Friday, June 26, 2009

Number 20: Solitaire


Quick: What is the most used computer application in the world? If you said Solitaire, you win a bucket of fried chicken. Bill Gates has told us that more people use solitaire than any other program included with windows. This seems to suggest something very negative about our culture/civilization, although I'm not sure what. Post your thoughts in the comments.

The pleasures of solitaire are simple. It's accessible, easy to understand, and requires little time, yet is just complex enough to be interesting. How many computer games can you say that about?

And who can't say that they have felt a vague sense of release and returning boredom after watching the cards bounce around the screen after winning a hand? Just think of how much slight joy those bouncing cards have brought to millions of people who only moments earlier were bored.


Oddly, no other top PC games list I read included this game. Millions of people have played it; I'd estimate more than 20 percent of the world's population. How does that not deserve a spot on a great games list. And any game that has surely been responsible for numerous firings and countless lost hours of work has to be considered an incredible achievement. I mean, this has to be the 2nd biggest killer of productivity for the world behind the internet. Considering how many evil corporations exist in the world that have lost millions of dollars because of this simple game, well, that deserves a noble peace prize in my book.

If only windows hadn't made that unfortunate sequel . . .



Part 2: Carl Winslow

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Joey Timeline Part two



709 AD.- After many years living in isolation in the frozen tundra, training his body and mind, Joey returns to civilization, leaving destruction and chaos after his every foot step, so that he can return an overdue copy of Garfield's adventure to the library of Alexandria only to realize that the library had been burnt down a few hundred years before. Slightly annoyed Joey returns to his training.

758 AD.- A man living in what is now modern Romania makes a wise crack about Ninhurshaga's curse on her husband. Joey flips out and kills and resurrects and kills the man for 10 days straight. When later interviewed about the incident, he said "what he said man, too soon, too soon."

888 A.D.- Joey makes his triumphant return to civilization. To mark the occasion, Joey decides to sack Rome. Upon reaching Rome, he realized that the Roman Empire had fallen 550 years prior. In his furry Joey destroys the moon.

1002 A.D.- JOEY discovers America, not that bitch Leif Erickson.

1234 AD.- After new years day on this year, Joey has a strange compulsion to change the number on his luggage. Also Joey leads a crusade by himself against the tyranny of Pokemon abuse. In the following 800 years Pokemon abuse is at historically low level in part due to the fact Joey was the only Pokemon in existence. While Joey has gone well past the 999 level cap into random character the game spits out, he still feel like there's more power to be had.

1341 AD.- After penning the rejected duck's tale for the Canterbury Tales, Joey goes on an epic quest to gain more power so he unlock the ultimate and finial Sandslash evolution. He must collect several color coordinated objects to unlock some door or something, I don't know I lost interest after the Lava world.

1342 AD.- Lost in the Sahara desert, Joey hear that the Catholic church has deemed the humorous periodical Hangin with Mr. Cooper to be Heretical. Joey goes into a seething rage that causes numerous Cati plants to sprout around the source of power. The pyramids are destroyed in the commotion, making Ra pee his pants. Joey had just turned into the legendary SUPERSLASH. Joey then invents a video camera, and films the popular tv show Hangin with Mr. Cooper and leaves it burried in the sand for some dipshit UPN executive to find in the 90's.

To be continued...

Celebrities Flying Through Space Part 1:Andy Rooney

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The Top 20 PC Games of All Time

Have you ever read one of those lists of the top 20 or 10 or 100 PC games of all time at some internet website? Well, in my quest to be a real American hero, I'm going to be counting down the top 20 PC games of all time on our fabulous blog one post at a time just like those big name websites. In my preparatory research, I have noticed most of the other lists have two common themes.

Firstly, they have major gaps. Some only focus on first person shooters and strategy games leaving other genres in the cold or with only a token mention. Most lists leave out older games and adventure games in addition to whatever kind of game the author of the list was ignorant about despite being a site that is supposed an expert opinion.

Secondly, every list acts like it is the definitive list of PC games because they are experts of unquestioned authority. There are so many thousands of PC games in existence going back decades. How could anyone have played a quarter of these games in depth? Yet, because these "experts" can beat their friends at Crysis, they feel like they are the authority on all computer games. It would be nice if at least one list would point out what an absurd and complicated task it is to narrow down the best PC games of all time.

Any idiot can throw every game ever made by Blizzard, a bunch of first person shooters, and The Sims and call it the greatest games, but who will actually go out on a limb and say that their list is total unresearched, impulsive bullshit? Me. I haven't even played many of the games on this list and am not even going to try to base my list on any kind of objective or logical criteria. Instead, I've made my choices because these are the games I felt like putting on my list and if you don't like it, make your own list.

Honorable Mention - Mr. Mayank's SAT Preparation Challenge (1987)

That's right, I'm starting with an SAT preparation game. And a damn good one. Where else can you see your cacti garden grow as you answer SAT questions correctly? Mr. Mayank, an ordinary high school guidance counselor, unfortunately did not sell many copies of this game, but not for the lack of trying. Every weekend he had his booth set up at the flee market and would often position his students in front of grocery stores to compete with the girl scouts. Unfortunately, Mr. Mayank died in a drug overdose in 1998, but his legacy lives on both in this game and in the beautiful cactus garden Joey has grown in an abandoned building to honor his memory.

QG 3


I just spent a day playing and beating quest for glory 3. Pretty quickly considering how I have recently stated that it was the worst one of the original four. Maybe it's because I'm in the midst of another QG binge but I was especially hooked this time through. QG3 is the one I played the second most as a kid. Somehow I had more patience back then.



I've always found QG3 to be the most frustrating one gameplaywise, whereas QG4 is frustrating simply because it has more bugs than a pile of shit. You have to travel long distances which is cool, adding to a more epic feeling on this one. Annoyingly, you always ALWAYs get encountered by some random hideous monster. You can't avoid walking accross a screen and getting cock-blocked. This is why QG3 is the fighter's game. If you can't kill the critters you have to run and when you run it's usually for an eternity. It's hard to remember how many hours of my life I spent running away from dinosaurs back in my gaming-wonder years. And when you do fight the combat is totally effed up. You click on the swing icon and it swings a little later. SO SLOW!



Fighters are the most conveinient class as they don't have to jog until they either collapse from exhaustion or get a hot dino lunch. Wizards can usually handle themselves alright if they have to. Thieves better buff up in QG2 because it is hard to improve when you're dead. Thieves get poo poo for stuff to do. No grannies to steal from. Fighters have three fighter specific screens and it always feels to me that the game is designed for the fighter.



You don't see many games set in Africa. QG3 ranges from ancient Egypt to subsaharan savannah to Congo jungle. Maybe it's not PC to show ancient Africa. All the dark skinned villagers speak English not good for some reason.


QG3 has a badass soundtrack, dude. The best soundtrack on any game I can think of. Very flavorful and African. Lots of bongos.


QG3 is cool in it's own way because it's so EPIC. You travel between cities and villages over vast areas of land to stop war between nations. None of the other games are on such a large scale. Despite it's game play flaws where travel and combat are concerned, QG3 is still totally worth it.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Joey Timeline Part one

April 16, 1997 : Young Johnny catches a sandshrew, unwittingly changing the course of human history since this sandshrew is none other than Joey. Joey goes along with the cutesy form of cock fighting while his power grows.

April 17, 1997: Young Johnny learns a friendship lesson.

April 18, 1997: After 48 consecutive hours of playing, young Joey finially evolves into a sandslash. He kicks the asses of Johnny and the rest of his pokemon team. Joey is now the trainer, and Johnny the pirzed cock.

April 20, 1997: The day the music died.

April 31, 1997: Joey, having reached level 125, breaks free from his cartridge prison to wreak havoc on the world.

May 12, 1997: Joey gang bangs Monica Lewinski with Bill Clinton. Joey feels bad since it was HIS sperm on the dress. Then, he remembers he knows flash attack.

May 27, 1997: Joey collects all the dragon balls only to realize they are just shitty plastic knock off. Understandibly, he gets pissed.

1998: After Journeying all the way deep into Asia somewhere, Joey gains power over life and death. He then procedes to create puppy genocide just to show how much he doesn't give a fuck.

January 1, 1999: Joey's way too hung over to really do anything. Chills and watch Sandford and Son all day.

March 15, 40 B.C. Joey wakes up in Rome after a night of heavy partying. He tries to save Caesar, but he just shoos him away. Joey regrets dicking around in Latin class during high school.

30 A.D.: Joey becomes an unofficial disciple of Jesus, after Jesus beats him at Tic Tac Toe. Joey learns that while Jesus was cool and all, he could kind of be dick at times. In particular, Jesus made Joey go swimming, though everyone well knows that water hurts ground type pokemon.

125 A.D: Joey sacks Rome.

206 A.D: Joey sacks Rome again mostly out of boredom.

468 A.D: Joey sacks Rome with the help of some barbarian hordes thus ending the ancient era. He COULD have preserved a ton ancient texts but decides to use them as cigs only to realize after smoking them all, that tabaco hadn't been invented yet.

523 A.D: Joey invents the first coffie maker almost a milenium before coffie is imported into Europe. When he tries to sell his invention to the natives. They just tell him to fuck off. Numerous peasants throughout Europe are found dead and full of slash/nibble marks.

666 A.D: As Joey kicks the shit out of some vikings he realizes that he has tons of untapped power and maybe another evolution. He strides off into the wilderness to train up and push the limits of his power...


Friendship Ad

Wanted: BFF
Reward: tons of FUN!!!
Job Description: must be experienced in being awesome. Needs to know how to play Yu-Gi-Oh, my little pony, and pogs. Must constantly wear early 90's bright pastels. Must like listening to Cris Cross ad nausem.

Please, serious applicants only.

Monday, June 15, 2009

About my Absence

I'm well aware of my absence and it length. I have been doing epic things. You see in order to pay the bills I act as a rank 11 crime solving paladin. A crazed youth had posted Deltron 3030 lyrics and discussed at length a trip into space. All his friends thought he was joking in an awkward fashion. They were wrong, dead wrong. This youth, Butter Billy, seemed to have been linked to the thefts of several NASA space shuttles. His finger prints were found all over a spent fuselage I dredged up from the ocean. I also found moonanite stickers plastered all over the the discarded fuselage. Either Billy liked watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force or he had a lunar destination. After having my druid friend cast several charm spells, I got NASA as a whole to loan me a shuttle to investigate the moon. Upon arriving on the moon, I found an odd old man. He seemed to rave in german every once and a while. Without a second thought I slew him and looted his body. I got 35 GP and a luger pistol (sadly I have no proficency slots in small guns). Then, I cast detect evil, and it affirmed my random act of violence. He was chaotic evil. I had just slain zombie hitler.
I searched the moon sniffing evil and every corner. I came a large landing zone filled with many shuttles yet nary a person to be seen. That's when I saw him blaring the cure in a moon buggy. It was none other than MLK Junior, alive and well. I tried to approach him, but upon seeing me he nervously sped off. I sighed and chugged my oil of speed and gave chase. I smashed in his buggy with my righteous furry and interogated the supposedly dead civil rights leader. He looked as though he had not aged since 1965. At first he was evasive, but after casting flare in face several times he fessed up. No one can resist my divine law. He had been living on the moon for many years plotting world domination with John Wilks Booth. MLK had been posing as the rapper Deltron 3030, sensationalising the "rush" from being in space so as to lure unsuspecting prepubescent little boys such as Butter Billy. They needed the blood of young boys to fuel the birth of Zombie Lincoln. It all made sense now, Wilks Booth killed Lincoln knowing that Lincoln's body would be an ample vessel for the prince of Darkness.
I incapacitated MLK by flaring his conscious away. I did the only logical thing and returned to the Earth and demanded Barrack Obama to fire nukes at the moon so as to stop the birth of the Prince of Darkness. We debated endlessly. Obama finially caved after I agreed to buy him a year's worth of Dijon mustard. The moon was nuked and a crisis was averted. Now the world can be greatful for my service, once they forgot about the constant tidal flooding due to lack of lunar gravitation....
Btw I was discharged from my paladin order. When I asked the head paladin he said that we both knew the reason. I smiled and noded the said that I was too fucking awesome for paladinhood.