Sony: Failing Real Good Since 1975

It's X-mas season again, which means if you're a guy under the age of 30, you're entertaining sweet reveries of the latest electronic devices. The desire to constantly acquire and update anything with circuitry is keyed directly into the Y chromosome. It's right there between Adam's apple and testicles. Best Buy circulars are straight up gadget porn to dudes, even though I won't shop there because of their annoying ads with carolers that get stuck in my head (hahaha, your turn!).

we're going to need some alone time

Anyway, every time I buy a movie now all I can think is how much more badass it would be on Blu-ray with an HDTV. It's a bit annoying since marketing drones across the world just finished telling me how awesome DVD was and now they're like, "Come on, guys. We weren't even serious about that last one. All the cool kids are doing Blu-ray now." I guess I just suggested that all forms of media are drugs...but I'm going to run with that analogy: DVD's are now the Quaaludes of the media world.

The really important thing of note here is that Sony has finally won. They've been pushing proprietary formats for a long time and they've finally got us hooked. No one brand was directly responsible for the CD and DVD formats. In fact nobody even knows what the fuck DVD stands for. So because no one owned those formats, no one was able to collect all of our souls as payment. Well, Sony decided that just wouldn't do. Sony makes movies. That means if they'd wanted to play hard ball they could have chosen to make their movies available only on Blu-ray. They were always going to win against HD DVD. And now we must come to love our new master. But maybe you've forgotten about all of the failed attempts Sony has made to lure us into they're creepy van.

hint: they didn't use candy

1.) Magic Gate/Memory Stick:

Sony actually did pretty well with this one, mostly because we didn't know any better. It's like when you first got the internet back in 1996 and you subscribed to AOL because "why the fuck not?"

because everyone at AOL hates you, that's why not

We've seen a lot of rapid expansion in digital technology and a lot of people just grit their teeth, shut their eyes, and dive in. When the average consumer goes to buy a device, let's say a camera, they don't always go in with all of the information they need. It usually boils down to knowing that a.) more mega pixels are better, and b.) high profile brand names are the only way to go. That's not very helpful.

would you like the Magnet Box, the Panaphonics, or the Sorny?

You know the Sony name. They make good shit, right? And how were you to know which memory card was going to become the most widely used? You probably had only heard of the competing Compact Flash cards at the time. But the real place that Sony found an application for this technology was in their PlayStation systems. The PlayStation 2 used memory cards which we'd come to have accepted as standard. These memory cards exclusively required Magic Gate authentication. That means that not just any company could produce third party cards. No, you had to be directly licensed by Sony, which meant the prices were fixed. So while I could buy a 512MB card for my Nintendo Game Cube for $30, I was stuck buying 32MB cards from Sony over and over at $20 a pop. And the PlayStation Portable requires a Memory Stick as storage. So if you want to use any of those devices, you're just going to have to ask Sony to "please be gentle."


2.) UMD:

While we're on the topic of the PSP, who could forget the Universal Media Disc? So compact and sexy. And it's universal! You can do anything with this son of a bitch!

you can even use the cases to store Sony's other formats!

OK, so it's a disc-based portable system and that's a first. Neat, right? No. No one gives a fuck. That's why they're out there playing Nintendogs or whatever, that are just printed on a flash-memory cartridge. Disc-based systems run into a lot of problems. Remember when portable CD players were becoming common? Remember how they could detect an earthquake in China and they would immediately skip? That's the problem. There a ton of tiny, precise moving parts in those things and it doesn't take much for one to break and fuck up the entire thing.

you're fucked

But back to the "universal" part. You were supposed to be watching movies on these fuckers. That sounds fine on paper, right? Well, the catch is you paid the same price as a full DVD which contained bonus features, commentaries, surround sound profiles, and higher resolutions. The UMD movies had none of that. Oh, and more than one person could watch a DVD at the same time. This concept was so mind bogglingly retarded that even Walmart stopped selling UMD copies of movies because no one wanted them. Also, the little open space where the PSP's laser read the UMD was completely uncovered and prone to scratching...


3.) MiniDisc:

...But the MiniDisc at least had a sliding cover to protect the optical disc inside, as well as some hardcore anti-skip protection. And what's more, the MiniDisc was a moderate success for Sony. Just not with you. No, all of you owned CD players because that was the cheaper, more logical thing to do. When you bought a CD, you were like, "Great, I just a bought a CD! On the way home I'm going to listen to it on my car's CD player and when I get home I'll listen to it on my stereo, and when I go out for a jog, I'll listen to it on my portable CD player." Why buy another, more expensive player that required its own special kind of discs and needed a computer to convert your CD into ATRAC format files (true MP3 profiles weren't supported because, you know, Sony didn't own them)? Only music industry, radio, and audiophiles bought this fucker.

I actually own several...

The MiniDisc did have some really bitchin' qualities, though, and that's why it was used in all of those industries. First, most of the players were compact and ran off of one AA battery for around 36 hours. Batteries used to be a big deal in the era of portable CD players. Second, each MiniDisc could hold about five CD's worth of music. That's a lot of music in a small space and each disc was rewritable. Think of it like a removable storage medium for an MP3 player. The third and maybe most important feature to sound nerds, it had an optical jack (most people don't fucking care) and a microphone input. You could record directly into this thing. So it got used a lot for high quality, digital recordings of interviews. Beyond just recording, you were able to place or remove track marks at any point in a recording or song. So you could jump to different sections of an interview or just skip right to the part of a song you actually like.

Having sung its virtues, this motherfucker is the bastard son of the CD-R and the MP3 player. It was middle-ware and really had no place in the consumer market. You probably didn't even remember it. Or, at best, you thought it disappeared a long time ago. Guess what? Fuck you, that's what.


4.) Motherfucking Betamax:

There's not really much I can say here since the name "Betamax" is synonymous with failure. Most people born before a certain date remember this high priced paperweight. It was launched in 1975, but I knew more people growing up with Laserdisc players than these god damned things. But there was a massive war between Sony's Betamax and JVC's VHS cassettes. The 1-hour recording time probably hurt them there since VHS (which stands for "Video Home System" because don't even pretend that you knew that shit) could record up to 4-hours. And this was in a day when VCR's cost the low, low price of infinity dollars.

you've probably got enough there for a VCR and a copy of Flashdance

Hey, at least they did better than DIVX managed against DVD. You don't even fucking know what DIVX was, so don't even play.

again, I still own two of them...

LP out.

Halloween is Better Than Whatever Holiday You Like

Here's the deal, plain and simple: Halloween is way more awesome than you, your mom, or your whatever you got for your tenth birthday. And I'll tell you exactly why.

1.) Halloween is a Legitimate Excuse for Vanity

On Halloween, your only job is to be bad ass and make sure that everyone knows it. It's a competition. You actually go to places to win prizes based upon how awesome you are.

It's not always going to work out in your favor, though.

In fact, not only are you rewarded for your impression of a serial killer/demon/racially inappropriate costume, but if you can't come up with anything good, you're actually derided for it. That's like if you gave your dad a lame tie for Father's Day and he then proceeded to tie up your hands with it while he beat you with his belt.

Lame Second Place:

The only thing close to Halloween in this respect is the time honored tradition of over-the-top X-mas lights. Except what you win there is the "White Trash of the Year Award."

Is this guy inclusive or retarded?

2.) Halloween is Openly Selfish and Greedy

This one barely requires explanation and is particularly evident amongst children. Children have no real crafting skills and their costume creativity extends only so far as the movie they just saw. So what happens here is their costumes' level bad-assery is qualified solely on how much money their parents spent on them, and, by extension, how much their parents love them.

Pictured: So much love/money.

But here's where it really gets good. After the child looks awesome (through no effort of their own), they march up to strangers' homes and demand to be rewarded. Holy shit!

That girl is even kneeling in his presence!

That never works for anything else in life. If I showed up at your house, banging on the door at 10:00 at night to tell you that I'd just beaten my previous high score in Tetris, you would call the fucking cops.

Lame Second Place:

St. Patrick's Day has no end of apparel that demands you preform actions upon the wearer based solely on their ethnic heritage.

Even wasted chicks won't fuck you in that shirt.

The difference here is that a child on Halloween takes your candy away from you, and a drunken "Irish" man vomits down your throat when you kiss him.

3.) Halloween Allows You to Terrify People Legally

Other holidays simply try to amplify an emotion that you're already supposed to be expressing. Pretty much universally, the emotion expressed is one of kindness and respect. Those holidays are for pussies.

At least Arbor Day is making a fucking effort.

Halloween keeps it real. It's never acceptable in day-to-day life to jump out at people and give off the impression that you're about to murder them. Worse yet, the impression that you have already been recently murdered and are now going to murder them.

Think of it like a really fucked up game of Telephone.

Now, you may feel these urges every day, but you don't get to act upon them without going to jail, otherwise known as "the place where real murderers will rape you."

Lame Second Place:

Fucking Valentine's Day. Don't even pretend that's the kind of shit you think about when you get up in the morning.

THIS IS NEVER SOMETHING YOU THINK ABOUT!

4.) Pranking the Shit Out of People

We're not talking about "Ha ha, I got you!" kind of pranks. I mean malicious, over-the-top pranks...that frequently backfire in hilarious or ironic ways.

Lame Second Place:

Obviously, April Fool's Day. But when an April Fool's joke goes sour, you don't fucking die.

"Ha ha! I got y-...gurgle, gurgle..."

LP out.

Overkilling the Dead

This spiel has been a long time coming and somebody's got to say it: zombies are so last season.

That's not easy for me to say, either. I have a long-standing love affair with the inept undead and everyone knows it. But so does everyone now. This funny article over at Cracked hilariously confirms that fact. But that isn't the only piece of evidence that I have here in my briefcase for my prosecution.

1.) Enough with the Shitty Fucking Movies Already

I'm not naive enough to pretend that I discovered zombies and they're my special secret. Zombie movies have been around since the advent of motion picture technology, even before talkies! Wanna know why? Zombies are hands down the easiest monster costume. Period. If you want to be all lame with your get up, all you need are dark rings around your eyes and a stiff gait.

you lazy fucks

Yeah, I know all too well how complex zombie make-up can end up being. You can get crazy elaborate with it and create some totally awesome, vomit-inducing effects. But it's this range of detail that gives studios carte blanche to go buck-ass wild. If you're creating a zombie horde, the path of least resistance is to focus attention on the foreground zombies and slack on the rest. Some blurry dude in the back with darkened features and fake blood on his shirt is perfectly believable for the .5 seconds that he shows up in the background. It's your front line troops that need to be all jazz hands and spirit fingers.

this is a strong example of what the fuck?

The end result of this cost-effective ghoul is that a lot of shitty plots get green lit because it costs next to nothing to make them and a return on your investment is pretty much guaranteed.

2.) If I Wanted to See Cheetah-People, I Would Have Gone to See that Movie

Don't bullshit me, zombies don't run. I know that it gets a little silly to argue the physics of completely fictional monsters, but I'm sorry, dead things are never better at living than things that are alive.

I just realized that a movie about cheetah-people would be totally bad ass

One of the only things that makes zombies scary (because if they're not zombies, they're just normal dudes hanging out) is their unrelenting plodding down the street towards while you scurry in a panic, only to realize that you're surrounded and your noose is slowly tightening. They slowly gang up on you and represent a threat because of their single-minded, strength-in-numbers policy. If you make them crazy fast, well, they could be any monster. Or a sniper. And then you're not in a horror film, you're in an action flick.

terrifying in its own right

Before you start screaming, yes, I make an exception for 28 Days Later...sort of. For all intents and purposes, it's a zombie movie. But the infected aren't dead. They're totally alive and rabid. Have you ever seen a rabid animal? They're all panic and aggression. And they're about to be dead, but they aren't yet.

3.) I've Killed Too Many to be Scared

Even the Resident Evil games (because fuck those movies outright) had to change up the formula because it got stale. So stale, in fact, that it became fashionable to beat the games using only the knife, otherwise known as "the weapon you get rid of immediately because it's so fucktastically worthless."

that's what you'd look like to a zombie

It only takes you about five minutes in those games to realize that there's nowhere near enough ammunition to kill every zombie and all you have to do is run around them. That's it. Game fucking over. At least the Silent Hill games tried to toss some David Lynch style, freak-out content in their games instead of just having shit come through windows. Although, they didn't have zombies in them per se and their movie was a celluloid abortion.

4.) Because They Reveal Everyone's Desire for Murder

Zombies were people and the point is often made that they were people you cared about. And you get all excited about the opportunity to shoot them.

in the face, no less

People exploding can be incredibly entertaining, but you have to keep this sort of thing in context. The situation here is often you putting down your friends and family. The people who actually want to do that in real life go to fucking jail. Yeah.

5.) The Social Commentary is Trite as Fuck

Zombies as a reflection of modern society are about as subtle as Oliver Stone's Platoon.

I get it, you're supposed to be Jesus/Red Badge of Courage dude.

6.) I'm Just Straight Up Tired of George Romero's Hack-Ass Bullshit

what's up, douchington?

LP out.

Australia is a never ending parade of death

I watch a lot of Discovery Channel. A large reason for this is the fact that you never have to wait more than an hour for something to blow the fuck up. The danger of the channel is that, without much warning, suddenly your program starts to highlight situations of unmitigated horror. But the two most important lessons I've internalized are that you can drink your own urine and Australia is hell on earth. Actually, both can be true at the same time. Here's my logic:

1.) The Continent Is a Sci-Fi Apocalypse

The climate of Australia is scientifically described as "murdertastic." Australia is what happens when you play Sim City and you straight up don't give a fuck about what happens to your population and natural resources. In 2004 scientist Tim Flannery made a prediction that if the city of Perth doesn't make some pretty serious changes, it's going to run out of water and will need to be abandoned. That is fucking scary. With a population of 1.6 million, there's going to be a lot of really thirsty, pissed off ex-residents. Water restrictions are already in place in a lot of cities.

Suck it, Perth

Climate change and ozone depletion are huge concerns in Oz. The country is the largest producer of greenhouse gases per capita in the western world. Rainfall in the wet season between May and August has decreased by 20% since 1968 in southwest Western Australia (PS - pick a goddamn direction and stick with, Australia). Not to mention the fact that 18% of the land in Australia is uninhabitable desert.

3.) Sharks, Oh Dear God, Sharks!

In 2000, the year with the most recorded shark attacks, there were a total of 79 attacks worldwide and only 11 of those were fatal. So there's about 360 different species of sharks out there and only four of those have been involved in a significant number of fatal attacks on humans. Those are pretty good odds. Guess what?

Australia is home to three of those species.

Pictured: a shark makes a helicopter its bitch

The bull shark, tiger shark, and great white shark all call Australia home. But that's just the ocean, right? If you just stay out, you'll be fine. Guess what?

Bull sharks can tolerate fresh water and frequently swim inland upstream.

This is the kind of shit that goes on all of the time in Australia

4.) Crocodiles that Eat Fucking Buffalo

The Aussies call these monsters "salties," but I can't imagine for an instant that it's a term of endearment. They're kind of an ambulatory garbage disposal for anything alive. Their diet includes, but is not limited to (goddammit), birds, monkeys, dingos, kangaroos, buffalo, humans, and sharks. Did you read that?!? These fuckers EAT SHARKS!

Pictured: a crocodile having just made a shark its bitch

You also need to take into consideration the size of some of these prey animals. Go to the zoo and look at a buffalo. They're massive. Now think about that in relation to the size and build of your average human. The number of estimated fatal attacks on humans annually varies wildly between dozens and thousands, proving that these motherfuckers are dangerous and Australians are really shitty at math. If you ever come into contact with a salty, you're goin' down, son.

5.) Everything In the Water Hates You

The blue-ringed octopus is about the size of a golf ball and can alter it's skin to display some pretty gorgeous shades of the color blue. But here's the rub: those pretty blue rings are the harbingers of your doom...26 times. The blue-ringed octopus has enough venom in one bite to kill 26 adult humans. And there's no antivenin, so have fun dying.

"I'm a huge jerk."

It's going to be a super bad death, too. The venom causes motor paralysis and respiratory arrest. This means you can't swim to the surface, splash around, or yell "Help! This octopus totally just made me its bitch!" Oh, and then your heart can shut down shortly after that. And remember that this entire time you're in the fiercest pain of your life, except for that time you got dumped in the sixth grade. If someone sees exactly what's happened, rescue breathing can save your life but you most likely won't appear responsive in any way. So depending on how big of slacker your rescuer is, they may just give up on you and go get shrimp or something.

6.) The Ocean of Australia is the Devil's Aquarium

Meet the box jellyfish. It hates you and it doesn't even have a brain. They can actively hunt prey which isn't something that jellyfish typically do. Normally they're lazy bastards that wait for food to brush up against them, like a sweaty pervert playing grab-ass on a crowded train. But that's not the sort of bullshit attitude that the box jellyfish stands for. No, it will chase at speeds of up to four knots, which is sailor talk for "as fast as a human can swim." Clearly whatever made this creature did so just to fuck with the us.

Your life is over in 3...2...1...

Strangely enough, the best treatment is pouring vinegar on the wound. Of course, cardiac arrest occurs almost immediately so I hope you were making salad when you got stung. Also, sea turtles are immune to the sting which ranks them as the coolest turtle that isn't also a ninja.

Because I don't feel like creating another entry for Australia's Sea of the Damned, the stone fish is another nightmare come to life. Doctors report that the sting is so painful, victims often beg them to amputate the affected limb.

7.) God Awful "Music"

I'm not just talking about Russel Crowe's train wreck of ear rape, I mean tunes that actually hit the airwaves. Dexy's Midnight Runners wrote an immediately recognizable song even if you never remember their actual name or that they wore stupid overalls. "Come On, Eileen" has been covered a million times and is required to be played in any 80's themed movie or flashback sequence. (On a side note, even worse than that was Sweden's own yokel-themed one hit wonder [hit is used VERY loosely] Rednex, with their stirring rendition of "Cotton Eyed Joe." It's your turn next, Sweden, and we all know how I feel about the Swedes.)

What's sad is they've accomplished more than I ever will

But the song still sucks and doesn't make a bit of goddamn sense. This is what happens when you leave music to people who's previous experience is pretty much just "Waltzing Matilda." That song is some sort of demon-wail, designed to herald the End of Days. If you manage to decipher it and summon forth the Destroyer of Worlds, at least you'll find comfort in the knowledge that you have finally ended Australia's reign of fear.

LP out.

Carnegie Hal

The Days of the Week: an In-Depth Assessment

Let's just go ahead and get this out of the way: I'm a cynic and, more than likely, a jerk. In my defense, a lot of this behavior is reactionary to my day-to-day experiences. To put a finer point on it, I'm influenced by the days themselves.

Do you see what I just did there? I owned up to my negativity and then immediately blamed external forces.

Anyway, I have performed numerous studies through extensive testing (meaning that I drank until my arguments made sense and I refused to listen to any other ideas) and have come to the conclusion that I'm totally, 100% correct that the Sunday-Saturday system is bullshit. Here is the part where I justify my buck-passing:

#1.) Sunday

Sundays are bullshit, plain and simple. Yeah, it's still the weekend or whatever, but it doesn't really count. Sundays are like the last week of summer or death row. You know what's coming and there's no way to avoid it.

Sundays are like this without the shanking.

You can't do anything fun (drinking) because you have to go to work or school the next day (places where being drunk isn't typically allowed). It's just 24 hours of doing laundry and bitching about going into work the next morning. You can fuck this up even worse depending on what you did Saturday night. Sunday is the harsh light that forces you to reflect on the bad things you did over the weekend and the badness of the coming week.

#2.) Monday

Listen, that "Someone's got a case of the Mondays" schtick or any sort of Garfield reference isn't going to cut it here. Don't be a fucking baby, you know you're going to survive the day. But it's going to suck and the exact measurement of suck hasn't yet been determined. It's like being on I-95 in rush hour traffic and you're in the lane completely opposite from the exit you need to take. You're going to cross all of those lanes and make your exit, but you have no idea how much abuse and damage you're going to take on the way out.

No one in this photo is even looking at the road

You're probably not going to come out of Monday with all of your dignity intact. Your best defense is to weep quietly in the corner of your bedroom because things aren't really going to get better any time soon. Developing a crippling addiction is also an option.

#3.) Tuesday

With your soul still newly crushed from Monday, Tuesday is here to rip the Band-Aid off your fresh wound and pick at the scab. Tuesday is a re-release of Monday. It's like "Monday: the Crystal Method Remix." Or you can think of it like Dave Matthews; it can't come up with anything new to interest you, so it's just going to keep repeating the same stuff that seemed to work for Monday.

Nobody fucking cares, douchebag.

As such, Tuesday receives lukewarm reception. The main thing it's got going for it is anonymity. You're never going to remember what the hell happened on a Tuesday, because there's nothing to distinguish it. What did you eat for lunch on Tuesday? You don't remember and what's worse for Tuesday is that you don't even give a shit. Fuck you, Tuesday.

#4.) Wednesday

Calling it "Humpday" isn't cute or clever, except to fifth graders and frat boys. Having "hump" as your nickname already means you're in serious trouble and no one is ever going to let you forget it. Sorry to break it to you, Igor.

It's your own fault, really, you creeper.

Wednesday only functions as a mile marker. It reminds you that you're nowhere close to being home free. It's like when the shark let's go of you just long enough to gulp down a lung full of air before it yanks you back under. Even if you can struggle past this 24 hour shark attack, you're going to be bleeding heavily and missing a fucking leg.

#5.) Thursday

Thursday is a goddamn tease. Thursday is wearing a low cut shirt and seductively nibbling the stirrer from her cocktail, but you're not going home with her.

Above: doesn't want anything you've got

Sorry, buddy. No amount of wishing or chatting up Thursday is going to get you any closer to her goods (the weekend and/or boobs). Just take her number, smile, and stumble home.

#6.) Friday

The only thing everyone is going to say to you today is "Thank goodness it's Friday," or, if they're a total fucking loser, "TGIF!"

Fuck you.

This is X-mas Eve. Good times are almost here, but you've just got to hold out. You're going to have to take Friday out for a nice dinner and "dancing" before anything fun happens. But when it does, you will be heard to declare, "Woo!" You've already forgotten about how the rest of your week was. And if you haven't forgotten, you can use it as an excuse to get really messed up.

#7.) Saturday

Fuck yeah! OK, listen, though. Seriously, you have to be careful. Because you can easily go from this:

to this:

to this:

Or, if you're really unlucky, this.

And once you reach that point, your Sunday is just going to be even worse than it would have been already.

LP out.

Compelling reasons that Japan hates children

Japan really has a lot to offer. As a young person, I was constantly consuming their delicious fruits, but it only recently dawned on me that Japan was being a little passive-aggressive. Like a bad step parent, I came to see that Japan wasn't nurturing me, but in fact actively trying to make me fail. So now that I'm all growed up, it's high time I get to work on a tell-all book.

#1. Neon Genesis Evangelion

For those of you who weren't losers in high school or college during the 90's, that title probably sounds like I drew some bad letters in Scrabble. This is actually the title to a popular animated TV show, indeed an entire franchise, hailing from the land of the rising sun. While it would be easy to pick on Japan for its notoriously hodge-podge engrish, that isn't the real threat here. Let me break down the show for you with the help of my good friend, Wikipedia:

"Evangelion is an apocalyptic mecha action series which revolves around the efforts by the paramilitary organization Nerv to fight monstrous beings called Angels, primarily using giant mecha called Evangelions which are piloted by select teenagers, one of whom is the primary protagonist."

It's all pretty much madness and you didn't even need to see a single frame of animation to know that. But there is crucial information up there, the key being that children are forced to endure severe mental and physical pain or the entire world ends.

Standard extra curricular activities in Japan

OK, listen. I was scared of driving at the age of 14. If I showed up to ninth grade and someone told me that when I was done with geometry, I needed to pilot that gigantic purple robot up there or everyone everywhere would die, I have no idea how terrified I would be. That's bullshit. That's totally child endangerment and you go to jail for that.

Not to mention that nobody in the show really seems to give a fuck about anyone else. Every single one of those kids already come from a broken, abusive home or they're an emotionless gynoid. You start to wonder when one of the children, in a moment of angst ridden clarity, will realize that everyone would actually be better off dead. Just the pep talk every budding adolescent needs to excel in life!

#2. Battle Royale

Since we're talking about sending ninth graders off to die, Battle Royale is head and shoulders above the competition. Yes, you read that logo correctly, it does indeed say "survival program." Battle Royale is a movie based off a graphic novel that was in turn based off of a novel. It's kind of a mash up of Lord of the Flies, Survivor, and every gun ever made.

The basic plot is that Japan's economy crumbles and students start to refuse education, going so far as to physically assault teachers. So the government institutes the "BR Act." This is essentially a lottery wherein every year one lucky ninth grade class wins a three-day getaway on a gorgeous island as their class trip...

...where they're forced to kill each other off until only one remains.

"Even though I'm a pop star explaining the rules of this child-massacre,
this is the most normal part of your stay here on Murdered By Your Friends Island."

I want to make this perfectly clear to you, so I'll say it again: In Battle Royale, an entire class is kidnapped, placed in explosive collars (you know, like for dogs that REALLY bark a lot), given some form of weapon, and told to kill each other until only one kid is left or everyone's collar explodes. That's it. That's the entire premise.

Best. Trip. Ever!

Honestly, I don't think there's anything else I can add or explain. Asking girls out was extremely difficult at that age, let alone being tossed into some bizarre gladiatorial combat. And just to confirm your slack-jawed protests, no, this movie was never officially released in the U.S. But it is available on region free DVD's. Enjoy!

#3. Video Games

First off, I love video games, so this part is a little like finding out that your significant other is actually a serial killer who has been active for 25 years. Obviously, there are all kinds of accusations flying around about violence in video games. Any time one kid hits another with a stick, he (because it's always boys, goddammit) is immediately assumed to have been re-enacting Grand Theft Auto. The simple to truth is that, by this point, everyone has played video games. Even incredibly dangerous murders play video games. But so does my mother.

This kitten is pwning noobs in Halo as we speak.

But no lawyer is ever going to be able to prove anything one way or the other way on that one. There are other dangers though, all of which I am now going to blame an entire high-tech country for.

You want an example? Fat kids. Yeah, that's right, your children are disgusting because the Japanese gave birth to Pac-Man. Before you slap me with a lawsuit, I recommend you speak to my attorney, Mr. H. R. Wikipedia:

"Many children fail to exercise because they are spending time doing stationary activities such as playing video games or watching TV. TV and other technology may be large factors of physically inactive children. Researchers provided a technology questionnaire to 4,561 children, ages 14, 16, and 18. They discovered children were 21.5% more likely to be overweight when watching 4+ hours of TV per day, 4.5% more likely to be overweight when using a computer one or more hours per day, and unaffected by potential weight gain from playing video games."

So, the jury is still out on games specifically, but computers are definitely in trouble. And computers are certainly massive time sinks because of blogs like this one, but there are programs out there that actually destroy lives. I'm looking directly at you World of fucking Warcraft. For fuck's sake, people have actually died playing Starcraft on their computers. But becomming a chunk monster isn't the only risk with video games. There are plenty of actual, "holy shit, for real?" injuries that you can sustain while avoiding getting laid.

It's pretty simple logic as to why children are more interested in games than going outside. Destroying demons/zombies/robots/nazis is pretty fucking exciting and ends with you being praised by the video game, and, maybe, your peers. Skinned knees and broken noses hurt like the dickens and end up with you being laughed at by your peers.

They can't laugh at you if you never leave the house

And while no one has really been able to nail a specific set of criteria, there are definitely people out there who view games as some form of digital smack. Games have been indicated to contribute to poor self-esteem, speech impediments, and social dysfunction. And nothing tears a country apart from the inside like creating a future generation (aka children) of babbling, self-loathing sociopaths who have been physically dehabilitated. Essentially, Japan invented electronic cancer. For children.

LP out.