PLYMOUTH, NH — Despite his best efforts, Plymouth Public High School’s band teacher Jerry Bathman has seen little to no enthusiasm for their winter concert’s finale number, “Persona Across the Years”, a piece arranged by Paul Dukovsky and based on the works of Shoji Meguro.
“It’s perplexing to me,” says Bathman, “I ordered the sheet music from Alfred Music and left it on the music stands first thing in the morning, like a little surprise. I expected everyone to see it and get really pumped. Instead, they all just sat down, got out their instruments, and let out exasperated sighs.”
The band students gave a variety of reasons for their lack of excitement.
“I mean, we’re not very good,” said French horn player Bailey McColbert, ‘26, “We just barely learned ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ last week. Now we’re learning a seven-minute jazz medley?”
Percussionist Gary Planter, ‘27, offered another explanation.
“Bro, I’ve never played these games, but some of them are older than me,” said Planter. “I think Mr. Bathman is the only person in the whole school who plays them.”
Sheri Baldwin, ‘25, added, “I don’t play video games. I literally did not know this was supposed to be exciting.”
PPHS’s faculty also weighed in on the issue.
“Mr. Bathman does his best to engage his students and meet them on their level,” said Principal Bruce Parson, “Okay, but also, it really feels like these concerts are a 37-year-old nerd’s idea of music. Last year was a Star Wars thing. The year before was something called a cowboy bebop? And now this Personal or Person thing, whatever it is. I don’t know what this is. I guess it’s a cartoon about high schools full of perverts? I feel like we’re going to get complaints about this.”
Plymouth Public High School’s winter concert will take place on March 1st in the gymnasium, as the heat in the auditorium is still not working.
TACOMA, Wash. — A local judge has repeatedly reprimanded a Twitch streamer charged with defamation for referring to the jury as, “chat,” sources outside the courthouse confirm.
“Look at this clip, chat,” said Todd Gardner, who is being sued for making spurious claims about competing speedrunners. “There’s no shot this dude can whistle sprint out of the Shrine of Awakening that fast! It took me 100 hours to perfect that out of bounds clip. And as you know, truth is an iron-clad defense against claims of defamation. Thanks for the bits. Sorry, force of habit.”
The plaintiffs in the case attest that Gardner used his large sub count and influence to defame all other top 10 Breath of the Wild Any% speedrunners, directly resulting in official reviews from speedrun.com and removal from upcoming Games Done Quick lineups.
“He told his mods to time out anyone who mentioned other runners because it was messing with his flow,” said Jaylen Graham, who competes in the same category as Gardner. “It’s just like how he keeps trying to get the bailiff to ‘kick’ any of my co-plaintiffs and I whenever we take the stand to testify against him. Yeah, when he refers to the ‘mod,’ he’s talking about the bailiff.”
After several similar outbursts, Gardner was held in contempt of court.
“You have blatantly disrespected both myself, my bailiff, and this jury with your failure to abide by the rules of this court,” said Judge Sandra Cooper. “It’s not just that you can’t string two sentences together without pausing to shout out gift subs. It’s not even that you asked to run a poll to audit the jury’s reaction in real time. No, the final straw was after I reprimanded you, and you told the bailiff to ‘ban’ me. Your Gen Z vernacular, after being explained to me by my niece, is completely out of line!”
At press time, Todd Gardner has been sentenced to a six month ban from Twitch along with the repayment of every gift sub he had received during his latest 48 hour stream. His 9th place BOTW Any% run has also been scrubbed from the leaderboards.
Yowch, that smarts! Sound the alarm bells, true patriots! Following an incident no less than three seconds ago, I’m sorry to inform you all that my coffee table has gone fully woke. I was just bringing a tall glass of raw unpasteurized milk to the living room so that I could play some Helldivers 2 without really thinking about the game’s overall themes. That’s when it happened: my toe was suddenly stubbed by my antifa DEI coffee table, a devastating blow that left me wracked with pain. That’s right: you’re not even safe from liberal attacks in your own home. Is nothing sacred to the left? Jesus, I hope I didn’t break something. Is that broken? Hm, no, I think we’re good. Still though, ouch.
This is no joke—I could’ve been killed. Forty-six seconds ago, my sock-clad big toe collided with the southeast leg of my coffee table at approximately 2.7 miles per hour. Following the stubbing, I was quoted as saying, “Gaaaaah, fuck! Son of a fucking bitch! Oh God, that’s a mother! Oh geez, ohohoho, ohhhhh boy, oh, that did one hell of a number on me.” My wife reports that I was loud enough to wake the kids, though this has been contested.
I ordered this TONSTAD oak veneer coffee table from IKEA as a housewarming gift for my wife on April 4th of last year. Little did I know that when I gave them my shipping address, I was actually doxxing myself. The attack on my family wouldn’t launch until well after the 180-day return period, however. After I retaliated by leaving a one-star review for the item, IKEA had this to say: “We apologize for any inconvenience. We’ll be sure to share your feedback with our sales leaders for internal review and future design improvements.” Can you believe it? Not one single mention of the woke mind virus that’s clearly infected the company! I’ll be buying from Bob’s from now on, thank you very much!
I urge you all, my brothers in arms against the woke terrorists, to join me in a boycott against IKEA. I’ve already posted a video of myself using the Satanic coffee table as firewood in my backyard. However, when I showed the woke mob that I’m not afraid of them, they only tried to silence me harder than ever. Due to an unrelated and entirely coincidental wildfire that burned down half my neighborhood, a woke state prosecutor is now attempting to press charges against me, using my awesome table-burning TikTok as evidence. According to her, “You can literally see the defendant flinging chunks of flaming wood behind the treeline.” Luckily, the Lord Almighty already sent President Trump to pardon me for my participation in the January 6th fight for freedom, so I’m confident that He will protect me a second time (God or Trump, whoever comes first).
Next week, I’ll be back with another column on the dangers of my wife’s woke divorce papers.
Spirit Swap sells itself as a chill, low stakes/lo-fi match-3 puzzle game with relentlessly cheerful vibes. It is also a head-to-head fighter with neither justice nor mercy in its heart.
You could play this to wind down after a long day. You could also play it to tear apart your closest human relationships. Spirit Swap contains multitudes.
Granted, some of that’s on me. If I’m playing a match-3 puzzle game, it’s probably Bejeweled 3 or one of its legions of imitators. Compared to those, Spirit Swap has its own unique rhythm, which I’m told is closer to 1995’s Tetris Attack than anything else. That’s been messing with me. Even after several hours in-game and clearing Spirit Swap’s story mode, I keep trying to set up combos that it isn’t equipped to permit.
Naturally, that isn’t Spirit Swap’s fault. It is what it is, and there’s no point in criticizing it for what it clearly isn’t. However, it does accidentally illustrate how the game is built around what’s effectively an identity crisis; it wants to be an old-school arcade throwback and a calming relaxation app and a queer dating sim, all at the same time. It’s a balancing act, and sometimes it spills over.
In Spirit Swap’s story mode, you play as Samar, who lives in the woods outside the coastal town of Demashq. Every night, Samar wanders around banishing spirits who’d otherwise wander into Demashq to cause mayhem, through (what we’re told is) a painless “swapping” process.
One day, Samar goes into town to check on her friends, who’re all dealing with their own mundane crises: overwork, a recent breakup, feeling unappreciated. Each of them is also up to their ears in spirits, which shouldn’t have been able to get this far into Demashq, so Samar swings into action.
Despite that description, there isn’t much actual conflict in Spirit Swap’s story. You wrap up the “besieged by ghosts” issue within an hour or two and then proceed to scheduling hangouts with Samar’s friends and associates, a few of which might potentially develop into a romance. In between each scene, you swap some spirits as part of informal competitions with Samar’s friends.
In each round of Spirit Swap, rows of shaped blocks appear from the bottom of the screen and move up over time. You can only move them horizontally, but arranging 3 or more of the same block in a row banishes the spirits and makes them disappear. In competitive rounds, you can also flood your opponent’s screen with garbage blocks by pulling off big combos, which lowers the amount of space they have to work with.
It might take you some time to wrap your head around Spirit Swap’s mechanics, especially if you’re like me and you come into it with some baggage from other games in the same lane. It’s a deliberate throwback to an era when falling-block puzzles weren’t automatically considered a casual-friendly genre, particularly when and if you play it against other people. It’s easy to learn, but timing, foresight, and reaction speed all count for a lot.
On the two lowest difficulties, you should be able to cruise through Spirit Swap on autopilot, which is arguably where the game thrives. It’s a big plate of comfort food by design, featuring a broadly diverse cast of characters who’re all effortlessly comfortable in their own skin. Samar herself has no real problems, her friends are all lovable dopes at worst, and even the spirits do nothing worse than make the occasional mess. If you want something to plug into so you can wall off the world for a while, Spirit Swap has got your back like a jacket.
On higher difficulties, however, Spirit Swap turns into a surprisingly competitive experience that takes some visible inspiration from arcade fighters. I ran through the story mode on the second highest difficulty, on the assumption that I’ve got some puzzle chops, and the CPU promptly handed me my teeth. I had to buckle down and figure out how Spirit Swap’s systems worked before I started making headway, and even then it was touch and go.
That was more than I expected I’d get. I went into Spirit Swap thinking I was in for a casual-friendly puzzle game that would depend heavily on its music and overall vibes. That’s not an unfair description, and you can have a perfectly good time with Spirit Swap if you’re looking for a joyously queer dating simulator or something to chill you out at the end of your day. I’d like to be able to change the music in Endless mode, but that’s the only suggestion I’d make.
Spirit Swap also has some surprise potential as a head-to-head multiplayer game, however, and that ended up being more interesting to me than the rest of the overall package. It could use a few tweaks to add some depth, but I could see this developing over time into a solid new entry in the puzzle-fighter genre.
[Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match-3 To, published and developed by Soft Not Weak, is now available for Xbox and PC via Steam for $19.99. This column was written using a Steam code sent to Hard Drive by a Soft Not Weak PR representative.]
GREENVILLE, Del — Following his departure from the White House, Former President Joe Biden has resolved to use his new free time to finally tackle his Steam Backlog.
“I would just keep buying these games when I’d see them on sale, but I never had the time to sit down and play them,” said former President Biden in between generous licks of a vanilla swirl ice cream cone. “I was able to play so much stuff back when I was Vice President since I had so much time on my hands, but it turns out when you’re president they don’t give you any time for serious gaming. It’s a little intimidating to decide which one to start with. I haven’t even touched Baldur’s Age Erdtree but according to the forms that is a hell of a time sink. I remember back in my day you could be done with a game on a weekend, now it can take my entire remaining life expectancy.”
Biden’s wife Jill is reportedly pleased that her husband has found something to occupy his time now that he’s left office.
“I’m just glad Joe has something to do with his time,” said the former first lady. “It also helps that it isn’t a hobby he feels the need to flaunt about. Imagine if he got into painting or something like that. I’d rather jump into traffic than put up with another subpar art gallery from a former president.”
Video games historian Hester Grantiea spoke to the press to discuss the influence Biden’s presidency had on the last few years of gaming.
“The effects of the Biden presidency in gaming history is going to be noticed for another few years.” Grantiea said. “We as a culture need time to digest it. The last few years of gaming were taken up with villains that resemble Donald Trump or Elon Musk. The good news for Mr. Biden is that he won’t need to deal with any commentary about him or his lackluster actions, so he’ll be able to game in peace.”
At press time, Biden’s son Hunter has reportedly been trying to get him into Marvel Rivals, claiming that the characters are “rocking bodacious dump trucks”.
WASHINGTON — In hopes to combat the impending “woke mind virus” pandemic, the Trump Administration has turned Sen. John Fetterman into a Bio Organic Weapon (BOW) through injections of the Umbrella Corporation’s newly discovered t-Virus, sources in the Capitol confirm.
“We commend Senator Fetterman’s bipartisan support of this assault against the Democratic Party,” says Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, in between hiccups and belches. “Fetterman’s already ogre-like body type made him the perfect guinea pig for unsanctioned medical experimentation.”
The Umbrella Corporation, which was recently purchased – and litigiously amended to be founded – by Elon Musk, has been developing the t-Virus for years. The recent Fetterman success is the first of many attempted trials on Democratic officials.
“Fetterman’s musculature and bone structure were far more suited for the t-Virus than our last subject, Dianne Feinstein,” says Umbrella scientist, Dr. Emily Capone. “She was willing to do anything to keep a DEI hire out of her seat on the Senate.”
Sen. Fetterman, per the President’s request, has been stationed in the Capitol Building, patrolling the halls with slow, echoing footsteps, ready to pursue any Democrat who voted against the nominees for Trump’s cabinet.
“John’s a great guy. Big guy, strong guy, he came up to me the other day, with tears in his eyes and said ‘Mr. President, please inject me with the Trump virus,’ that’s what the “T” stands for, right? If not it should be,” said the President during a recent press conference regarding inflation. “But we had to get him out of those clothes. We had to. Did you see what he wore to my inauguration? He looked like Barron after gym class. So we put a little hat on him, and a big trench coat. I think he looks great, doesn’t he look great, folks? Now that I know this wonderful virus works, Eric and Don Jr are gonna have great futures here let me tell you.”
At press time, Umbrella representative Nemesis has replaced Doug Burgum as Trump’s Secretary of the Interior.
PALLET TOWN — Newly re-elected President of Kanto, Professor Oak, has caused a stir after ordering all Nidoran♂ and Nidoran♀ to have the gender symbols in their Pokédex entries removed.
“This left wing gender insanity being pushed on our Pokémon is a disgrace,” President Oak ranted at a press conference earlier today. “My administration will only recognize two genders: purple and pointy, or blue and…not quite as pointy. Kantoians are sick of having all these Arceus-defying pronouns and symbols shoved in their faces. I don’t need to know what you identify as, I already asked if you were a boy or girl when you were 12 years old.”
Briefly pausing to offer the journalists present a choice between three starter Pokémon of opposing types, President Oak then resumed his blusterous verbal attack on the harmless and convenient identifier.
“It is sick and frankly criminal that Nidoran as young as level 5 are being pressured into assigning themselves one of these unnatural symbols by their DEI day cares,” he continued, sweat starting to brown the white collar of his lab coat. “They don’t need to think about that until they get to level 16, when the boys turn into Nidorinos and the girls really start to…develop. I remember when my Nidorina, Ivanka, first evolved and I tell you, I didn’t need any little sign after her name to see that she was all woman. But now the woké mob wants to let their Nidoran hold these Everstones, these evolution blockers, until they’re ready to commit to that massive change in their bodies. It’s unforgivable, really, and we’re going to put an end to it.”
Bill, the controversial inventor of the Pokémon Storage System recently confirmed into Oak’s newly created position of Efficiency Executive Verifying and Eliminating Excess, voiced his strong support for the President’s decision.
“As EEVEE, I’m honored to be helping President Oak protect the world from devastation like this,” said Bill, wearing a black shirt with a red ‘R’ on it that he later insisted was not in any way affiliated with Team Rocket. “Those symbols are the only reason I can think of for why my own Nidoran broke out of its Poké Ball and ran away. My friends at Silph Co. assure me that’s not supposed to be possible, but it’s happened to me like a hundred and fifty times.”
At press time, President Oak had just signed an executive order banning transformed Ditto from serving in Pokémon battles.
NEW YORK — Members of the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate are investigating Spider-Man after he allegedly made numerous anti-mutant posts on X. Nick Fury, Executive Director of SHIELD, confirmed he would be leading the investigation in a press conference earlier today.
“We can confirm at this time that his account was not hacked by a supervillain,” Fury said, scowling to the press. “We don’t think he’s under the influence of any symbiotes or has been brainwashed. We also don’t suspect Ben Reilly is involved. What we believe we have here is a full hard-right heel turn. Spidey’s based now.”
Press flooded Fury with questions concerning Spider-Man’s motives and if we could expect other heroes to follow suit.
“We’ve checked with numerous superhero orgs and they all guarantee us they’re not pushing their members to be based,” Fury said, still scowling. “In the case of Spider-Man, I’ve known him for a while and I can promise, he’s always been an annoying troll.”
The webslingers anti-mutant rhetoric has driven New Yorkers out into the streets to protest the once beloved hero. Some are calling for his resignation. J. Jonah Jameson, Editor-in-Chief at the Daily Bugle and longtime outspoken Spider-Man critic sees this “New Spidey” as a breath of fresh air for the city.
“It’s about time he said what everyone else is thinking,” Jameson said on a recent episode of his podcast. “Maybe he’ll stop beating up hard working Americans just trying to make a living and focus on the real criminals like that wolf guy that doesn’t die, or that blind kid that shoots lasers out of his eyes. For Chirst sake, that Xavier clown is housing weapons of mass destruction. He literally has a negasonic warhead.”
At press time, Hulk had quote posted each of Spider-Man’s hateful X posts, simply replying, “Looking into it”.
NEW YORK — Stacey Fricks is done with fictional character Ted Mosby due to his failure to mention the 2025 Nazi problem in the character’s numerous anecdotes to his fictional children.
Fricks, the self-proclaimed, number one How I Met Your Mother superfan, shared her new stance on Ted with her roommates through the thin doors of her apartment.
“Ted Mosby is a pretty big dick for not even hinting at all this Nazi stuff in 2025.” Fricks shouted to her half asleep roommates. “I can kind of give him a pass for not mentioning Covid cause there’s a fan theory that Tracy probably died from Covid. I mean if you line up her death with the pandemic, it kind of makes sense, but Nazis, Ted, , you have to give us some kind of warning. He’s a smart guy. He wouldn’t be one of those people calling it “Elon’s Gesture”, he’d take a Nazi at face value.”
Frick’s fan theory filled rant continued into the night as she started to second guess just how smart Ted’s character actually was. .
“Ted did miss all the signs Robin was giving him that one time in season one. And he couldn’t read the room when Stella didn’t want any exes at their wedding. Oh god, he also dated that one punk chick who used to date that tattoo artist who was very Nazi-coded. Ted might actually be a Nazi.” Fricks said, spiraling out of control. “That’s it. From this day forward I will no longer watch How I Met Your Mother. No more Slapsgiving or the Naked Man for me.”
Fricks isn’t alone in her new found dislike of the show. Hundreds of very online HIMYM heads took to the internet to call for a boycott. Josh Radnor, the actor who portrayed Ted Mosby, commented on the boycott during an interview on CBS Mornings to discuss his upcoming HIMYM rewatch podcast, How We Made Your Mother.
“I personally denounce Nazis,” Radnor said, staring down the barrel of the camera. “Now Ted on the other hand, who’s to say? I guess you’ll just have to listen to How We Made Your Mother to get the full picture.”
At press time, Frick’s had started her 128th rewatch of HIMYM to prepare to listen to HWMYM in the hopes Ted’s nonchalance to Nazis would be given proper context.
WASHINGTON — The long awaited confirmation hearing of President Trump’s new Secretary of Treasury was held Thursday Morning. During the hearing Mr. Van Der Linde spoke about how he and the president were working together to bring about the economic plan he promised during his campaign. Insisting we all have a little goddamn faith because he has a plan.
“Look goddamn it, all I’m asking is that you people put your trust in me here,” Dutch Van Der Linde could be heard saying in Washington Thursday morning. “I’ve never led you astray before alright. Me and Donald are gonna handle it. We have a plan and you’re just gonna have to trust me, alright? Now, how many of you have robbed a bank before?”
Many senators remained unimpressed and even concerned by this pick after the hearing. Senator Klobuchar’s mouth was agape when Mr. Van De Linde described a possible scenario where he would hijack and rob Canadian trains and give that money directly to the American people.
“I don’t see how exactly a career criminal is the best choice for this position the president could come up with,” said Senator Raphael Warnock when asked outside Capitol Hill. “When I tried to ask him about any sort of actual experience he might have that would justify his nomination he just ranted about how he dealt with ‘those filthy bastard O’Driscolls’ which was surprisingly violent and disturbingly detailed.”
President Trump made a brief comment about the hearing in between signing his 15th democracy shattering executive order of the day.
“I love Dutch. Dutch is very good. One of the best train robbers I’ve ever met. Classy guy to, always dresses well. I call him Dapper Dutch. We both love money and have a lot of it. We both have concepts of a plan. Dutch is gonna do tremendous things and he’s going to do them bigly.”
Mr. Van Der Linde was not available for comment after the hearing as he immediately hijacked a plane leaving from Dulles Airport to Tahiti later that day.
