: for some reason, if a person slaps on the word "almost" before literally, I'm ok with them using the phrase to create a hyperbole: "I almost literally killed someone today." I'm not sure why...
  Oh, one last thing about this. Apparently I'm not the only one annoyed by this. Here is a blog dedicated to the misuse of Literally.
• I am well known for my hatred towards Country music. There is something about it that grates on me. However, I do have to admit that there are maybe 4 country songs that are secretly my guilty pleasures. You will never know which ones they are because I will still proclaim a hatred towards all Country songs, but get me alone in a room somewhere and I will belt them out on the top of my lungs.
• I'm what I like to call a "closet Goth." I'm not that depressing, suicidal stereotype of goth (prior to the emo-split-off), but instead I'm the happy, cheerful, and delightfully morbid "NCIS-Abby-like" goth. ^_^ I am in to vampires, werewolves, witches/wicca, supernatural, ghosts, etc. The fact that I'm about as pale as a porcelain doll probably doesn't hurt much either. ^_^
• I miss not getting personalize emails (and in the same vein, any snail mail) anymore. Everything is a mass-email. No one really calls me just to chat, either. I miss human interactions! TT_TT
• Aside from a healthy fear of the "unsafe," I technically don't have any fears - such as a fear of heights, bugs, spiders, flight, dark, death, thunder, etc.
• Along those same lines, as far as I know, I am not allergic to anything (aside from a small allergy to poison ivy - just enough to catch it when I touch it).
• If I could have any super power, I think I'd be like Jean Grey from the X-Men and be telepathic/telekinetic. If your power is great enough, you can create at least an imitation of just about any other super power that way. Want to fly? Telekineticly move yourself through the air. Invincibility? Telekinetically prevent things from hitting you. Shape shifting? Telepathically manipulate how you look to people. (This wouldn't be as much fun as ACTUALLY morphing, but whatever). Super strength? Back to telekinetics to help you lift/bend/break items. See through walls? Telepathically look through the eyes of someone on the other side of said wall. Etc.
• I'm not ticklish

Alright, done, even though this is only 15 and not 25 items. It has kept me a WHILE to even come up with this list. **Dang it's hard to find information that the general public doesn't already know about me... I'm such an open book. :-P **

I hope you enjoyed both this little segment, and my return to posting (after friggen 7 months! Slacker!)

Welcome to the Year 3000!

Ok, so first: HAPPY NEW YEAR! Yay! ^_^ Second: Sorry I didn't post nearly as soon as I would have liked. Last week was CRAZY with the whole "Christmas" thing. ^_^ First, well, Christmas... got some AWESOME stuff that I'll have to obsess over ^_^ Anyway, the 26th was spent at my dad's side of the family. The 27th I had a full day of work. The 28th I had off... what was I lazy about that day??? Gah! I honestly can't recall what the heck I was doing... but apparently it wasn't posting here... The 29th and 30th I worked again. New Year's Eve I worked and then went bowling with Mom, her ex, and his 10-year-old daughter Hilary. Blast of a time. Laser bowling or whatever it's called when all the lights are out and the lane is lit up with black lights and the bowling balls glow... whatever, you get the point.
New Years Day I went to my Mom's side of the family, where we all sang Christmas carols and played Rock Band. What was really funny is that the only cousins that came were all children of my one uncle. He has an-almost-five-year-old and a set of three-year-old triplets. Anyway, the older one LOVED Rock Band, even if he couldn't actually play the drums, or the guitar, or knew any of the songs enough to sing... We all picked "Eye of the Tiger" for him, thinking it was one of the easiest songs that were currently unlocked. Well, we had to play it enough for him to know the song, and then we played the song some more because it was the only one he knew. 9_9
Anyway, now for the actual obsession. If you couldn't guess from the post title, I rediscovered the awesome brilliance of Futurama. I discovered the DVD set of the first season for like $15 at a local FYE. Watching just one episode suckered me back in right away and I soon watched the entire first season in one sitting. Going back to FYE to pick up one last Christmas gift, I caved in and bought the second season. I was tempted to also purchase the movies, which were on a double sale: discounted to about $20 AND available for buy one, get one free. I could own all four for about $40! I decided against the purchase because I wasn't sure if anyone had purchased any of the movies for me for Christmas. I should have stuck with my guts and just bought them then, however. I just went back to FYE yesterday, and not only was the BOGO over, but the movies were back to their usual $30 pricing. Curses... So now I'm back to watching just the first two seasons on DVD, and the rest either online, or on Comedy Central.
However, in getting re-addicted to the show, I discovered a whole slew of cool information about it. First, Futurama actually wasn't cancelled because of bad ratings. In fact, even with Fox messing with it's time slot, Futurama still had higher ratings than Family Guy and King of the Hill. One of the main factors of the show's cancellation was actually due to Fox and the show's creator Matt Groening not really seeing eye-to-eye about the show. In fact, if Groening's other show The Simpsons wasn't such a cash cow for the network, it probably would have been cut too. Anyway, the show disappeared for a little bit before Cartoon Network picked it up. It got so popular on the network that fans started calling for the story to be continued. As soon as Cartoon Network's syndication contract was up, Comedy Central dove head-first into acquiring the rights to air the revived show. Getting the syndication rights for Futurama is actually Comedy Central's largest and most expensive acquisition to date. Upon airing on Comedy Central, Fox received an order for a continuation of Futurama. Thus, four direct-to-DVD movies were made: Bender's Big Score, The Beast with a Billion Backs, Bender's Game, and Into the Wild Green Yonder. And finally, it was announced over the summer of 2009, Comedy Central ordered a full season of Futurama! Therefore, the new season of the show is scheduled to premiere mid-2010.
Ok, Ok... now, for a bit of a recap of the show for those who a) forgot and b) didn't go to the handy Wikipedia page that I was so kind to link to...
The show centers around Philip J. Fry, who was a loser with no future back in 1999. As the ball was dropping on the new millennia, Fry ends up delivering pizza to a cryogenics's lab, thanks to a prank call. Through an accident, Fry gets frozen for 1000 years, awaking on New Years Eve in the year 2999. Aliens are now fully assimilated citizens and space travel is for any average joe. Fry is soon met by his "career assignment officer" Leela - a gorgeous woman that Fry is instantly attracted to, even though she's a cyclops. Fry then finds out that his only surviving relative is a great-great-great-great-... Oh forget it! It's a thousand years! That's a LOT of greats... Anyway, his nephew. Said nephew is 160-year-old Professor Farnsworth. While exploring the sites of New New York, Fry meets up with a former girder-bending unit named, appropriately enough, Bender. Fry, Bender, and Leela become the professor's new crew for his interplanetary delivery service "The Planet Express". Rounding out the cast are the company's intern Amy, the company's overly zealous, bureaucratic, accountant Hermes, the company's completely pathetic, broke, and incompetent doctor Zoidberg, and finally, Leela's pet alien Nibbler.
Throughout the course of the show the inevitable chaos does indeed ensue, but there is a lot of depth also involved in the series. As mentioned above, we find out in the fifth season of the show, that Fry getting frozen that New Year's Eve in 1999 was in fact NOT just a crazy accident. What's even better is that if - after knowing the truth - you went back to the first episode, you actually see the shadow of the responsible party! That's right! They knew from the beginning that Fry was frozen on purpose, knew WHO froze him, and actually drew a clue in the first episode that just about EVERYONE missed the first time through!
This happened again in the first episode of the second season. When we are introduced to Leela, she tells us that she is an alien who was left on Earth as a baby. She doesn't know what planet she's from and she has never met another cyclops. However, we do find out who Leela's parents are in season four. The trick though, is that her parents make an appearance in that second season episode.
The depth of the show doesn't only come from how far ahead the writers think when creating a story. More depth comes from how amazingly they are able to parody the science fiction genre. There are far too many examples to start listing them, but the audio commentary off of the DVDs just points out how deeply they thought about the science of their little world. It is actually greatly amusing. You would have one of the voice actors commenting about an upcoming joke and then the show's co-executive producer and head writer David X. Cohen would chime in with something scientific that just occurred on the show. For instance, one of the episodes has the cast being dragged under the ocean. Cohen then spends about five minutes explaining how scientifically accurate the episode is. That is, until Bender's voice actor John DiMaggio, makes a comment about the mermaids that show up a moment later...
I must admit though, that the main reason I watched the show - which is the same reason I watch the majority of the cartoons I watch - is because of the romantic build-up between Fry and Leela. Watching Fry go from just being attracted to Leela to actually having romantic feelings for her, and watching Leela slowly start seeing Fry as the sweet mush that he is, and therefore start falling for him too. At the end of the series we see Fry trying one last time to win over Leela. He learns how to play an instrument that - along with gorgeous music - also projects a hologram of what images the music is supposed to portray to the audience. I don't want to give away the plot of the episode, so I'll just say that at first Fry is able to do amazingly thanks to a deal with the Robot Devil. However, the Robot Devil goes back on their agreement and Fry has to finish his opera without the Robot Devil's help. The episode ends with Leela being the only one left in the audience. Defeated, Fry stops playing before he finishes. Leela tells him to not stop, she wants to see how it ends. And thus the show closes with Fry playing the last few notes, portraying a mangled image of Leela and Fry kissing and walking off into the sunset. A bitter sweet ending to the show, since it was vague enough to give the fans closure, thinking that Leela and Fry will indeed get together in the end. However, the fans don't get to actually SEE the couple finally come together.
Well, then the fans received the movies. I have yet to watch Bender's Big Score, but I have watched the other three. In The Beast with a Billion Backs, Leela is still rejecting Fry's affection, and so Fry turns to a woman who ends up being a polygomous. Not being able to handle sharing his girlfriend with mulitple other men, and thinking there is no love for him on Earth, Fry is willing to go on a suicide mission through a rift that opened in the fabric of space. On the other side he meets up with - and gets possessed by - a planet-sized creature who is also only looking to be loved. The monster attaches it's billions of tenticles on the necks of all living creatures in our universe as a means to try to grow close. Bender and the rejected robots are the only ones left for a rescue, but Bender's preoccupied with being in a robot brotherhood which claims to hate all humans.
Bender's Game, the one I wanted to watch the most, has the cast parodying both Dungeons & Dragons as well as Lord of the Rings. This fantasy parody, as well as the title being a pun on the Sci-Fi book Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, is the reason I wanted to watch this movie the most. The plot is that Herme's son Dwight and Professor Farnsworth's clone Cubert are playing D&D and Bender tries to join them. Forcing himself to imagine, Bender goes insane and can't remove himself from the D&D personna he created. Meanwhile, there is a shortage of Dark Matter - which is used for rocket fuel. Professor Farnsworth tells his crew that he and the coorporate superpower known as Mom each have an "anti-backwards" crystal and if they were to come together it would cause Dark Matter to become useless. However, the crystals - once close enough to each other - teleport the cast to the fictitional world that Bender had created. A Lord-of-the-Rings-like quest ensues, in which Frydo must destroy the Die of Power before Momon could get her hands on it.
The most anticipated movie however, was Into the Wild Green Yonder, since this was the last movie and was supposed to be the conclusion to the show. In this movie Amy's parents are tearing down the old Vegas-type casino-city on Mars, and expanding it. This would cause the extinction of some of the Mars animals. A feminist environmental group tries to stop the Wongs, but to no avail. However, when Leela finds out that Amy's father is trying to inplode a beautiful violet dwarf star in order to create a "ball return hole" for his galaxy-sized mini-golf course. The destruction of such a beautiful star is upsetting enough for Leela, but when she finds out that the star's demolition will destroy a planet thriving with life, the animal-lover snaps and joins the environmentalist group that protested earlier. Now taking leadership, Leela turns the environmentalists into eco-terrorists as they attempt to sabotage Mr. Wong's attempts to complete construction of his golf course. Meanwhile, during the Eco-feminist's first protest, the leader's necklace charm gets unknowingly lodged into Fry's head and ends up giving him telepathy. The group "Legion of Mad Fellows" kidnaps Fry after discovering two key things about him: 1) his new-found telepathic powers, and 2) Fry's lack of delta waves make him immune to psionic powers. He is told of a story of two ancient waring creatures, one good - Encyclopods - with the ability to obsorb DNA in order to preserve all living creatures - making it impossible for any creature to truly become exstinct, and one bad - the Dark One - whose goal is to destroy all other life. Fry was charged with finding and destroying the Dark One, as well as preventing the destruction of the violet darf star - which was the last known egg of the Encyclopods. In order to try to prevent the destruction of the star, Fry decides to stay as close to Leo Wong as possible, becoming a trusted lackey, but also being an inside-man to prevent Wong's destruction of the star. Leela only seeing Fry cozy up to "the enemy" has a hard time trying to trust her friend, especially since Fry must never speak of his true goal as a preventative of having the Dark One discover the plan. In the end, all ends well, except that the Planet Express crew is now deamed eco-terrorists and are chased by the dimwitted authority of Zapp Brannigan and his reluctant lieutenant and personal assistant Kif Kroker. The Planet Express ship heads towards a wormhole that would take them trillions of light years away and who knows if and when they would ever return. And this is the part which made it the best farewell to the show. After a quick vote, Leela decides to go ahead and enter the wormhole, just before informing Fry that she loves him back. The movie ends with the crew entering the wormhole and a flash of light as the same slate as the opening titles comes up. The end. No more. Fantastic ending to the show!
However, now there is the new season coming out and apparently Matt Groening and David X. Cohen are debating if they will keep the ending of Into the Wild Green Yonder in-cannon. All I know is that shots used to promote the new season has Hermes as a Head in a Jar. So I'm not so sure where they're going with this, but I'm counting down regardless!

Ok... so this post actually kept me DAYS to complete... so I'm now moving on with my life. ^_^ I'll catch you later with my next installment. *insert catchy closing line that I still need to think of*

Nintendo DS - Obsessions on the Go

WOW! A month without posting! I've been busy with my obsessions! Well, that, and life has been crazy. Quick sum up of what I've been doing with my life:
1) working.... a lot... TT_TT
2) getting ready for Turkey Day
3) visiting Remy for a week
4) Christmas shopping
5) Christmas cookie baking
6) gift wrapping
7) obsessions ^_^

My first obsession was with my Nintendo DS. In November I purchased the DS game "The Sims2: Castaway." I don't know if I just really like controlling a little computerize person, or what, but I always obsess over The Sims. I used to play it all the time when I was in college. Or, more accurately, my family had The Sims on the home computer, so I loved to play it while I was home. I then had to suffer through Sims Withdrawal whenever the new semester started. When I graduated I bought myself a new computer - the one I had through college finally died. However, even though I didn't trust Windows Vista, the saleswoman convinced me that it worked a lot better than XP and that all my computer games would be compatible. I proceeded to purchase the complete package of The Sims plus expansion - released and discounted when The Sims 2 came out. Anyway, I went to play The Sims and it would work only as long as the window was open. As soon as I exited the game I would have to re-install the whole set. I called tech support and their response was that they couldn't guarantee that it would work on Vista since the games were made before Vista was released. And everyone in the house had upgraded to Vista at that point - and no XP could be found anywhere - and so I had gone through MAJOR The Sims withdrawal for about three years.
Anyway, I FINALLY could play The Sims again on my DS! WHOOT! I played my little castaway every waking, free moment. Which didn't leave a lot of time to blog about the obsession. *^_^* The game has great replayability. It was a little annoying that you had to wait for random events to occur in order to progress the scant storyline, but you could craft things in the meantime, as well as improve skills such as fishing and bug catching. I was able to find the boat off the island within a week or two, but I still obsessively played the game. Why? Because of the collections. The most brilliant game element! Create a quick game storyline, but force replayability by having the player take forever to collect everything. THAT is what made me obsessed even more! I HAD to collect and make EVERYTHING.
What finally broke me of that obsession? A new DS game of course! While visiting Remy, we went to a Best Buy to try to finally spend a gift card I got like three Christmases ago. I was going to purchase one of about four different DS ideas that I already had in mind, but Remy talked me into Mario Party DS. Mainly because it had the game download feature. One person owns the game and up to four people can play by wirelessly connecting to the owner's DS. Now we can finally play a game together - he owns almost no multi-player games that we can both play when I'm visiting. ANYWAY. This became a quick favorite pastime for us. We played multiple games and generally had great fun with my new game.
When I got home I started playing the solo games in order to win achievements and play through the storyline in order to unlock things. Just like Castaway, this game centers on collecting/unlocking items/achievements in order to force replayability, and I fell for it! I actually have more than half the stuff unlocked currently (unlocked a new achievement just this morning before even getting out of bed ^_^).
And there you have it... my "valid" excuse as to why I haven't blogged in over a month... I was busy playing with my Nintendo DS. ^_^ I DID have another obsession, however, but I need to get to finishing Christmas candies before midnight, and so the obsession that got me to put down my DS will have to wait until perhaps tomorrow (most likely Sunday or Monday) for me to blog about it...
*I really need to think of a catchy sign-out line.... perhaps I'll obsess about it...*

Naming the Studio - Harder Than it Sounds

New post time. Going back to the AMV obsession, I spent a little more time on the "background" aspects - namely production and studio names. ^_^
Ok, so this little relapse is thanks to Peter. He came to visit Celia and informed me that he discovered an AMAZING song off of the game Left 4 Dead 2. The song is called Re: Your Brains. EPICNESS! ^_^ Well, I instantly fell in love with this quirky song about the head of the zombies trying to negotiate with his former co-worker who has the surviving humans locked safely inside the local mall. I think my favorite lines are "We're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes" and "and I plan on eating you slowly." Anyway, where I'm going with this is that I noticed that the singer/songwriter for Re: Your Brains is Jonathan Coulton, who is a very funny songwriter, but is most well known for a little song called Still Alive. Yup, that little ditty used as the end credits to the gaming phenomenon known as Portal. The story of Still Alive - for those who somehow don't know - is that you just completed the game and the game's antagonist GLaDOS sings about her achievement in you. The song contains some spoilers about how to actually win the game, but it's sort of easy to figure out how to kill GLaDOS anyway, so go ahead an take a listen if you haven't yet. ^_^ In fact, go ahead and check out the end credits... which includes the song lyrics on the left side.
OK, so now that you're caught up with the song Still Alive, I started thinking about the character GLaDOS and how she's sort of a female version of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I also used to have major malfunctions with the computer I had in college, and so I "lovingly" called it HAL in reference to said Space Odyssey character. Well, for the most part, my new computer has been "behaving"... but it's starting to act funky lately, so I have been teasing that perhaps I should call my new desktop GLaDOS. OK, I know this seems like rambling again, but I want you to follow my train of thought here...
OK, so to quickly recap, Peter took me to Re: Your Brains, which led me back to Still Alive thanx to the common songwriter, which led me to thinking about how I should call my new computer GLaDOS, due to the similarities between GLaDOS and HAL and how I called my old computer HAL. Everyone caught up now? Everyone understands? Ok, good, moving on. ^_^
I started thinking how funny it would be if Mina and I used "Still Alive" in our production bump somehow, but it made no sense for the name "In the Fridge Productions". Need a recap on that topic? OK, so then I thought, "OMG... all major movies have both a production team AND a studio, so why can't AMVs?" Mina and I thought of the concept for the AMV we want to submit - so we are collectively the production team of In the Fridge Productions. However, the AMV will be put together on my computer - the "studio". Therefore, I now have the excuse to use Still Alive as a bump - the "Studio" name! ^_^ So now I've decided that all AMVs made on my current computer will be "Still Alive Studio". I even know what I want the bump to be - but it will be tough to do with InkScape/Paint and Windows Movie Maker, so here's hoping I do go insane trying to animate it! >_< GLaDOS' "cores" slowly twists upward to reveal the "eye" and then either a zoom out to reveal the core is the dot above the "i" in Still, or the words "Still Alive Studio" will slide in from the left... We'll see. I'll post when I ever finish it.
The only other thing - and the reason this belongs in a blog about obsessions - is that now that I thought of two different "production" names - one for a production team and one for a studio production - I'm now thinking of different names all the time!
A little history lesson before continuing with this....Back about six years ago I was in a Basic Video Production class in order to teach us how to edit film we were given a project entitled Bright Wolf. It was a made-for-tv BBC werewolf movie that ended up so horrible that they decided to scrap the project even after the finished edit. In order to make back the money put into the film, BBC decided to sell Bright Wolf as an editing training video. It came with the first half of the movie edited together and the students were tasked to edit the second half. We were provided with all of the raw footage and the script. Seems simple, but each shot had multiple takes and multiple angles and it takes roughly one hour to edit one minute of film - we had to edit 10 minutes worth. Here's another Blogger's take on the subject. And so EVERY electronic media student who had taken this class held one line very close to our hearts: "Chaos. All is Chaos. I am lord of Chaos!" It is the last line of Bright Wolf and once that line was uttered it meant you were FINALLY done! We would routinely use that line throughout the rest of our college career as sort of a camaraderie statement. Don't believe the movie was that bad? Here's just one student's edit of the "glory" that is Bright Wolf - and this is one of the BETTER edits (as opposed to this one...)!
Anyway, history lesson over. My point in all of this is my thought of using "All is Chaos Productions" as another name instead of "In the Fridge Productions". I have "ILR Productions" as my own personal name, and so I wouldn't use "All is Chaos". However, it wouldn't feel right to use it with Mina since she didn't even go to the same college, and doesn't know the backstory to the phrase. I then thought that I could use it for when I do a collaborative AMV effort with Remy, since he lived through me going through the "chaos" and we do have pretty chaotic adventures. It seems fitting, but then I thought of yet another hallmark of my college years.
This history is slightly shorter. Remy's group of guy friends - four in total, that's important - wanted to come up with a name for their little group. This was during freshmen year, and so it was shortly after the movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back came out. In the movie, there is an organization called Coalition for Liberation of Itinerant Tree-Dwellers. Well, obviously the acronym was a hot topic of college boys, and Remy's group wanted a similar type acronym for the name of THEIR group. Well, one of Remy's friends was a huge Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fan. The series was originally just a trilogy, but Douglas Adams ended up having more story to tell, so the series ended up being five books long. On the cover of the last book in the series is the statement "The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy". And thusly, the group was named The Inaccurate Triad. Go ahead, figure out the acronym... got it? Ok, moving on. Well, Remy's group used The Inaccurate Triad as their college radio show name - which I then inherited sophomore year. And so, since I was assimilated into The Inaccurate Triad, I would think any collaborative effort with Remy would HAVE to use that title.
But then again, Remy already came up with a production name for the LARP he plays called Vampire: The Masquerade. His one character was a movie producer who owned - aptly named - Masquerade Productions - which would also work well if we ever did any vampire-themed AMVs...
OK, I think that was the end of my train of thought on the subject. And - as usual - looking up all of those helpful links in my posts distracted me and this post kept me about 7 hours to complete >_<

Get a Clue - Part 2

Alright, in my last entry I gave you a little history/trivia about the Clue franchise, as well as a listing of all the Clue games I have yet to track down. In this continuation I shall talk about my love of the game and give a mini-review of all the ones I own.
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I fell in love with the game the moment my family introduced me to it. My family had the original game as well as the first in the Clue Jr. spinoffs series. I loved the game so much that my parents bought me another Clue spinoff game: The Great Museum Caper. Great game, though COMPLETELY different from the Clue I was used to. I'll go more in depth in this later. I watched the Clue movie that came out in 1985, and loved the idea of multiple endings to tie in the concept of the changing game outcome. I also had two or three out of the 18 childrens books published between '92 and '97. The older I got the more I loved the series - and murder/mystery games (such as Crack the Case). While in college, I received Clue FX and then I discovered the Sega Genesis game. That's when the obsession truly took hold. I started COLLECTING Clue games! I'm currently up to 14 games, and that's only about 1/3 of them! If you don't count the same game being released for multiple consoles (I have both the Sega Genesis and GBA versions), or the unlicenced variants (which I'll discuss later), there are currently 36 versions of Clue... and I only have 14. Yes, including the original game, and also excluding all the updates to said original game, there have been 35 incarnations of Clue since it's release in 1949.
My family used to own the original, the classic, Clue. However, throughout many a basement flooding, that beloved game has been destroyed. The closest I still have is the Bookshelf Clue. It is the classic game, however the box is in the shape of a book so that you can keep it on a bookshelf, and instead of the normal pawns, this version of Clue actually has little miniature figures of the characters - very cool. I had spotted another variant of this bookshelf game in Target a few years back in which the box was actually a crafted wooden book. Very classy, but I had no money at the time and haven't found it since. I cannot recall if my mother or Remy was the one to purchase this version for me, but it was from Barnes&Noble and was a Christmas gift a few years back. Going chronologically, the first spin-off was actually a VCR interactive game. Clue VCR Mystery Game was published in 1985 and my parents actually owned a copy! Well either that or the game's sequel Clue VCR II: Murder in Disguise which was released in '87. Either way, it was destroyed in flooding much like the original board game. T_T I never even got to play it because by the time I was old enough to appreciate it the tape was already fuzzy with mold. TT_TT
Anyway, moving back to games that I actually DO have still... The next one up, chronologically speaking, is Clue Jr.: Case of the Missing Pet. This was the Clue Jr. I mentioned playing as a kid earlier. Released in '89, the premise is that an animal was stolen from the pet store and hidden in one of the local businesses. The playable characters were the normal six suspects, only as children. You had to figure out the same basic stuff as original Clue: who did it and where, except instead of the non-child-friendly search for a murder weapon, the third component was figuring out what animal was taken from the pet store. Although the game is technically the only "surviving" Clue game of the family's, my sister and mother relinquished the game to me once my passion for the franchise blossomed. ^_^
As mentioned, the first game I got was Clue: The Great Museum Caper, which was released in '91. This one was probably the most different from the actual Clue game. In this game one player plays an art thief and the rest of the players must track down and stop the thief before he clears out the museum. It was so unique, I loved it! My one cousin did too, he ALWAYS wanted to play whenever he was visiting. ^_^
The next game chronologically is actually the last one I came to own. Anyway, it's Clue Jr. The Case of the Hidden Toys, released in '98. Another of the children-aimed Clues, this time the kid-versions of the normal suspects are trying to find a missing toy, where it's hidden, and which pet hid it. In this game the kids have different first names than in the "Case of the Missing Pet" game, there are only four playable characters - Green, Plum, Peacock, and Scarlet, and the clues are presented differently. In the first "Junior" game, the clues were in each local store floor, and a special magnifying glass allowed you to read the clue. Well, apparently reading is too over-rated for the '98 kids, because now everything is in picture form. Also, pictures are placed on the bottom of stands that are randomly placed on characters, furniture, and animals. Kids just look at the stand bottoms to get their clue. Kinda lame, but helps bring kids into the Clue series a LOT younger. Oooo, yeah!... I found out while searching for a link to the '98 release that there was actually a "Case of the Hidden Toys" also released in '95. Basically same exact game, but the '95 version has Mustard, Scarlet, Plum, and Green, and the board is different because the toys could be hidden anywhere throughout the neighborhood, as opposed to just inside the house.
We now skip ahead a few years to 2002. Clue Card Game. This is a different card game from the one released in '92 (mentioned in the previous post). This time the user has to deduct who killed Dr. Black, their escape vehicle, and their destination. I was first introduced to this game while visiting Remy. This was the first time I found out Clue was more than just a board game. I later learned about the video/computer games - and also discovered the mold-covered VHS game.
The next Clue game release that I own was one of the games that I received in college and therefore jumpstarted my obsessive urge to own EVERY version of Clue. In 2004 Hasbro released Clue FX which is another departure from the original rules. Players actually play as one of the four new characters - Lord Grey, Lady Lavender, Miss Peach and Prince Azure. This time, instead of playing one of the suspects, the four playable characters are completely innocent guests who help Inspector Brown figure out the killer. Another change is that Mr. Boddy isn't the victim this time; his attorney Mr. Miles Meadow-Brook is. The usual suspects are still there, as well as the addition of Mr. Meadow-Brook's now widow and Mr. Boddy's gardener Rusty. The actual movements are also different. The game announces in a random selection who moves, you can move to any connecting room, sound effects tells you when the suspects move, and when you're ready to make your accusation you have to figure out where Inspector Brown moved to. All in all, it's still an entertaining game - even if it tends to take longer than the usual Clue game - mainly because it takes so friggen long to find Brown!!!
My last children's version of the game was given to me by Remy. I think it was a birthday gift, to sort of go along with the latest "crime". Released in '03, Clue Junior: The Case of the Missing Cake REALLY kiddies-up the Clue franchise. The first one has an animal theft, the second (well, third if you count the one I know nothing about - see previous post) is a toy burglar, and now the latest one has someone swiping a piece of cake before dinner. The game play is virtually the same as the "Case of the Hidden Toys" game in which the clues are pictures pasted on the bottom of stands that are randomly placed on characters and furniture. The player must figure out which character ate the cake, what they had to drink with the cake, and at what time they ate it. Still a cute game regardless. It does sort of tie into actual Clue a little better than the rest of the Jrs however. The crime is committed in what appears to be the Tudor Mansion. Also it returns all 6 characters in their adult renderings - but in a very kiddy-cartoony way. Whatever, there really isn't a Clue game I don't like, so I just eat this one up too ^_^.
Pretty much the only Clue games I remember seeing advertisements for were the ones released in 2005. One of those was Clue DVD. This edition of the game has different rules based around DVD interaction. Instead of a murder, Dr. Black has had an item stolen and, in addition to guessing the criminal, room and stolen object, the time of day when the crime took place must also be discovered. In each turn players guess three of these four unknowns; and from time to time Inspector Brown and the butler, Ashe, show up via the DVD with helpful information. I have yet to actually COMPLETE a game. I think I've only tried playing with Remy, and the first few times his DVD player goofed up during the middle of our games. I think I gave up after that, and I don't really have much of a "gaming" family to actually play while at home. But now that I remember that I haven't finished it, perhaps I'll con my fam into joining me in a game. ^_^
I discovered Clue Suspects (2007) at Barnes&Noble on the discount pile for like $4 or something! Total win! Almost as good as the Clue Jr. at the thrift store... Anyway, this is an actual SOLO Clue game. Good old Mr. Boddy has been killed, and your job is to figure out what room everyone was in so you know who was alone with the poor sap when he was killed. This game comes with cards, each one a different game, and these cards give you a small assortment of clues - such as "Miss Scarlet was in the kitchen with a man", and "Prof. Plum was in the room above Mrs. Meadow-Brook". Using these small number of clues you must deduce - mostly through process of elimination - who was where. If you watched the above links to clips from the VHS games than the gameplay is fairly similar. The normal cast of characters are available, along with the introduction of "the butler", as well as Mrs. Meadow-Brook, Rusty, Prince Azure, and Lady Lavender - totalling now at 11 suspects. This game is SUPER simple since I've been doing these types of puzzles since I was about 10, but it is still enjoyable.
Another '07 Clue game - that I also bought at Barnes&Noble - is Clue Express. As the name suggests, it's designed to be a fast variant of the game - capable of play in about twenty minutes. In this game you use dice to make your suggestion, but you still mark things off on a detective pad, and other players still prove you wrong with cards. This time you're trying to figure out who was the brains, who was the brawn, and who was the get-away driver. It was indeed fun and an interesting twist. Also, due to it being compact, it's a great Clue game to take on the go.
The final spin-off in the series came out last year. This is Clue Discover the Secrets - another gift from Remy. Hasbro actually created this addition to REPLACE the original Clue! That's right! Almost 60 years and it gets replaced! TT_TT The game is still ridiculously fun however. It's been completely updated for the new era, including new weapons - keeping the poison that was introduced during the Limited Gift and 50th Anniversary editions, as well as introducing an axe, dumbbell, and trophy, and replacing the revolver with a pistol with a silencer, and the lead pipe with a baseball bat. The pawns are completely redone. Instead of "making a suggestion" players now "start rumors". Players now don't start with an "advantage" by having more cards than other players; if there are cards left over after an even split those cards are put in a pile in the center for all players to look at. The character backstories are completely redone, and each character is also given different "powers" - such as "once per game you may look at a clue being given to another player". Another character "change" is the victim isn't Mr. Boddy, or Dr. Black, or even Mr. Meadow-Brooke, he is just some unnamed millionaire and he has "gone missing" and just "suspected" of being killed. *shrugs* The biggest change, and the best spin in my opinion, is the introduction of Intrigue cards. There are two types. One set gives you different advantages that you can play throughout the game - such as allowing you to not show a player the card that would disprove his/her "rumor". The second set is the most interesting: clock cards. There are eight. Basically, there is a time limit on finding the killer in this game. The first seven cards do nothing, but if some unfortunate player pulls the last clock card it means that too much time has passed and the killer has just killed you! Once drawn, the eight card is shuffled back in the deck and the next player to pull it also "dies". Your cards become general information for everyone, but it is possible that all players pull the eighth clock card, die, and the murderer gets away with it. Interesting twist, and when we all played at Remy's 25th birthday party we did end up losing at least 1/2 the players ^_^.
And now for the one licenced variant that I own. I'm not a fan of the books, and I only "enjoy" the movies, but it was a Clue game, and it turned out to be a greatly enjoyable twist. The Hasbro-approved Harry Potter Clue takes place at Hogwarts. A student has gone missing and players have to determine what spell was used, who cast it, and where the student was attacked. There are three added twists in this game to make it truly Harry Potter. The first is the idea of Hogwarts' moving staircases. There is a die that has each of the four house crests, as well as the Dark Mark on each side. When the die is rolled you then turn a dial on the board that shifts the "staircases" - opening and closing doors to rooms and changing where secret passage ways lead. Another twist is the idea of House Points. You lose House Points whenever the Dark Mark shows up, and so - much like in Discover the Secrets - the game could win. Cards are introduced as the third twist in the game, and they directly effect the House Points componant. There are two sets; Dark cards are used when the Dark Mark appears and takes away House Points. The second set are the Help cards which can be played to protect your House Points when a Dark card is played. So it's Clue, but advanced with just enough of that Harry Potter flavor. Enjoyable, but - much like Clue FX - it tends to take longer than traditional Clue due to the new features and the difficulty navigating the board.
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I just LOOOOVE this game! I love the skill I have at winning it! I love how it changes each time. I love the strategy (and some luck) needed to win. I love pulling "a little poker" into it by reading the other player's tell-tale to know who has what. I love the different variants of the game. I just LOOOOOOOOOVE Clue! I'm obsessed about it, and so concludes my "Get a Clue" obsession post. ^_^

Get a Clue - Part 1

With the advent of a certain Miss Scarlet not only commenting on my posts, but starting up a blog of her own (which reviews mystery novels), I decided it's about time to work on yet another obsession of mine: CLUE GAMES!!!!! ^_^ (or Cluedo as it's called in it's originated England).
The thing is, however, that I started this blog entry THURSDAY (10/22) and it seemed a bit longer than anticipated, so I decided to break it into two posts. THIS post will talk about what took me so long to actually make the post, as well as a little Clue trivia and a listing of the games I DON'T have in the series. The next post (to be done either tomorrow or Sunday, depending on my free time) will talk about my love of the series, why I'm obsessed, and a listing of the games I DO have, along with a mini review of each game.
OK, so what kept me so long? Well, first of all I had multiple distractions - TV shows to watch, neighbors visiting for an hour, family poking their heads in my room to talk to me while I wrote, Instant Messaging with a friend of mine about his love life, and finally the actual research into the series. Oh, and then I had to work late, took a 10-year-old to see "Where the Wild Things Are" (great movie) for her birthday, and then had the birthday party itself... so it's been a bit of a crazy weekend and not the most opportune time to do such a long blog. AAAAANYWAY...
I knew I had a LOT of different Clue games (14 to be exact), but I didn't know how many there were total, so I checked out the Wiki page. You can go ahead and just read the Wiki, but I'll give you the trivia highlights here... your choice. ^_^
First of all, Clue is only known as such in North America. That is because the original name (Cluedo) was based on the British game Ludo. Since North America knew Ludo's variant Parcheesi better, using the Ludo reference would be lost on North Americans, and so it was just dropped to Clue. Another curious change was that, until recently (2002), the Green character was changed from Reverend Green to simply Mr. Green. It's not really explained why the change took place. Perhaps it was deemed less likely for Americans and Canadians to believe a Reverend could be a valid suspect for a murder. *shrug*
Anyway, the game was created by Anthony E. Pratt, a solicitor's clerk and part-time clown from Birmingham, England. Although it was patented in 1947, World War II prevented production of the game until 1949. The game was more-or-less unchanged until the first "spin-off" game - which was a VCR interactive movie - in 1985. That's 36 years before the game errupted into - according to the Wiki page - 24 game spin-offs, 8 licenced theme variants, a video-game version for systems from Commodore 64 to GBA to iTouch (and everything in between), a computer game, an online game, an arcade game, a series for the CDi, a MMORPG mini-game, a film, a series of British game shows, a comedic off-Broadway musical where the audience actually picked the play's conclusion by selecting 3 over-sized cards - just like the game, a similar non-musical British play, an 18-book children series based on the actual Clue games and another children book series based on Clue Jr. - which involved such things as toy theft, as well as at least 5 unlicenced variants. Let's re-calculate. So, besides the original Clue game that came out in 1949, there are 48 encarnations of Clue since 1985! Out of which, I only own 14! If I'm going to own as many incarnations as I can I better get a move on! >_<
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Clue games I do not yet own, in chronilogical release order:
Super Clue Challenge ('86): An advanced rules variation to the original Clue which included the new characters Mr. Slate-Gray, Captain Brown, and Miss Peach, as well as three more weapons - the blunderbuss, poison and axe.
Clue Master Detective ('88): Sort of a suplimental game to the original Clue, this one added rooms and weapons, as well as the four new characters that were introduced in the VHS games - Madam Rose, Sgt. Grey, M. Brunette and Miss Peach.
Clue Card Game ('92): Players attempt to match cards featuring the locations, weapons, and characters from the original game with a central pile of cards.
Clue Little Detective ('92): I actually never heard of this game, and there is no info on Wikipedia, so I have no clue... (excuse the pun)
Junior Clue ('93): Apparently flipping the words in the title creates a new game... This time the "kid's version" of Clue is more like that of the original game, except the characters are trying to find the ghost of their ancestor and remember which room they spotted the ghost.
Clue Super Sleuth ('95): Another advanced version of the original Clue. A wee bit too complicated to sum up here, but the basics is that there is no board, just random tiles to be placed on the table, and there are also three non-playable characters introduced - Inspector Grey, Hogarth the Butler, and the Black Dog.
Clue Limited Gift Edition ('97): This edition isn't all that exciting, except that it came in a deluxe format with the option to play with an extra murder weapon, a Poison Chalice.
Clue 50th Anniversary ('99): Very much like the above Limited Gift Edition, the only major componants of this game is the deluxe format and the Bottle of Poison. Vertually the same thing as the LGE (but I'll try to get both regardless... cuz it IS a collection... >_<)
Clue Passport to Murder (2000): First Clue of the new Millennium! This wasn't much more than an update of Super Clue Challenge with the setting changed to an Orient Express style train in Istanbul station. There is very little change to the mechanics of the game (except you can only play the six original characters), with mainly cosmetic changes and updates to the characters.
Clue Jr. Pirate Treasure Hunt (2000): The Clue Jr. detectives (Green, Scarlet, Plum, & Peacock) must find out which legendary pirate hid what valuables in the treasure chest! Be your piratey self for this kid's take.
Clue Mysteries ('05): This is another change of rules, and this time the game play is based heavily on another board game called "Mysteries of Old Peking". Basically, much like with the original Clue Jr. (the one with the missing pet), this version of Clue has the clues hidden and you need to use the red glasses to read the clues properly. I actually remember seeing this version advertised. There aren't too many versions of Clue that I actually remember TV commercials for... Clue DVD was the other one I remember, perhaps because they were released in the same year....
Clue Secrets & Spies ('09): Oh yea, that's right, Hasbro released ANOTHER Clue game just this year! Haven't gotten it yet, tho... In this incarnation it's up to you to stop Agent Black - Clue's most notorious spy. The player must complete missions and attend secret meetings in order to stay a step ahead of the other players and receive the title of "ultimate spy". Sounds to me that this is drastically different from the age-old Clue game, but we'll have to wait until I play to see how much I like it. I mean, I fell in love with The Great Museum Caper and that also has nothing to do with most Clue games. In fact, Secrets & Spies is starting to sound like some much-awaited sequel to TGMC.
Clue Jr. Case of the Missing Prizes ('09): Well, I'm PRESUMING it was just released this year since my search for it only provided links to seller sites, that and The Art of Murder doesn't have it posted on the site. Anyway, it appears that this Clue Jr. spin-off consists of figuring out which prize was stolen and where it was hidden - or something along those lines. I don't really know much more about this game.
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And now for the Clue Variants that I must get!
Licenced:
Alfred Hitchcock Edition ('99): Set on the sound stage where multiple Hitchcock films are being shot. Played like normal Clue.
The Simpsons Clue (2000): Based off of the Fox TV series, it's played like normal Clue, except all of the traditional characters are replaced by Simpsons characters. There are actually two main versions of this game in which the Simpsons characters that are used for the Clue cast are different depending on the version. I may have to hunt down both. The North American Cast - Mr. Burns as Mr. Boddy, Homer as Mr. Green, Bart as Prof. Plum, Lisa as Miss Scarlet, Marge as Mrs. Peacock, Krusty as Col. Mustard, and Mr. Smithers as Mrs. White, contrary to early promotional material which had Maggie as Mrs. White (however, we all already know it was Maggie, with the Gun, in the Car Seat). The British (Euro?) version (the Cluedo version), as mentioned, switches up the cast a bit - Homer as Prof. Plum, Bart as Col. Mustard, Fat Tony as Mr. Green, Lisa as Mrs. Peacock, Edna Krabappel as Miss Scarlet, and Marge as Mrs. White. In both versions, the weapons are a plutonium rod, necklace, saxophone, poisoned doughnut, slingshot and the extend-o-glove.
Clue Dungeons & Dragons ('01): THE. MOST. EPIC! HOW DO I NOT ALREADY HAVE THIS ONE!?!?!?! It was produced by Hasbro shortly after their purchase of D&D owners Wizards of the Coast. The characters are D&D character types (such as Monk, Rogue, Wizard, etc.). The rooms depicted on the board are fantasy-themed (Dungeon, Dragon's Lair, Lost Crypt, etc.), and weapons also taken from the popular RPG (Mace of Disruption, Flaming Axe, etc.). Game play is identical to standard Clue unless you use the optional Wandering Monsters deck. Using this deck, players must battle monsters when landing on special spaces on the board. The players must battle monsters via dice rolls and are rewarded with magic items that confer special powers.
Clue The Haunted Mansion ('02): Based on the Haunted Mansion attraction from the Disney theme parks (relying heavily on the Walt Disney World version of the attraction as far as design.) One of the six guests in the house (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Pluto) was scared by one of the six ghosts (The Traveller, The Skeleton, The Prisoner, Emily the Bleeding Bride, The Opera Singer, and the Mariner) in one of the nine rooms (Foyer, Portrait Gallery, Library, Conservatory, Seance Room, Ballroom, Attic, Graveyard, and Crypt.) The detail on the board draws from the scenes depicted in the Haunted Mansion attraction and contains Hidden Mickeys.
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! Clue ('02): Themed after the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! TV series. Like the episodes, the gang has to figure out whodunit. It features Fred as Mr. Green, Shaggy as Prof. Plum, Scooby as Col. Mustard, Velma as Mrs. Peacock, Daphne as Miss Scarlet, and Mrs. White as their host. This edition takes place in a run-down version of the mansion where the Study has been replaced by the Kitchen and the original Kitchen has been turned into a cemetery after its walls started crumbling.
Clue - The Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror ('07): Another Disney Theme Park Edition, like the above Haunted Mansion game. It features The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attraction from the Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park as the board game. Rather than a murder, the players are trying to discover who disappeared, where, and with which prop. The details, of the characters, props, and rooms draw from the scenes depicted in the Tower of Terror attraction. This version also contains Hidden Mickeys much like the Haunted Mansion version.
Clue - 24 ('09): Another new Clue game from this year! This one is themed after the 24 TV series. The game itself features Audrey Raines, Bill Buchanan, Chloe O'Brian, Mike Doyle, Nadia Yassir, and Tony Almeida. Players must find out which of the six characters is about to launch one of nine attacks (weapons) from within one of the rooms inside CTU.
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Now the unlicenced:
Kill Doctor Lucky ('96): An inversion and perhaps a parody of the series written by James Ernest for Cheapass Games. This one is sort of a reverse version of Clue. Instead of trying to solve the murder, in Kill Doctor Lucky players compete to COMMIT the murder.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: Mystery at Hogwarts Game (2000): This variant of Clue is unlicenced, but Hasbro released a licenced variant (which I have) in 2008. Very much like it's future licenced variant, players try to find out which student cast which forbidden spell in which room in Hogwarts School. The suspects are Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle.
Mystery Museum: The Biblical Artifacts Detective Game (2000): A version of Clue with Evangelical Christian elements to it. In the game, six people of different professions visit a Bible-history museum and steal one of the artifacts. It must be determined who is the thief, which artifact they stole, and where they hid it. Throughout the game, players learn about the Bible.
Clue of Cthulhu (2000): Probably the only unlicenced version I actually want to actively track down - even though I haven't done anything with the Cthulhu Mythos. Anyway, this version of Clue, as suggested, uses elements from the Cthulhu Mythos and was offered at Gen Con 2000.
PikaClue (2001): A version of Clue using elements from the Pokémon universe. Rooms are replaced with towns and cities, weapons are replaced with forms of energy and suspects are replaced with Pokémon creatures. This variant was offered at Gen Con 2001 and was inspired by the Clue of Cthulhu variant.
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Well, there you have it, after a full weekend, I finally finished Part 1! YAY! Anyway, I'm now off to bed and I'll attempt Part 2 (which is going to be how my love for the franchise started as well as the list of the Clue incarnations I do have) sometime tomorrow - but most likely Tuesday -_-

**UPDATE 10/28/09: Went to the mall today and saw that Boscovs has another Clue variant - Clue The Office! Sweeeeet! Apparently it was released August of this year. It seems that Good old Michael is forcing his staff to play a real-life game of Clue - very a la Murder Mystery party games. The hit? Poor, HR rep Toby. Our cast? Pam, Jim, Angela, Stanley, Andy, and Dwight. Game play is like the newest edition of Clue - Clue Discover the Secrets. See above post for more info on that gameplay.