Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not neccessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. I patented my head. Don't say that I didn't warn you.

On a few occasions in the past, mainly for a lack of anything better to prattle on about in these opening paragraphs, I've written a few words of complaint in regards to the incoherent tripe that so many large corporations are trying to pass off as television commercials. It would seem that marketing agents fancy themselves to be quite the artists and conceptualists; at least, that's the only logical reasoning I can surmise. Frankly, I fail to see what angle of persuasion is at work in approximately half of the advertisements that I've laid eyes upon within the past few years.

However, my faith in the world's marketing majors has recently been restored. This is thanks in part to the Chu-Chu Rocket commercial, and also to another which I had the fortune to catch last night -- an American-made one, no less. In it, there is a man informing the viewer of the new slogan which he has created for 7Up: "Make 7 Up yours!" To coincide with his new campaign, he has on a green shirt which reads "Make 7" on the front and "Up yours" on the reverse side. Naturally, everyone seeing him from behind is rather offended, and plenty of wacky antics ensue.

Now, that in itself isn't much. What I found to particularly amusing and refreshing was the use of the phrase "up yours" in a nationally televised commercial. Considering the fact that other companies would censor ever-naughty words such as "balls," that's the kind of change that I'm entirely for. There we go, three solid paragraphs. That takes care of that.

And I, my dear friend, will take The Rapists for 500.

Okay, enough with that. For those of you who've seen the Saturday Night Live skit from which both of those lines were directly stolen, you know what we're talking about. Otherwise, just make the assumption that I'm developing mental retardation and slowly becoming incapable of putting together a logical sentence; you won't be that far off from the truth.

That's not a bad idea, except for one small factor: I have absolutely no knowledge of Latin myself. As such, someone could make up a bunch of complete and total rubbish, and I wouldn't know the difference.

Those are all interesting theories, Mister. As I've neither played nor seen the game for myself, I can neither agree nor refute. However, we'll soon have our Chrono Cross impressions up, and hopefully that will begin to shed some light onto the weird, wild world of Chrono Cross.

Until then, camp out in the bathroom with some magazines and a shotgun, to be certain that no one upsets the bugs inside of your head.

Hey, this is one magic bus that doesn't deal with namby-pamby subjects such as the importance of friction and the make-up of the human body. Although it made it more difficult to get a television contract, and my show was eventually relegated to an obscure cable channel because of its racy subject matter, I can say that I'm quite proud of it.

Be sure to tune in next week, when I convince a man that my magical bus will shrink down to a size that will allow it to pass in through his anus so as to inspect the source of his recent heartburn. Of course, my bus doesn't actually shrink, so I end up crashing into his naked bum at 80 miles per hour.

As long as the title gets decent reviews and generates some word of mouth, I think that it will do alright. After all, N64 owners are always looking for quality titles to justify the purchase of the little black buggers. I have to say, however, that it would have been wise on Nintendo's part to release the title sometime during the summer. As it stands, Ogre Battle will now have to compete with the likes of DK 64.

By the way, I tend to feel that Zelda is an action RPG. We should argue about it sometime. We can get together at your place, get into one another's faces, spitting as we bellow, until furniture begins to get thrown about and we eventually break into fisticuffs. It'll be fun.

And we all know quite well that everyone bases their purchasing decisions solely upon the subtitle found on the game.

You know, it's actually been a while since I've felt the need for a new kind of award. Between the Sexalicious Award, and the Smartass Award, I felt that I had the bases covered. However, I've received several letters which have fallen into one of two categories, causing me to change my mind on the matter.

There are those letters which are simply begging to be handed an award despite making absolutely no efforts to attain it, such as this one. Then there are the kinds that are blatantly obvious efforts snag an award by juxtaposing stock "insanity" in the form of painfully idiotic jibes with a baseless and unfounded opinion, rambling on for literally pages without actually making any point whatsoever.

It is for these very people, that I introduce the "You Ain't Getting No Award" Award. NightTransfer, you should feel accomplished, as you are the first of what I expect to be many buffoons and jackasses to receive it.

Remember, the You Ain't Getting no Award Award is comprised of pure evil, and may possess a large painting recently acquired by your local museum. The only way to combat it is to fuse the Statue of Liberty with various Nintendo peripherals, effectively creating an animated symbol of the good that still exists in America, giving the public something to rally behind.

Closing Comments

Okay, here's the low-down: I screwed up my computer royally last night. As such, I lost the majority of my email, and I also was unable to get a column up. For once it wasn't due to my own laziness or ineptitude; I'm a changed man and all of that rot. However, I'm committed to making sure that no more days go without updates, and as such, I'll have a special surprise for you on Friday that will be considered Tuesday's column. It's pretty stinking odd, I realize, but then I never claimed to be the poster boy for normality.

As for a topic, here goes: suppose for a minute, that there's this guy, and he's trying to think up a topic through a haze of exhaustion. Obviously, his topic needs to be interesting and thought-provoking, or the people reading it will feel absolutely no desire to write about it, and instead send him approximately 1800 letters about who THE MAN should actually be. Now, this is all hypothetical, of course, but what do you think that the topic should be? That's it. Go, write, be happy.

-Drew Cosner