Other People's Misfortune

Imagine this whole post is written in Andy Rooney's whiney voice... I've never cared for pop music. Whether it's Color Me Badd, Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, 'N Sync, Lady GaGa or the Bieber, it's all horrible ear-splitting dreck. And it's gotten even worse, as the one bit of talent that used to be required (a decent singing voice) is now rendered moot as producers can manipulate anything to sound... well... not good, but at least harmonious or wretchedly autotuned.

Which brings me to the subject of one of today's links: Ke$ha. Her first single is the misspelled version of the sound your clock makes and her second single is called Blah, Blah, Blah. Fitting for someone with a $ in their name. She's also the number #1 artist in something like 10 countries, but I guess bad taste is universal. Thankfully, the good people at CollegeHumor did a little community service and made a video that essentially rakes her over the coals. So check out the links below, and enjoy.

• FilmDrunk doubles down on Paul Rudd, with details on the script he wrote that Judd Apatow is producing, and the awesome Tim & Eric video that goes inside Paul Rudd's computer.

• CollegeHumor takes pop star Ke$ha behind the woodshed. It brought a smile to my face.

• What do Spider-man, The Matrix, Star Wars and Indiana Jones have in common? They made UnrealityMag's list of the 10 most disappointing movies of the last decade.

• Check out a gallery of bizarre hats over at Supertremendous. I don't think any belong to Lady GaGa.

• Holy Taco has 25 ridiculous senior portraits, and they're all worth a look.

• Adult Swim is offering a chance to create your own custom DVD for free, so load up on The Venture Bros. and Robot Chicken, then thank us later!

The Beatles may be the most celebrated music group in human history, but that doesn't mean they're the right choice for a video game. According to MTV Games' Scott Guthrie, Green Day is better suited to gaming than The Beatles.

“We were pleased with the performance of Beatles: Rock Band but we were expecting higher sales,” he said. "Our core audience of 16 to 34-year-old males are much more familiar with Green Day music than The Beatles."

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A Pennsylvania gamer was convicted in juvenile court a few weeks ago* for orchestrating a denial-of-service attack on the PlayStation Network back in November 2008. The Latrobe, PA youth was apparently angry over being repeated banned from SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals for cheating. Rather than simply registering his displeasure on the internet, the unnamed youth decided to take down the entire PlayStation Network with the help of a Botnet. And it worked.

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At his commencement speech over the weekend at Hampton University, President Obama took some time out from inspiring a generation to lay the presidential slam down on video games, iPads and other "distractions."

"With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama said. "All of this is not only putting new pressures on you. It is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy," he added.

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Before Whoopi Goldberg became part of the chorus of shrill harpies on The View, she had a fairly successful career as a comedian and actress. She hosted Comic Relief with Billy Crystal and Robin Williams and starred in a bunch of movies, including Sister Act, The Color Purple and Ghost.

But along the way there was one movie that was so bad she tried to get out her contract, until the production company sued her for $20 Million. Eventually Whoopi settled, the movie got made, and we get to enjoy the poop sandwich known as Theodore Rex. So if you want to remember how awful this movie was, see evidence that rock stars were once nerdier than you are, and more... check out this week's links.

• Holy Taco has 25 awesome custom motorcycle helmets that will hopefully still save your life when you eat pavement.

• FilmDrunk has discovered another forgotten classic: Theodore Rex, starring Whoopie Goldberg and a her dinosaur cop partner.

• CollegeHumor sees what it would be like if James Bond was actually stuck in the GoldenEye video game.

• Supertremendous has a great gallery of rock star highschool yearbook photos. My favorites are probably Lil' John and Kirk Hammet.

• Some people are going to great lengths to make realistic zombie costumes. Check them out on Unrealitymag.

Financially, Capcom had a rotten year last year. The company described its financial results as "sluggish" in its annual financial report, and said sales were down 27.3 per cent to around $734m and profit decreased by a 73.1 per cent to around $23.8m in the financial year ending March 31.

The company cited "weak sales of some new titles," as a contributing factor for the drop in profits. They didn't name which titles were so weak, but I'm thinking Dark Void couldn't have added much to the bottom line.

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I've always hated Superman. Not necessarily Clark Kent's personality or any of that, but rather the pointlessness of having a superhero that can do anything. Having your only weakness be some rare mythical element is flatly boring. Even if Lex Luthor had a stockpile of Kryptonite and was going to prevent Superman from stopping his evil plans, Superman could still fly backwards around the world 9 million times (or whatever), travel back in time to when Lex was a just a punk kid and toss him into space.

On the other hand, Batman is inherently interesting because he's just a rich guy with some fancy gadgets and a proclivity for lurking in the shadows. In other words he's human. However, every once in a while, the two DC Universe heroes cross paths. If you check out today's links, you'll see what that's like when that happens at the DMV.

• Only Twilight could make a fight between vampires and werewolves seem lame. Watch the new trailer for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse on FilmDrunk…

• What happens when Batman and Superman are in line at the DMV? Find out in the first episode of Frienemies on Ego TV.

• CollegeHumor finds out if nazi zombies are any worse than regular zombies.

• Manofest will show you Halo Kitty and 24 other funny fake video game covers.

• If you haven't noticed by now, I'm just like the internet 3 years ago... Obsessed with stupid cat pictures. Holy Taco has 25 cats wrestling with invisible objects.

• UGO has 13 ways sex can be effectively used in video games.

• UnrealityMag has compiled a list of some of the craziest Just Cause 2 stunts they've seen.

We're sure you're aware of Play-Games-With-A-Girl service GameCrush, but if you're sick of playing shooters with hot girls, and you'd rather pay money to play video games with an extended cable game-show host, we've got you covered. Just check out this video for SessCrush:

Hey, the desperate, creepy guy in the video looks like G4 features editor Andrew Pfister. Must be a coincidence or something.

Somewhere in my gaming life, I skipped a few years of Mario games. Along the way, Wario and WaLuigi were introduced, and when I returned, Wario was oafing around in my Super Smash Bros. I didn't like using him in the game, so I didn't pay him much attention. However, he's firmly on CollegeHumor's radar, and the character is ripe for parody. So check out the weekly links and meet WaDan, look at some wannabe superheroes and attend an animal wedding or two.

• In Lance Henrikson's illustrious film career, he has fought Aliens, Pirahnas, Sasquatch and much more. However, he didn't meet his match until he encountered this angry cat (thanks FilmDrunk).

• Ever wondered it would be like to have an evil doppleganger from another dimension, ala Wario & WaLuigi? Meet WaDan on CollegeHumor.

• Find a gallery of 15 bizarre animal weddings on SuperTremendous.

• Our friends at EgoTV have identified the 9 types of players you'll encounter on Xbox live. You'll hate 8 of them.

• Real life superheroes really do exist. Holy Taco has pics of 25 of them to prove it.

• I've worked in a TV booth before. There's people producing the show, loading tapes, picking camera angles and writing and posting captions. Uncoached has some funny examples of when the caption guys screw up.

Judging from the flood of negative comments our blog receives whenever we mention environmental awareness in a positive light, our readers aren’t particularly interested in the plight of Mother Earth.

In the popular imagination of the internet, the image of environmentalism seems forever entwined with annoying self-righteousness, hippy nonsense, PETA-loving, tree-hugging, soft-headed simpering, and general popular culture annoyance. "Green" just isn’t resonating with the “kids today,” especially gamers. Our favorite hobby isn’t exactly sustainable. It uses a ton of electricity, and the “big three” console-makers aren’t known as champions of environmentalism anyway. Who wants to feel bad about doing what they love?

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TheFeed is expecting a huge influx of readers from China today (fingers-crossed!) because the government there has suspended online gaming. This is not a Draconian morals crackdown from the sorta-Communists in power there, though. The Government is suspending all entertainment related activities for today in order that the people of the nation can mourn victims of the April 14 Yushu Earthquake which reportedly killed over 2,000 people and injured more than 12,000.

The Ministry of Culture will fly flags at half-staff across China, and expects the closure of  game rooms, cinemas, theaters, dance halls and recreation venues. All all online music, online games, online animation, and online video will be suspended by Chinese ISPs as well.

Put yourself in the place of a Chinese gamer for a moment. Imagine the government shuts everything fun down for a day. Would you be more likely to mourn the death of your countrymen or would you be angry/irritated that you'd have to spend 24 hours doing something other than gaming?

Source: Game Politics

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A New Zealand marketing company was reportedly sub-contracted to create some buzz around PC and 360 game Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction* but apparently did their job a little too well. An actor showed up at an Auckland nightspot this weekend brandishing a gun, and patrons dove for cover. Someone shouted "he's got a gun," and drinkers hid behind their tables. Police were called, and issued a warning to the promotional worker once they had determined that the gun was plastic. Thus, what might have been a small-scale story New Zealand turned into international news.

This was not the intention of the marketing company, however...or so they say. Game promoters Monaco Corporation were indirectly responsible for the fake attack. They say they hired another marketing company to organize the promotion and had no idea that a prop gun would be used.

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Who doesn't like a pictures of fat cats? Anyone? No? Good, because we're serving up a gallery of portly felines, the inner monologue of someone eating the KFC Double Down sandwich, and some crazy foosball tables. If I had actual photoshop skills, I would have combined all three above, but alas, you're just going to have to live with clicking on these epic links.

• Supertremendous has a gallery of 25 plus-sized kittens.

• HolyTaco has the inner monologue of someone as they try to eat KFC's new Double Down sandwich.

• I loved playing foosball in college. However, these 10 crazy foosball tables on Uncoached proved that for some people it was an obsession.

• Family Guy creator Seth Macfarlane is set to direct an R-Rated movie about a perverted teddy bear. FilmDrunk has more info, plus a video of Seth address Harvard graduates as Peter Griffen.

• CollegeHumor takes a gritty look at real life achievements. Even though X-Play did it first, we'll forgive them.
   

Last week, a 14 year-old in the Russian coastal town of Tuapse bludgeoned his father to death with a sledgehammer because the dad wouldn't let the boy play video games.

His father had taken the boys keyboard away as punishment, and then apparently went to sleep. While he slept, the boy smashed his skull with the hammer, killing him instantly. The unnamed boy's mother, probably fearing for her life, gave him back the keyboard, and here is the detail I find most chilling in this whole sordid story: The kid then played video games for several hours, with his father lying dead in the house.

Eventually, he went to sleep, and his mother called police, who arrested the boy at once. He'll be charged with murder, and I sincerely hope he'll spend a long time in prison, not playing any video games at all... well, actually, he's only 14, so I hope he'll be rehabilitated, learn the errors of his ways, attempt to make amends and devote himself to helping the needy.

Source: news.com.au

From the "I Can't Believe I'm Writing About This, Where's Steve?" Department comes this story out of the United Kingdom, where 24-year old Amanda Flowers has apparently sustained a most curious -- some might say dubious -- "injury" after taking a fall from her Wii Balance Board. It would seem that Ms. Flowers tweaked something internally, you know...down there, that has triggered what doctors are describing as "persistent sexual arousal syndrome."

While it could be argued that this disorder is in the same family of tragedies as "Who keeps filling my car up with free gas?" and "Enough with the first-class upgrades, already", we at TheFeed wish Ms. Flowers a speedy recovery. If that's something she actually wants.

Calls to Nintendo of America's 1-900 singles partyline were unreturned as of press time.

Source: Huffington Post