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Five Years Ago Today...

2011-11-18T15:35:00.000-08:00

Nintendo 64 15th Anniversary Special: My 15 Favorite N64 Games!

2011-09-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

15 years ago today, on September 29, 1996, Nintendo's third home console was unleashed on the American video game market (as long as you discount the few stores that allegedly released the system early). The Nintendo 64 was hyped to bring the gaming technology to a whole new dimension with its then-stunning 3D graphics and the revolutionary (for Nintendo) new joystick controller. Over its five year lifespan, the N64 had reached both the highest apexes (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) and the lowest depths (Superman 64). While it didn't live up to its predecessors in either sales or game library, the Nintendo 64 still occupies a significant place in the history of video gaming.

Five years ago, I wrote a short and somewhat cumbersome history of the Nintendo 64 in honor of its tenth anniversary, which you can read here. There is no real reason to produce an updated history of the Nintendo 64, as the only major events in past five years are the releases of old N64 games on the Wii's Virtual Console (ported) and the Nintendo 3DS (remastered). Therefore I have decided to make this a much more personal project. Every Nintendo 64 fan would have their own stories about their experiences with the system, and I have decided to tell my story by counting down my 15 favorite Nintendo 64 games. While this countdown format would lead to a non-chronological story, I hope that I would be able to share why the Nintendo 64 is so significant in my gaming career. And more importantly, I hope I would inspire you to share your own stories. For each game I will present a simple plotline, my own personal history, and a favorite memory of mine.

Before we get started, I'll present the ten games that didn't quite make it into the top 15, presented in alphabetical order. (Release dates are American unless stated otherwise)

Animal Forest
Release Date: April 14, 2001 (Japan only)
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Okay, I kind of cheated on this one. I've never actually played this game for the Nintendo 64, but I played the heck out of Animal Crossing (which is essentially Animal Forest+) in 2002 and also experienced the Chinese port on the iQue Player. Nevertheless, I like the series for making the most mundane tasks weirdly wonderful, and if I ever import the game, I'd enjoy it like I did the American and Chinese counterparts. Heck, the Totakeke songs alone are worth the price of admission.

Banjo-Kazooie
Release Date: June 30, 1998
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Rare
Banjo was one of my least favorite characters in Diddy Kong Racing, so imagine my surprise when it was announced that he'd be getting his own game. I was skeptical when I first played the game in 1998, and didn't give it much playtime before my 6-month hiatus from video games. I gave it another shot in 2002 after getting more experience with Rare platformers, and became a fan of the game for its ability to balance voluminous collecting and vast levels to explore.

Bomberman 64
Release Date: December 1, 1997
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Hudson Soft
I will admit that not only have I never beaten the single player mode for Bomberman 64, but I've never even touched it. However, the game more than makes up for it with its surprisingly fun and intense multiplayer mode, and it eventually became the primary multiplayer game during the 1997 holiday season between my group of friends, when it launched the infamous "Happy Hell Song." "I'm a happy hell! You're a happy hell! And when we get together, we sing the hell song!"

Diddy Kong Racing
Release Date: November 14, 1997
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Rare
My sister and I were big fans of Mario Kart 64, so my sister contemplated getting Rareware's mascot racer for Christmas 1997 to go with my Super Mario 64 gift. She decided against it and got something else instead. Nevertheless, our friends got the game that Christmas, and we got a chance to play it. I wasn't terribly blown away by the game's single player mode, which was supposed to set it apart from Mario Kart 64. Perhaps it's because I never had a chance to get good at it. But the multiplayer is a blast and more than makes up for it. Fire Mountain, anyone?

F-Zero X
Release Date: October 26, 1998
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
The days before my family moved from Kansas to Virginia in June 1999 were a bit of a strange time for me. We were staying with my closest friends and played Mario Party when we were together, but once I was by myself I spent most of my time playing Nintendo's futuristic racer, which we played together but never for very long. I got good enough to get first place on Expert Mode. When we moved it would be my last time playing F-Zero X for years. When I played the game again in 2003 I got my arse handed to me, which begs the question, how did I ever get good at the game?

Paper Mario
Release Date: February 5, 2001
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Paper Mario was a significant release for the Nintendo 64 back in 2001, being one of its few RPG titles, and a semi-sequel to Square's legendary Super Mario RPG on top of that. I've never been much of a turn-based RPG fan, so I never gave it a shot until two years later, when I bought it to complete the collection of top 10 Nintendo 64 games on the list I generated. The Mario storyline drew me in initially, but it was the impeccable balance between platforming and role playing elements in both the overworld and the battles that kept me playing.

Pokemon Puzzle League
Release Date: September 25, 2000
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: NST/Intelligent Systems
Puzzle games are my sister's passion, and a puzzle game with a Pokemon exterior is an added bonus, which is why Pokemon Puzzle League became her major Christmas present in 2000. I didn't quite share her passion, but I was willing to give it a shot. After all, what other Nintendo 64 has the anime Misty that I had a massive crush on? However, getting creamed time and time again turned me away. I eventually got back to the game after discovering the 3D mode, and getting enough practice to hold my own in 2D mode, with an 8-level handicap of course. And...it's got MISTY!

Pokemon Snap
Release Date: June 30, 1999
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: HAL Laboratory
With Pokemon fever at its peak back in 1999, Nintendo felt it was an apt time to bring the series to the Nintendo 64. I was surprised to hear that it would be a rail shooter where you shoot pictures of Pokemon. I had imagined that it would be more like what Pokemon Stadium would be. However, my sister and I were big enough Pokemon fans to be willing to try it out, and we were quite impressed. Snap may be a gimmick game, but we ended up spending far more time trying to set high scores on pictures than we did playing Pokemon Stadium.

Sin and Punishment
Release Date: November 21, 2000 (Japan Only)
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Treasure
Sin and Punishment was one of the most anticipated games in the last half of 2000, but it never made its way stateside. Nevertheless, it was imported by many, and eventually made its way onto the top 50 in the top Nintendo 64 list I was maintaining in 2002-04. I wanted scans of the backs of the boxes of top 50 game, but the only way to get it for Sin and Punishment was to import it myself, which I did in summer of 2004. Sin and Punishment ended up being an entertaining rail shooter that was fun to play. And it introduced me to the world of imports.

Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey
Release Date: October 31, 1996
Publisher: Midway
Developer: Williams
I've never been much of a hockey fan. I can't sit down and watch a hockey game like I can with baseball or even football. However, when my friend invited me to play Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey - the first four-player Nintendo 64 game, I was surprised by how much fun it was. We mostly enjoyed going around checking anybody we can get our hands on, with fights being the highlight of all of our hard work. The fast and furious pace and the excellent announcer helped make this an experience even non-hockey fans can enjoy.

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15. Mario Tennis
Release Date: August 28, 2000
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Camelot and Nintendo
Story: It was a beautiful day, and Mario and his friends decide to hit the courts for a friendly game of tennis. However, they failed to invite Wario and his new friend, the devious Waluigi. The embittered duo retaliated by interrupting the final match between Mario and Luigi, and challenging the two to a no-holds barren doubles match. Luigi's non-chalant attitude angers Waluigi, and Wario gets in Mario's face as the latter was trying to break up the fight. The tensions were at a break point when they were interrupted by Bowser and his crony Boo. Everybody feared another invasion, but Bowser revealed that he just wants to join in with the tennis. Mario realizes his mistake and declares that everybody can play, much to everyone's delight. However, this marks the beginning of some of the most contentious and thrilling moments in Mushroom Kingdom history.

Personal Story: I'll admit that I've never been much of a fan of sports video games. As a certified couch potato I am perfect satisfied sitting back and watching the actual athletes do the work for results that will actually matter in the record books. Furthermore, tennis was one of those sports that I never really enjoyed. I never played tennis, and I never bothered to watch any tennis on television. The only tennis game I played before 2000 was Mario's Tennis on my cousin's Virtual Boy, and being a Virtual Boy game, that was an absolutely miserable experience. However, when my sister said she wanted Mario Tennis, I didn't have any objections. I like Mario games, so long as they are in vibrant color on a television screen and not blotches of red on a tiny little screen that you have to hunch over to see anything. When Christmas of 2000 came, we opened Mario Tennis for its greater multiplayer potential.

I can no longer recall the specifics from our first Mario Tennis match, but I do remember my reaction: "Wow, this tennis stuff isn't half bad." Over the winter of 2000, my sister gravitated toward her other video game present, Pokemon Puzzle League, while I stuck with Mario Tennis. My sister and I had a lot of great doubles moments where we'd have fun screwing around with each other's serves and watching flying enemies elevate as we toss the ball in preparation for the serve. However, most of my playing time was spent by myself. I'd play around the the Piranha Challenge, unlock the random courts that are hidden in the game, but I spent much of the time on the tournaments. I had started a tournament as Yoshi close to the first night I played the game, which I finished in the middle of the night (more on that later). When I found out later in 2001 that there were special cups that you unlock by beating Star Cup for everybody, I set aside Conkers Bad Fur Day for a moment and went back to experience the star tournaments in Mario Tennis. In the end I'd like to think I got pretty good, especially after I beat my friend who liked to think he was pretty good.

However, by 2002 my interest in Mario Tennis was waning. With the Nintendo Gamecube available there was something else to hold my interest until I was no longer pulling it out to play the occasional tournament. In 2003 I was challenged to a Mario Tennis match against a high school friend at UVA who liked to think he was pretty good, and after winning the first game I spent the rest of the match getting my arse handed to me. Mario Power Tennis was released for the Gamecube a year later, and we never got it, feeling that it was far too gimmicky. We had generally stayed away from the Bowser Court for that sole reason. I finally imported the title last year, but even then I didn't play it for very long. Still, if I got anything out of my year-long interest in Mario Tennis, it is a new-found appreciation for the sport of tennis. I am now able to watch tennis on TV and know what is going on, even if I don't quite grasp the intricacies. I am able to look at the Isner-Mahut match at Wimbledon 2010 and say "That's awesome" rather than "Say what?" I still haven't actually played tennis, but as they say, baby steps first.

Favorite Memory: There are plenty of good memories to choose from, including the first time I played the special cups, or the first time I turned the game on without a controller. (You should try that for yourself...it's quite funny), but my favorite memory is perhaps the first Star Cup battle I had, which pit Yoshi against Birdo. With two speed players facing each other one can reach virtually any shot, leading to volleys that can last for several minutes. It was a bitter battle, and I had to save a lot, but in the end Yoshi came out victorious!

14. Mario Party 2
Release Date: January 24, 2000
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Hudson Soft
Story: A year after the events of Mario Party, Mario and his friends collaborate to build a new amusement park in the Mushroom Kingdom. However, Mario's decision to name the place "Mario Land" turns into a point of contention, as everybody clamors to be the park's namesake. This rift generates a tremendous amount of discord and threatens the peace and teammwork the group enjoyed. Bowser sees this development and attacks the new amusement park. After much difficulty, Toad finally gets the attention of the warring parties and declare that whomever can defeat Bowser in the park's various areas can claim the park's name. This encourages everybody to take the war of words and turn it into a war of mini-games. The adventure is only just beginning.

Personal Story: I loved Mario Party (more on that later), and remember thinking "Wouldn't it be great if Nintendo releases another Mario Party game with new mini-games?" However, I never really thought that it would happen. Apparently I underestimate the power of a million seller. Sometime in December 1999, my friend came to school with the January 2000 issue of Nintendo Power, and the game on the cover was none other than Mario Party 2. The issue previewed the different levels and all the new mini-games with just a short blurb and a picture. That was enough to capture my interest, and Mario Party 2 quickly got to the top of my list of games to get. However, in my naivete I didn't comprehend the fact that the folks and Nintendo Power got to play the game months before the game was supposed to go gold. When I went to Michigan after Christmas my aunts wanted to get us a Christmas present. I asked for Mario Party 2. They had no idea what it was, so I went with my aunt in a search around the East Lansing area for a store that sells video games. That's when I found out that the game wasn't supposed to ship until January 24, 2000. I ended up getting a Misty backpack, which I didn't mind because I was obsessed with Misty.

I was able to survive the wait for Mario Party 2 by playing the first Mario Party, which I got for Christmas in 1999. It didn't make it any easier, since every time I played the game I couldn't help but think about the impending sequel. My parents agreed to get me Mario Party 2 for my birthday, which would come a day after the release date, but realistically I won't get the game until the weekend. On the night of January 24, 2000, I snuck downstairs to watch Marty, the 1955 winner of Best Picture, which I hadn't seen before. I went back into bed knowing I'd be tired, but glad that I got another Best Picture winner out of the way. The next morning I found out that while I was watching the movie, a snowstorm was brewing outside, and school was canceled. Not only was I able to get Mario Party 2, but I was able to play the game without waiting for the weekend. By noon the large roads were mostly cleared, so we went to the Best Buy in Reston Town Center to get the game I'd been wanting for a whole month and a half.

Over that month and a half, I'd built up a considerable amount of hype, and the thing about hype is that one would usually get disappointed with the results. I wasn't disappointed with Mario Party 2, but I'd be lying if all of the mini-games fulfilled my expectations. It was a solid sequel that provided hours of entertainment. They made a few positive changes, such as eliminating the joystick-spinning mini-games, and making the mini-game coaster a bigger challenge than the mini-game island in the original. Nevertheless, unlike some other Mario Party fans, I never felt that Mario Party 2 would challenge the original as the top Mario Party game. For one thing, I was able to enjoy Mario Party with friends for a long time, the only people around to play the sequel regularly was my sister. Controlling four players with two people was fun for a while, but definitely not long enough to last for months. When the friends with whom I played Mario Party came to visit in March, we spent most of the time out and never had time to play. And when we went to visit them in July, we had moved on. That certainly isn't the game's fault, and while it can never surpass the original for me, it is still a solid party game that is worth revisiting once in a while.

Favorite Memory: Mario Party 2 is a fun game, but many of its moments have come to blend together. My favorite moment may just come back in December 1999, which was the first time I read my friend's issue of Nintendo Power highlighting the game. As I sat there reading about all of the interesting new mini-games, I kept imagining myself playing the game. It was the first time that hype entered my life. While the game itself was by no means a disappointment, it was the feeling of hype that sticks with me even after all these years.

13. Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber
Release Date: October 7, 2000
Publisher: Atlus
Developer: Quest, Dual Corporation
Story: Unrest is building up in the puppet nation of Palatinus, itself ruled by the Holy Lodis Empire, and young "Your Name Here" Gallant is sent to quell the uprising. However, he sees the radical inequalities that is present in Palatinus, and elects to desert and join forces with the revolutionaries along with his friend Diomedes. This begins a long and difficult war that will send the revolutionaries against the Palatinian army, the armies of the Holy Lodis Empire, and armies even more powerful and more dangerous than them. "Your Name Here" must take command of the revolutionary army and steer them not only toward victory, but also away from the dreaded Worst Ending, but the odds are stacked against him.

Personal History: One of my friends is a major RPG/strategy game fan. The Nintendo 64 is tragically devoid of RPG or strategy games, so when Ogre Battle 64 was announced sometime in 2000, my friend couldn't stop talking about it. He was a big fan of Tactics Ogre for the PlayStation, and was absolutely excited about the Nintendo 64 version. I was never much of a fan of RPG or strategy games, so when the game was finally released in October of 2000 the only thing I hear about it was how rare the game is, being an Atlus release. Nevertheless, my friend scored a copy. He talked about the game for a little bit, but ultimately he moved on to something else. He either beat the game, or the hype machine got too much and he never felt the urge to beat the game. Either way we all moved on.

In 2003, I was compiling a top 100 Nintendo 64 games list for GameFAQs, and one thing I noticed was that Ogre Battle 64 was scoring very well, consistently staying in the top 20. By that time I had begun to enjoy certain strategy games, and I asked my friend if I can borrow his copy of the game. He was more than happy to lend it to me as he had pretty much stopped playing the Nintendo 64 altogether. The game was a bit slow to get into at first, but I quickly discovered the ability to change the characters' names. I soon began to name every character based on something near and dear to me. A random soldier named Ladish eventually received the name "Radish." Initially I was satisfied to simply rename all of the characters, but by the end of the year I was trying to keep track of all of the characters' levels, and giving certain characters special items and abilities. Radish eventually became one of my most powerful characters, and even became the leader of a unit. I would eventually spend more time customizing my characters and figuring out how to optimally level up some of my favored characters than I did trying to beat the level. As a result, my progression through the game soon slowed to a near standstill.

I would eventually enter a stage where I would spend several hours playing through two or three missions, and end up physically and mentally exhausted that I'd put the game away for between a week and a month before pulling it out again, playing other games in the meantime. I was still toying around with my armies in 2004 and 2005. I was so involved with customizing my armies that I had neglected some of the other things the game offered, such as awesome new attacks or the concept of character alignment. I was just letting the nearest unit take over a certain town, unaware of the consequences of my actions. In 2006 I finally beat the game only to find that my character was ousted, and the new kingdom I spent three years building turned into a muddled mess. I wanted to play through the game again to try to get a better ending, but I didn't want to delete my file or my sister's file. I imported the game in 2007, but the language barrier turned out to be a bit too steep, and I never got very far. I bought the game off of the Virtual Console last year, but it's kind of hard to play it without a Wii. Perhaps all this is just an excuse to avoid the strain of playing through a game that took me three years to beat, but all in all I highly enjoyed those three years. I still want to play through the game again.

Favorite Memory: The Ahzi-Dahaka dragon is an enemy with perhaps my favorite attack in the game: Earthquake, which sends your enemies sailing down a vortex. It's funny to watch your enemies in agony as they get eaten up by the vortex. Unfortunately, for the longest time the Ahzi-Dahaka is always on the opposing team, owning my own players. Finally, sometime in 2005, I decided to use one of my Love and Peace items to try to persuade an enemy to join our side. Lo and behold, it worked. I finally had an Ahzi-Dahaka on my team. I named it Brock, and I can finally watch and laugh as it wreaks havoc on enemy troops.

12. Harvest Moon 64
Release Date: November 30, 1999
Publisher: Natsume
Developer: Toy Box, Victor Interactive
Story: Your beloved grandfather, with whom you spent many happy summers, has passed away abruptly, and he has left his now-decrepit farm to you. You make the fateful decision to come down from the city and take over his farm. It is now up to you to rebuild his farm and bring it to further glory, but you do not have to do it alone. The good people of the town are all there to help you to accomplish this goal, even if it is just to help you pass the time as you struggle with the lonesome winter days. And with five available bachelorettes, you might just meet the love of your life, but there are five other bachelors out there, and one of them will have his eyes out for your special someone. Can you win her love before it's too late?

Personal History: My friend had a subscription to Electronic Gaming Monthly in late 1999 and early 2000, and I liked to look through them. One game that captured my attention was Harvest Moon 64, mostly because it had a cute girl on the ad. The game was supposed to be the sequel to the Super NES classic. I had heard of the original, but I wasn't quite sure what it was. My friend said it was a farming simulation game, which seemed strange to me. Mind you, this was ten years before Farmville launched. I didn't think much more of it until a few months later, when my friend told me that he had gotten Harvest Moon 64. This piqued my interest because I was curious to see how fun a farming sim can be. The farming aspect of the game was a bit mundane. You go around clearing the land, planting crops, taking care of animals etc. However, it was what you did outside the farm that was really interesting. You can go around and interact with the townsfolks, collect items to sell, or partake in festivals that occur on certain days of the year. My sister was also interested, and eventually she was able to borrow the game.

My sister got the hang of the game extremely quickly. She was able to perfect her farming skills so that she was able to get through her daily chores before the morning was over in the game. When I tried my hand at farming, I ended up spending the entire day trying to water all of my crops, leaving no time for the interesting part of the game. So I resigned myself to watching my sister play, which didn't bother me at all. I was able to experience the fun part of the game while doing none of the work. The best part of Harvest Moon 64 is that it the dating sim element, where you try to woo one of the other girls to be your wife. My sister always went for Ann, the girl in the ad, but she was able to win the hearts of all of the other girls. She liked the game so much she asked for it for her birthday in July of 2000. She played it so much that she was able to get married and have a successful farm in only two weeks. I wasn't the only person mesmerized by its allure. When we went to Kansas the friends with whom we were staying would stop whatever they were doing to watch my sister play. Of course it was in Kansas that one of the great tragedies occurred. While my sister always married Ann, she did have a soft spot for Karen, the rogue whose goal is to leave the town. My sister wanted Karen to marry her appointed bachelor Kai, but was worried that she was too much in love with the main character, so she would give her weeds to drop her affection. One day she went to the beach and saw that Karen had made the decision to leave. It was a crushing blow, and her playtime decreased after that.

We went to Taiwan in summer 2002, and my sister decided to pull out the game and play it. My young cousin was kicking a soccer ball around when the unthinkable happened. The soccer ball came and hit the game, causing it to freeze. When she turned it back on, her file had been erased. She went for a little while longer before trying to play the game again, fearing that the game broke. However, this may have been a blessing in disguise. My sister was able to figure out that in order to get Karen to marry Kai you had to restore the old grape tree on her vineyard. After she had completed that task, Kai announced his engagement virtually the next day. And with that, my sister began playing the game again. I stayed around to watch, but had to go off to college a year later. Three years after that, in fall of 2006, I had a Nintendo 64 and my sister had her copy of Harvest Moon 64. I decided to try my hand at it. My sister had built a greenhouse in my file. The greenhouse lets you do all the planting without time passing in-game. This allowed me to take forever with the farming chores and still have a chance to go out and interact. I went on a massive Harvest Moon 64 kick where I'd spent up to five hours a night playing. This just showed me what was so great about the game. In spite of its simple graphics and sound, it is abundant in one thing that is too often lacking in games: authentic emotional involvement.

Favorite Memory: Cliff the drifter is the rival for the love of Ann the rancher. If you end up marrying Ann, Cliff will eventually leave the town for good, which is a problem for my sister since she always marries Ann. Well in my file I decided to marry another girl, Elli, giving Cliff a chance to get the girl of his dreams. When I finally played far enough in my marathon plays in 2006, I finally got to see Cliff marry Ann.

11. Donkey Kong 64
Release Date: November 24, 1999
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Rare
Story: The nefarious K. Rool and his brother/prisoner K. Lumpsy has crash-landed against the D.K. Isle, and he decided to take this opportunity to take care of his nemesis Donkey Kong once and for all. He has not only stolen D.K.'s treasure trove of bananas, banana medals, and 200 golden bananas, but he has also kidnapped Diddy and three other companions. D.K must rescue his friends and also reclaim what is rightfully his. But while the Kongs are engaged in some of the most extensive and at times tedious collecting to have ever graced the Nintendo 64, K. Rool is working on something that is far more deadly. Can the Kongs collect their way to victory? Or will K. Rool finally have the upper hand?

Personal History: I had liked Rare's Donkey Kong games. I enjoyed playing Donkey Kong Country for the Super NES, even though I never beat it, and I got a 100% in Donkey Kong Land for the Game Boy. Yet I wasn't too impressed with Banjo-Kazooie when I first played it in 1998, and was a little bit wary of Donkey Kong 64 upon its release in late 1999. Perhaps I wasn't being fair, but I found the gargantuan levels a bit intimidating. However, my friend got the game, and in early 2000 he showed me a map included in an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly that showed the locations of all the golden bananas in the first four levels. I never had qualms about using walkthroughs, and using those maps as a guide, we were able to get through the game slowly but surely. As I was playing through the game, what was once a factor that kept me away from the game - the ridiculously huge levels and the copious amounts of collecting - became something that I liked about the game. I also rediscovered what I liked about the older Donkey Kong games by Rare: the art design, the level design, the snappy music, and the twisted sense of humor. When we finished with the first four levels, we bravely moved on to the other three levels, and the final timed stage, which we failed the first time through.

When I went to Kansas in August of 2000, I started playing through an uncompleted file of the friends with whom I was staying. The file was just around 20% complete when I started. I realized that the maps really weren't necessary, since none of the golden bananas were really hidden. You go to an area and complete all of the tasks they have there, then you move on to the next area. There were moments that gave me the fits: the Donkey Kong arcade game, Diddy's flying task around the tree in Fungi Forest, the second race against the annoying beetle, any game of Beaver Bother, and the final minecart mini-game. However, in spite of all this, I had a blast with the game. I was in Kansas for only a week, but I was able to bring it from 20% all the way to 101%. Donkey Kong 64 eventually became one of my new favorite games. When I returned from Kansas, I went to my friend to borrow his copy of the game so I can play through the game from 0% to 101%. It wasn't just the single player mode that captured my interest. I also spent many rip-roaring hours on Rambi's Arena running around as Rambi the rhino and destroying the annoying gopher enemies.

From 2000 to 2003 I must have played through the game at least half a dozen times. Most people would find that to be madness, but I personally find the mindless collecting to be somewhat soothing. However, there were those frustrating moments, and each time I played through the game those moments got just a little bit more grating. And all of the other collecting just got a little bit less therapeutic. I destroyed my black Nintendo 64 controller in a fit of rage after another failed attempt in one of the tasks in December 2000. Pretty soon I stopped playing the game, mostly because I was dreading the frustrating moments. In 2005 I started my latest playthrough of the game. I got through the first two levels just fine, but I stopped playing the game until 2006, mostly because I was dreading the DK arcade game. And I waited until 2007 to play through the fifth level because it had the soul-crushing jet-pack around the tree sequence. And that was the last I played until 2011, because the sixth and seventh levels alone had half of the frustrating sequences. I finally picked up the game this past July and finished those last two levels, cursing my way through the annoying moments. However, when I beat the game I felt that I had a good time. That just goes to show what I think of Donkey Kong 64 today: a solid game with flawed moments, and that's really just too bad.

Favorite Memory: When I was playing through the game with my friends in Kansas in 2000, there was the talk about the secret ending that you get when you get 101%. The problem was my friends only had 100%. We were missing a battle crown from Crystal Caves. After playing through Crystal Caves in my own file I found the lost battle warp in one of the cabins. We were finally able to get to the battle warp in my friend's file, beat the final K. Rool boss, and watch the special ending. It was well worth watching. I later got the 101% ending on my own file before I left Kansas.

10. Perfect Dark
Release Date: May 22, 2000
Publisher: Nintendo, Rare
Developer: Rare
Story: You are Dark, Joanna Dark, the first operative in the super special secret Carrington Institute to achieve a perfect score on all of your training modules. And now the man himself Daniel Carrington has chosen you to work in a super-important mission to rescue the mysterious Dr. Carroll from the clutches of the evil mega-corporation dataDyne. Little do you know that this seemingly simple mission may bring Carrington ever so closer to his life's dreams, and you are thrown into increasingly dangerous missions involving dataDyne, a mysterious blond man, and even the president of the United States. It becomes clear that the fate of national security, nay, inter-galactical security lies in your hands. You must now use your perfect training to save not only your own life, but the lives of trillions of others in the universe. But that is just another day in the life of...Agent Perfect Dark.

Personal History: GoldenEye 007 was one of my favorite games in the last few years of the 20th century, so one day in summer 1999 one of my friends asked if I knew about GoldenEye's spiritual successor. This was in the days before I knew how to get video game news with the click of a button so I didn't know about it, but as somebody who had dreamed about a sequel to GoldenEye, I was intrigued. My friend proceeded to tell me about how the game uses the same engine, but they made graphical enhancements so that if you shoot out the lights (which I enjoyed doing), then the environment would darken. The game will also have more complex single player missions and much more customization in the multiplayer modes. He also said that the main character will be somebody else, which I felt was weird. Anyways, the game was called Perfect Dark, and it soon became a game that I had to try out. As the months we read more about the game: about the creation of simulants in multiplayer mode, and about the advanced weapons including the Laptop Gun, which you can throw out and have it serve as a sentry gun. With each passing news story I got more excited, but it was also accompanied by frustrating delays. Finally, the game was released in May 2000, almost a year after my friend first told me about the game.

My friend had gotten the game shortly after launch, and he invited my sister and me to play it at his house. We played a multiplayer match at the Facility (now known as the Felicity for unknown reasons). The game felt the same as GoldenEye, but with many new options. Each weapon has two functions instead of just one, and if you want to switch weapons you can hold A and select the new one in a pop-up screen. It felt a little weird at first but we quickly got the hang of it. We played through a couple of challenges to unlock multiplayer options, but that was when we encountered one of the biggest complaints about the game: slowdown. The game ran smoothly enough with four players, but if you throw in a couple of simulants then the game becomes jumpy. With eight simulants the game became near unplayable. Still, the use of simulants made the multiplayer mode more fun and we usually had a couple to bully. When my friend found out you can beat challenges using your own personal settings we quickly set out to do that. I had a blast with the game, so when I went to Kansas in August 2000 I was disappointed that my friends in Kansas didn't have Perfect Dark.

In autumn 2000 my friend had moved on to other games, so he was willing to lend me the game. I was able to beat the game on Agent, but what really drew me was the multiplayer mode, which is known as the Combat Simulator instead, because you didn't really need multiple players to enjoy it. With the addition of Simulants you can play multiplayer modes with just yourself. I soon tried out all of the different modes and used all of the different levels, but there were only two levels that really struck my fancy: Felicity, which is simply the Facility level from GoldenEye with a more homely feel, and Fortress, a underground level with different bases that was perfect for team battles. I eventually created and saved a scenario where you fight against eight MeatSims (the easiest sims) in combat mode. I gave each of the simulants their own distinctive mismatched appearance, and they each had their own personality. The KazeSim would go after enemies in a gung ho manner, while the PeaceSim would run around disarming opponents. I set the score limit to 100 and I soon had something that I can come back to over and over again, randomizing the weapons every time. Eventually the scenario, known as MeatSim Mania, became a sort of cathartic for me. Every time I felt frustrated I would go and slaughter some MeatSims. My obsession got to the point where I recreated the Felicity level in The Sims.

Like with most other games, I didn't play Perfect Dark forever. I moved on to Conker's Bad Fur Day in March of 2001, and the Gamecube was released later that year. I still went to Perfect Dark whenever I wanted to unwind and slaughter some MeatSims, but I never really did much else in the game. Since all I would do is to play against wimpy MeatSims I never really improved in the game. To this day I had only beaten two levels in Secret Agent: the first level and the Pelargic II level. And yet there came a day when even slaughtering MeatSims got old. While I still like to pull out the game at times and replay the Combat Simulator, the prospect doesn't excite me like it did over a decade ago. I even imported the game back in 2007 hoping that the prospects of unlocking things would change my mind, but I never went back to it after beating the game on Agent. Maybe I'm not like Game Informer and rank the game a 6/10 as they did back in 2004, but I do agree that Perfect Dark doesn't quite have the lasting impact that GoldenEye did. That doesn't deny the fact that is still a great FPS for the Nintendo 64.

Favorite Memory: As I wrote above, I created MeatSim Mania in 2000 as a way to enjoy the game. MeatSim Mania satisfied me for a while, but one day in 2006, I decided to try something different. I kept the same simulants but changed the rules to the Capture the Case mode in the Fortress level, which was perfect for team play. The catch is that the score limit remained at 100. Each case was worth three points, which means one must steal 34 cases in order to win. I didn't think much of it initially, but 34 cases is a lot when you're playing by yourself. The match ended up taking well over an hour, but I enjoyed almost all of it. I ended up saving the scenario, calling it "Meaty."

9. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Release Date: November 21, 1998
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Story: The eternally youthful elves in Kokiri Forest all have a faerie guardian. All of them...except for young Link: the Boy Without a Faerie. He is shunned by his peers, with the exception of the kind-hearted Saria. The old and sage Great Deku Tree watches over these proceedings and waits patiently, knowing that there will be something greater in store for young Link. One day the Great Deku Tree was visited by a man from the desert, who demanded the Kokiri's Emerald. When the tree refuses to hand it over, Ganondorf mortally curses the tree. Knowing that his time is short, the Great Deku Tree calls upon the faerie Navi to the Boy without a Faerie. For it is time for his destiny to be revealed. Yet not even Navi has a clue of the evils that the duo may face in their quest to save the land of Hyrule.

Personal History: You know, 13 years ago I never would have imagined that Ocarina of Time would ever be in my top ten favorite Nintendo 64 games. It doesn't help that the game launched during my 6-month hiatus from video games. But even if I had let myself play I doubt that I would have played it much when it initially came out. I was never much of a Zelda fan. I had tried playing the original NES Legend of Zelda game and A Link to the Past on the Super NES, but I spent more time dying than getting anywhere, and became averse to the Zelda series. When everybody was swooning over Zelda 64 in early 1998 I was off playing Yoshi's Story. When my friends got the game, the only contribution I made was suggest that Link be named "Anybodys", which is a character from West Side Story, my favorite film at the time. I later watched my friend beat Bongo Bongo, which was an interesting boss battle, but it didn't make me want to play the game. Anyways, I was still in the middle of my self-imposed exile at the time. I moved away from Kansas in June 1999 without ever having played the game. When all of the news sites were proclaiming Ocarina of Time as the best game ever, I was happy a Nintendo 64 was being so honored, but I was personally partial to Super Mario 64.

Two years later, in summer of 2001, I began to read IGN regularly. I compiled a list of the games that received a 9.5 or above, and I noticed that only two console games had gotten a perfect score. One was Soul Calibur, the fighting game on the Dreamcast that my sister was getting for her birthday that year, and the other was Ocarina of Time. I was intrigued, and decided to finally play the game for myself. One night as I was sleeping over at a friend's house, I got up and started a file on his Ocarina of Time file. I eventually made my way to the Great Deku Tree, and when I went in to the room with the first Deku Scrub I was paralyzed. I forgot about the shield, and I watched helplessly as Link was slowly annihilated. He died twice when my friend woke up and saw what was going on. He took over, whipped out his shield, and defeated the scrub. Then he went on to play the rest of the Great Deku Tree. While my first attempt was a failure, the experience was strong enough that I borrowed the game from my friend so I can play at home. Plus, I'd get to see more of Saria.

When I started playing at home, I tried to proceed further in the game. I successfully made it to Hyrule Castle without a hitch, but when I got to the sleeping Talon I was stumped. I ran around a lot pulling out the Cucco randomly. Eventually Talon woke up, but I wasn't sure what to do after that. I ran around some more and decided to screw it and look it up on GameFAQs. That was when I realized I wasn't smart enough to play through a game like Ocarina of Time. Yet my interest had been piqued, and was willing to do whatever it took to get through the rest of the game, including using a walkthrough off GameFAQs. Yes, I have no shame. Following the words of GameFAQs user marshmallow, I was able to eventually beat the game with all the Heart Pieces and Golden Skultullas. And after I beat the game, I went back and played through it again, this time without the use of a walkthrough. It became pretty clear that I was hooked. I thought that I was receptive to all Zelda games, but when I tried playing Majora's Mask later that summer I just couldn't get into it like I did with Ocarina. So there was something about Ocarina of Time that drew me to the game.

Ocarina of Time eventually became one of those games that I could play through again and again, and for the next ten years I did precisely that. My cousin had gotten the game, but she didn't like it because it doesn't have multiplayer, so when she came to visit in 2002 she gave the game to me. I beat the game once on that cartridge, but then erased that file and started three files with the names of Powerpuff Girls, which was my obsession at the time. I beat the game with Blossom and Butercup while saving Bubbles for my sister. (She still hasn't gotten past Dodongo's Cavern). I imported the Japanese version in 2004 and beat the game once then. Two years later I bought the game for the Virtual Console and beat it on the Wii. When I found out how to hold the Nintendo 64 controller to play it one-handed, I started a file on the Japanese to play through the game only one-handed. It took me three years of playing off and on to beat it, but I finally did this past January. And I beat the game on the iQue this past summer. I am waiting for Layton vs. Wright to come out for the 3DS so I can get it and play Ocarina of Time 3D. As I said earlier, Ocarina of Time - as well as its successor Twilight Princess - are the only Zelda games that are among my favorite games. Now that I go back and think about it, the reason is probably because the atmospheres in those games appeal to me. There is nothing about the gameplay in these two games that set it apart, but only those two would give me the feeling that a certain level was so often I had to play through it again to experience it. And that is one of the game's successes.

Favorite Memory: I may be cowardly, but I've generally not been scared too often by video games. (Then again, I do stay away from the Survivor Horror genre.) All that would change before I was finished with my first Ocarina play through back in 2001. I found the Forest Temple creepy, but it didn't give me much lasting effect, mostly since I spent the entire playthrough in a lighted room sometime in early evening. Three temples later I was ready for the Shadow Temple, but this time I was playing in the middle of the night, when I should have been in bed. As I always do in the middle of the night, I was playing in the basement with all the lights off, and listening to the game via headphones. I ended up getting the full effect of the Shadow Temple, and the terror I felt ended up staying with me for days. But somehow I felt the experience completely exhilarating. Ten years later I no longer find the Shadow Temple so scary, but I like it since it reminds me of that first time I played through the level.

8. Star Fox 64
Release Date: June 30, 1997
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Story: "Corneria, fourth planet of the Lylat System. The evil Andross turned this once thriving system into a wasteland of near extinction. General Pepper of the Cornerian army was successful in exiling this manaical scientist to the barren, deserted planet Venom. Five years later, General Pepper noticed strange activity coming from Venom. James McCloud, Pigma Dengar, and Peppy Hare of the Star Fox team were sent to investigate. Upon their arrival, Pigma betrayed the team, and James and Peppy were captured by Andross. Peppy barely escaped Venom and went to tell James' son Fox about his father's fate. A few years have passed. Andross has again invaded the Lylat System. General Pepper has turned to a new Star Fox team, headed by Fox McCloud, to save Corneria and free the Lylat System once again." Sometimes you just can't top the classics.

Personal History: I went to Michigan to stay with my aunts and my cousins in summer of 1997, and that was the first time when I experienced life as a couch potato, watching television from early in the morning to late at night, and then some. Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network were the channels I saw most often, and one of the commercials that aired frequently was one for Star Fox 64, the new Nintendo 64 game that promised a new experience with the new Rumble Pak. The game looked interesting, and I finally had a chance to play it in July when my aunt took my sister and me to Toys R Us to get a Nintendo 64. They had a station set up with the game. I played through the first level and the meteor level. While the rumble sensation underwhelming and quite frankly incredibly annoying, I felt that the game itself was a treat. It was fun to go and shoot whatever came at you, and the amount of voice samples was incredible. When I got back to Kansas it turns out most of my friends had gotten the game. At the annual Chinese association cookout I kept hearing about how hard Leon was, or what an annoying character Slippy is.

I didn't get a chance to see the game in action until early August at my friend's birthday party. Another one of his friends was playing the game and showed the secret part of Meteo, the meteor level I played. The experience was absolutely hallucinatory, with a flashy background and a twisty soundtrack. What I remember most was the voluminous number of things you can bomb, and a seemingly unending number of bombs. Both of my close friends got the game, so we would spend some time playing multiplayer, but I never got much of a chance to try the single player mode. GoldenEye came out at the end of the month, and Star Fox 64 fell a bit to the wayside. I borrowed the game in early 1998, and I finally had a chance to really spend time with the single player mode. With a more consistent opportunity to practice, I was able to get good enough to beat the game consistently. However, I was never able to do some of the things that really stood out in my mind. I was never able to reach Sector X on the purely hard path. I was never able to get through all of the rings to get to that hallucinogenic level in Meteo. And the only medal I can get was at Fortuna, which is the easiest level to get a medal. Those things remain as a sort of a mystical goal.

When Yoshi's Story was released in March of 1998, Star Fox 64 fell again to the wayside. I enjoyed the game for the interesting gameplay and the quotable voice samples, but with so many other games to play and a six-month hiatus in late 1998 and early 1999, I didn't spend too much time playing the game. Furthermore, I didn't actually own the game. In late 1999 I was able to reach one of my unattainable goals by reaching Sector X, but that was the last that I really put time into the game until I left for college in 2003. Before I left, I went to my friend who had pretty much stopped playing video games and borrowed many of his Nintendo 64 classics, among them Star Fox 64. While at college, I decided to try Star Fox 64 again. Even though it had been years since I played the game regularly, I was surprised that many of the techniques that I struggled with earlier now come with ease. I was able to charge my shots to get multiple hits. I was able to maneuver my way around the levels more proficiently. My skills most likely grew as I had more video game experience. I was able to get to the hallucinatory part of Meteo and get a Mission Accomplished. And I was able to get a medal in at first Corneria, then Meteo. By the end of 2004 I had done what I couldn't believe was possible. I got a medal in every level and unlocked Expert Mode.

I had heard about Expert Mode in the past, but I never had a chance to play it. It was, of course, as hard as it was advertised. One key difference is that every time you run into an obstacle, you lose your wing. While my flight skills may have improved, I still run into things far too often. Getting all of the medals quickly became my goal, but also a challenge. If that wasn't enough, my copies of the game quickly multiplied. I had my friend's US copy to contend with, then I imported the Japanese version in 2004. In 2006, I made Star Fox 64 one of my earliest Virtual Console purchases. And I got the game for the iQue Player in 2007. Medal collecting soon became overwhelming. Playing the game soon became more of a task than a pleasure, and my progress soon ground to a halt. Nevertheless, Star Fox 64 still remains a classic. For one thing, it still reminds me of a simpler time for me, when we played games just because they were fun. Secondly, the game seriously lives on as a treasure trove of some of the most popular, most quotable lines in video game history. I was able to spend a full 30-40 minutes one day in late 2006 doing nothing but quote Star Fox 64. Now that's staying power.

Favorite Memory: The Star Wolf battles were one of the more seminal moments of Star Fox 64, as it gave Fox a set of rivals to defeat. Wolf became a popular character in his own right and became a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii. But the one member of the Star Wolf team that stuck with me was Pigma Dengar. Here is one of the most despicable characters in Nintendo history. First of all, he's a bloody pig. And he was willing to betray anybody for the promise of some dough. Pigma was one of the most fun to destroy. One day a friend and I were playing around with some Legos. We decided to make a pretend wedding. After thinking about who could be getting married, we finally decided on the most random match-up ever: "Pigma marries Fox." The idea was preposterous. Fox McCloud having a gay marriage with the person who betrayed his father. Yet that idea was so funny to us that it became an inside joke.

7. Conker's Bad Fur Day
Release Date: March 5, 2001
Publisher: Rare
Developer: Rare
Story: It is the night of his big date with the chipmunk Berri, but Conker has decided to join his chums in the Cock and Plucker for a few drinks in advance. They are soon joined by a couple of gray squirrels dressed in army uniforms, who say that they are going to fight in a war the next day. Conker makes a point to call Berri to tell her he'll be late, since he knows she'll be working out anyways. A few drinks quickly multiplied, and Conker soon finds himself stumbling around like a squirrel with a cerebellar lesion. He struggles to find his way back home, but in his drunken stupor he can't make anything out, and eventually passes out in a remote corner next to a similarly drunken scarecrow. The next morning Conker wakes up with the mother of all hangovers in a strange place. He thinks it's going to be one of those days...but he has no idea that his day will reach the next level of disaster: a Bad Fur Day.

Personal History: I had written about Conker's Bad Fur Day in a piece earlier, but it is an interesting tale that is worth revisiting. I liked playing Diddy Kong Racing with my friends in late 1997, and Conker was one of my favorite characters, even though I played mostly as Timber. In early 1998 I heard that Rare was making a pair of games based on Diddy Kong Racing characters, one with Banjo (we had no idea why. We hated Banjo), and the other was with Conker. Banjo-Kazooie came out in summer of 1998 with much fanfare, but I didn't play much of it. I was looking forward to Conker's Quest, which was stuck in development heck. It soon received a name change to Twelve Tales of Conker. Then it completely dropped from sight. In early 2000, Rare came out with the stunning news that it had completely scrapped Twelve Tales and was re-working the Conker game into a new game: Conker's Bad Fur Day. And most significant of all, it was becoming a hard-swearing, ultra-violent, Mature-rated game that rarely appears on the Nintendo 64. The gaming news media was aghast. Has Rare gone mad? Was this an April Fool's joke? Then in E3 2000, Rare released a couple of videos that showed that this was no joke. They were serious about this change.

This news was a bit of a jolt for me. Since I had gotten into Donkey Kong 64 earlier, I had looked forward to Twelve Tales, but this new development really made me curious. Conker's Bad Fur Day became the first game whose development I tracked online. I watched new gameplay videos and visited the official website once it opened and watched the companion animations there. Each new cutscene that leaked out got me more and more interested in the game. At last, the game shipped in early March 2001 and got rave reviews. However, my parents wouldn't let me get the game until spring break, which came at the end of the month, but they did let me have it. So for the next two weeks the only thing I could think about was getting Conker's Bad Fur Day. For example, when I was at my youngest sister's piano concert, I remember thinking about the game...and also about the German-speaking Nyaasu in the radio performance of The Magic Flute we heard on the way there. When spring break rolled around, my parents took my sister and me to Toys R Us and Best Buy respectively, where we bought Conker's Bad Fur Day and a Dreamcast with The Typing of the Dead respectively.

At last, the game was finally mine. I went home and started playing. As I was playing the only thing I can think of was "I can't believe I'm finally playing Conker's Bad Fur Day!" The game was a blast. It was a different platformer from Rare's previous titles, being less of a collection fest and more of a linear storyline, like a movie. Each outrageous moment became a vivid memory for me: the rollicking hillbilly jokes of Barn Boys, the sexual innuendo in Bats Tower, the Great Mighty Poo song, the general inanity of Uga Bugas. Soon Conker's Bad Fur Day became a Bad Fur Night, and the entire tone of the game changed. I came across the zombies level, which I knew would occur, but the survivor horror sequence was so removed from the jovial mood that permeated the first half. It was an unexpected development, but a very powerful one. I ended the day without beating Zombies, but I couldn't help but wonder what the end would be like. So I snuck downstairs, found the cheat to unlock the final level, and played through it. The final level had the Matrix level, which I beat easily (oddly enough, it was the only time I was able to get through that section without difficulties), and the Alien parody, which I struggled with. And I saw the ending, which was completely mind-blowing for me. The next day I beat the game and saw the end for real.

All in all, Conker's Bad Fur Day was an emotional roller-coaster. I had come to expect a comedy throughout, but the thrill of Zombies and the dramatic moments in the last two levels led to an experience that I wouldn't forget anytime soon. I quickly beat the single player mode a couple more times. We also tried the multiplayer modes. Most of them were muddled messes that don't quite reach the successes of their FPS games. The Colors flag, or the capture the flag mode, was fun for a little bit but we end up killing each other instead of capturing the flag, but the deathmatch mode isn't quite as fun. My sister and I ended up playing the Beach mode a lot, which pairs hapless Frenchy squirrels trying to get to safety on the other side of the beach or the Tediz that try to stop them. We end up having a blast no matter what side we play through. We spent most of our time with cousins and friends playing Beach when we went to Michigan in December of 2001 and to Kansas in August of 2003. Yet personally, it was the single player mode that stuck to me. By 2004, when I stopped playing Beach, I was still playing my favorite moments of the single player mode. The game's appeal towards my visceral emotions is why it is still a favorite even today.

Favorite Memory: There are so many classic moments in Conker's Bad Fur Day that it is hard to pick just one. The first playthrough certainly produced many vivid memories as it is the first time I was able to experience many of the delightful sequences in the game. I also remember many of the great moments playing the Beach level with my sister, my cousins, and my friends. However, while these memories were certainly vivid, they may fall short of being my favorite. Back in 2000, many internet sites, including IGN, posted a short video of one of the key scenes in the game: the Great Mighty Poo song. The rambunctious sequence led to bouts of laughter from the media, and for me it was a sign that Rare was not only trying something different, but also that they can make it great. The game met all of my expectations when it was released a year later, but you sometimes you never forget your first time.

6. GoldenEye 007
Release Date: August 25, 1997
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Rare
Story: Nine years ago, James Bond was sent to the Soviet city of Arkhangelsk to investigate a chemical weapon plant and rendezvous with his buddy, Alec Trevelyan. After infiltrating the plant with a death-defying bungee leap, Bond meets up with Trevelyan, but things don't go as planned, Trevelyan is captured and killed by the nefarious colonel Ourumov, but Bond escapes. After mourning the death of his friend, Bond goes on a couple of missions throughout the Soviet Union to investigate a mysterious satellite known as the GoldenEye, equipped with a deadly elecromagnetic pulse. In present day, Bond is tasked with investigating a hijacking of a frigate and the purported theft of a Tiger helicopter. He plants a bug on the copter, and follows it to the island of Severnaya, where he visited four years in the past. He is captured and meets Natalya, where he finds out that a mysterious crime syndicate named Janus is behind the frigate hijacking and after the GoldenEye satellite. Who is Janus, what is he after, and how can he be stopped? And how can he get inside Natalya's panties? Those are questions Bond must face in his latest, greatest mission.

Personal History: The GoldenEye film was released in 1995, but it didn't leave much of an impression on me. The only thing I remember was a Chinese news broadcast showing the scene of Bond jumping off with a bungee cord. Two years later, I heard reports of a GoldenEye video game being released for the Nintendo 64, but my history with shooters up to that point consists of me not being very good at Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, so I never really took a closer look at GoldenEye. However, all of my friends were over it, and when I went to a concert held by the Chinese association, my friends were all talking about GoldenEye: about how hard the Jungle level was. A few days later, my friend invited me over to his house for some GoldenEye multiplayer action with his brother and my sister. We played a Proximity Mine level in the Temple. I remember being okay. Sure, I got annihilated by my friends who had much more experience, but at least I was able to get a weapon and some ammo. My sister wasn't quite so lucky. She ran around like a headless chicken and got gunned down a couple of times without even getting a gun. Then she respawned at a spot next to a proximity mine. So she didn't have a good time, but I certainly did.

Some of my other friends got the game as well, and GoldenEye became the go-to game for our multiplayer experience in the final few months of 1997. We would play with all weapon types in all the various levels. I remember getting hopelessly lost in the Basement level, but thankfully we stuck mostly to the Facility, which was good for me, since the Facility was the one single-player level I could beat in Secret Agent in those early days. When the calendar turned to 1998, I was able to pry the game off of my friends (who had moved on to other games), and attempt the single player missions on my own, as they were terrific experiences in their own right. I got to the point where I could beat every single player level on Agent except for Control (stupid Natalya). It got to the point where I watched the movie hoping to get an idea of how to keep Natalya alive, which didn't work out so well. I practiced until I was able to beat a handful of missions on Secret Agent, but was never able to beat any levels on 00 Agent when my six-month hiatus began in late 1998. Nevertheless, the game had provided an unforgettable single and multiplayer experience.

When I moved to Virginia in 1999, GoldenEye was one of the games toward which I drifted. I had some multiplayer matches with my friends, but I mostly spent my time playing the single player missions. One level that I played to death was Surface 1, which was originally a labyrinth. I quickly learned the layout of the land as well as how to defeat the enemies. Before the end of the year Surface 1 became the first level that I was able to beat on 00 Agent, which was a significant milestone, but what stuck out to me was finding the box full of books. I later spent half an hour trying to shoot one of the books from the cabin to the end of the level. A few months later, Rare released the button cheat codes, which unlocked invincibility with the pressing of a few buttons. I was able to do crazy stunts such as going to the Runway level, getting in the tank, and running over enemies as if this was the Rambi Arena in Donkey Kong 64 and the enemies were gophers. I think my kill count was well over 100 by the end. When I went back to Kansas that summer, my friends and I would spent some of our time entering the invincibility code to not only beat all the levels to unlock the legendary 007 Mode, but also unlock every cheat.

My GoldenEye play time decreased with the release of Perfect Dark, but as the years went by, I found myself going back to GoldenEye more often. Sure, Perfect Dark had MeatSim Mania, but its single player missions never quite reached the classic status as GoldenEye, so I'd end up spending more time with the older game. In 2004 I began to import the Japanese versions of most of the classic Nintendo 64 games, but the Rare shooters were far less popular in Japan and end up being quite rare. I found Perfect Dark (which ended up selling more copies in Japan) for a good $60 of eBay in early 2007. Yet try as I might, I was never able to find a copy of GoldenEye complete with the box. I went to Taiwan in the summer of 2007 and was wandering the marketplace underneath the Taipei train station. I happened inside a video game store and looked at the selection, when I saw it: a complete Japanese version of GoldenEye for only $7, which is probably 1/10 to 1/20 of the cost if it was on eBay. When I returned from Taiwan I played through the game, and was able to beat a few more missions on Secret Agent that I hadn't before. But I eventually moved on to med school application tasks without beating any more levels on 00 Agent under legitimate means. I broke out the Japanese version this past December during a late-night Nintendo 64 spree at the library, and I was finally able to beat the Dam, the Facility, the Runway, and the Silo on 00 Agent. You know that a game has become a classic when doing something you've never done in 13 years can bring you happiness, but that is what GoldenEye has done.

Favorite Memory: While GoldenEye has an excellent single player mode that ranks as one of the best on the Nintendo 64, it is the multiplayer mode that sticks with people even after all these years. I've certainly had my share of classic battles, but none of them top the epic match that I had with my friends in the summer of 1998. It was already a year after GoldenEye's release and we had already felt we played the game to death. Nevertheless, the suggestion was made that we play a Proximity Mine match in the Complex with no time or score limit. We thought we would only play for a few minutes, but we ended up spending over an hour on the game. We didn't care about the score. We just had fun running around trying to lay hold to the ledge with the Proximity Mine without getting blown up in the process. The task was slightly harder considering we weren't exactly certain as to the layout of the level. By the time we decided to end the match, we had experienced an adrenaline rush that none of us would soon forget.

5. Super Smash Bros
Release Date: April 26, 1999
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: HAL Laboratory
Story: Master Hand, a disembodied hand living in the room of a nameless child, is bored out of his...carpal bones. In an effort to inject some excitement into its mundane life, Master Hand decides to take a few of the child's Nintendo dolls and make them come to life so they can battle each other on the child's desk for its enjoyment. Little does Master Hand know that by giving them life and the ability to fight, he is turning them into sentient beings. After defeating each of the other Nintendo fighters along with a disturbing clone of himself, one of the Nintendo fighters begin questioning the purpose of the fighting. He concludes that fighting has no point and decides to fight back against the being that forced him to fight. A terrified Master Hand sends a metal clone of Mario and a ragtag team of polygons with the fighters' movesets to protect himself, but they are easily defeated. Soon he is face to face with Master Hand, but little does he know that the one who forces him to fight is also the one that gave him life.

Personal History: With the success of the Super Smash Bros. franchise today, it's hard to imagine that once upon the time the game was an underground project by HAL Laboratories designer Sakurai that was turned into a brawler starring Nintendo characters without permission by future NCL head Satoru Iwata, and that it was meant to be Japan only much like Game Freak's ignoble Mario Vs. Wario. But it was a hit in Japan and was set to come to America. The first time I heard of the game was when my sister was talking with my friends. We were in the middle of our Pokemania in early 1999, and the discussion came up that two Pokemon characters: Pikachu and Jigglypuff, are going to appear in a fighting game called Super Smash Bros. My first thoughts when I heard the news was "Super Smash Bros... is that similar to Smash TV?" and, "Really...Jigglypuff???" I didn't hear much about the game, and even missed the legendary commercial that appeared on TV that spring. But my sister was one person who was interested in the game, and asked for it for her birthday. It wasn't until she came back from a trip to the west coast with the game that I was able to find out more about it.

I read through the instruction manual after she was finished with it, and saw that the cast of Nintendo characters wasn't the only thing special about the game. The game wasn't like all of the other games with set lifebars. Instead, the damage counter only determines how far you fly, but you only die if you fall of the edge of the level, so theoretically a character with 999% damage can defeat a character with 0% damage if the latter had a misstep. The concept intrigued me, and being the douchebag that I am, that night I did something that I would do dozens of times in the next four years: I snuck out of bed and went downstairs to do something I shouldn't have been doing. That night, I played Super Smash Bros. for the first time before my sister. I tinkered around with the single player mode and attempted a few multiplayer matches against the CPU. Then I erased the data and head upstairs. The next day my sister and I played against each other for the first time. I played as Mario and my sister played as Kirby. I crushed my sister, which surprised her. I sheepishly admitted that I snuck downstairs the night before to play the game. She got understandably pissed, but she would eventually get the last laugh.

Super Smash Bros. quickly became the go-to game in our house that summer. We would play in battles against each other or teamed up against level 9 computers. We would try to beat the Break the Target or Board the Platform mini-games in order to unlock Luigi and the sound test. We had an easy time unlocking Jigglypuff and Captain Falcon and a difficult time getting Ness (more on that later.) We played a tournament of champions match with different players, where I got my sister to hate Captain Falcon when I wasn't even playing. (I was providing voice-over for Captain Falcon, making him as sort of a pompous ingrate, which was one person that she will hate forever and ever.) We eventually settled into characters with whom we were comfortable, with me playing as Pikachu and my sister playing as Yoshi. We played Super Smash Bros. well into 2000. Even with other games around that took up some of our attention, like Perfect Dark, Harvest Moon 64, or Donkey Kong 64, we can almost always find time for a couple of matches of Super Smash Bros, most likely because it was a game we can play together that we actually own. I eventually started an Excel spreadsheet keeping track of the Vs. record.

When we went to Kansas in summer of 2000, Super Smash Bros was the one multiplayer game that took up our time, just like Mario Kart 64, GoldenEye, and Mario Party back in the olden days. In our many years of playing the game, one theme seemed to become clear. Try as I might, I can hardly ever beat my sister in stock matches. I can usually get more KOs, but she was much more careful and almost never dies on accident. Soon my sister's skills became a source of pride for me, in a "You may be able to beat me, but you'd never beat my sister" sort of way. This was evident in October of 2000, when I went to a friend's house for a get-together. My friend had always bragged about his Super Smash Bros. skills, so that day we had a one on one ten-stock match. I played as Pikachu and my friend played as Fox. It was a hard-fought match that I ultimately lost, but my friend was down to one life with a damage count over 100%. While I congratulated my friend on his victory, my first thought was "I may have lost, but my sister can probably beat you."

When Super Smash Bros. Melee was announced for the Gamecube in early 2001, my sister and I were both excited for the game. We kept track of the news, and I spam-entered a contest to win a Gamecube that I eventually won. My mother bought us a copy of Melee when it launched, and it was a fun game jam-packed with tons of extras that we could never think was possible considering the minimal options in the original. And yet all the while we felt that Melee lacked the charm of the original game. We played it casually, but we couldn't hold a candle against all of the tournament players with their advanced skills, and we slowly drifted back to the original game for the Nintendo 64. I left for college in 2003, and without anybody to play with both of our skills eventually atrophied. In my second year of undergrad there was a first year student who defeated both my sister and me, and the shared thought between the two of us was that he used the same strategy that I had used. Afterward, I imported the Japanese version and we had some fun enjoying the different sound effects, but eventually we stopped playing the game. Still, in the dozen years since its release, Super Smash Bros. is one of the top multiplayer experiences I've had, and it still remains one of the games that I've spent the most time playing. And that is saying something.

Favorite Memory: With Super Smash Bros being perhaps the Nintendo 64 game that I've spent the most time with, so there are many unforgettable moments. There were all of the nights in the summer of 1999 when I snuck out of bed in order to play against the computer. There was the 99-suicide Yoshi match that I had with friends in 2000. However, in the end my favorite memory might not involve playing the game at all. In the summer of 1999 my sister and I were still not very good at the game, and we had a difficult time unlocking Ness, which required you to beat single player on Normal with three lives without getting a Game Over. We began discussing strategies of what we would do to try to unlock Ness. One day a family friend took us to the Sackler gallery in the Smithsonian. While she was enjoying the Asian art, my sister and I were sitting in the bench in the middle trying to find a way to beat Samus without dying. The juxtaposition of Asian art and Super Smash Bros. was so different that it remains much more memorable than the moment we actually unlocked Ness.

4. Yoshi's Story
Release Date: March 1, 1998
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo

Story: The Yoshis live a happy life on Yoshi's Island, without a single worry in the world. It helps that they have the Super Happy Tree on the island, a tree that provides an endless supply of delicious fruit. Meanwhile, the vindictive Baby Bowser sits in the throne room of one of his four decidedly unhappy castles jealous at the Yoshi's happiness. He decides to bring unhappiness to the Yoshis by taking away the source of their happiness: the Super Happy Tree. The theft instantly has a profound effect on the Yoshis, warping them into zombies and turning their world into a picture book. Only six unhatched Yoshis survived the carnage. They are born into a mysterious world surrounded by enemies and where their environment had turned into cardboard. The Yoshis decide that the only way to bring the world back into what it once was is to defeat Bowser Jr and bring his reign of unhappiness to an end. To do that, they must make their way through the cardboard terrain of their picture book world in order to find happiness.

Personal History: The story behind Yoshi's Story is more about the year of 1998 than it is about the game itself. The idea that everybody will have a year where everything just goes right is so prevalent that it's become almost cliched, but that is the case with me. I must admit that I do tend to see the past in rose-colored glasses, remembering all of the good times and forgetting the bad, but 1998 was one of those years where I didn't need the passage of time to remind me how good life was. Perhaps it was the hormones that drove the infatuation that dominated my thoughts that had a positive effect on me. Perhaps it was the fellowship that I had with close friends that made each day special. Or it could have been because I just stopped taking life for granted. Whatever the reason was, every day felt like a treat, and the feeling that I had something to look forward to the next day took the edge off the bad times. And anything that is involved in my life in these times had come to occupy a special place in my heart. That is why I still have a soft spot in my heart for the state of Kansas. That is why I still get a twinge in my heart every time I hear "Spice Up Your Life." And that is why Yoshi's Story remains one of my favorite games of all time.

I had heard about Yoshi's Story a few times in late 1997 and early 1998. I had loved Yoshis in Super Mario World, and Yoshi was always my go-to character in Mario Kart 64, so I had looked forward to trying the game. One night in March or April, I went to one of my friend's houses for a potluck. We arrived a little bit late, and when we got there I saw that they were playing a new game, which turned out to be Yoshi's Story. It's always fun to see a new game in action, but it's special if the game was one you wanted to try. I never did get to try the game that night, as we moved on to the more standard fare of Mario Kart 64 or GoldenEye 007, but the memory of seeing the colorful game stuck with me. I got to play the game for the first time a few days later, and the game was a lot better than I had expected. I liked the game's level design, giving players the option of speeding through the game by eating all fruits, or going for all melons if they want a challenge. I liked the art design, with each level looking like cardboard, cloth, denim etc. I liked the Yoshis' colorful personalities. And I loved the music. Classic Nintendo composer Kazumi Totaka took a catchy tune and remixed it in ways that complemented the levels. And I loved the Yoshi singing.

The spring of 1998 was a major part of my life. I was living with the last moments of puberty and had developed my first schoolyard crush. I was dealing with the fact that one of my best friends were moving, largely by spending more time with some new friends. And I was just beginning to come into my own spiritually. It was a bit of a confusing time, but I was able to deal with it with Yoshi's Story, which I borrowed from my friends. Whenever I felt stressed or felt unhappy, I'd take out the game, whip through the six levels, and defeat Baby Bowser. I would instantly feel better. However, I don't think my friends had the same passion for the game that I felt. I went to Taiwan in late May, and when I came back in July my friends had given it to their cousins. So much for me playing more Yoshi's Story. It was just as well. One day in August of 1998, in the middle of watching Gone with the Wind, I made the fateful but firm decision to just stop playing video games. I had already toyed with the idea a couple of times when I was in Taiwan and Hawaii earlier that month, and just decided to see how long I can go without it. The hiatus eventually came to an end in February of 1999, but with no copy of the game there would be no way to play it anyways.

I moved to Virginia in June of 1999, and I ended up spending most of that first year hanging on to my memories from the year before. I was feeling especially nostalgic in early 2000 when I thought to myself, "You know, I haven't played Yoshi's Story in over a year. Man that game was fun." I asked my dad about it and he took me to get the game in sometime in May. I was so excited that I sat and played it for several hours straight. He was concerned about me playing so much and eventually got angry after I kept playing. I stopped playing and went to my room, where I took my frustrations out on my black Nintendo 64 controller. It would be the beginning of the end of my first controller (1997-2000). Later I learned to play the game in more moderation. One of the things that I rarely did in the past was collecting melons. I got all melons in only the first level, Treasure Hunt, and got 28 out of 30 in my favorite level, The Tall Tower. All the other times I was just speeding through the game as quickly as possible. I decided to test my hand at collecting all melons. That was when I realized how hard the game can be if you give it a chance. Many of the levels, especially some of the later levels, were extremely difficult. I was able to get all melons in only around half of the levels.

In December of 2000 I realized that by playing the Big Four - my four favorite games from my last few years in Kansas - my memories of them were being tarnished. I didn't want to destroy the nostalgia so I made the foolish decision to "retire" the games; to put those four games away so that I would be left with only happy memories of the game. This was far more difficult than my 6-month hiatus in 1998, because while I was able to play some of my other favorites, they don't compare to the Big Four, which were my favorite games for a reason. Before the end of the year I had broken out and was playing three of the Big Four. The one game that remains relatively shelved is Yoshi's Story. I've imported the game in 2004, but still haven't modded the cartridge. I have yet to buy the game on Virtual Console. Perhaps I am still in a bit of a denial about the game, which has gotten bad press throughout the years about its poor design or how it is a poor imitation of its predecessor, Yoshi's Island. But I am still a believer in the power of nostalgia. Even though I played the game for really less than a year, the game still holds a special place in my heart through association, and sometimes that may just be the most powerful thing of all.

Favorite Memory: The spring of 1998 is more a tale of the many happy moments I had spent with my friends, with Yoshi's Story serving as an indelible part of the background. As I had mentioned, it was an emotional time as my former best friends were moving, as I was spending more time with my new best friends. There was one day when all of our family got together for a day of socialization that ended with a supper party at the newly opened Golden Corral. Along the way, I played through Yoshi's Story. While the game was definitely not the focus of the memory, my memory of the game and my memory of the day with my friends became inseparable. It was a special moment that still ranks above all of the various times that I played through the game on my own.

3. Mario Party
Release Date: February 8, 1999
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Hudson Soft
Story: It was another peaceful day in the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario and his friends were lounging around talking about their prior adventures. The question came up as to which of them was the Super Star. The talk quickly turned into argument as each of them claims their rights to the title of Super Star. After nearly getting trampled by the increasingly angry mob, an exasperated Toad told them to pipe down and went over the qualities of a Super Star: strength, courage, wisdom, and kindness. At the end of his talk, he directed them to a Warp Pipe in the Mushroom Village where they can warp to various areas where people need help. Once there, they can ignore the needs of the hapless citizens and partake in cuthroat mini-games to fund their efforts to buy a completely arbitrary token that will be used to determine the status of the Super Star. The characters find this prospect appealing, and set out to determine just who is the Super Star.

Personal History: My hiatus from video games that began in August 1998 turned out to go a lot more smoothly than I anticipated. I was able to survive off of daily Pokemon episodes and my love of going to school (which is sadly completely unrelated to actually learning anything.) It helped bring me a new appreciation on life. However, the news that my family would be moving threw a kink in my plans. I was devastated that I would be leaving my friends, and since we were all big gamers I decided to bring my hiatus to a close. I eventually decided to end the hiatus at February 1999, six months after it began. Not only would my friends be coming over for a sleep over that night, but they would be bringing their new game: Mario Party. I had heard of the game a few months earlier in December 1998 and early January 1999 from the brilliant commercial that aired while we were watching Pokemon. The gameplay videos promised a game packed full of action packed mini-games. Even more, my friend said that it's more of an adventure, as you go around a level doing things between mini-games. I wasn't exactly sure what that seemed to entail, but it definitely caught my attention.

When the night of the sleepover came, I was having fun at my 8th Grade Lock-In. It was a memorable night that was essentially a party for the 8th grade class that lasted until midnight. I didn't have as much fun that night as I could have, since I was told to wear long pants, which I despised. I love shorts. They're comfy and easy to wear. Plus, half of the party was a volleyball tournament, and the other half was a dance party. I sucked at volleyball, and I don't like dance parties for the loud music and the suffocating atmosphere. And I knew that I was missing out on playing Mario Party with my friends. When I got home from the part the first thing I did was change back into shorts. And then I went downstairs to join my friends, even if it was well past midnight. I watched as they finished the game they were playing, and jumped in the next game, a 35-turn game at Wario's Battle Canyon. I was amazed at how amazing of an experience Mario Party was. The mini-games were terrific (except for Piranha's Pursuit, which made me scared of 3 vs. 1 games from then on), and the adventure board, which I was initially a bit skeptical toward, was a lot of fun. It was around two to three o'clock by the time we finished, and we were itching for more, but we had to go to bed. The next day we went and played a 50-turn game at Luigi's Mysterious Engine.

Mario Party quickly became the main game we played together in those last few months in Kansas. We played the main adventure a few times and decided that while we loved Wario's Battle Canyon, D.K.'s Jungle Adventure, and Yoshi's Tropical Island, we despised Mario's Rainbow Castle, Peach's Birthday Cake, and Bowser's Magma Mountain. But it didn't matter what boards we liked or hated, since the focus was on the mini-games. We ended up either playing Mini-Game Stadium, or just picked some of our favorite mini-games in the Mini-Game Room. We loved playing Mario Bandstand, not necessarily because it was a mind-blowingly awesome mini-game, but it was hilarious to mess up and watch your character get bombarded with trash. We loved Running of the Bulb, as it was not only a game that required teamwork, but it offered a significant amount of challenge. Yet our favorite mini-game was undoubtedly Mushroom Mix-Up, where there are seven mushrooms of different colors, and you must go to the color that matches the flag Toad raises, as all of the other mushrooms will get dunked. The game was pure skill, and we loved to play it not necessarily to see who would win, but how long we can last. There's been games that lasted for a few minutes, but even the short matches were a lot of fun.

As moving day drew closer and closer, Mario Party eventually became an even more important part of my life. It became a sort of an escape. I was able to be in a state of ignorant denial as long as I was playing Mario Party with my friends. We were playing Mario Party up to the night before we were supposed to move on June 3, 1999. I am normally resistant to tears, but the idea of moving away from Kansas was so tragic and so strong that I cried for about half an hour as we were able to leave. As it turned out my parents had a sort of a miscommunication and it got too late to leave that day, so we had to turn back and go to my friends' place. We celebrated the stay of execution by playing some more Mario Party. When we got to Virginia my sister and I made some new friends and were able to hang out with some old ones. But we never had the bond that we formed in those last few months in Kansas. And since we were always playing our friends' copy of the game, we didn't have any Mario Party. So I asked for the game in Christmas of 1999, and pretty soon I was a proud owner of my very own copy of Mario Party. We took the game with us to Michigan that winter and had many happy matches with my cousins.

And yet the thing that made Mario Party so great is the bond of fellowship that you can form with the people you are playing with. After we went back to Virginia the only people we had to play with was my sister and me. We played a game with two players controlling four characters, and it was fun for a little while, bit it just wasn't the same. We got Mario Party 2, and while the game added a few fun new mini-games and took away some of the more annoying games (good-bye annoying spinning mini-games), it didn't have the same feel as Mario Party and we quickly abandoned it. I retired the game along with the other members of the Big Four in December 2000, but felt so lost without it that I un-retired it before the end of 2001. It wasn't as fun as playing it with four people, but it was good to play it again. I imported the game in 2004. In fact, on the night of my bicycle accident in October 19, I had picked up the imported version from the mail room, and the Japanese manual was the only thing that kept me entertained during my four-hour ER stay. Yet even then we played only until we got 100 stars, then we stopped playing. (It didn't help my sister's can't read Japanese). Perhaps Mario Party is like all of the other multi-player centered games on the list. It has a short lifespan before we move on to other games. Yet at the same time it has become a symbol of friendship that I will cherish for a long time to come.

Favorite Memory: Mario Party is a game centered around its multiplayer mode, and my friends and I certainly spent a long time playing the game. There are many small but vivid memories that we built up, such as the first time my sister played Balloon Burst, the memory as to why she always plays as Peach, or even beating Cast Aways on Mini-Game Island for the first time. And yet there is no memory that would top the first time I played the game. I had already discussed the memory earlier, but it is my favorite for many reasons. First of all, the night was already significant in that I had gone to the 8th grade lock-in, which was memorable even though I didn't have a great time. Next, it marked the end of my six-month hiatus, which is a significant part of my gaming history. Finally, it was a moment that smashed all of my expectations of the game. I remember being in love with every mini-game that I played, and Wario's Battle Canyon was a perfect level for me to start with, as it has a perfect balance of skill and luck. There will be other memorable moments with the game, but none more so than my first exposure.

2. Super Mario 64
Release Date: September 29, 1996
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Story: "Dear Mario, Please come to the castle. I have baked a cake for you. Yours Truly, Princess Toadstool. Peach." With this message in hand, Mario happily warps to Peach's castle. He is later joined by a flying Lakitu, tracking his every movement with a camera on a stick. Once Mario enters the castle, he is greeted by a gruff voice that says, "Welcome. No one's home! Now scram--and don't come back! Gwa ha ha!" While talking to one of many hologram Toads that haunt the castle, Mario finds out that the cake is a lie. Instead, Bowser has attacked the castle, stealing all of the Power Stars, locking several of the castle's rooms, and holding Peach hostage for the umpteenth time. Mario must find enough Power Stars to find and defeat Bowser, but in order to do so he must explore fifteen difficult levels that brings him into a dimension that he had never experienced in the past: the third dimension.

Personal History: Before 1996, I had liked video games, but never had much of a chance to play them, as I never owned any systems. We finally got our first game in Christmas as 1995, and it was a Game Boy with Donkey Kong Land. And yet 1996 is a year that will introduce a product that would completely change not only my gaming life, but my life in general: the Nintendo 64. The early history didn't suggest anything out of the ordinary. I first read about Nintendo's third console in May of 1996. I was an avid reader of TIME magazine in early 1996, and in their issue dated May 20, 1996 they had an article about a new console Nintendo was working on, one that will usher the video gaming in the brave new world of 3D graphics with 3D environments. It looked promising, but I didn't think more about it. The console launched in June 23, 1996 to no fanfare in my life, and the American launch on September 29, 1996 also came and went. Yet the event was monumental for a few of my friends. One night in October 1996, my family was invited to a get-together at my friends' house. It was just another visit to friends, one of many that we have had, but this one would have one surprise. My friends had gotten the Nintendo 64 with its premiere launch title, Super Mario 64. When I saw the game I knew what it was from the article in TIME, but the game in action was much more mind-blowing than the article had described.

My friends were playing Cool, Cool Mountain when we arrived. The thing about the game that struck me was the freedom you have to explore the expansive levels. In the ten years of playing video games up to that point I only played games such as Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, and Donkey Kong Land where players were confined to a 2D plane. With Super Mario 64 players have full reign to explore the level as much as they pleased, not only in the horizontal plane, but also in a transverse and coronal plane, which was lacking in old Zelda games. I got a chance to play the Nintendo 64 for the first time that night, but for some reason Mario wasn't following my instructions. I was telling him to go left but he would keep running right. He was running even when I wasn't doing anything, so I watched helplessly until my turn ended. (Of course, my friends reset the game before giving me the controller, so I suspect that the controller may have been tilted when it happened.) Once everybody had a turn my friend moved on to Big Boo's Haunt. The atmosphere of the chilling level stuck with me after we had left, as I had nightmares about being chased by Boos. But that was the experience that the Nintendo 64 provided.

A month later, some of my other friends invited me to their house, as they had gotten the Nintendo 64 at launch as well. It was there that I was finally able to properly play Super Mario 64 for the first time. And it was good. I started a new file on their game, and went to the first level, Bob-Omb Battlefield. I ran around for a little bit getting accustomed to the controls and made it to the top of the mountain, where King Bob-Omb stood waving to his constituents. He challenged me to "pick [him] up from the back and hurl [him] to this regal land?" I thought he was referring to the land below, so when I picked him up by the back, I walked all the way to the edge of the level and tossed him off. Then Mario lost his balance and fell to the bottom of the mountain. That ended my first proper playing of Super Mario 64. Yet the experience stuck with me. While I initially loved Super Mario 64 for the freedom of exploration, as time went on I soon embraced the game for its incredible level design and for the challenge it provided. Nintendo could have made a simple title to show off their new hardware, but they chose to make a game where it takes some skill to beat the game or to get all 120 stars. For the next year and a half, I looked forward to my friends so that I can pick up on Super Mario 64 to get some of the stars they were missing. But I wasn't able to get the rest of the stars for another year, when I borrowed the game from my friends and teamed up with my sister and another friend to get 120 stars.

My aunt bought my sister and me a Nintendo 64 when we went back to Michigan in June and July 1997. When selecting our first game, we passed on Super Mario 64 due to its lack of multiplayer potential. It wasn't until Christmas of 1997 that I finally had my own copy of Super Mario 64. With my own copy of the game I was able to get 120 stars by myself for the first time (more on that later). And I did it again when I went to Taiwan in summer of 1998. It got to the point where my cartridge was full of 120-star files, and in order to start a new one I had to delete an old one. For every new playthrough I did, the stars were just a little bit easier to get. By the new millennium, I was able to get all 120 stars in one sitting, which I did in five hours in December 2000. Of course, I began to feel tremendous amounts of pressure. I began to expect perfection, and if I didn't have it I would basically throw a fit. Before I retired games in the Big Four that month, I had a final playthrough that I taped. I got so annoyed that I was making some stupid mistakes that I was cursing up a storm. The problem was this was the middle of the night. My sister woke up and said she could hear me loud and clear even though she was two floors up. That's when I knew that I was putting too much pressure on myself on these games, and that I was missing what had made them fun in the first place.

Yet even after retiring the games, I couldn't stop thinking about them. I felt I wasn't having much fun with games anymore, and thought that if I could just go back and play my favorite games then it would change. Super Mario 64 was one of the games that had an especially strong pull on me. By the end of the year I had decided to bring out those games. While my playtime still remained low, it felt good to be able to play the games again. After that I began to play the games in moderation, trying to keep in mind what made those games fun in the first place. In 2004 I imported the Japanese game to try to get the glitch that allowed you to get essentially infinite lives with 1000 coins on the first Bowser level. Then I decided to get all 120 stars in that one sitting so I see what happened when I talked to Yoshi. The problem is, I only had 20 stars at the time. In 2006, I decided to take this one step further and try to get 10,000 coins. I didn't realize that the task would take 12 hours, and that once you beat the Bowser the game stops counting after 1,000 coins. In 2007 I set a personal record by getting all 120 stars in only four hours. Nowadays I don't play the game that often, but I have a blast playing it. It is a testament to the staying power of the game, and combined with the innovation from 15 years ago, why I still consider it the best game of all time.

Personal History: A game that I've been playing practically every year for the past 15 years is bound to have some very special memories, but in the end I had to pick one. As I mentioned earlier, through the first year of playing the game the prospects of 120 stars was a daunting task. There were just too many stars that I had a difficult time getting, including Big Penguin Race in Cool Cool Mountain, Pole Jumping for Red Coins in Dire Dire Docks, Inside the Volcano in Lethal Lava Land etc. I was able to get to 120 stars in late 1997 only with the help of a friend. She was the one that got what I still consider the hardest star in the game: 100 coins in Tick Tock Clock. Yet when I got my own copy of the game for Christmas in 1997, I was able to attempt some of the more difficult stars on my own time. And on December 28, 1997, after three days of practice and more practice (I had taken a day off for reasons I don't remember), I finally got 120 stars on my own for the very first time. Even though now I can get 120 stars in only a couple of hours, the feeling of personal triumph in my first 120-star run is one that I'll never forget, and is still my favorite memory involving Super Mario 64.

1. Mario Kart 64
Release Date: February 10, 1997
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Story: It's the go-kart race to end all go-kart races! You can race against your friends as one of the many characters in the Mario universe. Explore sixteen different tracks that take you from a enclosed circuit in the Mushroom Kingdom to a dirt-bike circuit; from the antarctic ice floes to the arid desert; from a crowded freeway to the far reaches of the galaxy. Pummel each other with one of many items in the battle mode, or race against yourself in the time trials with the new ghost technology, as long as you don't do something stupid like run into a tree. I mean, it's Mario Kart for crying out loud. Who needs a story for Mario Kart?

Personal History: In 1993, I played Super Mario Kart for the Super NES. While I was never much of a fan of racing games, that game appealed to me for a variety of reasons. It had Nintendo characters. It didn't take itself very seriously. And it allowed you to play with a friend. However, the Super NES only had two controller ports, so you were stuck if you had multiple friends. Even worse, not very many of my friends owned the game, so I didn't have much of a chance to play. When I saw that the Nintendo 64 has four controller ports, and that a Mario Kart game was coming to the Nintendo 64, I knew that this had a potential for something special. The game launched in the United States in February of 1997, and shortly afterward we went to a friend's house. I didn't really know he had gotten the Nintendo 64 until I got there, when I saw him playing...with Mario Kart 64. My first experience with the game was in a battle mode match on Big Donut. That was fun, but I never liked battle as much as racing in Super Mario Kart. Next we tried out the vs. mode. The first level that I played was in Wario Stadium. Before we were done with the first lap, I had known that this would be the multiplayer gaming experience of our future. It would be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

A few days later the friends we hung out with normally had gotten the game. We began to spend much more time together just to play Mario Kart 64. The first few months were a bit of a learning curve for us, since we never owned the game. The first time that we had played Choco Mountain we ended up getting caught up in that nasty curve without a railing. My sister had it worse than anybody else. By the time everybody was finished, she was still in her first lap. She was not very pleased. I had once tried to play through Star Cup. It took me an hour or two to place in the top four in the first three stages, and that's when I realized that there was another, even harder stage: Bowser's Castle, complete with a crazy green Whomp trapped behind a set of gates for our safety. We had to leave before I had completed the level. That night, I dreamed that I had finally beaten the level only to find out that there was a fifth level after that. Eventually we got to the point where we held our own in the multiplayer matches, and that's when the game became magical for us. When we got tired of racing, we would start doing crazy things such as going into Block Fort and seeing how much trash we can accumulate on the bottom floor in what was known as Trash Land. We would run the courses backward, and once we got to Rainbow Road my sister discovered that yes, it is possible to jump up the giant hill. And once when a friend and I finished the race in Koopa Troopa Beach, my sister and the friend's brother both got a blue shell and positioned themselves at a spot where the AI-controlled characters would run into the shells every time.

My sisters and I went to Michigan in June of 1997 to visit my aunts and my cousins, and we stayed with them for a month. When I was there the only thing I can talk about was the Nintendo 64 and Mario Kart 64. Having commercials for the Nintendo 64 and its games appearing on television constantly certainly didn't help with my withdrawal. My cousin and his friends would joke at me about my obsession, but I didn't care. My cousin probably still understood my passion, since when he went to a friend's house he took me along because his friend's brother had a Nintendo 64. I played a little bit of Super Mario 64, but then I switched to Mario Kart 64, and played the single player mode. I remember playing the Special Cup and getting second place in Banshee Boardwalk for the first time. While it wasn't exactly first place, but that was a tremendous achievement for somebody who was previously thrilled to finish in fourth place. Finally, in our final week in Michigan, one of my aunts told my sisters and me that we were going to Toys R Us for a surprise. We kind of had an idea of what that surprise might have been, but we went along anyways. And of course, when we got there my aunt said she was buying us a Nintendo 64. While I acted subdued, the reaction in my head was somewhat similar to that of the famous Nintendo 64 kids. When she asked us what game we wanted, my sister and I took little time to decide on Mario Kart 64. It was an excellent multiplayer game, and one that both of us enjoyed. My parents were a bit concerned about the gift but in the end they relented. After having to bum off friends for almost a year, we finally had a Nintendo 64 of our own! When we got back, one of the first things we did was put our name on the cartridge. It would prove to be important a few years later.

Now that my sister and I finally own a copy of Mario Kart 64, we were able to play the game at any time. While we spent some time playing multiplayer, I found myself spending quite a lot of time playing the Mario Grand Prix mode. Even though the computer cheats, I still found it a valuable opportunity to practice my own techniques. (Anyways, there was a technique to build an insurmountable lead in Kalamari Desert in Mario GP.) The manual had talked about using mini-boosts, and with the game on my side I was able to get the mini-boosts relatively consistently, at least more so than my friends. I never really practiced the shortcuts, since I was content to race the levels as the programmers designed them. I'd never win in tournaments in that way, but it didn't matter. I was able to beat my friends in Mario Kart 64 matches the majority of the time, which was okay since I usually lost in the battle modes. I kept playing the game by myself even as we moved on toward other multiplayer games. Besides, Mario Kart 64 was an old classic that was fun to pull out at times and play all of the courses. That was what my cousins and my sister and I did in the middle of the night when we went back to Michigan in winter of 2001...in fact we did that the night before the DL-6 incident.

I took the Nintendo 64 to college in 2003, and Mario Kart 64 was one of the games that I bought with me. I had a scare early in my first semester. I participated in a volunteer event where they wanted us to bring a video game for kids at the UVA hospital, and I contributed with Mario Kart 64. It was fun to watch kids who weren't even born when we got the game enjoy it. And at the end of the day, I left. It wasn't until I got back to my dorm room when I realized that I had left the game at the event! I was crushed. How could I have been stupid enough to lose the very first game that I had gotten for my favorite system? I quickly remembered that we had written our name on the cartridge, so I was able to get in contact with the event coordinator and told her that I had left the game at the event. They were able to find the game, and a few days later I had it back in my possession. I was able to bring it to one of the very first Gamers Club meetings. I won virtually all the races, even one in Wario Stadium where one person took the shortcut in the first lap. Even though I never practiced the shortcuts, I erased his lead by doing the shortcut on the second lap, and did it on the third lap as a giant FU. I became known to the co-presidents as the guy who was ridiculously good at Mario Kart 64. In 2004, Mario Kart 64 became one of the first games that I imported. I was able to laugh at some of the more hilarious voice samples that they had for Toad, Peach, and Wario. In 2007, I was playing against some people who never played much Mario Kart 64. I quickly realized that you could carry the controller with one hand and still be able to control. You would lose the use of the R-trigger thus losing the use of mini-boosts, but that would give my opponents a handicap. I still won anyways, and I had discovered the method for one-handed Nintendo 64, which I later used to beat Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Conker's Bad Fur Day.

Over the years, other Mario Kart games were released. I got Mario Kart Super Circuit in 2002, Mario Kart Double Dash!! in 2003, Mario Kart DS in 2005, and Mario Kart Wii in 2008. While some people had moved on and proclaimed the other Mario Kart games as the best, I still prefer Mario Kart 64. For one thing people forget how revolutionary it was. It had taken the Super Mario Kart formula, and added to it an increased reliance on technique (with the addition of mini-boosts) and items. It laid the groundwork that many of the other Mario Kart games built on. On a more personal level, I loved the game not only because I got to be pretty good at it, but also because I can make the argument that this was THE game that brought me into video gaming. Sure you can say that Super Mario Bros. was the first game I played, Super Mario World was the first game I enjoyed playing, and Super Mario 64 was the first game that I was eager to play. But Mario Kart 64 was not only my first game for my first console, it also best balanced a solid multiplayer experience and an enjoyable single player experience. Even today I like to break it out and play some Mario GP. It is still an amazing experience almost fifteen years since its launch. For these reasons, Mario Kart 64 is my favorite game not just on the Nintendo 64...but of all time.

Favorite Memory: For a game that I've been playing for close to 15 years, there's bound to be many classic memories, both by myself and with friends. Yet none of them may be as great as what happened on June 13, 1997...Friday the 13th. It was the night before we had to leave for Michigan, and we were spending it with my friends. Officially, it was in order to partake in an art experience with my friends' relative. I managed to get out of it by creating a picture of stick figures holding signs that spelled out a swear. It wasn't my goal to get out of the art class; I just drew the picture because I thought it was funny, but I did. I went to play Mario Kart 64 by myself, and I did something that I had only dreamed about in the past: I got a Perfect 36. Sure, it was in Mushroom Cup, but it was the first time that I got first place in each of the races. And to top it off, once everybody was finished with their art experience, we got together for several hours of crazy fun Mario Kart 64. I was a bit bummed I fell from first to third in the last lap of the last race at Wario Stadium, but I must still admit it was a memorable night.
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Whew...that went on far longer than I had expected. I'm not sure I met my goal of detailing the impact that the Nintendo 64 had on my life, but I hope I was able to inspire you to think back to your own memories. And for those of you who actually took part in some of these events, I hope that you were able to relive some of those terrific memories that helped make the Nintendo 64 a great part of my life. I encourage you to post your own memories of the Nintendo 64 or these games. Gaming is often a shared experience, and I welcome you all to share them.

Best Animated Shorts - 2010

2011-02-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year again, when the excitement of the Baseball Hall of Fame vote has died down (Yey for Bert Blyleven!) and the Oscars are the only thing to tide me over until baseball season begins again. And like the past four years, the one category that I am following closely is that of Best Animated Short. In case this is your first time reading this, the Best Animated Short category was one that had fallen to the wayside for me until 2006, when I came to the realization that not only are they short and fun to watch (something I've known since I was a kid when I watched dozens of Oscar-nominated shorts without knowing it), but they are also incredibly easy to find! Since then, Best Animated Short has superceded Best Picture as my favorite category. Case in point: even though I didn't start watching Best Animated Short nominees until 2006, 8 years after I started trying to watch Best Picture nominees, I've still seen more of the Best Animated Short nominees, 301 (out of 327, 92%) to 231 (out of 485, 47%).

I've also done something with Best Animated Short I've never done for Best Picture: watch all of the nominees before the night of the actual ceremony. I've done this every year since 2007, when I went to the showing for Best Animated Short nominees in Washington DC. A year later, I watched all of the shorts without going to the showing, and wrote up a review for each of the nominees. Last year, I found the shortlist of ten a month before the nominations were announced, and I watched six of them before the nominees were announced, and saw all five nominees on the day of the nomination. This year, I tried to get a leg up by finding the longlist back in November. I had seen eight on the shortlist by the announcement, but even then there was one of the nominees that I hadn't seen. My sister and I tried to find the final short on video sites and bit torrents, but to no avail. In the end we sucked it up and bought the DVD, under the pretense of being a late birthday present. The DVD arrived two weeks ago, so it's been two weeks since I watched all the short, but I just hadn't had time to write the review. Now that it's three days before the Oscars, hopefully it is not too late. I apologize in advance if this will be largely incomprehensible, but that's what you get when you write four days before a major exam.

Day & Night
This is probably the one short that most people have seen, considering it played before Toy Story 3, the highest-grossing animated feature film in history. This ambitious short tells the story of two characters, one that exemplifies day and one that exemplifies night. Day is a chipper fellow whose outlook on life is the same as the bright sunny day that lives inside him. He meets Night, who he meets sleeping. Day scorns the darkness of Night's world. Night takes offense, and that sets off an epic fight between the two ends up into the sea. While recovering from the fight, Night realizes that there are some things that Day has that he doesn't, and vice versa. By the end of the short, the two new best friends realize that they're not so different after all.

Day & Night's story of acceptance has been told so often that it's virtually become a cliché, but it is still a memorable short. The film's style is its greatest strength. Day and Night are 2D characters whose bodies serve as windows into the same 3D world approximately 12 hours apart. Pixar is renowned for their 3D environments, but with Day & Night they show that they can still succeed with 2D designs. Day and Night are extremely vibrant characters that are greatly appealing. However, it is what's going on inside Day and Night that drives the film. It is the differences in presentation that drives the initial conflict between the two, but also what leads to their reconciliation. Night loves the hot suntanning babe he sees inside Day, but at the same location in himself, he sees only trash. However, Pixar doesn't clutter the worlds with extraneous items, showing only what is necessary to highlight the best of both worlds and to add to the ambient soundtrack. Yes, the film does admittedly get preachy near the end, when they bang the message into your head, but Day & Night is still a solid evidence of how Pixar is the greatest visual storytellers of our time.

*Despite what The Simpsons wanted you to think, Pixar really doesn't perform that well with the Best Animated Short category. Day & Night is the 10th nomination they had in the category, but they've only had three wins. It could be that they do so well in the Best Animated Feature category since its inception that the Academy doesn't want to award them twice in a year, but in my opinion their shorts haven't been as good as their feature films. (Frankly because they mostly go for laughs, but I've never been a big fan of Pixar's humor) Anyways, here's my ranking of their past Oscar nominated shorts.

10. Boundin' (2003) - Another message film, this time about believing in yourself, but this time the rest of the film doesn't make up for their beating the message in your head.

9. Mike's New Car (2002) - This was the first of the films that featured characters from one of their films. While this gag-filled film is funny, it doesn't come close to achieving the same impact as the film's original source: Monster's Inc.

8. Lifted (2006): It's funny, and you can probably empathize with the trainee, but it doesn't really succeed in being memorable.

7. One Man Band (2005): It was a lot better than I remember it being, but like many other films it doesn't do much to be memorable

6. For the Birds (2001): One of their three winners. This film tells its story well, and it is a technological marvel, but they made the big bird a bit too annoying that you may find yourself on the bully's side.

5. Presto (2008): I reviewed this film two years ago. It's a brilliantly madcap take that probably takes a few viewings to catch all the action.

4. Tin Toy (1988): Their first winner. Their baby is a bit on the unnerving side, but this film reaches new heights in giving emotions to toys. It is the precursor to Toy Story

3. Day & Night (2010): Even if I don't like how they beat the message into your head, this is still a milestone in visual storytelling.

2. Luxo Jr. (1986): It's not their first short, but the one that establishes Pixar as a company. It packs more in two short minutes than most films do in twenty (one of the films below is an example of that).

1. Geri's Game (1997): Yes, I am still a big fan of this short. Pixar's human character design in Tin Toy and Toy Story left more to be desired, but with this short they found their story. Combine with a simple but effective story and brilliant editing and you've got yourself a winner - literally.

The Gruffalo
After a close run in with a hawk, a mother squirrel (Helena Bonham Carter) comforts her two kids with a story about a mouse (James Corden) who took a walk in a deep dark wood, but the problem is that a group of predators (Tom Wilkinson, John Hurt, and Rob Bryden) thinks he looks good - and we're not talking about his appearance. The mouse scares them away with a tale about being friends with a horrible, monstrous creature named the Gruffalo. But things change when he meets a real Gruffalo (Robbie Coltrane), who has no intentions of being best buddies.

The Gruffalo is really a lovely short. The film is computer generated but has the appearance of being stop-motion. The woods that the mouse walks through is a vibrant but violent place. The atmosphere is great. The constant images of death serves to underscore the constant danger that the mouse is in, and the snake is just creepy. The soundtrack is also haunting but beautiful. And it does have an all-star voice cast, who does a great job, except when Carter goes too far with "Hmm..". While the film is a visual treat, the story leaves a little more to be desired. The Gruffalo is a BBC adaptation of a popular children's book in Britain. That leads to two problems: First of all, the story is clearly aimed toward children. There really isn't much twist and turns at all, and it gets kind of repetitive. Second, being a BBC special it has to take up 25 minutes. That's going to create some problems when you've only got 5 minutes worth of story. In other words, it's a dlightful treat, but it's not for everyone.

Let's Pollute
Let's Pollute is an "educational film" about what it takes to make the world a dirtier, grimier place. It goes through the history of pollution, explores the factors promoting pollution, and finally gives us a couple of tips to make us the best little polluters we can be.

This is a funny little satire about not only the state of the modern environmental movement, but also of the educational films that were popular in the 1950s and 60s, the types that you show in schools. It tried to achieve its satire by taking it to the extreme. That's not really going to lead to a memorable piece of work, considering it essentially on the same level as one-joke shorts (i.e. The Crunch Bird), but it should keep it entertaining. Although it's certainly possible some might find the joke getting old by the end. In this way, Let's Pollute is probably along the same vein as some of last year's nominees: films that are funny but don't do much beyond that. Of course, I will admit I've only seen the French dub that's filtering online, but I have a friend who was able to translate it, and it really wasn't much different than what I've gained from watching the film raw. That said, Let's Pollute does have an appealing hand drawn visual style.

The Lost Thing
This Australian fable set in a post-modern world tells the story of a boy who sees a mysterious "thing" on the beach as he was out collecting bottle caps. He connects with the thing, but when he finds that it has no owner or a home (in essence, lost), he takes it in, much to the chagrin of his parents. He sees a commercial about a government agency that takes in such things that have no home, but is that really the best place for his new friend?

Like The Gruffalo, The Lost Thing was based off of a picture book, but the two are very different films. (And I'm not talking about how The Lost Thing fits a more substantial story in a running time ten minutes shorter.) The Lost Thing is more of a parable for adults, using the dystopic world and the lost thing as symbols for our own madcap world and the things we may be missing. The film's design, loyally adopted from the original work by co-director Shaun Tan, serves to augment the film's message. The characters inhabit a type A world where everything is regulated, everything is automatic, and everybody minds their own business. The bizarre spontaneity of the lost thing is definitely out of place is such an environment. Their world is fully realized and wonderful, with lots of minute detail that requires multiple viewings to catch everything. (My favorite is the Chinese characters that appear every so often.) The film also pays homage to its picture book origin with a few clever scenes that with split screens that's laid out like books. The narration by Australian funnyman Tim Minchin is serviceable, but sometimes I wonder if it would be better if it was a wordless film driven by its soundtrack.

Madagascar, A Journey Diary
This is quite literally a moving scrapbook about the sights and sounds experienced by director Blastien Dubois on a trip to the island nation of Madagascar, the highlight of which is experiencing Famadihana, a ritual ceremony about turning of ancestors' bones.

As a visual scrapbook, Madagascar, A Journey Diary is a bit lacking on the story, but it is a dazzling piece of work. The film is full of the wonders of Madagascar, both natural and cultural, which are beautifully designed in journal format, complete with notes or . The best part about the film is the juxtaposition of an eclectic selection of film styles. For example, you would have one scene that is done in a smooth watercolor that is common through the film, and the next scene you have one that's designed like stop motion animation. It becomes like a treat to see what style will come up next. The music is also very ethnic, coming from a real Madagascan band. The climactic scene with the Famadihana is also well done, showing off the ecstasy of the crowd. Yet it also comes with an unnerving element as in spite of the celebration, you're still dealing with death. The rest of the film is a delight, presenting the citizens and their reactions to the foreigner, provided you can overlook the lack of a narrative flow.

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Okay, so hopefully you can overlook the entire incomprehensibility of my writing and get an idea about the shorts. But all that means nothing if you don't try to pick a winner, because what else is the Academy Award for? In my opinion the best short this year is Day & Night. That doesn't necessarily take away from the nominees, all of which are great shorts that I enjoyed, but Pixar's lastest short is stylistically innovative while also telling a good story. However, I don't think it's going to win. It's just like two years ago when there was talk of there being an anti-Pixar slant in the Best Animated Short category ever since the Best Animated Feature category was created. They seem a bit wary in awarding Pixar the award for animated feature AND the award for animated short. After all, Pixar has never won both in the same year. (Their only win in animated short came in 2001, when they won for For the Birds, but lost the feature Oscar to Shrek.) Is that fair? Not really, but it's what the Academy likes, and the Academy likes it when they make Pixar share the love.

So if Day & Night is not going to win, who will in its place? All signs seem to point toward The Gruffalo. First of all, at 25 minutes it's the longest nominee, and we all know how much the Oscar loves those long nominees. Second of all, it's a beautiful, well-made piece, which would justify the award for many voters. And finally there seems to be a lot of love for The King's Speech this year, and it's very likely that The Gruffalo, being from Britain, can get swept up in the lovefest. Sure, it doesn't have much of a storyline for the running time, but that's never stopped the Academy before. (Peter & the Wolf is an example.)

Anyways, I hope that this was somewhat readable. And I hope that you find a way to watch the nominees somehow. Meh.

Why I'm Happy for Bert Blyleven, and other Hall of Fame Musings

2011-01-05T14:17:00.000-08:00

Well, it's finally happened. After 14 long years on the Hall of Fame ballot, Rik Aalbert "Bert" Blyleven has finally polled 75% of the vote and will be making his long overdue entrance into the Baseball Hall of Fame. For many, this is a triumph of a new way of looking at pitchers that focuses less on wins and losses and more on factors that pitchers can control: preventing runs and the runners that can score them. And even though I'm way too big of a fan of pitching wins than I should be, I couldn't be more ecstatic. I've been pulling for Bert's election as far back as 1999. But why, you may ask, have I been rooting for a guy who retired before I was even aware of baseball; one who had less than 15% of the vote in the year I started hoping for his election? To find the answer, you'd have to go back to 1993, five years before Bert's ballot debut.

I was only eight years old back then. Prior to that, the only thing I knew about baseball was the fact that it existed, and that they made cards of baseball players, which were pretty cool. My first major dose came that summer. First of all, one of my father's friends took my dad, my sister, and me to see a Royals game.* The other was that my sister and I somehow came into possession of about 100 or so baseball cards from 1993.

*The only thing I remember about the game was that the Royals beat the Orioles 7-1, and that Royals legend George Brett, one of the few players that I knew, did not play that day. To this day, my sister still likes to point out the fact that I was rooting for the Orioles that day, even though right now the Royals are one of my favorite teams and the Orioles are one of my least favorite. Of course, back then I didn't know who the teams were. I just rooted for the Orioles because my sister was rooting for the Royals. It's what siblings do. Of course, now they both suck.

I really have no memory as to who gave them to me or when I got them. All I remember was that I absolutely adored those cards. There was one card in particular that left an impression on me. Several things really struck me about the player on the card. The first was that he was born in 1951, four years earlier than my dad. (As an eight year old kid, I thought everything of my dad, and found it inexplicable that anybody is older than he is.) The second thing was his birthplace of Zeist, Holland. Any place name that begins with a Z gets extra credit points for being cool: Zaire, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and of course Zeist. And Holland? Holland doesn't even exist anymore as an official entity! Finally, what struck me was small the stats were, but that was because he debuted in 1970, 23 years earlier and 15 years before I was born. This player was older and had been playing longer than any of the other players whose cards I had. AND, he was from an awesome-sounding exotic locale. The player on the card was so great I placed a red star sticker to denote his superiority. Who was the player in question? It was none other than Bert Blyleven*.

*I also had a 1993 Pinnacle Bert Blyleven card. I stuck a sticker where Garfield was playing baseball on that card. I later gave it to my sister after I stopped collecting non-Topps cards, but unfortunately she no longer collects baseball cards. Now I don't know where the card is anymore. That makes me sad.

Time went on, and even though I had acquired more cards (including a misadventure involving sneaking packs of 1994 Topps that really belonged to my sister), the impact of that first Bert Blyleven card never faded. It wasn't just Blyleven's age or the length of his career that impressed me. I quickly realized how marvelous Bert Blyleven's name was. Not only does he share his name with a character on Sesame Street, but the alliteration in his name adds to the allure. When I got the Baseball Encyclopedia in 1996 I found out that Blyleven's full name was even more magnificent: Rik Aalbert Blyleven. The name seems familiar, but at the same time it's got the extra touches that makes it wonderfully foreign: the Rick without the C and Albert with an extra A. Furthermore, in Christmas of 1997 I got a book for Christmas titled "The Best of Baseball," where it lists the best in baseball for several categories, from players to games to movies. One of the categories was the best breaking balls, and the first entry was Bert Blyleven's curveball. I didn't know much about the different pitches at the time (due to the fact I never played baseball), but it amazed me that he had one of the best pitches of all time. That showed that even though my admiration of him was based on crazy stuff like his age and his awesome name, Bert Blyleven was pretty darned good. At any rate, I had become a bona fide Bert Blyleven fan.

In early 1998 I was reading the sports section in the Kansas City Star when I saw a blurb about the Hall of Fame voting, which was being announced later that week. I knew about the Hall of Fame, but I didn't know much about it, least of all the voting process. Everything I knew I learned from that article: the voters were 10 year members of the BBWAA; a player becomes eligible five years after they retire if they played for at least ten seasons; a player needs 75% for election. The article only mentioned a select few players on the ballot: Don Sutton, the player most likely to be elected; Tony Perez, the player that deserved election; Gary Carter, the ballot newbie with the biggest profile, and Bob Boone, the Royals manager. It ended with the fact that Royals legend George Brett will be eligible for the first time a year later.

A few days later, the results were announced. Sutton was elected as everybody predicted, and Perez came close but fell short. I went down the list and saw players that I knew and a few that I didn't, and...HOLY MOLY! IS THAT BERT BLYLEVEN?? Despite all of my senseless adoration of Blyleven up to that point I had never taken much notice at his statistics, even though looked at the card with the red star sticker so often I knew most of them. At the time, my parents hid my cards because I was spending way too much time with them, so I went to the next best resource, Baseball Encyclopedia, to put them into context: 287 wins (22nd of all time when he retired), 3,701 strikeouts (3rd of all time at retirement), and 60 shutouts (9th of all time). After doing thatI decided that Bert Blyleven needs to be in the Hall of Fame!

The following year was the first year I was able to cast an imaginary ballot for Bert Blyleven, but I never really did it. It was George Brett's first year on the ballot, and the Kansas City Star dedicated pages upon pages of info to Brett, but through it all they never posted the entire ballot. Nevertheless, I knew that Blyleven would be on the ballot, and I had hoped that he would make it. But I also knew that was pretty unlikely. 1999 was a stacked ballot, with Brett, Nolan Ryan, Robin Yount*, Carlton Fisk, and Dale Murphy making their ballot debuts. With so many strong candidates it's inevitable that the holdovers would suffer a massive step backwards, and that was exactly what happened. Tony Perez dropped from 68% to 60%. Gary Carter fell from 42% to 34%. And Bert Blyleven? Poor Bert went from 17.5% (11th out of 26) to 14.1% (15th out of 28).

*Robin Yount was another player whose card I had in those early days. But he was younger than my dad, and he had only been playing since 1974, so I didn't revere him the way I did Blyleven. So I never really noticed he had crossed the 3,000-hit threshold in 1992, and I was legitimately surprised that he made the Hall of Fame on the first try. Shows how much I knew in 1999.

Thus began a long and winding road for poor Rik Aalbert Blyleven and for all of his supporters, including me. I discovered the internet later in 1999, and in 2000 I was able to cast an imaginary ballot for the first time. (I voted for Blyleven, Jim Rice, Goose Gossage, Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Dave Parker, Luis Tiant, Ron Guidry, Willie Wilson, and Bob Welch. I was pretty oblivious back then.) Through the internet, I was also able to see the problems some people had with Blyleven's candidacy. He had 250 losses, and his winning pct of .534 was a bit low. ('So what?' I thought. 'Nolan Ryan had an even lower winning pct. and he waltzed in with 98% of the vote.) Bert only made two All-Star games. ('The All-Star game is bullcrap anyways, and it mostly rewards first half performance. Bert was probably a slow starter.') He only had Cy Young votes in three seasons. ('Yeah, but look at his competition: Hall of Famers Jim Palmer, Ryan, and Catfish Hunter. His low ERA meant that he pitched better than what his record indicate, but voters aren't going to look at that') So on an so forth.

Still, through 2003, Bert was getting only 29.2% of the vote. And then, in the day after Christmas 2003, the best thing that ever happened to Bert's candidacy occurred. An investment manager named Rich Lederer sat down and typed up an article about how Bert Blyleven ranks near the top in many pitching statistics both traditional (strikeouts, shutouts, wins) and Sabermetric (Runs Saved Above Average), and how many of the pitchers that are around him or even below him are already in the Hall of Fame. It was titled Only the Lonely. I read it halfway around the world in Taiwan while looking for discussions about the Hall of Fame, and it was one of the most articulate and well written articles in favor of Bert that had ever been written. He sent it to a group of Hall of Fame voters, and lo and behold, Bert's vote percentage increased by 6% to 40.9% in 2004.

Thus began a long battle between the pro-Bert and anti-Bert camps. For many, the battle was as much as about Bert as it was about the way we look at baseball in general. Baseball fans and writers have become settled with intuition. Some people just feel more dominant than others. Whenever they want to use stats to support their intuition, they refer to traditional stats like wins and winning pct., ERA, RBI, batting average etc. Those were easiest to calculate. Yet some have argued that not all of those stats are equal. Pitching wins and winning percentage are especially misleading because so much of it is dependent on the other players on the team. However, Hall of Fame voting is about judging individual performance. If one wants to fully analyze a player one needs to look past the effects of teammates and focus on not just one aspect of the player in question, but at all aspects. That's where things like wins above replacement player (WARP) and Runs Saved Above Average comes in. Bert Blyleven was lucky to be the first test case of this debate, but it can affect many other players that traditional measures underrate: Tim Raines, Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Bobby Grich, Dan Quisenberry etc.

While all of this is just fine and dandy, for me it's all about seeing one of my favorite players elected into the Hall. After that 2004 vote, the Hall of Fame announcement became less about who gets in (which is mostly predictable) but about Blyleven's vote percentage. In 2005, Bert increased once again to 40.9%, and then he cracked 50% a year later with 53.3%. His percentage predictably fell in 2007 with the debut of Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn, but I told myself if he could crack 60% in 2008, he has a shot. He received 61.9% of the vote. After a 2009 vote where most of the candidates remained static (except for Jim Rice, who had a 4% jump to join Rickey Henderson in the Hall), there was a flurry of campaigning with the goal of trying to get Bert to 65% or even 70% in a weak debut class to prepare for possible election in his 15th and final year in 2012. It looked more than promising, with over 80% of the voters that revealed their ballot having voted for Bert. It seems like all of the pro-Bert people may finally pay off, but the baseball world was stunned when it was announced that Andre Dawson was the sole player elected...and that Bert Blyleven ended up with 74.2%, only five votes shy. It's one thing to barely crack 70%, but it's another to come so close and yet so far.

While it may seem like a given that Bert will get elected in 2011 and all we have to do is wait a year, it's not unprecedented for somebody to come as close as Bert did and miss out the next year. In 1988, Jim Bunning received 74.2% of the vote, falling four votes shy (mostly due to a smaller electorate). It was Bunning's 12th year on the ballot and it seemed likely that he'd be elected in 1989, but he ended up polling only 63.3%. The 1989 ballot was chock full of future Hall of Famers: Johnny Bench, Carl Yastrzemski (both of whom polled over 94%), Gaylord Perry, and Ferguson Jenkins. Of those, Perry and Jenkins were the most harmful to Bunning's campaign. Bunning's 224-184 record with 2,855 strikeouts paled in comparison to Perry's 314 wins with 3,534 strikeouts and Jenkins's 284 wins and 3,192 strikeouts. The strongest new candidates in 2011 were Jeff Bagwell, Rafael Palmeiro, and Larry Walker, and the best new pitcher was Kevin Brown, who has 76 fewer wins and 1,304 fewer strikeouts. Nevertheless, everybody knew not to take election for granted and continued to campaign for Bert, trying to convince the last few voters and keep those that voted from dropping Bert off their ballots.

And then it happened. Bert Blyleven received 463 votes for a 79.7% percentage, comfortably above the 75% threshold. For Bert and his supporters, it was a culmination of 14 years of hard work, and I couldn't be happier.

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Other musings about the Hall of Fame vote

-Roberto Alomar made it on his second try. Many people were shocked he finished with only 73% of the vote last year. The fact that he was only the 26th player to get 90% of the vote, an honor even more exclusive than getting elected on the first ballot (not even Mickey Mantle got 90%), shows that a lot of the voters were withholding their votes to punish Alomar for the spitting incident. I suppose that falls under character.

-Jack Morris got only 53.5% of the vote. There seems to be a lot of vitriol against Morris for his 3.90 ERA, only 5% better than the league average, and the arguments made by the pro-Morris camp about how he won the most game in the 1980s and just "felt like a Hall of Famer." It's like Morris is the anti-Bert. It's too bad, because Morris was a quality pitcher himself, and now that Bert's in the Hall of Fame, I can only hope Morris can follow. However, with only three more tries, it seems likely that Morris will fall short, unless voters give him brownie points for doing what he did clean, especially with Roger Clemens making his debut that year.

-Seems like nobody with the steroids taint will ever get in, with McGwire falling to 19.8% from 23.7% last year, and Palmeiro getting only 11% with Hall of Fame numbers. It's really too bad, because that will create a hole in the Hall of Fame. Of course, this will bring up a whole other debate as to the definition of the Hall of Fame. Is it to celebrate players for their accomplishments, or to preserve baseball history? Those that believe the former will never vote for players associated with steroids; they don't deserve to be celebrated for what they did. I personally believe the latter and I would vote for players associated with steroids if they stand out from their peers, but with the fact it's taken me 2 hours to write all this, I'll probably never get a vote.

-Dave Parker got only 15% in his 15th and final year on the ballot. He's been stuck at 15% for four straight years. Now it's up to the Veterans Committe to decide on him. Minnie Minoso is the last person to get 15% in his 15th time on the ballot. (It was only 14.7%, but that rounds to 15%)

-Juan Gonzalez got 5% and stays on the ballot for 2012. That means no player that ever won multiple MVPs have ever been one and done. Roger Maris and Dale Murphy are the only other eligible players to win multiple MVPs, but Maris lasted the full 15 years and Murphy is on his 13th ballot and counting. "Juan Gone" will probably fall off next year. Bret Saberhagen is the only two-time Cy Young award winner to be one and done, but his 1.3% voting pct. was higher than any of Denny McLain's three years on the ballot. Voting was so messed up in the late 1970s.

-Harold Baines fell off the ballot in his 5th year on the ballot, only a year after cracking 6% for the first time. Considering he was able to hang on between 5 and 6% for three straight years, I thought he'd have enough hard-core supporters to keep him on longer, but I guess 2,866 hits doesn't mean what it used to. At least it's better than Al Oliver and Bill Buckner, two other players with over 2,700 hits that were one and done.

-John Franco finished with 4.6%. Only 3 more votes and he could have stayed on the ballot for 2012. I guess voters are still unsure how to treat relievers. Still, it appears as though enough voters were impressed by his 400 saves that he came pretty close to 5%

-Meanwhile, Kevin Brown got less than half of the votes as John Franco. While it's true he got named on the Mitchell report, and his 211 wins with 2,397 strikeouts pale in comparison to Blyleven and Morris, the guy had an ERA 27% better than the league average and was the ace on two World Series teams. He should have at least gotten 5%, but then again, I thought that about Will Clark and Bret Saberhagen as well.

-John Olerud got less than 1% of the vote. I guess an OPS+ of 128 with over 2,000 hits isn't what it used to be. The last person to have an OPS+ over 128 and over with more than 2,000 hits to be one and done was Ken Singleton. The poor guy got zero votes.

-I got Carlos Baerga's autograph after a Nationals game in 2005. Unfortunately by then, he was a washed out player who never capitulated on his successes in the early and mid 1990s. He got zero votes. That's even less than David Segui, the only other player who gave me an autograph before appearing on the ballot.

Anyways, this year is probably a good year to be going to the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, something I've never done before. (Heck, I've never even been to Cooperstown before!) But before I do that, I think I will splurge and have some Saltgrass to celebrate Bert's induction. Congratulations, Bert Blyleven! (and Roberto Alomar).

Randy Johnson's 300th Win Part VI: The Aftermath

2010-05-25T19:29:00.001-07:00

Wow. I was originally planning on getting this section done by January, but I got lazy, and so now rather than doing this piece 6 months since the big event, I'll be writing about it on the first anniversary. Of course, that's probably more apt, because not only is the one year anniversary more powerful than 6 months, it also allows us to have a more vast outlook at what has happened since the game in my life, in Randy Johnson's career and in the world of 300 game winners. If I was a good writer, I'd be able to put the event in a historical perspective as a satisfactory coda, but since I'm not, it's going to be a jumbled mess where I talk about what happened after the game, what happened over the rest of Randy Johnson's career, my fanatic memorabilia collecting, and the future of the 300-win milestone.

Or the Complete Story of How I Got to See One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of the Game

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player
Part III: The Set-Up
Part IV: The Rainout
Part V: The Game
Part VI: The Aftermath

Or What Happened in the Year After Randy Johnson's 300th Win

When Wil Nieves swung and missed on that final fastball from Brian Wilson, thereby cementing Randy Johnson's 300th win, the entire stadium erupted in cheers and applause. The noise echoed in the misty night, resembling more like a crowd of 20,000 than one fewer than 10,000. The scoreboard flashed a message from the Giants next to a giant picture of the Big Unit: "Congratulations on your 300th career win! Randy Johnson 22nd ML season - 607 career games," elicting more applause from the sparse but vocal crowd.

As I was celebrating my wonderful fortune along the first base line, Randy Johnson was in the Giants dugout along the 3rd base line digesting the milestone he had just reached. While he was going through the motions, hugging his teammates in the dugout, his stoic expression was not far from the one he held during the bottom of the 9th. It wasn't until he went out onto the field with his son Tanner that he began to show hints of emotion. And when his family came out onto the field, he became all smiles. This was probably his last great career achievement, and there was nobody he wants to celebrate with more than his family. He hugged those closest to him before doffing his cap at the small but hardy crowd who braved the weather and the last-minute schedule change to see him go for this milestone victory.

After that, it was back into the clubhouse for Randy and the Giants. There was another game set to begin 30 minutes after the first one. While the rest of the Giants were making their pre-game preparations, Randy was forced to face the media in a post-game press conference. During the conference he admitted he was more nervous doing the press conference than when he was pitching, firstly because he was so locked in during the game, and also because this was a long-term milestone that "had been going on for 21 years." He went on to thank his teammates in all of his prior teams, because as everybody knows, 300 wins is a team-oriented milestone, and joked that he "only needed 211 more to catch Cy Young" before adding how he is still 50 wins behind a peer in Greg Maddux. Randy later said that in a perfect world, he would have gotten the 300th win at San Francisco, but told the story about how after his 299th win against the Braves, Don Sutton (winner of 324 games, including his 300th on June 18, 1986) told him that "it doesn't matter [where you get the milestone], just do it."

One person who was glad that Randy Johnson got his Washington DC and not San Francisco was me, sitting in Section 128L Row K Seat 10 while the rest of my group went and got something to eat. I had joined in the vocal post-game celebration, crying "History!" and "300!" but during the 30-minute break I was trying to digest the magnitude of what I just saw. Seeing any milestone, from 500 home runs to 3,000 hits to a perfect game is enough to make any fan of the game go giddy with joy, but this wasn't any other milestone. This was a milestone that I had obsessed over for almost five years, one that I spent hundreds of hours researching. And I had seen somebody reach this milestone. As a fan of the 300-win milestone, it would be as difficult to contemplate what I witnessed as it is for a pitcher like Randy Johnson to describe his feelings for reaching it.

30 minutes is certainly not enough to fully consolidate all of my feelings. It wasn't long before Screech - the Nationals mascot - and his team of young attractive females came running around tossing and shooting T-shirts into the stands. Ryan was lucky enough to get one, leading a nearby spectator to jokingly (at least I hope it was jokingly) comment that he shouldn't have gotten one because we were rooting for the Giants. Ah, we were rooting for the Giants because of the milestone, but now that nobody is going for his 300th win, it was time to switch allegiances towards our hometown team and root for the Nationals. In fact, when I found out that the 0-1 Ross Detwiler was the Nationals starter, I thought it would be even better if the Nationals win. This way we can have a pitcher win his 1st career game and another win his 300th career game in the same doubleheader!

Alas, it was not to be. Things started out well as the Nationals scored in the bottom of the first against Matt Cain on a double, a single, and a sacrifice fly. But Detwiler couldn't hold onto the lead. The Giants tied the game in the fourth and really made him work in the fifth. Emmanuel Burriss led off with a double, and after a failed bunt attempt by Cain, the Giants pounded four hits with a strikeout sandwiched in between. Three runs scored, and there would have been a fourth if Pablo "Kung Fu Panda" Sandoval hadn't slipped and fell while making it around third. By then it had started to rain again, and this time the rain never relented. The Nats went down against Cain in the bottom of the 5th to make it an official game, so when the rain got heavy with two on and two out in the top of the 6th, the umpires got together and called the game.

Even though I hate waiting, I've always wanted to be one of those hardy individuals to wait out a lengthy rain delay. It was why I was willing to stay until almost 11 PM on June 3, 2009 to see if they would begin the game. Part of me wanted to stay to see if they would play the rest of this game. However, Mike wasn't so optimistic. He and the others got up to go as soon as the game was delayed, explaining that since it was closing in on 10:00, the chances of them calling the game is high, as it was already an official game. I figured he was probably right, and joined them in leaving. Matt needed a ride with me anyways. At that time the rain was a torrential downpour, and since the area around the center field gate is uncovered, we had to run all the way to the Metro, and still got soaked. The ride back was rather quiet, since we were all tired, but we were still excited over what we just witnessed: one and a half games games for the price of one, one of them being Randy Johnson's 300th win.

Mike and Ryan were able to finding parking at Vienna, but Matt and I had to leave at Dunn-Loring Merrifield. I didn't forget that we needed a SmartTrip card to leave the parking lot, so I had to stop by the SmartTrip machine and buy one. Of course, I didn't know how to use it. I ended up having to flag somebody and ask before I paid the minimum charge of $20 to get our ticket out. We got to the car and began the trip back. I remembered that the night before, Matt and the others talked about Slurpees. I was hoping that 7-11 would have another copy of the Washington Post so I can get two copies, so I asked Matt if he wanted to get a Slurpee. He replied that he would if there was a 7-11 along the way. I knew that there was a 7-11 at Cedar and Lee Highway close to my mom's former school, and since we had to take 29 to get back we ended up stopping there. We each got a Slurpee to go, and the store did have extra copies of the Washington Post. And on the way back WTOP kept talking about Randy Johnson's 300th win, which we saw just a few hours earlier. What a way to end an exciting day.

Matt had said that he was going to drive all the way back to Charlottesville that night. I couldn't convince him otherwise, so when we got back to my house, I bid him farewell and a safe drive back. Mike was staying in Northern Virginia, because he was doing his annual visit of alumni in the area. He was actually going to meet with Ryan the next day, even if they already spent much of the past two days together. While I was checking to see if everything was all right, we decided to meet up on Friday at the Fair Oaks Mall and talk about something that isn't baseball-related for once. After that, I went up to my room to add the 300th win to the Wins of Randy Johnson video and uploaded it onto YouTube. And then I started reading all of the coverage about the milestone victory on MLB.com, ESPN.com, CNNSI.com, Yahoo.com, CBS.sportsline.com etc. I ended up staying up until 5:00. Of course, I'm sure I would have had a hard time falling asleep if I actually got into bed due to the excitement.

Meanwhile, sometime during the second game of the doubleheader, my cousin Ada gave birth to her second child, Aiden. Happy birthday, Aiden!

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After an exciting week, I settled back to enjoy the final month before leaving for medical school. I woke up late on June 5, but just in time to meet with Mike at Fair Oaks Mall. We had a good talk about my faith, and still had time to talk some baseball. After that, I went back home and finally installed The Sims 3. Even though the game ran super-slowly on my two-year-old laptop, I was still hooked. For the next three weeks, whenever I wasn't packing for the trip to Texas or doing the reading material about smoking cessation for CAP's pre-matriculation course, I was spending time with my Sims. I also went on a late-night drive to all 28 schools where I substituted to commemorate the closure of my substitute teacher career. I drove to 28 schools. I left at 3:28 AM and didn't get back home until 6:02.

While I was wasting away over a digital family, Randy Johnson was enjoying a bit of a mini-revival. Since the Giants had to use two starters for the June 4 doubleheader, the Giants rotation was put in a bit of bind. There was talk of bring up an unproven rookie to start against the Marlins on June 8 so Randy can get the normal four days rest, especially since he bruised his shoulder during the 300th win. But the Big Unit agreed to go up against Florida with only three days rest. It was his first start on three days rest since July 5, 2005, when he won his 254th game to tie Red Faber and Jack Morris. He pitched decently enough, striking out five in five innings, but with two on in the second he made a mistake pitch to young Brett Carroll that the outfielder got a piece of for his first career homer. Meanwhile rookie Sean West threw 8 shutout innings to record his first career win. Five days later, on June 13 - the 6th anniversary of Roger Clemens's 300th win - the Giants faced the Athletics in the Battle of the Bay. Randy started the middle game of the three game set. He gave up a run in the 3rd and a home run in the 4th, but he held the A's scoreless over the next three innings. The Giants scored three runs in the bottom of the 7th to help Randy get his 301st win.

On June 19, 19 hours after I finished my late-night drive, Randy made his third post-300 start, this time against the Texas Rangers. Randy pitched decently enough in the first five innings, allowing only a homer to Michael Young, but ran into trouble in the 6th. Two singles, two stolen bases, and a walk led to a run with two on and two outs. The Giants were clinging to a 3-2 lead, so Randy was replaced with Brandon Medders, who had pitched so well in the 300th win before the fateful at-bat rattled him. Perhaps he was still feeling the effects of Mike MacDougal's fastball, as Marlon Byrd blasted his first pitch to center for a two-run double. Both runs were credited to Randy, making his pitching line look worse than it really was, but the Giants rallied to give Randy a no-decision. A day later, the Giants honored Randy's 300-win milestone, as the Big Unit basked in the glories of his accomplishment surrounded by fellow 300-game winners Gaylord Perry (314), Tom Seaver (311), and Nolan Ryan (324). Perhaps buoyed by the ceremony, Randy went out in the rubber match of the second Battle of the Bay and shut down the Athletics for seven innings after allowing a first-inning run. The Giants blasted rookie Gio Gonzalez for six runs to help Randy win number 302.

On June 30, 2009, my family and I began the long trip from Virginia to Texas, with a detour in Kansas to visit friends. We left at about 8 in the morning, and took turns driving as we went from Virginia into West Virginia through Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois. I drove the last leg before we turned in for the night. My dad had work to do, so we got the information for the Wi-Fi service so we can use the Internet. When I checked MLB.com, I saw that Randy Johnson started that night. Normally I know exactly when he's going to start, but this start must have slipped my mind as I was busy preparing to move. Better yet, he pitched five and 1/3 strong innings against the St. Louis Cardinals, allowing only two home runs against Albert Pujols. The Giants got out of their offensive funk to score 6 runs against ERA leader Chris Carpenter to get Randy Johnson's his 303rd career win. In his five starts since getting his 300th win, Randy had gone 3-1 with a 3.90 ERA. It's not up to par with the 35-year old Big Unit, but that's fairly good for a 45-year-old, and definitely better than the 5.71 ERA he was sporting going into June. I felt that he had a great chance of passing Tom Glavine, with 305 wins, and with 4,867 strikeouts, he had a good shot of getting close enough to 5,000 to come back for 2010.

Alas, it was not to be. Randy Johnson made his next start on July 5, 2010, against the Houston Astros. It was after I had visited old friends in Kansas and got settled down in Texas. I went to the library in my new school to surf the Internet since I had none in my apartment. I went to MLB.com and to my dismay, the Giants lost to 7-1 with Randy getting the loss. And things were worse than it seemed. Randy had to leave the game in the fourth inning after allowing three runs on two home runs, a single, and an error by the pitcher. It turns out that he may have torn his rotator cuff while striking out against Roy Oswalt in the bottom of the 3rd. He was placed onto Disabled List shortly afterward and would remain out of commission until September, when he became a mop up man after the Giants had pretty much slipped out of contention for the Wild Card race. And he would be a shell of his former self, posting a 6.23 ERA in five appearances, three of them losses.

His final appearance was in the last game of the season, against the Padres. He came on in the 7th inning to try to hold onto a 3-2 lead. He struck out the first batter, Nick Hundley, who nevertheless made it to first on a passed ball. A bunt single, a sacrifice bunt, and a hit batsman later, the bases were loaded. David Eckstein popped to third in foul territory, but it was deep enough to advance all the runners, including Hundley with the game-tying run. Finally, Adrian Gonzalez was called out on strikes on three pitches. It was Randy Johnson's 4,875th strikeout, and perhaps his last, as he was pulled for a pinch-hitter in the next half-inning.

With his dismal performances as a reliever, it seemed inevitable that Randy would retire after this season. If he had stayed healthy and pitched well during the rest of the season, it wouldn't be impossible to see him coming back in 2010. But with the way things turned out, the question was not whether or not he would announce his retire, but when. And as expected, on January 5, 2010, Randy Johnson officially announced his retirement from baseball, ending a 22-year career where he established himself as one of the best pitchers in the history of the game. Even though he didn't make his major league debut until 25, didn't become dominant until he was 30, and had several shortened seasons due to injury, Randy still put together a resume that only a select few could lay claim to. He ranks second all-time in strikeouts, but first in strikeouts / 9 innings pitched with 10.61, far ahead of strikeout king Nolan Ryan. Of course, Randy Johnson is more than just strikeouts. He was an undeniable ace who helped rescue the Mariners when he led them to the playoffs in 1995, who brought hope to the Houston Astros for a few months in 1998 with his insane 10-1 run, and who became the face of the Arizona Diamondbacks franchise as he helped them win a division title in 1999 and a World Series in 2001. He is one of only 20 pitchers to throw a perfect game, and one of an even more select group to tack on another no-hitter. He led the league in ERA four times, (three more than the number of times he led the league in wins.) And finally, he is one of only 24 men to win 300 games in his career: the ultimate marker of longevity, quality, and good fortune. Sure, his curt attitude off the baseball field may have lost him several fans, but there's no denying that Randy Johnson is one of the premiere pitchers not just of our generation, but of all time.

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Now that I look back at the incident a year later, I've come to realize that I've never really come to a satisfying conclusion as to how I, as a fan of the 300-win milestone, should approach what I witnessed. I suppose the ideal response would have been to be grateful of the blessing of the experience and move on with my life. I tried that for a few months, but I could never shake the nagging feeling that I need to do more about the experience! And since I am an obsessive individual, the way I set out to rectify this feeling is to obsess over the game itself. I did something similar in the past with Roger Clemens and his 336th win, which I saw, but my response towards the Clemens game would pale in comparison to what I would do with the Big Unit's 300th win. In fact this response would go on to take over my life, my back account, and the way I view the sport.

My initial response was benign. I downloaded the broadcast of the game as soon as it was available as a Game of the Year in iTunes and watched it once by itself and another time somewhat synched with my recordings. And then I put together a video of highlights from the game that I linked in the previous post. Of course, it took me two weeks to get around to do it. It wasn't until November when things began to escalate. I can't quite remember what set me off. During my first few months at Texas I was perfectly content with going weeks without watching the game. However, either because I needed an outlet for the stresses of medical school, or because the game just got more and more interesting each time I watched it again, but in October and November I began to watch the game over and over again. I watched the game on my iPod Touch on the 2-hour flight to and from Dulles during Thanksgiving break. I watched the game while voting for the game 2,000 times for MLB.com's Moment of the Year. (I still can't believe Jacosby Ellsbury steal of home got second just because it was against the Yankees. Steals of home are not that rare.) When I saw that MLB.com was offering all broadcasts of all games as part of their off-season MLB.TV package, I signed up without second thought and watched the hometown MASN broadcast which included a nice shot of Matt making a catch on Aaron Rowand's foul ball. I listened to the radio broadcasts that were also available, where I heard Bob Carpenter comment on Matt's catch. It got to the point where I was able to know not just the key plays of the game like the double play or the Randy Johnson putout, but EVERY single play, even all of the ones in the 1-2-3 innings.

Okay, so maybe it's not too bad this 2-hour game has over two dozen views on iTunes, more than some songs that are 1/10 its length. It just means I have no life and like wasting my time. But then I decided to go beyond the video and into the world of memorabilia collecting. I've been an autograph hound for years, and I'm way too materialistic for my own good, but for some reason I've never really dipped into the wild world of baseball memorabilia. There are people like Barry Halper whose lives orbit around collecting memorabilia, but I've been quite content with collecting Topps baseball cards...at least until I became maniacal over Randy Johnson's 300th win.

Like my obsession with watching the game, my memorabilia collecting didn't start out so bad. I had the ticket stub from actually being at the game (which sells for a pretty penny on eBay, if anybody actually cared enough to buy them), and I was able to get the Washington Post, Washington Times, New York Times, and USA Today articles about the game. And that was it, at least until I decided to search "Randy Johnson 300th win" on eBay to see what was out there. They had a Randy Johnson's 300th win poster that the Giants gave away, probably on the day of the ceremony. That seemed harmless, and was certainly very interesting, so I brought it. Later I went and did another search and saw that Topps had cards about the milestone in their Updates and Highlights and Heritage sets. Even though I don't collect those sets, I like baseball cards, and went ahead and bought those as well. A few weeks later a search brought up an issue of the Giants Magazine with the milestone on the cover. That soon became part of my collection.

The memorabilia items kept coming. A friend from UVA Gamers that I hadn't talked to since graduation contacted me and gave me his Randy Johnson's 300th win bobblehead. (I hate bobbleheads...they're so pointless.) I bought the unlicensed Upper Deck card honoring the milestone. I purchased a plaque that somebody had made with the 8' x 10' picture commemorating the milestone. I bought the giant frame made by That's My Ticket honoring the win (one that erroneously listed Tom Glavine as having 303 wins while naming all members of the milestone club.) I purchased both photomints by Highland Mints in commemoration of the milestone, including one that has infield dirt from AT&T Park (which I felt was odd, since he got the win in Nationals Park.) When I saw that the Topps 2010 Randy Johnson card featured him making the iconic play in his milestone win, I bought one without a second thought (only to get three more copies in the packs that I had.) I also added the Topps Silk version of the card, which I still think is a completely pointless insert. And when somebody told me that Randy Johnson was going to be in Houston for a Tri-star convention, and that you can send items in to have it autographed for you, I wasted no time in buying the opportunity to send in my ticket stub to have him sign it and add a "Win 300" inscription.

So I bought all this memorabilia, and it all started when I searched for Randy Johnson 300th win on eBay. But what exactly was I looking for when I typed in that search term for the very first time? The answer lies in the foul ball that Matt caught. I thought it was totally awesome that not only did we get to see Randy Johnson's 300th win, but one of us had caught a foul ball! However, that piqued my curiosity. How much would a game-used baseball from Randy Johnson's 300th win be worth in the memorabilia market? I know that Matt's ball won't go for much since it was never authenticated, and he'll probably never sell it, but I began to go on eBay to see if there were any authenticated balls. I searched for several months, seeing only tickets in bulk and the memorabilia items that I ended up buying, but there were no game-used baseballs...at least until January. That day I went and did my search, and saw a buy-it-now listing that advertised a game-used baseball from Randy Johnson's 300th win on 06-04-2009, complete with what seems to be the Big Unit's autograph. Of course, the only times I had seen his autograph were the ones printed on his Topps 2007 and 2008 cards, but those looked nothing like what was on the ball. On the cards, he had written "Randall K Johnson," which I always thought was strange because his middle name is David. But then I went and looked for Randy Johnson's autograph online, and they indeed had the same bizarre appearance where the R looked more like a て in Japanese than an R. And then I went and looked up the authentication code in MLB.com's database, since if it was game-used I sure as heck would know when it was used. The search result for hologram number BB942497 said, "Randy Johnson pitching to Alberto Gonzalez, base hit to shortstop, first." The only thing I can think of was the ball in the 6th inning where Gonzalez reached on a throwing error by Edgar Renteria, which led to the Nationals' only run. Of course, he reached on an error and not a hit, but Gonzalez never got on base on any other occasion.

The next day another listing appeared, this time for BB942495, which appeared to have been the ball that got by Bengie Molina in the 5th inning before the Double Play. This ball looked cleaner, and Randy had inscribed "#300," and even messed up writing the zero in the middle. The price tag on both of these authenticated game-used baseballs? $1,000, with $5 shipping. Yeah...that's a little bit out of my price range...or so I thought. By then I already had a pretty impressive collection of Randy's 300th win related memorabilia, but the game-used baseball would be the magnum opus. I didn't have Matt's athletic ability, so the only way I could get a baseball was if I buy it. And the more I thought about it, $1,000 wasn't that much. $1,000 was about how much rent is for my roommate and me. And I had over $1,000 left from my first disbursement. I COULD save the money for a rainy day, or help pay off the interest from my loan...or I could be the proud owner of an authenticated game-used baseball from Randy Johnson's 300th win! That was good enough for me!

The next question was which ball I should get. Both of the available balls were pretty damaging to the Giants' win probability as calculated by Tom Tango. (The passed ball took off 3% of the WPA and the error took off 4%, and it led to Nick Johnson's double that removed 17%.) I looked at some of the other authenticated balls, and one that caught my eye was BB942496, which was the ball from the play that has become iconic when talking about Randy Johnson's 300th win...the one where he threw out Anderson Hernandez and landed on his shoulder. Yeah, it would be cool to own the ball that was shown in Sports Illustrated and on Randy's Topps 2010 card, but when I asked the seller about the ball, he said it was already sold, and the buyer is unwilling to sell it. I wouldn't blame the guy. I personally thought the ball would be in the Hall of Fame Museum if anything. With that option gone, I settled on the passed ball, since it looks cleaner, it has a "#300" inscription, and the fact he messed up on the middle zero is absolutely hilarious. So I made an offer to the seller where I knocked off the $5 shipping cost. He agreed to it, and a few days later I added the authenticated, autographed, game-used baseball to my collection.*

*Later, I was looking through the Giants magazine, and there was a picture of Randy Johnson signing a couple of game-used memorabilia. One of the baseballs sitting in front of him had a visible authentication sticker and it was stuck above the "Official Major League Baseball" message, about where the Rawlings logo would be. That's exactly where the authentication logo is on BB942497! So I honestly believe that the game-used ball I own is featured in the Giants magazine. It's not quite as cool as owning the ball featured in Sports Illustrated and on Randy's Topps 2010 card, but it's still pretty neat.

And finally, my yearlong obsession with Randy Johnson's 300th win seems to have skewed my concentrations in my baseball fanaticism. A lot of people have said that they see me as a huge Randy Johnson fan, which is interesting because I've never been much of a Big Unit fan in the past. I thought he was a great pitcher and everything, and was happy for him when I heard about his perfect game (while I was practicing driving of all things,) but he never held a special position in my baseball heart like Mickey Mantle, George Brett, or Roger Clemens did. First of all, the Yankees were the first team that I liked (you can thank Mickey Mantle for that), and so Randy's success against them in the 1995 ALDS didn't win him any favor points with me. And second of all, I matured as a baseball fan near Kansas City and Washington DC, far away from Randy's regular stomping grounds of Seattle and Arizona. The only times those two teams ever registered on my radar was when they faced the teams I did like in the playoffs, as in 1995 and 2001. I barely noticed when Randy won his 24th game in 2002. It wasn't until he posted back to back 17-win season with the Yankees in 2005-06 and started to challenge 300 that I first began to develop an interest in Randy. So you could say that I jumped on the 300-win bandwagon.

And even then it seems like I'm still more of a fan of the actual 300-win game than of the man itself. Since he's pitched in over 600 games, it really is like I'm missing the forest because I'm dedicating so much effort on a single tree. It's actually kind of funny this is the opposite of what I am like for the other 300-game winners. I know a lot about their careers as a whole, such as their win-loss record and ERA numbers, but little about the individual games they won. I can't even remember the exact dates most of them won their 300th game. (I think this is what led me to do create the Excel spreadsheets listing each game they pitched it.) Anyways, with Randy Johnson my obsession over his 300th win has overshadowed my appreciation of his career as a whole. This became quite evident as I was writing about his career for the 300th win series back in December. I was thinking it would be a short summary about his early life and his achievements, but as I was doing research it seems as though everything I found was something that I didn't really think of or put in a historical context, just because I spent so much time on the game itself. And now that I think of it, the only Randy Johnson mementos I have that are not related to his 300th win are his baseball cards.

Randy's career isn't the only thing that I've come to neglect just because I was so wrapped up in his milestone win. I've begun to spend less time celebrating the other members of the 300-win club, most of whom actually have more career wins than the Big Unit. Before I entered my obsessive mode I was researching the lives and careers of other 300-game winners. Afterward, whatever free time I had to spend on baseball I spent it on the game. Retrosheet finally has the play by play data from the 1920 and 1930s, allowing me to work on the Excel spreadsheet for Lefty Grove, but I haven't touched it since January. It's really a pity, because Grove is probably still the best left-handed pitcher of all time. (Even if he has "only" 300 wins, his .680 winning pct. is still the best for any 300-game winners. He led the league in ERA a record nine times, and his adjusted ERA+ of 148 is behind only Pedro Martinez among starters in the modern era. Randy Johnson's is only 136.) I've come to realize what I'm missing out, and I've started to rectify that. When I saw that that somebody had written a book about Old Hoss Radbourn (winner of 309 games) and his record-setting 59-win 1884 season, I pre-ordered it and read it in my free time. I also purchased an authenticated baseball autographed by all 300-game winners between Warren Spahn and Nolan Ryan, so the others will get some memorabilia love as well. I'm still hoping to add the signatures of 21st century 300-game winners Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Randy Johnson. It'll be an expensive endeavor, but for a fan of the 300-game milestone like me, it'll be worth it.

My fascination with the 300-win game has been costly in terms of time, money, and the diversity of my interest in baseball, but this isn't the first time that an obsession has come to dominate my life. It's happened so often that I'm not terribly surprised or concerned that I've dedicated so much time and money towards the game. If you want to see more examples of my obsessions, just check out the Heart-Melters Gallery I have elsewhere in my blog. And it's clear that I've gotten over my fanaticism over the game, considering I haven't bought any related memorabilia or even watched the game in months. Maybe in ten years I'll come to wish I'd rather have that extra $1,000 to pay for my loans, but at this point in time, a year after the game, I don't have any regrets.

-------------------------------------------------

Before I finally close this insanely long series, I suppose I should address the issue of who will be the next 300-game winner. It's become a popular practice to declare the 300-win pitcher extinct. People have been doing it ever since the 1960s, when Early Wynn limped to the 300-win plateau, but I don't believe it. True, the five-man rotation and the emergence of the extensive bullpens have decreased the number of wins that a pitcher can get, but medical advancements have allowed pitchers to last longer. And history has taught us that getting to 300 wins is less about how one performs early in his career, but how he performs after the age of 35.
It's about who can make the adjustments necessary to perform well after he may have lost his fastball, and even about who actually has the desire to go for 300. Just take a look at Mike Mussina. He had 270 wins at age 39 after coming off of a 20-win season, and would certainly have been able to keep going to get those last 30 wins, but he chose to retire instead. This is why it's so difficult to predict who will hit the milestone.

Perhaps there is some method that experts can use to predict who is more likely to pitch effectively to a later age. But even so, many experts remained pessimistic about Randy Johnson's chances of getting to 300 until he got to 290 wins in 2008. I personally feel that there are three essences that a pitcher needs in sufficient quality to reach 300: Quality, Longevity, and Luck. Just think of it like a triforce, only instead of Wisdom Power and Courage you have Quality Longevity and Luck. People like to make fun of Don Sutton for being a pedestrian 300-game winner who merely stuck on some teams until he reached 300, but he was a quality pitcher who was 15% better than the league average in the 1970s and frequently finished in the top 5 in K / BB. And he never missed a start for 20 years, which definitely factors in the luck. Perhaps the randomness of luck and unpredictability of longevity is enough to turn people away from the 300-win milestone, as it doesn't honor those that are truly the best, but as I said in Part I of the series, the milestone celebrates a unique group of pitchers who have successfully balanced all three essences. (Except for those who reached 300 in the 19th century. Those guys had no longevity. Cy Young with his 511 wins is the prime example of the guy that added longevity to quality and luck.) Anyways...so of all the active pitchers who has the best shot at 300?

Right now there are two pitchers within 100 wins of the milestone: Jamie Moyer and Andy Pettitte. Jamie Moyer is the active leader after the Big Unit's retirement with 263, but he's 47 years old. Sure, he's gotten at least 10 wins in each of the last five seasons, and can probably reach that mark this year, which would put him at 268. However, he'd still be 3-4 years away from 300. I'm sure Moyer would be willing to pitch until 50, but the question is whether or not anybody is going to give him the chance. And the only way that would happen is if he is of sufficient quality over the last bit of the season, or if he's darned lucky. Andy Pettitte is a more interesting case. He began the year with 229 wins, and he is having a resurgent season where he's gone 7-1 with a 2.48 ERA. It wouldn't be a stretch to believe that he'll end the season with 245 wins. Plus, he doesn't even turn 38 until next week. With the Yankees potent offense behind him, Pettitte has won 14 or 15 games in each of the last three seasons despite being only 5% better than the league average. If he keeps on winning 14-15 games a year, he'll get to 300 in 2014, when he'll be 42 years old. And even if we factor in regression he will probably get to 300 wins before he turns 45. Of course, Pettitte has been playing the retirement card every off-season, so the question is whether or not he'll actually pitch that long. And this is why it's so hard to predict 300-game winners until they actually get close.

There are other pitchers below the age of 35 that have at least 100 wins. Some of them are easy to rule out. Others are technically ahead of Randy Johnson's pace but still don't have much of a shot. And then there are some players worth discussing; the ones that can get 300 if they can balance the three essences. Carlos Zambrano has certainly been among those considered when he was dominating hitters in his mid-20s, but he's been scuffling the past two years, and he only has 106 wins at the age of 29. He can still rediscover his quality stuff and make a run for 300. Jon Garland has 123 wins at the age of 30, certainly buoyed by his back to back 18-win seasons in 2005-06, but he's been largely league-average and had been getting by on luck. He is having a great year so far (6-2, 2.15), and if this marks a new beginning for his career he can yet get to 300. (With a 1.40 K / BB mark, it's highly unlikely.) Johan Santana is definitely one of the best pitchers in the game right now. He's won three ERA titles and two Cy Young awards. A year ago the Washington Post named him as the likeliest to reach 300 last year, but he only has 126 wins at 31 thanks to a late start and dismal run support. He's certainly lacking in luck, but his luck can change anytime and become a consistent 20-game winner. Mark Buehrle is a workhorse who has reached 200 innings pitched every year since 2001, and he has thrown both a no-hitter and a perfect game. However, he can be wildly inconsistent. He ended the 2006 season with an ERA close to 5.00, and he is struggling so far this year. With 138 wins at 31 he can still yet get to 300, but he'll need to step it up on his consistency (which would go under quality.) And there's the rumor that he may retire once his contract runs out. Roy Oswalt is a consistent winner who had back to back 20-win seasons in 2004-05. He seems to have recovered nicely from an injury-marred 2009 season, posting a 2.78 ERA in 11 starts, but since he is on the sinking ship that is the Astros, he only has a 3-7 record. He's looking for a trade, but is a year older than Buehrle but only has 140 wins, so it may not be enough for him to simply leave the Astros.

And then there are two players that seem to pop up most frequently in 300-win discussions. They ranked 2 and 3 respectively on the Washington Post list, and would probably be 1 and 2 now, after Johan Santana's disastrous foray onto the DL late last year. Roy Halladay is usually the first name that pops up on prospective 300-game winners, probably because he is perhaps the best pitcher in the game. More importantly, he has a great work ethic. The latter quality is definitely instrumental, as so many pitchers that reached 300 have been defined by their amazing work ethic: Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, and Randy Johnson to name a few. A strong work ethic has not only helped those men to become quality pitchers, but it also allowed them to sustain it for an extended period of time. Of course, Halladay just reached the halfway point this year, and he is already 33. He is certainly ahead of the Big Unit's pace, but he's still far behind that of most of the rest of the recent 300-game winners. He should be able to sustain his production for several years, but it will be interesting to see how long. With 141 wins and his 30th birthday still a month and a half away, C.C. Sabathia is keeping good pace with the likes of Clemens and Maddux. He's been in the Majors for 20 years, he has reached double digit wins every year so far, he seems to be getting better with age, AND he's playing for the Yankees, who helped Randy Johnson win 17 games despite an ERA over 5.00 in 2006. He seems to have everything lined up to make a serious run for 300. Yet some people are still hesitant. Why? It's because of his work ethic, or lack thereof. It isn't that he's a lazy bum like David Wells, but some people are already questioning his ability to pitch effective for another ten years, especially since he is closing in on the 300-pound milestone. If he can prove to critics that his body can handle it, he can eventually get to 300, but if not, then he won't have the necessary longevity, which in this day and age may be the most important essence.

And then there are those with fewer than 100 wins, which is essentially a crapshoot, just because how a pitcher performs before getting this mini-milestone has virtually nothing to do with whether or not he'll get to 300. I mean it's easy to watch somebody like Jeff Weaver puff and wheeze to finally get his 100th win in a relief appearance and rule him out. On the other hand, there is the cautionary tale of Dwight Gooden who was only 24 when he won his 100th game in 1989, but then struggled with drugs and arm problems that stalled his career. He never even reached 200 wins. So yes, there are several terrific young pitchers like Justin Verlander (70 wins at 27), Zack Greinke (51 wins at 26), Tim Lincecum (45 wins at 25), and Ubaldo Jimenez (41 wins at 26), but trying to see which of those will eventually get to 300 wins is essentially a shot in the dark. One person worth mentioning is Felix Hernandez. He made it into the majors at 19, and after a couple good but not great years, he finally came into his own last year with 19 wins and a 2.49 ERA. He is one of the best young pitchers in the game, and with 61 wins at the age of 24, he certainly has great pace. However, that could mean everything, or it could mean nothing. The much maligned Bert Blyleven had 95 wins at the end of his age 24 season, AND he pitched into his 40s. Yet he fell short with 287 wins, which is why he is still on the outside looking in on the Hall of Fame. His critics say he didn't have the quality. His supporters say he didn't have the luck. But whatever the reason is, the truth is winning 300 is no easy task, and one that's almost impossible to predict early in one's career.

Moyer, Pettitte, Zambrano, Garland, Santana, Buehrle, Oswalt, Doc Hallady, C.C., and King Felix. It's possible that all of them will get 300 wins. It's possible that none of them will get 300 wins. I personally think Pettitte, Sabathia, and Felix have the best shots, but they're still a long way away from the 300-win milestone, and anything could happen. The joke is that the next 300-game winner is still on a Little League field somewhere, or it could be the guy that was rumored to make his major league debut today: Stephen Strasburg. (It would have been awesome if Strasburg did end up being the next 300-game winner, and for him to have made his major league debut on the anniversary of the last time somebody reached the milestone. Alas, his debut has been pushed back to June 8.) No matter who ends up being the next person to reach the milestone, one can never forget those who had completed the long journey to 300 wins. And for Randy Johnson, he reached the milestone a year ago today, on June 4, 2009. Nothing can take that away.

Happy anniversary!

Sources: Like all of the other entries, Baseball-Reference.com has been an indispensable resource. I've used the game logs and the play by play in completing the second section of this post - the one about the rest of Randy Johnson's career, and their play index has allowed me to find the win leaders of those younger than a certain age - which was useful in the last section. Other than that, most of the rest were observations from my own life, which I didn't really need any references except to check on the dates. And if anybody wants to check the authentication of the memorabilia I have, go to the MLB Authentication page and search BB 942495 for the game-used baseball, go to Tristar Authentic and search 7032222 for the autographed ticket stub (the site seems to be down), and go to PSA/DNA and search C88456 for the baseball autographed by 300-game winners.

Best Animated Short Nominees - 2009

2010-03-01T18:25:00.001-08:00

I can't believe it's been almost a whole month since the Academy Award nominees were announced. The award ceremony is less than a week away! Last year at around this time, I wrote about the nominees for my favorite category - Best Animated Short. The delay last year was because it just took me that long to watch all five nominees. (Eventual winner La Maison en Petits Cubes was hard to watch because ROBOT is very active in removing copies of the film on YouTube, and I had to resort to buying the DVD online. I ordered it shortly after the nominees were announced, and it didn't arrive until the week before the Oscars. It was well worth it.) This year, the Academy announced the shortlist back in November, so I had an early start in watching the nominees. I eventually got to see all of the nominees only a year after the nominees were announced. However, I just didn't bother to write this review. One reason is because the category just isn't too exciting this year.

The major Oscar storyline this year is the race between box office champ Avatar and critics/guilds darling The Hurt Locker (with Inglourious Basterds hanging in the wings as a dark horse). The Best Animated Short race was pretty much over the moment the shortlist was announced back in November. And to be honest, this list of nominees is kind of disappointing. One thing about having the shortlist is that it reveals the films the Academy COULD have nominated but didn't, and frankly the list of snubs are more interesting than the list of nominees. For example, the Academy passed on Pixar's Partly Cloudy. I know that Pixar's shorts haven't been as good as their feature films (a fact evident in the fact only three of their films have won despite nine nominations), but I felt certain it would get a nomination. The Academy also passed on films by two prior nominees: Cordell Barker's Runaway and Tomek's Baginski's The Kinematograph.* Finally, the most unforgiveable snub was that of Australia's The Cat Piano, a fine film you can still see on their website (and I definitely encourage you to watch it), and my favorite of the films I've seen on the shortlist.

*Barker was previously nominated for The Cat Came Back (1988) and Strange Invaders (2001). Baginski was nominated for Katedra (2002).

Anyways, I digress. While the nominees are not ideal, I don't want to detract you from seeing them. So let's move on to the reviews.

French Roast
French Roast is a simple little story about a man who went to a cafe for a drink of coffee. He refuses to give money to a homeless man, but because of that he didn't realize that he had forgotten his wallet until he gets the check. He keeps ordering coffee while trying to figure out what to do, but that makes things worse. A solution seems evident when a little old lady next to him turns out to be rich beyond his wildest dreams, but things don't quite turn out the way he expected.

French Roast was one of only two nominees that I correctly predicted. The computer animation is extremely basic, especially since we're used to seeing the vibrant worlds and character design of Pixar, Dreamworks, and even Blue Sky Studios. Yet the quality of the storytelling more than makes up for its weakness. I've seen one reviewer call the film sincere, and that's probably the best way to describe it. The makers knew exactly what they wanted to convey, and they tell it without any extra fluff. The filmmaking also helps to complement the story. The camera is mostly static, but the cafe is designed to have a giant mirror that lets you see the world outside of the restaurant. This set-up allows for limited camera movement, giving viewers a more complete picture of what's going on in the world. It's a brilliant achievement in storyboarding, and it leaves a satisfying taste in at least this particular viewer. French Roast ended up being my favorite of the nominees this year, although the overall simplicity of the tale may doom it from winning the award.

Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
While French Roast is my favorite nominee, Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty is my sister's favorite. Based on a persona created by Irish comedienne Kathleen O'Rourke (who wrote the script and voiced the main character), Granny O'Grimm is an old lady who wants to be a good grandmother to her grandchild, but couldn't overcome the contempt she feels over the aging process. In this particularly film (which I guess will be the first in a series), Granny O'Grimm is trying to be nice and read her grandchild the story of Sleeping Beauty, but all of her bitterness spills over in the story, with hilarious results.

Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty is a lot like French Roast in that it has one story to tell, and it does it efficiently and effectively. The story was written by a comedienne, and as expected the script constantly targets your "funny bone." Jokes are fast and furious, and the conclusion is the most satisfying one of all. The animation also serves the storyline well. There is a 3D world inhabited by Granny and her unfortunate grandchild, as well as a 2D world within the story. The juxtaposition augments the story-within-a-story effect, and the funky character designs add to the comedic effect. Like French Roast, what ultimately brings down Granny O'Grimm is that while it tells its story well, the story just doesn't really have much substance, even when compared to films whose focus is comedy. So while it's good for a laugh every so often, it just doesn't have the powerful lasting impact of some of the greats. (The Critic, anyone?)

The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)
This macabre little short from Spain features an interplay between three characters with three goals. There is an old lady who wants nothing more than to joint her late husband in the world beyond. The Grim Reaper is eager for another soul. However, there is also an arrogant young doctor (and his team of bimbo-ish nurses) who wants to add to his list of accomplishments. The three forces collide in a madcap and slapstrick adventure.

Just like how there are three characters at play in The Lady and the Reaper, there are three comparisons I can make with this movie. Like Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty (and like 2/3 of the other nominees throughout the history of this category), the primary goal of this film is humor. Like The Cat Concerto and many other shorts from the golden age of studio animation in the 1930s-1950s, its primary means of getting to this goal is through slapstick humor. But the film that this has the most similarity to is This Way Up, one of last year's nominees. Both films relied on slapstick to find humor out of death, and in my opinion both films kind of fell short. French Roast and Granny O'Grimm were films that knew exactly what they wanted to show and took no detours, but The Lady and the Reaper and This Way Up were films that went just about everywhere but never really got anywhere. It's almost as if the filmmakers were completing its storyboard and one person said, "Oh yeah, wouldn't it be funny if ____ happened?" And they threw it in. It was funny during the first half, but by the beginning of the second half I was just waiting for them to get to the conclusion...and there were three more minutes to go. I would ultimately rank The Lady and the Reaper ahead of This Way Up because it had three pretty good positives. It dealt with a rather serious issue that I may have to face as a physician, even if it was kind of muddled by the slapstick action. As a physician I may want to save every life, but I have to deal with the harsh reality that some people may not want to be resuscitated. Another positive was that this had a satisfactory ending. What really bothered me about This Way Up was that even though its action was funny, I really didn't like the ending. Finally, The Lady and the Reaper had an effective use of the classic song "We'll Meet Again," best known for its appearance in Dr. Strangelove.

Logorama
The three previous shorts are all fine films in their own right (even if I just spent a while complaining about one of them), but to be honest the "race" is between these final two shorts. Logorama is certainly the most intriguing nominee this year. As its title suggests, Logorama is set in a world occupied by company logos and mascots, but what is shown is certainly not a typical day. Ronald McDonald is going on a crime spree, transporting illegal substances, and taking young Big Boy hostage. It's up to the Michelin Men to save the day, but can they do it?

From its very first shot, which is a still of the Malibu Rum logo followed by a zoom out to reveal the Microsoft Windows butterflies and the Pelforth Pelican (I had to look that one up), it's clear that Logorama isn't your typical animated short. It just blows you away with all of its logos and mascots. There are some that I never even knew exists (like the aforementioned Pelforth Pelican...hooray for not drinking beer!) The mere idea behind the short is a form of social commentary, about how ingrained we are in a world of giant business conglomerates. Each mascot or logo is a reminder of how these businesses are trying to lure consumers into making them even richer and richer. (It's kind of unnerving, especially after watching Food. Inc last night.) Another thing that makes Logorama different is its subject matter. Animation has been exploring the adult frontier ever since Fritz the Cat in 1972, but on the whole people still think of animation as kids fare. Logorama is not for kids. Ten profanities were used within the first two minutes (including my personal favorite, "that shit's fucked up," with a zoom cut for emphasis.) That's not even mentioning the violence or sexual innuendo. I've seen 295 of the 322 nominees throughout the history of the award (91.6%), and none of the films have the amount of profanity or violence seen in Logorama.*

*Although a few shorts best it in sexual content, including Bob Godfrey's Kama Sutra Rides Again and Dream Doll and NFC's Special Delivery, Hunger, and Bob's Birthday.

Anyways, I've established that Logorama is different, but the question now becomes, is it good? I think that question only depends on personal taste. I've seen the film about four to five times now, and I've warmed up to it, but I really hated it my first time. The problem I had with Logorama is the same problem I had with The Lady and the Reaper. I appreciate what it was trying to do, but the story feels random, circuitous, and incoherent. The film was entertaining, but the ending was so out in left field that it just didn't make sense at all. Now I kind of have an idea about what the filmmakers wanted to convey, but since the film was so over-saturated with logos, it took several viewings to do so. Would I have been willing to re-watch Logorama if it hadn't gotten nominated? Probably not. (As opposed to The Cat Piano or Chuck Jones's Hunting Trilogy, which I don't mind re-watching numerous times even without nominations.) My final opinion is that Logorama would be a film I would be willing to show a friend (for the creativity and because it's just so funny seeing Ronald McDonald go nuts), but I wouldn't label it as one of the best shorts of all time.

A Matter of Loaf and Death
Two shorts that I would classify as among the best shorts of all time are Nick Park's The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave. Nick Park, the creator of Wallace and Gromit, has had a virtually unprecedented success at the Academy Awards. He's won four times in five nominations, and the only time he's lost was to himself.*Anyways, in this latest Wallace and Gromit adventure, the lovable pooch Gromit and his imbecilic inventor-owner Wallace are working as bakers (presumably to help finance the latter's invention hobby.) A recent string of murders involving bakers has left business booming. A day after the murder of Baker Bob (the 12th victim), Wallace runs into the girl of his dreams: Piella Bakewell, the model for Bake-a-Lite bread. That leaves Gromit to not only take care of the business, but also to save his master when things don't quite turn out the way it seems.

*The rest of Aardman Animation hasn't quite had Nick Park's level of success. They're 0 for 3 in nominated films not directed by Nick Park. The other nominations were for Peter Lord's Adam (1991) and Wat's Pig (1996), and Peter Peake's Humdrum (1998).

There are few series in the history of animated shorts that match the success of Disney's Silly Symphonies (7 wins in 9 nominations) or Hanna-Barbera's Tom and Jerry (7 wins in 13 nominations). Wallace and Gromit is one of them. As I said before, the success is largely due to the fact that the Wallace and Gromit shorts are just great film. The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave manage to fit in more humor, suspense, twists, and endearing characters in 30 minutes than most feature length films in two hours. (Except my sister absolutely despises Wallace. She likes Gromit, but never liked the Wallace and Gromit films because she hates Wallace so much.) A Matter of Loaf and Death came over ten years after A Clove Shave, and it is evident early on that Nick Park has evolved as a filmmaker. He is able to use different shots or editing styles as a form of symbolism that he hadn't in the past. However, while his skills as a filmmaker has advanced, I'm not alone in my sentiments in thinking that this film doesn't hold up against the previous masterpieces.

Some reviewers complain that the film was too dark. While I agree that it was much darker than the other Oscar-winning W&G shorts (which were quite dark themselves), I didn't think that was the problem. Others complained that the jokes were old, but I felt that there were a lot of great comedic moments. What really got me was that the entire film seemed so forced, especially with the way it advanced their plots. One of the things that made the earlier shorts so great was their subtlety. The jokes and plot progression happened in a way that seemed to fit in nicely with the rest of the short. Viewers accepted them because it made sense within the context of the film. I didn't have that feeling with A Matter of Loaf and Death. It feels as though the storyline was forced onto you, and you just had to accept it. There was no more smooth transition between plot points as in The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave. Rather, each new plot point just...happened. There was no foreshadowing to ease you into it, and viewers had no other option but to say, "Okay...that was kind of random, but I'll accept it." It was like getting banged on the head with a rolling pin. Some of jokes had the same feeling, especially the Ghost reference, complete with "Unchained Melody" playing in the background.

But once I took a step back and stopped comparing it to Nick Park's previous efforts, it's clear that A Matter of Loaf and Death was by no means a bad film. As I said, there were still plenty of great comedic moments, and a lot of interesting use of filmmaking styles as a form of symbolism. And there was also good characters (although my sister would disagree about Wallace). A Close Shave had Shaun the Sheep (who was so popular that he eventually got his own spin-off sh0w). A Matter of Life and Death has Fluffles, the tormented poodle belonging to Piella Bakewell. She had great chemistry with Gromit, and also played a key role (although it was hard to bring her up in the synopsis section without spoilers). Overall, if you try not to compare it to The Wrong Trousers or A Close Shave, A Matter of Loaf and Death is an entertaining film with enough action, suspense, and comedy to keep you engaged the entire way through.
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Wow...that went on for a lot longer than I had hoped. And as for my take on the Best Animated Short "race", the real competition has come down to Logorama and A Matter of Loaf and Death. While Logorama is a clever short that is starting to get a whole host of supporters among bloggers, I don't think it has enough to topple A Matter of Loaf and Death. While I spent an hour of my repro/OMM studying time criticizing the latter film's storytelling, but to be honest Logorama had the same storytelling problem and more of it. Furthermore, A Matter of Loaf and Death is by far the longest nominee - nearly twice the length as Logorama. Why is this important? It's just that the past several years, the Academy has had a tendency of voting for the longest nominee when voting for Best Animated Short. The last time the longest nominee failed to win was for 2002, when the 10-minute Atama-yama (Mt. Head) lost to the 5-minute The Chubb-Chubbs. Since then, the longest nominees are 6 for 6. And finally, the cardinal rule of Oscar predictors after 1995 was you DO NOT vote against Wallace and Gromit. That is all.

The Heart-Melters Gallery: The 5th Anniversary Director's Cut

2010-02-28T19:24:00.000-08:00

A History of the Heart-Melters Gallery
Five years ago today, February 28, 2005, I posted one of my most seminal works of mindless rambling: The Heart-Melters Gallery. The 8,000-word collection of nonsensical sentences and vapid gushings took a look at the eight animated females that had effectively "melted" my heart. I was driven to write this piece because in late February of 2005, I was absolutely smitten with Kaho, a character from Sister Princess. It was then that I made the realization that I had a history of being attracted to female characters from different artistic media (animation, video game, comic). I then made the decision to write about my fascination with each of these "Heart Melters," and to post it on NSider. I began work on February 25, and after a busy weekend that included being a crew member for Han West's Loss of Life and missing the Academy Awards to show Dolls for OffScreen (a masterpiece for director Takeshi Kitano, but an utter failure for composer Joe Hisaishi), I finally finished the thread on the early morning of February 28.

The premise behind The Heart-Melters Gallery was quite simple. I did a profile on each Heart-Melter in a chronological order by when it started, going from Misty (1999) to Kaho (2005). For each character I penned a mini-biography, how I became attracted to them, and a general history of the period of my attraction - which I called the "Age of the Heart-Melter." At the very end I included a couple of pictures of the Heart-Melter. I "inducted" two more Heart-Melters a year later.

The Heart-Melters Gallery was, in my mind, an instantaneous success. It generated a good number of replies, and also opened up a new avenue to prove just how delightfully screwed up my romantic life is. However, since I already knew the story behind each and every Heart-Melter, I never really went back to read the original thread. In 2008, I created a new list ranking the Heart-Melters by strength, and went about reposting the Heart-Melters Gallery in the new order. It was then that I went back and read the originals, and realized that they were a bunch of garbled junk. It kind of made sense, since I was so focused on getting my thoughts down before Monday of that busy, busy weekend that I didn't give a hoot about prose. So I began to completely re-write the entries when I posted the new entries, replacing the small gallery with a justification of the rankings.

The original The Heart-Melters Gallery featured all eight Heart-Melters in a single thread. So on this the fifth anniversary of the original thread, I've decided to post the ten new entries in their new order all at once. So if you haven't read them, you won't have to go anywhere else to see them. (Of course, you could do the same on my blogspot, because for some reason the site displays ENTIRE entries, which is a bother when I wrote over 30,000 words about Randy Johnson's 300th win.) The only difference is this introduction, which will probably end up being just as incoherent as the original, because I'm writing both under essentially similar circumstances. So without further ado: The Heart-Melters

The Heart-Melters Gallery takes a look at the ten fictional females that melted my heart. Each entry contains a biography as well as a look at the character's influence on my life (basically how they became a Heart-Melter) as well as the Age of the Heart-Melter (essentially what happened during my attraction period). In the end I discussed the character's rankings.

The ranking is based on a very unprofessional system where I ranked the Heart-Melter on

Strength: The strength of attraction during their respective Ages
Time: The length of the attraction
Recurrence: The amount of attraction I had towards said character after the end of their respective Ages.

To create the ranking, I took the ranks of the Heart-Melter in each category, and then summed them. The order is based on the sum, with lower being better. In case of a tie, the ranking in Strength serves as a tie-breaker.

10. KIKI

Who is She?
In an alternate universe where Europe was spared from the devastating effects of World War II and where being a witch was a rare but dominant allele, young witches were required to leave home at the age of 13 and make a living for a year in another town, preferably in a place without other witches. Kiki is one of these witches. She had just celebrated her thirteenth birthday, and is waiting for a good day to do her required year outside of home, hopefully in a city next to the sea. On a day when the weather forecast promised a night of clear weather, Kiki knew it was time to go. And lo, her adventure into the unknown world outside of her village had began. Yet things went awry even from the beginning. The wonderful weather that the weatherman promised turned out to be a lie. (Or perhaps the hapless Kiki had left the area with beautiful weather and entered a storm front). The ideal city that she had desired greeted her with animosity. And she's being stalked by a nerdy freak. But Kiki is ready to tackle these problems head-on, armed with an optimistic outlook and her trusty broom. She finds shelter, friendship, and a job with a gentle baker's wife, and a delivery service for her independence training. But just when things were started to go well, things fell apart. Can Kiki overcome the crushing blow to her optimistic outlook and complete her year away from home? Find out in Hayao Miyazaki's 1989 masterpiece, Majo no Takkyubin (Kiki's Delivery Service).

Kiki's Influence
Of all eight Heart-Melters, Kiki may be the one that I had felt the least actual "attraction" towards. She was cute and all, and she melted my heart, but she did not tug on my heartstrings like the other Heart-Melters. If you hadn't already guessed, (the last sentence of the previous paragraph should have made it blatantly obvious), Kiki is the heroine of Miyazaki's legendary 1989 film, Majo no Takkyubin...known in America as Kiki's Delivery Service. It was the first Miyazaki movie I had seen back in 1995, (and I watched it because the main character on the cover was cute), but believe it or not, that was the only time I saw it in the 1990s. I was not really much of a Miyazaki fan back then, even if I did see all but two of his films before 2002. It wasn't until 2002 when I saw Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) that I became a Miyazaki manic. And in 2002, seven years after I saw Majo no Takkyubin for the first time...I saw it for the second time. It was interesting to see how much my memory had distorted the plot, but one thing that didn't change in the seven years was the fact I found Kiki to be the cutest of the Ghibli heroines.

Ever since my mom purchased the Region 3 copy of the Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi DVD during my family's 2002 Taiwan trip, I became more and more engaged in Ghibli works. In late 2002, I found myself heading to KaZaA to download other Ghibli movies, and my main Christmas present for 2002 was a set of bootlegged Ghibli films. In April 2003, I bought Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi and Tenkuu no Shiro Rapyuta (Castle in the Sky) when they came out in the US, and the trio was completed when my sister received a R1 copy of Majo no Takkyubin. In the summer of 2003, I borrowed copies of Region 3 Ghibli DVDs from a family friend, which I used to complete the "Screenshot Project," which consists of taking a screenshot for every single shot in a Ghibli movie. I had completed Majo no Takkyubin in the 12 days between July 13 and July 25, 2003, so I had 1,302 pics (97MB) from the movie, of which at least 800 were of Kiki.

The Age of Kiki (Winter 2003 - Early 2004)
So I never felt attracted to Kiki like I did with other Heart-Melters. Does that mean she did not have an Age of her own? Not necessarily. There was a period of time when Kiki was relatively dominant in my life, probably during my Taiwan trip from December 17, 2003 to January 10, 2004. On December 22, 2003, I went on a shopping spree with my uncle, who bought several Ghibli DVDs, including Majo no Takkyubin. With several Region 3 Ghibli DVDs to use with my laptop DVD player (set to Region 3), I had access to Kiki images that I never had before. I watched the movie several times and flipped through the 1,302 pictures that were in my laptop's hard drive. The crowning moment came when I spent several hours going over my pictures from the movie to create a Kiki collage/desktop wallpaper with over 100 Kiki pics.

I left Taiwan on January 10, 2004. With that, I returned to the stresses of undergrad and the allure of NSider chat. I eventually found myself thinking less and less of Kiki. However, Kiki dominated my thoughts and melted my heart during the duration of one winter, and that is enough

Rankings
Strength: 10 - As I said, I never really felt attracted to her, but she melted my heart with the combination of her sweet nature and the self-doubt that gives her some complexity.

Duration: 9 - While I've thought Kiki was cute for years, since I first saw the movie in 1995, the actual time where Kiki melted my heart was rather short. It came in the middle of the Taiwan trip, in the last few days of 2003, and was over by the time I went back to college, so about half a month. It's not the shortest, but not very long either.

Recurrence: 9- After January 2004, I slowly drifted away from my Studio Ghibli fanaticism, and the possibilities of a recurring heart-melting campaign died along with it. It's really a pity. She's not at the very bottom because I still like Kiki as a character. I can't really say that about #10 in this category.

Overall: 28 - Kiki never really had much of a chance. Sure, she had a great personality and is very cute, she essentially survives only in the middle of a 105-minute movie, and didn't quite capture my attention like some of the other characters. That's not to say Kiki's a failure in any means. Just being in this list is more than many others can claim, but there are nine others that ranks higher. Who will they be?

9. TOMO TAKINO

Who is She?

Somewhere in the middle of Azumangaland, there is a group of six friends that spends high school together in Miss Yukari's homeroom class: Chiyo Mihama, the 12-year-old prodigy with the intellect of a college student but the naivete of a 12-year-old...Ayumu Kasuga, the slow-minded transfer student from Osaka that is always trying to get it together...Sakaki-san, the lover of all things kawaii yet is cursed with physically mature body...Kagura, the athletic tomboy and self-proclaimed rival of Sakaki (who really couldn't care less)...Koyomi Mizuhara, the normal girl whose only goal is to get out of high school...and Tomo Takino. Tomo is the wild one in the bunch. She calls herself the Bousou Joushikousei, or the "Wildcat High School Girl," and it definitely fits her personality. She possesses an endless stream of energy, which probably helps her get through the school day, but it doesn't give her any athletic advantages. Even though Tomo fulfills the basic criteria for ADHD, plus the positive illusory bias that folks with ADHD often exhibit, she can still focus her energies when she wants to accomplish something. It helped her get into the high school (which is no easy task), and it may help her fulfill her dream of becoming a police officer with ICPO. The problem is, most of the time she just isn't motivated. It explains why she is the central member of the Bonkuras... or the Boneheads. (Interesting enough, her name Tomo means "wisdom." So much for having a name that fits.) And even though she is often torments Yomi, Ayumu, and Chiyo, and has a running rivalry with Kagura, she still cares dearly about her friends. Her mere presence injects life into the series.

Tomo's Influence

So the first question is...why Tomo? First of all, this is not the same case as Sister Princess or Tales of Symphonia, where my interest in the source developed after the heart-melting experience. It's more like Pokemon, where the heart-melting experience developed after initial exposure to the source. Next, Azumanga Daioh is 90% female, so the Heart-Melter could have been anybody from Ayumu (the popular choice) to Nyamo to Kagura. So why Tomo? She's wild. She's crazy. She's impulsive. She's a baka. She's even shorter than Kattixie. She's vain to the point where it becomes almost delusional. She is never seen dressed up outside of school. Her method of showing affection would drive most people up the wall, (so I'd feel sorry for whoever would become her boyfriend in college). Her interests and personality are completely different from mine? So why would I not mind being that unfortunate boyfriend? The reason that stands out is because unlike me, Tomo Takino is a free spirit. Whereas I continue to carry unnecessary burdens, she seemed to have dropped them all and is living life to the fullest. Sometimes when I am caught up in lethargy and hours of doing nothing, I think about how nice it would be to break out of the shackles and enjoy life as Tomo does. Or maybe it's because it's just that I find Tomo heart-meltingly cute.

Anyways, I had first read the Azumanga Daioh manga around the time when I wrote the original Heart-Melters Gallery thread. I enjoyed the series, and avoided the anime because I kind of knew that I would be hooked if I ever saw it. I went a year and a half to two years without seeing the anime. All that changed in early November 2006, when my sister was able to borrow a copy of Disc 1 from a friend. I had resisted watching it because I had a biochemistry test to study for, but when she insisted, I couldn't resist. I ended up getting hooked. It was so much that I walked to Best Buy to purchase the boxset while waiting for the Wii on November 18. And so even though I had gotten a Wii, I spent more of Thanksgiving break 2006 watching Azumanga Daioh than playing the Wii. My urge was not "Gotta play Zelda," but "Gotta watch Azumanga." I had Azumanga Daioh running on my computer, even while playing Twilight Princess. So what does all this have to do with Tomo? Well, throughout the entire week, I noticed that Tomo seemed to stand out. Despite all of her faults, I found her strangely endearing. The more I had watched the series, the more I felt attracted to her various quirks. In the end, she joined the ranks as a Heart-Melter.

The Age of Tomo (November 20, 2006 - Early 2007)

If we go by the manga, Tomo would have graduated sometime in spring of 2002, which means she would have been born in 1983 or 1984. Of course, if we go by the anime, the class had gone to Okinawa for their senior trip in 2002, which means her graduation would have come in spring of 2003, so she would have been born in 1984 or 1985. This would mean she is between the ages of 25-27 by now. Of course, we have no documentation of her life after high school (except that she is possibly going to the same college as Ayumu Kasuga...roommates, maybe?), so it really doesn't matter in the end.

The Age of Tomo burned bright for a while in the latter half of 2006 and early in 2007. For about two months, the only thing I can think was about Tomo and other Azumanga Daioh-related media. I was re-watching Azumanga Daioh episodes, listening to Azumanga Daioh songs, reading Azumanga Daioh fanfics, and enjoying Azumanga Daioh AMVs. Yet things weren't as bright as it would seem. In the 10K run for the second sports fest, Tomo had zoomed out of the starting line, yet by the end she barely finished ahead of Chiyo and Ayumu, her energy obviously sapped. A similar analogy can be seen in stars. The massive stars shine brightly, yet die off quickly. The red dwarfs don't shine quite as brightly, but they are able to remain present for literally trillions of years. Could the Age of Tomo have been like the luminous, massive stars? Unfortunately for Tomo, all signs pointed to yes. I felt my affections for Tomo dying down even as early as January 1, 2007. Focusing on trying to play through Twilight Princess didn't help, as it took my attention away from Azumanga. The more damaging thing is my slow realization that Tomo is nothing more than a hyperactive and sadistic creep once the honeymoon period wore off, especially after Tomo became a vindictive, unforgiving wildcat in stories I did with my sisters. My attraction towards Tomo fell off the cliff, and didn’t return even after I got back into Azumanga Daioh that summer. Tomo’s status as a Heart-Melter ended almost as abruptly as it started, but it was still a fun ride.

Rankings

Strength: 7 - Tomo was an interesting personality, and I was definitely attracted to her past minimum point of becoming Heart-Melter, but it never really went beyond that. She never truly dominated my thoughts, as she ultimately shared the spotlight with her Azumanga co-stars, and I never stayed up late at nights thinking about her. She was just somebody that melted my heart.

Duration: 8 - It's hard to judge the duration of most Heart-Melters, since their end dates are usually so undefined. However, most of them generally stay Heart-Melters for three months. Tomo was Heart-Melter for two to three months. It's longer than Kiki and the person in the 10th spot, but still short compared to everybody else.

Recurrence: 10 - Tomo is an interesting case where I do fall back in love with her source (in this case Azumanga Daioh), but I don't necessarily do the same for the Heart-Melter. Thanks to Thingys, the stories I do with my sisters that include characters from Azumanga Daioh, I can no longer stand Tomo. You may even say that I've developed a dislike for her. That may not be entirely fair, but it goes like it goes.

Overall: 25 - One thing about the Heart-Melters Gallery is that once you get in, you never leave. I mean, it's a Gallery. The fact that I don't really like Tomo anymore doesn't mean she loses her spot. The important thing is that once upon a time, I was really attracted to Tomo Takino. I can't say I understand why anymore, but it was fun while it lasted.

8. MONA

Who is She?
Mona is the super-attractive developer of bizarre games in the popular Wario Ware series. Besides being a developer, Mona also spends her time doing a variety of odd jobs. She played in a band, served as head cheerleader for the Diamond City Roughs, operated a pizza delivery chain and a gelato shop, and rode a motorcycle to escape from policemen with her monkey. She goes into each of her jobs with gusto and pizzazz, and has supreme confidence in her abilities. However, her preference for guys is just about as messed up as my preference for girls. It is no secret that she holds a mega-crush on Wario, virtually looking up to him like a god. Why anybody would have a crush on Wario is beyond me. He's ugly. He's selfish. He's arrogant. Waluigi is so much better than Wario in every way possible except for maybe brute strength. Mona is good-looking, and she has a charitable heart. She should seriously stop wasting her time with Wario and go for somebody a lot better, although the choices in Diamond City are a bit limited.

Mona's Influence
Mona is the one Heart-Melter that is different from most of the others. Her face is cute enough to melt anybody's heart, but she's the only one without a particular age dedicated to her. Rather than an extended age, my attractions to her were quick, ephemeral flashes. My earliest memories of Mona came during a Gamers Club meeting in early 2004, which was the first time I ever played Wario Ware: Micro Mini-Games. I immediately noticed that one of the developers was a lot better looking than the others. In her long but amusing introductory video, we see her tossing banana peels at police cars trying to stop her from getting to her destination. But I didn't who who this person was. I didn't pay attention to the names of any of the developers. Wario was the only person I knew in Wario Ware, because I knew him from his past appearances in Wario Land and Mario Party. And I never really did bother to read about Wario Ware in any of my Nintendo Power issues to find out. I suppose I could have done a Google search to find out who she was, but I was too lazy. I found myself chatting with Mac and Taylor on the Nintendo of America NSider chats instead of researching the identity of the mysterious but cute developer.

My path crossed with Mona a few weeks later, when Mega Party-Games was coming out in the States. I was browsing the NSider forums when NOA Greg posted a thread announcing the Mega Party-Games site. I had nothing better to do, so I went to check it out. Voila! That was when I found out the name of the mysterious developer: Mona. The first thing that popped into my head was the Mona Lisa, but the Wario Ware Mona is far more attractive than the Da Vinci one. I toyed around on the site to unlock the desktop wallpapers, and when I did, I saved the ones with Mona onto my hard drive. I guess this is hoarding of pictures one way in which Mona is similar with the previous Heart-Melters. However, unlike the other Heart-Melters, I did not go out and buy the game to get my Mona fix. This was about a year before I had come up with the concept of Heart-Melters, but had I did, Mona wouldn't have made the list. However, all that would change in a few weeks.

The Age of Mona (March 2004, January 2007)
The moment that solidified Mona's position as a Heart-Melter came sometime in early 2004, possibly in February. I no longer remember the exact date (which is a major shame), but I was at University of Virginia's Clemons library one night to see what was going on at the Nintendo HQ chat on NSider. Somebody on the chat mentioned the latest Wario Ware game, which would be released in America later in the year under the title Wario Ware: Twisted. I was curious to see what the mega-cute Mona would look like in this new Wario Ware game, so I headed to the Wario Ware: Twisted page on the NCL website. Mona was one of the first things I saw, and she blew me away. There she was: wearing a yellow shirt with a cute, blue skirt skating around on rollerblades. I was smitten by her attractiveness and left with my heart melted. The feelings faded later that night, and I ended up not getting Wario Ware: Twisted, but that particular event made such an impact on me that when I first wrote about the Heart-Melters Gallery in 2005, Mona made the list as one of the eight.

Even though I included Mona as one of the Heart-Melters, I still felt that she was a questionable one at best. I made implications within the original thread that I may kick somebody out of the Gallery whenever a new Heart-Melter came around. Mona is the obvious target as the first to go if it ever happened just because her hold on the spot was based primarily on the events of that one night. While I eventually changed my mind about excising existing members, Mona remained the weakest of the Heart-Melters for about two years. This too would change. Wario Ware: Smooth Moves was released for the Wii in January 2007, and it became the first Wario Ware game that my sister and I purchased. Although I hadn't been very impressed with the official art released on the NCL website, once I played the game it became clear that Mona would stay as a Heart-Melter. It was the first time I had a chance to play a Wario Ware game thoroughly, and Mona was without a doubt my favorite part of the game, even if her appearances were quite sparse. However, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves wasn't a very long game. My friends and I had unlocked practically everything within the space of a day. Once my sisters and I accomplished this feat on our game, we eventually stopped playing the game, and Mona's second age quickly drew to a close. This took approximately a week or two. It's still hard to define exactly what the Age of Mona was, but one thing is clear: Mona is a proud member of the Heart-Melters Gallery.

Rankings
Strength: 9 - Mona initially earned the position as a Heart-Melter as the result of a relatively short-lived flash of feeling in one random winter day, so she probably would have ranked 10th between early 2004 and December 0f 2006. However, her second age as a Heart-Melter following the release of Wario Ware: Smooth Moves allowed her to push past Kiki to claim the #9 spot for strength.

Duration: 10 - Mona's first period as Heart-Melter in early 2004 was at most only a day long, although it probably didn't even last a day. Her second period in January 2007 was not much longer, coming to an end after only a week or two. Most Heart-Melters last for a couple of months, and even the Age of Kiki lasted approximately a month, so Mona drops into the cellar in this category.

Recurrence: 4 - While the Ages for most of the Heart-Melters last for a few months, but once the Ages come to a close, the attraction pretty much fades away for good. Mona is one exception in that she had an even stronger Age several years after the initial one. Even after this second Age came to a close, I continued to follow the releases of new Wario Ware games closely just to see what Mona would be doing in the newest entry. That pushes her near the top of the Recurrence list, although the top two spots are held by two of the strongest Heart-Melters, and for good reason.

Overall: 23 - If you're going to pick one Heart-Melter that's not like the others, Mona takes the cake in just about every way possible. She came out of nowhere to melt my heart for a day, and while the degree to which my heart was melted was relatively minimal at best, but that was enough to put her into the list that Lyn, Nami, Fuka, and Rukia couldn't crack. And then she melted my heart a second time after a long hibernation, an achievement only the top Heart-Melter can boast, and even though it wasn't enough to push her eighth, it completely changed my opinion on Mona as a Heart-Melter.

7. BUTTERCUP

Who is She?
Sugar! Spice! And everything nice! These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girls! But Professor Utonium accidentally added an extra ingredient into the concoction: Chemical X! And thus the Powerpuff Girls were born! Using their ultra-super powers, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup have dedicated their lives to fighing crime and the forces of EVIL! Yes. As you may have guessed (and feared for sake of my sanity), Buttercup is indeed the Powerpuff Girl. Created by Professor Utonium, Buttercup may not be the commander and leader (that title would have to go to Blossom), but she is the toughest fighter. She's highly no-nonsense, and loves nothing more than a good fight with a bad guy. Although her name comes up last, all signs point to her being the middle child. She had a rebellious side that often leads to friction with her friends and her families, especially her sisters. Yet despite her impulsiveness and attitude problem, she is not the Powerpuff Girl with a criminal record.

Buttercup's Influence
Back in the middle of 2002, I was quite obsessed with a dating sim called Tokimeki Memorial. It was an intense experience. Dating sims are all about the cute girls, and I used up a good 50MB of hard drive space just saving pictures of these cute girls. However, this isn't about Tokimeki Memorial. Rather, it's about the entity that broke up Tokimeki Memorial's stronghold in my life: The Powerpuff Girls. It makes sense, I suppose. The Powerpuff Girls are an American product, so it is much more accesible to somebody living in America. There would be no need to save 50MB worth of pictures to get my fill of the Powerpuff Girls, since all you have to do is tune into Cartoon Network. (However, I still eventually saved that many pictures.) Before May of 2002, I was admittedly somebody that did not understand the allure of the Powerpuff Girls. I saw Meat Fuzzy Lumpkins in 1997 and again in 1998 on the old What a Cartoon Show, and while it was amusing, I didn't think it was anything special. I had scoffed in February when I read that they were coming out with a Powerpuff Girls Movie. There was no way I could have imagine becoming a Powerpuff Girl fan by the end of the year. And yet, all that changed with the arrival of cable TV in my household. All of a sudden I had access to hundreds of channels that I was able to see only at a friend's house. One of the channels being Cartoon Network.

With Cartoon Network, I was finally able to watch the Powerpuff Girls TV show. I was flipping through channels when it came on, and I decided to stay and watch. The first episodes I saw were Collect Her and Supper Villain. They aren't exactly among the better episodes (although Supper Villain was well edited), but I was impressed enough with the show to watch it while waiting for the TV movie "Path to War" to begin. It was then that I saw the greatest of all Powerpuff Girls episodes: Moral Decay. Moral Decay is a classic, with witty humor, a fun storyline, and a darned great montage. And of course, it had Buttercup in a great role, if not a little bit anti-heroic. In the episode, she falls in love with the power of money after earning her first dollar. When she finds out the legend of the tooth fairy, she became a personal but selfish campaign to rid the city of villains...and their teeth. Sure, it wasn't exactly the most flattering depiction of Buttercup, but after I saw that episode, I knew I was hooked on both the Powerpuff Girls and Buttercup. On June 1, 2002, the night before the ACT exam (which I did rather poorly on), I stayed up until past midnight watching a Powerpuff Girl marathon. It was intense, but I was happy because I got Moral Decay on tape. The Age of Buttercup had begun.

The Age of Buttercup (May 2002-Late 2002)
"The Age of the Powerpuff Girls" is probably a more appropriate name for this age, but Buttercup is undoubtedly the representative Heart-Melter. Sure, Blossom is cuter and more elegant, but it was Buttercup that melted my heart. Not only was she the main focus of Moral Decay (still my favorite episode), but I liked her tough, die-hard attitude. I seem to have a soft spot for people with a rougher edge. Most of the Heart-Melters I had up to the summer of 2002 fit that description. Anyways, thanks to my attraction to Buttercup, I became fascinated with the Powerpuff Girls. I had three video tapes of episodes, and later recorded three audio tapes, which I listened to while I was in China. There's nothing better than listening to the Powerpuff Girls while walking amongst the Terra-Cotta Warriors. Blossom and Buttercup became names of C++ variables in my Computer Science class, and the three Heroes of Time in my copy of Ocarina of Time were christened as Blossom, Bubbles, and Butercup. By the end of the summer of 2002, I was able to give a general recitation of up to five episodes.

My obsession with the Powerpuff Girls even led to a change in my internet habits. I was still a user of the UPNetwork forums. However, the rise of the Powerpuff Girls led me to other sites, and I eventually found myself at the PPGWorld forums. It became my new home for the time being. Even when I was in Taiwan, I was still eager to post on PPGWorld, although I probably shouldn't have been wasting my time. One of the key features of PPGWorld was its confluence of excellent PPG fanartists, including a professional artist named Christopher Cook. This was also when I discovered the charm of fanart. I've typically liked screenshots as opposed to fanart, because screenshots are essentially pictures from the original source of the attraction, and fanart are more often than not poorly done. However, while I can easily watch the original episodes on tape, fanart provides an opportunity to explore whole new world with whole new storylines if it is done well. I began saving Powerpuff Girls fanart, and the pictures soon accumulated...25 pics...75 pics...150 pics...pretty soon my collection took up over 10MB of space.

And yet, my fascinaton with the Powerpuff Girls was not eternal. Fads come and fads go. In November of 2002, I saw the movie, and I was fiercely disappointed. No new episodes aired between 2002 and 2003, and the lack of new episodes caused the old episodes to become stale. My interest in the Powerpuff Girls had slowly faded to nil by the end of 2002. The Age of Buttercup seemed to disappear along with it. I continued to watch the show a few more times, including earlier this year when I purchased the 10th anniverary DVD collection, but my attraction towards Buttercup never seemed to resurface. The Age of Buttercup is now only a shadow of what it once was, but it still has a claim to fame for those special months in 2002.

Rankings
Strength: 8 - Buttercup's tough-girl personalty won me over initially, but it wasn't enough to fully suppress Blossom's superior looks and intellect. So even though Buttercup was my favorite Powerpuff Girl, her influence wasn't as powerful as some of the other Heart-Melter who had all the attention to themselves.

Duration: 3 - My attraction to Buttercup began in May of 2002 and ended in November of December, a period of approximately six or seven months. That may not be very long on a grand scale, it's still an extremely long period for somebody who switches interests as often as I do. Very few of the other Heart-Melters had melted my heart for this length of time.

Recurrence: 8 - Buttercup wasn't a very strong Heart-Melter, so once I got over the Powerpuff Girls, I never really looked back. By late 2002, it became doubtful as to whether or not Buttercup was my favorite Powerpuff Girl. I never felt the same sort of attraction even after I rekindled my fascination with the show, even if she is probably still my favorite Powerpuff Girl.

Overall: 19 - Here's a fact that shows exactly the sort of Heart-Melter Buttercup was: When I originally wrote The Heart-Melters in Gallery in February of 2005, Buttercup wasn't even in this list. I had picked Blossom as the representative from the Powerpuff Girls. It wasn't until 2006 that I realized that Buttercup was the true Heart-Melter. It's quite surprising that she ranks as high as 7th on the list, but that just goes to show that she is still a valued member of the Heart-Melters Gallery.

6. SHEENA FUJIBAYASHI

Who is she?

Sheena Fujibayashi (known in Japan as Shihna or Shiina) is a character in Namco's epic RPG, Tales of Symphonia. She hails from the mysterious ninja village of Mizuho in Tethe'alla. As the adopted granddaughter of the chief Igaguri, she was trained from an early age to become a Summoner, but for her final exam she had to make a pact with Volt. The mission ended in a failure, and Volt killed off half of the village to punish their insolence, and her grandfather ended up in a coma. This spectacular failure had haunted her for the next several years until she befriended a Summon Spirit by the name of Corrine. With Corrine at her side, Sheena was slowly able to turn her life around. She was later hired by the king to murder Sylvarant's Chosen, Colette, to preserve Tethe'alla's prosperity. By then, Sheena had put the failure behind her and assumed a tough, no-nonsense personality, although there is still a tender side underneath. She had kept it up fairly well, but her insecurities began to resurface when she failed to accomplish her task. However, she joined forces with her former enemies and helped them achieve their goal of world regeneraton, making use of her perfected summoning skills. Sheena is also cursed by her attractive appearance. Most people tend to notice her body instead of her mind, especially the Chosen of Tethe'alla. Needless to say, the two don't get along too well. However, she does seem to have something for Lloyd, because he may be the first person outside of Mizuho to respect her as a human being.

Sheena's Influence

I must admit that I'm not much of an RPG fan. Sure, I like Pokemon Blue, but that was about it. I don't remember when I had first heard of Tales of Symphonia, but one thing I do remember is that I wasn't really interested in it. I didn't get the game when it was released in the summer of 2004. When other people in the #nintendo chat room were talking about the game, I ignored them and talked about other things. Even though I had no interest in the game, my sister was very interested. She constantly listed Tales of Symphonia as one game she wanted to try out, but she never wanted to spend $20 to get the game. However, one of our gamer friends at college agreed to lend us a copy of ToS in late June of 2006, and we finally had a chance to play.

While my sister enjoyed the game, my initial reactions were not so positive. The real-time multiplayer battle system allowed me to join my sisters while playing, but I just couldn't get into the game. Perhaps it was because I was playing as Colette, or maybe because I had no idea what was going on, but playing ToS just wasn't a very fun experience in the beginning. But the game started to grow on me the more I played it. Why? It wasn't because of the storyline, because I'm usually doing my own thing whenever a major cutscene happens. It wasn't because of the battles, because even though the battle system is nice, the repetitiveness of battles makes it monotonous. My change of heart most likely came about because of the characters. Tales games usually have pretty strong character development, and each of the Symphonia characters slowly began to appeal to me, even the annoying Zelos (whom my sister despises.) Sheena quickly became my favorite for a variety of reasons that I'll go into, and by the end of the summer, she joined the ranks as Heart-Melter.

The Age of Sheena (June 2006 - September 2006)

There are many reasons why I like Sheena. I liked using her in battle, especially her balance between A-attacks and techs such as "Demon Seal" and "Life Seal." I like her no-nonsense personality; how she is tough yet tender. I like her looks, even if her hairstyle makes her look as though she just rolled out of bed in the Z-cutscenes. I like her costumes, including how her bow floats due to Bernoulli's Principle as she runs along the world map. (I was a bit disappointed with her formal dress. I was hoping it would be more of an actual dress, but oh well.) I even like the voice acting by Jennifer Hale, even though I'm not normally a very fan of dubs. Sheena is clearly one of the biggest reasons why I quickly grew to enjoy ToS.

Unfortunately, this Age of Sheena couldn't have come at a worse time. Summer 2006 was supposed to be the when I dedicated all of my time and energy into studying for the MCAT. (That turned out to be summer 2008.) I was fairly diligent early on, but once I finished reviewing all the basic information, the only thing I could do was practice problems and more reviewing. I was a bit too lazy to do all of that and so I spent most of the summer pretending to do practice problems in the morning, so I can play as Sheena at night. In the end my scores on practice tests dropped precariously until my real score was pretty terrible. And the worst thing is that I felt as though it was well worth it.

Perhaps I spent so much time playing Tales of Symphonia because I didn't think I had much of a chance to play it much anymore. My sister and I were were back at college once the MCATs were over. We had our own copy of the game, but no system to play it on. My sister decided not to bring the Gamecube since we have another sister that may have wanted to play it. And yet even this predicament was only temporary. Two months into the school year, the friend who lent us ToS in the first place let us borrow her Gamecube. Nevertheless, two months is an extremely long time to go without doing anything to prolong a Heart-Melter Age. I was able to extend the Ages of most Heart-Melters through the large volume of pictures that I was able to save, but most Sheena pictures I could find are official art. And to be frank, I'm not a fan of the official art. (I prefer the in-game character models.) We eventually got the chance to play Tales of Symphonia to our hearts content in a few more playthroughs of the US GCN version plus the Japanese GCN and PS2 versions, but by then Sheena had lost the Heart-Melter status. She still made 2006 a summer to remember, and for that she is a treasured member of the Heart-Melters Gallery

Rankings
Strength: 6 - I never regarded Sheena as a very strong Heart-Melter, since there's a massive drop-off in this category from #5, but it was a stronger Age than I remembered. I willingly played hours of Tales of Symphonia when I should have been studying for the MCAT, and continued to do so even well into 2009. And it was all for seeing Sheena. Even if she never quite reached the level of obsession, she held a special part of my life for a period of time.

Duration: 7 - Sheena's prime period as a Heart-Melter started in late June and faded pretty quickly after going back to college, meaning it lasted pretty much only a summer, or in other words, just about two to three months. That's about the same length as Tomo, but Sheena has the advantage for one crucial reason, which follows.

Recurrence: 3 - Sheena may have never regained her status in the two and a half years following her period as a Heart-Melter, but I have certainly not lost any of my admiration towards her. I have continued to enjoy Tales of Symphonia just so I can play as Sheena, first in a second and third playthrough of the US version, and then in the Japanese Gamecube version and finally in the PS2 version.

Overall: 16 - As I mentioned earlier, I never really took much notice of Sheena's Heart-Melter status when it was going on. The age fizzled up shortly after reaching college, and it was blocked by my later Azumanga obsession. But Sheena helped to turn a game that I can't say I really enjoyed into a major part of my gaming life. Seriously, I've never had as much discussion with my sisters regarding any other game than Tales of Symphonia. And it's all thanks to Sheena. Thank you, Sheena. We have to do something special for you. (Okay, I'm clearly quoting Super Mario 64 by now.) Putting her at the sixth rank is pretty darned special.

5. KAHO

Who is she?
Although the genre is virtually non-existent in America, the dating sim is one of the most popular genres in Asia. Apparently there are a heck of a lot of desperate men willing to spend money to buy games dedicated to cute, anime-style girls. The dating sims range from mild, G-rated fantasies to sexually explicit packages designed to supply the real deal. Sister Princess is a dating sim that would be on the innocent side of the smut spectrum ...IF it was not filled with incestuous innuendo. The general plot is that there are 12 sisters madly in love with their brother. It's not just the love one would naturally have for their family member. No. It's more than that. They WANT TO MARRY THEIR BROTHER! I've heard of brotherly love, but this is ridiculous! Kaho-chan is one of these 12 sisters, and she may be the second youngest. She's a lovable soul with a bubbly personality and a never-say-die approach to life. She's extremely clumsy and has nary a sense of balance. She trips on almost everything, but usually just laughs it off with one of her heart-melting giggles. She's just so innocently adorable. Oh yeah. Kaho is a cheerleader. Not a very good one, but cute.

Kaho's Influence
The story of Kaho's path to the Heart-Melters Gallery begins not long after Katsucon 10 in 2004. During that time, I was driven to compile a list of the 100 cutest anime girls in Word document known as Useless.doc. I'd go around to websites looking up different anime and judging the girls I see in cuteness before ranking them in my list. I should have known that this list would turn out to be useless, since this list is just like any other list I tried compiling: I lost interest before I completed it. I managed to include 111 girls, although looking back, I can think of loads of changes I'd make. Maybe Misao shouldn't rank so high (6th.) Perhaps Faye Valentine is a bit too low (somewhere after 50.) However, what really killed the list was a particular anime known as Sister Princess. All 12 of the other sisters were amazingly cute. By the time I finished including all of the sisters, 10 of the 12 were on the list. Topping the list was a sister named Kaho. Yet I didn't feel it was right. I didn't even know Sister Princess existed only 30 minutes earlier, and now here comes all of the cute girls and they dominate (screw up) my list. It wasn't even a good anime. Most reviewers found it to be abysmal at best. And worst of all, the two people I found the cutest were the two youngest! (Their innocence really got to me.) I abandoned the project shortly afterwards

Fast forward to Katsucon 11 in 2005. It had been over a year since the anime convention that drove me to begin the useless list. Two things caught my eye while perusing the program: One is that they're showing The Cat Returns on Saturday at 6. (Disney refused to let them show it subbed). The other is that Sister Princess is being shown on Sunday at 12. I remembered Sister Princess as the anime full of cute girls that had disrupted my list. Yet I became rather intrigued. Was the show really as bad as people said, and are the girls really as cute as the pictures had suggested? On Sunday, I didn't make it into the video room until past halfway through the first episode because I was busy playing Mario Kart: Double Dash. The first girl I saw led me to think, "Man, that person is cute. I wonder where she had ranked on my list." Little did I know that she was Kaho, the apex of all Sister Princess sisters in cuteness! By the time my mind had clicked, I was already quite attracted to the adorable cheerleader wannabe in a green sweater and pleated skirt. (And in case you were wondering, the show is as bad as the review sites suggested. It was virtually incomprehensible. But the girls are cute all right...real cute!)

The Age of Kaho (February 20, 2005-May 2005)

Kaho-chan may be one of the youngest sisters, but even then she may actually be 11 - about the same age as the tomboyish Mamoru. After I had gone back to my dorm following Katsucon 11, I began to think about Sister Princess, but especially about Kaho. I knew that my feelings were analogous to the ones towards Misty in 1999, Seung Mina in 2001, Shiori Fujisaki in 2002, and Elizabeth Patterson in 2004. I soon came up with eight females that I felt this sort of attraction to, and came up with a classification for them: the Heart-Melters. (This was when I wrote the original Heart-Melters Gallery thread during the weekend of February 26, 2005 - less than a week after seeing Kaho at Katsucon.) Over the next few days, I began searching for Kaho pics on Google. Some of the ones I found were pretty blurry, but a lot of them were bloody cute, all of which justified her place as a Heart-Melter. Oh, all of her sisters are cute, but Kaho, with her lovely smile and charming personality is definitely at the head of the pack. Previously, when I was saving pictures of Heart-Melters, I saved numerous pictures of other characters, but in this case I was saving pictures of only Kaho. If that wasn't enough, I even got downgraded to a 56K connection by ITC while downloading episodes of the Sister Princess sequel Sister Princess RePure just to see Kaho. It was a worthy sacrifice...3/6 episodes were related to Kaho. (Kaho is apparently one of the most popular characters even in Japan.)

Yet after watching all episodes of Sister Princess and every episode of Sister Princess Repure, I realized that there was nothing more to go for. The series weren't good enough to warrant a re-viewing, and none of the Sister Princess games were available in America. I was under pressure from more than one person to get over her, and I willingly relented. Even before summer vacation began in mid-May, I was saving pictures of her sister Yotsuba (not the cute but not heart-melting titular character of the Kiyohiko Azuma classic Yotsuba&!). I slowly stopped thinking about Kaho and began turning my mind elsewhere. By June, all of my previous admiration had faded away, and all that was left was a shell of a memory. I never did revive any attraction towards Kaho, but I kept all of the pictures as a sort of a memento to the short-lived bygone days. It's a reminder of the fact that even of people lose their status as Heart-Melters, they will always be in the Heart-Melters Gallery.

Rankings

Strength: 3 - I don't often get so caught up in a Heart-Melter that I'd save their pictures incessantly, but Kaho is one exception. Not only did she dominate my thoughts for a period of time, but I also wasted a lot of bandwidth space on pictures of Kaho and only Kaho.

Duration: 6 - As I had discussed in the Tomo entry, the brightest stars usually die off the quickest. I've realized it doesn't really apply towards the Heart-Melters, because the correlation betwsen the Strength and Time rankings have been generally positive, but at just above three months, Kaho's time as a Heart-Melter had been relatively short.

Recurrence: 7 - Not only was Kaho's burn-out relatively swift, but it was also pretty complete. It seems that most Heart-Melters have a general "honeymoon" period that lasts two to three months, and if they want to continue as a Heart-Melter, they'd better offer something extra either in the form of a dazzling personality or a good source material. Kaho had neither. She was kind of shallow and Sister Princess sucked. So once Kaho's Heart-Melter status died off, I never had the urge to watch the show to revive the attraction. She's still my favorite sister, which beats some other Heart-Melters (like Tomo).

Overall: 16 - Because of Kaho's low recurrence score, she ended up with the same overall score as Sheena. This was quite surprising. I was far more obsessed with Kaho than Sheena, so I kind of expected it to be a lot higher than Sheena. (It shows you the flaws of compiling the overall score with a qualitative numeral figure like rank.) Either way, thanks to the Strength tie-breaker, Kaho still finishes within the top half of the Heart-Melters Gallery!

4. SHIORI FUJISAKI

Who is she?
Remember the dating sim, the genre popular in Asia that allows men to satisfy some of their fantasies; a genre that included Sister Princess? One of the most popular dating sims is known as Tokimeki Memorial. Tokimeki Memorial has now become a series due to its popularity, but the original Tokimeki Memorial had been a PC/PlayStation/Saturn game in the mid-1990s. The game tells the story of a guy that transferred to a high school in which his childhood sweetheart also attends. That childhood sweetheart is none other than Shiori Fujisaki. The epitome of brains and beauty, Shiori Fujisaki is a painfully attractive straight-A student, and the most popular girl in school. She's got everybody going after her, except you have the advantage because your history with her, but it's going to be a challenge if you want to take the relationship to the next level. You're better off trying to woo the other girls.

Shiori's Influence

I've known about Tokimeki Memorial since well before April of 2002, although source amnesia has erased all memories of what it could possibly be. I didn't know much about it, but I would soon find out more than I'd ever need to know. By April of 2002, the two earlier Heart-Melter Ages had come to a close, and I was back to dedicating my love life to a specter. I was trying to revive one of the Ages when I came across Tokimeki Memorial. Basically, I was searching online for pics and came across a German site known as GameBabes. The pics they had of the former Heart-Melter weren't anything I hadn't seen before, but I was intrigued by the site, so I explored some of the other games they had. I noticed the title "Tokimeki Memorial," and because I've heard of it from somewhere, I decided to click the link. That would be something that changed my life...for the next few months at least. I was introduced to some amazingly cute anime-style girls. I sat there admiring a few of the minor characters, but the ultimate treat came when I clicked on one of the four pages dedicated to Shiori Fujisaki. To be completely honest, Shiori Fujisaki did not initially stand out from a lot of the other Tokimeki Memorial girls. There were other cute girls vying for my attention...namely Yumi Saotome, Saki Nijino, and Ayako Katagiri. Yet in the end, Shiori's resemblance to the girl I thought I was in love with at the time finally won me over, and she became the crowning girl in Tokimeki Memorial.

The Age of Shiori Fujisaki (April 2002-Fall 2002)
I suppose a more appropriate title for this would actually be "The Age of Tokimeki Memorial." Shiori Fujisaki may have been the central character among my interests, but she was not the only one. I did not dedicate all of my attention to a single girl. I had admired many of Shiori's friends as well. So when I went around saving pictures of the girls to satisfy my adolescent obsessions, I went across the scale and saved basically every Tokimeki Memorial pics that struck my fancy instead of pictures of only Shiori Fujisaki. Tokimeki Memorial was a dating sim, and since dating sims were built around images, it wasn't difficult for me to find a lot of great pictures. Within a month, I had saved almost 600 pics of the girls in Tokimeki Memorial. All this picture-saving probably is a little bit odd...but I've always been about seeing more of an individual I found attractive, even when the person was real. (Oh dear) With people like Buttercup and Tomo, I satisfied my desires just by watching the shows over and over again, but Tokimeki Memorial is a game I probably couldn't understand even if I was able to import it, so the only thing I can do is to save pictures.

Anyways, in late spring of 2002, I was as you can say...obsessed with Tokimeki Memorial. Shiori and her friends soon invaded my life in various ways. I selected a couple of extremely cute pics and compiled them into a collage, which I printed out and laminated to be able to look at Shiori and friends all day during class. I named my C++ variables in Computer Science class after various Tokimeki Memorial characters. It was truly something that dominated my thoughts, this particular Age was somewhat short-lived compared to the Heart-Melter Ages that came earlier. One thing that really crippled my admiration of Shiori Fujisaki and friends (and potentially kept it from becoming a crush) is the Age of Buttercup (or my obsession with the Powerpuff Girls). With two concurrent ages, the one that would come out on top is the one I have more access too. So even though Tokimeki Memorial dominated my thoughts more, the only connection I had towards it was the 600 or so pictures I had saved, and it slowly fell to the wayside.

I went to Taiwan during the summer of 2002, and I found a Chinese copy of Tokimeki Memorial at a bookstore when I was there. There was no mistaking Shiori Fujisaki or Miharu Tatebayashi, both of whom appeared on the box. Better yet, the game had Chinese text, so I'd actually be able to understand it! I eagerly convinced my mom to buy it for me. I played it as soon as I could when I got back the United States...but as you might expect, the game wasn't exactly what I had expected. First of all, it was a really old copy of the game, so I was only able to install it on only one of my computers. And more importantly, the game itself was disappointing. It was perhaps 50 times shorter than the Japanese versions I had heard so much about. The game ends when you go on four dates. How can you win the love of anybody with only four dates? And worst of all, the character you play as is a pervert! I mean, in one scene, he manages to secure a date with the attractive Saki Nijino, but as soon as he saw somebody with a revealing skirt...it's nosebleed time! When you're on a date with somebody as attractive as Shiori or Saki, you'd best be focusing your attention on that person. The game sealed the coffin for the Age of Shiori Fujisaki. I went and deleted almost all of my pics, keeping only about 50 to remind myself of the weird and wonderful season, but all that's left for Shiori is a permanent spot within the Heart-Melters Gallery.

Rankings

Strength: 4 - Shiori ranks high in this category since I was so obsessed with Tokimeki Memorial. In fact, I originally had her at the #3 spot ahead of Kaho, since my attraction towards Tokimeki Memorial was a lot stronger than my attraction towards Sister Princess. But then there's the question of force and pressure (force / area.) I was less obsessed with Sister Princess, but most of it was focused on one person: Kaho. I was more obsessed with Tokimeki Memorial, but my attention was spread out among many. So in the end I decided that my attraction towards Kaho was stronger than my attraction towards Shiori. After all, my sister told me that she thought I liked Yumi Saotome more. She never did that with Kaho. Still, a #4 rank is nothing to scoff at.

Duration: 5 - The incident with the game that ended the Age came in August of 2002, just short of four months after the Age first began. At the time I thought it was quite short, but now that I look at it, three and a half months is longer than more than half of the other Heart-Melter Ages.

Recurrence: 6 - Shiori remains my favorite girl in Tokimeki Memorial, and if I ever get a real version of the game I'd definitely go for her. However, my attraction towards the series is pretty dead. I have less than 10% of the pictures I originally had, and I rarely ever look at them. The chance of a recurrence is there, but it hasn't happened yet.

Overall: 15 - Shiori's stock has gone down since I started revisiting the Heart-Melters. In the past she used to be closer to the #3 spot, while now she's barely ahead of Kaho, the #5 spot. In fact, if I count the Strength category twice, which I've thought about doing at times, she'd be tied with Kaho. Nevertheless, Shiori is definitely one of the Heart-Melter Elites, and I think her #4 ranking can attest to that.

3. SEUNG MINA

Who is she?
Soul Calibur is perhaps one of the more historically inaccurate game set in a historical time period, but that's probably because Namco only came up with the individual storylines as a secondary thing to complement its deep fighting gameplay. Seung Mina (now known as Seong Mi-na) was one of the characters that came over from the prequel, Soul Blade. She was the 19-year-old daughter of Seung Han Myong, one of the greatest teachers of martial arts in Korea. Under her father's guidance, Seung Mina becomes well-trained in martial arts. With her Zamba-toh in hand, Seung Mina left to track down the Soul Edge, which she believes just may save Korea. Yet instead of finding the Soul Edge, her suitor Hwang Seung Gyung found her instead and brought her back home. When Seung Mina runs away again, she fights a mysterious enemy (then-Soul series newbie Ivy) and loses badly. Ashamed, she ends up training under a new master and learns a new set of fighting moves (similar to Kilik, another person in the Soul realm). After many years of fighting and other events in Soul Calibur sequels I rarely played, she came to realize that the Soul Edge was an evil sword, and played the role Hwang once played with another, newer character.

Seung Mina's Influence
My love life was in a bit of a turmoil between February 2000 and July 2001. During those 17 months, I was largely obsessing over a memory while getting somewhat attracted to most of my real-life classmates and then doing nothing about itart-Melt. Perhaps it was a period of tremendous opportunity, but I saw it as a rather lackluster period. (The 22 months between the beginning of the Heer Era and the beginning of the Age of Seung Mina is the second longest period between new Heart-Melters. Interestingly enough, the longest period is the 57 months between the beginning of the Age of Tomo and now.) Anyways, the latent period soon came to an end thanks to my sister.

My sister had always been a fan of fighting games. She purchased a Dreamcast in early 2001 (for The Typing of the Dead), but quickly realized she'd be able to enjoy games like Shenmue and Soul Calibur, one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time. She received the game as a birthday present in July of 2001. I feel that Soul Calibur is starting to gain a reputation of having sexy, busty female characters to go along with its deep fighting system, but all I knew about the game back then was that it received perfect scores from virtually every publication one can imagine: IGN, Gamespot, Famitsu, EGM etc. Of course, I learned really early on that it had cute females. I took a liking to Xianghua (as opposed to fan favorites Taki and Ivy), even if she didn't look like somebody from Ming China. However, I remembered that the IGN reviewer of Soul Calibur had praised Seung Mina countless times in his review. I was curious as to what was so great about her, but I hadn't started using Google Images, so I did not find out what Seung Mina looked like until I had unlocked her. When I did, I was instantly blown away by her gentle features and silky smile. I hadn't come up with the concept of Heart-Melters in 2001, but I knew at the time Seung Mina was something special.

The Age of Seung Mina (July 2001 - Winter 2001)
Once I unlocked Seung Mina, she became the only thing that I really cared for in Soul Calibur. Sure, Seung Mina never really took over my thoughts like some of the other Heart-Melters had, but for a lonely and desperate 16-year-old that was more attracted to fictional characters than real ones, Seung Mina was as good as it gets. Seung Mina may be a lower ranked character in the Soul Calibur hiearchy, but I liked playing as her nonetheless. I did so originally because she was so cute, and I liked playing just to see her, but the more I played, the better I became at using her. I achieved my fastest Arcade time using Seung Mina (I remember it was below 3:30) and I used her on the difficult challenges in Mission Mode. I even unlocked everything in the Art Gallery just for pictures of Seung Mina. Unfortunately, there weren't too many of those. (Heck, the Soul Calibur Wiki has a Seung Mina picture from Soul Calibur that I've never seen previously. It's probably from an artbook, which are virtually impossible to get in the US.)

But in the end, Seung Mina was not strong enough to overcome the natural force of change. While I ended up playing Soul Calibur more often than my sister (she didn't have anything to draw her back to the game like I did), it still didn't erase the fact that I was not really a fan of fighters, especially ones that relied on life bars of certain sort. The release of the Gamecube in December of 2001 led to the phasing out of the Dreamcast, and I eventually found myself playing Super Smash Bros. Melee, a fighting game that fit in more my style. My attraction to Seung Mina was largely tied to the game, and so this attraction eventually faded by the winter of 2001-2002.

However, while Seung Mina may no longer be at Heart-Melter status, her role as the second Heart-Melter chronologically still makes her quite significant. While I rarely think about the other Heart-Melters after my attraction towards them faded, I still go back to Seung Mina quite often. I still check out pictures of Seung Mina whenever a new Soul Calibur game is released, but I usually end up getting disappointed. Her concept art portraits have been very cute, but her in-game renders usually leave more to be desired. Ironically, it was it was her in-game beauty that really endeared me to her in the first Soul Calibur game. Needless to say, I didn't play much Soul Calibur II and was never really interested in III and IV. And since it was the first Soul Calibur game that made Seung Mina a Heart-Melter, I'll continue to spell her name the way it was spelled in the first game rather than use the updated spelling in III and IV. It reminds me of that magical summer when Seung Mina became an important part of my life.

Rankings
Strength: 5 - Seung Mina may have been the person that jolted me out of a period of attraction towards real females (and started a string of seven Heart-Melters in three short years), but now that I think of it, I didn't really fawn over her as I did over Kaho and Shiori. Sure, I played Soul Calibur a lot more than I would have if I wasn't attracted to Seung Mina, but I didn't obsessively hoard pictures of her or dream about her at nights.

Duration: 4 - The Age of Seung Mina lasted from late July 2001, when I first unlocked her, to around December of 2001, a period of between four and five months. That may not be a very long time, especially now that I'm 24 years old, but the median length of Heart-Melters Ages is three and a half to four months. It sure feels a lot longer in the middle of an Age.

Recurrence: 2 - This is where Seung Mina shines as a Heart-Melter. She may not have had the strongest Age, but I can't quite forget her. I was still eager for new pictures of her even years after she lot the status as a Heart-Melter. In fact, I first found Shiori Fujisaki when I was trying to look for pictures of Seung Mina in April of 2002, a full four months after the end of the Age. I've had somebody comment that my #1 Heart-Melter would become upset by my "two-timing" after posting a picture of Seung Mina on the UVA Gamers message board. This was June of 2008, six and a half years after the end of the Age. She may not have had a second Age like Mona, but Seung Mina's persistence after all these years is enough for earn her the #2 spot.

Overall: 11 - Seung Mina's rankings within the Heart-Melters Gallery has shifted over the year. My initial ranking back in 2005 was chronologically, and Seung Mina ended up in the #2 spot. My next attempt to rank them came in 2006, and that was by strength alone. Seung Mina fell to #3, ahead of even Shiori and Kaho. When I ranked by three qualifications last year, I kept Seung Mina at #3, but I also realized that what made her such a high-ranking Heart-Melter wasn't because my attraction towards her was terribly strong, but incredibly enduring.

2. ELIZABETH PATTERSON

Who is she?
Elizabeth Patterson is the middle child of John and Elly Patterson, and therefore one of the main characters in the epic comic strip For Better or for Worse. She was born in June of 1981, a full five years younger than her elder brother Michael. While Elizabeth was generally a nice girl, the age difference between her and her brother led to some major growing pains. She is extremely sensitive, somewhat insecure, and had a major inferiority complex. She sucked her thumb until she turned nine years old, and got glasses at the age of eight, which she took very hard. She had trouble finding new friends, and was jealous whenever she felt like she was being ignored. As a result she often felt extremely lonely. Elizabeth was not a very good student in school. She never got in trouble, but she had some trouble following instructions and hated studying. However, her seventh grade teacher, Miss Sharon Edwards, took the young Elizabeth under her wing and helped her overcome these insecurities. This special bond gave Elizabeth a new sense of direction, and strongly influenced her decision to get into teaching. After graduating from Nipissing University, Elizabeth taught for a while in the town of Mtigwaki in Northern Canada before settling back home in Ontario. Yet her love life was not quite as successful as her career. After a long high school romance with Anthony Caine, she had a series of unsuccessful relationships before going in a full circle and married Anthony to become Elizabeth Caine.

Elizabeth Patterson's Influence
If Elizabeth's love life was rocky, mine was virtually non-existent between my late high school and early college years. There were no classmates that really struck my fancy between the end of 2002 and the middle of 2004, and there were only two Heart-Melters during that time period, Kiki and Mona - the two lowest ranking Heart-Melters in terms of strength. Oh, there was a slight revival of an earlier age, but that's a story for another time. At any rate, I spent most of this time period preparing to bid farewell to high school, adjusting to life at college, and updating the list of the 100 best Nintendo 64 games. There was no need for a romantic interest. Elizabeth Patterson would change all of that.

My first year at UVA eventually ended, and the summer of 2004 rolled around. My cousin was getting married in Michigan on July 4 that year, and my family and I were taking a trip up north to celebrate it. The drive to Michigan takes about 10-12 hours, and to pass the time I brought along a lot of Garfield books. And once we got to Michigan we began devouring Calvin and Hobbes. When my aunt saw us reading so many comics, she let us read her collection of her favorite comic: For Better or for Worse. I had read For Better or for Worse in the newspapers previously, but I really can't say that I was a fan. Nevertheless, when we went to Cedar Point the day after the wedding, we brought along three of the For Better or for Worse books: Starting from Scratch, Love just Screws Everything Up, and Growing Like a Weed. I read the books on the trip there, and as we entered Ohio, I found myself getting attracted to Elizabeth. For Better or for Worse is well known for the realism of its characters due to the real-time aging aspect, and I was getting drawn into the complexity of her character. Plus, she was very pretty. It had been a while since I felt that type of an attraction towards somebody, but the presence was unmistakable.

The Age of Elizabeth Patterson (July 5, 2004 - January 2005)
It is said that For Better or for Worse is the comic that everybody loves; they either love it, or they love to hate it. Thanks to Elizabeth Patterson, I was a part of the former group. I always had a For Better or for Worse book with me during the rest of my time at Cedar Point and during the trip to northern Michigan, and she never left my thoughts. The attraction became so strong that I was starting to feel the burning sensation that I had felt before my three previous crushes, although it passed by quickly and I didn't make much of it. My aunt saw how much I was into For Better or for Worse, and she let us borrow all of her For Better or for Worse books once we left Michigan. This allowed the Age to extend far beyond the summer. My mind couldn't leave Elizabeth back at home. I wrote about her on the NSider message boards, and I even began to title each of my posts on the board "Postcount + 1! This Post is Dedicated to the Lovely Elizabeth Patterson." I purchased a mousepad and a T-shirt from the For Better or for Worse online store. (I was wearing the shirt during a post-Gamers dinner when J Ford talked about his hatred of the strip. Apparently he's part of the latter group.) Late in the summer, I decided flipping through the books was a bit of a bother, so I decided to scan my aunt's books just so I can have some of the better Elizabeth comics at easy access. I eventually went out of control and just scanned any For Better or for Worse comic I thought was good and ended up with 543 files that took up 35.4 MB of hard drive space. The habit of acquiring pics of Heart-Melters continues. I went back to college in August and acquired a marker board for my door in my dorm. The first thing I wrote on it was "Elizabeth Patterson," which confused everybody in my hall.

Yet all good things must come to an end. I found a project during the fall semester that diverted my attention from Elizabeth Patterson: The Top 100 Nintendo 64 Games threads. I had been keeping tabs on a top 100 Nintendo 64 Games list since the spring of 2003, and that fall I concentrated all of my attention on writing about each of the games. I researched games. I scanned boxes. I captured game footage, and I transferred them to pictures. When I finished the list after a series of all-nighters in January of 2005, the Age of Elizabeth Patterson had dissipated. The list is certainly one of the causes of the end of the attraction, although it is far from being the sole cause. Lynn Johnston's character design had changed dramatically over the years. By late 2004, she was doing things like emphasizing the lips of her characters, and I can't say I was a big fan of these changes. Furthermore, the Patterson family was all over the place by 2004. The story would spend a week or so with one character before hurrying off to another. The storyline felt incomplete as a result, and the characters lost much of their depth, including Elizabeth. I continued to read the strip loyally until the end, but my feelings for Elizabeth was no longer there.

Rankings
Strength: 2 - All of the Heart-Melters had dominated my thoughts to some degree, but only one of them had ended up being an actual crush. Elizabeth Patterson was close to being the second, and even though the crush never materialized, my feelings for her were extremely intense.

Duration: 2 - The attraction began in the summer of 2004 and lasted all the way into the winter of 2005. It's hard to find six months to be very impressive considering the length of the #1 Heart-Melter is about ten times that amount, but it's important to consider the fact that the original period of attraction for the #1 Heart-Melter only lasted for about that long.

Recurrence: 5 - This was where Elizabeth Patterson falters. My attention towards her went on the backburners when I began to focus on writing about the top 100 Nintendo 64 games, and as a result my attraction towards her became secondary as well. By January it was completely snuffed out, and I never looked back. Nevertheless, she still ranks ahead of some other powerhouses like Shiori Fujisaki and Kaho because even though all three of them remained my favorite characters in their respective source materials, I still read For Better or for Worse quite regularly.

Overall: 9 - Even though I don't have a lot of feelings for Elizabeth now, it's hard to ignore how much a force she was back in the day. Not only were my attractions towards her extremely strong, but it endured for an extraordinarily long period of time. This rare combination is enough to overcome a relatively low recurrence score, but to be honest the recurrence score isn't that bad. It's still in the top half.

1. MISTY

Who is she?
I hate to say it, but the only way you may have to ask this question is if you haven't been paying attention to anything Nintendo has done in the past eleven years. (I'm not saying it's not possible because I know there are a lot of people who are oblivious to what Nintendo has been doing and would understandably not know who Misty is, but if you are one of those people I highly doubt you'd be reading this.) Pokemon has become one of Nintendo's biggest franchises since its American debut in 1998, and Misty is an important part of the franchise. Even Pokemon haters are probably aware of Pokemon's loveliest heroine.

Known as Kasumi in Japan, Misty made her debut as the gym leader of Cerulean City (the second gym) in Pokemon Red/Green in 1995. She specialized in water Pokemon and was known as the Tomboyish Mermaid, implying that behind her bikini-wearing outer shell lies a strong and confident personality. Unfortunately, players never got to see this personality, because once they beat Misty to get the Cascade Badge (Blue Badge in Japan...how creative) and TM 11, there was no reason to interact with her anymore. All that was about to change.

The animated adaptation of Pokemon made its debut in Japan in April of 1997. The series follows Ash Ketchum in his adventures and misadventures around the world of Pokemon, but he is so bland that the show would grow old fast if it focused primarily on him, so the writers gave him a trio of companions. The first two made their debuts in the very first episode. One was Ash's ever-loyal Pikachu. And the other? It was none other than the most beautiful girl in all of Pokemon, nay, all of Nintendo-land: Misty. She fished Ash and his injured Pikachu out of the river late in the first episode (and slapped him for good measure because of his incompetence as a trainer). He stole her bike to get away from murderous Spearows only to destroy it, so she started following him to get a new bike. And the rest, as they say, is history.

I've always felt that Misty has the most complex personality among the main characters in Pokemon. Ash has always been the up-and-at-'em kind of guy with boundless optimism and limitless energy despite his questionable intelligence. Brock is intelligent and has a tragic backstory involving abandonment by both parents, but he ended up being like Jon Arbuckle but worse, because at least Jon has a steady girlfriend in Liz. And even though Misty started out being a whiny, impulsive brat who is quick to anger, it didn't take long for her personality to shine. Misty is the youngest of four sisters. Her older sisters were popular, good-looking, and good enough trainers to become the Cerulean City gym leader, so she developed an inferiority complex early in life. But rather than wallow in self-pity like some people may do (like me), Misty built up a tough exterior and strived to improve herself in every way. And she would eventually show a softer side beneath her initial roughness, displaying a caring heart towards people and Pokemon (especially her favorite Togepi), as well as being an effective counselor and a dispenser of wisdom. Although Misty still possessed an explosive temper (mostly towards Psyduck), her courage and coolness under pressure has saved the lives of her friends numerous times.

Eventually, all good things must come to an end. After seven years and over 200 episodes of traveling the world, Misty had to return to Cerulean City to take over the role of gym leader from her sisters, who were going on a world tour themselves. And while Brock eventually returned to Ash's side to continue making Jon Arbuckle look good, Misty remains in Cerulean City, taking care of the gym. While this is a fact that agonizes the thousands, maybe even millions of adolescent males that fell for her between 1997 and 2003, it is probably safe to assume that she is still working to find ways to improve herself. That is what makes Misty so special.

Misty's Influence
There is no doubt that Misty had a greater influence on my life than the other Heart-Melters, possibly combined. Not only was she the only Heart-Melter to surpass the minimum limit for me to define my attraction as an actual crush, but my attraction towards her remains strong even today, over ten years after it began. Yet early on there was absolutely no indication that Misty would be the person that would be the Queen of the Heart-Melters. When Pokemon first burst into my life in 1998, I was 13 years old and was just at the early stages of puberty. However, I already had a massive crush on somebody in my school. And even if I wasn't dedicating my entire romantic feelings towards somebody else, Misty wasn't near the top of my list of alternatives. I must confess that I initially found her to be somewhat annoying, such as her intolerance in Ash Catches a Pokemon or her Togepi coup in Who Gets to Keep Togepi. Through late 1998 and early 1999, my feelings towards Misty were annoyance at worst and ambivalence at best.

The summer of 1999 was a turbulent time in my life. I moved from Kansas to Virginia on June 4, 1999 (ten years before Randy Johnson won his 300th game). I was extremely frustrated by the move and ended up having a difficult transition. Things got so chaotic that I really didn't have much time or interest to think about Pokemon. It didn't help that Kids WB had not aired a new episode in months. I continued to watch older episodes on occasion, but I had other interests, like Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64.

Summer eventually passed into autumn. Somebody, I can't remember if it was my sister or one of my friends, told me that Kids WB was going to air brand new episodes on Saturday, September 4, 1999. Even though Pokemon had fallen to the wayside, I still liked the show enough that I made sure to be there for the premiere. The episode was Princess vs. Princess, which actually happened earlier in the timeline, before the Togepi Incident, but its localization was delayed because of the large amount of text in the episode. Misty was the main focus of the episode, and since my feelings towards Misty had turned from ambivalent to positive (mostly from being around my sister, a major Misty fan, all the time), I found the episode to be fairly enjoyable. However, one Misty episode was not enough to make me a Misty fan for life.

The turning point actually happened after the episode. Previously, the episodes would be followed at the end by the Pokerap, but a new feature that debuted along with Princess vs. Princess was Pikachu's Jukebox. It featured selections from songs on the 2.B.A. Master CD playing against scenes from episodes. I was a big fan of the Pokerap, so I wasn't too pleased that they were getting rid of it, but I stayed and watched the first Pikachu's Jukebox - My Best Friend. The thing about Pikachu's Jukebox was that the majority of scenes were from episodes that hadn't aired, so it was almost like having a sneak peek. Most of the clips from the first Jukebox didn't excite me at all, but there was one scene near the end that would steal my heart and change my life.

In the clip, which was the penultimate scene of the video, Misty backs away from the camera towards Ash and Brock with a fan obscuring her face. After she gets into position, she shuts the fan to reveal a beautiful smile. And in the scene, she is wearing a lovely red evening dress. To understand why this is so important, I will admit up front that I have a soft spot for skirts and dresses. I've always felt that skirts and dresses amplify a female's beauty; she always looks better when she wears a skirt or a dress. And there are two classes of skirts or dresses that seem to be universally acclaimed as the best types: the little black dress...and the red dress. The late, great Buck O'Neill once said, "You don't ever walk away from a woman in a red dress." I've never really thought of Misty as being very good looking, but because of the dress, I felt at that moment that Misty was the most beautiful person in the world. It didn't matter that I was mostly ambivalent towards her in the past, and never even thought of her as very good-looking, Misty was the most beautiful person in the world. I could feel my parasympathetic nervous system activate. My entire body felt warm due to vasodilation, and my breathing became labored because of the smooth muscle contraction. It was a very similar feeling to when my schoolyard crush began on October 21, 1997. Yet I didn't care. I cherished the feeling. My attraction towards Misty had begin, and along with it the era of the Heart-Melters.

The Age of Misty 1 (September 4, 1999 - April 17, 2000)
Nobody knows exactly how old Misty is, because nobody really knows the rate at which time passes in the Pokemon world. She did say in the Japanese version of Ash Catches a Pokemon that "This is the worst morning in the ten years of my life." Some take that to believe that she was ten in that episode and she is still ten years old. I, on the other hand, believe that the passage of time in the Pokemon world is equivalent to the passage of time in the real world. Ash Catches a Pokemon aired in Japan on April of 1997, so I take it to mean that Misty was ten in April of 1997. Misty just strikes me as somebody who has a summer birthday, so that would place her birthday somewhere in summer of 1986, specifically in July. This means that she would now be 23. Perhaps my logic is flawed, but maybe it just helps me feel better about being attracted to Misty.

I am not an expert on love and romance, but I believe that two things happen when one falls in love. The first is that one comes to believe that the person one loves is the most beautiful person in the world. And the second is that when one falls in love, one cannot stop thinking about the person he or she loves. And even though I consider my feelings towards Misty a mere crush rather than full-blown, well-developed love, I still experienced both of these symptoms. I go back and watch old videos of Misty and I can only think to myself at how beautiful she is. And I couldn't stop thinking about her no matter where I went. I thought about her at school, I thought about her on the bus, and I thought about her at home. And then I would think about Misty and her lovely red dress as I went to sleep at nights. I owned a bootleg copy of the first Pokemon movie, and I began watching it almost obsessively just so I can see Misty. I continued to watch new episodes of Pokemon even though it was clear that the episodes weren't quite at the same level of quality as the earlier episodes that I enjoyed in 1998-1999. They featured Misty, so I would watch them.

Of course, Misty did not change my life solely by dominating my thoughts. It was through my attraction towards Misty that I entered the world of Internet communities. Before autumn of 1999, I was largely an Internet neophyte. I did not get online for the very first time until November of 1997 (I remember thinking it was the most amazing thing ever), and up through autumn of 1999, the only thing I did online was read about movies. However, after the Age of Misty began, I started to go online in order to search for Misty pics and connect with other fans of Misty. I found the picture that launched my attraction towards Misty on a website dedicated to AAML (which I used to believe in but am now strongly against mostly because I feel Misty is too good for Ash). A few weeks later I ended up on the UPNetwork.com message board, and for the first time I discovered the pleasure of finding people with similar interests and being able to communicate with them online. This began an eight year journey through various online message boards that culminated with the closing of NSider on September 17, 2007.

By early 2000, I was getting rather annoyed by the deterioration of the quality of Pokemon episodes, but I kept watching new episodes because they had Misty. But then I started to notice that even the portrayal of Misty was starting to go downhill. Maybe it's a biased view, but I have always felt that Misty was the wisest of the three main characters, always present to dispense wisdom. But soon she was making mistakes she shouldn't be making, like saying in Tracey Gets Bugged that she was glad Venonat is not a bug Pokemon. This was not the Misty that I knew and loved. A third observation I've made about love is that when somebody is in love, he or she likes to think that his or her romantic interest is perfect. When evidence comes up that points to the contrary, one is thrown into a state of cognitive dissonance, which is the conflict formed by holding onto two contradictory beliefs. Well, I ended up in this cognitive dissonant state. There I was, being strongly attracted to Misty, whom I believed was perfect. But then evidence came about showing she was not perfect. The solution is, of course, to modify one of the beliefs to eliminate the contradiction. I can go into denial and continue thinking Misty was perfect, which is impossible because there is only one person who is perfect, and it certainly as heck isn't Misty. (Besides, as I later realized, some of Misty's charm came with her flaws.) The other option is to admit that Misty is not perfect but continue to be attracted to her.

In the end, I went with neither option. On the contrary, I took the cowardly way out: I pretty much just dropped my attraction towards Misty. By April of 2000, I could feel that the Age of Misty was diminishing. She wasn't dominating my fantasies the way she did in late 1999, and I ended up going towards different interests. On April 17, 2000, I was mowing the lawn. Mowing the lawn is a tedious task, so it is always a time that I can spend contemplating various things. While mowing the backyard on that day, I thought about how far my attraction towards Misty had fallen, and decided that my crush on her has ended. I took a few more hours to think about the situation, and eventually made the announcement on the UPNetwork.com message boards. My Misty crush was over. On the whole, the Age of Misty had lasted for 225 days, or more specifically seven months and 12 days, which as it turns out would be extremely long for a Heart-Melter (remember, the average length for a Heart-Melter Age is 3-4 months.) But in the end, I was done with Misty, or so I thought...

The Age of Misty 2 (Sometime in 2005 - Present)
Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, months turned into years. I graduated high school and entered the University of Virginia in 2003. During those intervening years, I never really went back to Misty. She was still my favorite Pokemon character, but all that I felt towards her was a sense of nostalgia towards the days gone by. I've had several other interests and three others join the ranks as Heart-Melters. Of course, none of them reached the high that Misty achieved back in 1999 and 2000. And then, something happened during my first year of college. I started to feel some stirrings in my heart towards Misty again. Perhaps it was because I was in a brand new environment and needed something familiar to turn towards, or it was because I just joined the Nintendo NSider community and needed something zany to distinguish myself. I can't quite remember the circumstances, and I can't even guarantee that it happened in 2003, but Misty was definitely making her return in my life.

Misty's comeback was slightly detoured during the Age of Elizabeth Patterson and the Age of Kaho in 2004 and 2005, but by the summer of 2005 it became quite clear that the Age of Misty was back, and this time she was here to stay. It was like two lovers coming back after a long break-up and deciding to take another shot at a romance. To do so they need to analyze what went wrong the first time around, and to do things differently. Since Misty is nothing more than a fictional character in a cartoon, if there were to be any change, it would have to come from me. This time around, I knew that I couldn't idealize her; that I have to take the bad with good. I needed to know that as smart as she is, she doesn't know EVERYTHING, and as kind as she is, she can still be impulsive. To believe that she is perfect would set me up for a disappointment, which was what happened back in 2000. Furthermore, I needed to take it slowly. One thing that I felt keeps most Heart-Melter Ages from being so short was that I'd dedicate so much energy into admiring them that I eventually burned myself out. So I allowed myself to think about Misty, but did not let her take over my life.

This second Age of Misty has also slowly but surely me gotten me back into Pokemon. Between 2000 and 2002, the only contact I had with Pokemon was Pokemon Puzzle League, which is my sister's favorite game, playing through Pokemon Blue again for nostalgia's sake, and listening to some of my favorite episodes on audio tape. But in 2004 I went out and bought my first new Pokemon game since getting Blue. Sure, it was Pokemon Leaf Green, but it's still a relatively significant step. I also began to convert the Kanto Pokemon episodes from VHS to WMV, a task I completed between 2005 and 2006. In 2007, I went out and got my first Pokemon RPG without Misty: Pokemon Diamond, and last year I started to watch the Pokemon episodes again. It's not a significant increase, but like with this second Age of Misty, I am still trying to take things slowly.

My feelings towards Misty have been up and down since the second Age of Misty began. At certain times, like in the summers of 2006-2008, my attraction towards her have been intense, almost as intense as the original Age in 1999-2000, where I can't stop thinking about her. At other times I can go almost an entire day without thinking about her, although I do try to dream about her when I go to bed. I've come to accept the fact that my interests have always been cyclical, but it's been two years since the Age of Tomo ended, and even then the Age of Misty marches on. I believe that by now, no matter what happens, Misty will be a constant in my life for a long time to come.

So I've written over 3,000 words regarding my attraction towards Misty. If you're bored enough to have read all of it, I'm sure you have one question to ask me: Why? Why have I dedicated about ten years of my life being attracted to a fictional character in a cartoon? Why do I seem almost proud of being attracted to a fictional character in a cartoon for ten years? Why am I more willing to talk about this than my faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, whose love is infinitely more precious than anything Misty can give me? I've thought about these questions, and the only reply I can think of is that at this moment I'm not too worried about my romantic life being a joke. I believe that God has our best interest in mind, and as long as we trust in Him, we'll know once the right person comes. I know that if I go around just actively looking for love, I'll end up getting disappointed or heartbroken (Hey, it's happened before.) So I think I'll just take it easily, put my faith in the Lord, and wait for the right time. It'll be all right, as long as I don't put my childish obsessions over the Lord. (Regarding question number three: Houston, we have a problem.)

Rankings:
Strength: 1 - Let me just say this: there are ten Heart-Melters, but only one managed to get past the threshold to become a full-fledged crush, and that's Misty. None of them managed to dominate my thoughts quite like Misty. I never dreamed about any of the other Heart-Melters quite like Misty. I never gushed about any of the Heart-Melters like I did with Misty. And this is if I'm just looking at the first Age of Misty from 1999-2000. The fact is there is a second Age of Misty, and even though the strength of attraction during the second Age is not as intense as the first Age, it was still strong enough to outdo all of the other Heart-Melter Ages combined on its own merit. Putting both of these Ages together seems almost unfair, but it shows just how far ahead Misty ranks in terms of Strength.

Duration: 1 - My original crush on Misty lasted from September 4, 1999 through April 17, 2000. That's seven months and thirteen days, already longer than any of the other Heart-Melter ages, only two of which lasted longer than six months (that would be Buttercup and Elizabeth Patterson.) Most Heart-Melters Ages were finished within three to four months. That alone is enough to give Misty the lead in terms of duration, but one must also take into account that I am in the midst of a second Age of Misty, which has been going on for four to six years. To think of it in another way, today is the twelfth anniversary of the start of the original Misty crush, and she is still an active Heart-Melter.

Recurrence: 1 -Recurrence has been very difficult to rate for the other Heart-Melters because once the attraction period ended, I never really felt the desire to go back to them, so I've been pretty much ranking them by how much I like them as a character after the Ages ended. Only two Heart-Melters has had something resembling the revival of an attraction, but neither of them were significant enough to count as new Ages. No such problems exist with Misty. I had one period of attraction from 1999 to 2000 that qualifies as an Age, and after three to four years of dormancy I had another period of attraction that qualifies as an Age. I think it's easy to declare Misty the winner in this field.

Overall: 3 - Misty stomped the competition in Strength. She dominated the field in Duration. And she ranked #1 in Recurrence. None of these things were even close. Is it any wonder that Misty is the Queen of the Heart-Melters?

Randy Johnson's 300th Win Part V: The Game

2009-12-04T21:51:00.001-08:00

After 18,000 words in four days, we finally get to the main event: Randy Johnson's 300th win. I apologize for boring you with so much excess detail in Parts I-IV, but I feel that it helps to set up the actual game. Besides, the only people that will actually read this thing are my sister and me. (You can prove me wrong by leaving a comment. You can make it as nasty as you want.) Anyways, a note to all of the #nintendo people. The title wasn't deliberate, but I did notice it when I was getting ready to write it. And I have just one thing to say about it: ha ha!

Or the Complete Story of How I Got to See One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of the Game

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player
Part III: The Set-Up
Part IV: The Rainout
Part V: The Game
Part VI: The Aftermath (Coming sometime June 4, 2010 because I'm a lazy bum)

Or The Game Where Randy Johnson Becomes the 24th Player to Reach 300 Wins

It was 5:12 by the time Jordan Zimmermann threw the first pitch (a called strike vs. Aaron Rowand) in front of a crowd of about 3,000. (The crowd would never seem to rise above 7,000, although since most people were sitting underneath the concourse, the stands seem even more bare than it actually is.) The top of the first was relatively uneventful, although it did show why Zimmermann is one of the National's top prospects. He struck out Rowand and Edgar Renteria on nasty breaking balls, and induced Randy Winn to ground out to first baseman Nick Johnson. Sure, he threw a lot of pitches, but the results were what the Nationals front office were hoping to see. Michael owned Zimmermann on his fantasy team, and during the Renteria at bat I asked if he was starting Zimmermann. Michael said no, since he didn't want to root against Randy, but he was regretting the move when Renteria was called out on strikes. I missed the first pitch, and moving from the pitcher, whom I kept my camera on most of the time, to the batter was a little bit difficult on such a cold day, but I was still getting the game on camera.

In the second inning, I decided to use my sister's camera to take a couple of close-up pictures of Randy. She has a Sony Cyber-shot DST-T200, and it has the option to take pictures continuously if you hold down the button to take pictures. I used it to get good pictures of Greg Maddux. However, I realized it was difficult to take pictures and film the game, so I gave up and focused only on pictures for the first batter, Alberto Gonzalez, who grounded to short, and then continued to use my sister's camera for filming in that half-inning. Nick Johnson gave the Giants a scare when he lifted a line drive to center field that seemed like it would drop for a double, but Aaron Rowand came rushing over and made a diving, backhanded grab that robbed Nick Johnson of a hit. It was the first of three great plays that the Giants would make for Randy Johnson. Ryan Zimmerman grounded to second to get Randy out of the first.

The Giants were surprisingly in second place in the NL West, but they had the worst offense in the division. You can't win in baseball without scoring any runs, so Randy needed runs to get the win. When Bengie Molina struck out - Zimmermann's third strikeout in four batters - it seems like it's going to be a rough night for the Giants offense. But then Fred Lewis lined a single to center, and Travis Ishikawa poked a double down the right field line that barely eluded the glove of first baseman Nick Johnson. Lewis raced around third, but had to put on the brakes when third base coach Tim Flannery threw up the stop sign. People around us were yelling for him to go home, but Winn fielded the ball well and Lewis would have been out. It didn't matter as the next batter, Juan Uribe, hit a sharp ground ball to the right side that scored Lewis. And then second baseman Emmanuel Burriss dumped a single into center after falling behind 0-2 to make the score 2-0! Randy Johnson struck out to end the inning, but we were all pleased. One run was a pleasant surprise with such a wimpy Giants lineup. And two runs by the Giants were a miracle!

Randy Johnson quickly fell behind Adam Dunn 3-0 in the bottom of the second, (although with no outs, it gave me a chance to capture the milestone that Randy was going for on the scoreboard), but then he came right back and struck Dunn out with Mr. Snappy. And after Elijah Dukes bounced out to third, Randy struck out Austin Kearns on three straight fastballs for his second strikeout of the inning, and 4,845th of his career.

When the third inning started, I noticed that the camera was extremely zoomed out, and it became blurry when I zoomed in. I wanted to see what was wrong, but then Zimmermann started pitching, and there was nothing more I could do about it if I didn't want to miss the game. And thankfully I decided not to, because on Zimmermann's second pitch to Rowand, Rowand lifted a foul ball that drifted towards us. In the second inning, Bengie Molina had hit a foul ball that came our way, but it landed in the section next to ours and bounced away . This one seemed to come straight towards us. In fact, it was heading towards the row behind us! I was holding the camera and couldn't do anything about it, but Matt climbed over his chair and made a nifty bare-handed catch. None of us had ever caught a foul ball in a major league contest before, and to get our first one in what could be Randy Johnson's 300th win...that was beyond amazing. Later, a cameraman took a picture of Matt posing with the ball and Michael smiling happily beside him. It was such a great picture that I had to spend the $23 and buy it. (I was also in the picture, holding an umbrella to keep the rain off of the cameras.)

The rest of the inning was relatively uneventful. Rowand ended up grounding out, Renteria struck out for the second time, and Winn bounced out to first. And in the bottom of the third, Randy Johnson retired the side on eight pitches. By then, both pitchers had faced the opposing lineup at least once. While Zimmermann had that rocky patch in the second where he had trouble hitting his locations, both pitchers were pitching very well. As the game moved into the fourth, it would be how the pitchers do on the second go-around that may determine what the score may be when the game goes to the bullpen.

The Giants' second inning offensive outbrust had spoiled me, and I was hoping that they could add some insurance runs to make Randy's win more certain, but Zimmermann made it seem like that second inning was a fluke, as he retired the Giants in order, including another strikeout of Molina. It was Zimmermann's sixth of the game. I began to jokingly needle Michael about keeping Zimmermann on the bench, although I admit that I left Roy Oswalt on the bench the night before when he had a great game.

In the bottom of the fourth, the game had that blurry effect on my camera. After a few pitches to Nick Johnson, I realized the reason why. It all depends on how much the camera is zoomed in when you press record. When you're zoomed in all the way, you can zoom in or out and maintain good quality. However, if you start recording when you're zoomed out, it'll be blurry when you zoom in. Armed with this new knowledge, I was able to see Randy get ahead of Nick Johnson 1-2. And then at that time, Ryan showed up, wearing one of those Nationals parkas. (His entrance was such a monumental moment that Comcast Sports Network Bay Area made a cut just to see it unfold.) Ryan remarked that it seemed most people was cheering for Randy, but where we were sitting it seemed about 50/50. That's what happens when you sit behind the home team's dugout.

Anyways, Randy had been perfect through 3.3 innings, thanks to Aaron Rowand's nice grab of Nick Johnson's liner. Now Randy was ahead of Nick 1-2, and I decided to zoom in as much as I can for the next two pitches. Both of them were balls. The first one was extremely close, much to our chagrin, but Tim Timmons was the home plate umpire, and he was one that even I heard of and in a good way, so we can't quibble with his calls. Yet it was a bit discouraging to see Randy walk Nick to end the perfect game. And the next batter was Ryan Zimmerman, who as Ryan Halferty noted, has a tendency to hit home runs. I should know, as Zimmerman was the one who hit the walk-off home run to give 王建民 a loss in a game I saw on June 18, 2006. But the results were better for Randy, as Zimmerman flied to right. And then Adam Dunn popped out, and Randy still had the 2-0 lead.

The Giants continued their increasingly futile efforts to score more runs off of Jordan Zimmermann in the fifth. Juan Uribe hit what might have been the hardest ball of the night to lead off the inning, but it was heading to center so it didn't even get to the warning track. And then Zimmermann had no problem in disposing of Emmanuel Burris and Randy Johnson, although Randy managed to work the count full before getting called out on strikes, giving Zimmermann seven strikeouts, five of them were called. He had also retired the Giants in order after the rocky second. Most people pitch worse in the second go-around.

Randy Johnson may have lost his perfect game in the fourth when he walked Nick Johnson, but he still had a no-hitter going. That ended in the fifth when Elijah Dukes hit a broken bat grounder that Randy almost got to, but his 6'10" frame kept him from just getting to the ball. The remnants of the bat also came perilously close to Randy, although he was probably unaware of it. Randy proceeded to throw four straight balls against Austin Kearns, including one that got away from Bengie Molina, allowing Dukes to go to second. Randy was now in a dangerous situation, with runners on first and second with no outs. A single could make it 2-1 with no outs and still two runners on. Ronnie Belliard seemed to make that happen with a hard grounder that struck the mound and was heading towards center field. However, young Emmanuel Burriss - who grew up in the DC area - made a diving grab of Belliard's grounder. He flipped the ball to Renteria without getting up, and Renteria threw to first to complete the double play. I've never paid much attention to Web Gems, but this was without a doubt one of the top Web Gems. Not only was it a physically impressive play, but it was also crucial, preventing a situation with no outs and two runners on base.

Randy was about to get out of the inning when disaster struck. Capturing videos are extremely energy-draining, and so even though I had brand new batteries when the day began, the batteries of the digital camera I was using died. Even though I had two packs of four replacement batteries at the ready, I still missed it when Wil Nieves grounded out to make it an official game.

The Giants continued in their attempt to get some more runs for Randy Johnson, but Ryan Zimmerman almost single-handedly shot down those thoughts. The first two batters hit easy ground balls to Zim, and then Randy Winn popped out to him in foul territory. It certainly appears as though Zimmermann's rocky second inning was a fluke. However, he won't have any more opportunities to prove himself. Anderson Hernandez came out to pinch-hit in the top of the sixth. It was a sensible decision. Even though Zimmermann was pitching well, he had thrown 92 pitches, and the Nationals were in dire need of runs. And he could have gotten on base if not for a dazzling play made by Randy Johnson. Hernandez hit a grounder in about the same place as Dukes's grounder in the fifth. The only difference was in height. Randy was able to knock it down, but it rolled behind him to his left. He raced over, picked it up, and threw it to first, landing on his left shoulder. Travis Ishikawa made a fine grab, and had to back out of the way of the charging Hernandez. The stadium broke out in cheers, and Randy's play would play on highlight reels all night.

However, Randy's very good play was offset by a very bad play. Alberto Gonzalez hit a grounder to short that Edgar Renteria fielded cleanly, but he made a low throw that got away from Ishikawa. It was clearly an error, but whose? Some people argued that Ishikawa should have gotten the ball, but Renteria's throw was low. In the end, the scorer gave the error to Renteria. And up stepped Nick Johnson, who gave Randy some trouble that day, with a well-hit lineout in the first and a walk in the fourth. He added to the damage with a double to center that scored Gonzalez. It was an unearned run, as Gonzalez reached on an error, but an unearned run is still a run. Randy got out of the inning without further damage by getting Zimmerman to ground out (with Nick going to third) and Dunn to pop out in foul territory, but the lead was now down to 2-1.

We weren't sure whether or not Randy would come out for the 7th. He still had a low pitch count, but his last three innings weren't quite as good as the first three innings. Nobody gave him a standing ovation as he walked off the field probably due to the ambiguity, but we should have.

The game was now a battle of the bullpens. Ron Villone stepped up to prevent the Giants from adding to their one-run lead. Villone signed with the Nationals that season and was very good as of June 4, having given up no runs in 14.2 innings and was 3-0. And he did his job perfectly by getting Bengie Molina and Fred Lewis to make outs to Nick Johnson and striking out Travis Ishikawa. Brandon Medders came out for the Giants in the bottom of the 7th, officially signifying the end of Randy's day, and also pitched well. He struck out Elijah Dukes and Austin Kearns in the rain, which started coming down hard this half-inning, and got Ronnie Belliard to pop to second.

With the rain coming down steadily, the umpires conferred to decide on whether or not to call the game, but they decided to keep it going, so up stepped former Royals closer Mike MacDougal to work the eighth. I remember MacDougal was terrible for the Royals and the White Sox for a couple of years, so I thought that the Giants may have a chance to add to the lead. However, MacDougal as also an all-star back in 2003, and he pitched like one in getting Juan Uribe and Emmanuel Burriss out. With two outs and nobody on, Bruce Bochy let Medders go up to bat, and that led to what may be the most entertaining at bat of the day. MacDougal's first pitch was up and in near Medders's head. Medders was so shaken up by the pitch that he just stepped back as MacDougal tossed a beauty in the middle of the plate. MacDougal's third pitch went in towards Medders again, and Medders turned away from the pitch with the bat still going around to make it 1-2. And he just gave up as the MacDougal tossed an easy strike to end the half-inning.

Brandon Medders's misadventure may have been beneficial to the Nationals, as they tried to make up the one-run difference to prevent Randy from getting 300. Medders was missing his spots, and Wil Nieves lined a solid single into center. Bochy realized what was going on, and replaced Medders with southpaw reliever Jeremy Affeldt, who came in to face the switch-hitting pinch-hitter, Cristian Guzman. Guzman lined the first pitch into center for the first out. The next batter, Alberto Gonzalez, hit a grounder to Renteria on a hit-and-run. Renteria's only play was at first. There were now two outs with a runner on second, but the batter was the pesky Nick Johnson, who had given the Giants trouble all day. Bochy kept Affeldt in for the lefty-lefty advantage, but Affeldt ended up walking Nick on a full count. One can't argue with the move, as it sets up a force at third if necessary. Bochy brought in right-handed closer Brian Wilson to face the right-handed Ryan Zimmerman to get the four-out save, but Wilson ended up walking Zimmerman on five pitches to load the bases for the dangerous Adam Dunn.

Adam Dunn is one of the most conflicting players of this generation. He struck out a lot and hit for a low average, but he also regularly walks over 100 times a year, and hits a lot of home runs. He's always struggled against Randy Johnson, but was facing Brian Wilson for the very first time with two outs and the bases loaded in a one-run ballgame. Wilson's first pitch was a fastball high for ball 1, but he came back with two of his blazing fastballs that Dunn swung through and fouled to make it 1-2. One more strike and the Giants would be out of the inning with the lead preserved. The next pitch was at the right height but a bit outside. However, almost all of the fans were on the sides of the batters, so it looked like it was a strike. Boos rang throughout the stadium. The next pitch was also a ball.

This is now a definite pressure situation for Brian Wilson. He's trying to protect a one-run lead for Randy Johnson's 300th win, but he's facing the dangerous Adam Dunn with a full count and the bases loaded. He'd have to challenge Dunn, because if he throws a ball out of the strike zone expecting Dunn to chase and fails, the game would be tied and he'd become the most hated man in San Francisco (at least until Randy Johnson gets his 300th win.) On the other hand, if he throws the ball where Dunn can get bat on ball solidly, the Giants would be losing. At least with a walk the game would still be tied.

With a crowd of 7,000 generating a roar of 27,000, Bengie Molina called for a fastball down near Dunn's knees. Wilson hit the mark with a sinking fastball. Dunn thought it was low and started jogging towards first, but after a moment's pause, Tim Timmons rang him up. Strike three. An aggravated Adam Dunn went back to talk to Timmons, but what's done is done. Adam Dunn was called out on strikes, and nothing can be done about it. The tense and action-packed eighth inning had ended. The game goes into the ninth with the Giants' lead still intact. Randy Johnson can still get his 300th win.

While I didn't know it at the time (I was still celebrating the moment), there was a massive debate going on in the world wide web about the call. Some say it was the correct call. The strike zone is designated as the area between the shoulders and the knees. Replays show that the ball was clearly at the knees as it crossed the plate before ending up slightly below the knee, but where it was as it crossed the plate is what is important. Others counter that by saying that the strike zone is defined by the batter's natural stance. Adam Dunn is crouched at the plate, but he stands 6'6". There's no way that his knees while crouched would be at the same height as his knees in a natural stance, so Timmons missed the call, but it was an honest mistake. Other conspiracy theorists argue that Timmons knew it was a ball, but decided that history is more important, and so rang up Adam Dunn as a way to preserve Randy Johnson's 300th win. That explains his pause before making the strike three call. I personally believe that it was the first option. Timmons called it a strike because it was a strike. The pause is actually a practice popularized by umpire Doug Harvey to run the pitch again in his head before making the call.

Anyways, with the the crowd still in an uproar, the game moved into the top of the ninth. By then Joel Hanrahan was in the game. Hanrahan started out as the Nationals' closer, but blew several leads and found himself out of favor of manager Manny Acta. He slowly rebuilt Acta's confidence in him, and was back into working the ninth. However, the Giants finally found a pitcher they could bully. Aaron Rowand started by poking a single into center to end a streak of 19 straight hitters retired. Renteria followed with a double - the 400th of his career, as I found out yesterday - that put runners on second and third. Randy Winn drove in both runners by smacking a double that barely eluded the outstretched glove of Ryan Zimmernan to make the score 4-1. However, I missed Winn's double because the new batteries that I put in during the fifth inning had run out. I wanted to capture the final out, so I turned off the camera to preserve batteries.

The Giants, meanwhile, continued to feast on Hanrahan. Bengie Molina singled to put runners at the corner, and Acta had seen enough. He replaced Hanrahan with Joe Beimel, who had to face the popular young first baseman Pablo "Kung Fu Panda" Sandoval, pinch hitting for Lewis. Sandoval fought back from an 0-2 count to bring the count full, and he followed that with a sacrifice fly that scored Winn to make it 5-1. Pinch-hitter Andres Torres came to the plate and hit another fly ball to almost the exact same place. Unfortunately, there was nobody on third base to drive home. Juan Uribe grounded out to end the half-inning and send the game to the bottom of the 9th, but not before the Giants extended their lead to four runs.

With a four-run cushion and no rain in sight (the rains had ended by the bottom of the eighth), the game took on a bit of festive atmosphere, as if the win was inevitable. Randy's son Tanner had a smile the entire time, but the old man sat there stone-faced in the dugout. Brian Wilson didn't make it easy. He started out 0-2 against Elijah Dukes, but threw three straight balls to make it a full count before finally getting the strikeout. One out. Likewise, Wilson went to a 3-2 count against Austin Kearns before getting the strikeout. Two outs. With two outs, I turned the camera back on for the at-bat against Ronnie Belliard. Wilson went ahead in the count 1-2, but tormented the fans who had begun to chant "Ran-dy! Ran-dy!" by taking it into another full count; the fourth straight batter that Wilson took to 3-2. On the next pitch, Belliard hit a sharp grounder to Emmanuel Burriss. Burriss, who had robbed Belliard of a hit and turned it into a double play in the fifth, was able to knock the ball down, but he made a desperate whirl and throw, but Belliard beat out the throw barely. I thought it was an error because from my vantage point it seemed like Burriss dropped the ball, but the scorer ruled it as a base hit.

So with two outs and a runner on first, up stepped Wil Nieves. Nieves hit a solid single that drove Brandon Medders out of the game, and he was hoping he can reproduce that success against Brian Wilson. The first pitch by Wilson was a 96-mph fastball that looked a little bit high, but was called a strike. The second pitch by Wilson was a 97-mph fastball that Nieves could only foul. Once again, chants of "Ran-dy! Ran-dy!" filled the stadium. Even the fans who were cheering for the Nationals recognized the inevitable of the milestone and were showing their support of the Big Unit. But two men knew that there were still a chance for the Nationals to come back. One was Wil Nieves, the catcher who is the last remaining barrier between Randy Johnson and his 300th victory. The other is Randy Johnson, who sat stone-faced in the dugout watching Wilson's next move.

Bengie Molina called for a fastball on the outside of the plate. Brian Wilson aimed for the spot and pitched with all his might. Out came a 98-mph fastball. Nieves swung hopelessly and came up with nothing. Three outs.

300 wins and other milestone clubs are unique in a way. It is an achievement that one works towards throughout his entire career. Therefore even though Randy Johnson has already secured his place in history with his strikeouts, his five Cy Young awards, his 2001 World Series co-MVP, and his perfect game, he still had plenty of reasons to celebrate this victory. First of all, it is something that he had been working towards since his first victory almost 21 years ago. Second, it silenced everybody who doubted his chances to reach 300 at various times in his career, from his first back injury at 32 in 1996 to his most recent back injury at 43 in 2007. Finally, it showed his father that he had not broken his promise; that despite all of the injuries and the adversities, he made it to one of the most exclusive pitching clubs there is.

And yet Randy Johnson's reaction to the win was somewhat muted. I couldn't see him from where I was sitting, but when I watched the video afterward, he stood up almost mechanically and hugged his teammates before going out onto the field to mingle with the rest of his team. He also doffed his cap towards the fans behind the Giants dugout. Yet with the exception of a small smile while facing the crowd, he mostly wore the same hardened expression that he had while sitting in the dugout during the bottom of the ninth. It wasn't until his family came onto the field that be began to soften. It could be because he knew that there was another game to be played in a half hour - the second game of the doubleheader. It could be because the milestone happened in front of a crowd of 7,000 on the other side of the country rather than in front of a packed stadium at San Francisco. Or it might just because Randy Johnson is a private individual playing in an extremely public field, and he preferred to celebrate it on his own terms like Greg Maddux five years earlier.

But up in the stadium, none of us really cared what was going through Randy Johnson's mind. We were happy for Randy, how he managed to overcome so much to achieve a milestone so few had achieved. We were happy for ourselves and how we had the good fortune to witness a slice of baseball history. And we were glad for having seen such a good game. And it was a good game. Despite the final score, the game was incredibly tense, featuring excellent pitching performances by both starters and great defensive plays. It is only fitting that Randy Johnson would have such a compelling game for his 300th career victory.

Sources: The CSN Bay Area broadcast of the 300th career win was definitely an important source, as well as the Baseball Reference box score and play by play of the game. Other than that, there weren't too many resources. I seemed to have gotten too bogged down in the play by play and neglected the emotional aspects of the game, which is too bad. There will be a Part VI, but since I have to start studying cardio that I've been neglecting, I don't know when it'll go up, but hopefully Parts I-V are enough to keep you occupied.

Anyways, here are select highlights from the game...basically the plays that I recorded that are clear enough or interesting enough. It's got about 70% of the plays, but I wish it could be 100%. :(

And of course...the Wins of Randy Johnson:

And if you can't see the videos because you're reading this on Facebook, head over to the blogspot entry to see it.

Randy Johnson's 300th Win Part IV: The Rainout

2009-12-03T14:22:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Part IV of the six-part series looking back at Randy Johnson's 300th win. This part will detail the events of June 3, 2009, the scheduled date of Randy Johnson's first attempt at 300 wins, and what happened that eventually pushed the date of the milestone back to June 4. After writing 16,000 words in three days, I will try to make this entry more lightweight, but I can't make any guarantees.

Or the Complete Story of How I Got to See One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of the Game

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player
Part III: The Set-Up
Part IV: The Rainout
Part V: The Game (Coming December 4)
Part VI: The Aftermath (Coming sometime in December)

Or The Events of the Day of the Rainout, and Mediations While Waiting Out a Rain Delay.

The forecast called for rain on June 3, 2009, but the day actually started out bright and sunny. I thought, "If it could be like this throughout the day, then we can definitely get the game in." Alas, that was probably the calm before the storm. Anyways, I had a couple of "errands" to run before the game, but the errands were getting a copy of the Washington Post so that I would have the newspaper from the day Randy Johnson got his 300th win, and spend the rest of the Best Buy gift card that I had used to buy the memory cards that I would bring to the game.

I decided to drive to the Best Buy at the Reston Town Center, since it has a Barnes and Nobles right next to it. I went in, wandered around trying to find the newspaper section before asking an employee for it, and also deciding to buy a map of the Dallas/Fort Worth area, since that would be my new place of residence for the next four years. Anyways, I paid for my wares and sat in the Starbucks and had a rather expensive breakfast while reading the coverage in the Post for Randy Johnson's 300th win. There was only one article, and it talked about how dominant the Big Unit has been. It also brought up an interesting historical sidenote that I was well aware about but neglected to mention in Part III: that Randy Johnson was going for his 300th win against the organization that traded him to the Mariners 20 years prior.

Boswell also added that since the Nationals were the worst team in baseball and on pace to be historically bad, and since Randy Johnson already beat them for win number 298, he shouldn't have any problem getting the win tonight. But I wasn't too sure. Nothing is ever a guarantee. That win in May was not a cakewalk. Randy's ERA was at 5.68 going into that game and actually went up. The Nationals actually had a better offense than the Giants, and the Nationals' starter Jordan Zimmermann was a good young pitcher that I had on some of my fantasy teams. Plus, I heard a saying - I think it was by Billy Martin - that while everybody would root for somebody to get an important milestone like 300 wins, nobody actually wants to be the one to get them there. (Which would really suck for Cesar Geronimo. He was the 3,000th strikeout victim of both Gaylord Perry and Nolan Ryan.)

Anyways, I went next door to Best Buy and settled on a copy of The Sims 3, which came out earlier that week. I had to pay $23 out of my own pocket, but I figured it would be well worth it. I wouldn't be able to play it that day, but I have all day to play it on June 4. I went home and started trying to pass the time while waiting for Matt and Michael. We said we would meet at around 2, drive to the Vienna metro station, and ride in together and get there around the time gates open at 5. Well, it was before noon when I got back home, so I had about two hours to burn. I put the finishing touches on my signs. I made sure I brought everything I needed (the signs, baseball cards for players to autograph since I'm an autograph hound but only on cards, the digital cameras with memory cards, and extra batteries.) I talked a little bit to Sari, who was staying over. I installed The Sims 3 so it will be up and ready to go for the next day, and in the end I surfed the Internet.

Michael got to my place first, and we waited around for Matt. He got there a little bit after two, but things were still going to play, and it was still sunny out. We got in and drove to the Vienna metro station, and managed to find parking. Along the way, we talked about our excitement at potentially seeing history, and also about our fantasy baseball league. I was next to last in the league thanks to a weak offense. My team actually managed 17RBIs the night before, but my opponent Michael actually got 15 RBIs from his players. The only thing this offensive explosion did was decrease my RBI deficit to 6. Eh...such is fantasy sports. I did notice that the skies were starting to cloud up the closer we got to DC, which was not a good sign.

We made the switch to green line at L'enfant Plaza, and then to the field at Navy Yards. By then it had started to rain, and it wasn't a light rain either. By then the gates had opened. We entered the stadium and to our disappointment the large white carp covered the field. There was nothing much to see, so we went to the Nationals Team Store so Matt can buy a Nationals cap to prove he was at the park. Then we wandered over to the PlayStation Pavilion to see what was available. They had Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, Karaoke Revolution, and MLB '09: The Bigs, but the game that really interested me was Buzz! Quiz TV. The announcer is a very annoying Muppet wannabe, but I like trivia even if I'm terrible. I had been in It's Academic in high school and tried out for quiz bowl at UVA. I started playing solo, but then Michael and Matt came around so we played a three player game. That turned out to be tons of fun. We played two games (I won both of them) when the rain started to die down. We went out and saw that they were removing the tarp, and a couple of Giants were on the field doing their warm-up tosses.

We hung out in the left field area, hoping that players were coming out for batting practice. I saw a lady wearing a Randy Johnson jersey holding a sign that said, "I came 800 miles to see Randy's 300th." We talked to her and found out that she was from Chicago, and was in town for a business meeting or something, and she also happens to be a very big Randy Johnson fan, so she brought tickets just to witness a historical event for her favorite player. I didn't take any pictures because I wanted to conserve the batteries for the actual game. I apparently also saw Zach Hample, baseball snagging extraordinaire and author of the book Watching Baseball Smarter, but I didn't realize it until I looked at his blog and saw that he was taking pictures from the area where I was standing. A few people took interest in my sign with all of the 300-game winners. They tried naming them all, but struggled with the older players. A few people were able to recognize Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson, but they had no idea about the 19th century players. I apparently have an interest in a very odd aspect of baseball history.

Nationals Park is interesting in that for the first hour after gates open, fans were only allowed to mingle in the outfield. It's only after an hour passed that they let fans go towards seats in foul territory. I wandered down to see where our seats may be when I made the realization that if we're sitting along the third base side, we'll be close to the Giants dugout, but we can only see Randy's back when he pitches. I've always gotten seats along the third base side when I go to games to watch a pitcher so that I can see their pitching motion better. However, everybody that I've gone specifically to see in the past (Clemens, Maddux, 王建民) were right-handers. However, Randy Johnson was a southpaw. However, while the vantage point wasn't ideal, there was nothing I could do about it.*

*Actually, I made the realization almost as soon as I brought tickets, but since this knowledge wouldn't play much of a role until Parts IV and V, I didn't mention it until now.

I saw that Barry Zito was signing autographs, and since I had his Topps 2003 card (with stats from his 2002 Cy Young year), I went over to get it autographed. Shortly afterward it started to storm, so once again we retreated to somewhere dry. By then Ryan had arrived, so we went to play a four-player match of Buzz. A Sony rep noticed that we had played earlier, and he said that whoever would win the round we were playing can get a free flash drive. I don't remember what we were playing, but Michael ended up winning the flash drive, but I think I won the game in the end. When we got tired of video games, we went next door to the Exxon Strike Zone, with batting cages and pitching cages. We sat around for another hour or so while Michael and Matt waited in line to try their hands at pitching.

By then, the scheduled start-time of 7:05 had come and gone. The big screen said something along the lines of, "The start of the game has been delayed due to rain. We will keep you updated as soon as information becomes available." At around 8, the rain died down enough that there was some hope of getting the game in. The tarp was coming off, and so we went down to our seats. But only minutes passed before the rain came again. We retreated to the concessions area, and decided to spend money on overpriced hot dogs and nachos. We stood around eating while watching the scores from other games. (It was here that we found out that the Braves released Tom Glavine, only a few days after a successful rehab start. I still think it's because of money.) We decided waiting around was boring, so we went back to the Exxon Strike Zone. Once we were sick of that, we went next door to the PlayStation Pavilion. I played some more Buzz while Ryan seemed to like Karaoke Revolution.

I played Buzz until 10:00, when the PlayStation Pavilion closed, and we had to pack up and move back to the Exxon Strike Zone, where Matt took his swings in the batting cage. And then that closed as well. All of the video screens still posted the message, "Please take cover under the concourse. Severe storms are approaching. We are monitoring the situation & will keep you updated as information becomes available," a message they had been displaying since 8:00. Most people seemed agitated they haven't called the game, but I actually liked the situation. They obviously haven't called the game because first of all, they would have to make it up in a doubleheader the next day, but with more rain in the forecast for June 4, it didn't seem likely to get both games in. And I'm sure the chance for Randy to get 300 was another reason they haven't called the game. And by then, there were only a thousand or so fans left, which meant it would be a foul ball paradise. Just imagine...getting a foul ball from Randy Johnson's 300th win!

There isn't really much to do or much to say when one is sitting around for 45 minutes waiting for either the game to either be played or called. At least we had video games or batting cages to entertain us before 10. We were told that we had missed a streaker some time when were at the play area. We saw Stan Kastan and the umpires walk onto the field with umbrellas twice, but they left both times and we fans got no new information. By that time the outfield was covered with enormous puddles. While waiting, I noticed that rain looks beautiful and serene as you watch it come down. The concession stands were all closed by that time, so if they do play, the fans would have to watch on an empty stomach. Finally, at 10:45 or so the team put us fans out of our misery and announced that the game was being canceled, with a traditional double-header being played the following day: June 4, 2009. This was great because a traditional double-header means two games for the price of one. The announcer also added that fans with tickets to tonight's game can use a rain check and get another ticket for the same price at another home game except for the series against the Red Sox on June 23-25. Well, June 4 is not June 23-25, so that means we could still see Randy Johnson go for 300! I mentioned this to the others, and we agreed to talk it over on the Metro ride back. On our way to the Metro, we noticed that the rain had ended.

I had no problems with going back the next day, as the only thing I had on my itinerary was playing The Sims 3. Matt was willing to stay around another day. Michael had a lunch meeting in Manassas, and Ryan had work, but they were all willing to go to the game. After all, there's nothing like two games for the price of one, with one of them potentially being Randy Johnson's 300th win. The next part was logistics. How would we meet up the most efficiently? We still had to arrive early and exchange tickets for the rainout for tickets to the June 4 contest. After much discussion, we decided that Matt and I would leave at noon to get the exchanges. Michael would drive up to the Vienna metro station after his lunch meeting and get to the park, while Ryan would do what he did on the 3rd. He may miss Randy Johnson, since the game is scheduled to start at 4:35, but he'll take it. So while people moaned and groaned about the experience online, I went to bed giddy that I still may have a chance to see history.

There are some days where you just can't ever forget. Sure, there may be some details that have fallen off to the wayside, but on the whole you remember most of the day's events from morning to night. June 4, 2009 was one of those days for me.*

*June 4, 1999 was another one of those days, as were June 3, 1999 and June 3, 2009 as well. There's just something special about June 3-4 on the last years of a decade

The day began on the Metro. We were heading home on the way back from the rainout when the clock went from 11:59PM to 12:00 AM. Once we got home, I showed Michael and Matt to where they were sleeping, and where they can use computers to update their fantasy teams. I went upstairs, told my sister about going to see the game tomorrow, surfed the internet for a few more hours before going to bed. I had to go to bed early, because I had made an appointment with my primary care physician in the morning. I needed to have a physical exam for entrance into TCOM. I had though I didn't have anything to do except The Sims 3, which is why I made a 9:00 appointment. I woke up at 8 or so for the appointment, which was was rather mundane, although I had an EKG done on me for the first time. On my way home I stopped by CVS to buy a copy of the Washington Post, just in case Randy got the win.

Michael was already gone when I got back. With another hour and a half to go until we were planning to leave, I decided to make pancakes. A few days prior, I made a couple of pancakes that were utter failures. These pancakes turned out to be a little bit better. At least they were edible. I went and woke Matt around 11, and we ate the edible pancakes. We left at noon and decided to stop by Subway, because while the pancakes were edible, they weren't very filling for Matt. I wasn't hungry, but I could save it for later. I got a Meatball Marinara, because that's what I ALWAYS get at Subway's. We drove to the Vienna metro station, but to my dismay it was full. But there was no need to worry. If we couldn't get to Vienna, I could still make it to the next station, Dunn Loring Merrifield, since I had found it during one of my driving expeditions that spring. Just our luck! There were parking spots when we got there. You needed a Metro card to exit the parking lot, but we'll take care of that later. We were on our way to Nationals Park, and made it just as the gates were opening.

I had the soggy tickets from the night before to trade in at the ticket counter. I was worried that the game would be sold out due to the historical significance, but to my relief there were PLENTY of seats available. Since there were seats available, I didn't have to stick with seats along the 3rd base line, where all we'll see is Randy's back. I ended up switching the seats to section 128L, along the first base line, so we could see the front side of Randy Johnson. True, we wouldn't be near the Giants dugout, but it didn't matter to us. Our new seats were in row K, which was even closer than what our old tickets were! We also asked the lady at the ticket counter if it would be possible to give the tickets to Ryan and Michael when they arrived. The lady told us that we can just leave the tickets for them as will call. All Michael and Ryan would have to do was show them a photo ID. So we happily gave her their names and entered the stadium.

We had two and a half hours before the game would start. We went to the PlayStation Pavilion to watch them set up. When they finally had Buzz up, Matt and I played a game, but it wasn't so much fun with two people, so we went to the Exxon Strike Zone, the Nationals team store (where I saw that 王建民 got rocked on his first start after three relief appearances coming back from the DL), and then to the left field bleachers, where I broke out my digital camera to film Randy throwing the ball around in center field. As soon as the team opened the rest of the stadium, Matt and I went down near the Giants dugout. The lady from Chicago was there again, still with her sign. She had them laminated, which was a good idea, because my 300-win club poster ended up being completely soggy, and the glue was coming off. I brought it along anyways, and one of the reporters there interviewed me about it. I bet I bored them to tears by naming all of the members of the 300-win club, and that my segment ended up on the cutting room floor. I also remarked that Randy had won a game on June 4, 1989 (his fifth) and June 4, 1999 (his 150th), so perhaps it's more fitting for him to win on June 4, 2009.

Matt looked bored, so we quickly left to go to our seat along the first base side. On our way there, a photographer approached us and asked if we wanted to have our picture taken. We consented, and he snapped a picture, and handed us a card to show us where to find the picture. (I looked for the picture later, and it was actually a fine picture of Matt, so I brought a print.) It began to rain again when we got to our seats, and soon the announcement came that the game was being delayed for 30 minutes. Here we go again. The good thing about the delay was that when Michael came shortly afterward, he didn't miss a pitch. Later he and Matt went off somewhere (it may have been to watch Randy warm up), while I stayed back and held fort. I had my digital camera, and I was ready. The rain stopped quickly, and the groundskeepers took the tarp off the field. They held the normal formalities, such as announcing the starting lineup, throwing the ceremonial first pitch, the singing of the national anthem etc. Afterward the Nationals came on and got ready. Jordan Zimmermann threw his eight warm-up pitches and got ready. "Play ball," announced home plate umpire Tim Timmons. The game was about to begin: one that could end up being Randy Johnson's 300th win.

Sources: Part IV is over. Apologies if it's very dry. That's just the way I write. Once again, it's mostly personal views, but I did use some sources. Baseball References.com is invaluable as always. I also used Thomas Boswell's article "A Giant Among Men" from The Washington Post on June 3, 2009. And the blogs entries of Zach Hample (http://snaggingbaseballs.mlblogs.com) and Todd Cook (http://cookandsonbats.mlblogs.com) about the rainout that were actually posted on time were helpful in remembering the specifics like time and annoyingly useless messages on the video screens. Part V will be exciting...it's the main event! At least if I don't get bogged down by the play by play.

Part V: The Game

Randy Johnson's 300th Win Part III: The Set-Up

2009-12-02T08:31:00.001-08:00

This is part III out of VI in my look back at one of the most significant events in my career as a baseball fan: seeing Randy Johnson win the 300th game of his career. Parts I and II were about 300-game winners, and the man who would be a 300-game winner, Randy Johnson. Part III is how I became interested in 300 wins, and the plans I made leading up to Randy's 300th win.

Or the Complete Story of How I Got to See One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of the Game

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player
Part III: The Set-Up
Part IV: The Rainout (Coming December 3)
Part V: The Game (Coming December 4)
Part VI: The Aftermath (Coming sometime in December)

Or A Personal History of My Fascination with 300 Wins, and How I Made Plans to See 300 Game Winners Pitch.

In case you haven't picked it up while reading Parts I and II, there is a reason why I'm spending so much time talking about this specific event. It was not because I happened to see a historic milestone, and I thought that was so cool that I decided to write 20,000 words about it. No...the reason why I'm putting so much time and effort in this and not cardio is because I am truly a fanatic about 300 wins. Other people can have their 500 home runs or 3,000 hits, I am perfectly happy reading about the 300-win milestone, as well as those who fell short or never came close at all.

I wasn't always crazy about 300. I jumped on the 500-home run bandwagon when Eddie Murray reached the mark in 1996, and then continued to follow it when Mark McGwire entered the club three years later. Numbers like 521, 536, and 586 etc. are still ingrained in my head. I've always known about 300 wins. The World Almanac always had a section about "Pitchers with 300 wins." One day, I think it was sometime in 2000, I was looking at this list in my World Almanac 1998, and I noticed something. I have World Almanacs from 1994 and 1988, and the list of the 300 game winners were pretty much the same. Of course, those were only four years and ten years apart respectively, but when you're 15 years old those lengths of time still feel relatively long. Anyways, I went back and checked, and the only difference was that the list from 1988 was missing Nolan Ryan. I began thinking more about the 300-win milestone. I thought about how difficult it must be if nobody new reached in ten years.

Out of curiosity, I looked up which active player was closest to 300 wins, and at the top of the list was Roger Clemens. I grew up reading about the exploits of the Rocket. I remember hearing about his second 20-strikeout performance in 1996, and how he signed with the Blue Jays and revived his career. (They even mentioned Clemens's signing in an episode of Sabrina: The Teenage Witch!) So to me, Roger Clemens was one of the top pitchers of all time, and it's only fitting that he was the closest to 300 wins. Clemens had 260 wins at the end of the 2000 season, and I remember thinking that he was only a pair of 20-win seasons away. And when Clemens actually won 20 games in 2001, that pretty much turned the "if" into a "when."

The "when" turned out to be two years later, in 2003. Clemens won his 299th game on May 21, 2003, and I got caught up in the 300 buzz. MLB.com offered a digital download of the milestone game as soon as it happens, and I asked my mom for her credit card so I can keep a piece of history. Clemens ended up failing in his first three tries for 300, and I eventually lost track of it as I prepared for high school graduation and entry into college. 300 wins left my mind until another pitching star threatened to join the ranks. Greg Maddux was the ace of the Braves when they won the World Series in 1995. I was an Indians fan back then, so I wasn't too happy with Maddux. And he had only 240 wins in 2000, so he slipped beneath the 300-win radar. However, while surfing the Internet in the Language Lab at UVA (yes, I did that, I'm so terrible), I saw that Greg Maddux was going to break Cy Young's record for consecutive 15-win seasons. Not only that, but his 15th win of the season would give him 288, clearly within striking distance of 300. I took a closer look at his numbers and accomplishments - his insane ERAs in 1994, 1995, and even 1997 and 1998, his four straight Cy Young awards and Gold Gloves (Yes, I know that Gold Gloves are the most bullcrap awards in baseball, but its still amazing to consider the fact that Greg Maddux has won more Gold Gloves than Brooks Robinson!) And I knew that Greg Maddux was definitely one of the top pitchers of our generation.

Greg Maddux would eventually win his 300th game on August 7, 2004. While I followed his progress closely, I regrettably don't remember what I was doing the exact moment the win became official. This time, I had a credit card of my own, and downloaded Maddux's 300th win as soon as it became available. I also downloaded Clemens's 300th win that I had ignored for the past 14 months. I watched Maddux's win for the first time in college, and then I watched it again, and again for the third time. Each time I watched Greg Maddux struggle for five innings but leaving the game with a 6-3 lead en route to an 8-4 win, I thought about 300 wins and what exactly that number meant.

What does 300 wins mean? Well, it meant that the pitcher averaged 15 wins for 20 season, and that it was an accomplishment difficult enough that only 22 pitchers (at the time) reached the milestone. And that the list of 300-win pitchers is not a be all end all list of great pitchers, but it does show the pitchers who had the three qualities necessary in the major league level: skill, endurance, and luck. Skill is a given - you need to have enough skill to be able to make it into the major league level and win on the major league level. Sandy Koufax and Pedro Martinez had skills. Heck, they were the most dominant pitchers of their time, but what they lacked was endurance. Bert Blyleven and Ferguson Jenkins had skill and endurance, but what they lacked was luck. Bert played for Twins teams who somehow couldn't score whenever he was pitching. And Fergie pitched for downright awful Cubs and Rangers teams of the 1960s and 1970s. But these guys - these 22 pitchers who reached 300 wins - they had the skills, the endurance, and the luck to get 300 wins. They were a unique group of individuals who had different pitching styles and played in different eras, but they had one thing in common: they gave it all they got and got to 300 wins.

Anyways, I began to put the pieces together about 300 wins as I watched Maddux and eventually Clemens win their 300th game, and it finally clicked. I understood, or at least felt I understood, the genius of 300 wins. I became a fanatic for 300 wins. I wrote a thread on NSider detailing the career or Roger Clemens. Included on the thread was the date and the scores of each of his wins. The thread was an absolute mess, but it inspired me to go to Retrosheet and document each of Clemens's wins, including team, date, score, and losing pitcher on an Excel spreadsheet. Then I threw in each of his losses. And later, I added his no-decisions and put it on a list with his wins and losses. I ordered his lists of wins and losses by opposing pitcher, and then ordered those opposing pitchers by how close THEY got to 300. (Most of them didn't get close at all.) And then I did it with Greg Maddux, who is by all means Clemens's equal. So by May of 2005, I had my Excel spreadsheets for Clemens and Maddux.

In addition, in May 2005, I worked two weeks on an epic thread on NSider about the 300 game winners. I wrote about what I felt the 300-win milestone meant, and how the distribution of pitchers who reached the milestone was a reflection the natural progression of major league baseball. Then I proceeded to go into each of the eras, describing what the eras were like, giving short profiles of the 300-game winners from those eras (if you consider 1,000 words short), and providing a list of the great pitchers who fell short. It was a magnificent thread, totaling over 30,000 words, equivalent of over 150 pages size 12 font and double spaced.

Another event related to 300-game winners happened that month, and this one was instrumental in letting me see Randy Johnson's 300th win four years later. In 2005, the Montreal Expos moved from Montreal to Washington DC to become the Washington Nationals, giving the District their first team since the Senators left town to become the Texas Rangers in 1972. On May 15, 2005, I was mowing the lawn, and then went inside to check the baseball scores. The first thing I saw was that Randy Johnson won his 250th game. Hmm...perhaps he can get to 300 wins in the future. And then I saw that the Nationals beat the Cubs 5-4 at RFK Stadium. The starting pitcher for the Cubs was Greg Maddux. I did a double take. Say what? While I was mowing the lawn, a 307-game winner was getting knocked around just 40 minutes away from where I lived? This was almost as bad as when I missed a chance seeing Shigeru Miyamoto give a talk at the Smithsonian while I was giving a CUTCO presentation the year before.

I never had a chance to attend a lot of games live, since I never lived very close to a baseball stadium. But with the Washington Nationals just 40 minutes away, I have no excuse to not go to very many games. And this would give me a chance to see 300-game winners pitch in person! The more I thought about it, the more annoyed I was about missing a chance to see Maddux. Determined not to make the same mistake, I looked at the schedule to see if the Nationals would ever play the Astros so I could see Roger Clemens. Just my luck! The Astros were in town on July 21-24. I waited around to see what day Clemens would start, and as soon as it was confirmed that he would start on July 22, I snatched up a ticket from Stubhub and asked for a half-day on my job as a Rec Pac counselor (w00t Rec Pac! Good times.)

When July 22 rolled around, I got to the park around two hours before gates opened and carried a large sign with the names of all of the 300-game winners on one side, and the names of all of the pitchers that Clemens beat in each of his wins (a list I conveniently had on my Excel spreadsheets.) I also carried along my dad's old digital camera. I hurried down to the field when gates opened, and got a good picture of Clemens standing there for batting practice. (I also got the autograph of then-Astros manager Phil Garner.) The game itself was pretty good. Clemens threw six shutout innings, and struck out 10. The Astros dominated Nationals pitching, and Roger Clemens picked up his 336th career win. It was, at that time, the greatest baseball moment of my life. I got to see a 300-game winner pitch AND see him get his 336th win. 336 became my new favorite number.

I got to see Roger Clemens pitch, but I still hadn't had the luxury of seeing Greg Maddux in action. The Nationals wouldn't play the Cubs in DC again until July 21-23, 2006, during which I was busy with MCAT practice tests. (Although I did think how wonderful it would be if Maddux could beat Washington on the first anniversary of Clemens's victory over the Nats). In the end it didn't matter because Maddux never made a start that series. A year later, Maddux signed with the Padres. I looked at the 2007 Nationals schedule and saw that the Padres were in own June 1-3. I got trigger-happy and brought tickets for the June 1 game, because that was the day Maddux would start by counting starters. However, I didn't notice the Padres had an off day on May 28, so manager Bud Black switched things around, and so Maddux started on May 31. The only thing I saw of Greg Maddux that day was him shagging fly balls in the outfield.

Tom Glavine made his run towards 300 wins that summer. I was definitely not a Tom Glavine fan, because while Maddux lost Game 5 of the 1995 World Series to give the Indians some hope, Glavine shut them down in Game 6 and won series MVP. Nevertheless, Tom Glavine was a good person who did plenty of charity work in the Atlanta area, so while I would never be a Glavine fan, I hoped he can get to 300 wins. I followed Glavine's quest for 300 even when I went to Taiwan to teach English for the AID Summer program. When Glavine won his 299th game on July 25, I remember thinking to myself, "Man, it would suck if Glavine goes winless for his next three starts, because his fourth start would be against the Nationals in Washington, and I would still be in Taiwan."

I had my laptop open in the classroom when Glavine made his first attempt at 300, hoping that I would be able to remember what I was doing the moment Glavine got the milestone win. The bullpen blew it. A few days later, on August 5, 2007 in America (but August 6, 2007 in Taiwan), Glavine made his second attempt at 300. I was hanging around in the youth center in Taipei waiting to go on the tour around Taiwan. While I was waiting, I had my laptop open and was tuned into the Mets vs. Cubs game on GameDay. I was still standing around when Mike Fontenot grounded out to Luis Castillo. My first thought was somewhere along the line of, "Great. I have to find some time to post the tribute video on YouTube*."

*In November of 2006, I was bored and decided to make a video of Roger Clemens, where each of his 348 wins would scroll up as pictures of Clemens from corresponding stages in his career played in the back. It took a while to make, but I was so dazzled with the results that I decided to make one for the other 300-game winners and Tom Glavine. I made the preliminary video for Glavine early in my trip to Taiwan, with everything except for the date and score of his 300th win. I have yet to make it for 300-game winners before Clemens.

Not only did I have to worry about posting stuff onto YouTube, but I now had two 300-game winner to watch. Glavine eventually did beat Washington on August 17 (it was his 301st win), and I was still in Taiwan. The Mets were in town again September 17-19, but Glavine never made a start, so it was onto 2008. Glavine re-signed with the Braves, and had two early season starts against the Nationals in DC. I don't remember why I couldn't make the first one, but I couldn't go to the second one because I had an MCAT class since I fail as a med school applicant. I remember thinking on my way back, "You know, the game hasn't started yet. I can probably stop at the East Falls Church Metro station and catch the game. I'd miss the first few innings, but I can still see Glavine pitched." I resisted the urge, because it would have been impossible to explain it to my parents. And then Glavine got hurt and didn't make any more starts against the Nationals.

The Padres wouldn't be in Washington until September 19-21. I remember being so frustrated at missing Maddux so many times that I commented to one of my friends that perhaps I should just buy tickets to all three of those games. Thankfully, he talked me out of it, because Maddux was traded to the Dodgers in mid-August, and the Dodgers would be in town a week later. I immediately thought of when he might pitch in the series, and brought tickets for that game as well as the game after that just to be safe. As it turned out, Maddux pitched on first of the two games, on August 27. He was going for his 354th win, which would tie him with Roger Clemens. I thought that was a pretty nice bit of history, and would make for a good picture of the scoreboard. I got there early, but fans were only allowed in the outfield area during batting practice at the new Nationals Park that opened that year, and they shooed fans away from the bullpen area before Maddux started warming up, so I didn't get any good shots of Maddux until the game started. (I did get 郭泓志's autograph. 小小郭加油!) In the end, Maddux was pretty terrible, allowing four runs, only two of which were earned, but his error contributed to one of the unearned runs.*

*I did get to see some history that week. I went to the game on August 28, 2007 since I had the tickets. I ended up getting to see Cristian Guzman hit for the cycle, which was very nice.

The 2008 season ended. Greg Maddux retired, and Tom Glavine had shoulder and elbow surgery. The focus quickly turned to Randy Johnson's quest for 300. I actually wanted to watch Randy pitch in 2008, since I figured win no. 300 would be inevitable, so it counts as watching a 300-game winner if I saw them when they were a future-300 game winner. However, the Diamondbacks were in town on July 8-10, right when the MCATs were going on. Anyways, Randy never pitched in that series. So I would have to wait until 2009. I saw a pocket schedule for the Nats' 2009 season at a dry cleaner's one day, so I scanned for days when the Braves and Giants were in town. The Braves were in town in late April, when Glavine was probably still in rehab, and wouldn't be back until early July, when I would be busy moving to Fort Worth. The Giants, however, would be in DC only once, on June 2-4. I figured Randy Johnson may retire after this season, so it was now or never in regards to that particular series.

I can't remember if it was right then in the dry cleaners, or a few days later, but I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be awesome if Randy Johnson gets to go for 300 in DC? After all, Don Sutton was the last pitcher to go into a season with 295 wins, and it took him until June to get to 300." It was at first a passing fancy, similar to my thought about the prospects of Glavine going for 300 in DC when I was in Taiwan. However, the more I thought about it, the more probable it seems. Johnson would probably get five starts in April, and five starts in May. If he can just average two wins per month, then it would give him the chance to go for 300 in DC. I knew that I would go see Randy Johnson pitch that series no matter if he was going for win 296 or 300 or 306, but the prospects of seeing real history that I cared about brought a new level of intrigue to his quest for 300.

However, Randy's first starts with the Giants didn't go over too well. He allowed a three-run home run to opposing pitcher Yovani Gallardo in a loss to the Brewers on April 8, and allowed seven runs in 3.7 innings against the Dodgers on April 13. However, he came around and threw seven shutout innings against his former team for his 296th career win. His next start, also against the Diamondbacks, came on April 25, when I was busy with Preview Day for TCOM and didn't have time to check the results online. The next day, I wandered into a Hudson News at the DFW airport on the way home. I took a peek at the sports section, and saw that the Giants won! I looked further and saw that Johnson lasted only 3.3 innings, because he walked seven batters, his most in almost nine years.

It was just as well. His 300th win was inevitable, just as the fact that I was going to see him pitch in that series on June 2-4. Yet I hadn't even started editing the tribute video or making plans to get tickets. Putting the video together is a cinch, but it's finding good pictures that took the most time. I started spending hours a day looking for good Randy Johnson pictures. Recent pictures were easy to find, but finding pictures from early in his career was virtually impossible. I knew that it wasn't smart to buy your tickets before the start is confirmed, especially after getting the wrong tickets on June 1, 2007 because I didn't take into account an off-day. But even though I can't order tickets yet, there was the question of how many tickets to buy. I've traditionally been happy going to games by myself, and I have no qualms doing the same for this game. However, seeing Randy Johnson pitch is a tremendous opportunity, especially since this might be his final season. So I began asking around to see if people wanted to go. "We'll see what my schedule is like was the most common response."

While I was busy with all this, Randy won his 297th game against the Rockies on May 1, and his 298th game against the Nationals in San Francisco on May 11. That left him with three more starts before the June 2-4 series. He needed one and only one win in those three starts to go for 300 for the first time in June. And it was very likely that his first start in June would be in the series against the Nationals. The extrapolations show him making the start on June 3rd, the middle game in the series. That means manager Bruce Bochy would have to make a dramatic change to the rotation for Randy to not pitch. Even MLB.com's Milestone tracker, which knows nothing about rotations, estimated that Randy would his his 300th on June 4, in the middle of the series. I hate to admit it, but the more likely that my chances of seeing Randy go for 300 became, the more I wanted it.

I had chances to see a lot of rare events in the 18 games I've gone to: a grand slam, an inside the park home run, a 10-strikeout game, a complete game shutout, and a cycle. But I've always thought that seeing somebody win their 300th game, which was the ultimate dream for a 300-win fan like me, would have been out of the question. Yet now that there was a plausible chance of at the very least seeing Randy go for the milestone, I really wanted it. It got to the point where I was thinking to myself, "If he really is going for his 300th win, I may have to record it for posterity." I was also becoming conflicted about wanting Randy to win his next start against the Mets on May 16 just because if he won, he would get two more chances to win 300 before the June 2-4 series. He wound up losing to Johan Santana.

But I knew I was going to go see Randy Johnson, 300-win or not. When it became clear that Randy was going to pitch in the series, I stepped up in my campaigning. I finally got an okay from Michael Lusk, one of the campus ministers at UVA, and his brother Matthew. Michael was going to be in NoVA anyways, and Matt just wanted to see Randy Johnson. We made the plans. Michael would get to my house from wherever he was meeting earlier in the day, while Matt would drive up from Charlottesville. We would go to the game together, and afterward Michael would spend the night in our basement bedroom while Matt would drive back. I also got a tentative yes from another friend who lived in Bel Air, Maryland. So when it was confirmed that Randy would start on June 3, I rushed to Stubhub and brought four tickets about 15 rows up from the Giants dugout along the third base line.

A day later, Randy made a hyped up start against his old team the Mariners. It would probably be his final start in Seattle. The Seattle crowd gave him a rousing ovation, and then cheered as the Mariners topped the Giants 2-1, with Randy getting a no-decision. I was getting worried. Randy had only one more start before the June 2-4 series, and it was a must-win if we wanted to have a chance to see history. On May 27, the day I picked up our good friend Sari from the airport and the 10th anniversary of the last day of middle school, I tuned into the Giants vs. Braves game on GameDay.

Normally I can't bear to watch sports live on Gameday, because I can't bear the crushing feeling if something I didn't want to happen...happened. But I couldn't stay away. This was Randy Johnson's 299th win that we're talking about! Matt was also online, and so we chatted while the game was going on. The Giants took a 1-0 lead in the 2nd, and stretched it to 2-0 on a double steal/steal of home in the 3rd, a play I had seen in Clemens's 336th win. Meanwhile, Randy was pitching like the Randy of old. He allowed only one hit through five innings, but a single, sac bunt, and another single in the sixth cut the lead to 2-1. The Giants made it 4-1 in the bottom of the 6th. Bochy also pinch-hit for Randy that inning, so the rest was left to the relievers. The relievers allowed two unearned runs in the next half-inning to make it nail-biting again. I turned away and worked on something else for a little bit. When I looked back, the Giants had score two runs to make it 6-3. Matt and I were able to breathe a sigh of relief. When Brian Wilson closed out the Braves in the 9th, it became official: Randy Johnson had 299 career wins, and we were going to have a chance to see 300.

I had made the decision to record as much of the game as I can if Randy really was going for 300 on June 3, so one of the first things I did was go out to Best Buy and brought a couple of memory cards for the two digital cameras that I would bring. I also created a couple of signs to bring to the game. One was basically the numbers '3', '0', and '0' glued on small pieces of poster board. And then I printed pictures of the previous members of the 300-win club, and put them around the edge of a large piece of poster board in chronological order, with Randy in the middle.

When my friend from Bel Air couldn't make it, I needed a fourth. Michael suggested asking Ryan Halferty, an old friend from Cav Life, who was in NoVA. Ryan wasn't a major baseball fan like the Lusk brothers and I were, but he cared enough that he may want to see Randy Johnson go for his 300th win. So I got in contact with Ryan, who was interested in seeing the game, but he had work that day (it was a Wednesday), and had to go to the stadium on his own. So we agreed to meet on June 1 at Fair Oaks Mall, and I would give him the ticket so he can get to the game himself. Things were all set for a day of baseball history. The only potential problem was that rain was in the forecast for June 3. I brought a couple of plastic raingear with the Nationals logo when I was in Gainesville getting gas on June 2. Not even my first ticket could dampen the excitement that was about to unfold the following day.

Sources: Since most of this was my own personal memory, I didn't have a lot of sources. The only source I used other than my memory was the Baseball Reference.com gamelogs, which had game schedules and play by play.

Part IV: The Rainout