press start.

Super Mario turns 25!

Twenty-five years ago, game designer Shigeru Miyamoto created the video game Super Mario Bros., which has since sold millions of copies and spawned numerous spin-offs. Here are some highlights from the history of the computerized plumber:

• 1974—In a bizarre incident that will come to shape his development of Mario years later, Miyamoto accidentally smacks his head against a brick outcropping and some gold coins fall out
• 1981—Kept up all night by a leaky flush toilet mechanism, Miyamoto fantasizes about having a giant ape pelt his shiftless plumber with barrels
• 1986-1993—In the so-called 'Mario mania' years, Sega fails time and time again to score a hit with its goateed Croatian electrician character, Milorad
• 1991—Super Mario World introduces Yoshi, a complicated allegory for the state of Japanese politics
• 1994—Following the box-office failure of the Super Mario Bros. movie the previous year, the script for a Mario Kart–based sequel is hastily rewritten into the film Speed, with Dennis Hopper reprising his role as the villain
• 1994—Hoping to replicate the success of Mario's brother Luigi, a third brother, Dan, joined them briefly before giving up the video game life and going back to his family and financial planning job in Pasadena
• 1999—Mario is licensed to the State of New York for use in its plumbers certification exam-prep software
• 2005—Mario celebrates his 100 billionth death

buy american, even if it doesn't work as well.

et en bonus:

it's dirtilicious.

NEWS IN BRIEF

NHL Hall Of Fame Class Of 2007 Vows To Stay In Touch Following Ceremony
November 15, 2007
TORONTO—Immediately following the ceremony celebrating their induction into the National Hockey League Hall of Fame, class of 2007 inductees Mark Messier, Scott Stevens, Ron Francis, and Al MacInnis spent a bittersweet hour in the Hall parking lot discussing fond memories of their time together, exchanging Instant Messenger screen names and e-mail addresses, and repeating earnest promises to stay in touch with one another. "Aw, you guys…What a crazy, crazy career we've had together. There's no way the people I'll meet in retirement will be as fun as you guys," Scott Stevens said in the silence that followed after he and Messier recalled their old inside joke about goalie Mike Richter living in an igloo. "I only wish we had a couple more games together. Just promise me you guys will never change." When Ron Francis let Mark Messier know that he would probably be in New York sometime in February, so the two of them should definitely get together, Messier replied, "Definitely."


Parrot's Previous Owner Obviously Watched A Lot Of The Price Is Right
April 3, 2002
POPLAR BLUFF, MO— According to Kenneth Childs, the new owner of Crackers, an African gray parrot, the previous owner must have watched a tremendous amount of The Price Is Right. "All day long, Crackers keeps squawking shit like, 'Come on down!' and 'Plinko!'" Childs said. "That poor bird must have been subjected to the Game Show Network 24 hours a day." Childs also swore that he once heard Crackers sing the yodeling music from the mountain-climber game.


RC Cola Celebrates 10th Purchase
January 15, 1997
ALBANY, NY—Employees at Royal Crown Cola are jubilant in the wake of the 10th product sale in the company's 68-year history.

"This is a historic day for RC Cola," Royal Crown CEO Tad Lipscomb said. "Our tenacity and dedication to providing a top-rate cola beverage have finally paid off. The double-digit barrier was a difficult hurdle that we have been approaching for decades, but now the sky is the limit."

The milestone sale took place Monday afternoon, when Ames, IA, resident Stephen Dutchins, 81, purchased a two-liter bottle of the wildly unpopular cola at a local Food Lion grocery store. "They put the Coke and Pepsi on the top shelf, and I couldn't reach them," Dutchins told reporters. "I decided my thirst was significant enough to justify buying an unknown brand."

Added Dutchins: "My wife died several years ago."

"We are proud that Mr. Dutchins chose to switch to crisp, refreshing RC Cola," said Lipscomb. "And we anticipate a long, productive relationship with our newest family member."

For pushing the cola manufacturer over the nine mark, Dutchins was awarded a case of RC, bringing the company's number of consumed servings to 34. Technically, however, the actual number is closer to 14. "The free case would have brought us up to 34 servings, but Mr. Dutchins opted to throw away 20 of the cans when he learned that a new Pepsi machine had recently been installed in his apartment complex's laundry room," RC's Kent O'Shaughnessey said. "But we're still very excited about the four cans he did consume and enjoy before realizing that."

Asked about the phenomenal sales of competing brands of cola such as Coke and Pepsi, O'Shaughnessey said, "I try not to think about the competition. I mean, they're doing their thing—you know, cornering a majority of the soft-drink market while making billions of dollars and enjoying tremendous name recognition throughout the world—and we're doing ours."

Wall Street rallied in the wake of the purchase, driving up Royal Crown stock an eighth of a point to finish with a quarterly high of 1/8 point.

The gain delighted RC Cola workers involved in the company's corporate profit-sharing plan, who stand to rake in as much as 11 cents. "I've been working here at RC for nine years now," said line supervisor Jim Keeghan. "And I've got to tell you, this sale is even sweeter than the other one."

Lipscomb was equally excited by the Iowa purchase. "Adding this sale to one in Buffalo in '93, we are clearly gathering momentum in our drive to shoot ahead of Safeway Budget Cola by the year 2000."

Asked for an accounting of all 10 RC purchases, Lipscomb said, "Well, I don't exactly have them all memorized. How could we possibly produce a precise tally, anyway? The important thing is that we've sold about 10 RC products. Most definitely almost 10. Shooting distance, certainly."

RC Cola, the last of the major players in the famed "cola wars" to break the 10 barrier, is best known to most consumers as the creator of such memorable television advertising jingles as the mid-'70s' "Me and My RC" and the early-'80s' "Cola-Lovin' Woman, Cola-Lovin' Man," in addition to the late-'80s slogan, "People go out of their way for the taste of RC." Surprising to most, however, is the little-known fact that the company also manufactures physical bottles filled with actual cola.

"We like making cola—we're good at it, and we think the nine million bottles that have piled up in our factory over the years shows it," RC Cola marketing director Toby Hallock said. "But once in a while it feels kind of nice to actually sell one."

now with 30% more asia!

bah, ça l'air que je continue ce tour du monde, onion-style.
- australia: as seen on animal planet.
- bangladesh: god's practical joke.
- belgium: a proud tradition of chocolate, and also some other stuff.
- brazil: people at their most beautiful, humanity at its ugliest.
- burkina faso: where the reading rainbow ends.
- chile: preventing argentina from enjoying the pacific ocean since 1818.
- congo: like a zoo you get killed at.
- cuba: workers of the world, survive!
- czech republic: where people go to say they've been.
- denmark: "we're happy because you're not here".
- dominican republic: a great ballpark in a bad neighborhood.
- estonia: united in circular dancing.
- greece: 2500 years past its prime.
- india: please hold while we die of malaria.
- kenya: running 26.2 miles from their problems.
- norway: suppressing the urge to chop you in half with an axe.
- panama: a short cut with its own national anthem.
- scotland: england's noisy upstairs neighbor.
- south korea: #1 at being #2.
- tanzania: please don't feed the humans.
- united kingdom: surging ahead to the 19th century.
- venezuela: "fuck everyone".

give me liberty or give me a large cash settlement.

j'adore ce livre. et j'aime ça citer des affaires pour rien.

petit tour botché de l'amérique du nord.
- new jersey: demanding people shove it up their ass since 1832.
- pennsylvania: amish-ish country.
- vermont: clean air, filthy people.
- new hampshire: a place for pricks to come look at leaves.
- louisiana: america's low-water mark.
- north carolina: may cause cancer.
- tennessee: like hee haw, but a state.
- arkansas: where second cousins are first wives.
- michigan: closed for business.
- texas: everything sucks bigger in texas.
- arizona: home of the grand hole.
- colorado: high.
- nevada: where everyone's a loser.
- minnesota: land of 10,000 retards.
- canada: for united states, see pages 9-22.

dog breeders issue massive recall of '09 pugs.

WASHINGTON, DC—Citing centuries of quality-control issues that have resulted in chronic unreliability, cascading system failures, and even total unit shutdown, the American Pug Breeders Association announced a recall Monday of all pugs produced between February 2009 and the present day.

"We apologize wholeheartedly to any and all owners of the 2009 pug," APBA director Betty McAndrews said at a press conference, standing before a table where 10 defective pugs were displayed. "While pug owners are accustomed to dog malfunction, the latest animals are prone to more problems than just the usual joint failures, overheating, seizures, chronic respiratory defects, and inability to breed without assistance. The latest model pug is simply not in any way a viable dog."

According to the APBA's online recall notice, pugs produced in the specified period are at "moderate to high risk" for convulsive respiratory failure, soft palate suppuration, corneal ulcers leading to sudden deliquescence of the eyeballs, catastrophic lung collapse, ingrown ribs, diabetes, patellar luxation, encephalitis, Lou Gehrig's pug's disease, impacted hips, neck dysplasia, tracheal fissures, morbid obesity, cranial arthritis, and leakage of the anal sacs. In addition, due to strong allergic reactions to almost all medications, 97 percent of pugs are untreatable.

This week, the APBA has begun to send out recall information and cardboard mailing boxes to registered pug owners, who are asked to place their '09 pug inside the box, seal it, and, if they wish, punch air holes in the top and sides. Owners must then put the box inside an airtight heavy-duty plastic bag, affix a postage-paid mailing label, and drop it off at any U.S. post office.

In order to ensure that all '09 pugs are taken out of circulation, the organization is also providing a complimentary on-site disposal service to pug owners who are otherwise unable to participate in the recall.

"We'd prefer to destroy all units here at our headquarters—we already have the chimneys going day and night," McAndrews said. "But the very young and the very old seem rather reluctant to send in their pugs, despite all of their well-documented flaws. To protect our reputation as pug breeders, we're going to spend the next month visiting individual homes and putting these dogs out of everyone's misery."

For Mason City, IA pug owner Lee Kraus, the APBA's announcement comes as a complete vindication after years of contending with defective pugs. In the past five years alone, Kraus has attempted to return three of the dogs to his local breeder, and each time has been denied either a refund or an exchange for a more reliable make, such as a Shih Tzu.

"I'm glad to see the APBA is finally taking responsibility for this disaster," Kraus said. "Governor Fattpants gave me insomnia with his constant snorting, and Boiler ruined my bedroom set when he went into total renal shutdown."

Cindy Anderson of the Sarasota, FL–based Pug Owners Group shares Kraus's frustration with the highly developed breed. "After trying and failing to nurse Princess Kevin through hemorrhagic lupus and Boatsley through a hysterical tubal pregnancy, I don't know if I'll ever own another pug," Anderson said. "It's not worth the hassle."

"Oh, who am I kidding? They're just so cute!" she added. "I love their adorable snorting and their funny little waddle. We're going to call our next one Lopez."

i remixed the remix, and it's back to normal.

LL pas cool J.

"i went to a doctor, and all he did was suck blood from my neck. don't go see doctor acula!"

uh-oh.

'The Office' Ends As Documentary Crew Gets All The Footage It Needs

SCRANTON, PA—After nearly six years on the air, NBC's hit show The Office ended abruptly Thursday when documentary filmmaker Ian Sheffield announced that he and his crew had all the footage of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company's Scranton branch required for their project. "In retrospect, we really over-shot this thing by an enormous margin," said Sheffield, adding that he likely had more than enough good material after filming a British workplace from 2001 to 2003. "We would have finished much earlier if one employee or another didn't insist on being interviewed every three minutes. And I have no idea why we were invited to Jim and Pam's wedding. All of that stuff is totally unusable." Sheffield said that the footage will be drastically cut down and used primarily as B-roll for the planned 90-minute educational film about paper manufacture and production.

manny ramirez to david ortiz: "roadtrip!"

SOMEWHERE ALONG I-65—Best buddies Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, both of whom find themselves at professional crossroads and both desperately wanting to rekindle their friendship, decided on Sunday that a soul-searching road trip was the key to resolving their personal problems.

"I called David and I said, 'David! Hey, David! It's Manny. Road trip, man! Let's do this!' And he said, 'Okay,' and now he is with me in the car here," Ramirez told reporters in a cell phone interview while driving on the interstate. "Papi isn't hitting so good, and I'm not even playing, and we miss each other and love each other, and because we play on different baseball teams now, I play on the Los Angeles Dodgers, and he plays for the Boston Red Sox, I think, and we don't get to spend quality time with each other like we did when we played on the same team, you know?"

"Uh-oh, it says Corvette Museum next right. I got to go, man," Ramirez added. "Hey, Papi, do we have any more Slim Jims?"

According to sources, Ramirez pulled up to Ortiz's Weston, MA home last Sunday, a selection of Tom Petty hits blaring from the stereo of his faded red 1966 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible. After embracing each other, a visibly somber Ortiz told Ramirez, "I don't know what's going on with me, man. I'm not hitting the baseball." Ortiz then threw his battered duffel bag in the car's backseat and asked Ramirez where they were headed.

Ramirez responded, "Just get in."

Several seconds after pulling out of Ortiz's driveway, the car's rear bumper fell off and the overstuffed trunk sprung open, sending a food-laden cooler, several bags, and a shoe box marked "fireworks" out onto the road.

According to eyewitness accounts, the former teammates have been crisscrossing the country with no apparent final destination. They have taken pictures of each another in front of the world's biggest hockey stick in Eveleth, MN; the world's tallest thermometer in Baker, CA; the giant fiberglass muskellunge at the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, WI; and while dressed in Lazer Tag uniforms at the Fun Fest Entertainment Center in Harmarville, PA.

While both Ortiz and Ramirez have spent the majority of their trip laughing and reminiscing about when they were the most feared hitting tandem in baseball, their journey has not been without its serious moments. Ortiz reportedly made Ramirez spit out human growth hormone pills in a Motel 6 bathroom in Columbia, MS, and then forced him to flush the rest of his steroid-filled syringes down the toilet.

Ramirez and Ortiz also got into a shouting match in Abilene, TX, when in an attempt to reinvigorate Ortiz's passion for baseball, Ramirez tried to make his best friend watch a Little League ball game.

"You said there would be no baseball," said Ortiz, refusing to leave the car. "I hate baseball. I can't hit the baseball. You know that. If you care so much about me and baseball, why you leave me? Why you leave me by myself in Boston, Manny? Why you do that? Why you act so bad? Boston's a good place."

"You need to deal with that, man. You need to come to terms," Ramirez said. "I never going back to Boston. But, man, look at these kids. This is baseball, man. Little kids having fun and not injecting themselves with steroids and women pills and just stepping up there and hitting the ball. You gotta face it, man. We gotta face it together."

"Everybody's left me, you know?" Ortiz responded, tears streaming down his face. "You left me, Pedro left me. The only one who doesn't leave is Jason [Varitek], and he don't talk to me. He don't talk to anyone."

Witnesses at the scene said that, as the two sluggers cried in each other's arms, Ramirez and Ortiz's attention focused on the Little League diamond, where a player had just hit a walk-off home run. Ramirez whispered to Ortiz, "That is like you in the playoffs, man, but bigger. Remember that? You just go up there and hit the ball. You don't need to think. You're Big Papi. You go up there and be Big Papi."

Ramirez and Ortiz were subsequently sighted exiting a Terre Haute, IN 7-Eleven store wearing Indianapolis 500 baseball caps and brand new neon-orange sunglasses.

"The bigger one kept asking if he should get the hat, and the other one said he would buy one if [Ortiz] did," 7-Eleven cashier Kip Petrun told reporters. "They must have tried on sunglasses for 30 minutes."

"Before they left the parking lot they argued over whose turn it was to pick the music," Petrun added. "I'm pretty sure they settled on that song 'Life Is A Highway,' because they both started singing it at the top of their lungs. I think they said they were going to Nebraska to pick up their friend Pedro something."

The trip reportedly culminated with Ramirez taking Ortiz to a batting cage in St. George, UT. Though Ortiz missed the first several balls, Ramirez told Ortiz that he knew he could do it, and that even if they were no longer teammates, they would always be best friends. Ortiz then began hitting ball after ball, the last five of which hit the "home run" net.

"I can do it. I can hit the baseball again!" Ortiz yelled as he and Manny pointed at each other. "And you can hit the baseball without taking steroids, Manny. I know you can. Hopefully I can, too."

During a tender moment at the Grand Canyon later that night, tourists said that while seated on the hood of their car, Ortiz placed a blanket around a shivering Ramirez and told him, "You're my best friend, man. You're my best friend."

The car's hood then caved in, sending both players into a fit of hysterical laughter.

ça va d'être super excrème-mement bon.

on s'est pointés au nouvel appart de joe, samedi soir, histoire de défaire une couple de boîtes et prendre une bière (ou cinq, dans mon cas). en y repensant, me semble qu'on a défait zéro boîtes, et qu'on a juste joué au skip-bo avec de la porn en background.

première grosse bouffe dégueulasse à l'appart de joe:

(à l'avenir, se rappeler que la saucisse italienne de chez maserio est vraiment pas mangeable.)

scène de catastrophe: on a appris que de déplacer une bibliothèque ikea lors d'un déménagement peut apparament faire bouger les petites pines qui retiennent les tablettes. et on a eu la chance d'être témoins de toute l'horreur que comporte une scène où les deux tablettes du haut, celles qui contiennent tous les cds de joe, ont chié par en avant, et on a passé l'heure suivante à ramasser ce qui restait de 200+ cds par terre. fragments de boîtes, cds craqués, pines de milieu de boîtes, tout éparpillées partout. ça ressemblait vraiment à un cimetière de cds.

mais le plus tordant c'est que c'est juste les disques classiques à joe qui ont été cassés. bon jovi, fini. rage against the machine, fini. la chicane, comme neuf! pas grave, joe, on compatit.

un dimanche qui devait en principe se passer sous le signe du plein-air a cédé sa place à du pratique. j'ai posé (MOI-MÊME!) nos pneus d'été, et on est allés se ramasser une couple d'oreillers et des draps en spécial au magasin suivant:

(c'tait en spécial!)

---hoochie mama.

Chinese Doctoring Public Perception During Olympics

(dérobé à the onion, ENCORE)
In the opening ceremony for the 2008 Olympics, the Chinese digitally enhanced a fireworks display and replaced a 7-year-old singing girl with a "cuter" lip-syncher. In what other ways have the Chinese been trying to cover up perceived imperfections?

- Entire Wenchuan region, which was devastated by the 8.0-magnitude earthquake in May, has been covered with a 1,600-square-mile canvas bearing the phrase "Go for the gold!"

- Calling canoeing competitions "interesting".

- Beijing's homeless have been freeze-dried and painted to resemble terra-cotta warriors.

-Opening drumming sequence performed entirely by professional drummers who had undergone months of rehearsal.

- Extra soy sauce.

- Cotton balls glued into sickly pandas' bald spots.

- Entire Chinese population CGI-ed.

- Holding massive two-week sporting spectacle to distract from environmental calamities, mass poverty, and human rights abuse.

il me faut 100$ pour avoir 100$.

ben oui, ben oui, c'est du stock volé, mais ostie que j'aime ça the onion.

blazer pour déblaser.

Stackley Cup Playoffs Underway

NEW YORK—The 2008 Stackley Cup Playoffs, a set of odd-number-of-games series that will determine the champion of the National Huckie League, are well underway, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman confirmed Monday.

At press time, the four hackley teams in contention for the Stickleby Cup were the Detroit Red Wings, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Pittsburgh Flyers, and a team from Dallas, TX. The Red Wings, one of the NHL's Original Four Teams, and the Penguins, who feature one of hinky's rising young stars in Sidney Crossberry, are leading their respective series and are expected to advance to the championship round, or Storkaley Cup Finallys.

Hucklebee, which is played on ice by stick-wielding six-man teams who attempt to strike the hokey puck or "ball" into the opposing goal, is naturally a cold-weather sport. For this reason, hooky is believed to have originated in Canada. This will be the first year since 2003 that no Canadian team will make it to the Shaklee Cup Finals, and no Canadian team has won the Cup since 2003.

"This is the best time of year to watch the great sport of [huncky]," Commissioner Bettman said in a statement released by the NHL public relations department. "We still believe that our game is the fastest, toughest, most exciting game in the world, and we look forward to demonstrating that to a national audience as we determine the 2008 NHL Champion."

However, despite a fiercely loyal core fanbase, achieving mass popularity has been difficult for the National Honky League, which currently ranks behind the NFL, NBA, NASCAR, MLB, college football, NCAA basketball, tournament poker, and figure skating in television viewers. The sport, while definitely colorful, is somewhat difficult to watch on television; many say the fast action is actually too hard to follow, as they are unsure where the hanky puck is at any given time. The sheer number of games is also somewhat intimidating; the NHL season is believed to have actually began sometime last year.

The sport was also dealt a rather ugly setback with many viewers during last year's Stanbly Cup playoffs when two players dropped their ice bats and gloves and became involved in a shamefully brutal fistfight.

However, the passion of the teams involved in the Stagolee Cup Playups is impossible to deny or ignore.

"Way back when I was a kid playing on frozen ponds, I dreamed of winning the Cup," Detroit's Brian Rafalski told reporters Tuesday. "It's every player's dream to hoist the Cup above their heads and have their name engraved on the side."

One of the grand traditions of the sport is that each hicky player from the Cup-winning team is allowed to take the trophy with them for a day to show their families, friends, and presumably even coworkers at their actual jobs.

"Winning the Cup would be the ultimate dream come true for me, the reward for a very long, hard struggle," said foreign-born Penguins player Alexander Ovechkin, who, like most hochuli players, has based his life around the sport and has no real-world skills. "But really, just to play this game, to be part of something that brings so many people joy, that has been a great gift as well." Horklee is presumably extremely popular in Ovetchkin's home country.

"Our dream is that, when the Stanley [sic] Cup Finals end in June, everyone in America has seen those games and realized how much fun it is to watch the NHL," Commissioner Bettman said. "These are, without a doubt, some of the world's finest athletes playing in some of the world's most competitive games. I know I'm prejudiced, but I honestly think that anyone who watches will agree that hockey [sic] is the greatest sport in the world."