Because you can't find it anywhere else

92.fun, Mary Worth, Vince has Issues
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Crossing the Line

There’s a fine line between appreciating Mary Worth “ironically”, and just appreciating Mary Worth. Recently, i realized I had crossed this line. There was a time when I liked reading Mary Worth because it was ridiculous. Mary was being stalked by a Captain Kangaroo lookalike, and to put a stop to it, she had an intervention for him with all of her friends. Then he drove off a cliff. It was ridiculously awesome.

I have to admit, it was the Aldo Kelrast storyline that made me start reading Mary Worth in the first place. For a long time, I didn’t read Mary Worth. It was the only comic strip in the newspaper I didn’t read. I even read freakin’ B.C. and crap like that. Mary Worth must be the most boring thing ever, i thought. Little did I know, there were ridiculous characters like Aldo and Dr. Chinbeard and My Very Own Meth Lab Tommy. Now, I don’t mean to say that I don’t appreciate Mary Worth in this way anymore. It’s just that there’s something else…

From an “ironic” perspective, Mary Worth has been relatively boring lately. It’s all boring relationship stuff and nothing funny has been going on. Well, except for Dr. Whitepants’ little winking-while-actually-saying-“Wink!” move. That was pretty funny. Still, for the most part it’s been relatively dull. And yet I keep reading it. Then, the other day, when I saw that Dr. Drew “the Younger” Cory was going out on a date with Vera “Curses Upon You, Von” Shields, even though he was already in a relationship with Dawn “I’m Twenty but Look Forty and Dress Four” Weston, I was actually sort of angry with him. That’s when I realized I had crossed the line, and I was appreciating Mary Worth the way it was actually intended.

I’m not sure how I should feel about this. I kind of feel like my grandmother. She always loved to read the serial comic strips, like Mary Worth and Apartment 3G (at least I’m not that far gone yet). Still, I’m pretty sure this condition only pertains to Mary Worth for me. Like, I really couldn’t give a crap about Judge Parker. It’s so boring. Still, I’m gonna keep reading Mary Worth. As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t really a problem.

—

PS. Unrelated Side Note: As I wrote this, I was listening to 92.fun, The Wave, and the DJ introduced one of the songs as a song to which “you shouldn’t have any problems remembering the chorus.” The song was called, I kid you not, “Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.”

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Podcast
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Podcast 4: It's a Real Podcast Now

The new installment of the Ben and Vince podcast has been released.  Get it here.

But, the big news is that the podcast is now an actual podcast.  Like, one you could subscribe to in iTunes.  One to which you could subscribe in iTunes.  One to which you could subscribe to in iTunes by doing the following:

  1. Go to Advanced > Subscribe to Podcast.
  2. Enter the URL http://feeds.feedburner.com/obscureporn .

And that’s the way you do it.

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Entertainment, Humor
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Choose Your Own Pornventure

Hello and welcome to the first (and likely last) ever Choose Your Own Pornventure!
If you don’t want to play, type in a different URL in your address bar. Or close this window. Somehow navigate away from this web page.
If you do want to play, turn to page 1.

Page 1
Are you sure you want to do this? Seriously, it’s not too late to just forget the whole thing. I wouldn’t be offended. Go ahead, go to a different website. Are you sure? OK fine.
A man walks up to you and says, “Hello and welcome to the first (and likely last) ever Choose Your Own Pornventure! How would you like to play?”
If you would like to be a spaceperson exploring Mars, turn to page 2.
If you would like to be transported back in time to Ancient Rome, turn to page 3.
If you would like to be stuck inside a giant pinball machine (or maybe you just shrunk and you’re inside a regular pinball machine), turn to page 4.

Page 2
You have just landed on the surface of Mars. Suddenly, a giant metal ball careens toward you! You barely get out of the way, but not before the giant metal ball bounces off something in the distance and comes back. This time it doesn’t come near you, but as you follow it with your eyes, you see a giant cone shaped object shoot forward and strike the ball, sending it off in an unpredictable direction. Then it hits you. You’re inside a giant Mars-themed pinball machine!
Turn to page 5.

Page 3
You are standing in the Roman Forum (a central marketplace and town square). Everything looks extremely accurate for the period. Suddenly, a giant metal ball careens toward you! You barely get out of the way, but not before the giant metal ball bounces off something in the distance and comes back. This time it doesn’t come near you, but as you follow it with your eyes, you see a giant cone shaped object shoot forward and strike the ball, sending it off in an unpredictable direction. Then it hits you. You’re inside a giant Ancient Rome-themed pinball machine!
Turn to page 5.

Page 4
You are surrounded by flashing lights and loud sounds, and you feel as though you are standing on a 6.5 degree incline. Yes, by all accounts, you are inside a giant pinball machine. Suddenly, the entire structure jolts around, and you are knocked off your feet. Once the shaking subsides, you notice a conveniently placed exit door (more of a trapdoor, since it’s in the ground). You open it up and fall out, only to notice that you are wearing a spacesuit and everything around you is red. Then it hits you. You were in a pinball machine-shaped spacecraft en route to Mars! And now you’ve arrived!
Turn to page 6.

Page 5
Now that you’re in this pinball machine, your thoughts turn to nothing but how to get out. After all, it’s pretty scary in there: the flashing lights are about to give you a seizure, and you feel like you’re going deaf from all the loud sounds. Not to mention there is a giant metal ball rolling around at extremely high speeds. You see two options for how to get out: break a hole through the glass ceiling, or climb out the place where the ball is propelled forward by the plunger.
If you want to break a hole in the ceiling, read the second comment on this post.
If you want to climb out of the place where the ball is propelled forward by the plunger, turn to page 7.

Page 6
You’re on Mars! This is it! You’re making history! After a few moments of awestruck silence, you get on your Martian rover and start driving around. You are basically just driving in a straight line. NASA wants you to be doing important science stuff, but you really just came to Mars to screw around. Anyway, you are driving straight, when all of a sudden a huge wall comes into view just feet in front of you (it had been obscured by a dust storm previously). With just seconds to act, you have to swerve around it somehow. Do you turn left or right? YOU GET NO MORE INFORMATION! YOU HAVE TO DECIDE NOW!! LEFT OR RIGHT!! WHICH IS IT?!?
If you want to turn left, send an email to choose.your.own.pornventure@gmail.com. You will receive an auto-response with further instructions. Please do not send more than one email every four days. Limit one per household. Void where prohibited. OK just kidding, but not about that “only once every four days” thing.
If you want to turn right, turn to page 10.

Page 7
You climb down into the place where the ball is propelled forward by the plunger. You’re starting to think maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Is there even an exit over here? As you are walking down the chute, a ball rolls into position, the plunger draws back, and- OH! This was ill-advised. It seems you have been squashed to death by a giant metal ball. You have lost. GAME OVER.
If you would like to play again, turn back to page 1.
If you would like to quit (and really, who can blame you), go away from this website somehow. I don’t really care how, and neither do you, probably. Just stop playing this ridiculous game. It’s sucking away your life.

Page 8
You jump down from the giant pinball machine in order to get across the room to the Shrink/Unshrink Machine. Unfortunately, a fall from this height is lethal to someone of your stature. Your bones break in many little pieces and you die painfully. What a way to go, too. I can think of many better ways to die. Especially since your remains are eaten by a mouse. Well, you have a few choices now.
If you want to play again, turn back to page 1.
Otherwise, go away.

Page 9
You sit on top of the pinball machine, thinking about what to do. There’s not much you can do, really. Any idiot can see that jumping to the floor in order to get across the room to the Shrink/Unshrink Machine would be lethal to someone of your stature. As you are thinking, the mad scientist enters the room.
If you want to hide so he doesn’t see you, turn to page 13.
If you want to wait until he’s close and then jump into his pocket, turn to page 13.

Page 10
Little did you know that there was a giant pit full of death to the right of the wall! You have died, and NASA is really pissed because they spent billions of dollars on this mission. In fact you are a disgrace to the American people. Man, if only you had been smart enough to turn left instead of right! You should’ve been able to figure out that that was the right thing to do. Anyway, you’re dead.
If you want to play again, turn back to page 1.
If you don’t want to play again, then why the hell are you still hanging around here! Go do something! Improve the world somehow.

Page 11
You declare to the Martians, “I come in peace!” But, unfortunately, they don’t speak English. Why would they, really. You were kinda dumb to expect them to. In any case, they interpret your innocuous gesture as an act of war and charge toward you! What do you do?!?!
If you want to turn around your Martian rover and drive away like the coward you are, turn to page 14.
If you want to use your ray gun to shoot a conveniently placed boulder that will fall down and crush all the Martians, watch this Flash file (Flash required).

Page 12
You rush in with your ray gun blazing! The Martians, terrified of your sudden attack, run away! You are victorious! You claim this planet in the name of the United States of America! This is an indisputably happy outcome! Years later, your wife leaves you and your children hate you because you are an insufferable asshole. This leads to years of drinking and eventual eviction from your beautiful house. You wander the streets for a while before finally succumbing to a premature death from a combination of cold, liver failure, hunger, and thirst. Wow, you almost thought you won there, didn’t you? You were pretty close, too! Oh well.
If you would like to play again and try for a less depressing ending, turn back to page 1. Don’t even think about turning back to the page from which you came! I know you’re cheating! Maybe if you didn’t cheat so much, you would do better at this game.
If you want to just give up, I won’t stop you. In fact, if that’s the kind of person you are, I don’t want you playing this game anymore. Get out. I’m serious. I don’t want to see your disgusting little face anymore.

Page 13

It doesn’t really matter what you wanted to do; the mad scientist sees you standing there and grabs you in his disgusting fist. “I’ll take care of you!” he says maniacally. Waves of fear assault you; you don’t know what kind of evil plan this man has in mind. He shoves you back in the Shrink/Unshrink Machine and closes the door. He pulls a lever and lights flash all around you. You feel like you’re being torn apart! Everything gradually subsides and he opens the door again. You realize that you are on eye level with him! He has unshrunk you! “There you go, son,” he says, and you realize that you were just acting in “Honey, I Shrunk the Kid.” THE END.
There are no options for you anymore. You won, what more do you want?

Page 14
You race back to the spaceship with the Martians in pursuit. Your astronaut friend is like, “What? What’s going on?” and you’re just like “Let’s take off c’mon no time to explain!” You both rush back into the pinball machine and lift off. As you see Mars disappearing beneath you, you realize that you don’t have enough fuel to make it back to Earth. Instead of dying of suffocation, you and your friend decide that you’ll just end it early, and you die in each other’s arms. Whoa. How’d that happen. Anyway you lost.
If you’d like to play again, I would recommend turning back to page 1.
If you don’t want to play again, I don’t know what to tell you. Because I cannot imagine someone not wanting to play this game again.

Page 15
That weapon works just about as well as it sounds. Or does it? Play this Flash game (Flash required) and see what score you get.
If you got better than 95, then hooray! You killed all the Martians. Turn to page 17.
If you got between 85 and 95, then not bad! You killed most of the Martians. Turn to page 18.
If you got less than 85, then you suck! Too bad. You killed like one Martian. Great job. Turn to page 19.

Page 16
“Oh, you are such a jerk,” mutters your friend the astronaut. However, since you’re the commander, he is required to do whatever you ask of him. He jumps in front of you and absorbs all of the destructive force sent toward you by the Martians, giving you time to get away. You feel no remorse for what you’ve done, because you a robot. OH MY GOD PLOT TWIST! This wasn’t a manned mission to Mars after all! It was just another one of those boring unmanned missions. Well, it’s a good thing that your lifelong dream has been to see things from the point of view of a robot in fiction. That’s right, Choose Your Own Pornventure has reached beyond the realm of fiction and is dictating your real life. Now go get me a sandwich! And less mayo this time! You live out the rest of your life as a slave to me, but you never master the art of how much mayo to put on sandwiches.
If you want to play again- no, since I’m controlling you, you do want to play again. Turn to page 1.
There is no way you don’t want to play again. Turn to page 1.

Page 17
Awesome! You killed all the Martians! You are victorious! You claim this planet in the name of the United States of America! I can’t believe you actually got a happy ending in this game! I thought somebody was editing those out. Anyway, enjoy it, because things don’t work out so well in real life!
If you want to play again (really there’s hardly any point because all the endings are worse than this one- oops sorry for the spoiler), turn back to page 1.
If you want to quit while you’re ahead, no one’s gonna blame you. Just leave this website and gallop off into the wild blue yonder.

Page 18
You killed most of the Martians, but there’s still a few left, and they are pissed. Luckily you at least confused them, so you have time to drive away in your Martian rover. You hide somewhere, and they are unable to find you. Unfortunately, they are able to find your spacecraft and destroy it. It seems you are marooned. What are you gonna do now? This is bad. I don’t see a way out of this. And neither do you. You lost.
To be honest, you could’ve played this game better. I would try again by turning back to page 1.
If you really don’t want to play again, can I recommend playing that Flash game again? You enjoyed that, and you were not that bad at it.

Page 19
It’s lucky for you that the one Martian you killed was the Queen. All the other Martians stop in their tracks and you have nothing to fear anymore. You’re the king of the planet! What are you going to do with all your new power?
If you want to go through the Martians’ wallets and see what you can find, watch this YouTube video.
If you want to go back to Earth, because there’s nothing to watch on TV on Mars, listen to the fifth podcast. Ooh, if you’re reading this before the fifth podcast comes out, I don’t know what to tell you. I guess you should either just stay in front of your computer waiting for it to come out, or go back to page 1 and follow a different track. Sorry about this. I probably could have planned this better.

Page 20
You go to the Galactic Police Force Supreme Court and plead your case. Though the judges are strict, your impeccable argument eventually wins them over. Unfortunately, as you are jubilantly leaving the courtroom, you realize that the cost of the gas to get here was more than the fine itself! D’oh! Also, they arrested you for murder of the Queen. Galactic Jail is less than fun.
If you want to pursue a less illegal path, turn back to page 1.
If you’re happy with how things ended up, then stay in jail for the rest of your life. It’s fine with me.

Page 21
Though it eats up your entire allowance, you grudgingly pay the fine. Nothing interesting happens for the rest of your life.
I bet something interesting will happen if you turn back to page 1 and do things differently.
On the other hand, maybe you’re really boring. In that case, just get on with the rest of your boring life.

Page 22
You get the brain-transmission technology operation. The first program that comes on is a “Choose Your Own Pornventure” show (they have become extremely popular in the intervening years). To watch it, turn to page 1.

Page 65
What? How did you get here? Nothing in this game tells you to go to page 65. You must be cheating or something. There’s nothing here anyway. Stop looking at me!

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Entertainment, Opinion, things that suck
6 Comments

I Hate Bradford Howe

I hate Bradford Howe.

Who?

You know, Bradford Howe. That guy who hosts the ads before the previews start when you go to see a movie.

Oh, you mean this guy?

Bradford Howe

Yeah, that guy. Doesn’t he suck?

You know, I’ve never really thought about it before.

Well don’t think, just know. He sucks. A lot.

Why?

Oh, fine, now you want reasons. Maybe next you’ll want articles that don’t involve me pretending to talk to myself. Fine, here you go.

Reasons I Hate Bradford Howe

  1. How hard is it to wear a freakin’ tie?
  2. Where the hell is his set supposed to be? I mean seriously – it’s based on the logo of an advertising company! Is there anything that could possibly be less interesting than a set based on the logo of an advertising company nobody likes?
  3. Play some better commercials. If I have to see that “The Apple in Your Eye” or The Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker Award crap again, someone’s legs are getting broken. I’m looking at Bradford Howe.
  4. He’s like Ryan Seacrest, but with even less talent (Is that even possible?) and without an endearing catchphrase.
  5. Actually, scratch that. “Seacrest out!” is about as unendearing as possible. And please, Bradford Howe, don’t start ending your segments with “Howe Out!” I don’t think I could handle it.
  6. What kind of name is Bradford Howe, anyway? Is Bradford even a first name?
  7. No time for a seventh reason – I’m too busy hating Bradford Howe.
  8. He’s Canadian. Or at least he used to be a VJ at Canadian fake-MTV MuchMusic. (ObscurePorn does not hate Canadians. Just Bradford Howe. -Ed.)
  9. It’s impossible to find information on him online for, say, writing a hate piece about him. One of the top Google results for his name was actually a girl’s Angelfire page saying “OMGOMGOMG I MET BRADFORD HOWE!!!!111!!!ONEISUCK!!!”.
  10. Did I mention he sucks?

I invite the entire ObscurePorn community to add their own reasons why they hate Bradford Howe in the comments. If #9 is any indication, this post will soon be one of the top Google results for Bradford Howe, so anyone searching for him will know the truth.

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Movies, Opinion
6 Comments

Movie Review: Beerfest

Beerfest is a 2006 film about a rag-tag team of American beer drinkers who train for a super-secret underground international beer-drinking competitions. The film, which is written by, directed by, produced by, and starring Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske is both enjoyable and entertaining. Part of what makes this film so good is that it exemplifies all of the good characteristics of a member of the comedy genre:

1. It is funny.

That’s it. It had good jokes, funny things happened, and the acting was good. What more can you ask for? Of course, Beerfest can’t be considered funny on the level of Dodgeball or Anchorman, but those movies had something that Beerfest didn’t: They were REALLY funny. Astute viewers will realize that a movie like Beerfest can be funny without being hilarious. Beerfest is about as funny as, say, The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Now I know what many of you are thinking: Vince, what the hell are you talking about? Beerfest wasn’t funny at all! The 40-Year-Old Virgin was hilarious! However, you are wrong. Beerfest was funny. The 40-Year-Old Virgin was okay, but it wasn’t like the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what you kids are thinking these days. Big snakes live under people’s porches and eat their pets. Do you think THAT’S cool? I don’t understand you kids.

Anyway, to conclude, Beerfest is a solid, entertaining comedy, that is thoroughly enjoyable even if it doesn’t astonish on all levels. I would recommend watching it in theaters, but it seems I’m a little late with this review. Still, it’s good.

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Ben's A Moron, News & Politics, Special Features
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LIVEBLOG: The Ben-cident

Dateline: August 3rd, 2007. ~2200hrs.

Messr. Georgeford issues bennifer an order.

“Sir Ben,” says he, “Consider it your bounden duty to safeguard this glass. guard it with your life, soldier. i believe in you.”

“I shall guard and/or safe it with my life,” the resilient private confirmed. he had accepted his post with courage of monumental proportions.

Ben continued to put the glass to his mouth.

“Sir! you err!” his noble friends cried, knowing this would go poorly.

Acting foolishly, Eric asked ben to “eat it.” if only he knew what events were to come.

We all looked away. we laughed, we sang, we cried.

suddenly,

a drop of blood.

the tinkle of glass.

cries of profanity and confusion.

“prithee, BEN! what has occurred<interrobang>” said the greatest of those present, one Sir Shaagnik, an enormous example of magnanimous majesty.

but we all knew.

ben had bitten the glass, shattering it, along with any respect his colleagues felt for him.

Glass

as he continued to bleed for several minutes, one among he gentlemen pondered searching for “oral cut,” but they realized that would be unwelcome.

good night.

Update 10:34 PM: The bleeding continues, flow decreased. Further options considered.

Update 10:37 PM: Diego reports the bleeding has stopped. Visual confirmation required.

Update 10:39 PM: Exclusive quote from Ben: “You guys are such assholes, I swear. I’m watching you type this.”

EXCLUSIVE Update 10:46 PM: Ben says it’s still bleeding. Hardly bleeding. Could this spell a new turn in the Ben-cident saga? Time will tell…

Writing: Shagtaw, Photos: David

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Humor
6 Comments

A Little Bit About Me and Me and Me and Me

Well, you faithful readers and listeners out there have devoured two and a half of my posts and one of my podcasts so far; I feel that it’s time you learned a little bit about the man behind the articles. Unfortunately, he was unavailable for comment, so I just interviewed myself.

ObscurePorn: So, tell us a little bit about yourself. Give us a little introduction.

Ben: My name is Ben and I-

OP: You don’t need to say that. We put your name before your answer.

B: Oh, well how was I supposed to know that? You said introduce yourself, so-

OP: Yeah, I know, I’m just saying, it was unnecessary to say your name, because it was redundant.

B: Look, at this point you’re disrupting the flow of the interview more than I did by saying my name.

OP: Excuse me? Are you trying to tell me how to conduct this interview? Who’s the journalist here?

B: I’m not trying to tell you how to conduct the interview, but it just seems like we’re wasting a lot of time here, and I have an appointment to keep this afternoon-

OP: Look, to get this moving along all you have to do is answer the question.

B: OK fine. Hi, my n- um, I’m B- I’m a writer for ObscurePorn.com. My column updates every Thursday without fail, except for the times that I don’t update. But that doesn’t happen very often. I am also the co-host of the official Obscure Porncast.

OP: Wow, you had that one all loaded up, didn’t you?

B: I’m sorry?

OP: Well, it just sounds like you had written that little monologue down and memorized it before the interview, and now you’re just spouting it off by rote!

B: Well maybe I had time to write it down, edit it, and memorize it while you were wasting time complaining about me saying my name!

OP: Oh! You’re still bitter about that, huh? Well look mister, maybe when you’ve attended the Columbia School of Broadcasting, you can tell me how to do my job, but until then, stick to answering questions, OK?

B: Wait a second, you haven’t attended the Columbia School of Broadcasting either!

OP: Yeah, but I’m already asking you questions, so it’s not like you can question my credentials. Anyway, to-

B: Wait, what? Your logic doesn’t make any sense!

OP: Look, I’d like to get past this. Can we just get to the questions?

B: Fine. As long as you can ask some intelligent questions.

OP: Fair enough. So, you said you were the co-host of the official Obscure Porncast?

B: That’s right.

OP: So, which one are you?

B: What?

OP: The Porncast was alternately titled “The Ben and Vince Show,” so I’m asking, which one are you?

B: You’re asking, am I Ben or Vince?

OP: That’s right.

B: OK um, for somebody who claims to know my name automatically, you certainly are acting like an idiot!

OP: Oh fine, just bring that up again! I thought we were past this! What the hell! I knew you were still bitter. I thought we agreed to move past this and get to the actual interview, but apparently you’re not ready to do that. You know what, why don’t you just come find me when you’re ready to talk.

B: I’m ready to talk; it’s not my fault if you’re so stupid that you can’t even get my name right!

OP: I swear to god, I am this close to cancelling this interview. Do you think you could maybe just shut up for a second so I could think of some questions?

B: Wait, you don’t even have any questions prepared? What kind of interviewer are you? Why did I agree to this?

OP: Oh, now you think you can ask the questions. By the way, remind me never to interview you again, OK?

B: Yeah, and remind me never to be interviewed by you again.

OP: My editor’s gonna hear about this. You are not getting a favorable write-up on ObscurePorn.com.

B: If that website is anywhere near as unprofessional as you are, I could care less what it says about me.

OP: You mean you couldn’t care less.

B: What?

OP: You said that you could care less. But that means that you care about it to a certain extent. What you wanted to say was that you couldn’t care less; i.e., you have the lowest possible opinion of the site. You are at the zero mark for caring.

B: Wha- maybe I was being sarcastic! Jesus! Don’t tell me what I meant to say!

OP: Didn’t you mean to say, “Don’t tell yourself what you meant to say!”

B: What did I just say to you?!

OP: Don’t you mean, “What did you just say to me?!”

B: What are you talking about?

OP: Yeah, I agree. I mean, you agree. I mean, you mean, you agree.

B: What?!?!

OP: I am you. Er- you are me. I am me? You are who? Who is this? No, actually I’m not happy with my current long distance provider, but what’re you gonna do about it?

OP: What happened to this interview?

B: Wait, I was supposed to say that! How did you do that?

OP: Yeah um, it turns out that we are the same person.

Vince: You mean all this time, you were just- I was just- we were just interviewing myself? Yourself?

B: Wait, what’s he doing here?

OP: He’s also the same person.

OB: I can’t deal with this! Stop! Get-

B: -out of my head! Ah! I did it.

OP: OK but I’m still here.

B: Shut up!

And so Ben continued his unhealthy schizophrenic lifestyle, in order to maintain his ability to write articles for ObscurePorn.com.

B: Wait, who are you?

I’m another one of your personalities. The summing-up personality. The personality that ends articles.

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