Showing posts with label garfield. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garfield. Show all posts
Monday, October 12, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Best of Garfield - Part 2
Welcome back, cats and kittens. Today on the show we continue our journey into the past with the second, and thankfully final, part of our retrospective on my silly Garfield comics. We're going to now take a look at Series 2, the current run of Garfield strips, of which there are 60. What's that you say? The last strip I posted was numbered "59?" Hm, that's very interesting...
Once again, this collection is far too magnificent to be viewed on this puny blog, so whenever you're ready, HIT THE JUMP!
Once again, this collection is far too magnificent to be viewed on this puny blog, so whenever you're ready, HIT THE JUMP!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
The Best of Garfield
As you may or may not know, one of the things I like to is to take Garfield comic strips and replace the text in them to make them either much funnier, or much stupider. But what you may not know, is that I've been doing this for a much longer time than I've had this blog. So, if you've only seen the ones posted on here, then you've missed out on over 100 of these very special strips. Today I am going to share a few of these with you. I'm not going to share all of them, because on the whole most of them tend to fall on the stupid side of the funny/stupid scale, especially the early ones, so I'm just going to share the ones that I consider good or noteworthy in some way. And, because I'm apparently a pompous asshole, I'm going to provide commentary on each one, so yay for self-aggrandization!
Before we begin, I should point out there are two series of these comics. I started Series 1 back in high school, and I never really bothered to keep track of them, so there are a few that have probably just disappeared. Of the ones that didn't succumb to my foolishness, there are 75 left. I have never posted any comics from Series 1. Series 2 was where I started to take things a bit more seriously, and tried to at least make most of them actually funny, instead of just weird or somewhat amusingly vulgar. I also began to order them, which I didn't do in Series 1, which makes them a bit more cohesive. Because yeah, that's what they needed, cohesion. So, do I sound enough like an asshole yet? Good, now take a deep breath and brace yourself for the coming storm.
When you are ready to continue, please click here.
Before we begin, I should point out there are two series of these comics. I started Series 1 back in high school, and I never really bothered to keep track of them, so there are a few that have probably just disappeared. Of the ones that didn't succumb to my foolishness, there are 75 left. I have never posted any comics from Series 1. Series 2 was where I started to take things a bit more seriously, and tried to at least make most of them actually funny, instead of just weird or somewhat amusingly vulgar. I also began to order them, which I didn't do in Series 1, which makes them a bit more cohesive. Because yeah, that's what they needed, cohesion. So, do I sound enough like an asshole yet? Good, now take a deep breath and brace yourself for the coming storm.
When you are ready to continue, please click here.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Dick Shandley and the Purple Cat Conundrum
Dick Shandley marveled at the object which he now held in his hands. He slowly rotated it around, regarding it from all angles. He reflected on all the hard work he’d put into it, getting it just right, just perfect. Looking at it now, he was certain that he had succeeded. He had just rolled what might be the world’s fattest doobie. He dropped it onto his desk, eliciting a clearly audible thud. This motherfucker, he inferred, was dense. A little too dense, maybe. With a slight bit of trepidation, he picked up the object and placed the end of it in his mouth.
A few moments later, the office began to shimmer, and Dick felt his stomach start to turn as he experienced a sudden jolt, as though the world had just dropped down two and a half feet. As his eyes refocused, he found himself staring at a short haired purple cat sitting at his desk, which in turn was staring at a point approximately six inches behind Dick’s head. Dick removed the joint from his mouth and stared at it in disbelief, not least of all because he hadn’t lit it yet. The purple cat cocked its head at the white, bulging object in the strange man’s hands, wondered for exactly six tenths of a second what was supposedly so damned interesting about it, then set about systematically hunting down a passing speck of dust.
Dick Shandley, now reasonably convinced that the ends of his joint were not the least bit singed, put his mind to working his way around his next mental block, accepting that a purple cat had, thirty seconds ago, spontaneously materialized in his office. He worked out the following premises: firstly, that thirty seconds ago, his office had been completely free of cats, and second, right now there was a cat in front of him. He had no problems with either of those ideas separately, but putting them together caused his brain to just sort of lie back and think of England. He set aside for the moment the fact that the cat was purple, as that was a detail, and Dick found that details only served to slow him down. Much to the agony of his clients, Dick was a sort of big picture private eye. On his last case he had been hired to find some proof of infidelity. Realizing that his target would probably have some suspicion he was being followed, Dick instead tailed a random person. He had tried to explain to the frantic woman how this man he had photographed was a perfect sample of the human condition, and how the way he held his fork in the restaurant implied the adulterous nature of man. This was how Dick had his nose broken for the third time.
Dick looked down at the cat, which had now stretched its purple body out on his floor. At last Dick reasoned that there hadn’t been a cat there before, but there was now, and to just leave it at that. The left and right sides of his brain shook hands and agreed to never speak of it again.
So, now, on to the third and final problem: what was he going to do with this cat? Dick didn’t consider himself to be the type to own a cat, or for that matter any sort of animal, child, or houseplant that would have to depend on him for its survival. At this point, he slid the massive doobie into his coat pocket. He supposed he would have to take it to the animal shelter.
Dick tried to find a box to put the cat into, but the only one he could find was the one his Blackadder DVDs came in, and that obviously wasn’t big enough. In the end he would up just wrapping it up in a bundle of old towels.
On the bus, a man named Lyle Davitian sat across from Dick. For some reason, something about this man with his ugly green coat and his pile of smelly towels caught Lyle’s attention. He wondered why the man had cut so many holes into his towels. As he took all of this in, a small purple head popped out of the end of it. The man quickly shoved it back into the bundle. “A purple cat!” Lyle shouted with amusement. He looked around; everyone on the bus seemed very annoyed with him, and the man with the purple cat simply shook his head at him slowly. When he got home that night, he told his wife, “You know, I saw a purple cat on the bus today.” She said nothing, so he repeated it, a bit louder this time. “That’s nice, dear,” she told him. “I don’t think you heard me properly, honey,” he returned, now getting somewhat cross, “I said it was a PURPLE CAT.” This caused his wife to begin to heave a long sigh, one that didn’t end until they were divorced six months later. Years down the line, he would still tell the story as he drank alone in a different bar each night. “It was that damn cat, it was the start of it all,” he would tell the bartender, “If it wasn’t for the cat, everything would still be like it used to.” Finally, one night Lyle Davitian’s ex-wife came home to find her ex-husband hanging from the rafters of her bedroom by his neck. She collapsed to the floor, her breath too shallow to even afford her full sobs. The only sound that could be heard was the gentle sway of the rope, back and forth. Back and forth.
Dick Shandley stepped off the bus, annoyed at the scene that idiot had caused. He walked into the animal shelter and presented them with the cat that had appeared on his desk. “Oh, not another purple cat,” said the man at the front desk.
“Excuse me?” asked Dick. “What do you mean, ‘another one?’”
“We’ve been getting purple cats in all week, we’re up to our arses in purples cats.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” the man replied, “you look back there, you’ll see nothing but purple cats. Well, we’ve got a couple of hairless ones, and possibly a beagle too, but mostly it’s just purple bloody cats.”
“I see.” This had caught Dick’s attention. Whereas before the color of the cat had been a trifling detail, a matter for the universe to work out on its own, now it represented a pattern. A very small cog in Dick’s brain had moved a quarter turn to the right, filling him with a new vigor. Where he had simply given up before, there was now something in the works far too engaging for him to ignore: an investigation.
“How long has this been going on?” Dick asked the confusingly British man behind the desk.
“Couple of months,” the man replied. “We couldn’t believe it at first, a purple cat. We thought somebody must have dyed it that, but over the next couple of weeks we noticed that the fur was actually growing in purple. It was around that time that someone brought in another one. Boy, if you thought one purple cat caused a commotion, you should have seen the stir that two raised. Of course, within a few weeks they’d be bringing them in every day, and before you know it we’re up to our—”
“Arses, yes, I know,” Dick interrupted. “Was there anything else unusual?”
“Well, now that you mention it, a few days ago this man comes in here asking about purple cats. He wants to know if we had any, or if we’ve seen any. I told him I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
At the sound of this, Dick increased his rate of blinking by about six hundred percent for a few seconds. “Why on earth would you tell him that?” he asked.
“Well, what would you do? A man coming in out of the blue, asking questions about purple cats all of a sudden. Doesn’t that seem a bit suspicious?”
“Well,” offered Dick, “isn’t that what I’m doing right now?”
“Yes, well, you’ve got an honest face.” This comment surprised Dick more than anything that had happened to him this entire day.
“Here,” said the man, offering Dick a business card. “He gave me this, told me to call him if I found any purple cats. Maybe you can make sense of this whole kafuffle.”
Dick looked at the business card. It said, “PurpaCat Industries,” and it had an address and telephone number. On the back of the card was scribbled the name, “Jared Neely.” Dick thanked the man for his information, and set out on his way.
On the bus, Dick was seated next to an incredibly hairy man wearing a sleeveless shirt with his head buried in a newspaper. Every time the bus hit a bump, he could feel this man’s thick, bushy arm hair brushing against him, like he was being scrubbed. He finally got off the bus, really skeeved out and contemplating what bad day it was for bus travel.
Inside the PurpaCat Industries headquarters, Dick had only to peel back a layer of towels in order to get a private meeting with Mr. Neely. When Dick entered the office, the first thing he saw was a young man in an business suit, fresh out of college, or possibly high school, who was obviously scared shitless over the amount of responsibility he had. The youth directed him to sit down.
“So, Mr... Shandley? What brings you to PurpaCat?”
“Well, Mr. Neely, I’d like to know what the deal is with the purple cats.”
“Yeah, uh huh, sure, well, you see the thing is, we’re kind of trying to keep the whole purple cat thing under wraps, so I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t, you know, tell anyone about all this.”
“Oh, yeah,” Dick blustered. “Mum’s the word, I won’t tell a soul. Now spill it.”
“Well, you see,” Jared stammered, “there’s kind of this whole thing, with like the universe and shit, oh, sorry, I mean stuff.”
“Oh no,” said Dick, “shit is fine. Continue.”
“See, whenever something goes wrong with the universe, like someone does something they’re not supposed to do, like go faster than the speed of light or kill their grandfather or something, it makes a purple cat appear. We don’t really know why.”
“Wait, so if I went out right now and killed my grandfather, it would make a purple cat?”
“No, man, you have to like, do it before your parents are born, or something.”
“Oh,” said Dick, “you mean like a paradox.”
“That was the word I was trying to remember! Exactly, so if you cause one of those paradox things, poof! Purple cat. Oh, also some other bad stuff happens too, but the cat is the first sign.”
“Other bad stuff?”
“Like the universe implodes or some shit, I don’t know, there’s some other agency that handles that kind of stuff, around here we mostly just gather up the cats.”
“So what you’re saying, is that because I have this cat right here, the universe is in danger?”
The kid thought about this for a second. “Oh, yeah, good point. You should probably take it to them and get that straightened out.”
Dick had already been to two different places with this cat today, and the idea of getting back on the bus did not appeal to him. “I don’t really have that kind of time, isn’t there something you can do about it here?”
“Um, okay, I guess. What were you doing when the cat appeared?”
“Well, I was in my office, and I was—” In a startling moment of clarity, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his amazing mega-spliff.
“Holy bejeezus!” shouted Jared. “That’s the biggest damn doobie I’ve ever seen! No wonder you broke the space time continuum with that thing!”
“Seriously? I may have just destroyed the universe by rolling out a joint?”
“Hey, there are some things you just don’t fuck around with man. But hey, what are we doing? We’ve got to destroy that thing!” After a moment’s pause, he added, “Um, with fire! Over the course of the next hour or so. And we should probably open the window.”
Dick held it up to the light, the most important joint in the universe. “Well,” he said solemnly, “if that’s what we have to do.”
And that’s how Dick Shandley saved the universe by smoking out with a guy named Jared.
THE END
AND HERE'S A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE KIDDIES:
A few moments later, the office began to shimmer, and Dick felt his stomach start to turn as he experienced a sudden jolt, as though the world had just dropped down two and a half feet. As his eyes refocused, he found himself staring at a short haired purple cat sitting at his desk, which in turn was staring at a point approximately six inches behind Dick’s head. Dick removed the joint from his mouth and stared at it in disbelief, not least of all because he hadn’t lit it yet. The purple cat cocked its head at the white, bulging object in the strange man’s hands, wondered for exactly six tenths of a second what was supposedly so damned interesting about it, then set about systematically hunting down a passing speck of dust.
Dick Shandley, now reasonably convinced that the ends of his joint were not the least bit singed, put his mind to working his way around his next mental block, accepting that a purple cat had, thirty seconds ago, spontaneously materialized in his office. He worked out the following premises: firstly, that thirty seconds ago, his office had been completely free of cats, and second, right now there was a cat in front of him. He had no problems with either of those ideas separately, but putting them together caused his brain to just sort of lie back and think of England. He set aside for the moment the fact that the cat was purple, as that was a detail, and Dick found that details only served to slow him down. Much to the agony of his clients, Dick was a sort of big picture private eye. On his last case he had been hired to find some proof of infidelity. Realizing that his target would probably have some suspicion he was being followed, Dick instead tailed a random person. He had tried to explain to the frantic woman how this man he had photographed was a perfect sample of the human condition, and how the way he held his fork in the restaurant implied the adulterous nature of man. This was how Dick had his nose broken for the third time.
Dick looked down at the cat, which had now stretched its purple body out on his floor. At last Dick reasoned that there hadn’t been a cat there before, but there was now, and to just leave it at that. The left and right sides of his brain shook hands and agreed to never speak of it again.
So, now, on to the third and final problem: what was he going to do with this cat? Dick didn’t consider himself to be the type to own a cat, or for that matter any sort of animal, child, or houseplant that would have to depend on him for its survival. At this point, he slid the massive doobie into his coat pocket. He supposed he would have to take it to the animal shelter.
Dick tried to find a box to put the cat into, but the only one he could find was the one his Blackadder DVDs came in, and that obviously wasn’t big enough. In the end he would up just wrapping it up in a bundle of old towels.
On the bus, a man named Lyle Davitian sat across from Dick. For some reason, something about this man with his ugly green coat and his pile of smelly towels caught Lyle’s attention. He wondered why the man had cut so many holes into his towels. As he took all of this in, a small purple head popped out of the end of it. The man quickly shoved it back into the bundle. “A purple cat!” Lyle shouted with amusement. He looked around; everyone on the bus seemed very annoyed with him, and the man with the purple cat simply shook his head at him slowly. When he got home that night, he told his wife, “You know, I saw a purple cat on the bus today.” She said nothing, so he repeated it, a bit louder this time. “That’s nice, dear,” she told him. “I don’t think you heard me properly, honey,” he returned, now getting somewhat cross, “I said it was a PURPLE CAT.” This caused his wife to begin to heave a long sigh, one that didn’t end until they were divorced six months later. Years down the line, he would still tell the story as he drank alone in a different bar each night. “It was that damn cat, it was the start of it all,” he would tell the bartender, “If it wasn’t for the cat, everything would still be like it used to.” Finally, one night Lyle Davitian’s ex-wife came home to find her ex-husband hanging from the rafters of her bedroom by his neck. She collapsed to the floor, her breath too shallow to even afford her full sobs. The only sound that could be heard was the gentle sway of the rope, back and forth. Back and forth.
Dick Shandley stepped off the bus, annoyed at the scene that idiot had caused. He walked into the animal shelter and presented them with the cat that had appeared on his desk. “Oh, not another purple cat,” said the man at the front desk.
“Excuse me?” asked Dick. “What do you mean, ‘another one?’”
“We’ve been getting purple cats in all week, we’re up to our arses in purples cats.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” the man replied, “you look back there, you’ll see nothing but purple cats. Well, we’ve got a couple of hairless ones, and possibly a beagle too, but mostly it’s just purple bloody cats.”
“I see.” This had caught Dick’s attention. Whereas before the color of the cat had been a trifling detail, a matter for the universe to work out on its own, now it represented a pattern. A very small cog in Dick’s brain had moved a quarter turn to the right, filling him with a new vigor. Where he had simply given up before, there was now something in the works far too engaging for him to ignore: an investigation.
“How long has this been going on?” Dick asked the confusingly British man behind the desk.
“Couple of months,” the man replied. “We couldn’t believe it at first, a purple cat. We thought somebody must have dyed it that, but over the next couple of weeks we noticed that the fur was actually growing in purple. It was around that time that someone brought in another one. Boy, if you thought one purple cat caused a commotion, you should have seen the stir that two raised. Of course, within a few weeks they’d be bringing them in every day, and before you know it we’re up to our—”
“Arses, yes, I know,” Dick interrupted. “Was there anything else unusual?”
“Well, now that you mention it, a few days ago this man comes in here asking about purple cats. He wants to know if we had any, or if we’ve seen any. I told him I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
At the sound of this, Dick increased his rate of blinking by about six hundred percent for a few seconds. “Why on earth would you tell him that?” he asked.
“Well, what would you do? A man coming in out of the blue, asking questions about purple cats all of a sudden. Doesn’t that seem a bit suspicious?”
“Well,” offered Dick, “isn’t that what I’m doing right now?”
“Yes, well, you’ve got an honest face.” This comment surprised Dick more than anything that had happened to him this entire day.
“Here,” said the man, offering Dick a business card. “He gave me this, told me to call him if I found any purple cats. Maybe you can make sense of this whole kafuffle.”
Dick looked at the business card. It said, “PurpaCat Industries,” and it had an address and telephone number. On the back of the card was scribbled the name, “Jared Neely.” Dick thanked the man for his information, and set out on his way.
On the bus, Dick was seated next to an incredibly hairy man wearing a sleeveless shirt with his head buried in a newspaper. Every time the bus hit a bump, he could feel this man’s thick, bushy arm hair brushing against him, like he was being scrubbed. He finally got off the bus, really skeeved out and contemplating what bad day it was for bus travel.
Inside the PurpaCat Industries headquarters, Dick had only to peel back a layer of towels in order to get a private meeting with Mr. Neely. When Dick entered the office, the first thing he saw was a young man in an business suit, fresh out of college, or possibly high school, who was obviously scared shitless over the amount of responsibility he had. The youth directed him to sit down.
“So, Mr... Shandley? What brings you to PurpaCat?”
“Well, Mr. Neely, I’d like to know what the deal is with the purple cats.”
“Yeah, uh huh, sure, well, you see the thing is, we’re kind of trying to keep the whole purple cat thing under wraps, so I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t, you know, tell anyone about all this.”
“Oh, yeah,” Dick blustered. “Mum’s the word, I won’t tell a soul. Now spill it.”
“Well, you see,” Jared stammered, “there’s kind of this whole thing, with like the universe and shit, oh, sorry, I mean stuff.”
“Oh no,” said Dick, “shit is fine. Continue.”
“See, whenever something goes wrong with the universe, like someone does something they’re not supposed to do, like go faster than the speed of light or kill their grandfather or something, it makes a purple cat appear. We don’t really know why.”
“Wait, so if I went out right now and killed my grandfather, it would make a purple cat?”
“No, man, you have to like, do it before your parents are born, or something.”
“Oh,” said Dick, “you mean like a paradox.”
“That was the word I was trying to remember! Exactly, so if you cause one of those paradox things, poof! Purple cat. Oh, also some other bad stuff happens too, but the cat is the first sign.”
“Other bad stuff?”
“Like the universe implodes or some shit, I don’t know, there’s some other agency that handles that kind of stuff, around here we mostly just gather up the cats.”
“So what you’re saying, is that because I have this cat right here, the universe is in danger?”
The kid thought about this for a second. “Oh, yeah, good point. You should probably take it to them and get that straightened out.”
Dick had already been to two different places with this cat today, and the idea of getting back on the bus did not appeal to him. “I don’t really have that kind of time, isn’t there something you can do about it here?”
“Um, okay, I guess. What were you doing when the cat appeared?”
“Well, I was in my office, and I was—” In a startling moment of clarity, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his amazing mega-spliff.
“Holy bejeezus!” shouted Jared. “That’s the biggest damn doobie I’ve ever seen! No wonder you broke the space time continuum with that thing!”
“Seriously? I may have just destroyed the universe by rolling out a joint?”
“Hey, there are some things you just don’t fuck around with man. But hey, what are we doing? We’ve got to destroy that thing!” After a moment’s pause, he added, “Um, with fire! Over the course of the next hour or so. And we should probably open the window.”
Dick held it up to the light, the most important joint in the universe. “Well,” he said solemnly, “if that’s what we have to do.”
And that’s how Dick Shandley saved the universe by smoking out with a guy named Jared.
THE END
AND HERE'S A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE KIDDIES:
Friday, December 19, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
A Post for Garfield
Here are some Garfield comics for your amusement. Be warned, however, the first one depicts severe bleeding of the dick. If that sort of thing upsets you, then you might want to avoid a career in medicine. For all you others out there, who do not fear or look away from injury to the genitals, enjoy.
Friday, October 3, 2008
So It's Come To This...
I usually don’t like to talk about politics. People say this is because I am uninformed or apathetic, but neither is true. The real reason is because politics is where logic goes to die. It is a place where men of conviction solve their differences through sheer bluster and gnashing of teeth. Whenever I see a political “debate” all I can think of is French absurdists trying to determine whose hot air balloon is the fastest by throwing big piles of shoes at each other (maybe that metaphor is a bit too obtuse, point is these free soapbox hours are about the farthest you can get from an actual debate). I see all these things going on in the world, and then I ask the people who desire to represent me, what are you going to do about this? And all I hear is the constant warbling of turkeys.
This election year is being touted as the most important election of all time. Though I doubt that, as every election has been trumpeted as such since the beginning of our governmental system, it at least seems to be the one that weighs most heavily on the mind of the average citizen. The world scene has been eclipsed by this election, it casts a shadow which blots out all other news. Lots and lots of people are talking about little else. So, as I sit here, plotting my triumphant return from my long absence, it seem at last unavoidable, I must discuss that which I dread: the machinations of those who wish to rule.
First, I would like to talk about Sarah Palin. Actually, that is a lie; it is more like I must talk about Sarah Palin, and I’d like to get it out of the way. When she was first announced, my first reaction was, “who?” My next reaction was that of intrigue, at this handsome, well-groomed woman who kills moose with her bare hands. Then there was that period for the next couple of weeks where a new scandal would break about her every two hours. I mostly ignored these as reactionary hearsay, but I started to become worried that a few of these were sticking around, despite the fact that nobody cared anymore. In fact, the book banning and law enforcement scandals now appear to actually be backed up by credible evidence, yet nothing has come of it because the country has moved on to other things. As the weeks passed, I kept a suspicious eye on Ms. Palin, until finally that fateful interview aired. At last the truth came out: she is a dunderhead.
This woman is quite possibly the only Republican dumber than George W. Bush. It was obvious from the beginning that she was a half-assed publicity stunt, but good god, she is dumber than a bag of wet coats. She is a hand puppet being held up by a hand puppet. Honestly, I’m not sure she even realizes she’s running for Vice-President; it’s possible she thinks John McCain is some kind of magical troll who will grant her wishes if she says nice things about him.
Which brings us to McCain. What the fuck happened to this guy? A few years ago, he seemed like he had a pretty good head on his shoulders. True, I didn’t always agree with the guy, but at least he had the balls to be a pro-choice Republican. This guy didn’t care who he pissed off, and he made his own decisions. I don’t know if he suddenly incurred a large debt to the Republican National Committee, or if he’s just gone senile, but in his current state, McCain is just sad. They’ve made him fall in line idealistically with Bush, and when they forced Sarah Palin on him, they just cut off his balls completely.
Moving on, let’s talk about the economy. The economy sucks.
What? You wanted more? Ugh, fine.
As I am apparently a fierce goddamn romantic, I tend to see things in metaphor. And to me, the economy is a great big solid oak table, well built, and cluttered with stuff. The only problem is right now one of the legs is mottled and cracked, covered with duct tape and constantly creaking and quivering. If I were a self-important political cartoonist, the leg would be holding up a sign that says “Wall Street.” Now Congress has a choice. They can either put 700 billion dollars worth of duct tape on that leg, which ought to hold it for a while, or they can stand around and do nothing and wait for it to break (I guess the table metaphor isn’t perfect, because there’s no real world equivalent for “rip the leg off and replace it with a sturdy piece of wood,” but I still like it). Now, when the leg breaks, all the shit on the leg is going to come crashing down all over the fucking place: a catastrophe, right? Well, not really. I mean, most of that stuff was just books, so you can just pick them up and put them back on the table. True, your grandmother’s antique tea set is ruined, and you had a really nice watch sitting there that wasn’t shock resistant and now it keeps weird time, and you really wish you still had these things, but fuck, life goes on. There’s not going to be a depression over this crisis, it’s just a case of some idiots wanted to get richer, so they wished some phantom money into existence. It never occurred to them that that money would have to come from somewhere, and since it didn’t, the money turned back into ghosts, who stuffed their pockets with money and flew back away to whatever dimension they came from. Sure, I feel bad for the people who actually trusted and rely on those banks, but you can’t protect everybody from everything. Either way, bailout or no bailout, I think I’ll probably just take this thing in stride.
I suppose I should say something about the Democratic ticket. I feel the same way about Obama that I used to feel about McCain: his views skew a bit more liberal than mine, but he’s a real, intelligent person who is not just at the end of the strings of his political party. I don’t give a rat’s ass about Joe Biden. It could come out that Biden was at Disneyland, shitting into his hand and throwing it at people, and it still would not be enough to get me to care one way or the other about him.
So now you know how I feel about that thing that everyone’s talking about. I hope you enjoyed it. Now fuck off.
This election year is being touted as the most important election of all time. Though I doubt that, as every election has been trumpeted as such since the beginning of our governmental system, it at least seems to be the one that weighs most heavily on the mind of the average citizen. The world scene has been eclipsed by this election, it casts a shadow which blots out all other news. Lots and lots of people are talking about little else. So, as I sit here, plotting my triumphant return from my long absence, it seem at last unavoidable, I must discuss that which I dread: the machinations of those who wish to rule.
First, I would like to talk about Sarah Palin. Actually, that is a lie; it is more like I must talk about Sarah Palin, and I’d like to get it out of the way. When she was first announced, my first reaction was, “who?” My next reaction was that of intrigue, at this handsome, well-groomed woman who kills moose with her bare hands. Then there was that period for the next couple of weeks where a new scandal would break about her every two hours. I mostly ignored these as reactionary hearsay, but I started to become worried that a few of these were sticking around, despite the fact that nobody cared anymore. In fact, the book banning and law enforcement scandals now appear to actually be backed up by credible evidence, yet nothing has come of it because the country has moved on to other things. As the weeks passed, I kept a suspicious eye on Ms. Palin, until finally that fateful interview aired. At last the truth came out: she is a dunderhead.
This woman is quite possibly the only Republican dumber than George W. Bush. It was obvious from the beginning that she was a half-assed publicity stunt, but good god, she is dumber than a bag of wet coats. She is a hand puppet being held up by a hand puppet. Honestly, I’m not sure she even realizes she’s running for Vice-President; it’s possible she thinks John McCain is some kind of magical troll who will grant her wishes if she says nice things about him.
Which brings us to McCain. What the fuck happened to this guy? A few years ago, he seemed like he had a pretty good head on his shoulders. True, I didn’t always agree with the guy, but at least he had the balls to be a pro-choice Republican. This guy didn’t care who he pissed off, and he made his own decisions. I don’t know if he suddenly incurred a large debt to the Republican National Committee, or if he’s just gone senile, but in his current state, McCain is just sad. They’ve made him fall in line idealistically with Bush, and when they forced Sarah Palin on him, they just cut off his balls completely.
Moving on, let’s talk about the economy. The economy sucks.
What? You wanted more? Ugh, fine.
As I am apparently a fierce goddamn romantic, I tend to see things in metaphor. And to me, the economy is a great big solid oak table, well built, and cluttered with stuff. The only problem is right now one of the legs is mottled and cracked, covered with duct tape and constantly creaking and quivering. If I were a self-important political cartoonist, the leg would be holding up a sign that says “Wall Street.” Now Congress has a choice. They can either put 700 billion dollars worth of duct tape on that leg, which ought to hold it for a while, or they can stand around and do nothing and wait for it to break (I guess the table metaphor isn’t perfect, because there’s no real world equivalent for “rip the leg off and replace it with a sturdy piece of wood,” but I still like it). Now, when the leg breaks, all the shit on the leg is going to come crashing down all over the fucking place: a catastrophe, right? Well, not really. I mean, most of that stuff was just books, so you can just pick them up and put them back on the table. True, your grandmother’s antique tea set is ruined, and you had a really nice watch sitting there that wasn’t shock resistant and now it keeps weird time, and you really wish you still had these things, but fuck, life goes on. There’s not going to be a depression over this crisis, it’s just a case of some idiots wanted to get richer, so they wished some phantom money into existence. It never occurred to them that that money would have to come from somewhere, and since it didn’t, the money turned back into ghosts, who stuffed their pockets with money and flew back away to whatever dimension they came from. Sure, I feel bad for the people who actually trusted and rely on those banks, but you can’t protect everybody from everything. Either way, bailout or no bailout, I think I’ll probably just take this thing in stride.
I suppose I should say something about the Democratic ticket. I feel the same way about Obama that I used to feel about McCain: his views skew a bit more liberal than mine, but he’s a real, intelligent person who is not just at the end of the strings of his political party. I don’t give a rat’s ass about Joe Biden. It could come out that Biden was at Disneyland, shitting into his hand and throwing it at people, and it still would not be enough to get me to care one way or the other about him.
So now you know how I feel about that thing that everyone’s talking about. I hope you enjoyed it. Now fuck off.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
A Mini-Play Not About Al Gore
NATHANIEL
Say Brian, have you heard the latest news?
BRIAN
I am unsure as to which news you are referring.
NATHANIEL
It seems that 99% of all homicides are, in fact, committed by rabbits. They’ve got to be stopped, Brian, we’ve got to bring an end to the killing.
BRIAN
That seems like a dubious claim, Nathaniel.
NATHANIEL
Ah, but I’m afraid it is true. Why there could be rabbits in your house RIGHT NOW, killing your children.
BRIAN
Perchance do you have any evidence to back up this claim?
NATHANIEL
Of course I do. Do you honestly think I’d say something like that without evidence?
BRIAN
…
NATHANIEL
…
BRIAN
Well?
NATHANIEL
Fine, since you’re so insistent. It was in a recent scientific paper.
BRIAN
By whom?
NATHANIEL
A well respected scientist.
BRIAN
Which one?
NATHANIEL
Look, I can’t be expected to keep track of everything and cite every little thing I say. I’m not Superman.
BRIAN
Well, you do seem to be trying to save the world from deadly bunny rabbits.
NATHANIEL
Oh, so it’s like that, is it? This whole thing is just a joke to you?
BRIAN
Owing to the nature of your claim, it is somewhat amusing.
NATHANIEL
Well, if you’re so clever and bright, why don’t you back it up? Prove that I’m wrong.
BRIAN
Are you serious?
NATHANIEL
I certainly am, Brian. If you can’t just admit that you are wrong, then come up with something to prove your claim.
BRIAN
You mean my claim that the overwhelming majority of homicide cases aren’t perpetrated by rabbits? Shouldn’t you be the one to prove your case, since yours is more extraordinary, and appears to be transparently made up on the spot?
NATHANIEL
Ah, but I’ve already proven my claim, haven’t I?
BRIAN
No.
NATHANIEL
I knew it, you can’t disprove my point, and you’re simply attacking me because you can’t admit defeat.
BRIAN
This is growing tiresome. Why don’t we just solve this debate by going down to the police station and asking to see their statistics?
NATHANIEL
Oh please, you honestly trust their statistics?
BRIAN
Well, yes. Why wouldn’t I?
NATHANIEL
Well, there are a number of homicides that go unreported, or unsolved. Also the police don’t process rabbits, only humans.
BRIAN
What percentage of homicides go unsolved?
NATHANIEL
Oh, I would say… about 99%.
BRIAN
Even if that were true, which it is not, then how do you conclude that the murderers are all rabbits?
NATHANIEL
Look Brian, no accurate rabbit census has ever been taken, and we already know these things procreate like, well, like bunnies. If we’re not careful, we could soon be up to our eyeballs in duplicitous, murdering long ears.
BRIAN
You just completely changed the subject, and now you’ve moved on to meaningless fear mongering.
NATHANIEL
According to my calculations, in ten years, the rabbit density in New Mexico will increase to 13 rabbits for every square foot. Imagine a giant fuzzy blanket of cottony tails, whiskers, and HORROR.
BRIAN
Are you even listening to me anymore?
NATHANIEL
I’ve prepared a PowerPoint presentation, and I’m going to use it to spread awareness of this issue around the entire world.
BRIAN
Yeah, guess not.
NATHANIEL
Then, hopefully with a little luck, I’ll win an Oscar for it somehow, and I’ll be able to have people who disagree with me kil--
BRIAN
Well, good luck with your mental breakdown there, I’m going to go get some lunch.
NATHANIEL
And then no one will ever be able to call me “Mr. Poopypants” again! For I will be a respected humanitarian! BWAHAHAHAHA!
Epilogue: Two minutes later, Nathaniel blew out his O-ring and his trousers sadly perished of an extreme case of butt poisoning.
ADDENDUM
Say Brian, have you heard the latest news?
BRIAN
I am unsure as to which news you are referring.
NATHANIEL
It seems that 99% of all homicides are, in fact, committed by rabbits. They’ve got to be stopped, Brian, we’ve got to bring an end to the killing.
BRIAN
That seems like a dubious claim, Nathaniel.
NATHANIEL
Ah, but I’m afraid it is true. Why there could be rabbits in your house RIGHT NOW, killing your children.
BRIAN
Perchance do you have any evidence to back up this claim?
NATHANIEL
Of course I do. Do you honestly think I’d say something like that without evidence?
BRIAN
…
NATHANIEL
…
BRIAN
Well?
NATHANIEL
Fine, since you’re so insistent. It was in a recent scientific paper.
BRIAN
By whom?
NATHANIEL
A well respected scientist.
BRIAN
Which one?
NATHANIEL
Look, I can’t be expected to keep track of everything and cite every little thing I say. I’m not Superman.
BRIAN
Well, you do seem to be trying to save the world from deadly bunny rabbits.
NATHANIEL
Oh, so it’s like that, is it? This whole thing is just a joke to you?
BRIAN
Owing to the nature of your claim, it is somewhat amusing.
NATHANIEL
Well, if you’re so clever and bright, why don’t you back it up? Prove that I’m wrong.
BRIAN
Are you serious?
NATHANIEL
I certainly am, Brian. If you can’t just admit that you are wrong, then come up with something to prove your claim.
BRIAN
You mean my claim that the overwhelming majority of homicide cases aren’t perpetrated by rabbits? Shouldn’t you be the one to prove your case, since yours is more extraordinary, and appears to be transparently made up on the spot?
NATHANIEL
Ah, but I’ve already proven my claim, haven’t I?
BRIAN
No.
NATHANIEL
I knew it, you can’t disprove my point, and you’re simply attacking me because you can’t admit defeat.
BRIAN
This is growing tiresome. Why don’t we just solve this debate by going down to the police station and asking to see their statistics?
NATHANIEL
Oh please, you honestly trust their statistics?
BRIAN
Well, yes. Why wouldn’t I?
NATHANIEL
Well, there are a number of homicides that go unreported, or unsolved. Also the police don’t process rabbits, only humans.
BRIAN
What percentage of homicides go unsolved?
NATHANIEL
Oh, I would say… about 99%.
BRIAN
Even if that were true, which it is not, then how do you conclude that the murderers are all rabbits?
NATHANIEL
Look Brian, no accurate rabbit census has ever been taken, and we already know these things procreate like, well, like bunnies. If we’re not careful, we could soon be up to our eyeballs in duplicitous, murdering long ears.
BRIAN
You just completely changed the subject, and now you’ve moved on to meaningless fear mongering.
NATHANIEL
According to my calculations, in ten years, the rabbit density in New Mexico will increase to 13 rabbits for every square foot. Imagine a giant fuzzy blanket of cottony tails, whiskers, and HORROR.
BRIAN
Are you even listening to me anymore?
NATHANIEL
I’ve prepared a PowerPoint presentation, and I’m going to use it to spread awareness of this issue around the entire world.
BRIAN
Yeah, guess not.
NATHANIEL
Then, hopefully with a little luck, I’ll win an Oscar for it somehow, and I’ll be able to have people who disagree with me kil--
BRIAN
Well, good luck with your mental breakdown there, I’m going to go get some lunch.
NATHANIEL
And then no one will ever be able to call me “Mr. Poopypants” again! For I will be a respected humanitarian! BWAHAHAHAHA!
Epilogue: Two minutes later, Nathaniel blew out his O-ring and his trousers sadly perished of an extreme case of butt poisoning.
ADDENDUM
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
A Non-Review of Bioshock
This is supposed to be a review of the guaranteed-to-be-a-cult-classic Xbox 360/PC game, Bioshock. The problem is, I don’t really know what to say about the game. The first 75 percent of the game is epic, grand, and enthralling, and then all at once it all falls away and becomes a standard shooter with a boring and mud puddle-shallow revenge driven storyline. To get an idea of how egregious this is, imagine if you will that towards the end of Citizen Kane, after learning of the life and trials of Charles Foster Kane, our intrepid reporter returned to his home where he was ambushed by the movie’s eponymous subject, and beaten within an inch of his life. Finally, Kane reveals that some years previous, the reporter had run over his beloved dog “Fruffers,” and the billionaire newspaper magnate faked his death in order to carry out his revenge. Now imagine that he produces a shotgun, kills the man, and then has to shoot his way out of the apartment complex, blowing away hundreds of faceless thugs. Would you still call that a good movie? Keep in mind though, that up to this point this new version contains every single captivating scene from the original, save for the crucial “Rosebud” reveal.
I was going to use an analogy here comparing the game to having sex, and just before the climax you stop and go home. But that’s not really what it’s like. A better analogy is just as things are getting good, you remember that you have a whole bunch of math homework you have to do. You still come, but it’s cheapened somewhat by the fact that now you have to spend the rest of the night doing equations.
Okay, so what the fuck am I talking about? Well, to get specific, I’ll need to provide a quick synopsis of the game. Take care, beyond this point, there be spoilers.
You start out the story on a plane, speaking a single line of insignificant voiceover. This stands out as odd, because these will be the last words you will ever hear your character speak. The plane soon crashes, and you find yourself swimming to a curious lighthouse in the middle of the sea. Inside is a conspicuous bathysphere, which you climb into without hesitation and throw the switch. Why in the name of Ayn Rand you would do this, is an interesting question, and a matter for later on. Immediately you plunge beneath the sea, the sphere darkens, and a projector suddenly springs to life. Across a dusty screen flicker images of propaganda as a charismatic and confident voice fills you with his ideals. The screen suddenly shrinks away to reveal his underwater utopia, the city of “Rapture.” And it’s beautiful. It’s sort of an underwater New York meets Chicago, with three times the vertical height, with whales and giant squid roaming between the tube-connected high-rises. You can’t help but feel a sense of awe at this impressive feat of artistry and design, and as you approach your destination, the game teases you with advertisements, saying things like “free samples of telekinesis.”
As soon as you enter the docking station, however, everything changes. Inside, the city is literally falling apart, and there is trash and debris strewn everywhere. Worse yet, the only inhabitants you see are horribly mutilated punks, who wander the city, violently assaulting anyone they encounter. Your only contact in this dank hellhole is a charming fellow with an difficult to place accent named “Atlas.” He enlists you in helping his family escape the city. Without even a second thought, you agree and start collecting weapons, and powering yourself up with “plasmids,” solutions which alter your DNA giving you fantastic powers. As you proceed, you start to find tape recorders, lots and lots of tape recorders. Apparently the citizens of Rapture were encouraged to keep audio diaries and then leave them all scattered about. Through these recordings, you begin to learn of the city, and how it came to be first divided by class warfare, and then utterly destroyed by plasmids. You also learn of the little girls, transformed into monsters by the substance that allows the transformations, called “ADAM,” who are trained to gather and recycle the precious gene-altering substance from the recently deceased. You quickly learn from experience of the nigh-unstoppable killing machines whose sole purpose it is to guard them.
By the time you reach Atlas’ family, the Charles Foster Kane type you heard back in the bathysphere, Andrew Ryan, has begun to notice your presence in his city, and is now actively trying to kill you. He responds to your escape attempt by blowing up your escape submarine, killing Atlas’ wife and child in the process. Heartbroken, Atlas charges you with a mission of vengeance, asking you, “would you kindly kill Andrew Ryan?”
By this point, and along the path toward Ryan, you begin to notice strange things. As this is a video game, death is impossible, because that would permanently ruin your ability to progress in the game. However, this game actually handles death with something that exists within the world of the game. If you die, you are instantly transported to a Vita-Chamber, a sort of glass resurrection tube. From here, you can, step out of the tube, and everything will be as it was, except you are not alive. It is not a retry, as your actions, have not been reversed, it is an honest resurrection. But sooner or later, you’re going to begin wondering why the Vita-Chamber only works on you. The answer is revealed to you first subtly through tape recordings, then explicitly once you reach Ryan. You are Ryan’s son.
You were conceived illegitimately, and your prostitute mother sold your fetus to researchers, probably so that she could score more ADAM, and your genes were altered to resist the poisonous effect that junk had on so many. You were also conditioned to someday return to Rapture, to kill Andrew Ryan. Atlas’ quirky catchphrase of, “would you kindly?” is revealed to be a codeword which forces you to follow the request without question. As a result, you have no choice but to watch as you brutally kill an old man, who wants nothing more than to save your freedom. Atlas is then revealed to be Ryan’s rival, the man who started the black market that eventually destroyed Rapture, the smuggler Fontaine. Turns out his family, as well as his endearing accent, were fake, and just the tools of deception he employed to use you to take out Ryan.
Now, up to this point, this sounds pretty great, right? Well, this is the point where the story takes a nose-dive. Obviously it isn’t over, as you clearly need to deal with Fontaine now. The stage has been set, Fontaine’s plan has succeeded, and now he should be poised to take over Rapture, right? The only problem is that he doesn’t. Instead, he spends the rest of the game taunting you, and just generally being a dick over the radio. Doesn’t this guy have stuff to do? Plus, as he’s talking to you over the radio, he doesn’t really reveal any new details. You never really get to see why he used this plan in the first place, or why he’d even want to take over Rapture after he’d basically turned it into a cesspool where only survivors were crack heads all hopped up on superpower juice.
So you shoot a bunch of guys, and you no longer really care about the setting. In fact, it hardly seems like you’re underwater anymore. After killing who knows how many crack heads, you finally reach Fontaine, who has pumped himself so full of ADAM that he’s a giant glowing steel monster. There is absolutely no explanation for why he did this, in fact there’s no indication up to this point that he’d been indulging in ADAM. After a pathetically easy boss fight there’s a cutscene which I swear is only about 45 seconds long, where you return to the surface with the little girls you’ve saved, it’s shown that you raised them as surrogate daughters, and then you’re returned to the title screen. No credit crawl, not even a fade to black, just “Bioshock: Press Start.” That’s all you get for beating the game.
You learn nothing new about Fontaine, and nothing new about the city, from the moment you kill Andrew Ryan onward. There are still tape recorders everywhere, but they only tell you where you can find the next macguffin to bring you closer to the final fight.
This is not a review of Bioshock. I say this because even having expended this many words about the game, I still don’t know what to think of it. Bioshock invited me over for a party, and it was a kickass party, until for some unknown reason we all started taking turns humping the radiator. If I had to score it, I would give the first part a perfect score, and the second part a score of “a porcupine fisting a cream pie.”
So now I’m going to retire to the garage and finish construction on my Big Daddy suit, so I can finally finish the game properly. See you on the evening news.
ADDENDUM:
I was going to use an analogy here comparing the game to having sex, and just before the climax you stop and go home. But that’s not really what it’s like. A better analogy is just as things are getting good, you remember that you have a whole bunch of math homework you have to do. You still come, but it’s cheapened somewhat by the fact that now you have to spend the rest of the night doing equations.
Okay, so what the fuck am I talking about? Well, to get specific, I’ll need to provide a quick synopsis of the game. Take care, beyond this point, there be spoilers.
You start out the story on a plane, speaking a single line of insignificant voiceover. This stands out as odd, because these will be the last words you will ever hear your character speak. The plane soon crashes, and you find yourself swimming to a curious lighthouse in the middle of the sea. Inside is a conspicuous bathysphere, which you climb into without hesitation and throw the switch. Why in the name of Ayn Rand you would do this, is an interesting question, and a matter for later on. Immediately you plunge beneath the sea, the sphere darkens, and a projector suddenly springs to life. Across a dusty screen flicker images of propaganda as a charismatic and confident voice fills you with his ideals. The screen suddenly shrinks away to reveal his underwater utopia, the city of “Rapture.” And it’s beautiful. It’s sort of an underwater New York meets Chicago, with three times the vertical height, with whales and giant squid roaming between the tube-connected high-rises. You can’t help but feel a sense of awe at this impressive feat of artistry and design, and as you approach your destination, the game teases you with advertisements, saying things like “free samples of telekinesis.”
As soon as you enter the docking station, however, everything changes. Inside, the city is literally falling apart, and there is trash and debris strewn everywhere. Worse yet, the only inhabitants you see are horribly mutilated punks, who wander the city, violently assaulting anyone they encounter. Your only contact in this dank hellhole is a charming fellow with an difficult to place accent named “Atlas.” He enlists you in helping his family escape the city. Without even a second thought, you agree and start collecting weapons, and powering yourself up with “plasmids,” solutions which alter your DNA giving you fantastic powers. As you proceed, you start to find tape recorders, lots and lots of tape recorders. Apparently the citizens of Rapture were encouraged to keep audio diaries and then leave them all scattered about. Through these recordings, you begin to learn of the city, and how it came to be first divided by class warfare, and then utterly destroyed by plasmids. You also learn of the little girls, transformed into monsters by the substance that allows the transformations, called “ADAM,” who are trained to gather and recycle the precious gene-altering substance from the recently deceased. You quickly learn from experience of the nigh-unstoppable killing machines whose sole purpose it is to guard them.
By the time you reach Atlas’ family, the Charles Foster Kane type you heard back in the bathysphere, Andrew Ryan, has begun to notice your presence in his city, and is now actively trying to kill you. He responds to your escape attempt by blowing up your escape submarine, killing Atlas’ wife and child in the process. Heartbroken, Atlas charges you with a mission of vengeance, asking you, “would you kindly kill Andrew Ryan?”
By this point, and along the path toward Ryan, you begin to notice strange things. As this is a video game, death is impossible, because that would permanently ruin your ability to progress in the game. However, this game actually handles death with something that exists within the world of the game. If you die, you are instantly transported to a Vita-Chamber, a sort of glass resurrection tube. From here, you can, step out of the tube, and everything will be as it was, except you are not alive. It is not a retry, as your actions, have not been reversed, it is an honest resurrection. But sooner or later, you’re going to begin wondering why the Vita-Chamber only works on you. The answer is revealed to you first subtly through tape recordings, then explicitly once you reach Ryan. You are Ryan’s son.
You were conceived illegitimately, and your prostitute mother sold your fetus to researchers, probably so that she could score more ADAM, and your genes were altered to resist the poisonous effect that junk had on so many. You were also conditioned to someday return to Rapture, to kill Andrew Ryan. Atlas’ quirky catchphrase of, “would you kindly?” is revealed to be a codeword which forces you to follow the request without question. As a result, you have no choice but to watch as you brutally kill an old man, who wants nothing more than to save your freedom. Atlas is then revealed to be Ryan’s rival, the man who started the black market that eventually destroyed Rapture, the smuggler Fontaine. Turns out his family, as well as his endearing accent, were fake, and just the tools of deception he employed to use you to take out Ryan.
Now, up to this point, this sounds pretty great, right? Well, this is the point where the story takes a nose-dive. Obviously it isn’t over, as you clearly need to deal with Fontaine now. The stage has been set, Fontaine’s plan has succeeded, and now he should be poised to take over Rapture, right? The only problem is that he doesn’t. Instead, he spends the rest of the game taunting you, and just generally being a dick over the radio. Doesn’t this guy have stuff to do? Plus, as he’s talking to you over the radio, he doesn’t really reveal any new details. You never really get to see why he used this plan in the first place, or why he’d even want to take over Rapture after he’d basically turned it into a cesspool where only survivors were crack heads all hopped up on superpower juice.
So you shoot a bunch of guys, and you no longer really care about the setting. In fact, it hardly seems like you’re underwater anymore. After killing who knows how many crack heads, you finally reach Fontaine, who has pumped himself so full of ADAM that he’s a giant glowing steel monster. There is absolutely no explanation for why he did this, in fact there’s no indication up to this point that he’d been indulging in ADAM. After a pathetically easy boss fight there’s a cutscene which I swear is only about 45 seconds long, where you return to the surface with the little girls you’ve saved, it’s shown that you raised them as surrogate daughters, and then you’re returned to the title screen. No credit crawl, not even a fade to black, just “Bioshock: Press Start.” That’s all you get for beating the game.
You learn nothing new about Fontaine, and nothing new about the city, from the moment you kill Andrew Ryan onward. There are still tape recorders everywhere, but they only tell you where you can find the next macguffin to bring you closer to the final fight.
This is not a review of Bioshock. I say this because even having expended this many words about the game, I still don’t know what to think of it. Bioshock invited me over for a party, and it was a kickass party, until for some unknown reason we all started taking turns humping the radiator. If I had to score it, I would give the first part a perfect score, and the second part a score of “a porcupine fisting a cream pie.”
So now I’m going to retire to the garage and finish construction on my Big Daddy suit, so I can finally finish the game properly. See you on the evening news.
ADDENDUM:
Thursday, August 30, 2007
My PAX 2007 Report
The Marching of the Cunts
Six thousand by six thousand stood they,
The stalwart cunts,
Weaponless and exposed, they marched on
And sixty thousand by sixty thousand, did they face
Of men, both terrible and strong.
And quickly were they trodden upon.
Those brave cunts, those brave cunts!
The bards would someday sing.
Those cunts, which stood against the dawn.
And as they were slaughtered, they stood braver still
No queef nor complaint did they utter.
They stood upon that hillside slaughterground,
Like floppy pink pillars of stone.
For theirs is not to reason why,
Theirs is but to do and die.
O cunts, O stalwart cunts.
ADDENDUM:
Six thousand by six thousand stood they,
The stalwart cunts,
Weaponless and exposed, they marched on
And sixty thousand by sixty thousand, did they face
Of men, both terrible and strong.
And quickly were they trodden upon.
Those brave cunts, those brave cunts!
The bards would someday sing.
Those cunts, which stood against the dawn.
And as they were slaughtered, they stood braver still
No queef nor complaint did they utter.
They stood upon that hillside slaughterground,
Like floppy pink pillars of stone.
For theirs is not to reason why,
Theirs is but to do and die.
O cunts, O stalwart cunts.
ADDENDUM:
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Fucking Fuck Apple, and Their Shoddy Ass Products
I'm going to start off this post with a confession. I'm a big fucking hypocrite. I wrote this huge review completely blasting Apple Computers, particularly their marketing, and a few weeks ago, I bought an Ipod (no, I shall not lowercase that "I" because I won't give them the satisfaction). I bought it because I wanted a portable video playing device, and theirs was the cheapest one with all the features I wanted. I also bought it because I now subscribe to a number of podcasts, and I wanted a device with better organization for those. Which brings me to my complaint.
I fucking hate Itunes (again, note the "I"). And with good reason, because it sucks at organizing my music, and it likes to fuck around with my painstakingly organized tag information. But now that I have a fucking Ipod, I need to use fucking Itunes to transfer my stuff to it. Which is bad enough, but as I'm subscribing to all my podcasts over again in Itunes, something interesting is happening. Occasionally, a big group of podcast files decides to just disappear into the ether. Now, longtime Itunes users, I know what you're thinking; you're thinking that I just have it set to delete my old episodes. This is not the case, because I know where to find the settings, I know what they are set on, and I know what happens when you set them that way, and it isn't this. I can tell, because Itunes continues to look for the files, going so far as to ask me if I want to locate them. So I go into the folder, and to my surprise, the file that was there just two hours ago has now vanished without a trace. And no file bearing its name exists anywhere on my computer. And of course there's no way to re-download just that one file, oh no, that would be too convenient. You have to unsubscribe from the podcast, and re-download EVERY SINGLE EPISODE over again. And if you like to keep your old episodes like I do, this is a huge pain in the ass.
So, Apple, if you're reading this (you're probably not, so luckily I sent you an email stating the same thing but saying the word "fuck" a few less times), you're officially on my list of people who I wouldn't mind if they got sodomized by bears (sadly, the bears can only manage to sodomize six people per year, or at least six who will report it). If this is the type of product you put your name behind, and the type of customer service you offer (where the fuck is your damned telephone number?), then I deeply regret giving you money. And keep in mind you were already on my shit list when I did. If I had it to do over again, I would have spent the extra money and gone with a brand that doesn't treat people like shit and act all fucking haughty over it. Your corporation is garbage, and I hope that someday your legacy is regarded as a puke-stain on the carpet in the hall of history.
Also, bears, if you're reading this, I would be eternally grateful if you would place these guys at the top of your anal rape list. Seriously, I'll buy you guys dinner and everything.
ADDENDUM:
I fucking hate Itunes (again, note the "I"). And with good reason, because it sucks at organizing my music, and it likes to fuck around with my painstakingly organized tag information. But now that I have a fucking Ipod, I need to use fucking Itunes to transfer my stuff to it. Which is bad enough, but as I'm subscribing to all my podcasts over again in Itunes, something interesting is happening. Occasionally, a big group of podcast files decides to just disappear into the ether. Now, longtime Itunes users, I know what you're thinking; you're thinking that I just have it set to delete my old episodes. This is not the case, because I know where to find the settings, I know what they are set on, and I know what happens when you set them that way, and it isn't this. I can tell, because Itunes continues to look for the files, going so far as to ask me if I want to locate them. So I go into the folder, and to my surprise, the file that was there just two hours ago has now vanished without a trace. And no file bearing its name exists anywhere on my computer. And of course there's no way to re-download just that one file, oh no, that would be too convenient. You have to unsubscribe from the podcast, and re-download EVERY SINGLE EPISODE over again. And if you like to keep your old episodes like I do, this is a huge pain in the ass.
So, Apple, if you're reading this (you're probably not, so luckily I sent you an email stating the same thing but saying the word "fuck" a few less times), you're officially on my list of people who I wouldn't mind if they got sodomized by bears (sadly, the bears can only manage to sodomize six people per year, or at least six who will report it). If this is the type of product you put your name behind, and the type of customer service you offer (where the fuck is your damned telephone number?), then I deeply regret giving you money. And keep in mind you were already on my shit list when I did. If I had it to do over again, I would have spent the extra money and gone with a brand that doesn't treat people like shit and act all fucking haughty over it. Your corporation is garbage, and I hope that someday your legacy is regarded as a puke-stain on the carpet in the hall of history.
Also, bears, if you're reading this, I would be eternally grateful if you would place these guys at the top of your anal rape list. Seriously, I'll buy you guys dinner and everything.
ADDENDUM:
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
The Great Search
I went up the mountain to see the three wise men. For three days I climbed, and when I reached the top, I was told I could only see one.
I saw the first wise man, and I asked him, "where did we come from? Where are we going? Why do we care?"
The first wise man, for three days, led me back down the mountain, filling my head with sweet nothings. Unsatisfied with my answer, I once again went up the mountain. This time, I saw the second wise man.
I asked the second wise man, "Why are we here? Where are we going? Why do we want to go there?"
The second wise man simply handed me a flower, and said, "This is the answer to all your questions. Take it, and cherish it forever."
I placed the flower in my pack, and spent three days hiking back down the mountain. When I reached the bottom, I found the flower had withered and died. Again, for three days, I hiked back up the mountain to see the second wise man.
"You came to me seeking answers, and I gave you what I had," the wise man replied to my outbursts. "That you wasted my ephemeral gift is your own fault." And with that, he sent me back down the mountain.
I climbed the mountain one final time, to see the final wise man. I stormed into the third wise man's chamber, and shouted, "Listen! I've come to find the answer to the question of my existence. I've been up and down this mountain seven times, and spent 21 days climbing. I don't want meaningless warm fuzzies, and I don't want cryptic puzzles. Just, please, answer my question. How should I live my life?"
The third wise man leaned in close, and softly said to me, "Stop climbing mountains, you fuckwit."
ADDENDUM:
I saw the first wise man, and I asked him, "where did we come from? Where are we going? Why do we care?"
The first wise man, for three days, led me back down the mountain, filling my head with sweet nothings. Unsatisfied with my answer, I once again went up the mountain. This time, I saw the second wise man.
I asked the second wise man, "Why are we here? Where are we going? Why do we want to go there?"
The second wise man simply handed me a flower, and said, "This is the answer to all your questions. Take it, and cherish it forever."
I placed the flower in my pack, and spent three days hiking back down the mountain. When I reached the bottom, I found the flower had withered and died. Again, for three days, I hiked back up the mountain to see the second wise man.
"You came to me seeking answers, and I gave you what I had," the wise man replied to my outbursts. "That you wasted my ephemeral gift is your own fault." And with that, he sent me back down the mountain.
I climbed the mountain one final time, to see the final wise man. I stormed into the third wise man's chamber, and shouted, "Listen! I've come to find the answer to the question of my existence. I've been up and down this mountain seven times, and spent 21 days climbing. I don't want meaningless warm fuzzies, and I don't want cryptic puzzles. Just, please, answer my question. How should I live my life?"
The third wise man leaned in close, and softly said to me, "Stop climbing mountains, you fuckwit."
ADDENDUM:
Thursday, April 12, 2007
A Brief Respite, Featuring Garfield
It's a little known fact that whenever a strip of the famous newspaper comic "Garfield" goes to print, they are usually highly edited for content, and all the jokes changed to unfunny observations about the dullness of Mondays, or lasagna, or some such bullshit. I have been in email contact with Jim Davis for years now, and I have been editing his published works to more resemble their raw, uncut originals. Here is the latest in my crusade for integrity:
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And a bonus comic full of pseudo-intellectual angst:
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Edit: Removed embedded pictures due to formatting issues.
42.gif
And a bonus comic full of pseudo-intellectual angst:
43.gif
Edit: Removed embedded pictures due to formatting issues.
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