Gamer Asks Chipotle Employee Which Type of Beans Provide Better Stat Boost

AUSTIN — Frustrating employees and other patrons and holding up the line behind him with his questions, a local gamer asked a Chipotle employee taking his burrito order which beans would provide him with a better stat boost, hungry sources confirmed earlier this afternoon.

“Do you know if the black or the pinto beans give a better defense boost?” inquired Stewart McCaffrey, looking around at the posted signs and placards for other important nutritional information. “If you have a laminated card or a tooltip that shows all of the buffs of your ingredients, that would be really helpful.”

McCaffrey, a gaming and health enthusiast, says he tracks all of his stats religiously and that being informed is the key to effectively min-maxing your diet.

“I have a history of heart conditions in my family, so my most important stat is defense. After that I probably care the most about movement speed, so I also look at how heavy each ingredient is,” he explained. “I don’t make a habit of eating out like this, but when I do, I like to know exactly how it’s going to affect my body. These kinds of decisions can really add up throughout the course of a run.”

At press time, an upset McCaffrey had finished eating his burrito only to discover that it also provided a hidden poison damage debuff that would only go away over time.

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RPG Town Shop Goes Bankrupt After Buying $10,000 in Trinkets From Adventurer

NETINNDEL — An RPG shop owner has been forced to close up his local shop and declare bankruptcy after buying $10,000 worth of useless trinkets from a wandering adventurer.

“Aye, I asked this weary traveller if he’d like to have a look at me goods,” said shop owner Enmon Rarnis. “He said he had a few things to sell first and showed me his collection of trinkets. Empty bottles, broken necklaces, a dagger rusted beyond. I had to buy every single one. Only a fool would part with such valuable treasure.”

After selling his items for the equivalent of $10,000 in gold, the traveler browsed through Rarnis’ selection of items for 20 seconds before deciding to leave without buying anything. The one-sided transaction left the shop with no money.

“To be frank, I had no intention of buying anything in there,” explained adventurer Hadvar the Great. “My pockets were just weighed down with all of this useless junk I had looted during my adventures. I thought he’d buy one or two things, but I was surprised when he took it all. How many wheels of cheese does one merchant need?”

Shortly after leaving the shop, Hadvar returned to ask if Rarnis would sharpen his sword. Hadavr gave him all the metals needed for the blacksmithing process, paying no additional money for Rarnis’ time and service.

“I don’t know how this didn’t happen sooner,” said local innkeeper Haelga Uriel. “His inventory isn’t even that impressive. He only sells three potions and some barley. I’m pretty sure he never restocks either.”

Rarnis plans to become a wandering merchant who will take any rare pelts travellers bring to him and craft them into elaborate hats, which they can have for free.

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Alarming Daily Screen Time Report Doesn’t Include TV or Computer Monitor

SARASOTA, Fla. — Straining his eyes while scrolling through the report to make sure he was understanding things right, distraught man and technology addict Antonio Reeves was distraught to discover that his iPhone’s daily screen time report doesn’t include time that he spends staring at his TV or his computer monitor.

“I’ve been checking this report before I go to bed to see whether I’m spending too much time on my devices,” explained Reeves, eyes still bleary from scrolling through the report in the pitch black darkness of his bedroom. “Then I realized that the seven hours I spent working at my computer, all of the minutes I spent glancing at my Apple Watch, plus the two hours I spent gaming last night weren’t included in the report at all. Kind of misleading if you ask me, they should really fix that.”

Reeves said that looking more closely at the numbers on the screen time report made him realize that something was amiss.

“So if you put together all of the time I spent on my phone yesterday, which was about — wow, ten hours, really? How is that possible? But that would mean that I spent twenty hours on screens in the last 24 hours? Wait, what time is it? Oh my God, I’ve got to be up in two hours. I should have stopped looking at screens 30 minutes ago to get ready for bed.”

At press time, Reeves had decided to subtract his gaming hours from his running total of screen time after deciding that VR headsets didn’t count.

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PlayStation 5 Owner Trying to Find Most Subtle Way to Get Old Roommate’s Netflix Password Again

NEW YORK — After getting a brand new PlayStation 5, Rick Warren reconnected with his old roommate in a subtle attempt to get her Netflix password again.

“Have you been watching The Queen’s Gambit? I’ve heard really great things,” Warren said in a Facebook message to former roommate Mischa Valdez. “I haven’t actually gotten a chance to watch it yet. My Netflix account isn’t working on my new PlayStation for some reason. Super weird. Maybe I can borrow a password from someone just to watch it. Would love to talk to you about it if I do!”

Warren had been using Valdez’s Netflix login info for four years without ever getting kicked out. In the move to a new generation, he quickly realized that he had suddenly lost access to Hulu, Amazon Video, and Disney+, none of which he had his own subscription for.

“I hadn’t talked to Rick in two years and he popped out of nowhere with some really weird questions,” Valdez said. “He kept talking about all the shows we binged when we lived together and then casually asking what my childhood pet’s name was and the name of the street I grew up on. I’m not really sure why he wanted to know that.”

In an act of desperation, Warren also called his ex-boyfriend up in an attempt to slyly retrieve his WWE Network password. Warren said he had not watched wrestling since their break-up a year ago and did not intend to start, but that it was the principle of having all his old logins he accumulated from friends and family in one place.

“He hit me up asking if I wanted to hang out, which caught me off guard,” said Warren’s ex Cornell Baker. “He implied that we should get together like old times, watch the Survivor Series PPV together, and see where the night takes us. I know he’s just trying to get my password, but all he has to do is ask. I literally give it to everyone.”

After finally acquiring logins for various accounts, Warren spent an entire night scrolling through every app’s library for hours, before finally giving up on watching anything and playing Spider-Man: Miles Morales instead.

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Smart Fridge Only Approachable Member of Friend’s Family

DURHAM, N.C. — During a recent visit to his friend’s house, Patrick Garrett found an LG InstaView ThinQ smart fridge to be the only approachable member of the family.

“I tapped the screen on the front, and it just lit up. It even made a little chirping sound,” said Garrett, after saying a quick hello to his friend’s brother and getting an eye roll in return. “That might not sound like much, but it made me feel seen, you know?”

While Garrett didn’t expect an outpouring of affection from his friend’s parents and siblings, he was surprised to see them outperformed by a steel box running clunky WebOS software.

“It’s not like the fridge and I even got along that well. I tried to set the ice to ‘cubed’ and accidentally set an alarm for Thursday at 5 p.m.,” said Garrett. “But it was way better than those two excruciating minutes I spent alone on the back porch with his dad. I finally asked how he was doing, but he just grunted and went back inside.”

When pressed about the harsh reception, the friend was confused about the complaint.

“Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me,” said the friend after an hour watching Seinfeld with his parents in total silence. “Do other families talk more or something?”

The smart fridge could not be reached for comment, as it had crashed for the third time this week and needed a factory reset.

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Teen Inspired to Reenact Video Game Violence in Real Life Can’t Get Seed Funding to Build Roller Coaster

BOISE, Idaho — Troubled sophomore Blaise Porter’s plans for mass vengeance have been slowly dashed by the tough business realities of building a roller coaster, according to sources at Central High School.

“The people in my life have pushed me too far,” said Porter. “I had to do something about it. I was playing this game called Roller Coaster Tycoon on my step-dad’s old computer and that’s when I got my plan: The Killcoaster. I started fundraising the next day.”

“I know Blaise was up to something,” said fellow sophomore Kyle Rogers. “I said ‘hi’ to him in the hallway and he stopped and said ‘You’ve always been cool to me. Here’s a little tip, don’t ride the Killcoaster on opening day.’ I have no idea what he meant by that.”

But reality soon slowed Porter’s plans. After a Kickstarter campaign failed to bring in any money despite offering a “promotional Killcoaster duster” reward tier, he turned to more traditional funding means.

“I thought these things were a lot cheaper,” said the teen. “Apparently it’s at least a million and that’s for just a Steel Mini Coaster, much less a Steeplechase or Virginia Reel. Adding a powered launch costs way more, even if the track ends 100 feet away. The bank said I had to have a business plan in order to get a loan. I told them my plan was ‘to show them all,’ but they said that wasn’t good enough.”

Some experts claimed Porter’s intentions show an often-overlooked side of video game violence. Said Rodney L. Fox, a controversial video game violence activist, “Just because a game doesn’t have guns doesn’t mean it isn’t corrupting the souls of America’s children. So-called non-violent video games promote youth crimes like building deadly amusement park rides, removing the ladders from swimming pools, and butterfly net beatings.”

“I do not have any data to back this up,” he added.

Despite his strong desires to make video game mayhem a reality, the would-be ride operator has begun reevaluating his options. 

Said a defeated Porter, “If I really want to pull this off, it sounds like I’ll have to go to college, get into the highly-cliquish amusement engineering industry, climb the ladder, build business connections… Honestly it might be easier to just see a therapist.”

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Edgar Allan Poe-Themed Fighting Game Locks Fortunato Behind Paywall

BALTIMORE — An upcoming brawler featuring Edgar Allan Poe characters will launch with the iconic “Cask of Amontillado” wine taster Fortunato gated behind a paywall, sources within the development team confirmed.

Edgar Allan Pwn’d! is a feature-rich literary fighting experience featuring many beloved playable Poe-verse characters,” lead designer Virgil Clemm announced in a press release. “However, Fortunato’s charisma and wine-sampling skillset makes him a high-demand character best left behind a price wall at this point.”

Many gamers, literature undergrads, and middle-school English teachers hyped for the game’s release have expressed disappointment at such an iconic character being locked away.

“‘Nevermore’ are we going to tolerate price-gouging dev teams like this,” said Elmer Royster, an avid internet commenter and the self-described “foremost member” of the Johns Hopkins student book club. “They’ve already revealed the cat from ‘The Black Cat’, the dead mariner from ‘Found In A Bottle’, and the raven from the thing he wrote with the raven, but they finally stop the buck at the only Poe character anyone’s ever heard of? We’re the real drunken fools. You know these greedy indie devs would lock us in their wine cellars if they could get away with it.”

Despite initial criticism, Edgar Allan Pwn’d!’s development team remains confident that this will be the first in a long line of Poe-themed games and interactive fiction.

“There’s so much untapped Poe-tential here,” lead designer Clemm added in a recent dev update video. “We could make an entire extended universe out of just the stories where a guy murders someone and hides their body and slowly goes insane. Can you imagine a survival-horror/home-designer game where you—wait, what if we tapped Paradox Interactive for a Red Death DLC for Plague Inc.? Or a pit-versus-pendulum asymmetric multiplayer game? I need to write this down.”

In an effort to calm public outrage, the developers released a season pass roadmap that includes the Baron of Metzengerstein, the beloved mascot Poe of the Baltimore Ravens, and Edgar Allan Poe himself, as portrayed in motion capture by John Cusack.

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Size Queen Purchases PS5

NEW YORK — Local size queen Sasha Carter reportedly purchased a PlayStation 5, the only console large enough to satisfy her need for an enormous and powerful gaming device.

“I like it big,” Carter said, according to those familiar with the situation. “I know a lot of people who don’t care about the size of the console. They care about the price, or the multiplayer, or the launch titles, or what their friends are into… but not me. I just like ‘em big.”

Responding to criticism from various size queens online, head of Xbox Phil Spencer defended the Xbox Series X.

“OK so here’s the thing… shut up,” Phil Spencer said in a series of Instagram stories, clearly holding back tears. “It’s not the size of the frame mass, it’s the versatility of the Game Pass. OK? Lotta people are self conscious about their console size, so maybe you shouldn’t shame them for it — and the Xbox Series X isn’t even small! It’s not a contest! Oh god this is the lowest I’ve felt since that kid DMed me asking how to get Persona 5 on his Xbox One.”

As of press time, those close to Carter reported that she said the new PlayStation 5 controller “feels so good in [her] hands.”

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Wario64 Begins Handcrafting PS5s Himself

SAN FRANCISCO — Amidst the growing need for production of more PlayStation 5’s, popular game deals purveyor Wario64 has taken matters into his own hands by just making his own from scratch to help fans find a copy.

“I knew it would be difficult for all of my followers to snag their own PS5, so I took matters into my own hands,” explained Wario64, who read up on how to build the console online. “The small space of my living room has proven to be a bit of a challenge, though, as the trapped heat in the room melted down some of the early prototypes. Luckily, production is now up and running, and the consoles should be available later today. I will stop at nothing to make sure people get their PS5s.”

According to those familiar with the situation, the PlayStations have not been entirely perfect.

“We couldn’t get 4k to work. Oh, and also, it doesn’t really have that many games on it, except for Spider-Man: Miles Morales, but I can get that on the PS4,” said fan Mark Flynn. “I guess that’s why you should never buy launch consoles, though. Specifically launch consoles built by a guy on Twitter who does not work for Sony. Come to think of it, I’m surprised it even turns on at all.”

Early today, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan publicly threatened Wario64, saying there will be “hell to pay” and that he will “go to the furthest extent of the law to punish Mr. Wario.” As of press time, however, Wario64 fanned flames further by tweeting about a “discount Phil Spencer” alongside a photo of Jim Ryan.

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Man With Space Invaders Tattoo Can’t Even Name One Character

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A man with a tattoo depicting an enemy from the influential shoot ‘em up game Space Invaders was chastised recently for not being able to name any characters from the iconic title. 

“I fucking knew it as soon as walked in here,” said Phillip Pugh, who was inside the Intergalactic Comics store when Tyler Murphy walked in with a prominent tattoo on his arm depicting one of the aliens from the classic Midway shooter. “I knew he’d completely front like he was a huge fan of the series, but he couldn’t name a single character. Not to mention the fact that he was shockingly unfamiliar with the extended series he claims to love soooo much. He’s never even played Super Space Invaders ‘91 on the Taito Legends 2 PS2 compilation! I’m so sick of all these fake ass gamers coming in here.”

When asked if he was able to pass the test that Murphy had so clearly failed, Pugh reminded reporters that his credentials were not the ones being questioned. 

“I don’t have to name a character,” Pugh said, when asked if he was able to. “I am not the poser misrepresenting my level of fandom by etching something into my skin. If you want to be a fan of something, it is your responsibility to know every fucking thing about it, unless of course you like being absolutely schooled and revealed as a fraud, of course.” 

One local tattoo artist insisted that a competency in the subject or property one is getting a tattoo of is of the utmost importance.

“Yeah, whoever gave him that should lose his license, if you ask me,” said Dawn Cutler, who owns and operates a shop in Albuquerque. “That is why every time someone wants a pop culture tattoo, I administer an exhaustive test to make sure they are well studied on it academically and that it’s not just, you know, something they liked as a kid or something. We have a responsibility to our customers.” 

As of press time, Murphy revealed that his tattoo was actually of a Mooninite from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force television series. Pugh was last seen being asked to buy something or to leave Intergalactic Comics.

Photo via Blake Patterson.

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