Burn it! Burn it with fire!

Getty Images shows us how Fairbanks, Alaska, consistently defends its title as The Creepiest Freaking Place On Earth.

For only a few minutes, I thought this "realistic" Kirby would be the skeeviest thing I saw today:

Sadly, no.

Let's see you do this, Phelps*

"About a year ago a YouTube poster uploaded a video of a glitch in Tiger Woods 08. He was able to get Tiger to stand on top of a lake and drive the ball into the hole. In response, EA just came out with this viral video to show that what the poster had claimed, is indeed true in real life."

That's how Kotaku describes this totally rad commercial for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2009, available this fall for every system known to man (except, of course, my Super Nintendo).

*Just because Porkchop is a bit late to Everyone Talk About Phelps All The Time Week doesn't mean we can't play catchup, dammit.

Vive le resistance!

As the proud new owner of a Super Nintendo, I couldn't not pass on this video from College Humor, about the limitations of Mario villains.

As someone who's been playing Mario 3 for the last week, I don't necessarily agree with their conclusion. If the baddies were intelligent, that game would be practically impossible. Dag!

ps. This year's college freshmen were born in 1990, one year before the SNES. Which means you're old, is I guess what I'm saying.

Creep-you-out Friday

Click here for a post that, uh, kinda explains. No guarantees that it will make you feel any better.

Crichton just pooped a little

Pokemon Ranch is slated to be the first game for WiiWare, the low-budget and indie games channel on Nintendo's weird little box. Here, dozens of pikachus line up to do the boot-scootin' boogie... and then, of course, devour your children.

Aerohero?!

Kotaku announced Activision's announcement of the next thing your adolescent kids will want: Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.
Wait a sec. I don't think anyone has ever put "Aerosmith" and "adolescent kids" in the same sentence before. But whatever. There are many other obvious problems with the press release.

(1) "Gamers will experience Aerosmith's GRAMMY® winning career, from their first gig to becoming rock royalty, in a way that no other entertainment vehicle offers."

Uh, shouldn't we start the story in about 1987, after everyone stopped snorting every finely-ground substance they could get their hands on?

(2) "Steven Tyler says, 'Any band that can go from "Don't Want to Miss A Thing" (Aerosmith's #1 smash hit)..."

Really, Steven? That's what you're leading your pitch with? The song from the quintessential badly overblown '90s "event movie"?

(3) Tyler again: "Not only is songwriting a bitch, but then it goes and has puppies."

Um, what?

(4) Head of publishing Dusty Welch: "This partnership will give Aerosmith, a band that has sold more than 150 million albums worldwide, a powerful and innovative platform to reach their fans and new audiences."

Porkchop's translation: "This partnership will give Aerosmith gigantic bags of money, and get our company very little in return, because most of the market for Guitar Hero is made up of adolescents who have never heard of Aerosmith or, if they have, are creeped out by them."

Maybe I'm wrong - hell, I'll probably rent it at least - but this sure sounds like a big scarf-covered train wreck. Unless there's some kind of Alicia Silverstone mode (please, Activision?)

Too much FreeTime

Today EA has new promotional material up for the Sims 2 expansion pack "FreeTime." It includes a video of sim-Natasha Bedingfield singing a song in Simlish, the Sims' distinctive gibberish language. Some notes:

1) The Sims are still creepy.
2) Simlish is kinda fun to listen to after all these years.
3) Simtasha is hotter than regular Natasha.
1b) Hot Sims are creepier still.

Palm pilot.

That bit of bad-assery is... uh... clearly it's some kind of god-like alien magic. Complete with mind-numbing music to make us more confused and docile and thus prepare us for our new lives as host vessels.

By the way, impatient folks should skip to the 2-minute mark for the money shot.

Son of Creep-You-Out Friday

From Kotaku.

007 373 5963

Oh, The Onion. How often must you mock me?

Half Of 26-Year-Old's Memories Nintendo-Related

If you're between 25 and 35, and you tally the sentences in the story that make sense to you vs. those that don't, you'll have a ratio you can provide to your neighborhood mental-health specialist to demonstrate exactly how much responsibility your parents shirked. Good stuff.

Our princess is in another castle

There aren't many things that make me teary-eyed but we can add to the list marching bands assuming the form of the Triforce while playing the Hyrule theme. If that didn't make sense to you, then (a) joo are teh suxxor, and (b) don't bother clicking through.

USA! USA!

I frequently repost images from BBC News' Day in Pictures, which I look at just to get a brief glimpse of what's going on in the 95 percent of the world that isn't America. It's often novel, exotic, sometimes confusing stuff, and seldom does a day go by on which I'm not overwhelmed by the sense of how much there is that I have yet to experience, that I'll have to race to get to by the end of my pathetically short existence.

So imagine my swell of patriotism when the DIP turns its attention, as it does occasionally, to my very own homeland:


Did you hear my proud silent tear just now? Of course not; it was silent. Still, it's there. Congratulations, you guys.