| Loves That Woman ';
$dunkin='2005/0905/';
$dunkintitle='The New Anne Frank Diary';
$edit='2003/1222/';
$fanmail='2005/1010/';
$fanmailtitle='Volume 64';
$finger='2005/1107/';
$fingertitle='Little Man with a Gun in His Hand';
$fortune='2002/020121/';
$goocher='2005/0711/';
$goochertitle='Gwar of the Worlds';
$hanes='2005/0704/';
$hanestitle='Pink is Not for Men';
$hartwig='2005/0606/';
$hartwigtitle='Parade';
$hooper='2005/0912/';
$hoopertitle='Seventh Heaven';
$hurley='2005/0404/';
$hurleytitle='Time of Healing';
$kroeger='2005/0822/';
$kroegertitle='Charity Case';
$loser='2005/1107/';
$losertitle='Paging Doctor Van';
$ned='2003/0818/';
$nedtitle='Cyantology';
$pickle='2002/020513/';
$pickletitle='State of the Art';
$poet='2005/1107/';
$police='2005/1128/';
$polio='2005/1107/';
$poliotitle='Gods Hands';
$rent='2005/1107/';
$renttitle='Im Straight!';
$reynolds='2005/0425/';
$reynoldstitle='A Series of Unfortunate Evans';
$hartwig='2004/1206/';
$hartwigtitle='O Captain!';
$sickhead='2004/0419/';
$sickheadtitle='The Legendary Spot of Coco Hobari McSteve';
$ted='2005/0530/';
$tedtitle='The New War on Poverty';
$vanslyke='2005/0606/';
$vanslyketitle='Health Food is Full of Shit';
$zender='2005/1128/';
$zendertitle='The Seventh commune Enthusiasts Club Meeting';
?> | 
"Do-Not-Call" List Bigger Than Jesus July 7, 2003 |
Washington, D.C. Junior Bacon The president, surly after being called off the toilet to turn down an offer for aluminum siding
President Bush signed the bill in March, commenting on the legislation at a White House ceremony last week.
âUnwanted telemarketing calls are intrusive, they are annoying, and they-hold on. Hello? No, goddammit! I donât read the newspaper, fuck off!â
he launch of the national âdo-not-callâ registry was met with overwhelming demand last week as millions of Americans proved willing to crawl over their own dead mothers to sign up for the list, hoping to end years spent in unsolicited telemarketing hell. The unexpectedly high turnout seemed to answer the standing question of public support for the new law, which had been attacked by telemarketing groups as an infringement on their rights to free speech and practicing utter contempt for consumers. President Bush signed the bill in March, commenting on the legislation at a White House ceremony last week. âUnwanted telemarketing calls are intrusive, they are annoying, and they-hold on. Hello? No, goddammit! I donât read the newspaper, fuck off!â The new law gives the Federal Trade Commission the power to fine telemarketers up to $11,000 every time they call a number that appears the opt-out list, beginning Oct. 1. Consumers who werenât confused into inaction by having to call a do-not-call hotline to make sure other groups do not call them voiced their approval of the law, and personal enthusiasm for finding additional ways to curb telemarketing in the future. âYou see, what Iâd do now, first Iâd stab âem right in the jimmy sack with a fillet knife,â caller Randy Hackle of Dilmont, Nebraska explained to a switchboard operator. âThatâs just to get their attention, mind you. Then weâd open up a new forum for communication with a ball-peen hammer and some broken ceramic tiles.â âOur research has indicated that most consumers appreciate being notified by telephone of the latest deals and special purchasing opportunities,â said smug Direct Marketing Association representative Tony Marsh, just begging to be kicked in the fucking nuts. âThis unconstitutional law is a political witch hunt and we donât for a second believe it reflects the will of the American public.â âDonât get me wrong, Iâm not talking about killing telemarketers,â explained caller Christophe Williamson after registering his cell phone number with the directory. âOkay, well yes, actually I am. But what Iâm really talking about is what weâll do with their bodies after we kill them. Thatâs what really sends a message.â In spite of such an overwhelming public response, many telemarketers remain steadfastly oblivious to popular sentiment, almost as if they werenât really listening at all and were just waiting for a pause so they could tout the virtues of their practice. âIf we donât have the right to approach consumers unsolicited, people will be deprived of potentially valuable offers that they would otherwise not hear about,â offered telemarketer Mark Finch in a dehumanized monotone, wincing audibly as a car backfired outside his window. After jotting down the unsolicited quote and questioning where he got the communeâs telephone number, this reporter hung up after Finch refused to take a hint that the conversation was over. The new law has thrilled anti-telemarketing activists nationwide, who have been fighting the trend for years using both legal and quasi-legal guerilla tactics. âMy main hobby is getting these peopleâs home telephone numbers, and calling them at home,â bragged anti-telemarketing pioneer Sylvester Pinks of Tehachapi, CA. âEvery hour on the hour, all through the night. Then I play back recordings of their mothers having loveless sex. That stuffâs not easy to get your hands on, true, but itâs all worth it when you hear their reactions. Especially on speakerphone with some buddies over and beer. Talk about Miller Time! Class-ic.â the commune news doesnât buy things from telemarketers as a matter of principle, unless there is a free mystery prize involved. Ivana Folger-Balzac considers all calls to be unsolicited, even from her own mother, and would fine you a punch in the kidneys if she could reach through the telephone.
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Thought-sensor robotics to create mind-controlled erections of future
Steve Fossett 7,368th man to fly around the world
NASCAR accepts hard liquor revenue; drivers accept hard liquor
South Korea as unruly, embarrassing as South U.S.
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Santa Claus on Trial: Week Three ensions ran high in the world court this week as prosecutors continued what will undoubtedly be the greatest trial of the century, at least for a long time: The world vs. Kris Kringle, also known as Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, et al. It was a trial marked by emotional outbursts and brutal accusations of crimes against humanity. Kringle, led into the courtroom with his ankles shackled together and a series of elaborate handcuffs binding his hands, sat quiet through most of the prosecutions presentation of evidence. For the defense was world-famous Swedish lawyer Jorgen Fiord, who successfully defended Argentine dentist Emilio Rodriguez in 1996 against charges he was the infamous Tooth Fairy. Unknown American Philosopher Dead illions of Americans failed to mourn this week at the death of Baltimore-area rug salesman and unknown modern American philosopher Phillip Flaggart, originator of numerous lite-philosophical sayings such as A pictures worth a thousand words, and Why buy milk when you have a cow at home? A pictures worth a thousand words, repeated sayings fan Dennis Tudd, shaking his head in wonderment. That kind of says it all, though a picture would say it all even better. You know. Even within the sayings-geek community, Flaggart remained the enduring subject of controversy, with factions split between those who believed the man a humble genius, and those convinced Flaggart was a lucky moron. Flaggart himself fanned the flames in a 1987 interview, explaining that he was drunk at the time he first said A pictures worth a thousand words and didnt know what he was talking about. Big Ratings Prompts ABC to Seek More Dancing Handicapped Shows Strychnine Dog Food: Where Can You Buy It? |
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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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|  April 28, 2003
ParachuteBoris has dream is living in parachute. Big grand thing is soft like silk underpants. And also is for falling slow from airplanes. Is nice thing to live inside, when in dream.
In parachute: is kitchen, bedroom, hallroom and toaster. Nice for living.
In bedroom of parachute live bird, and weasel. Boris love bird! But weasel is not friendly. Not him. Weasel scream and want bed all himself. No good to argue. Boris wish bird to eat weasel while Boris is awake, but this not happen yet.
Oh shit, toaster is making smoke! Is not toast for eating! Ha ha, is joke toaster. Funny thing.
In dream parachute Louis live there too, and Abraham Lincolns, who is father of country musics. Very good person. Louis have girls over too, but is bimbos. Sometimes is crowded in parachute, and Abraham Lincolns has smell like sour milks. Maybe then he is not so good for roommate? But he always give Boris present like yo-yo or funny shrunken head, so is okay.
Other thing always in Boris dream is IMAX theater. You know this? Is big thing for movie. Boris go there one time when goes to zoo to buy animals for decorating Louis apartment. Oh no! Zoo is selfish with animal, none to share with Boris. But Boris still see movie about sloth when there. Very fun, this movie. Sloth is person with hair who move so slow. All day long just move slow and persons is laughing.
So always in dream Boris is going to IMAX theater to see new movie...
º Last Column: Lunch
º more columns
Boris has dream is living in parachute. Big grand thing is soft like silk underpants. And also is for falling slow from airplanes. Is nice thing to live inside, when in dream.
In parachute: is kitchen, bedroom, hallroom and toaster. Nice for living.
In bedroom of parachute live bird, and weasel. Boris love bird! But weasel is not friendly. Not him. Weasel scream and want bed all himself. No good to argue. Boris wish bird to eat weasel while Boris is awake, but this not happen yet.
Oh shit, toaster is making smoke! Is not toast for eating! Ha ha, is joke toaster. Funny thing.
In dream parachute Louis live there too, and Abraham Lincolns, who is father of country musics. Very good person. Louis have girls over too, but is bimbos. Sometimes is crowded in parachute, and Abraham Lincolns has smell like sour milks. Maybe then he is not so good for roommate? But he always give Boris present like yo-yo or funny shrunken head, so is okay.
Other thing always in Boris dream is IMAX theater. You know this? Is big thing for movie. Boris go there one time when goes to zoo to buy animals for decorating Louis apartment. Oh no! Zoo is selfish with animal, none to share with Boris. But Boris still see movie about sloth when there. Very fun, this movie. Sloth is person with hair who move so slow. All day long just move slow and persons is laughing.
So always in dream Boris is going to IMAX theater to see new movie that is Where the Hippos Live. Great movie, from name. But Boris never get to see movie in dream since always some thing happen. Theater fly in sky or everyone stop to do taxes or ducks eat all of screen, always some thing happen.
One time in dream Boris is bored in IMAX theater, so Boris digs through floor. Trust Boris, make sense in dream. Underneath there is apartment, and Boris climb down inside. In bathroom is cousin Boguslaw, who is naked with personal parts glued to doorknob. True story of dream! Boris checks expiring dates on cans of midnight snack sardines after this dream, yes.
But most times Boris has dream of standing in line, all times. No fun, standing in line to get inside dream. Is boring like newspaper. Boris wait in line and line is so long. Goes upstairs, downstairs, out of doors, inside, across street, up escalator, down hall, in other building, even in other town. And persons is always cutting in front of Boris like Buttinski, as Louis say. But problem is persons is dressed same as other persons, so Boris cannot say who is Buttinski. Very confusing, but Boris is happy to finally get inside dream to see IMAX movies.
Seven dollars? Hold on to it, Boris will wake up to see if he has the seven dollars.
And oh shit, Boris is missing movie again. º Last Column: Lunchº more columns
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Milestones1931: Former commune columnist Sampson L. Hartwig forfeits another "Race Around the World" when it is discovered that he merely hid in a barn for three days, then took a taxi in from the opposite side of town, claiming victory.Now HiringCompulsive Ass-Kisser. Shameless suck-up needed to boost general staff morale and cut down on work days lost to crippling depression. Total lack of discernment required. Insane "Never met a man I didn't like" attitude a plus.Best-Selling Video Games| 1. | Grand Theft Ottoman | | 2. | The Al Qaeda Flight Simulator | | 3. | Rockabilly Jeopardy | | 4. | Jerry Seinfeld's X-Treme Game About Nothing | | 5. | Final Fantasy XI: Judy and Audrey Landers | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Roland McShyster 11/12/2001 Well, it seems that another two weeks have passed us by, leaving some of us wiser and others of us with a burn in the shape of an exhaust pipe on our ankle. I've found myself especially reflective this week, wondering at the marvelous ballet of life, the opera of death, and the wine-tasting of being in a coma. Heady thoughts for a movie review column, I know, but it's best not to forget that should we ever doze off at the wheel of our Bonneville and drive into a lake, we might end up in a coma. And on that day we stop watching the movies⊠and the movies start watching us. I'll let you chew on that for a while whilst we go about our business with this week's edition of "Ask Roland":
Q. Roland, in light of the events on September 11th, do you think we've seen...
Well, it seems that another two weeks have passed us by, leaving some of us wiser and others of us with a burn in the shape of an exhaust pipe on our ankle. I've found myself especially reflective this week, wondering at the marvelous ballet of life, the opera of death, and the wine-tasting of being in a coma. Heady thoughts for a movie review column, I know, but it's best not to forget that should we ever doze off at the wheel of our Bonneville and drive into a lake, we might end up in a coma. And on that day we stop watching the movies⊠and the movies start watching us. I'll let you chew on that for a while whilst we go about our business with this week's edition of "Ask Roland":
Q. Roland, in light of the events on September 11th, do you think we've seen the end of the "Age of Irony"? Is it even possible to be ironic in the current national climate? And what will this mean for the lowest-common-denominator comedic filmmakers of the last few years?
Ted Huxley, Angel's Rump, New Hampshire
A. Good question, Ted. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to split with the consensus here and predict that the "Age of Irony" is far from over. After all, what's an action film without Arnold's menacing, irony stare after the bad guy feeds his entire family to a cannibalistic new-age cult? And who would bother to watch a Christina Aguilera video if her taut, irony thighs were not on display for all to see? I predict that the "irony" look has a lot more mileage left in it, and that it's only real threat is from the also-popular "steely" look, not the long-awaited release of the "Dr Who: The Robots of Death" DVD on September 11th.
Q. I'm so close, Roland. Years ago I realized that someoneâor someTHING was trying to communicate with me during ABC's movie of the week. It all started years back when I was watching "Another 48 Hours" on a Sunday evening, enjoying Murphy and Nolte's comical misadventures. During one especially funny scene, where Nolte is mad at Murphy from some bone-headed thing or another, I noticed a distinct pattern of beeping during their dialogue. It took me a while to figure it out, but then suddenly it dawned on me: Morse code. What the devil could this mean? A subliminal subtext to the film? A secret message for the eagle-eared? I had to find out. I decided to rent the film to watch it again⊠I'd earned my merit badge in Morse code as a scout years ago, but shamefully admit that my decoding skills have slipped over the years. If Samuel Morse stood before me now, well, I imagine he'd get sick all over himself and frankly I don't blame him. I make no excuses at my Morse coding ineptitude, and I don't expect others to make excuses for me either. Anyhow, I rented the movie at my local Hombre Video store and was shocked to find that it contained no Morse code in it at all! Apparently whoever was behind this was choosing the ABC movie as a forum to communicate with me and me alone. So I returned to my post in front of my 35 inch Zenith TruTube set, armed with only a pen, some paper, an Amstel Light and "The Idiot's Guide to Morse Code and Pig Latin (Doubleday, 1995)" the following Sunday night. Week after week I kept vigilant watch over the Movie of the Week, each week receiving a new coded message. But who could it be sending me these messages, Roland? The Russians? The Venusians? The Jeffersons? Is it you, Roland? So far the messages have been vague about their source. Here's what I have so far: GNUTLE. ZEEPRO. HAMMY. ZIPLX. FZZRT. ILM. TEET. TEET. I'm so close, Roland. Maybe it's Pig Latin.
Morris Timbaker, Oleo, Nebraska
A. Wow, Morris. Sounds like Nebraska's a pretty exciting place to live. If I were you, I'd keep myself within the state lines and never, ever leave. I mean that.
The preceeding letters were edited for clarity and because the second one was over fourteen pages long. Now it's time for the movies!
In Theaters Now:
Domestic Disturbance
I was beginning to think that Chuck Norris would never recover from the humiliating beating he took from the Hillbilly Twins in Wrestlemania XV, but now he's returning to the big screen to give Stephen Seagal and Jet Li a taste of old-school box-office thug competition. Here, Norris plays a retired CIA karate guy who just wants a little peace and quiet⊠but some Jehovah's Witnesses, an Amway salesman and a young woman running for city council have other ideas! Jackie Chan could learn a little something from this one about kicking someone's ass with a phone.
Mobsters, Inc
Nobody gets tired of hilarious CGI goombas smacking each other around with frying pans and scratching themselves with ice picks, that's the first rule of Hollywood. This kids' classic should give Disney's upcoming Jack the Ripper animated film a run for it's money, and you can bet your kids will be singing "There's a Body in the Trunk" and "Two Through The Eyes, Tony-Boy" until you want to hide the cursed CD and tell them the family dog has a taste for plastic. Maybe then they'll finally let you take Rex on the "big walk", eh?
Shallow Hal
Mix "Clueless" with "2001: A Space Oddity" and what do you get? I don't know, they're not screening this one for the critics. Way to pencil your names in on my shit list, guys.
Now on Video:
The Animal
I've been saying for years that the Muppets movie franchise has been going down the tubes, and it looks like the Hollywood big-wigs are finally taking notice. After the dismal failures of "The Muppets and Mary Kate and Ashley's Favorite Sleep-Overs", "Muppet Mall Party", "The Great Muppet Salmonella Scare", "Muppets in a Waiting Room", "The Muppets Meet the Yankees", and "The Muppets Vs. The Department of Justice", I was afraid the next Muppet movie might try to kick my elderly mother in the teeth. But thank God for small favors, because "The Animal" is the best Muppet picture in years, harkening back to the glory days of "Muppet Lambada Lesson" and "Fame". Finally the quiet dignity behind the Muppet empire, Animal, gets his own movie. And if you don't think watching Animal yell "Wipe-Out! Wipe-Out!" for two hours while he jumps on shit is entertaining, then my friend I think the child in you has just choked on a Duplo block.
Baby Boyscouts
Normally I'd puke at the mention of a low-rent rip-off of the hip urban hit "Baby Geniuses", but I have to admit that this potent mix of "The Edge" and "Look Who's Talking" kept me in stitches from the opening shot of the Columbia chick in a diaper to the closing credits scroll, which was continually interrupted so the babies could be fed and hosed down. You've never seen camping done like this, as the baby boyscouts are, one-by-one, eaten by bears, birds of prey, large muskies and even a moose in the film's hysterical high-note. Kudos go to the inventive writers who mine comedy from such ingenious scenarios as having the babies try to start a campfire by leaving a soiled diaper out in the sun, only to have it explode and blow out a crater bigger than the one in Raymond Burr's bed.
The Golden Bowl
Finally taking toilet humor to it's logical extreme, the Farley Brothers pinch this wonderful loaf on our entertainment lawn. Here we have the tale of the four brave knights of Crapalot, played by Jack Nicholson, Buster Keaton, David Lee Roth and that fat guy from Remember the Titans. They're on a quest to bring a holy throne back to it's rightful place in the king of England's bathroom, and quickly because he ate some pork that may have turned some time last week.
Television:
Alias (ABC)
ABC continues its downhill slide into network oblivion with this awful re-hash with the remaining cast members of the original Alice, the fun show about the single mom waitress and her friends at work. But everyone's gotten predictably boring over the years, not to mention their spelling's pretty fucked up, and to sum up this show: No Flo? No go!
Crossing Jordan (NBC)
That Michael Jordan is amazing! How on earth that guy has time to lead a fantastic basketball team to victory, star in a new hit series, and still perform his regular full-time job of endorsing every product made here and overseas is beyond me. And this is no fluff comedy, either: Jordan is a tough Lean on Me-style crossing guard, when he says stop, he means STOP!
The Big Mac Show (Fox)
Everybody loved those popular McDonald's commercials and nobody was sadder than Roland M. they couldn't get everybody for a regular series. But who would have thought Big Mac, of all characters, would be the big network star? Nobody, and rightly so, since this show is on UPN. But it's still a lot of fun, despite the lame substitute characters like McFish and Shamrock Shake. Still, maybe if the show gets big enough good ol' Grimace and maybe even Ronald himself will drop by for an episode!
Video Games:
Boy O Boy, is Roland McShyster pickled tink! Yep, you guessed it, I got my hands on a preview version of Microsoft's Sexbox Console and some games! I'm as surprised as you are the company would mail me a preview console to review, and the dude who delivered it required a generous tip. He may not have been a mailman, but I remember seeing him in some capacity at the post office, or a picture of him, maybe. Who cares? I'm too busy gaming to ask questions or describe faces for sketch artists!
Kabuki Warriors (XB)
Before you get yourself all hyped out, be warned: Kabuki is Japanese for mime. Man, what a weak concept. All in all, it's not bad, but c'mon, without learning all the specialty moves all you can really do is pretend you're in a box. I tried roping my opponent, but the controls are too damned difficult, so it ends up the guy beats me by walking against the wind across the screen and nailing me with a big heavy invisible hammer. Not for me.
SEX Tricky (XB)
Now this here's a game with power! Cut phat beats worthy of your master, the awesome DJ Tricky, or be banished to the realm of nerddom and no longer able to get into any clubs. Much better than the Super Mario rip-off where you're Björk and have to escape the giant teddy bear.
Tony Hawk's Prosecutor Tux (XB)
Same as the game I reviewed last week for PS2, but in this one you're dressed like a motherfucker. Comparing it to PS2, the graphics and sound and game play and all are better, or maybe not as good, or perhaps not that much different. But the controls are definitely not the same for each game system, unless I was playing the PS2 version. It's hard to tell with the exact same game, folks.
NFL Prime Time 2002 (XB)
Your average football game, you ask? No! This one is above and beyond expectations as the game play is generated by the computer itself. Instead, you're Dennis Miller and you have to quickly come up with anachronistic references and jokes that sound way more intelligent than football fans could get, thus maintaining your feeling of superiority over the rest of the human race. Now this is the next century of gaming!
A mixed bag of games, true, but the power and style of the system is beyond belief. And so I give the Sexbox my highest rating ever: Good!
I hope it was good for you, too, America! Stop by in another two weeks and we'll see what we can do about that stutter of yours.   |
