I guess I inadvertently turned Sad Robot into a monthly instead of bi-weekly serial. Whoops! There were extenuating circumstances that lead to this being so delayed, most of which revolve around my fanatical and apparently unshakable constant rewriting disease. Luckily, a ginger haired lady dork by the name of Da Grand Patch Masta Flash Patchie Deth came waltzing into my monkey sphere and efficiently motivated me with much mocking and got me off my proverbial writing ass. You should probably check out her webcomic, Funemployment. Not just because I have a thing for her and want to get into her pants on a regular basis, but also because she is super talented. Don’t tell her I said that though, I’m trying to play this cool.

Anyway, this is actually an incredibly heavily edited version of what I originally wrote for this entry. I think the first edit was something like 8000 words and that was just ridiculous. So I went back through and got it down to what it is now, which is still longer than I want any of my serials to be, but I like how it turned out so I can’t complain. The entries will probably get shorter and shorter as I find myself having to explain less of the world these silly little robots live in and can focus more on dialog between them. At this point I’m really trying to see how long I can go without including more than a few lines of dialog.

This also taught me that I’m awful at deadlines, so I’m not putting deadlines on when I’m going to do these anymore, my habits are just too crazy for that, but I promise I’ll be continuing with updates and even throwing some unpublished short stories into the mix in order to keep the spice content flowing here. Now that I have this monkey on my back I also will be opening up the floodgates on the fucking enormous amount of backlog I have to finish up for Ripten. I bet you are excited for that. You aren’t? Whatever, you suck. Click it anyway. And if you don’t like it, blame Patchie for goading me into continuing it.

Sad Robot and His Realization that Girl Robots Have Different Squishy Parts

What the fuck.

I would just like to point out this little invention. It is the Cravendale Milk Jug, and it tells you whether or not the milk in the jug is fresh milk in the jug or spoiled milk in the jug. This actually exists. It is apparently some super fancy scientific thing that some dudes figured out while they were researching the bacteria that actually makes milk sour, and it does it by having what is essentially a PH detector in it that is calibrated to make the screen on the front say “Sour” when the PH balance is off. Thank god. Because if there was one thing in this world that I found difficult, it was telling whether or not milk was sour. Sight and smell just weren’t cutting it.

Welcome to the future everybody. It’s name is Cravendale.

Hell has frozen over. College Humor actually did something interesting.

This is, obviously, a parody of Empire State of Mind but with Star Wars. Probably not blazing any new ground or anything as parody material goes, but the production and quality of everything involved is actually way above what I’ve come to expect from a site that caters almost entirely towards the lanyard crowd. Worth it almost entirely for breakdancing Stormtroopers, but the Princess Leia chick isn’t exactly hard on the eyes either.

Seriously though, this is pretty great. Did I lose cool points for liking this? I didn’t even know I had any left.

“I made wearing black more famous than that JayZ kid” is actually a great line. Where the hell did this come from?

Seriously. Look at that. It is so beautiful, and entirely right.

I can’t speak for the other categories, but I feel like it explains things pretty well based on the actions of our little internet subculture. For example, I do generally refer to myself as a geek and feel like this diagram represents me fairly well. I’m a pretty smart guy when it comes to most subjects, although my lack of practical knowledge in science or mathematics tends to hurt my geek score a bit, but I am fairly obsessive about the things I am geeky about. However, despite this, I’m a social person. What I’m saying is that they should change that cross section to say “Gavin is Awesome” and all the other ones to say “Not as Awesome as Gavin.”

Still, my inflated self worth aside, it is accurate. The thing is that, while there are still a large amount of stereotypical geeks, geek culture seems to be seeping its ooze into the mainstream. I’m sure people bitch about that, the same way people bitch about “hipsters” or indie rock being subsidized by major record labels, but I personally see no issue with it. Look at it from my perspective, I grew up in a small, shitty New Jersey town where nobody had good taste in anything. When I went to high school, which was a thousand years ago now, there were very few of us who knew anything about bands like Hot Cross or Saetia or Pavement, and there were even fewer people who were into stuff like computer gaming. Hell, video games weren’t even as pervasive as they are now when you think about it. And that was only about ten years ago (fuck I really didn’t want to think about that). Even when I was in high school I saw things start to change. Back then it really pissed me off because so much of my teenage identity was invested in being unique and off the beaten path, but that desire to be unique started to shed away for two reasons. One was the internet, it was always really easy to find groups of people who were into the things I was into, and two was my desire to surround myself with people who I could have discussions about theoretical physics and ROM hacking with.

Now look at today, even if you are the most normal dude in the world and all you listen to is Nickleback and all you play is Modern Warfare 2, the odds are a good amount of your friends still do geeky things. It is just that those things aren’t considered geeky anymore. The entire hipster subculture, as infuriating as it may be to most people, is really becoming the dominant culture of 20 somethings. Most of these hipsters are geeks, or dorks, or nerds, or what have you. They are Star Wars fans, and avid Dungeons and Dragons players. They hacked their Droids so they could play SNES games on it while they waited for their cappuccinos at their favorite hole in the wall coffee shop. They use Linux. And they aren’t a minor subsect of culture, they are a large group. Throw a rock at a crowd of people from the ages of 19-33 and the odds are you are going to hit more hipsters and geeks than even the Jersey Shore lanyard wearing guido types.

This is a good thing. This means we won.

Sure, it might be annoying that now your opinion on what Genesis RPG is the best won’t be some unique or earth shattering idea anymore, but wouldn’t you rather be able to say “I loved Langrisser” and have people chime in, even if it is disingenuous, than have some dude in a pink shirt call you a fag and slam a beer bong? I personally think so. Culture has shifted, and the geeks and weirdo music fans are all on top. Enjoy it while you can.

Who knew?

This is an almost cripplingly depressing piece of Japanese performance art about a robot. It isn’t a sad robot in the way that Sad Robot is a sad robot, but it is certainly enough to make you do that wistful sigh before you click the x and start watching porn again.

Seriously. They will.

So I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that if you are reading this blog because of my video game writing, or even on the rare chance you read this blog because of my fiction, you are probably not a huge Gorgoroth fan. I tend to skew hipster, which I’m fine with, but you might need a quick walkthrough before you watch this half an hour long documentary. Gorgoroth are the most stereotypical black metal band of all time. Are you a normal dude who loves Dethklok? This is them in real life. They have played on stage with severed sheep heads and more blood than a Miike film. This documentary is based mostly on their lead singer Gaahl. Gaahl is one of the most feared people in Norway. Seriously. He has done jailtime for torturing people.

This is so surreal at times you won’t have any idea if this guy is serious.

He is.

I have just been awful to you, blog.

Three weeks without so much as a hint of Sad Robot or Exterminators, and no new short stories to boot! My production of topical hilarity in video game news form has also been halved. I wish I had some interesting excuse for you, but I don’t. The last part of Sad Robot I began working on, and the short story I promised, have both become a bit longer and more detailed than I anticipated. This has caused me to slightly drop off the face of the planet, mostly thanks to the fact I am so pretentious I yell things like “I CANNOT BE BOTHERED WITH A FIVE MINUTE BLOG WHILE I CREATE!” Then I slam my fists down and my quill pen and ink go everywhere.

I promise I’ll be better, blog. Starting right now. Expect a deluge of delightful drivel.

Also I’m going to see Evelyn Evelyn in Boston, and feel that you all should also. They are such delightful girls.

I make no bones about the fact I believe Battlestar Galactica, regardless of fairly odd ending, is the best sci-fi drama in ever. So when I saw a video involving some internet hero editing scenes from Galactica to mirror the Beastie Boys’ iconic Sabotage, I kind of thought “Hey, I’ll post that on my blog even though every other blog on the internet has it posted too.”

So here it is.

I really like this, and I find Funny or Die to be the most hit or miss video collector site out there. The dude from The Mask’s Reagan impression is uncanny. Still, I probably only find it hilarious because I agree with the political agenda behind it. So if you like banks getting lots of money, abortion doctors being murdered, gays being considered unequal, women getting paid less than men, unnecessary wars, segregation, trying to teach religious doctrine in the place of scientific fact, or celebrating mediocrity through misdirection and media manipulation, then you probably won’t find agree with the political humor I enjoy. Also you are an asshole.

This is more Epic than a mash up of Epic Beard Man reading a copy of Clive Barker’s Nightbreed while listening to Epic by Faith No More. In the end Fred Williamson teaches White Dog the true meaning of tolerance and Christmas before he shoots him in the face and turns his fur into a present for the mayors fine looking white daughter. Academy Award for best screenplay? That would be mine, thank you.

Hey, hey you over there. Finish your drink, we’ve got to close. No, no I understand Al Gore said the Internet would last forever, but we are closing now. So drink your improperly poured Guinness and get out, the waitresses have to clean the tables and put the chairs up before we can leave. What? Why is the internet closing? Because no YouTube video is ever going to top this once. We are just calling it a day now. You can see if Arpanet is still open down the street, but I think that is an Army bar.

How come nobody told me there was a new Symphony of Science video? Are you still mad at me for not getting anymore Sad Robot up yet? I’m sorry, but that is no excuse to withhold the only thing in this world that should be allowed to use autotune. This would probably be the first CD I will purchase since I the day I discovered IRC when it is all finished. Plus this one gives me an ultra geek boner since it is named after a Dawkins quote.