We Find Most of our Clients Can Remember 2 Words

OK, Sega, this is it. I've been patient with you as a company, given that the Sega Genesis was my first video game system, but goddammit enough is enough. I cannot stand idly by while you continue to mouth-fuck your beloved intellectual properties to death.

So last week my roommate calls me over to check out the new sonic game's gameplay footage. Suffice to say, I was trepidatious. Remember Sonic 3D? The Sonic Adventure Series? Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games? Sega has done absolutely nothing to retain the trust of the gaming community at large, is what I'm driving at here. However, this new trailer had me about ready to drink that blue and prickly kool-aid. Minimal 3D elements, linear game play involving collecting rings and running fast, the game doesn't appear to be on rails, just some good looking 2D gameplay in some pretty nice looking 3D environments. Somebody hand me a chalice, I'm ready to drink.

Well, WAS ready to drink. I paused today to go on joystiq because I was at work and had nothing better to do. There I saw this coupled with this (sorry to be pulling a Tycho here and linking to 50 different things rather than summarize. I'm lazy. Fuck you.) Take this Kool-aid from my presence, for it pleases me not. "Reinventing sonic's gameplay" with "unusual situations"? All while "staying true to what made him an industry icon"? Fuck you! You don't get to claim you're reinventing him AND keeping him the same. And have you brain dead fucks at Sega learned nothing? What happened every time you tried to "reinvent sonic"?

Sega Developer 1: "guuuuuuh, let's turn sonic into a pinball game, then continue hitting ourselves in the heads with rocks"

Sega Developer 2: "better idea! let's give him a voice that 5 year olds would find lame, add some characters no one likes or cares about, THEN hit ourselves in the heads with rocks!

Sega Developer 3: "Gahhh! I just choked on my own tongue!"

Getting the basic gist here? So Sega, to quote the only funny madTV sketch in existence: "I will offer you a piece of advice. 2 words. Stop it. Just...just stop it." No good has ever come of "reinventing" sonic. Anyone remember the Dreamcast? No? oh right, at least in the US, there were like 4 games available before it tanked! That was when Sega turned themselves into the $50 hooker beneath the underpass, offering to license their beloved properties to the highest bidder, churning out shitfest after shitfest. Ever wonder why Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2, 3, and Sonic And Knuckles did so well? Sega had the common sense not to FUCK AROUND with a working formula.

So fuck you, Sega. Fuck you for getting my hopes up, fuck you for sending them spiraling back to the ground, and fuck you for shilling out all of your integrity and turning sonic into a fucking werewolf. You stupid fucks.

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat...

I hope that sounded menacing enough. Anyway, I've been absent a few weeks, but it is not for nothing. I've been working on something. Here's a preview. The resolution sucks because google auto-shrinks your images, and since this took up my whole monitor...yeah, it kind of got fucked. Still, GAZE AND MARVEL!



Are you excited? I'm excited.

How I Learned to Stop Hating Hardcore Kids and Start REALLY Hating Hardcore Kids

Those of you that know me know that when I go to a show, I like my moshes to be straight fucking moshes. This means there should be precisely 3 things going on: pushing people, running in circles, and pushing people some more. Those of you that know me also know my opinion about hardcore kids (for those of you who don't, I hate them, as the title implies). This was solidified last year at a Between The Buried and Me concert when, while defending myself from a hardcore dancer, I got sucker punched in the face. I have an old blog on my myspace ranting about why, if people are seeing an EMT on a regular basis at your shows, the reaction should not be "YEAH, HARDCORE DUDE!!!" Rather, people should wonder what is wrong with their scene that causes so many grievous injuries.

However, risk of life and limb aside, I still enjoy the music and, while I come out of some shows with a few bruised, the incident at Between The Buried And Me was relatively isolated in my personal experience. That was why I wasn't terribly fazed when I got to the Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza show last night. There was the usual run of idiots flailing around like retarded fish out of water, and because the space was limited, they were a little harder to avoid than usual. Nothing I can't handle though. You can take a punch to the face, you can survive a few hits in the arms or back (which is where I'm very sore right now). However, halfway through the second band's set (Born of Osiris: they were awesome, like As I Lay Dying but grindier) I noticed that we were dealing with a very special breed of asshole at this show.

See, at most shows, the hardcore kids maintain a moderate distance from the edge of the pit out of whatever small shred of courtesy they may have for their fellow concertgoers. This show however, had people rushing the edges with spin kicks and flailing punches. Now I cannot stress this point enough here, hardcore dancers look like fucking morons. Words can't even describe how stupid this new moshpit fad is, so I'll let video do it for me.



Look at these fucking idiots. Oh my god it makes me want to shoot myself, as if this is truly the up and coming generation, we are all fucked.

Anyway, Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, Born of Osiris, and See You Next Tuesday (aka CUNT) went off without a hitch for the most part. CUNT was too drunk though, and by the end of their set, it degraded to pure noise. Not like grind noise, but like the guitarist slamming his fretboard against the amp. At one point he pulled me onto the "stage" (which was elevated about 6 inches off the ground) and threw me into the audience. I have no idea why. Anyway, Beneath The Massacre was headlining, and Mike and I were there for TDTDE and them, so we were pretty stoked. 10 minutes into the set, a guy came up on the stage, said something to the singer, and the singer announced "OK, guys, stop fighting with each other out there. Just come up here and headbang with us, we all want a good time but people don't have to get hurt." Solid advice from a cool guy. Flash forward to 5 minutes later when the show stopped again because 10 guys were beating the living shit out of 1 person. I don't know what that guy did, but these fucking pussies were on him like balls in a hardcore kid's mouth. They were slamming him into the bar, knocking him down, and punching and kicking him in the face. There was a puddle of blood on the floor about one foot in diameter. We're not talking smears here, we're talking an actual puddle. I also saw what I believed to be a tooth, but I couldn't be sure because all of the blood on the floor was obscuring things. Have all of my italics made this clear enough?

At this point a guy from the knitting factory came out and started yelling at the crowd that "they were acting like a bunch of fucking idiots and that they needed to show some fucking respect for the bands". Then they canceled the rest of the show. That's right, hardcore kids managed to get a show fucking canceled because they wouldn't listen to the band (who they supposedly respect enough to pay money to see) when they told them to fucking cool it. The show got divided into two people: those who supported the knitting factory guy, and those who kept chanting "fuck you, asshole!" Let me make this clear. They were beating the living shit out of somebody for no good reason (I don't know what he did, but nobody deserves the beating that he took unless they are Osama Bin Laden or Peter Jackson) and they were outraged when the band told them to stop beating the shit out of people. I have gone to somewhere between 30 and 40 metal shows and have never seen a beating half this severe. Before this, my trump card of mosh pit stories was my friend Ben getting half of his front tooth kicked out.

On the way out of the show, I commented to Mike that this was why hardcore dancing is stupid. Somebody gets hurt, a fight breaks out, and it wrecks the show for people who just wanted a night of headbanging and heavy music. Some dude overheard it and started calling me a "faggot pussy motherfucking bitch" and suggested that I "go cry about it" like "a faggot". And that sums up the hardcore scene right there. A bunch of meatheads who can't resolve conflicts like a human being and instead gang up on people, because in a one on one fight they would go down like the dickless pieces of shit that they are.

Do You Dislike People?

Then come and work at NYU's dining halls and health center. That's right, if you hate talking to, interacting with, helping, or simply seeing other people, then these positions are perfect for you. Allow me to elucidate.

I'll start with the dining halls, as I have less of a bone to pick with them, but a bone nonetheless (insert appropriate sexual innuendo here). I live at the Palladium, which amongst it's numerous other features (a career center that I have not visited since fall and a gym that I never use) features a dining hall. There are 12 residential floors in the building with about 25 rooms apiece, most of which house 4 students each. Suffice to say, there are a lot of people in this building which means the dining hall is always crowded. This of course means that the employees there (with the exception of one cool guy who can knock off 10 people in about 2 minutes) prepare and serve the food one person at a time. This is in addition to barely ever paying attention to requests (because asking them to not put onions on your sandwich is an affront to them and you must be made to pay for it), maintaining a gruff and shouty demeanor, and essentially treating you like shit scraped from their boots for asking them to do their fucking job and get you your food. If food preparation is not your thing, you can be the official swipe nazi, ensuring that only people who have swiped meals are allowed to even look at the dining area (which is a completely separate room from where you acquire the food). This means that if you have a friend who doesn't have a meal plan (about half of the people in my group) it will cost you an extra meal for them to sit with you. Not even take the food. Just to sit down at a table. As if, given the choice between their own good food and the dining hall, somebody would knock over the dining hall for all it's worth. There's nothing I love more than burnt burgers, powdered eggs, and quite possibly the shittiest, driest sandwiches I have ever consumed.

Now onward for those of you so misanthropic that even sighting another human being makes your stomach turn: The NYU Health Center. If you make an appointment, it is almost guaranteed that you will not be seen for at least a week, probably two, after you call to schedule. Should you actually still be ailing from whatever your initial problem was when your appointment finally rolls around, they will make you fill out a questionnaire about every possible thing that might be even remotely pertinent (pre-existing conditions, things that run in the family, do you drink/smoke/use drugs, what kind of sex you have with how many people, do you wear a seatbelt - yes that is a real question that they ask every time you go in). This may seem like something that would be worthwhile, and it would be if the quacks that work at that fucking cesspool of incompetence actually read it. Instead, the nurse will come in, ask you the questions that you just finished filling out, and write them down. Then the "doctor" will come in and ask you the same questions that the nurse just asked you, which you just filled out on the goddamn form. Brief example: I have been taking zyrtec for my allergies since I was 14 and always say such on the form, yet when I went in this week to get the horrifying hives I have been breaking out in treated, the "doctor" had the fucking gall to recommend that I try zyrtec. When I told them I have taken it for so long that I am practically immune to antihistamines, the doctor shrugged and recommended I make an appointment with the allergist. They fit me in in March.

Now, should you manage to make it past the form/question triple barrage without dying from overexposure to pure stupid, they will chalk up whatever is ailing you to one of two things: post nasal drip or (if applicable) smoking. I could walk in there with a gunshot wound to the fucking arm and they would tell me that it is, in all likelihood, a cold. It took Allison 3 trips in two weeks to get diagnosed with mono, and on the last trip her throat was so swollen that she could barely talk and they had to intravenously hydrate her because it hurt too much to eat or drink. And they were still ambivalent as to whether or not it was post nasal drip. I AM NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP. This place makes me so goddamned angry that I sometimes contemplate lighting myself on fire and running around in front of their building to warn others not to enter if they might even be slightly sick, finally leaving an ashen husk as a grim reminder of my sacrifice (until the street cleaners sweep me into a dustpan).

So if either of these posts sound like something you'd be interested in, apply today and they'll be sure not to help you just as soon as they can.

The Key to the Most Profound Sadness You Will Ever Feel

Don't worry, everything is actually a-OK in the Michael camp at present, yet right now I am seriously bummed out. Like, seriously. What may have happened, you might ask? Did Allison dump me? Have I been booted from the university? Do I have every kind of cancer at once? Has my spleen fallen out of my asshole? No my friends, this is something much more, as the title says, profound.

Over winter break, my sister got me watching the show Six Feet Under. Let me tell you, for those of you who have not seen it, it is absolutely incredible. Better than The Sopranos, 24, Lost, and The Office combined. However, with such a fantastic show comes fantastic consequences. Namely, you get heavily invested in all of the characters. When you like a character, you are enamored with them, and when you hate them, you feel such blood boiling rage that the line between reality and fiction blurs so heavily that you may vent your frustrations on your family in retribution for the actions of the characters on the show. Suffice to say, it is engrossing.

Anyway, I don't want to give away too much for anyone who may still have designs to see it, but the final season is one of the most emotionally straining things I have ever put myself through. It's been almost a day since I watched the final episode and I am still plagued by a certain ennui. Life lacks a certain vigor now that the show has concluded, specifically due to the way it concludes. Oh well, at least I've still got season 5 of The Shield to watch in order to bring me back to the world of the living.

On "Controversy"

OK, before you read this post, have you read the one below it? About Microsoft discovering sex? No? Go read it now. Don't worry, it's cool, I'll wait. Kind of amusing wasn't it? Anyway, here are my actual thoughts on all of this shit that's been happening.

I was going to post the original article that inspired this rage (now kind of notorious on the internet), but it looks like the hack who wrote it has since taken the post down off of his site (probably for two reasons: 1) he realized that he could not support a single claim that he made and 2) he is a cowardly idiot. Yes I'm resorting to name calling, but whatever. I will call an idiot one if I damn well please). The thesis is essentially that Mass Effect is a sex simulator that is only a step away from breeding a generation of sexual deviants and rapists. In lieu of that riveting journalistic expose, here is the Wikipedia summary, and here is the video it mentions, which is so goddamned infuriating that in spite of the fact that I was in a public office, I could be seen, headphones on my ears, scoffing and seething throughout its duration. The best part is the host claiming to "just have gotten back into video games" when it is obvious that even duck hunt would be beyond this feeble twat's grasp.

What baffles me the most about this so-called controversy is that this information has been available since literally MONTHS before the goddamn game was even released. Haven't we been done with it for awhile anyway? Besides, it was much more terrifying when, you know, the game wasn't actually done and no one knew. Now, just go to youtube, search "mass effect alien sex" and voila! Oh god, just look at it! the horror! My fragile mind is forever shattered!

This whole scenario is really just part of a much more disturbing trend, however. Pundits are being given far too much control of what the media reports, and the thing about most pundits is that they argue, rather than report. Thusly, they aren't exactly obligated to present all sides of an argument, or in this case ANY side. What grinds my gears is that the material in question is available for public review. It comprises 1:30 seconds of a 20+ hour game, and yet people are still getting their collective panties in such a twist that Chubby Checker wouldn't even know what to do. These panels consist of nobody knowledgeable on the subject of electronic media and that is profoundly disturbing. We see the same patterns in global warming and medical issues like stem cells and abortions. Instead of knowledgeable and reputable people from the fields in question, "information" is instead disseminated to us by conservative business interests and religious nutcases.

The worst part is that people seem to buy into this painfully ignorant media hype as fact rather than question what sounds like an incredibly dubious claim to begin with. A video game filled with hours on end of nothing but sexually depraved interactive sequences just flat out would not exist, much like you would not see screenings of Anal Cumsluts 4 at your local movie theater playing alongside The Chronicles of Narnia. In fact, if a game garners an Adults Only rating (which such a game, as described by these moronic hacks, would certainly receive), then the major platforms (Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft) would refuse to allow them to be published for their system until the content is back in check and the ESRB deems it Mature or lower. The points that some people make are fairly reasonable: parents should watch what their children play. I wasn't allowed to play any games with shooting whatsoever until I was 11 and had a firm grasp of the fact that video games weren't reality (by that time I had about 5 years of gaming under my belt). But for fuck's sake people, parents don't NEED to be on the lookout for rape simulators. In fact, if you find yourself in an establishment where you wonder whether or not electronic rape how-to kits are being sold, you should probably just cut your losses and find a different store, as I can assure you, you are not at Gamestop.

I guess the encompassing argument to this diatribe is as follows: just because the caption at the bottom of the screen says "panel of experts" it does not mean that these people are experts. Oil companies are providing global warming studies, religious figures are telling us how we should handle the field of medicine, and psychologists who wouldn't recognize a playstation if they were bludgeoned in the face with the box are "authorities" on electronic entertainment. The trend seems to be that the louder someone is, the more weight they carry in that particular field, and that is simply not true. After all, if that was the case, I would be the goddamned president.

Microsoft Invented Sex

I'm not even fucking kidding here. If it was not for Microsoft, I never would have known what sex was. Oh, I was a perfectly normal guy, leading a perfectly normal life these past 20 years. You know, prayer circles, youth groups, witch burnings, the usual. This Christmas though, that all changed. My parents, in what could only be described as the worst move they could have made bought me the new popular electronic entertainment title called Mass Effect. I know their intentions were good. They never would have dreamed that a game that was rated M for Mature audiences would have inappropriate content. Even though I'm over 17 (the age specified on the box) by a good 3 years, it never hurts to be thoroughly scrutinizing in one's media consumption. I began playing this game, and my mind was BLOWN.

Every single event in this game is wrought with sex. Just all kinds of intercourse. There is a weapon called the sodomizer. There is a peripheral that you can attach to your xbox so that when you rape somebody in the game, you can rape somebody in real life, the game mapping and plotting your every thrust and violation in sickening 3-d high definition graphics (720, OR 1080p. Smut peddlers). The times when you're not perpetrating your sickest fantasies involving sodomy, curling irons, banana peels, and a large mouth bass, you are simply not playing this game. You know why that is? Every second is jam packed with more smut than Sodom itself.

I never knew what sex was until Microsoft brought it into the media for the first time ever in this video game, but now, all i do is rape people in mass effect, then when I eventually overheat the system from all of the hardcore-pornstar-fucking I'm doing, I set small animals on fire and rape little girls. Thanks a lot Microsoft, because you guys made this game, I'm a murdering sexual deviant, capable only of achieving orgasm if someone dresses up like an alien bitch and lets me hold a gun to their rectum.