he gonzo box office success of Lions Gate Entertainment’s new film The Hunger Games has drawn criticism from North Korea’s beloved madman Kim Jong-un this week, as the diminutive leader called bullshit on the killing of teenagers in ritualized sport suddenly becoming cool after his country had been doing it for decades.

"Once again a Hollywood movie has made a mockery of the glorious North Korean lifestyle," griped Kim. "Same thing happen in Dark City and Mad Max."

Kim Jong-un, back in power after the nation’s failed experiment with Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom was rapidly abandoned due to Dotcom being jailed for paying to see The Smurfs, violating North Korea’s longstanding policy regarding the mandatory pirating of Hollywood films, added that The Hunger Games was "popcorn bullshit" and that unlike Westerners, the fortunate citizens of North Korea don’t have to pay exorbitant movie theater prices to see that kind of thing every day.

The insular nation, which subjects its citizens to harrowing games of life and death on a daily basis, is no stranger to televised competitions that would probably be called The Hunger Games if they’d thought of that first. These include the capital city’s weekly "Fight For Your Food Fun Fight" events, which critics have condemned as a natural result of the state’s failed economy and collapsed chain of food production disguised as a trumped-up game show where regular citizens punch each other to death over the last canned ham in the entire city. Regardless, the North Korean tourism board has been quick to capitalize on the success of the Hunger Games film, already advertising tourism packages where Hunger Games fans can tour the Pyongyang Deathdrome and kill an actual North Korean teenager with their bare hands for less than the average New Yorker spends on "Whoops, I ran over another homeless person" insurance.

The Hunger Games opened to a gangbusters $155 million in its first weekend in theaters, a figure described by Hollywood pundits as "fucking bananas" and "bigger than $154 million," and representing the biggest box-office opening in history for a non-sequel film. Critics dispute the importance of this claim, however, since it was also the first non-sequel film to be released since 2007.

Based on the first of a berserkly popular series of young adult novels by writer Suzanne Collins, the books and film alike have been criticized for being heavily derivative of previous source materials, such as the Japanese film Battle Royale, the American films The Running Man, Series 7, The Condemned, The Most Dangerous Game, Lord of the Files, The Truman Show, Spartacus and Death Race 2000, the Italian film The 10th Victim, the Stephen King story The Long Walk and the Shirley Jackson novel The Lottery. In honor of this long chain of shit being ripped off, the CW has already begun filming the pilot for their own Hunger Games knock-off television series, The Selection, which involves a cast of lesser-known actors rehashing the plot of The Hunger Games on a weekly basis.

When asked recently if she thought her novels were derivative of these previous works, Collins responded "What? I can’t hear you because of the noise from all the money I’m drowning in over here," before literally drowning in an avalanche of hundred dollar bills. Funeral services will be held Tuesday at the cash landfill in North Hollywood where rich people are buried.

In spite of the author’s death, the white-hot success of the first film all but guarantees that Lions Gate will return to Collins’ grave at least twice more to adapt the other two books in the series, 2009’s Catching Fire and 2010’s Oxycute ’em! in hopes of sating the bloodlust of twelve-year-old American girls. Stars Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson have reportedly already signed on for three sequels, with a uniquely ironic clause in their contracts stating that if they back out of the sequels for any reason, they’ll be hunted by hordes of teenaged fans out for blood.

Meanwhile, North Korea’s Jong-un has demanded that Hollywood filmmakers stop ripping off ideas from his country for their dystopian sci-fi visions.

"You get your own ideas," the beloved "Supreme Tall Sunshine Man" spat into a microphone shaped like a hamburger. "I don’t want to see any more movie with robots that look like humans but are spies for government, or people with clocks stuck in their arms ticking down to time when they die, or genetic-engineered battle giraffes, or desalination plant that run on dead babies."

"In closing," Jong-un decreed, while eating a roll of Fruit-by-the-Foot, "I also downloaded bittorrent of The Smurfs, and there’s not goddamned thing you people can do about it."

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"There was a time I remember when my old boss, a kind of megalomaniacal fruitcake with a bad head for business, approached me and asked me to go on a quest with him that could result in both of our deaths. This memory is pretty easy to conjure since it was about last week.

'Sampson,' the boss said, 'there is but one man on this staff I can trust to go along with me and, if necessary, make that ultimate sacrifice. And that man is you.'

I confess, some part of ol' Sampson L. Hartwig thought him out of his whack mind, as my hip-hop friends might suggest. But the more I dwelt on it, the more I took it as both a compliment and as an accurate assessment. The boss may be missing a few nuts and bolts, but as my dad used to say, even a broken clock is right twice a day, unless it's a digital.

What it comes down to for me, folks, is that Sampson L. Hartwig is an older fella in addition to being completely reliable. I've lived a long, happy life, and rightfully maybe it should be even longer, but it's a sad thought for a young person to go before they've had a chance to experience as much of the world as I have.

When I started writing down these sometimes-rambling musings of mine, I wasn't sure what the point of it all was. I later realized it was some attempt at immortality, I guess. Making my words stand up somewhere separate from me like carved in a stone statue. Or making them the most immortal of all things—stories. Passed down from one to the next over a nice cold drink in a cozy setting. That's the only way to live once you're in the ground, folks.

So the way I see it, yeah, let's go on this crazy adventure. The worst that can happen is they put me in the ground. There's still some part of me wandering around over those drinks in cozy settings, and in places like this column. And if it all works out for the better, maybe you'll hear from me again—and boy, will I have a humdinger of a story to tell you then.

In the meantime, I'm taking a loaded shotgun with me, and a taser. No one said I can't stack the deck a little in my favor. If my brother Goose comes nosin' around asking for me, tell him I went on a suicidal adventure—he'll be positively emerald with jealousy."

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The new year is presenting more hurdles than some excessive hurdle-presenting device of some sort. Remember the Masked Dude?

Yes, former pro-wrestler the Masked Dude has been consistently on my ass like my former glitter-covered spandex tights. If you remember the details from my previous column, you're one up on me—I had to look it up and re-read it just to remember, and it was hell finding the commune on this "internet" thing. But as I mentioned, the Masked Dude, the only 5-foot wrestler in our wrestling league, the Dandies of America, constantly sought me out to turn his zero-win record into a one-win, or higher. As the 4-Foot Nightmare, I was the shortest wrestler in the league and, in the Dude's opinion, the easiest path to victory. But I never fought the Dude, as I recovered from my wrestling infatuation long enough to resign from the D.O.A. and toss my tights to the wind, where they landed in a ladies social group and ruined everyone's evening.

But that wasn't enough for the Masked Dude—he's sought me out like a blood-sniffing hound, always seeking that victory he's so badly wanted. It was truly difficult to track me down, too, considering how I kept my wrestling identity a secret from everyone, even my wife—hell, even my cat, Makeshift. Somehow, though, the Dude found me living with Lee and Camembert and began stalking me, like next-level trailer trash ex-husband stalking, too.

As if the notes weren't bad enough, and they really weren't, kind of a disappointment, he began following me everywhere around November. I haven't mentioned it before now because, well, between the private investigators, the tax people, and teens seeking drugs, if I mentioned every time someone was stalking me I'd run out of column space. But unlike the rest, I couldn't buy off the Masked Dude or score anything strong enough to dissuade him. I reported it to the police, but once you get there attention with a firm "Listen, needledicks," they won't hear anything else you say. So I was on my own.

Finally, one night, I got home and found a message scrawled to me on the wall of my apartment hallway, in letters seven-foot high: "I CHALENJ YU, NITMAR!"

With the poor spelling and lack of context, it took a long while to decipher, I can tell you that. I feel a little bad for dumping Camembert out of bed, putting a sack over his head and beating him with a phone book, but you can understand my confusion—who wouldn't assume it was their roommate when first seeing a message like that? I wanted to make sure his challenge was met with enough force to put off another one. But then I remembered Camembert spells very well—he proofreads these columns for me sometimes, like all times. And once he returned to consciousness, he assured me it must have been someone else, and not Lee either. With those two eliminated, and once I had called the staff of the commune and PETA to make sure none of them had anything to do with it, I narrowed my focus to the Masked Dude.

A challenge! To me! An opportunity to end this madness once and for all, and return to regular madness.

If you thought I'd turn it down, you don't know Rok Finger. Yessir, challenge accepted… as I scrawled in ten-foot letters on the outside of our building, just to show up the little prick. I even named the time and place, which I'm keeping secret, but let's just say it took me three buildings to get the entire message across and, well, it's a hefty fine.

One week from tonight, the gauntlet has been throw down. The loser has to pick it up, and Rok Finger never picks up after himself. Boo-ya!

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