Cliff Notes of Britney Spears’s Femme Fatale (by track number)

 01 – Britney bangs a lot of people at the dance club, but tonight is your turn. Dancing is important.

02 – Britney is confident enough to make sexual puns that unattractive people would be laughed at for using. Dance clubs still make her randy.

03 – Britney is about to break up with you but really wants to bang you first.

04 – Britney is going to touch herself but still needs you to bang her.

05 – Britney is turned on by music and cars. Tonight is still your lucky night to bang her.

06 – Britney *really* wants to bang you if you’re an attractive man.

07 – Britney wants to bang you behind your girlfriend’s back…or if you’re single she wants to bang you in secret.

08 – Britney is giving the bass note an erection and there’s some kind of banging going on.

09 – Britney knows you’re banging a bunch of other chicks, but she still can’t help but want to bang you.

10 – Britney is in love and on some kind of club drug.

11 – Britney really wants to bang when she really wants to bang…and she really wants to bang.

12 – Britney loves banging douchebags. Apologizes to mom for it.

13 – Britney encourages you to admit you want to bang her. To help you, she’s going to dance like a stripper.

14 – Britney is sad that she has to cheat on her boyfriend by banging some guy from the club.

15 – Britney really wants to bang you, but only if she can be the man tonight. Also the breadwinner.

16 – Britney can’t stand waiting another second for you to bang her.

A Prologue to Ruining Halloween

I promised Dan Sal that I’d write for his website about six months ago. I go way back with both Dan Sal and Dan Scog, and think of them in the highest regard. Being asked to participate in something they’ve created is definitely an honor. I merely stalled because I’m the laziest person I’ve ever met. Sidenote: Do you know how great sleep is?

My topic is going to be pretty topical. Halloween is coming up, and this year it’s going to be legendary for me: I’m actually going to have Trick-or-Treaters. This year, I moved into a complex of townhomes, and have gotten used to seeing neighborhood kids around. I’ve really tapped into my maternal instincts, and have a special place in my heart for all of them: there’s Chubby Kid Who Spends Summer Grotesquely Shirtless, Girl With Hair Too Long, Football Jerk, and Girl With A Dog. We’re all pretty much best friends.

Having Trick-Or-Treaters is a really adult moment in one’s life – a milestone, if you may. For example – how do you decorate? My neighbors across the lawn went all-out, with caution tape on the door, and ghosts a-plenty. I got into the spirit of decorating as well – check it out for yourself!

(That sign can honestly mean “I haven’t cleaned the apartment in a few months, so beware of some kind of Hoarders situation inside,” or “Trick-or-Treaters Welcome! Get ready for a spooky time!” I choose the latter.)

Having your first adult Halloween really makes you reflect on your childhood – what kind of neighbor do I want to be? Do I want to be the kind of house that gives full-sized candy bars, or do I want to be the house that scares children by delivering tricks? Should I buy a magic set? Should I gift toothbrushes, to teach children a lesson? Should I just forfeit by leaving my light off, and drink wine in the dark while marathon-ing Dawson’s Creek by myself?

Upon heavy reflection, I remembered two very true things about myself:

1. When I was in first grade, I told my parents I wanted to be Jo from The Facts of Life for Halloween. My parents told me that nobody would know who I was. My response was, “I’ll just hold up a sign that says “I’m Jo from The Facts of Life!” Later, I realized that when my parents asked me if I was a lesbian, I shouldn’t have been too shocked. I’m not, but I willingly admit that I left early clues suggesting otherwise.
2. I had to “Trick or Treat for UNICEF” for a few years when I was young. I brought a little orange box alongside my little orange plastic pumpkin, and pretty much threw everyone off-guard. After all, UNICEF won’t get much use out of a fun-sized Kit Kat. While I’m proud that I did this, and still believe in donating money to the less fortunate, I still remember how awkward it was. Should I have a bowl full of change in case my neighborhood decides to pull the same stunt? Probably. I can give them 25 cents (which will provide about 900 vaccinations) and a high-five.

Heavy reflections also reminded me of the one dreaded year when I realized I was “too old” to go Trick-or-Treating. Neighbors gave me the shifty eye, and a few commented on my age. I went home early, feeling dejected, and binged on my minimal collection of Twizzlers. For my first adult-Halloween, I’d like to think I’ll welcome all the high-schoolers who choose to harass me for candy instead of – I don’t know – impregnating someone, or whatever seventeen-year-olds are into today.

Of course, Adult Halloween also means that there’s some kind of party that falls close to the actual holiday. If this didn’t exist, neither would costumes like “Sexy M&M”.

Seriously, you guys? Making candy sexy? I’m not going to turn this into a huge rant about terrible costumes, since those already exist on the Internet. I’ll just say that if you choose to be a stupid M&M on Halloween, at least make it look like an M&M. And the first word I can think of to describe an M&M is “Round”.

Adult Halloween Parties also mean that you really need to make sure you act appropriately, since nobody wants to see a picture of Sexy Nun vomiting in bushes on Facebook. (Actually, I lie. I would like to see that, but just for a split second.)

I had to venture into Party City today to buy a wig, and immediately faced a life-altering panic attack. Back when I was younger, I feel like my parents truly set the limit on appropriate costumes – which is why I switched between “cat” and “witch” throughout the majority of elementary school.

Whenever I decide to procreate, I feel like my child will have similar limits. In fact, I look forward to when they’re an infant, and I can dress them in whatever the hell I want to. I fear for the day my future daughter will try to be a sexy M&M, or sexy Buzz Lightyear, and I have to tell her why it’s just not happening. If I see any midriff on any of my Trick-Or-Treaters this year, I fear I’ll deny them candy (or aforementioned tricks) and start lecturing. Or angrily punch their UNICEF boxes out of their tiny hands, should they choose to participate.

Pennsylvania, as opposed to New Jersey, actually sets a specific time for Trick-Or-Treaters. I believe it’s only between 6 and 8 PM that you should be expecting sugar-crazed monsters ringing your doorbell. On certain years, the day of Trick-Or-Treating isn’t even on Halloween, which I personally find to be offensive. I have to admit, I’ll kind of miss the Halloween hijinks I’ve learned to love from New Jersey: People knocking on your door at 11 PM, even when your light is out, and being paralyzed with fear that you’re about to get robbed. Unfortunately, I’ve prematurely anticipated this event by keeping nothing of value in my apartment.

In closing, I’d like to wish all of Dan & Dan’s loyal readers a very happy Halloween. If I don’t end up in court for telling off a 6-year-old Katy Perry, I’ll keep contributing to the website. Only time will tell.

Power Sign

If you’re like me terrified of sharks and you like supporting independent art-type folks, then you’re going to want to check this out.  Michael McQuary (find him on facebook!  Do it!) creates Your Power Sign, which put in the simplest of terms translates to “Seal of Awesomeness.”  Whether you’re looking for some new bling or trying to convince your friends you’ve raided the tomb of a powerful Chinese Emperor, Your Power Sign is the way to do it.   Your initials are hand crafted to specification on pendants, rings, and wall art (depending on your need to show off, punch someone’s face in–I mean, seriously, that ring is no joke–or ward off some bad magic.)  No two pieces are alike.  I know Michael is a busy guy, but if you ask nicely, he’ll probably make one for you.  Check out his work on facebook.

EA’s Origin vs. Valve’s Steam

The coming battle where everyone loses.

Blizzard: Is Greed Good?

Let me preface this article with a myriad of important statements:

1.  The views and opinions expressed here are my own. Not necessarily that of the two guys who maintain this site or the other op-ed posters that frequent it.
2.  I love Blizzard games. I always have and always will.
3.  My first son is named Level 32 Necromancer.
4.  My son was gimped compared to most Sorcs, so I had to “reroll” him.
5.  The government will no longer allow me to procreate after drowning my son.

 The year is 1998. It’s a cool fall morning and I’m standing at the corner outside my middle school.

“No dude. Hydras are fucking rigged.”
“Yeah. Carriers are fair then.”
“They’re third tier units! They’re expensive as fuck!”
This talk is fucking goddamn gibberish to me.
“Dude. What in the fuck are you talking about?”
The response would change my life forever.
“Starcraft.”

Up until that point I had only played RTS in the form of Command and Conquer on the original Playstation. I know. I know. Console RTS?! Sacrilege! At least back in those days the current generation of Playstation allowed a working mouse peripheral. In my defense, my father had honestly convinced me that our computer was an essentially unintelligible device made solely for word processing and CD-ROM based encyclopedias. I know. He was a monster. I had no knowledge of computer gaming. Enter my friends.

They described it to me and I immediately drew the connection between it and C&C. A game I loved. Being a natural fanboy (STILL am), I knew that this bullshit “Starcraft” had to be worse. There’s no way that RTS on PC could be better than the random shit I happened to find on a console. (How poorly misguided I was.) I was told I could play it online.

“Yeah but doesn’t that cost money?”
The only internet gaming I was aware of at the time was the ill-fated “x-band” system for consoles. (So bad.)
“No dude! You’re already online. All you have to do is connect to this free service called Battle.Net.”
“Bullshit,” I thought. Nothing is free.
“No! I’m dead serious. We’ve been playing for a while now and haven’t paid shit.” Whatever. One objection down.
“Well I don’t want to have to buy something I don’t even know if I’m gonna like.”
“You don’t have to do that either.”
“What?!”
“I’ll give you a spawn installation. You can play online with us. For free. Then you can buy it if you want to play the single player.”

At this point I had no idea what the fuck to believe. What the hell is PC gaming?! They’re giving shit away for free? This had to be a scam, but I was along for the ride. Well at least until it all crashed and burned and I could say I told them so. Begrudgingly, I agreed to try this shitty “Starcrap” game out. You know, so I could formulate rationale behind my blind hate for a game I knew nothing about. Little did I know, I was about to fucked in the face with pure awesome.

Starcraft had the ability to install 8 “spawned” clients that were only capable of multiplayer. Free. You could easily hook your friends. I would spend most of my formative years and high school playing the living shit out of Starcraft. I would buy it, its expansions, and any other game Blizzard ever made. It was the first PC game I ever bought, played and fell in love with. It was perfect. We would have LAN parties. We would be up all night on b.net. We would troll comp stomp games by turning on our allies. We would play 2v2 Blood Baths until our eyes fucking BLED. We lived and breathed Starcraft. Nothing would ever change that.

Now it’s the middle of January 2011. Our first LAN party since Starcraft 2 came out. This was game we had been looking forward to for over a decade. Many things had happened since Starcraft consumed our lives. We graduated high school and college, and Warcraft 3 became immensely popular. 12 players in a single game? It was a LAN party’s wet dream! It was ultra competitive and ultra fun but now it was Starcraft’s time to shine once again. We all sat in the room. We all held our breath. Then everything went to hell.

The game we launched wasn’t the spiritual successor to Starcraft. It couldn’t have been. 60 dollar price tag, shitty campaign (by most standards) no evidence of the innovation that Blizzard was so famous for. Most disappointingly, many features that had been considered series staples were completely absent.

“Hey. Where’s LAN?”
“Oh dude, there is no LAN.”
“What? Seriously?”
“Yeah, you gotta connect to B.Net.”
“Why!? You’re right here!”
“I dunno dude.”
“…Won’t that lag?!”
“We’ll see I guess.”
“OK, I got a party going.”
“Invite me.”
“I can’t. We’re already at 4.”
“What?! It caps at four?”
“No dude, form another party and then we’ll combine them.”
“Uhhh… OK?!”
“Alright so we got 8 now. How do we get the rest in?”
“I dunno. Make a game we’ll invite them.”
“OK… Uhh… I see the maps cap at 8.”
“But we have 10.”
“Fuck this.”
“Yeah let’s just play Quake.”
“OK well the 8 of us will play this ffa then we’ll join you.”
“Oh dear fucking GOD! The lag!”
“Oh what the fuck!?”
“Screw this shit!”

Yes. That happened.

The question is why. Why can’t we LAN Stacraft 2? The answer is simple and unlike how Blizzard describes it, it’s not “a minor issue” either. From their perspective maybe it is, but from a player’s eyes LAN play is a glaringly HUGE omission. The reason is written on the wall. Lan play enables pirates to easily play without paying. Practically anyone could easily download an installation of Warcraft 3 and use 3rd party tools to play the game without a valid cd-key. This is a serious issue and I understand why Blizzard did what they did. The question that occupies my mind, is at what cost are they implementing this strategy?

I’m not going to lie. I’ve been that guy. I look at the clock, it’s 2 hours to LAN and I figure I have time to fuck around. Before I know it 2 hours have flown by. I’m struggling to get my shit together. I get to the LAN without mousepad, monitor power cord and Warcraft 3 install cd. Fuck my life, right?! Back in the day before the official NO-CD patch let us run digital copies of the game, we had to rely on unsavory alternatives to salvage a night. We all legitimately bought the software. Multiple times! We had A.T. accounts, we had pub accounts, we paid more than our fair share of money to the big Blizz. So who were we hurting by cutting corners at these LANs? In reality, no one. Without much fuss or muss the 12 man LAN ffa was up and going. A staple for our gatherings. Now why is that impossible for SC2? Should that not seriously feel like a major step in the wrong direction?

After Blizzard’s success with WoW it’s hard to ignore the fact that they realized two major things. Subscription fees mean big money and faking a validated account is nearly impossible. (Nearly. WoW clone servers are everywhere.) Blizzard knew they had found a way to ensure people couldn’t easily play their game without first paying them for it. The result is Starcraft 2. A game built from the ground up with one of the most useful multiplayer tools completely and intentionally absent.

So we know what. Gimped game. So we know why. A few assholes didn’t want to pay to play, so legitimate customers suffer. The next question is when. When if ever will Blizzard feel consequences?

Blizzard always had a tremendous reputation of taking care of their fans. The Starcraft spawn client ability is just one example of their generosity. Subscription free multiplayer is another indication of their drive to provide their fans the best in gameplay and foster a fantastic relationship with them. Their goal wasn’t just to profit off of their games. They also strove to offer experiences no other company could. Is Blizzard still that company?

Some people would argue no. Since their merge with Activision, (a company whose reputation has been checkered more than once with slights against paying customers) Blizzard has appeared to make many unpopular decisions. Blizzard’s totalitarian control over Starcraft 2’s online play has left many hardcore fans with a sour taste in their mouth. Where once the franchise felt like an open sandbox, it now feels like a summer camp’s planned activity. One that’s been planned to be fun enough to keep you busy, but heavily monitored so that you’re not having fun in any way the camp could be liable for. (Like wallpapering an entire field with porn. This actually happens in War3 (and the best camp ever.)) Where once we could make our own maps and the community would either embrace or reject them, now we can only submit our content to Blizzard and hope they get published. Blizzard cites reasons for this change as well. The first being trying to keep the porn out. The second, to keep up quality control to cut down on the clutter of terrible maps. But not many are convinced those are the only factors in the policy change. Warcraft 3 still remains functional despite these issues Blizzard has described. Could there be another reason? When looking at the Starcraft 2 license agreement, another motive comes to mind.

Map Content.

You understand that the content required to create or modify STARCRAFT® II Modified Maps (as defined below) is included in the STARCRAFT® II game client, and that all such content is owned by Blizzard and governed by this Agreement. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT ALL MAPS, LEVELS AND OTHER CONTENT CREATED OR MODIFIED USING THE MAP EDITOR (COLLECTIVELY, “MODIFIED MAPS”) ARE AND SHALL REMAIN THE SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE PROPERTY OF BLIZZARD. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, YOU HEREBY ASSIGN TO BLIZZARD ALL OF YOUR RIGHTS, TITLE AND INTEREST IN AND TO ALL MODIFIED MAPS, AND AGREE THAT YOU WILL EXECUTE FUTURE ASSIGNMENTS PROMPTLY UPON RECEIVING SUCH A REQUEST FROM BLIZZARD.

This specifically brings to mind the biggest custom map to ever be created in a Blizzard RTS. DotA. It’s impossible to ignore DotA’s story. Starting humbly as a Warcraft 3 custom map it has spawned its own game from a competing developer. I can only imagine that left a bad taste in Blizz’s mouth. I understand that. Players who want to follow the path of DotA and use Blizzard’s excellent map making tools to create a whole new game are in for a rude awakening. The EULA (End User License Agreement) states that Blizzards owns anything made with their tools and submitted to B.Net. If you made anything that came close to popularity of DotA, you had better believe they’re legally prepared to take your work and capitalize off of it. This is something I would have never expected from the Blizzard I once worshiped.

Finally, the recent news surrounding Diablo 3 has sent fans into a frenzy. The types of issues in Starcraft 2 are just as present in this new game as well. Diablo 2 was fantastically versatile. You could play it alone. You could play it online. You could play it offline. You could play it offline with a friend and then take that character online to PvP or play with other friends. (Also there are many combinations involving foxes and boxes and other words that rhyme but I don’t have time to get into that. Look forward to my next op-ed article where I present and analyze the millions of different ways you can play Diablo 2 and eat green eggs and ham! There will be spread sheets!) However now, just like Starcraft 2 required you to be online for multiplayer, you need to be online at all times to play Diablo 3. At least Starcraft 2 you could enjoy single player content offline if you happened to find yourself without an internet connection. Now this makes sense for a game like WoW, where the massive world is persistently maintained across many servers at Blizzard’s headquarters. It’s a necessary step and no one can argue against that. But Diablo 3? The world of Diablo 3 (just like Diablo 2) is randomly generated on the fly. It could run on the clients machine just fine. What is the argument given by Blizzard for this? It’s to discourage cheating and item duplication. Which is a good thing to discourage, but is this really the most effective method for doing so? I’d have trusted Blizzard 2002 without much question. After Starcraft 2, am I really gullible enough to take that at face value? The answer is no. Especially not after I caught wind of Diablo 3’s new auction house system.

Rob Pardo Executive VP of Game Design at Blizzard games attempted to seal away the evil WoW profits. After placing a large wad of the money in his head, he wandered around the world until the evil corrupted him completely.

When Diablo 2 was in it’s prime, many small items were duplicated by deliberate use of exploits. This occurred so often that these items became a form of currency. These “Stones of Jordan” or SoJ’s were used by players to buy and trade for other items. Some players who traded legitimately acquired SoJ’s for items, and legitimately acquired items for SoJ’s which were then traded for other items. On eBay, characters full of this makeshift currency were being sold for real world money. Something dubbed RMT or Real Money Trade. Blizzard banned and deleted many accounts suspected of taking part in this RMT. They demonized the players who partook in the process and said that purchasing items with real world money severely imbalanced the game. Real money trade has since become a staple in such games from Blizzard as WoW and even Team Fortress 2 from another developer. Everyone has finally jumped on the RMT bandwagon. Now this wagon is making another pass by the Diablo franchise, but this time it’s being welcomed. What’s different you ask? Well this time Blizzard found a way to get in on the action.

When Blizzard made the auction house system for D3, they knew that if they allowed RMT to occur through their auction house, they could earn money from this game well after release. Who could possibly fault them for this? I know I can’t. Maybe someone who lost a hard earned account in Diablo 2 for being suspected of RMT? The question here is how can Blizzard explain the 180 degree turn on this issue that was so chastised previously in their series? There have been a few responses to this question. The most interesting one so far has been the; If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em explanation. Blizzard has stated that rather than trying to stop RMT, (technically impossible) they should just engineer the game to anticipate it and provide safe means for every player to participate in RMT, leveling the playing field. Which makes a lot sense and I’m sure that was a factor, but I can’t help but feel the potential profit from these sales provided most of the motivation behind the decision. One of the many reasons unsanctioned RMT must be stopped, is because it motivates players to cheat. When a potential a real world reward is offered, many people stop looking at it as a game, and start looking at it as a business. Players expecting a fun game typically are turned away by the cutthroat behavior of other players in these environments. But how is official RMT supposed to alter this effect? Won’t people still be highly motivated to try and dupe their way through college? Wouldn’t the persistent b.net connection method of cheat detection already stop this? It seems to me that the most compelling reason this auction house was created was to make money. But I can understand that. I’m an American. I love making money. The point I wanted to make here is that making money is once again the recent motivation for Blizzard to omit seriously desired gameplay mechanics. That is far from OK.

Players want to have a good time. The agreement you expect when you buy a game these days is that you are paying sixty dollars for the best possible game that sixty bucks can buy. You are not shopping for toilet paper. You are not mentally debating how much you want to spend on ply count versus how comfortable you are with the risk of getting shit on your hand. When it comes to toilet paper that decision is left up to you. When it comes to gaming, we want the best game for our money or we’ll go elsewhere. The problem here is that the best game for our money is no longer being made because it isn’t as profitable as these other games. Argue all you want, but options are king. When I’ve spent 60 dollars on Big Game: The Biggening and I get an awesome LAN experience, I expect that when I pay 60 dollars for Big Game 2: Even Biggering I would get at LEAST the same amount of content. This is a case of Blizzard punishing their loyal paying customers for the actions of people who never intended to spend a dime. What happens when hackers crack open B.Net 2.0 and emulate it so that they can create their own B.Net 2.0 over LAN? Hackers get the feature the paying customers get the bone. I understand piracy is a growing issue and these companies have to protect their interests. I understand that as a company they have to turn a profit or they wont be able to make another game; LAN enabled or not. I just see that as these companies get bigger (WoW), and as they take on partners that may not have the same game developing ideology (Activision), that they are seriously losing sight of the core values and fan service that have catapulted them to their current status.

Blizzard today is not the same developer as they were in 1998 when I met them. They are not about making games first. They make a profit first and a good game second. The reason I am bringing this up is that when a company like Blizzard with a history for working in their fan’s best interests all of a sudden ceases doing so, it makes room at the top for the next guy. I see Valve out of the corner of my eye making Dota 2. I can’t help but think that if Valve ever wanted to, they could easily make an RTS engine, and that engine would probably have a better way of getting around piracy than dropping LAN support. I’m not trying to be an asshole, but when a room full of Starcraft nerds who honestly wanted to play Starcraft end up NOT playing Starcraft and instead spend their entire night playing Left 4 Dead, it makes me wonder how much longer there will even BE Starcraft nerds. And where will Blizzard will be when they don’t have any Starcraft nerds left? Here’s looking forward to World of Profitcraft 2.

HORRRRRRG Part 2

You will never be as good at baseball with 2 arms as this man was with 1.

Joey C’s Official Hall of Really Really Really Really Really Really Good

Mets Die-Hard Explains Derek Jeter’s Greatness

This article is a special contribution from sports author and known Mets fan, Joey C.

When I was young, I spent every weekend with my Dad’s family and we would watch our beloved New York Mets just about every time they had a day game.  Many a Saturday or Sunday afternoon was spent in my grandmother’s living room watching Ron Darling, Keith Hernandez, Doc Gooden, and one of our favorites at the time, Darryl Strawberry.

I distinctly remember a conversation my 3-year-old self had one day with my Uncle Chris regarding our love for the Mets after a big home run.  (The conversation went something like this–details have been lost over the last quarter century.)

Uncle Chris:  Yes!  We love you Darryl!!!

Me:  We love him?

Uncle Chris:  Yes, we do!

Me:  I thought we only love family – he’s a stranger!

Uncle Chris:  Uh… he’s your uncle too?  Yeah – that’s it.  Uncle Strawberry.

At this point my 3-year-old brain was hard at work processing colors.  Something wasn’t right here.

Me:  But the Mets wear blue – the OTHER teams wear red.  He can’t be a Strawberry.  He’s a blueberry.  He’s Uncle Blueberry.

Uncle Chris:  Sure!

And that was that.  Darryl Strawberry was my Uncle Blueberry.  The logic was irrefutable and my curiosity was satisfied.

What colors did YOU think had me confused?

This story has a lot of morals to it.  You could use it to say children are dumb, or abstractly smart, or that racism is not inherent but learned, or that everyone knows strawberries can’t be blue…but I wanted to tell you that just so you could understand how big of a Mets fan I was raised to be.  It was perfectly acceptable in my family to tell the eldest grandchild he was blood-related to this man if it meant we could get some peace and quiet on game day.

That’s the kind of Mets fan I am.

SO… hopefully now you readers can understand that penning the following homage was both humbling and painful – but it needed to be done.  With all the nonsense that has been spoken lately about this article’s subject, common sense would no longer let me sit back and listen.  I needed to state my case, and damn does it hurt.

Ladies and gentlemen of the New York sports world:  Over the past 2 years, there have been rumblings in the blogosphere – and lately even on sports talk radio - regarding the “declining effectiveness” of one Derek Jeter.  Some of you wanted him dropped in the batting order or relegated to the bench.  Many people have brought up defensive statistics that you couldn’t even begin to understand the absurd calculations for.  A number of you have even considered dumping him in favor of other playersnow that he has gotten his 3,000th hit.  Still more of you would be calling for his head had he not put in a game for the ages on the day he hit number 3,000.

To all of you I can say only this:  Stop.  For the love of God, stop.

Derek Jeter has been a class act from the moment he stepped on the field, and I would be shocked if he is anything less whenever he decides to step off of it.  He has been the most consistent player of his generation, and I would argue (while biting my lip and bleeding royal blue and orange) that he is easily the greatest baseball player of his generation.

Dear Lord, I need to go take a shower.

And we’re back.  Now I am not saying that Jeter is the best – that’s a bit different and much easier to quantify.  Rather, Jeter is the greatest.  In a strange way, the fact that he isn’t the best at anything in particular offers more to his legacy of greatness than any other statistic.  If you were starting a baseball team, and could take any player in their prime to be the face of your franchise, you would be a fool to pick anyone other than Derek Jeter: never gets hurt, consistent, solid defense, leadership, never does or says anything controversial, and will give you 17+ years of the same consistent quality.

Let me put it to you another way:  Would you rather have someone who was the best for a few years (Don Mattingly, Doc Gooden, Mike Piazza, the list goes on…) or someone who was great for 17 years, plus off-the-charts clutch?

And don’t give me arguments about what “clutch” is.  As a Mets fan, I watched every pitch of the 2000 World Series.  If we had Derek Jeter (instead of Mike Bordick, who we rented by giving away Melvin Mora in one of the worst deadline trades ever…another article) we would have won.  The Yankees had him and they won.  One man accounted for a 3-game swing on the biggest stage of the sport.  That is clutch, and it is greatness.

Twelve years after winning the World Series almost single-handedly, Jeter became the first player in the history of New York professional baseball to amount 3,000 hits while playing for a New York team, and he did it in true Derek Jeter style: a 5 for 5 day where he got the game winning hit against a formidable division rival.

Derek Jeter is so great the fan who caught number 3,000 gave it back to him rather than selling it to pay his college tuition debts.

Derek Jeter is so great other players come to the Yankees just to play with him.

Derek Jeter is so great that life-long Mets fans write articles about how great he is.

That’s what makes him the greatest.  Not the best, but the greatest.  Yankees fans should be thankful for everything he has brought to the table.  And if he does get a little long in the tooth, so what?  Imagine a revered grandfather whose stories get a little convoluted as he gets older – telling stories about how he fought alongside Superman vs. Hitler and the Molemen – will it kill the family to just sit and listen for those last years, out of respect?  So what if one of these years Jeter bats .250 or something?  He was the greatest for SEVENTEEN PLUS YEARS.  Yankees fans can deal with it for a little bit.  He is Derek F-ing Jeter, and he has earned it, damnit.

So to everyone out there worried about his age, and clamoring about how he should step down, or saying he should let someone else step into his spot, or arguing he should volunteer to slide down in the batting order…

Shut up.

Top 5 Video Games According to a Girl Gamer

This article is a special contribution from known female and l33t gamer Syrindia.

First off, let me begin by stating that I don’t consider myself to be a girl gamer—the title is intentionally misleading so you’d click on it. To those who advocate for more female participation in games, trying to appeal to the “girl gamer” archetype is at best cute, and at worst patronizing and offensive. The equivalent would be recruiting for more male gamers in games like Farmville and Bejeweled (which is a great game, by the way). There is a general bias toward counting FPS, RTS, and MMORPGs as “real” games, and discounting Zynga-type games as silliness, but that’s another article for another day.

So, from the perspective of a gamer who happens to not have a Y-chromosome, these are the top five games of all time:

5 – Zelda: Link to the Past

Before I go any further, I have to disclose a terrible secret that only two people in the world at the moment knows (… okay not anymore): I never finished Link to the Past. I couldn’t kill the last boss. I was playing on an emulator and had a midterm coming up. Despite this, I still had a great time playing the game due to extremely creative puzzles, a coherent storyline, adorable graphics, and non-stressful gameplay. While it doesn’t sound like much, it’s surprisingly rare to see all four of these elements in a single title, and as anyone remotely familiar with games in general, most of them fall far short. The map layout was such that progression was not necessarily linear, which is totally awesome in my book, because I really hate NPCs telling me where to go next.

Of course, a large number of people grew up with the Zelda games, and would go on for hours defending their supreme position, but I don’t have any childhood nostalgia associated with it, so for personal reasons, it will have to remain number five. Besides, how many “Top Games” lists have you seen that DIDN’T list Zelda as number one?

4 – Portal

So now that you know I like puzzles, it’s probably no surprise that Portal is also on my list. This game totally blew my mind the first time I saw it. Of course, you go in one portal and come out another, which seems incredibly elegant. Also big in my book was the fact that it was a great tool for teaching kids Conservation of Momentum (although, strictly speaking, it’s not entirely true since you do change directions if you’re falling out of a vertical wall and into a portal in the ground, but one can’t be too picky when it comes to video game physics). For a Half Life 2 mod, it was amazingly clever, with ingenious puzzles that force you to think in a completely novel way.

And the companion cube!  I wouldn’t be exaggerating to say it’s one of the saddest moments in my videogaming career.  In fact, I’ll come out and say it.  It’s the saddest.  Spoiler alert (if you haven’t played it, what are you doing here!?  Go play it!):  I can’t believe there was no way to save it!  It’s like when Aeris dies in FF7 with all your materia still on her, but infinitely sadder because you don’t have any other friends (as you can tell, this may have hit a little too close to home for me).

And it had a little heart on it!  OMG SO cute!

3 – World of Warcraft

I’m a closet WoW player. I wouldn’t die if people found out that I did play, but until now, I didn’t publicize it.  It’s a great game, and of course I’m biased (six 85′s). There is a reason why it tens of millions of subscribers: instant gratification. Sure, you have to grind for gear, levels and reputation, but you get to see immediate incremental results. Plus, it’s always a rush for me to see my numbers get bigger.

I love the fact that there are many facets to the game. You can slaughter NPCs by questing, slaughter members of the opposite faction in battlegrounds and arenas, or slaughter really large NPCs with nine or twenty four of your best friends (aka strangers). I can’t hope to cover everything in this short paragraph, but in summary, there’s a ton of stuff that you can do, and because of ongoing patches, there will always be a ton of stuff that you can do. Of course, this is also its downside, and many people complain of burning out after years of raiding, but for me, it just fills the time. As you can tell, I had a lot of time to fill.

But it’s not perfect.  It’s grinding day after day, and you still have to deal with 16-year-olds who can’t interrupt or run out of AoE.  Of course, it doesn’t help that Blizzard has totally abandoned the idea of a coherent storyline (Thrall with a wife?  Really?), but if you don’t have any obligations to fill and don’t mind dealing with idiots, then that’s fine.

2 – Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne

Before WoW, there was War3.

The Frozen Throne made me the person I am today. My critical thinking, analytical and social skills all came from this game. As cheesy as it was, the storyline was bearable and the campaign kept me engaged so much that I played it three times (not in a row… I still possess some semblance of sanity). But multiplayer… yes, it was my first.

I learned the fine art of raging and the delicate skill of trolling. I learned micro. I learned the power of a level 6 Demon Hunter with Metamorphosis and a level 1 Keeper of the Grove with Entangle. I learned the OPness of Blade Masters with nothing but six +6 attack claws. I learned that, yes, you can surround a hero with four wisps and kill it with your level 1 Priestess of the Moon (that’s what you get for trying to harass me, noob).

1 – Starcraft II

Where to even begin? This is the game that brought eSports to new heights in the US; it broke new barriers in total disregard for storylines in previous games; it completely killed the Warcraft 3 progaming scene; it’s hilarious to watch Koreans try to trash talk while still trying to be polite.

Obviously I play Protoss.   Every girl I know who plays SC2 (okay, so only one other person…) plays Protoss.  I even watched some female tournament and only saw one Terran out of 16 players (and obviously zero Zergs—they’re slimy and secrete god-knows-what all over the map).  And as a result of my history of rages, I’ve limited myself to only 4v4s and 3v3s out of concern for the welfare of my poor laptop.

As much as people love to complain about the campaign storyline (myself included), I have to admit that the implementation was done quite well overall. Unlocking units was a clever way of teaching the player key characteristics of the units, and the RPG aspect was very cool. However, I have to admit that I enjoy the culture surrounding SC2 much more than the game itself. I enjoy watching other people bust blood vessels trying to spread their marines against banelings, but to play a game myself is like having to run five miles—it’s a real workout. It’s on the top of my list simply because I spend the most time on SC2 related activities out of all other games, and I thoroughly enjoy every minute of it.

My top five choices obviously do not deviate too much from the mainstream, with the exception of FPS games, but I’m not trying to say that females cannot be considered to be “gamers” unless they play “real” games such as Diablo 2 and CS: Source. For me, my favorite games just happen to be Blizzard games, but this should not detract from other people who enjoy playing Bejeweled 3 and Plants v. Zombies (which I did, immensely). Is it any surprise that Zynga is now considered one of the top gaming companies? Most people out there are casual gamers who don’t want to spend $2000 on a liquid cooled Alienware Aurora (at the top of my wish list) or $200 on a PS3, and like it or not, the term “gamer” is even becoming antiquated. Pretty soon, most “gamers” will be 40 year-old moms playing Angry Bird 5 on their phones while waiting to pick up their sons from soccer practice. Perhaps it means conventional gamers like me should move on, but for now, I’m happy where I am, in my parents’ basement, watching other people play Starcraft 2.