Luke Writes What You Read

New Site Online

2011-01-17T23:25:00.003-05:00

Move along folks, plenty to see here but even more (and better organized) over on my new site.

The Story of a Young Gentleman and Some Dirty Girls

2010-10-14T12:08:00.003-04:00

Mocking idiots online is a fair fraction of my job description, which is why I'm delighted to encounter an online hero instead.

Actors are paid millions to convey this level of emotion
He wasn't smart, and he wasn't thinking, and there is in fact a fair chance someone else had to turn the computer on for him. But he's the greatest gentleman I've ever encountered on YouTube. Read the story to find the best clash between a young fool and a big fat hidden asshole since Han Solo and Jabba the Hutt.

The Worst Gaming College Ads Ever

2010-09-10T21:28:00.005-04:00

Because "You could be a game designer!" is the new "I'll give you some magic beans for that cow."

If you don't want to punch this guy, well done on revealing yourself as a robot, SUCKER!

Read the article to find out how even four years of sitting around drinking can be turned into a waste of time. I think these guys were less employable as graduates.

The Eightiest Movie Of All Time

2010-08-21T11:33:00.003-04:00

Of course it features Mr T. Of course there's a community center. Of course it's awesome.

You are being pitied direct from 1984
Cracked continues to kick ass with my Mr T Defines A Decade Feature. READ! PITY! DIGG!

The Top 5 Kickass Car Weapons Conversions

2010-08-21T11:18:00.002-04:00

DVD player? GPS? Side-impact airbags? Wimps.

THIS is an optional extra, where the "option" is "destroying anything"
The fine folks over at Carsumer feature my work on the Top 5 Civilian Vehicle Weapons Systems, including a gun that's normally fitted to battleships, a rocket-launching motorbike, and the most shit-kickenest-SUV in the world.

Truly Terrifyingly Tacky Phones

2010-08-21T11:09:00.002-04:00

Do you hate the way modern technology is getting ever cheaper and more useful? Are you too dependent on electricity to go full-Luddite, but want to show your contempt for progress? Then you need these phones!

The Twilight Phone, combining modern communications with proof you'll never have anything worth saying! The Toshiba Drape, a "smart"phone without a screen! Or the Privé, one hundred and forty thousand pounds "worth" of gold turned to the destruction of retro-cool!
You'll want to go read about those.

Cannibal Mutant Gravity-Gun Murder: The Hidden

2010-08-21T11:04:00.003-04:00

I'm not going to lie: Cannibal Mutant Gravity-Gun Murder is such an awesome phrase I'm going to say it as much as possible. Luckily the acronym, CMG-GM, doesn't really work so I have an excuse to enjoy each syllable every single time. Never mind getting to actually do it in a game!

I'd swear we had a team-mate instead of this pile of blood and corpse-parts
It's an absolutely free game, and you should go over to Lowpings to read about it. Unless you don't like genetically engineered superstrong killing machines. You weirdo.

The Amazingly Bad Beer Breakfast Experiment

2010-08-21T10:57:00.003-04:00

Beer for breakfast suggests an awful lot of problems, but those problems shouldn't be the actual beer. I sample the very worst brewing has to offer at ZUG, and actually end up soberer than when I started.

The CDC get to work with more appetizing bottles
Read what happens with Cannabis beer and the idiocy of Budd Light right now!

The Martini Madness Experiment

2010-07-31T16:45:00.002-04:00

More mocking the laws of taste, both figuratively and orally, with The Martini Madness Experiment.

I made this then drank it. That is what's known as "Crime and Punishment."
I explain why James Bond is a pansy, endure a Bacontini, weaponize garlic and - purely by accident - find the best drink I've ever had. Enjoy.

The Wild World of Yeast

2010-07-31T16:41:00.002-04:00

Fans of fun and beer need to buy The Beer Mag! Non-fans need to start drinking, that's why you're not having any fun.

This amazing adventure through alcohology shows how the sweetest fungus in history travels through time, sniffs for bombs through the horrors of genetic mutation, and is even being sent through space to Mars!

The Counter-Strike Guide To Grammar

2010-07-26T16:47:00.005-04:00

You'd think people who spend so much time at a computer would know how to type properly. If you've never been online before.

Read, Reddit and Digg - not just for me, but for the noble cause of "Understanding that words need to mean things without being a prick about it."
UPDATE: I never expected to be promoted by a New York Times bestselling author, which is why the Terrahawks spent most of the 80s telling me to "Expect The Unexpected."

Hells yeah!

The Atari 2600 Overdose Experiment

2010-07-11T18:20:00.003-04:00

I can no longer hear music or see more than four objects on the same horizontal row at a time, so where you see an orchestra I now fear a flickering mass of lunatic ghost mimes. And because I spent a full day playing Atari 2600 games, I got off lightly.

A whole bucket of pain.

Read the whole thing here, then appreciate how I not only suffered the games and wrote the whole but also made sure my "Please Digg and Reddit this" sentence was unique!

If not for me, Digg it for the retrotech!

Cinemasochism: Fatal Deviation!

2010-07-03T09:55:00.003-04:00

You're either already bracing yourself or don't know that Fatal Deviation is the worst action movie ever made. Wait, make that didn't. This movie is logically impossible because there's no way any group this incompetent should know which end of the camera (singular) is the right one - we should have ended up with a ninety-minute close examination of what fetal alcohol syndrome does to an eyeball, and it would have been a significantly better movie.

Go witness the shocking expose at Cracked! Then Digg it, because guest column-ry could be a big deal! Then Facebook and Reddit while you're at it!

Why The US Should Invade BP

2010-06-26T09:44:00.003-04:00

My first guest column up at Cracked, looking at little things like "making the Gulf of Mexico go second in chess" and "more damage to American shores than all the wars in history combined."

I can tell I'm doing well because it got idiotic comments within moments of going online, including one man accusing my article (based entirely on blowing up everything flammable BP owns, which is all of it) of supporting nationalizing industries, and thus being a filthy commie.

You'll want to read it. And Digg it. And everything else - the better this does, the more I get to do!

History's Top 10 E3 Screwups

2010-06-25T15:30:00.002-04:00

It's easy to be impressed by the latest and greatest in screwup technology, from Microsoft's hopeless "Let's copy the Wii!" disaster to - at the other end of the spectrum - Sony's exact same thing. But let's not forget the disasters of the past!

Apart from everything else wrong with this image, she's badly overpriced

Go, enjoy my first feature article on GamesRadar!

Vuvuzelas And The Hate Thereof

2010-06-25T15:23:00.002-04:00

Football-fan-friends told me of this "vuvuzela", and I cared not, then I heard them in a pub once and went from nought-to-soulhatred in ten seconds flat.

Find out how Vuvuzelas can combat extinction, rid the world of Tila Tequila, and what we should do about them here.

The Top 5 Non-Breast-Based Cosplays

2010-06-21T12:16:00.002-04:00

Gaming cosplay articles are where substandard gaming bloggers show how much they wish they worked on Maxim (For Men), or Poorly Constructed Sexual Metaphors By People Who’ve Never Been Involved In The Process (For Virgins).

That isn't the case here.

The 6 Manliest Sports In The World

2010-06-10T15:26:00.003-04:00

If you even think of supporting someone in the World Cup, think of these guys:

They're trying to rip each other's ears off, and using their own to do it. For a crowd. Feel free to claim any other sportsman deserves respect if you can, because you'll know they're really a pansy.

This, Octopus Wrestling and more over at the 6 Manliest Sports In The World!

Make With The Mario

2010-06-10T08:38:00.002-04:00

I'm not going to lie to you - if that image doesn't make you want to read the article, you and me ain't got nothin' to talk about. Such is my contempt for your opinion I'll even use a double negative while talking to you.
Go read and Digg it you sexy wonderful person you!

Anatomical Acrostic All Dugg Up

2010-06-07T19:10:00.004-04:00

Another article on the front page of Digg, because that's the kind of thing I do. This time it's one of my daily prank reports for ZUG, where graduating students played sexy word-games with the student newspaper, and Utah residents were apparently genuinely horrified to find that legal adults knew names for the things "Down There."

In Utah, this should have read "The Devil's Workmate" and been followed by three Hail Marys
Also featured in the article: THE WORST WORD IN THE WORLD!

The Top 5 FPS Females

2010-06-07T08:59:00.003-04:00

Previously we looked at the 5 Worst Fan Female Conversions, programmed proof that at least ten testicles will never know their intended function. This week we go all bright side and look at some seriously stylish (and non-sex based) software updates for your first person shooters.

That girl's packing more hardware than NASA

Go check it out!

Taking TF2 to Counter-Strike

2010-06-01T08:32:00.002-04:00

If that title was just a meaningless string of noise-making syllables, skip this article. Don't worry, we're only talking about two of the greatest games ever made here. For those who like fun things, pop quiz, hotshot: how can Valve update CS when the counter-terrorists already have hats?

You know you need to Reddit and Digg that.

Extinct Arcade Action!

2010-05-28T08:19:00.004-04:00

Computer games, misspent youth and Cracked comedy - I love how my entire life trained me for this gig.

Press 1P to Go Read! Are you a bad enough dude to Digg it?
BONUS: The original, unedited image!

Cocktail Can Kiss My Ass

2010-05-24T11:08:00.003-04:00

Tom Cruise has been wrong about almost everything, and like most people his poorest decisions were in the Eighties.

You'd get better drink-instruction from a Fundamentalist MADD member - for one thing, you'd learn how desperately people go wrong when they don't drink. I look at just how damaging this movie was, and why I still hate it.

The Sniper Showdown!

2010-05-24T08:51:00.003-04:00

I rate five sniper rifles on effectiveness and fun, and according to the modern media that still makes me sound psycho when you know I'm talking about video games!

Full marks for style, zero for "How to actually use a sniper rifle"

Go read and reddit!

The 5 Worst Attempts At Coding Girls Into Games

2010-05-17T10:29:00.004-04:00

Thanks to XBox, equality of the sexes, and the simple fact that we've all passed through puberty since Leisure Suit Larry, the stereotype of the tragically single gamer is accurate. And thanks to the efforts of these five electro-virgins, it was all for nothing.

You can call Freud on 911, right?

Enjoy even more terrifying glimpses into the minds of people who are out there, loose, right now - and thank games for keeping them indoors.

Now on Newsstands: Beer Gadgets!

2010-05-14T14:42:00.002-04:00

Behold the latest issue of The Beer Mag:

You'll notice that only one of those stories could possibly involve robo-barmen, sobriety-busting backpacks, ballistic beer launchers, and being by me.

You're going to want to buy that, in print or online.

You Made A Phone Out Of What?

2010-05-13T08:15:00.003-04:00

Statues. Roman amphitheaters. Bond villain ballrooms. Mobile phones. One of these is not like the others - it's expected to move, and therefore shouldn't be sculpted out of marble.

Add some wood and platinum and you've got some idiotically unsuitable cellphone materials over at Dial-a-phone.

The Internet's Only Entirely Positive Gaming Tattoo Article!

2010-04-23T15:29:00.003-04:00

It's all too easy to mock gaming tattoos, in the same way it's easy to mock people who set themselves on fire. Which is why most articles about them end up as funny as a surgeon's apology. But not this one!

I didn't even need to be funny after a photo like that, but I did it anyway. So read and Reddit!

The Energy Drink Overload Experiment

2010-04-06T13:19:00.003-04:00

The last time I endured this much pain for an article was watching Dancing With The Stars. In case you're not aware, companies now sell lobotomies in cans - and I drank them all for ZUG.

A chemical fire waiting to happen. Inside my skull.

Go read, Reddit, and Digg!

The Stupidest Hardcore Gaming Peripherals

2010-04-06T08:37:00.002-04:00

Do you like to play games? Do you like to pay ridiculous mark-ups on pieces of plastic because they allegedly have something to do with games?

Pity. These guys were hoping for a 'yes' there.

the unfair advantage over your rivals in lowlight conditions. (That is an actual quote from the advertising)

Behold the perils of cyborg mice, paying to punch yourself in the chest, and the awesome power of the DESTRUCTOR GAMING SURFACE! Read it and Reddit.

Everything Is Going To Kill Everybody (and you should buy it)

2010-04-03T08:57:00.004-04:00

If you're on this site then you'll love this book, and it isn't even by me. My talented friend Robert Brockway has unleashed Everything Is Going To Kill Everybody and it's teaching the rest of the fear-mongering media a lesson.

(The Lesson: fear-mongering is way better when it's stuffed with facts and really funny.)

You may notice I've subliminally primed this photo to bias you towards the book. That's because I've read it and love it. But don't just believe me. Don't just believe Optimus Prime, you filthy Decepticreep. You can go read a sample chapter over at Cracked.
Go get it, at your local bookstore or Amazon (US, Canada and UK).

Blizzard's Top 3 Pranks on World of Warcraft Players

2010-03-22T12:33:00.004-04:00

I only wish I got as much money for taking the piss.

Pandaren delivery boys, WoW on the 2600, and drunken collectibles over at ZUG! (Then Reddit.)

WASD or GTFO: Great and God-Awful Gaming T-Shirts

2010-03-22T09:46:00.004-04:00

Anti-fashionable fun over at Lowpings, because we can all agree on one thing: You don't want to be this guy

Do the "reading" thing here to see the BFG, some stylish kit you could actually wear to work, and the one way to turn Counter-Strike clothing into an even worse idea. Like it? Reddit!

The St Patrick's Day Drinking Experiment

2010-03-17T09:55:00.001-04:00

One Irishman vs every green drink in the world!

Go read, enjoy, and be merry!

Limoncello Lunacy

2010-03-16T16:20:00.002-04:00

Any unaware that we need some sort of bureaucrat cull should check this out: California's cutting funding to education, but still sending agents out to crack down on illegal limoncello.

Read the full story and unique Lukely commentary over at FoodConnect.

The Video Game Movie Sucktacular!

2010-03-16T15:25:00.005-04:00

Behold, as I endure the latest and anti-greatest in videogame movies at GameSpy! Not Street Fighter, not House of the Dead, not even Bloodrayne. No, I have Street Fighter 2, House of the Dead 2, and even Bloodrayne 2, and many other examples of how Hollywood just can't stop doing terrible things!

Please note this is the first time that "Street Fighter 2" has been a bad thing.

Understand: I watched Uwe Boll so you didn't have to. If you don't have any Medals of Honor lying around, a Digg or Reddit would work just as well.

I've also noticed that my last three articles here have been about videogames, I had to watch Doom drunk, play Atari games and dance on DDR to research them (also drunk), and that my life is excellent.

Modern Games That Would Have Sucked on the Atari 2600

2010-03-15T08:20:00.004-04:00

I had a lot of fun with this one (note: none of the fun was while actually playing Atari 2600 games as research.)

Go! Enjoy! Digg! Reddit!

America's Credit Card Statement

2010-03-11T07:52:00.002-05:00

Economic hilarity over at Cracked - come for the fun and figures, stay for the insane hatemongering comments, Digg it to spite the psychos!

Dance Dance Revelations!

2010-03-05T08:31:00.002-05:00

DDR, looking stupid, and making fun of things - I've basically been training for this article my whole life. Go read it!

Allies Win World War II, Round MMMLXV

2010-03-02T14:11:00.003-05:00

Cries of joy substituted for shellfire across the servers last night, as millions of Allied troops celebrated victory in World War II for the three thousand and sixty-fifth time that day.

The Reichstag falls (127.7 times an hour)

“It’s been a hard struggle” said Sergeant Martin, who first answered the Call of Duty in 2004 (and again in 2005, 2006, and once more in 2008.) “Those dirty Huns sure are persistent, and seem to keep reappearing five-to-seventeen seconds after you kill them, but by God we pushed forward and stood on the designated map marker for thirty seconds. Thereby resolving the entire nightmarish tangle of debts and international pressures which drowned a quarter of the world in blood.”

(read the rest at LowPings)

Vendor Trash: The Top 10 Worst World of Warcraft Cash-Ins

2010-03-02T13:55:00.003-05:00

Would you spend $550 on this?

Would you think anyone capable of even imagining that could use a computer? They can, but for "use" substitute the exact opposite phrase "play World of Warcraft." If you're interested, and want to see women painted green drinking mana potions, go read the full article on GameSpy. And Digg it!

Cat Behavior Explained

2010-02-27T09:51:00.003-05:00

Cats explained by comic, Scientific Americat and Catmopolitan over at Cracked!

UPDATE: Doing well!

You should Digg that too!

Team Fortress 2: THE WORST UPDATE EVER!

2010-02-16T12:03:00.003-05:00

Fun and photoshop over at Lowpings this week!

UPDATE: Winning at Reddit!

Twitter Swamps Idiots (instead of being swamped BY them, for once)

2010-02-08T10:16:00.005-05:00

Twitter's torrential outpouring of insanity'n'inaty was finally put to good use when they drowned out a Westboro Baptist Church protest. If you don't know who the WBC, the Jeopardy question is "Which insane scumbags protest at funerals for free publicity?"

Read all about it right here.

The Geek Defined

2010-02-07T11:08:00.002-05:00

Beer, wine, games, football, whatever you want.

Predicting the Super Bowl with the power of consoles!

2010-02-04T13:18:00.003-05:00

Over at Cracked today, playing every American football game from Madden 10 to Tecmo Super Bowl, and betting on the predictions. Also a photo of me giving a blow job.

Go read it, and Digg it, and enjoy the beauty of NES!

(You can even Reddit if you're into that sort of thing.)

Cat Pisses on Peyton, Bets $50 on Saints

2010-02-02T17:36:00.003-05:00

My continuing paid psychological breakdown disguised as a writing career passed an important landmark this week, when I gave my cat $50 and asked him to bet on the Superbowl.

This cat got scratch

Along the way he battles dream interpretation, disproves fortune telling, and enters an all-or-nothing Quarterback Cagematch. Go read it, and if you're reading this Saints, go win so I look slightly less crazy!

System Swansongs

2010-02-02T13:37:00.004-05:00

It's a hard life being a console - you provide millions of children with more joy than an infinity of rainbows, then you die with less dignity than Elvis.

See what your old friends died doing at Gamespy, and Digg because you're just such a gosh-darn great guy/gal.

Dinosaur D-Day!

2010-01-26T11:51:00.006-05:00

For fans of "Making money doing the most incredible things," I punch out a Tyrannosaurus Rex through an American flag, while drinking beer, and get paid for it.

Turok was a pussy!

You're either going to want to read about that, or get the hell off my page anyway.

The Russian Traffic Porn Prank

2010-01-26T11:44:00.005-05:00

Russian hackers achieve the impossible, and tune those mind-melting video billboards to something people actually want to watch.

Of course it was porn.

Go see, unless you're not into that. In which case the internet might not be for you. But Digg before you go!

The Alcopop Experiment

2010-01-22T17:52:00.003-05:00

I dare death, drunkeness and diabetes for comic effect in The Alcopop Experiment!

You really want to read it. And Digg it.

Gamespy: Collecting Crap

2010-01-20T16:52:00.003-05:00

This week on GameSpy we see why gamers aren't taken seriously: twenty-dollar coasters and horrifying "personal assistants".

See this and many more ways to prove that both your credit card and genitals should be confiscated for the good of all mankind right here. Then Digg it!

Cheap Fighter II, The World's Worst Warriors!

2009-12-09T00:58:00.003-05:00

Watch as I prove every single person who said I wouldn't get paid for practicing the screw piledriver wrong! A solid decade of beat-em-up hatred refined into one pure parcel of humor, for your delectation and delight. If you've ever been appalled by Eddy, shoryukened out of the sky, or were tricked into playing Killer Instinct, this one's for you.

Read! Enjoy! Digg!

Awfulchievements

2009-11-24T23:42:00.002-05:00

I score achievements every day: "having fun" and "playing games." Some people manage to screw that up.

Windows 7 Installation

2009-11-23T08:45:00.008-05:00

More material over at Cracked, where we look at the very latest in Operating Systems and ask "Why bother?"

Bonus: Even Windows has fanboys! Behold comments furiously denying that Windows 7 was inspired by OS X or that many installs wipe every file on your computer. Despite links to Windows staff admitting "it was inspired by OS X" and the known fact that an install from anything other than Vista, which most people didn't buy, require you to format your entire hard drive.

Close Encounters Of Numbered Kinds

2009-11-08T09:41:00.003-05:00

Do you believe aliens exist? Do you believe they're hiding on Earth? Amazing how a 'yes' to two similar questions can imply wildly differing levels of intelligence. Rejoice in the fact with my chart on Types of Alien Encounter at Cracked!

Go! Enjoy! Digg!

Want to stay single forever? There's an app for that!

2009-10-21T20:22:00.005-04:00

In fact there are several. I write about techno-lunacy over at Dial-a-Phone every week, to the point where they don't even care if it's about phones, though this week it is. Specifically, it's about the iPhone's attempts to end human procreation:

Both of those apps exist. People programmed them, and people download them, though we can at least assume that no-one who uses the first gets as far as the second.

Disastvertising: The Worst Ads Online

2009-10-20T14:44:00.003-04:00

More on the endless idiocy generator that is advertising. Enjoy!

Anatomy Of A Honda Civic

2009-10-17T17:15:00.003-04:00

The latest from Cracked, where I break down barriers by daring to describe how boy racers are retards. Join us next week for my Pulitzer-prize column on the deal with airline food!

(It's actually pretty good. You should go read it to find out what all those pretty colors mean.)

Dancing With The Stars: The Most Dangerous Game

2009-10-01T23:45:00.007-04:00

I recently watched Dancing With The Stars for a Cracked article, and until I go undercover in al-Queda as a star-spangled banner it will remain the most dangerous assignment I've ever taken. It's also why my fee for future reality TV articles will be "counselling, a liquor store, and restorative massage by no less than three Milla Jovovii*."

*Yes, this will require cloning, and no, I can see no better use of the technology

The article that endangered my sanity

Until someone builds a kitten chew-toy out of napalm-covered grenades nothing will ever utterly destroy two nouns as thoroughly as "Dancing With The Stars." I thought it was uncharacteristically nice of the opening credits to list the dancers until I saw "Lil' Kim"* and realized "Holy shit, these are meant to be the famous people!"

*I'm not sure where "ballroom dancing with a white gay man on national television" ranks in rap circles, but suspect it's somewhere below "ratting people out" and only slightly above "Being Vanilla Ice."

It went on to more people I'd actually heard of, but that was like going from wondering "what's making that noise?" to finding out it's Jason Voorhees sharpening a knife. Steve-O, Steve Wozniak and Holly Madison (the latter at least knew why she was picked, bouncing in like she took a wrong turn on the way to "So You Think You Can Pole Dance For Your Uncle?") The whole thing's a horrific collision between people falling into obscurity and the wretched F-list things that live here. Things for whom "no hidden camera in the bathroom" was a relative plus for this gig, had they needed one, had they not been primitive moth-human-hybrids attracted to cameras instead of lights.

Every episode is the same thing repeated X times, where X is "the number of contestants left"/"the number of layers Hell has this week."

1. The Preparation

First there's the worst reality show ever made watching two people with a narrator constantly repeating how they "did well/badly last week and are really trying very hard" until words themselves start to lose meaning. Endless restatement is a known psychological technique for breaking down the human psyche, rendering viewers susceptible for the main event: The Holy Shit This Show Is Really About Watching People Who Can't Dance Dancing.

2. The Dancing

This is the exact moment your hope for humanity dies. It's where you realise that a seven-figure population of people is watching a real dancer strapped to an artificial personality with teeth instead of skill, and they're cheering for the latter. Where you realise that a show that just had the people who could actually dance would have been cancelled halfway through the pitch meeting's first sentence. Where an entire culture not only rewards a lack of skill but actually insists on it.

It's pretty hard to continue from there. I managed because I'm a professional, because it's my job, and because I was drunk - by the end of the first couple I'd had double drinks, and paused twice to do pushups as my body's "fight-or-flight" emergency response had flooded my body with adrenaline in an attempt to get my away from the screen. I'm not saying the people who watch this are twenty-two million arguments for eugenics - I'm saying I have glands smart enough to avoid this show.

3. The Fallout

The rest is a floodlit parody of "Have a GREAT day!" North American-ness. Watching Denise Richards taking shit from a midget Italian ballerino is priceless: the first thing you (or any approaching aeroplane pilots) see is a blinding expanse of white, a vast panel of grinning glare which could be used to communicate with the International Space Station if she learned to open and close her lips in Morse Code. The second is hatred so intense it'd make Cobra Commander chill out and hug the Joes.

She is three seconds from her skull exploding in screaming judge-eating snakes

Every second of shit she takes, she's remembering those two weeks she could have had him bought and ground into gravel, paid someone else to park a Mercedes full of manure on him, and played "dodge the paparrazi" for the rest of the day. Now it's a pit stop on real American TV before going back to cameos on Bollywood romance movies about stuntmen, and that last bit was not hyperbole. That really happened.

Then it's backstage aka "Support group for terminally grinning has-beens trapped in a limbo undeath of dancing for hooting spherical TV absorbers ." Micheal Irvin used to dodge human tanks for a living, and now you get the special treat of him acting grateful for three screeching stereotypes he could pulp with one arm giving him shit about dancing.

After X lobes of your brain have been shut down the show just ends - you have to come back later for the results edition, which is on par with going back to the dentist thinking "maybe he'll use anaesthetic this time".

The only hope is that this is part of some radical emergency plan to re-educate America - watching less and less famous people do duller and duller things that would not interest the public in any other way, moving from "Dancing With The Stars" to "Living With The Minor Celebrities" to "Basic Finance And Hygiene With The Nice People In The Little Box."

Beer Magazine

2009-10-01T23:07:00.004-04:00

There is a wonderful, magical world where I not only drink beer: I can get paid to drink beer while telling people how robots and genetic engineering will make beer better than ever. And that world was Earth all along!

Yes, Issue 12 of Beer Magazine (Sep/Oct 2009) features "The Future Of Beer" by me (or more accurately, me laughing maniacally at how my dreams are actually coming true.) I'm now paid to write about both beer and videogames - I don't know if there's a cheerleader-testing publication, but if there is I'm sure they'll contact me shortly.

Pick it up, and if you can't find it in real life, be aware that Beer Magazine (smart people, upstanding citizens, fine judges of writing character) are also intelligently available online at Zinio.

Do I Get To Wear A Vest?

2009-09-24T09:28:00.001-04:00

Imagine being one of the most profitable badasses in history, then waking up and deciding "I'd like to be the voice of Roseanne Barr's baby brother." Welcome to the unknowable world of Bruce Willis.

Cinemasochism: The Legend Of Chun Li

2009-09-22T22:01:00.001-04:00

This time we look at the worst missed opportunity since they started hiring female cheerleader coaches. In honor of its video-game nature, the article is over at Bitmob.

Gears Of War 2 Secret File

2009-09-15T02:16:00.003-04:00

One for fans of chainsaw-guns, blowing up monsters from the inside, and telling people who've just been disembowelled by a rocket to stop being such pussies. In other words anyone who matters.

Read the rest over at Bitmob!

(and Reddit it if you're into that sort of thing)

The Lottery of Truth

2009-09-14T13:48:00.003-04:00

Another article up at Cracked, wherein the Lottery is subjected to the intense critical analysis of anyone with average intelligence. Also includes Tom Cruise. Read!

eBook Insanity: Female Psychic Attack!

2009-09-13T14:34:00.007-04:00

Female Psychic Attack is written by Ross Jeffries, can be read online here, and on a parallel world where I invented English people don't say his name instead of "creepy delusional loser." The very first word is "Bros" and it's the only time in history when talking about 80s sensations Matt and Luke Goss would be less embarrassing. Using the plural of "Bro" is bad; doing so in writing was thought impossible; but pretending to be a fratboy when you look like Popeye after a few years at Spinach-eaters Anonymous?

Ross Jeffries. On his own site. This is what he uses to represent himself in public where everyone can see.

Ross was raised on a world of Amazonian warrior-bitches who slept with M1 battle tanks, so he acts like every conversation is an arms deal with Basque separatists. He also wages unending war against grammar, apostrophes, and captilization, but since he's already declared the entire X chromosome his enemy that's only a minor skirmish. And expecting the author of a book about girls and their mind-blasting cooties to be good at communication is like demanding an Alien facehugger respect your personal space: by evolution, intent and innate sucks-to-be-near-them they just can't.

The intended audience is announced by the unexplained use of "AFC" in the first sentence. If you don't know what that is? Well done on being a real human being who can approach the opposite gender without a strategy guide. This text is intended for high-level students of online misogyny lectures, since the term is never defined. Googling it results in "American Football Conference", "Asian Football Confederation" (both of which would beat this guy up) and "Ambassadors For Christ in Canada" (who could also likely also beat him up, and probably get laid more often.)

The catalog of disaster that is the Fast Seduction 101 acronym page eventually reveals AFC as "Average Frustrated Chump." Yes, theirs is a world where the average state of males is sexually frustrated. Unsurprising since theirs is world where acronyms are involved in dating and they unsarcastically use "HB" for "Hot Babe."

Here's an example of the advice you'll get from a man who thinks women can telepathically blast your testicles:

Problems:

That'd get Robin Williams beaten on the set of a romantic comedy even if it was in the script. And the only things that use "laff" are christmas-cracker joke-writing robots in their quest to destroy human joy.
It's still better than the second suggested response

My imaginary dungeons & dragons wizard only has ten ranks in fucking insanity so I can't quite follow the train of imaginary thought here - but I can tell it's crashed through a psych ward and into a hall of mirrors. There are levels of desperate delusion here that'd make the Joker try to talk him down, and if I'm reading it right his advice is "If the girl doesn't want to stay late be extra-aggressive about wanting sex." That's not romantic advice, that's Daterape for Dummies.

It gets worse. Watch as a single sentence leads to enough passive aggression to doom a thousand marriages:

Here he responds to a lack of phone calls by accusing the girl of being a dumb slut and/or fucking dumb sluts, depending on her ability to parse what happens to grammar after multiple concussions. In Jeffries' fantastic alterna-world this barrage of insults, ellipses and shouting has the woman desperately wondering how she can best please him. As opposed to two timezones away and still accelerating.

(Please be warned that the man who typed "HA HA HA HA!" like that is still at large and should not be approached by either gender.)

The final example in the eight-page opus is a masterpiece of denial insanity, which I can't do full justice without just copying it here and standing behind a lead-lined anti desperation field. It involves a case "sent to me in email by a Bro", the dating-advice version of a letter to Penthouse written by "a friend of mine from Canada youwouldn'tknowher", a recommended reply which would make Bizarro Superman look like a tender lover, and the girl actually breaking up with presented as a successful result.

Jeez, man, if you're going write a book about made-up not-dates at least have her dump you because she found you in bed with fourteen zero-gravity cheerleading rocketeers. That way you're at least pretending your psychic woman-hunting anti-voodoo works.

Why Video Game Movies Suck

2009-09-13T14:22:00.003-04:00

I turn turning video games into movies into a video game. (That grammar works, I checked).

See the whole thing over at Cracked.

eBook Insanity: Knife Throwing Techniques Of The Ninja

2009-09-05T01:18:00.006-04:00

Page 2 contains everything you need to know about Knife Throwing Techniques Of The Ninja:

First off, that's not a ninja. That's what happens when a kid is so irretrievably fucked they don't even bother the Make-a-Wish people, they just change his pajamas and tell him he's a silent assassin and should practice being ignored. In the book it appears exactly like that - no caption, no figure, no reference in the text, just some guy in black cloth with more tassles than a stripper and a target market which honestly that kicked ass. That couldn't kick a kitten in a boot-testing factory. Because this was in 1986, just after Karate Kid and American Ninja, when the common sense part of every brain under fifteen was destroyed by shurikens.

Now it's been brought forward in time by the eternal-mistake-preserving technology of the internet. So if Facebook got your ass fired for flashing at a frat party, don't worry: it's making up for it by mutilating Naruto fans. This book is extremely popular again on torrents, and a decades-old resurrectee hasn't maimed this many people since the Halloween movies.

If you've spotted that knife-throwing is the worst self-defense mechanism possible, felonious enough to get your ass arrested while ineffective enough to ensure the police have to scrape you into the cell, this author agrees with you - if only subconsciously. Even in his own book dedicated to blade-hurling he starts off with a fan-fiction, set in the days before guns, and still need six pages to invent a situation where throwing knives comes in handy. If you're a fan of "reading" you'll want to skip this part: It makes the average Harry Potter/X-Men crossover seem well-written, and is probably most brain-damagingly bad piece of literature short of being hit in the head with a hardback DaVinci Code.

After showing his homeroom English teacher that he can-so-too get published Mr Peters gets on to the real meat of the book: advising psychotic shut-ins to start carrying knives. This is it starts moving from "crappy cash-in" to "check you don't live near the author." He advises all readers to throw their knives six hundred times a week, which sounds like a great way to turn Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder into a horror movie script, and then carefully explains how knife-throwing is obviously useless unless you carry knives with you every waking moment.

The book also handily removes the readers from the gene pool, because any "date" who hangs around after seeing this picture in your flat is an undercover police officer.
The advice ends up exactly neutral for the non-stab-fan: there's the scary way he tells amateur knifologists to make sure they're always armed, but it's perfectly cancelled by the insane hiding places he comes up with: in your armbands, within your sash, or tucked into your headband or mask wrappings. So any newly-bladed practicioners are already avoided in the street by anyone not currently studying for a Doctorate in Crazy. Besides, anyone walking down the street in a full blade-stuffed sash and Naruto headband had better hope the police find them before anyone else.

Unless, of course, they meet another ninja!

Of course you have to train for various situations where you might meet another ninja - though if you're both really ninja, the chances of seeing each other are on par with two Kate Mosses being in the same Dunkin Donuts. This guy is really preparing for a life of ninja combat - it seems a shame to be so far into a world of delusion without getting a jetpack or a cheerleader. But at least it's encouraging the audience to meet each other, practice knife combat, and help evolution on a little.

This is where I realised the publishers behind this book are geniuses. The author might need to be restricted to sporks, but they're selling this insane crap to people who will never be able to complain. Because you need fingers to work phones, or type, and the sort of person who learns knife throwing out of an online book is about twenty self-assertiveness lessons from the confidence to order at a drive-through. Never mind complaining about someone who owns knives.

It's still the most irresponsible printing since "My First ABC of Cleaning Products That Look Like Fruit Juice," but they've made sure that there are hundreds of miles between them and the involuntary injury machine they've unleashed. In fact, it may be the reincarnated spirit of Charles Darwin working to assist natural selection after deciding - as any intelligent person must - that the first to be purged from the modern world must be white people who say "Bakka".

I have to believe that this secret eBook cabal is working to improve humanity. The only alternative is that author "Michael E. Peters" is a real person walking around loose.

The Article That Would Not Die!

2009-09-02T08:16:00.002-04:00

The Internet Safety Signs, the very first paid article I ever did, keeps surging back like a horror movie villain who's forgotten his keys.

It's fun to see it reposted every few months, even if people seem pyschotically incapable of crediting the poor original site, with the most recent reanimation is up to over 3000 Diggs. Again.

Oh, internet, flattery will get you everywhere.

Quentin Tarintino Explained

2009-08-31T09:25:00.003-04:00

More at Cracked, this time assisted by the awesome Jack O'Brien!

"Tarantino believes moving understandably from beginning to end is for Sesame Street and the fuckin' alphabet." and more, right here for your reading pleasure.

Dancing With The Stars (destroying two words at once)

2009-08-26T09:57:00.003-04:00

Some think that drinking while being hilarious is the easy option. Those pansies don't know jack - I've stared into HELL and written jokes about the torment:

Go, see what scarred my psyche - and Digg me for valor!

Iron Man Explained

2009-08-17T09:08:00.003-04:00

Cracked collaborating with Stark Industries to explain exactly how Iron Man was engineered.

Read it, Digg it, even enjoy it if you have time!

The Social Networking Cycle

2009-08-15T09:14:00.003-04:00

Everything you need to know about Facebook, Myspace and Twitter over at Cracked.

Go read the rest, and just think: Digging a website about websites could be most meta click you make all day!

Don't Touch My No-No Square

2009-08-07T23:35:00.001-04:00

More evidence that abstinence education is an attempt to disprove evolution by forcing it to run backwards: a Mississippi summit on sex education's main strategy to prevent hot teenage boning was a jingle. A JINGLE. Five thousand teens were lined up and made to rap “Stop, don’t touch me there! You know this is my no-no square!” I want you to know that I copy and pasted that phrase because my brain threatened seizure if I actually typed it.

Jingles are for selling detergent, not fighting the base urges wired into humanity, and I don't know if you've noticed but 90% of all advertising is based on how much we want to fuck each other. Using ads to fight sex is like using Carlos Mencia to combat idiocy. If you're wondering if this rap came complete with stupid acting out of the lyrics, hell yes it did! Teens danced around drawing an invisible square box around their crotches with their fingers, singing a rap written by someone so white and old they're probably mummified and only dimly remember sex as "something bad like wetting the bed but there need to be two of you."

When you won't even refer to genitals without infant talk like "no-no square," you may be ill-equipped in a battle against hot throbbing sex. Those teens aren't prancing along because you've overridden the fundamental drive of all organisms: they're obeying because it genuinely isn't their problem yet. When the hormones hit their brain a battering ram of XL nuclear warheads your precious little jingle'll work like a toilet-roll umbrella: those kids will be soaking and covered in stringy white goo. You are sending them into a battle against their own bodies unarmed, and it's only even a battle because you told them so.

Cinemasochism: Dolemite!

2009-08-06T22:46:00.013-04:00

WARNING: This article uses language like a motherfucker with his dick in a mousetrap, because discussing Dolemite without swearing is like talking Tom Cruise without saying "screamingly insane". The motherfucking is so intense you'll finish the movie with a new sibling. My wife had to spend a fortnight training me out of calling our cat a "rat-eating motherfucker," despite both parts of that statement actually being true for most cats.

WARNING: Poster may feature better choreography than actual film, motherfucker.

This is Dolemite's story, and not just because it's named after him: because he's the only one in the entire production who has so much as placed a phone call before. Incomparable expletivist Rudy Ray "Dolemite" Moore writes, produces, directs, stars, and fills every position he couldn't physically do himself with people he picked up off the street at the corner of Prostitute Drive and Drug Addict Alley. Most of the "actors" look like they just regained the power of speech through experimental surgery, and the boom mike makesdaring raids to claim scenes as part of the Gloriously Crappy Sound Man Empire.

While some cinematic experiments have been recorded in one take, Dolemite was written and produced in that take too. People arrive on screen with absolutely no idea of what they're supposed to be doing, many looking like the concept of "pretending to be someone else" is being explained off screen in sign language several seconds after the cameras started rolling. This explains why a "Fuck you"/"No, Fuck YOU" exchange can take upwards of twenty seconds.

It's still a priceless window into the most motherfucking soul on the planet. The plot is Dolemite framed, Dolemite released, then badly-paced VENGEANCE, but even within such a complex plot they find time to reveal Rudy's opinions on:

Fashion!

The only whiteys Dolemite will tolerate are tightey-whiteys.

His adoring audience.

His first action on release from prison is to strip out of the square prison-issue clothes, with the entire male population of the prison watching, and get into pimp gear. He then gets into a limo and starts taking the clothes off again. This is one of the many, many scenes that obviously seemed badass inside Dolemite's head and nobody else was allowed (or even able) to speak. For example: if I was portraying a badass ladies man his first action would not be "Performing strip-tease for a male convict population."

Romance!

Rudy Ray Moore wants you to know he's successful with women, and he thinks “insinuation” is something white people do because they’re impotent. If he wishes to imply a lady likes him, the only reason you don't see shaft is because the cameraman can't get the lens into the molecule-thin gap between his crotch and the refurbished prostitute/actress impersonating a face-shaped vacuum cleaner.

Every single woman in this movie would ride you like a train and give you change from a coupon. The only time they look comfortable on screen is when they're licking people. I tried to imagine a life so tragic that the best moments in it are licking Rudy Ray Moore, which is why I'm dictating this article to the suicide negotiator on the street ten floors below me.

This remains the only movie I've ever seen where a full backhand slap romances a woman, and this is a real full on pimp-slap (as in "Oh, THAT'S why pimps are considered a cross between humanity and sewage") leading immediately to sex. Horrific, horrific sex.

Stephen King once had a nightmare like this but was too scared to write about it

A still image really doesn't capture the horror, and because I'm not Cthulhu I can't put it into words. I was going to make a gif until I remembered my strict vow of "NOT measurably increasing the amount of terror and pain in the world." I've seen more romantic scenes in Hellraiser. I don't know exactly how long the grunting goes on, because I was screaming the first time and will lose my remaining eye if I go back to check, but recall it being approximately Forever Times Torment.

Violence!

That's actually the kick on the way up. Dolemite won' let martial arts, or basic human anatomy, get in the way of kicking ass!

Dolemite is often called upon to dispense ass-whooping, which is unfortunate as his kung fu make William Shatner look like Yoda with a lightsabre-firing machine gun. His primary attack is arthritically wiggling his leg at people until they remember they're supposed to fall down.

Music!

If you ever see this it's too late to run - your only chance is to Stop, Drop, and Roll While Smashing Your Head Into The Ground To Render Yourself Unconscious. (Yes, this music requires three times as much warning as nuclear weaponry.)

Rudy Ray knows drug addicts. Rudy Ray knows whores. Rudy Ray knows a surprising number of rat-soup eating motherfuckers, but RR does not know any musicians. The excrutiatingly extended music scene - one of many methods used by Mr Moore to extend his twenty minute plot into the hour and a half demanded by The Man - features a band who can only have been hired as reverse blaxploitation. Not only do they destroy the stereotype of black people having rhythm, they cast serious doubt on the stereotype that black people can even hear.

Language

Rudy does not speak English. He speaks Motherfucker with some English mixed in so us honkies can understand. Every character swears like a sailor on shore leave from the S.S. Tourette's, with the exception is the preacher, who balances things out by running guns through his church and boning woman so fat he could choose any fold at random and call it an orifice - yet he refuses to say "motherfucker." That is an extremely specific moral line you've drawn for yourself, preacher man.

I still can't call Dolemite a bad movie, in the same way you can't call the charge of the light brigade a failed military engagement: by any sane definition it really absolutely is the worst one ever, but its level of failure so far transcends the original concepts involved it takes on immortality. And any movie which guarantees you watch the sequel, even in sheer disbelief, can't be called a failure. Because I'll be back for: THE HUMAN TORNADO!

I Win At Nerd!

2009-08-06T22:42:00.005-04:00

Winning at nerd is moderately cool. Winning when that's your entire job is cooler. But this; this is Shaft chillin' out in a liquid hydrogen jacuzzi cool:

The Zen of Gaming Sexism

2009-08-05T10:24:00.002-04:00

A piece up at Bitmob looking at Tecmo's absolute ultimate objectification: TITS ON A WALL. Nothing but breasts on a big blank expanse, aka "A terrifying glimpse into the mind of advertising executives."

2009-08-04T09:34:00.001-04:00

Comedy, videogames, and getting paid - how awesome would thate be? Click the link to find out!

Street Fighters By Boss Ball Size

2009-08-01T22:58:00.002-04:00

Vital scientific street-fighting findings over at Bitmob!
If you know what a dragon punch is you'll probably want to check it out.

NASCAR Safety

2009-07-20T18:52:00.003-04:00

Not that I'm encouraging it, mind you, but I did look at NASCAR Safety over at Cracked.

Want to see the rest of the image? If only there were some way to do so.

The Future

2009-07-20T01:14:00.002-04:00

Skateboarding Safety

2009-07-18T09:47:00.001-04:00

Another article over at Cracked. describing skateboarding's most suicidal stunts and other reasons why non-Ninja Turtles probably shouldn't bother.

Harry Potter Insanity

2009-07-17T09:10:00.003-04:00

I was going to write about the new article over at Cracked, telling you how people have gone insane over Harry Potter, but really, LOOK at that image.

That's real. College age, running around clutching broomsticks and pretending to fly.

Disastvertising: The Worst In Gaming PR

2009-07-14T22:16:00.005-04:00

Another article up at GameSpy, where we explain how somebody can take the job "Sell videogames to videogamers" and totally screw it up. And there's no Daikatana at all! Yes, only things that actually happened within the last eight years! Read Disastvertising here.

They were even kind enough to make some images for me, even if they sometimes get the words in the wrong order.

Back To The Future Timeline Of Disaster

2009-07-11T10:25:00.004-04:00

A timeline of terrible mistakes up at Cracked.com.
You missed the parts where they hired a rapist, or decided Doc's dog was more important than Marty's wife? Go!

Jackie Chan Injury Map

2009-07-04T08:32:00.001-04:00

Once more unto the Cracked, dear friends, where I have a color-coded chart of Chan-breakage. It's a rainbow of self-mutilation that would make a suicidal GAP commercial look monochromatic.

Biker Body Map

2009-06-30T16:19:00.003-04:00

Another image over at Cracked, explaining exactly how bikers appear to medical professionals, firefighters, and other people who know what happens when you create a flesh-asphalt boundary at 100 kph.

Go read the full version, which includes sex, motorbike engines, and a BUILT-IN PENIS-SIZE INDICATOR!

Robots In Crap Disguise

2009-06-25T18:00:00.005-04:00

Before they had Michael Bay to disguise them as retarded golden shower enthusiasts, Transformers had to find their own terrible disguises. And they did! Head over to Cracked to read all about it.

If this looks like ANYTHING to you, wake up before Cthulhu arrives.

Top-Notch Tazings

2009-06-22T09:48:00.004-04:00

Do you like reading about the electrocution of idiots? Of course you do! Get on over to Dial-a-Phone and read about sheep-zapping, bringing a lightning-bolt to a knife fight, and our new electrical overlords.

Dumbeldore Defined

2009-06-18T10:04:00.004-04:00

Back at Cracked, looking at why Dumbledore isn't very good at his job.

Go! Enjoy! Digg! The usual!

Tattoos Explained By Location

2009-06-13T08:40:00.006-04:00

Another Cracked article, explaining tattoo locations and some common choices. Where by "common" I mean "stupid."

Go, enjoy, and Digg if you're a Digger. THIS I COMMAND!

UPDATE: Apparently my commands do not mess around - the piece is now #1 in all Digg topics, meaning I win at Internet today. Kinda wishing I commanded cheerleaders now.
UPDATE-ER: All Farked up too:
UPDATINEST: Insanity.

SUMMARY: I made a thing, and the entire internet apparently decided it was the best thing. If you're reading this page because you're thinking of hiring me, I'm available at reasonable freelance rates and you should probably get right on that.

GameSpy GO!

2009-06-13T07:56:00.004-04:00

My first article is up over at GameSpy, where I poke at pointless controllers and there's not one Power Glove, Activator, or that goddamn Japanese arse-poking game to be seen. Because I write new stuff.
Go! Enjoy! Digg, if you're into that sort of thing!

The iPhone Explained!

2009-06-07T09:45:00.006-04:00

I take a long, hard look at the trendy Apple product over at Cracked. Amazingly I don't end up dancing, sillhouetted, or sipping a double-soy emascuccino.

Getting a cat together

2009-06-06T22:42:00.004-04:00

(Not based on anyone living, dead, or from Ireland and cursing a feline for chewing through his cables.)

Alcohology: A Message For Alberta Pure

2009-06-02T12:05:00.003-04:00

Dear Alberta Pure,
You can either claim to be "Triple Distilled For the Ultimate Purity", or you can sell 1.75 litre plastic bottles of vodka at hobo rates, but you really have to make up your mind.

And could you pass on a message to your target market? "Claiming you'll spend it on food is a good strategy, and standing outside the liquor store saves time, but you have to choose one or the other."

Thanks,

Luke

Learning Foodology: The Carbon Chef

2009-05-27T19:15:00.012-04:00

I've decided to learn foodology!

I'm married to one of the best chefs ever, and my previous opinion - that this had solved all my food problems forever - turned out to be shortsighted, sexist and possibly suicidal. It's an incredible opportunity to learn about one of my three loves, and since I've already married her and I'm a pretty good drinks mixer, this'll make it three for three.
I really can't afford not to - me getting Xin is like Ugg the caveman finding the Philosopher's Stone. There are men who regularly carry rollable knife racks who call me bastard, apprentice chefs who - if they ever find out what I used to do to steak* - will turn me into Luke a la So You're Single Now, Xin with white whine sauce.
I'm a writer, and no matter how you explain or how awesome your spouse is, when one of you has to walk to work in the rain and the other stays at home in underpants? That house better be spotless, ditto the underpants, and there should be nice things in both.
We've been watching a lot of Iron Chef**, and if you can watch that and not wish you could cook you've just blown your cover as a robot-Terminator-Cylon.

*There are bikers with more edible jackets.)

**If you even have to ask which one, get off my page. There is precisely one Iron Chef, and several name-dishonouring embarrassments.

So I learn! I've recorded my first foray into foodology in photos to guarantee that at least some good comes of it: either I get lunch or Xin gets to laugh at my food-poisoned ass.

Here we see super-hot Chorizo sausages, an Apricot sausage, and a whole mess of asparagus. (This is better than the group noun I used when younger, a "waste of plate space" of asparagus). Note carefully how the meat outweighs the greens and also the big goddamn knife - you should always note when someone has one of those. I'm frankly scared of it, but if watching Iron Chef has taught me anything it's that there's no problem that can't be solved with a single big knife. Unless you're an Italian in a gunfight with Sean Connery, but honestly, you could pull an ICBM on the scottish Bond and he'll still kick your arse.

I remembered some very nice seasoned dishes with sausage-slices, so I decided to go for that - precisely one slice in I realised those are with firmer or already pickled sausages, so here's where we find out if true spirit and determination really can triumph over every logical factor ever. If not I'm suing Hollywood on behalf of my stomach. My money's on a broken-sausage crumble at this point, and as long as I don't read it on a doctor's report that sounds fine.

I added garlic and ginger, cutting the latter into slices from its original "alien organ" shape. Note how I'm breaking pretty much every rule by cutting it all on the same surface, but in my defense
a) it was on different bits of the same surface
b) I'm only risking myself.
During this step the Roomba attacked my feet, explaining how a piece of ginger with skin got into the canola oiled wok. This acted as a bad influence on several other pieces which also somehow developed skin.

Pouring all the meat into the wok left me with the asparagus. I'm not going to lie, the only green stuff I know how to handle is Kyrptonite (Step 1: Keep Away From Superman - unless you're evil, in which case Apply Directly To Superman And STAY THERE Until He's Dead This Time.)

I cut the ends and tips off, because that's what people always do. The ends felt rough and dry even to my fingers, and when parts of me that don't even have taste buds start complaining about food that stuff is going in the bin. I have Xin-spired memories of enjoying the little buddy bits though so they stay. I chopped the rest of the stalks into sections so they wouldn't feel small.
I stop to check the Chiffon cake I was baking. I can send photos of me glassing a bear with a bottle of Jack Daniels to anyone who needs proof of my gender at this point. And the bottle is empty because me and the bear are not.

(The cake is not ready - a chopstick pushed in does not come away clear.)

(BEAR goddamnit)
Neutrino daydreaming of being able to jump that high. "Someday I'm going to tip an entire wok of burning fat," he's thinking, "Then that big two-legged bastard will beg me to just bite him." He then left to find a cable I won't throw him for chewing on (so far he's scoring zero out of all off them twice).

In less important news, the stuff in the wok still looks like food. I'm not shooting high.

After adding the asparagus it's still looking good. It's become incredibly clear I needed more garlic and ginger - the little bits I have now are like throwing three traffic wardens into Mad Max II. I also need to cook it a bunch more, but that's fine, because meat is a MAN's food and will admit honorable defeat if you just beat it hard enough with fire. When it's safe to eat, it stays safe and just gets less and less enjoyable the more you beat it. MANLY. Unlike souffle, the female food, which requires a thousand factors to be in alignment and reserves every right to collapse anyway.

Cooking wine! The food, and I'm assuming a lot there, still needs more kick - at the minute it just smells like sausages and asparagus that happen to maybe be in a pan for a bit. This stuff has been brilliant for Xin in the past, and if there's one thing I know as an Irishman it's that alcohol makes everything better.

YEAH! You see that! That's sizzling and nice smells and stuff right there. I am totally on top of this cooking thing.

I am also very nearly on top of Neutrino, who's playing one of his favorite games: "Stand somewhere Luke will step on/kill me and have to emigrate before Xin gets home." I briefly consider how long it would take to stir-fry a pre-tenderized cat.

I start picking out bits of meat to cut in half and check for "are you going to kill me"-ness. You do not want undercooked pork in your gut - it's the digestive system equivalent of inviting James Bond onto your secret underground base while he's posing as a watch salesman with a briefcase full of samples.

I thereby add the important comedy nutrient of irony to my dish: while checking if they're done, they start burning - the fireworks of over done! I'm saved by one of the few culinary skills I already have, "Taking the batteries out of the fire alarm before starting."

Then you just add rice from the three-hundred dollar rice cooker. This thing is awesome - we were watching Iron Chef last night and one of the guys was using an earlier model of this brand. Or possibly one it sent back in time to make sure it would be created. I know some of you think a three hundred dollar rice cooker had better arrange the grains in the shape of winning lottery numbers, and all I can say is I agreed with you before I had one.

The Challenger has gone for a single dish. It speaks to the themes of "I don't know what I'm doing" and "Hunger", while displaying a strong "stuff I found in the house" feel. The fact that it's actually food should appeal to the judges, as it saves them going to Pizza Pizza, and the way that they are also the Challenger is bound to help his chances.

The Verdict:
It was edible with no hilariously describable negative qualities, but I honestly can't claim I had anything to do with it. The sausages were nice because they're really nice farmer's market sausages, the asparagus was fresh, and I just didn't do enough to ruin either of them. They all tasted just like they normally would. The garlic, ginger and cooking wine just hanging around to make me feel better while the food went from raw to not-raw.

Lessons Learned:

You always need more garlic and ginger.
Unlike real life, in the kitchen alcohol needs to be applied in certain ways to make things better.

SWAT Teams and Terminator Timelines

2009-05-24T12:22:00.005-04:00

I've taken over the front page of Cracked today. First up is
featuring The Trailer Embassy Of Texas, SWAT vs SANTA, and the ultimate game of "Beer vs Bullets." I also risked insanity by mapping out the entire Terminator timeline, which you can check out here.

UPDATE:

Star Trek Movie Quick Recognition Chart

2009-05-14T12:01:00.003-04:00

Ever been watching a Star Trek movie, but weren't nerd enough to know which one? This handy chart has all the answers! [SPOILERS]

UPDATE: Holy hell.
The moral? Do even more stuff while drunk!

TF2 Sniper Update REVEALED!

2009-05-12T15:53:00.003-04:00

Behold, the eagerly-anticipated Sniper class updates - leaked by me, for you, at Lowpings!

BONUS: The Keyboard that turned a CHUMP into a CHAMP!