There are people on the earth with faces that just make them look like bitches. You are one of those people. You are a Bitchface.
You lead a quiet, unassuming life, doing your best to compensate for the bitchiness your face implies to everyone who gazes upon you. But sometimes life challenges your desire for anonymity, and you’re forced to come out and reveal yourself to actually be a full on bitch or to something less than a bitch.
Today isn’t going to be one of those days. Today you’re just going to win the lottery. It’s going to be pretty cool, and you’re going to get a few extra thousand off the power ball ticket you bought on a whim. It won’t make you look like less of a bitch though.
Congratulations Bitchface!
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Dawn of War II: Retribution!
My devastators settle behind the rocks. They’re patiently waiting for something, anything, to wander into their field of fire so they can light it up. Heretics, orks, guardsmen. It doesn’t matter. I’m just waiting for them to move in so I can bring down a mailed fist of fury on my foes. See, I’ve got a handful of scouts and tactical marines sitting just a short distance away. And once my devastators pin whatever foul heretic is unfortunate to wander into their sight down my tacticals and scouts will swarm them, withering them with a combination of bolter fire, sniper rounds and plasma charges. It’s a perfect setup, ideal for combating ranged forces, appropriately distributed so that jump troops can be dealt with with acceptable losses. It lets me watch the whole southern victory point and scout the enemy’s power harvesting operation at the same time. In the old Dawn of War II, it would guarantee me a victory over my baffled and infuriated opponent.
In the new game my devastators seem oblivious to the fact that this tactic no longer works. They sit and stew behind their rocks, looking dumbly as spotters sit nearby and sight on them. And when the artillery rounds scream down and the guardsmen charge up, rifles blazing, it’s kind of heartbreaking to watch my veterans topple to the Guard’s combined might. But it’s also kind of impressive. I want to learn how to do that, how to guide fire from the sky and crack even the toughest defenses without batting an eyelash. I want to learn how to coolly walk my army up the middle of the battlefield, quietly scout out enemy positions and then eradicate them, cover and all, with a few well placed shells. This is what Dawn of War II: Retribution has on offer.
Many expansions seek to redefine the way a game plays. Brood War, for example, changed the balance of the game with the addition of a handful of new units and some new technology shrewdly distributed through the various races. These seemingly minor additions rewrote the rules of Starcraft. Zerg could suddenly turtle. Protoss had new options for making quick and dirty raids. Terrans became even more unbelievably tough. A few changes, small ones to the idle observer, changed the entire scope of the game in a wonderful and unanticipated way.
Dawn of War II’s expansions don’t really work that way. Sure, there are new units for each faction. Most of them are heavy ground vehicles that most people won’t see until a game is already decided, things like Land Raiders and weird ork vehicles with misspelled names and humorous subtext to their design, and the rest are super specialized or difficult to acquire units. None of them really change the overall balance of the game. What really shakes things up, aside from Relic’s thorough and at times infuriating balance changes, is the addition of entire new factions.
Factions in most games make a dramatic impact, sure. But Dawn of War II’s primary mode of play, Team Mode, is all about the interaction between factions, the way they shape and control the map and the flow of combat within it. Factions might seem completely different in Starcraft, and the coordination between say a Zerg and a Protoss player is totally unlike the coordination between a Zerg and a Terran player. But the manner in which the maps play isn’t something that changes. Terrans will buckle down and then roll out their forces when convenient, Protoss will try to find a balanced strat that involves a very similar tactic, and Zerg will roll the dice and hope whatever strategy they choose pans out, be it rush, boom or turtle. The maps might effect the mentality of these choices, but the races themselves will never impact the way each map plays out.
But in Dawn of War the factions have an impact on the terrain, in some cases literally. Hive tyrants and Chaos Lords will rush right through heavy cover, ruining it for everyone. Eldar can set up cover that friends and foes can use, Imperial Guard can establish bunkers and, as previously mentioned, also call down devastating artillery that eradicates not only units but precious, precious cover that those units were using to buckle down in. This is to say nothing of how each faction utilizes cover, how each unit functions in the careful balletic interplay that is combat in Dawn of War II. The way that factions interact in Dawn of War II is fundamental to the game and impacts the ebb and flow of play, the pace and the context of the game. It’s difficult to really elucidate in general terms. It’s almost ethereal, with map-control translating into resource control and, by merit of those resources, victory. But the addition of the Imperial Guard drives the nature of this quaint mixture and the importance of adding a single new faction into the mix home.
See, with a Guard player on the opposing team it’s never safe to be still. While there’s no assurance that the Guard player will choose Manticores, their meat-and-potatoes artillery unit, it is quite likely. And every Guard commander has some sort of artillery-like ability imbedded in their Zeal tree, so even if they don’t grab Manticores they’ll be able to do things like drop mines along your fixed position, or walk a devastating artillery strike into your advance that, no shit, is actually considerably more potent than the five hundred Zeal air strike that serves as the Guard’s “ultimate ability.” The end result is a faction that can eliminate or severely disrupt a fixed position at any time, without warning. There are similar abilities sprinkled throughout other factions, but no one is anywhere near as dedicated to forcing the battlefield to be dynamic as much as the Guard.
Which is ironic, because their other strength is setting up static defenses. Again, most factions have some sort of turret in their tech tree. Orks and Space Marines both have heroes dedicated to producing them, and everyone’s got some sort of static suppression unit available at tier 1. But the basic Imperial Guard unit, your dumb, hapless grunt, knows how to set up a turret and dig in cover right off the bat. Special abilities let them call in heavy turrets, bunkers, you name it. Paired with one of the most impressive aforementioned static suppression units in the game and a basic unit which can eventually become a wall of lasers they’re nigh impossible to root out once they’ve dug into a position. Unless, of course, you’ve got your own Imperial Guard teammate who decided to build some artillery into his army.
And that’s how they change everything. You can play a game without the Imperial Guard and things will be more or less the same, sure. You might see some new units but most of the tactics from Chaos Rising will still be effective to one degree or another. But if even one Imperial Guard player is in a match the game has become something new and incredible. It’s still a game about territory control, but the rules of that game have changed. Instead of being about maintaining a fixed position it’s about the cost-benefit of building fixed emplacements when they’re likely to be torn down in a few minutes. It’s about building an army that can overrun an opponent who has dug in and use their static position against them. It’s about adapting constantly to the ebb and flow of the battle, following and avoiding the fight as the situation warrants.
Every faction in Dawn of War II carries with it a set of rules and conditions it brings to the battle. Orks move like a tide, their strength amplified by nearby greenskin allies. Tyranids are a different kind of tide, an overwhelming one which fractures when bigger units are killed, giving the impression of an inhuman horde filled with mini-bosses that demand your attention. Space Marines of both Chaos and regular flavor consist mostly of costly, powerful monoliths of units that demand specific responses and have specific powers, but will barely function at a task they’re not designed for. The Eldar emphasize the importance of a mobile force, suffering greatly when forced into a fixed emplacement for all their defensive abilities. And the Guard? They’re the underdog, the faction that clings to victory by the skin of their teeth, turning the fight around in one brilliant measure and then holding their ground against a superior force.
If you’re looking at Dawn of War II: Retribution as a multiplayer product (and most people probably are since the single player campaigns, while enjoyable, have never really been what made Dawn of War II great) it might seem a bit light, especially given the thirty dollar price tag. The Chaos Space Marines already feel like a flavor of Imperium, and the Imperial Guard were a weak-sauce faction in previous Dawn of War games, a bit of fluff thrown in for true fans which couldn’t really hold their own against superpowered mutants, robots and fearsome peace-loving aliens. But unlike Chaos Rising, where the multiplayer wasn’t much of a draw for me, something about the changes the Imperial Guard have made to the dynamic of Dawn of War II is really alluring to me. It could be the rose-colored glasses that I get when I’m playing a new game, or that I’m still learning about systems which will soon lose their mysticism and appeal as I come to understand them better. And the Imperial Guard are far from a dud faction in Retribution. In fact you could make a case that they’re a bit overpowered, with a collection of Tier 2 units capable of steam rolling all but the best established defensive positions. Retribution made me reconsider the underpowered unfortunate faction from the first series of games, made me look at them and see an impressive army based around conventional, modern day tactics in a world filled with armies based on magic and space-lasers. It made me look at an old game I loved and see new tactical depth to it. It offered me a set of new experiences, all of them as rich and fulfilling as anything I’ve seen since Fallout: New Vegas made me give a shit about video games again. I don’t imagine the single player portion to be anything so divine, but I don’t expect it to be terrible, just adequate and perhaps a bit repetitive. But hey, it’s an RTS. It’s supposed to be repetitive. The key is letting that repetition break every once in a while and letting the wonderful chaos of the game shine through. Dawn of War II: Retribution does so beautifully, and while I’ve no doubt that it won’t make a big commercial splash it’s well worth your attention if you’re interested in the genre of RTS at all.
In the new game my devastators seem oblivious to the fact that this tactic no longer works. They sit and stew behind their rocks, looking dumbly as spotters sit nearby and sight on them. And when the artillery rounds scream down and the guardsmen charge up, rifles blazing, it’s kind of heartbreaking to watch my veterans topple to the Guard’s combined might. But it’s also kind of impressive. I want to learn how to do that, how to guide fire from the sky and crack even the toughest defenses without batting an eyelash. I want to learn how to coolly walk my army up the middle of the battlefield, quietly scout out enemy positions and then eradicate them, cover and all, with a few well placed shells. This is what Dawn of War II: Retribution has on offer.
Many expansions seek to redefine the way a game plays. Brood War, for example, changed the balance of the game with the addition of a handful of new units and some new technology shrewdly distributed through the various races. These seemingly minor additions rewrote the rules of Starcraft. Zerg could suddenly turtle. Protoss had new options for making quick and dirty raids. Terrans became even more unbelievably tough. A few changes, small ones to the idle observer, changed the entire scope of the game in a wonderful and unanticipated way.
Dawn of War II’s expansions don’t really work that way. Sure, there are new units for each faction. Most of them are heavy ground vehicles that most people won’t see until a game is already decided, things like Land Raiders and weird ork vehicles with misspelled names and humorous subtext to their design, and the rest are super specialized or difficult to acquire units. None of them really change the overall balance of the game. What really shakes things up, aside from Relic’s thorough and at times infuriating balance changes, is the addition of entire new factions.
Factions in most games make a dramatic impact, sure. But Dawn of War II’s primary mode of play, Team Mode, is all about the interaction between factions, the way they shape and control the map and the flow of combat within it. Factions might seem completely different in Starcraft, and the coordination between say a Zerg and a Protoss player is totally unlike the coordination between a Zerg and a Terran player. But the manner in which the maps play isn’t something that changes. Terrans will buckle down and then roll out their forces when convenient, Protoss will try to find a balanced strat that involves a very similar tactic, and Zerg will roll the dice and hope whatever strategy they choose pans out, be it rush, boom or turtle. The maps might effect the mentality of these choices, but the races themselves will never impact the way each map plays out.
But in Dawn of War the factions have an impact on the terrain, in some cases literally. Hive tyrants and Chaos Lords will rush right through heavy cover, ruining it for everyone. Eldar can set up cover that friends and foes can use, Imperial Guard can establish bunkers and, as previously mentioned, also call down devastating artillery that eradicates not only units but precious, precious cover that those units were using to buckle down in. This is to say nothing of how each faction utilizes cover, how each unit functions in the careful balletic interplay that is combat in Dawn of War II. The way that factions interact in Dawn of War II is fundamental to the game and impacts the ebb and flow of play, the pace and the context of the game. It’s difficult to really elucidate in general terms. It’s almost ethereal, with map-control translating into resource control and, by merit of those resources, victory. But the addition of the Imperial Guard drives the nature of this quaint mixture and the importance of adding a single new faction into the mix home.
See, with a Guard player on the opposing team it’s never safe to be still. While there’s no assurance that the Guard player will choose Manticores, their meat-and-potatoes artillery unit, it is quite likely. And every Guard commander has some sort of artillery-like ability imbedded in their Zeal tree, so even if they don’t grab Manticores they’ll be able to do things like drop mines along your fixed position, or walk a devastating artillery strike into your advance that, no shit, is actually considerably more potent than the five hundred Zeal air strike that serves as the Guard’s “ultimate ability.” The end result is a faction that can eliminate or severely disrupt a fixed position at any time, without warning. There are similar abilities sprinkled throughout other factions, but no one is anywhere near as dedicated to forcing the battlefield to be dynamic as much as the Guard.
Which is ironic, because their other strength is setting up static defenses. Again, most factions have some sort of turret in their tech tree. Orks and Space Marines both have heroes dedicated to producing them, and everyone’s got some sort of static suppression unit available at tier 1. But the basic Imperial Guard unit, your dumb, hapless grunt, knows how to set up a turret and dig in cover right off the bat. Special abilities let them call in heavy turrets, bunkers, you name it. Paired with one of the most impressive aforementioned static suppression units in the game and a basic unit which can eventually become a wall of lasers they’re nigh impossible to root out once they’ve dug into a position. Unless, of course, you’ve got your own Imperial Guard teammate who decided to build some artillery into his army.
And that’s how they change everything. You can play a game without the Imperial Guard and things will be more or less the same, sure. You might see some new units but most of the tactics from Chaos Rising will still be effective to one degree or another. But if even one Imperial Guard player is in a match the game has become something new and incredible. It’s still a game about territory control, but the rules of that game have changed. Instead of being about maintaining a fixed position it’s about the cost-benefit of building fixed emplacements when they’re likely to be torn down in a few minutes. It’s about building an army that can overrun an opponent who has dug in and use their static position against them. It’s about adapting constantly to the ebb and flow of the battle, following and avoiding the fight as the situation warrants.
Every faction in Dawn of War II carries with it a set of rules and conditions it brings to the battle. Orks move like a tide, their strength amplified by nearby greenskin allies. Tyranids are a different kind of tide, an overwhelming one which fractures when bigger units are killed, giving the impression of an inhuman horde filled with mini-bosses that demand your attention. Space Marines of both Chaos and regular flavor consist mostly of costly, powerful monoliths of units that demand specific responses and have specific powers, but will barely function at a task they’re not designed for. The Eldar emphasize the importance of a mobile force, suffering greatly when forced into a fixed emplacement for all their defensive abilities. And the Guard? They’re the underdog, the faction that clings to victory by the skin of their teeth, turning the fight around in one brilliant measure and then holding their ground against a superior force.
If you’re looking at Dawn of War II: Retribution as a multiplayer product (and most people probably are since the single player campaigns, while enjoyable, have never really been what made Dawn of War II great) it might seem a bit light, especially given the thirty dollar price tag. The Chaos Space Marines already feel like a flavor of Imperium, and the Imperial Guard were a weak-sauce faction in previous Dawn of War games, a bit of fluff thrown in for true fans which couldn’t really hold their own against superpowered mutants, robots and fearsome peace-loving aliens. But unlike Chaos Rising, where the multiplayer wasn’t much of a draw for me, something about the changes the Imperial Guard have made to the dynamic of Dawn of War II is really alluring to me. It could be the rose-colored glasses that I get when I’m playing a new game, or that I’m still learning about systems which will soon lose their mysticism and appeal as I come to understand them better. And the Imperial Guard are far from a dud faction in Retribution. In fact you could make a case that they’re a bit overpowered, with a collection of Tier 2 units capable of steam rolling all but the best established defensive positions. Retribution made me reconsider the underpowered unfortunate faction from the first series of games, made me look at them and see an impressive army based around conventional, modern day tactics in a world filled with armies based on magic and space-lasers. It made me look at an old game I loved and see new tactical depth to it. It offered me a set of new experiences, all of them as rich and fulfilling as anything I’ve seen since Fallout: New Vegas made me give a shit about video games again. I don’t imagine the single player portion to be anything so divine, but I don’t expect it to be terrible, just adequate and perhaps a bit repetitive. But hey, it’s an RTS. It’s supposed to be repetitive. The key is letting that repetition break every once in a while and letting the wonderful chaos of the game shine through. Dawn of War II: Retribution does so beautifully, and while I’ve no doubt that it won’t make a big commercial splash it’s well worth your attention if you’re interested in the genre of RTS at all.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Congratulations on Getting Rid of Your Poster!
“FUCK YOU!”
She’ll storm out of your dorm room still wearing your shirt and underwear, walking barefoot through the snow to her dorm. You’ll want to scream at her that she’s overreacting, that she should at least put her shoes on. That she has warm winter clothing and that she’ll likely catch cold the way she’s strutting about. But you won’t be able to find the courage to utter a word.
Instead you’ll watch her as she goes, watch the motion of her ass in your underwear. You’ll both be too young to think that this will last, too foolish to realize that sometimes never means forever. You’ll be particularly unconcerned with the thought that she’ll never be back. Women frequently leave your bed in rage and come back several days later, since you have a thing for emotionally damaged angry women who flip out at you.
What will be wearing on you will be the fact that, as she walks across the quad she’ll be clutching the lion’s share of your poster of two girls kissing. You know the one, the one that every single douchebag in college has posted above their bed. She’ll be ripping it up as she goes, knowing that this is going to hurt you, knowing it’ll make you angry the next time you’re together even if you’re inside her.
She won’t turn back to see you looking out after her through your rapidly fogging window. She won’t have to turn to know you’re there, seething, pressing your tongue against your teeth, wishing you could open your window, shout the price of the poster (fourteen dollars and seventy five cents American) and then slam it shut. But you know if you do that then she’ll really be gone. This is her way of winning, her way of taking away your control. You won’t even know she’s doing it.
But she will. And you won’t see it, but she’ll have a tiny smile on her face as she rips the two kissing women in twain, letting the scraps fall to the ground, stumbling a little as her feet go numb.
Congratulations on Getting Rid of Your Poster!
She’ll storm out of your dorm room still wearing your shirt and underwear, walking barefoot through the snow to her dorm. You’ll want to scream at her that she’s overreacting, that she should at least put her shoes on. That she has warm winter clothing and that she’ll likely catch cold the way she’s strutting about. But you won’t be able to find the courage to utter a word.
Instead you’ll watch her as she goes, watch the motion of her ass in your underwear. You’ll both be too young to think that this will last, too foolish to realize that sometimes never means forever. You’ll be particularly unconcerned with the thought that she’ll never be back. Women frequently leave your bed in rage and come back several days later, since you have a thing for emotionally damaged angry women who flip out at you.
What will be wearing on you will be the fact that, as she walks across the quad she’ll be clutching the lion’s share of your poster of two girls kissing. You know the one, the one that every single douchebag in college has posted above their bed. She’ll be ripping it up as she goes, knowing that this is going to hurt you, knowing it’ll make you angry the next time you’re together even if you’re inside her.
She won’t turn back to see you looking out after her through your rapidly fogging window. She won’t have to turn to know you’re there, seething, pressing your tongue against your teeth, wishing you could open your window, shout the price of the poster (fourteen dollars and seventy five cents American) and then slam it shut. But you know if you do that then she’ll really be gone. This is her way of winning, her way of taking away your control. You won’t even know she’s doing it.
But she will. And you won’t see it, but she’ll have a tiny smile on her face as she rips the two kissing women in twain, letting the scraps fall to the ground, stumbling a little as her feet go numb.
Congratulations on Getting Rid of Your Poster!
Friday, February 25, 2011
Congratulations on Realizing Your Mom is a Lesbian!
There have been signs. Many, many signs. Like when she made you watch The Kids Are Alright with her and talked at length about how she’d be totally cool with it if her mom revealed that she was a lesbian at a late stage in life and how sometimes lesbians have sex with men for reasons that aren’t entirely clear at the time. And when she made you go to all those roller derby games and talked endlessly about how hot all the girls were. And when she grabbed your French teacher’s ass that one time during a parent teacher conference.
You’re kind of dumb for not getting this earlier. But today you’re going to be confronted with proof even you will not be able to ignore.
You’ll be coming home from school a little bit earlier than usual. A bomb threat that your girlfriend Sally called in will have vacated the premises sooner than scheduled so that she could get to a Sleater Kinney tribute show that your mom suggested to her the previous night when she was hanging out in your room with the two of you talking about how great young pussy tastes. You’ll step into your house and drop your bag on the floor loudly, causing your mom to shoot stock upright, completely naked, from the couch. Her mouth will be covered in some suspicious liquid. It’ll become clear what that liquid is when your next-door neighbor and general neighborhood-bad-girl-back-from-college Collette (real name Colleen) Mathews arches her back to get a good look at you.
“Fuuuuuck,” she’ll exhale.
“Honey, could we have a second?” your mother will ask.
You’ll nod in response and walk back out doors with your head hanging, baffled by what you just saw. You’ll be out there, staring out across the street, while the sounds of soft conversation and apologies echo from within the house. After five minutes, on the dot, Collette will emerge from your house, fully clothed, with a grin on her face.
“See you later,” she’ll say, winking at you as she saunters back to her house. You won’t notice until she’s almost at her front door that she’s holding her underwear.
Your mom will emerge a few minutes afterwards. It’ll be clear that she didn’t want to have to restrain herself in front of you from the way she’s panting. She’ll be wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt without a bra, and she’ll be glowing.
“You’re gay, aren’t you?” you’ll say before she has a chance to speak.
She’ll bite her lip in silence for a few minutes after that, licking her lips occasionally as if she was planning to speak. The two of you will be out on your porch watching traffic for a good long time. Eventually Collette will even pass by, winking at your mom, who will smile back at her. It’ll be nearing darkness when your mom finally speaks up.
“Your dad is okay with it. If that makes a difference.”
Congratulations on Realizing Your Mom is a Lesbian!
You’re kind of dumb for not getting this earlier. But today you’re going to be confronted with proof even you will not be able to ignore.
You’ll be coming home from school a little bit earlier than usual. A bomb threat that your girlfriend Sally called in will have vacated the premises sooner than scheduled so that she could get to a Sleater Kinney tribute show that your mom suggested to her the previous night when she was hanging out in your room with the two of you talking about how great young pussy tastes. You’ll step into your house and drop your bag on the floor loudly, causing your mom to shoot stock upright, completely naked, from the couch. Her mouth will be covered in some suspicious liquid. It’ll become clear what that liquid is when your next-door neighbor and general neighborhood-bad-girl-back-from-college Collette (real name Colleen) Mathews arches her back to get a good look at you.
“Fuuuuuck,” she’ll exhale.
“Honey, could we have a second?” your mother will ask.
You’ll nod in response and walk back out doors with your head hanging, baffled by what you just saw. You’ll be out there, staring out across the street, while the sounds of soft conversation and apologies echo from within the house. After five minutes, on the dot, Collette will emerge from your house, fully clothed, with a grin on her face.
“See you later,” she’ll say, winking at you as she saunters back to her house. You won’t notice until she’s almost at her front door that she’s holding her underwear.
Your mom will emerge a few minutes afterwards. It’ll be clear that she didn’t want to have to restrain herself in front of you from the way she’s panting. She’ll be wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt without a bra, and she’ll be glowing.
“You’re gay, aren’t you?” you’ll say before she has a chance to speak.
She’ll bite her lip in silence for a few minutes after that, licking her lips occasionally as if she was planning to speak. The two of you will be out on your porch watching traffic for a good long time. Eventually Collette will even pass by, winking at your mom, who will smile back at her. It’ll be nearing darkness when your mom finally speaks up.
“Your dad is okay with it. If that makes a difference.”
Congratulations on Realizing Your Mom is a Lesbian!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Congratulations on Grabbing the Brass Ring!
Normally the brass ring is either a metaphor for success or a prize distributed as part of a merry-go-round which entitles you to an additional ride, free of charge. We say normally, because today it’s actually an object hidden inside of your ex-best friend’s small intestine that holds the key to your survival from a Saw style death trap.
You’ll feel a tinge of pleasure as your rifle through his innards while he looks at you with big, wet eyes. He’ll know he’s already dead, that his blood is already septic with the contaminants of his own waste. Your hands, filthy as they are, will barely be contributing by comparison. And when you remove the ring, shining under the cover of blood, you’ll smile.
“Thanks for fucking Mary, asshole,” you’ll mumble at him as you fit the ring into the ingenious lock around your ankles and hobble off to go masturbate, which seems to be the whole point of all the Saw films in the first place.
Congratulations on Grabbing the Brass Ring!
You’ll feel a tinge of pleasure as your rifle through his innards while he looks at you with big, wet eyes. He’ll know he’s already dead, that his blood is already septic with the contaminants of his own waste. Your hands, filthy as they are, will barely be contributing by comparison. And when you remove the ring, shining under the cover of blood, you’ll smile.
“Thanks for fucking Mary, asshole,” you’ll mumble at him as you fit the ring into the ingenious lock around your ankles and hobble off to go masturbate, which seems to be the whole point of all the Saw films in the first place.
Congratulations on Grabbing the Brass Ring!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Congratulations on Ruining Taco Tuesday for Everyone!
Taco Tuesday is a sacred trust, one reserved for the closest of friends and the vilest of enemies under times of parlay. It’s an institution, one of the few truly American cultural institutions around today. It’s like the fourth of July, but weekly. Or it was, until you invited yourself along to a new event you’ve dubbed “Taco Wednesday.”
It’ll actually be two co-workers of yours going out on a taco-themed date and you asking if you can come with. They’ll both feel so awkward about the situation that they’ll panic and say “yes” just to keep you from weeping openly the time you did when you ran out of paperclips once.
You’ll chew with your mouth open the entire time, order a burrito instead of tacos and insist on watching your co-workers have awkward taco-sex after the fact. The next day you’ll talk about the date endlessly to everyone, discussing how weird the guy’s penis looked and how bad the girl’s vagina smelled in detail that will make even the most socially retarded of your co-workers feel uncomfortable.
When all is said and done the concept of Taco Tuesday will be so eroded and corrupted that no one will ever be able to think of it the same way again. Although, to your credit, it will be replaced with “awkward date exacerbated by a douchebag Wednesday,” which, while less pleasant, will be no less popular.
Congratulations on Ruining Taco Tuesday for Everyone!
It’ll actually be two co-workers of yours going out on a taco-themed date and you asking if you can come with. They’ll both feel so awkward about the situation that they’ll panic and say “yes” just to keep you from weeping openly the time you did when you ran out of paperclips once.
You’ll chew with your mouth open the entire time, order a burrito instead of tacos and insist on watching your co-workers have awkward taco-sex after the fact. The next day you’ll talk about the date endlessly to everyone, discussing how weird the guy’s penis looked and how bad the girl’s vagina smelled in detail that will make even the most socially retarded of your co-workers feel uncomfortable.
When all is said and done the concept of Taco Tuesday will be so eroded and corrupted that no one will ever be able to think of it the same way again. Although, to your credit, it will be replaced with “awkward date exacerbated by a douchebag Wednesday,” which, while less pleasant, will be no less popular.
Congratulations on Ruining Taco Tuesday for Everyone!
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Congratulations on Getting Out of the Weeds!
You’re going to be ass deep in prick clients tonight when that madman crashes his motorcycle through the plate glass window of the restaurant and rolls to a stop, the flames still lapping at his arms.
“Holy shit,” you’ll shout as you rush over to him with damp towels, trying to smother the blaze. He won’t seem to hear you, however.
Part of it will be the mild concussion, and part of it will be the sound of his journey through the window and two your feet, which will have been deafeningly loud from his perspective. But a small, critical portion of his efforts will have been generated entirely by love. Specifically love at first sight.
“Holy shit,” he’ll mumble up at you as you do your best to take care of him. He won’t squirm or writhe in pain or anything like that. He’ll just kind of smile up at you with this dumbass look on his face and blood oozing from a cut on his temple down across his eyes. His perfect blue eyes.
While you’re daubing blood off of them, that’s when you’ll first see them for the first time. Like, really see them. After you clear most of his vital fluids off his face you’ll smile and say “Hi,” back at him while he still lays their and mouths the words “holy shit” over and over.
When he finally calms down you’ll get him name (Colin) and find out he was training to be a dare-devil and did kind of a shitty job of making sure he wouldn’t get hurt. You’ll find his lacking judgment and his ability to interrupt your shitty work-day endearing, and ask him if he wants to come home that night. Thus will begin your brief, unsuccessful stint as a daredevil promoter/paramour.
Congratulations on Getting Out of the Weeds!
“Holy shit,” you’ll shout as you rush over to him with damp towels, trying to smother the blaze. He won’t seem to hear you, however.
Part of it will be the mild concussion, and part of it will be the sound of his journey through the window and two your feet, which will have been deafeningly loud from his perspective. But a small, critical portion of his efforts will have been generated entirely by love. Specifically love at first sight.
“Holy shit,” he’ll mumble up at you as you do your best to take care of him. He won’t squirm or writhe in pain or anything like that. He’ll just kind of smile up at you with this dumbass look on his face and blood oozing from a cut on his temple down across his eyes. His perfect blue eyes.
While you’re daubing blood off of them, that’s when you’ll first see them for the first time. Like, really see them. After you clear most of his vital fluids off his face you’ll smile and say “Hi,” back at him while he still lays their and mouths the words “holy shit” over and over.
When he finally calms down you’ll get him name (Colin) and find out he was training to be a dare-devil and did kind of a shitty job of making sure he wouldn’t get hurt. You’ll find his lacking judgment and his ability to interrupt your shitty work-day endearing, and ask him if he wants to come home that night. Thus will begin your brief, unsuccessful stint as a daredevil promoter/paramour.
Congratulations on Getting Out of the Weeds!
Monday, February 21, 2011
Congratulations Cheap Mother Fucker!
Today you’re going to get a phone call from a very angry man.
“WE HAVE YOUR DAUGHTER,” he’ll shout in a tinny, robotic voice.
You’ll be taken aback by his rudeness at first, but then you’ll think about the situation for a second.
“What do you want?” you’ll ask calmly. The robot voice will laugh.
“TEN MILLON DOLLARS.” It might as well have said space bucks instead of dollars for all the likelihood you’re going to pay it, but you’ll resist the urge to burst out laughing at the tinny voice and calmly clear your throat.
“Which daughter?” you’ll ask, You only have two, and one of them will be in the room with you at the time, so you’ll already know the answer, but it’ll be funnier to ask this way.
“BROOKE, I THINK. SHE’S OLDER AND SHE LIKES HEROIN.”
Your suspiscions confirmed and your amazing exit set up, you’ll hang up the phone, never to hear from the kidnappers again.
Congratulations Cheap Mother Fucker!
“WE HAVE YOUR DAUGHTER,” he’ll shout in a tinny, robotic voice.
You’ll be taken aback by his rudeness at first, but then you’ll think about the situation for a second.
“What do you want?” you’ll ask calmly. The robot voice will laugh.
“TEN MILLON DOLLARS.” It might as well have said space bucks instead of dollars for all the likelihood you’re going to pay it, but you’ll resist the urge to burst out laughing at the tinny voice and calmly clear your throat.
“Which daughter?” you’ll ask, You only have two, and one of them will be in the room with you at the time, so you’ll already know the answer, but it’ll be funnier to ask this way.
“BROOKE, I THINK. SHE’S OLDER AND SHE LIKES HEROIN.”
Your suspiscions confirmed and your amazing exit set up, you’ll hang up the phone, never to hear from the kidnappers again.
Congratulations Cheap Mother Fucker!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: A Lack of Color!
Narrative in games is a strange beast. All narrative is strange in its own way, but no genre fights its own narrative quite as thoroughly as games do. Where other arts forms with narrative elements which are inherently non-linear, forms such as poetry and painting, embrace and play off their digression from the norm games fight it tooth and nail. They mistake their framing techniques for their story telling techniques, they try to force you into a story instead of allowing one to develop. The end result is an experience akin to reading bad poetry: the author figure’s objective remains constantly in the forefront of the work, the execution is sloppy and aggressive and by the end if you feel anything at all you know you were manipulated into it. There is no moment of co-authored epiphany between reader and writer, no confidence in the creation’s ability to express itself. There is only the message, the School House Rock lesson we’re intended to draw from the story.
Games are situated uniquely to take advantage of experience-as-story. See, many people misinterpret cutscenes and scripted dialogue and scene as the tools which games utilize to tell their stories. But these aren’t really the tools at all. Instead they’re the frame by which the story is set. The game’s story isn’t that Niko Bellic comes to America, it is his experiences within America, each car jack and shitty date, each awkward sexual experience. The gamer’s ability to interpret these experiences exists in Niko’s silence between beats, between awkward professions of feeling and snippits of backstory. These set the scene within Niko’s head, give us a frame through which to interpret his behavior, but they don’t tell us anything about his story as we make it. Instead that story unfolds as we move through the missions, the world, the structure of play. The scope of the story, its setting and detail, is set by a group of authors, but just as is the case with any book worth reading or writing the real profundity of the work comes from the feelings evoked by the reader, the subtext with which they infuse the work. I chose Grand Theft Auto IV as my example because Grand Theft Auto IV simultaneously provides this frame and undermines it through its every turn.
It gives us a wide open playground, a familiar set of tools and cast of characters with which to interpret the world around us and develop our own story, and then it completely eradicates those objects with meaningless, ridiculous choices. It provides us with overwrought emotional beats, forcing us to like or dislike characters, deigning only occasionally to allow them to emerge on their own. And on the rare occasions it succeeds it annihilates its own accomplishments, turning up its nose as what it made you feel, taking your attachments away from you with no payoff, explanation or reasoning. It ends one of the most interesting narrative threads in the game without any sort of satisfying resolution, and when the events of GTA IV have closed the game world is completely unchanged. You can see more of it and easily access plenty of random parts, but really who gives a shit? You can buy shitty clothing and custom paint your car. Whoop de fucking do.
This topic comes to mind because of late I’ve been consuming games without strong narratives. Dead Rising 2, Darksiders and Spectromancer, all fine products, have dominated my single player play-time, and they all have no idea how to actually tell a story spare, perhaps, Dead Rising 2. Spectromancer and Darksiders both tell story entirely in interstitials, in their framing moments. I have less attachment to War in Darksiders now that I’ve nearly completed the game than I did when before I loaded it up. My connections to the characters have actually been eroded as the game develops, my interpretation of him cheapened by his dialogue and interaction with other characters. Rather than being presented with a vibrant world in which to establish myself I am instead finding my choices being eliminated slowly, the game losing its cache as the puzzles fade. It was well worth the ten dollars I spent, don’t get me wrong. But I won’t be thinking about Darksiders after I put it down, and while the game is a fun experience I certainly won’t recall the moments within the game that brought me joy. There’s no “remember the time” in a game where every time involves hitting that demon thing with my big sword, or whatever.
Scratch that, the worm-fights were pretty memorable.
Spectromancer can perhaps be forgiven for doing the same thing, given its incredibly low fidelity and its almost purposeful lack of “remember that time” moments. Spectromancer is, after all, Magic: The Gathering without other people. It’s a rote, mechanical card game wherein you compete with yourself to overcome challenges, build up your ultimate deck and essentially solve the puzzle of each fight. Of course you can’t actually build a deck, the experiences are all the same and you’ll likely develop a style of play that has less to do with recognizing each card’s function and more to do with which cards you think look and sound the coolest. And the “story” is actually a set of typo-ridden text chunks that shit out after certain fights, forcing you to click the troublesome “continue” button in order to get to your next card fight. There’s fuck all to the card fights themselves, no connection or emergent story to be found. It’s just patter.
And Dead Rising 2 and its storytelling could be an essay all to itself, a tale of conflict between a wonderful framework for the unexpected and a set of hilariously derivative establishing beats for various events. Dead Rising 2 is actually a bit brilliant from a storytelling perspective, but it will never stand among the ranks of Half-Life and System Shock 2 for its ability to make us a part of its story. Rather, like GTA IV, it is a flawed masterpiece, a game with objectives, many of which it completes handily, many of which it fails at miserably.
My point here isn’t to round up or accuse games of succeeding or failing at telling stories, although this essay could be called an indictment of many of the poorer RPGs on the market. Instead it is to mention how I’ve been relating to story in games of late: specifically, I haven’t. And this lack of narrative is starting to bum me out.
I don’t always play games to immerse myself in a story. Sometimes I just play them for the sake of mastering a system. I’ve spent many an hour on Spectromancer, playing it over and over again, relishing each victory. But games that ignore what makes their art form great do slowly start to wear on me. They’re like junk food: fine in small amounts, but suffocating when it’s all you consume. And games, of late, have seemed like junk. Perhaps there’s a rich well of narrative clinging to the underbelly of Dead Space, just yearning for me to remove its limbs and then stomp on its chest until I discover it, but there’s nothing to imply that this is the case.
I’m tempted to turn back and play some good old new-classics to sate my need for story, but I’d feel guilty turning to Bioshock 2 again before I’ve finished all the games that remain on my plate. I haven’t even touched Just Cause 2, which promises to be more narrative-free fun which involves doing awesome shit. Perhaps I’ll find some solace in games like Civilization, or in my multiplayer bastions, places where the true nature of storytelling in games cannot help but emerge. But until this feeling shakes, until I can balance it against my desire to finish the titles I’ve started before I move backwards or forwards, I’m going to remain a little bit diffident about the fact that Darksiders still isn’t over, and that I’m still slashing through enemies, still being given really silly reasons why.
Games are situated uniquely to take advantage of experience-as-story. See, many people misinterpret cutscenes and scripted dialogue and scene as the tools which games utilize to tell their stories. But these aren’t really the tools at all. Instead they’re the frame by which the story is set. The game’s story isn’t that Niko Bellic comes to America, it is his experiences within America, each car jack and shitty date, each awkward sexual experience. The gamer’s ability to interpret these experiences exists in Niko’s silence between beats, between awkward professions of feeling and snippits of backstory. These set the scene within Niko’s head, give us a frame through which to interpret his behavior, but they don’t tell us anything about his story as we make it. Instead that story unfolds as we move through the missions, the world, the structure of play. The scope of the story, its setting and detail, is set by a group of authors, but just as is the case with any book worth reading or writing the real profundity of the work comes from the feelings evoked by the reader, the subtext with which they infuse the work. I chose Grand Theft Auto IV as my example because Grand Theft Auto IV simultaneously provides this frame and undermines it through its every turn.
It gives us a wide open playground, a familiar set of tools and cast of characters with which to interpret the world around us and develop our own story, and then it completely eradicates those objects with meaningless, ridiculous choices. It provides us with overwrought emotional beats, forcing us to like or dislike characters, deigning only occasionally to allow them to emerge on their own. And on the rare occasions it succeeds it annihilates its own accomplishments, turning up its nose as what it made you feel, taking your attachments away from you with no payoff, explanation or reasoning. It ends one of the most interesting narrative threads in the game without any sort of satisfying resolution, and when the events of GTA IV have closed the game world is completely unchanged. You can see more of it and easily access plenty of random parts, but really who gives a shit? You can buy shitty clothing and custom paint your car. Whoop de fucking do.
This topic comes to mind because of late I’ve been consuming games without strong narratives. Dead Rising 2, Darksiders and Spectromancer, all fine products, have dominated my single player play-time, and they all have no idea how to actually tell a story spare, perhaps, Dead Rising 2. Spectromancer and Darksiders both tell story entirely in interstitials, in their framing moments. I have less attachment to War in Darksiders now that I’ve nearly completed the game than I did when before I loaded it up. My connections to the characters have actually been eroded as the game develops, my interpretation of him cheapened by his dialogue and interaction with other characters. Rather than being presented with a vibrant world in which to establish myself I am instead finding my choices being eliminated slowly, the game losing its cache as the puzzles fade. It was well worth the ten dollars I spent, don’t get me wrong. But I won’t be thinking about Darksiders after I put it down, and while the game is a fun experience I certainly won’t recall the moments within the game that brought me joy. There’s no “remember the time” in a game where every time involves hitting that demon thing with my big sword, or whatever.
Scratch that, the worm-fights were pretty memorable.
Spectromancer can perhaps be forgiven for doing the same thing, given its incredibly low fidelity and its almost purposeful lack of “remember that time” moments. Spectromancer is, after all, Magic: The Gathering without other people. It’s a rote, mechanical card game wherein you compete with yourself to overcome challenges, build up your ultimate deck and essentially solve the puzzle of each fight. Of course you can’t actually build a deck, the experiences are all the same and you’ll likely develop a style of play that has less to do with recognizing each card’s function and more to do with which cards you think look and sound the coolest. And the “story” is actually a set of typo-ridden text chunks that shit out after certain fights, forcing you to click the troublesome “continue” button in order to get to your next card fight. There’s fuck all to the card fights themselves, no connection or emergent story to be found. It’s just patter.
And Dead Rising 2 and its storytelling could be an essay all to itself, a tale of conflict between a wonderful framework for the unexpected and a set of hilariously derivative establishing beats for various events. Dead Rising 2 is actually a bit brilliant from a storytelling perspective, but it will never stand among the ranks of Half-Life and System Shock 2 for its ability to make us a part of its story. Rather, like GTA IV, it is a flawed masterpiece, a game with objectives, many of which it completes handily, many of which it fails at miserably.
My point here isn’t to round up or accuse games of succeeding or failing at telling stories, although this essay could be called an indictment of many of the poorer RPGs on the market. Instead it is to mention how I’ve been relating to story in games of late: specifically, I haven’t. And this lack of narrative is starting to bum me out.
I don’t always play games to immerse myself in a story. Sometimes I just play them for the sake of mastering a system. I’ve spent many an hour on Spectromancer, playing it over and over again, relishing each victory. But games that ignore what makes their art form great do slowly start to wear on me. They’re like junk food: fine in small amounts, but suffocating when it’s all you consume. And games, of late, have seemed like junk. Perhaps there’s a rich well of narrative clinging to the underbelly of Dead Space, just yearning for me to remove its limbs and then stomp on its chest until I discover it, but there’s nothing to imply that this is the case.
I’m tempted to turn back and play some good old new-classics to sate my need for story, but I’d feel guilty turning to Bioshock 2 again before I’ve finished all the games that remain on my plate. I haven’t even touched Just Cause 2, which promises to be more narrative-free fun which involves doing awesome shit. Perhaps I’ll find some solace in games like Civilization, or in my multiplayer bastions, places where the true nature of storytelling in games cannot help but emerge. But until this feeling shakes, until I can balance it against my desire to finish the titles I’ve started before I move backwards or forwards, I’m going to remain a little bit diffident about the fact that Darksiders still isn’t over, and that I’m still slashing through enemies, still being given really silly reasons why.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Congratulations Rhyming Bureau!
Most talking furniture gets cush (pun intended!) jobs in Disney flicks, advising princesses about their first period and singing vaguely racist songs about the topic of the day. But it’s tough for furniture made by African American people, especially when that furniture is a utilitarian, but still attractive, bureau.
You paid your dues, certainly. Went to college, worked a string of dull jobs before quitting and trying to make your way with your craft (standup comedy). It didn’t work out, but you kept at it, making ends meet while chasing your dream, and you’ve established a reputation as a performer in the furniture community. But no one who really employs talking furniture is interested in anyone with quite as “ethnic” as shtick as yours. Enter Funny or Die.
Funny or Die is where weird shit goes to make its dreams come true. Today your dream is going to be part of that weird shit, and it’s going to be glorious. One of the production assistants for FoD is going to call you to put you in a video about black-stereotype princesses parodying the Disney films you spent years attempting to be a part of. You’re going to jump for joy (shift a few inches, really) and then get your buddy who owns a moving company to drive you to the reading. You’ll blow them away and within a few months you’ll begin a brief, moderately successful career as an internet comedian. Then you’ll pull a Chad Carter and switch from being an obscure performer to being a director who occasionally makes cameos in various videos, establishing yourself forever in the collective unconscious as “that bureau.”
Congratulations Rhyming Bureau!
You paid your dues, certainly. Went to college, worked a string of dull jobs before quitting and trying to make your way with your craft (standup comedy). It didn’t work out, but you kept at it, making ends meet while chasing your dream, and you’ve established a reputation as a performer in the furniture community. But no one who really employs talking furniture is interested in anyone with quite as “ethnic” as shtick as yours. Enter Funny or Die.
Funny or Die is where weird shit goes to make its dreams come true. Today your dream is going to be part of that weird shit, and it’s going to be glorious. One of the production assistants for FoD is going to call you to put you in a video about black-stereotype princesses parodying the Disney films you spent years attempting to be a part of. You’re going to jump for joy (shift a few inches, really) and then get your buddy who owns a moving company to drive you to the reading. You’ll blow them away and within a few months you’ll begin a brief, moderately successful career as an internet comedian. Then you’ll pull a Chad Carter and switch from being an obscure performer to being a director who occasionally makes cameos in various videos, establishing yourself forever in the collective unconscious as “that bureau.”
Congratulations Rhyming Bureau!
Friday, February 18, 2011
Congratulations on Fitting Them All Inside Your Vagina!
You’re one of those losers who has to be someone of note or your life is a total sham, which wouldn’t be a problem if you were one of those faggy every-day heroes like a lady fireman or a good mom or some shit. If you were one of those people you could just sit back and smile at your life, occasionally watching taped episodes of Seinfeld and masturbating after your spouse has failed to please you that night. But you work in an office, you’re a loveless mess and you’re a tremendous coward, so most of those options are out.
You could develop an incredible talent, but you’re completely lacking in self-awareness and you were never very bright so that would probably require some sort of inherent ability that would’ve manifested itself by this point. So after a lengthy planning session which took up all of this weekend and a little bit Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evening you’re going to put your machinations into motion and enter the annals of history.
It’ll start with you purchasing several bags of oranges. Two or three should do it, since the current world record isn’t that high. Then you’ll begin lubricating the oranges with the astounding stores of KY Jelly you have hanging out in your house from living alone and unloved in the middle of a big city. Once you’ve got them all lubed up you’ll start slipping them into your vagina.
At first it will be kind of pleasant, a form of masturbation with a purpose almost. The first bag will get up there with very little trouble, comfortably tucked right up into your cooter, but the second bag will be harder. By the time you get halfway through you’ll start to feel full in a way you’ve never felt before. Not fulfilled or pleased or anything weird like that, mind you, just like you really need to take a shit.
But you knew you’d have to make sacrifices to make this happen. So you’ll take a handful of muscle relaxants and keep on stuffing until the second, and even the third bag has vanished inside of your vagina. Then you’ll call the local Guinness representative who, eager to see a woman’s vagina for the first time in years, will rush to your location.
He’ll be kind of disappointed by your swollen, orange filled puss hole. There will be fruit struggling to emerge from the walls of your vagina, but it’ll all be more or less stuck in there as you balance on your shoulders, grimacing with the effort of not squeezing most of those oranges into juice with the kegels you learned for the mate you could never acquire. Then after he takes some measurements he’ll start helping you get the oranges out, one at a time.
By the time he finishes all but four of them will be on the floor, covered in lube and your vaginal fluids, smelling up your apartment something awful. But you’ll be in the record books now, forever and ever, and you’ll have a man who is interested since it’s obvious you’ll ram almost anything up your vagina for the chance to be loved.
Congratulations on Fitting Them All Inside Your Vagina!
You could develop an incredible talent, but you’re completely lacking in self-awareness and you were never very bright so that would probably require some sort of inherent ability that would’ve manifested itself by this point. So after a lengthy planning session which took up all of this weekend and a little bit Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evening you’re going to put your machinations into motion and enter the annals of history.
It’ll start with you purchasing several bags of oranges. Two or three should do it, since the current world record isn’t that high. Then you’ll begin lubricating the oranges with the astounding stores of KY Jelly you have hanging out in your house from living alone and unloved in the middle of a big city. Once you’ve got them all lubed up you’ll start slipping them into your vagina.
At first it will be kind of pleasant, a form of masturbation with a purpose almost. The first bag will get up there with very little trouble, comfortably tucked right up into your cooter, but the second bag will be harder. By the time you get halfway through you’ll start to feel full in a way you’ve never felt before. Not fulfilled or pleased or anything weird like that, mind you, just like you really need to take a shit.
But you knew you’d have to make sacrifices to make this happen. So you’ll take a handful of muscle relaxants and keep on stuffing until the second, and even the third bag has vanished inside of your vagina. Then you’ll call the local Guinness representative who, eager to see a woman’s vagina for the first time in years, will rush to your location.
He’ll be kind of disappointed by your swollen, orange filled puss hole. There will be fruit struggling to emerge from the walls of your vagina, but it’ll all be more or less stuck in there as you balance on your shoulders, grimacing with the effort of not squeezing most of those oranges into juice with the kegels you learned for the mate you could never acquire. Then after he takes some measurements he’ll start helping you get the oranges out, one at a time.
By the time he finishes all but four of them will be on the floor, covered in lube and your vaginal fluids, smelling up your apartment something awful. But you’ll be in the record books now, forever and ever, and you’ll have a man who is interested since it’s obvious you’ll ram almost anything up your vagina for the chance to be loved.
Congratulations on Fitting Them All Inside Your Vagina!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Congratulations on Ruining Your Wedding Dress!
Today you’re going to put on a wonderful white wedding dress and just ruin it. Really just trash it. You should’ve known better, given your acidic skin. But these things happen, and even though you and your husband are out ten grand it’s no big, since you're famous mutant bankrobbers. So really, the dress is going to be kind of a wash. The only one who will really be upset will be the tailor, and she won’t be too bummed since she’ll still get paid.
Congratulations on Ruining Your Wedding Dress!
Congratulations on Ruining Your Wedding Dress!
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Congratulations Goth Tween!
Today you’re a goth tween and life is really hard. Really, really hard. As a young, middle class white girl the challenges of interacting with other people and learning in school before going home to your house with running water and electricity has got to seem completely overwhelming at times. But things are going to change real soon.
Early today an EMP is going to detonate in the upper-stratosphere, disabling power in your urban center. We don’t want to tell you just which one, because that might help you inform the FBI about what’s gonna go down and we know you’d do it just to be a killjoy. After that EMP detonates and services cease completely it’ll take less than four hours for the entire city to fall into chaos. The surrounding towns and townships will last an additional two hours before a cannibal-dominated insano-state emerges to fill the void.
During this time you’ll learn many lessons about growing up, womanhood, and murder. You’ll also learn about consequences in the ensuing days when the National Guard arrives, restores order, and tries you for multiple counts of petty larceny and accessory to murder. It’ll make everything in your normal life seem so much better that instead of pouting all the time you’ll just shut the fuck up for five minutes and let us finish our fucking burrito supremes.
Congratulations Goth Tween!
Early today an EMP is going to detonate in the upper-stratosphere, disabling power in your urban center. We don’t want to tell you just which one, because that might help you inform the FBI about what’s gonna go down and we know you’d do it just to be a killjoy. After that EMP detonates and services cease completely it’ll take less than four hours for the entire city to fall into chaos. The surrounding towns and townships will last an additional two hours before a cannibal-dominated insano-state emerges to fill the void.
During this time you’ll learn many lessons about growing up, womanhood, and murder. You’ll also learn about consequences in the ensuing days when the National Guard arrives, restores order, and tries you for multiple counts of petty larceny and accessory to murder. It’ll make everything in your normal life seem so much better that instead of pouting all the time you’ll just shut the fuck up for five minutes and let us finish our fucking burrito supremes.
Congratulations Goth Tween!
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Congratulations on Finishing Your Word Search!
You do your word search every day on the bus like a good little office drone, circling the appropriate groups of letters to solve a “puzzle” normally reserved for children and the mentally handicapped. And on most days, when you finish, you just fold your paper and whistle to the frustration of everyone else on your bus. But today things will go a little differently.
As you circle the last word (campsite, spelled upside-down) the bus will begin to shudder around you. Not the earth, the bus itself. From your paper, across your skin and clothing and into the chairs and chassis of the bus, eldritch symbols will erupt, burning with incandescent energy. They’ll strobe and resolve into glowing runes, patterns simultaneously alien and eerily familiar.
After a few seconds of strobing and glowing the bus will shudder and hellspawn will emerge from the bus. They’ll be little suckers, only seven feet tall with horns and barbs coming out of their body at every angle and their phalluses, dangling dangerously scimitars still in scabbars, will have strange hooks imbedded in them. They’ll shriek horribly and claw at the residents of the bus, searching through them, clearly looking for something.
When they reach you they’ll tear the paper from your hands and cheer. One of them will rip your clothes off while another mounts you. The rest will form a circle around you and begin chanting incantations to an ancient god, wordless mumblings with dramatic portent to them. As they continue the color of the runes on the bus will shift from purple and red to hues indescribable, hues that do not belong in our world. And then, in a flash, you’ll be teleported from the bus to a barren hellscape, where the demons will proceed to rape and torture you in ways even we’re uncomfortable discussing here until you beg for death and are offered the choice between taking your own skin and joining their number or forever losing your member.
Your bus-mates will never wonder where you went.
Congratulations on Finishing Your Word Search!
As you circle the last word (campsite, spelled upside-down) the bus will begin to shudder around you. Not the earth, the bus itself. From your paper, across your skin and clothing and into the chairs and chassis of the bus, eldritch symbols will erupt, burning with incandescent energy. They’ll strobe and resolve into glowing runes, patterns simultaneously alien and eerily familiar.
After a few seconds of strobing and glowing the bus will shudder and hellspawn will emerge from the bus. They’ll be little suckers, only seven feet tall with horns and barbs coming out of their body at every angle and their phalluses, dangling dangerously scimitars still in scabbars, will have strange hooks imbedded in them. They’ll shriek horribly and claw at the residents of the bus, searching through them, clearly looking for something.
When they reach you they’ll tear the paper from your hands and cheer. One of them will rip your clothes off while another mounts you. The rest will form a circle around you and begin chanting incantations to an ancient god, wordless mumblings with dramatic portent to them. As they continue the color of the runes on the bus will shift from purple and red to hues indescribable, hues that do not belong in our world. And then, in a flash, you’ll be teleported from the bus to a barren hellscape, where the demons will proceed to rape and torture you in ways even we’re uncomfortable discussing here until you beg for death and are offered the choice between taking your own skin and joining their number or forever losing your member.
Your bus-mates will never wonder where you went.
Congratulations on Finishing Your Word Search!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Congratulations on Communicating with the Woodland Creatures!
When people think of communing with woodland creatures they think of young women with flowers decorating their hair, singing songs about boys and learning about how sex works by watching squirrels fuck. Well, that’s not what’s going to happen today. Today you’re going to head into the woods, not looking the learn the lessons that most young women get from handsome princes that you received from a Tijuana whorehouse between the ages of twelve and sixteen but looking for the money that asshole boyfriend you pulled a bank job with buried so many months ago.
You’ll happen upon your first woodland creature, a deer, and pull out a nine-milimeter pistol. You’ll place it against the deer’s leg and look it in the eye.
“Where’s my money?” you’ll ask calmly. The deer will shrug, like he doesn’t know what’s going on. You’ll shake your head at him and sigh. “Wrong answer.”
Then you’ll fire a bullet into his femur, lodging it in the bone. The deer will shriek.
“Jesus Christ, lady! Jesus!” he’ll shout, struggling to stand.
“Do I look serious now, asshole?” The deer will nod, his eyes wide with fear.
“I don’t know where your asshole boyfriend dropped the stash, but the Woodland Council does. Just don’t fucking kill me, man. I’ll do whatever you want!”
You’ll smile and load the deer into your car, where he’ll direct you to the Woodland Council. Then you’ll bring the deer before them. The deer will plead for his life, plead for them to give you the money for his own sake, but the Woodland Council didn’t get to be the Woodland Council by listening to pussy ass pleas. They’ll have the deer taken away to be “dealt with” and then hear your case.
You’ll lay out the months you spent planning and executing your deft heist, the way you sucked that security guard’s dick while your boyfriend quietly murdered all of his friends. You’ll talk at length about the time you spent planning, resolving how to invest your share of the money, how you killed that cop outside the bank and how you crashed your car into a river during the getaway. Then you’ll recount the way your boyfriend staunchly refused to give you your due, telling you that women “are bad with money.” Then you’ll detail what you did to him afterwards, and the way he laughed as he bled out, dying with the secret of where the money was hidden.
The woodland animals will listen solemnly, weighing your case carefully before finally a raccoon will rise from his adorable tree stump and speak.
“We have this information. But we require a task. A hunter besets our woods. He must be dealt with.”
You’ll nod solemnly and head home to prepare. Which is how you’ll end up on a corner tonight, dressed like a hooker with a knife rammed in the back of your halter top despite having a MFA in studio art.
Congratulations on Communicating with the Woodland Creatures!
You’ll happen upon your first woodland creature, a deer, and pull out a nine-milimeter pistol. You’ll place it against the deer’s leg and look it in the eye.
“Where’s my money?” you’ll ask calmly. The deer will shrug, like he doesn’t know what’s going on. You’ll shake your head at him and sigh. “Wrong answer.”
Then you’ll fire a bullet into his femur, lodging it in the bone. The deer will shriek.
“Jesus Christ, lady! Jesus!” he’ll shout, struggling to stand.
“Do I look serious now, asshole?” The deer will nod, his eyes wide with fear.
“I don’t know where your asshole boyfriend dropped the stash, but the Woodland Council does. Just don’t fucking kill me, man. I’ll do whatever you want!”
You’ll smile and load the deer into your car, where he’ll direct you to the Woodland Council. Then you’ll bring the deer before them. The deer will plead for his life, plead for them to give you the money for his own sake, but the Woodland Council didn’t get to be the Woodland Council by listening to pussy ass pleas. They’ll have the deer taken away to be “dealt with” and then hear your case.
You’ll lay out the months you spent planning and executing your deft heist, the way you sucked that security guard’s dick while your boyfriend quietly murdered all of his friends. You’ll talk at length about the time you spent planning, resolving how to invest your share of the money, how you killed that cop outside the bank and how you crashed your car into a river during the getaway. Then you’ll recount the way your boyfriend staunchly refused to give you your due, telling you that women “are bad with money.” Then you’ll detail what you did to him afterwards, and the way he laughed as he bled out, dying with the secret of where the money was hidden.
The woodland animals will listen solemnly, weighing your case carefully before finally a raccoon will rise from his adorable tree stump and speak.
“We have this information. But we require a task. A hunter besets our woods. He must be dealt with.”
You’ll nod solemnly and head home to prepare. Which is how you’ll end up on a corner tonight, dressed like a hooker with a knife rammed in the back of your halter top despite having a MFA in studio art.
Congratulations on Communicating with the Woodland Creatures!
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Darksiders, Deadspace and the Discussion of Derivation!
Recently Dead Space 2 emerged from the smoldering maw of the game industry to massive critical and commercial aplomb. Despite a tone-deaf marketing campaign aimed not at gaming’s core market but its fringe (by the way, game designers, wise up: gamers aren’t angry middle-scholars, they’re mostly the coveted 18-25 year olds who actually don’t have as much disposable income as you think) Dead Space 2 has been doing great. It has been widely recognized as an excellent piece of work and, perhaps thanks to a masterfully executed launch from EA’s very talented publishing (not marketing) group, has been doing well across all platforms. But let’s all remember that Dead Space, as a franchise, sort of never needed to exist. In fact the original game, and even the prequel, were some of the most derivative games imaginable. Given their relative success at launch and the continued success of their incredibly derivative youngest brother this raises the question: does it matter when games are derivative?
I have no real rage at self-aware derivative games. All art, great or terrible, is rooted in some sort of derivation and homage to the artists who inspired it. Dead Space’s derivation did not upset me as much as its pretentions towards originality did. Adherents to the series will remember that Dead Space’s status as fresh intellectual property was a huge part of its original marketing campaign, and that it launched with such original failures at Mirror’s Edge. There’s nothing wrong with making a derivative game, stealing and borrowing from creative influences is just how we create. Dead Space’s dishonesty and apparent lack of awareness was really what irked me.
The game itself never winked at us, never let us knew that it totally understood its status between System Shock 2 and Resident Evil, with a little Doom 3 thrown in for the art design, but it was readily apparent to anyone who had played its predecessors. The upgrade system was ripped straight from SS2’s cybernetic upgrade system, the inventory and user-interface so Resident Evilly that they really could not have existed without those venerable games (mostly the most recent one, the criticism of which is like criticism of a band whose artistic direction you disagree with despite its total pitch perfect execution) were actually bullet points for selling copies of Dead Space, which was just not cool. This is to say nothing of the plot of the game, its art design, and the nature of your enemy. Those monolith critters are like The Many light, and by the end of the game they’re basically about as scary your average shambling basic Many servant from System Shock 2. We never get the sense of ramping horror that System Shock offered up so easily.
I enjoyed Dead Space, but this love of other games without explicit statement ground me down over the course of the game, right up to its cliché ending. Paired with the fact that its one original element, the zero-gravity mode of play which involved using every part of a room in order to solve combat puzzles, was actually pretty poorly executed, the game had a slipshod feel to me. And I’m still not sure why you’d want to play through the game as a super-powered Isaac Clark. The tension of acquiring my armor and weapons was actually my favorite part of the game, and a lot of the fun vanished when I could basically sit back and relax moving ahead.
All of this derivation would be quaint enough in a vacuum, but recently I’ve started playing Darksiders, which was not incredibly well received, unfortunately, and let me tell you: Darksiders is fucking amazing. It’s also very, very derivative. But unlike Dead Space, which seemed a little coy about being derivative, Darksiders owns it whole hog. And rightly so, the game’s artistic style draws heavily from existing games. War, your horseman protagonist, looks like Link and one of the ladies of Brutal Legend bore a very angry child who did a lot of body-building work, and the world and its various creations and objects owe much to God of War, especially the melee attacks and occasional “hot key events” that you’re forced to play through. You even find life and items in big stone chests you break or slide open and trade “souls” taken from enemies for weapon upgrades and new skills.
The overall structure of the game itself is also ripped straight out of Zelda, too. You move through a series of “dungeon” structures, acquiring items and procedurally unlocking new areas through puzzles of varying complexity, occasionally finding hidden spots that contain helpful optional goodies along the way. You eventually have to fight a boss at the end of the level, which involves using the item you found along the way in some creative or obvious way, depending on how much time the designer had to spend on a given level. You even collect new health and energy bars by collecting four pieces of an object. It’s not fooling anyone that the item isn’t a heart.
Darksiders owes its existence entirely to these other titles, and it owns its position between the two with a candor rare among video games. There’s never an explicit acknowledgement of the borrowing, but the clarity of it, the manner in which its homages are played out even in the game’s art design is just so direct, it’s hard to feel the way I did while playing Dead Space that the game was aspiring to be its own creation. Darksiders is a game about God of War and Zelda coming together, about combining brawler game play with adventure-puzzle design and mentality. It adds combat puzzles into the mix and addresses questions about just how these genres work, how they’re similar and how they’re dissimilar. The end result is a game that essentially generates a discourse about the manner in which various titles interact.
For example, Darksiders’ open world environments would be anathema to a brawler like God of War normally. With a limited selection of “goodies” to be found and a piss-poor camera and navigation system, walking around in God of War is the worst part of the game. But the game is so centered around murdering dozens of poor sods at a time that you’d never notice until someone pointed it out to you. Darksiders asks these questions unconsciously, through its very design. It shows us how clumsy Zelda’s combat system is as well, how frustratingly gated its upgrade system is as well. And it does all of this by presenting us with a similar design that has learned from other game types and adopted the strengths of those various designs.
I’m a bit shocked that anyone wouldn’t see value in Darksiders and its various unoriginal overtures. As a commercial venture it combines two already excellent games into one fantastic experience, albeit one which is narrative light and laughable in theme (something the designer did not seem to notice judging by the inexplicable comic book they presented to me with the game). And as a creature of game design it’s a lesson in taking lessons, an expression of how great something can be when we admit that we borrow elements of other works to ourselves and our audience and embrace that transaction instead of running from it. There are plenty of imperfect things about the game, to be sure, like a weak storyline and a complete disconnect from any of the characters. War is particularly bad as a protagonist, and I’ve found it useful to just imagine him as an older version of Link who lost Zelda somewhere along the way and decided to go a little crazy. And the supporting cast are all either faceless or irritating. But brawlers have never been particularly fertile ground for establishing relationships with characters, and we’re never asked to identify with War or his regrettable cadre at any point in the game. The artifice of Darksiders, its status as a creation aware of its own lineage willing to admit its status as an object emerging from a tradition where others have tread previously, is really what matters here. There isn’t a single person I wouldn’t recommend Darksiders to, especially given its paltry price-tag this long after release.
The discussion it prompted within me, parallel to the release of Dead Space 2, made it worth the price of admission by itself. Because if you think about the way games are built, why and how they exist, it’s hard not to compare the Dead Space series and Darksiders and consider the manner in which they treat their homages. Darksiders seems rife with affection, its dark brooding protagonist an artistic amalgam of his origins. Dead Space seems to want to escape its referentialism, attempting to design edgy and original creatures and separating itself from its obvious creative influences such as Aliens, Doom and, not to beat this horse all the way to death, System Shock 2. It should also win an award for “worst space marine armor design in video game history,” a hotly contested award.
There’s no question anymore that games are an art form, simply a discussion of the manner in which they function as an art. And as we move deeper and deeper into that discussion games like Dead Space and Darksiders, for the brazen nature of their derivation, are some of the most useful titles to inspect and dissect. They’ve both got problems as games and are both pretty fun regardless of all of them. They’re easy to engage, understand and they open up a broad range of other related titles that might be harder to jump into with a general idea of what you’d be experiencing in them. And they illustrate the intertextuality of games, the manner in which it’s important and how its lack can be devastating to elements of a game through their various choices. Their component parts were, in many ways, superior products, but the conversations that Darksiders and Dead Space present are just as interesting and, from a design perspective, more important.
I have no real rage at self-aware derivative games. All art, great or terrible, is rooted in some sort of derivation and homage to the artists who inspired it. Dead Space’s derivation did not upset me as much as its pretentions towards originality did. Adherents to the series will remember that Dead Space’s status as fresh intellectual property was a huge part of its original marketing campaign, and that it launched with such original failures at Mirror’s Edge. There’s nothing wrong with making a derivative game, stealing and borrowing from creative influences is just how we create. Dead Space’s dishonesty and apparent lack of awareness was really what irked me.
The game itself never winked at us, never let us knew that it totally understood its status between System Shock 2 and Resident Evil, with a little Doom 3 thrown in for the art design, but it was readily apparent to anyone who had played its predecessors. The upgrade system was ripped straight from SS2’s cybernetic upgrade system, the inventory and user-interface so Resident Evilly that they really could not have existed without those venerable games (mostly the most recent one, the criticism of which is like criticism of a band whose artistic direction you disagree with despite its total pitch perfect execution) were actually bullet points for selling copies of Dead Space, which was just not cool. This is to say nothing of the plot of the game, its art design, and the nature of your enemy. Those monolith critters are like The Many light, and by the end of the game they’re basically about as scary your average shambling basic Many servant from System Shock 2. We never get the sense of ramping horror that System Shock offered up so easily.
I enjoyed Dead Space, but this love of other games without explicit statement ground me down over the course of the game, right up to its cliché ending. Paired with the fact that its one original element, the zero-gravity mode of play which involved using every part of a room in order to solve combat puzzles, was actually pretty poorly executed, the game had a slipshod feel to me. And I’m still not sure why you’d want to play through the game as a super-powered Isaac Clark. The tension of acquiring my armor and weapons was actually my favorite part of the game, and a lot of the fun vanished when I could basically sit back and relax moving ahead.
All of this derivation would be quaint enough in a vacuum, but recently I’ve started playing Darksiders, which was not incredibly well received, unfortunately, and let me tell you: Darksiders is fucking amazing. It’s also very, very derivative. But unlike Dead Space, which seemed a little coy about being derivative, Darksiders owns it whole hog. And rightly so, the game’s artistic style draws heavily from existing games. War, your horseman protagonist, looks like Link and one of the ladies of Brutal Legend bore a very angry child who did a lot of body-building work, and the world and its various creations and objects owe much to God of War, especially the melee attacks and occasional “hot key events” that you’re forced to play through. You even find life and items in big stone chests you break or slide open and trade “souls” taken from enemies for weapon upgrades and new skills.
The overall structure of the game itself is also ripped straight out of Zelda, too. You move through a series of “dungeon” structures, acquiring items and procedurally unlocking new areas through puzzles of varying complexity, occasionally finding hidden spots that contain helpful optional goodies along the way. You eventually have to fight a boss at the end of the level, which involves using the item you found along the way in some creative or obvious way, depending on how much time the designer had to spend on a given level. You even collect new health and energy bars by collecting four pieces of an object. It’s not fooling anyone that the item isn’t a heart.
Darksiders owes its existence entirely to these other titles, and it owns its position between the two with a candor rare among video games. There’s never an explicit acknowledgement of the borrowing, but the clarity of it, the manner in which its homages are played out even in the game’s art design is just so direct, it’s hard to feel the way I did while playing Dead Space that the game was aspiring to be its own creation. Darksiders is a game about God of War and Zelda coming together, about combining brawler game play with adventure-puzzle design and mentality. It adds combat puzzles into the mix and addresses questions about just how these genres work, how they’re similar and how they’re dissimilar. The end result is a game that essentially generates a discourse about the manner in which various titles interact.
For example, Darksiders’ open world environments would be anathema to a brawler like God of War normally. With a limited selection of “goodies” to be found and a piss-poor camera and navigation system, walking around in God of War is the worst part of the game. But the game is so centered around murdering dozens of poor sods at a time that you’d never notice until someone pointed it out to you. Darksiders asks these questions unconsciously, through its very design. It shows us how clumsy Zelda’s combat system is as well, how frustratingly gated its upgrade system is as well. And it does all of this by presenting us with a similar design that has learned from other game types and adopted the strengths of those various designs.
I’m a bit shocked that anyone wouldn’t see value in Darksiders and its various unoriginal overtures. As a commercial venture it combines two already excellent games into one fantastic experience, albeit one which is narrative light and laughable in theme (something the designer did not seem to notice judging by the inexplicable comic book they presented to me with the game). And as a creature of game design it’s a lesson in taking lessons, an expression of how great something can be when we admit that we borrow elements of other works to ourselves and our audience and embrace that transaction instead of running from it. There are plenty of imperfect things about the game, to be sure, like a weak storyline and a complete disconnect from any of the characters. War is particularly bad as a protagonist, and I’ve found it useful to just imagine him as an older version of Link who lost Zelda somewhere along the way and decided to go a little crazy. And the supporting cast are all either faceless or irritating. But brawlers have never been particularly fertile ground for establishing relationships with characters, and we’re never asked to identify with War or his regrettable cadre at any point in the game. The artifice of Darksiders, its status as a creation aware of its own lineage willing to admit its status as an object emerging from a tradition where others have tread previously, is really what matters here. There isn’t a single person I wouldn’t recommend Darksiders to, especially given its paltry price-tag this long after release.
The discussion it prompted within me, parallel to the release of Dead Space 2, made it worth the price of admission by itself. Because if you think about the way games are built, why and how they exist, it’s hard not to compare the Dead Space series and Darksiders and consider the manner in which they treat their homages. Darksiders seems rife with affection, its dark brooding protagonist an artistic amalgam of his origins. Dead Space seems to want to escape its referentialism, attempting to design edgy and original creatures and separating itself from its obvious creative influences such as Aliens, Doom and, not to beat this horse all the way to death, System Shock 2. It should also win an award for “worst space marine armor design in video game history,” a hotly contested award.
There’s no question anymore that games are an art form, simply a discussion of the manner in which they function as an art. And as we move deeper and deeper into that discussion games like Dead Space and Darksiders, for the brazen nature of their derivation, are some of the most useful titles to inspect and dissect. They’ve both got problems as games and are both pretty fun regardless of all of them. They’re easy to engage, understand and they open up a broad range of other related titles that might be harder to jump into with a general idea of what you’d be experiencing in them. And they illustrate the intertextuality of games, the manner in which it’s important and how its lack can be devastating to elements of a game through their various choices. Their component parts were, in many ways, superior products, but the conversations that Darksiders and Dead Space present are just as interesting and, from a design perspective, more important.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Congratulations on Misinterpreting the Term Friends With Benefits!
Today you’re going to walk into a doctor’s office with the healthcare card of the girl you’ve been fucking for the last four months who isn’t too serious about you.
“Sir, we can’t accept someone else’s healthcare card as proof of a policy,” the sassy black receptionist who works in every doctor’s office ever (you know the one!) will tell you.
“But she said we were friends with benefits,” you’ll loudly declare, hoping that someone gets the pun. The secretary will be unimpressed.
“Get the fuck out of here, kid. We’ve got real patients.” She’ll point to the door and you’ll shuffle out, hanging your head.
When you get outside the cold will bite right through your clothing, and your polio will leave your legs a creaking ruin. You’ll clutch your tattered blanket around your shoulders and hope that your lady friend brings some polio medicine when she comes back for her card and a little somethin’ somethin’. Temping is a hard life, a life without health benefits. You want to hold on until the employer mandate forces temp agencies to insure their constituents with reasonable healthcare policies, but that day is being constantly delayed and your polio is getting so, so much more worse.
Congratulations on Misinterpreting the Term Friends With Benefits!
“Sir, we can’t accept someone else’s healthcare card as proof of a policy,” the sassy black receptionist who works in every doctor’s office ever (you know the one!) will tell you.
“But she said we were friends with benefits,” you’ll loudly declare, hoping that someone gets the pun. The secretary will be unimpressed.
“Get the fuck out of here, kid. We’ve got real patients.” She’ll point to the door and you’ll shuffle out, hanging your head.
When you get outside the cold will bite right through your clothing, and your polio will leave your legs a creaking ruin. You’ll clutch your tattered blanket around your shoulders and hope that your lady friend brings some polio medicine when she comes back for her card and a little somethin’ somethin’. Temping is a hard life, a life without health benefits. You want to hold on until the employer mandate forces temp agencies to insure their constituents with reasonable healthcare policies, but that day is being constantly delayed and your polio is getting so, so much more worse.
Congratulations on Misinterpreting the Term Friends With Benefits!
Friday, February 11, 2011
Congratulations on Receiving Oral Sex From Julia Roberts!
Some people talk about sexual misadventures with the colorful phrase, “it was like throwing a hot dog down a hallway.” The concept inherent in the statement is that someone’s sexual organs no longer have the tensile strength or muscle memory to hold their original shape so sex with that person becomes kind of unpleasant chore without any real sensation or enjoyment.
This is going to be a lot more like cave diving. There’s going to be moisture and heat, and it’ll surround your penis. Occasionally you’ll feel some fleshy device lapping at it, trolling at your member like a blind fish, but the sensation will be less one of pleasant stimulation and more one of passing dread, as if something horrible will happen to you while your dick is in her mouth. At first this sense of dread will be kind of arousing, but ere long it’ll just become tedious. Turns out getting a hummer and thinking about a strange serpentine creature destroying your genitals with its clumsy probing won’t be as erotic as the internet made it seem.
But still, she’ll be super famous, so you’ll concentrate as hard as you can to keep your penis hard. The end result will be that you’ll be about halfway flaccid when she finally asks you if there’s something wrong. You’ll shake your head no at first, then nod vigorously.
“I’d really like to do you now,” you’ll tell her, buying yourself a brief respite from the horrors of her mouth as you ply your own trade on Julia Robert’s relatively normal vagina. It’ll all go swimmingly until she suggests that the two of you sixty-nine for a while and you find yourself in trouble again. Just stick it out until she decides to let you in her vagina and it’ll all work out, kid. Vaginal sex, even with Julia Roberts, is the cat’s pajamas.
Congratulations on Receiving Oral Sex From Julia Roberts!
This is going to be a lot more like cave diving. There’s going to be moisture and heat, and it’ll surround your penis. Occasionally you’ll feel some fleshy device lapping at it, trolling at your member like a blind fish, but the sensation will be less one of pleasant stimulation and more one of passing dread, as if something horrible will happen to you while your dick is in her mouth. At first this sense of dread will be kind of arousing, but ere long it’ll just become tedious. Turns out getting a hummer and thinking about a strange serpentine creature destroying your genitals with its clumsy probing won’t be as erotic as the internet made it seem.
But still, she’ll be super famous, so you’ll concentrate as hard as you can to keep your penis hard. The end result will be that you’ll be about halfway flaccid when she finally asks you if there’s something wrong. You’ll shake your head no at first, then nod vigorously.
“I’d really like to do you now,” you’ll tell her, buying yourself a brief respite from the horrors of her mouth as you ply your own trade on Julia Robert’s relatively normal vagina. It’ll all go swimmingly until she suggests that the two of you sixty-nine for a while and you find yourself in trouble again. Just stick it out until she decides to let you in her vagina and it’ll all work out, kid. Vaginal sex, even with Julia Roberts, is the cat’s pajamas.
Congratulations on Receiving Oral Sex From Julia Roberts!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Congratulations on Finding a Solution That Benefits Everyone!
Today the villagers will bring you a pig.
“This pig belongs to me,” the first villager will say. “He has slept under my roof and been kept by my children. He is my rightful property.”
The second villager will counter: “This pig is mine by right. He has supped on my fodder for months and months, and despite his rooming at my fellow’s home he most certainly would not have survived without me. To give him to my fellow would be to wrong me most profoundly.”
You’ll sit and stroke your kingly beard, sitting in your kingly chair. Several more important issues, including the distribution of taxes for the realm and some murmurs of revolution amongst the leadership of the city guard, will come up and go on the back burner because you get a bug up your ass every time a villager brings you a problem involving a pig.
After a lengthy period of consideration you’ll bring the villagers before you once again. They’ll stand in your chamber with their well-fed pig, frowning as you grill them with questions.
“What do you each plan on doing with the pig?” you’ll ask.
The first will shrug. “Devour his flesh, use his hide to make leathers and keep his bones and hooves for stew.”
The second will nod “The same. Although I’d also like to spend the night with the pig, just to get to know him better.”
You’ll nod sagely at this revelation and hold up your hand as you finalize your judgment. Then you’ll bring it down and unleash your wisdom on those lame ass villagers, settling the matter once and for all.
“I sentence you both to death!” you’ll screech at them. They’ll begin sweating immediately as the guards rush to them and surround them, holding them in place for your headsman. “Your bodies will be used for food in a public banquet, your flesh to make clothing for orphans and your property will be re-distributed to the city watch. The pig will become my wife.”
The men will protest as they’re dragged away, screaming after you that you’re mad, that you can’t do this, but you’ll have stopped listening to them. You’ll be stroking the pig’s face and staring deeply into its eyes. The pig will look confused, but sort of happy. You’ll have handed him a judgment that will satisfy him, and that’s enough. And if your villagers object to you gay-marrying a pig? Well, you’ll just have to kill them too.
Congratulations on Finding a Solution That Benefits Everyone!
“This pig belongs to me,” the first villager will say. “He has slept under my roof and been kept by my children. He is my rightful property.”
The second villager will counter: “This pig is mine by right. He has supped on my fodder for months and months, and despite his rooming at my fellow’s home he most certainly would not have survived without me. To give him to my fellow would be to wrong me most profoundly.”
You’ll sit and stroke your kingly beard, sitting in your kingly chair. Several more important issues, including the distribution of taxes for the realm and some murmurs of revolution amongst the leadership of the city guard, will come up and go on the back burner because you get a bug up your ass every time a villager brings you a problem involving a pig.
After a lengthy period of consideration you’ll bring the villagers before you once again. They’ll stand in your chamber with their well-fed pig, frowning as you grill them with questions.
“What do you each plan on doing with the pig?” you’ll ask.
The first will shrug. “Devour his flesh, use his hide to make leathers and keep his bones and hooves for stew.”
The second will nod “The same. Although I’d also like to spend the night with the pig, just to get to know him better.”
You’ll nod sagely at this revelation and hold up your hand as you finalize your judgment. Then you’ll bring it down and unleash your wisdom on those lame ass villagers, settling the matter once and for all.
“I sentence you both to death!” you’ll screech at them. They’ll begin sweating immediately as the guards rush to them and surround them, holding them in place for your headsman. “Your bodies will be used for food in a public banquet, your flesh to make clothing for orphans and your property will be re-distributed to the city watch. The pig will become my wife.”
The men will protest as they’re dragged away, screaming after you that you’re mad, that you can’t do this, but you’ll have stopped listening to them. You’ll be stroking the pig’s face and staring deeply into its eyes. The pig will look confused, but sort of happy. You’ll have handed him a judgment that will satisfy him, and that’s enough. And if your villagers object to you gay-marrying a pig? Well, you’ll just have to kill them too.
Congratulations on Finding a Solution That Benefits Everyone!
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Congratulations Banana Slug!
Most slugs dream of moist places and midden heaps, places where they can be comfortable and just chill for most of their brief, slimy lives. But not you. You’ve always wanted bigger, better things. So it’ll surprise no one when you slither out from under your neighbor’s compost heap and enroll in Piedmont Community College tomorrow.
You’ll start inauspiciously enough, taking some math and science classes to try and build a better understanding of the world. Some people will look at you weird because you’re a giant banana slug who has somehow taught himself to speak, but you’ll ignore the haters. You’ll just apply yourself every day and do your best to achieve.
Eventually it’ll pay off. During your second year you’ll discover accounting and economics coursework. You’ll start building up some real credits and, come the end of your sophomore year, you’ll get your grades up and transfer to Piedmont Non-Community College. There you’ll acquire a BS in accounting and, while graduating, get your CPA.
You’ll set up a small, inauspicious tax-firm in downtown Durham, where you’ll meet your wife, a young coed who will come into your place with tax trouble and find your non-threatening attitude and glistening membrane enchanting. The two of you will have two incredibly weird looking kids and raise them quietly until you’re eventually called upon to represent one of your clients in court.
You’ll come to the courtroom dressed in your best custom tailored suit (you’re a slug, so it will have been quite expensive to get together) and you’ll deliver your testimony honestly, discussing how your client requested that you defraud the government and you quietly refused and presented his records honestly. Your client will be sentenced to two years for tax evasion and you’ll get a mention in the local paper for your integrity and trustworthiness and how it’s a little odd you gave up one of your clients.
This will lead to an increase in business, which will lead to you hiring on some additional help, including a hungry young single mom with a lot of heart and nothing to lose. She’ll hit on you one late night during tax season and the two of you will have a brief, torrid affair. Your wife will never find out and, even years later, you’ll still give your ex-employee recommendations after she’s moved on and the two of you stop sleeping together. You’ll always feel a tinge of guilt about it, though.
You’ll finally die when the client you gave up to the Feds comes to visit you one day with a shaker of salt. Your son will shoot him in the chest with a revolver he keeps in his desk (against your wishes) and then take you to the hospital, where you’ll die in your wife’s arms, surrounded by family as the salt devastates your gooey slug body.
Congratulations Banana Slug!
You’ll start inauspiciously enough, taking some math and science classes to try and build a better understanding of the world. Some people will look at you weird because you’re a giant banana slug who has somehow taught himself to speak, but you’ll ignore the haters. You’ll just apply yourself every day and do your best to achieve.
Eventually it’ll pay off. During your second year you’ll discover accounting and economics coursework. You’ll start building up some real credits and, come the end of your sophomore year, you’ll get your grades up and transfer to Piedmont Non-Community College. There you’ll acquire a BS in accounting and, while graduating, get your CPA.
You’ll set up a small, inauspicious tax-firm in downtown Durham, where you’ll meet your wife, a young coed who will come into your place with tax trouble and find your non-threatening attitude and glistening membrane enchanting. The two of you will have two incredibly weird looking kids and raise them quietly until you’re eventually called upon to represent one of your clients in court.
You’ll come to the courtroom dressed in your best custom tailored suit (you’re a slug, so it will have been quite expensive to get together) and you’ll deliver your testimony honestly, discussing how your client requested that you defraud the government and you quietly refused and presented his records honestly. Your client will be sentenced to two years for tax evasion and you’ll get a mention in the local paper for your integrity and trustworthiness and how it’s a little odd you gave up one of your clients.
This will lead to an increase in business, which will lead to you hiring on some additional help, including a hungry young single mom with a lot of heart and nothing to lose. She’ll hit on you one late night during tax season and the two of you will have a brief, torrid affair. Your wife will never find out and, even years later, you’ll still give your ex-employee recommendations after she’s moved on and the two of you stop sleeping together. You’ll always feel a tinge of guilt about it, though.
You’ll finally die when the client you gave up to the Feds comes to visit you one day with a shaker of salt. Your son will shoot him in the chest with a revolver he keeps in his desk (against your wishes) and then take you to the hospital, where you’ll die in your wife’s arms, surrounded by family as the salt devastates your gooey slug body.
Congratulations Banana Slug!
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Congratulations on Not Thinking About Her For a Full Day!
Today you’re not going to think about her for a whole day. You won’t remember why you feel that nagging sense of loss in the back of your head, why your muscles are sore and your feet drag with every step. You’ll pick up your dry cleaning like a normal, sad little person, get a cup of coffee and sip on it and wonder why it lacks vim, vigor, pep. It’ll just taste hot to you, but you won’t attribute it to her being out of your life at all.
Then you’ll go to work and try to hammer out seven and a half hours of productivity and feel completely empty and devoid of hope, but you won’t for one moment think that if she was waiting for you at home you’d magically feel better. You’ll eat a flavorless lunch, feel unsatisfied and trudge back to your apartment when your shitty day is done again, but none of your time will be spent thinking about her eyes or smell or the sound of her voice when she was laughing at something that was more mean than funny.
At home you’ll smoke a cigarette on your porch, stub it out and watch the shitty movie Netflix sent you alone. You’ll drink an eighth of a bottle of scotch without really noticing it and eat your leftovers quietly without weeping, without crying out her name. Then you’ll consider sleep and wonder why you should even bother without necessarily attaching your despondence to her.
When the clock ticks to midnight her face will rush into your head like water through a freshly opened sluice gate. You’ll start to cry before you know what’s going on, but when awareness catches up with you you’ll realize that your tears just mean all is good and right with the world. She’s gone and life is much much harder than it has any right being. You’ll smile a little and wrap your coarse blanket around yourself while you sip on some more whiskey and update your Netflix queue, wondering what she’s doing now, who she’s with and if they make her laugh the way you used to.
Congratulations on Not Thinking About Her For a Full Day!
Then you’ll go to work and try to hammer out seven and a half hours of productivity and feel completely empty and devoid of hope, but you won’t for one moment think that if she was waiting for you at home you’d magically feel better. You’ll eat a flavorless lunch, feel unsatisfied and trudge back to your apartment when your shitty day is done again, but none of your time will be spent thinking about her eyes or smell or the sound of her voice when she was laughing at something that was more mean than funny.
At home you’ll smoke a cigarette on your porch, stub it out and watch the shitty movie Netflix sent you alone. You’ll drink an eighth of a bottle of scotch without really noticing it and eat your leftovers quietly without weeping, without crying out her name. Then you’ll consider sleep and wonder why you should even bother without necessarily attaching your despondence to her.
When the clock ticks to midnight her face will rush into your head like water through a freshly opened sluice gate. You’ll start to cry before you know what’s going on, but when awareness catches up with you you’ll realize that your tears just mean all is good and right with the world. She’s gone and life is much much harder than it has any right being. You’ll smile a little and wrap your coarse blanket around yourself while you sip on some more whiskey and update your Netflix queue, wondering what she’s doing now, who she’s with and if they make her laugh the way you used to.
Congratulations on Not Thinking About Her For a Full Day!
Monday, February 7, 2011
Congratulations on Voiding Your Bowels!
Today you’re going to die with a pooper full of shit. And you know what that means. It means your last moment will be one of shame as your gastrointestinal track loses all control and you just shit all over yourself.
Normally this would be cause for deep shame, but today the guy that killed you is going to come over to your body and try to take a trophy from your supine corpse. He’ll be getting ready to lop off your ear with a giant knife when his boot catches some liquefied shit which, mixed with blood and urine flowing out of your body like it’s going out of style, is going to make the grass you died on real slippery. So the guy that killed you is going to lose his balance, knife in hand, and tumble on to it, ramming it into his ribcage and puncturing his lung.
He’ll lay there as his vision swims, bleeding out as breath fails him, and his last moments will be spent buried in your blood and excrement, providing you with perhaps the single most satisfying after-death revenge moment as your foe dies after killing you, smothered in your own shit and piss.
Congratulations on Voiding Your Bowels!
Normally this would be cause for deep shame, but today the guy that killed you is going to come over to your body and try to take a trophy from your supine corpse. He’ll be getting ready to lop off your ear with a giant knife when his boot catches some liquefied shit which, mixed with blood and urine flowing out of your body like it’s going out of style, is going to make the grass you died on real slippery. So the guy that killed you is going to lose his balance, knife in hand, and tumble on to it, ramming it into his ribcage and puncturing his lung.
He’ll lay there as his vision swims, bleeding out as breath fails him, and his last moments will be spent buried in your blood and excrement, providing you with perhaps the single most satisfying after-death revenge moment as your foe dies after killing you, smothered in your own shit and piss.
Congratulations on Voiding Your Bowels!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Mods and a Lack Thereof!
Mods have long stood as an institution by which gamers can prove their creativity, dedication and talent to game designers, reinterpreting the rules of play in such a way that they become something new, something wholly unrecognizable. There are very few gamers of a certain age who don’t speak of Counter-Strike in hushed tones, wringing their hands discussing the brilliance of a game you got for zero dollars, simply by poking around on the internet after you bought Half-Life.
Since then mods have become something of an institution over the span of gaming history. Mods have given us some incredible experiences in real-time strategy games, entering many new sub-genres and game types like tower defense and the hero-slugfest of DotA into the dialect of gaming. They’ve allowed first-person shooter fans to express themselves and conceive of new and interesting ways to kill one another. They’ve given upstarts careers, given people with nothing better to do a creative outlet, and they’ve given me a wealth of fun experiences over the years.
But it feels of late like the mod community is changing. Games that would’ve been mods years ago, games like Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam: the Colon Returns and Heroes of Newerth. Not that these aren’t fine, polished experiences. It’s just that we would’ve seen that sort of fine, polished experience coming from amateur hands in the early aughts, instead of from the hands of seasoned, well funded developers. And these experiences would’ve lead to more mods and fed into the cycle of mod life.
It sometimes feels like a beautiful pattern has been interrupted. While I occasionally play games like Neverwinter Nights 2 and Left 4 Dead and think “what a wonderful framework for modding,” far more often of late I find myself looking at the creative landscape emerging from players rather than developers and despairing. Perhaps some of this is owed to the developers and publishers of games, rather than the player base. A quick survey of most of the major first-person shooter releases in the last few years show a heavy concentration from publishers like EA and Activision, parties hardly known for their magnanimous nature with intellectual property. Paired with a growing focus on console development, where mod tools are a rarity if they are at all, and a shrinking market window for modders to find careers through their passion, and it’s hardly surprising that mods have slowed down.
Although perhaps not all is lost. Modding is still heavily encouraged by many larger designers. Little Big Planet, for example, is a franchised based entirely around the mod mentality. For all my qualms with SCEA, they’ve done an excellent job of providing players with a toolset and letting them run wild with it. I still haven’t tried LBP, or LBP2 due to a lack of a Playstation 3 and the motivation to get one now that the price has dropped to a relative pittance, but I can still sit on the sidelines and watch the levels build and build enthusiasm over them flood and fade and feel some encouragement that modding will find a new life on consoles.
The other hope stems from Starcraft 2’s extremely robust set of map building tools. For all my earlier comments about Activision, their giant cash-cow Blizzard makes up for much of Kotick’s miserly chest thumping. There must be some sort of strain in that relationship, or perhaps simply grudging respect for Blizzard’s ability to make shitloads and shitloads of money regardless of what Activision does. I’m still not entirely sure what Blizzard needs Activision for, except perhaps to occasionally make them look moderately less successful and karmically balance them out, in case they do a few too many good deeds. Anyhow, as aggressive as Activision has been about controlling content in most of their properties, Blizzard hasn’t changed their policy one whit. They built a name by giving players what they want, and they continued to do that in Starcraft 2, including one of the most robust map-making toolsets in recent memory with the game.
I haven’t been as active in looking into the mods emerging from SC2 as I should to be totally honest, but what I’ve seen so far has been pitch perfect. A quick look at the custom games tab reveals a veritable shitton of mods available for play, most of them no doubt horrible. But nestled among those awful, awful fuckfests are a few choice game play modes. I’ve had some incredible experiences with Left2Die, a mod that sends up two of my multiplayer staples of late. It’s a re-creation of everyone’s favorite level in SC2 which, by now, everyone has hailed as brilliant. But what has hooked me is the Night2Die version of the mod, which involves a last-stand style holdout battle against ever-increasing, never ceasing waves of enemies. It has a unique feeling to it of iterative, educational play, and each time I get a little further a new challenge emerges to ruin my day. It’s a great feeling.
The diversity and breadth of SC2’s mods are encouraging, given how underplayed many other mods are in major titles. Left4Dead 2, for example, features a robust toolset many people use to create fascinating scenarios, but I play Left4Dead 2 on a nightly basis and I honestly have no idea how I’d even go looking for a mod game. The same goes for Neverwinter Nights 2, which I’m mostly playing so that I can understand the mod system surrounding it. The single player campaign has proven a poor introduction to this community so far, however, and I find myself quickly growing tired of the 3.5 edition D&D ruleset that so many nerds ceaselessly rant about.
Of course, it could always be that I’m just not looking hard enough. Case in point, Quake 2 was a game surrounded by mods, but the only way to discover them was reading forums constantly, searching the web on, at the time, arcane search engines and then tooling around with whatever files some fan-hosted site had on hand until they worked. Myth 2 had mods up the wazoo, but you had to search websites, sometimes multiple websites, to find the right version of the right mod your friends were playing. Perhaps these other mods are just hiding out there, waiting for people as young and passionate as myself at 13 to find them. But the world of mods seems quieter now, less likely to draw in some new talent to the game design stage proper, and that seems like a loss for us all to me.
Since then mods have become something of an institution over the span of gaming history. Mods have given us some incredible experiences in real-time strategy games, entering many new sub-genres and game types like tower defense and the hero-slugfest of DotA into the dialect of gaming. They’ve allowed first-person shooter fans to express themselves and conceive of new and interesting ways to kill one another. They’ve given upstarts careers, given people with nothing better to do a creative outlet, and they’ve given me a wealth of fun experiences over the years.
But it feels of late like the mod community is changing. Games that would’ve been mods years ago, games like Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam: the Colon Returns and Heroes of Newerth. Not that these aren’t fine, polished experiences. It’s just that we would’ve seen that sort of fine, polished experience coming from amateur hands in the early aughts, instead of from the hands of seasoned, well funded developers. And these experiences would’ve lead to more mods and fed into the cycle of mod life.
It sometimes feels like a beautiful pattern has been interrupted. While I occasionally play games like Neverwinter Nights 2 and Left 4 Dead and think “what a wonderful framework for modding,” far more often of late I find myself looking at the creative landscape emerging from players rather than developers and despairing. Perhaps some of this is owed to the developers and publishers of games, rather than the player base. A quick survey of most of the major first-person shooter releases in the last few years show a heavy concentration from publishers like EA and Activision, parties hardly known for their magnanimous nature with intellectual property. Paired with a growing focus on console development, where mod tools are a rarity if they are at all, and a shrinking market window for modders to find careers through their passion, and it’s hardly surprising that mods have slowed down.
Although perhaps not all is lost. Modding is still heavily encouraged by many larger designers. Little Big Planet, for example, is a franchised based entirely around the mod mentality. For all my qualms with SCEA, they’ve done an excellent job of providing players with a toolset and letting them run wild with it. I still haven’t tried LBP, or LBP2 due to a lack of a Playstation 3 and the motivation to get one now that the price has dropped to a relative pittance, but I can still sit on the sidelines and watch the levels build and build enthusiasm over them flood and fade and feel some encouragement that modding will find a new life on consoles.
The other hope stems from Starcraft 2’s extremely robust set of map building tools. For all my earlier comments about Activision, their giant cash-cow Blizzard makes up for much of Kotick’s miserly chest thumping. There must be some sort of strain in that relationship, or perhaps simply grudging respect for Blizzard’s ability to make shitloads and shitloads of money regardless of what Activision does. I’m still not entirely sure what Blizzard needs Activision for, except perhaps to occasionally make them look moderately less successful and karmically balance them out, in case they do a few too many good deeds. Anyhow, as aggressive as Activision has been about controlling content in most of their properties, Blizzard hasn’t changed their policy one whit. They built a name by giving players what they want, and they continued to do that in Starcraft 2, including one of the most robust map-making toolsets in recent memory with the game.
I haven’t been as active in looking into the mods emerging from SC2 as I should to be totally honest, but what I’ve seen so far has been pitch perfect. A quick look at the custom games tab reveals a veritable shitton of mods available for play, most of them no doubt horrible. But nestled among those awful, awful fuckfests are a few choice game play modes. I’ve had some incredible experiences with Left2Die, a mod that sends up two of my multiplayer staples of late. It’s a re-creation of everyone’s favorite level in SC2 which, by now, everyone has hailed as brilliant. But what has hooked me is the Night2Die version of the mod, which involves a last-stand style holdout battle against ever-increasing, never ceasing waves of enemies. It has a unique feeling to it of iterative, educational play, and each time I get a little further a new challenge emerges to ruin my day. It’s a great feeling.
The diversity and breadth of SC2’s mods are encouraging, given how underplayed many other mods are in major titles. Left4Dead 2, for example, features a robust toolset many people use to create fascinating scenarios, but I play Left4Dead 2 on a nightly basis and I honestly have no idea how I’d even go looking for a mod game. The same goes for Neverwinter Nights 2, which I’m mostly playing so that I can understand the mod system surrounding it. The single player campaign has proven a poor introduction to this community so far, however, and I find myself quickly growing tired of the 3.5 edition D&D ruleset that so many nerds ceaselessly rant about.
Of course, it could always be that I’m just not looking hard enough. Case in point, Quake 2 was a game surrounded by mods, but the only way to discover them was reading forums constantly, searching the web on, at the time, arcane search engines and then tooling around with whatever files some fan-hosted site had on hand until they worked. Myth 2 had mods up the wazoo, but you had to search websites, sometimes multiple websites, to find the right version of the right mod your friends were playing. Perhaps these other mods are just hiding out there, waiting for people as young and passionate as myself at 13 to find them. But the world of mods seems quieter now, less likely to draw in some new talent to the game design stage proper, and that seems like a loss for us all to me.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Congratulations on Coming, Finally!
Jesus. Did you finish yet? Thank Christ. We’d really like to get out of here.
What? You’re not done? How far out are you?
Now? Good. Thank you.
Bye.
Congratulations on Coming, Finally!
What? You’re not done? How far out are you?
Now? Good. Thank you.
Bye.
Congratulations on Coming, Finally!
Friday, February 4, 2011
Congratulations Black Cat!
Seated at the card table, you’ll have to perch awkwardly on top of three stacked phone books just to see over the side. But no one will doubt your prowess, your capability or your confidence as you coolly survey the table, considering your opposition.
You won’t even look at your cards you’ll be so confident. You’ll just tap them with one paw and then sit back down, grinning at yourself. And when the river comes out and you see your opponent’s expressions turn to despair you’ll slide your little kitty paws over to your chips and push them all in.
Most of your foes will drop out, horrified of gambling against a cat, especially a black cat. Generations of Disney films will have educated them that animals, especially cats, are not to be trifled with in various ESPN televised competitions. But one man will not have gotten the memo.
He’ll be seated across from you in dark glasses with a stupid look on his face and a baseball cap on indoors. He’ll have a nice big pot belly and a mouth that never learned how to stop frowning for even half a second to kiss a pretty girl. He’ll have everything you hate in a poker player, and he won’t even have the chips to step up to you, but he’ll try anyway.
“Call,” he’ll mumble at the table, sliding his chips in. You’ll lick your lips and swish your tail and watch as the river unfolds in front of the two of you. When the last card is on the table and you show your four of a kind to his pair of queens it’ll be all you can do to avoid getting up and shoving your ass in his face. As the chips slide over to you, your pile growing mountainous in front of you, you’ll feel deeply satisfied in what you have wrought.
This feeling of self-satisfaction will last almost the entire night, eventually coming to an end when you are taken outside by security and your little kitty paws are broken to show people what happens to cats that cheat, even though you were innocent. You were just too good for the game.
Congratulations Black Cat!
You won’t even look at your cards you’ll be so confident. You’ll just tap them with one paw and then sit back down, grinning at yourself. And when the river comes out and you see your opponent’s expressions turn to despair you’ll slide your little kitty paws over to your chips and push them all in.
Most of your foes will drop out, horrified of gambling against a cat, especially a black cat. Generations of Disney films will have educated them that animals, especially cats, are not to be trifled with in various ESPN televised competitions. But one man will not have gotten the memo.
He’ll be seated across from you in dark glasses with a stupid look on his face and a baseball cap on indoors. He’ll have a nice big pot belly and a mouth that never learned how to stop frowning for even half a second to kiss a pretty girl. He’ll have everything you hate in a poker player, and he won’t even have the chips to step up to you, but he’ll try anyway.
“Call,” he’ll mumble at the table, sliding his chips in. You’ll lick your lips and swish your tail and watch as the river unfolds in front of the two of you. When the last card is on the table and you show your four of a kind to his pair of queens it’ll be all you can do to avoid getting up and shoving your ass in his face. As the chips slide over to you, your pile growing mountainous in front of you, you’ll feel deeply satisfied in what you have wrought.
This feeling of self-satisfaction will last almost the entire night, eventually coming to an end when you are taken outside by security and your little kitty paws are broken to show people what happens to cats that cheat, even though you were innocent. You were just too good for the game.
Congratulations Black Cat!
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Congratulations Infuriating Roommate!
He’ll come home while you’re chewing with your mouth open, eating out of the pot that belonged to his mother before she finally caved to breast cancer after six long years. You’ll be smacking your lips and making long, mournful moaning sounds while you eat.
“Motherfucker, this is good,” you’ll declare. “Don’t take any, though. Need it for leftovers for lunch this week.”
You know you won’t actually eat your leftovers for lunch (what are you, poor?) but give a man an inch and you’ll lose a mile or some shit like that. Your roommate will look at the pot, then you, then the pot again. He’ll open his mouth like he’s going to say something, but he’ll think better of it, tromping off to his room where, according to his history when you were on it earlier today, he’s been looking up new places to live for several weeks now.
You’ll give him about five minutes to settle in there before you come up and pound on his door. “It’s time for you to pay the power bill. I paid half of it last month.” You’ll wait for him to respond, but he won’t say anything. You’ll just hear soft weeping from inside. After giving him a few seconds you’ll enter without knocking again and find him in a ball on his bed, weeping openly over a letter. It wasn’t there earlier in the day, so you’ll know that it must be new bad news that the selfish prick you live with just received.
“Oh,” you’ll declare loudly. “I didn’t know it was ME time. I’ll come back when it’s more CONVENIENT for you.” Then you’ll slam the door and tromp downstairs to watch TV too loudly and wait for your roommate to emerge from his room so that you can harass him about how you can’t pay your half of the cable bill this month, and how the garbage disposal seems to be clogged.
This will continue for roughly another five to seven days, whenever his background check clears and he comes home and shoots you repeatedly with a pistol.
Congratulations Infuriating Roommate!
“Motherfucker, this is good,” you’ll declare. “Don’t take any, though. Need it for leftovers for lunch this week.”
You know you won’t actually eat your leftovers for lunch (what are you, poor?) but give a man an inch and you’ll lose a mile or some shit like that. Your roommate will look at the pot, then you, then the pot again. He’ll open his mouth like he’s going to say something, but he’ll think better of it, tromping off to his room where, according to his history when you were on it earlier today, he’s been looking up new places to live for several weeks now.
You’ll give him about five minutes to settle in there before you come up and pound on his door. “It’s time for you to pay the power bill. I paid half of it last month.” You’ll wait for him to respond, but he won’t say anything. You’ll just hear soft weeping from inside. After giving him a few seconds you’ll enter without knocking again and find him in a ball on his bed, weeping openly over a letter. It wasn’t there earlier in the day, so you’ll know that it must be new bad news that the selfish prick you live with just received.
“Oh,” you’ll declare loudly. “I didn’t know it was ME time. I’ll come back when it’s more CONVENIENT for you.” Then you’ll slam the door and tromp downstairs to watch TV too loudly and wait for your roommate to emerge from his room so that you can harass him about how you can’t pay your half of the cable bill this month, and how the garbage disposal seems to be clogged.
This will continue for roughly another five to seven days, whenever his background check clears and he comes home and shoots you repeatedly with a pistol.
Congratulations Infuriating Roommate!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Congratulations Porn Collector!
You quite a man, porn collector. Most people would feel some sense of shame at the prospect of sitting in their apartment for days and days on end watching porn. But you, you take pride in your work. You not only carefully note the production date of each film and painstakingly correct the often erroneous credits attached to each picture, you also place each work in the context of a larger cultural continuum.
Anyone can make an IMDB of porn, but you collect it, analyze it and synthesize it. Under your care what would’ve normally be a shameful collection of human filth has become a valid cultural document displaying the themes and trends of an oft ignored element of our society. You’re a quiet hero of sorts, living under the radar and avoiding discussing what you do at parties. If anyone knew just how deep the rabbit hole of your life went they’d probably be a little scared, but it would also be a disservice for them not to be impressed by the scope of your undertaking.
You’ve been satisfied with this quiet knowledge of your own for some time, and it has served you well not to speak of just how many black guys Riley Mason fucked in 2007 or which movies that Christy Canyon did featured anal and which did not during her long and storied career. But tomorrow another group will learn of your grand achievements, and mankind as a whole will benefit.
Tomorrow you’re going to be abducted by aliens. Contrary to what most people think about aliens they’re not going to be coming for our natural resources or to make peace or to make an alien human hybrid. They’ll be coming to learn about our culture, document it and then move on so that they have some sort of record of what we did aside from kill each other and fuck up the planet.
They’ll have chosen you because they got pretty much everything about human-kind except for porn. People in the past will have been unwilling to talk about porn, and the handful who were willing to talk about it weren’t very smart of articulate. You’ll be more than happy to sit down and discuss the nature of pornographic films with these aliens, however.
They’ll treat you to a nice dinner and, after some cajoling, agree to share some of their porn with you in exchange for your entire catalog and a length Q&A session with their own top porn scientists. The entire experience will be pretty rewarding overall, except for the alien porn part. That’ll just be weird.
Congratulations Porn Collector!
Anyone can make an IMDB of porn, but you collect it, analyze it and synthesize it. Under your care what would’ve normally be a shameful collection of human filth has become a valid cultural document displaying the themes and trends of an oft ignored element of our society. You’re a quiet hero of sorts, living under the radar and avoiding discussing what you do at parties. If anyone knew just how deep the rabbit hole of your life went they’d probably be a little scared, but it would also be a disservice for them not to be impressed by the scope of your undertaking.
You’ve been satisfied with this quiet knowledge of your own for some time, and it has served you well not to speak of just how many black guys Riley Mason fucked in 2007 or which movies that Christy Canyon did featured anal and which did not during her long and storied career. But tomorrow another group will learn of your grand achievements, and mankind as a whole will benefit.
Tomorrow you’re going to be abducted by aliens. Contrary to what most people think about aliens they’re not going to be coming for our natural resources or to make peace or to make an alien human hybrid. They’ll be coming to learn about our culture, document it and then move on so that they have some sort of record of what we did aside from kill each other and fuck up the planet.
They’ll have chosen you because they got pretty much everything about human-kind except for porn. People in the past will have been unwilling to talk about porn, and the handful who were willing to talk about it weren’t very smart of articulate. You’ll be more than happy to sit down and discuss the nature of pornographic films with these aliens, however.
They’ll treat you to a nice dinner and, after some cajoling, agree to share some of their porn with you in exchange for your entire catalog and a length Q&A session with their own top porn scientists. The entire experience will be pretty rewarding overall, except for the alien porn part. That’ll just be weird.
Congratulations Porn Collector!
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Congratulations Massage Therapy Student!
You’re a student studying totally legitimate massage therapy and today you’re going to realize how stupid your career choice is.
“Why am I studying legitimate massage therapy when I could just as easily be studying erotic massage therapy instead?” you’ll say as you knead the small of a man’s back to relieve tension.
“I have no idea,” he’ll say, turning over.
The two of you will look one another in the eye and smile, then shake hands. Then you’ll start jacking him off.
When he comes he’ll shiver with delight, and as he leaves he’ll drop a hundred dollars on the massage table.
“I think you dropped a hundred dollars there, sir,” you’ll say as he leaves.
“I don’t think so,” he’ll reply, winking.
You’ll be sitting around reading romance novels for several hours afterwords before it dawns on you that that man paid you to jack him off. This realization will form the kernel of a business strategy you probably should’ve come up with ages ago that will propel you into financial stability and out of crippling student loans that you had to take out to go to massage therapy school.
Congratulations Massage Therapy Student!
“Why am I studying legitimate massage therapy when I could just as easily be studying erotic massage therapy instead?” you’ll say as you knead the small of a man’s back to relieve tension.
“I have no idea,” he’ll say, turning over.
The two of you will look one another in the eye and smile, then shake hands. Then you’ll start jacking him off.
When he comes he’ll shiver with delight, and as he leaves he’ll drop a hundred dollars on the massage table.
“I think you dropped a hundred dollars there, sir,” you’ll say as he leaves.
“I don’t think so,” he’ll reply, winking.
You’ll be sitting around reading romance novels for several hours afterwords before it dawns on you that that man paid you to jack him off. This realization will form the kernel of a business strategy you probably should’ve come up with ages ago that will propel you into financial stability and out of crippling student loans that you had to take out to go to massage therapy school.
Congratulations Massage Therapy Student!
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