Come on down

Has anyone else noticed that the font used in the much-maligned Grand Theft Auto series is the same as the one used for The Price Is Right?

Looks uncomfortable

I'm all for unusual controllers. This, though, seems a bit much. Not that I can't think of at least one person for whom this would be a great gift.

Until they're squeaky clean

So, I've been trying to get the projector-and-laptop guy at work to set up an Xbox night in the auditorium. He keeps telling me to put in an AV request. What am I, some kind of chump? I need to put in a request to use company property for personal entertainment? I go right to the source and I get sent back to the Red-tape Highway? So, I guess I've been put in my place. Once I do finally convince him to take some initiative and make it happen, I'll be sure to remind him who's boss as I repeatedly mop the floors of alien ships with his carcass.

Never happen

Another excellent wedding this weekend.

At the aforementioned wedding, I asked a friend and his girlfriend how their recently purchased Playstation 2 has been working out. I was perfunctorily told that they have been playing Tiger Woods, and then heard a sentence I had never thought I would:

Ashley: "Chris made me a player."

Someone had finally done it. Someone had broken down decades of resistance and convinced his girl to play videogames.

Alex: "Really? That's great! I can't believe it!"
Ashley: "I've got a skort."

Hmm... so, she plays videogames in a skort? (I'm inferring from the horizontal slashing motion she made mid-thigh and the spork-like term that this word is meant to describe an article of clothing that's somehow both a skirt and pair of shorts. Feel free to write in if I'm wrong). Do gamer girls wear skorts? Did these two go to Hot Topic and say "give me everything that geek chicks wear"? Had they taken it that far? In mind appeared a vision of Ashley in a plaid skirt (I still can't figure out what a skort would look like. Something like one hand clapping, I think), black boots, and an anime T-shirt sitting in Chris's living-room mashing buttons.

Alex: "Did he buy you a pink tanktop that says "gamer" or something?
Ashley (befuddled look): "In the game. In Tiger Woods. My player wears a skort."
Alex: "Uh... heh-heh. Who needs a drink?"

Over 9000

Just how much is a proud man willing to debase himself in order to win an Xbox 360 from Mountain Dew?

• Start occasionally buying Pepsi at work, even though it sucks? Yes.
• Plan on replacing the normal household purchase of Coke with Pepsi from 10/2/05 through 10/22/05 (or while supplies last), in order to receive the specially marked sticker worth three codes? Yes.
• Convince coworkers to give him their bottlecaps? Yes.
• Ask the Housekeeping folks to glean the caps from the discarded Pepsi products of the workplace? No.
• Take a bottlecap off of an empty bottle left on top of a trash can in the cafeteria? Yes.
• Take a bottlecap off of the ground on Elmwood? No.
• Spot an empty bottle, insist that the car be stopped, jump out and grab the cap? No.

I'm not proud of it, but I'm not hiding anything either.

8 @ 57@r7

A coworker of mine got a new phone extension --1337. As we all know, this totally pwns.

For those of you not disgustingly geek-assed enough to know what I'm talking about, this is leetspeak (or "13375p34k"), the odd twisting of the English language used by online gamers. I recommend the wikipedia entry on the topic for a good summary of the major points. Anytime you see numbers used instead of letters in the middle of a word, the suffix "-xors" added to a word for no reason, and other such nonsense, back slowly away until you can feel functioning society around you again.

From a linguistic standpoint, leetspeak fascinates me, particularly its prevalence and standardization. How can so many people use the same made-up rules in the same way? I understand why a secretive "language" or code system would be used by girl-phobic basement-dwellers as they bop around pretending to be elves. It's a step above jargon, intentionally meant to conceal and confuse, that only the insiders can interpret or often even recognize. This is geek perfection.

That being said, do not ever use leet in conversation with me. I will smack you, y0u 0v3rc4ff3'n473d w4ck0.

Flippy

Not entirely sure why you would buy Zoo Keeper for the NDS, when you can play it for free all over the net, and have been able to for years. And anyway, I thought the DS was only for Nintendogs.