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Once upon a time, there was a happy little application named iPong. It belonged to a large loving family of mutant software in the “made for PerversionTracker” category. Let’s meet the siblings first.
By now you have already guessed the awful truth, sharp little crayons that you are. Yes, it’s the Aussies again. Who knew that New South Wales could be as delightfully nutty as a pistachio-stuffed koala? Now, in a sideways crouch, we scurry under cover of shrubbery and make our cautious approach to the application in question: iPong. The name alone is worth repeating. Note the stimulating way it pops off your pursed lips? Yeah, baby, that’s it. Now say it LOUDER! With FEELING! Lose yourself in the moment!
[Several hours later. . . The lights go up on a bare stage, prostrate figure at lower left, ominous banjo music . . . is that a spreading pool of blood?]
As I was saying. According to its read-me, iPong is “an integrated media player and pong game which revolutionises [Aussie slang for ‘revolutionizes’] the way people view media and play pong simultaneously.” And why the hell not? Torn between the lures of the read-me and the game itself, I tried to experience both at once and lost three games in a row. At first you are fooled by the game’s simple exterior. You think that iPong will be nothing more than a showcase for your talent and beauty. But soon your ignorance is exposed, and you abase yourself in shame and sackcloth.
It wasn’t until our fourth game that I began to see the pattern of my failure. I was trying too hard. The computer’s main strategy was to sit in one place and quiver like a Shaker with malaria. In contrast, my main strategy was to lunge wildly about like a string-phobic puppet come to life, while engaging in energy-sapping verbal intimidation. Like so:
My long-awaited moment of triumph finally came when I beat the Egg Marketing Board’s bony ass — without even moving my paddle! This hard-fought battle almost, but not quite, made up for my humiliating capitulation to the fierce paddlework and relentless “trash talk” of the Ministry of Truth. My confidence bolstered, I was about to try my hand against the highest level, Daryl “Baise-Moi” Williams, but suddenly became intimidated by the Australian inside joke.
Instead I played around with iPong’s sliding-scale array of ball sizes (insert gratuitous scrotal joke here) and was charmed against my will. In a further nod to freedom of choice, the speed of the ball can range from “Geological” to “Heisenberg.” The game’s aggressively pongy noises cannot be modified, and silencing them would be an unwarranted violation of the spirit of ‘76, but to the attentive listener they convey a daring reconception of the idea of weltschmerz.
After a few more losing rounds against The Guy With All The Medals, I retired to puff my pride back up with a modified bicycle pump. Soon I became brave enough to try the background-movie-playing function, which not only worked (!) but also had an interesting effect on the pong portion of tonight’s program. Now you see the ball, now you don’t. Now you see two balls. Now you become certain that the ball has been kidnapped by the GMC. Now you watch the movie instead. Now you see the ball rocketing into the wall just above your paddle. Now you become wildly paranoid and descend into an alcoholic fog, each day a constant struggle to survive in a world that punishes and rewards without justice.
[Exeunt. The stage slowly darkens. Upstage right, a tiny old lady rocks quietly back and forth, knitting a nuclear warhead . . .]
The bold lack of utility displayed by iPong must be, unfortunately, weighed against the useful movie-playing function. Daily Grind Software, we award you a mildly decorative 6.5 for having the balls (ha ha!) to be satirically useless AND live in New South Wales.
Posted by naomi at April 20, 2003 01:39 PM | TrackBackFirst post!
Posted by: a on April 20, 2003 01:47 PMFirst non-simian post!
Posted by: Norman R Andrews on April 20, 2003 02:24 PMFirst reptilian post!
Posted by: Croc O. Dile on April 20, 2003 07:25 PMLast post! Nobody else post anything after this post!
Posted by: fuddes on April 20, 2003 07:31 PMOK!
(This is not a post)
"which revolutionises [Aussie slang for 'revolutionizes']"
That is perhaps the Australian spelling.
In Canada, certain words are spelled differently, such as realise, revolutionise, colour, etc.
CanBoy
CanBoy - you have brilliantly contributed nothing. Your grasp of wit could be charming, if it weren't defective.
This is great for those with a pong fetish, allowing them to play pong and watch porn in the same window. A breakthrough for perverts everywhere!
Posted by: darkov on April 20, 2003 11:38 PM"allowing them to play pong and watch porn in the same window"
Yeah, well, I tried that and the ball just kept disappearing somewhere. Over and over. I don't want to think about it.
Wherever they went there sure was room for a lot of them little things.
Posted by: Durf on April 21, 2003 12:16 AMPorn-pong, ping-porn, Uma... Oprah, Oprah... Uma.
Posted by: Rob on April 21, 2003 12:30 AMyou can't expect much from a canadian
Posted by: tom on April 21, 2003 01:30 AMThere is no conspiracy.
They don't spell things differently in Canada, they spell things correctly. Being British, I am descended from a long a noble line of English speakers, and my ancestors themselves helped to mold and shape this fine language you Americans insist on butchering. A pathological fear of the letter U isn't something to ashamed of, but you guys really need to seek help. What will you do if you're innocently reading a classic book (prefxing the word 'book' with the word 'classic' excludes every American book ever written) and come across a word like 'chequered'? I know it's confusing, but once upon a time the word 'checkered' was actually spelt right. All those spelling tests where you got 9/10 even though you were sure you spelt color and checkered right, well you didn't. There is no excuse for American spelling ineptitude. You cannot argue with an English person about what the correct English is (unless you're talking to one of the 49,999,999 or so stupid English people). Just be thankful you can spell the important words, like 'in' and 'of' and 'through'. Ah shite, you can't spell that either.
Posted by: Brit on April 21, 2003 05:26 PMgood god, I nearly laughed myself silly. Not only have I forgotten just how pitiful the 10 year old macintalk voices are, I also apparently didn't know that people in Ausi-land can't speak english very well. The best is when it starts saying "M... M... M... M..." after the defeat message. I really started laughing after I fired up Ellen Feiss in the background to keep me company. Ellen seemed to cut the games total CPU time to about 3 processes every minute, and then it started looping BACKWARD!! My 700mhz ibook can only handly so much, and looping Ellen backward while ponging and playing macintalk voices is something it can definately not handle. I think I'm gonna stick around on this page and see what else you manage to drudge up from the premordial slime of the beginning programmer.
Posted by: Verndog on April 21, 2003 05:28 PMBrit, you twit! You git! You viscous gob of hedgehog spit! A history lesson. In the year [insert correct year here] a group of British Pilgrims jumped onto a ship to escape exactly the sort of excremental pettiness that you are peddling in your pathetic post. And they took their language with them. To whit, English. (Well, I think there may have been some sort of religious intolerance, but that wouldn't suit my story, so I choose to ignore it, and won't be told different!)
In the late 19th century, the English, back home in the Auld Country, fell in love with the ever-so-romantic French language, and promptly proceeded to bastardise their spellings to make them look tres Francais. Hence, "labor" became "labour", "color" became "colour". "You jumped up, pompous English twerp", however, remained largely the same.
I, too, use the so-called "English" spellings, but I also know full well that they are not the original spellings ... the original spellings as used in the USA!
The plot thickens, exponentially with the bone-density of your skull.
Therefore it is highly prejudicial and largely inaccurate to berate the citizens of the USA for the ways in which they spell. After all, they have retained true English spellings long after their transatlantic ancestors decided to poofterise their language because they thought things Froggy sounded spiffy.
And don't think I'm happy about being called upon to defend a nation of which the highest office-holder can indulge in oral sex while in office, and remain in office. Or accuse a country of "might be going to do something nasty some time in the indefinite future, maybe, perhaps, with weapons that we know they left around here somewhere but we just can't seem to find them", and then raze it.
I like Poms, and I like Seppos, so I do wish you wouldn't fight like this! Especially when the argument has as much substance as the fart of a ghost!
Posted by: aussie boy on April 21, 2003 07:50 PM"And don't think I'm happy about being called upon to defend a nation of which the highest office-holder can indulge in oral sex while in office, and remain in office. Or accuse a country of "might be going to do something nasty some time in the indefinite future, maybe, perhaps, with weapons that we know they left around here somewhere but we just can't seem to find them", and then raze it."
Now wait just a darn minute!!! We have Hostess Twinkies! And Whack-A-Mole! and Tammy Faye Bakker! I think those three things pretty much balance out the bad things you mentioned. - A Patriotic American
Posted by: francis moore lapped on April 21, 2003 11:52 PMfrancis moore lapped, you forgot Oscar Mayer wieners, the Disney Corporation, and Steven Spielberg.
Mind you, we have Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter ... Guess that just about out-sins everyone!
Posted by: aussie boy on April 22, 2003 03:42 AMAussie Boy: You're right in what you say (I assume, without checking the facts). All it means though is that we progressed while the American settlers were too busy slaughtering the natives to notice. After they'd slaughtered all they could they found they had too much work to do and not enough people to persecute, so they shipped in a load of slaves. You may think that this would give them plenty of time to progress with the rest of us, but whipping slaves is a full time job. Very rewarding, apparently, but not really my thing. Being British I prefer holy Crusades, the point being to hack up Muslims with big swords, whether they're willing to say they'd rather be a Christian or not. I gather this is frowned upon now though.
(Before people get up in arms, these comments are meant to be a joke, and I actually love Americans and Muslims (note my cunning distinction here between Muslim and Terrorist... you yanks may find it hard to believe, but there is indeed a difference).)
Posted by: Brit on April 22, 2003 09:35 AMI think these comments deserves 8.6.1.
Correct me if I'm… no, forget it.
Posted by: an idiot who do not understand anything at all (and no, my name is not George!) on April 22, 2003 04:26 PMHi there roulette and Hi there online roulette and Hi there play roulette online
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