Scientists Unveil Formula For Metal; Rockers Pleased

STANFORD (Reuters) - In a conclusion of a two-year study, Professor S.R. Explosion of the Stanford Department of Music Theory and his team yesterday announced they have conclusively produced a formula to determine precisely how "metal" a particular object is. The quality of metal-ness has been ill-defined previously, some notable figures going as far to say that to be metal requires already being metal, and it is hoped the formula - simply titled "Explosion's Law of Metal" - will bring some much-needed order to the genre. Professor Explosion, the brother of Nathan Explosion, lead singer of "melodic death metal" band Dethklok, said of the testing procedure "We took in as much data as it was possible for me and my team to assimilate, and we are confident that the Law of Metal will prove a mainstay for years to come."

A more in-depth analysis released later revealed the two extremes the teams set - the least metal piece was Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time", while the most metal piece was, surprisingly, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture; when asked why he picked the 1812 Overture, an unnamed team member said only that the Professor considered both it and the composer "absolutely ****ing metal". Upon hearing of this, lead guitarist of the "thrash metal" band Megadeth Dave Mustaine's reaction was favourable. None of it can be adequately printed thanks to the excess of profanities he used, but it was favourable nonetheless. Professor Explosion and his team are looking into research possibilities even now, with one source claiming they will attempt to locate the mythical source of all guitar power - Rush's Alex Lifeson has allegedly been contacted to act as a scout for the group.

So What's The Deal With Airplane Food

More people should have the word "nary" in their day-to-day lexicon. It's simple and it's short - only four letters, not evil enough - but defined confusingly enough for the stupid and/or illiterate to be impressed and say things like "shucks you really done got some smarts there son, hey maw i done found me a high school ejukated friend" (for the appropriate effect, imagine Peyton Manning or Tom Hanks doing Forrest Gump saying that). It means something like "nothing" or "nowt", which is another word more people need to use, even if it does make you sound like a country bumpkin freshly back from his water mines and salt fields. It also features heavily in the saying "you'll get owt for nowt", which was originally a Satanic summoning chant before being adopted by the gay Mafia as their secret greeting.

Ness, We Hardly Knew Ye

So the current rumour going around is that one of the Original Twelve (it's like the NHL's Original Six, but twice as good. 6 * 2 = 12, you see.) from Super Smash Brothers is going to be cut for the upcoming se-sequel, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and the expected target is one of Jigglypuff, Ness and Luigi. The news that Ness was included in this list made a little part of me die inside, especially since it was followed by the speculation that the Mother/Earthbound series would be represented by Mother 3's protagonist, Lucas. This would, of course, be a giant "lol u" to everyone outside Japan, since Mother 3 was only released there - the chances of it being translated for American sale is tiny already, making the chance of an English release as likely as Satan being let back into Heaven - but that's neither here nor there. My complaint is with cutting Ness and cutting Ness alone.

See, I play Ness. I played him in the original, by virtue of getting my cartridge used and having him (and the other characters besides) already unlocked when I first played it, and so I naturally played it in the sequel. He was significantly de-powered in the switch from the N64 to the Gamecube, but I persevered because Earthbound holds the title as "Best Console Game" in my eyes - it would be "Best Game Period" were it not for Fallout 2. Losing him would be a metaphorical kick in the pills with a steel-toed jackboot, hence my hissy fit at the possibility. To cut Ness when there are innumerable clones that could be removed is worse than stupidity, it is sacrilege. Maybe that's overstating it a little, but fuck you this is my tantrum.

Clones, for those of you unaware, are characters who play in a very similar or the same way as an existing character. Falco is a clone of Fox, for example - there are slight differences between the two, such as Fox's blaster attack being automatic (to put it real world terms) but having no stopping power, whereas Falco's blaster is semi-automatic but stops the opponent when it hits, but at their core the two are the same. Doctor Mario is a nearly-identical clone of Mario, so much so that all that would be needed to create Doctor Mario is to take a sprite of Mario and make a few aesthetic adjustments. He's basically a costume change. If anybody read this but me, I'd wager the Smash Brothers fanatics would call me a henchman of the Devil for daring to claim such, but that's a moot point at best.

To summarise - Lucas can suck on a cactus while Ness rocks (THE FUCK) out to More Than A Feeling.