Glee Vs. Jonathan Coulton

The internet is getting pissy about Glee ripping off Jonathan Coulton, who himself ripped off Sir Mix-A-Lot. I personally heard slowed-down cover by Richard Cheese that was essentially the same thing. Hell, Ross singing, “Baby Got Back,” on Friends was a lot similar. Basically, the internet is upset that Glee ripped of the last guy in line to rip off Sir Mix-A-Lot. This is one of those cases where the internet doesn’t know what to be mad at, so they’ll be mad at the most girly thing in the non-feud, which is Glee.

You’re Doing it Wrang

I had some serious debate with myself on whether or not to spell it, “Your,” in the title of this blog, but I thought that people wouldn’t get the joke. Quite frankly, I’m concerned some people might not get the, “Wrang,” part either. I have little faith in humanity.

I was thinking about how we talk to babies and teach them. For instance, we call puppies and kittens, “puppy,” and, “kitty.” Then we go off our rockers and add a, “Y,” or, “ie,” to every other conceivable word.

Horse becomes, “Horsey.”

Bird becomes, “Birdie.”

Dog becomes, “Doggie.”

Fish becomes, “Fishy.”

The list goes on, especially where animals are concerned. We’re adding a syllable to every other word. Doesn’t that get confusing to babies? That they’re expected to learn something and then later drop the syllable for the correct word when they’re older? We’re making words longer, and adding a strange moniker, like the Japanese do with, “-san.”

Still, try talking to a baby without saying words that way. It can’t be done, unless you’re one of those disapproving and distant fathers from the 50’s sitting in his study with a glass full of Scotch. It’s like trying to tell a kid there’s no Santa.

On the subject of Santa, what’s up with that? We tell kids there’s a Santa, then we tell them there’s no Santa, when there’s really technically a Santa. If you’re going to be honest with your kids, tell them that Santa’s real, and that he died hundreds of years ago. Then get on a plane and take them to see Santa’s bones, then tell them that those probably aren’t his real bones, since they were stolen and re-distributed across Europe hundreds of years ago.

Cliver Barker Facebook

I’m trying to decide why I chose to follow Clive Barker, horror author and artist, on facebook, since I’m not particularly a fan of his works. I’m aware of them. I’ve seen snippets, and I like them, but I can’t say I’m “into” it all. Then I decided he’s awesome, and everything he does is awesome.

Facebook is a place where conceptions go to die. It’s all your relatives that don’t like you, co-workers you don’t like, and people in high school you don’t remember. The average post on facebook is either a wedding, or a baby, or babies at a wedding. Clive Barker is an openly gay artist riding on the coat-tails of his one accomplishment. Hellraiser was never really a big thing, but it was a thing. I personally can’t even remember is it peaked in the 80’s or the 90’s, but he’s putting up more than one post a day about Hellraiser, like it just happed yesterday.

With success, there’s three kinds of people. There’s people who create their magnum opus early in life, and then everything they do revolves around it for the rest of their lives. Kevin Smith made Clerks, and every day he post something about it. Maybe it’s a picture of him holding up the mix-tape he used to make the soundtracks, or maybe it’s him posting a “fun” fact about Clerks, but it happens every day. Then there’s the come-back kid, like William Shatner, who did one big thing, and keeps coming back to it, but at the same time branches out into other areas. They’re always up to something, but you remember them for one big thing. Then there’s people like James Cameron, who try and hit you as hard as they can with their dicks.

Clive seems like he’s in the first category, but he’s happy with it, and it works. Hellraiser is pretty memorable, and his facebook page shows he’s always working, and he’s artistic and eclectic. In other words, he doesn’t suck.

Are You Ready For Some Griffball?

Griffball is the nearly the fifth greatest fictitious futuristic sporting event. If I had to pick ‘em, the list would go like this:

1: Blitzball from Final Fantasy X

2: Deathrace 2000

3: A tie between the Running Man and The Hunger Games

4: Rollerball

4: Griffball

Griffball in the Halo franchise should be called, “Griefball,” because all you do is Grief your opponents and fellow players. Griffball is the only matchmaking game where it’s conceivably possible for the average player to score a 10 multi-kill, with only four opponents. In other games, they don’t spawn fast enough, or close enough to rank that up. The rules are very simple: You pick up a ball and drop it into your opponent’s “net” on the ground. Everyone except the ball-carrier has either a gravity hammer, or energy sword. That’s it. Teams of 4 vs. 4. It’s easier to kill your own teammate by mistake, or on purpose in this game than any other math of Halo, because you’re just wildly swinging a gravity hammer around, and you’re all running for the same kill. The un-official “goal” of Griffball is to steal the ball and hang out back by your own net, while your other teammates and you rank up kills in a stalemate match. You’ll want to sneak in behind the other team’s spawn point and repeatedly spawn camp them. If they’re AFK, you’ve struck murder-gold.

Griffball just dropped for ranked matchmaking Halo 4, and it’s actually taken away a lot of the advancements Halo Reach had introduced, like jet-packs and other power-ups. A lot of people wondered why Griffball wasn’t there at launch. If you look at it, though, Griffball is kind of a gimmie when it comes to spectacular kills and ranking-up. Halo 4 is trying to be CoD, with progressive levelling and unlocks. Griffball lets you burn through a lot of the rank-ups, especially in weapons and multikill.

Inside Out

I’m still thinking about the Jodie Foster/John Hinckley Jr. thing.

When you rewind this narrative and look at it from a historical perspective, what would have happened if she had come out of the closet before John Hinckley fired his gun at Ronald Reagan?

Think about gun laws and gun violence in America, especially in the context of recent events. If Hinckley hadn’t tried to kill Regan and subsequently killed James S. Brady, there would have been no Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. All causes, no matter how noble, need a figurehead. Sometimes, unfortunately, that figurehead needs to be a victim. America has a love affair with it’s guns. Look how adamantly the NRA and other enthusiasts are opposing the possible ban on assault rifles. Even then, suggesting restrictions on selling handguns to prevent people like Hinckley -a deranged and obsessive man with a history of violence- from owning them was vehemently opposed. Arguably, the Bill did what it intended and kept guns away from dangerous people who would otherwise have easier access to them. What if without it, gun violence in America had escalated to level worse than we’re seeing today? Could this Bill have helped stop a tragedy equal to, or greater than what happened with the most recent school shooting? We'll never know, because Jodie Foster kept herself in the closet.

What if she had come out earlier. How would Hinckley have reacted, knowing the object of his twisted affection was a lesbian? What is his reaction today? Would he have turned his gun on himself, or on her, or some other innocent victim? Gays and lesbians often feel like they are risking their own lives if they choose to expose what they are. In this case, the threat was quite real. Hinckley could have killed her.

One difficult choice, with so many different paths. Because of one man, and his illness, her choice could have had consequences we never dreamed of. Brady might still be alive if she had come out, but countless others could have died.

I was checking wikipedia, and it says over 1.9 million firearm purchases were blocked because of the Brady Bill. That’s a gun for every man, woman and child in a major city. Think about how many lives 1.9 million guns could have taken. 1.9 million guns is enough to arm an entire army of soldiers. Don’t believe me? That’s enough guns for every active soldier in North Korea, or India, and yes, even AMERICA. There’s only about 1.4 million soldiers active in the States today, during the twilight of the War in Afghanistan, and Post-Iraq. Over 8,000 people can expect to die of gun violence in America every year. Now imagine how much larger that number would be if every person who least deserves to have a gun have total access to them.

So Jodie Foster isn’t a coward, by any means. She’s unwittingly saved more lives than possibly anyone living in America.

On the Outs

It’s been a few weeks, but I only realized the Jodie Foster coming out speech at the Golden Globes could have had far-reaching historical impact… if it had been made, as she said, “since the stone age.” As you may remember, Jodie Foster, who’s apparently single and ready to mingle as long as you don’t have a dingle, was the object of obsession for John Hinckley Jr. (Sr. must be so proud), because of her role as an under-aged prostitute in Taxi Driver (technically there’s no legally acceptable “age” for a prostitute, but you know what I mean). Because of this, he shot at Actor/President Ronald Regan, who had nothing to do with Jodie Foster, or the movie Taxi Driver. If that makes sense to you, you’re John Hinckley Jr., and you’re in jail, reading this. How re you? Are you doing well? Are they treating you okay? I hope you’re getting the respect an attempted presidential assassin deserves in jail.

As an episode of American Dad pointed out, if Hinckley hadn’t tried to kill Reagan, Regan may have lost the election, turning the country into a Commie Paradise, bread lines and all. What if Jodie Foster had come out as full-blown gay back in the day? Would that have turned Hinckley off enough to stop him from his attempt? The entire course of human history could have been altered, unbeknownst to sexually-repressed and a little lonely Jodie Foster.

I read members of GLAAD were simultaneously applauding Jodie for coming out (kind-of), and snubbing her for not doing it earlier. Imagine what an openly lesbian actress in the early 80’s could have done for the cause? The Pride Parades could be celebrating their 30th anniversaries and…. I don’t know what else.

If anything, Jodie’s possibly America’s greatest hero for NOT coming out of the closet earlier, because of one crazy guy and a gun.

Bieberosity

I’m not necessarily a Bieber-hater. I don’t have the time to do the research into his songs, his twitter feed, and the underlying culture surrounding him to truly, truly hate him and his stupid hair. But I will say something about one of his songs. Ever switch through stations on the radio and hear part of a song, and not realize who’s singing it until you hear the DJ explain after, and then you feel dirty and unclean, right down to your soul? That happened to me and one of Bieber’s songs. That “Beauty and the Beast” one, which goes:

“All I need now to make my life complete/Is a Beauty and a Beast.”

What? What does that even mean? How am I suppose to interpret that? Are you like, way into Beauty and the Beast, the Disney film, and you have to be watching it all the time like a comic book store employees and Star Wars? Do you have it playing on a constant loop in your tour bus? Do you bring groupies, or Selina Gomez, or Selina Gomez groupies onto your bus and force them to watch it with you, your eyes not even focused on the screen as your lips move along with the words?

It’s like you’re complementing a woman on her beauty and saying to need her to be part of your life, but then you also need some really ugly chick too. Maybe there’s two friends, and you’re trying to fuck them both, and this is your way of telling them without really saying which one is the ugly one. It’s up to them to decide through a bitchy catfight who’s the prettiest, while you sit on your custom-built throne and laugh like you’re Geoffrey. Or maybe he’s so jaded at 19-whatever that he has to fuck a pretty girl and fugly girl at the same time just to get to normal/half-hard. It’s like how the golden Persian dude in 300 had topless belly dancers, and some of them had like faces growing out of their faces. Bieber is that Persian dude with all the piercings.

His life is “complete?” Is he going to kill himself? Is this a cry for help? After his frantic, confused mating will he retire to the bathroom, huddle in the shower and smear his face with lipstick while holding a gun to his temple? Does he even realize what effects “completeing” his life at 19-whatever could have on him? All his hopes, dreams and ambition would bleed out of him until he’s nothing but a shell with stupid hair.

Is he a Beast? Has he been cursed by an evil witch? Is that why his hair is so stupid? Is he going to die if the last rose petal falls? Also, why did the witch in Beauty and the Beast turn all the Beast’s servants into candles, cupboards and tea pots? That was a bitch move. Those people didn’t do anything to deserve that sort of punishment. The Beast got off relatively easy. I mean he still has hands and feet. Chip was just a kid, and now he’s a teacup with a chip in it. Did he have that chip to start with? If he shatters, does he die, or does he keeping on living a sham of life, still able to feel the pain of every broken piece, unable to move or even cry out against a cold and uncaring universe? What about that gay French candlestick guy? He has lit candles for hands. That melting wax is the closest thing he has to flesh, and it can detach from his body. What happens if the candles burn out? Is he in constant firey pain? Plus what happens if the Beast actually dies after the last rose petal falls? Do they keep on going, or do they turn into inanimate objects permanently. Fuck…. Maybe that’s why the Beauty fell in love with the Beast, just to release these poor people from their eternal torment.

Is Lance Armstrong a Dick?

Yes, yes he is. (Why are double positives okay, but not double negatives? Fucking optimists, that’s why.)

Or is he?

Yes, he’s a dick.

Think about it: Lance Armstrong basically nullified the results of seven Tour De Frances in which hundreds of competitors stretched their endurance to the limit after countless hours of training, only to be defeated by a guy with one nut and a butt-load (literally) of steroids. As a competitor, you went through one of the greatest trials of your life, only to have your hopes and dreams dashed by a cheater who went on to make millions in endorsements while you languished in obscurity. One man represented everything you ever aspired to, and he got there by rigging the game. You could say Lance Armstrong ruined his life and his legacy, but after his interview with Oprah was over, he probably took a limo back to his five star hotel and drowned his sorrows in top shelf booze before calling his wife back at his mansion and crying. There’s no way to feel sorry for him, or what he did, or what he is. He had all the talent and ambition you’d attribute to someone with the, “right stuff,” and he decided that as great as he was, he wasn’t good enough. So he cheated. That’s like throwing tacks behind you for other people to ride over when you’re already in first place.

If you boil down his confession, you’ll find the only reason he did it was because he wanted to be a better role model for his children. His children who live with him in his mansion, and want for nothing. They’re probably like Will Smith’s kids. What lesson can they factually take away from their dad eating a tiny slice of humble pie after a caviar buffet? That cheaters never win? Cheaters always win. They cheated. That’s the real secret to success. You want to get ahead in life? Cheat. Everyone’s trying to be the best, in their own way. No one is purposefully trying to come in last. Every man, woman and child on the planet is inching their way closer to their own goals in life, and they’re better than you. Tanya Harding them, then Barry Bonds yourself.

Look at every major athlete, multi-billionaire, First World nation, or international conglomerate. They all had some good ideas, they worked hard, and they had the talent to get where they are. They were also ruthless cheaters. The skirted every rule, every law, and basic human decency. If there was a way to grind babies into cocaine and money, they’d do it. You? You’re not them. You’re not a psycho/sociopath, dear reader.

Pete Rose has a new reality show about how awesome his life is, even after the betting scam that cost him his good graces. He’s fucking the shit out of his Penthouse playmate wife thanks to Cialis, and he wants you to know he’s better than you. Why? Because he cheated and you didn’t.

Like it or not, we all have are own moral fibres. Religion might have given them to you, or else the beatings. They’re what makes us the Obi-Wans to the Anakin Skywalkers of the world. We know right from wrong, even if we don’t admit it.

What did Lance Armstrong do? He basically destroyed an entire sport and a half-billion dollar charity for cancer victims because he thought he could stick a needle in his ass on the sly and no one would get suspicious about all his winning. Nothing you do with your daily screw-ups will really match that. Even Tiger Woods fucking anything that doesn’t already have a penis attached to it isn’t that bad.

How bad did he fuck up? He Oprah fucked up.

Oprah.

Oprah is the woman you have to apologize to when you fucked up so bad even your sacred ancestors are ashamed of you. Remember the guy who wrote a “Million Little Pieces,” (which was actually a pretty good book). His only crime was claiming it was a real auto-biography. Lance Armstrong got off easy compared to that guy, and all that guy did was write an inspirational book that wasn’t 100% non-fiction. He fabricated a romance and a couple key characters and left a work that still had an impact and lasting impression, and he not only had to apologize to Oprah, but he had to apologize to a Jewish author who wrote a book about the Holocaust. Imagine Oprah calling you out for being a douche on national TV, and then she brings in a Holocaust survivor to make you feel worse.

All Lance had to do was cry on TV for Oprah, and it was like he was the victim. Crying makes everything you do okay, because you’re a dude, and dudes don’t cry.

Lance isn’t even in any real legal trouble for all the shit he got into. He didn’t have to come out and even say he did what he did. He could have gone on Oprah, pulled down his pants and flashed his toned ass before injecting it with more Steroids, and not gotten into any more trouble, because Steroids are the consequence-free drug. If it was weed, he’d have a better chance of landing in prison, and two States are trying to legalize it. They say that records and legacy are wiped out by Steroid use, but this isn’t the magical land of Narnia. Sports Historians still have all the facts, and they still have to learn everything about you and your career to understand the sport at large. There might be a nameplate missing at the Hall of Fame, but everyone with a book or internet access for hundreds of years can know about you and your bullshit legacy. There’s still videos of you crashing though yellow tape and those are going to be preserved for future generations. He still gets to be a headline, while all the people he competed against are the footnotes, if that much, In fact, he’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to the sport, and arguably ever will. He’s become inseparable and immortal. He’s herpes. Rich, douchey herpes. 

Bob Sagat

No, not Bob Sagat. Sagat:

TIGER UPPERCUT!

I was re-thinking Street Fighter II, a game that had more editions than I can count. Literally. Let me try: there was Street Fighter II. Street Fighter II Turbo. Street Fighter II… GODDAMNIT. Wikipedia, help me out:

Okay: Super Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II: Championship Edition, Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, Hyper Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.

The one thing that all these editions have in common is that Sagat comes across as kind of a dick. He’s the second to last fighter in the tournament, and he’s M. Bison’s lieutenant. With that huge scar, eye patch, and bald head, he comes across as if Dr.Evil and Number Two had a reverse Mini-Me love child. The man exudes, “bad dude,” even when he’s not kicking you in the head from across the street.

But how did he get that scar? From Ryu, the game’s favourite protagonist. Ryu straight up took his eye. That scar looks like it opened his chest up too like it was armature surgeon night. Sagat nearly died at the hands of Ryu in the unseen transition from Street Fighter to Street Fighter II. Up until that point, Sagat was basically like any kick-boxer in the MMA, then Ryu took the game to a whole ‘nother level by burning him half to death with a Dragon Uppercut. He basically punched Sagat with spiritual fire hard enough to lift him off the ground and five feet into the air. You can see the result in the photo above. Sagat retaliated by training harder than ever and learning how to harness the same power and develop his own attack, the Tiger Uppercut, to counter Ryu. He’s Ahab, and Ryu is his Moby Dick-head.

Seriously, though, no one else in Street Fighter has the same back story. No one’s gone through the Street Fighter tournament like they accidentally crossed over into Mortal Kombat and lost that badly. Look at Sagat. Fighting is all he knows, and Ryu tried to take that away from him. He might work for M.Bison, but that doesn’t mean he’s the face of evil.

Smells Like Teen Spirit

I’m 99% certain that someone has taken a deuce at work and hidden it somewhere. Either that, or there’s a dead animal, or possibly even a neglected body. I first became aware of a smell about a week ago wafting out of a service hall. The main run where I toil has very obvious signs pointing to the bathroom, but virtually no one visiting ever bothers to crane their necks up to look at them. This leads to people wandering all over the place, looking for a place to shit. Possibly, this is what happened. Since I have to be around the area eight hours a day, I thought I’d look to see if there was a turd lying on the ground. It wouldn’t be the first time I found a dump on the floor. Yes, I have found shit on the ground at my old job. It was lying in the middle of an aisle, with no one in sight. When you’re working retail, you’re going to find a shit or two in the most unlikely of places. This happens whenever you work in a situation where anyone and everyone can happen by. There’s no filtering of the general population. At least at a bar you have a bouncer checking IDs and tossing people out on their ass. That doesn’t happen in retail. Shitty people come in, treat customers and workers like shit, and then take shits. So when you find a shit, the best thing to do is pretend you don’t see it. Be somewhere else. You’re obviously not paid to clean up shit. People could argue that you are, but you’re not. Not even janitors are paid to scoop up human feces. It’s expected, but it’s not like it’s explicitly written in any contract they signed. By avoiding the shit you’re passing the buck onto someone else. You could try and tell someone about the shit in the hopes that they would clean it up, but try to explain the situation favourably to someone. Their first reactions are going to be disbelief and disgust. You might even get blamed for the shit yourself. Sure, there’s security cameras all over the place and someone’s probably on the other end of the lens watching this person take a shit, but they’re not going to do boo about it. They’re too busy uploading it to youtube to finger the perp. No one is going to come to your defence if you’re accused of taking a shit on the floor. It’s like being called a witch.

Anyway, I tried to find the shit, but no such luck. My suspicion is that someone placed it inside a box, then sealed it, and put it on a shelf. A shit box, if you will. There’s too many nooks and crannies to check, plus why would I want to find the shit to begin with? I just want the smell gone. I super don’t want to come into contact with a shit.

The smell seems to be fading somewhat over the days.

Sadly, it’s not the foulest stench I’ve come across at work. At my old job someone had pulled lobster tails from the Seafood department and scattered them around my department. It’s not like they were out in the open, either. They were hidden between boxes. So everything in the aisle looked neat and tidy, but smelt like rotting fish. I found maybe two the first time around, but the smell lasted. I had to go back a second time a few days later, and pick up and go through every box to find the last bit. Yeah, it didn’t smell too good. Plus the lobster tails were like $20 a pop. My supervisor nearly vomited when I showed them to him. Seriously, I could have held them a little closer to his face and he would have spewed. They had to be double bagged before being thrown in the trash, and the smell followed me around like Pepe Le Pew.

As pranks go, stink pranks are some of the worst.

Gun Wake

In the wake of the Stanford shooting, guns are being blamed for contributing to violence in America. As a result of this, Vice President Joe Biden has asked the video game industry to improve it’s image. Go back and read that again.

The gun violence/video game correlation is brought up every time there’s a shooting in America. With the advent of Facebook, the curious public can go through every perpetrator’s profile and see what they’ve liked. If there’s a game in there, it will be blamed. It doesn’t help that Breivik, the world’s worst mass shooter, claims to have trained himself using Call of Duty.

Do violent video games really contribute to violence? Who knows. Numerous studies say yes there is a correlation, and numerous studies say no, don’t be stupid.

I can’t answer that question myself. My question is: Can violence be taken out of games? Look at the multi-billion dollar gaming industry, and how many of the top AAA titles, each selling record-breaking millions of copies contain guns and violence. Call of Duty has been the undisputed king of video games for years now, and it’s essentially gun porn. Players will play endless matches where they’re tasked with shooting men with guns in order to get new guns as a reward. Not that’s there’s only guns in the game, but I know as a fact from playing that using any weapon other than a gun is considered cheap and cheating. If you lob grenades, you’re considered cheap. If you use a mine or claymore, you’re considered cheap. If you use a knife, you’re considered cheap. Even using a sniper rifle is considered cheap. The only kind of kill people respect is taking a gun and getting close enough to see the whites of the eyes. Bear in mind, the most popular match types in Call of Duty are Team, and Free-For-All, the least strategic and least co-operative. All you do is point, click, boom over-and-over. So is it violent? Yes. It’s violent. It encourages players to act violently by rewarding violence with greater violence. The greatest thrill in the game is Multi-kills. Killing enough enemies in a row without dying unlocks weapons drops, up to and including nukes. The more kills, the higher your score, which isn’t even really what war is about, when you think about it. In war, you’re not expected to kill the greatest number of the enemy. Your goal is to gain the most objectives. That doesn’t even necessarily mean killing. You can drop in on an enemy base and take them all prisoner before raising your flag. That’s not something you can do in Call of Duty. There’s no button for mercy.

And it sells. It sells well. The top titles on the 360 almost all include guns. The only games that fall into a different category are sports and racing. There’s even bows and arrows in Minecraft, a game that’s essentially a Lego simulator. There’s very few popular games that you can point at and say don’t have some form of violence in them. Racing games have car-crashes. Sports games have tackling, fights, and injuries. Super Mario is about stomping animals to death. Even Guitar Hero had a drummer explode after a Spinal Tap song, and audiences throw bottles at you. Angry Birds has pig murder.

So can you take violence out of games? Sure, you can make games that aren’t violent, but don’t expect them to sell.

Rolling in those MS

“Hi slappyhands,
Happy Birthday Month!
Congratulations! This month you'll be another year wiser. But what's a birthday without a sweet surprise? Try this: Enjoy 20 Microsoft Points as our gift to you. Use it toward anything you wish in the Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Your birthday Microsoft Points will be automatically deposited into your Xbox LIVE account by the 15th of the month.
It's just one of the fun extras you get for reaching CONTENDER, CHAMPION or LEGEND status on MyAchievements from Xbox LIVE Rewards. Now, take a deep breath and blow out those candles!
Hoping your birthday wishes come true,
Xbox LIVE Rewards Squad”

First off, thank you. Yes, my birthday is coming soon. Secondly, you don’t seem to have an adequate understanding of what things cost on Xbox Live, which is odd, because you work there. “20 Microsoft Points,” is not enough to buy, “anything you wish in the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.” The lowest priced item I can think of is 80MS Points, and that will get you either an indie game, or a pair of gloves for your Avatar. So basically I’d have to save up my birthday rewards for four years to get something, and by that point, the 360 will be extinct. There’ll be a 720, or something similar. They’re phasing out the MS points by the end of this year, I heard, which is a move in the right direction. What happens to the points we have, though? Are they converted into dollars? True story, I still have credit left in my Playstation Store wallet, back from when I had a PSP. It’s only a dollar and some change, but there’s nothing I can buy with it, even if I had a Playstation product, because it’s so little. You’re expected to top up your non-refundable account to buy crap you don’t really need.

Super Mario Bros. 2

25-year-old *SPOILER ALERT*: Super Mario Bros. 2 took place inside of Mario’s dream, making it the original Inception. You only discover this at the end after beating the game and seeing the credits roll, meaning that Mario also dreamt the credits.

It also opens up a strange theory that any number of Mario’s games takes place inside his mind. Specifically, any game featuring a bad guy that first appeared in Super Mario Bros. 2, like the Shy Guys, or Birdo. That’s a lot of games. Like, a lot. That means basically any game where he’s playing tennis, racing, or having a party means he’s dreaming, as well as a few of the main titles. That explains all the games where Mario is having friendly competitions with Bowser instead of dodging fireballs.

There’s even a stranger theory that emerges from this. In the game, Birdo is a pink, Yoshi-like dinosaur that wears a bow and shoots bird-eggs at Mario out it’s mouth. It’s also a boy. In an instruction manual from one of the original copies, it explains how Birdo is basically Wild Bill from Silence of the Lambs. Later, in one of the Mario Tennis games and a Mario Racing game, Birdo is paired with Yoshi as a couple, insinuating they have some sort of homosexual relationship. Birdo’s completely imaginary, though, which means that Mario is dreaming of fighting a sexually confused dinosaur. Also, in the same game, he’s dreaming about being Princess Peach. Remember: you can play as Mario, Toadstool, Luigi, or Princess Peach in Super Mario Bros. 2, but you’re actually Mario dreaming about playing those characters. Mario’s dreaming up an entire scenario where he, as Princess Peach, can hover with her skirt and throw turnips at guys dressed in mask before sinking into quicksand and fighting a snake inside a giant clay pot. That’s fucked up. He even dreams about being his own brother, Luigi, who’s depicted for the first time as being taller and able to jump higher. His own insecurities about his brother are coming into play, where he feels like the inferior Mario Bros.

What if Mario hadn’t rescued the Sub-Cons in his dream, or died? Does he die in real life? What happens to all these people when he wakes up?

The Great American Novel

The Great American Novel
By Phil M.F. Allen

Chapter One:
Americock

    John Q. Bearcock was thinking of only one thing as he punched a shark in the nose and that was having a sandwich. Specifically, he was wondering how large of a sandwich he could fit inside his mouth in one bite. For a while now, he’d been toying with an idea for a sandwich comprised of steak piled on top of steak, with steak sauce and steak in place of the bun. He was going to call it the, “Colostomizer,” because he thought  that it sounded quite a bit better than, “Colossal.” The main problem he was running into was how much steak he could reasonably cram into one bite. He assumed it would be quite a lot, but what if it was too much for him to handle? Even he had his limits. He certainly wasn’t the shark he was now facing, with it’s vast gaping maw with rows upon rows of teeth waiting to bite into his bronzed flesh.
    John scowled at the shark, which he knew from experience wouldn’t deter the animal. Typically, punching a shark in the nose was more than sufficient when facial expression failed. Sharks were basically Nature’s pussies. One good hit in the schnozola or the gills and it was down for the count. Dolphins knew this, and so did good ol’ Bearcock. The difficulty lay in positioning yourself so that you might actually hit them in either of their two major weak-spots. When a shark isn’t circling you while waiting to eat you, it’s actively trying to eat you, so your entire perspective is essentially that of the inside of it’s mouth. The nose and gills, therefore, are somewhat out of reach. It takes split-second timing and manoeuvrability to launch yourself against these two points. Having punched many a shark to death during his years, John had these innate skills mastered. In his weaker moments, he almost pitied the sharks.
    This particular beast, however, was proving complicated. As said, a good punch in the nose should deter the most aggressive shark. This one seemingly shrugged off his blow as if he had laid a handkerchief to his nose instead of hard knuckles. Already, it was turning itself for another pass at John.
    That’s when John got mad. Not that he wasn’t already. He hated sharks, hated him with a passion. That’s why he spent every morning in the sea with the intention of fighting them bare-handed, often to the death. That he was still alive after all these years was a testament to his prowess in shark-fighting.
    Not that he fought sharks exclusively, mind you. With shark populations declining the world over, mostly due to fishing practices, he could go months without finding a shark to fight. He would often amuse himself with fighting a jellyfish, a seal, or an endangered turtle in their place. Anything in the ocean was fair game. Once he had fought a sea mine left over from WWII, just because it pissed him off. He had strangled it with it’s own anchor chain before it finally erupted. When he came to he continued by fighting the floating bits of shrapnel, even those he had pulled out of his chest.
    Sharks were no match for him, yet they always thought they could be. This particular brute, weighing many times his own weight, thought very highly of himself. That could be considered a poor decision at best. The Seven Seas were a graveyard for his foes, and John did not take such arrogance lightly.
    John was not the fastest thing in the sea. He could not hope to chase after a shark once it turned tail and fled, but if it chose to advance on him, he had him by his shark balls.
    Beyond placed where a shark could be punched, John didn’t know much about the anatomy of a shark. He didn’t know, per se, if sharks had balls. It stood to reason that some did, as sharks managed to procreate. He couldn’t tell you, though, if this particular shark had any balls. All sharks seemed to have were these flaps that looked peculiarly like a vagina, and he wondered as he often did, if he could fuck it. Not that he would, but he would if driven to such measures. He had always longed, in his heart, to rape a shark. To truly let that shark know who the dominant species was. His shortcomings in shark anatomy had kept him from doing the deed. What if it was a man-shark that he mistakenly raped? That would be kind of gay.
    In any event, he punched the shark in what he was reasonably sure was it’s balls. It was hard to say. The water was already murky with the blood from the sharks he had previously murdered with his bare hands, and in one case, his teeth. Blood was his friend, though, especially when it came to sharks. Sharks went ballistic for blood. It didn’t matter who’s it was, as long as there was a lot of it. Murdering sharks always led to there being more sharks in the vicinity, which led to more shark murder. This shark seemed to be the last of the pack., assuming that sharks had packs. John didn’t know what to call a group of sharks. Usually, he just called them pussies.