GatorAIDS

“NO!!!” You exclaim.

“NO, GOD, PLEASE NO! HAVE MERCY!! I HAVE A WIFE AND KIDS!!!” You continue, lying about the last part.

Your cries fall on deaf ears. You will not see mercy tonight. Your favorite television show ends and after the credits scroll you witness the face of Satan in it’s purest form:

FUCK IT'S SOPA, no PIPA, no wait ACTA!!!

You cannot escape. The synth chords reverberate against every fold of your brain, the blank screen stares directly into your very soul, and then “it” comes. The V. It approaches, slowly, but gradually picking up its pace. A strange smell fills the room; you have soiled yourself once again, just like all the other times. Will tonight be the night the V breaks free of the constraints of your television and drags you down to hell with it? A hell full of hollow DMCA violation notices and shitty reality TV shows? No. The V disappears. Tonight is not your night. But tomorrow might be.

If the above excerpt caused you to run in fear while the crotch of your pants adopted a suspiciously darker color then this isn’t the article for you and you should turn back now lest you avoid adding some #2 to go with that #1. However, if you find it hilarious and absurd that it’s possible for someone to be afraid of a television logo then look no further, you’ve come to the right place. “Telelogophobia”, as it’s called, is a fear of TV production logos. Yes, this exists, and more than likely “telelogophilia” does as well.

The website CLG Wiki is a place where “logo enthusiasts” can gather and talk about the finer points of everything you and I fast forwarded through on VHS tapes in the 80′s and 90′s. While strange, it’s to be expected I guess. The real kicker, however, is they frequently use their forum to talk about logos they seem to be genuinely afraid of. The result? A meticulous (and hilarious) break down, usually second-by-second, of every terrifying logo along with horrendously stupid nicknames for all of them (that they actually use in idle conversation) plus a “Scariness” rating.

I’m still being 100% serious here. Here’s a beginner’s guide to terrifying TV logos.

Read more…

As we prepare to enter the eighth generation of gaming consoles with a waning economy and a previous generation built almost entirely around motion controls and shitty gimmicks it’s arguable, depending on how you see a half-glass of water, that the video game market is doomed to crash again. In 1983 the market for video games became inundated with loads of worthless crap and consumers literally gave up on caring. After letdown after letdown from Atari due to the likes of E.T. and their Pac-Man port alongside the dubious quality and massive quantities of competitor consoles  and shady third-party software consumers just said “to hell with it” and Atari ended up burying their trash in a New Mexico landfill.

Not pictured: Kinect, PS Move, 95% of the games for the Wii.

Having to cower away and bury your trash in the ground is about as ultimately defeated as you can get. Nobody even does that anymore these days, but they should (on principle, we can be less environmentally destructive than that today). What’s so different about Americans from the 80′s compared to today that prevents them from saying “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore“? Why is it that something as deceptively simple as a small handful of trashy games from a leading video game company can cause a market crash in the eighties yet in today’s world Nintendo has free rein to greenlight more trashy shovelware than we have trucks to carry it all to an unsuspecting landfill? WHY?

The Wii may be the gold standard in ninth-rate garbage “video games” but their portfolio of shame is nothing compared to these five current business practices that are destroying the market and in some abstract form have got to be some kind of illegal.

Read more…

Earlier this week I checked my mail to see if the disc for the newest season of [Hip Show for Hip People] had arrived from Netflix. Spoiler alert, it did not, but I still had mail nonetheless in the form of a suspiciously thick padded envelope. At first I thought some dang dirty trolls decided to send me Pampers samples again but when I looked at the mailer and saw it branded with American Indian imagery my thoughts immediately shifted from “regular diapers” to “tee-pees for your pee-pees”. As it turns out someone managed to get a hold of my personal information and sold it to someone else and I was now receiving IRL spam because of it… so I had to find the nearest calendar to make sure I didn’t get sent back in time to the nineties and be forced to find a way back.

The last time that happened I… well, let’s just say there’s a reason why MC Hammer suspiciously spent all of his money.

It says "Robert Maestro" under the red shit, okay?

Wait a second does that say “3 FREE GIFTS” with a “4″ written next to it as if the “3″ were a completely unintentional mistake at the St. Joseph’s Indian Free Gifts Factory? Holy shit. It does.

WELL SHIT THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING.

I tore this bad boy open and they must have really screwed the pooch at the Wannamakeanike tribe homeland because I got not 3, not 4, but 8 goddamn prizes (of varying quality) and I love prizes.

Read more…

Every once in a while an actor emerges onto the scene whose performances and roles capture our hearts and bind to the very essence of our souls. GatorAIDS columnist and founder Dracophile, for example, really has a hard-on for Bruce Willis (which I assume was replaced with Sean Connery after his role in Dragonheart) and Payton, our forum administrator, more than likely swears his life to the mannerisms of shit like Cheech & Chong and Pineapple Express. I don’t know who our other staff members have boners for; I want to say Shoe of All Cosmos has the hots for Jaleel White but I’m not 100% on that. Point is, everybody has a favorite actor whether you’re a soccer mom who loves the wholesome vagina-drying antics of Tom Hanks or some trendy hipster who’s favorite actor is so underground he’s Chinese, and I’m no different. My favorite actor is none other than the legendary Edmund K. Lo.

Addendum: He's not Chinese, I am not a hipster.

Never heard of Edmund K. Lo before? That’s because he’s had a grand total of zero legitimate acting roles, but don’t say that to him because he’ll have you believe he starred in everything from Kids Incorporated to Titanic. Yeah, that fucking James Cameron movie. Lo is not my favorite actor because of his Oscar-deserving (and invisible) role in High School Musical 2; Lo is my favorite actor because of his ongoing role in the pseudo-documentary Edmund K. Lo: I Am a Real Actor You Guys, Seriously.

Read more…

When “Pocket Monsters” was created by Japanese game designer Satoshi Tajiri in 1996 it was nothing more than a way for the designer to relive his childhood pastime of insect collecting and share it with the residents of his homeland. For all the options available in the original games it was still quite a linear adventure, and a simplistic one at that. Neophyte game developer Game Freak (directed by Tajiri) set out to produce the original two installments Red and Green, which became such a hit that Blue was also released. Never before had Game Freak produced a game so intricate and detailed, and mistakes were made to say the least. Programming oversights, data omissions, and lack of a proper error handling system eventually led to trainers getting lost in places that looked like this:

WHERE WE'RE GOING WE DON'T NEED EYES TO SEE.

Due to a lack of attention to finite details in their programming work, which is forgivable considering the sheer magnitude of their creation and this being their first time taking on such a venture, both the Japanese and North American releases of the original Pokemon games were riddled with glitches ranging from mildly amusing to downright terrifying. Here’s seven demons Game Freak unintentionally brought upon the world with their magnum opus.

Read more…

WARNING: This article contains pornographic images. The images have been censored but the content of this article may still be considered NSFW if you are reading this in a public or open environment. You have been warned.

If you’ve wasted any amount of time reading troll blogs or snark sites like Encyclopedia Dramatica you’ve probably come across the metaphor “[x] is about as retarded/insane as Chris-chan”. If you’ve wasted enough time then you know exactly who Chris-chan is. For those of you who don’t, I’ll introduce you to him. I apologize in advance.

Finding "the best" picture of Chris for the article opener was hard to do. Also yes, that's a diaper.

“Christian” Christopher “Ricardo” Weston Chandler (yes that is his full name), abbreviated by the subject as “CWC” and colloquially known as “Chris-chan” by trolls, is an unwitting Internet personality born on February 24th, 1982. He lives in Ruckersville, Virginia with his mother in a house that looks like something straight out of an episode of Hoarders 2: Hoard Harder (and according to trolls the Chandlers have been approached by A&E not once but twice to try and tape an episode of their show there) and is an autisic and self-absorbed, delusional manchild who mooches over $800 per month off of the government in disability benefits because he refuses to make any effort whatsoever to become a functioning member of society. Because he lives with his mother in a house that’s been paid off his monthly disability check is pure income… which goes straight to video games, McDonald’s, and blow-up anime sex dolls.

His “claim to fame” was an independent comic book called Sonichu, a story that originally focused on his dubiously original character of obvious shipping origin. Chris fancies himself a classy and talented artist and storyteller, which couldn’t be further from the point; his artwork looks like something a five year old would make and his storytelling ability hovers somewhere around “nonexistent”. Due to his obviously apparent mental inhibitions he’s what amounts to a kid trapped inside the body of a man, which sounds like the next shitty Adam Sandler film until you realize this is real life and not a second-rate movie starring an SNL alum far past his prime. Chris-chan has adult thoughts and desires and he’s expressed them through his artwork on a number of occasions. This article explores the six most fucked up things ushered forth into the world by his hand.

Read more…

Last week we covered 11 craftable items Mojang should incorporate into Minecraft. Since then, Mojang has proceeded to stuff their sandbox game with a bunch of pointless shit and Markus “Notch” Persson has adopted a bizarre affinity for watching animals have sex with each other. I guess we’ll call it even. In between us doing the initial work for the first article and completing the content for today’s article the indie game developer has produced an official 1.8 release as well as a 1.9 pre-release rife with things like snowmen wearing pumpkins on their heads. It’s safe to assume these people have collectively lost their shit and that their next grand idea is going to be a tower that spits out infinite cookies.

Too late.

Regardless, here’s part two of our epic “wouldn’t it be cool if…” Minecraft series with 11 more awesome crafting recipes Mojang should use in their game!

Read more…

Some of you reading this might be subscribed to Netflix, if that’s the case then if I quote the phrase “I messed up, I owe you an explanation” you’ll know exactly what I am talking about. The DVD rental and media streaming behemoth has lately been under heavy scrutiny due to raising its prices and changing its available rental/streaming plan structure. What was once “all the DVD’s and streaming you could ever want for ten bucks” now costs — holy shit — sixteen fucking dollars. Stop the presses, this is highway robbery and Netflix is a leather-clad biker wielding a tack hammer strung onto a chain (who is also raping your girlfriend). Netflix’s decision to alter their prices has led to a shitstorm of problems culminating in the company completely severing their trademark “DVD’s in the mail” business practice and stuffing it into their new company “Qwikster”. If you believe jerk-offs like this guy with 26 Twitter followers you’d think Netflix is dead.

( 1997 - 2011 )

Please. Get over yourselves you whiny pussies. Netflix may have screwed up and dropped the ball, but crucifying them alive is no way to treat this company. Here’s five reasons why Netflix, even with the $6 price increase, is still the best deal in TV and movies, bar none.

Read more…

For the uninitiated or those of you who have lives outside of doing stupid shit on a computer your entire lives, Minecraft (by Mojang) is one of those games being hailed as “one of the best indie games ever released”. Minecraft is simple, painfully so, which might be the reason why it’s so popular. In a market saturated with needlessly complex BS here’s a game where you can just stack a bunch of blocks together that look like a house and let it get blasted by lightning or filled with lava by online griefers wearing giant dongs as a custom player skin. Minecraft is successful because it’s a basic game and you can do whatever you want (like Grand Theft Auto minus all the hookers and blow). The creativity is almost endless and lets you combine items and raw materials into dozens of useful tools and decorations.

Better put that block back where you got it.

We say “almost” though, because although the game is basically a “play by your own rules” open-ended adventure experience, there are a ton of things you can’t make with the raw materials provided. An entire fan-mod community exists to fill this gap, however these modifications are never part of the actual lineup of the game until Mojang picks up the idea(s) and releases them as official items. Below are 11 items conceived by the creative community at GatorCraft, their intended uses, and why they’d be kickass to have in Minecraft.

Read more…

Ever come across one of those thrift store finds that just screams out “BUY ME”? Maybe it’s a Hot Wheels car that seems a little pricey but you have a good feeling it’s worth a fortune or it’s the complete X-Files TV series on VHS but either way there’s a good chance you’ve seen something in a shop once before and immediately knew it was a good deal. I had one of those moments myself recently; I bought a Sega Saturn game console for $20.

Pictured above: One J-Note well spent?

Yeah, I totally just referred to a twenty as a “J-Note” in that picture caption. Speaking of J-Notes, I probably should have just kept it in my pants. Hilariously enough, “keeping it in your pants” is also the mantra that would have prevented me from getting banned from every alligator and snake farm in South Texas. (Required sidenote: Having said that it is also important for me to point out that I am not the father of the monster depicted in the new film Creature.)

Long story short, this $20 Saturn was a nightmare. Now that I’ve spoiled the bulk of the story you don’t have to read this article, but you can if you want to. I guess.

Read more…