Bush Seeks Additional 4,000 Troops to Overtake Congress

inding all requests for funding troops in Iraq and Afghanistan impeded by the new Democratic Congress, President Bush resorted to the only weapon at his disposal Friday: Requesting even more troops, more specifically, 4,000 new soldiers with the explicit purpose of conquering Congress.

Astounded Democratic leadership responded quickly, telling the press Saturday, "Of course, any action that brings greater safety to our nation will be considered. But for crying out loud, of course we're not going to approve that. I mean, get a clue."

Critics of the White House were quick to condemn what they called a "call for a military coup" from the president as "unconstitutional."

The White House responded with a brief memo stating: "We'll let the militarily-supported Congress establish what's constitutional and what's not."

Some have been quick to characterize the measure as an attempt, however ill-conceived, by the White House to demonstrate the Democratic Congress is unwilling to work with them. Okay, it was just one guy who said that—political and pizza pundit Jefferson Shavers III.

"It's really a no-lose situation for the president," said Shavers, revealing his dazzling smile in the quaint atmosphere of his wood-paneled office in mom's garage. "If the Democrats turn down even more requests for troops, even those which would be serving on domestic soil, the president can point to it as further proof Congress just won't cooperate. And if he gives them the troops, they're all going to die. He absolutely can't lose, unless a ridiculously low approval rating demonstrated Americans really aren't supporting the White House military demands anymore."

While most in Congress, where the danger lies, continued to remain silent on the request after its announcement, the administration took the offensive by attempting to paint a picture of an anti-troops sentiment in the Democratic party.

"I come from a different world than my Democratic colleagues, I suppose," said Vice-President Dick Cheney, the gaping orifice of the White House whenever it has to tell America something truly odious. "Where I come from, we support the troops, we don't try to make political ammunition out of the war they're fighting. We supported them when they're in Vietnam. We should support them when they're fighting in Afghanistan, in Iraq, or standing behind you with a rifle and demanding you vote 'yea' on a flag-burning amendment. That's just the way I was raised."

The administration called for an immediate vote on its inappropriately named "Kill Congress" legislation, citing an expected Taliban offensive in the spring that the U.S. would be better prepared for when it could "bypass congressional authority and get as many troops as it needs" to stabilize the region. The bill goes to the House on Monday for a vote, where its chore of passing the house should be comparably to last year's "Snowball in Hell" amendment sponsored by insane Senator Zell Miller (D, GA).

The White House refused comment to the commune, as per usual. Republican governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger was contacted just for an amusing quote in his thick accent, but he turned out to be even more unintelligible over the phone than in person, so we scrapped that plan.

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Truth be told, nobody ever thought Omar Bricks would get a cell phone, least of all Omar Bricks. That's strictly Captain Kirk bullshit for sci-fi geeks and mama's boys in my book. But to be honest I never thought somebody would leave one unguarded on the counter at Emergency Room Pizza, either. So let this be a lesson, we should always write our books in pencil or dry erase marker whenever possible or else look like an asshole later.

For those of you not native to the area, ERP is a local legend, a hospital-themed pizza joint that burns the fuck out of some tasty pepperonis. It's not really legendary for the food, but more for the number of people who have passed out or lost their shit while eating there, which are many. Apparently all the bloody tourniquets and bone saw decorations on the walls are too much for some local pizza lovers, and all the tables in there are pretty banged up from people falling down all over the place or scrambling out the windows in a panic.

Personally I think it's awesome. Yeah, what you've heard about the pizza is true; it does pretty much blow ass. It basically tastes like somebody smeared glue on a cardboard box, then set it on fire. Not that I've ever done that. But the place is never crowded, and you know Omar Bricks digs that part. I hate having to wait in line for shitty pizza. Plus ERP never fails to lift my spirits when I'm in a carless funk. They do this thing where every new customer gets a steaming cow heart right in the middle of their pizza as a surprise the first time they eat there, and let me assure you that shit is some serious dinner theater.

Now, the classy move when you're new to ERP and you get a heart on, to the Bricks school of thinking, is to palm the bloody thing in one hand, then stagger up to the counter and start coughing like you just took a hit off a Pinto muffler. When the dude in the paper hat asks you what's the score, that's when you squirt the heart out of your hand like you just coughed the fucker up. What happens after that is a matter of chance and wind direction, but in my case the nasty thing smacked off the guy's face like a wet frog and the entire restaurant threw up all at once. That's how I got my picture on the wall.

Not everyone handles it so well. One time I was there gnawing on a slice when this rookie got her pizza, and she actually thought the cow heart was a big bell pepper or some shit, and I guess she was some kind of bell pepper freak because she stabbed the fucker with her fork like it was going to get away. By chance, at that exact moment somebody flushed a toilet in the john, which sets off that fountain that squirts all the fake blood up by the counter, an ERP landmark. As you might guess, the lady dropped two gonads trying to get out of there before her stomach caught up with her brain, and that's why the front door is missing the glass on the bottom.

Something similar must have happened last week, because some poor soul got the rock out of there at the speed of fear, too fast to be worried about cell phones or their left sneaker. I left the shoe there, since they have a wall they nail those to as trophies, but I was pretty sure that nails and cell phones mix about as well as nails and Jesus, so I liberated that bastard like an Iraqi oil well.

Of course, the real trouble with cell phones is trying to figure out what your phone number is, not enough people write it on the back of the phone with a grease pencil like you're supposed to. I had a plan to have commune speed bump Bludney Pludd dial every number in the phone book until my phone rang, which was brilliant enough, but some little shithead kept calling the thing to ask if his mommy was coming home and that cocked up the whole deal. I had to send Pludd out to take him for ice cream so he wouldn't eat up all my battery time calling like that, since I don't have a charger or anything.

At least I can call out well enough, which is handy when I'm at a fast-food drive thru and I don't want to roll down my window and let the cold in. But people still find a way to piss on my pageant, saying they're not allowed to drop food through a sunroof or there's certain places where it's not polite to use a cell phone. Hey, if I want to talk on my phone while I'm pissing in a movie theater urinal, that's my own business. As for whoever's on the other end of the line, well, that's why I didn't find a camera phone. I just say I'm at the ocean or in a rainforest or some shit and they have to take my word on that if they want hear the rest of the story.

And don't get me started about people bitching that it's dangerous to talk on a phone and flip through the yellow pages while you're driving. Christ on a bike, I'm starting to understand why this thing got left behind. It's like a nag magnet.

Bricks out.

º Last Column: Long Live Omar Bricks!
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The history of video games thus far can be neatly divided into three eras: the Arcade Era, which was covered in part one of this series, spanned the rise of video gaming up from the primordial, pixilated ooze. Second was the Console Era, when gamers finally gained the opportunity to play lame, half-assed knockoffs of their arcade favorites at home, for the quarter-saving initial outlay of several hundred dollars. But it did mean less time spent developing cancer in the smoke-filled game room of the local bowling alley, so progress was progress. Thirdly came the No-Arcade Era, after home consoles got so good that there was no reason to go to the arcade any more, unless you were too broke to buy Camels and needed a fix of second-hand smoke, or you wanted to play that life-sized Stuck In Traffic driving game.

But forget about that third era for now, you'll just get confused since this column is all about the second one, the rise of the consoles. From the first, shitastic home Pong in 1972, through the Atari 2600, Colecovision, Intellivision and Chevy's little-known and ill-fated foray into the gaming business, Impallavision, home consoles have sprouted hair on the nads of an entire generation.

The very first home video game console was Magnavox's Odyssey in 1972, an impressive bit of engineering done in by the fact that they never made any games for it. This oversight on Maganvox's part quickly became apparent in 1973, when home gamers grew bored of playing with the console's menu screen and realized there were no games in this game console. Magnavox attempted to re-release the Odyssey as simply a "console" in 1974, hoping to profit on mystery alone, but this tactic soon proved as futile as their attempts a year earlier to convince gamers that the Odyssey was actually full of fun games, but that finding them was the most challenging game of all.

The Odyssey was soon superseded by Coleco's Telstar in 1976, a big oval box that put out more radiation than a Russian microwave. Coleco originally started out as the Connecticut Leather Company (I shit you not), which over the years had made leather craft kits for shoe makers and, just for the hell of it, plastic kiddie pools. Their experience with kiddie pools made them a natural to enter the highly competitive world of complex consumer electronics, but unfortunately a complete lack of engineering know-how left Coleco with a product more deadly than Hasbro's ill-fated "Exploding Porcupine" doll in the mid-70's. Coleco made one last stab at saving the Telstar with their "It glows in the dark!" ad campaign in 1977, but after a while the mounting death toll began to hurt the company's bottom line.

In spite of never having put out a home console, Atari was dominating the home console market by the mid-70's due in large part to the criminal ineptitude of their competitors. The company was started by a couple of computer science drop-outs, Noel Bushnell and Cole Dabney, who had both been kicked out of college for refusing to toe the party line about things like not making grilled cheese sandwiches on hot motherboards or obeying programming language syntax. Though they originally wanted to name their company Syzygy, for the sound a keyboard makes when you sit on it, that name was already being used by an Indiana roofing company. So the two had to settle for Atari, a Japanese chess term meaning "Eat shit and lose."

After the success of their initial run of arcade games, Atari decided to take the next logical step by opening a chain of restaurants featuring singing robot animals in 1977. Pizza Time Theater and its mascot, a terrifying man-sized rat named Chuck E. Cheese, was an instant success. But once he saw his vision in action, Bushnell, who'd thought of the concept while getting stoned at Disneyland the year before, was scared straight and immediately steered Atari's course toward the home console market.

Atari released the 2600 later that year, which was quickly followed by Bally's copycat console, the Bally Professional Arcade. Though Bally would not answer questions about who exactly these video gaming professionals were that the console was being marketed to, the system was a minor hit due to the workout provided by kids moving the unreasonably heavy console from TV to TV whenever they wanted to play the console's only game, Meathead.

Again boosted by the ineptitudes of their competitors, Atari made another bold move in 1978, releasing the Atari 400 to compete with Apple's line of home computers. Consumers, however, prefered the way Apple's computers went "boop" and did nothing useful, and Atari quickly withdrew from the shitty computer market. Magnavox would also briefly try to dethrone Apple with their Odyssey 2 home computer, which quickly failed due to a complete lack of software.

Sales of Atari's 2600 skyrocketed in 1980 with the release of the system's first game, Space Invaders. Finally finding the key to home console success through the synergistic combination of system hardware and games, Atari was quickly aped by toymaker Mattel with the release of the Intellivision later that year. Realizing Mattel's console wasn't selling well due to its association with intelligence, Coleco named their new console Colecovision in 1982 and cleaned up, in spite of the system's bizarre controllers that looked like some kind of garage door opener from hell.

Later that year, a Chicago man would drop dead of a heart attack while playing Atari's Berserk, sending video game sales through the roof.

That event was to be Atari's last hurrah for some time, however, since at around the same time Atari released their home port of Pac-Man for their 2600 console, in a version so stupefyingly shitty as to cause the infamous video game crash of 1982.

From late 1982 through 1985 the home video game market went down in heinous flames, due to the dozens of different consoles being released almost daily by anyone with a soldering kit and a bad idea. Consumers eventually grew confused, trying to play Danavision games on their Scatari console, or trying to plug Donkey Kong Jr. into their toasters. Soon gamers gave up and went back to playing Stratego and throwing rocks at squirrels, spelling death for the video game industry. And it wouldn't be until 1985 that a fat ethnic plumber would roust the industry from its watery grave and once again enslave the minds of a generation. But that's a sunshine story for another day.

º Last Column: You Lose: The History of Video Games
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