Latest Chris & Trilby comic: #0077 -
Reconnaissance
20/3/05:
Shut Up And Listen To Me
The list of the Only Good Comics On The
Internet
continues to gradually expand, so do check it out
for additions every now and again. I'd like to
particularly point out Alien Loves Predator, which I found the other
day and rather enjoyed.
In other news, I
have a new feature for you to read! Hooray!
Something a little bit different today. A little
dramatic piece I like to call 'Letters from the Mushroom
Kingdom'.
Gaming humour ahoy!
- Yahtzee
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Last Week On
FullyRamblomatic...
15/3/05:
Home On Deranged
Hey, look what I did today.
Update
17/3/05: New guest comic by me at Dinosaur Comics! Sassy!
- Yahtzee
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Last Week On
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11/3/05:
Tomb Raider: The Last Degradation
[ADDENDUM: I
forgot to mention. The website for the Australian
game design team I've joined, Gridwerx, is having a little
vote on some of the concept art we've come up
with to try and finalise some elements and art
styles for the game. So, do me a favour and pop
over there to vote on what samples of art you
like best. Ta.]
Recently I
started playing the fourth Tomb Raider game
again, and by that I mean Sarah started playing
the fourth Tomb Raider game and I watched from a
few feet away while pretending to read Ronnie
Biggs' autobiography. If you're not familiar with
the Tomb Raider games, they're about the
irresponsible archaeological adventures of Lara
Croft, who can somehow exhibit feats of
incredible strength and agility despite having a
deeply top-heavy body which in any sane world
would snap neatly in two every time she bent
slightly at the waist. Her arms are so thin that,
when she's trying to haul herself up a ledge, I
would expect her femurs to go shooting out of her
elbows, spraying blood behind them like hellish
bottle rockets. Her lips look like a pair of lazy
slugs are attempting to navigate her face. Also,
she dresses like a Vietnamese hooker but without
the charisma.
 |
The
thing that differentiates the fourth Tomb
Raider game from the first three -
indeed, pretty much the only thing - is
that there's a flashback at the beginning
to when Lara was a teenage girl in
pigtails first learning how to leap three
times her own height. And it is during
this sequence that we learn the origin of
her backpack. She picked it up off a
corpse in a tomb, which must have been
the corpse of Doctor Who or something, as
I can see no other explanation for how a
backpack the size of a Kelloggs Variety
Pack cereal box can somehow contain fifty
large medpacks and a crossbow. |
Maybe
this is a silly thing to get cross about but I
really do hate this sort of thing - showing the
origin stories of a really mundane element of a
popular character. I don't really care how Lara
Croft got her backpack. I kind of assumed she
bought it from an outdoor supply shop. I mean,
one would think a backpack would be on the list
of things to acquire BEFORE you raid a tomb. Only
a complete spacker would say to themselves,
"Oh, I'm going to explore the mysterious
Sumerian temple of ancient evil next week. I
guess I'll need to buy some suitable equipment...
oh, but that's too much hassle. I'll just pick it
all up when I get there!"
I have enough
common sense to understand that adventurers are
only human and sometimes they do things that are
not thrilling. I'm sure Lara Croft has to go food
shopping like everyone else and I wouldn't expect
to see her crouched down in the cold meat section
of her local Safeway waiting for the opportunity
to dive under a whirling blade and grab a tin of
spam for her tea.
It's like that
miniseries they showed on Channel 4 a while back
about Adolf Hitler, starring Robert Carlyle. I
appreciate that sometimes real life is boring and
even drama based on fact has to be sexed up a wee
bit to maintain our interest, but they actually
had a little montage overlaid with dramatic music
to show how Hitler got his fucking MOUSTACHE. I'm
not even kidding. That just completely killed the
show's integrity for me. They were this close to
making him wring his hands and cackle with glee
as he took out the razor. As terrible as it may
be to imagine this, TV producers, perhaps Hitler
grew his moustache like that because he couldn't
be arsed to trim it properly and not as a focus
point for his evil. I mean, once you start
telling the origins of really stupid
inconsequential aspects of a character, where do
you stop?
THE
ORIGIN OF LARA CROFT'S SPORTS BRA
While plundering
the ancient ruins of Crete one day, Lara came
across a mysterious sealed casket at the bottom
of a network of monster-infested hallways. Inside
she discovered the mythical Granite Sports Bra of
Megora, which legend has it was worn by one of
Medusa's victims just prior to her petrification.
Lara took that solid stone sports bra and decided
to wear it permanently as a symbol of her
dedication, which explains why her tits extend
three feet outside her body but don't wobble
around and smack her in the face when she's
jumping about like a loon.
THE
ORIGIN OF LARA CROFT'S HOT PANTS
Being the kind
of gal who learns precisely fuck all from her
mistakes, Lara Croft once kicked open the casket
of a baby Egyptian mummy and pissed on the
remains, and consequently fell victim to the
mythical Curse of Perma-Wedgie. Now, whenever she
puts on a pair of trousers, no matter how long
they are, the material gradually rides up her
legs until it's all bunched up around her
privates in a really uncomfortable way. The curse
was concocted by a group of Egyptian priests
during an all-night brainstorming session when
they were all really hungry and tired.
THE
ORIGIN OF LARA CROFT'S BOOTS
She bought them
from a shop.
- Yahtzee
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Last Week On
FullyRamblomatic...
6/3/05:
Another Tiresome Search String Gigglefest
You know what we
haven't done in a while? Looked at stupid search
strings people used to get to this site! Actually
my webstats have been pretty fucked up of late,
with my daily intake alternating apparently
randomly between around four hundred and around
twenty thousand from one day to the next. Also,
my most popular page by a staggering 20000 views
appears to be my site stats page for January. I'm
guessing this is all something to do with
menstrual cycles.
Anyway.
inces
incest ncest
I like to put
some serious thought into how these strings
occur. Imagine young Billy-Bob, his family
finally having found a wholesale company brave
enough to deliver a new com-poo-tah to their
ramshackle home deep in the bayou, so excited at
the prospect of learning more about his favourite
pastime that he can barely type and has to have
three goes before he gets it right. I had a
similar problem when I found out you could
download Hellblazer comics for free. But pity
poor Billy-bob, because the Backspace key had
been levered off the keyboard by his dad for use
in anal violation, so he was unable to delete his
two wrong attempts. Then his mum sucks him off.
gay cute
I... hm. I,
er... hm. Nope, sorry. I cannot think for the
life of me what this person was searching for,
but whatever it was, I am pretty certain they
didn't find it here. Someone please let me know
if there's someone in the world called Gay Cute
with an internet presence. Perhaps an anime
character.
On a related
note, I seem to remember there being an irregular
presenter of BBC daytime gardening programmes
named Gay Search. Gay Search! I dread to think
what would happen if that poor bastard ever
entered their own name into Google. Gay fucking
Search. God knows how they got past school age.
The most tragic thing is that it's not even the
silliest name in BBC daytime television, not
while such giants as Shonka Goo-ha still live.
And I'd be very surprised if anyone knows who I'm
talking about and can correct my spelling.
5 days a
skeptic
NO. It's 5 Days
A STRANGER and 7 Days A SKEPTIC. CHRIST.
I suppose this
was inevitable. Perhaps I should have given the
two games drastically different titles, like
calling one '5 Days A Stranger' and the other
'Bigtime Welding Spaceship Excitement'. This has
caused problems when donators send in their five
bucks and ask that I furnish them with the 7 Days
A Stranger Special Edition. I'm half-tempted to
create a special game just for these people.
Yeah, then I'd fill it with blisteringly obscene
pornography combined with unrelenting genital
mutilation. All taking place to the Benny Hill
theme tune.
england
girl squirting
Now here's a
fellow who knows what he wants. What gets me,
though, is the specification of 'England'.
Foreign squirters not good enough for you, are
they, you fascist cunt? Why can't you embrace
squirters of all colours and creeds in this
wonderfully diverse world in which we live? Why
not give girls from Wales or Northern Ireland a
chance to squirt for your horrible amusement? You
never know, you might find that Welsh or Irish
squirting have an appealing regional charm. And
when you say 'squirting', out of which end do you
want them to squirt? These things matter.
Anyway, I had a
look around and I think I've found what you're
looking for. She's not obviously English, but it
did come from the BBC website. Check it out!
sugar
Sugar, sugar,
sugar. Sweetener of tea. Integral ingredient of a
good bread and butter pudding. While I'm no
stranger to sugar and a confessed enthusiast for
its delicious taste, I don't recall being any
particular authority on the subject, which makes
the fact that 'sugar' has been the number one
search string for two months all the more
confusing, especially since Hentai and Orgasm,
the previous leaders, have slipped down to the
high teens. See, this is what I'm talking about
when I say there may be something wrong with my
stats page.
I'm not even
sure why anyone would want to search for it on
the internet in the first place, least of all
twenty times. I'm sure, if you really needed to
learn all about everyone's favourite granulated
vegetable product, you'd only need to do so once.
Only the most die-hard recluse would attempt to
order sugar online when you can pick up fifty
bags from your local corner shop without having
to pay for shipping. So the mystery of searching
for sugar lives on. Although I know I will never
get to the bottom of it, I'm pretty confident
that I can say without fear of reprisal that,
whatever these people are looking for, they WON'T
FIND IT HERE.
So piss off.
- Yahtzee
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Last Week On
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1/3/05:
Seven Days Antiseptic
So, those people
who received the 5 Days A Stranger Special Edition. Did you
like it? Was it worth the money? I hope it was!
It was a pretty decent success for me
income-wise, but I've run out of cocaine money so
now I'm going to find out if lightning can strike
twice by announcing the inevitable sequel.
Yes, the 7 Days A Skeptic Special Edition is now
available! Comes with all of the following
delicious bells and whistles:
- The
prerequisite Author Commentary!
- The original
Easter Egg scene!
- Silly
Outtakes!
- The MIDI music
from the game!
- A system that
warns the player when a monster is going to
appear during the chase sequences, for everyone
who complained about that!
Same deal as
with 5 Days - donate 5 bucks American and
I'll email you the URL. You'll need to specify
with your donation now whether you want the 5
Days or 7 Days SE, but I'm sure that won't be too
much of an intellectual trial. Alternatively,
donate 10 bucks and get the pair of them! They'll
look very nice on your mantel!
Click here to donate!
- Yahtzee
updates - features - essays - reviews - comics - games - novels - about - contact - forum - links
Last Week On
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28/2/05:
Fresh Charges
If Verlie
Thomas is reading this, thanks for the donation,
but every email I send to the address Paypal gave
me for you gets sent back, luv. So if you'd like
to give me an email address that works I can give
you your special edition.
There seems to
be what I can only describe as a fresh food arms
race going on between the major fast food
branches. Suddenly it's not good enough to be a
rich international pedlar of cardiac death - you
have to be a FRESH rich international pedlar of
cardiac death, too.
It was McDonalds
that started it all off, of course, with their
yetchy yoghurts and their sweaty salads that
taste like the ingredients were stored in Tony
Slattery's armpit. They even started selling
apples, just to be completely patronizing. I
suppose the main reason for doing this was the
enduring image of McDonalds kitchens being full
of pus-filled teenagers jerking each other off
into the milkshake machine, and with so many
layers of caked-on grease running down the walls
that the whole place looks like it fell into a
deep fat frier. So, fair enough, they want to
start introducing a healthier option, because God
knows I see no reason why anyone should ever have
to eat anywhere other than McDonalds.
On a somewhat
less understandable note, McDonalds have also
started their own pretentious-style coffee shop,
called McCafe. I haven't got a clue why. You'd
think they'd be satisfied with having clawed
their way to becoming the most popular restaurant
in the world over a mountain of blocked aortas.
Muscling in on other people's territory when you
don't even need the money seems just plain mean.
It's like when Microsoft decided to start making
games consoles; they didn't actually NEED to from
a financial standpoint, they were just bored and
didn't have enough foes to crush. I've never been
in one of these McCafe entities, but I'm sure
they've found some way to make coffee taste
greasy.
But getting back
to the fresh food thing.
This is so sad. |
Hungry
Jacks (the Australian name for
Burger King) are also trying to get in on
the action, and did the usual thing
nearest competitors do in these
situations - get the idea, then
completely overdo it. So, where until
recently the Hungry Jacks adverts had
been full of non-threatening
working-class people expressing in song
their insatiable lust for processed
animal fat, now we get attractive people
in Hungry Jacks uniforms standing against
a featureless white backdrop, holding up
trays of healthy baguette sandwiches,
making statements that somehow patronize
even more than the apple thing
("You'll love them! Yum!").
Check out their website and you'll find
an awful lot of greens and whites in the
colour scheme, with nary a mention of
fries and patties that make your blood
pressure explode just by sitting in the
same room. They've even changed their
slogan to "We're all about fresh at
Hungry Jacks!" when before it was
something like "We've killed more
fatties than Buffalo Bill". |
I
think the major thing playing against ol' HJ in
their attempt at reinvention is the name. Hungry
Jacks. I challenge you to find a restaurant with
a name that brings to mind more easily the image
of a fat bloke scarfing down a whole cow.
Red
Rooster, local Australian franchise, is
also joining the party, having introduced salads
to the menu. Isn't that cute? Everyone give them
a round of applause for trying.
Subway,
of course, have been into the fresh food game for
yonks, which may explain the slightly bitter tone
of their latest advertisements, in which a
non-threatening young man in a Subway uniform
coyly badmouths "our competitors" while
a fat bloke in unsubtle red and yellow clothing
fools about in the background. Frankly, it's very
childish. It's akin to insisting that no-one else
can sell fresh food because they thought of it
first.
| I can't
say I like Subway much. I'm not the kind
of buttertroll who can eat three birthday
cakes in a sitting, indeed, I can barely
stomach a celery stick if I've just had a
can of coke. But I can eat a six inch
Subway sub for the same price as a
McDonalds large cheeseburger meal and
still come away hungry. It's like eating
a big lump of air. And I don't see why
they still get that Jared bloke to plug
their scoffathons. I know he's supposed
to have lost a lot of weight eating
nothing but Subway, but blimey, he's
still not exactly trim. He could still
feed a family of cannibals for a week and
they'd be eating cold Jared sandwiches
for months to come. I dread to think what
he was like beforehand. The blueberry
scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory comes to mind. |
Subway's Jared, having risen from the
Pacific and now preparing to destroy
Tokyo. |
All
of which makes me very much climb onto my
well-worn soapbox and plead with frustrated tears
in my eyes that franchises please stick to what
they're good at and just accept the fact that
consumers actually give money to other businesses
from time to time, as heart-rending as that may
seem to you horrible little twats. There's
nothing shameful about making fast food. Hell,
it's a service we all require every now and
again, because when we're out on the town and
starving hungry, very few of us make a beeline
for the nearest grocer's and buy a cucumber to
snack on.
The burger
chains are clearly responding to the media and
their irresponsible scaremongering, but if they'd
waited five minutes the whole 'people get fat and
die from fast food' scandal would have blown over
and been replaced by the 'people get thin and die
from emulating celebrities' scandal. The media
needs to make its bloody mind up. They need to
make a decision on whether we're too fat or too
thin and stick to it, maybe that would
demonstrate that the fuckwits have an ounce of
integrity.
Oh yeah, and
donate for the 5 Days Special Edition! You'll love it! Yum!
- Yahtzee
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