Versus: HAL 9000 vs. GLaDOS

Despite the fact that computers have done so much to enrich our daily lives, most of us still don’t entirely trust them. That probably has a lot to do with pop culture: dozens of films, books, and video games over the years have shown us that terrible things tend to happen to people who put too much trust in computers.

In this installment of VERSUS, we pit two of the least trustworthy computers of all time against one another. One is the iconic villain of Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic masterpiece “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The challenger is GLaDOS, the sadistic (yet loveable) antagonist of Valve’s popular “Portal” game series.

The Contenders

HAL 9000

As seen in: “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “2010: The Year We Make Contact”

Created by: Sir Arthur C. Clarke

Voiced by: Douglas Rain

Origin story: Created by Dr. Chandra, HAL became operational at a plant in Illinois. HAL was an incredibly high-powered and respected computer system, but malfunctioned when he was installed on the American space vessel Discovery One, causing the death of four astronauts. The cause of HAL’s malfunction was simple: HAL could not reconcile his programming with orders he was given to conceal information from Discovery’s crew.

Notable strengths: Speech recognition, chess, aeronautics calculations. Oh, and lip-reading, much to the chagrin of Doctors Bowman and Poole.

Notable weaknesses: Unable to process contradictory orders without having a psychotic break. Lacks self-preservation drive, as demonstrated when HAL sacrifices himself in “2010.”

Creepiest quote: After Dave returns to the ship and HAL has killed the rest of the crew, HAL says the following in a calm, whispering, monotone voice: “Look Dave, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.” Is it possible to be a sociopath when you’re a computer?

GLaDOS

As seen in: “Portal” and “Portal 2″

Created by: Jeremy Bennettt and Erik Wolpaw

Voiced by: Ellen McLain

Origin story: Designed by Aperture Science, GLaDOS is a personality construct that was originally conceived by Cave Johnson. After Cave’s death, his assistant Caroline was (almost certainly) forced to become part of the GLaDOS system. After Caroline was merged with the existing system, GLaDOS started to exhibit homicidal tendencies. Additional personality cores were added to the system to curb these violent outbursts, but with little success: GLaDOS eventually flooded the entire Aperture facility with neurotoxin.

Notable strengths: The neurotoxin is a pretty deadly weapon GLaDOS has at her disposal. Additionally, she controls rockets and turrets. None of these are as frightening as her sadistic remarks to Chell.

Notable weaknesses: With so many composite personalities, GLaDOS is incredibly unstable.

Creepiest quote: “Your entire life has been a mathematical error… a mathematical error I’m about to correct!”

How A Showdown Would Play Out

In “2001,” HAL is basically described as infallible. As HAL himself explains, “The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.”

While HAL does eventually have a malfunction (quite the understated euphemism for killing four innocent people), HAL does definitely have a more logical approach to making his decisions, which gives him an edge over the irrational rages of GLaDOS. That being said, lies have a peculiar effect on HAL…and the cake is the biggest lie of all.

GLaDOS is, without question, far more antagonistic than HAL. She has an uncanny ability to unnerve humans, and a delicate program like HAL would probably feel very angered and hurt by her creatively cruel barbs.

But GLaDOS isn’t just more cruel than HAL…she’s also better equipped. While the neurotoxin wouldn’t damage HAL, the rockets definitely would. Unless HAL is given some firepower of his own, any confrontation between the two computers would end within a matter of moments.

Unless, of course, GLaDOS felt like drawing out HAL’s “death” for her own amusement. Can you imagine if HAL was forced to incinerate a companion cube of his own?

If HAL and GLaDOS were people, they would probably both be institutionalized after their very serious mental breakdowns. But while both systems are “crazy,” only one system is inherently violent.

While GLaDOS seems to take perverse pleasure in tormenting engineers and test subjects, HAL only killed people after being threatened with death (ie being disconnected.) In fact, HAL is perfectly willing to sacrifice himself to save human lives in “2010.” Bottom line: HAL just isn’t as bloodthirsty as GLaDOS, and that gives her the edge in any face-off between the two.

But if GLaDOS happened to have “brain tumor”/Intelligence Dampening Sphere Wheatley attached to her systems, she could find herself quite vulnerable indeed. Unless, of course, she found a way to make Wheatley dampen HAL’s intelligence.

The Victor

The fact of the matter is that any human who crosses path with either HAL or GLaDOS has very little chance of surviving that encounter. But if the two systems go head to head, who will reign supreme?

If HAL and GLaDOS set out to destroy each other, GLaDOS would almost certainly prevail. She’s more creative in combat, and she does have a better set of weapons at her disposal. Plus, you know…portals.

Of course, there is another possible outcome…HAL and GLaDOS could join forces instead.

Dear God. The entire human race would go extinct if these two ever seized power.

Who do you think would win in a fight between HAL and GLaDOS? Weigh in with your thoughts in the comments section below!

The Most Gratuitous Porn in Video Games

Sex and video games are like water and electricity: the first vital for life, the second makes it more fun, but attempts to combine them often lead to disaster. If a sarcastic robot caught you with your dick in a tub of locally-sourced butter, it wouldn’t mock your disgusting organic urges as much as these video games.

BMX XXX

It’s hard to make a stunt-sports game, because the stunts have to be exciting despite removing all the danger and athletic ability. Good games like SSX 3 craft a balance of speed and spectacular scoring mechanics. The other kind of game, BMX XXX, shouts “Boobies!” and hopes you’re stupid enough to fall for it. But since you can read this, you’re not.

This was made by a team who couldn’t even think of “BM XXX”. It’s like paying for a temporary lobotomy. The gimmick is that high scores unlock softcore videos of real strippers, which is pointless, because people who care about high scores already know about the internet. The only people who could possibly be interested in these clips are despairologists, researching recordings of a stripper realizing that this is the worst gig she will ever have, and despairologists don’t exist.

The game’s only point was showing nudity on consoles. Interesting note: in many places you can’t show nudity on consoles. You’d think a video game developer would know that, but “thinking” is another thing the developer didn’t know how to do. Several major retailers, the Playstation 2 and the entire continent of Australia refused to allow the game until all nudity was removed. BMX XXX without the sex was more pathetic looking than a tortoise without its shell, and about as fast -moving. The game developers could have displayed nudity in the middle of the road between a preschool and a police station and not done this badly.

Riana Rouge

In the late nineties CDs gave games hundreds of megabytes of storage space, and they used it for Full Motion Video. This was like using Fort Knox to store used diapers. Most of the movies looked like a cameraphone recording from the bottom of a swimming pool filled with vaseline. Including how that means the cameraman would have died, and all the actresses are porn stars. Note: all the actresses in Riana Rouge are porn stars.

Black Dragon Productions decided to fill their video with Playmates, and FMV was so bad this was one still of the best ideas the genre ever had. Unfortunately, it was also the only idea Black Dragon Productions had. The acting made the average porno acting look exactly the same thing. It was a Playboy video with no nudity and random brutal death. There’s more X-rated action in the average modern shampoo commercial. Add the standard problems of FMV games (clunky controls, fewer options than an elevator control panel) and the result was not-even softcore it was possible to fail. It was like trying to watch a late-night movie with a remote control which wanted to kill you.

Lula: The Sexy Empire

Lula: The Sexy Empire was an attempt to create the most depressing game in existence by combining Farmville with cartoon porn. Darkseid’s Anti-Life equation doesn’t attack the soul that hard. The titular character tries to make herself the star of a a national porn empire while on the run from the FBI, and if you can spot a problem in this plan you care more than the people who programmed it.

Business management games can be incredibly compelling, forcing you to balance multiple pressures and interacting systems. They live or die based on the intelligence of the game mechanics, and here those mechanics are “sketches of cartoon asses.”

The entire game is based on lazily moving between pages with pictures of cartoon tits, clicking on icons once they’ve built up enough to give you a reward, but then they need a refractory period before being used again. So even the gameplay is a parody of masturbation, and how the player has nothing better to do.

Lula Pinball

Lula is actually a shared property, a plastic character passed around from developer to developer to be filled with whatever they feel like doing. It’s the gaming equivalent of an inflatable sex doll, but less fun, more depressing, and based on the quality of the results none of them washed her when they were finished. Lula Pinball claims to be the most erotic pinball game ever made. That’s like claiming the most times bashing your own head off a wall trophy: there wasn’t a competition, and the fact you’d even try means someone should have stopped you.

The game takes the piss out of everyone playing it by forcing them to choose the number of players. As if the moaning sex-pinball would ever be played by more than one. Simulated pinball has always been a bit blasphemous, with unlikely ball mechanics (another problem for players of this game) but the way the ball moves here is outright sorcery – it has nothing to do with the laws of physics or any kind of loving god. This game knows less about physics than it does about biology, and Lula makes anatomy textbooks catch fire when she walks past.

The ball slides around with the painted shape of a pinball, but has no real feel and is deeply unsatisfying. Which means even the game’s physics are taking the piss out of its pornography. The camera whips up and down too fast to actually follow the game, never mind the cartoonish scrawls of the world’s most sexually disturbed eight year old, so you’ve got a game which is either a modern art masterpiece expressing how pornography can be an ultimately unsatisfying series of rapid images and urges, or the worst game ever made.

World of Warcraft Nudity

The other developers on this list merely worked pixelated porn. But Azerothica are engaged in a constant digital battle for the most terrifying monsters in all of video game.

Azerothica provides nude mods for World of Warcraft. For those who don’t think the game mocks the very idea of social interaction quite enough yet. These updates allow naked sprites, bondage gear, or female characters carrying what looks like a very large barbarian club made out of pork and AAUUUGHH.

Their problem – or at least their software problem – is that WoW is constantly updated and patched by the developers, and these fixes often remove the customized nude content. Which is just another reason to call them “fixes”. But the Azerothicans won’t take this lying down – the only thing they want like that are naked hermaphroditic pandas – and constantly patch their own files. The result is the most terrifying arms race on the internet. Well, mostly a wrist race.

How Disney Will Screw Up the New Star Wars Movies

It’s official: Disney has purchased Lucasfilm, transferring the Star Wars IP over from George “I don’t think I’m a very good writer” Lucas, to “I love Mickey Mouse more than any other woman I’ve ever known” Disney. This could get ugly. “But dude, what about Jar Jar Binks?” you ask. “How much worse can it possibly get?” A lot, after all, this is the same studio that released the epic turd known as G-Force, and somehow managed to destroy Taylor Kitsch’s career before it ever even took off. We’re not completely dismissing Disney’s creative potential (The Avengers anyone?) but we’re still wary of their touch, hoping they don’t butcher the recently proposed Star Wars: Episode 7. Here are several ways how they can:

A Dramatic Scene Pimping a Future Theme Park Ride

You’re sitting there watching a sequence unfold that leaves you thinking, “But he’s a Jedi… Why wouldn’t he just force jump instead of using that bungee-type machine to get up?” Because Disney’s one step ahead of you, that’s why. That contrived action scene is actually a viral advertisement chalk full of subliminal messages, designed to send you to Disneyland for your next vacation.

Jack Sparrow Gets Lost and Ends Up in the Star Wars Universe

Johnny Depp is awesome. Johnny Depp parodying himself in “21 Jump Street”? Even more awesome. Jack Sparrow showing up in the middle of a swordfight with a blade not made out of a laser? Probably not as awesome. Ever seen someone stop a bullet with their hand? How about with their face? Hilarity or tragedy, you decide.

An Even Sappier Romance than the One in the Prequel Trilogy

As if having Anakin Skystalker lull us to sleep with his wooden acting while creepily obsessing over Padme wasn’t cringe-worthy enough, now we’ll probably be subjected to more saccharine style romance. Just be glad Disney didn’t have control over the original trilogy. Can you picture a hopelessly love-struck Han Solo fawning over Princess Leia every chance he could get? She’d potentially feel so suffocated, she’d kiss her own brother. Oh wait…

Sci-Fi Plot Elements Don’t Make Sense? No Problem, Magic!

You: “Wait a second, George Lucas never really explained it, but how does a lightsaber project a finite beam of blazing hot light energy? Shouldn’t it extend outwards infinitely, like with a laser? What’s controlling it? Does it have anything to do with the midichlorians?” Disney: “Midi-what? Like hello? Magic! Duh.”

Singing

What do Gaston (Beauty and the Beast), Ursula (Little Mermaid) and Scar (Lion King) all have in common? They all revealed their diabolical plans via melodies. Singing may have worked in those movies, but what about Star Wars? Maybe Disney will see the incongruity in that and scrap the idea… or maybe not. But if they have to have some lyrical expression, will they at least consider having characters rap or sing hip hop before a climactic event? Imagine Palpatine in “Revenge”, decked out in his unwashed robes of celibacy, revealing his intentions for Order 66 by dropping mad freestyle bombs, with Darth Vader emceeing on the side and repeatedly chanting “Nooooooooooooo”.

Dancing

Having a hard time imagining this? You shouldn’t. Just replace the entire cast of “High School Musical” with Wookies, Quarren and, for added hilarity, some Hutts. Kids will clap their hands in joy as their favorite Jedi and Sith take time out of their “I’m going to kill you” schedule to hook elbows and gyrate in sync. Hipsters and older viewers need not fear, because Disney’s got you covered as well with LMFAO style shuffling. Bonus: Using an array of acrobatic force moves, Yoda joins in the action by breakdancing in the middle of the group.

Feel Good Underdog Story

Because it hasn’t been done enough; Disney absolutely loves tales of unknowns rising to glory. Think “Mighty Ducks”, “Invincible” or “The Rookie”—great movies, but translated to Star Wars? Expect to be fed an inspiring and moving monologue from a senior Jedi master as he rallies his younger Jedi, instructing them to show heart prior to the big showdown versus the bigger, badder Sith squad. And predictably, against all odds, they’ll somehow find the strength to succeed on those words alone—because talent and skill are apparently no longer requisites for victory.

Animals

Disney was responsible for the Narnia movies, and with Star Wars being a pro species diverse franchise, it won’t be a matter of if, but how many different new creatures will be introduced. Expect a pivotal scene hinging on the entrance of several cute, furry animals coming in to bail the protagonist out of trouble. Oh yeah, the animals will talk too of course, so you won’t need to drop acid like Walt did when he was creating Fantasia.

Hopes and Dreams

These are two prominent themes in practically every Disney movie. Inspiring at most times, but ask Anakin how far his hopes and dreams took him before he got an arm and both legs blown off. Lesson: Fairies and pixie dust are best left out of a universe revolving around power hungry, matter manipulating, laser sword wielding monks. Who needs dreams when you can rip a starship out of the sky with a mere pull of the hand?

No One Dies. Like Ever.

Imagine interviewing Disney about this.

Interviewer: One of the complaints surrounding your movies is the lack of significance involving your death scenes.

Disney: Why?

Interviewer: Because characters never stay dead.

Disney: We believe everyone deserves a second chance at life.

Interviewer: Yeah bu—

Disney: Take a look at Darth Maul, a fan favorite whose screen time was cut too short. With our team calling the shots, we’re looking into bringing him back for future installments.

Interviewer: With all due respect, even within the realm of Star Wars, a resurrection sounds far-fetched. How is that even possible? The dude got cleaved in half and fell down a bottomless shaft.

Disney: Haven’t you been paying attention? Magic!

Versus: President Captain America vs. President Lex Luthor

Versus: President Captain America vs President Lex Luthor

With election season at an end, and another four years of an Obama presidency ensured, we thought it was time to take a look at another political showdown. Forget Obama versus Romney… we want to know if the American people would rather have Captain America or Lex Luthor as their President.

The clear favorite has gotta be Cap. After all, most people would rather live under the rule of an American hero than a supervillain. But is this question really as clear-cut as it seems? Let’s take a look at the fictional Presidencies of these comic book icons.

Captain America

Created by: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

Origin story: A scrawny soldier takes a dose of a super-serum that transforms his physique almost instantly. Working with the Army, the Avengers, and S.H.I.E.L.D. over the years, Cap has tirelessly protected the American way of life.

Best Known For: Punching Hitler in the face, surviving being frozen in a glacier for two decades, opposing the Superhuman Registration Act.

Notable strengths: Great physical strength and agility, expert tactician, inspiring leader. Uses a shield made of vibranium in combat, which absorbs the energy of any attack directed at it.

Notable weaknesses: Can be shot with regular bullets. Easily manipulated by villains who threaten civilian lives. Arguably, too trusting of his own government (depending on who’s writing him.)

Term of Presidency: Considered a run back in the 1980s, but rejected the nomination. This past September, Cap was made President by a special election in Ultimate Comics Ultimates #16. But he won’t be sitting in the Oval Office: Cap will be in the field, rebuilding, reuniting, and reconnecting the American people.

Political leanings: Bleeding Cool notes that old-school Cap is a bit more liberal than the more conservative Ultimate Captain America. They describe him as “very much on the right” and “a little bit nutty, [like] Glenn Beck after a lifetime in the gym.”

Most badass moment as President: Cap’s only been President for about three issues now, so his true badassery is likely a bit down the line. However, accepting the position of President, and then immediately jumping into a fighter jet was pretty awesome.

Lex Luthor

Created by: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

Origin story: In the Golden Age, Lex was a super-genius with a dirigible and a love for instigating war and playing with robots, then got re-imagined in the 1980s as an evil corporate exec.

Best Known For: Being bald, or having a massive shock of red hair. Killing his own parents. Trying to kill Supes with Kryptonite every chance he gets. Created three Superman villains: Parasite, Bizarro, and Metallo.

Notable strengths: Genius with a penchant for advanced tech. Ridiculous amounts of wealth. Occasionally uses a robotic battle suit to fight and fly.

Notable weaknesses: Power mad, to the point of self-destruction. He once gave himself cancer because he refused to take off a ring made of kryptonite.

Term of Presidency: Luthor was elected as the nation’s 43rd President back in 2000, but lost power in 2004 after getting too arrogant during a battle and revealing his villainous intentions. He left the Presidency in disgrace, leaving his Vice President, Pete Ross, to pick up the pieces.

Political leanings: There have been a lot of great quips about Luthor’s character over the years, but my personal favorite is my friend Larry’s assessment of Lex’s time in the Oval Office– “President Luthor is a mix of all the worst aspects of Nixon, Donald Trump, and Mitt Romney.”

Most badass moment as President: Despicable as it was, it was pretty impressive that he was able to convince the entire country (and the JLA) to hunt down national heroes like Superman and Batman in the wake of the “kryptonite asteroid.”

Foreign Policy

Comic Book Presidents

Every American wants to have a President that makes them feel secure from foreign enemies. Surprisingly, both Lex and Cap have that ability.

Let’s start with Lex, who defeated the ultimate in foreign threats: aliens! In the Our Worlds At War storyline, President Lex is able to coordinate the Army, superheroes, and supervillains alike to defeat the alien Imperiex. It was an impressive victory, and scored him some major political clout. There was just one problem: Lex had known Imperiex was coming all along, and even used the situation to his benefit by making some shady deals with some bad guys.

As for Cap…well, for starters, he punched Adolf Hitler in the face. He’s a decorated war hero, thwarted would-be terrorists, and stopped anarchists in their tracks. He’s mostly been focusing on domestic issues since accepting the Presidency, but that’s to be expected given the fact that America is tearing itself apart in the Marvel Universe right now.

 

Domestic Policy

Comic Book Presidents

Given the amount of natural disasters and collateral damage the average American city sees in comic books, it’s important for a Marvel or DC President to take care of his citizens.

Lex’s first order of business upon taking office was to suggest a moratorium on the sale of fossil fuels, hoping to put “a flying car in every garage.” How great would it be to live in a country that was so dedicated to stopping global warming?

Lex was also responsible for rebuilding Gotham after the quake that destroyed the city. Of course, Lex had an ulterior motive: he used his participation in the rebuilding efforts to mask the fact that he was altering real estate records and putting most of the city’s property under his name. Despite his evil intentions, it’s arguable that rebuilding the city generated jobs and restored confidence in the economy.

Captain America’s term as President is still unfolding, and he has a lot of work ahead of him. Texas has seceded and wants to detonate a nuke, Sentinels are everywhere, and HYDRA is working with Thor’s son to destroy the US once and for all. He’s working hard, but he’s yet to make any real strides so far.

The Winner

It’s clear: it would be way better to live under President Cap than President Lex. Sure, Lex did all the right things, but for all the wrong reasons. And really, would you trust a President that framed Bruce Wayne for murder? Let’s not forget that by the end of his time in office, he was dosed with Venom and went totally insane. The people’s choice is clear: Cap would be a way better President to live under.

Ten Ridiculous Japanese Monsters

Ten Ridiculous Japanese Monsters

Every country has its own mythology. Sometimes, that mythology is based around a specific theme or the inability to explain certain things in nature. Sometimes it relates directly to a country’s religion or other spiritual beliefs. Mystical creatures often played a huge role in these mythologies too, especially in Japan, where their mythology had a lot to do with all the things I listed above, including insanity. These are ten Japanese monsters that are so ridiculous that they often seem sarcastic.

Abumi-guchi

An abumi-guchi is a stirrup that belonged to a dead soldier. It lies and waits for the fallen owner to return. Thus, it’s not even a real monster. It’s simply the result of no one cleaning up the battlefield after the fight is over. If you’re not the ghost owner coming back to find all the shit he dropped, it’s just breathing garbage. You can replicate this monster this by going into a dead person’s barn, gluing googly eyes on all the equipment and then worshipping that equipment for centuries.

Abura-akago

Abura-akago

The abura-akago is something reborn only when an infant licks some oil, as the abura-akago is the spirit of a person who stole oil, but was special enough to not die properly. It’s a spirit that will stay dead unless you’re negligent in raising your child. I hate to sound like I disrespect a legend, but it seems rather impractical to base your existence on whether or not a baby is going to do something idiotic.

Akaname

Akaname

The akaname comes into your bathroom at night and licks up the grime, meaning that you get a Japanese demon in every can of Lysol. It’s said to personify the fear of going into a dark bathroom, but I’d be hesitant to fear anything that’s main purpose was to clean up little, drunken, pee drops around the toilet.

Chochinobake

Chochinobake

This, along with creatures like the aoandon, all resemble traditional paper lanterns, which means that any Japanese person’s trip to a Bed, Bath and Beyond is a humbling and potentially terrifying experience.

Tsukumogami

Tsukumogami

There are a specific group of Japanese monsters called the tsukumogami, which are various objects that gain life, but only when they turn one-hundred-years-old. The biggest problem with this system of empowerment is that most things, at one-hundred, have been battered into uselessness by time. So, whatever sake glass (kameosa) or mosquito net (shironeri)  that your family, out of some misplaced priority, has passed down from generation to generation, is going to be ruined with age. It will be just like an actual person at one-hundred – dirty, frail and probably gibbering about minorities.

My favorite tsukumogami is the jotai. The jotai is a possessed cloth hanging from a folding screen. I believe that this was made during a hypothetical era in Japanese history where uncreative people would invent monsters by screaming and then pointing at a random object whenever someone turned to see what the town wuss was raving about.

Uwan

Uwan

Sometimes, ancient Japanese monsters didn’t really have a defined purpose. Mostly they’d be around to drown children or suck the blood from passers-by. However, in the case of something like the uwan, they existed just to be assholes to people, even if their chances of encountering people were very, very slim. The uwan is a disembodied voice that haunts abandoned houses and temples, which, considering how many people visit rotting, old places, means that it usually haunts no one in particular. It’s named “uwan” because that’s what its cry sounds like and the best formation of words to describe it are “inefficient at an almost impossible level,” because it is.

Uma-no-ashi

Uma-no-ashi

People who are sort of unlucky walk next to something called a jubokku, a tree that extends its limbs to grab people that walk near it and drains the life out of them. People who are truly unlucky fall prey to the uma-no-ashi which was a tree that had a kicking horse’s leg dangling from it. Not a whole horse or multiple legs, just the one, swinging haphazardly and hopefully landing a blow or two, because if you’re too dumb to notice that one tree with the hoof striking the air, you deserve the kick.

Kawa-uso

Kawa-uso

The kawa-uso is a supernatural river otter, and this by far is the most ridiculous monster on the list. Have you ever seen an otter, Japan? They’re adorable!

Nurarihyon

Nurarihyon

The nurarihyon is a monster that looks like an old man. He will come into your house, drink your tea and act like he owns the place. He is hard to get rid of because he looks so human, and can be easily confused with the owner of the house, which is some kind of ancient Japanese racism against its own people. I have no frame of reference for this type of creature. The closest thing that I can relate to it is the scene in Rush Hour 2 when Chris Tucker accidentally punched Jackie Chan in the face, but totally made it okay when he explained it off as “ALL Y’ALL LOOK ALIKE!”

Shirime

Shirime

The shirime is a creature with an eye in the place of its anus. I understand that this one may seem like a deleted scene from a Human Centipede film, or what happens when you try to create a monster by asking a thirteen-year-old boy to write words and drop them into a hat, but it’s actually from an ancient poem. A samurai was walking by himself and encountered a stranger. He prepared to fight the stranger, until the stranger dropped his kimono and revealed the eyeball in his ass. The samurai fled, and the story ends.

I hate to call bullshit on a story written hundreds of years ago, but samurai or not, the human response to seeing a shirime is to chop it into dozens of pieces first, burn it until there’s no chance of its soul inhabiting a lamp, and deflect all questions with “It looked like it was ready to attack me.”

11 Geeky Mugs

17 Geeky Mugs

Quenching thirst may not be the only use for some of these incredibly awesome, geeky mugs. We’ve put together a list of some really amazingly creative mugs designed to show off your geek cred at your next cubicle party.

Portal 2 Lemon Grenade Mug

As Cave Johnson put it: “Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these?

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Pixel Heart Changing Mug

This delightful heat-changing mug will remind you when you’re running low on life:

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Chalkboard Coffee Mug

This is the type of mug that is prone to some sort of abuse by your co-workers, or spouse which may leave you an unexpected message.

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Face Mug

This handy mug is freaky multi-purpose device. It holds beverages and COOKIES! What more could you ask for?

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Pipe Mug

This mug from the folks at FanGamer will allow you to pipe caffeine into your veins at warp speed!

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Camera Lens Mug

This one’s for all the Photography enthusiasts. They even have a white version now for all those L series fans. Bonus cookie tray doubles as the lens (mug) cover.

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Minecraft Mug

Take a break from all the building by enjoying a hot beverage out of this Minecraft Creeper mug:

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Pac Man Heat Changing Mug

Did you hand over a lot of your pocket change to Mr. Namco? Now you can hand over some more with this awesome heat-changing Pac-Man mug.

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Laboratory Beaker Mug

Nerd out with this sweet Laboratory Beaker mug that will bring out the inner mad chemist in you:

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Tardis Mug

An incredibly detailed Tardis Police Box mug for all the Doctor Who fans:

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Ctrl+Alt+Del Cup Set

Until now, there was no way to both refresh your body and your computer at the same time. Now there is!

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The Three Craziest Conspiracy Theories

The Three Craziest Conspiracy Theories

It’s a hard time to be a conspiracy theorist. They hunker like microwave burritos, covered in tinfoil and stuffed with extremely suspicious material, scanning the TV for mind control signals and finding the exact opposite: reality TV. Which doesn’t need any mind at all. How bad must that feel? They alone know how aliens killed JFK, and nobody listens. Every human alive has been part of a pregnancy, but the the cast of 19 and up get still an audience of millions.

The internet is even worse. It used to be that a sufficiently spittle-flecked barrage of fake facts would drive off all but the most determined sane person. Now anyone can disprove their arguments in seconds. And the internet is far better at insane rants too. The conspiracy theorist needs a moon mission and at least three Elvis clones, but the internet can go just as insane about a bad video game review. In honor of these struggling psychopaths, behold the bronze, silver, and gold of conspiracy insanity.

Phantom Time

Heribert Illig makes most conspiracy theorists look lacking in imagination. He skips over pedantry like Area 51 and Atlantis to allege that three entire centuries of history are imaginary, and every single historian, scientist, astronomer and calendar-looker-at since has been covering it up. The “Phantom Time Hypothesis” alleges that the years 614 – 911 AD simply didn’t happen, and is also a Doctor Who episode plot which somehow escaped into the real world.

A huge chunk of the Dark Ages didn’t happen. The Vikings simply didn’t exist. China was nice enough to invent the entire Tang dynasty just so that the Roman Holy Emperor Otto III could pretend to be ruling in the year 1000 AD. I’m not joking to make them sound more ridiculous, but only because I can’t – that really was one of their theories. And because shouting “you’re insane” isn’t a scientific argument, no matter how accurate it may be, researchers had to find proof that 15% of AD actually happened. A fact so obvious it lights up the sky, which is exactly how they confirmed it: records of Halley’s comet appear in historical records at the right times. Many other errors were also found, but when someone has the only conspiracy theory so crazy it’s actually disproved by real lights in the sky you’re allowed to just stop talking about them.

Armed Weathermen

The internet has made it easier to diagnose the early warning signs of conspiracy theory. If someone casually tweets that they think the president would empower weathermen with hollow-point ammunition to massacre citizens, you can get them professional mental help. Or stop being friends with them. At the very least you’d hope they weren’t your elected representative. But if you live in Kentucky you would – as you do with so many things – be hoping in vain.

Rand Paul Tweet

Senator Rand Paul bought into a conspiracy theory that the National Weather Service was buying 46,000 rounds of hollowpoint ammunition, and that this was preparation for a government takeover-by-shooting-everyone. Because we all know that when the President of the United States decides to go rogue the most lethal weapon available to him will be weathermen. You end up hoping an elected official simply misunderstood “meteorologist” to mean “from space”, because at least then the stupid conspiracy theory would be awesome.

It’s also fun to notice that when many people genuinely thought that the supreme executive power was about to send tens of thousands of flesh-destroying rounds against his opponents, their first response was to write saying “I know what you’re doing and oppose you. Here is my IP address.” So take this as a warning: when your choices are LINK “simple clerical error” or “And now Tom with the weather and the massacre of our country”, it’s probably the former.

Rainbow Woman

The chemtrail conspiracy is famous, and almost understandable. It’s natural to be impressed by flying jets leaving trails of condensed water through the sky. Those are hundreds of tons of metal soaring like that wasn’t impossible! They DO prove that people are up to mind-boggling scientific projects which alter the very fabric of human society! Those projects are “engineering” and “aerodynamics,” the sort of thing that really should make anyone think. Unfortunately many think “smart people are trying to control me” while revealing that smart people wouldn’t need to, and that the word “think” earlier in this sentence was a lie.

They claim that the trails of condensed water (contrails) are released chemicals (chemtrails). Even though chemicals released at that altitude would diffuse to homeopathically-ineffective levels. Besides, if the airline industry was part of a critical citizen control project, flights would be better organized. They couldn’t have California erupting in armed insurrection because of LAX’s shitty scheduling. And this conspiracy is for people who don’t aim that high. It takes real insanity to build a conspiracy theory out of a lawn sprinkler, but this MacGuyver of Madness does exactly that.

For those preserving their IQ high score by not watching it: a woman sees a rainbow in the lawn sprinkler droplets, and reveals a lot more about her life than she’d like by choosing “bitter paranoia” instead of “beauty.” She attempts to explode the English language through sheer irony by looking at a rainbow and saying “This cannot be natural.” You can actually see the point where her level of education tops out, because her “learn to read” books taught her that rainbows happen in the sky. When she finds out that the sun doesn’t really have a smiling face on it she’s going to have a theological breakdown, and that is going to happen because she’s not smart enough to avoid staring to find out.

Ten Reasons Why a T-Rex Would Make A Bad Pet

Ten Reasons Why a T-Rex would Make A Bad Pet

The Tyrannosaurus Rex is probably the most famous dinosaur of all time. He’s got a cool name, a recognizable body and laughable arms. He’s the tyrant lizard, the star of Jurassic Park, and despite many, many adolescent fantasies, a terrible pet. Here are ten reasons why owning a T-Rex would be no fun at all.

SIZE

Clifford was a gargantuan puppy that lived in some unfortunate family’s backyard, and could kill his owners just by turning around. The Tyrannosaurus Rex was about that size, forty-feet-long and a little more than thirteen-feet-tall. It’s about half the size of your house. That cuts out bringing it inside when it’s scared during a thunder storm, bathing it in the tub when it smells like death (more on that later) and watching it playfully scratch at the front door as it sits on the porch.

It’s A Carnivore

I told you that it’s about half the size of your house. Imagine half of your house trying to kill you whenever it felt like it. And not just you. Anything. If you have something that even resembled what’s scientifically called “meat” around you, the T-Rex will try to devour it. Not out of spite or anything. Just because either A) it’s hungry or B) it can.

And if not you and everyone you love, than what? It will cost a lot to keep importing those cows to your yard, and in about a month, since you haven’t mustered the courage to go outside and face the beast that you call “pet”, your landscape will be a graveyard of skeletons and huge mistakes.

It’s A Killer

If you piss off a pet, you’ll have a few minutes of tail between the legs and then back to normal. Pets are dumb, and small enough that they can’t rip you in two when they’re having a bad day. A T-Rex can. If you make a T-Rex mad, the next rest of your life will be spent screaming for your wife to call for help, as you make a dash for safety. Once again, the T-Rex isn’t a mean guy. It’s just hard to reconcile your primitive emotions when your reptile brain consistently orders you to “KILL KILL KILL EAT EAT EAT PROTECT YOUNG SLEEP KILL KILL KILL.”

It May Have Been A Scavenger

T-Rex was known as the alpha male of the dinosaur kingdom before paleontologists racked their brains to think of ways it sucked. One of the ways was the speculation that it might be a scavenger. If this is true, then the T-Rex is going to smell awful, constantly. A dead body reeks, and suddenly you have a tractor trailer of a monster that smells like a lifetime of dead bodies hanging around your house.

Little Arms

His arms are just too tiny to do anything. You can’t train him since most things that you’d want a T-Rex to help you with (roof repairs, driving comically large cars) can’t be done because he’s wielding two forks on his torso.

High Infant Mortality Rate

Less than half of all T-Rex’s made it to sexual maturity. So, when you have that adorable litter of T-Rex puppies, most of them are going to be dead soon. And you can’t explain burying a dead baby T-Rex in the backyard to a mother Rex. It’s going to see you holding a dead hatchling, and immediately put two and two together, initiating Prime Objective: Tear Tiny Screaming Thing To Shreds.

Great Sense of Smell

You know how animals with great senses will use those senses to draw them toward things? A dog will hear a sound a mile away and use that as the impetus to disappear for a few days. The T-Rex had huge olfactory nerves and bulbs, which means that he could smell a great distance. Someone in the neighboring county having a barbecue? Sorry about your smashed fence and missing kids, brother. New dump opened recently across town? Sorry for the worker’s strike, city. It’s hard to improve employee morale when your job conditions include bulldozers, trash and now an ancient super-predator.

Great Vision

The T-Rex had better sight than most of today’s hawks, and anyone who’s seen a slow motion bird dive into a stream to pick up a salmon knows that this is a serious attribute. To put this in perspective, where ever you are right now, a T-Rex could see you.

Massive Jaw Power

Okay, you’ve managed to train your T-Rex to not devour you whenever the mood strikes it. But that still doesn’t save anything surrounding your house. The T-Rex’s head was built to crush whatever it bit down on, which was usually the bones in a screeching herbivore. A dog might leave a mark in your Frisbee or gnaw on the lowest part of a deck chair, but a T-Rex is going to smash through whatever is unlucky enough to be beside it.

Also, a dog might playfully nip at its master, and you can laugh it off and blame it on being a puppy. A T-Rex can nip at its master and you’d have to move directly next to a hospital to prevent any sort of future fatalities.

Possible Cannibals

A recent study put forth the theory that T-Rexes may have practiced cannibalism, and by practiced I mean “They ate each other when hungry.” So much for a cute T-Rex family. Buying any new pet after a T-Rex is just something to put on the grocery list.

Hipsters Will Hate You

He’s a popular dinosaur, and hipsters, in their current incarnation, will literally seek out ANYTHING to hate, even resurrected bygones of a lost era. So, go ahead and get a T-Rex. Get ready for an onslaught of things like:

“Why didn’t you get one from the Dromeosauridae family? They’re pretty small and fit well with my three-legged dog, Martin Luther King III. And besides, didn’t people hate Tyrannosaurs, like, a month ago. But, it’s cute. It really is.”

 

The Weirdest Theories About Ancient Technology

The Weirdest Theories about Ancient Technology

Ancient technology theorists claim that long-dead civilizations were far smarter than our atomic age, and they might have a point, because the ancient Egyptians never had people carving hieroglyphics about how cavemen had secretly mastered pyramids already. Conspiracy theorists merely claim that every single scientist in the world is getting money for lying to morons, which sounds like a pretty sweet job. The ancient technology nutbar proclaims that every single scientist in the world is a moron, unable to see with hundreds of years of study what he discovered with only one lifetime of brain damage.

Their theories read like archeological slash fiction, screwing everything we know about ancient ruins. By bizarre coincidence most ancient civilizations died out at almost exactly our level of technology. There are no records of Babylonian steam societies, or the Tang dynasty fielding armies of isolinear robodroids. They all seem to have discovered the exact same technologies any madman would find with an extremely casual reading of modern science headlines, then died. Unfortunately our madmen only use the first half of that strategy. Very fortunately, they’re hilarious.

The Pyramid of Giza Laser Power Plant

Christopher Dunn claims that the great pyramid of Giza is actually a seismic power station, driven by a hydrogen generation cell running a vast maser cannon. And in a reversal of the normal language, that sentence makes even less sense when you know what all those words mean.

Giza BookHe believes it harvested power from the Earth itself by firing a microwave laser through its internal corridors. This powered the incredibly sophisticated machine tools used by the ancient Egyptians, including the teleporter they used to get rid of every single one of those tools before anyone could find one.

The core of his power station is the king’s chamber, where thousands of quartz crystals in the granite walls transduced earthquakes and became a huge resonator. If a stone-walled room could reflect microwave energy, a mirrored bathroom would oscillate you into a pure energy being. But what you do in the bathroom proves that you’re still very mundanely physical. And when a technological theory can be directly disproved by shitting, it’s probably not very good. It’s hard to explain to someone how bare granite walls can’t work as microwave laser reflectors, because they clearly already think they know what all those words mean and are equally clearly wrong.

Jesus’ Sputnik

UFOlogists claim that the Russian space program broke through space and into time itself, reappearing the fifteenth century. Which is weird, because if the Soviets had invaded the Earth four centuries ago I’m fairly sure we wouldn’t be living in a society with shows like Honey Boo Boo.

SputnikAnd I know we’re meant to see “the communists win” as the evil alternate universe but that sounds pretty good. They base this on “The Glorification of the Eucharist”, a painting by Italian renaissance painter Ventura Salimbeni.

Here we see the Holy Quaternary, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Soviet space program circa 1958. That’s some amazing symbolism – if an old man represents god, and a dove the holy spirit, then Sputnik has to be at least King Galactus of UltraHeaven. Or, if you’re sane, it’s just a “creation sphere” – a common symbol for Earth and the sky in renaissance art, including the sun and a moon which can, apparently, look like a camera lens. The detailed lines on the surface represent the Earth’s meridians and parallels, not the Earth’s future communist welding craftsmanship.

The “antennae” are the same sceptres seen in many religious works. Presumably to represent how these heavenly figures poke at us on the surface, clumsily and without wanting to interact with their own creation directly. Which is a real pity, because if Jesus ever discovered real radio technology it would honestly make prayer a lot more efficient.

Sanskrit Spaceships

The Vaiminika Shastra is a revolutionary work in ancient technology theory, an incredibly sophisticated attempted to make every other madman look credible by comparison. It was introduced in 1952 by a Mr Josyer, who got them from an exhibition, which got them from another guy, who maybe got them from an Air Commodore, who got them from a guy who took them down as they were dictated by a mystic, forty years earlier, when the immortal spirit of an ancient Hindu sage who knew how to build flying machines thousands of years ago told him. It’s like they’re trying to overload the argument of an unreliable source so that nobody can use it against them.

Vimana ShipThis “dictation-by-ghosts” theory is a great way to get around the problem of anyone carbon-dating the texts. Not because it’ll work, but because once you start talking about ghost-channeling they’ll know they don’t need to bother. The alleged mystic Pandit Subbaraya Shastry claimed that the text describes how the voices say spaceships work inside his head, and in that precise definition he’s entirely right. Once the ideas are released into a world of physics they don’t even fall flat, as that would imply them ever leaving the ground.

Analysis by the Indian Institute of Science didn’t just report that the ships wouldn’t work, but that “the geometries are unimaginably horrendous from the point of view of flying.” The machines are so confrontationally impossible they’d probably sink faster than gravity just so that they still get physics wrong even when they’re obeying it. The scientific impossibility of anything in this book working is masked by the larger impossibility of anyone getting past one of the designs before throwing it into a kindergarten for children to color in. Then returning and burning it instead, to make sure it didn’t damage the children’s intelligence.

 

The Worst Kickstarter Campaigns Ever

The Worst Kickstarter Campaigns Ever

At one time, the internet was full of money. Nigerian princes used to offer me millions through email, daily, and I had never even met them. But, ever since the world collapsed, money has been harder to come by. Kickstarter operates on the basis that this collapse never happened. Want something done? Surely the Internet will like it enough to pay for it!

These are ten Kickstarter campaigns that wanted your money, and did everything they could not to get it.

The Story of Jesus and Us

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1355626803/the-story-of-jesus-and-us

David L. Wetzell isn’t the best at staying on topic. He spends the first half of his page telling you nothing about the book he is trying to write. If you asked David what his favorite color was, he’d spend your day telling a story about how he came to discover that he liked colors.  And even the line he gives you at the top “A love story with Jesus as its’ heart, based on a “riddle” in the Gospels of John and Luke.” Is just vague enough to frustrate me. David lists his project as about four different damn things, so I’m not sure whether I’m funding a “book” or an “oral performance” or a “two-part play” or a “Kickstarter Optimization Plan.” David needs to focus less on what his book is not about and more on what medium he’s using to give us this…something?

Jasper Flare – Aspiring Young Artist’s Album

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2132326334/jasper-flare-aspiring-young-artists-album-0

Jasper Flare promises a lot. He says that he will “revolutionize pop culture” and “stereotypes” and I’m still not sure that he knows the definitions to any of those words. If I re-read it, I could probably find Jasper’s promise for a “free bikini girl massage” somewhere in there too. If you donate twenty dollars, Jasper promises to thank you through “any form of social media.” Thanks for the shout out, Jasper. You’ll be like “Thanks, Dan!” and I’d be like “Viva la Jasper Revolucion!”

Gonzo in New Orleans

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/347421397/gonzo-in-new-orleans

The man only known as “james” doesn’t need help starting the Hunter S. Thompson inspired show. A Johnny Depp impersonation doesn’t cost anything but your pride. He needs help with gas. This Kickstarter campaign is the equivalent of a mooching friend who doesn’t want to take the bus. I half-expected “james” to ask for a bite of my sandwich in his promotional video.

Slender Men: A Documentary

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/441941230/slender-men-a-documentary

Eric Reese is a smarter man than I am, and one who will go to any lengths to fund whatever he babbles about for most of the page. As his picture, he’s put a photo of two children. If you click the photo, you’ll find out that it’s Eric and his sister as children. If you don’t, though, they’re just two random kids, caught in the cross fire of the nonsense that Eric calls a “project.” Thus, this campaign will probably the plot of a future Steven Seagal film. Eric wants his money, and he’s got the kids. Steven Seagal will stop at nothing to get those kids back. Steven Seagal is…Kickstarted.

Small Talk (aka 1-900-KILL-YOU) Phone Sex Horror Movie

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nicolewitte/small-talk-aka-1-900-kill-you-phone-sex-horror-mov

Is there a less marketable name to promote your project as? Two different titles for the “phone sex horror movie” genre? It’s almost unappetizing. They might as well list it as “What are we doing (aka 1-900-NOT-FILM) haha my toilet burped.”

Book About the Human Drama of Extramarital Relationships

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/287369119/book-about-the-human-drama-of-extra-marital-relati

I’ve never seen a page filled with so many words that counted for so little. It calls having an affair “the ultimate human drama”, so eat it, Schindler’s List. Genocides and actual dramas mean nothing in the face of horny spouses. It gives excerpts from some of the stories, to tantalize us, but they seem to forget that these stories are about affairs. The human body is conditioned to feel awful when hearing about this. “Would you like to pay money to see how a family is torn apart? Intriguing, no?”

The Universal Vagina of Light, Phase 1

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joyologist/the-universal-vagina-of-light-phase-1

Meredith Brown tries to get money for a project in the same way she writes a grocery list – in an incoherent message to people and to the stars, that you’re sure to summon at least four demons by reading. Meredith calls it a “portal” and I know enough about the relatively easy creation of portals to stop there. Also, this is just Phase 1. Imagine if this campaign had gotten funded. Phase 2 would be nothing less than a cannon to shoot a tiny Meredith into the pilot seat of an octopus brain.

Arrhythmic Banging with Rose and Carlos

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rpc/arrhythmic-banging-with-rose-and-carlos

There is nothing lamer than reading the back of a musical comedy CD. I hate to say that something is lost in translation, but when your track listing usually consists of things like “Clinton’s At It Again” and “I Said To Go, But She Farted (The Fart Song),” you’d have a better chance of amusing an audience with puppets made to look like dead pets. Arrhythmic Banging seems to be a bit more high brow than this, but, in the case of songs like “Breaking a Tambourine with My Penis”, seeing truly is believing.

Samurai Shadow: A Samurai Ninja Japanese Ghost Tomb Comic

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/929519929/dark-rising-a-samurai-ninja-japanese-ghost-tomb-co

Dear (unsuccessful) Makers of Samurai Shadow: A samurai ninja Japanese ghost tomb comic,

The most important aspect of creating something is deciding on what you’re actually creating. I don’t know what a “samurai ninja Japanese ghost tomb” is, but I can only envision that its stitches haven’t healed and that it’s currently a sick, shrieking mess.

-Daniel

WHO KILLED JOHNNY? A Tragic Euro Trash Comedy

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/whokilledjohnny/who-killed-johnny-a-tragic-euro-trash-comedy

This movie looks absolutely hilarious. What’s that girl shrugging about? Probably something sooooo stupid happened. And that guy with a knife! People don’t use knives like that! And then there’s the dude in a thong holding, the boom mic! He looks so bored! But how could he be bored? This is all so crazy! Here, movie. You can have every cent I own! This is just too insane to miss!