I’ve been a video game geek for most of my life. It started in the Seventies with Space Port, a local hangout in the Mall for kids with an excess of time, energy, and quarters. My parents bought a Magnavox Odyssey for family fun. It had FOUR games, and they were all variants on PONG, although they had much catchier names like Tennis, Hockey, Racquetball, and the one I can’t remember.

Because I was an overweight schmuck who thirsted for pixels and eschewed sweat, the Odyssey became the standard for sporting events. When I saw my first tennis match, I was amazed that the players could move toward the net - unbelievable!

After the Odyssey, my parents went with an Atari 2600 instead of the Intellivision system (like the one owned by my friend down the street), and they supplied me with game after game from Atari and Activision. This piqued my interest in game programming, which I tried once or twice on a Commodore 64. This lead to playing bigger and better games, as well as running my own BBS service. I went to college and soon forgot all of that. It wasn’t until I was introduced to Mechwarrior 2’s multi-player options that I got re-hooked into the gaming world.

(more…)

Wednesday night television has a few gems in a sea of malaise-inducing crud. I have to point out the few sparkling nuggets first. I adore Pushing Daisies, and not just because of Jim Dale’s animated voice-overs (he is the guy who performed all of the Harry Potter audio-books), but also because of the quirky nature of the characters, the plotting, as well as the wonderful use of costume, color, line, and. . . sorry, I think I slipped into my Get Your Geek On: Design persona. Anyway, it’s a crisp, colorful show and I’m glad ABC brought it back for another go-round. However, there is so much other silt to sift through that it makes the entire night a maze of sooty weeds.

(more…)

When I was a lad of just fourteen, an Irish priest came to visit my class to speak to us about the possibility of receiving Holy Orders and joining the priesthood. That’s not important or relevant. What is important AND relevant is that the Priest, with his Irish accent, didn’t pronounce the ‘th’ in third as a ‘th’ sound at all, but a hard ‘tuh’ sound, thus turning every “third” into “turd.” As a fourteen year old, I found this unendingly amusing. As a thirtysomething (turdysomething) with a fourteen year old mentality, I still find it amazingly funny, and appropriate when discussing this Fall’s Thursday’s (Turdsday) TV lineup.

(more…)

Talking about midseason shows and replacements on Network TV is a little like trying to channel a trendy Nostradamian figure while trying to stay away from the syrupy ickiness of an E! News (quite the contradiction) “host.” I will attempt to guide you through the muddle of Fall and into the “Shroud of Midseason.” While some networks have cemented schedules of certain shows that they KNOW will be coming back, there is also an unknown factor mixed with guesswork and a little transmutation, much like the wok of a crazed alchemist/psychic farting around with capacitors and transistors.

I am delaying. It’s true. I’m trying to find words that will soothe and make it all better. I want to apply a Band-Aid brand Band-Aid to the seeping wounds caused to our psyches by popular entertainment. I’m stumbling, I know, and I’m fishing for sharks in a pond with a piece of gum on frayed twine. I suppose I’ll start with the known quantities.

(more…)

Recently I was shocked, appalled, and otherwise taken aback by comments from a friend. I’ve known this guy, whom I’ll call Richie, since Tenth grade, which is roughly twenty years. We were visiting the Ocean City (New Jersey) boardwalk and letting our collective kids (bunch of communist children) ride the rides in the swamp of germs and bullies. It wasn’t the actual visit or the rides or the communication during most of our visit that alarmed me, but a simple walk to the car to feed the meters for another fun hour.

While walking back with “Richie” and, uh, “Ken”, “Richie” started talking about politics. “Richie” is quite the typical redneck, softball playing, beer-swilling citizen of the town I grew up in, deep in the southern part of New Jersey (the other ass as I like to call it). He’s a proud Republican. Why? All the trite reasons - he thinks Democrats will raise his taxes, take away his guns, and let races other than white rule over his home. He used to be a gun owner until it was taken away by the police due to an illegal discharge. This was when he was a Police Officer, as well. He is also a Paramedic, who believes that “AIDS babies and Retards” should be killed, because they serve no purpose.

(more…)

I’ve compiled a list of trends and ideas that just need to go away. It will be good for television, good for individuals, and good for society in general. This list is just meant for trends in current media. I have a “no more” list for current trends in society as well, but there were so many for media I had to make a separate list.

1. No more Highlander sequels, television shows, comic books, radio shows, etc. There can be only one? Prove it.
2. No more reality shows. These people are as real as a stripper’s boobs or a politician’s smile. Documentary shows and cinema verité are fine art forms that catch real life in action. Reality shows, however, just exploit the greedy, the stupid, and the false. Normally I’d be okay with that exploitation, but when it gets in the way of “quality” programming (like Jericho, Firefly… but you’ve heard that rant before) I get a little angry.
3. No more news anchors telling me what I should think. I have a wife, a church, and a family to do that for me.
4. No more fearmongering! You read? Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, yada yada yada. If you don’t stop, I’m sure an asteroid will hit us, God® shall smite us, the LHC will poof us out of existence, and the Democrats will let another terrorist attack happen. You’d better be prepared.
5. No more American Idol. I have no words other than “Shit Sandwich.”
6. No more Toby Keith. A moratorium on all things Toby Keith should commence immediately, and last until further notice.
7. No more Paris Hilton. Ever. Well, maybe, but I have secret, wet and naked on top of me conditions.
8. No more legislation of morality. Puritania(!) has been dead for a long while. Let it stay dead.

Editor’s Note: We cannot be held responsible for any sex tapes, STDs or bad mental images that result from exposure to Paris Hilton.

It’s actually a puppet.

With my puppetry-powered vagina, I shall energize the base of Republican voters. They shall swoon and cry and see me as the second coming. They won’t need to know anything about me, except that I have a vagina and a strange accent.

With my puppetry-powered vagina, I shall condemn others, yet still play victim. I will claim conservatism, while opposing everything the word stands for.

With my puppetry-powered vagina, I shall fart out talking points distributed upon White House stationery.

With my puppetry-powered vagina, I shall deflect attention from the things that could lose the election for me (and that strange old man that gawks at my vagina-ness) - issues and substance.

All shall worship the puppetry-powered vagina. Only when it’s too late will you realize that my vagina is actually someone else’s penis, and that penis shall penetrate the anus of every American willfully with excessive force.

****

Can we stop helping her now?

Some trends I find extremely annoying in our society and culture of mix-mosh…

1. Old Republicans telling us what’s best for us: Stop telling everyone you are a conservative when you support such horrid deficit spending. Just shut up.
    
2. Young Democrats telling us what’s best for us: Just shut up.
    
3. Libertarians: Guys. Lighten up. Pricks like you claim the government will just fuck everything up, then you prove yourselves correct by electing a guy who, indeed, fucks everything up. You claim the free market will shake things out and resolve everything. Right. You make Feudal society look like Paradise. I have a hard time accepting that the free market (capitalism) will come to my aid (Police or Firemen) or prevent a corporation from raping a city, polluting its population, then moving to another country, leaving the former workers without health insurance, jobs, or self-esteem.
    
4. Making celebrity from nothing at all: I’m talking about Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Survivor winners, reality show cretins, and Sarah Palin.
    
5. Laws prohibiting Marijuana: Come on. 420! I don’t partake in the ganga…  anymore. Not since last century. It made me defensive and paranoid, though I suspect I’ve always been that way. I don’t know why Head Shops, Frito-Lay, and Philly Blunts don’t all thrown in to lobby to get this prohibition struck down. For more background, I’m against this prohibition and I am a cancer survivor(?) who isn’t able to partake because of shit in my lungs.
    
6. Two party system: Just get rid of it. It’s old, tired, and way past its sell-by date. The clumps of sour, clotted milk take the form of politicians, and it takes a lot of study to see any difference between member of the two parties. A lot of people give Smokin’ Joe Lieberman a lot of heat for rim-jobbing, whoever he serves at the time. But while Joey strides the line as a “turncoat,” many of his current and former allies are just like him. They just prefer to have the happy little R or D by their names, probably because they have no opinions of their own.
    
7. Pharmaceuticals: Can we stop with the drugs?! I take handfuls of drugs each day and I hate it! Each of these drugs has caused a slew of other side effects controlled by…  more drugs. Let’s wean ourselves off of the drug culture, because we are making ourselves mindless, dependent zombies.
    
8. Oil, Gas, and Coal: Come on, already! End the run! It’s no longer cheap or efficient to use fossil fuels. Let’s find some alternative resources, because the truth is fossil fuels are not renewable and that means once they expire, they expire for good. Poking into the earth like an old, blind man at an orgy only provides a quick fix to the blind man. Overall, it will be pretty unsatisfying for everyone else.
    
9. Global Warming “Skeptics”: Don’t give me the bullshit that you don’t “buy into the religion” of global Warming because one scientist had a datum error, Al Gore has a huge… electric bill, or that this August’s chill factor is proof that it doesn’t exist. Why so negative? It’s not like you, Joe Schmoe (of the Schenectady Schmoes), are directly benefiting from Global Warming (Atmospheric Cooling, Climate Change, etc.). In fact, I’m pretty sure the causes of this “supposed” Warming are also polluting the air you breathe, the water you drink, the earth you dig into, and the food you eat. Fire, however, seems unaffected.
    
10. Unification of Church and State: If we meld church and state into one conglomerate, then God will be on our side. Not just any God, but God of America®.