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Home of Angular Mike, Odysseus Kent, and some other stuff...
Once again, time to dazzle everyone with my bottomless knowledge and research ability. No thanks are required. Ask Yahtzee 3.
[I can't be arsed to write anything today so I'm putting up a guest update. If you have any objections, kindly direct them to someone who gives a shit. -YZ] It's been awhile since that last update I wrote about freedom fries and their godawful stupidity. By the way, I'm sorry it wasn't that funny. It was the first thing I ever wrote to impress anybody and that person was some tall gangly English guy that has an unhealthy passion for Bruce Campbell. Also, last time I wrote I mentioned I wasn't gay. This seemed to have caused a bit of confusion since the reason for that wasn't clear. The name Sugarpants elicits this sort of response from people on chat rooms: Smacktard171:
r u GaY!!!! rofl It didn't occur to me at this time that these are not people I'm trying to impress. Also, since most of the readers on this site live in the UK and none of you know what I look like, more than likely, I was not going to run into a massive horde of people whose leader would point at me and say, "Hey! That is Sugarpants from the internet! I assume he is gay since his name is Sugarpants!" and then get raped more than an underage schoolgirl in a hentai game. I guess what I'm trying to say is forgive me for being a temporary smacktard. Now on to the article. Roughly two years ago a cute banner was proudly sitting atop a webpage I had visited. I've seen it in other places and thought it somewhat amusing. A monkey was moving back and forth and rapid speed and with my mouse I could control a boxing glove in order to hit the monkey and if I succeeded-get this-I could win a prize. What that prize was exactly, I didn't know. I scarcely believed I would actually win a prize considering how easy it was to hit the monkey and as I hovered my cursor over different points over the banner I noticed that the address it led to stayed the same on the destination bar at the bottom of my browser. With a feeling of adventure, daring, and boredom I clicked the banner to see what "prize" was in store. Before I continue, I should probably warn you most of my sentences look like those you have just read. How they drag on and pass the grammar check on Microsoft Word, I have no idea. It probably has something to do with the fact that Microsoft products are shit and each new version of their programs only adds more to the rancid pile of feces. Anyway, the prize was something like $20 and I won! I spent my well-earned portrait of President Jackson on nice steak dinner for the family. There was only one catch. What I just said was an utter lie. If I remember correctly, I had to fill out some form-I mean eForm, YEEHAW! Internet buzzwords are the shiznitz-to enter an eRaffle for e$20. In the meantime, I had to look at some random collection of products from various companies or something like that. I would cross-check my information but these advertisements are long gone and can't find one anywhere. At the time there were millions of these, however. Punch the monkey was such a success apparently that many new ones were created. Everything you could possibly imagine could be done to this poor monkey. You could shock it, kiss it, whip it, kick it, and in my case fall madly in love with it and whisk it away to Vegas and elope with it. Kiki and I had many fun times together slow-dancing beneath the moonlit sky, talking about life and it's many ups and downs until we fell asleep in each others arms only to have my love ripped away from me by the cruel mistress that was tuberculosis like an ending to a Ernest Hemmingway novel or a minor detail in a Fyodor Dostoevsky novel. I'm sure there were many I haven't seen as well like generally abuse the monkey, elect the monkey as president, or sacrifice the monkey to the Dark Lord Satan. As time passed, I learned the hate the monkey but not as much as I do now. That cursed monkey started a trend that seems to have no end in sight. Other people desperately clamouring for hits to their pathetic website have created similar "interactive" banners with some of the most retarded ideas conceivable. "Break the lava lamp and you could win one!" I don't want a broken lava lamp. "Shoot Tommy Vercetti and win GTA: Vice City!" Everyone who wants to play GTA has it by now. The worst one was this. "Stop Demi from chasing Ashton!" Demi being Demi Moore and Ashton being the stupid character-doesn't every sitcom have one-from That 70's Show. I don't know what the prize was but it probably was not relevant to some minor celebrity news about the relationship between a guy who's biggest theatrical performance was Dude Where's My Car and some actress who hasn't been in anything big since that Striptease disaster. Oh! By the way, Demi Moore used to be a scientologist. Fuck scientologists but that is another update. Maybe. The only thing I have left to say of this matter is "Fuck that god forsaken monkey and the filthy brood it has spawned!" Random thought: I saw The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I liked it but most Americans don't share my opinion so there will probably be no sequel. John Travolta, however, thinks it would be a splendid idea to make a Battlefield: Earth sequel and that grossed less money than it cost to make. Did I mention scientologists suck. Random quote: "I'd
get along just great if it wasn't for them God and Jesus
fellas"
"Hey, I went to the cinema," said Yahtzee. "Did you really?" said his readers. "Yes, I did," replied Yahtzee. "I expect you'll want to be writing about it, then," said the readers. "You betcha," said Yahtzee. "Jesus, why don't you just make this a movie review site," said the readers with a due sense of exhaustion and dread. So anyway. We, as a race, have a dreadful habit of not telling someone when something really sucks, for fear of hurting the creator's feelings. This is something we really have to stop doing, because it leads to things like Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. If only someone had had the guts to say something along the lines of "This film fucking sucks", they might have tried a little harder. Okay, they may have hurt the creator's feelings, but when you weigh that against millions of people having two hours of their lives stolen from them, I think that would be an acceptable consequence. DIRECTOR: "Hey, what do you think of my kickass movie?" DIRECTOR'S FRIEND: "Oh... it's... it's great! I love it!" DIRECTOR: "Really?" DIRECTOR'S FRIEND: "Yes!" DIRECTOR: "Even the really lame strip club scene at the beginning?" DIRECTOR'S FRIEND: "Erm... yes!" DIRECTOR: "Great! I'll have it sent to cinemas worldwide immediately!" DIRECTOR'S FRIEND: "Oh, Jesus Mary mother of God forgive this miserable sinner." So, where to begin? Oh yeah, how about the fact that this film even fucking EXISTS? I believe I mentioned recently that T2 needed a sequel about as much as the television schedules need a half-hour segment on the wonders of the rectal passage. Cyberdyne was destroyed, and everything associated with terminators was at the bottom of a vat like soggy biscuit crumbs at the bottom of a coffee cup. So, how does the military get their hands on Skynet and put it into operation? Beats the hell out of me! Probably beat the hell out of the writer, too, since he didn't bother coming up with a decent explanation. Or even a crap one, for that matter. Tell us the disk with Skynet on was found behind someone's fridge, or was sold on the shopping channel. Anything, for crying out loud.
I don't usually notice product placement in films, but I couldn't escape from it here. It was so blatant, I honestly lost count of the number of logos the camera dwelled on, or were spoken out loud in conversation. They might as well have tattooed 'Pepsico' across all the characters' foreheads, and have them end every sentence with 'Microsoft'. And while we're on the subject of advertising, why does my local cinema keep showing that stupid 'va va voom' advert with the black French git before every film? Note that I don't think he's a git because he's black or French, I think he's a git because he is a git. "What ees ze French for va va voom?" I think it's "je suis un git." You all know me as a gigantic chauvinistic tosshead, so you must understand how unusual it is for me to notice the female lead beyond what's mounted on their chests. But this one's a completely useless hussy. Her role consists of crying, getting emotional and trying to run away and call the police all the time. She's due to become John Connor's second in command during the war, incidentally, so I can only assume that her duty in the resistance is mainly to make the tea. By Some Extraordinary Coincidence, she and John are old school friends! Also, by another Extraordinary Coincidence, her dad is the bloke who puts Skynet in operation! It's Extraordinary Coincidences all the way, especially when the psychiatrist from the other two films turns up for no apparent reason! It's like there are only about ten or eleven people in the entire fucking world and everyone else is just a phantom image or cardboard cut-out. And Arnold. Ahh-nold. Most people agree the Terminator is his best role, which says a lot for his acting skills. This time around, his stern robotic countenance is subdued somewhat by an endless stream of hilarious one-liners which he delivers with all the dramatic pomp and authority of an answering machine addressing a Senate Committee. And why the hell would a robot have an Austrian accent? If anything it would have a Stephen Hawking voice, surely. So much of this film was so bloody stupid, I had to bang my head against a wall afterwards once for every asinine plot element that was introduced, developed slightly and then rapidly thrown out the window. The Terminatrix (ho ho) has photographs of everyone she's trying to kill, but mistakenly shoots some old woman anyway, presumably because she's a bitch. Also, she can turn her appendages into any weapon, but nicks someone's gun anyway, presumably because they thought it would look cool. So that's two bangs. The heroine, who works as a vet, having wept and screamed and emotioned her way through the entire film, suddenly picks up a gun and uses it with amazing skill and proficiency. BANG. And when she found out her fiance was dead, she wept a total of two tears before getting over it completely. BANG. "I haff been programmed in hooman psychology," says Ahh-nold. Five minutes later, he didn't know what 'love' was. I guess he was trying to complete the robot checklist. Metal, stiff, expressionless voice, doesn't understand love. BANG. Ahh-nold takes the keys to a truck from under the driver's shade thingy, something which had to be taught to the terminator from the last film. Terminators with racial memory? BANG. Most directors would have stopped with having the terminator wander naked into a nightclub on ladies' night. BANG. Some directors would have stopped with the extraordinarily queer stripper. BANG. Only the director of Terminator 3, apparently, would have gone on to have Arnie put on a pair of Elton John star-shaped sunglasses. This is an action thriller, not Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. BANG. BANG. BANG. So, if you keep your brain in a jar by your bed, or have a mental age that would place you at around the gamete stage, then come and watch all the cool explosions and jokes with your neanderthal friends. The rest of us will sit at home and watch the Fight Club special edition DVD.
Can you believe I managed to come up with another one of these for this week? I know! Amazing, isn't it! Yes, gentlemen and female gentlemen, it's time for the latest thrilling addition to the ongoing database of: Unappreciated Computer Game Character Of The Week! This week, UCGCOTW examines an individual who we can only applaud for displaying a cavalier, devil-may-care attitude to their existence. A character who, along with their eleventy billion twin brothers, provided possibly the most passive life-threatening force in the entire history of gaming. Yes, gentlemen, meet the Barnacle from Half-Life!
Imagine the scene. In the not too distant future, a speccy scientist git puts the decimal point in the wrong place during a weird experiment and accidentally cracks open a hole to a dimension of chaos and evil, where a bunch of violent aliens are looking to make human hors duerves. A vast army of extra-terrestrials has been amassed, with those little crabby things at the front, those brown zappy things in the middle and the big fuck-off things at the back. They're amassed and under orders to advance upon Gordon Freeman in single file so he can blow them all to hell at his convenience. And where were the barnacles in all this? Why, they'd already insinuated themselves into our universe and started families. I'm not sure how they managed that, because they never budge a smeggin' inch. Most aliens, when you run into them, are only too happy to introduce you to Senor Death. They'll run at you, zap you with energy, smack you round the chops, or just hurl themselves bodily in your direction. Not the barnacle! The entirety of the barnacle's cunning plan to eat your face is to sit stock still and wait for some prat to wander under them. To find out how effective a battle tactic this is, start a fight with someone, then stand immobile with your tongue sticking out. See how many teeth you go home with. One would think that nature's answer to the unbaited mousetrap probably shouldn't have evolved very far, but you'd be surprised how successful the barnacle could be. They were about as fragile as a cream slice in an earthquake test centre, but no-one in Black Mesa except Gordon Freeman figured this out. If you got snared by the dangly tongue you could immediately look up and fire your pea-shooter, reducing the barnacle to a red stain on the ceiling. Hell, you could wait for it to carry you right up to it then smack it with a crowbar as if chastising a dog with a rolled-up newspaper. But no-one figured out that the barnacle's one weakness was 'any attack at all'. No, they would always just wave their limbs frantically while the barnacle pulled them up with a noise like someone hyperventilating during a blowjob, then bite their heads off. I could understand the scientists doing that, puny little waterheads to a man, but the security guards have pistols. Maybe, just maybe, I can believe that the guards are just too dim to shoot their attacker. But the bloody soldiers do it as well! The bloody trained bloody killers universally armed with fuck-off shotguns and assault rifles sit there like lemons while an unholy monster is preparing to digest their cranium! Maybe they don't realise they're about to be eaten. That could work. "Huh? What's going on? My feet have left the ground! Glory be! I can fly just like Peter Pan! Wheeeeee! Happy thoughts! Happy thoughts! Happy tho-" It really didn't seem to me that the barnacle should have evolved, a creature whose very survival depends on the stupidity of the local populace. Maybe they evolved some mechanism that releases retarding spores, although one would think they'd evolve basic motor skills before that. I just couldn't fathom how the species could survive, until I remembered that, in the Half-Life expansion pack, you get to use a barnacle as a weapon. And let me tell you, that was one well-fed barnacle. Maybe in the alien world the barnacle relies on gleeful alien children to prise them down from the ceiling and try to get them to eat each other as some sort of childish prank. Maybe they're kept as incredibly boring pets. What the hell do I know. So, the barnacle from Half-Life, then: the least enthusiastic man-eating alien ever, you are Unappreciated Computer Game Character Of The Week!
Three more Angular Mike strips, continuing the thrilling Suspicious Jesus saga. Hey, did you know that Fully Ramblomatic becomes a year old on the 16th of this month? Surprised me!
All
material not otherwise credited by Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw |
