I’ve been looking for gifts for a bunch of “friends” I don’t really like, do you have any suggestions?
– Skarvig
As it happens, once a year around Christmas time, I put a list of gifts to buy for all the people who’ve pissed me off over the last year. These are my suggestions for this year; feel free to tell us your own suggestions in the comments section. Remember: only you can ruin Christmas for the people who annoyed you this year.
The Foreign Family Down The Street
Call of Duty: World at War – All that praying and talking in funny languages and such just isn’t American. The only way they are going to learn the “right” way to do things is by playing and replaying America’s finest moment in history, when we saved the world from the Japanazi Zombie Horde! They probably aren’t terrorists – but it never hurts to be sure.
Best Price: 40-50 dollars new, but you really can’t put a price on freedom, can you?
A friend’s girlfriend/wife
Peggle Deluxe – Let’s say a certain friend has had to spend a lot of time at home watching Jon & Kate Plus 8, and pretending that he cares about Jon’s extramarital activities to satisfy some relationship activity quota. Peggle is scientifically proven to free up time for drinking heavily spiked eggnog and gives you the added bonus of being able to say, “I got you this because I heard you like unicorns and pachinko.”
Best Price: 15 dollars on Steam, two or three months of listening to one snippet of Ode to Joy.
Cousins who rooted against your team during the Super Bowl
Madden 2008, used – Nothing says you’re paying attention to your family like sports games. Make sure you get it for the wrong console too. Then tell him the clerk told you that console was better. If the spoiled little brat has both a 360 and PS3 get it on Wii, because no one has one of those.
Best Price: Who cares, that little cretin deserves to be disappointed.
Invisible friends
Nothing! – They didn’t remember your last birthday, they never pay for meals, and they don’t even try when they’re playing the 2P controller in Metal Slug. Then there was that time when that pretty girl at the bar started talking to you, and he totally cock-blocked you by telling one of his incredibly boring stories about his time as a Sherpa in Tibet. Seriously, why do you even hang out with that guy?
Best Price: Giving up the attention having an invisible friend brings to the table, and some of your childhood innocence.
While Mr. Cox tramples some Christmas shoppers, you can read the latest on body part guessing games, texting, and alcohol, all posted directly from Marion’s monogrammed Zune HD in real-time.
Reliable Source has learned that the VA Hospital in Norfolk, VA will be soon opening its doors to gamers suffering from game PTSD and other war related mental disorders. The move comes after congress was presented by a study that showed games could do real psychological damage to the minds of young men.
“I was betrayed by my commander, and my country,” said Mike Herl, veteran of Modern Warfare 2. “I’ve climbed mountains, raced snowmobiles and my thumbs are all but worn out due to all the people I was forced to kill in disturbingly fun ways. I never asked for a lot; and I ain’t lookin’ for a handout now, I just need some help getting back on my feet. And maybe some prosthetic thumbs to replace those I lost to the dual analog joysticks on my Xbox 360 controller.”
Mike’s case may seem sad, but the truth is that he numbers amongst the lucky. Our courageous videogame veterans rarely get the treatment they need and often live in seedy LAN cafés drinking Red Bull and eventually sinking so far into despair they start playing World of Warcraft. If you want to help one of these heroes stay off the Warcrack and get prosthetic thumbs, please donate to Child’s Play. Don’t ignore the cries of gamers, or we’ll have an epidemic on our hands like we did with Omaha Beach Syndrome (OBS) in 2006.
Last Wednesday, while “expanding my mind” on Wikipedia I ran across a particularly interesting study on the dangers of texting while drunk. Pay attention all you would be drunken texters, this may just save your life.
The study shows that people texting while intoxicated are 10 times more likely text the wrong person. In one example: Reynold Harrison, a British citizen accidentally proposed his undying love to best friend, Patrick Brushmith rather than his girlfriend of 10 years Denise Jacks. The situation was made worse when groggily Mr. Harrison awoke to find himself in a cheap hotel in Massachusetts with a wedding ring on his finger and a beaming Patrick at his side.
In a related story, a woman in Maine thought something was suspicious when her husband texted her 8 times over the course of an hour to tell her he’d be working late and she shouldn’t wait up. Later that night her fears were confirmed when her husband started sending her messages like, “U shld C wht this chk is doing wth tnns rckt,” and Then again later with, “fck, I thnk I txt my wife :(.”
Not all drunken texting ends so poorly, however. In a one case, alcohol related texting actually helped police capture a criminal. In one story, a young man in a stolen convertible taunted police a dispatcher with text messages letting them know “im on hickry st. pigz!!!” Thanks to the criminal’s good sense to include his current location, the police were able to stop him before his drunken texting got somebody hurt.
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Remember the controversy a few years ago when Top Heavy Studios published The Guy Game? Well, after a lawsuit was settled out of court, the company may be back in business with a new controversial title.
Celebrity: Will It Fit? asks players if one celebrities’ body part will fit in another celebrities’ naughty bits. The game then runs some complex algorithms to determine whether the player is right or wrong.
But before it’s even been finished, civil decency groups in Michigan are asking the software publisher to remove the anatomically correct terms and replace them with nonsense words to keep their client’s privates more private.
It is this reporter’s opinion that if you have ever wondered if OJ Simpson’s “Nungnung” will fit in Brigitte Nielsen’s “bloojoojoo,” then Celebrity: Will It Fit? is a game you will not want to miss. Additionally, you may also need to seek therapy.
Marion Cox is a weekly columnist for The Escapist, and thinks that Atheists are the Jehovah’s Witnesses of the internet.
