Classic clip from my favorite comic (and soothsayer) of all time, Bill Hicks. Because of his heavily anti-commercial slant, he never got a great deal of mainstream media coverage. This is something that George Carlin was able to overcome, to some extent. But now they’re both gone, and we desperately need a like-minded voice…

By the way, the sound effect Hicks makes when he puts the mic inside his mouth is supposed to be the sound of pop stars selling out while fellating Satan.

Neat little timeline of the history of video games. A few glaring omissions include Intellivision (my first personal gaming system), Commodore 64 (a competitor in the cartridge gaming market), and Turbo Graphx 16 (the red-headed stepchild of the Super Nintendo). Also, the Super Nintendo pictured in the piece looks to me like a model of the Super Famicom, the Japanese counterpart.

A Short Visual History of Videogames from Kyle Downes on Vimeo.

I know I’m at risk of becoming a one-trick pony here in posting about news stories that are obvious and/or silly over and over, but hey – there’s been a flurry of same lately.

I could almost submit the above without comment, since it seems so self-evidently nonsensical to me. Does CNN think the nation was waiting, on pins and needles, for Hillary’s coin-toss decision between announcing that she would push for a smarter U.S. or a dumber U.S.? Did CNN have a potential article revved up in red “DEVELOPING STORY” border for Clinton announcing that she planned to sit on her duff for four years?

Or perhaps the only alternate headlines considered were “Clinton is this reporter’s personal favorite person alive” and “Clinton ‘could run for God’ in four years”.

Journalism, I miss you.

If you ever wonder why everything in the financial world is a stunning surprise and all results are different than expectations, this article should help you stop wondering.

In it, we learn that a worsening economy that lost 2.6 million jobs in a year, almost all of them in the last 6 months, could (mind that word now, could) lose 2.0 million jobs in the next year.

WHAT?

So, economists’ math goes like this:
-2,600,000 jobs
+worse job market
——————
-2,000,000 million jobs

Apparently, a “worse job market” means “600,000 jobs better than a better job market”.

And we wonder how things got this bad.

Greg’s post reminded me of an old gambit I used to have called The No-Crud Bureau. This was something I made up in high school as a receptacle for all the junk that people would come up with (often in academic studies) that was so obvious as to defy description. And was somehow instead passed off as a stunning revelation.

I guess these days it would more likely go by something like the No-Shit Show, but I didn’t swear at that point in my high school career. The swearing would come later, with the jading experiences and the pathological liar and the hey-hey-hey.

So my own submission to the Bureau today is this stunning study:
Apparently, misbehaving teens may be at risk for major adulthood problems.

Really?

Why would people who tend to have trouble continue to tend to have trouble? Isn’t it more likely that their trouble would suddenly vanish for no reason? Wouldn’t their magical conversion to the age of majority instantly convey a restart of all past indiscretions?

I’m glad people spent the money it costs to track 3,500 people for 40 years to give us this scintillating information. Much better than trying to cure cancer or something inane.

You may recognize this commercial. It plays roughly every 12 seconds on every major television network:

Anything this repetitive and oversimplified is bound to trip my Homer Simpson-esque “urge to kill, rising” mental switch.

A new and increasingly annoying twist is a remix of this advertisement featuring actors pretending to be ordinary people. They go through the motions singing the jingle, while self-inducing awkward fake laughter and mimicking general outtake-like behavior.

There are few ways to more poorly reproduce reality than to ask actors to play self-conscious, untrained, shlubs with a camera pointed at them. You see, most commercial grade actors are already self-conscious, untrained shlubs with a camera pointed at them.

Forcing people this vapid and shallow to look inward is a very dangerous exercise in existentialism. And irony-challenged television commercial directors probably aren’t the pioneers that we would choose to lead on this particular front.

My DVR is ill-equipped to fully insulate me from this garbage. Even fast forwarding through it makes me want to assume a sumo wrestling stance while shouting “FIVE, FIVE, FIVE, FIVE DOLLAH. FIVE DOLLAH!! FIVE DOLLAH FOOT LONG!,” at random passers by.

Please, if you have access to anyone that took part in producing any part of this commercial campaign, ask the bad men to stop.

Headbanging does create risk of brain damage, says study.

In related news: people who cut off one of their arms are one hundred percent more likely to have only one arm than those who don’t, scientists find.

Welcome to NOW PLAYING, a column where I’ll be covering the new games releases of the week.  Normally, I’d weed out the garbage and focus on the gems, but we’re in the middle of the post-holiday humdrums.  All the AAA titles have come and gone with Christmas, which means that the pickings are slim and I’m left rambling about shovelware.

Bigfoot: Collision Course (DS)
–  Upon seeing this listing, I was confused as to why anyone would produce a Bigfoot video game in 2009.  To his (its?) credit, Bigfoot had been part of the Power Team, a kickass group of crime fighters that included a barbarian and an anthropomorphic tomato.  But surely no person under the age of 20 actually remembered the monster truck.  I forgot to consider two crucial factors – (1) rednecks love monster trucks, and (2) Bigfoot currently has an Emmy-nominated (!) cartoon on the Discovery Kids Channel.  While these facts may justify the existence of this game, they definitely doesn’t justify your purchase.

CID The Dummy (PS2, PSP, Wii, PC)
–  Speaking of licensed games that are about a decade too late, here we have a 3D platformer starring a crash test dummy.  I had hoped that it would star the “famous” Canadian folk-rock band in some kind of wacky misadventure (or perhaps some kind of Guitar Hero-esque music game), but I was sadden to discover that the protagonist was just an actual crash test dummy.  I’m not entirely sure this game is actually coming out (since it doesn’t seem to exist in Gamestop database), but Amazon tenaciously claims that I can order it, so here it is.

Elebits: The Adventure of Kai & Zero (DS) – GAME OF THE WEEK

–  The original ELEBITS was an early title for the Nintendo Wii where you searched for strange energy-based creatures called Elebits.  It didn’t quite set the sales charts on fire, so Konami decided to move the franchise to the Nintendo DS.  In this 2D adventure, Kai searches the world for more Elebits in order to…  Well, I’m not quite sure why.  Let’s pretend that he’s searching for the cure to the global economic collapse.  In any case, the sprite-based art-style looks charming and the Ghostbusters Proton Pack-style game mechanics should be well suited to the DS stylus.  If you’ve got the “Got to Catch Them All” madness that I suffer from, this game will be right up your alley.

Fishing Master World Tour (Wii)
– I’m pretty sure there’s only been one awesome fishing game in the history of video games and that’s SEGA BASS FISHING for the Sega Dreamcast.  And really, that game only succeeds because of the ridiculous fishing controller shaped like an actual rod and tackle.  Sure, you’re just hunting digital fish, but when you actually have to crank the reel, there’s a sublime pleasure to be found.  I’m sure FISHING MASTER WORLD TOUR includes some kind of inane waggle controls, but it’s definitely not going to include a fishing controller.  Choose wisely, friends.

Jumble Madness (DS)
– I don’t like the Jumble when it comes in my Sunday paper, but that may be due to its proximity to Marmaduke.  Man, I hate that dog.  But if you like the jumble or giant orange dogs, this game may be for you.  (Giant orange dog may not be included with the game.)

Paws & Claws Pampered Pets (DS)
– Yet another of the hojillion cheap NINTENDOGS rip-offs that have flooded the gaming market.  I imagine you use the DS’ stylus to pamper your pets or something like that.  If you’re old enough to be reading this site, you should have no interest in this game.

Paws & Claws Pet Resort (Wii)
– The same garbage as above, except with waggle instead of stylus action.  That shouldn’t change your mind.  Unless you’re a 9 year old girl.

Saints Row 2 (PC)
– A PC port of the GTA-clone that managed to provide a better GTA experience than GRAND THEFT AUTO 4.  This game would normally be my Game of the Week, but after the debacle that was GTA 4 on the PC (summary: everything was broken), I think it’s better to wait and see if this game actually functions.  Nonetheless, it may be worth the risk to try out the greatest nut-kicking simulator ever created by man.

—–

Howard writes daily about video games and assorted pop culture at We’ll Fix It In Post.  New podcasts are posted every Friday.

I love my little blackberry pearl.  But its auto script makes no sense and it doesn’t seem to be learning.  I’ve decided that it has gone “#5 is alive” on me and is choosing words it wants instead of what would be logical for me to write.

If you don’t have one, each button has 2 letters that it stands for; you’re supposed to type and the program deciphers what word it thinks you mean to write.  It can make typing fast, but it requires you read your email or text message before you click send.

In the beginning it was easy mistakes — “are” instead of “see” — (one touch to the a/s button and two touches to the e/r button).  But now I think it’s just getting cheeky: “kilt” instead of “july,” “beef” instead of “need,” “gay” instead of “hat,” “yofat” instead of “today.” I’m not sure what recourse I have.  I can’t wash its mouth out with soap.

Resurrecting this old Mep relic for your enjoyment. This was a copy of an online dating profile that I had authored to see what kind of reaction a completely contrarian (and wildly cranky) profile would get.