Thursday, June 30, 2011

Congratulations on the Liberation of Your Brain!

Most of the time when people talk about freeing their minds they mean they’re going to drop acid and see the world in a new light for a while. This does not apply to you. You’re a fat Mormon son of a bitch, and you’ve never been high on a drug in your life (unless an inflated sense of self-worth counts as a drug in which case you are constantly high and really need to cut down).

No, what we mean when we say that your brain is going to be liberated from your skull is that a young woman you’ve been tossed into a pit with will brain you with a seven iron to the cheers of the cannibal horde surrounding you. She’ll then take a bit of your brain and hold most of your gray matter (which will be kind of pink with blood) high to show her supremacy. This day, this kill, will signify her entry into the murderous clans which now control most of Utah. So you’ll have done some good by keeping her from being raped to death by cannibals, even if it was just from being a terrible fighter who was killed by a girl.

Congratulations on the Liberation of Your Brain!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Congratulations No Pants McGee!

You think you’re so hot. Beating terrorists at their own game, winning lotteries left and right, bangin’ chicks twice your score. But you know what we can do that you can’t do, No Pants McGee? We can legally approach schools. We can still go into the 7-11 on Belmont. We can ride busses.

Because as big as you think you are with your antics you still can’t go to restaurants you haven’t saved from bombs. You still can’t get into a relationship with someone who isn’t just riding the rush of dating someone who never wears pants. You still can’t go into any non-Unitarian churches.

All because some sort of divine being came down and told you that if you stopped wearing pants you’d be able to fight crime and get laid even though your dick is kind of small and you refuse to work out. So you’ve lived by the creed and endured the horrible lonely nights and the insistence, when invited into private homes, that you sit on plastic. But all you’d have to do to get rid of that feeling is put on some pants and stop acting so fucking special.

Fuck you, asshole.

Congratulations No Pants McGee!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Congratulations Summer Lovers!

You’re a tween boy and you just arrived at summer camp.

Which is a wonderful time to be a boy by the way. You get to spend time out of doors, frolicking about. You get to smoke weed with older kids and, if you’re really lucky you fall in love for the first time.

You fall in love with a pretty girl in a monochrome t-shirt with a vaguely offensive Amerindian design on it which extols the naturalism of your surroundings. If you’re unlucky in love you fall for a girl with a special color of shirt on, a shirt that represents her authority over you. It’s normal to find authority attractive and, to be honest, we’d all be a bit more weirded out if you didn’t think a young woman with power over you was sexy. But she can’t touch you because of laws and she probably wouldn’t want to because you’re a kid with a tiny penis, terrible skin and no interesting stories to speak of.

But if you’re one of the lucky few you’ll fall in love with a girl. She’ll have medium length hair, unkept and washed less often than it should be. She’ll enjoy being outdoors and maybe, just maybe, she’ll like smoking weed too. Even if she doesn’t she’ll play sports with you. She’ll go on hikes with you (and dozens of other kids too, sure, but who gives a fuck?) and if you play your cards right you’ll get a kiss.

If you play them really right you’ll get a handful of teenage boob, which is okay (we’re grown-ups and we can’t lie to you – boob gets better with age and then it evens out around forty or after the first kid if you’re picky about nipples) but will make you feel really confident and turn you into a bit of an asshole for a week afterwards if you touch it.

If you’re one of the lucky few and end up with a girl who actually likes you and likes herself or who hates herself (it’s hard to tell at that age) you’ll get a handjob. It’ll be quick and furtive, an event which passes with embarrassing haste in your memory and staggering length in your mind, but it’ll rock your world to the core. You’ll be embarrassed about it afterwards, afraid to tell anyone. You’ll feel unmanned and intimidated by the prowess of the girl you want to call your girlfriend, but won’t have the balls to ask.

If you’re a liar you’ll claim you got a blowjob, but everyone knows only Harry Ressini got a blowjob this year at camp. He got it behind the bleachers at midnight from Shauna Templeton, who has braces and self-esteem issues. He’ll claim it was awesome but in reality it was more embarrassing than the handjob could ever be, and it’ll be kind of painful to boot. But Harry is an asshole, so no one really listens to him and while that story will earn him furtive acceptance in the end it’ll just alienate people from him more as they think about how full of shit he is and how much of a big deal he made of the fact that someone put his penis in their mouth.

Whatever happens, it’s summer and you’ll be in love, be it requited or otherwise.

So Congratulations Summer Lovers!

Monday, June 27, 2011

Congratulations Oblivious Detective!

Despite years working as a professional detective, checking out crime scenes and doing google searches to catch crooks committing heinous acts, you’re not the most observant lady in the world. So today when you come home and find your husband in bed with another man you’ll be shocked.

“What the hell, honey!” you’ll shout at him, hurling a vase at his head as he ducks and tries to put his pants on. His boyfriend will just sit there with a little smirk on his face. At one point the little shit will actually start laughing at you, you and your shock. But your husband won’t notice him. He’ll be so struck by your rage, your shock at finding him in bed with another man, that he won’t be able to look anywhere else.

“You really didn’t see this coming?” he’ll shout, one leg in his pants, one desperately flapping, seeking its hold. “Seriously?”

You’ll look at him, incredulous. “How could I have?!” you’ll shout back. He’ll shrug.

“When I called you Orlando?” He’ll have found the other pant leg by this point, and he’ll be pulling them up around his waist. “Or how about the time I bookmarked the men-seeking-men casual encounters section of Craiglist?”

“Didn’t they take that down?” you’ll shout back at him, and he’ll nod.

“Like, a year ago. This isn’t new!” he’ll shout, pointing to the smirking man whose mirth will be fast fading now. He’ll have noticed your gun, black and buckled into your belt.

“Jesus!” you’ll shout at him. “Get the fuck out!”

You’ll throw a lamp at his head and kick his shoes at him. Then you’ll thumb your piece, still in its holster on your hip. “Now,” you’ll mumble at him, pointing at him and his boy, who will now be rolling out of bed, his flaccid penis still wearing a condom. He won’t even bother to remove it as he pulls on his pants and scrambles for the door.

He’ll pause as he passes you by, as if he wanted to say sorry, but he won’t speak. He’ll just stop there for a moment, searching for some courage and finding nothing. Your husband will push him through the threshold and out into the street.

Once the two of them have left you’ll sit down in front of your computer with a bottle of wine and open up Lolcats. You’ll flip between that and Youtube, watching animal clips until your thoughts drift to your future. That’ll lead you to your bank account, where you’ll see a number of moderately sized withdrawls from your joint account over the last few weeks. Not enough to make a back-breaking impact, but enough that you should’ve noticed.

“Shit,” you’ll flatly intone to yourself as you grimace and look at your new bank balance, illustrating your husband’s long journey away from you, one he’s clearly been planning for some time, one that you would’ve seen coming if you were even kind of competent at your job.

Congratulations Oblivious Detective!

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Summer Time Sorrows!

Summer is fast approaching. In fact it might have already been here for almost a week already, I’m not entirely sure. And with summer comes a doldrum of new releases, a long uneven dry spell that forces me to leave my apartment and try to develop something resembling a life. It’s unwelcome, unfortunate and unpleasant, and it leads to a frustrating clustering of interesting titles at the beginning of spring and the end of fall, a reality of marketing that makes me feel less like games are less like experiences I get the chance to enjoy and more like they’re some sort of perverse tax I pay to get my fun on once a year.

This year is a little less bleak than most. Even without Heart of the Swarm’s arrival, which now looks pretty unlikely despite the proposed annual release date that Blizzard set for Starcraft 2’s obscenely priced expansions, the summer of 2011 is shaping up to a surprisingly exciting season.

Part of this might come from my newfound focus on DLC. It took me a while to get as sold on the concept of DLC as I am now, but thanks to Fallout: New Vegas’ last two showings I’m anticipating each of Obsidian’s new releases with more fervor than most big box games. Without hard release dates it’s difficult to think of them as media events, and rightly so. The reduced amount of content and the tentative nature of the testing cycle that leads to each game’s arrival makes the sort of navel gazing normally associated with release cycles more than silly for New Vegas’ DLC. A week can make a tremendous difference in a release this small’s success, and Steam released DLC should be notorious by now for breaking out of the box and arriving in polished form shortly after. But the world that New Vegas built for me, and the fiction that expanded that world in Dead Money and, to a far lesser extent, Honest Hearts, has hooked me into whatever’s coming next. Obsidian is guaranteed my fifteen dollars when they finally decide to share what’s coming next with the world.

Even games I wasn’t particularly excited about are getting a bevy of DLC over the summer. LA Noire is getting the same monthly episodic treatment that Fallout: New Vegas has been unveiling over the last few weeks. People who want to collect more items and then hear that they can’t use them will be able to get their fill over the next few weeks. I’ve no idea what the quality of the material is, or if this is pre-generated content that Rockstar is parceling out after the game was already finished (which could very well be the case, since it doesn’t seem like there was anything resembling a development cycle between Noire’s release and the release of this DLC) but it’s encouraging to see content trickling in during a slow season, even if it might prove to be second string.

More concretely on my horizon are bigger, more conventional shooters that are moving down the pipe. Fear 3, or F.3.A.R. as I refuse to call it, has been generating middling buzz from the critical apparatus of games media, and some real positive buzz from people whose opinion of games I trust. It could be in the vein of F.E.A.R. 2, an uneven, baffling mess which is at times satisfying but reaches for scares at the expense of shooting mechanics. Or it could be like the original FEAR game: a surprisingly polished shooter with a neat sense of design, a messed up story and a deft grasp of how to work silence and emptiness into a game to raise tension. From what I’ve heard it’ll likely come off as a mix of the two: reaching scares interfering with some well polished corridor shooting gameplay. But the fact that a property I’d written off as dead is exciting, and the fact that it’s generating buzz from press that doesn’t act as little more than a media arm is encouraging. Any occasion I have to read reviews that summarize a game I actually want to play instead of laying out a set of talking points a marketing director decided upon months earlier is a welcome occasion, and FEAR 3 seems to offer just such a set of events.

Red Faction: Guerilla’s red-headed step child is showing its face as well. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Armageddon’s lukewarm critical response, especially when I consider Guerilla’s meh reception in 2009. It could be that it’s another gem that will only really be appreciated in due time, or it could be that it’s already missed its own boat, that it was really little more than an attempt to cash in on a brilliantly executed concept of yesteryear. I’ll find out myself once it goes on sale, but right now, preparing for a move and budgeting myself to a game or two a month, I simply cannot justify it.

If I was more console or rhythm inclined, however, I’d have no trouble at all justifying the money for Child of Eden. With the pedigree of Rez, the relentless thumbs up of Penny Arcade and an attempt to actually justify that Kinect you bought, Child of Eden looks like exactly the sort of game we should hope for each summer: an original, interesting property from a visionary developer who is all too often not given their due, released into a market where it isn’t overwhelmed by competition. It’s been getting love from critics at incredible levels (remember the Metacritic adjustment rule for non-AAA releases: add about ten points on to a Child of Eden’s score if you want to compare it to Call of Duty) and I know people who rarely play indie games who have decided to make it a part of their media diet. And it’s nice to see the intellectual legacy of Rez survive, since the only people I know who are conversant in that game are drug addled DJs and gaming historians.

But it remains a painfully slow season, even with these few glimmers of hope on the horizon. So slow, in fact, that I’d consider the re-release of Ocarina of Time on the 3DS a feather in its cap, if only for the cultural and historical importance of the original title. Still, summer is coming in the midst of a very active set of spring and fall development cycles, so gamers like myself who are still playing catchup with titles like The Witcher 2: Witchier Than Ever while trying to slog through a set of indie games they bought on Steam sales that they still haven’t gotten a chance to play won’t want for things to do in the near future.

Sure, this season is nothing compared to the coming fall and winter, where games like The Old Republic , Dead Island, Assassin’s Creed: Revelation and a bevy of other titles, too many to list, are on the horizon. But it’s nice to see something, even if it is just a trickle of smaller titles, emerge during the summer for a change. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that this pattern of DLC release catches on the industry, and that people follow Obsidian’s lead and work to release worthwhile content during gaming’s off season, but until it does I’ll take some comfort in the fact that some small, fun games and unexpected gems are coming out this summer, along with a bunch of really bad pieces of shovelware that have Duke Nukem in them.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Congratulations Black Nerd!

You’re an endangered species. Not just because a sickening form of racism perpetrated by all parties demands that you’re an aberration. And not because there are sadly few of you in the grand scheme of both black and nerd culture.

No, you’re an endangered species because you just moved to Omaha, and if there’s one thing Omaha loves it’s White Supremacists. And if there’s one thing White Supremacists hate, it’s black people. If there are two things they hate it’s black people and nerds.

So today when you get out of your 1996 Toyota Camry, purchased used from an eco-friendly dealer in Seattle, and start unpacking boxes into the rent controlled apartment you plan on running your IT business out of you’ll almost immediately be accosted by a band of neo-Nazis who want to force you out of town.

They’ll arrive on motorcycles and in pickup trucks. One of them will ride a four-wheeler, which he’ll flip on a public street. He’ll be pinned beneath it and he’ll mutter “white power” as he lays there, bleeding out while his friends watch him and shake their heads.

“Nigger,” they’ll nonsensically mutter at his dying form.

“GIT ERRT!” they’ll shout at you from the street. You won’t hear them at first, you’ll be so busy assembling Ikea furniture and listening to MC Frontalot (yeah, you’re a stereotype kinda). But after their intolerance has been ignored for a full twenty minutes they’ll start throwing shit and you’ll notice right away when a rock crashes through your window.

“Oh, shit,” you’ll shout as it dents the Flaarke bookshelf you. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Your momma warned you about this. She told you “Gerald,” because that’s your name, “One day you’re gonna leave the west coast and you’ll find yourself surrounded by racists. Just be careful and call the cops right away. Ain’t no livin’ black hero who fought against racists and won.”

Shaking a little you’ll pull out your i-phone and dial 9-1-1. You’ll all but shout into it.

“Hello!”

“Yeah,” the woman on the other end, clearly also black but clearly not a nerd, will intone.

“I’d like to report a disturbance! A bunch of skinheads are trying to kill me!” you’ll scream at her.

“Uh uh!” she’ll shout back. Then she’ll get so many angry Omaha cops over there (most of whom will be black in an ironic twist of fate) to crack some racist-ass skulls that those good old boys will have their heads spin all the way back to confederate times.

Once the cops break up the crowd and the whole situation resolves you’ll call your momma and thank her for raising you right.

“If I’d gone with the lessons I’d learned from TV and video games I would’ve tried to fight all of those racists with a shotgun,” you’ll tell her.

“Yeah,” she’ll laugh into the phone. “You’d definitely be dead if you’d done that.”

Congratulations Black Nerd!

Friday, June 24, 2011

Congratulations on Learning More Than You Wanted to Know About Hentai!

Today during one of your porn mining operation you’re going to Google the term hentai. You’ll have heard it earlier in the day when you were asking a co-worker about weird porn, and she’ll have told you that “she thought you’d be into that shit.”

You took it as a compliment, not knowing any better, and so here you are, sitting on the internet, dick half ready, waiting to discover the forbidden knowledge of hentai that you will have, until this moment, been so unfairly denied.

Your search will start out with some images of tremendously breasted women with slavering mouths spread eagled against backgrounds of various degrees of formlessness.

“Okay,” you’ll declare, working your shaft.

Next you’ll encounter a set of women with tear filled eyes who are beset by disembodied penises, every hole either violated or about to be.

“Hm,” you’ll mutter. “I guess I can kind of see the appeal of that, maybe.”

Finally you’ll encounter an image of the entire cast of the short lived late-ninties cartoon Digimon being raped by a cluster of vines and tentacles. The tentacles will appear to originate from one of the many titular Digimon that people are supposed to give a fuck about.

“I think we’re done,” you’ll declare to your cat who, licking herself contentedly, will seem to agree.

Congratulations on Learning More Than You Wanted to Know About Hentai!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Congratulations on Dealing With Your Disability!

“I’M BLIND!” you’ll shout as you enter the subway car, drawing attention from every random passerby riding the rails with you.

“Okay,” your fellow riders will respond. One of them, an especially sympathetic woman in her late thirties, will lay her hand on yours.

“Sorry hon. How’d you go blind?”

“I STARED AT AN ECLIPSE!” you’ll shout at her. “I WAS TOLD NOT TO AND DID ANYWAY. DAMN MY HUBRIS!”

The woman will drop your hand immediately and strike you about the head and shoulders, not wanting the gods to believe that she is aligned in any way with the sort of hubris you’ve attempted. The rest of the subway car will begin hurling their shoes at you in an effort to show the gods that they too think you’re an asshole, and if it’s cool with the gods they’d all rather not be transformed into rabbits or forced to fuck their sisters or whatever.

After around twenty minutes of this you’ll reach your stop and limp off the train, bleeding profusely.

“WHY MUST I BE CURSED TO CONSTANTLY SHOUT UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS ABOUT MY LIFE?!” you’ll shout at the sky, already knowing the answer.

Congratulations on Dealing With Your Disability!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Congratulations on Not Really Impressing Anyone With Your Screenplay!

You’ve been working on this screenplay for months and months. It’s about a subject near and dear to your heart: being a guy who likes sports and doesn’t understand girls with a moderately well paying job with a boss you don’t really like. It’s about learning that girls are sometimes worth sacrificing things you usually like, like sports, so that you can spend time with them.

It’s also about how sometimes jobs aren’t great but dude-friends are always around to make them less bad. And how sometimes dude friends don’t like hot chicks so you have to fuck slightly less hot chicks in order to prevent conflicts with dude friends.

All in all it’s a childish, banal film that could easily feature Mathew McConaughey into the lead role and grossly slightly more than it took to make, assuming it opens on a weekend where nothing else is playing. But in this economy that’s just not good enough. It has to have the word hangover in it or go fuck itself.

So today when you pitch your script to a room full of people with IQs below 80 they’ll mostly respond by yawning and scratching themselves. One man will literally wipe the crack of his ass with the copy his assistant provided him. Then the room full of suits will inform you that you’re a hack and while they’re normally cool with this these economic times demand greater skill.

“Sorry,” they’ll say, eying the clock and edging towards the door even as they complete their sentence. “We just really don’t think being mediocre can still work for Hollywood in this economy. We hope you understand.”

You’ll nod at them, then get up to leave. As you try to walk out the door you’ll grab a pitcher of water and try to throw it all over all of them, but it turns out it’ll be empty. Just like everything else in Hollywood, including your screenplay, it’ll be phony. Just like Holden Caufield always said.

Congratulations on Not Really Impressing Anyone With Your Screenplay!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Congratulations on Finding the Hooker-Killing-Bible-Serial Killer!

Starting yesterday there will have been an unprecedented eight murders (making this the fastest emerging debatable serial killing pattern in the history of the world), all of them involving the use of consistent blunt force trauma from a large book or Jello mold applied to the base of the skull until the victim died. The victims will have all been prostitutes in New York’s Brooklyn neighborhood, distinguishable from hipsters by their possession of money and their horrifying lack of irony.

It’d be a dark day for the New York Police department if it wasn’t for you. You’re a fresh faced young detective straight out of whatever kind of training program New York detectives attend and you want to make a name for yourself. So you’re going to go out of a beat tonight, dressed like a hooker in the neighborhood where the murders have all occurred. You’ll be a little subtle about it, looking at charts and maps before you do it, but it’ll largely be a cursory gesture, something to convince your boss you chose this job for more than the freedom to dress like a hooker that you knew it would afford you.

So with some cursory research and your taser in hand you’ll step out on to the street and start crime solving.

First you’ll walk around for a while, just to get a feel for being a hooker. Then you’ll walk around the affected neighborhoods, a ten block area of Flatbush largely populated by Jews who complain about being harassed by a young Mormon pilgrim during the day and report seeing startlingly attractive prostitutes at night.

You’ll know something is wrong when you happen upon a perp who fits the description of the Mormon to a T and he doesn’t tell you you’re going to hell as he walks by you. You’ll consider calling the station for back up, but your instincts will scream at you to walk slightly further on and then turn around and tase the living shit out of whatever’s behind you.

Sure enough it’ll be that young man, bible in hand, face red and flush. You’ll press the taser into his balls and activate it as you whisper in his ear.

“My sister is a hooker.”

Later on at the station a bunch of hookers and corrupt cops will be celebrating at your desk while the rest of the force just looks kind of uncomfortable. They’ll all be happy for you, and most of them will be kind of turned on, but they’ll all know that what you’re doing is basically illegal. They won’t say anything about it, because they’re not sure if saying something would constitute sexual harassment or whatever, but they’ll think it loudly. And after work ends they won’t stick around to celebrate with you as long as you thought they might, which will make you feel a little isolated. After all, all you really wanted out of life was to belong to something, even if it was an organization as shameless and terrible as the NYPD.

Congratulations on Finding the Hooker-Killing-Bible-Serial Killer!

Monday, June 20, 2011

Congratulations on Putting the Bible to Good Use!

The bible is an interesting cultural document. Largely impractical, oft quoted, rarely read, it’s an allegory for our culture’s anti-intellectualism and our desire to live in our own cultural history while refusing to learn anything about it. If it wasn’t so boring we all would’ve read it, just to prove how cool we are and how important it is as a book. But instead we’re going to write this prediction about how you’re going to use a bible for something that totally makes sense for it in our current cultural climate.

Today you’ll be out on your street corner, looking for sinners to convert, when you’ll happen upon Cherry. Cherry, real name Melissa Adamson. You and Cherry see each other often, so this will be an old, practiced dance by the time it passes this morning.

“You’re doomed to burn in hell, sinner,” you’ll say to her, waving.

“Shove that book up your own ass,” she’ll wave back.

It’ll all be so genial that the two of you will all but laugh after the exchange. That is, until the truth of what she said dawns upon you. She’ll have simultaneously implied that you’re a vile sodomist (a word you made up because you didn’t think sodomite was a real word) and that your book, the book the set the course of your entire life to, is little better than poop in her eyes.

You’ll turn on your heel, stalking back up behind her silently as she struts down the street, eying the crowds for potential customers, and strike her at the base of the skull with your holiest of books.

It’ll be a large print, unabridged King James bible, published in the mid twentieth century in the American south, where the only bar to having some retarded fuckwit burn a book is to make it as heavy as possible. As such it’ll hit hard and daze her, setting her up for your follow-up blow.

You’ll flow upon her and continue striking her again and again, driving the book into the back of her skull shouting all the while.

“FUCK!”

Thwak.

“YOU!”

Crack.

“BITCH!”

A sickening wet sound, like rotten fruit hitting aluminum siding, will eventually greet your ears, and then you’ll look down and see that your Good Book is now covered in blood, that poor Cherry’s skull is little more than pulp and that the pavement around her, her clothes and yours and your hands and skin will be soaked through with blood.

Weeping, you’ll run home, hands shaking, mind racing with adrenaline and joy at what you’ve done.

Congratulations on Putting the Bible to Good Use!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Terrarian Romp!

There’s a new genre that redefines the time sink of the MMORPG in a lower rent, higher brain function way, a genre of strange, procedural, potentially shared open world experiences exemplified by Minecraft. I could never get myself into Minecraft, personally. I was frightened of the commitment it demanded, the scale and scope of even the most minor undertaking in its pixilated arms. It was also kind of ugly, for all its remarkable ideas.

Enter Terraria, Minecraft’s startlingly hot little sister. With 8-bit graphics tarted up for a digital age and big, sprawling 2D worlds that would make Castlevania cream its jeans, Terraria is sort of Minecraft for dummies and younglings, a lower rent game about digging, exploring and building things with the ill-gotten gains of your exploration. Terraria isn’t the original sandbox mine and build game, and it probably isn’t the best. But it is perhaps the most accessible, except when it comes to actually playing with other people, and it is easily the most adorable.

I really wouldn’t have come to Terraria if not for my long-distance boyfriends, Alex and Dan, who recommended it as a lower stress game for us to play on our totally straight game nights together. Minecraft took too much time for most of us to play on a regular basis and share a world where we could collaborate and enjoy ourselves. And most of our normal gaming habits were far too cooperation light to really give us the sort of fix that these massive sandbox games provide. Sure, you’re working together as a team in Starcraft 2, but you’re a team of rivals, competing for map control and resources just as much with each other as you are with the enemy. And god help you if someone fucks up. That person is out of the group permanently. PERMANENTLY, I TELL YOU!

Terraria, by contrast, is a relaxed, sprawling game. It has resources in it, but they’re resources that you really won’t use for yourself too often. I’ve barely logged ten hours in and I’ve already taken to stockpiling precious metals for future use, my weapons all already crafted of gold. There’s money, too, but there isn’t as much to spend it on as you’d expect. Merchants and vendors will occasionally show up in town and offer you goods and services, but aside from a sweet ass mining helmet with a light on it and some prohibitively expensive explosives I haven’t found anything on vendors that I can’t get by exploring the underground.

It’s a unique and fruitful experience, and it seems like the perfect environment to share with a few drunken buddies on Skype, spelunking gaily through the dynamically generated environs of your private little world. Nothing gay about that sentence.

But there’s one problem: getting it to work.

Getting Terraria to work as a server has, to date, involved downloading a VPN toolset, logging in to another person’s VPN, entering their VPN IP into my search as my destination and crossing my fingers that it works at some point in the future. No luck so far.

Terraria doesn’t have a tremendous amount of tech behind it, and there aren’t any game issues I can think of to date, although being killed by completely unexpected dangers like giant screaming skulls and heaps of sand that fall on you while you’re collapsing tunnels has been a little bit frustrating so far. But actually playing with other people, the ostensible purpose behind Terraria, has been completely impossible.

The game lacks any sort of public play options, demanding a TCP/IP location in order to log into a game. This would be fine if TCP/IP worked the way it did in the old days, or if Terraria had a slightly more robust or transparent toolset for hosting and connecting to servers. But its systems, much like the rest of the game, are lean. So lean that they seem to fail whenever I try to use them with my friends. And there’s no community to test them with. In order to find one I’d have to wander into the morass of the internet that is game-centered forums, and I’ve gotten a bit old for that thank you very much governor.

So there’s frustrations, as is often the case with games. But what’s shocking to me is just how enjoyable Terraria is despite the fact that I can’t seem to use it for the purpose I purchased it. That it’s this fun in light of its relative simplicity is quite an accomplishment too. I’ve really been enjoying traversing the depths of my random little world and figuring out just how various walls respond to various stimuli. I’ve had moments of truly divine revelation, like the time I tunneled upwards towards some suspicious illumination and discovered and underground mushroom forest glowing surreally. And I’ve had some truly hilarious moments of discovery, such as the time I found a set of ancient ruins sitting out in the open on one of my long sojourns. An old man was standing in front of them, and I clicked on him assuming he’d tell me more about the features of these ruins. He promptly turned into a giant skeleton with giant skeleton hands and murdered me.

That’s pretty much Terraria in a nutshell. A strange, surreal place you can explore. And I’m sure it’ll be even more fun once I can enjoy it with friends. In fact, I’m positive it will be, especially if I can carry all my fancy new toys over to the world we’re going to build together. But even without the social aspect there’s something wonderful and deeply satisfying about crawling though an 8-bit Eden, ferreting out places of interest, new items and new creatures. It makes me feel like I’m a kid again, like I’m exploring the landscape of Final Fantasy VI. And as was the case with Final Fantasy VI I can’t see the magic leaving the experience any time soon.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Congratulations Dwarf!

Normally dwarves are either figures of Norse myth who have found safe haven upon our world or people with growth disorders. They’re normal, everyday things that people run into every once in a while and while they’re sometimes kinda weird they’re not the strangest thing in the world.

But you, you’re a dwarf straight out of Tolkien. You talk like an asshole and you’re all about rings and gold and mines. You’ve also lived super long and have a sweet ass beard.

People would’ve caught on to you long ago if you lived anywhere else. But you live in Portland Fucking Oregon, so that hasn’t really been a problem for you. Your huge beard and love of weed have given you the perfect cover.

Most days you just live your life in peace. You tend bar three nights a week and live in a shitty little apartment in outer South East. But lately you’ve had dwarven medical problems, life Swarvfinbel and Black Lung, and your usual sleep it off strategy hasn’t been working.

So today you’re going to walk in to a government office (we’re not sure which one, we really can’t be bothered to know this shit) and apply for Medicade.

The black lady who runs that government office, along with three others, will look you up and down briefly before nodding.

“A’ight, honey,” she’ll say, writing all the lies you told her down on a card. Then she’ll hand it to you, insuring that you receive the best medical care in America which, hilariously, belongs to the most disenfranchised among us: the impoverished and fantasy creatures who cannot hold down a real job for any length of time.

Congratulations Dwarf!

Friday, June 17, 2011

Congratulations Mexican Businessman!

Today you’re a Mexican businessman and like all Mexican businessmen you perform all your business while wearing a Luchadore mask and screaming at everyone around you. You also say Mehico instead of Mexico.

“WE WILL NOT RETAIN OUR POSITION AS THE LEADING TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANY IN MEHICO IF WE DO NOT AGGRESSIVELY MARKET IN A MORE INTERNATIONAL FASHION!” you’ll shout to your board of directors, who will also dressed in Luchadore masks. They’ll nodly gravely in response and then all of you will drink coffee, which we’re pretty sure most businessmen do in general.

We’d love to tell you more about what you do in general, but we’re now out of information about Mexico, businessmen and business in general. Quick! Fill out a spreadsheet!

Congratulations Mexican Businessman!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Congratulations Reality TV Show Star!

You’re a star on a reality TV show that makes dictators and B list celebrities live in houses together and solve occasional challenges before one of you is voted to stand trial before the Hague for your crimes against humanity. So far every single contestant who has been tried has been found guilty and summarily executed. The winner receives a full pardon for being a total fucking waste of humanity.

We don’t want to ruin any surprises by telling you which dictator and/or celebrity you are, because you’re going to be the last one left standing. But we do want to let you know some of the events that you’re going to have to deal with.

When Muammar Gaddafi chokes Pam Anderson to death in the hot tub, for example. That could do some damage to you if you’d entered into any kind of allegiance with him. We’d recommend steering clear of that asshole, he won’t be able to survive murdering the sluttiest house-member. And Pam Anderson, for that matter. Hepatitis, you know? And Hosni Mubarik is totally going to get into an argument with Gary Busey about Hot Pockets and that’s going to make for an awkward vote the next week. And Sarah Palin and Bashar Al-Asad are definitely going to butt heads (who didn’t see that coming?) so you’ll want to choose sides early with the two of them. Palin is more charismatic, but Al-Asad is a lot more trustworthy and less ruthless.

Of course, you could always throw everyone off and just ally yourself with Howie Mandel, who is a total fucking asshole that no one will want to remove simply by merit of being totally inoffensive. Or play it safe and align yourself with Manny Mo, who you’d have to be a total prick not to like just for being him. You could double down and get with Verne Troyer too.

The key thing will be to enjoy yourself in that house, to learn the lessons offered to you and to stop raping for at least three months, because while you might love doing it it will probably invalidate all our predictions and keep you from being able to win.

Just some friendly advice.

Congratulations Reality TV Show Star!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Congratulations Odd Hydra Head Out!

You’re one of a hydra’s seven heads, which is kind of awkward. See, you’re around those dudes all the time, which means you know almost everything about them. Most hydra heads are pretty sociable, so it’s no big deal for them to be around one another day-in-day-out. But you’re kind of a loner, which means that all the other hydra heads interpret your desire to be alone as a kind of standoffish dickishness.

Really you’re not such a bad hydra head. You read when you get the chance (whenever the group of you kill a literate hero who happened to be carrying a book or three) and you follow politics as much as you can (you often shout political questions at heroes as they’re masticated by one of the other heads and interpret their screams as answers). But the other hydra heads would never know that.

So on a daily basis you’re pretty lonely, even though six other heads are around you all the time. They’ve taken to leaving you alone for the most part after around two long decades of trying to get you to engage in really short sack races and really lame trivia contests where you all share the same cortex. It’s better than it used to be, back when they wanted you to do shit and all. They gave you the opportunity to read even when they were in night clubs by buying you a nice little head lamp and they did their best to be quiet after two in the morning even when they had a really hot lady hydra hanging out with them at the time.

But you still haven’t been particularly happy living as part of a seven headed being. You feel like your whole life is a lie. So today when you and your “bros” as you ironically call them meet a hero you’re going to luck out.

“Oh shit!” you’ll shout as the hero cuts off one of the heads which happens to belong to one of your brothers.

“Howard Stern rules!” the severed head will shout as it writhes on the ground.

“Attack!” the assertive head will shout.

“Fuck you!” you’ll shout back, drawing your head back as far as possible from the fray.

What follows will be a blur of motion as some random hero murders each of your brothers in turn. He’ll move stride to stride, lopping off a head as each of your younger brothers makes an attempt on his life.

“Rangers rule!” one will scream as he lunges at the hero.

“I really think Behr Stern is a good investment!” another will scream as he writhes in agony, waiting for the end of his own life.

And after five minutes, a blur of steel and fire, and the death of all of your siblings, you’ll be hanging high above the scene of the battlefield shouting.

“What the fuck dude!”

“You guide a great treasure,” the hero will mutter. “I’m here to claim it.”

“Dude!” you’ll shout back at him. “We guard an urn filled with silk.”

The hero will look embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he’ll shout up at you.

“What the fuck!” you’ll shout back down at him, rumbling forward with your massive hydra body which will now be under your exclusive control.

“I thought you had treasure!” he’ll scream at the top of his lungs.

“DICK MOVE!” you’ll shout back down as you swipe at him with your big ass paws which you and you alone control now.

You’ll catch him with a well placed blow, knocking him into a wall and paralyzing him from the legs down. Rats will eat him over several days as your brother heads grow back, but you won’t care. You’ll have found several Greek epics to read in his pack. You’ll pour over each of them in the days to come, and when the other heads grow back you’ll have some great stories to tell them, even if they won’t listen because they’re obsessed with bullshit sports scores.

Congratulations Odd Hydra Head Out!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Congratulations Bad Actress Betty!

You’re a bad actress named Betty, and you’re a huge hit in Hollywood.

You’re pretty attractive, as far as the general population goes, but you’re not jaw droppingly attractive. In fact, in the context of actresses you’re kind of homely. And your acting is somewhere between Shatner and Anderson (Louie or Pamela, it doesn’t really matter which you look at). But you remain a prominent and well regarded actress because you give the finest handjob in Hollywood.

“This is okay,” an executive will tell you as you jack him off the back of his town car while his Jamaican driver sits in the front and does his best to pretend the two of you aren’t there.

“Aw, you’re sweet,” you’ll mumble at him as he ejaculates all over your hand without warning, groaning loudly as you continue jacking off his fast-descending erection.

“I guess I need to give you that part,” he’ll mumble into your hair as you continue to masturbate him despite his ejaculation.

“Sure,” you’ll mumble at him, already making eyes at his driver, who will still be doing his best to pretend you’re not there. “Who’s that black guy?” you’ll whisper back to the executive, licking your lips as you stare at the driver’s eyes in the mirror, hoping he’ll look back at you.

Congratulations Bad Actress Betty!

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Dead Space 2 Presents How Not to Make a Sequel!

There are many problems with Dead Space 2, some of which I’ve already touched on. But one of the things Dead Space 2 does, possibly better than any other game out there, is illustrate how not to make a sequel.

The first Dead Space was already a painfully derivative game. Its writing was atrocious, its story laughable. Its game play took a model fleshed fully in System Shock 2 and flipped it into third person and dumbed it down, made it so repetitive that the game was fun, but only in a mechanical manufactured way. It was a game for profit, not for love, and its true colors showed through and through. Dead Space’s competence was its only success, its homages its only saving grace.

Dead Space 2 was far worse. It took all of the elements that made Dead Space unpleasant and distilled them, tuning up the gore, the dumb plot, the bad writing. It added a vast cast of characters we never get a chance to know, a loosely telegraphed betrayal and some absolute nonsense plot twists in there for good measure, just to make sure no one would ever be taking the Dead Space IP seriously again in the future. Its only success as a game was its final tongue in cheek beat, the quiet that Isaac takes pleasure in and the lack of a monster in the closet scare that the original Dead Space ended on. Aside from that one grace note the nicest thing I can say about Dead Space 2 is that it’s a fairly playable example of how not to make a video game sequel.

Every single element of its mechanics can be broken down and upheld as a thing that should not be done in gaming. Its grisly tutorial opening, while functional, for example, forces players to rush through early stages of the game, assumes familiarity and concern with the characters involved and immediately places characters who may not even know how to walk in a do-or-die situation where they’re being chased by monsters and having their resources stripped away from them. The initial character design, far from being interesting or functional, is mostly just annoying, with the player wrapped in a shoddy blue straight jacket which he is eventually freed from by a mentally ill scientist with an apparent heart of gold. Compare this to the first Dead Space’s competent, effective opening, where we learn about the world as a literal explorer who is entering an eerily empty spacecraft and wandering around it, getting to know the landscape himself as we come to understand the mechanics which guide his traversal of that landscape. When the threat finally does emerge in Dead Space it is not only made abundantly clear beforehand just what your enemies do and how you need to fight them. Dead Space 2 learned nothing from the polished, intelligent introduction that Dead Space afforded its players. Instead it went with a philosophy of “bigger is better” which seemed to embolden nearly every aspect of the game.

Except perhaps the one place that could have benefited from some creativity and scale and scope growth: the weaponry. A handful of new weapons which the player is never really asked to use do not an interesting set of new mechanics make. Aside from the Seeker Rifle, which was actually kind of useless in most situations, I never saw fit to even try any of the new fangled toys, with their javelins or mines or rivets, that the game wanted to throw my way. Instead there’s a broad expansion of the necessity of stasis powers and the ability to use kinetic objects as weapons (pro-tip developers who want to use physics based combat systems – Half Life 2 already did it better than you) which color most of the early and late missions in the game, and have fuckall to do with play in the middle.

And gone are the ominous hordes that made up the majority of the first Dead Space’s enemies. Or perhaps gone isn’t the right term. Overshadowed is better. These critters are often replaced by black versions of themselves which are, for whatever reason, tougher but in no other way functionally different from their Dead Space counterparts. But they’re not randomly spawning in any significant way any more, and you’ll find yourself frequently battling mini-boss monsters who appear to be made of giant beasts of burden whose corpses were infected by the whatever-virus. The simplicity of the first game, wherein your enemies were all derived from the Ishimura’s denizens and exceptions to that rule all warranted explanation in game, is completely stripped away in favor of providing the player with a handful of action set pieces that demand specific application of guns and powers at certain times. The end result is a certain type of unexplained boss emerging in a certain type of arena to provide the player with a certain kind of fight.

The inclusion of unexpected enemies in Dead Space, enemies that broke the mold of arena-explore-arena, is something that Dead Space 2 sorely lacks. And with its loss part of what made Dead Space fun to play is gone as well. This is to say nothing of just how easy the game is compared to its predecessor, or its increased gore level which was literally sold as an attempt to upset younger player’s mothers (Here’s a protip, developers: I’m twenty six. I’ve got plenty of shit in my life to make my mom upset, and the fact that you force me to stomp on people’s chests to get items isn’t going to make the list. The fact that you fucked up an IP so derived from Aliens so thoroughly might though.). There’s an overwhelming cadre of qualities that Dead Space 2 should’ve learned from its predecessor but instead simply attempted to Hollywood up elements that EA’s marketing department found most marketable.

I shudder to think of what Mirror Edge 2, EA’s other moderately successful original IP from 2008, would’ve looked like under the steady hand of EA’s marketing department. Given how middling that game was to start I can’t imagine it would’ve been particularly fetching if this is the direction they’re taking their games in. But I do appreciate just how naked all of the plays in Dead Space 2 are, how important it seems to be to its developers that it not only sells copies, but that it sells a lot of copies to a lot of people. And I appreciate that EA has published a game that shows us, beat for beat, what not to do in a sequel. Take notes, developers. Please.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Congratulations Shopping Cart Carl!

It’s hard to believe that just two days ago you were an heir to a fantastic fortune. But that time is over, thanks to your attempts to improve the world by investing in vaguely described tech businesses that might’ve done something positive if they weren’t actually just shell corporations designed by your parents to get their money back from you. It’s a bittersweet change but you’ve taken to it as best you can by owning your new life.

You’ve become something of a personality in the street world of Portland now, wandering about, swearing at people and somehow staying drunk most of the time without any visible source of income. Today you’re really going to become a big deal, though.

You’ll be hanging out underneath the Morrison Bridge with some other bums when a man in a white suit will approach you with a proposition.

“I’d like to film you while you fight,” he’ll declare to the handful of you who are sober enough to walk.

“Fuck yeah!” you’ll declare enthusiastically.

He’ll come up with names and back stories for each and every one of you. Louis, who used to work in IT until he got sick of it and started living on the street, will become Brian the Bandit, a bank robber who lives on the street in order to avoid being caught by the authorities. Shep, the boat salesman on the run for murdering his wife, will become Dave the Daring, an ex-stunt man who lost his family in an especially risky stunt and lost his mind. Only your back story will remain unchanged, but he will insist that your name be changed to Shopping Cart Carl, the Richest Hobo in the world.

You and your new buddies will take to fighting each other immediately. None of you really like one another, and the prospect of physical violence will be extremely appealing. You’ll beat the shit out of one another with great aplomb, with the white suited man clapping his hands and laughing as his camera crew films it all the while.

You’ll become instant internet celebrities with the release of the films on bumfights.org, a non-profit group which sort of donates to bum related charities to seem less evil but mostly just distributes their profits in the form of bonuses to executives. This will lead to an immediate sequel and the potential for you to get a home again. But don’t despair. During the filming of the sequel Shep will murder you by striking your skull with a brick until it cracks open and leaves your brains smeared across the street. The video will be one of the highest rated on the site and become a meme in a matter of weeks, and you’ll always be remembered as having one of the most epic hobo deaths in internet history.

Congratulations Shopping Cart Carl!

Friday, June 10, 2011

Congratulations Mango Stu!

Your name is Mango Stu and you love mangos.

This would be enough most days. But today your love of mangos is so strong it’s going to convince some infinitely powerful beings that the world is worth saving.

You’ll be driving down I-95 when the aliens come for you. They’ll come worldlessly, hauling your Corolla off the road with a swift jerk and clear up into the air. Most of the car will be plastic and polymer but you’d never know by the magnetic force that will wrench you into the sky and away from your precious earth.

By the time you understand what’s going on you’ll have been cut out of your vehicle and dumped on the floor of an empty room. The walls will be stark white and curve upwards, leaving you with the feeling that you’re trapped inside of an impossibly large egg. Then the probing will begin.

It won’t feel invasive. It’ll actually be quite gentle, a feeling like you’re resting on ocean foam. You’ll remember things, slowly at first. Childhood, your first kiss, your first bike. You’ll recall losing your virginity, a party in college, a day at work where you were upset.

Then memories will begin pouring in all at once. They’ll lose their delicate repose. In its place there will be a torrent of thought that overwhelms you. As your mind fills you’ll become unable to manage the volume of thoughts and times existing within your skull and you’ll lose consciousness, your mind buffering itself against the invasive aliens trying to determine whether or not they should eradicate the earth in a ball of fire.

So here’s what will happen while you’re out. The aliens will see you and generally most people acting pretty horribly. They’ll see that the world is kind of a miserable place where people are awful to each other. And then they’ll stumble upon a bank of memories all about food.

Most of them will be hum drum internal treatises on deserts. But one memory will stand out to them, a missive on the wonders of a perfect mango.

Not just any mango but a mango ripened in the sun, chilled before serving and diced up just right. A mango that you can squeeze with just enough give to know it’s perfect, with just enough juice to make it soft but not enough to make it soggy.

The aliens will catch sight of this memory, this constant in your world and they’ll see something there. Some potential for perfection, acceptance for imperfection and aspiration towards wonder. They’ll keep probing you a while, but at that moment they’ll collectively decide not to murder you and everyone you know. They’ll also decide to give your car a tune up and deposit you back at your home, sleeping soundly, whenever they feel like it.

So you’ll have saved the world and gotten a free ride out of the deal. Which is pretty great for you. If the world knew we’d all give you a nickname and you’d cherish it until the end of your days. But no one will know, no one spare the few who read this tale and so we’ll just leave the nickname here for you, should you ever find it. It’s yours if you like. Thanks for liking mangos so much.

Congratulations Mango Stu!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Congratulations Ill Advised Investor!

You have a staggeringly large amount of money. Almost all of it comes from your inheritance, which your parents allocated to you long before they realized you weren’t really worth talking to. The only reason you still have it is because it would prove legally difficult to separate you from your funds without your consent, so they’ve mostly left the issue alone. But today they’ve finally hatched a scheme that should allow them to get the money you didn’t earn back from you.

It’ll start with a letter in your mailbox from a group called Allied Technical Services Group Unlimited Future Components. The letter will invite you to invest in their company, which “does something with computers” (the letter’s words!) and promises “a return of some sort on your investment, allowing for corrective market forces.”

You’ll be ecstatic! Your parents will always have criticized you for making bad decisions, especially bad decisions with money, and the letter will read like a hit list of good choices you can make with your dollars and sense. You’ll immediately write a check for ATSGUFC with “all” written in the amount field. Your butler will correct you, informing you that that isn’t a valid amount and, with his help, you’ll correctly make out a check for the vast majority of your bank balance to an organization with an investment letter that reads like a Nigerian scam.

Then, again with your butler’s help, you’ll mail the check to an address which is oddly similar to your parents address.

Three days later you’ll be broke and your parents will have all the money they wish they hadn’t given you back in their bank accounts. They’ll leave you with a shopping cart, an assortment of cans and an army wool blanket, though. And your butler will give you a carefully constructed series of notes about how to live in the real world which you won’t be able to read, because you’re illiterate. But at least you’ll have made a decision on your own for once in your ridiculous, cloistered life.

Congratulations Ill Advised Investor!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Congratulations on Starting Your Sweet New Government Job!

Today you’re beginning your work at a government agency which is actually really well known by almost everyone that we can’t recall the name of right now (it’s not a very sexy agency) and you’re really excited. You’ll practically skip off of the metro, down the boulevard and into the doors. You’ll slip your laptop out of its carrying case and slide it into the x-ray machine, then remove your shoes and place those on the belt behind it. You’ll smile and take a be-socked step forward into the metal detector, which will beep obligingly.

“Oops,” you’ll say to the marine, who will humorlessly hold out his hand for you to empty the various metallic contents of your pockets. You’ll hand him keys, your belt, your cell phone. You’ll even hand him your government ID. Then you’ll step through again to the blaring klaxon of the metal detector.

You’ll shrug at him and smile nervously. “No idea, sorry,” you’ll say. The marine will shake his head and direct you to the side, where he’ll pull out a wand and start moving it over your body.

It will hang in the air silently for the most part, sounding the curves of your body from its easy remove. It’ll skirt up and down leisurely, humming ominously, but you’ll still feel a twinge of calm as it sweeps along each of your appendages without issuing a sound. But it won’t last.

The wand will pass over your hip before it goes wild, beeping like mad. You’ll pat your thigh and find your pockets empty, your pulse racing. In all your excitement over entering this agency you forgot to tell them about the giant piece of metal you have in your hip from where that postal delivery truck hit you that one time.

“That’s my metal hip…” you’ll begin, but the marine won’t be listening. He’ll already be snapping a rubber glove around his hand, wiggling his fingers to make sure that it fits snugly.

“Try not to clench,” he’ll tell you, looking you in the eye as he slides his unlubricated hand into your rectum.

Twenty minutes later you’ll be clear of security, walking a little funny and a little bit less excited about analyzing Chinese newspapers for potential tactical weaknesses. But on the bright side, in a few more weeks you’ll stop being anally probed every time you enter the building. That’ll make the whole work experience a lot more pleasant.

Congratulations on Starting Your Sweet New Government Job!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Congratulations Silly Goose!

Today you’re a goose and damned if you aren’t the silliest god damn goose in the whole world.

Back in olden times this would’ve meant that you would be the first goose to be eaten, since your silliness would upset the other geese and make them less flavorful. Some communities would assume that your silliness was actually madness and, as a result, simply drown you to avoid catching madness by consuming your flesh.

But this is a modern world. And that means that instead of being murdered and devoured your silliness is going to be commoditized and prostituted to the highest bidder.

It’ll begin when a Disney executive who has stripped naked and is running back and forth inside of a fountain notices you.

“Huh,” he’ll say, pausing in his play time to note that you seem to be getting laughs from the other geese. “That looks like a pretty funny goose,” he’ll declare to the doll of Michael Eisner he’s crafted from his own body hair. “Let’s offer him a contract.”

He’ll approach you, interrupting the incredible set you’d put together (which consists entirely of croaks and groans), and wave awkwardly.

“Wanna be famous?” he’ll ask.

“HONK!” you’ll respond, because you’re a goose. He’ll take that as an affirmative and starting drawing up papers for your contract. He’ll still be in his underwear as he works, occasionally reaching into his pants and spreading a little bit of poo on the paper to prove that it’s his.

When he’s finished he’ll present you with the contract, which you won’t be able to understand because you’re a goose and you can’t read. But you also make bad decisions because you’re a goose, so you’ll hammer your beak into the page while it’s covered in ink and that’ll count as a signature.

“Pleasure doing business with you!” the Disney executive will say before he starts laughing maniacally.

“HONK!” you’ll reply again, because you’re a goose.

Congratulations Silly Goose!

Monday, June 6, 2011

Congratulations on Founding Facebook!

Today you’re going to be a super rich twin who rows all the time and really likes money.

“Money’s great,” you’ll declare to your twin brother while rowing. He’ll nod in response, but he won’t say anything because he doesn’t have anything to contribute to the discussion – he also thinks money is great and doesn’t think much else.

“What if we used online social networking, not that we know what that is, to make money?” you’ll ask him. At this point he’ll frown.

“I’m not sure that idea is readily monetizeable,” he’ll declare. “Also, neither of us know anything about computers.”

You’ll shrug. “Let’s pay some nerd to do it for us,” you’ll suggest while you pop the cork on a bottle of champagne.

“Capital!” your brother will shout.

The two of you will row back to shore and search the dorms for someone in front of a computer (shorthand for nerd). Then you’ll step into his room and awkwardly throw some of his possessions (books mostly, fucking nerds) on the ground.

“Make a website, nerd,” you’ll say. “Make it so you can talk to friends online.”


“Nerd,” your brother will add.

The nerd will sit and ponder the concept for a few moments before nodding and smiling.

“Okay.”

Congratulations on Founding Facebook!

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Super Nerd Sundays Presents: The Magic of Assbros!

I’ve recently been engaging the trials and tribulations of video game sequels en masse. I’ve been uncovering just how unfounded the critical praise that was heaped upon Dead Space 2 was, and I’ve been discovering just how amazing Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is. And in the process I’ve seen, through Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, or Assbros as some like to call it, just what should be in a sequel.

A brief disclaimer: I’ll be writing about Dead Space 2, it’s failings as a sequel and its unintentional contributions to video game humor at a later date. Today I just want to write about how amazing Assbros is.

See, a great video game sequel adds to what made the original great while retaining the kernel of that greatness, the center around which the game functions and flows. Portal 2 is a great example of this, where the core of Portal (amazing, innovative problem solving where the environment was your enemy and your ally) was retained and expanded (what if you could play with the environment and set up new and fun ways to use the environment to your advantage?). Assassin’s Creed was a great game. A bit underappreciated at the time, sure, but revolutionary and smart. It’s focus on fluid gameplay was so powerful and well executed that I still sometimes go back to the original for its uncorrupted simplicity. Not that the sequels aren’t great, with their tremendous feature load and focus on diversifying the action and allowing players to restructure unlockables more thoroughly. But Assassin’s Creed itself was a pretty incredible game, loaded with a fun new game play mechanic.

Then Assassin’s Creed 2 rolled about and I was worried. Would the game play of the original feel crowded by all the bells and whistles AC2 added on to it? Would the focus on combat, the focus on making it easier and more flowing and faster paced, ruin the occasionally plodding, extremely polished action of the first Assassin’s Creed?

My fears were unfounded. Assassin’s Creed 2 totally grasped what made Assassin’s Creed great, and it even took the time to make its ridiculous story a little more ridiculous and awesome. It even took the worst part of Assassin’s Creed, Desmond, and made him more enjoyable to be. All in all it was a great game, and everything a sequel should be. It even let you become a little bit of a robber-baron, allowing you to establish an estate, acquire allies and fund the daily functions of your villa.

But it was also the product of a nice, relaxed development schedule compared to many games. It didn’t revolutionize its engine at all, which allowed it to focus on expanding the original engine to include little ridiculous things like flying machines and firearms and the like. It took all of that time and all of the tools that it already had at hand and used them to make a well crafted, well executed improvement on an existing product. I had no such hopes for Brotherhood, which took all those tools and turned them towards yet another iteration, a seemingly minor one at that.

And it turns out that Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is actually kind of a minor iteration of the second Assassin’s Creed. You can play through it and only occasionally use the tools and toys exclusive to Assbros. But if you do this you’ll be denying yourself a great deal of the fun it provides.

See, Assbros relishes in the old while introducing a single new idea: the idea of having allies you can call upon whenever you wish. Well, mostly whenever you wish. There are occasionally missions that will bar you from using your sneaky friends, usually indoor affairs where they’d ruin the incredibly challenging requirements entailed by some of the “full synchronization” elements of missions. But for the most part you’ll actually be encouraged to press a button and make three dudes teleport out from hay piles and murder a bunch of guards. You’ll literally just press one button and witness your allies fucking shit up.

It’s a rewarding mechanic, due largely in part to the Pokemon-esque process of building up those Assassins and turning them from raw recruits into practiced stone killers. It’s neat enough to have teleporting killing machines at your beck and call, but it’s that much cooler to have teleporting killing machines that you shaped the training of, who you sent off to disrupt the efforts of Templars courting the favor of Queen Isabella and the Czars through a variety of at times hilarious missions (beat up a beggar is a repeatedly available mission in many cities, at times a very difficult one at that). By the end, despite seeing them only a handful of times in person, I felt a connection to each of my little Assassinos. I liked to see just who leapt out when I called, and I sent specific agents on specific kinds of missions. When my stable was full I was proud of the army I’d built around myself.

And this is all layered atop a fantastic engine, the one you know and love from the original Assassin’s Creed and Assassin’s Creed 2. There’s a period, towards the end, where the new mechanics eclipse the old, but it’s brief and forgivable. As far as new mechanics go it’s far from the worst thing I’ve experienced in recent memory. And the conclusion of Assbros, while trite and silly in the tradition of Assassin’s Creed and Assassin’s Creed 2, has a fantastic buildup that doesn’t disappoint.

I’m always prone to separate Assassin’s Creed games from their stories, partially because their stories are so purposefully over the top and simultaneously serious. It is clear that you’re meant to chuckle at the ineptitude of the doctors from Abstergo who are constantly hunting you for your “special brain,” but the relationships between characters sometimes grow quite serious, tone-irkingly so. In a game where you’re the Italian playboy who is best buds with Leonardo da Vinci it’s a bit jarring to also deal with things ranging from lost love to an international conspiracy centered around Greek Gods who built superpowered fallout shelters. But for the most part Assbros continues the tradition of getting a chance to have its cake and stab it to by keeping any given segment from getting too long, and with the exception of the ending, the cryptic emails and exploration of the present-day villa the game hangs together quite nicely.

In fact I’d say it’s the perfect example of what a sequel should be. It takes the original design and adds some nice things to it. It doesn’t remove what you loved from the original formula, but it gives you some neat new bits to play with. It doesn’t overcompensate for some of the shittiness that the first Assassin’s Creed set in motion and which the series has as a whole continued to supply, but it brings a lighter touch to some of the more blah aspects of the first two games. And the option of only attaining partial synchronization is a welcome one, although it’s one I certainly didn’t take advantage of. It did have the end result of giving missions a built in Easy Mode that I could just use whenever, and I appreciated that it was there.

All in all there is nothing to keep anyone who enjoyed the first two Assassin’s Creed games from enjoying Assbros, though I would, as with most great series, recommend starting at the first and working your way there. Assbros is well worth the journey.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Congratulations on Finding Out What Joanna Newsom Sounds Like in Bed!

Seducing her will be hard work.

First you’ll have to get a suit from the 19th century. Depending on where you live this could be the hardest step. Getting it tailored will be pretty easy, if a bit expensive, but finding an authentic suit in New York or Los Angeles could be nigh impossible, and it will certainly be expensive. However, if you’re from Wyoming you’ll probably have a long dead relative who left you a suit from his passage to the great open plains so many years ago.

Second you’ll have to get tickets to a Joanna Newsom show. This should be easier, but it’ll still be expensive because she’s become oh-so very popular of late. If it’s a show with assigned seats be sure to get something up front so she can see your amazing suit.

See there’s a rule in Joanna Newsom’s contract (available as a matter of public record in the national Joanna Newsom archive located in Eugene, Oregon) which states that she must sleep with anyone at her show that she sees who is dressed in period accurate 19th century garb. So when she catches sight of you she’ll sigh and smile and get ready to grit her teeth and bear it for the sake of her paycheck.

So after she catches sight of her you’ll be taken to her dressing room, where a cot will already be laid out for the two of you. She’ll strip unceremoniously and lay on her back, naked and silent, waiting for you to enter her.

At this point you’ve got some additional agency. But we’ve got a few recommendations.

First, oral. Thoroughly performed oral. Joanna Newsom is a beautiful, talented woman who has never had to masturbate a day in her life, so she needs someone to show her how her body works each time it kickstarts into the rah rah rah of sex. If you leave her to her own devices she’ll just be on her back starting at the ceiling wishing you were already done. She’ll be silent and you’ll fail today’s Congratulations. But a little bit of oral and digital manipulation and she should be half-way to o-town before you slip inside her and lift her on your hips and start your work.

By the way, that’s recommendation two. It’s not specific to Joanna Newsom, most people just like that. Trust at least half of us.

Step three: pay attention to her and yourself and don’t come too soon. If you fail to make Joanna Newsom cry out during sex a roadie outside will kill you with a knife as you try to leave her chambers. She’ll be left on her cot with a tear in her eye and no song in her heart.

But play your cards right and you’ll survive. You’ll know her true voice, not her wildly pitching tones of madness that make her music. And you’ll leave her smiling and find yourself in a whimsical song about a paving company run by bears who are married to otters who have problems, but they still make it work.

Congratulations on Finding Out What Joanna Newsom Sounds Like in Bed!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Congratulations on Spraying the Girl You Like With a Hose!

The girl you like will be walking down the street today while you’re watering the grass and you’ll consider spraying her with a hose.

In your mind she’ll take the spray of water giddily, laughing as it washes over her and scatters on to the ground, soaking her clothes and leaving her there, heaving and soaking yet somehow still nymphlike in her lithe, implied nudity. She’ll relish in her wetness for a moment before leaping on to you, tearing the hose from your grasp and spraying you with it in turn, soaking you to the bone before she turns her attentions to a more amorous kind and begins tearing you to pieces, running her teeth along your skin and ripping your clothes off shred by shred.

This vision of delight will convince you to spray her with a hose and let her have her way with you, so you’ll let fly with water, connecting with her chest and hair and inundating her with an unexpected stream of liquid.

“What the fuck!” she’ll cry, as water soaks her t-shirt and hair and leaves her looking less like a whimsical sex-fairy and more like a drowned rat.

“Fucking fucker!” she’ll shout at you, hefting a rock and throwing it at your head. It’ll connect with a solid thunk and send you tumbling to the ground, coughing and holding your temples. Then she’ll walk up and kick you in the nuts before tromping away, furious.

“What the fuck?” you’ll shout at your brain, which will by now be cackling at you giddily.

Congratulations on Spraying the Girl You Like With a Hose!

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Congratulations Tom Waits Look-A-Like!

People thought you were a fool for entering this contest, and perhaps they were right. Who would want to admit they look like one of the most weathered and road worn men of ours or any generation?

Apparently quite a few people, judging by the contest fairgrounds. They’ll be filled with pock faced men with deep sad eyes wearing hats and collared shirts, carrying guitars and the weight of the world on their shoulders. They’ll all look a little bit like Tom Waits, but they won’t have the edge you have: a bit of Tom Wait’s own DNA.

Let’s take a step back.

You’re not just some dude. You’re actually a government project designed to make really sad music in order to make terrorists see America as a nation as a more sensitive and less bomb-able place. So they put some Fiona Apple, some Tom Waits and some Aretha Franklin all into one package and, since Tom Waits looked saddest of the three of them, they slapped his face on y’all.

But you escaped from the government facility designed to contain you through a combination of deep, soulful singing and murder and now you’re on the run, looking to make a life for yourself so you can go to ground and avoid being taken back and dissected by the government or worse, taken to Iraq and Afghanistan where you’ll be forced to play an endless stream of USO shows.

Which is why you’re at this contest. A little bit of recognition, so long as it’s not covered by the papers, never hurt anyone. And there’s no way any newspaper ever would cover a Tom Waits look-a-like contest. So it’s a chance to make yourself known in a community that might value you and to get a little much needed cash if you win the prize.

So you’ll come to that dusty fairground in Wyoming and you’ll sit under a tree, guitar in hand, singing to yourself in a voice which has both Tom Wait’s leathery quality, Aretha’s soul and Fiona’s trilling melody. You’ll sing low and strong and the sound will carry to the whole fairground. People closer to you will start crying without knowing why, while people farther away will consider calling young loves long lost. Everyone will be drawn to you, whether they know it or not, and your siren song.

After around an hour or two of all this subtle crooning the entire fairground will have assembled around you. They’ll be captivated by the sound of your voice, and it’ll be obvious that the contest is yours. But that’s when something unexpected will happen.

A black Cadillac will arrive, rolling across the grass like it’s the smoothest of roads. When it comes to a stop the brakes won’t make but a sound. Instead they’ll inaudibly hiss. And when the door opens and those boots hit the ground it’ll be like an angel stepped to earth. Your song will stop and the air will go still.

“Looks like you won the contest,” Tom Waits will say from under the brim of his hat. He’ll push it up only after his voice has issued its gristle, and then just to look you in the eye, to fix your soul with the light of his vision. “Want to come on the road?”

You’ll smile at him, a thing crafted of leather and the sweat of a half decade of sorrow brewed in a government lab, and hop to your feet.

“Let’s go,” you’ll tell him with a nod, and he’ll nod back. The two of you will walk to his Cadillac side by side, wordless against the storm that you can now feel forming behind you, threatening to consume both you and Tom Waits.

Congratulations Tom Waits Look-A-Like!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Congratulations Marketing Genius!

You’re a marketing genius. You’ve literally sold asbestos to people it was killing, car insurance to people without cars and even, on occasion, shake weights. But there’s one thing you’ve always had trouble selling: yourself.

Your philosophy is this: if people want to date you, they should want to date you, the person, and not you, the product. So by trying to sell yourself the way you’d sell, say, a mother’s love bottled and shipped you’d be doing both yourself and your partner a disservice.

It’s a great ideology, honest and elegant and beautiful, but there’s one problem: it’s killing your love life. See, you’re a marketing genius. Which means that your nature is such that people only want to spend around fifteen minutes at a time with you, if even that much. You’re kind of an asshole, you’ve got no morals and you’ve contributed around fuckall to society in your overlong and overloud life. You sleep with your mouth open and you make loud grunting sounds during sex. One time you spit in a girl’s open mouth just to see how she’d respond during it.

But despite all this you don’t have the aggression that would make you attractive to women. You’re kind of timid and given to going with the flow wherever possible, because conflict is tough to market and tougher to market through. You can ignore it when you have to, but when it’s possible you avoid it at all costs. This means that women rightly perceive you as a limp wristed shell of a man.

So today you’re going to abandon your policy of trying to be honest with the women you date. Four years is long enough to be alone and realize you’re a terrible person with terrible thoughts and a terrible body who no one will ever love honestly. Now it’s time to polish the turd that is your personality to a fine sheen so that people will not only think you’re worth sleeping with, but think that it’s worth their while to stick around after sleeping with you.

Step one will be the construction of several billboards of you shrugging affably with the words “Why not?” printed upon them in various locations. You’ll be handsomely dressed and smiling, as if to say nothing happening here officer, but if you want to party I think we can make that happen.

Step two will be a set of print ads where you’re wrestling a tiger. They’ll supposedly be aimed at growing your advertising business, but their real purpose will be to subliminally associate your image with the image of a tiger for most women in the greater metro area. You’ll actually be taking a loss on the ads in your real business.

Step three will be constructing a thoroughly charming online dating profile on three to five dating websites, however many the writers you hire can afford to write you in the time allotted. The profiles will be filled with no so subtle lies about who you are and what you do that are designed to entice unsuspecting women and convince them that you’re actually worth the time of day.

Step four: sit back and watch that pussy flow in.

Congratulations Marketing Genius!