BAMF

Doomed?

I’d like to take a moment to discuss the latest hot topic: the G4 Network. Now it’s plain to see that they’ve hired a former dotcom executive as their marketing strategist. Just take a look at this launch stunt. Pong 24 hours a day for an entire week? That just reeks of dead dotcom inginuity. Cute idea, but completely lacking in business feasibility. Since my local provider doesn’t carry the network yet anyway, I’m not too worried about it. What I am concerned with, however, is their choice of content. This all-games all-the-time network has been tops on geek’s want lists for years, and now that they’ve finally received such a virtual bounty, I’d like to see it succeed. And since I’ll be ruling this planet one of these days anyway, I guess I should get started on bestowing you lucky Earthlings with my plentiful amounts of artistic genius.

So the network has the essentials, yes? A previews show, a reviews show, cheats, a cute half hour where guys do stupid game related stunts, all the basic shit you’d expect. The first problem? Their news is weekly. Bullshit. There’s enough news to make it every weekday, and if there isn’t you make something up. Hell, I do it every day and I don’t get in trouble, you may as well take the idea to the tube and run with it. But the real problem I see is a lack of content. Only 14 or so shows will = serious boredom after a day or two, especially if your host talent is as bland as those Screen Saver guys. So listed below are a few ideas, free of charge, that you G4 Media guys can steal and utilize to make your network great.

1. Do The Mario. That’s right, bring back those game-related cartoons. The Super Mario Bros. Super Show (with Legend Of Zelda every Friday), that lame-ass Pac-Man show, Captain N, all those piles of garbage. Just throw ’em all into a big nostalgia pot, set it on simmer, and call it breakfast. And once you’ve gone through an entire season, have some of your wittier staff members pull a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 with those hand-drawn piles of ass. Most of the people who will be watching the shows will be baked out of their minds anyways, so they won’t mind you taking a few liberties with some well-timed gay jokes regarding Toad. Besides, how much can the licensing fees bee for those old cartoons? Five, ten bucks? I’ll pitch in that much just so I can hear Mario say “There’s some fungus among-us!” once or twice a week.
2. Exploited Former Celebrities. They’re doing half of this job already by hiring Wil Wheaton to be a show host, but why stop there? I say they remake that stupid show (I think it was on Nickelodeon) where they make people play videogames instead of actual physical or mental challenges. But as a twist, we make the contestants actually act out physical challenges from video games. In fact, fuck that, just get that Gauntlet arena from the now-defunct American Gladiators, and crank up the speed. Then you take obscure and hungry former celebrities and throw them in, battling it out for a wad of cash.

   How much would you love to see Jason Bateman re-enact some of the creepiest scenes from Resident Evil? Except this time you replace the lurkers with wolverines, and the zombies with lepers. Sandy Duncan can’t save you now, Teen Wolf Too. And how about that fat chick Natalie from Facts Of Life dressed like Lara Croft, dodging arrows and bloodthirsty bats while outrunning a huge boulder? Disgusting, yet safisfying family entertainment. If Fox’s Celebrity Boxing has taught us something, it’s that washed-up has-beens will do anything for money. Anything. I say you throw all that into the primetime hour and call it “Buster Poindexter’s Digital Desperation!” I’m sure Buster won’t mind, especially if you make him the host. If you do, however, make sure he dresses in a chicken suit and sips martinis. No explanation, you’ll just have to trust me on this one.

3. Edumacation. I know it’s off the humor topic, but throw in some educational programming. Maybe basic programming, low level art tutorials, all that kinda junk contained in yummy half-hour portions. You could even have the show hosted by half naked Playmates, just to keep the user-base interested. We wouldn’t learn anything, but who the fuck cares, that hot-ass bitch just talked about NURBS! *fap fap fap*
4. Reality Television. Yes, reality TV starring gamers will no doubt be boring, as they are usually fat, listless slobs who rarely move anything aside from their fingers and bowels. But you see, in my ingenius vision, I say we play upon that appropriate stereotype and create the “Play Your Ass Off Challenge”. Stick a group of fatties in a house for three months, with their consoles and an equal amount of Dance Dance Revolution and Nintendo’s Track N’ Field pads. The tubby bitch who loses the most weight in that timeframe will get a date with a Penthouse Pet.

   Comedy will ensue with the daily weight loss drills, where an instructor will crack the whip (literally) on these tubs of crap, forcing them to do manual labor around the house while a group of kids with learning disabilities sit in front of them playing advanced betas of games that have yet to reach the shelves. Valuable advertising and hilarity all at the same time. Good Lord, add tits that don’t belong to men and this will be the biggest cash cow of all time!

   The true comedy will ensue after hours, however. Insert a nice dedicated line of pr0n into the house, and restrict all jerkoff priveledges. Watch and chuckle as these rejects attempt to “relieve themselves” without being caught. Well, not actually watch, what are you sick? But of course, every wonton fap will bring more punishment the next day, such as removing and burning a stick of RAM from that users machine, or busting him down another two inches in screen size. I bet they’re all playing Counter Strike on Nintendo Game N Watches by the second week.

There you go G4 Network. 4 grand ideas that will save your asses from eventual cancellation. I advise you to take this list and run with it, because if your game shows are as lackluster as anything on TechTV, you won’t be around long enough to lament your unwise decisions.

Besides, I really want to see Natalie get speared in the ass with a drugged arrow. I bet she makes a noise like a dying hippo.

(Note this is a reader-contributed story. Yes, we actually read what you guys send to us, and are more than likely to post it here. So if you have a great story to tell about the good ole days, then send your submissions in.)

I had become quite friendly with my online buddy, Squirrel. We both smoked weed and he was 18 with a credit card, so I asked him if he would be nice enough to get me a bong if I paid for it. He agreed, so my friend Wart and I searched all over the net for an awesome piece with a price that wasn’t too much.

We eventually settled on the Attitude Adjuster made by Thunder Head Glass. 125 dollars, but it was totally hand blown, about 20 inches, thick, and very good looking (kinda like my penis [I think that point is rather subjective, pal. – Jeff]). So Squirrel orders it and it arrives at his house like a week later in a unlabeled brown box. We tried multiple times to get a good time to meet, but he lives like 45 minutes away, so we couldn’t find one. Finally one night I told him to just come over at 3:30 the next day (school ends at 3:00). This was possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever told anyone.

The next day we get home at like 3:15 and my mom immediately calls someone and talks to them for 25 minutes. The second she hangs up, Squirrel calls and goes “Damn it, Roger, your line has been busy! I’m in the neighborhood, so come outside and I’ll meet you by the road.” So while still on the phone, I rush downstairs heading for the door.

Now that was very odd for me. At the time, during school days, I usually didn’t really go downstairs, and pretty much never left the house. So when I came downstairs and my mom goes, “Where are yah going?” from inside the office, I just said I was gonna take a walk around the block.

So here I go. I open the door, walk outside, standing there on our driveway with just socks on and a phone in my hand. Out of nowhere, my mom opens the front door and comes out. She sees me, with just socks on, holding a phone, walking down the driveway to peer around the corner, and she goes, “What’s going on?” At about this exact moment, on the other side of the driveway, Squirrel starts edging his car around our hedge in front of our driveway. So basically I’m sitting here, with white socks on my feet, holding my portable phone from upstairs, with some guy going 2 miles an hour in a car looking directly at me with a cell phone in his hand, and I’m proclaiming that I’m taking a walk because “my ankle is hurting.”

“You aren’t taking a walk, you don’t even have shoes on,” she says. She asks who was in the car, and I say I don’t know what she is talking about. I said I’m talking to my friend Ben on the phone.

After some strange glances and a little more questioning she heads back in the house and I, as nervous as humanly possible, walk around and meet Squirrel. I snatch the bong out of his trunk and stash it under our hedge and throw some leaves on it.

I than head back in the house, close the door, walk two steps, and hear my mom go. “OK Roger, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?” Ouch. Not only did she see all the shit outside, but it turns out she also heard when Squirrel first called and said, “I’m in the neighborhood, come outside I’ll meet you here.” She was listening in on my phone call.

So for like 20 straight minutes I am being questioned, denying the whole thing. She checked my pockets for drugs and stolen items. She was insanely pissed that I was lying to her, because she knew it. Finally, she threatened to tell my dad (he was on the phone with my brother who at a later time asked what happened). Now my Dad would have been smart enough to look outside so it became apparent to me that I better fess up quick or I will get caught anyhow. So I am about to actually admit it when I get a flash of pure genius.

“Mom, I can’t believe I have to tell you this… this is so embarrasing. **pause** Mom…I was buying a pornography tape.” Now this was absolutely brilliant looking back on it, because what can she do? She can’t really get that mad about porn, and at the same time its not something you want to tell yer parents about. However, she was still steamingly pissed about me lying.

So we go in the other room where my dad is sitting on the phone with my brother (who it turned out was paying noticeable attention to what was going on in the house between Mom and I). After he hangs up on my bro, we have this big conversation about lying and I am feeling terrible at this moment.

My dad mentions that he is fine with me getting pornography, and that teens do that type of thing and he understands. However, my mom was not so cool with it.

“Jared! Dont just be so nonchalant with this. You don’t know. I think Roger is addicted to pornography!”

This of course is the normal retarded reaction my mom gives. She is such a media hound that she actually believes that shit like that happens to 16 year olds. I. of course, yell some random interjections that go along the lines of, “What the fuck? I’m not fucking addicted to porn. Jesus.”

Than she turns to me and goes, “Roger, was it child porn?”

I almost shit my self that was so stupid.

“Roger, was it animal porn?”

Ok, that was too much. I just yelled out that it was normal fucking porn. Fucking as an interjection, not an adjective.

They then asked where the tape was. I said I didn’t take it because she had busted me, and I was so scared that I just had him keep the tape so they wouldn’t find out. Good thinking.

So feeling terrible about lying, I said I was gonna go on a bike ride. So I get on my bike, ride out, and smother the box with leaves and branches and stuff. I then ride out and decide I have to do something in order to make an excuse why I was riding my bike for so long. So I bike over the bridge and as luck had it, some woman had just lost her dog and she asked me to bike around five blocks and take it back home. So then I had this solid alibi for my mom when she asked why I was out riding for so long.

After further questioning when I got back in, I called Wart, told him what was going on, and he was very cool about it. He immediatly drove over, put the bong in his trunk, and then got a cd from me (we needed a reason for him to be over), and drove home. He kept the bong in his trunk for a couple weeks, and then he finally gave it to me once my parents had cooled down about the whole incident.

So that is how I got my bong. At a later date as I mentioned, my brother was concerned about what happened. He thought I was buying weed and I said no, it wasn’t that, but was related (I didn’t show him the bong till a few months later, for some reason I was embarassed or something). Also the next day my mom came and sort of as a way to signify that she was alright with me having porn, she said, “I just got back from Blockbuster… I tried calling you asking if you wanted to rent something, like Debby Does Dallas.” It was a joke, but it meant she was cool with it.

Later on, a friend from school named Al had come over and we were gonna head to his house at 11:30pm. She wondered why we were heading out that late. We were gonna go smoke out, but the excuse was that we were gonna work on his spanish video (we had been doing that earlier). I go, “Mom, we are gonna go over to his place so we can finish editing the movie.” She gives me this real nefarious look, pulls me into the room, gets real close up to my ear, and whispers, “Porn?”

Smurf

(Note this is a reader-contributed story. Yes, we actually read what you guys send to us, and are more than likely to post it here. So if you have a great story to tell about the good ole days, then send your submissions in.)

This little tale begins with two “guys i know” (definetly not me and someone I know) going to the Guttermouth concert that had graced our town that night. My parents were out of town as of 2:00 that afternoon and I was ready to party. I went to the beer spot and picked up a case and a half and invited a few friends over. We spent the day drinking and swimming in my pool until it was time for the show.

So we load up and head out. When we get to the show, the bouncer at the door searches me for the first time in my life and ganks the beer that I was attempting to sneak in right out of my pocket. Anyway, now I have just 5 of my 40 dollars for the weekend remaining. I get inside and meet up with my boys and proceed to attempt to have a good time. Some shit bands played first, and then Guttermouth finally came on. By the time the first song finishes, I’m crowdsurfing, drunk as fuck, and having a blast. Someone steals my shoe (these things happen whilst crowdsurfing) and sends it flying at the stage. Bouncer A (we’ll call him dirty cocksucking asshole, or Jim for short) pulls me down and throws me on the ground, thinking I had thrown it. Apparently these things aren’t allowed to happen at punk shows.

My shoe, just chillin’ on the ground in front of the stage, was right on the other side of Jim. When I noticed Jim wasn’t paying attention, I dipped behind him, picked up my shoe, and put it on. However, Jim notices me and does the whole grab/throw bit again with me and proceeds to tell me to “stay the fuck out”.

Well, what am I supposed to do? Being a member of Mofos Across America, I grab the first object i see a half-empty water bottle and nail that motherfucker right in the back of the head. He turns around and looks quite pissed, so I pretend to be into the show, jumping around and shit. But some fucker with a reddish blonde mohawk sells me right out with a big pointer finger right my direction. I was furious… a bro just sold me out. Fucking poseur.

So Jim wraps me up in the choke hold to end all choke holds and drags my ass out the door with a throw to the ground and a boot to the ribs. Fucker. So now I’m drunk and absolutely furious, $35 in the hole and didn’t get to hear but one motherfucking song! I waited months for this show, godammit! And just when I thought it could get no worse, the cops outside proceed to tell me something to the effect of “get the fuck out of here or you’re going to jail”.

I drop off all the people who rode with me to the concert, finishing up at about 1:30 am. I’ve got close to 15 beers in me and I’m in full drunk driving mode, and suddenly I think to myself, “hey, there’s a huge golf course style development being built right across the street.” And somewhere in my previous drunk driving knowledge in remember that from 6am to 6pm the place is deserted. I mean deserted with a capital D.

So with that in mind, I head over there and proceed to have a hell of a time haulin’ ass through these unpaved golf cart paths and brand new fairways, yankin’ the hand brake at 80mph+ and spinning to no end. Well HELL YEAH.

So after an hour of this I decide to head home only to find that at that same moment my friend “Bob” is being dropped off at his car, which happens to be parked in my driveway. I proceed to tell him of my discovery and invite him to join me for another trip to the course. He, of course, says yes, and we meet up at a construction site a few minutes later. He jumps in my car and we’re off.

I take him around everywhere I just was, spinning all over the place and having a good ol’ time. Bob decides that he loves it and begs me to take him to his car so he can drive the course his own way. I oblige and we jump in his car and do the same. But Bob takes it to a whole new level. You see, Bob drives a much larger, heavier car than me… and has a 6 pack advatage over me as well. He then proceeds to retrack our previous routes only doing tons more damage. I’m talkin’ 30+ donuts with ten foot rooster tails on brand new greens. We’re havin’ a helluva good time, drunk as piss and haulin’ ass.

We decide its about time to get out of there, as it’s close to 3am now. We do a few final handbrake pulls when it hits us the combination of the weight of Bob’s car and the sideways motion at roughly 60 mph causes the grass to do give way like a carpet. We come to rest on a soft, muddy spot and Bob proceeds to floor it. Thus we sink like rocks in water, and rest the frame right on the fairway.

It’s cool though… we are badassmofos, after all. And instead of panicking, we spring into action, digging like some motherfuckin’ gophers in a 3:45-fucked-at-6:30-when-the-workers-arrive last ditch attempt to get the car out of the mud, but to no avail.

Now, in our little spree we managed to get stuck a good four miles from my vehicle on the other side of the complex. So we hoof it to my car, now pissed as hell. We get in and go to my house, get a couple of shovels, a few planks of wood, and anything else that might help us get out of the tight spot we were in. We return and get to work on the car, but still no luck.

By now it’s close to 5:30am and the development is beginning to wake up. We’ve already made trips to numerous windows, but no luck everyone is passed out from the show. That is except for ONE true badass who wakes up at 6am, “Joe”. With two hours of sleep under his belt and god knows what substances in him, I explain to him the situation and he’s on his way.

So now me and Bob are sitting at the entrance to the development, watching the contractors arrive one after another, thinking to ourselves that we were soon to be in jail. Soon Joe arrives in his swank custom redneck-pullin’ 4×4 in all its glory. We proceed to haul ass to the car and yank that bitch out and just in the nick of time, too. Because its now 6:15 and there’s workers everywhere and the sun is well on it’s way up.

So in payment for “pulling” through in the worst possible situation, I gave Joe the only thing of value I had with me one knot of the dankest kryp I’ve ever seen. From what I hear he had quite a nice time with it later on.

As for the course? The 5:00pm news the next day reported that during the night, “vandals destroyed the ‘…’ golf course during the previous night, causing 50k+ worth of damage and pushing the completion date back 3 months.”

Now that’s a fucking night to remember.

(Note this is a reader-contributed story. Yes, we actually read what you guys send to us, and are more than likely to post it here. So if you have a great story to tell about the good ole days, then send your submissions in.)

I’d only had my drivers’ license for half a year and with every little ounce of money I’d picked up a neat little Honda Civic Coupe. This is in the Netherlands, where you don’t get a license until you’re 18 and if you can buy and maintain anything beyond a piece of scrap on wheels you’ve saved up a LOT of money. It wasn’t too good as a racer or anything (103 hp, 0 to 60 in 10 seconds or so), but it was a sweet looking mode of transportation.

Now after driving for 6 months I was pretty decent, but not a great driver. Okay, truth be told, I was pretty crappy. Not soccer-mom style, but you wouldn’t see me doing handbrake turns or anything. I was driving along the A1, the main two-lane highway running east-west in the Netherlands, and found a truck in my path a fair bit ahead of me. Traffic was non-existent so I moved to the left and accelerated while the truck was still quite far away.

In my rear view mirror however, I see a silver BMW, with German plates even (the Dutch hate Germans on their roads. Don’t ask why. It just is that way), cruise forward at least 40 km/h faster than me and slip into the right lane. He’s trying to pass me on the right and slip into the left lane just before he hits the truck. No way he’s going to get away with that. I drop down a gear and floor the gas and hurtle forward, while the BMW is quickly catching up to me.

By the time he’s driving next to me we’re only 4 meters away from the truck. He starts to pass me, we close to 3 meters. 2 meters. There’s only a 1 meter gap between my nose and the truck now and I’m sure I’ve won, there’s no way he can get through that.

He tries it anyway.

I hit the brakes and find myself missing the BMW by maybe an inch. This really pisses me off. If I had any worse reaction time, I’d be dead. He tried to kill me. I’m not too violent a guy in real life; I do several martial arts but I’ve never used them in any way but defensively. It’s just not me to be like that. But the car is, well, power. I’m pissed off and I’m going to make him pay for it and I have the means to do it, and that’s the only thing that counts. So while the adrenaline rushes into me I drop down two gears and rev my way back up to some speed to gain on him, going 180km/h in a 120km/h zone (in a country where 40 over the speed limit is instant loss of license).

Seemingly oblivious to the fact that he just did his best to kill me, he’s driving merrily along on the right side of the road a trait common to BMW drivers. Arrogant little pricks. It takes a little while (like I said, the Civic is not a racer) but I come up driving next to him and then equal speed. He’s starting to notice this, but doesn’t react yet. Well, then I’d better give him something to react to. So I honk a few times until he looks over to me and I know I have his attention. I smile, and then swerve to the right.

To his credit, he was most definitely a better driver than I was. He reacted immediately and steered into the shoulder and stepped on his brakes, shooting away from me faster then I could compensate for. To the car’s credit, it did so without doing anything spectactularly destructive you know, slipping, rolling over, blowing up; that kind of thing. I’m not sure yet if this is good or bad 😉 Well, yeah, killing someone would have been bad. But he was a German in the Netherlands, so it could’ve been seen as righteous justice.

A klick later the adrenaline rush died down and I realized what a complete idiot I had been. It’s still a really neat story to tell other people though 🙂

Ziggy