We're walking downtown during lunch. It's a cold spring day and the sky is dark gray behind the buildings. The wind blows through the static corridors, flicking dust and throwing papers.

We go the block or so to have some Chinese food. I get an order of Siam Noodles. They know me there, so they pack the clamshell with so many curry noodles that the cashier can hardly close it. The plastic bag around it sags and the tied handles pull tight on my fingers.

We move around the corner. It seems we've walked this route so many times that I can't count them. The smell of diesel fumes billows among the derelicts and businessmen standing in the sunshine.

I can see him in the distance, a lone figure in khaki pants, black shoes and belt, a white shirt and a long black tie. He paces back and forth, a black rectangle in his hand. He beats upon it with his fist. He looks like a tiger tracing circles in a cage. The sun brightens his white hair, but there is no halo.

We approach him slowly. I can feel your eyes on me - you know what I'm thinking.

You're right.

When I turn to look at you I can see your anxiety. You've heard the bile I spew and you know that I want to turn his words around on him. You know I'm crazy enough to try and argue down a crazy guy with a Bible.

His voice carries above the sound of traffic and people. He repeats damnation, damnation, damnation... it would seem that the end of the world is coming.

"The preacher man says it's the end of time... he says that America's rivers are going dry. the interest is up, the stock market's down..."

I want to slow down as we pass him. He yells and screams at passers-by. He talks about the end of the world, he talks about the end of time, he talks about the end of the family.

He holds up his book and swings it around like a sword - "The sword of God!" He holds it above his head. "God shall smite us with his wrath unless we repent! The Lord shall come down upon us and take his children like a thief in the night." He takes a breath. "Will you be here when the mighty trumpet sounds?"

I slow down and you push me forward, I feel the tips of your fingers in the small of my back as gentle pressure.

"God has turned his back on us! We are a nation of baby killers and drug addicts, child molesters and homosexuals!" He turns and faces the street. I notice that people around him have started to turn their backs on him.

They don't want to catch his eye, they don't want to gain his interest, they don't want this crazy man in their midst. Everyone is fearful of him. Not for his message, but for his manic and inane screaming. They see him as a festering boil on the sidewalk, worse than a beggar for change. If he was a beggar he would probably go away.

I wonder, has he ever won a single soul for Christ, yelling like this? I wonder, has he ever done more than stand on the street corner so that others can see just that he is a "holy man". Does this notoriety help him to sleep at night? Does he have any friends?

Your fingers push me on. I look at the preacher man now as he speaks the "words of God".

I don't think he understands anything at all he says. I look at the preacher man, I look at the preacher man, I look at the preacher man.

But he doesn't look back.

"The preacher man says it's the end of the world..."

We walk towards an empty staircase to have a quiet lunch on the steps. Behind us the man's voice fades into the rush of traffic.

"The preacher man says it's the end of the world..."

I open my box of noodles and they spill out like bliss... I wonder if he ever opens that book in his hand.

"The preacher man says it's the end of the world..."

But d'you think the end of the world is coming?

No. So says the preacher man, but... I don't go by what he says.

If you're like me, your life can easily be described by your experiences with vending machines. Simple, elegant, and justifiably the most useful mechanical device devised by man, the vending machine is both a bane and a godsend for millions of people. Causing pain and suffering while simultaneously unleashing joy, vending machines are an integral part of nearly all of our lives.

"Blasphemy!" you may be saying to yourself. "I can hardly recall a time when a candy dispenser guessed how I was feeling at the time. It's not like it's got a mood meter or something, right?" Wrong. Well probably not, but I figure they must; either that or fate has a huge part in the matter.

Don't believe me? Here, in brief, is a summary of my life story with the vending machine.

As a child, I was happy and uncaring. Just like any boy who was not being molested by priests or pedophiles. I climbed trees, smashed bugs, and more than anything else in the world, enjoyed trying to fish candy or sodas out of vending machines with my small arms. This brought me little success until that fateful day when I discovered a soda machine that kept the money within arm's reach. Needless to say, I was extremely satisfied with myself for having found something I was good at. At least until they replaced all those types of machines in the area.

This made me very sad, and I entered a period of my life that I can sum up as being "not really worth describing." During these unexciting times, I was swindled out of countless dollars of change by vending machines hellbent on ruining my life. What had I ever done to them? All I wanted was a KitKat bar or a Sprite, and instead I got grief. Whoever stocks candy machines with grief ought to jump off a bridge.

As I slowly began to lose trust in those monoliths of simplicity and con artistry, my life took even more of a downturn. I became depressed, and was forced to please myself by digging holes and chopping down trees for which I would build a mausoleum to bury my forlorn body once I was finished. I also continued to have bags of chips hang on by a thread, just outside of my reach on the other side of the very breakable glass.

Yet I resisted unleashing my anger. I knew that someday, maybe, I would be happy again. All I had to do was hold on, and maybe I'd find what I was looking for. A machine that I could call "friend".

And so I waited, hoping, knowing that my time would come. Finally, after years of longing, I had found it - Michigan Technological University. A haven for vending machines, I knew that deep down, some of these machines had to like me. It was a new beginning for all of us.

Soon, my hopes were realized. Time after time, E5 after B7, Mountain Dew after Sunkist, I was not disappointed. In fact, I could go as far as to say I was happy again, and with every clunk of a falling soda I was reminded of the good times from my childhood.

Which brings me to last Friday, when I was greeted with a beautiful Spring morning, pleasant smiles, lovely spring flowers, and a 2-for-1 deal on Mountain Dews. My life could hardly get any better.

Or could it? I have yet to ever get a 3-for-1, or a candy machine that keeps spinning and deposits the entire row of Skittles into my arms, as if gold coins falling from the sky. Hey, a guy can hope, right?

Completely true story. And I bet I'm not the only one. I'm sure we're all part of this Vending Dimension, where all our overall lives accurately follow our vending machine experiences. Take a minute and think about it. Then decide whether it's worth putting change into that shifty looking change machine. It might be better just to go to the café instead.

Atari has recently announced that they plan on creating another sequel to their 70's arcade hit Pong, with new features, story, and gameplay mechanics. That's right, I said another. There are multiple remakes and remastered editions reaching Pong IV, along with Super Pong, Pong Doubles (two player co-op), Quadrapong (four players!), and Doctor Pong. They've also branched out and made single players pong where its you versus a bunch of bricks in Breakout, the Pong for the antisocial. But this new Pong, The Legend of Pong: Rise of the Anti-Paddle, will be the Pong to end all Pongs.

This Pong will have a fully immersive story spanning three disks. The graphics are breathtaking, with enough foliage dew and luminance to make you think the player just got a fresh waxing. The music will be spectacular, combining the musical talent of John Williams of Star Wars fame, Nobuo Uematsu of Square Enix AC/DC, Daft Punk, and the re-animated corpse of Mozart with the standard "beep" and "boop" of the original Pong.

The characters have a relatable quality that makes it feel as if you are facing the grave dangers of the hero's quest yourself. The motion capture was done so well you'd think that you were watching live-action human movement (due to budget constraints, 93% of the FMVs are actual human beings in front of a green screen; you could hardly tell the difference). One could only imagine the size of the balls those actors were sporting. The developing team was also not shy in implementing anime cut scenes and cell-shaded graphics where necessary! Don't be surprised when a fleshy human (William Shatner) is carrying a compelling discussion with a spunky, bug-eyed anime chick.

The game follows the adventure of a dashing, young 18 year-old (the only ones qualified to save the world, apparently), voice-acted and motion captured by Captain Kirk himself, as he quests to save some princess who appears to have been chosen by lottery in mortal danger. You quest around the kingdom of EightBit, recruiting allies of various species and hues all the while defeating hordes of goblins, crumbling dictators, and frequent minigames involving interbreeding giant chickens with their parents and masturbation contests. The story revolves around and evil spirit called the Anti-Paddle that possesses your brother and slaughters your family in one of the most gruesome random acts of violence ever to be depicted in claymation. You and your brother meet face to face after 3 disks and 50 hours of straight FMVs and have one last sword fighting action sequence with Quicktime events involving colorful button-mashing just for the hell of it. Your swords break and your shields fly off in opposite directions.

Now here comes the part where you actually get to control the character! Its you and your brother as he holds up his shield of Anti-Paddle magic and you with your shield of Holy Pong. In the charbroiled walls of the castle with no escape you notice the base of the back wall has become terribly weak. Yet you also take note that the wall behind you is ready to crumble at any moment. You use your shield to cast a spell on the nearby cannonball to give it tremendous momentum and launch it towards your foe. The enemy deflects it with their shield! The battle begins!

The gameplay has received exciting new tweaks this time around. Now developers added forward movement, a hate meter, AI, and mana gathering! Granted, the mana cannot be used since you don't know a single magic spell, though you can read about the awesome ones in the game manual! There are invisibility spells, fireball casting spells, and demon summoning spells! When the head of development was asked how these additions would change the strategy used in previous Pong games, his reply was "There was a strategy?".

To be a fair reviewer, I must point out the flaws of The Legend of Pong: Rise of the Anti-Paddle. If one could look past the shoddy controls, obvious plagiarism of nearly every game on the market, and Nazi propaganda, then this version of Pong could easily replace all other games in your collection (which it will, since it immediately writes its own data into all nearby data storage devices it comes within three meters of, including your brain).

The release date for The Legend of Pong: Rise of the Anti-Paddle has not been officially stated, but fan speculation seems to be that it will be released a few months before the mystical game Duke Nukem Forever hits shelves on Jupiter. Because of the awesomeness that is this game, no modern console or PC could ever hope to run it. It will be released for the Xbox Hypersphere (infinite degrees of fun!), Nintendo Mario (it might as well), Game Boy Supreme Lord of All Mankind (already is in my book), Playstation 5000, and the IBM Blue Gene Supercomputer Home Edition.

It starts off with an ebonic greeting like 'aww yeah' or 'right right right'. Then the beat kicks in. Just to be certain you tell them the song started. Like 'Here we go' or 'It's on'. Then you make a reference to drugs or anal sex. Or if you're old-school, the po-po. Then if you aren't old shool you mention the one you didn't mention before (drugs or anal sex) and the rest of the songs about that.
The videos are to tell you 'I'm better than you because my wheels keep spinning after my car stops moving'.

Honey Bunches...of Oats

Master Blaster

Deer

Who the Hell Are You?

Jiggly Cheeks

Milk Dud

This Week's Contestant

Milk of Magnesia

My Next Victim...

Thunder the Wonder Horse

Love Handles

Dakota Fanning

Rib Rack

Ben Dover

My 9 O'Clock

Swedish Air Sleep System

My Little Fetus

Moo

Mom

Mile High Club Voucher

Fleshlight

Herpes, My Love Bug

Ahab the Tent Maker

Number 3, 4, or 7

differential calculus

how to use a condom

the max HP of a pikachu

elementary school doesn't matter

how to save 15% on your car insurance

you don't have to say the Pledge of Allegiance

not to stop in Bat Country

sig figs

you will NOT be the President of the United States...

...or an astronaut

that's not hair gel

macaroni ornaments are useless and your parents hate them

glitter is not the perfect compliment to all art work

you will never use brass fasteners again

'the farm' really means 'tied up in the woods'

money does buy happiness

4/5 of you will never understand math

how to mix a drink

I can sue for anything!

So I was wondering about these sigs. When I feel like it, I can get pretty creative with Photoshop. Just wondering which of these sigs are coolest.
It'd be nice to be specific.

To end all news posts

Beacause it's probably the last one...

for a while.

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

What I'd do, is just like... like... you know, like, you know what I mean, like...

Yeah, well lately my laptop has been overheating a lot. I found a temporary fix by propping up the back end about an inch or so, but that doesn't seem to do much when I'm getting my Half-Life 2 on. It really sucks because when I'm in the middle of the White Forest, killing the combines, my computer just shuts down and I can't turn it back on until I wait for it to cool off a bit.

Does anyone want to suggest some good alternative sources of cooling?