Here’s the thing about Tiger Woods: Nobody argues about it anymore. 

There was a time, if you can believe it, that there was such a thing as the “Big Four” of golf. They were: 

Tiger Woods 

Phil Mickelson 

Vijay Singh 

Ernie Els 

These were the heavyweights, and even though Tiger was winning more than his share, the others would bristle at the fact that Eldrick was always getting more press, more credit, more money, more LUV, more whatever. They were the Big Four, and they all wanted the same respect, and they all thought that if they tried hard enough, it wouldn’t always be Tiger at the top of the hearts-and-minds list. They all thought they had a chance. 

For a year or two, even, it was the Big Five — The above, plus Retief Goosen. 

This was not that long ago. In fact, this was AFTER the Tiger Slam, AFTER Tiger had begun to really start tearing into some records that had long been thought unsinkable. Even after all that, there was still a Big Four, or a Big Five, or even a Big Two, once Mickelson became the clear, consistent almost-front-runner. 

But just as recently as a year ago, maybe two, all of that seemingly just stopped. 

Not just among the writers, always prone to hyperbole and wanting to write breathless columns (like this one) about the next coming of the Lord — that had been going on since before he fired shot one as a professional, somewhere in Milwaukee. 

No, by this time, it had even stopped among his peers. A couple of semi-famous maniacs (I’m looking at you here, Ian Poulter) would occasionally find themselves in front of a camera and say hey, I’ma be #1 soon, and they’d take it as seriously as if I’d said it. But you never heard it from anyone from yesteryear’s Big Four, Big Five, Big Anybody. 

One day, they just stopped. 

One day, after too many second-place finishes to Tigs, Els stopped thinking his Big Easy swing would carry him to the promised land. 

One day, no matter how many “Tiger Who?” caps his caddy wore, Vijay realized there was no point. 

One day, after one too many oh-so-sincere, smugly self-aggrandizing smiles into the camera, Phil just gave up the dream, realizing being a legitimate, or anywhere close to legitimate #1 was not to be, in his lifetime. 

Now, nobody that matters in the sport even bothers trying. They are a generation of professional golfers subdued into being satisfied with million dollar purses, Rich-and-Famous lifestyles, and always being known as “one of the other ones”. 

Not a bad life. And certainly a more honest one, now that they’ve given up the dream, one that was destined never to be theirs, once Earl and Kultida Woods hooked up that one fateful, sweaty night, and nine-plus-six months later when the baby held a cut-off iron in his hand and tried to emulate his father’s swing. 

Nowadays, when he shows up, even if they put up a good front in the press room, behind their eyes they’re bowing down, and showing a begrudging, defeated respect. 

The smart ones — the ones with some dignity, and perspective, and humor — add in a little admiration. This is why Rocco Mediate at last year’s U.S. Open was such a wonderful story. This was a great guy, with humor and wit and joy about him, and he knew he wasn’t supposed to win, and that’s why it was so great that he almost did. 

The night before the playoff, while answering reporters’ questions in the press room, somewhere off-screen Tiger walked in to prep for his own session with the microphones. 

Rocco noticed, looked up, pointed to him faux-menacingly and said, “Hear that, pal? I’m comin’ for ya.” Then motioned to the press and added, “See, he’s scared of me.” 

Rocco got it. You can’t come for him. You can’t scare him. The best you can do is make him, and the rest of us, laugh at your predicament. 

Finally, everyone is coming around to that. 

Game over.

Hey, it’s Knuckles again. Instead of asking questions on how to meet woman, I like to ask questions on how to deal with them after a night of awkwardily pawing and box eating.

I met two women Friday night. They were friends of my buddys girfriend. Girl#1 was of robust proportions, a good 5’11 280. Still she had the pretty face and good personality that keep some big girls from being ridiculed on a daily basis. Nice girl, a virgin too. Girl#2 was more my type except she dressed like Janine Garafolo. She had a shapleyness to her but dressed down as to not show it off. Long black hair possibly some hispanic involved. I was confident some spanish pirate has swashbuckled through the gene pool on at least one occasion in the last 500 years. 

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Al Franken and some fascist (I assume) are running for Senator in Minnesota, and as someone who had the election results hours ahead of time, thanks to Nate Silver and 538.com, I find the idea – the very concept – of not knowing who the senator is in some state that I have no association with to be frustrating and infuriating. However, since I’ve been to Denver International Airport three times and counting in the last two months, other things that are infuriating have sort of taken a back seat. No longer!

I don’t know pretend to have any idea who is going to win the Senatorial race in Minnesota. I would have assumed that Big John Studd would be involved, but he had the unfortunate circumstance of being dead. This recount could take until January, but I did find a webpage that shows some of the ballots these spastic stroke-fuckers managed to fart out. An opportunity to libel people we’ll never meet, all in the context of how our democracy is failing? Count me the fuck in!

STUPID SON OF A BITCH #1: 

Nice work, you illiterate shit. You want to vote for Norm Coleman, which is hilarious enough, but also for… Bad Men? Bachmen? Haha, what, now? 

I spent about twenty seconds doing research for this article, but one theory exists that someone with a similar name to Bachman was running for some office elsewhere in the state of Minnesota. But why, then, did this brainless mump fill in — wait, Christ. We need to go list style for this ballot.

1) The instructions were to fill in the circle, and this person did an “x” thing, probably pissing all over themselves in the process. This is why you can still find corduroy at department stores. 

2) If you want to write someone in, you’re generally expected to actually vote for that person. This person wrote someone in, but then failed to fill in the circle for that person! It’s like they meant this “Bachmen” thing to be more of a suggestion than anything else. “I’m not voting for her… but did you remember her? Hello?!?”

3) Al Franken was on the Democratic ticket, as well as the “Farmer” and the “Labor” parties? I love that the farmers and the Labor party can’t normally get along and had to engage in a painful split at some point, but came together in unity for Al. 

PERSON I’D BE HAPPY TO SEE DIE IN A GULAG #2: 

I mean, on one hand, we’ve all been there. We’ve had to suffer through endless politcal ads on TV and radio, and those of you that have HDTV, it’s even worse, as graphic cards are simply not capable of rendering the skin texture of the average politician in bump-mapping. On the other hand, a simple fill of the circle is perfectly fine – you don’t need to write “NO!” next to the other guy’s name.

(Although I do like the idea of writing little comments next to all the other guys running for offi- HA HA, NO I DON’T, just fill the goddamn things out and follow the instructions for once in your life, you animals.)

And why not get a new ballot? Everyone under the age of 26 is either going to try to vote ironically or be too wasted to bother to show up at all. There is no limit to the number of extra ballots you can request. I know it can be a pain in the ass if you’ve filled out all the local races and petitions and propositions before Senator, but honestly, if you are so concerned about the Local Angle that you fill all those in before Senators and Presidents, the nation is better off without your input anyway.

LUCAS DAVENPORT, IN A CLASS OF HIS OWN AS A DIPSHIT #3:

Let’s get a good look at the miserable manchild, 25, that is the face of the Republic at this moment: 

Meet Lucas Davenport! And here is the ballot he cast:

That’s right. Comedy Plutonium over here wrote in “Lizard People” for the Presidential election, and then also — and who would have figured him as a guy to drive a joke into the ground? — “Lizard People” for Senator.

Only he also voted for Al Franken, which is why his smug and over-sideburned visage is unforunately all over my nice, clean, white website.

Here are some choice quotes from the hipster in question:

“Because you don’t have to vote. It’s not mandatory. And I think that I have the right to vote for anybody I wish, even if it’s a made up candidate or even myself, if I wanted to write that in,” said Davenport.

“If I get my 15 minutes, I get my 15 minutes, and if not, I’ll have some good running gags for the rest of my life,” said Davenport.

I think I speak for the rest of us when I write, “LOL!!!!” I’ll leave you with this:

Think of the five worst Presidents in United States history. Consider all the terrible things they did with more power than any of us can ever truly imagine. All the temptation to engage in corruption. The impossibly long odds that they would ever be called out for the brazen liberties they took with the public trust. All that, and they still allowed this sniveling cocksucker to live until adulthood. Great work, bottom five. Why were you merely evil enough?

I have some friends who are 21 or 22, and no doubt thinking, “Hell yes, you are old. Christ.” Most of my other close friends are around 37, because I made these close friends in the dial-up BBS era, and that’s how it all shook out. So, sure, age is relative, but tonight is the first night I’ve ever personally felt old.

I had surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in my right knee a few years ago. I can’t even pinpoint what set it off. I know that before it went completely, I tried to ski, and I had definitely — since the ski boot locks your ankles in place — jostled my knees mightily in the trying. I don’t think there’s been anything I’ve ever been worse at, than skiing. The ligament finally tore when  I was playing flag football in Fort Collins. I went down like someone shot me. I crawled off the field, in agony. I had to drive home, the 40 miles to Longmont, afterwards. It sucks that it was the right one, because it doesn’t give me an opportunity to say how every vehicle I’ve ever owned, save one old S-15, was a stick. I could have been suffering more!

I didn’t get surgery right away. It was diagnosed as a bruised meniscus, and I was told to stay off it for four weeks. I was on a crutch for the first time in my life. I wanted to play in the flag football tournament that season, so I had a goal in mind, a target, a reward for staying off it.

I played the week before the tournament. Just six or seven plays. It held up. I thought it had healed.

I lasted exactly one play the next week in the tournament. I went down, again, like someone shot me in the goddamn face with a railgun. There was no more football after the tournament, so I gave it the entire winter to heal. I then tried some roller hockey months later, made it through one game… and it fell apart the second game. I saw a specialist who instantly knew what was wrong with it.

He said that the ACL was torn, and we scheduled the surgery. I read every word about the operation on the Internet. I went for the ligament repair that involved taking a piece from a corpse, because I didn’t want them to grab from me elsewhere. I read that there was something like a 1 in 100,000 or one in a million chance of getting AIDS from the ligament. I took my chances, cos I’m a fawkin daredevil, yo. I also read that I’d definitely develop arthritis in my knee. It was a matter of when, not if. I have thought nothing of that.

Till tonight. As I was leaving work, my manager was out having a cigarette. We talked about the stuff I was working on – it wasn’t even particularly cold tonight, maybe mid-40s. Because of the fucked up and altogether worthless manner that we handle HVAC systems in this miserable country, it was almost as cold in side the office,  all day long. Pffft! But nevertheless, as I was out there, I got this dull pulse in my knee. The right knee. The one operated upon, so many days before.

I drove home and it was still there, lingering. A bit odd.

… And the pain was not quite hobbling, as I entered my abode. I shut the door and fed the cats, and grimly smiled as one shit its pants, and asked my knee in jest if this (all of this) was indeed me at my best, and my knee answered grimly: just an aching “nevermore.”

Enter dinner, which I started gobbling, with more life that I was badly bobbling, and I started up some Hugo, so that I might go code. I shut the door to shut out the cats (and the air was still sick of shitted pants) and reflected upon my decisions and the ones that I might still change. I created little fiction in a text game-riddled diction, and asked my knee if possibly there were better days ahead. It answered once again, well, you know, “nevermore.”

And I sit here just short of shallow sobbing, as my own knee performs the robbing; the stealing of my hope and soul and dreams of future lore. All alone in purgatory, with a ligament answering exclusively in the negatory, and I can’t stop myself from asking questions, more and more and more. It never answers yes, just a mirror to the mess, the aching still is making, haha, still is STILL is making of mockery of everything I ever did care for.  And no matter what I ask it, each query a bastard in a basket, the knee responds so grimly, an angry nevermo– oooooooooooookay, I think everyone gets it.

I wrote a scene in Fallacy of Dawn where the player is expected to give horrible games to a clerk that is a bit of a gaming elitist. The clerk can’t BELIEVE you came to the counter with a few gems from the bargain bin, and… okay, it isn’t the best puzzle in the world. 

My brother gave me Battlecruiser: 3000 AD for Christmas one year. This is because he is the greatest brother, ever. (He also played Delarion Yar, the main character in Fallacy of Dawn, and doing that even though it greatly annoyed him also makes him the greatest brother, ever.) The idea of a bunch of people going to work and finshing up with something that is truly miserable does sort of fascinate me in a perverse way.

There really is a sort of “classic” list of the worst video games in the world. I’ll try to list them below. They are the ones that always seem to show up on lists like “The 20 Worst Games of All-Time” and such. Annnnnd, because I am an enormous dork, I can’t help but read every “Worst Games Ever” article ever made. It’s a curse.

The list: Pac-Man, E.T. and Custer’s Revenge for the Atari 2600. Superman for the Nintendo 64. Battlecruiser 3000AD, Extreme Paintbrawl, Daikatana* and Outpost for the PC. Rise of the Robots for the Amiga. Finishing up is Sewer Shark and Night Trap for the Sega CD.

I mean, that is a fairly standard list. Season to taste, certainly. You can’t go wrong with those. A list generated by a group of game journalists would probably include those games (although PC Gamer was good enough to give the completely unfinished Outpost a 93%). Sprinkle with something acerbic regarding the Virtual Boy and you have yourself an article. Gamasutra could turn the above list into 33 pages and then remove the “print” option so they can level up their Adsense account. 

… And personally, hey, I never questioned those choices. I certainly did not feel that E.T. and Pac-Man were terrible games when I was growing up, but that’s not been a fight I felt passionate about. They didn’t seem any worse than many other 2600 games, and I did not spend a terrible amount of time in arcades when I was like seven, so the “real” Pac-Man was not burned into my memory. And in all honesty, they are usually included because what they represent, which was the temporary death of the domestic gaming industry.

(I began a thread on my BBS about the worst games ever, and I was trying to limit it to games I actually played and personally detested. Pac-Man, E.T. and so forth weren’t going to be on it. The thread sort of stalled because I promised myself that I’d go back and re-play every single game… and honestly, it’s just been a little difficult finding the time to play in irony the last couple of months.) 

But here is the reason I am writing all of this. Tonight, I was sent a Youtube video that shows the final scene to Night Trap. I am actually angry about this – I am smiling in anger.

 

 

At the very end of the video, you imprison some… well, I don’t know what they are specifically, a vampire or shadowbitch or something. (The last girl on the screen before Dana Plato is one such monster.) And then Dana tells you what a great guy you are for solving the game and saving all the girls you could. Right on. 

She turns to leave, walks down the hall and says, “Nah, you wouldn’t.”

At this point in the video, it appears that the same trap was triggered for her, the protagonist, as was triggered for the vampire a moment earlier. And I just assumed that the ending of the game was like that. But my friend said, no, you can actually press the “trap” button there. You have to press it for that to happen.

That’s when everything I thought I knew turned false.

What? What the — what? That is unbelievable! That totally gives the player a chance to – in NIGHT TRAP OF ALL GAMES, it — all right, I am going to try to compose myself here. It’s amazing and unexpected.

OK, first off, letting a trap be invoked right there messes with the player/player character relationship. That is supposed to be one of the big “things” you can experiment with in text adventures, and here is a wholly miserable and unloved FMV game pulling it off. And it’s our thing! Not Full Motion Video’s thing! It’s IF’s thing! Secondly, it allows for a meaningful moral choice right at the end of the game. Yes, it is a binary decision, and those can be as lame as they were in BioShock, but in Night Trap, it’s fast, it’s quick – you’re deciding what to do in a split second and the real-time nature of Night Trap actually works in its favor, to its credit. (Believe me, when I woke up today, I didn’t think I’d end it complimenting frigging Night Trap.) 

Lastly,  even in a game with universally terrible acting like Night Trap, Dana Plato is good enough to act distressed for three seconds. Admittedly, the laughable CGI effect that follows ruins the moment, but for a few seconds there is an actual bit of negative feedback as the PC screams and pleads for her own life.

And this is supposed to be one of the worst games of all-time.

I played Night Trap once, briefly, when it was new, and yeah – it sucks. Totally and completely. The writing is terrible, the acting embarrassing, and the gameplay kind of stale. I’m not trying to argue otherwise. But I can safely say that this “twist,” or this last-second player decision saves it from the rep it got over the years. I used to believe that there was no point in continuing to play a horrible game after a couple hours, but for the first time, Night Trap has me thinking, maybe, otherwise. It’s a total revelation. And in my opinion, it should be more famous for that.

 

*I purchased Daikatana last year, from a vendor on eBay. I had to know if it was as terrible as everyone says. It’s not great, but again, it’s nowhere near one of the “worst games of all-time.” And getting mad at John Romero is like getting mad at Manny Ramirez for something. You know what you’re in for, and Ion Storm the company was probably as bad an idea as Manny being allowed to manage the Washington Nationalsin 2014. But no, Daikatana wasn’t that unpleasant. If I get on Youtube tonight and find that the ending of Daikatana has you making a choice about the fate of Hiro Miyamoto, I am going to hang myself.

Guys: You make women feel terrible about how they dress and act 364 days a year. Especially if you’re on the Internet. Don’t you monsters DARE try to “recognize the irony” in the whole sexy bumblebee, sexy witch, sexy Princess Toadstool, sexy Female Arnold Rimmer phenomenon. You are all fucking retards for doing this. And almost all of you are doing this. I can hear your face screwed up in a wad of irony-recognition from here.

“Ewwwwww!!! Every costume for women is sexy this or sexy that! Ewwww!”

No shit, you dumb bastards. Yes, we live in a post-irony world where nobody tries to be genuinely funny. However, I have had more potential and realized dates come out of Halloween than any other holiday or gathering combined (except Rosh Hashanah, but that’s because technically, on that day, I don’t mind doing all the work). You’re not ruining this for me, you’re ruining it for yourselves. This loathing towards women on Halloween has been going on for a few years now. Your stupid “awareness” is not necessary and it is ultimately self-defeating.

While we’re here, those of you still going as the people from that Beastie Boys video: stop it. Every one of you after the first threesome to do it looks like fucking idiots. The rest of you aren’t remotely clever, and this is coming from someone who’s gone as the Joker four times. I eventually stopped though, because Jesus Christ. You’re not interesting or original, just go as the fucking Mario Brothers or, if you must, the Clockwork Orange guys. That’s still acceptable.

(I am okay with girls going as sexy Alex, sexy Georgie and sexy Dim.)

So, no, I am not okay with angry, aspie men telling women to not dress like strippers on Halloween. I am okay with me telling angry aspies what to do. Halloween goes in three phases, the Chocolate Candy, the Eye Candy, and the You Are All My Candy, and if we are going to make women feel bad about their choices in dress on that magical day, then I will turn you into my bitch, and not stop skullfucking you until all that is left is a small smattering of bone, brain, blood, good and plenty.

Also, enjoy the 2008 Interactive Fiction Competition, everybody. 

Hi! As some of you may know, my life recently went topsy-turvy. If my life were in a comic book, it would have had a banner that read, “EVERYTHING YOU KNEW IS FALSE!” If my life were an NFL team, there would have been articles written by preposterously fat sportswriters that asked “What’s Eating Ice Cream Jonsey?” If my life were a funeral, it would definitely be one that you don’t eat at.

And in the scheme of things, no, it’s not as bad as getting cancer, or having a loved one die, or anything like that. But it was enough to send me spinning like a Venusian compass. And there has been one person that has gone above and beyond the call of duty in helping manage my delicate magnetic mental state – my friend Benjamin “Pinback” Parrish.

I don’t know how many hours he has helped me deal with the issues swirling my brain. You name it, he’s had an answer for it. He is a psychiatrist wrapped up in a psychologist, wrapped up in a Buddhist, wrapped up in Little League coach that helps mold young men, rather than molest them. He’s talked me off the figurative “ledge,” and essentially — and I really don’t mean to make a big issue out of this — kept me sane. Because of his nigh-24 hour friendship, I am sane. I don’t believe I’d be able to say that otherwise.

And in return, as is my monstrous nature, I have done little. I have tried to at least phrase my endless bleating in a semi-entertaining manner? Sometimes? I don’t think he gets anything out of it, and that makes him a motherfucking saint. I am unfeeling worm, but at the same time I think he and his lovely girlfriend are moving out this way before too long, so I plan on totally being kind then! I’m developing not_really_a_monster.exe just for that occasion.

And yet, regardless of my own actions, the Internet itself took notice.

You may recall that, a few weeks ago, Ben wrote an article for this website called Positive Trends in Drunkeness. In typical Ben Parrish style, it is a well-reasoned and well-formed argument towards something positive, namely, Sobieski vodka, made in Poland, from rye. His argument was that vodka – wholesome, delicious vodka — does not need to cost more money than thirty US dollars. It doesn’t need to be locked behind a case, where the store owner sighs before turning round to get it, which is actually fucking AMAZING of the a-hole, seeing how you are buying the pricey stuff. And the back of your neck starts to get all pin-prickly, as the store owner (whom you’d totally throttle at this point) can’t open the stupid case, and all the other people in line start getting all shifty, and at least one of them back there you’re sure is carrying a weapon.

Ben would have none of this.

Purchase the delicious vodka from Sobieski instead, and it will be the wisest decision you’ve ever made. That was his argument.

Now, I am going to be honest: I haven’t yet done this myself. I haven’t purchased any vodka since Ben wrote his article. Oh, but when I do? You bet your ass it’s gonna be Sobieski. After all, the Internet itself knows what a fantastic person Ben is and sent him this:

 

I have very few rules in life, but if you take care of my buddy Pinner, I’ll take care of you. Sobieski, you now have a customer for LIFE in me, ICJ. Thanks, guys. You rock — good things happen to good people, and there’s none gooder than Ben.

 

 

Let’s face it, you do! Sure, if you pile enough cheese and bacon in there, you can come up with something resembling something edible, but when it comes to just making plain old mashed potatoes — perhaps the finest method of enjoying the potato’s natural wonderfulness — you really, really suck at it. Your shit ends up all lumpy and hard, or else it’s just this sloppy, tasteless mess, probably with too much salt. Sure, you try to save it at the end by throwing some black pepper or chives or something on there, but by that time you have ruined it far too much for salvation. Like you always do, because you suck at making mashed potatoes.

It’s embarrassing. For you, sure, but more for us who has to watch you, and, god forbid, taste the pile of garbage you wind up with.

Really pathetic.

But that’s okay, we are going to give you a pass today, just so I can teach you, once and for all, how to make mashed potatoes that do not suck. It’s not that hard, which makes it that much more disappointing how bad you are at it.

You are going to need some EQUIPMENT and some INGREDIENTS for this. –Yes?

Shut up! You only think this because you have never had good mashed potatoes, only the terrible kind that you’ve been making for the last 20 years. Once you have these (“good”) mashed potatoes, you will not go back.

Now, like I was saying, you’re going to need some EQUIPMENT. Not many, but you’ll need it.

EQUIPMENT
————
1 large BOWL
1 vegetable PEELER
1 large POT
1 decent KNIFE
1 potato MASHER
1 STRAINER
1 BURNER on 1 STOVE

You will also need some INGREDIENTS:

INGREDIENTS
————–
2 decent sized Russet POTATOES
4 tablespoons (half a stick) of BUTTER
3 tablespoons SALT
1/2 cup HEAVY CREAM
A supply of running WATER

See? There’s just NOT THAT MUCH TO IT, so there’s really no excuse for screwing it up as badly and for as long as you have.

Now listen, follow these instructions, and do not argue with me. You are not arguing from a position of strength. Have you tasted the crap you’ve been making?

1. I want you to take the BUTTER and CREAM out of the refrigerator and let it sit there on the counter while you do the rest of these steps.

2. I want you to fill the LARGE BOWL about halfway with COLD WATER.

3. I want you to use the PEELER to peel the POTATOES. But I want you to peel them ONE AT A TIME.

4. After completing the peeling of EACH POTATO, I want you to CUBE it into inch-wide cubes, with the KNIFE. I like to do this by cutting the potato in half lengthwise, then half lengthwise yet again, then cutting across in inch-long sections. And since I am good at mashed potatoes and you are not, you should do it the way I say. Then I want you to place the CUBES into the COLD WATER.

5. Now I want you to fill the LARGE POT about halfway with water, place it on the BURNER, and bring it to a BOIL.

6. I want you to then take 2 of the 3 tablespoons of salt and PLACE THEM INTO THE WATER.

7. Once the water is boiling, I want you to DRAIN the potato pieces that are in the cold water.

8. Now you’re going to put the POTATOES into the BOILING WATER, and return the water to a FAIRLY RIGOROUS BOIL. Usually you’ll want the burner on MEDIUM or MEDIUM-HIGH for this.

9. Now you will WAIT there for 20 MINUTES. By the time the 20 MINUTES are up the potatoes should be very tender, bordering on falling apart, but not quite. If you stick a FORK into one of the CUBES and there is ANY RESISTANCE, you leave those potatoes IN THERE!

10. Pour the pot into the STRAINER to STRAIN the potatoes.

11. Will you listen to me, because this part is very important. TURN THE BURNER OFF, but put the empty pot BACK on the SAME BURNER. Do not argue with me.

12. Drain the potatoes VERY WELL. Shake ‘em around quite a bit. We want as much of the water OUT of there as we can!

13. Place the drained potatoes BACK INTO THE POT, which is ON THE BURNER. “But won’t we burn the–” I SAID NOT TO ARGUE WITH ME.

14. In QUICK SUCCESSION, place the following ingredients INTO the POT: The cream! The remaining tablespoon of salt! And the 4 tablespoons of butter, cut into individual 1 tablespoon PATS!

15. Now you are going to take the MASHER, and MASH THE POTATOES. I am looking you directly in the eye when I say this: DO NOT MESS AROUND WITH YOUR MASHING. I want you to mash the BEJESUS out of these potatoes. I don’t care if your mommy made them lumpy and that’s how you like them. You only like them that way because you don’t know anything about it. MASH like you’ve never MASHED before, and if at any point you even have the slightest doubt about whether you have MASHED enough, you have not MASHED enough.

The potatoes are now DONE. Do not add anything more. Do not do anything more, except spoon them out onto people’s PLATES so they can EAT them.

You will not get a chance to EAT them because you will be too busy 1) accepting thanks from people who are so happy that you finally stopped sucking at making mashed potatoes, and 2) continually serving more potatoes to people, leaving none for you.

Congratulations! You now no longer suck at making mashed potatoes!

Nobody was more psyched to get Dead Rising, at least in September 2008, than me. It’s been out for a while now, and I’ve heard amazing things about it. I knew that it would be a long time before I bought an Xbox 360 (the “red ring of death” problem was like coating the console in poison, as far as I was concerned) so I tried to intentionally avoid knowing anything about the game other than:

1. It is a zombie game
2. People generally seem to like it

That being said, I can not believe how multiple-personalitied (schizophrenia isn’t really the right word) this game is. It seems to have been designed by two separate groups of people at Capcom, with absolutely no communication between them. Let’s start with the negatives, although I’ll try not to harp on the problems with the game’s text: it’s waaa-aaay too small and “optimized” for High Definition Television. I do not have HDTV. I am not getting one to play 360 games. I hooked the 360 up in my office, and had Dayna’s 80s-era TV available. I had to switch it out with a more modern flat screen just to play this game. The text is a little clearer. But with how amazing in every respect Resident Evil 4 was (the 16th best game I have ever played)  — also a Capcom game — some of the decisions made with Dead Rising, like this one, are perplexing. I’d expect this crap out of Acclaim.

But that isn’t all. The game defaults to not inverting the y-axis. I like it inverted and I don’t care if it isn’t inverted by default, I am happy to change it. But Dead Rising won’t save my change until I actually save the game… and that opens Pandora’s box, filled in this particular instance with my issues about game saving.

The save system in Dead Rising is broken. Having discussed this with a few people, I sort of see what the designers were going for, but my conclusion is still that it is a problem. Initially, the game gives you a couch to save on and a restroom that you can save in. A bunch of other restrooms are scattered throughout the mall… and you need a key to access them. I mean, come the fuck on! I consider a game that “hides” the ability to save to be unfinished and broken.

The designers attempt to skirt around it by saving your “state” even if you die and restart. While playing, you’ll get experience points. You can then upgrade your skills and — I assume — get better attacks. If you die, you can “Save Status and Exit.” That means that you start the game over, but you keep all your experience points. That’s unique, as far as I have found, in games. You’re going to die because you won’t be able to save once you really get into the mall. And it’s really important for the game designers to give you plenty of stuff to do, if you’re going to be starting over constantly. I have not spent enough time in the game to decide if I like this or not. It’s going to come down to how much content I can experience without feeling forced to do the same thing over and over again. I know it takes about four minutes, after restarting, to skip the cut-scenes and get back to the free-form part. Your character’s walking speed is fairly slow, and if Capcom really wanted to have a game mechanic that demands restarting, they need to let you press a single button to get back to the freeform, sandbox-style fun. They failed at this.

That being said, there are some amazing features in this game. There are seemingly hundreds of weapons, with each one having neat properties. If you get a hockey stick, you can use it to smash zombies, sure. But will also see your character throw down pucks and hit them into zombies, knocking them over. You can get a skateboard, and then frigging 720 Degrees (the arcade game) is essentially included as a mini-game. Nightsticks, knives, mall sit-down benches, cash registered… it’s hilarious. And the last bit I saw before writing these initial thoughts was a scene where a group of hoodlums find a guy with his girlfriend and kill him just for the hell of it, leaving the girl surrounded by zombies and it is now YOUR job to get her out. Video games have such amazing potential to cast their audience into a role brimming with emotion, and potentially it’s always going to be more powerful than movies, books and TV because it’s *you* doing it interactively, but the medium is so horrible juvenile, with games being developed by children, managed by children, tested by children and designed by children. Every once in a while, the thousand monkeys making these things get something right, and I had an absolutely amazing and terrifying experience trying to get the girl to safety. It was the first escort mission I’ve enjoyed since playing the arcade game Crossbow about 20 years ago.

So, with everything Dead Rising gets wrong, I am going to stick with it and see what there is to experience. I can easily see not finishing this game because repetition really irritates me (isn’t this a cheap way to “re-use” content, like with Halo and Hexen?) but in the meantime it seems to be a fairly fun ride.

 

I would like to alert you all to what I feel is a very positive trend, at least as positive as something can be in the sinful, destructive realm of alcohol and alcoholic beverages.

The topic of today’s report is: VODKA.

Some (your author included) consider vodka the purest and most “noble” of the ignoble playground of the demon alcohol. Going through the simplest distillation process, introducing no flavoring or adjuncts, vodka still today represents distilled spirits at their most elegant. With all of the thousands of offerings at your local liquor store, all the flavors out there, all the wacky concoctions you could ever ask for, to me there is still nothing so sublime as a shot of chilled vodka.

Now, used to be there were two general types of vodka: Cheap-ass shit, and decent shit. Vodka by its very nature doesn’t have a ton of room for quality differential — at its best it’s nearly imperceptible. The good stuff, maybe in the $20 range, would be generally smoother and cleaner than the cheap crap.

Then (I am making up history here, but this is just how it seemed to happen) Grey Goose came along with a pretty bottle, slapped a $40 pricetag on it, and proclaimed with lots of flowery descriptions from “respected critics” that this was “ultra premium”, blowing away even the high end stuff with it’s — what, 8-times filtering through charcoal and baby’s hair.

Much like bottled water, nobody in their right mind thought it would take off. And much like bottled water, Americans with too much money and too fragile an ego just gobbled it up.

Then it was on. The race to come up with the fanciest bottle, the best marketing campaign, and the highest price tag was officially afoot. It worked, it continues to work, and everyone is making a ton of money off it. Off vodka, the least process- and resource-intensive of any liquor.

It appeared there would be no bucking the trend, and it started to look like you’d eventually end up having to choose between a plastic bottle filled with turpentine, or a fifty dollar bottle with a bird and a fancy font on it.

So I am happy to announce that it seems that in the last year or two, there is a new trend taking place within this maelstrom of absurdity. Seems Grey Goose placed so low in enough blind taste tests that some people actually started to wake up to two important facts:

1. The “ultra premium” brands are no better, and often worse, than “lower” brands costing a fraction of the cost.

2. There is no reason good vodka cannot be cheap.

So now we are seeing the very welcome backlash of low-priced, high quality vodka, and all you’re giving up is the fancy bottle and whatever sick sense of “style points” you thought you were getting by ordering overpriced garbage.

My current two favorites in the under-$20 set are Tito’s, made in Texas from corn, costing about $17 for a 750ml bottle, and my current King of the Hill, Sobieski, made in Poland from rye, winning all sorts of blind tests, incredibly clean, and coming in at the seemingly ridiculous price of $11 a bottle, less than Smirnoff. But this is how much it should cost. Everything above this is marketing.

If this post does nothing more, I just hope anyone reading this who ever has occasion to buy vodka or a cocktail with vodka in it, skip the Grey Goose, the Trump, the Hangar One, the Van Gogh — basically anything they put in the “locked case” at your local booze shop. DON’T BELIEVE HIS LIES!