Kombo News Round-up 4/11/08
As you’ve likely noticed, the eponymous 4/11/08 occurred two days ago, on the eleventh of April. Two days late and two dollars short, I suppose — but it’s not like you’re paying me to do this, so you can understand why my motivation might falter occasionally. So then, lest we squander even more time, here’s the news:
Sonic Unleashed Wii: The Best Looking Wii Game Yet?
Renegade Kid Looks to the Stars with Ambitious New Title, Moon
Atari “Doesn’t Have A Lot Of Room For Mistakes,” Decides to Create Flash-Based Online Games
My final Crisis Core piece will hit the tubes later today, with all the relative force of a kitten cannon-balling into a large Jell-O mold. But hey, with your help, maybe that kitten might actually sink a little, you know? So I’m counting on you to read my write-up, because if not you, hypothetical reader, then who else?
And don’t say God. That’s a cop-out answer.
A Non-Boring Day in the Life of the Person Who I Am
On occasion, I find myself privy to an event so utterly horrendous that it actually lowers my opinion of humanity. Today (or yesterday, in regular person time) was one such day.
Austin College, as part of a week celebrating, well, I’m not really sure, but anyway, Austin College put on an auction — one that had deep-pocketed students bidding on people instead of things. Now, before you get ahead of yourself, Austin College strongly discourages slavery and human trafficking; the merchandise in question was set to experience more of an “a day in the life of” type of thing. These ephemeral servants, then, were auctioned off to other students for cash, which the charitable staff at Austin College will presumably use to feed future Resident Evil 5 enemies*.
I was set to aid a friend in properly marketing himself (“Back in my day, the prospect of slavery practically sold itself!”) — which amounted to getting kicked while holding a pad in front of an slavering mob of fellow Austonians.
There was a catch, however; before I could receive my bruising and go home, I was forced to watch others’ performances — eight others, to be precise. But you know what? They weren’t so bad. Ok, well, they were kind of bad, but only the two girls whose talent was hula-hooping to rap music, and the one girl who jumped and pointed in what was initially described as a “dance,” and the guy who caught, like, one or two gummy bears in his mouth and, well, most everyone was really bad, actually. But they don’t matter.
No, the “bickering” hosts absolutely eclipsed all other performances, throwing them into such indistinct blackness as to redefine the term “abysmal.” Oh yes, “bickering” deserves every quotation mark it receives, because the hosts were, I kid you not, reading each and every randomly-placed “shot” they took at one another from plainly visible cue cards. Eventually, their performance devolved into one host accusing the other of going to high school prom with his mother, and the accused host, apparently blessed with the improv skills of a pack of migrating salmon, owned up to it. No witty retort, or even a comically-bereaved, “My mother died in childbirth!” Actually, the funniest part of that whole fiasco came from a random, possibly disembodied voice floating amongst the audience; “Oh, I took your mom to prom,” he blurted, and the crowd burst out into laughter. Congrats, anonymous guy, you saved the hosts from an increasingly dissatisfied crowd, or at least delayed the lynching a little.
Really though, these hosts were downright offensive. At an auction that allegedly turned the neon-orange spotlights on the soon-to-be auctioned, the hosts tried to steal the show. What they did, however, was akin to a the episode of Pokemon wherein Team Rocket, instead of merely falling into their own pit trap, pulls everyone else in with them. The show’s single redeeming factor (aside from my brief stint in the spotlight) consisted of me watching the male host stand precariously close to a small fire which decorated the side of the stage. If only. If only.
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*This joke was in bad taste, wasn’t it? Why don’t you comment on it? Confirm or deny my beliefs; affect me in ways most profound.
