Tag Archives: New Kids on the Block

Blast From the Past - NKOTB

The year was 1989. I was just entering tenth grade. Most of my friends were boys. They made relentless fun of the New Kids on the Block and listened to hair metal. As a result, I completely missed out on crushing on Jordan or Donnie (were those the ones people crushed on?) Instead, I wanted to have babies with Joe Perry (of Aerosmith) and my room was littered with pictures of Lita Ford and Jon Bon Jovi. I honestly don’t feel like I missed out on much.

Flash forward twenty-three years. I went to the Half-Price Books down the street and picked up a grab bag of comic books for three bucks for my boys. I’m trying to get them started right. The front showed an old Batman comic and the back revealed Ninja High School, which sounds like an awesome comic. And school. I picked the boys (who are six and nine) up from their own school and showed them the treasure. There were ten comics just waiting to be discovered inside this beautiful, and cheap, grab bag. So we cracked it open and started divvying the comics up.

Stuck between two copies of X Factor, I found this:

My kids said things like “what’s this?” and “is it cool?”

The first I could answer. New Kids on the Block were a popular boy band from the late eighties and early nineties. Mark Wahlberg’s older brother was in the band. This must have been a comic that banked on the popularity of the band.

The second question was harder. Was this a cool comic? I started thumbing threw it, trying to remember what I could about the band I barely paid any attention to. They had some songs I thought I knew and a quick google search turned up gems like Hangin’ Tough and The Right Stuff. Seriously, go watch that video, especially if you loved them when you were a kid, and tell me it’s not one of the funniest things you’ve seen today.

The comic itself has gems like “Yeah! Hang tough, and as long as you love us … We’ll be loving you forever!” and a section called “New Kids on the Rag.” I’m just not sure what they meant by that, but in that section, it says “Hey Look! It’s the new fags on the block. What a bunch of poseurs!” The comic seems to outline their rise to fame, but there’s a mocking undertone to it, so I’m not sure if it’s cool or not.

I’m putting the comic in my own collection. Even though I wasn’t a fan of the group and I can’t figure out the point of the comic, it’s still something that does make me remember my childhood. The part where I made fun of anything that was cool and popular and mainstream. Funny how things don’t change.

 
 Were you a fan of NKotB? Were you like me, and too cool for them? Or are you eighteen years old and have no idea who New Kids on the Block are. Oh God, I’m old.

‘Civilization IV’ Live On Aspyr Website — Pre-Orders Available

Aspyr Media, Inc. announced this morning Sid Meier¹s Civilization IV is now available for preorder through their Website.

With Sid Meier¹s Civilization IV, rule throughout time and create your own legacy as you guide your civilization from the dawn of man through the space age and beyond. Implement new technologies, conduct diplomacy or wage war to grow your society and become the most powerful leader the world has ever known. The title will retail for $49.99 and is scheduled to ship in June 2006.

Key Features:
* Faster-Paced Fun - Gameplay has been streamlined for a tighter, faster, and more compelling experience.
* Greater Accessibility and Ease of Play - An easy-to-use interface will be immediately familiar to RTS and action game players, and newcomers to the series will be able to jump in and play.
* Tech Tree - Flexible Tech tree allows players more strategic choices for developing their civilizations along unique paths.
* Grow Bigger Empires - More Civilizations, Units, and Improvements to enhance and grow your empire.
* Multiplayer - LAN, Internet, and Play-By-Email offer players all-new strategies and ways to play when competing or cooperating with live opponents.
* Team Play - Whether playing multiplayer or single player, team play offers a new way of setting locked alliances that result in shared wonder effects, visibility, unit trading, and shared territory that delivers a plethora of new strategic and tactical options.
* Beautiful 3D world - Sid Meier’s Civilization IV comes to life with a beautiful 3D world, dozens of fully animated units (including culturally unique units), and totally customizable armies. Cities and wonders will appear on the map. Wonder movies are back!
* Mods and Community Tools - Designed from the ground up for modability, the game contains a powerful map editor with XML and Python support.
* Choose Your Leader - Most Civilizations now have two leaders from which to choose, with each Leader having traits that provide various bonuses to the player.
* Civics - With the discovery of new techs, civic options can become available. Freedom of speech or slavery? Hereditary rule or open elections? This creates endless government choices and possibilities!
* Religion - Now there are seven religions in the game that are unlocked through researching. When unlocked, the religion spreads through a player’s empire allowing them to use the religion to help manage happiness, gain gold and create Great Prophets.
* Great People - As the player uses specialists they gain Great People points in the city that is utilizing the specialists. Great People include the Artist, Tycoon, Prophet, Engineer, & Scientist. They can be used to get free techs, start Golden Ages, or join a city to increase its output.
* Promotions - Each unit has a promotion path that emphasizes specific unit traits. Promotions include bonuses to Attack/Defend on specific terrains/features, movement bonuses, sight/visibility bonuses, and increased withdrawal chances.
* In-Game Cinematics - Sid Meier’s Civilization IV has over 40 in-game cinematics.

2K Games Releases New ‘Civ IV’ Patch, PitBoss and SDK!

2K Games has just released a new patch, Pitboss and the SDK for Sid Meier’s Civilization IV, the latest installment to the Sid Meier’s Civilization franchise for the PC. The patch has a number of new and exciting features including new scenarios and map scripts, unit adjustments and enhancements, and more! Also released today is the Pitboss Server (Persistent Turn Based Server), which is a dedicated multiplayer server for online and local games that enables players the ability to log in and continue their progress in a game at any time. Lastly, 2K Games has released the highly anticipated Sid Meier’s Civilization IV SDK, which contains the core game DLL source code, allowing gamers to completely rewrite or modify their own Civilization world to their heart’s content.

To download the files or use the auto-updater within the game.