Wow, that took quite a long while between updates. (Shhhh…don’t talk about the video show…) In the few weeks, about as many interesting consumables that I’d want to rave about passed through. Let’s get to it, though.

Music:

Completely by coincidence, continuing with Korean acts, here we have Girls’ Generation‘s (aka SNSD oveseas) “Gee.”  I stumbled upon the video while wading through the comments on a Kotaku article regarding one of the producers behind Japanese girl super-group Morning Musume.

If you know me, you know I make no secret that I’m a fan of pop music (as specifically referring to the post-grunge, teen idol era surrounding the turn of the millennium), in particular girl groups.  See Girls Aloud for a modern example.  Anyway, this song is quite catchy and (so far) not irritating.  There’s a marching percussion backing the whole composition, and the vocal melodies are very reminiscent of early ’90s pop-R&B.  What I enjoy most about this music video is the tight unity for the massive number of participants and how each feature girl is able to seamlessly apply her own flair for the current move that sometimes is played to a different beat, then jump right back in synch for the next formation shift.  I also liked the hyper-feminine sass that avoids becoming too sexualized.  To be fair, the choreography is far from complex with everybody generally doing the same thing between formation changes, but I think that they’re able to stay in unison so perfectly comes from the need to perform live constantly.  I wouldn’t be surprised if not that many takes were needed to get the shot in the can.

Though the single-shot video impressed me when I first saw it, after stumbling around the internet trying to relocate the same video as posted in the Kotaku comments, I learned that this is just a dance reel used for splicing into the actual video.  There actually exists another dance reel with a white background (not as cleanly danced as the above posted video).  I thought it was rather interesting that these full “alternate take” videos would be publically released for the fans to gobble up.  Take note, Britney!

Video Games:

Discounted XBLA games

Last week, Amazon.com began offering Xbox Live Arcade game download codes you could purchase with real money, rather than needing to invest in Microsoft Points.  The best part of it was that they offered several games for half price!  Of course the discounted offerings will rotate, but so far they’ve offered Galaga Legions, Pac-Man Championship Edition, DOOM, and Undertow.  When you make your purchase, you’ll immediately see (and be emailed) a code you can enter on your Xbox 360 or on Xbox.com to queue up the download; no waiting for a slip of paper to arrive by snail-mail.

Food:

Wonka Tinglerz

I don’t know if you’re aware it exists, but they make (official) Pop Rocks chocolate bars.  Unfortunately the chocolate is of a pretty low quality, there’s too many pop-rock nuggets per bite, and the thing is just too damned sweet.  The other week, I saw these at Target and decided to give them a try.  Thankfully, this is a much better candy.  Basically, it’s Nestle Buncha-Crunch with the occasional fizzy bit.  (Note that Wonka is a sub-brand of Nestle.)  So for the most part, your mouth isn’t exploding, but you still get some pop from the crispy “rice krispie” bits, but then every so often you get an extra kick.  It’s much a much better ratio of gimmick to food, and being a Nestle product, the chocolate actually something enjoyable.