New Shoes

Alright, I've been playing a lot of the Matrix Online.

Which makes it hard to wanna come here and blab, 'cause I'd rather be running around playing it than challenging Entropy to a Battle of Wits and stuff heh.

Oh, I also had the whole birthday party thing with the family, starting last weekend and all the way up 'till halfway through May, its Birthday Season in our family, we got one guy born after another, y'know, so every week is The Next Guys Birthday Week, its super annoying, even though it'd normally be fun to hang out with everybody, when yer stuck hanging out with 'em weekend after weekend it gets goddam old, plus shopping for birthday presents every week really bites some serious ass when yer a guy like me ahaha.

On the bright side, I probably won't catch scurvy from all the good food I'll be eating.

Anyways, back to the Matrix.

I think when the game first came out, you just wore whatever clothes you wanted, or the bonuses on clothes were really weak, so you could basically wear whatever you wanted.

And then they had a Combat Upgrade type thingie, and now the clothes have Killer Awesome Armor Bonuses.

Well, there's a big difference between those two kinds of games.

One where you can wear anything based on how it looks, and one where your character's appearance ends up being basically randomly assigned by virtue of the bonuses on the best gear you can find.

In a game where everybody can wear anything 'cause everything is the same, everybody picks a way they wanna look, and then they probably stick with that almost all their lives, so that can actually be kinda boring, I mean, if I wasn't forced to wear something else, I'd just wear the same stuff all the time, and I'd probably get bored of watching my little cartoon guy after a while, y'know.

Well, maybe, I think it depends on the game, actually, in Dundee's UO Emu thing, he made all armor and weapons basically the same (well, at different tiers), so you could do whatever you wanted with that, there was no Make Believe Secondary Penalty Attached for wanting to use a Fencing Sword instead of a Gladius or something, you weren't forced into doing anything different with your stats or anything stupid like that, it was all just for looks, and it was pretty damn cool in my humble O.

While at the same time, in a game where I'm forced to wear an orange-and-green jacket and pink shoes, 'cause the bonuses on 'em are awesome, I'm always hoping I'll find better loot that doesn't look as horrible, so the Pink Shoes Effect sorta drives you on to keep playing in order to find some Shoes That Aren't So Pink and Horrible or at least to Level Up Enough that you can use something else (hopefully at least as much as it makes you wanna quit heh).

'Cause you want your cartoon to look cool, y'know?

Or at least funny like southpark or something.

Not like Billy Joel From the 80s with White Gym Shoes and a Trenchcoat.

Which is exactly how I look in the Matrix.

Yah, I dunno what the fuck is up with the game, but I think its unpopular because everybody has to wear white gym shoes with their black vixen latex catsuits and ninja face masks.

I don't remember anybody in the movie wearing white gym shoes.

Heck, I haven't owned a pair of white gym shoes since I was in Junior High School in the 80s.

So I been playing my ass off, trying to find a good pair of shoes, some nice hiking boots or something, they got 'em in the game, the npcs wear 'em, all the npcs I fight look way cooler than my poor Billy Joel Facemask Loser, but goddam, all I loot are white gym shoes, and all there ever is for sale on the auction house are more white gym shoes.

Yah, dude, its just seriously fucked up!

What the fuck is up with this white gym shoes shit?

Oh, and then when you DO loot something cool, it might have worthless bonuses (you might as well eat a pair of shoes if they ain't got Ballistic and Melee bonuses, which is like two-thirds of 'em), or IT MIGHT BE FOR A WOMAN hah.

I wish there was some kinda craftable consumeable upgrade kit tool thingie that'd allow me to apply armor to clothes or something.

Anyway, aside from being forced to look like a total fruitcake for twenty levels (which is good and bad in different ways, I'll admit, and I don't really mind the comedy), the game really is Nintendo Wrestling Online (with Super Jump) combined with Scifi Urban Quest Stuff that reminds me of Half Life and Vampire Bloodlines or something (the quests are goddam cool, like right out of a comic book, which makes sense 'cause I heard they had that guy who did the Dark Horse Concrete comic books working on the team, back before Sony bought it up).

If you are reading this and you just started playing the Matrix and I dunno who you are, you need to get this link and print out the Mission Contacts part (and basically everything else in the Resources section, you need to know where all the hardlines are and who to get all the access node keys and Red Frags from and all that stuff), and then go around visiting all those dudes (every area has one), that's mostly how I level up when I ain't LOOKING FOR SHOES.

Seriously, if it wasn't for the cheat sheets on that website, the game would serously suck ass for me, finding all those guys the hard way is WAY the hell too much Chaos Theory even for me, there's nothing in the game that'd lead you to 'em, you'd just have to SEARCH EVERY FLOOR OF EVERY BUILDING IN THE WHOLE GAME to find 'em, I mean, HOLY SHIT ahaha.

Once you get to around tenth level, there's a whole map called "International" that you can visit that's fricking China Town (its awesome, I think that's why it reminds me of vampire bloodlines, besides the junk they got like working telephones that start sidequests and newpapers you can read and stuff), complete with Kungfu Schools and everything, but it ain't obvious that you should go there, you need to figure out how to use the blasted Subway system and cross Dangerous Terrain (just like the Elf Run to the Human Lands in WoW) to get there.

And then around 15 or 20th level that Westview place starts being good (even though you can level all the way to 20th level in that first area you start in, whatever its called, Richland), and Westview is like Mad Max, y'know, with vampires and crumbled overpasses and bombed out ruins and stuff.

Its all good, too, it ain't cheesy, there's gotta be hundreds of different kinds of buildings with their own mission areas (mission areas are sorta dependent on the shape of the building, 'cause they match up so you can look out the windows and stuff, unless they're underground, so if yer bored of getting the same junk all the time, move to a different area, y'know?), so its way better than Anarchy Online was (at least back when I played).

I dunno if I woulda ever played the game long enough to figure out some of that crap if Ex-bouncer wasn't playing it though, I probably woulda quit without ever even knowing about that China Town place.

And I dunno how much I like about it is the New Stuff, I think most of the reason I like it is probably because of the New Stuff, I mean, I really like the combat a lot, and I'm a lewtwhore so I love the lewt, y'know, even though I gotta wear these stupid ass white gym shoes all the time.

Man, they need to tweak that goddam White Gym Shoe generator or some shit ahaha.

Anyways, its another one of those Autoassault ones, y'know, where it was actually really fun and awesome and well-done and humongous, but ain't nobody playing it for whatever reason (gotta be some buggy shit from earlier, or mebbe it didn't have cool loot in the beginning, or the way there ain't no replay value, or the way there ain't any reason to stick around besides having Latex Fetish Cybersex once you get to Max Level or something).

I spend a lot of what little brain energy I'm willing to spend trying to figure out how the game could be as unpopular as it is heh.

It's gotta be the White Gym Shoes.

Well, whatever, that's what I'm doing, y'know, kungfu fighting with hordes of enemies that are dressed much cooler than me in the Matrix, on a Quest for New Shoes.

Here's a Fashion Tip from the King of Purple Hobo Fashions, though.

Nobody dresses in White except Mr. Rourke and Tattoo from Fantasy Island, and the dudes on the Loveboat.

Make everything black.

Yah, duh.

Plus it all matches.

Gloves, boots, hats, coats, shirts, pants, and goggles (all of which you sorta have to wear now for the armor bonuses, so don't forget your hat, Neo, or you'll feel the difference heh), make it all black.

Problem solved haha.

Or at least make all the accesories black so they won't be too horrible with my Divine Fluffy Pink Pimp Coat of Ballistic Resistance heh.

Well, whatever, fix the goddam white gym shoe thing already ahaha.

"Uptown girrrrrl, always living in her right way world..."

The Return of Captain Bob

I don't think anyone can beat the Arnold J. Rimmer Game Design.

Its not against the law to provide a service and just do it really, really badly.

And I just don't see how anyone could that better than he did.

Its not like you can add sixty million dollars worth of expensive crotch-punching robots or anything, it has to rob and cheat people of every possible little crumb of joy they might take away from it without seeming like its doing it on purpose.

And goddam, if you made enough money off something like that that you and your buddies could escape to a tropical island, what laughs you guys would have at the expense of all the poor fools who got stuck holding all the little baggies filled with your crap!

Sweet merciful heavens!

Me and Old Guy Bob were always talking about doing a Captain Bob's Lost Treasure Scuba Tours or something like it, not so much to make money, y'know, although it'd be nice to be able to make enough money to survive, but just to torture rich people and ruin their vacations and laugh our asses off.

It'd continually run the risk of actually being so funny that it'd be good, though, I mean, its actually pretty hard to do stuff badly on purpose in a way that doesn't end up being really funny to everybody.

"Can you please tell your First Mate, Whatever-His-Name-Is, to use the bathroom like a regular human being instead of relieving himself off the side of the boat?"

"Nar, I don't speak the language of his people, he's Island Folk, and I'm not keen on trying to convey anything complicated and possibly insulting involving that particular organ with the simple hand signals he understands, thar's a danger it'd be misintarpreted and then we'd all be much warse off."

"Well, can you tell him to quit popping his glass eye in and out of his mouth and showing it to my wife? I understand that we all have to be accomodating toward indigenous people with disadvantages and everything but..."

"Arr, I don't think that'd be wise eithar, sar, and that's actually not his glass eye."

Although its kinda weird that lots of people have been able to do stuff really badly in a way that doesn't end up being really funny by actually trying to do something good, y'know?

Its like you run the risk of making something worthless to everybody only if you try to make something good and fail, but if you try to fail and make something worthless on purpose, then you run the risk of making something good for everybody on accident.

Actually, trying to make something good and failing is even worse than worthless to the Creator of the Worthless Thing, 'cause he'll be all whipping on himself for sucking so much.

Unless he turns into a maniac and he refuses to realize that his Worthless Thing is worthless or something, y'know, like "PLAYERS SUCK! THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND THE SHEER AWESOMENESS OF MY DESIGN! ITS TOO FAR AHEAD OF ITS TIME! HUMAN BEINGS HAVEN'T EVOLVED ENOUGH TO HANDLE THIS LEVEL OF DEPTH OF QUALITY! AHHH NO NOT THE SNAKES!"

Either way, its really bad for that poor guy heh.

And think about it, what does that poor guy really get if he works his ass off and defeats all the odds and succeeds?

Why, the exact same thing that Captain Bob gets if Captain Bob fails!

Yah, I think I'm gonna just stick with the Captain Bob thing, man.

The Demotivator

If you are feeling blue, I know there's one thing that always cheers me right up!

And then there's some other things that don't work so good for me.

But enough about you already, seems to me like we've talked quite enough about you and all your blue feelings already, don't you ever get sick of thinking about yourself and your problems day in and day out?

I know it'd make me feel blue all the time if I had to sit there in that muddy rut of yours and be you thinking about you and your blue feelings all the time!

So let's think about something else.

Let's think about... oh I don't know... let me think... I know it will come to me eventually.... ah!

*snap*

I've got it!

I think I know exactly what to think about!

I can't say that I was actually afraid that it wouldn't come to me eventually!

Well I know I've always been quick as a whistle when I gave myself half a chance!

I really don't know why I ever doubt myself!

It's probably a bit of you rubbing off on me.

Okay, I need you to ready yourself to hear my idea.

I want you to prepare youself, because it's bound to come as quite a shock to you, considering the way you probably think of me as a compassionate and selfless soul who is always reaching out to those less fortunate than myself at my own expense.

Are you ready?

Have you prepared yourself?

Okay.

Let's think about me!

Ah, here I am.

Thinking about me.

Ah, isn't that wonderful!

Well I don't know about you, but I'm certainly starting to feel better already!

Not that I felt bad to start with!

I mean, while thinking about me is certainly splendid and refreshing enough, and having the good fortune to be with me and being able to bask in the considerable warmth and good cheer of my own presence is far more lovely than even the incredible magnitude of my own sublime gift for the language can describe, its my lucky lot in life that I actually get to be me when all is said and done!

Well don't just sit there feeling blue, can't you see how wonderful I'm feeling?

I just don't think you are trying hard enough!

You have to try much harder than that to feel how wonderful I am!

Bah, you are hopeless, I don't know why I even bother with you!

Ladies Beautiful Ladies

I'm actually friends with a lot of women.

Four of the ones that I rode the train with every morning were all grandmothers.

One was Italian, she liked Jackie O, one was an Irish Punk-rock Hippy, she still had traces of her accent that you'd hear when she said "g'marnin' to ya," and one of them was Mexican (oh my god don't call her Spanish heh), and she was all classy and worked high up in the government, even though she was a Bad Girl when she was younger, hanging around on the hoods of hotrods in a bikini, I was always bugging her to take a job as an ambassador to some kickass place and bring me with her as her pet poolboy and limo driver.

Yah, she is also the gramma that runs the comedy mailing list where I'm bombarded by Men Suck jokes on a daily basis, but I can make her eyes brim with tears anytime I want by reminding her of exactly how and why she loves her husband so much so its all good, y'know.

And there was another one that was a Regular Old American Mutt like me.

All of them were extremely funny people.

They had daughters that were my age that I also got to know and be friends with, y'know how that works, even though they know I'm a goddam jerk ahaha.

And then there was five other women, one a year or two older me (the cool 70s Older Sister chick with the Seven Foot Tall Husband), and the others were a couple years younger, all of them smoldering hot and yummy in different ways, uh, sorta.

Two of 'em were cheerleaders in high school, both of them were hilarious, and one of them was a half American Indian Headbanger Chick who knew all about Slasher Movies, she's the daughter of the Irish Gramma.

And then there was me.

And Old Guy Bob, although he sat behind everybody and fell asleep five minutes after he got on the train, so he hardly counts.

And the whole rest of the train used to listen to us talk and chip in every once in a while, but they were sorta interchangeable.

That's it, that's the whole train crew in the morning (I rode home with Ex-bouncer and Soccerman and Triple A, so that was where the Man Show comes from, but before I met Ex-bouncer, I actually sat with the Other Cheerleader and this Blond Accountant Chick with a kick-boxer for a husband).

So that's kinda weird, I guess, especially since new folks probably think I'm awful about women.

What's even weirder than that is that I rode that train to a place where I worked with about two hundred employees, and only about twenty of them were men, and less than half of those weren't gay, and almost all of the straight ones worked in IT with me (although we did have a sex-change super-nerd networking dude that came in on contract a couple times).

All the bosses were high powered female dynamo types.

So I was basically completely surrounded by women all day long.

Oprah's BOYFRIEND even visited the goddam place ahaha.

So obviously I needed some kinda trick, right?

Well I had a trick.

My trick was to basically pretend that I was in love with every single woman I had to deal with.

And after a while, it wasn't even a trick, it was just sorta automatic, I really was basically in love with every single woman I had to deal with.

And now I really am basically in love with every single woman I have to deal with, I'm not sure how someone can even turn something like that shit off heh.

Its love as in the exercise of appreciation and understanding, which sometimes involves a little naughty stuff (for some women its not naughty, its nasty, and that's all it involves, women can be much nastier and more brutal than men can be in general heh) and sometimes doesn't (because women can also be delicate flowers that cry when they think they're giving you a hard time ahaha).

I treat everyone like we're all kids in a giant kindergarten class, before we learned all the adult bullshit that ruined us, I shoot for the human being underneath all the cerebral bullshit and cultural crap, 'cause deep down, we're all the same, with the same simple needs and pleasures and everything.

So that's my whole trick, minus all the awesome psychic super powers I have that you obviously can't do anything about.

And some folks probably think I'm some kinda he-man woman-hater or something.

But the reality is that the cow-and-milk and sit-up muscle jokes I just love to do actually come from the exact opposite sorta place.

And the original audience for them in Real Life was entirely female.

All fifty-seven flavors of 'em.

So that's why I don't have to pussy-foot around with that stupid Let's Not Upset the Poor Little Internet Women crap, that's so ass-backwards it'd be funny if it wasn't so twisted and sad and stuff heh.

Its men that tend to be the hopelessly delicate-and-fragile overly-cerebral-and-romantic H.P. Lovecraft dweebs ahaha.

Jeff Freeman Questions

If you've got questions about Jeff Freeman, you just go right ahead and ask them, and I'll answer them to the best of my ability in the order they arrive.

I'll start you off.

Question #1: "What does Jeff Freeman look like in Real Life?"

Answer: "Hmm, that's a good question, Questioner Number One, but I dunno, really. I suspect that he looks a lot like Chuck Norris, since all game developers tend to be some variation on the Chuck Norris Theme. He might look sorta like a taller, skinnier, dark-and-curly-haired Chuck Norris, without all the facial hair and muscles, and more rings under his eyes, sorta Goth, y'know, or a fat and jolly oriental wise-man Santa Claus version of Chuck Norris, with long-fingernails and a glass eye and a funny hat, but he's still a Chuck Norris."

Question #2: "Is Jeff Freeman related to Gordon Freeman?"

Answer: "Hmm, that's a good question, Questioner Number Two, man you guys are so frickin' smart and awesome and hot and sexy and stuff, I'm getting all flustered, I can hardly concentrate! What were we talking about? Ah yah, Gordon Freeman. Who the hell is this Jeff guy, anyways? Ah, you mean Little Jeffy Freeman, yah, he was like the Luigi of Super Mario Brothers, y'know, the "Narf Pinky" to Gordon's "Brain," in the Original Two Player Version of Half Life that got cut when they had to release the game before it was ready. Little Jeffy Freeman, running around in his orange contamination suit, stealing all the power-ups and falling into the lava and shit. Uh-oh, Little Jeffy throwed a grenade, Gordie!"

Question #3: "You are so smart and awesome and hot and sexy and stuff."

Answer: "Hmm, can you phrase that in the form of a question about Jeff Freeman?"

Question #3: "Ummm, nope."

Answer: "Well I think that's a damn good question anyways, Questioner Number Three. Okay, let's go to the phones."

Phone Question #1: "I think that *bleeeeep* hussy oughta *bleeeep* that *bleeep* good fer nuthin *bleeep* man of hers, she needs to get her *bleeeep* a *bleeeeeep* of a *bleeeeep* man, since that *bleeeeeeeeeeeeep* in her *bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeep* you know, it just ain't right."

Answer: "Hmm, that was a good question, Phone Questioner Number One, if I was all up in that action, I'd tell that *bleeep* of a *bleeep* and *bleeep* his *bleeep* can *bleeep* talk to the *bleeep* hand, know what I'm saying? You go girl! Alright, I think we're going to take a break, and then we'll be back with the next caller after these important words from our imaginary sponsor!"

***

Ole Bald Angus is personally calling you to the Matrix, even though he has no idea who you are and he hates the Ten Million Kinds of Eyebrows Lag, just like you thought he was personally calling you to SWG when him and Ex-bouncer were actually trying to get Triple A and Soccerman to play!

*bunch of bullet-time special effects and explosions with techno-music playing*

So drag your crazy head fulla shiz up the stairs and get your hard-working momma to give her credit card to some guy in Japan right now!

"Dancing Cowboy Strikeforce, OH YAHHHHHH!!!"

***

Alright we're back!

You Can Ride It If You Like

"Dude, do you have to pretend that yer riding around on one of those bikes from Tron all the time?"

"For your information, I'm not pretending, I'm roleplaying, although I'm hardly surprised that someone of your primitive and severely limited intellect lacks the mental capacity to make that distinction."

"Mmm, okay, do you have to roleplay that yer riding around on one of those bikes from Tron all the time?"

"Yes."

"Mmkay."

"And its not one of those bikes from Tron anyways, you cretinous and culturally depraved buffoon! Any fool can plainly see that I'm actually riding rollerskates made out of two lascivious and licentious japanese schoolgirls on tentacle leashes."

"Dude, you know what? I think they shoulda added those killer crotch-rocket rice-burning motorcycles from the movies to this game! Aw hellyah! That'd be frickin' kick ass!"

"Be silent, you disruptive fool! You can't even imagine the vast powers of concentration and deft artistry necessary to craft and maintain delicate roleplaying illusions such as this!"

The Truth Is Right Here, Baby

You may be wondering why you never hear about alien abduction stories anymore.

Well, turns out, the Communal Extra-Planetary Sentience behind what was better known as the Big Headed Aliens (who were actually just Telepathically Remote-Controlled Biological Robots formed from human fetal tissue that operated as distant cells to single giant sentient organism composed of all the lifeforms on several alien planets) couldn't take a joke, so it left.

Its probably still balling its eyes out right now, freakin' wuss.

You'd think a Big Communal Extra-Planetary Sentience would at least have a sense of humor, but holy smokes, tell it to mutilate a few cows and pick up some folks from the trailer park and give 'em anal probes and make some circles in farm fields and buzz Top Secret Military Bases in order to "better foster communication with the Collective Consciousness of the Earth," y'know, just for a laugh, really, and all the sudden you're the Bad Guy and its all pissed that it looked stupid and wasted years on useless research and now its all sulking and shit and won't even talk to anybody anymore.

No need to thank me, I didn't even really do it on purpose, damn thing never even heard of a lie before, and now it doesn't trust anybody.

Yah, I doubt we'll be seeing that Big Dumb Wussbag around here anytime soon.

Well, its not like it had anything cool to offer anyways, spaceships and magic wands made out of rice paper and aluminum foil and velcro and fetal tissue and stuff, what the hell is that, that's frickin' gross, man.

I promise I'll behave myself better when the next stupid-ass amish space-sucker comes along with some cool chromed-out laser shit we can carjack.

The Humble Root of Paradox

Smiling Mike said we should be glad that people can't travel back in time.

Or even just look back in time.

Yah, seriously, man, I was thinking the same thing at first, never thought I'd hear Smiling Mike talk like that, that dude carved his own Stargate Action Figures out of wood or something in Boy Scouts, 'member?

"Here's my little MacGuyver guy! Wee! Pew! Pew!"

He actually even said that he hoped the world would blow up before we ever advanced technology to the point where a bunch of people from the future could watch us poor losers in the past sitting around in our underpants and jerking off through some kinda Time Viewer Device that he was sure would be the predecessor of a Time Travel Machine.

'Cause that'd be so frickin' embarrassing, right?

Well, especially to Smiling Mike, 'cause he got such a teensy-weener, y'know.

And the funniest bit was when he said that it wasn't fair that he only thought about the possibility of something like that happening now, after sitting around in his underpants and jerking off so much already, somebody should have warned us about the potential future embarrassment a long time ago!

Ahaha yah!

That was the last time I saw him, I think he's been on some kinda weird Time Phone kick like E.T. or something in his mom's basement.

Yah, his mom is smokin, I'd work in her anything anytime anyplace.

Daaaaammmmn, Chow!

But seriously, let's be honest, the threat of that Time Viewer shit ain't gonna stop hardly nobody from jerking off so much, man.

Heck, it's sure to turn some folks on even more to think there's an audience full of people in sparkling silver spacesuits watching them jerk off.

Well you know they already got a website for that kinda thing in Germany heh.

I do worry though that these guys with their fingers on the button are thinking about something like that, mebbe just even subconsciously, y'know, like, the "self-destructive suicidal warmonger" impulse may actually just be a way to avoid the possibility of further personal embarrassment due to impending Time Travel Type Stuff and a nasty masturbation addiction.

Y'know, like, "I need to blow myself up because I can't stop jerking off and jerking off is so embarrassing because everyone in the future is watching me and laughing!"

Well shit, there's tons of those creepy Physical Education Teacher type guys who are just like that, they go around like Mr. Clean in bright pastel-colored sweatpants calling people "sport" in public and then they go home and whip and choke themselves for thinking bad thoughts and shit while they jerk off.

Frickin' A, right?

Man, I'm so glad we aren't all telepathic, 'cause that would suck for the exact same reason that Time Travel does.

We'd all be forced to be honest and behave ourselves all the time, and that would really suck.

Well, maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but complete and utter surgical honesty definitely wouldn't be pretty like the shit they show on Star Trek, whether we just totally gave up on behaving ourselves or went around trying to behave ourselves all the time while wishing we weren't actually behaving ourselves.

There's really no way to get away from all the jerking off we want to do, even if we don't do it!

Can't pretend your shit don't stink, 'cause everybody would know exactly how much your shit actually stunk ahaha.

Yah, for you, it'd sorta operate like some kinda Defense Mechanism, whew dawg, that's some stinky poo, call security we're gonna need to evacuate the building ahaha.

Yah, I suppose I could get used to that shit, I mean, if anybody could, it'd probably be me, right?

Well, shit, I'm already comfortable with the idea of people from the future watching me jerk off, that thing Smiling Mike said didn't even phase me, sometimes I enjoy trying to ruin it for the People of the Future by rubbing my nipples and making all kinds of crazy faces and hilarously dumb porno dialogue complete with the cheesy beatbox music and stuff ahaha.

Oh yah sure man, might as well go the whole nine yards and totally get in to it, y'know.

And I've already realized that if somebody can spend time watching me do my most embarrassing private shit, somebody else can watch them watching me doing that embarrassing shit, so they're the ones that are really gonna look like freaks, masturbation might be bad and everything, but vicarious masturbation is even worse heh.

Actually the guy that watches the guy watching a guy jerking off is pretty messed up too, now that I think about.

But mebbe they won't care that somebody might be watching them, just like I don't care that somebody might be watching me.

Maybe that turns them on.

Man, I hope people from the future don't hear this and check me out.

Well I don't really wanna be no kinda embarrassing Masturbation Comedy Celebrity of the Future, y'know, like, "Holy smokes, look at that dirty little monkey go! That's the fifth time they've played this today on Time Tube! Ha ha ha! How does he make those faces!"

If they do check me out, they better pick me up in their Time Machine and give me a chance to defend myself in person.

But I think they'd probably wanna watch something more historical anyways

Yah, like Abe Lincoln jerking off or something, I mean, even if they were into that stuff, why would they focus on some nobody losers like us, y'know, instead of the Queen of England or a foxy Anchorwoman or something?

That's who I'm gonna check out with the Time Viewer, man, when they come to pick us up and bring us Back to the Future so that we can defend ourselves, awhellyah, look out Connie Chung, here I come, you delicously naughty little vixen, you.

So, y'know, whatever, I guess Time Travel isn't so bad, really, now that I've thought about it some, and I guess I don't really want anybody to blow the world up before we get that far.

Yah, I'm sure, I can live with the potential of my own personal embarrassment, shit man, I'm already doing it, and who really gives a shit about that when there's the potential personal embarrassment of an infinite timescape full of foxy anchorwomen on the line!

I think that's a fair trade!

Man, I can't believe we're wasting our energy fighting each other when we should all be pooling our collective resources to advance the important field of Get Busy With the Anchorwoman Research!

Let's go see what Smiling Mike is up to.

Shit, I bet he's jerking off right now, the guy is a goddam fiend.

Yah right, I'd probably be a fiend too if I had a momma that looked like that ahaha.

Psychic Friends Network

If there was a psychic service that answered prayers and sent you a bill for time and materials afterwards, I'd be in deep shit.

I'd be all like "Hey! I didn't ask for this! I'm not paying for this! You can't prove I asked for this! There's no such thing as psychic powers!" when they came to collect.

Or "Hey, can't I just pay for this with psychic money or something? You guys got some kinda psychic credit plan maybe? Like, can't I just promise to be good and think happy thoughts and spread good will and love my brother man and shit from now on and all that stuff? Isn't that enough?"

Heh.

Thanks for fixing my headache this morning, though, holy shit man, felt like the back of my teeth was connected to my eyeball there for a sec.

Hey, you guys wouldn't have done something like gimme a headache on purpose, y'know, like, just to get me to pay my pyschic bill or something?

You can't do stuff like that right?

Well how do I know that you weren't doing something like that to me in the past, then?

How do I know that all these past "headache cure" charges on my bill are legitimate headaches?

How do I know that you aren't just using me to supply your own demand for your services?

You could've been giving me the headaches you want me to pay you for curing all along just like the Antivirus Companies release viruses whenever they need more money!

Just like those guys that mess with the joints in your back, whatever they're called!

You know how they mess you up so you need to keep coming back for more "treatments!"

Yah, Chiropractors, right.

How do I know you ain't pulling some shit on me like that?

Ow, shit, my head, alright, shit, I'm sorry already, shit, stop, please, somebody, shit, please, just make it stop.

Ah, whew, thanks.

Hey waitaminute!

I'm not paying for that you ass-bandit!

And I'm not paying you for the answer to that Chiropractor question either!

That wasn't even a question anyways, it was just a vague descriptive phrase that ended in an exclamation point!

Oh yes it did, I recorded the whole thing on the internet, I'm looking at it right now even as we speak!

Ow, shit, alright, stop, shit, jeeze, okay already, shit, I'm sorry, please, okay, shit, I said please already, shit, please make it stop.

Goddammit, man!

Okay, alright, I give up, I'll pay.

Hey, can I pay you guys to give somebody else a headache?

Really?

Do they give you some sort of proof that they actually did it, like an EEG print-out or something?

Okay, well, I'm gonna hang up now so I can get hold of another operator and give you a headache.

Yah, haha, we'll see how you like being one of your own customers you bastard!

Ow shit oh you ain't shit gonna get me to shit give in to you shit this time you mothershitfucker I don't care shit how long I have to shit put up with this shit okay stop shit stop okay shit I give up already shit please stop shit I said please shit please make it shit please make it stop shit okay okay I promise already shit I promise I won't call back shit.

You ARE A Pirate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEBbu-wkKrs

Its really old if yer a EVE Online guy but if you ain't seen it then I'm doing you a favor.

Uh, well, kinda, I guess.

Okay mebbe not.

But its just one of those things, y'know, sorta like Ask A Ninja.

Swaggering Key Janglers

We're all on late night guard duty at the Gate, and here comes the New Guy, in a cloud of Steamy Animal Funk Cologne.

And if he wasn't a walking victim of his own fucked-up mental programming then he wouldn't be swaggering and jangling his keys like that.

He's got something to prove, he's into Domination and Submission, he's gonna find his place in the Pecking Order.

And we all roll our eyes and laugh, and he demands to know what's so funny, right?

Tell me that's not exactly what happens.

And there's what, like, ten of us that were telling jokes and laughing until he showed up, and there's just one of him, right?

And every single one of us outweighs him by like eight hundred pounds of muscle and brain and experience.

Yah, its the same damn pattern every frickin' time, man, and they always wonder why we're laughing ahaha.

And of course one of us might decide to do the guy a favor and try to explain the actual nature of the universe and untangle all the fucked up shit he's filled his head with, or maybe one of us will just try to beat all that stupid shit out of his head so he's physically forced to give it up.

But you can't just avoid him like apparently everybody else managed to do so far, 'cause that'll end up costing you a lot more fucking energy in the long run, trust me.

Yah, if you ain't gonna set him straight right off the bat, then its better to just make him like you and put him on a psychological leash like a pet monkey so you can at least use him for entertainment purposes and keep him from giving you a headache later.

Don't look at me like that, I didn't do that to you when you first showed up.

Yah, somebody else had already set you straight before I ever met you, I don't think you were one of those swaggering key-janglers back then and shit heh.

And even if you were, and even if I did, monkeys-on-a-leash tend to evolve into regular people eventually anyways, just by having smart shit rub off on them, I'm pretty sure that's how I got where I am today ahaha.

Anyways, fuck that Pecking Order shit, that junk is for animals and little kids, there's always somebody bigger and tougher than you, and there's always somebody smarter and more perceptive than you, there's guys that are ten times more handsome and charming than you, and there's dudes that have us all beat six ways to sunday.

And that shit is always changing minute by minute and day by day, sometimes you have a good day and you don't suck quite as much as you usually do, sometimes the guys that are better than you have a bad day and you don't seem to suck quite as much as you usually do.

But there ain't nobody better than all of us.

And even all the swaggering key janglers are only jangling their keys 'cause they wanna come inside but they need our help to find the door.

"What's so funny?"

"Its an Inside Joke."

"Then let me Inside where its funny, you jagbags, my pants are too tight and I'm fucking freezing out here by myself."

Burning Pirates of the Sea

The first few minutes of this thing is really funny.

Well, I guess how funny it is depends on who you are, exactly, but it stung me right in my tiny little heart a few times heh.

Here's a bunch more of that kinda stuff.

Well, not that kinda stuff, but its about the same game, Pirates of the Burning Purple Hair or whatever.

I watched a few of 'em and I didn't see any pirates getting their faces blown off by cannonballs so I got kinda bored, watching those beautiful ships sail around in the beautiful sea is so peaceful it makes me sleepy, when they fire their cannons its like they're blowing beautiful smoke rings just for me.

I hope their avatar combat system is really gory and awesome so I can make other players have peg-legs and hooks for hands and eye-patches and stuff.

"Remember me? I'm the guy that made it so that no woman can dance with you without crying!"

Mechanical Trees

Here's a thing with wild ideas for saving the world from Global Warming.

I was just thinking about writing a joke about scientists accidentally putting a little too much spin on the ball and dumping us into an Ice Age, but the reality is kinda funnier.

Plus this article sorta makes me think we should start our own non-profit Stop Global Warming Corporation and ride around in a big fancy boat so we can personally put a stop to that Mean Old Global Warming by dumping all our martini ice cubes in the ocean when we're done with 'em.

Oh sure, that might not seem like much, at first, but by my projections, over the course of thirty years, that's like seven hundred and twenty thousand tons of martini ice, per person, which is enough to cool the temperature of the earth by forty degrees or so.

Mmm-hmm.

Setting off an artificial volcano to lower the temperature ain't really funny, 'cause you know what would happen the moment we did it.

A real volcano would erupt and lower the temperature even more.

The Mechanical Trees do paint a pretty fucking funny picture though, jeeze looeeze, uh, what was the problem with them regular old un-mechanical Trees, again?

They too expensive or something?

If we can't stop ourselves from chopping down a stupid old cheap un-mechanical tree, how we gonna stop ourselves from chopping down a super-expensive mechanical one?

Sheesh.

I'm not a big fan of this global warming stuff, but I've always thought we should take responsibility for our shit and just take control of the whole planet like tomorrow and turn it into a giant air-conditioned golf-course slash petting-zoo slash shopping-mall and just get rid of mother nature's wrinkly-old undependable ass altogether.

I just worry that if we do that, we're gonna argue over the Planetary Temperature Controls, y'know?

'Cause I don't wanna be too hot or too cold or anything, man, and whatever temperature I need to set the damn thing to in order to be comfortable where I'm at on the surface of the planet, its gonna be like twenty degrees warmer in Florida.

Sucks to be you, Florida ahaha.

Evil Estates

Okay, how about a game where you are an evil high society guy in 1800s Europe or something classy like that, with stylish clothes and little Lord Fauntleroy frilly lace and a sexy moustache and everything.

Or a sexy momma-san, as beautiful as she is wicked and black-hearted, if yer a girl, this ain't really gender specific or anything, 'cause both evil men and women had interesting stuff to do and interesting ways to do it, even if they went about it differently.

But its not just some Chainsaw Massacre thing, where you go around stabbing hookers like Jack the Ripper or something.

Its gotta have class, y'know, so you can use class against people.

Like, you can chase your poor Nanny into the lake out behind the mansion, and make her drown, just by standing on the shore and declaring your passionate intentions for her, because she can't beat the Delicate Sensibilities saving throw, and she wouldn't be able to get another job as a Nanny with somebody else if she got Disgraced in your employ.

You'd probably earn an Evil Title like they had in UO for that heh.

The Depicable Lord Fauntleroy, Slayer of Nannies.

Maybe you'd even get a Haunted Lake out of the deal for your estate, as a reward.

And you can make people faint and stuff, the same way, just by uttering something incorrigible, y'know, fail the Delicate Sensibilities saving throw and down they go.

Everybody's social status and reputation would matter, but not in some simplistic way, because sometimes having a dispicable reputation with the right people might be good for you, and there's a lot of things a powerful and evil person can get away with that the poor wholesome folk can't, stuff that is utterly horrible and horrid but it just doesn't count for some reason, 'cause the world is designed to be unfair.

Now that would be a game!

Ah, you still don't believe those girly romance novels turned Big Screen Chick Flicks are onto something.

Well, let's take it step by step.

As a villain, you'd marry as well as you could, in order to increase your family fortune and social status (which would, in turn, increase your economic viability even more), 'cause that's what all those girly romance things are all about, cold-hearted economic villainy.

You might even be sneaky enough to marry a poor cousin of a rich person, knowing full well that the rest of her (or his) family might meet with some sort of strangely fortuitous and yet certainly accidental disaster in the future, and then you'd inherit everything.

And then you'd gamble away all that wealth on all sorts of evil delights like a ripe bastard, and you'd continue to make your little evil social status climbing deals, marrying off your sons and everything, until eventually you became a big enough target that the other players would start going after you, by marrying your daughters, or creating bastard pregnancy scandals in your household WITHOUT marrying 'em and stuff heh.

So your estate could take social and economic damage, just like your character could.

And eventually you'd die, from poison or a duel or poverty or some disease or childbirth or a public hanging (if you actually got caught for something), and some sneaky little peasant son-a-bitch who married one of your poor cousins would inherit your whole frickin' fortune!

Dude, c'mon!

That is some kickass pvp virtual world action!

I didn't even get into Highwaymen robbing stagecoaches and kidnapping daughters and stuff!

And its like, romantic, for the ladies! *wink*

Actually I think a high powered beautiful and evil lady would be able to do a lot more damage than some puny little evil guy, and she'd be able to get away with it, too, just by pretending to faint at the right time.

Y'know, "uh oh, I'm about to get caught, time to pretend I have a high Delicate Sensibilities score by mashing my Feign Faint key like crazy!"

Its so naughty and sensual and forbidden, its like Sinfully Delicous Chocolate Online, its a frickin' goldmine.

Pretty much the exact opposite of an Eastern Philosophy game, too heh.

Just make sure they don't sign any of our names on the papers or anything, y'know, for when the cops come and shit.

Ride On Through the Night

So I just woke up from a dream where I went to my parent's summer house deep in the country to babysit it while they're on vacation somewhere or something, they left a bunch of numbers to call by the phone if I needed 'em, 'cause you know how mom's are.

The place is all fulla rich-intellectual-people furnishings and its all sterile and lavish and everything is like a museum.

On my first walk through the place, I find a little group of scuzzy looking kids partying with their girlfriends in the back.

Which is pretty much what I expected to find, so I tell them to get the heck out of there so I can lock the place up and relax, 'cause its pretty late at night.

Then I hear a noise coming from another room, and I know there's even more people inside the house than I first thought there was.

So I demand that one of the scuzzy kids tell me exactly what the hell is going on.

And they say they're actually FBI agents working undercover or something, and they show me their badges.

And then twenty more FBI agents come out of the woodwork.

And I'm all like, what the hell are you guys doing here? Bugging the place or something?

And they won't really give me a good answer, but I can't make 'em leave.

They're really obnoxious and worthless people that belong in office cubicles, and not cool secret agent types or anything, and they're milling around aimlessly and eating all my parent's food and they're extremely jealous of how nice the house is (even though I sorta hate the house 'cause its so fake and uncomfortable-looking) and there starts to be this long line at the doorway to the bathroom 'cause about half of them are women and the wait is insufferable.

So I decide to leave the place and go for a ride through the fresh night air of the country-side in dreamland on an old pogo-stick in a trenchcoat.

But I get tired as I'm riding along, 'cause the scenery in the countryside is boring and repetitive, y'know, and somehow I drift off and fall asleep while driving the pogo-stick, and the next thing I know, I'm waking up sorta sitting on one of the footrests as the pogo-stick is hopping along by itself, Alice in Wonderland Style, and I stand up and take control of it without falling over, and I find myself cruising down some weird street deep in the woods that I've never seen before, totally lost.

Boy am I ever lucky that the pogo-stick didn't go spinning out of control and crashing into the woods or something while I was taking a nap on the footrest!

So I'm bouncing along down the road through the night, trying to find my way back to my house fulla FBI agent losers before they totally wreck the place, and I see a bunch of people having a huge party up ahead.

And as luck would have it, my awesome magic pogo-stick finally decides to crap out and fall apart just as I get near the place.

So I'm picking up the pieces of my pogo-stick, worrying that I'm gonna miss an important magical piece in the dark grass, and I'm trying to screw it back together again, 'cause it ain't really broken, it just sorta came loose and fell apart from too much use, y'know.

And a kid my age comes over and starts to help, all friendly-like.

We've just about got the pogo-stick back together again, when a bunch of hot women start coming over and flirting with me.

I notice the kid really likes this, 'cause he ain't popular enough around here to draw crowds of high-powered chicks like this on his own.

And since he helped me, I figured I'd help him back, y'know, so I sorta play along with the ladies and tickle their fancies and shit.

And surprise, surprise, one of them is sorta funny, even.

And she has cute eyes.

And so we get invited inside this giant party mansion in the company of all these women.

Now, my pogo-stick still isn't operational, I still got a nasty little piece leftover that seems like its gonna require me to take the whole damn thing apart again to insert it or something.

But this party house is huge, there's hundreds and hundreds of people partying inside this gigantic mansion, all sorts of people, big ones, little ones, gay ones, straight ones, young ones, old ones, yellow ones, green ones.

So I do the nice guy routine and I make friends with everybody.

And everybody is really glad I showed up, 'cause apparently each and every one of them is really bored with everybody else at the party.

And everywhere I go, I notice that this huge superman-looking black dude with burn scars on his face is watching me from a corner of the room, not malevolently, exactly, 'cause I'd be able to detect that instantly, but I can tell he's gonna wanna say something to me at some point, so I'm sorta steeling myself up for the burning face story versus charming guy interaction I know I got coming.

And the girls keep coming by and flirting with me.

And its all fun and interesting and everything, there's no real good reason to get into the way all these dream people tell me their life stories and stuff, even thought that's interesting to me, it'd be sorta distracting and it'd make this damn thing I'm writing even longer than it is already.

But everywhere I go, people keep messing me up just as I'm about to finally fix my pogo-stick, and I have to start all over.

Finally the smart and funny girl with the cute eyes comes over, and she's got a question she wants to ask me, and she wants to know if it'd be okay to ask me it.

So I'm like, mmm, I guess.

And she's like, "you like, like me, right?"

And I'm all like, mmm, I guess (I'm still trying to put the pogo-stick back together, y'know, so I can get the hell out of this Hotel California nightmare, and I've realized that the only way I'm ever gonna be able to do that is if I quit letting people distract me before I finish).

And she's all like "would you suffer the fate of the damned to be with me, like Vincent Price did for the girl he loved in that one Hammer Film movie, whatever-its-called?"

And in the dream, suddenly the Gaudy Technicolor Trailer for this Vincent Price Movie starts to play in my mind's eye, and its really pretty corny-looking, y'know, Vincent Price is all dressed up in a poomfy purple outfit with tights and a huge pink feather in his hat, and he's riding a horse at break-neck speed to his True Love through the shadowy autumn woods as the sun is setting ominously in the background.

But there's definitely one thing that storta turns it all around and makes in not corny at all, and that is that patented expression of Ultimate Defiance on Vincent Price's face that He and He Alone ever truly mastered, y'know, even Spock is like some kinda weak sister in that department 'cause Spock just wasn't confident enough to pull it off without looking a little inquisitive.

And so I look at her, and I'm all like, "ah, you're joking with me, you don't actually like Vincent Price movies."

And she's all laughing at her own stupid joke that didn't make any sense with her cute eyes all sparkling and stuff.

She didn't mean it to be insulting or nasty, she was actually trying to impress me and make me laugh or something.

But I immediately woke up and ended the dream anyways, after making sure that she knew that Vincent Price was the man.

Anybody that can suffer riding around in a big poomfy purple outfit like that and still keep his cool is the man.

So not only are women not funny, they don't have any frickin' taste in movies, either.

Laughter Statistics

The male vs. female statistics on laughter in this thing is pretty goddam funny.

And the comments at the bottom are worth a look, stuff about women being more sensitive to emotional cues and the like is all a lot more fascinating than the shit in the actual article heh.

But the "science of laughter" stuff that led me to that thing gives me the frickin' creeps, its like a scientist tells a joke that he scientifically measured and rated for "amusement value," nobody laughs, and then they try to reason out why they aren't funny by blaming the audience for being a bunch of pathetic ass-kissing primates and shit ahaha.

Jokes are like the lamest form of comedy, seriously.

And comedy isn't exactly related to laughter.

I can't think of a joke that could drive me toward a purely physical state of laughter more than that vibe I get when a baby smiles at me.

I guess you could describe that as a mutual display of benevolence or non-hostility or something but that's really not what it is, happy kid's just have that innocent sunshine vibe you can catch like a psychic disease only when they know you aren't a threat to them.

There's also the "hiding in the bushes" nervous laugh, that's pretty damn strong and physical, y'know, like when you and yer buddy don't wanna get caught, so you don't want to laugh, but you can't help it, 'cause the more you try to keep it back, the worse it gets, and then one of you starts doing the Bill Paxton, "oh shit we're in some pretty shit now, man" and you just blow it.

That one is definitely not some kinda social thing, and its hardly a good surival mechanism either, since its gonna get yer ass caught, its just some sorta of overwhelming emotional pressure release system or something.

I think I've seen dogs that were really freaked and stressed-out and scared laughing like that, y'know, so its some sorta limbic-system mammal thingie, I guess.

And then there's all the Cerebral sorts of laughs, those are usually the weakest forces of laughter, and that's what Comedy is.

Comedy can be pretty great, like that time I yelled about how Women Aren't Funny, and then these scientists go ahead and try to prove it.

That's frickin' comedy.

Like, dude, I don't need scientific proof to have the balls to say that shit ahaha.

And I don't see how this application of the scientific method to laughter is gonna help anybody get to fly a spaceplane and shoot killer robots with lasers or anything cool like that, either, so why don't you guys just stick to something you know about ahaha.

But women seriously aren't as funny as men, in general.

And its for good reason.

Young women can't be funny, 'cause they're not generally benevolent to everybody else, 'cause they're going to become mothers.

Mothers are funny to their babies, 'cause they're benevolent to their babies, but everybody else is suspect, even the fathers, sometimes.

When a momma is done raising her babies, then she's like a compressed comedy coil, a ton of potential comedic energy has been stored up in her comedy goldmine and its ready to be released on the public.

Aging mommas can be seriously freaking funny, self-deprecating hilariousness ensues, now that their need for all that competitive self-defense shit is out of the way, suddenly they're laughing about how big their asses are.

And that's also why Grammas are so goddam funny sometimes.

But Grampas can make being funny look so goddam easy and effortless, 'cause they've got a million years of uninterrupted experience, 'cause men are generally benevolent to each other all their lives, since we're all on the same goddam sucky guard duty all the time, regardless of any secondary pursuits that might be competitive, and we actually use what might seem like nasty stuff to outsiders on each other and ourselves (much like the Aging Mommas Boy My Ass Is Fat Jokes) to check for kinks and weaknesses in each other's psychological armor.

Benevolence is a requirement for comedy.

Not laughter, just comedy.

And even folks that might seem malevolent aren't really being malevolent if they're honestly trying to make you laugh and entertain you.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about this time, then you prolly ain't benevolent enough.

But that's okay, 'cause at least I'm paying attention to you, right?

Well, I'm only paying attention to you because you're malevolent and I'm on guard duty heh.

Eating Red Pills Like Candy

In other news, Ex-bouncer and me were playing the Matrix Online yesterday for the first time together, and he likes it, and its not just because it doesn't have any elves, but he did mention that as a positive point.

Running around in Killer Sox Fan Outfits and hosing people down with submachine guns and kungfu and looting houses is pretty frickin' fun, and all the computer-nerd glorifying stuff going on in the background doesn't hurt, and the way its got all different kinds of cool buildings with tons of details and no skimping on the architecture inside and stuff is definitely a bonus.

Still haven't convinced him to make a submachine gun chick in her underpants and cowboy boots, but I'm working on it.

Need to get that Fox Force Five thing going, man, asses in seats, Hot Chick Bodies with the minds and voices of the Blues Brothers and the dudes from the Big Lebowski or something, I'm tellin' you that's a comedic and economic goldmine, baby.

We can be all impossible and horrible on voicecom, and then cover our mouths and giggle teehee and pretend we can't type good just like my stalker while we collect money and gifts from all those pitiful cybersex freaks in the game, and then we can turn around and buy all the cheap and awesome chick stuff off the auction house.

It'd definitely be Rated R, though.

Yah, just like the European Gigolo, there's just way too many damn jokes!

I can't even say 'em on the internet anymore it's too innocent or something ahaha.

And we done the Southside Chicago Sausage Bruiser Edition of the Silent Bob and Jay Thing to death already anyways.

Frickin' New Jersey, gimme a break, man, what the hell is that, its like Rockford, Illinois or something, they still think Bon Jovi and Big Hair is cool over there.

Yah, they are only about two years worse than Austin, Texas heh.

Well, even if we don't do it, mebbe me just blabbering about it will make other people do it, and then there'll be more hobo-ass guy stuff for us to buy on the auction house ahaha.

Yah, I dunno why they didn't just let fat hyper-jumping male characters wear those spandex and latex Matrix Vixen cat-woman jumpsuits either, that's pure comedy gold they just tossed aside like it was a lump of coal or something, man.

"Hey Frank, you can't see my nipples in this thing, right?"

Rollercoaster

Let's say you want to make a game that's just a five minute rollercoaster ride in 3D.

If you imagine the most entertaining five minute rollercoaster ride you possibly can, and then make it, you can still chop it up into pieces afterwards, and give players the pieces, and then let them make their own rollercoaster rides out of those pieces by reconfiguring them in different ways.

Or, you could just make a bunch of pieces, and then attempt to put them together in the best way possible afterwards, and that'd let you try a bunch of different stuff and find a best solution for the pieces you have, and you might even think of something you wouldn't have thought of it you did it the other way.

Just like you might not think of something awesome you could do if you tried to do it brick by brick up instead of starting from the top and drilling down into the details, I mean, you aren't gonna think of something like a way to make a rollercoaster ride that actually makes fun of itself at certain points by doing it brick by brick.

But either way you make it, I don't wanna ride your rollercoaster more than a couple of times, tops, its doesn't matter how you do it, its ride once or twice and throw away, to me, 'cause I'm just a regular lazy bastard and I'm not really interested in trying to make my own rollercoaster out of all your stupid rollercoaster bits and pieces, I got other stuff to do.

That's what I'm paying you for, y'know, to figure it out.

And either you got something or you don't.

This is not one of those things where you can help me help myself heh.

And if you don't show me something good right off the bat, I definitely ain't gonna try it twice and then bring a friend to show it to a third time, so you ain't even gonna get that.

Four Seasons of Dreaming

Okay, I guess I can't sleep.

But when I could sleep, I realized that I had different kinds of dreams depending on how I slept.

Like, if I sleep laying on my back, staring at the ceiling, I have really visual dreams, y'know, like scenery and places I been to that were beautiful, dreams with no talking and no real sense to them, just tons of pretty visual stuff.

And that makes sense in a way, 'cause the back of your head is where all your visual brain-gear is, that's why you can go blind if somebody cracks you in the back of the head with a baseball bat, and if you are laying on your back, that's the part of your brain that's soaking in most of your brain juices.

Now, if I sleep with my face down, I have no dreams at all, its just the black sleep of death.

I dunno why that is, that's the spooky frontal lobe bits that'd be getting all the brain juices, but even though I don't dream when I sleep face down, I do have a lot of those freaky half-asleep things, like where you feel like you are stumbling suddenly, or you get that electrical brainstorm-surge thingie that starts at the base of your skull, they got some weird "hypno-something" name for those things but its only half-assed science really so far, so fergitaboutit.

If I sleep on my right side, with the right side of my face down on the pillow, I have realistic mathematical and analytical dreams full of annoying talking and boring stuff, like where you win the lottery, but you never get to have any fun because they make you talk to lawyers about all the rules and taxes involved until you wake up or something.

I really hate those.

And if I sleep on my left side, with the left side of my face down on the pillow, I have really crazy imaginative dreams that are totally original and awesome and fun and full of special effects and actually have meaning and even wisdom sometimes.

So now I usually sleep on my left side, 'cause those are the funnest, y'know.

But I wonder if its slowly making me crazy, 'cause those dreams really are pretty crazy.

And I have to wonder, am I depriving the boring Rules Lawyer right side of my brain of oxygen or something by favoring the left side like that?

So I'm becoming less and less mathematical and analytical and interested in that sorta crap?

Is it that my head is half full of liquid and only the part that remains submerged is getting the nutritional juices needed to run dreams and process whatever they gotta process while I'm sleeping or something?

Like, mebbe I need to drink more water and stuff to fill my braincase up the rest of the way so the whole thing is submerged and not just half of it?

But then what if it breaks something and the left side of my brain don't do the trick no more and I turn boring like everybody else?

That would suck, man.

Yah, I guess I'd rather just take the risk and run with the Wild Left Side until I whistle away all crazy into to the dirt.

Plus I sorta hate having to drink water anyways, it makes me make the "ugh now I have to make myself drink water" stinky-face, y'know.

Well, whatever, I was thinking about telling you about these sleeping tricks 'cause mebbe you could try using 'em yourself if you're bored or you're a little kid having freaky dreams or something, but now I'm not so sure that they're safe, you might get addicted to the Left Side too and we don't really need any more crazy people like me.

Heck man we don't even need the one we already got heh.

Or you might get addicted to the Right Side and become a Lawyer or something and shit man that'd be even worse ahaha.

Insomnia

I don't usually have any problem sleeping, y'know, 'cause I still got that poor country boy survival thingie where I can sleep standing up leaning against a railing and stuff.

But it suddenly turned warm today.

And I just finished a good book and my mind is racing with all sorts of weird stuff.

And the night wind is blowing through my apartment and making all the blinds flap and shit.

And now I can't sleep, so I figured I'd just get up and stay up 'till morning, y'know.

Yah, just like Old Guy Bob was always talking about the Old Guy Curse of waking up at the Crack of 3 in the morning, shit, so this is what its like, I knew I shoulda pretended to be more sympathetic heh.

And so anyways I'm having a cigarette and walking around my apartment and drinking pepsi out of a big two liter bottle with one hand like some sort of viking pig, y'know?

And I'm thinking about how I'm gonna have to go to the store tomorrow and get some coffee and stuff all beat to shit off my ass and how much fun that's gonna be.

And I see this HUGE black and hairy monster of a spider crawling slowly up the wall, smack dab in the middle of the only pool of light in the whole place, 'cause the rest of my apartment is dark as hell and I only got that one light on.

Its so huge it doesn't even care that I'm looking at it, I mean, this guy is big and lazy, just like me, he ain't afraid of jack shit, apparently he ain't got no enemies in the animal kingdom that'd make him rush a little or anything, he's just crawling along, easy-as-you-please, big scary mofo that ain't worth messing with.

And I need to smash it with something, 'cause no little hairy monsters are allowed to be that lazy and unfrightened around me, man, that's disprectful of my authority as the Head Monster of My Lair, y'know, so I grab the first plastic DVD case I see, and I look at it, and its one of the Red Dwarf Season Something-or-others, and I think, man, I shouldn't smash a big gross and hairy spider with this, there's gotta be some crappy DVD around here I could smash it with, something with Ben Affleck or something, but I get sick of sorting through all the crappy DVDs I own pretty quick, trying to think of one that deserves to be smashed against a big gross and hairy spider, 'cause its no fun thinking about all the crappy movies I own, so I just go ahead and use the Red Dwarf one.

And of course the Spider scrunches like a sponge and sorta sticks to the wall with its legs all curled up in a ball.

And I look at the back of the Red Dwarf DVD and its got a big ole blotch of transparent Spider Guts on it, frickin' great.

And the spider is so big I can't just leave it there to be eaten by other little spiders or something, y'know?

'Cause its gonna slowly tumble off the wall, its too heavy, its just clinging there by virtue of the stickiness of its guts, and I just know I'll accidentally step on its wet and potentially poisonous hairy disgustingness in the dark with my bare feet and I'll scream like a girl or something.

So I go and get some toilet paper from the bathroom and I fold it up a couple times and I'm just dreading that moment of contact when I'll feel its huge and freakish boney corpse through the tissue, y'know, 'cause toilet paper just doesn't seem to be thick enough for this guy, the thing could twitch a big hairy leg in a death spasm or something and I'd feel it, ugh, makes me wish I still had a baseball glove or a spatula around here.

So I muster up my panicky-ass adrenaline-based artificial-manhood and I go ahead and grab at it like the jerky spaz I am and I throw it in the toilet and flush it goodbye.

But now I definitely can't sleep.

Hmm, wait, nevermind, now I'm starting to feel sleepy again.

The Old Ones

We all decided to storm heaven one day and give the gods a piece of our mind.

But when our angry mob finally got there, all we found was a scared and lonely little girl in a ragged summer dress, surrounded by a cold sort of everlasting light that didn't give Her any place to hide.

I dunno who we're supposed to yell at now, but I ain't gonna yell at no little girl.

Keep your voice down, She's half-dead from exposure and She doesn't even understand what we're talking about anyways.

I'd say the Kid was neglected but bruises like that don't appear by themselves so she's must have had somebody's attention.

Maybe it was somebody who came before us.

Ugh, I feel like a shit.

Man, She's probably starving too.

What the hell do you suppose She'd eat?

Regular food?

Can we even bring regular food up here?

Whew, man, this is so messed up.

Why does it always have to be like this?

Why can't anything be regular?

And who am I talking to, anyways, ain't like that little girl is gonna answer my questions.

Man, this is so messed up!

Sheesh, I dunno, She probably made us all on accident or something.

She probably thinks we're like demons She accidentally summoned or something, lookit Her eyes, She's frickin' terrified of us, its like She's never seen an adult before, or if She has, it definitely wasn't a good experience.

Man, I dunno, maybe we were never supposed to hang around and get this old, maybe She made children in Her image, so She'd have somebody to play with, and here we're like some scary kinda rotten mutant fruit to Her.

Aw frick, now She's frickin' crying, stop lookin' at Her like that, you're freakin' the poor Kid out.

Well, we can't just leave Her here, we're gonna have to bring Her with us and take care of Her or something.

Damned if I know!

I don't know anything about kids!

Well I do know that somebody needs to go and get a frickin' blanket or something already, this Kid is freezing.

Rubber Jump Suit

So here's my dude in his new Ghetto-ass Fur-trimmed Salvation Army Outfit with the pants that don't fit and the purple shirt he pulled off a dead pimp in an alley.

I like it, I'm roleplaying to myself that I stuff my hat with tinfoil to protect myself from the Radioactive Mind Rays of the black helicopters.

And the pictures show off some of the cooler stuff in the Matrix, like the way you can see out the windows in the buildings, you can actually see cars driving by and gang dudes waiting outside the door to the bank that are gonna wanna fight you as soon as you step out, and I even did one that sorta shows ya what its like to have Super Jump (which is goddam awesome) if you never played CoH.

"I know that this bottle of cheap scotch on the shelf isn't real, its just the Matrix telling my brain that its all tasty and delicious, but I'm still gonna try to crotch it when nobody is looking and walk out of the store without paying for it."

Meanwhile that dude behind me is roleplaying that he's interested in Yogurt or something, what a frickin' loser, I mean, its pretty sad to fall for the Matrix's cheap ass mind tricks, but to be watching your waistline and interested in fake Matrix Health Food on top of it, that's just frickin' pitiful, buy yerself some frickin' fake Matrix ICE CREAM, Doctor Jones, they can just digitally correct yer fat belly fulla guts afterwards, we never have to do sit-ups again!

Yah, I guess the screenshots don't really do it justice 'cause there's a lot of motion going on that you can't really see, I've tried to take screenshots of the kungfu fights but its really tough to do them good and I'm not a professional screenshot taker heh.

Anyways, there's already something that bugs me about the Matrix.

Yah, see, its got male and female clothes that drop as loot.

It pretty much has to be that way, 'cause there's a lot of different kinds of clothes in the Matrix, its not like WoW where there's just one kind of trench coat for everybody or anything.

But that male and female thing drives me crazy, because I always get a shit load of awesome loot for women, and I hardly ever get anything that I can use.

I'm such a lewtwhore that I'm tempted to make a female character just to use all this awesome crap I keep finding.

And the auction house is FILLED with page after page of female stuff nobody can use, and there's like one pair of green pants for a guy that I'm selling (don't buy them, they don't fit heh).

And I have to wonder if this is some kinda secret game designer idea to get us to socialize with men playing female characters, or some kinda weird nerd-boy thing to attract women to the game, or what, y'know?

Or mebbe the guy who controls the loot stuff for the game plays a female character or something?

Or mebbe they're trying to get us to all play chicks Fox Force Five Style to attract more nerds to the game?

Well, let me let you in on a secret, holmes.

WOMEN DON'T NEED CLOTHES.

Heck, if I was playing a female character, I'd have her run around in her underpants and a cowboy hat.

Okay, I'm just kidding.

Sorta.

Okay, I'm not kidding.

But I do hate constantly being reminded of women every time my Kungfu Hobo loots a guy and I get another Mini-Skirt of Ballistics or a Belly Shirt of Kung Fu, thanks a lot for that heh.

Maybe I'm getting a lot of female loot because my Killer Hobo tends to attack female npcs and female npcs drop female loot.

That would make sense, I guess, but at the same time, its like a Slippery Slope, y'know, 'cause I get mad at female npcs for dropping loot I can't use, so I wanna beat them up even more.

I dunno, I did finally get a new pair of pants with good bonuses that a guy can wear yesterday, at least, but they don't fit either heh.

They do match my big furry bum coat though, which is nice, y'know, 'cause they're both orange ahaha.

Well, it seems like there is some creepy fashion intelligence to the loot code thing, y'know, like the way it knew I just loved ORANGE heh.

I dunno, if I was in charge of the game, I'd cut back on the CHICKSTUFF a little and flood the game with tons of loot so MANFOLK would have more choices as they level up, especially 'cause levelling is so slow, and the population at any given level range is prolly extremely low, so there's no supply that isn't automatically sucked up by demand.

I'm lucky I like looking like a hobo-pimp drug addict or a kid from Southpark or Ali G Indahouse, 'cause it wasn't exactly by choice, I'm just wearing whatever has the best bonuses, y'know, classic Lewtwhore Red Sock Green Sock stuff heh.

Mmm, mebbe I will play me a cool Matrix Latex chick, dude, there's so much cheap and awesome crap on the auction house for them.

Yah, but then again, why would I want to put clothes on a chick?

That goes against all my training.

Cowboy boots and underpants and two machine guns, that's perfect.

Meat Hook

Now that Sony's Station Access Pass went up to thirty bucks or whatever, I wonder how the folks that play Everquest 2 are doing.

Y'know, 'cause they needed Station Access Pass to have ten characters on their accounts instead of five or whatever, it wasn't just about playing more than one of Sony's MMOs (which is nuthouse-crazy anyways, I can't hardly stand to play one game and my buddies are even less interested in Time & Suffering MMOs than I am) for them.

And the alternative is to buy another account, and then pay to move your five characters over or something, I guess, I dunno, I'm not interested enough to actually look it up and figger it out and shit heh.

Sony has a history of nickle and diming people to death with that negative energy kinda stuff.

I don't really blame them for doing this Station Access thing, 'cause they were actually running games for like three-quarters of the income of everybody else, if a player actually played more than one game, which was everybody except the guys who just used it for more characters in Everquest 2.

And even with the Station Access Pass increase, if a player plays more than two games (hahaha SAYWHAT?!) they're still trying to run games for cheaper than everybody else.

But even so, do you think people are gonna be all understanding about it?

Do you really think this is gonna be perceived as some sort of positive thing?

Hell no, man, what're you new?

I know I sorta get a feeling of dread when I have to play a game that's run by Sony even for the Regular Price Without Extras, I've been like that ever since I quit Everquest the first time, and it didn't ever get better, it always gets worse every time I play one of their games and quit.

I mean, compare it to NCSoft, the Happy Guys who brought us the simple pleasure of Super Jump and the Mutant Car Game, I got no negative vibe there, 'cause those guys never did nothing to me that I can remember.

Yah, don't compare it to Mythic, I still hate that one guy, whatever his name is, he's a smarmy knob, the name Mythic attached to anything stirs hostility inside me, I'm so pissed at the guys who own Warmhammer I've decided to pretend that they copied everything off WoW when the time comes ahaha.

Anyways, if I was Sony, and I wanted to make more money, which it seems like Sony likes to do, I'd quit nickle and diming people to death, I'd get RID of the Station Access pass, and I'd set up shell companies to run all their games with names like Meat Hook Online Entertainment and stuff, so people would never see the name Sony on anything, and each game would be separated and contain its own nuclear fallout when folks get fed up with it (or whatever), and it wouldn't infect all the other games run by the same company, or any future offerings.

Well I don't think it's helping to have the name SOE all over the place, the way they think it is, shit man, I don't think the SOE name brand thing ever evoked a positive response in me, I still blame it for all the shit that happened to me in Everquest, and SWG, and Everquest 2, and I'll probably blame SOE for whatever I hate in the Matrix Online eventually, the name SOE is a lot like a Giant Negative Energy Collector when you think about it.

Oh sure, it doesn't matter to the new suckers being born every minute, but once they get burned the first time trying one of your games, they immediately join the ranks of the Old He-man Sony-Hater Club, and then what about the next game you want them to play?

Back in the old days, when there wasn't any competition, you could get away with not caring about that negative energy stuff, 'cause you were the Only Game In Town.

But I think you gotta start wondering if its finally starting to bite you in the ass right about now heh.

They gotta be thinking about it by now, even if they are amatuer-hour Ex-Gamer Game Industry Business Guys who don't have paychecks big enough to attract any real corporate sharks into the mix.

Meat Hook Online Entertainment, c'mon, you know that's some good shiznit ahaha.

I'm doin' you a solid there, holmes.

Yah, well, you can only play the Devil You Know card if the other gaming companies start acting all diabolical and shit too, but so far they ain't doing it, y'know, so that's right out, yer the only greedy looking bad guy around.

Hey, the Devil You Know Games is a good shell company name too heh.

With a cute little cartoon devil for a mascot, aw hellyah.

Brook No Further Trout

"I'll brook no further trout from the likes of you." - Enigmatic Quote

More to Come!

Okay, I was just kidding, there is no more to come.

Well, okay, there is more to come, just not more stuff about trout.

Well, alright, I prolly got a few more trout-thingies, but I'll save 'em for when you really need 'em.

We Got Color TV

Weclome to Southpark, Holmes.

And check out my Killer Sox Fan outfit, aw hellyah, south siyeeeede, I run around punchin' hookers lookin' like that.

I had a dude in a Packers coat but I won't support that kinda behavior with a screenshot.

I'm not cheating or anything on the graphics, y'know, its whatever it auto-detected, only thing I changed was the resolution (I'm using 1280x1024), this is exactly what I see when I play the game, its all fuzzy and laminated and everything heh.

The city is way bigger than the box-junk in CoH, I hardly ever know where I am unless I check the Big Map, its feels a LOT like wandering around in Chicago heh.

And now that I got Super Jump its pretty easy to move around ('cause it lets you zoom WAY out and pick a place to jump to, like the tops of thirty-story buildings and stuff, so you suddenly get to see the whole city from high above and it makes it a lot harder to get lost) but I spent the first ten levels running around like a lost puppy through the endless mazes of dirty streets and alleys and overpasses on the ground following mission waypoints (you can actually shimmy up the drain-pipes and ladders on the sides of buildings, so you aren't really stuck on the ground, but that'd be super slow going without Super Jump and you'll die if you try to jump off a building without it).

Anyways I think the game is unpopular because it doesn't have Corncob Pipes that you can toot like Popeye the Sailor when you get pissed off.