For all those who wrote me emails or sent me texts or even called me... wondering what the heck happened that I had disappeared off my blog... thanks!

The explanation is both simple and complex. But let's start with what it is not going on...

I'm not sick.
I'm not dead.
I'm not on the lam.
I have not been abducted by aliens.
I have not given up blogging.

Here is what is going on...

As mentioned previously, the security I have on Blogography has been keeping me from posting. I can't disable the security, because I keep getting hacked (apparently having 15 years of Google-indexed entries makes you a desirable target). It has something to do with switching internet when I moved house, but in order to post now I have to log in to my blog, turn off the security, log out of my blog, log back into my blog, restart blogging services, post my entry, log out of my blog, then log back in so I can turn security back on.

It's quite an ordeal, and I really don't have time for it.

So I took to posting a week's worth of entries all at once in an effort to deal with it all.

That worked for five months.

And then it didn't.

No matter how many hoops I ran through, I couldn't get to the point where I could post. Not that this stopped me from writing entries. On the contrary, I was still writing every day like I always do...

I just couldn't do anything with them because I could never find the time to fix my blog.

Until today.

I finally backed up the database, uninstalled everything, reinstalled everything, then restored everything. And it seems to be working.

Which leaves me in a quandary. Do I just flood post a month's worth of entries as if nothing ever happened? Or do I chalk up the month of June as a loss and start up fresh? Who wants to back-read a whole month of the stupid crap that I post? Is this stuff even relevant after all this time?

I dunno.

My inclination is to summarize my month tomorrow on the 3rd. Then resume posting on the 4th... exactly one month from when I stopped. Then I can swipe some old material I wrote... refresh stuff that's no longer relevant... and get back to all new musings that my legions of Blogography fans demand!

As much as I loathe the idea of there being a month-long chunk of missing entries in over a decade of daily posting, I think this is the best way to move on.

Hope you enjoyed your vacation from me.

Worried about missing out on a whole month of Dave's life? Well don't be, because an all new SPECIAL CATCH-UP EDITION of Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• MY HEALTH. The bill for my first eye surgery arrived. Thank heavens my deductible is so huge... I was worried I wouldn't find anything to do with these piles of cash I've got laying around. The good news is that my eye seems to be doing okay now. The only remaining damage is a bump from where the anesthesia was injected into my eyelid. Hopefully it will disappear in time.

   
• MY DIET. I've inexplicably become a milk drinker again. I haven't had a glass in years, but recently had one with a slice of chocolate cake and fell in love with the stuff. I no longer have to worry about my milk expiring... which is cool because even though non-fat lasts forever, I was regularly having to throw it out.

   
• MY DISCOVERY. Laughing Cow cheese has never been a favorite even though I love spreadable cheeses. But recently they came out with an Asiago-flavored version that's just fantastic. I eat the stuff piled on Ritz Crackers constantly...

Laughing Cow Spicy Pepper Jack is worth a taste as well.

   
• MY SHOPPING. For much of my life, I've not been an antique fan. Why by old stuff when you can get brand new stuff that's cooler? My view has softened since renovating my guest room, so now I actually stop by antique shops from time to time. Which lead to my paying $28 for this cookie jar...

...and let me tell you why. 1) The bear looks like Ted! 2) Whomever made this didn't fire it properly, so it's sagging on one side and it looks like he's falling over drunk . 3) The lid is also misshapened, so it doesn't really fit the jar. 4) They misspelled "cookie" as "cookey" which is frickin' adorable. 5) It looks awesome next to my gelato machine! How many more reasons did I need? I was forced to buy it! Antiques FTW!

   
• MY SCHEDULE. My cats have turned me into a morning person. I now do my grocery shopping at 7am?...

Oh well. The nice thing is that the store is a ghost town that time of day.

   
• MY CATS. They're still adorable. Still wonderful. And I still love having them around. Such amazing animals...

Don't know how I managed without them.

   
• MY DISAPPOINTMENT. I skipped seeing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in the theater but finally caught the "Ultimate Edition" on digital. My thoughts are below, but beware of SPOILERS for Captain America: Civil War (yes, you read that right)...

At the end of Captain America: Civil War where Bucky and Cap have beat down Iron Man and are walking away, Tony Stark says "That shield doesn't belong to you! My father made it!" and it's just crushing because of Robert Downey Jr.'s performance. You can feel that Tony is trying to stay proud in the face of defeat, but his heart is breaking on two levels, so there's a tremor in his voice. At that moment... when you are made to feel in the middle of a funny book film... you know that Marvel has completely figured it out. They put the humanity into their cinematic characters in a way that transcends the genre.

Which is why watching Batman v Superman was such a horrendous fucking ordeal. Zack Snyder thinks that taking everything dark and brooding is what adds character to the characters, but he's missing the target so badly as to be... comical. Heaping artificial drama on characters again and again and again just distracts from whatever humanity they might have. It buries it. He has zero sense of what makes a comic book movie reach past the funny books, and that's a huge problem for DC. Their movies are just dark, boring, artificial piles of shit that don't make you *feel* anything. It's the disaster-porn school of filmmaking and people are tired of it. They've seen it all before. Many, many times.

Between DC and Marvel, the one who has the most potential and the easiest road to completely slaying the genre is DC Comics. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are the most beloved and recognizable super-heroes in existence. Everything else pales by comparison. And yet by hiring a hack like Zack Snyder to helm their films... somebody who could give a fuck about the source material and changes things just because he can... somebody who doesn't want to bring Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman to the screen, but his "vision" of them... it doesn't matter. You go to a film called Superman v Batman expecting to see Superman and Batman... but they're not there. It's just Zack Snyder shit piled on something that vaguely resembles them.

I hated this movie even worse than Man of Steel, if that's even possible. Add another F- to my "Y2K Super-Hero Comic Book Renaissance" scorecard

   
• MY ENTERTAINMENT. Was thrilled beyond all reason that Mark Millar and Frank Quitely's Jupiter's Legacy: Volume 2 has finally, at long last, been started up...

This is my favorite comic book series in a long, long time. Apparently they are already working up a movie... here's hoping they get somebody better than Zack Snyder to helm it.

   
And... that's all the catch-up bullets we have today.

There is no way I could come up with a Fourth of July post better than the one I came up with last year.

And this year it's more appropriately Murican than ever, so I'm just going to dump it all here again.

Celebrate safely, my fellow Americans!

Truth! Justice! Captain America!

You're a Wonder, Wonder Woman!

REAGAN, bitches! Trickle-Down America!

Jessiqa Pace... Land That I Love

Too... Much... America...

I Pledge Allegiance to America...

AMERICAN PAM!

'MURICA! from USA News First!

Fuck the Pepsi Challenge... take The America Challenge!

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, COMMIES! And God Bless Holly Fisher

American Jesus (the ONLY Jesus)... Artist Unknown

America... One Nation Under God by McNaughton

BOSTON RED SOX AMERICA!... by Matt West, Boston Herald

AMERICA PIE TASTES LIKE FREEDOM by Max Faulkner, DFW.com

Stephen T. Colbert... The Spirit of America

"American Pride" (with Waffles the Cat) by Justin Schwab

Jordan Carver... God Bless America

So. Much. America.

I. Am. Tired.

While my blog was broked, I wrote two entries addressing terrorism and violence and I'm tired.

Tired of what keeps happening. Even more tired of the certainty that it's going to happen again.

When it came to Orlando, this is what I wrote to my friends on Facebook...
I am so horribly selfish in times of crisis. Every time I try to grapple with the evils that men can do and the horrific cost that comes with it, I can only think of how crushed I would be if it were one of my friends that were taken from me. You mean everything to me, I love you, and I can't imagine my life without you. And then I remember that there are people right now facing exactly this, and my heart goes out to them. It's tough not to be blinded by hatred for those who make this world such a horrible place, but the love of my friends gets me through. If that's true for you too, I thought you should know what you mean to me. I don't say how much I love you often enough. None of us do.

Then, before I could even catch my breath, I was writing a blog post about Istanbul...
The terrorist attack on Istanbul's airport hit me hard... all the senseless violence hits me hard... but this one in particular was difficult for me to take. Back in 2007 I was flying out of Istanbul and was pulled aside for secondary screening at the airport. This is nothing new... I'm taken aside for secondary screening all the time. But this time I had horror stories of Turkish prisons filling my head, so it was a little different. There I was, being taken to a small dark room by three guys in uniform, all the while wondering if somebody had snuck something into my bag or if I was going to end up in jail for some reason. But it turns out to have been no big deal... all they did was pat me down and check my shoes. The room was more for my benefit than theirs, as I think they just wanted to spare me any embarrassment from public scrutiny (which was actually kind of considerate). The door was open the entire time, they were really nice and apologetic about the entire ordeal, and it took less than 5 minutes. I've had a lot worse from American security screenings.

And now I can't help but wonder if these three guys who were just showing up to do their job were injured or killed when the bombs went off.

I'm just so tired.

The first time I visited New York City in 1995, you know the first landmark I visited? Not the Statue of Liberty. Not the Empire State Building. Not the Twin Towers. Not The Met. Not any of those things. My top priority in NYC was to visit TekServe. There was no Apple Store back then. If you were into Mac, this was it.

And now they are closing. Very sad news for tech geeks everywhere.

And so there I was with an Alaska Air credit burning a hole in my pocket (because it was expiring soon) and nowhere to go. Rather than lose it, I decided to make a quick trip... somewhere... and get away for a bit.

But where? I dunno.

At least I didn't until Book of Love... an 80's band that was on my bucket list to see live... announced they were playing a gig in New Orleans at The House of Blues...

As if I ever need an excuse to visit one of my favorite cities on earth. My flight was booked the minute tickets went on sale.

The good news is that Alaska Airlines now has direct flights to New Orleans out of Seattle. The bad news is that I have to leave home at 4:00am to make the 5:40 flight to Seattle to take it...

The good news is that once I got to Seattle, Russell Wilson was onboard!

While I was in the air half-way to New Orleans, I got an email from The House of Blues asking if I wanted to upgrade from General Admission to VIP with reserved seating and club perks. The cost? $25. Considering my airline ticket was $520 and my hotel is $160 a night, that seemed like quite a bargain, so I jumped on it.

After a perfectly uneventful journey, I dropped my crap off at the hotel and headed off to my favorite restaurant in the city... Carmo! Their vegetarian Rico open-face sandwich is a taste of heaven on earth. Pair it with their banquette bread, and it's the meal of my dreams...

I was absolutely exhausted after dinner, having gotten no sleep the night before, so rather than head out for some bar-hopping, I decided to go to bed.

At least that was the plan.

First problem was that the toilet kept making noise. A seal must have been broken or something, because water was running out by the gallon. Even with the bathroom door closed I could hear it. The water running was annoying enough that I had to MacGyver a solution to make the noise stop...

That should have been the end of it.

But, of course, it wasn't.

Something... some thing was in my room with me. I don't know if it were paranormal activity or what, but an odd, shifting mass was dancing in my peripheral vision as I laid in bed. I kept looking in different places to make sure it wasn't my eyes playing tricks on me, but it appeared consistently in the same spot no matter what I did, so I chalked it up to ghosts. Or whatever. Unfortunately, it didn't appear in-camera even though I could still see it in the corner of my eye behind my iPhone...

Eventually it went away... or dissipated... or vanished... or whatever. But it was not forgotten. I was so pumped at the paranormal activity that I could not get to sleep and decided to go out.

Where I proceeded to drink way too much while staying out way too late.

After staying out until midnight last night, you'd think that I would have slept in until noon.

Except this is one of my favorite cities on earth, and I was having none of it. I can sleep when I'm dead.

So I woke up at 7:00am so I could have Bananas Foster French Toast at Restaurant Stanley...

So much cool stuff is always showing up in French Quarter windows... MAKE IT SO, KYLO REN!

Despite the smell of urine, I like an early morning meander to Latrobe Park. A little peace and quiet in the city before heading back to the hotel so I can shower. Again...

Since I flew 8 hours to get to New Orleans, I reached out to a work colleague in Houston to see if they'd fly the 1-1/2 hours to meet me. This would save me a trip later in the year. Turns out they drove instead of flew, so it was 5 hours for them. I still won.

Because I upgraded to the VIP package for the concert tonight, I had to go buy new shoes to fit the dress code...

Then I decided to have a late lunch and not stop drinking until the show at 8:00. I had been craving falafel for ages, so I ate at Attiki...

And drank at Attiki. A great beer called Hoegaarden...

And then drank up and down Bourbon Street until it was time to drink at The House of Blues exclusive "Foundation Room" before the concert. The place is kind of a cross between a gay porn set and a Buddhist retreat...

And now? It's time to get on with the show...

...which I will wrap up tomorrow when my brain is back in my head.

The Book of Love concert last night was pretty darn great... even though, technically, it was only half the band. Ted and Susan were there, Lauren and Jade were not. This was problematic on some tracks... like Alice Everyday... where Lauren sings a fairly critical part of the song. But it was filled by audience participation, which was actually kind of nice.

Song selection was pretty much what you'd expect. Boy was there...

And their biggest hit, I touch Roses, was there for an encore as well.

All in all, a pretty great show, and one more 80's band I've seen live that I can scratch off my bucket list.

After dinner I went to Coop's Place for an amazing veggie burger and some Jägermeister, which is a pretty good way to end a day in New Orleans, I think.

And when it comes to starting a day in New Orleans, it doesn't get much better than beignets at Cafe du Monde...

Which is how I started my day at 6:30am.

From there I spent my time wandering around The Quarter until I had to check out of my hotel. After checking out of my hotel, I spent my time wandering around The Quarter drinking...

And then... it was over.

I picked up my backpack at the hotel... hopped a ride to the airport... climbed into my First Class seat upgrade... then proceeded to keep drinking until landing in Seattle.

Where I somehow managed to find my flight home.

Where my cats were glad to see me.

Good night!

Lose not your faith in Blogography, fair human! Because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Broked. As if it weren't painfully apparent, my blog wasn't as fixed as I had thought it was. I honestly don't know what to do about it short of a complete re-install, and I ain't got time for that. But anyway...

   
• Book. As a massive fan of the original cartoon, I anticipated hating The Jungle Book live-action remake. Well, I watched in on the plane ride home and loved it. Just incredible stuff. Where did they find the kid who played Mowgli? Amazing young actor. The fact that they got Bill Murray as the voice of Baloo is just icing on the cake...

It's my understanding this was filmed in "real" 3D and is not a converted 2D movie. Looks like I have another 3D Blu-Ray to add to my shopping list.

   
• Umbrella. Before I got on the plane, I wandered through the French Quarter yesterday and had to hide under some trees in Jackson Square when a downpour started. That's when I saw a group of ladies caught in the rain who were squealing. A guy passing by handed them his umbrella. After several rounds of thank you's, this happened...
"Oh we gonna have to keep you now!"
"Sorry ma'am... Im already taken."
"Well I can see why. God bless you young man!"
And off he went into the rain without his umbrella. Then this...
"He was just like Batman!"

If I wasn't in New Orleans, one of my favorite places on earth, that would have made my day.

   
• Wrong. Kim Davis Asks Court to Dismiss Marriage License Appeal. Looks like somebody doesn't want to go down on the wrong side of history as a hateful bigot that refused to do her job. Well, I have news for you... that's ALL you're going to be remembered for as long as people remember who you are you pathetic farce. You'd think that this would serve as warning for other bigots out there, but I think we all know that's not true.

   
• Sodium. A friend of a friend closed his restaurant last December. Recently when he was asked if he would share some of his favorite recipes and he did. Then somebody asked him how in the heck he made his burgers taste so good. His answer? Butter and salt. Saturate the buns in butter before grilling them. Just before flipping, salt and pepper the patty (his restaurant had a touch of garlic powder in the mix) then flip and add more salt. Sodium nightmare? Yes. But restaurants don't have to post Nutrition Facts, so that's how he made his burgers taste great. And so I gave it a try with my Boca Burger patties. *AMAZING* The abundance of butter and salt totally takes them to the next level. High blood pressure, here I come!

   
• Doloris. When you're watching every episode of The West Wing for the hundredth time and you've JUST gotten over the fact that Mrs. Landingham died... only to have her pop up in a flashback in the episode Bartlett for America. Gets me every time. Boy do I miss this show.

   
And I'm outta bullets.

COOKIES!

Who doesn't love cookies? My favorite cookies are freshly-baked oatmeal-raisin cookies. Which is a pity, because I so rarely have the time to bake and they don't make any oatmeal-raisin cookies you can buy in the store that I will eat. So what cookies that you can buy in the store do I like? Glad you asked...

1. Pepperidge Farms Sausalito.
   The best cookies you can buy. Period. I am not a fan of coconut, but... the tiny shavings they add to these milk-chocolate chunk and macadamia miracles is amazing. As if the flavor profile wasn't sublimely delicious, they have a crisp, crumbly texture that somehow doesn't come off as dry. I could eat a bag of these a day for the rest of my life and never get tired of them. A pity they're so expensive.
2. Girl Scout Caramel deLites (Samoas).
   I am not a fan of coconut, but... these have it all. A buttery vanilla cookie base topped with creamy caramel and coconut shreds... THEN they put chocolate on top of that. There's so much delicious going on in each bite that your brain doesn't quite know how to process it. Keebler has the same cookie they brand as "Caramel Dreams," so you can eat them outside of Girl Scout Cookie Season.
3. Keebler Pecan Sandies.
   Shortbread is a highly subjective topic because everybody has an opinion as to what makes the best cookie. Some like a dense shortbread like Lorna Doone... others prefer a more traditional buttery shortbread like Walker's. I prefer a lighter shortbread (if you can call it that?) which is why I buy Sandies. My favorite version is the ones with pecans... though there never seems to be enough pecans in them.
4. Tim Tams Original.
   "Australia's Favorite Cookie" has two chocolate biscuits with a layer of yummeh chocolate cream between them... all drenched in milk chocolate. Doesn't sound like much, but the textures of the three components work together to give you an unforgettable cookie experience.
5. Girl Scout Thin Mints.
   The fact that these are vegan would usually make me run away screaming... but the Girl Scouts somehow make it work. A chocolate-mint wafer is coated in a chocolate compound to create a simple cookie treat which has enough mint flavor to satisfy... but not so much that it overwhelms. It's this flawless balance that makes it one of my favorites.

And that's cookies for you.

HAPPY TEETH!

If you're like me, once you were out on your own, you just grabbed whichever toothpaste was cheapest and damn the consequences. I continued doing that for years. Until I got a free sample of The Good Stuff and had my life turned around. Then I became a bit of a toothpaste connoisseur and started trying every brand I could find. Here's the results...

1. Arm & Hammer Advance White Baking Soda.
   No toothpaste makes my mouth feel this fresh and clean. It's like a trip to the dentist every morning! Don't know that the whitening is as effective as others, but it does the job.
2. Colgate Optic White Sparkling Mint.
   The second-best whitening toothpaste I've found, but the taste takes a little getting used to. Leaves behind a residue that's not so great, but apparently that's the price you pay for white teeth.
3. Tom's of Maine Botanically Bright Peppermint.
   There was a point I was trying to "go natural" in my life, and Tom's had the best option for toothpaste I could find in my local supermarket. Overall it was "okay"... and if I ever become obsessed with "natural" again, I'll have no problem going back... but there are better options available if you want a whitening toothpaste.
4. Aquafresh.
   I became an instant fan of Aquafresh when it first came out in the 70's and it was my brand of choice for decades. I've since grown past it, but end up using it from time to time when it's given away at hotels I stay at. If I went back to Aquafresh, I'd probably go with their "Extreme Clean" version.
5. Crest 3D White Luxe Glamorous White Vibrant Mint Flavor Whitening Toothpaste.
   Does a miraculous great job of removing a yellow cast from your teeth, but once I found out it contains plastic microbeads which fuck up the environment in absolutely horrifying ways, I stopped using it. I'm adding it to the list because, apparently, Crest is taking the microbeads out of all their products this year. I might give it another try once that happens.

Everybody maintain healthy dental hygiene, now!

OH YEAH!

Is there anything more magical than Kool-Aid? You dump a little bit of powder and a cup of sugar into a container... fill it with 2 quarts of water... and BOOM! Out pops a colorful explosion of delicious flavor in drinkable form! Here's my favorites...

1. Tropical Punch.
   One of the original flavors and still my favorite. It has good fruity taste, and the added bonus of having Kool-Aid's hallmark toxic sweetness nicely balanced out with some acidity. As if that all weren't enough, the red coloring is so intense that you can use it to dye fabrics, your intestines, or even your hair.
2. Purplesaurus Rex.
   After having gone missing for a while, this classic flavor made a recent re-appearance. It's supposed to be a blend of grape an lemon... but it tastes like more than the sum of its parts. I can't really explain that, so you'll just have to try it for yourself... while you can.
3. Orange. Or perhaps Grape.
   These are two basic flavors that divide my loyalty. Sometimes I get on an Orange kick where I can't think of drinking any other flavor... then I'll hop on the Grape bandwagon. They are not the best interpretation of "real fruit taste" but they are tasty.
4. Sharkleberry Fin.
   A weird, but pleasing blend of Strawberry, Orange, and Banana. Has a somewhat artificial taste to it, but (oddly) not in a bad way. Another flavor that's been gone for a while.
5. Peach Mango.
   Probably the most accurately-flavored Kool-Aid flavor I've tried. And it has good "body" to it, which makes it feel more like a juice than Kool-Aid.

Deliciousness ensues!

INSERT QUARTER, PLAYER ONE!

When I was in High School I played a stupid amount of video games. Both at home and the arcade. And while they improved greatly from their humble beginnings, when I think of "arcade games" my mind always goes back to that era. Here are the games that make me feel that way...

1. Donkey Kong.
   When Donkey Kong first came out, it was certainly not the first platformer to hit the arcades. But it sure felt like it. Probably because it was clever enough both conceptually and visually to put other platformers a level below. I can't fathom how many quarters I pumped into my local Donkey Kong tabletop at the local pizza parlor.
2. Gauntlet II.
   RED WIZARD SHOT THE FOOD! The original Gauntlet was an arcade version of a fun dungeon-crawler that was made all the more special in that you could play it with three of your friends. Then came the sequel, and it was epic for its day.
3. Q*Bert.
   Despite loving arcade games back in the day, I was never very good at them. With the exception of Q*Bert. For whatever reason, I could find my groove in the game and was able to get high score with alarming regularity. If I were to ever buy an arcade cabinet, it would be this one.
4. Ms. Pac-Man.
   I always liked Pac-Man, but its repetitive nature was tough to get past. Then along comes Ms. Pac-Man and the repetitiveness somehow became tolerable. The game had a real "zen" about it that made for a great mindless diversion from life's troubles.
5. Tempest.
   Even though the graphics were simplistic to a radical degree, the fact that they were constructed from gorgeous vectors and had a kinetic energy which put you in the game in a very real way made me play it over and over and over again.

Arcade wishes and 8-Bit dreams!

GAME ON!

As I mentioned yesterday, I was a huge video game whore when I was a kid. I'm not going to lie... I still am, but only for Nintendo and LEGO. The difference being that when I was a kid I didn't do anything but play video games... whereas now I have things like "responsibilities" that keep getting in the way. Doesn't keep me from loving video games though. Here's a list of consoles that I love most of all...

1. Atari 2600.
   The first "real" video game system of my generation, the Atari VCS was revolutionary in just about every way possible for the day. Yeah, the graphics were absolute crap, but the imagination and innovation behind the dozens of games released more than made up for it. The downfall of the system came when the games were churned out just to have them out... even if they weren't worth releasing. The original Pac-Man game was complete shit with only a passing nod to the original game. The E.T. disaster is legendary. The list goes on and on. But, still, before we got to that point there were a lot of great games trailblazing the way for everything that was to come.
2. Nintendo Wii.
   It would be easy to drop a "modern" powerhouse system in this spot like Xbox One or PlayStation 4... perhaps even Wii U... but when it comes to the console that changed the way people play video games, it's the original Wii that turned the industry on it's head. Thanks to the way-cool controller, games became more interactive and collaborative than ever before. Get a group of friends together for Wii Bowling and good times can't help but ensue. Wii also brought forth the advent of the Mii, which gave gamers an identity they could carry through various games in a fun new way.
3. Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
   This is probably the favorite gaming system of old, responsible for a slew of games that defined the industry. Taking the massive popularity of the NES one step further, the Super NES gave us gameplay that culminated in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and unleashed some of the best games ever made... including StarFox, Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, Super Mario Kart, and Super Mario World.
4. Playstation 2.
   The original PlayStation attempted to bring more power to the game of video games, but it was Playstation 2 that actually delivered on that ideal. Powerful enough to allow game designers to run wild with their imaginations, PS2 unleashed games that broke the mold and added new depth to the industry. A lot of terrific game franchises that had promising starts on earlier consoles blew up to new heights. So many fun games passed through here... it's no wonder it's the best-selling console of all time.
5. Nintendo 64.
   Three Nintendo systems on this list may seem like overkill (especially for Sega fans lamenting that none of their systems ended up here), but this was the console that gave us The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, arguably the greatest of the greatest in video games. We also got the first Paper Mario, which is one of my favorite game franchises. Updates to other franchises... Mario Kart 64, Donkey Kong 64, StarFox 64, Kirby 64, etc., also pushed gaming into new territory and solidified Nintendo's track record as having the game designers to beat.

HONORABLE MENTION: ColecoVision.
This is a gaming system that rarely appears on people's lists of favorite game consoles. Yes it was underpowered. Yes it had one of the shittiest controllers ever. But it brought home a lot of great arcade games that Atari or Intellivision couldn't match... including the best home-port of Donkey Kong, my all-time favorite arcade title. I spent a huge chunk of my childhood playing ColecoVision, and am more than a little disappointed that it's forgotten by modern gamers.