Fuel (band)

Fuel is an American post-grunge band formed by guitarist/songwriter Carl Bell and bassist Jeff Abercrombie. Originally known as Small the Joy, they changed the group's name to Fuel sometime in 1994. Jeff, Jody, and Jimmy all grew up around the same small towns playing music together. They are well known for their hit songs "Shimmer" from Sunburn, "Hemorrhage (In My Hands)" and "Bad Day" from Something Like Human, and "Falls on Me" from Natural Selection. The band has sold nearly four million records worldwide.

Their newest album Puppet Strings was released March 4, 2014. No original members of the band remain, except for vocalist Brett Scallions, who at one time left the band himself (2006).

History

Early years (1985–1997)

Carl Bell and Jody Abbott were in a college campus band, Wanted (along with Robert Wagner and Mark Crawford) in Henderson, Tennessee. The band Wanted transitioned into Phoenix, which was a touring band for the college primarily used to recruit prospective students. After college, the band carried on as, Real to Reel, playing local clubs in Tennessee. Lead vocalist/guitarist Brett Scallions joined the group after Bell and bassist Jeff Abercrombie saw him in a bar in Jackson, Tennessee in 1993. That same year, keyboardist/vocalist Erik Avakian joined the lineup and the band moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1994 where they played at local Pennsylvania bars and nightclub as Small the Joy. Changing the band name to 'Fuel', the band released their first EP Porcelain in 1996 and sold well locally, spawning a small radio hit with "Shimmer". The popularity of the EP brought them to the attention of Sony's 550 imprint, which released their second EP Hazleton the following year.

Fuel (hardcore band)

Fuel was a short-lived Bay Area post-hardcore musical act that created both personal and political songs, something that was unique during the "first wave" of emo in the 1990s. Fuel had a sound akin to early-Hot Water Music and especially Fugazi with twin guitars and dueling rough post-hardcore vocals. In fact, it is noted that Fuel was often jokingly referred to as "Fuelgazi." Fuel's style has been compared to the D.C. sound of many Dischord bands.

Fuel featured Mike Kirsch (of early Pinhead Gunpowder and a number of other notable punk rock bands) on guitar/vocals, Jim Allison on guitar/vocals, Aaron Arroyo on bass, and Jeff Stofan (also of Monsula and the White Trash Debutantes at one time) on drums.

In 2008, Alternative Press named Fuel as a group of significant interest in its profile of "23 Bands who Shaped Punk." Jason Black of Hot Water Music and The Draft contributed a testimony for the article citing musical influence.

Discography

Fuel released one LP “Monuments to Excess” in 1990, first on Cargo Records then repressed by Ebullition Records. Monuments to Excess was produced by Kevin Army. Army audio engineered the albums of many influential punk bands, including Operation Ivy, Green Day, The Mr. T Experience, etc. In addition, Fuel put out an EP "Take Effect" on Lookout Records, also in 1990.

Fuel (video game)

Fuel is a 2009 open world racing video game developed by Asobo Studio and published by Codemasters. The game was released on June 2, 2009 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and June 5, 2009 for Microsoft Windows.

Gameplay

Fuel is an open world racing game set in a Mad Max-like post-apocalyptic world ravaged by extreme weather fueled by global warming, with players experiencing varying weather effects such as occasional tornadoes and sandstorms, as well as an accelerated day-night cycle. The world of the game is over 5,560 square miles (14,400 km²) in size, which is roughly the size of the U.S. state of Connecticut, and completely free to roam. In the free roaming mode, the game features the ability to drive anywhere in the game world without incurring loading times; however, crashing a vehicle - or invoking the reset function to return to the road - does invoke a short loading screen.

Vehicles

The player starts at one of 19 camps, with a few vehicles at the start of the single-player campaign, which is called "career" mode. When the career is fully completed, the player can use seventy different vehicles across six different classes, including bikes, ATVs, muscle cars, SUVs, buggies, and trucks as well as a hovercraft. The currency used in the game is Fuel and it serves as money to pay with for new vehicles. In the game the player can customize vehicles and the driver up to certain limits.

Gadget

A gadget is a smalltool such as a machine that has a particular function, but is often thought of as a novelty. Gadgets are sometimes referred to as gizmos. Gizmos in particular are a bit different than gadgets. Gadgets in particular are small tools powered by electronic principles (a circuit board).

History

The origins of the word "gadget" trace back to the 19th century. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there is anecdotal (not necessarily true) evidence for the use of "gadget" as a placeholder name for a technical item whose precise name one can't remember since the 1850s; with Robert Brown's 1886 book Spunyarn and Spindrift, A sailor boy’s log of a voyage out and home in a China tea-clipper containing the earliest known usage in print. The etymology of the word is disputed.

A widely circulated story holds that the word gadget was "invented" when Gaget, Gauthier & Cie, the company behind the repoussé construction of the Statue of Liberty (1886), made a small-scale version of the monument and named it after their firm; however this contradicts the evidence that the word was already used before in nautical circles, and the fact that it did not become popular, at least in the USA, until after World War I. Other sources cite a derivation from the French gâchette which has been applied to various pieces of a firing mechanism, or the French gagée, a small tool or accessory.

Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (informally known as Rescue Rangers) is an animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Created by Tad Stones and Alan Zaslove, it featured the established Disney characters Chip 'n' Dale in a new setting. The series premiered on The Disney Channel on March 4, 1989, after a preview episode ("Catteries Not Included") was aired on August 27, 1988. The series premiered with a two-hour movie special, Rescue Rangers: To the Rescue, which was later broken up into five parts to air as part of the weekday run. The final episode aired on November 19, 1990.

On September 18, 1989, the series entered national syndication. From 1990 to 1993 reruns of the show were aired as a part of the Disney Afternoon line up.

Synopsis

Chip and Dale are two chipmunks who start a detective agency, Rescue Rangers, along with their friends Gadget, Monterey Jack, and Zipper. The pint-sized detectives deal with crimes that are often "too small" for the police to handle, usually with other animals as their clients. The gang frequently find themselves going up against two particular arch-villains: Mafia-style tabby cat Fat Cat and mad scientist Norton Nimnul.

Suikoden (video game)

Suikoden (Japanese: 幻想水滸伝, Hepburn: Gensō Suikoden,  listen ) is a role-playing game published by Konami as the first installment of the Suikoden series. Developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, it was released initially in 1995 for the PlayStation in Japan. North American and British releases followed one year later, and a mainland European release came the following March. The game was also released for the Sega Saturn in 1998 only in Japan, and for Microsoft Windows in 1998 in Japan. On December 22, 2008, Suikoden was made available on the PlayStation Store for use on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable consoles.

The game centers on the political struggles of the Scarlet Moon Empire. The player controls the son of a Scarlet Moon Empire general who is destined to seek out 108 warriors (referred to as the 108 Stars of Destiny) in order to revolt against the corrupt sovereign state and bring peace to a war-torn land. The game is loosely based on the Chinese novel Shui Hu Zhuan, and features a vast array of characters both controllable and not, with over ninety characters usable in combat and many more able to help or hinder the hero in a variety of ways.