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Two Arrested, Charged with Posession of AnthraxAugust 8, 1999 |
Herman and Isley led a double life ocal residents of a small suburban community were stunned to find out two of its seemingly-adult contemporary neighbors, Bob Herman and Walter Isley, were secret metalheads when a routine traffic stop and search revealed the presence of Anthrax's State of Euphoria tape in their cassette deck.
"I can't believe it," neighbor Mildred Abramowitz said. "He borrowed my Yanni CDs several times. Now people are saying he doesn't even own a CD player. You think you know somebody..."
The album, called by some critics a disappointing follow-up to the successful Among the Living, does contain the melodic "Be All, End All" and the cover "Antisocial". Also confiscated from the car were Warrant's Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich and Trixter's se...
ocal residents of a small suburban community were stunned to find out two of its seemingly-adult contemporary neighbors, Bob Herman and Walter Isley, were secret metalheads when a routine traffic stop and search revealed the presence of Anthrax's State of Euphoria tape in their cassette deck. "I can't believe it," neighbor Mildred Abramowitz said. "He borrowed my Yanni CDs several times. Now people are saying he doesn't even own a CD player. You think you know somebody..." The album, called by some critics a disappointing follow-up to the successful Among the Living, does contain the melodic "Be All, End All" and the cover "Antisocial". Also confiscated from the car were Warrant's Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich and Trixter's self-titled debut, but authorities agree the only actual threat was the Anthrax. Detective Roger Harlan, head of the Buffalo Police Department's Corrosion of Conformity Special Squad, explained the danger of suburbanites possessing metal and speed metal albums. "The fact is that the rebellion and antisocial commentary and themes of metal and speed metal are meant for kids," Harlan said. "The idea of these themes spilling over into the homes of accountants, bankers, and homemakers is disturbing. Not only to us, but to the bandmembers and makers of the music themselves. When this music becomes the anthem of Lexus-driving corporate shells, it ceases to function and loses all integrity with the kids who sustain it." Although Anthrax could not be reached for comment, Trixter guitarist/prettyboy Steve Brown said, "Spare some change for a cup of coffee?" Lil Duncan is a senior reporter for the commune at 23, and loves bubble baths and men who smell like real men.
 | White men dominate science positions, all non-sports positions
Kyrgyz president found in Gilmore Girls chatroom
 Entwistle Pleads Not Guilty of Murder, Last Several Who Albums Fat kids everywhere cheer national trend toward declining P.E. classes
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President Demands More Wheels on Airplanes learly delighted to have an offensive position at last, President Bush lashed out at “safety ign’rant” airlines and the FAA for its low-wheel requirements on commercial aircraft. According the president’s amusing new platform, safety could be increased a bunchfold with the addition of 8-10 new sets of landing gear on standard airplanes, and hopefully would prevent scenes like the dramatic emergency landing of JetBlue Flight 292 on Thursday. The commercial airline flight JetBlue 292 ran into difficulty landing when its foremost landing wheel arrogantly faced the wrong direction and forced a tense landing situation. The event was made all the more worthy of national attention when it was revealed passengers/potential victims aboard Flight 292 were watching their own ordeal on satellite television, one of the perks the airline offers passengers willing to risk becoming human charcoal on their flights. In the end, the plane landed successful, jetting down the runway covered with foam and emitting sparks in a thrilling scene of real life danger only seen previously on repeats of Jackass. Today’s Hurricanes Not Worth a Damn, Say Elderly Southerners In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the currentmath of Hurricane Rita hot on Katrina’s high heels, elderly southerners who’ve been there before are offering a reassuring voice of bitter calm to troubled Americans across the South. “Today’s hurricanes aren’t worth a hot goddamn,” groused Boca Raton resident Carter Dunlop, 88. “You all can quit your bellyaching. Back in the day, we had hurricanes to remember. I don’t recall their names or any details, but you can rest assured these latest pipsqueaks are even less noteworthy. Trust me, you’ll all hear Carter Dunlop scream like a woman when a real hurricane hits.” “Category 5? Pssh, they’ll call any old stiff breeze a hurricane nowadays,” griped Biloxi native Ted Knuck. “Back in my day, you wouldn’t cross the street for anything less then a Category 15. And that was only because it blew you across the street.” Who’s the Black Pit That Killed a Night Club Prick? Elevator Shaft — Damn Right Apple iPhone to Contain Real Fruit Filling |
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 November 25, 2002
Uncle Bing"Growing up, Uncle Bing was like the uncle I never had. He was my father's estranged brother, who had been kicked out of the family for loving jazz. That's what he said, anyway, it didn't seem that bad to us.
Dad would secretly invite Uncle Bing to Thanksgiving dinner every year, and we'd pass him turkey and giblets through the doggy door. I was never sure who we were hiding Bing from, since mom always made sure to make extra portions for him. Maybe Stephanie had a problem with Uncle Bing I hadn't heard about.
When dad wasn't around, Bing liked to take my brother Goose and I under this wing, teaching us that money was for folks who didn't know how to pick a lock or sledgehammer a doorknob. For the bold, every neighborhood was like a department store and every kitchen a supermarket. Every garage was still a garage, but Uncle Bing had sent away for a correspondence course in hotwiring. So really every garage was like a used car lot, only not yet.
The neighborhood kids loved to make fun of Goose and I for our threadbare, out-of-season clothes, thanks to Dad's gambling and croquet habits. But only the really stupid ones were still laughing when we showed up wearing the clothes that had recently gone missing from their closets, thanks to Uncle Bing.
Goose and I looked up to Bing like he was our dad's brother, and we even baked him a giant oatmeal cookie the year he scammed the government into letting him stay at their big gray...
º Last Column: Lottery º more columns
"Growing up, Uncle Bing was like the uncle I never had. He was my father's estranged brother, who had been kicked out of the family for loving jazz. That's what he said, anyway, it didn't seem that bad to us.
Dad would secretly invite Uncle Bing to Thanksgiving dinner every year, and we'd pass him turkey and giblets through the doggy door. I was never sure who we were hiding Bing from, since mom always made sure to make extra portions for him. Maybe Stephanie had a problem with Uncle Bing I hadn't heard about.
When dad wasn't around, Bing liked to take my brother Goose and I under this wing, teaching us that money was for folks who didn't know how to pick a lock or sledgehammer a doorknob. For the bold, every neighborhood was like a department store and every kitchen a supermarket. Every garage was still a garage, but Uncle Bing had sent away for a correspondence course in hotwiring. So really every garage was like a used car lot, only not yet.
The neighborhood kids loved to make fun of Goose and I for our threadbare, out-of-season clothes, thanks to Dad's gambling and croquet habits. But only the really stupid ones were still laughing when we showed up wearing the clothes that had recently gone missing from their closets, thanks to Uncle Bing.
Goose and I looked up to Bing like he was our dad's brother, and we even baked him a giant oatmeal cookie the year he scammed the government into letting him stay at their big gray hotel for free." º Last Column: Lotteryº more columns
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|  January 17, 2005
Nintendo or Die: The History of Video Games ThreeLast installment we ended with the great video game crash of 1982, which treated the world to visions of programmers heading west across the dust bowl in Calistoga wagons, embarrassing holes worn through their one-dollar pants. Entire landfills had to be created to accommodate the vast influx of unplayed games and unused gaming consoles manufactured in the early 80's. The town of E.T., Maine, was founded around a massive landfill that Atari created to hide the shame of the millions of unsold E.T. game cartridges produced before the company realized that not even stamping the name of a hit movie on the cartridge could save one of the shittiest games ever produced.
From this smoking hole in the ground Nintendo would emerge with the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. Hujitsu Homanama had formed the company to sell his sexy playing cards in 1889, naming it "Nintendo," a Japanese word meaning "eat the children." Over time the company would evolve into other areas of gaming, scoring hits in the early 80's with arcade hits Donkey Kong and Stick Dick in Hole for Blow. But total world domination would have to wait until 1985, when the company's first home console grabbed the world by its balls and mopped the floor with it, like some kind of weird ball-handled mop.
The driving force behind the success of the NES was its megahit pack-in game, Super Mario Bros. Offering gamers a glimpse of what happened to those bickering,...
º Last Column: Go Home: The History of Video Games Two º more columns
Last installment we ended with the great video game crash of 1982, which treated the world to visions of programmers heading west across the dust bowl in Calistoga wagons, embarrassing holes worn through their one-dollar pants. Entire landfills had to be created to accommodate the vast influx of unplayed games and unused gaming consoles manufactured in the early 80's. The town of E.T., Maine, was founded around a massive landfill that Atari created to hide the shame of the millions of unsold E.T. game cartridges produced before the company realized that not even stamping the name of a hit movie on the cartridge could save one of the shittiest games ever produced.
From this smoking hole in the ground Nintendo would emerge with the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. Hujitsu Homanama had formed the company to sell his sexy playing cards in 1889, naming it "Nintendo," a Japanese word meaning "eat the children." Over time the company would evolve into other areas of gaming, scoring hits in the early 80's with arcade hits Donkey Kong and Stick Dick in Hole for Blow. But total world domination would have to wait until 1985, when the company's first home console grabbed the world by its balls and mopped the floor with it, like some kind of weird ball-handled mop.
The driving force behind the success of the NES was its megahit pack-in game, Super Mario Bros. Offering gamers a glimpse of what happened to those bickering, deranged Italians after they finally climbed out of the sewer at the end of the original Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. delighted children the world over with its colorful, drug-induced imagery and perhaps the most cruelly addictive theme song of any video game ever. Years later, respected American composer George Crumb would be shamed in the international community when he realized he had inadvertently written the Super Mario Bros. theme into one of the movements of his grand fifth symphony. Regardless, anyone who had grown up with a NES controller fused to their mitts and that maddening little song in their ear was quick to forgive.
And the hits kept coming for Nintendo, thanks in part to the system's forward-looking peripherals. The NES light gun and Duck Hunt made the fun of unprovoked attacks on animals possible without the horrors of spending time outdoors. And thanks to the Robotic Operating Buddy peripheral and the game Gyromite, millions of kids developed critical thinking skills trying to figure out why in the hell Nintendo had put out a complicated robot controller that only worked with one lousy game.
Nintendo even branched out into 3-D games with the inimitable Rad Racer in 1987, a driving simulation title that perfectly captured the powerful nausea someone would experience trying to drive a race car while wearing red and blue glasses.
Though certainly a milestone in the racing game genre, Rad Racer was hardly the first, or the radest. Most rader. The first arcade racing game was actually 1979's Chicken Run, a bizarre title unrelated to the later claymation movie. The game revolved around how many chickens a player could run over with a Datsun in three minutes, based on one of the game creator's DUI convictions from college. Though undeniably fun, Chicken Run would soon be pushed to the back pages of history by 1982's legendary Pole Position. Pole Position remains to this day the most accurate driving simulation ever created, marveling gamers with its realistic physics, and is still the program that the Army uses to train its formula-one drivers.
Pole Position was followed by Sega's Outrun in 1986. In Outrun, the gamer took on the role of a red convertible piloted by a couple of Californian genetic freaks capable of surviving repeated rollover wrecks that would have decapitated a Samoan. A hit cartoon of the game had to be pulled from the air in 1987 because parents' groups thought it was giving young children the message that rollover fatalities are fun.
And thus we're backwardly introduced to Nintendo's only real competition, if you could call it that, in the era of 8-bit home gaming, an American company called Sega. Sega was started by a Korean War veteran named David Rosen as a front company called Service Games, which Rosen used to sell chintzy Japanese pinball machines to American families as a magnetic homeopathic therapy for kids with cancer. Rosen claimed the machines would cure a variety of fatal illnesses, as well as play a fun little song if your wellness score topped 100,000. Later he shortened the name to Sega because he was a very lazy and uncreative man.
Sega scored early hits with the frog abuse fantasy Frogger and the Dr. Seuss-inspired Zaxxon, which grew enough hair on Sega's balls that they thought competing with Nintendo sounded like a good idea. Thusly in 1986 came the release of the Sega Master System, which was actually Sega's fifth console, but the first that didn't have the added functionality and electrocution risk of a built-in juicer.
The only problem was that Sega forgot to make a Super Mario Bros. for its own system, opting instead to put out a whole line of crap. Later, the Turbo Grafx 16, Neo-Geo, Atari's Jaguar and 3DO would all attempt to compete with the NES and lose, because they all sucked a giant dong. The Sega Master system was relegated to "little bitch" role, having to settle for finding a home in households that somehow couldn't find a NES or weren't sure how to buy one.
Sega would later turn the tables on Nintendo with their 16-bit Genesis console, which outsold the Super Nintendo due to confusion about what a hedgehog was, and the surprisingly large number of dumb kids who didn't want to have to choose between "soup or Nintendo." Nintendo would have the last laugh, however, with the release of the Game Boy in 1989, an extremely crappy portable gaming system and technological leap backward which would go on to become the best-selling gaming machine ever. Since the Game Boy was cobbled together inexpensively from components of Russian consumer electronics leftover from the early 1950's, Nintendo's profit margins were enormous and executives spent the entire decade of the 1990's laughing.
Later, even more shit would happen. Stay tuned. º Last Column: Go Home: The History of Video Games Twoº more columns
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Quote of the Day“Do unto others how you would do unto somebody who you knew for sure would do the same stuff back to you that you did to them, only in reverse. On second thought… just be nice, okay asshole?”
-Beazus Frist, CPAFortune 500 CookieNobody likes a smartass… wait a minute, everybody loves a smartass. It's you they don't like. In an effort to make your personality more rounded and appealing, try learning the Tibetan Touch of Death this week. Remember, God made it hard to get your tongue into your own ass for a good reason. This week's lucky prescriptions: Cockgromax, Deuglycontin, Halitosinex, Slopecia, Lilpenihance, Fucoft.
Try again later.What Was That Guy Screaming?| 1. | Four fewer years! Four fewer years! | | 2. | "Don't Worry, Be Happy" Bobby McFerrin, 1988 | | 3. | I think I'd notice if my hearing aid battery had died, you crusty old bitch! | | 4. | Rectum? I nearly destroyed his anus! | | 5. | I have difficulty modulating my voice! | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Winston C. Mars 1/12/2004 I Bought This MemoryI bought this memory at Walgreens,
it was discounted heavily.
With it implanted I settled back
to enjoy my reverie.
But to my dismay I soon realized
why this memory had been spurned.
It was of eating a stale club sandwich
whose mayonnaise had turned!
I took it right back for a refund,
but the Chinese clerk he protested.
He asked for proof, by way of receipt
for the memory I'd injested.
I searched my pockets to no avail.
I checked again, but again failed!
Nowhere was it to be found.
I scanned the scene,
and checked in-between
my sneaker and the ground.
But it was gone.
Goodbye, so long!
Sayonara, it turned to vapors.
Somehow...
I bought this memory at Walgreens,
it was discounted heavily.
With it implanted I settled back
to enjoy my reverie.
But to my dismay I soon realized
why this memory had been spurned.
It was of eating a stale club sandwich
whose mayonnaise had turned!
I took it right back for a refund,
but the Chinese clerk he protested.
He asked for proof, by way of receipt
for the memory I'd injested.
I searched my pockets to no avail.
I checked again, but again failed!
Nowhere was it to be found.
I scanned the scene,
and checked in-between
my sneaker and the ground.
But it was gone.
Goodbye, so long!
Sayonara, it turned to vapors.
Somehow somewhere,
vanished into the air.
"I'll see you in the funny papers."
I tried my best
to prove in jest
that I was the one who had bought it.
"Aha!" I voiced,
"The rye bread was slightly moist,
like someone had coughed on it."
"And the pickles, they stank
like something quite rank
and the ham—the ham was like rubber.
The turkey was raw
and the cheese was so blah,
like crusty, stretched-thin whale blubber."
But the clerk didn't buy it,
wouldn't even try it.
He just smiled and shook his head "No."
Without the receipt
I could have shit to eat
and he wouldn't mind it at all if I'd go.
As I stormed out into the rain
the image haunted my brain:
That clerk's grin hung in breathless fixation.
It was clear I'd been played—
the memory cleverly overlaid
over my memory of the receipt's location!
Damn you, Walgreens. You can keep your lousy four dollars.   |