> The Kick Ass Week wherein we tie a balloon to the mailbox in SoHo as the universal sign for PARTY OVER HERE, almost the “Good-Bye SoHo” party as I’m on my way to Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

> I’ve owned a few pieces of tech that I’m feeling ready to review (headphones, laptop).

> Review of the amazing McSweeney’s #27.

> I’m about half-way through Grand Theft Auto IV and think I’ll soon be able to issue words.

and finally, tomorrow …

> The end of HRC 2008. The end of my attitude towards it and her. It would be worthless to continue that campaign when we’ve already got the Incredible Crash Dummy himself McCain on the way.

You’d have thought that by this point that M.A.D.D. would have become P.A.D.D. by now. I’m not sure what’s stopping that from happening other than guys poker night falling on protest night and an amazingly stupid acronym.

Dubya is your stoner uncle who’s angry at his dad for making him work with Walker Bush’s cohorts. He’s as willing to pardon stoners as he’s willing to pardon turkeys on Thanksgiving.

New York City is Liberty City: where you can drive anywhere you want, take your frustrations out on anything, and instantaneously transport yourself to an even more fantastical world where everybody’s as bloodthirsty as you are.

Rich millionaire alcoholics who built their empires on war can have moments of truth when they realize they can be robotic genius liberators (No Dubya) by night. Your buddy is Terrence Howard and your Secretary is Gwenyth Paltrow.

War is actually just a game, and the concept of soldiers being mentally manipulated translates to a scientific device, not the death of mass media. And it’s being beta tested to get the bugs out instead of becoming a quagmire.

This current stretch of time is geeky as all get the fuck out.

“You should tell him, in real life, drugs are nothing but trouble.”

This is my present to you guys, something I think many of us can be glad to say we never had to experience.

Blue Man Group was the first time I’d heard the phrase “Mind Fuck,” and this is the most recent applicable moment.

Can you remember playing Super Mario Bros. as a kid? The unparalleled experience that it was? Now imagine that some giant asswad is behind the curtains just fucking with you. This is what you get.

Last night, with a little over 100 stars in hand, I beat the main adventure of Super Mario Galaxy. And sadly, and almost expectedly, the final level itself, “The Final Showdown: Bowser’s Galaxy Reactor,” was much more trouble than Bowser himself.

I just got home from the company Secret Satan drinks, so I’ve got not much time to get my daily post out of the way. This is what I think about, how I feel bad for a fictional final boss who belongs to a fictional species. Have you ever felt bad for Bowser or any of his pixelated ilk?

He’s the Wile E. Coyote of video games, eventually that kind of career is just sad.

I couldn’t find a good image of the scene in the Superbad that I describe above, but that post title, what Jules yells after Seth gives her what we later find out is a black eye, (Sarcastic after the fact of the matter spoiler alert for those who never even saw the trailer.), is what kept coming back to me as I checked around the blog world (and my work email box) today.

The sources of WTFery:

The RIAA claims that it’s illegal for people to rip CD’s into MP3 files. Guys, you’re a little fucking late to be taken seriously on that one.

Can someone tell me why Led Zepplin’s reunion, or the LZ as I’ll refer to them, is important at all? Readers, please enlighten me to the importance of these guys who played pee wee touch football with the Cryptkeeper.

That’s a fucking video game.

Finally, Jessica Simpson, so dumb, or smart?, thinks that a role with full frontal will get her the respect she figures she deserves. On the same website, look out for Kristin Bell in the Leia outfit.

So most every single magazine on the shelves is playing the Gift List game, so I’ve decided to play the shamelessly contrarian card and list what presents you shouldn’t give certain folks.

You shouldn’t give A Contradictory Report on Iran to George W. Bush, cause he’ll just pfft out a raspberry, and do the nyah nyah na boo boo! At least this will give the rest of the country complete reason to say Fuck Right Off about Your War to the President, for once. Before Bush made himself look completely tongue-in-ass ignorant, the Times had this gem above the fold:

An administration that had cited Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons as the rationale for an aggressive foreign policy — as an attempt to head off World War III, as President Bush himself put it only weeks ago — now has in its hands a classified document that undercuts much of the foundation for that approach.

To use the WWIII reference and then say, no wait, it was Bush who actually shat those words out of his mouth, that was one of the better moments I’ve had reading the Times lately.

You shouldn’t give A Chance to Ubisoft, maker of Assassin’s Creed. Yes, that’s right, I’m back on UbiSoft’s case like Taibbi on the trail. Popular Mechanics says that Ubisoft is so baffled by the mid-jump freeze, that they haven’t been able to release the patch that so many are looking for. Over on the AC message board, it seems that a patch has been released for non-North American PS3 owners, but it hasn’t done much for most of them.

You shouldn’t give A Penalty Flag to Bart Scott. I think this is self explanatory: Mr. Scott fucked things up for Baltimore.

LAST NIGHT’S HEROES SPOILER WARNING

Touching on what I mentioned last night, you shouldn’t give A Press Conference to Nathan Petrelli. Ignoring from the fact that NBC telegraphed that Ol’ Beardless was ripe for the killing in every damn promo leading up to the season finale of Heroes, Jeph Loeb gave us a very mediocre script. Why I bring this back up is something that was touched on by NY Mag’s blog: you kill him with a gun? This is a show about super powered heroes, it would have been so much more interesting, or at least so much more cool, if the death had you don’t have some weird power that looks like something not powers-based. Let’s say Nathan has a heart attack triggered by someone who can manipulate the body like Little Orphan Micah can “talk to technology.” Or maybe the Haitian does a mind wipe from across the room and renders Nathan unable to say what exactly it is that he can do that’s so special. Anything but a gun, which was so weak, even weaker than Nikki/Jessica/Gina’s burning building death.

So, I thought I could spend this Monday night with the Heroes winter season finale, and there wouldn’t be any drama. But then I turn on ESPN, and see that the Baltimore Ravens were beating the Patriots. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a friend or two with money on the Pats, but as you could also easily guess, I hate the Patriots.

The name alone, The Patriots, makes me want to stab my eyes out with a shiv. Unless you’re Hideo Kojima, the word Patriots is off limits to you. Further, they’re a New England team which means they’re supported by the same people who’ve soured Massachusetts for me for years with the Red Sox. Christ, the Patriots were just given an opening, and are about to make it 24-24.

The Heroes winter season finale, by the way, was okay. Not as disappointing as the season 1 finale, and the preview of “Chapter 3: Villains” was much better than the preview for “Chapter 2: Revelations.” I won’t spoil anything, except to say that the end of the episode was telegraphed by every single commercial that NBC ran for the show.

I’ve got some reviews coming up: my new headphones, The Savages, Ghostface Killah’s The Big Doe Rehab, and Daft Punk’s Alive 2007. Further news to come on Assassin’s Creed as well. Picking up tomorrow: Superbad in Blu-Ray.

So it’s Friday, and Friday sucks. So here’s my hint to help you pass –IE burn– the time away. Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw is the madman behind Zero Punctuation, the funniest video game reviews (going back to the early days of the unintentionally funny Nintendo Power) ever.

His style is minimalist and hyperpaced at the same time. Stick figures on yellow backgrounds with cut pasted images thrown in. He’s already drawn at least one imitator, who called their video Some Punctuation. What stands out the most about ZP is how much he can hate and how funny it can get. Sure, Clive Barker and Clive Barker’s Jericho are easy targets, but he nails them repeatedly without care. He even rips Super Paper Mario a new one for World 2, the slave labor monotony world, which really took the wind out of the fun after the nostalgic feel of world 1. Further, he rips Nintendo for it’s recent obsession with LightVSDark storylines in it’s big first party titles (Super Paper Mario, Zelda Twilight Princess, and Super Metroid Prime 3: Bob Knight Corruption).

Or he’ll just prove why Tomb Raider sucks with out a single tit joke, that is until the review is over and he goes crazy. Even when he reviews things that even I havn’t heard of like “F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate,” he’s still plenty entertaining.

WordPress doesn’t support his kind of videos, so I implore you video game loving readers to watch all of the Zero Punctuation videos you can.

News on yesterday’s Big Trouble at Little GameSpot later.