New Usher Single "Rockband" Proves We're at the Point of Making Songs About Video Games About Songs

“That’s refreshing,” you’re probably thinking, “Usher has decided to make a new single about a video game rather than about his penchant for making love to women in various different venues.”  But then it turns out that “Rockband” deals less with the video game of the same name, and more with Usher and the sexual activities he participates in with women (in various different venues).  The metaphor is a little flimsy, if you ask me.  Usher’s going to beat the woman like a video game?  Uh?  He’s rocking her in the same way that he plays Rock Band?  Presumably he is good at Rock Band?  Is he comparing his lovemaking skills to the vocal abilities of the Mick Jagger avatar in the game, or to Mick Jagger’s lovemaking skills in real life?

All we can know for sure is that while it’s totally not a big deal or anything one way or the other, Usher certainly wouldn’t be opposed to appearing in the next Rock Band game, if somebody happened to ask him to.

Source: ONTD.

Own the Sarah Palin XBox, An American Treasure

Own a genuine piece of real American history!  Brace yourselves, collectors of significant Americana: the Sarah Palin XBox is up for auction.  Seller Dave Morrill (N.B: of Canada) describes the transcendent July moment of its creation at the governor’s picnic:

When I was in front of Sarah Palin, I told her that I had traveled three days to see her and asked her to sign my Xbox360. She said it was the most extravagant thing she had ever been asked to sign. I shook her hand, removed myself from the crowd, and then I packed up my Xbox360 and headed home. It was one of the greatest thrills of my life to have watched Sarah Palin on CNN, SNL, Youtube, and then to see her right in front of me.

If you want to commemorate the year Sarah Palin lost her bid for the vice presidency and then signed some clown’s videogame console at a picnic to celebrate how she wouldn’t have to be governor any more, the bidding is open.  And the seller is only asking for…  

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Cops Enjoy Some Wii Bowling at Suspect's House During Drug Raid

Police were caught on film playing Nintendo Wii Bowling “for hours” in a suspected drug dealer’s home during a drug bust.  Drug-busting hard, or hardly drug-busting, fellas?  ”We were just attempting to retrace the suspect’s actions from the entire day of the arrest at the scene of the crime.  Furthermore, you’d better believe we smoked every carbon-compound-based thing we found in that sucker’s house.”  Video, after the jump.  

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Student Kills Home Burglar With Samurai Sword

Crime doesn’t pay.  Let me amend that: crime often pays in the monetary sense, but in order to commit a crime, you usually have to violate another citizen’s home or person in a way that can be uncomfortable for both of you.  It is uncomfortable for your target because he will become confused, angry, and frightened.  It is uncomfortable for you because your confused, angry, and frightened victim will be carrying a samurai sword, and he will stab you to death with it.  Yesterday, off-campus at Johns Hopkins University, acccording to police reports, such an altercation happened:

The student told police that he heard a commotion in the house and went downstairs armed with a samurai sword, Guglielmi said. He saw the side door to the garage had been pried open and found a man inside, who lunged at the student.

It did not go well for the burglar…  

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Courtney Love Already Suing "Guitar Hero" Over Wacky Kurt Cobain Character

Of course I had a Nirvana phase.  They’re just a band that does that to you.  Cobain and co. usually get you in mid-to-late high school, when you’re feeling restless and dissatisfied and generally caged in.  The guys had a sense of humor though.  Cobain wrote “I Hate Myself and Want To Die” to poke fun at his media image as a sad sack longhair.  He ultimately kind of ruined the punchline there, but still.  Hard to think he’d be laughing about the new Guitar Hero 5, though, in which he’s a playable avatar.

The game’s career mode has the animated Nirvana frontman sing Bon Jovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name, yell Flava Flav’s catch phrase and do Bush karaoke.

Indeed, why would Kurt Cobain even yell, “FLAVA FLAAAAV!!”?  It just don’t sit right.  So as you might imagine, Courtney Love has been fumbling through pages of phone books, take-out menus, and Dianetics, looking for someone or something to sue over this…  

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X-Box and PS3 Get Price Drops. Grandparents and Hillbillies Still Prefer the Wii.

Back quite some time ago, you may even remember it, Sony and Microsoft owned the console wars, with both the PS2 and the X-Box battling over top position in the market. And Nintendo? Well, Nintendo pretty much looked like bull plop, with the Gamecube pretty much being certified proof that you deserved to get beaten up if you owned a copy of Luigi’s Mansion.

But that was so four years ago, and now that we’ve moved on into the next generation of consoles, with Microsoft’s 360 flagging and the PS3 looking to make Sony put out a second lease on their home, there’s news that both companies have dropped their prices. Why? Because now the Nintendo Wii owns, baby.  Here’s what’s happened:  

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Can a Video Game Be Art?

An interesting examination in The Telegraph today on the rise of “art house” video games, small titles that privilege aesthetics, engage the gamer’s senses, and you know, make you think.  The article cites a host of games, all dissimilar to each other, as examples of a new, artistic trend in gaming.  There’s The Path, an Alice in Wonderland-type “psychological horror,” Flower, the developers of which called it “not quite a game, more of an experience,” and Bioshock, which gamers will already be familiar with.

What makes a video game art, though?  And is this even a new thing?  Some descriptions of the more innovative games, ATJ:

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Video Of The Day: Redubbing The Stones

I never really noticed how ridiculous Mick Jagger looks when he’s gyrating without the music of the Rolling Stones playing.  And it’s even stranger when instead of the stones you’re listening to what someone has dubbed over the scene is made to look like it’s what Mick and the boy are singing.

Just check it out>>>

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The Greatest Freakout Ever

I have to finish going to play Father’s Day right now, but before I unplug from the internet for the rest of the day I wanted to share this most awesome freakout viral with you guys.  I’m not sure if it’s real and it’s under great debate if it is or not, but the part where the kid loses it and puts the remote up his butt because he got his WoW taken away from him is awesome.

Take the debate to the comments after you watched it>>>

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Everything You Think Is Real Is a Lie to Make You Buy Video Games

Is anything real anymore?  No – it’s all stealth marketing.  I looked at this blog, BloodCopy, last week.  It’s a blog only about vampires!  So naturally I thought, “Well ain’t this dumber than a possum wearing people clothes!”  But no, it’s all stealth marketing for the show True Blood airing at 10PM EST/9 PM C on HBO check your local listings!  

And your shirt – look at it.  A shirt, you think.  But no, stealth marketing.  For greenTM: the color that looks green.  Mine is, anyway.  Yours is probably for pink.  And that Verizon ad above this post?  Not just a picture of phones with attractively priced long-distance packages.  You guessed it: stealth marketing.  For Nike.

Now this: protesters picketing the Dickens out of the new Electronic Arts game Dante’s Inferno at the E3 convention.  But they weren’t conservative Christian protesters.  They were lies!  

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