Miller Boll Breakers, Up-Set Attack and Yappie Feet. Three words... hmmm, well how about 3 groups of a buncha words that likely mean little to you unless you were a child of the sworl (not swirly, that leads to a completely different set of mental images which haunt for the rest of one’s life). By that, of course, I mean the Dreamcast. A wonderful lil’ system (even though it once again proved that, between my brother and me, I always preferred the system that died first) that was quite powerful for it’s time. Some would argue (quite vociferously) that it could in some ways still keep up with this generation’s systems.

There were games for the Dreamcast that filled me with much delight at the time. Games like Soul Calibur (you’re kidding me, that’s a LAUNCH game?), Phantasy Star Online (which I played against my brother many times late into the night), Skies of Arcadia (really used the screen on the memory card to good effect!), Crazy Taxi (yeah yeah yeah yeah YEAH!), and that cel shaded pioneer, Jet Grind (Jet Set in Japan) Radio!

It wasn’t only the gameplay that sucked me in, but also the way you could download images from the web to use as tags in the game, the online leaderboard (that I was near the top of for awhile, tee hee) and the fantastic music! I remember getting my hands on the CD soundtrack to the game and reveling in the pure grindingness of it all. I was so ecstatic that I think I’d been jamming to Jurassic 5 for the jobillionth time before I realized that there were tracks missing. Even on the cantankerous “internet” of yesteryear (back when we used cranks and electrons were as big as cats) I was able to find out that the tracks missing were by a one Deavid Soul. “Licensing shenanigans be darned!”, I yelled quietly to myself to prevent raising the ire of the RIAAbeast lurking in the muck and mire of the nascent Internationally Joined and Wholly Connected Computer Based Network for the World of Information, Commerce, and Entertainment, Not Necessarily In That Order (that was the official name for it back then). I connected my MiniDisc (no, not small CD’s, Mini... Discs...) recorder to the output of my Dreamcast and had captured the audio in, what to me, was Darned Good Quality. And that was the end of the story... of course, until it continued just a few weeks ago.

I was doing a search on iTunes (random, as I am wont to do) bouncing from iMix to iMix, Celebrity Mix to “Other folx liked this one, what, are you too GOOD for them?” playlists when I came upon the collected works of Mr. Soul. The three missing tracks, which I mentioned at the start of this post, are on that virtual disc plus others which a person of Deavid Soul-ful sensibilities might enjoy. If you’ve got one of those iPhones and you’re feeling frisky, you can even make ringtones of them.

I have now completed my Jet Grind Radio (Jet Set Radio in Japan, those kooky, kooky Japanese!) collection and, if you’re in the mood to, you can start or complete yours. Just don’t get Up-Set if your Yappie Feet Attack your... umm... Miller. I don’t drink the stuff, so unless “them Feets” have the same aversion to Rooted Beer, I should be safe.