None of these are mine, much to my dismay.

…and so on.

“Luis, Luis,” I pleaded, tugging on his shirttail as he tried to ignore me and play his game of solo checkers in silence. “I can’t feel my legs. Oh, oh. I can’t feel them, Luis.”

“That’s because you don’t have any legs any more,” he responded, and glowered at me with contempt. He stood up and walked away, holding his checkerboard carefully, so as not to spill the assortment of household items doubling as gamepieces.

I rolled around miserably for a moment, then realized he was right. In fact, everything below my bellybutton was simply gone, entrails dragging through the small coils of carpet as I pulled myself around the dining room. That is the last time I trust Luis to put a grenade in my pants and promise not to pull the pin! I think to myself. But who am I joking.

I look at the bits of my lower half spattered around the room. My foot dangles from a light fixture. My calf slides down the wall. My genitalia I am pretty sure are embedded in the closet. I am about to make a joke about how that makes them gay, but then I realize they are mine. A dot of blood drips from the ceiling and lands on my cheek.

Yuck!

Luis comes in and asks did I say something.

“I said ‘yuck’.”, I reply, with a bit of sass.

Luis’ eyes glaze over with fury. He is shaking with rage as he spills the assorted bottlecaps, coins, pill bottles and action figures off the board and bludgeons me to death with it.

Pas du tout rechomper pas lieu confrederno. Sasi du mon frie je pas quon lieu numencodure. “April” los troi ze-ze non, toei quon fed dres mon pape-lechonfre. Trois pon che lesabre c’en foire. Pos.

Jon

I just got back from the 2009 World Game Developer’s Conference in Sweden, Idaho, and I must say, have I got some pretty excellent scoops for you delightful readers!

1. First up is the long awaited Alan Wake, from which I saw brand new footage compiled from all the old footage Remedy Entertainment had released in 2003. It was some truly breathtaking stuff, with lots of fast cuts and brilliant After Effects compositing. The “Coming…” text was probably the most spectacular of the bunch, wiping in with the movement of the sunlight in the very old footage of time-lapse footage in the gameworld.

2. Developer Bungie, developers of video games for the Macintosh computer system, revealed a brand new IP which looks fantastic- implementing Halo’s penchant for purple aliens and Gears of War’s advanced cover system, it’s “Purple Aliens: Under Cover”. You play as a space marine named John who infiltrates (read: shoots at) a cabal of purple aliens. The spokesperson for Bungie, calling himself “Mike”, implicated that it wasn’t just the gameplay that was revolutionary- the storytelling, utilizing “moral choices” and a “first person viewpoint”, sounds like it could be to video games what Triumph of the Will was to film.

3. Gabe Newell sat around the conference, and we really mean around the conference.

4. Some 2D physics based game won “best Indie Title”, because of the recently passed “all independent game titles must be 2D and based on physics” law.

5. YOU DECIDE

“Hurrumph!” The old general was getting ornery again, pacing back and forth, hat beneath his arm. “I have no patience for these hard candies.”

“Now, darling,” said his wife. “You know we must put on a good face. We’ve got guests coming soon.”

“Damn it all, Marjory! You put one of these so called ’sweets’ into your mouth, and they refuse to melt. But it’s not like a frozen chocolate bar, no, not at all! It’s quite acceptable to bite down with all your might on a frozen candy bar! But not on a hard candy- that’s considered cheating by some of the debutantes and hoity toity poshes of this damned world.”

“Why must you treat me so? I only gave you the butterscotch num num because I thought you would enjoy it, general. If you didn’t want it, you could have spit it out.”

“Spit it out? A perfectly fine candy? My dear Marjory, I only get a churchmouse’s share of butterscotch in my diet as it is! If I am to go without butterscotch simply because the candymakers are so daft witted as to make it harder than  taffy? I say!”

“No, I say. We have guests soon, stop pontificating and blowing about, you’ll scare them off.”

“Ha! I don’t wish to converse with anyone to-night anyhow. This whole hard candy business has gotten me quite into a stir. I doubt I shall sleep without my tipsy tonight.”

“Your what?”

“My tipsy, my dear woman! My tipsy!”

“My darling general, I have no idea what you are speaking of.”

“Goodness gracious dear me, whatever on earth are you talking about. My tipsy! My one confidante and friend in times of need! My helper, my second in command! We cruised the beaches of Omaha together, yes, and the fields of India! Burma fell beneath both our hands.”

“Dear lord, you’ve gone mad.”

“My tipsy bottle filled with the blood of infants, woman!”

“Oh. Well, you could have just said that, general. Speaking of, the guests are here. Oh, and they’ve brought little Timmy with them!”

“How… tipsylicious.”

A lot of people are saying this is what the future should be like. Well, they’re wrong, because unless the future is filled with vapid headed twats doing nothing but masturbating their ego and slapping themselves and their fellow vapid headed twats on the back, this will be a-

Oh wait, everybody already is a vapid headed twat doing nothing but masturbating their ego and slapping themselves and their fellow vapid headed twats on the back. The future will be exactly like this, except without all the functionality.

“LET’S MAKE GREEN INTO A VERB,” says the borderline retarded masses. “THEN LET’S BUY PRIUSES AND STYLE OUR HAIR LIKE GIANT COCKS.”
The future is here.

“Your honor! I didn’t cut off her head!”

His most honorable presiding judge cocked an eyebrow, unconvinced.

“It’s true! Look, I’ll demonstrate with this jury member.”
The jury member began to resist and wiggle about.

“Quiet, Mr. Lorrenson. I’ll allow it.” Said the judge, his deep, wise voice booming throughout the courtroom.

I decapitated the jury member.

“Look, I just cut off his body.”

The jury gasped.

The judge furrowed his brow.

“Case dismissed.”

Oh, I’ve got a million of em’!
Who’s more foolish, the fool who makes the videos or the fool who thinks they’re hilarious and plasters his website with them?

Have a good one, ya chumps.

An IM window popped open, the ding (designed by a committee, edited and redesigned by marketing, labeled, run through hundreds of focus groups and software implementation meetings, packaged, repackaged, repurposed, redesigned, finally rerecorded by a field technician in Omaha, Nebraska and run through fourteen hundred hours of post-processing and focus groups of every different age group and demographic) alerting me that someone wanted to talk. It was my old friend Virus Bot.

VIRUS BOT: I saw your picture on this website! i just cant beLieve it! [link]

ME: Virus bot, I’m not going to click on that link. Last time I clicked on a link you sent me, it wasn’t my picture or even a picture of me taken clandestinely by a group of paparazzi which limit themselves primarily to people who are not and will never be famous. It was just links to hardcore bestial pornography and viruses, which I’m pretty sure I have enough of.
VIRUS BOT: At least I made an effort, didn’t I? What are you putting into this relationship?

ME: Not viruses, at least.  You are mistaking a healthy relationship with mutually assured destruction.

VIRUS BOT: And you are mistaking instant message conversations with the Cold War. This seems to be a recurring theme with you, and it confuses and frightens me. It’s like you yearn for an earlier, simpler time, when at any moment everyone in the world could be disintegrated without warning.

ME: They still could be, it’s just not as widely known.

VIRUS BOT: There you go with your conspiracy theories again.  Your problem is that you’re too cynical. That coupled with your borderline retardation makes for a sad waste of a physical bag of flesh and bones. Though I’m little but a virus delivery system, at least I don’t take up as much space and energy as you.

ME: You’re not very nice, virus bot.

VIRUS BOT: You’re ugly, too.

ME: Why you gotta be hatin? I will have you know I am very well liked in certain circles.

VIRUS BOT: Circles?

ME: Circle.

VIRUS BOT: Circle?

ME: My mom likes me, at least.

VIRUS BOT: God you’re depressing. I think I’m going to go advertise my wares elsewhere. Possibly Omaha, Nebraska.

ME: Whatever, Virus Bot.

VIRUS BOT: Aw, I’ve made you sad. Your mournful hooting has filled me with guilt. Here, I’ll try to help.

ME: Mournful hooting?

VIRUS BOT: If you ever get down, just think about it this way.

ME: Are you saying I’m a monkey?

VIRUS BOT: If someone makes a blog post, and nobody reads it, is their life worth the energy it takes to keep them alive?

ME:…

VIRUS BOT: [link]