We Beat the Zombie Pants Off the Zombie Competition!

I hate monopolies. When a single corporation has an iron grip on a particular industry, the market stops becoming free, all competition disappears, and the consumers are left with overpriced products. Although Microsoft is often considered a monopoly, I think people are missing one of the biggest monopolies of our time; the nefarious Umbrella Corporation. For years Umbrella has dominated zombie production, even recently expanding into the production and sales of "giant horrible genetic monsters which kill you once you buy them" (patent pending).

Knowing that no one else really had the guts to go head to head with these titans of industry, Lowtax and I sat down with a venture capitalist and pitched our plan. Our company, "Arlogeist GmbH," would produce and aggressively market next generation zombie products, bringing a previously unseen quality of undead to the consumer and giving them an edgy "in-your-face" marketing spin! We received the funding needed a little over a year ago... now I am happy to announce Arlogeist's new line of zombies! Please keep in mind that these hip ambulatory corpses "ain't your daddy's zombies!" and that their quality will "totally blow you away!" Radical to the max, dude!

The Helper Zombie

This zombie majored in 'Enabling the Community'!

Have you seen the sort of helper zombies Umbrella is marketing to people these days? They are falling apart, they aimlessly shamble around while getting blood all over your carpet, they are dressed in rags, and they have a whopping two vowel vocabulary. Our helper zombies are durable and well dressed, coated in a non-stick poly-urethane finish and wearing a luxurious tuxedo (or evening gown) that is guaranteed to absorb and conceal any possible zombie leakage. Each zombie comes with an extra leg attached to their hip for added bonus walking action, and Arlogeist zombies are capable of using up to five consonants (vowel upgrade available). Perfect for latchkey kids! Pick up your helper zombie today or look at one of our incredible specialized zombies based on the Helper Chassis:

• Butler / Maid zombie (cleans and cooks, does not prepare meat.)
• Gardener zombie (pieces that fall off will fertilize your very own garden!)
• Checkers zombie (fun for the whole family! Coming soon: Tic-Tac-Toe zombie)
• Wet-nurse zombie (zombie does not lactate, lacto reservoir must be maintained)
• Party zombie (RECALLED AFTER ARIZONA MURDER RAMPAGE)
• Comedy zombie (his jokes will have you rolling in your grave!)
• Nanny zombie (chest night-light available, sings festive children's song "Glue," which goes; "GLUUUUUUUUUEEEE, GLUUUUUUUUUUUUEE, GLUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEE!")
• Designated Driver zombie (he'll never ever take a drink)
• Sex zombie (not available outside the United States)

All of our Helper Zombies come with a 90-day warranty and are available in crimson, lavender, or aquamarine color schemes and potpourri and pine-fresh scents.

The Protector Zombie

Umbrella's attempts at home defense zombies have proven highly unsuccessful, yet they remain the only protection zombie available on the market…until now! Arlogeist is proud to present its new line of Protector Zombies! No sassy girl in a beret with a 9mm pistol is going to rain on your parade with our zombies patrolling your eerily quiet mansion! Like our Helper models, the Protectors are dapper, attractive, and guaranteed not to leave a mess behind. In fact they are self cleaning, capable of consuming an entire cow carcass in under an hour! These Zombies come complete with a lot of extras you won't find on those second-rate Umbrella products:

• Protector Zombie is capable of differentiating between scientist and Raccoon City policeman.
• Upgraded armor! A boiler plate has been riveted to the torso of every Protector zombie.
• Free walkie-talkie with every zombie (zombie not capable of actually using walkie-talkie)
• Arlogeist guarantees that our Protector Zombie will not devour your children (may devour select parts of your children)
• Shock collar prevents Protector Zombie from wandering off property.
• Unlike lazy human guards, Protector Zombies do not play cards, take cigarette breaks, or use the bathroom (zombies may fall over and be unable to get back up without assistance)
• Zombies' lack of vocabulary saves you valuable time dealing with back-sass
• Protector Zombie now comes with free and refreshing "Zombie Juice" dispenser located in chest cavity (WARNING: Women who are or may be pregnant should not consume zombie juice as it may cause child to be born as horrible zombie baby)

Arlogeist GmbH Protector Zombies are available wherever fine zombies are sold. They come in cloudy gray, forest green, and camouflage color schemes and are available in both neutral and deer pheromone scents.

Zombie President

The most advanced zombie model to be produced by Arlogeist is our incredible Zombie President, something that Umbrella has not even attempted. These Zombies were created using a revolutionary secret recipe of chemicals, politician corpses, radiation, and voodoo magic. Each President Zombie comes complete with a four-year guarantee that can be extended to eight-years with proper maintenance and chemical treatments. The Zombie President is the ultimate politico; it is suave and charming, but knows when to get down to brass tacks and talk business. Next stop for Zombie President: Washington DC! Each Zombie President is lovingly hand crafted and comes with the following incredible money-saving features:

• Zombie President is capable of saying its own name! (Note: All Zombie Presidents currently named "Glue." Upcoming model will be named "Runk")
• Zombie President immune to graft; it does not want a thing but justice for the voter! (WARNING: If zombie president does not receive weekly chemical treatments, it will eat babies)
• Our Zombie President is perfect for any political party as it has absolutely no stance on any issues.
• Great for making a good impression on voters during election! The Zombie president will shake hands, bend iron bars, or walk through plate glass windows as needed.
• Zombie President will not start wars unless it is for a really good reason.
• Difficult to assassinate! Our Zombie President won't even notice if it gets shot.
• Cleaning and maintenance kit makes dangerous Boron and Chlorine leakage cleanup as easy as one, two, three!
• Zombie President difficult to kidnap and replace with convincing clone.

The Zombie President comes in Democratic Mint, Republican Fresh, or Independent Green Tea scents. Zombie Presidents can be purchased direct from Arlogeist only.

Armed with our growing list of zombies and zombie-related products I am confident that Arlogeist GmbH is well-equipped to dethrone Umbrella as the largest retailer of the undead. Our products are clearly superior and our pro-consumer philosophy really casts an unfavorable light on the competition.

The Power of Your Words

Fans of River City Ransom, take heart! It appears the e-mail campaign type thingy that we started in an effort to resurrect the best fighting/roleplaying/book-reading game ever has proven at least partially successful. Atlus Games has added a little blurb in their daily rants pointing to the fact that they have received just a little bit of inquiry for a RCR re-release or sequel. I highly recommend that we redouble our e-mails (read: tear-stained loveletters) and get Atlus to get their shit together and release/make this game!

Awful Link Of the Day

Tephlon Coating (Thanks Ben) - Pudgy goth-metal guitarist rants about hating Pizza Hut and takes photos of himself in the woods looking like a cross between a retarded mime and some sort of deep sea eel. A really dumb and angry deep sea eel. The site itself is a repulsive frames layout prominently featuring a rapidly blinking image of what appears to be a viking warrior.

In case you didn't know, I work at Pizza Hut. And everybody that Orders the Twisted Crust, while tasty and good, and I suggest you try it...PISSES ME OFF! What happens when we run out of dough you inconsiderate motherfuckers?! huh?! we're FUCKED! Then you bitch about how you're pizza is late, but oh no, you couldn't order one of the 40 extra medium pans we had! You HAD to order a goddamn Twisted Crust on a Friday night like Everyone else!

So to summarize what he said for you:

This is one of the funniest sites I have ever read; I just wish he had written some tortured goth poetry about the Twisted Crust pizza from Pizza Hut. Unfortunately, all his "lyrics" are about the usual lame goth crap like Satan and black tear drops and unicorns or whatever those fruity shits are singing about these days. On the up side he has a guest book you can sign so you can let him know that you sympathize with his "Twisted Crust pain" and "being laughed at in locker room" agony.

Massively Online!

Rowdy Roddy Piper... the gift that keeps giving!

Thanks to the handiwork of Arcadian Delum The Mad, it has been brought to my attention that Rowdy Roddy Piper, whom you might know from the wrestling circuit as "Rowdy Roddy Piper," is now making his very own online game. I wish I could convince myself that I was kidding, but the proof is all here, folks.

KELLOGG CREEK SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH WRESTLING GREAT ROWDY RODDY PIPER FOR NEW ONLINE GAME - "Roddy's Ring" will be an online game, available only over the Internet. Chase explained that as with his previous online game, SpiritWars, the new wrestling project will draw from multiple genres and feature a hybrid design. "We'll be combining many common role-playing elements with a quick-paced strategy game that challenges the player to outwit his opponent. And, as with SpiritWars, we'll be putting a lot of energy into building a positive and engaging online community that can form the cornerstone for Rod's online presence and expanding Internet activities."

Yes, because we all know that fans of pro wrestling tend to flock to "positive" and "engaging" activities, assuming those activities are part of their community service requirements. Ha ha! I am of course kidding because it's an established fact that pro wrestling fans have an IQ of 200 and single-handedly won World War II. They also are the people most likely to send me bales of email pointing out what a horrible monster I am, so I think I'll refrain from making fun of them any further. Okay, maybe just one more joke: you guys are responsible for Terry "Hulk" Hogan's rise to fame, causing the abomination "Thunder in Paradise" to appear on MY fucking television set when I could've been masturbating to that midget from "Jack of All Trades." 'Nuff said.

So anyway, I began thinking about how massive online massively multiplayer roleplaying massiveplayer playing omnionline games are the only products actually generating cash these days. Titles like Everquest and Ultima Online have yanked in millions of dollars for their publishers; why can't Something Awful jump onto the bloated cash cow too? Even if this doesn't end up working well, Something Awful has failed in about every other business sense possible, so it's not like it will be any big loss. Well, without any further ado, I proudly present to you the preliminary specs for...

THE SOMETHING AWFUL MASSIVELY ONLINE MULTPLAYERLY ONLINE MASSIVE ROLEPLAYERING ONLINE PLAYING MULTIGAME:
"DRAGON FANTASY MYSTIC SHADOW DUNGEON HORIZON EVENT ONLINE 7"

Conceptual artwork of... something.

PLOT: I did some research on other online roleplaying games, and I discovered that the "plot" element has to abide by only one rule: the entire storyline can't be more complex than a standard set of TV dinner cooking instructions. The deeper you write the plotline, the more work the programming crew has to do on the game, so most companies strive to make their plot as simple as possible. This is why I asked Jeff K. to ICQ me a brief plot summary for our upcoming smash hit, Dragon Fantasy Mystic Shadow Dungeon Horizon Event Online 7, or as we call it, DFMSDHEO7.

in teh futare there are are DRAGGONS with teh princess in a castal. yuo are ON A PLANAT!!!! there will be a sword and axe and guns and a hat and a lake. YUO CAN DRIVE A JEEP LIEK HALO?!? I think so! and the draggon stole yuor princessed and yuo must reclaim her becuase her dad si KING BOMPO TEH DRAWF and he has a magic jawline on him! so yuo will haev to get too level 580 whitch si teh hardiest and there si a jeep liek HALO!!!! the END

So that's the plot. I don't want to give away too many key elements of it, mainly because I'm not aware of what they are quite yet, but let me assure you that they will be very massive. And multiplayer.

WEAPONS: The key to any successful online RPG lies in the fact that it merely exists; you're marketing the game to a demographic that will buy any goddamn thing with elves in it. However, another important quality of online RPGs revolves around the sheer amount of the weapons and the inherent combat system. I am proud to report that we have one of the largest weapons databases in the history of all games! For example, let me copy and paste a minuscule selection from our "swords" section:

SWORDS: Sword, Sword +1, Sword +2, Sword +3, Sword +4, Sword +5, Sword +6, Sword +7, Sword +8, Sword +9, Sword +10, Sword +11, Sword +12, Sword +13, Sword +14, Sword +15, Sword +16, Sword +17, Sword +18, Sword +19, Sword +20, Sword +21, Sword +22, Sword +23, Sword +24, Sword +25, Sword +26, Sword +27, Sword +28, Sword +29, Sword +30, Sword +31, Sword +32, Sword +33, Sword +34, Sword +35, Sword +36, Sword +37, Sword +38, Sword +39, Sword +40, Sword +41, Sword +42, Sword +43, Sword +44, Sword +45, Sword +47, Sword +48, Sword +49, Sword +50, Sword +51, Sword +52, Sword +53...

...and that's just 1/18237th of the entire "SWORDS" section! Wow! As some of you more observant readers may notice, there is no entry for "Sword +46." Our programmers seem to be having some difficulty creating this weapon, so we have intentionally left it out of the list. Look for it to appear in the upcoming expansion pack, DFMSDHEO7: The Ruins of Trials of Mountains of Planets of Legends of Tales of Gyraosn'aryahlabalwhampo.

ENEMIES: We've got a bestiary bigger than your computer's bestiality folder! There are so many enemies in the game that you won't be able to walk six inches without smacking into the ass end of some kind of retarded bug or goblin or whatever! Let's take a brief look at a few of the enemies inhabiting "Moanyeoentransalopi Hywwrm'alummpah," the tropical island located in the middle of a dungeon inside a volcano.

	ICE ALLIGATOR		FIRE ALLIGATOR
	SWAMP ALLIGATOR		MUD ALLIGATOR
	HOMOSEXUAL ALLIGATOR		CARAMEL ALLIGATOR
	SEMI-SWAMP ALLIGATOR		IRRADIATED ALLIGATOR
	MAD ALLIGATOR		INVISIBLE ALLIGATOR

PLAYING AREA: Our game will have the absolute biggest map out of any online roleplaying game that has ever been created... or ever WILL be created! Just how big is the land of Htraeeht? I don't know, really big. Take the total square area of Everquest and multiply it by 50 or something. No, make it 60. Yes, it's THAT huge! Of course, 99% of that area is covered by water or deserts, but you'll never notice this because you'll be too busy getting killed by the level seven-zillion giant mutant ear worms that patrol the area! Take a look at the global map so far:

Notice the incredible attention to detail our skilled artists employed when they selected the appropriate font color to use. That's a fine example of what sets us apart from "the other guys," the ones that don't really care about their game and will probably spend all their profits on buying vending machines that dispense pure tar heroin.

There are a ton of other features in our game that I'd like to share with you, but frankly, I stopped caring about them around three paragraphs ago. Regardless, I don't think I need to mention that DFMSDHEO7 will be the "must play" game of the year or decade or century or whatever arbitrary time frame you'd like to choose. We've got the top animators, programmers, and art design teams chained to the radiator in our basement, so you can be sure that our game will be of the utmost quality. Stay tuned to this webpage for more exciting details, as soon as I think of them.

Cliff Yablonski Is Here to Help You!

Having successfully berated and singled out nearly all the mutants in his hometown of Appleton City, Cliff Yablonski has returned to fight for your freedom and rights to be a consumer. That's correct, please welcome the newest addition to Something Awful, "Cliff Yablonski: American Defender of Justice!"

Cliff Yablonski is a man of many trades. A war veteran. A master craftsman. A poet. A lover. A patron of the fine arts. In addition, Mr. Yablonski is one of the last true American heroes, ready to stand up and fight for YOUR needs and causes. He fights the big, multinational companies for the interests of the common man, ready to take a bullet for what we all firmly believe in, but don't have the backbone to stand up for. Get ready to cheer for a new hero, one who won't back down, roll over, and play dead. Cliff Yablonski is here and he's fightin' mad!

Head on over and witness Cliff Yablonski's dramatic fight for your freedoms when he single-handedly takes on Stouffer's Frozen Foods... and comes out victorious! I think.

Awful Link of the Day

WHAM, BAMM, BODYSLAM! - Scary lump of white trash offers his opinions and wrestling services to the general public, assuming you are able to read the text over his idiotic animated gif background. Luckily I don't think I really want either, thank you very much. He also defends the noble sport / profession / money making industry of "professional" wrestling:

And look at your day-time "soaps" or sitcoms... I think that they are just a little more sexually suggestive than anything that I've seen on WRESTLING!... we can even go back to cartoons on this matter as well... What about that animated rabbit that dresses up in womens clothing every once in a while, or that perverted womanizing skunk that stalks and ravages those female toons who are unwilling? You all know which cartoons I'm talking about....

BUGS BUNNY MADE ME RAPE MY TEACHER!

Originally from Mansfield, Ohio but now resides in a dark and gloomy place where everlasting thunderstorms echo in a neverending dark night... this place is called NECROPOLIS, CITY of the DEAD! It takes a man like The Nightmare to stalk the lands of Necropolis, a place where creatures of the night roam without a care, where danger and horror awaits at every turn... at every step. So those in the wrestling world and beyond know not to cross the one who ventures though the shadows of darkness, with the hounds of hell nipping at the heels of his soul! Shall he be the only entity to walk amongst the mortals and strike fear into the bravest of all souls. He who makes the cowards crumble and the courageous cringe with a persona that can even make the boogie man check under his bed and sleep with one eye open!!! BEWARE THE NIGHTMARE!

Ha ha, I thought he said he left Ohio? Oh well, I must've read it wrong while my eyes were imploding from seeing that goddamn endless looping animated gif background. This is what will happen if you get smacked across the skull with a folding table too many times, ladies and gents. WHAM, BAMM, BODYSLAM!!!