They just start the fight that way, but if they’re losing then they’ll switch to the right hand

Funny enough N.E.R.D. also has a song called “Happy” but it’s definitely a different vibe than his more famous song of the same name. This one’s happy because an ex-lover is finally out of the singer’s life and their life is now so much better for it.

Good catch, looks like it was a promotional partnership for the Special Editions in 1997

Pretty sure that Doritos bag is too old for 1999, too

They already have authorized resellers, who they link to on their website. This problem would only come from unauthorized resellers, who would not qualify for warranty service. It might not help software support requests, but I don’t know how much support they offer for software since I don’t think they’re supplied with any. Anything hardware they should be asking for a receipt from an authorized reseller, and if the customer can’t provide it then it’s not covered by the warranty. And even if the customer can provide a receipt from an authorized reseller in their name, if it comes in for repair and has the wrong RAM then it’s not a warranty repair anyway (although I’m guessing for something this inexpensive they don’t repair individual units, they probably just send a replacement, so the counterfeit parts might not get noticed).

Did somebody photoshop Jake Gyllenhaal’s face onto the body of Dean Winters’s “Mayhem” character from the Allstate ads?

Dude’s never even heard of leg day

Didn’t know about that, although it makes sense. That does complicate things!

That’s a good point, there are still a lot of those information/alert radios around and they’re basically all a low powered AM station. That could be important for people driving by and not having that option reduces safety. I have a hard time believing that AM receivers are that expensive for cars that it’s really worth the trade-off. It’s probably not something that gets used often, but when it’s needed you want people to have it.

This reminds me of a lost game—two, actually—that I’ve been searching for off-and-on over the years. I can find no trace of them online, but still have hope that I might pull them off an old hard drive at some point. It was a little free multiplayer LAN game written in Java called Tank Killen, and the sequel Tank Killen 2. I think it was written by a couple Swedish guys and the website seemed to be just one of the guy’s web hosting shares from his ISP.

It was a top-down game where you would drive around a map with your tank and shoot at the other players’ tanks. There were various power-ups scattered around the board. Both games were similar but the sequel was visually better and had some improved power-ups like a guided missile you could fly around the map.

I actually got the sequel early because with the first game somewhere there was a note offering to send a level editor to anyone who was interested. I asked but they offered to send me the sequel they were working on instead because the level editor for the first game was very difficult to use. On the sequel it was fairly straightforward and I actually added a level into the copies I had and shared.

My brother and I played a little at home but it wasn’t as fun with just two people. It was much better at school with up to 8 players; that’s where I played the first version. There were computers networked all over the school (unusual around the year 2000), and for a while playing games was allowed after school in a designated classroom. I don’t know who introduced the first version, but I introduced the sequel. I think by that point games weren’t allowed anymore but IT never removed the files or blocked the network traffic. The game and the subsequent detentions might be my legacy at the school, probably even for a few years after graduating.

Knowing humans someone probably thought pretty quickly that it would be a funny prank to point it at his friend

That is unnerving

He did a show or is scheduled to do a show near me and I thought about going, but the ticket prices were out of my price range. Good for him if he’s able to get that kind of money in his 70s!

This feels even more baffling than David Spade

Xbox was actively angering large swathes of the gaming community. All Sony had to do was sit back and let them implode. Instead they’re trying to outdo Microsoft.

Over a decade ago I heard one of the DJs on SiriusXM refer to Red Hot Chili Peppers and Blink-182 as “nostalgia bands”

I haven’t played all of them but I would say Civilization III is my favorite. It has the classic elements in their most polished form. My dark horse, though, is Civilization Revolution for the Nintendo DS. While Revolution on the other platforms was basically a simplified version of Civilization IV, the DS couldn’t handle that and got an even more simplified 2D version. In simplifying it they really made the 4X gameplay crisper and more focused. They should release a version of that for mobile phones.

I was surprised how many places are apparently open today. Are you getting extra pay for working the holiday?

Drives us crazy when we go visit my wife’s family in France