‘Tony Hawk’s Amateur Skater’ Lets You Fuck Up Your Wrist in a Way That Will Never Really Heal Right

Posted on by Max Barth

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Activision has released Tony Hawk’s Amateur Skater, a new skateboarding video game that allows players to break their character’s wrists in ways that will never fully heal. 

“After speaking with hundreds of amateur skaters, we knew we had to do more to incorporate the kind of gritty, street-wise punk aesthetic that leads thousands of young(ish) people straight to the emergency room each year,” said lead designer William Perry. “From the beginning, the Amateur Skater development team was dedicated to authenticity, and nothing is more authentic than having your character audibly cry because you made him attempt a hard flip and the board didn’t go all the way around and it bounced up like a pogo stick and hit him in the testicles.”

Tony Hawk himself reportedly participated in the design process, which resulted in a custom Hawk-branded neck brace available in-game.

“I may be a pro now, but I was once an amateur — and I’m no stranger to injuries. That’s why I’m proud to partner with Activision for the Breakin’ Stuff content pack, available for $9.99,” said Hawk. “The exclusive Hawk neck brace is identical to the one I wore in high school after I attempted a Kickflip McTwist in an abandoned construction site to impress my friend’s sister.”

Early reviews from players were overwhelmingly positive.

“Playing this game makes me really feel like I’m part of the amateur skater community, even though I don’t do it IRL,” said Leslie Allison, 14. “I’ve never sprained so much as an ankle, but Amateur Skater lets me realize my dream of attempting tricks I have no business performing. I got the Breakin’ Stuff pack and everything, so my skater is already in intensive care with some cool Hawk swag, a broken collarbone and a severely bruised ego — thanks, Mr. Hawk!”

As of press time, Activision had teased a DLC that would allow Amateur Skater characters, in limited instances, to be completely sober while skating.

‘Yeah, I’m Listening’: Man Pauses Game to Ignore You for a Bit While He Thinks About Game Still

Posted on by Matt McInerney

BALTIMORE — Local gamer Gary Doyle reportedly paused his game to listen to his partner deliver important news, but he not-so-secretly continued to peek at the screen instead, confirmed undeceived sources.

“I’m really good at doing two things at once. I think my years of gaming have trained me to have kind of a superbrain,” said Doyle, pointing to his head. “Like the other day, Sonia interrupted me while I was playing Madden and said she had something important to tell me. It was in the game’s final seconds, so I had to focus on remembering my play call. But I was still able to pause and have a whole conversation with her. As soon as she was done with whatever she said, I hopped right back in, drove down the field, and scored.”

Sonia Ayers, Doyle’s long-time girlfriend, didn’t experience it quite the way Gary explained.

“I was excited to tell him that his little sister got into college, but he barely re-focused his eyes as I stood there. He just nodded and said ‘uh huh’ like four times. And he absolutely looked over my shoulder at the pause screen,” Ayers said. “Gary thinks he can juggle everything, but really he just fucks up whatever he’s not focused on. Yesterday I asked him to go to the store, and on his way out, I reminded him why while he stared at his phone. Five minutes later, he called me to ask why he was in a CVS parking lot. I told him to look down where I’d written ‘toilet paper’ on his hand.”

Eve Robbins, a researcher at The Maryland Institute, has done several studies on multitasking behavior.

“Every subject will go on and on about how capable they are because they watch Family Guy while browsing Reddit or apply lipstick with cruise control on,” said Robbins. “But, without fail, the second we give them two tasks that require focus, like checking email and reading an article, they collapse. It takes them twice as long as doing each separately, and their comprehension of each drops through the floor. Honestly, my job kind of boils down to frustrating people until they scream, ‘give me a minute!’”

At press time, Doyle was seen on a Zoom call with co-workers alt+tabbing to check a Slack message while sharing a PowerPoint presentation.

Michael Caine Joins Cast of Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ in Role of Atomic Bomb

Posted on by Camden Brazile

LOS ANGELES — Auteur director Christopher Nolan announced the latest addition to the star-studded cast of his 2023 film Oppenheimer today: Sir Michael Caine in the role of the atomic bomb.

“Chris came to me before the movie started production and told me ‘you’re my Fat Man,’” Caine explained. “I love working with him, so I obviously acquiesced. The role of the bomb intrigued me. While I usually give exposition or bring gravitas to clunky but necessary dialogue, this time I’m supposed to annihilate two Japanese cities on screen. It’ll be the acting challenge of a lifetime, but I’m ready for it. I have no lines, I just sit in a glass case in a lab for most of the film being ogled by scientists and Cillian Murphy until they drop me out of a plane onto Nagasaki in the third act.”

Nolan explained his casting choice while doing press for the upcoming movie.

“I felt that the bomb really needed to connect with audiences right away, and I went straight to Michael,” Nolan said. “Something about the manner he carries himself is so stately and professional, so I wanted him to be the dramatic lynchpin of the story. Just to be safe, we had him do a brief screentest where we dropped him on some scale models to see how it would look, and we knew right away he was perfect. There’s this amazing shot we got in IMAX of Michael falling over Japan, which we did for real, and it’s chilling. Oppenheimer’s story is so American, but I’m glad I could sneak in a British actor in there, even if he explodes into smithereens before saying anything.”

At press time, although he had not been officially announced to be joining the cast, sources reported Tom Hardy was just going to assume he’s in the movie somewhere until proven otherwise.

New HBO Max Show Just Footage of Guy Flushing $90 Million Dollars Down the Toilet

Posted on by Mark Roebuck

LOS ANGELES — Warner Bros. Discovery has debuted a bizarre new show on HBO Max that simply shows a man flushing about $90 million of theirs down a toilet. 

“It’s weird, but I guess it’s a much quicker way of doing that than they did with Batgirl,” said pop culture journalist Ann Carpenter. “They spent almost nine figures making a movie and now they won’t even throw it on their streaming platform? It makes no sense. At least with this new toilet show they’re cutting out the middleman and not shutting down any city streets to make a movie no one will ever see. I might check it out, actually. HBO stuff is always so good.” 

The new series, A Guy Just Stands There and Flushes 90 Million Dollars Down A Toilet premiered last night, garnering high ratings and mixed reviews. Even the show’s star reported having mixed feelings about the project. 

“I didn’t understand [the assignment] myself at first, but a gig is a gig, especially an HBO one,” said Conrad Harris, the actor portraying the titular ‘Guy’ in the prestigious network’s latest original show. “They said they had some radical new ideas as to how to help get viewers connected to their expanding universe of content, and I guess flushing 90 million dollars down the toilet was a part of that vision. Seems weird to me, but what do I know? I guess John Wilson was busy.” 

“Am I in the DC Universe now?” he added. 

Executives at Warner Bros. Discovery defended their recent decisions, which have drawn the ire of many fans. 

“Look, we know you were excited about the Batgirl movie, but we saw it, and we’re doing you a favor,” said Walter Winstead, a senior VP with the corporation. “I mean sure, the action scenes were alright, and it was absolutely great to see Michael Keaton as Batman again. And honestly, J.K. Simmons and Brendan Fraser never disappoint. Oh, and Leslie Grace is clearly a star. But besides that, there was just no way anyone in the world should ever, ever see this movie, not even once, nope. You’re welcome!” 

As of press time, the newest episode of The Rehearsal also featured Nathan Fielder flushing $90 million of HBO’s money down a toilet.

Desperate GameStop Announces They Will Literally Jack Off Any Customer Who Agrees to Preorder ‘GTA 6’ From Them

Posted on by Mark Roebuck

GRAPEVINE, Texas — A stressed out looking GameStop executive announced today that they’ll straight up jerk you off in the back room if you pre-order Grand Theft Auto 6 at any of their remaining locations. 

“We’re not gonna lie, it’s been a weird couple of years,” said Walter Bamford, a GameStop VP, in a press conference held earlier today. “The decline of physical game sales combined with our absolutely atrocious approach to customer service seemed sure to doom us, until we enjoyed a brief status as what’s known as a meme stock. Since then, we’ve laid off a shit ton of employees and have launched an NFT marketplace that’s been even more poorly received than you would guess!” 

“We had to take one down of a guy jumping to his death during 9/11,” he added. “To let you know how that’s even possible.” 

The announcement was shocking to many, including the makers of the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6. 

“We want the public to know that we knew nothing of this promotion and do not condone, support, or approve of it,” said a statement issued by Rockstar Games in response to the controversial whacking off pre-order bonus being offered. “The fact of the matter is that we’ve had less motivation to give GameStop exclusive content for our games as the years have gone on, and it would appear that they are quite literally ready to take matters into their own hands at this point. By all means, if you want to get your rocks off, go for it. But please know it’s not us. Love, your pals at Rockstar.” 

Local gamers don’t appear to be very shocked by the news. 

“Well, they’ve been fucking me in the ass for years, so maybe this makes a little bit of sense,” said Blake Toddley, a lifelong gamer.  “No, I’m just kidding. But for real, even if a weird handjob from a talkative GameStop employee sounded like my kind of thing, I don’t trust it. I feel like they just want an excuse to have a couple minutes with you to tell you about their rewards program and all that. They can keep their handjob and their subscription to Game Informer, frankly.” 

As of press time, GameStop had announced that they’d also throw in “a little mouth stuff,” if you grabbed some Funko Pops while you’re there.

U.S. Military Hires Joss Whedon to Enhance Quippiness of Soldiers in Battle

Posted on by Jeremy Kaplowitz

WASHINGTON — The United States military has reportedly hired writer and director Joss Whedon to help make soldiers quippier in battle.

“We’ve been doing our best to start a third world war over the last few years, but if we’re serious about getting into a conflict with China, we absolutely need to make sure that our soldiers have the funniest MCU style one-liners,” said United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. “Quips are the height of combat technology, and we all know how well those movies do overseas, so you know that China is going to be extremely prepared to out-quip our soldiers. World War II was fought with guns and nukes, but World War III will be fought with ‘is that a thing?’s and ‘oh you’ve got be kidding me’s.”

“Our combat studies have shown that soldiers are fifty times more efficient when the rest of the troops stand back and say things like, ‘I’m glad he’s on our side’ while they’re battling it out with several enemies at once. We need to harness these witty one-liners and develop even sharper ones with the help of top notch quipsters like Whedon,” Austin continued. “We need to develop new ways of securely transmitting sensitive counterintelligence through sarcastic lines  like, ‘ugh, they have snipers now?’ while running away from fire. If we want to compete on the global scale — and even more importantly, if we want to justify rising defense budgets — we need to act on this now.”

According to those familiar with the situation, Whedon is just happy to get more work after years of inactivity.

“I totally get it — the troops can be so gloom and doom. They hardly ever reference old pop culture items when giving orders! If we’re going to have such a powerful military, they might as well sound like the Avengers” Whedon said, sticking his hands down his pants for some reason. “I’ve already done a lot of work for the military while I worked for Marvel, so it’s a totally perfect fit. I’m so excited to see how plucky and sexy we can make all our soldiers!”

At press time, Joss Whedon was fired for trying to have sex with every female general.

Millennial Dad Shows His Son What Was Poggers Back in His Day

Posted on by Michael Gursky

MACUNGIE, Pa. — Local millennial father Gunther Jefferies, 35, decided today that it was finally time to sit his son down and introduce him to the Newgrounds Flash cartoons and AlbinoBlacksheep games that kids considered poggers back in the day, sources confirm.

“Homestar is 8 now, which means he’s old enough to appreciate the things that were considered based back when I was surfing the net,” said Jefferies while cracking open an old laptop containing a folder of original bold impact-font memes from his SomethingAwful days. “That’s how old I was when I first saw a cartoon walrus get brutalized with a Weedwacker while a crew of elves freestyle-rapped about it in the background. It’s a nuanced sense of humor, but it’s definitely the same sensibility that these Twitch streamer kids have today!” 

The doughy millennial dad continued gleefully listing the many favorites of his adolescence while giving his son a tour of his old meme page bookmarks. 

“Canine Arson, Mario and Luigi Meet Tupac, The Midget Murders, Hot Air Balloon {redacted}, Bloody Gerbils, Ghetto President, Nursing Home Nymphos, Who Saw That Swamp Donkey?, Fat Paratroopers, Toddlers From Under The Bridge, Psycho Parakeet, and Radioactive Daycare are just a few that we watched this afternoon,” Jefferies said in a single huge breath. “All of which had him LULing, by the way.”

Despite his father’s efforts to create a sense of cultural connection, Jefferies’s son Homestar did not speak overly enthusiastically of the videos.

“I can’t believe how much senseless gore and shocking racism there was in online content back then,” said Homestar Jefferies, furiously erasing the cookies and history of his browser following the session. “Although I will say the game feel on that one Newgrounds game where you make a schizophrenic man put cats in the washing machine really holds up.” 

At press time, Jefferies said he was looking forward to connecting with his son even more over his favorite dank YTMNDs when he’s mature enough to appreciate them in a year or two.

Paramount+ Announces ‘Yellowstone: 2099’

Posted on by Ben Friedman

NEW YORK — In an effort to keep up with the arms race of increasingly complex extended media universes, Paramount+ executives announced a slate of new programming for the streaming platform, including Yellowstone 2099, the fourth planned spinoff of the popular long-running western drama series.

“The history of the American West is a goldmine for character driven dramas like Yellowstone, but we can only go back in time so far with the Dutton family lineage before the narratives we can tell become totally un-relatable to modern audiences,” said Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan. “So, instead, the next series will take place in the far-future 77th state of Nueva Montana in 2099. You’ll still enjoy the thrill of the same high-stakes vigilante violence, but without any of the creative boxing-in by modern politics or guilty re-reckoning with manifest destiny. Instead, viewers can look forward to the cyborg cattle-centaur descendent of John Dutton battling mutant Californian gentrifiers. Coming next Summer!”

Fans of the series say they’re excited to see what new twists await the Neo-Duttons, but hoped that the new futuristic reprise would not forget its roots.

“I binged all of the original Yellowstone in a week, so yeah, I’m obviously excited for another spinoff,” said Paramount+ focus group participant Luke Fellows. “I got to sit in a big conference room at Viacom and they showed us a few episodes from ‘99, and while they were pretty good, I still felt like something was missing. Like, even though Beth Dutton’s brain is in a robot piloting an unstoppable killing machine, how does this connect back to the family’s historical conflicts with the Native Americans? I’m pretty sure you can still do a slow burn family drama set against a western backdrop with badass dropships instead of horses, it might just take a few seasons to refine. I’m willing to stick around and find out!”

While the hype around the new spinoff has grown exponentially, television industry veterans have growing concerns about the integrity of quickly-expanding narrative universes,

“It’s been stressful enough with platforms giving series orders to prequel after prequel, especially when we’re already not sure how much more story we can squeeze out of elitist, sociopathic ranchers in bumfuck, USA,” said Yellowstone script assistant Lindsey Jones. “All I remember is some suit came into the writer’s room last week and wrote “CYBERPUNK YELLOWSTONE” on a whiteboard and left. I’ve had to do a lot of googling about cybernetic implants, but hopefully this should buy us some time for a season or three while we cast a reboot of the original Yellowstone to start all over again.”

Following the announcement, Paramount teased plans for another upcoming alternate-timeline series called Yellowstone: What Would Happen?, an animated spin-off show kicking off with a premiere episode in a reality where cattle are the dominant species and people are livestock.

DEAL ALERT: Somebody Placed a Perfectly Good Copy of Halo: Reach Under This Suspended Grand Piano

Posted on by Camden Brazile

Another amazing deal alert for retro and modern gamers alike! Bungie’s revival of the Halo franchise following Halo 3, Halo: Reach, was an integral part of its generation of video games. Its seamless, fast-paced multiplayer and powerfully emotional, yet tactically thrilling campaign sets it apart from other mediocre installments of recent years. Right now, you can get a perfectly good (and free!) copy of Halo: Reach by reaching under this large grand piano and snagging it quickly!

We were just trekking through the Albuquerque desert when lo and behold, we see a perfectly good copy of Halo: Reach just sitting on the pavement. Now, there’s no sight of that dastardly coyote anywhere to be seen, so this could in fact be the deal of the summer!

Following the red ‘X’ on the ground where the game disc has been gingerly placed, there is indeed a thick rope and a series of improvised pulleys suspending an ornate grand piano over the Halo disc, but it doesn’t matter. This deal is just too good to pass up. What’s the worst that could happen? 

Be sure to act quickly! Not only could this deal expire in a few minutes, but the rope holding up the piano seems to be shaking, as if someone high above is aggressively sawing it in two as we contemplate the fun times we had playing Halo: Reach’s SWAT mode with our friends on Xbox Live. 

Halo: Reach’s Infection game mode was also a great way to produce both some tense moments and uproarious laughs in local split screen co-op with a sibling or neighbor, and— OH GOD

DEAL UPDATE: Welp. It happened. As we knelt down to claim one of the most entertaining multiplayer shooters of the last decade, the piano came crashing down on top of us, initially obscuring us completely, and when the dust settled, we regret to inform you that we did in fact have piano keys in place of our teeth forming a large Cheshire grin. 

As we slink away into the sunset, a squished, crinkled accordion man, we can take solace in the knowledge that Halo: Reach is also just available on Steam. 

Polyamorous Gamer Says Third Person in Threesome Has to Use the Weird Mad Catz Vibrator

Posted on by Sam LiButti

PORTLAND — Polyamourous gamer John Putz has reportedly notified one of the members of his upcoming threesome that they will have to use the weird janky Mad Catz brand vibrator during the sex act.

“I’m not trying to be a dick, I just can’t afford multiple high quality vibrators, what with the economy in shambles. Plus, it’s my house my rules, everyone knows that,” said Putz, lining up lubes for the upcoming threesome. “It’s really annoying because I’m genuinely really good at sex, but every time I give someone the Mad Catz vibrator, they start complaining that the only reason I’m giving everyone more orgasms is because I don’t have the off-brand one. Sorry, but it’s all skill.”

Donna Sanders, however, wasn’t very pleased when she learned of this development upon arriving at the Putz home.

“I wish they would have just told me so I could have brought my own Vibrator Pro from home; it’s got a turbo button and everything,” Sanders explained. “This one just flat out sucks, and not in the good way, involving clits. There’s this weird drift issue where whenever I go for the butthole, it winds up somehow over by the taint. Just real shoddy craftsmanship.” 

Couples therapist Dr. Joan Slatney specializes in polyamourous couples and says this is more common than one might expect.

“It happens all the time. People don’t always value the third participant in a threesome like they should, which is pretty silly considering that, without them, you wouldn’t have a threesome at all, would you?” said Dr. Slatney, shuffling through penis-looking Rorschach tests. “That would just be normal two person sex, and that’s gross.”

As of press time, Putz says he will try to be more considerate in the future, but should still get to choose which sex position they start out with, because he’s the host and that means he gets first pick.