I was reading the amazing, colossal SeanBaby page yesterday, and it struck me that my experience in the Marines is analagous to OldManMurray (the experience I just described, not the one where I pulled a man's lungs out through his back, what the service calls "making an angel" since the exposed lungs look like wings.)  Seanbaby is the gorgeous Filipino woman gyrating atop the river of shit which is the internet.  Chet and I are the naked children clinging desperately to SeanBaby's boat.   You, dear reader, are the surly, drunk marines throwing coins at us by clicking on our ad banners.  Go click on one, you'll feel like a Navy SEAL; it's the goddamndest thing. 

We've increased our readership almost fivefold in the last several months, and I'm afraid that some of you may be missing out on what is the best part of the internet other than being able to chat with your pornography:  SeanBaby.  And, as of last week, he has an official theme song sent in by Magical Prince Lee-Ham, a fellow hysterical, teary-eyed, going-to-have-to-be-given- oxygen-in-the-cool-down-tent member of SeanBaby's panty-less fanbase:

With Marvin out of commission for at least the next several weeks, making him unavailable for contest judging, we've decided to let you, our dear, sweet readers, judge the entries.  The rules are simple: each of you gets one vote.  Use it to vote for your favorite entry.   Voting more than once is not only disallowed, it is illegal.  We've made some rudimentary attempts to prevent anyone from voting multiple times, but I'm sure the eleven year old autistic super-hackers that comprise 80% of our readership [thanks to Ziff-Davis for those numbers -ed.] will quickly bypass any attempt we make to keep them legit.  If you vote more than once, we swear to God you'll get a nasty surprise.  Just try us - erik used to fuck guys like you in prison.  Wait a minute - erik used to get fucked by guys like you in prison, usually right after he got sold for a carton of the fancy clove cigarettes that are very popular in the joint.

We've removed from each entry any reference to its author.  We know some of you may one day be working for assistant manager Todd Porter at Hardee's on the turnpike and we don't want to make that any harder for you than necessary.  The entries run the gamut from funny to embarrassing; though we'd like to applaud our readers for not creating anything as mortifying as the Levelord page.   The display order of the entries is randomized on every hit, so that no entry will have a positional advantage. 

We will close the voting on Tuesday, June 8th and will announce the winners on Wednesday, June 9th.  Needless to say, no new entries are being accepted.

Remember: the best two entries, as judged by our readers, will each receive a kidney rattling intensor chair made by our new friends at BSG labs.  Plus a couple of crappy games, which could certainly only be enhanced by a vibrating chair such as the intensor chair made by the naked, jiggling hot chicks that staff BSG labs.

Go vote!

First they came for Postal, and I said nothing.  Then they came for Roberta Williams, and I said nothing.  Then they came for Carmageddon, and I said nothing.  One day, they came for me, and there was no one left to speak.

They came for Roberta Williams there in the middle, right?   As Chet often says when he's pretending to be a presenter at the Essence awards, "then it's all good."  And, as a bonus, it sounds like they came for your whiny, poopy ass at the end, which we applaud as well.  We've seen what Ms. Williams can do; to an adventure game, to a family, to a nation. In response to the millions of people who purchased King's Quest IV, whose voices cried out in terror then were suddenly silenced, we say only this:  never again.
While researching this story I discovered that the Roberta Williams Anthology is not the first Roberta Williams associated banning by the government of Australia.  Here is a handy reference sheet:

Australia Bans Roberta Williams: A Timeline

1. The entry judged by Marvin to be the "best" using some criteria he brought with him from the future.  We can't give you any real indications as to what he's looking for.  Just wing it. 
2. The entry most presciently like the actual Ion Storm press release that will inevitably be issued regardless of our attempts to make it unnecessary.

Each of the two winners will receive a brand, spanking, kidney rattling new intensor chair made by BSG labs.  Each winner will also receive either a copy of Rollercoaster Tycoon or High Heat Baseball.   Because we are racing against Ion Storm themselves, the timeframe for this contest is pretty tight: all entries must be received by the time the official press release is issued - probably friday.  If Todd Porter and Jerry O'Flaherty have, through some miracle, not been fired, the deadline will be Monday, May 31, 1999.   Send as many entries as you want to marvin@oldmanmurray.com.   Please read the disclaimer before sending off any entries.  We will publish the winning press releases along with any runners-up next week. 

Romero is relishing his pumped-up status. "When I drive this car [his ferrari]," he says, "people know who I am." He chafes at waiting for a table for half an hour at a crowded Dallas lunch spot. ("If they knew I was here, we wouldn't have to wait."). He imagines his reception in Japan, where he's never been but where his games are huge. "I'd probably get mobbed by Japanese chicks," he says.

Go ahead, reread that passage.  I can't explain it either.   Maybe he didn't know he was talking to a reporter from the New York Times.   The author, Paul Keegan, paints a slightly more terrestrial picture of Romero and offers an implicit assessment of John's chances with mobs of Japanese chicks:

He wears tight designer jeans and a black T-shirt, and has the slightly pudgy frame of someone who has spent a lifetime staring at computer screens while drinking Cokes and eating candy bars.

By the article's halfway point, Keegan has crafted such a clear, negative image of Romero in even the most game-illiterate reader's mind that he can introduce John Carmack, describe him concisely as the "anti-Romero", and rest assured that everyone knows this is a good thing. 

The only positive statement the Times can find from one of his peers compares John Romero to Paul McCartney and comes from "a Dallas game developer who insists on being identified only as Levelord."  Leave it to the mysterious, drunken old "ord" of the levels to go deep, deep undercover as himself.