(First off, the lass shown below is Kate Botello. Her hair is better than last week, but not by a great deal. The reddish chrome look doesn't help.)
These are the two hosts of GameSpot TV. The one on the left that looks more like an Adam than a Kate is Adam Sessler. The one on the right that looks more like a Kate than an Adam is Kate Botello. Images used without permission, and I'm probably going to go to Hell for it.
Since most of Gamespot TV's E3 coverage was done before the actual event out of deadline necessity, I suppose I shouldn't be annoyed. But I'm not really annoyed - for once - I just want to point something out.
Notice anything odd about the above photos? If you do, give yourself a hug. If not, look closely at the people in the background. Notice how they didn't move between shots? Notice that it's because they really took a stock E3 background and superimposed the hosts' pictures over it? Kind of desperate for website window dressing, aren't they?:)
Also, if you look closely at Adam's pic you'll even see an 'aura' around him that can't be written off to JPEG compression or divine intervention.:) If I had a video capture card, I'd also include a pic from this week's show where Adam's outfit and Kate's hair are identical to how they are in these shots, implying that these pics were taken when the show was taped, likely before this year's E3 even started.
Good, now that you've wasted about 10K worth of downloading time and another minute of reading, you may go back to your regularly scheduled life. Thanks for listening.
Update: May 20, 2000 AD
For the actual E3 presentations, it seems that someone or something has instilled the fear of God (or some other powerful entity) in Kate, as her hair this week was left straight. Kind of plain, which makes for the best look she's had in recent history.:)
June 4, 2000 AD
This is getting to be a habit for me. Anyway: Her hair is still looking good. I'm impressed.:)
June 11, 2000 AD
Still okay. Is someone at Ziff Davis reading this?:)
June 17, 2000 AD
This week it's pulled back into a short kind of ponytail. While I'm not too fond of it the pulled-back look, in this case it's rather appropriate, seeing that the show was filmed at an amusement park and loose hair is a deadly weapon on some of these rides.
June 29, 2000 AD
Still the short kind of ponytail. But that's irrelevant, because Adam Sessler (the male co-host of Gamespot TV), peroxided his hair.
I would like to say something about peroxiding hair: No human male I have ever seen, met, or known has ever looked good with bleached blond hair. It looked bad when a certain boy-band member did it. It looked bad when the class clown in my high school did it. It looks bad on Adam Sessler. It just looks bad.
Repeat: It just looks bad!
August 13, 2000 AD
Why a woman would knot up her hair in such a way that there's a long 'lock' of it hanging over her left eye and getting in the way is completely beyond me.
October 14, 2000 AD
What was that????
October 21, 2000 AD
Okay, this is bright. They didn't put the show on this time, instead they ran ten minutes of commercials (with the logo in the corner) and started the next show 20 minutes early. Sort of made the 'Top of the hour' newscast a bit odd, since it was taking place at 10:40 local time. I don't know what the control-room people are smoking, but they should be busted for possession of it.
October 28, 2000 AD
Goth chick-esque? Ummm. No. It might be for Halloween, but still....
I wonder why some women wear less and lighter clothing than most people go to bed in and then saddle themselves with black army boots. Is it a mineral imbalance, or does their makeup and hair dye start seeping into their brains?
December 2, 2000 AD
I'm amazed. A pulled-back ponytail that almost worked. Of course, only because Ms. Botello didn't follow the following tip:
Okay, here's a little tip for women who who have straight hair - if you're leaving it loose, curl the ends slightly. Not a lot, just enough to stop your hair from forming a near-perfect cylinder around your head.
And while I'm thinking about it - I don't know if I mentioned it on this page before, but Kate Botello has the shakiest hands I've ever seen outside of someone twice or three times her age. Today she was holding up the newest gaming gizmo from our pals at Microsoft. And it was shaking in her hands like mad. Possibly not enough to notice with a passing glance, but it reminded me of the days on 'The Screensavers' when she'd hold something and it would shake (and shake very visibly) to the point where she'd need to put it down or get a grip on it with both hands to stop it, so you could read what was written on it. I don't know if this is natural (maybe they keep the thermostat turned way down...?), but it looks like one of those things where it would never hurt to get a doctor's opinion (not saying that she hasn't, of course - I have no need or ability to know any given American's medical history).
January 6, 2001 AD
No hair comments this time. But am I the only one who saw Kate's bulky clothing and minor midriff expansion and the gesture of clasping her hands over her stomach? Am I the only one who starts wondering if this is more than just post-Christmas weight gain, especially since she's not gained an apparent ounce anywhere else? Of course, there are women who gain weight on their stomach and nowhere else. But there are many others who don't. And of course, if you dare repeat any of my mad ramblings and conjectures as truth I'll have you shot.
March 15, 2001 AD
I haven't updated in a while, because everything been the same. Kate's hair is straight and her clothing is bulky. And her hands are still shaky. One of us is in a rut.
March 17, 2001 AD
Well, not a complete rut. I've noticed that Kate's body has made like her hair and gone completely vertical. In other words, where she used to have the hourglass figure common to thin women, now she doesn't. (Lordy, this next line's going to make me sound like a pervert.... Too late now, anyway.) Her clothes don't go back inward anymore after they've passed her breasts - they just sort of go straight down. I don't know what she's hiding, but be it her stomach, a developing progeny, one of those freaky Alien things, or a lot of padding meant exclusively to drive me insane, she's hiding something under those bulky clothes of hers.
Gone are the short t-shirts that accidentally showed her navel every now and then and caused the Ziff-Davis decency department to throw conniption fits. A bit of a story: From what I've heard, back on the first episode of The Screensavers Kate's shirt rode up a bit and showed, on live TV, her navel. Oooh. Let that sort of thing happen enough and soon you've got men and women cohabitating like I Dream of Jeannie or something. Apparently the Ziff-Davis people didn't like this and decided to edit the offending orifice out of the reruns of the show.
This, of course, was rather interesting when compared to their website, which sometimes reported on porn sites, sometimes including the URLs to said sites.
About a year ago, while ZDTV was doing a mating dance with one of Paul Allen's corporations, Gamespot TV filmed an episode at an amusement park (See June 17, 2000 AD above). And, lo and behold, Kate's shirt rode up and showed her navel.... And no one gave a damn.
How times have changed.
March 18, 2001 AD
In other extremely belated news: In case you didn't know, ZDTV was bought up by Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures (which I often mistype as 'Vencan Vultures') and is now TechTV. Since Gamespot is a Ziff-Davis thing, Gamespot is now called 'Extended Play' and is undergoing the pains of logo redesign. Seems someone didn't like their 'XP' logo because it's vanished, replaced with the generic 'Extended Play' text. Dunno why. It's not like XP is copyrighted or anything.
March 18, 2001 AD (Again)
And while I'm thinking about it: A Kate fan found this webpage a few months ago. May I say, the fan was incredibly polite and ignored my mad ranting to ask me an honest-to-goodness question.
I'm, frankly, amazed. How long before Ms. Botello herself, bonny Kate, Kate the curst, the prettiest Kate in Christendom*, does a vanity search and turns this page up? How long before she hires a lawyer for the various libelous remarks I made? How long before the moon crashes into the Earth? How long before I ascend to godhood like I really think I should?
*Yes, that's Shakespeare. 'Taming of the Shrew'. No, I'm not calling her a shrew. I hardly know her.
March 18, 2001 AD (And again)
Also, while I'm thinking about this.... No, wait I forget.
March 18, 2001 AD (Yet again)
Now I remember. One time I sent an e-mail to the show telling Leo Laporte to tie his shoelaces before he tripped and 'head crashed' into one of the monitors around the set. While he was reading it on camera, Kate untied his shoelaces. Those were the days, my friend; we thought they'd never end...
... but they did. Life sucks, people get on your nerves, you rant a bit, then you die.
April 14, 2001 AD
Two different ones this week: Pulled back and put into pig-tailish things on the sides of her head that look like a Mickey Mouse hat run through a paper shredder.... Slightly disturbing, actually.
Also: School-marmish pulled back into a bun with a freaky wave upsweep in the front: Ummm, no.
April 21, 2001 AD
Flat. Plain. Umm. I don't know why some women think dyed and flat hair looks good, when they can look so much better....
April 28, 2001 AD
Rerun of the 'Mickey Mouse hat run through a paper shredder'.
In case you're wondering, the female in those April 21 JPGs is Tammy Lauren, formerly of Martial Law, before she got nixed by the dark gods of CBS' ratings department.
May 5, 2001 AD
An improvement - wow! Not great (pushed behind the right ear in that style I can not understand), but a most definite improvement. For all but one segment, it was left loose and curled up at the ends slightly to give it dimension. Best it's been in weeks.
The other segment, however, had two things I noticed. First - pulled back in an extremely tight ponytail is not my idea of a nice hair style. Gives too clear a definition of a woman's skull, and phrenology isn't one of my turn-ons.
But second - it was taped earlier. I'd say weeks earlier. Kate was thinner (her stomach was noticeably smaller and her face was a bit thinner), and she didn't lose weight that fast.
May 12, 2001 AD
... especially since she gained the weight back this week, except in the taped segments.:)
Different episode, same hair. These are the salad days.:)
May 19, 2001 AD
Same hair again. Oooh. Though I did notice something funny. At the end, some overmuscled blokes (wrestlers plugging some game) approached Kate and Adam from behind and then picked them up. The one picking up Kate put his arm over her stomach (where you would reflexively reach before lifting someone, I'd gather) but then moved his arm up to her lower ribcage before lifting her.
I think I'm reading too much into this....
May 26, 2001 AD
Ponytail. Ummm.:\ Oh, well, can't complain after three good weeks.
June 2, 2001 AD
Rerun this week. I should rerun my comments when that happens.:)
June 9, 2001 AD
Okay, this is interesting.... Sort of like May 19 and thereabouts, but it also brought up memories of those Priceline ads. Not the Shatner ones, the ones with the woman whose face you never see, though in the end you get the feeling that both Shatner and that woman were wearing wigs.
June 16, 2001 AD
Same interesting straight-with-an-upturn-at-the-end like last week. That t-shirt, on the other hand, wasn't flattering. It did show that maybe she is just putting on a few pounds, but that's just more of a reason to not wear something tight....
Then there was the prerecorded (well, it's all prerecorded - this was preprerecorded, I guess) scene where she was talking to someone. I did not like what little of her head was I could see (her back and right shoulder were to the camera). Though she was wearing a blouse with the top button undone and I spent a while wondering why she got a dragonfly tattoo just under her neck until it shifted slightly and I realized it was a necklace whose chain was completely hidden under the blouse.
June 23, 2001 AD
Two different styles. One sort of like last week, but then other one was kind of interesting, since it kept the hair away from her face without pulling it back harshly. I was duly impressed.
The skull-and-crossbones on her sleeve for the Monkey Island party was a cute accent.
June 30, 2001 AD
Sort of straight and plain again. But I must ask.... Why did her shirt have "Princess" emblazoned across the front? All I can say is that I sincerely hope it was a gift from someone.
July 7, 2001 AD
Straight and plain in the live segment. And what was on her t-shirt? Looked like Hello Kitty in facepaint.
She was looking disturbingly good in the the predetermined... er... prerecorded segment. Her hair had been curled somewhat and wasn't stuck flat to the side of her head. Also, it was parted on the side and not in the middle (blah!). I had to watch it twice just so I could wallow in her glorious mediocrity.
July 14, 2001 AD
Rerun. Van Pelt.
So I can't think of that many good rerun jokes. Sue me.
July 21, 2001 AD
Ponytail again. The prerecorded segment looks like it was prerecorded a few weeks previous with one of the previous prerecordings. Preplanning and preparation pay off.
On to less serious things. Whoever had the idea to run bloopers as the credits rolled: You deserve a raise.
If you got the idea from reading other parts of this website, then you deserve a BIG raise. And I deserve a cut.:)
July 28, 2001 AD
Just like last week. The jean jacket was kind of cute though, and the blooperish things were also nice.
Onto more or less pressing matters, more or less....
Dell has an ad that uses an interesting style of jump-cut editing, which allows them to easily and subtly change the ad and no one notices except me. It's the ad that starts, "Hi, Mrs. Fefferbean(?)! It's me, Steve, the kid from next door! Sorry about the rhodedendrons. Anyhoo..."
The show "The Screensavers" has a new ad. It starts, "Hi, Mrs. (????)bean! It's me, Martin, the kid from next door! Sorry about the rhodedendrons. Anyhoo..."
It's a lampoon of the Dell ad, plainly. Almost word-for-word ripoff, in fact. Even has the same cuts, similar set, similar "Screensavers" regulars in the three roles, etc. etc.
Dell is an advertiser on TechTV.
The last time a member of the "Screensavers" cast (cough, cough, Leo Laporte!, cough) lampooned something (though he was questioning its usefulness, not making fun of the ad) it never advertised there again. Ever.
Is Leo working there for money or is he paying off the lost-ad debt he's been building up?
August 4, 2001 AD
Rerun of July 21, 2001 AD, I think. They've shown so many reruns it's getting silly.
August 11, 2001 AD
The glasses were interesting, even if the frames were someone over-prominent. Not everyone is Buddy Holly. And that shirt! Lordy, she shouldn't wear things so tight. They don't flatter her.
Hair.... I don't know. I was so busy whining about everything else that I missed it! I'll assume an "okay" rating.:)
August 18, 2001 AD
Classic gaming expo. Interesting outfit. Though the place must have been air-conditioned well, because wearing that much in the Las Vegas midsummer would kill someone!:)
August 25, 2001 AD
Rerun of August 11. Still didn't really notice the hair, so it must have been as average as I thought.:)
September 18, 2001 AD
I haven't been updating much lately, have I? Mainly because it's been mostly reruns. If there's any non-reruns in here, they were so unimportant that I didn't notice.:(
(Does this mean that the last vestiges of my Kate Botello obsession have begun their death throes? Let's hope.)
September 29, 2001 AD
Kate had pigtails this time around. I remember (June 29, 2000 AD) when I thought that Adam Sessler's blonded spiked hair was the yawning mouth of the abyss. Pigtails. Yeesh.
I'm also amazed at Kate's metabolism. First woman I've ever seen who gains a lot of weight on her stomach before starting to bulk up anywhere else. For a while there she was really in that possible-first-trimester kind of limbo, though now she's starting to balance out. She's not fat by any means, but she's not the twig that was on The Screensavers anymore. (Nothing wrong with that. Really thin women weird me out a bit.)
October 6, 2001 AD
That was interesting. Pushed behind her ear style. Not great, but better than before. Now if only we could do something about the color....
October 20, 2001 AD
Like last time, yet slightly different. In a bad way. Bad. Not good. Not good. No no no. Not good. (Crawls under desk.) Not good, no. No like, not good.
October 27, 2001 AD
Samhain... uh... All Hallow's Eve... uh... Halloween episode again. At least this time she was dressed in black without the Goth chick overtones.
November 10, 2001 AD
Polychromatic hair. Yeesh. But I've got to ask, what were they pumping into the air there? Kate's on-camera delivery sounded a little glazed-over.
November 17, 2001 AD
And I thought I'd be rid of 'Heidi' when I stopped watching the Disney Channel. Ugh.
But my real complaints lie with the ones who were pimping themselves for a Nintendo GameCube. Two standouts:
The guy who got his girlfriend to go on stage with him in costume and then, in lieu of any sort of fancy thing like juggling, proposed. I'm not sure if I should just say:
"Awww, how romantic!" because it sort of is;
"Tsk tsk!" because it's a rather mercenary use of an expression of one's undying love.
"Wow!" because he managed to take a situation (proposing in a "memorable" way) that most men lose money on and wrangled a $400 piece of gaming hardware out of it.
I'm much less ambivalent about the guy who dressed up as a character from a video game ("Pikmin", or something):
He shaved his head, because Pikmin is bald;
He painted his skin blue, because Pikmin is blue;
He wore a leaf on his head, because Pikmin has a leaf growing out of its head;
He ate bugs, because... well, they're in gardens, where the game takes place....
I've found week-old decaying cow manure in a garden. You want that for dessert? No connection with the character at all, at all, at all. Why didn't he just say that he did it because he figured the gross-out factor would win him the cash grand-prize (and it did)?
November 24, 2001 AD
The long-shots were nice, the hair wasn't, but I'm in trauma from that guy in the background with a shaved head, save for his black spiked mohawk and long sideburns. Ewww! How to make Kate at her worst look great! (Actually, how to make Adam Sessler look great.)
December 1, 2001 AD
Not bad. Not good, but not bad. Problem is, she had a bit of a 'slept-in-these-clothes-last-night' vibe going. The pseudo-outtakes during the closing credits had a 'haven't-slept-in-two-days-and-can't-think' nonintellectual vibe, on the other hand.
Is it just me, or have they been talking about/showing urinals more lately? TechTV loosen its taste guidlines yet again?
December 15, 2001 AD
Here's a thought: If you're gonna show a rerun, don't show the same one as last week. I knew TechTV was cutting back, but has it cut Kate and Adam back to part-timers? That'd be cold.
January 12, 2002 AD
Hair rut, clothing rut, rut rut. Adam was funny though when he was dancing around like a fool.
January 19, 2002 AD
Dare I say it? Wow! Almost cute this week. For most of the show, anyway.
However, I see how TechTV is going to get out of their slump. Sexual innuendo. Last week Adam got decked out in tight black fabric and was pushed around a bit by some other guys. This week, Kate demoed two products: the Trance Vibrator and the Hyper Stimulator. Tell me that - if you hadn't seen the show - those things honestly don't conjure up some pretty freaky images. Which, I'm sure, many of you would enjoy.
How long before the local TV guide reads: "EXTENDED PLAY: Kate teaches Adam the value of choosing a safeword before plugging the vibrator in."
January 26, 2002 AD
Uhhh... I forget.
February 2, 2002 AD
Heidi-hairdo in the mountains. Makes sense.
In other news, Adam seems to be ever-expanding his comedic acting skills. By my rankings, Extended Play is already funnier and better acted than 95% of this season's new so-called "sitcoms".
February 9, 2002 AD
Oooh. Average. I'm amazed.:) But the bloopers were wonderful. Nothing to take down a dramatic introduction like a door that refuses to open!:)
February 23, 2002 AD
My work here may be done. Not counting reruns, that's two weeks of average.
March 2, 2002 AD
School marm! Argh!
But I wonder how many of you would trade places with that big Picachu doll Kate was hugging, even if it meant getting your neck stretched.:)
March 9, 2002 AD
Not as bad. But I'm still disturbed by the Picachu thing.
March 16, 2002 AD
Nice. Loved the bloopers though. The ffffff....:)
March 23, 2002 AD
Rerun. That's it, I'm not doing rerun gags anymore.
March 30, 2002 AD
First things first: One non-Kate moment stood out today. While Adam was reading off a long cheat list, the subtitles at the bottom of the screen went from 'click left, click right' etc. to 'Click here, there, and everywhere.' And yes, Kate (or Adam, depending on who you think is right) was using a valid pronunciation of 'Valkyrie', according to Dictionary dot com. But now, on to brass tacks....
So I stop doing rerun gags and Kate leaves the show. I didn't know I was that powerful. Of course, with TechTV's cutbacks... not saying she was fired, of course.
I also shoulda known that they'd put a halfway cute picture of her up on her last day. Blargh.
Long story made short, she's heading off to New York to pursue artsy things. For some reason, I have a thing for women who do that, though I have absolutely no understanding why.
Ah, well, I'd agonize over some big finale to this page (though I might toss out the occasional update) but I got a better idea. I was reading the 'fond farewell' (does that mean we're glad to see her go?) feedback items (yes, I read them, though Adam's gonna take a self-esteem hit if he does:). I found it amusing how the posts have slowed over the day - check the URLs, at first they're packed together but then they get interspersed with other stuff from other message boards.
But I found - amid the mildly disturbing, cute, entertaining, and occasionally Trekkish items - one that summed my opinion up best....
Name: Daniel Adams
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Occupation: Hotel Manager
Hi Kate! I've grown so use to you and Adam bringing us a great show every week. I'm definitely going to miss your enthusiasm every week and your hair! Good luck to you in whatever you do.
'And your hair.' So I'm not as odd as I think I am.:)
Peace, and best wishes. To everyone.
The Archon
April 3, 2002 AD
The gods have smiled on me. Not only did I realize that I had the year wrong on the 2002 updates, I realized that the original item that eventually resulted in this page was wrong! I'd made reference to Kate having bangs in a certain high-school picture when she quite clearly didn't.
Ah, there's nothing quite like making a fool of yourself in front of hundreds of people. I love it.
April 6, 2002 AD
Gone, but not forgotten. In the closing credits, they hadn't changed the "Adam and Kate's wardrobe provided by:" line.:)
April 27, 2002 AD
During that Morrowwind preview.... Was it just me or did Adam look a bit... um... groggy? Not the first word I'd choose, but his speech was a bit less distinct, his eyes were droopy, etc.
Oh, and the "PainStation" thing that was built by a bunch of crazy Germans that hurts you as you play.... Was it just me, or was at least one of them an endorphin junkie?
May 11, 2002 AD
Ooooh! I want a Star Wars Adam Sessler figure with Glass-Polishing Action!
May 25, 2002 AD
Is it just me or, on the Saturday morning showing of Extended Play, did they run one of those squish-the-picture-bottom-of-the-screen commercials that seemed to be meant for the midnight previous showing of Max Headroom?
June 11, 2002 AD
I was just reading my old magazines and found this tidbit. Brings back memories, no?
Kate Botello, CGWs beloved former Information Services babe and the best BAKU-BAKU player on the planet, is now the co-host of ZDTV's Gamespot TV. Join the fan club now.
- Computer Gaming World, June 2000.
June 27, 2002 AD
At the risk of feeding more money to a corporate powerhouse, is it just me or does Kate's grin on the cover of this video look forced?
July 24, 2002 AD
Probably the best quote Extended Play has produced in ages:
Bullet time - A played-out visual effects trick. Get over it, already.
(Speaking of played out, no "Was it just me, or...." this time.:)
August 31, 2002 AD
It's all about the volleyball. Bounce, bounce, bounce.
It's also all about the Technotainment Zone, the remarkable new TechTV show that combines advertising and programming so seamlessly that you almost - almost - miss the fact that it's a paid program first time around. If it wasn't for Max Headroom and Extended Play, I'd never watch this network. As it is, though, those 2 programs make up a good 60% of my weekly TV viewing! (2.5 hrs. a week - I also watch Nero Wolfe on A&E.
September 7, 2002 AD
I got a new TV. One with closed captioning. Which makes Extended Play a lot more interesting. For one, the poor typist can't keep up to Adam, and is perennially two camera-cuts behind. (Why? This ain't live....) Slightly more forgivable is the typist's lack of game knowledge: For instance, calling QuakeCon 'Quake Com' and referring to Doom 3 as another show entirely instead of a game at the show, etc.
But the spelling is even better. From Adam's use of the word 'corneas' becoming 'corn (long delay) yas' to Lou Ferrigno's name being turned into 'Lieu For' followed by a long pause that ended with the typist giving up and going onto the next scene, it never gets old.
But nothing beats the abuse the caption bar felt in an infomercial on the next channel. The typist never finished a sentence, just typed as much as possible before going onto the next line....
The Th I went down to a size 135 pounds. Thh his revolutionary prod etc.
September 21, 2002 AD
First the 'Roots' shirt with the old Atari joystick. Now the shirt that was the gaming equivalent to the Major League Baseball logo. Cool.
October 5, 2002 AD
Y'know, you'd think that, in showing five episodes per week, they'd decide to make more than two per month. (January 1, 2003: Unkind of me, I know. They're making about two per week, but a glimpse at TechTV's schedule makes me think they're big on filler. If not, then I apologize.)
October 12, 2002 AD
Hair! Less of it! Soon Adam will be going in for the bald look and parody sites will no longer be able to make fun of him by comparing him anyone who uses the word "Dude!" habitually.
October 19, 2002 AD
I don't know what's more annoying. That Extended Play pseduo-rap ad or the new ad where Chris Pirillo (of Call for Help) geeks out about Star Trek (I'm torn - is it making fun of those Mac ads or is it one of them?)
(Update, December 8, 2002 AD: A parody, as I later found out.)
December 8, 2002 AD
Shinobi Dude. You know him, from the Christmas episode. Know his real name? Probably not. So I'm gonna call him Shinobi Dude.
Shinobi Dude is cool. Shinobi Dude runs around suffering neck injuries for your entertainment. Shinobi Dude takes great pains to speak clearly through the Shinobi Dude Red Scarfy-Thing. Shinobi Dude is funny. Shinobi Dude is a bit one-joke, but that makes Shinobi Dude funnier than most of the sitcoms on network television.
Shinobi Dude saved the Britney Spears segment. Shinobi Dude actually kept me from noticing Adam Sessler (also known as 'Not Shinobi Dude') or his dancing at all.
To further abuse the oft-abused quote: All your base are belong to Shinobi Dude.
Food for thought: Shinobi Dude is what almost everyone would be like if gamers couldn't understand the difference between fantasy and reality. But there is only one Shinobi Dude. This is a good thing, for can you imagine Shinobi Dude running a country? While speeches would be entertaining, all it takes is one muffled word for a message of goodwill to turn into an international incident. Shinobi Dude says many muffled words. Shinobi Dude could start a nuclear war. Shinobi Dude would, like the best of anime-type characters, jump out of a plane and try to jump from nuke to nuke. Shinobi Dude would then find out that while gravity is kind and tends to ignore Shinobi Dude, it's far kinder to girls in sailor suits who nuke-jump.
Shinobi Dude would be scary in a sailor suit.
Say it with me: Shinobi Dude.
January 19, 2003 AD
I wanted to update this month, but nothing could eclipse the glory of Shinobi Dude. Maybe in the next 2 fortnights.
January 19, 2003 AD (Again)
I spoke too soon. Today's episode showed that Adam and his Reviewing Elves have had their hearts hardened. When's the last time they gave that many 2/5s?
February 28, 2003 AD
After 3 straight weeks of inclement weather keeping me from my appointed television, I watch Extended Play and am not disappointed. Three words: Live action roleplaying. Either Adam was forgetful or he was trying to be, well, better than them in a really sad and depressing way. So, I now present two rants. The first is on the assumption that Sessler knows D&D trolls regenerate, the other on the assumption he doesn't.
IF HE DOES KNOW THAT TROLLS REGENERATE:
Yeah, live-action 'roleplaying' is mildly disturbing. Anything involving men dressing up and going into the woods to whack things with padded swords is, by its very nature, freaky. But cut them some slack and don't ask them that kind of obvious question, man. I didn't realize they were 'burning' (no fire, just pretend) the troll players until you brought it up. Was this some attempt at pulling a Beavis and Butthead-paranoia-style 'stupid pyromaniac teenagers' gag? If so, it didn't work.
IF HE DOES NOT KNOW THAT TROLLS REGENERATE:
Adam Sessler waxing nostalgic about his D&D days, then he asks why the trolls have to be burned! Because they regenerate non-fire/non-acid damage like every other D&D ripoff troll in the past 20+ years, you turnip! Man, I am sooooo going to send you an eleven hit die fireball in the mail, you poser! You... turnip poser!
FOO:
But then, maybe the scriptwriter should be shot.
BAR:
Another high point of the episode was giving Unreal 2 a 3/5. Thank you for not giving into the hype. Or even pointing out the snake tattoo.
However.... Notice that the nearly-dead Test Drive series gets a 3/5 and they're all 'Hey, it's worth a look!' while a once-venerable series like Unreal gets the same score and they don't mention anything about it even being worth a look? Or having any major merit? Maybe they did get affected by all the hype after all....
Another thought, about that fighting game from the Mortal Wombat designer. Kombat, sorry. I'm waiting for them to make a game where all the females have to do to beat the males is lunge forward and bury the man's face in their basketball-sized and mostly-naked breasts, then wait for him to suffocate while groping about in a testosterone soaked haze. I mean, those broads should all have a 'knockers of doom' special move. Or 'flaming nipple of death'.
They almost looks like porno versions of Weebles. (You know, Weebles wobble but they don't fall down?) Every time they go to fall their 'airbags' save them. Or, at least the cut-scene shots of them recovering from falls always show them as being just to the point of getting up so that their breasts aren't dragging on the ground any more. Maybe they hit and just bounce up.
March 8, 2003 AD
Adam, Adam, Adam. Those shoes in the interview segment.... Woah, man. Don't ever go into a biker bar.
March 31, 2003 AD
Ah, the "All your base are belong to us" phenomenom has crept back into the show. Next it'll be the Summoner Geeks (see also the Dead Alewives' "Dungeons and Dragons"). I can see it now....
Adam (turns head left): "Where's the Mountain Dew?"
Adam (turns head right): "In the fridge! DUH!"
Adam (thinks): "A cohost would really help this bit along."
Sadly, 2 seconds in and we've passed the best part: Adam, Adam, Adam. You have never played soccer, plainly. Nor have you ever been around a drunk soccer player. Believe me, those 'girly-sport' players would kick your ass so hard you'd need to charter a Concorde just to catch up to it.
Unless you're claiming you're a bigger sissy than a girly-man, or something. (I'm sorry, I didn't mean to lapse into an old Saturday Night Live segment, it just happened.)
April 26, 2003 AD
Extended Play is dead, long live X Play. I thought the last month of exploding transitions (especially the finale after Adam's thrown out of Metreon) were excellent.
The only thing that scares me is the use of phrases such as 'late night' and 'racier'. When Adam Sessler said that, for some reason the thought of him in a thong popped into my mind and just refused to leave. (Makes ya want to drive a red-hot poker through your mind's eye, don't it?)
Perhaps all this is because I equate 'racy' and 'late-night' with Channel 4's Bits, which is hosted by Emily 'Bouff' Booth. Not that I've ever seen it myself, but I like this band that did a Bouff worship kind of song, and so I dug up a few image archives to figure out what the fuss was about. That picture to the right is what the fuss is about. Here's some more fuss. So I equate 'racy' with a host who doesn't mind dressing skimpy. Okay, yeah, that's definitely why the whole thong thing came to mind.
(DISCLAIMER: Don't click on the next link if the image of a topless woman offends you. And don't click if you think I'm gonna violate my TOS by using an image that shows nipples. However, if you're really into that sort of thing, this image has some racier counterparts floating about. The original filename was 'emily_booth164009.jpg', and a Google search for that or "sexy in ice mag" - with the quotes - might give you some of the sticky late night pleasure you're looking for, you pervert.)
It's fascinating, really. Over in England, Channel 4 hires someone with this kind of pictorial history, but over here, back in the early days of ZDTV*, Kate Botello's navel was apparently** censored out of the taped reruns of a live episode of The Screensavers.
(* Now TechTV, for the newbs in the audience.)
(** Unless Leo Laporte was lying again or something when he told this story.)
It's an amazing comparison of North American vs. European opinions of the human body and display thereof.
Of course, Kate's former umbilical connection showed up*** later after Vulcan Ventures bought the network and rechristened it TechTV. Evidently Paul Allen's not a prude. (Not that Ziff-Davis, owners of Computer Gaming World, could make any claims to prudishness given the ads that rag runs....) Or maybe he had a thing for Kate or something. (How'd that be for a corporate memo? 'Note to all Extended Play staff: If any game is previewed which requires physical exertion such as jumping up and down, heavy breathing, or dry-humping the controller, hosting duties will be handed over to Ms. Botello. Mr. Sessler is never to bounce or dry-hump anything while Ms. Botello is available.')
(*** On some Extended Play episode filmed at a theme park, after one the safety harnesses caused her shirt to ride up, don't ask how I can remember that with clarity.)
April 28, 2003 AD
In honor of the Extended-to-X Play conversion, I've made a conversion of my own. I've gotten rid of the word 'Update:' at the start of each update. (Hey, they got rid of seven letters, I got rid of six and a colon. Fair enough.)
However, onto a review of the new show:
Adam: Wow, he's let his hair, er, down a bit more and is showing mad-gamer-frustration. Oooh. I loved the lame-things-team-FPS-players-do segment. Entertaining, and something I agree with, even though I don't play that particular game he was dealing with (whose name I've forgotten). I would give Adam an antiaircraft battery and a small army of assassins if it would achieve his goal. And I actually, you know, had those things. And wasn't using them.
Studio: Nice. The wordy-thingy (teleprompter) on the long move-y overheady thingy was very cooly. I-y likedy ity.
The old 'Studio': Notice they called the Metreon 'Metroid' all the way through the episode? Some kind of contract problem?
The Anvil Chorus: Nothing to do with the episode. I'm just listening to them now.
The black-and-white camera effect: Good as long as they don't overuse it. If I ever notice it again, it's time to slack off a bit.
The new cohost: Well.... Ummm.... She'll get better...? I probably shouldn't criticize, as I never saw her on The Screensavers, but she didn't seem to be able to read the review text like she really believed it. Sounded forced and flat in turns.
The old cohost: First Kate, now Morgan Webb. Does Adam sneak onto the set of The Screensavers and hide behind the PCs until some woman comes along and he can whisper subliminal messages? 'You don't like working here.... Leo Laporte is ugly.... You like video games.... You want to play video games.... You want to review video games.... Adam Sessler makes you hot....'
The old cohost coda: That other show. I just realized that the last time I watched The Screensavers was long before Kate left that show, so the studio design elements I'm thinking of are probably long long gone. (I'm sorry, but I'm not fond of Leo - wasn't terribly enamoured with Kate just before I stopped watching, to be honest - and not even the great Wil Wheaton could possibly make me tune in. Maybe if he was wearing a Strong Bad shirt, then the Internet Zeitgeist would haunt me, grab me by the throat, and force me to watch.)
The constant cohost: Adam's good at this. After all these years, that might be expected, but it's still a comfort. The Rainbow Six segment was classic Adam-making-a-fool-of-himself, like a sad ninja. Good to see the old standards are being kept.
The Mortal Kombatish thing with the big bazooms: I just made that word up and you probably know what it means.... Cool, they gave it a low rating! Thank you!
Disembodied voice: Cool voice. Not Paul Winfield (A&E's City Confidential) uber-cool, but cool nonetheless. Again, as long as they don't overuse it.
Credits: You talk about half the people behind the cameras and then don't run credits? Boo.
May 2, 2003 AD
To those people who hacked Madonna's website and proposed to Morgan Webb: She's cool. You're cool. You're dedicated to the craft. Really. Dedicated to Morgan Webb. Don't hack me. Please?
(Reads some news reports.) Morgan Webb's only 24? Oh, well, now that I know that my old geezer nature demands I mock her, hackers or not.
May 3, 2003 AD
Oh, God, Morgan's hair on the 12:30 Eastern rerun. Ewwww. Whoever does the hair on this network either hates women or wants to be on TV and is jealously trying to make the on-air people look bad.
And, I hate to say it, but this show is starting to set off my 'sucks' alarm. The more I think about it, the more I think that all three female cohosts haven't held my attention. Okay, so I did this page because of a Kate-related rant-fest, but I was really getting tired of doing it around the time she left, simply because I didn't really want to watch the show that much. Sure, there were good episodes, but there were ones that were no better than a test pattern. But after she left and Adam came back to center stage, I started watching more (and updating this page less, but I digress). I really enjoyed it. Now Morgan's here and I'm having a hard time focusing on her scenes - as in, half the damn show.
Lauren Fielder (or something), Kate Botello, Morgan Webb, having to do banter with any of them just drags Adam down. He's better suited to a sharp-witted comment on the last game, after which he moves on. Nothing fancy, no dialogues, nothing like that. Quick paced. Two people just doesn't suit that.
May 10, 2003 AD
Man, Morgan's voice is becoming a decent cure for insomnia. I tried watching today, and I couldn't get past the first half hour of the hour block. I wanted to, but then I said to hell with it and went to the site to read the reviews from the episode I didn't watch.
But now, a brief comment springing from the Everquest geeks segment. I notice they were a bit, ahem, excessive in their mentioning of that one convention-goer's website nudity.
But you know what freaks me out? I've been to her site already (well, an older version thereof). It started innocently enough, with me looking in Google for a picture of a step dresser, a surprisingly uncommon thing on the Internet. No nudity, that I remember anyway, though there was a few references to her starting up a page with such undressedness.
So what do I do? Dig into my history file and go back. I am not proud.
I only have one comment, not to the site maintainer but one of her models: You have some innate cuteness, but green hair and a series of tattoos up and down your entire left side - that I can't help but call racing stripes - ain't helping any.
June 10, 2003 AD
(Update, June 15, 2003 AD: The shots are from a few entries down, thanks to my new PC with video capture card. Amazing what I'll use use $3000 of technological goodness for, huh?)
Fark has some commentary on TechTV's 'Unscrewed' that devolved into TechTV general commentary. Here's a slice of the X-Play ones, numbered, with my commment in italics:
$1) What's really fun about Tech TV is a show like X-Play (the latest incarnation of their videogame show), and watching Adam Sessler try to keep his eyes from drifting down to Morgan Webb's amazing rack. I think co-hosting with her makes him uncomfortable, and therefore, amusing to watch.
Of course, her choice of tight shirts just accentuates her, ahem, rack.
$2) My question is, is tech tv worth watching? Xplay, Screen Savers, Call for Help? Remember when those shows were worth watching? Then of course there's the boring crap that wasn't ever worth watching. Also, Unscrewed sucks...the opening "monologue" is unbearable.
$3) IN OTHER NEWS: X-PLAY IS GOD AWFUL! Bring back Extended Play! That show was 30 minutes of games, not two incredible awkward people trying with all their non-humourous might to do a very scripted show. Yes, Webb is something to look at, but she just gets in the way of the show. Her reviews seem forced and I don't think they are even HER reviews. It sounds like she's reading Sessler's comment. I also think Sessler has lost a lot of cred by doing this lame lame lame show.
Sessler has 'cred'? Somehow I can't see him getting props from his peeps in the projects, or something.
$4) Getjustin (Author of comment #3) - I'm with ya on X-PLAY. It just feels like they're trying REALLY hard to be wacky and "extreme". In the end, it's just painful to watch. Morgan Webb rocks, but she just doesn't seem to be a gaming chyck.
$5) Things Tech TV can do to improve the network: Ditch the following: -X-play (replace with Extended Play) (...)
$6) I haven't watched much of "Unscrewed" because it is on the same time that Simpson re-runs are on here in Milwaukee... However, I do watch X-Play from time to time. Morgan is nice to look at but the show itself sucks. It sounds way to scripted.
$7) I want the old extended play. X-Play sucks. Morgan, while hot, is no gamer.
$8) Unscrewed has no chance against the Daily Show (Comedy Central) on my TV. X-Play trumps Tough Crowd or whatever, though.
$9) A vote for me is a vote for rather watching x-play, sans the Adam Sessler (that guys has a problem with his hands or somethin').
Morgan's, er, rack and then Adam's hands. For those not in the know, this is about the only two pieces of anatomy I'd expect Farkers to mention. Not that my dry-humping the controller gag is exactly quality entertainment.
$A) its better then "X-PLAY" that shiat sucks the biggest ass..
$B) I agree, Sessler was better off with Extended Play, Morgan just doesn't fit into X-Play. Then again I really like Jessica on TSS when I get to watch it, aka when a Mets game isn't on, so keep Morgan on X-Play.
This really saves me from having to write, you know, content.
$C) Why can't the camera HOLD FRIGGIN' STILL on X-Play? And what's with the picture switching between black & white and color? It's lame and annoying!!!
$D) Xplay is porly acted.
Now I exist only to me.... The dead can't speak anymore, their information is never stored.... Hmmm? Sorry, started drifting. The danger of being The Wired.
$E) X-Play COULD be a much better show if they'd do two simple things. One, QUIT WITH THE GODDAMN MOVING CAMERAS ALREADY!! Get rid of that stupid-assed black & white camera too...it's unnecessary. Two, put Adam back on his ritalin. I don't remember him being this obnoxious and hyper when he was doing Extended Play. Other than that, its really not too bad - this is the first show that I've actually seen Morgan fairly comfortable in. When she'd give those Windows tips on TSS she really seemed to only be reading from cue-cards.
And she doesn't now? Woah, if she sucked harder on TSS she must have randomly Hoovered bits of the set on her bad days.
$F) fark X-Play and fark Extended Play. Knock it back all the way to "Gamespot TV"!!!
Translation of the word 'Fark'. It's the word missing from the following:
'Alright Alex, now this is gonna....'
'Sting a little? I know.'
'No, actually it's gonna hurt like a mother----er.'
Enjoy the puzzle. It's a toughie.
$10) Do any of you motherfarkers actually watch TechTV or just sit on fark all day and comment about inane news stories?
Man, i've never seen so many complaining pieces of shiat.
TSS, X-Play, and Unscrewed are all good shows. I watch TSS every day because it's entertaining.
$11) Well just pray to god it's better than X-Play. Seriously, Morgan/Megan (whoever that is) is the absolute worst person for that show. And the writers must be monkeys, because it has the worst jokes ever, and of course they just repeat them over and over and over again.
Oh, and is it just me, or are all the games they compliment on good graphics the ones with mediocre graphics, while the ones with awesome visuals don't get any comment at all?
I dunno. I've been terminally pissed off with reviewers as a whole since I played System Shock II. I can't stand that game.
June 13, 2003 AD
Well, it's been an odd month. Two weeks I couldn't even bother to watch. The week I did, I forgot to date my notes. So, for some time in the past month, my notes, almost verbatim:
Morgan has good hair. Adam has laryngitis. Arnold Shwhatever has upgraded to T-1000, thanks to Adam forgetting he was a T-800 and melty-guy in Terminator 2 was the T-1000. Way to go, Sesselesslenator!
June 15, 2003 AD
So, anyway, Adam and Morgan must work as a team. Adam's on top, Morgan's on the bottom, Morgan's got Adam's back and is in awe because Adam gets a guy. In the head. Then Morgan's seeking Adam's body after he's taken out. Then they're together. They hang out. It's really deep television. Deeper than dry-humping.
And Adam's real brave for showing his chest, all in the same block of shows. There's people who would pay money to (not) have a chest like that.
July 19, 2003 AD
It's getting better. My God, it's getting better! I actually watched almost two whole shows without drifting off. This is cool. The world is righting itself.
Though I still nipped over to TLC a few times to see if Laurie Hickson-Smith was on Trading Spaces. Not that anyone on that show can design their way out of a paper bag, but.... While some things speak to my inner child, redheads speak to my inner dirty-old-man-in-a-trenchcoat. Loudly.
Besides, how can you not love a woman who answered the question "If you were stranded on an island what or whom would you take with you?" with "Brad (my husband) and a large supply of sunscreen."?
While I admire the spousal dedication, notice the pronounced lack of "swimwear", or "a bikini" or, for that matter, clothing of any sort from her list.
Ya got the picture now, don'tcha? Red hair and a clear sense of the three items critical to a fun day at the beach: A member of the opposite sex, sunscreen, and no clothing.
I love this woman. Correction: This ain't about love, it's about carnal and libidinous primate lust with some willingness to listen to pillow talk bunged in for good measure. Were it not for Brad (her husband), I would propose right now. Is there anything in Mormonism about sharing someone else's wife, in case you can only partially support a spouse? I'd be willing to convert. What do you mean, everyone involved has to be Mormon for that to work? This isn't about everyone, it's about me and redheads and employment of my testicle! (Sings.) Me and my test-ic-le....
July 20, 2003 AD
I lit a modem on fire in the center of a south-pointing pentagram, then screamed the names of various demons of myth three times over.
Then they pitched me out of Biblical Studies class. However, a nice spirit named Yog told me that Kate Botello has a website, and a still-larval blog.
'Bout time, sez I.
August 2, 2003 AD
Here's a thought. If you're gonna run two shows, one of which is a rerun, don't pick a rerun where Morgan's wearing the same duds as in the first-run show.
August 9, 2003 AD
Wookies dancing. Wookies. Dancing. Wookies! Dancing!
Man, that's begging for some really disturbing interspecies slash fanfic, as if the legendary Christmas special where Han goes on a Wookie hugfest wasn't bad enough.
Speaking of disturbing things fanboys do, I wonder if it's occured to Morgan Webb that recordings of her prancing about as Space Channel 5's Ulala are going to do some heavy rotation on VCRs in the dank and sunless rooms of fanboys wearing nothing but wristwarmers.
It's a scary thing when you can go to sleep at night wondering "I wonder how many fanboys got off on a tape of me in a purple wig today?"
August 16, 2003 AD
Man, I think Morgan ate from the cookie tin labelled "Adam's stash - Don't Touch!" because she looked like she was wired on amphetamines all through the freakin' show. What with the Buffy stuff and the Charlie's Angels stuff and her seeming inability to keep silent in the studio segments.
August 22, 2003 AD
I just heard that there's a website devoted to Morgan Webb's hair.
Someone taking the time to discuss someone's hair. Man, how lame can you get? What kind of nutball spends time and bandwidth with a page - including pictures and more pictures - about hair? How strange can a person get?
August 23, 2003 AD
Well, I was gonna watch, but it was a previews-only episode and I hate those things. So I change to TLC and Laurie Smith is on Trading Spaces and... well, I didn't go back for the second episode of X-Play. Damn hormones. Besides, the other designer was Hilda 'Hildi' (How original a nickname.) Santo-Tomas. That woman's the Charles Manson of interior design. It's a love-to-hate thing when I see her. She's got to be an avatar of Nyarlathotep, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger.
(Though I have heard the interesting theory that she might well know what fiascos she creates, at least some of the time, despite her repeated claims that 'It'll be great!'. The theory is that she has no skill at visualizing an idea beforehand, so she gets this idea for something that no one has ever done before and, not thinking there might be a reason for it never being done before, commits to a budget and before long is waist-deep in fake flowers to staple onto the wall. At this point the horridness of it all sets in, but it's too late to turn back. So she raises shields on her ego and charges forward. Like Macbeth says, paraphrased: Carrying on to the bitter end is sometimes easier than turning back.)
August 29, 2003 AD
Adam with dark hair and a tutu. An overall improvement, despite the tutu. Hell, if anything the tutu makes it better.
September 6, 2003 AD
You know, if you have to show two episodes in a row, show them in chronological order. Seeing Adam with that ball gag on before seeing the episode where he had it on for a reason was just freaky. (Sigh.) Only on a San Francisco-based TV network could you write a ball gag off as part of the props budget.
And TV-14 it wasn't: My V-chip proclaimed it TV-PG. You see, shows are rated as a whole, not as individual episodes. Therefore, what one often sees happening is that a show is rated for a few average shows, then the networks can sneak a couple of really raunchy (the next rating up) episodes in later.
The ratings are also inconsistent, apparently because most of the work is done by the networks themselves. I saw a 20-year old Sid & Marty Croft show get a TV-Y7 on one kid's network. Meanwhile, another network ran 'The New Land of the Lost' or some such, containing a 'Darth Tyrannosaur' kind of bad guy. This is a villain who, in the episode I watched, threatened to violently kill one of his henchmen if he failed and roughed said henchman up a bit to get the point across. The rating? TV-Y, not Y7.
Oh, and to the X-Play producers: Lighten up on the gutter humor, okay?
(And I know I'm in the pot calling the kettle black, but when I started this page it was essentially nothing but fanboy drool. You've got to expect random lusting every now and then. That's the price of admission.)
I'm cool with the occasional dik-dik joke, Comments on the Spice Channel are fine. (I don't get that channel anymore, is it still softcore?) But that whole doodled penis thing was just wrong. I mean, if I wanted to see animated little girls in contact with miscolored, misshapen male genitals I'd stop watching the merely disgusting incestual-sexual-exploration hentai and start watching the flat-out horrifying tentacle porn.
(Prays.) Please don't do a tentacle porn joke.... Given how their recent improvements are supposed to be fan-initiated, I can just see the fanboys writing in asking for Morgan to dress as Ulala and wrestle with an octopus.... Dear God, now I feel that kind of icky that no amount of washing will ever get rid of.
September 13, 2003 AD
Uhhh.... Live band. Nice concept. But I can't say I was into the band much.
You want a gaming-based song I can get behind? Machinae Supremacy's 'The Great Giana Sisters'. Helps if you've heard the Hulsbeck original, of course.
(Check out their other non-gaming stuff, all available for download. I'm particularly fond of 'Arcade', 'Winterstorm', and 'Kings of the Scene', myself.)
September 20, 2003 AD
Well, here's a thought: If the scenes in Soldier of Fortune were so tame, why'd they use that little Canadian map to censor all of them?:)
As to it being labelled 'pornography', that doesn't mean they thought anyone would get off on it. (Wrong kind of headshot, for one.) It just means that whoever wrote the law was either lazy or French and didn't bother to think that censored <> l33t pr0n.
September 27, 2003 AD
Ah, Morgan whacking Adam while wearing a business-style outfit. It's scenes like this that form the basis for strange role-playing videos that fanboys do. Often involving the disciplinarian teacher/disobedient student relationship. You will listen to Miss Webb. *Whack!*
October 4, 2003 AD
Mmmmm. Tutu rerun fun.
But the reviews in the nonrerun were entertaining. Whoever got the idea to do a game where you scare the crap out of those annoying Sims was a genius. Nice to see something that appears out of nowhere, rather than something that's hyped for years and doesn't deliver*. Be it in a lack of gameplay (that Russian-themed revolution game Adam was disappointed with) or in the game becoming vaporware (Duke Nukem Forever, anyone?)
(*A worry that I have for another game.)
October 18, 2003 AD
So the new Metal Gear has a James Bond style opening, only without the swimming nekkid women. Hey, you can't have everything.
You know, there was an episode of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers where one of the Rangers got addicted to an Evil Magic pachinko machine. So the bad guy of the episode was, of course, a giant pachinko machine.
In the arcade: It's not a guitar. It's a samisen. And you play it with that thing that looks like a windshield ice scraper, better known as a plectrum.
Oh, and am I the only one who thought the Lara Croft dummy looked more like some hideous love child of Lara and Michael Jackson?
The money has holes in it. Gimme a hammer and a Canadian bimetal "toonie" two dollar coin and I'll make you some money with holes in it.
A washer that also dries? Oh, wow. I want to work there, too.
"Okay, Morgan failed me so I'm gonna have some guy time... by myself." Oh, man, that just sounds bad.
Bishoujo games = 'pretty girl' games. Man, good thing he didn't find the bishonen games.
My favorite bishojo shot was the girls wearing blouses that, despite being fairly loose, still show nipple indentations. It's second only to the nipple-dents on Batman's armor in one of the Batman movies. The one with Clooney, I think. Somehow I can't imagine the dark knight, when having this armor custom made, saying "Oh, and put nipples on it."
Incidentally, if you'd like to know what the text was zooming by at one point, it went something like I enjoy the well rounded curve of her buns in my palm. (Name) screams and pulls her butt back. (Nice trick.) She looks shocked and glares at me with a flushed face. "You idiot, lech, and pervert!"
"Do you always use your ass that way?" (WHAT?)
Another highlight: They watched me when I was about to have sex. Besides, one of them is my cousin. Uh, okay, ewww. You know, when I said something about watching incest hentai, I didn't really mean it.
RUB-RUB! You can rub loudly?
"I can take great nude pictures with this digital camera." Uh, good for you.
Adam's traumatized from some of the stuff he saw. If you'd like to try trauma yourself, check out Something Awful's hentai reviews. I'm not directly linking to them, because they're icky. They do, however, review many of the games Adam semi-reviewed. Presumably there's only so many English-translated games about well-endowed young men going to high school'junior college'/work/etc. for a first day of weird sex.
October 25, 2003 AD
Morgan, dear: Sentient. Sen-chent. Or maybe Sen-she-ent. Not sen-tee-ent. The same goes for "sentience". They're related to the word "sentence", which is not pronounced sen-tuh-ence. Sen-tense. Sen-chent. Okay?
Adam, the perennial goofball (who occasionally acts like he's fried on goofballs...) nails "facetious" during the Gran Turismo preview, and Morgan chokes on "sentient"? And "sentience"?
In fact, this is bugging me so much I'm going to demonstrate with the help of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language's reader guy. I'm going to call him "Spanky". (I don't know his real name, but I need something to call him.)
Spanky is one of the people who spent what I can only think was an amazingly boring month reading every single entry in the American Heritage Dictionary for bartleby.com to put up for people who can't read a pronunciation key. Or, perhaps, those who have an unnatural fear of schwas.
Listen to Morgan failing on the words, followed by Spanky's correct pronunication. Then, listen to Adam getting a similarly-tricky word without batting an eyelash.
Update: Need an easier word than "sentient"? Did you see the film Cruel Intentions? Not Cruel In-ten-tee-ons, but Cruel In-ten-shuns. Same deal as "facetious" and "sentient", the "ti" becomes an "sh".
In other news: Two Monty Python references in two episodes. Wow. (First the talk of the bunny Adam compared to the one in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, followed by the shot of God from the same movie.)
Speaking of the divine review of a less-than-divine game.... Adam: Why would the good guys convert people by violence? You talk about history and then forget that particular one? (Or perhaps he doesn't think much good has come of the Christian churches and their various witch/heretic/pagan/Saracen/not-our-type-of-Christian burnings, inquisitions, and crusades?:)
Massive destruction of controllers: I thought that was poorly done. The only good of that scene was Morgan's neat Zelda-esque life-bar shirt - it took attention away from her hair, at least. Yiiich. She looked like some butch bar bouncer from the shoulders up.
Oh, and perhaps if there's some fetishists in the audience, her lack of footwear in that scene was notable.
The new Final Fantasy movie: Dude, remember what happened last time they made a movie? Guys talked about getting hot for the animated heroine but far fewer were hot for the movie.
And it's nice to know that shooting up the place is what all good counter-terrorists do after disarming a bomb.
November 18, 2003 AD
Well, bad weather and fate have kept me from watching the show these last two weeks. But I found, on a band's webpage a link to an MPG about English former videogaming show presenter, Emily Booth. (I've mentioned her before.) Granted, while some of these are from 'Bouff's' movie appearances, the overall effect of the MPG is to make it look like a list of things TechTV must never want its hosts to do. In order:
Skimpy clothing. Skimpier clothing. Vampire impersonation. Is that a stripper's pole? Clothing removal. More clothing removal. Grinding a heel in someone's groin. Getting one's intestines eaten. Killing realistic-looking people with an obnoxiously large gun. Topless-with-hands-hiding-things. Breast jiggle. Nipples visible through shirt. More breast bounce. Topless-with-arms-hiding-things. Lingeree. Part of a lesbian-themed fondling threesome. Giving the audience the finger. Tassles on nipples. Sitting on the toilet (okay, that I disagree with). Nipple stimulation. Being a slasher movie mutilation victim. Dressing like a nun. Dressing in what could be called a "teledildonics" suit. Oh, it was a stripper's pole; is she wearing pants? Faking an orgasm in previously-mentioned teledildonics suit. More giant gun use on people. Washing what seems to be a fake penis off in a kitchen sink. Wearing a nurse-fetish cleavage-heavy costume. Self-injection. Wearing various bikinis that leave little to the imagination. Is she wearing any pants here? Appearing on-camera drenched in (fake) blood. Vomiting blood. Taking a cleaver to the head, with visible fountains of blood. Crushing human eyeballs. Self-mutilation. Being throttled. Head exploding graphically. Blowing up major landmarks.
But the most amusing bit is Bouff firing what looks to be a fully automatic machine gun (Morgan better not think she's the hottest thing on the gaming circuit now after shooting a controller). At the end of it Bouff laughs and says "Oh, I think I've just come!"
November 22, 2003 AD
I don't know what scared me more: Adam in a skirt and armless shirt or the fact that his legs and underarms were only slightly hairier than Morgan's presumably-shaved body parts.
November 29, 2003 AD
Adam drinking cheap alcohol and singing bad karaoke. It's like a Christmas office party, without the boss humping a secretary.
December 6, 2003 AD
That whole 'child casket PC' Quakecon player is still disturbing, even the second time around. I mean, I've had cousins who died in infancy. You ever see a tiny casket being lowered into the ground? It's even more bloody depressing than watching a standard one being lowered.
Equally disturbing is how all those women were in skimpy cosplay/chainmail bikinis. This is a con. The woman to man ratio is like 1:50 anyway, so there'd be erections pointed in the direction of a female if she was wearing a bulky anorak. Why make it worse?
Even more disturbing is something female liking 'Do You Like Horny Bunnies?'. I know it was just a gag, but the thought of a woman getting off on a game where you play an anime guy who looks like an anime girl and can have sex with various cousins, strangers, and preteens is just wrong.
Not disturbing, but kind of freaky, was that the guy dressed up like the Joker sounded a lot like a guy I know. I'll have to ask him if he's into dyeing his hair green.
December 13, 2003 AD
Well, the weather knocked out the first of the two shows, and the second was a rerun. Though watching horny lil' Adam go limp in front of Morgan is always entertaining.
And in more interesting news, TechTV's on the auction block and Comcast looks like the likely buyer. Comcast is (so I'm told) the people behind the dying G4 game network. Hmmm. Perhaps XPlay won't be the only gaming show on the network anymore? Though, since all of G4's current lineup only does one show a week, I'd think any change at all would be some jostling to stick a different G4 show against XPlay every day of the week.
Bigger earth-shattering changes would be X-Play being axed or loss of my non-Comcast feed.... Oh, well. We'll all just have to wait and see.
January 3, 2004 AD
New Ninja Turtles stuff.... Hmmm. I don't know what depresses me more, that nostalgia seems to be mining ever-newer veins for inspiration, so that by 2016 they'll actually be doing remakes of the same year's shows, or that real redheads are such a sparse real-world commodity that even the animated ones are looking fake now. I mean, it makes her look not like a young reporter (or even a young lab assistant if you're a fan of the original comics) but like an older person trying to look young. You know, like Madonna.
So, in the 'reimagining', the reporter was replaced with some kind of Madonna wannabe. Man, with a standard like that, no wonder X-Play didn't like the game.
In other news, there's not much in life lamer than commenting on the closed-captioning, but.... I really think they should stop overworking the poor person who types the captions. Sit him/her down, show 'em the game boxes, give them a chance to double-check their work. Because this ain't cutting it:
'The Simms' for 'The Sims' - every time.
Quidditch was right, which scares me.
'Hob its' for 'Hobbits'. (Only occasionally, though.)
My favorite: 'Nast he's' for 'Nazis'.
'Skeputs dragons' for 'Hobbits and dragons'. (Whaaa?)
'Return to the King'.
'Sreur kwious film low cages' for 'various film locations'. (Cripes, I can't even read my own handwriting, I think that's what I wrote.)
'So come' - 'Socom'. Sounds like porn. I can see it now: 'So Come III: Revenge of Osama bin Lingam'
Speaking of porn: 'Moe down Jerry' for 'Mow down Jerry'.
'Skwelz' and 'is he quells' for 'sequels'.
'Low kalz' and 'locals' for 'locales'.
'Waeurz' (Warez?:) and 'weapons' for 'sweat bands'.
'Cheered' and 'shear' for 'sheer'.
'Kung foo' or 'fo' for 'kung fu'.
'Prince of Percent Jam' for 'Prince of Persia'
'Csateroff' for 'Kasparov'.
'Ram bow' for 'Rambo'. (Ouch!)
'Bow haopel' and then 'bohemith' (as in 'bohemian'?) for 'behemoth'.
'Port alz' for 'portals', like you went through a place called Port Alz to get to the magic world in 'The Simms'.
'But thar' for 'butter'.
'Pwaoeswax' for 'beeswax' - twice in a row!
All this in about 15 minutes, plus sundry spelling errors, like 'tight' for 'title', 'a American', 'resent' for 'recent', 'longrer', 'ind less' for 'endless', 'horrify ing', 'Castle vania', putting planes in a 'hanger', etc.
The typist also knew when he/she was beaten, as well: When Morgan referred to the fact that the Star Wars Empire blew up Alderaan, the typist didn't even try it, just typing 'they blew up the planet'. But that's forgivable I suppose.
Oh, and the capstone of errors: 'x-ray' for 'X-Play'!
January 10, 2004 AD
September 21, 2002 AD: First the 'Roots' shirt with the old Atari joystick. Now the shirt that was the gaming equivalent to the Major League Baseball logo. Cool.
Well, back then it was Adam wearing it. But during today's Project Gotham Racing 2 segment, where Morgan showed off how she leaned into turns, it was Morgan wearing it. Hmmm. Either they both got one, or it's company property, or maybe Adam's just the kind of guy women rip clothes off of for their own use.
February 15, 2004 AD
Been quiet lately. Why? Well, basically my satellite dish is kaput. It works, but it's intermittent at best. There's also a nasty side effect: Because of the way it fails, when it does fail you only have access to a certain bank of channels (the specific channel group depends on where you are at the time of failure).
So, for instance, if I want to watch Trading Spaces and it fails, then I'm stuck with TLC, Comedy Central, and a billion home shopping channels.
If I want to watch X-Play, I'm stuck with TechTV, MTV, AMC, some religion network (I think), and more damn home shopping.
So I've got it so I get neither of those, but still have a decent assortment, about the same amount as basic cable with a modest bonus package. Better for my sanity that way.
Repairs are proceeding slowly. It's down to my basic electronic skills. Basically, I'm playing field service circus technician - swapping components out and hoping it works. I've swapped one length of cable and one Small Mysterious Black Box. Now I have the Big Mysterious Black Box, the dish itself, and the subterranean cable between them. I don't like that, since it's winter. Tweaking the dish will be chilly work, and examining the ground cable is effectively impossible since the ground is frozen. So the Big Box is next on the list.
Updates will be posted monthly - which seems to be the rate at which I procure and install components - unless it's magically fixed before then.
But before I go, two things:
First, a joke or two, thanks to the Jargon file.
Q: How can you recognize a field circus engineer with a flat tire?
A: He's changing one tire at a time to see which one is flat.
Q: How can you recognize a field circus engineer who is out of gas?
A: He's changing one tire at a time to see which one is flat.
And second, a link to the place that sells all those neat gaming shirts Adam and Morgan wear: GameSkins.com.
March 17, 2004 AD
Still working on it. I'm thinking it's in the dish itself. One more thing to replace....
April 11, 2004 AD
Of course, that one thing seems to require me to remove a vital locking component and thus either bring a large metal object crashing down, or have someone brace the large object with their own bodies. People are unwilling to do this.
But, the dish started working again by itself. I have no idea how long this will last, but I'm just counting my blessings.
Good Lord, what happened to Morgan's part while I was gone? It's so wide that it looks like she took a sideburn trimmer to it.
Though I did like the anime porn humor. I just finished reading Love Hina, which wasn't porn as much as it was tons of ass. Like NYPD Blue went pay-per-view or something.
April 20, 2004 AD
It was working. I don't know how, but all of a sudden it was consistently working again. I was enjoying it. Then, some genius came over and shook it when I wasn't watching, in an attempt to fix it. He comes from the "Hit the TV to fix it." school of thought. Wanna know what happened? It stopped working again. And this time, it seems permanently busted. Time to replace a whole damn satellite dish and a length of cable. Peachy.
May 20, 2004 AD
Still having a hard time getting anyone to fix stuff. Man, this is getting annoying. I'd hate to have to close down this section of the site.
Though, perhaps the choice is being made for me. I notice that G4's parent, Comcast, has purchased TechTV and will merge the networks. Against my predictions - and, indeed, the predictions of every pundit within ten thousand miles - Comcast will sacrifice most of the TechTV lineup and replace it with G4 content, not vice versa. While X-Play survived - about the only logical event in this mess - the whole thing is being moved to G4's HQ in Los Angeles from the San Francisco base. I've yet to hear if Morgan and Adam are willing to make the move.
God, I still remember the days when Jim Louderback was demonstrating a long-range walkie-talkie or something and walked outside the offices (into a rather imposing part of town). As he backed away from the camera, he almost knocked over a motorcycle parked on the sidewalk. He then turned out into the road and kept backing up... and almost got run over by a car. Those were the days.
Let me leave you this month with a comment, though. Remember the Max Headroom episode - that ran on TechTV about a year ago - when the giant Zik Zak purchased Network 23? Remember how the idea of an advertiser owning a network caused increased friction with the other networks they tried to buy time on?
Well, here we have a cable company (Comcast) who now owns a network that's carried on other carriers. How long before these other cable companies take issue with the idea of running their competitor's programming?
June 24, 2004 AD
Just as resignation was setting in, I managed to get my dish locked back on TechTV, satellite Satcom C4, transponder 12.
And found nothing there.
Static. Random solar interference. Desolation.
Seems that Comcast, in its infinite wisdom, has not only fired most of the people at a successful network, they've cut out the non-cable distribution channels.
To my readers, I say this: I am sorry. I've been adding to this page for four years now, and it finally looks like continuing is an impossibility, since I do not get G4TechTV. I'll try to get my hands on a different method of getting the show, but it seems unlikely. I'll also keep trying, God and satellite dish willing, for the next few weeks, just in case it's a temporary glitch. If anything happens, I'll update here again. But failing that, you may enjoy my other pages, which include rants, and book reviews, and tales of CAT scans, chest X-rays, and doctor's appointments. Thanks for your time and occasional e-mail, and I wish you the best.
To Comcast, I say this: Go rot in Hell. Thank you.
November 14, 2004 AD
Not reviving the page, but I must ask this. If you buy a network, why would you cancel half the shows, which:
-> makes rival cable carriers decide to drop you, since they don't want to show what's essentially become a rival's flagship(?) network;
-> alienates the viewership, so they won't even try to pressure companies into carrying your station;
-> substantially reduces the value of the object you've bought.
Perhaps that's not thinking big enough. If you buy a network...
merge it with your own, inferior, network;
cancel half the shows (see above);
kill the satellite feed, removing those viewers as well;
order all the staff to move to the new HQ or be fired;
fire them a few months later when you cancel all but one or two shows;
... so you're basically left with the same network you had before the purchase, with the same viewership and the same programs, then:
WHAT THE HELL DID YOU BUY IT FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE?
January 7, 2005 AD
'Watching g4techtv now is like getting an anal cavity search from the incredible hulk.' - an unknown ranter.
March 6, 2005 AD
Staple. To the groin. Owwww.
November 30, 2005 AD
At someone's house recently, I was surprised to hear Morgan Webb's voice coming from the television. Turns out that this person gets G4TechTV, as it's still called in Canada.
One of the first full lines I heard after this? 'You woke up with my diaphragm in your mouth.'
I liked it better when I thought X-Play was dead. Don't know what this rotting undead corpse is, but it sure isn't the show I used to watch.
Run along home.
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