Now that I have a few posts up, it’s a good time to ask you to visit my video game comedy blog Gamebane. Basically, it’s me talking about video games. So, yes, the same low-standards apply.

I didn’t want to clutter up this site with a bunch of video game talk. just like I don’t want to clutter up gamebane.com’s video game humor angle with a bunch of commentary on commercials that feature too much elephant sex.

So visit, comment, tell me what you think.

Thanks for the support.

I decided to start doing that thing other websites do where they link to stuff they’ve been reading. I’m still working on the title. I originally had “Other Stuff Sunday,” but that seemed wrong for some reason.

Top 10 Gaming Commercials

Over at Koku Gamer, Aaron R. complied a list of his favorite video game commercials.

It’s called a skill because you have to work at it.

The Bloggess was sent an ad from a sailing school with some interesting copy.

Spot the Hoo-Hoo: Vagina Imagery In Advertising

J. Barker is finding vaginas everywhere.

If Product Placement Invaded Everyday Life

The Crack.com community did some nice photoshop work this week.

Evony and Irony

Chris Livingston played some of that Evony game with hilarious results. If you’re not sure which game I’m talking about, it’s the one falsely advertised all over the Internet with boobs.

5 Ways Cougars Can Use Twitter To Find Prey.

After watching “Cougar Town,” Tremendous News has some excellent Twitter tips for older women seeking mates. I orginally thought that “Cougar Town” was a low-budget horror movie. After I heard that Courtney Cox was involved, I still had some hope. Oh well.

A couple weeks ago, I saw a story on Adfreak about how Activision was including a playable avatar of Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero 5. I was a little confused by the announcement because it didn’t have anything to do with Courtney Love, and everyone knows that if you mention Kurt Cobain, “Courtney Love” must follow his name somewhere in the paragraph.

I didn’t understand Courtney Love’s silence on the issue, but I figured she had shut herself in a closet somewhere so she could practice making faces in the mirror. I knew that, sooner or later, we’d all get the treat of hearing her take on the situation.

And boy did we luck out. I expected some kind of self-congratulatory comment from Love about getting Cobain in the game for his fans or whatever. But Courtney decided that Christmas should come early this year and then went crazy.

The Tweets

Where did Courtney Love choose to announce that she was suing Acitivision over the use of Kurt Cobain’s likeness in Guitar Hero 5?  No, all the bathroom stalls at the Hard Rock cafe must have been full. Instead, Love decided to post two barely coherent posts on Twitter at around five in the morning on September 10th.

I read through some of Courtney Love’s past tweets before writing this post so I could get a feeling for her writing style and the content that she usually tweets about. Before I post her two “suing Activision” tweets, I feel it’s important to tell you that Courtney Love uses Twitter like it’s a free-writing exercise prescribed by her psychiatrist. Almost all of her tweets are continuations of previous tweets, which makes me think that Courtney Love sees Twitter’s character limit as some kind of unfortunate bug that will only get fixed if she constantly makes it occur. Because of this, and because she’s Courtney Love, it’s almost impossible to figure out what she’s talking about.

Ok, here we go.

Tweet #1 — “we have NOTHING to do with this it was presented to me and oi said “show me a better avataR” TO DRAG MY HEELS., never did i intend on allowi”

Followed immediately by Tweet #2 — “allowing GUITARHERO for me or for Kurt i am NOT yoko fucking Ono no ofense to her, but i am a different person entirely and this is insane”

I like how in the first tweet she basically admits to fucking around with Activision by making them produce a better avatar of Kurt Cobain even though she never intended to allow Cobain’s appearance in the game. That’s nice, Courtney. I’m glad you tried to waste the time of the designer who spent countless hours trying to get your dead husband’s stupid fucking hair to drape correctly.

What does she mean by “allowing guitarhero for me or for kurt?” Maybe she’s mad because she tried to get Activision to include an avatar of Courtney Love in the game, but Activision refused because it’s impossible for programmers to accurately code how Love’s drug-riddled body would dance to a song by Peter Frampton or Wolfmother.

My favorite part of these tweets is Courtney Love’s random attack on Yoko “Fucking” Ono. We have to remember that Twitter only allows 140 characters per post, so Love must have really wanted to get that Yoko Ono jab in. And when’s the last time you heard someone replace a person’s middle name with profanity and then follow that with “no ofense to her?” Courtney Love just turned Yoko Ono’s name into something you scream when the car breaks or when you drop a bunch of dishes. In fact, I’m going to replace “UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLE” with “YOKO-FUCKING-ONO.”

“Bryan, I’ve been cheating on you.”

“YOKO-FUCKING-ONO”

Activision’s reponse to all of this is that Courtney Love signed off on the project and was even  involved in the development process. It’s possible that Courtney Love forgot about the whole thing after her copy of the contract was left on the coffee table under all the money Activision gave her. And I think it’s important to know if the contract was made out of cigarette paper. If so, there’s no chance Courtney Love still has her copy.

Cobain In Game

Here’s an example of Kurt Cobain’s avatar in Guitar Hero 5.

Now, some people are saying that it’s stupid and disrespectful to be able to use the Kurt Cobain avatar for other songs. But I’d like to remind these people that this is a video game, a video game you play with plastic guitars.

And what’s wrong with these songs by other artists? Why is a cartoon-image of Kurt Cobain too good to sing a cover song? When I look at that video, I see a happy Kurt Cobain goofing around on stage. This is a welcome change from the sold-out mope-fests that Cobain performed when he was alive. And, guess what, at those mope-fests he performed cover songs. In the video, Cobain’s reanimated cartoon-self decided to replace Dave Grohl on drums with some kind of demon skeleton. I think this answers the question of whether or not Kurt Cobain went to hell.

Conclusion

I found the original story of a Kurt Cobain avatar in Guitar Hero 5 interesting because it seemed like a great way to market a band that’s been broken up since 1994. This Courtney Love tantrum seems like an even better way. I haven’t heard people talk this much about Nirvana since Cobain killed himself. And since it’s impossible for Cobain to kill himself every couple years, Nirvana needs other types of marketing.

I hope this whole Courtney Love thing doesn’t ruin the chances for a Nirvana branded music game much like “The Beatles: Rockband.” For that game’s plot, I suggest that Cobain rises from the earth much like that mummy in “The Mummy” movie and the only way he can reclaim his bodily fluids and tissue is to rock the fuck out at a series of Nirvana comeback concerts. I’m still working on the title but “Guitar Hero: Nirvana: Rockin’ From My Grungy Grave” has a nice ring to it.

cartoon via Penny-Arcade

I just moved to Philadelphia a week or so ago, and I’ve developed this bad habit of scouring the local news looking for terrible stories about drugs, sex, and violence. I’m not really paranoid or anything; I’d just like to better relate to some of my neighbors. For example, what kind of person takes a dump in the middle of a sidewalk on a Snickers wrapper? Did the person think that shitting on a Snickers wrapper was somehow better than shitting on the bare sidewalk? Personally, I would have used the Snickers wrapper to wipe. But I’m new here, so who am I to judge? Maybe the person was really angry at the Mars corporation. “THIS CHOCOLATE BAR DID NOTHING FOR MY HUNGER. MY ONLY RECOURSE IS TO FILL ITS SKIN WITH MY LEAVINGS.”

Today’s news search netted an interesting story about a man who was just sentenced to life in prison for advertising, transporting, receiving, and possessing child pornography. Everything about the story seems normal (they caught the guy for dealing in child porn and put him away) except for the “advertising” part of his conviction.  How do you advertise child pornography?

And, more importantly, how was this guy not caught sooner if he was actively advertising pornography? The cops should have grabbed him the first time someone turned in a flier with a picture of a baby trying to figure out how to put batteries into a vibrator.

The delayed arrest must have been because this guy was smoother than that. Maybe he only dealt in extremely subtle guerrilla advertising.

“Look, Honey. Someone put this Kmart ad in our door. Hmm, they’re having a ‘Back to Preschool Sale’ where you can put ‘fresh’ swingsets on layaway.”

“Stu? Is that ‘R-o-m-a-n  P-o-l-a-n-s-k-i’ spelled out with baby rattles in the Arby’s parking lot? Is that someone’s email address?”

This story does make me question the definition of “advertising.” This guy obviously wasn’t advertising child porn in a way that we traditionally call advertising, but I’m guessing that him possessing it and sharing it with a group of people was enough for the prosecutors to add an advertising charge. The story doesn’t go into any detail about the advertising, so we’re left to wonder.

But in all seriousness, I’m glad they caught this guy. For all I know, he could be the one who shit on that Snickers wrapper. Unfortunately, the wrapper was too covered in feces for me to see the expiration date and determine the bar’s age.

Headlines can be just as important as headline placement. I don’t know how BBC News expects an unbiased answer to their “do you feel safer traveling by air?” survey when the headline is listed right over “More Plane Terror Plots ‘likely’.” in their RSS feed.

Tomorrow on BBC News - "Record Numbers Petrified of Planes."

To be fair, likely is in quotation marks, so it might not even mean likely. Or maybe that’s just a way to show flames with typography. ‘Likely’ is on fire, just like the plane you’re going down in after filling in a survey about how you feel safer flying by air.

It’d be better if “Do you feel safer traveling by air?” was listed under “Chris Brown to Play Jackson gig.” The worst situation that combination conjures is Chris Brown punching you in the face on the plane ride to the Jackson tribute concert.