Fatal Consequences of Excessive Masturbation

That thing you do with your hands is very bad...

via Grumpy Gamer

Living In Denial

I am studiously trying to pretend that the massive spike in hits on this page -- massive for me, I've been averaging around 5 a day, I've had 235 thus week -- is not because I have hints, and a link to a solution, for the game du jour, H*pl*nd.

So in the spirit of honesty, thanks everyone for making me a little happier this week I hope some of you had a look around a bit and liked what you saw. But if you didn't, that's cool too.

Also I recently made a promise to mention Barbara "Babe" Jordan on here because she's a fine barmaid and she thinks I'm a weird and crazy guy. Again, I was hesitant because I didn't think that this was that kind of blog, but who am I kidding. Plus, I promised.

So, while we're doing this, shout outs to Mum, Joe (wherever you are, Singapore last I knew, and if you get time to read this), Steve, Peter, Mike, T and anyone else who considers themselves vaguely regular here. Cheers.

If You Have A Problem, If No-one Else Can Help

And if you can find them on Craigslist maybe you can hire the A-Team.

Via Boing Boing

Not a Total Answer

While a go cinetrix, fresh from proving her superiority to video store customers[1], asked "Why is Catholicism always the religion of choice in these horror flicks?"

I dunno, maybe it's crap like this:

Does a stone carving in one of Rome’s biggest cathedrals know whether Pope John Paul II will survive his latest health crisis?

The monument to Pope Sylvester II, who ruled the Catholic Church 1,000 years ago, is said to moisten when the death of a pontiff is imminent.

On Friday, a priest touched the carving in Rome’s Basilica of Saint John Lateran and confirmed it was dry — good news for the pope, who had windpipe surgery Thursday after being rushed to the hospital with breathing problems.

[1] I normally like cinetrix, but that article pissed me off no end. It's the unspoken assumptions mostly. I rent a whole heap of terrible movies, mostly to revel in their terribleness. I've got the likes of Ozu, Welles and Renoir in my DVD collection, so I'm not going to rent them from Blockbuster, or wherever, and I'm not sure that I would want, or be able, to. So, while I'm glad that trixie got to feel superior to someone while doing a dead-end job, I'm less glad of her gloating about it later.

Costik Caustic

Greg Costikyan over at Games * Design * Art * Culture is angry that 50 Cent can get a games deal while no-one remembers the gaming heroes who can't.

Now lets look at the logic of this. Industry legends like Noah Falstein, Lee Sheldon, Hal Barwood, and Chris Crawford can't get a game funded. EA tosses Richard Garriott aside like a used condom when they decide they've squeezed whatever juice they can get out of him, and take Will Wright's staff away from him, lest he come up with something disturbing and unmarketable like, say, THE SIMS. The only person in the field who gets cover credit is Sid Meier (and okay, American McGee, and what a joke that is), and the only person Joe Gamer knows is Miyamoto. Thus, lacking any stars ourselves--precisely because the publishers have done their level best to prevent anyone from becoming one--they're forced to turn to Hollywood and the music business to find headliners for their titles.

By the way, combine the names in this post with the link to Abandonia below and open yourself up to whole new worlds of gaming goodness.

You'll Find Funny Elsewhere

In a number of places recently (Grumpy Gamer, The Guardian, here) there's been talk of a "New Games Journalism". Articles about games that are neither glitzy reviews nor academic papers, but occupying some of the space between. Longer articles about the impact of a game or interesting encounters that illuminate the games or gamers.

The Grauniad has compiled a list of ten good examples of this type of article. There's some good reading there. I'm slightly surprised that nothing from Idle Thumbs is on there but other than that is hard to quibble.

Uwe Boll: Genius

CHUD review Alone In The Dark. They don't like it.

You really feel sorry for these actors, who have come to the very end of their careers, who are standing in front of a surely kinetic and screaming Teutonic madman who has no fucking clue how to make a movie. Christian Slater was in Heathers, man. He deserves better than this.

Adding for good measure:

It’s obvious that Uwe Boll is a genius of some kind, and I am not saying that with mockery. There’s a vision behind this film, even if it is astonishingly cheap, tacky and stupid. The problem is that Boll is working with the parameters of narrative storytelling, something he seems to really hate. He needs to move into something experimental, something without the need for cohesion or character, which are his weak points.

The folks over at Something Awful have an article by some people who worked for Boll and they back all of this up:

For those of you who actually give a shit, the original script took the "Alone In the Dark" premise and depicted it as if it was a actually based on a true story of a private investigator in the northeastern U.S. whose missing persons cases begin to uncover a disturbing paranormal secret. It was told through the eyes of a writer following Edward Carnby and his co-worker for a novel, and depicted them as real-life blue-collar folks who never expected to find hideous beings waiting for them in the dark. We tried to stick close to the H.P. Lovecraft style and the low-tech nature of the original game, always keeping the horror in the shadows so you never saw what was coming for them. Thankfully Dr.Boll was able to hire his loyal team of hacks to crank out something much better than our crappy story and add in all sorts of terrifying horror movie essentials like opening gateways to alternate dimensions, bimbo blonde archaeologists, sex scenes, mad scientists, slimy dog monsters, special army forces designed to battle slimy CG dog monsters, Tara Reid, "Matrix" slow-motion gun battles, and car chases. Oh yeah, and a ten-minute opening back story scroll read aloud to the illiterate audience, the only people able to successfully miss all the negative reviews. I mean hell, Boll knows that's where the real scares lie.

Who Likes Short Shorts, too?

Random stuff that may or may not deserve a much fuller post:

• Rock Band Fonts. You too can send letters that look like a Korn cover


• Lunch at Noon. Nicely designed recipe site


• Raw Fusion Records. Listen to Got To Go. Now!


• Abandonia. A fine Abandonware site. Fire up your DOS Box.


• Learn German with Deustche Welle

Zombie Terror

From Sisyphus Shrugged, whose title for this story is great -- "First they came for Joss Whedon, and I did not speak up, for I was not Joss Whedon" --, comes the story of a student arrested for Terroristic Threatening.

His crime? He wrote a story about zombies set in a High School. He was turned in by his Grandparents. The police say "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky".

Then again, in Kentucky "No female shall appear in a bathing suit on any highway within this state unless she be escorted by at least two officers or unless she be armed with a club."

How The Simpsons Ruined My Life

In much the same way that I have to say "Uh huh" every time Elvish is mentioned in Lord Of The Rings, I can't say "phenomena" without adding "do do de do do" and no impression of Sean Connery is complete, anymore (thanks, Popbitch), without "1964. Petula Clark. Up the arse." Mention of Mendoza has me looking in to the air arms raised screaming "Mendoooooooozaaaaaa!" in my best Rainer Wolfcastle impression. Needlessly to say this article in The Graun was difficult to get through.