back in the day: December, 2008

+2 to writing skill

Saturday, December 13th, 2008

G’day, Monkey Keys. It’s Saturday, so be default I’m going to be playing a lot of video games today. A good friend of mine has been playing through the original Fallout as of late. This got my little beanie brainy thinking about the various stats that make up your character within the game and how they would work if applied to real life.

Strength
Its purpose in games: Strength is vital to any warriors out there. Hey, when you’ve got a horde of zombies breathing down your neck (literally) you need a little pizzazz. See that eight foot wide, flaming, broadsword? Well you aren’t heaving it off the ground without full strength baby! A side effect is the ability to carry tons of garbage around. Every point in strength gives you another 100 or so pounds of weapons and armor you can duct tape to your body.
Usefulness in games (7/10)

In purpose real life: Strength is vital to any players out there. If you want a horde of women breathing down your neck (literally) you need a little pizzazz. To determine curb appeal to the opposite sex, you must multiply your strength and charisma modifiers and divide by two. If this number is higher than the girl’s jackass detection skill, she will accept your offer for a date. It is a prerequisite for military jobs or being an American Gladiator as well. While it will enable you to carry more, you already have a car to put junk in.
Usefulness in life (4/10)

Intelligence
Its purpose in games: Generally speaking, intelligence determines your overall magic pool. MAGIC! This is throwing fire and lightning all over the place, and teleporting to Chicago and back for a pizza. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you could break Florida off by accident and send it sailing into the Bermuda Triangle. If you get really good at magic, you can make yourself stronger and faster anyway. This makes every other kill pointless.
Usefulness in games (10/10)

Its purpose in real life: Intelligence is helpful in conversations with people who are smart. Nobody wants to look like an idiot. It gives you a +2 saving throw per point to bluff your way into a job interview.
Usefulness in life (2/10)

Agility
Its purpose in games: Agility raises your armor on account of the fact you’re all ninja dodging arrows and bullets. It normally will also increase ranged damage. This is presumably because you can pinpoint a guy’s kidney from 1000 yards. Sometimes it will also increase your speed and movement abilities so you can be a shadow in the night.
Usefulness in games (7/10)

Its purpose in real life: You could be a gymnast I guess…
Usefulness in life (1/10)

Endurance
Its purpose in games: Endurance normally decides your max hitpoints. That’s kind of important. Important, that is, until you find kraken shell, Nessy laced armor that can deflect depleted uranium tank rounds. Then it seems superfluous…
Usefulness in games (2/10)

Its purpose in real life: If you live in Michigan, you need an endurance of 9 just to walk outside right now. Anyone with a lower stat will take 40 damage of hypothermia every round until they are forced to move to Hawaii.
Usefulness in life (7/10)

Charisma
Its purpose in games: Charisma determines how the computer controlled characters react to you in game dialogue. No matter how high your charisma is though, the stupid werewolf running out of the forest will not listen. Good thing you have full intelligence and lit the forest on fire with a meteorite. Oh, and then you used some charm spell on the computer controlled characters to make them like you anyway.
Usefulness in games (1/10)

Its purpose in real life: Charisma is needed for everything. It is half your date modifier. It adds +5 to all “not getting fired” saving throws per point. It determines how many friends you can have in your party. It will help you sell a used car. It grants a smooth talker reflex save when getting pulled over by the police. Yeah, you get it.
Usefulness in life (10/10)

Luck
Its purpose in games: Something or other. It’s never really explained. Thieves generally start out with a lot of it though. I’m guessing that is because thieves don’t use magic and will need all the luck they can get.
Usefulness in games (1/10)

Its purpose in real life: When is the last time things went according to plan?
Usefulness in life (10/10)

Hey, what am I doing wasting time here? I have some games to play. Twelve days until Christmas, Monkey Keys. Nobody dare sing it…

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there will be casserole

Friday, December 12th, 2008

It happened again, Monkey Keys. I’m on my way into work, minding my own business, when suddenly I’m assaulted.

“Oh no, are you ok Dylan?” Debatable, Want’s My Job If I Die Key. It was a verbal assault of the radio wave variety. Today it came in the form of a Campbell’s green bean casserole advert. A piece of truly malevolent engineering to be sure, this ad is one of the most horrendous things I’ve ever heard.

“It can’t be THAT bad, Dylan.” Oh really? Scene opens with audio of what is presumably a very bad mother talking about whatever rubbish food she is planning on making for Christmas.

“Don’t forget the Campbell’s green bean casserole,” chimes in Damien with a shrill mind splinter of a voice. Crappy mom goes on with a fake pause as if she lost her train of thought. Perhaps she really did lose her train of thought since this kid was more annoying than Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll’s level 5. She blithers on about how the “holidays” are going to be great…

“With Campbell’s green bean casserole.” Stupid kid, shut up! I don’t care what your mother has to say, let alone your strange fetish with green beans. If he wants this gross, over salted, add water TV dinner from Campbell’s so freaking bad, he can make it himself, ALONE, on Christmas eve. He can add his own tears of isolation to the mix instead of water to effectively bring the sodium of the meal to fatal levels, and he can eat it to death.

The mother gives another brief pause. One would hope she was smacking the little shrew upside the head, but there was no audible confirmation of such an event. She forges ahead another sentence or two…

“But what about the Campbell’s green bean casserole?” I immediately slammed on my breaks causing a 12 car pileup. I frantically searched my vehicle for something sharp or projectile firing. There was no other way out of the situation; the child had to die. It was him or me at that point. If I heard one more utterance of Campbell’s mistaken soup experiment, I was going to tear out my own eardrums to avoid the pain.

“Alright, with Campbell’s green bean casserole,” worst mother in the world said with a hearty chuckle. A-a chuckle? Why are you laughing you psychotic, overacting, birthosaur? The creature opposite you has just pushed your entire listening audience into a murderous rage!

I kicked the door off my, now accordion style, car, and tore of my shirt like the Incredible Hulk. Screaming into the morning sky, I turned to the motorist getting out of his car behind me.

“But kids don’t even LIKE green beans!” He was screaming as he fell to his knees. His daughter was crying in the backseat,

“Daddy, why does Satan want to run Christmas dinner with casserole?” He couldn’t muster an answer before the lady in the car behind him came out bawling,

“Because Campbell’s hates Christmas!” Tears formed behind my eyes as I clenched my fists tight enough to break the skin of my palms. How could Campbell’s make an advertisement THAT obnoxious? What was the point? Did some marketing executive find the thing humorous? Did 40 yes-men sit in a room and stomach their wails of protest in an effort to get a few extra slaps on the butt at the next executive luncheon? Was a test audience drugged and told their families would be executed if they didn’t give the ad raving reviews? HOW COULD SUCH AN ATROCITY HAPPEN!?

“Dylan, peace… Marketing isn’t necessarily about making the captive audience happier. Its sole intent is to be memorable enough, even on a subconscious level, that you’ll purchase their product as opposed to a competitor’s. One could argue that you are propagating Campbell’s advertising campaign by denouncing the ad publicly. This would follow the old adage “any advertising is good advertising.”

Correct you are, Professor Key. That is why I am calling on all keys to boycott Campbell’s green bean casserole. Don’t even buy any Campbell’s products. Heck, don’t even buy casserole in general. Don’t even stop at avoidance. Go to your local supermarket and stick fake price tags of $50 over every box of the junk. Find competitor alternatives and place the boxes in front of the Campbell’s boxes. We as a nation must let the dark lords that came up with this tripe know that we will not go softly into the night! We are strong! We are vigilant, and as one, we shall persevere!

And if we don’t… we shall die.

Thirteen days until Christmas, Monkey Keys. We can almost legitimately sing the lamest Christmas song of all time. Do your shopping this weekend unless you want to bathe in stress next week.

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at least I went there

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

Happy December, Monkey Keys. Your warlord Dylan Marino here to spread some holiday cheer.

“You mean Christmas cheer, Dylan.” Thank you, Corrections Key. I too hate that holiday bupkis. Call out whatever holiday you’re actually celebrating, and steal the kidney of whoever takes offense. This IS the season of giving after all. Someone with end-stage renal disease will thank you.

We’re coming into then end of 2008, and I can honestly say I’ve tried everything I wanted to this year. Well, no I didn’t go skydiving. If any Keys are interested, please e-mail me and we’ll make it an ’09 initiative. I managed to mess up most of what I tried in an assortment of hilarity. (In hindsight, perhaps it’s best I didn’t attempt skydiving this year…) It was one of those years where I would not have been surprised if Ed Harris revealed my life was a TV show, and we were getting sweet ratings. Which reminds me, Ed, if you’re in charge here I’d better be getting back pay for seasons 1-24.

Despite the “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” effect this year has had though, I feel very satisfied. Nothing is the way I imagined it, but at least I went there. I think with every stupid chance comes a certain level of respect for oneself. You wake up the next day in your bed and realize you battled a T-1000 the night before. Yeah, without Arnold it was a slaughter, but still! When you grabbed that shotty off the table and hit him in the face, you won over the admiration of bloodthirsty six-year-olds nationwide. The patron saint of satire, Mark Twain, once said, “Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?” I’ll let you Keys figure out how that applies since I’m much too lazy. It’s been a crazy year, ok?

I’d like to remind the neigh-sayers of something though; remember Keys, no matter how down you get, it could always be a crap-ton worse. You COULD be the overweight mother of 7 in the Scooby-Doo muu muu being busted on COPS for distribution of heroin to minors. Yeah, go on and thank you lucky stars. Stop thinking about the Mark Twain thing while you’re at it.

So as we go into 2009, keep trying everything you think you shouldn’t. Brains are fairly stupid as a general rule. If you find yourself kicking an idea around for longer than a week, it deserves some respect. It may not come to fruition, but it most certainly won’t if you rest on your laurels.

That was my preachy bit for the night. I would like to reiterate before we leave though that it is currently the 11th of December. If you’re Christian, or a capitalist American, that means Christmas is 14 days away. Don’t expect a post on the 26th, and start getting wicked pumped if for some reason you’re not.

Warlord over and out.

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