C J Davies - HecklerSpray

Hecklerspray Oddities: Alice And Kev

July 9th, 2009 By C J Davies

The Sims 3? Bah.

It’s a video game, yeah. And video games are awesome – skull-explodingly, ‘boom-motherfucker-headshot’-yellingly, firebombing alien warlord palace excitingly, cacking-your-pants-when-the-Tank-runs-at-you in Left 4 Dead terrifyingly, utterly utterly brilliant.

When they’re good.

When they’re bad? They’re The Sims. The bleeding Sims. Ferchrissakes, Hecklerspray doesn’t want ORDINARY PEOPLE in our video games. We can see ordinary people when we go outside. And going outside scares us. So, so much.

Hecklerspray Oddities: Keyboard Cat

May 14th, 2009 By C J Davies

The internet can move at a phenomenal pace sometimes. Why, no sooner has hecklerspray twittered ‘I’m outside your window with a pair of binoculars and a dagger’ to an ex-girlfriend than the police are called and we all have a good old chuckle about the misunderstanding. In court.

Anyway – further proof of this ultra-speedy Web 2.0 culture is the previously-webthumped Keyboard Cat. No sooner has someone uploaded a video of their cat being ‘manipulated’ to look like it is playing a zippy keyboard tune (which, as YouTube content goes, is already roughly sixteen-billion times better than the standard ‘why Muse matter more to me than anyone in the world’ nonsense) … than it takes on a whole new life.

Hecklerspray Oddities: Helicopters For Everybody!

January 28th, 2009 By C J Davies

Generation Y was lied to about the future, sure – still no Back To The Future style hoverboards, people – but just think about how the poor bastards who came of age in the 1950s and 60s must feel. Every single thing they read and heard was some wide-eyed appraisal of how, one day, we’d all be donning magic space pants and leg-jiggling our way to the Neptune High School prom.

It’s heartbreaking on an epic scale, then, to realise that 99% of the predictions made just didn’t come true. Like this fine little fella from a 1951 edition of Mechanix Illustrated – a piece entitled Helicopters For Everybody which paints a utopian vision that even Barack Obama would feel a bit dubious about offering up.

Badvertising: The AYDs Diet

August 7th, 2012 By C J Davies

A double-whammy of commercial goodness for you today.

Yeah, yeah, it’s almost the end of January, 2009 has kicked in in earnest, and frankly you can’t be bothered sticking to an arbitrary plan you made to shed those pounds (simply because you managed to convince yourself for a brief second that this year might not be as soul-crushingly disappointing as the last one, and that your ambitions and schemes might actually work out without being shredded apart like so much worthless confetti)?

Awww, who are we to lecture you? What you need is the help of the good people behind AYDS. Take a look…

Hecklerspray Presents: The Greatest TV Trailer Ever

March 25th, 2009 By C J Davies

Abominable third-rate mindless drivel? Absolutely. But don’t pretend you won’t be watching when it ends up on T4.

Disturbing Friday Fun: Creationist Wikipedia

November 21st, 2008 By C J Davies

Wikipedia, eh?

Sure, sure – it’s pretty good. It’s got that whole ‘democratised, innovative, flawed yet genuinely revolutionary source of information’ thing going for it. But you know what it’s missing? Creationist rhetoric spouting forth like smelly Bible-piss, that’s what.

Thank the seven arses of Aslan, then, for CreationWiki. Now you too can find out about anything you want with a unique Creationist edge, free from the tyranny of such nasty things as logic, reason, accountability and common sense. Yay!

Disturbing Friday Fun: ‘Sarah Palin’ Clip

October 24th, 2008 By C J Davies

Oooookay, then.

You know what Disturbing Friday Fun is by now – an occasional end-of-week feature in which we present you with something alarming, unusual or downright baffling from some random corner of the interweb. And you’ll probably also be aware that we usually like to ease you in with a explanatory couple of paragraphs. Just, y’know, to set the scene.

This week? We don’t know what to say. Seriously, people … we’ve got nothing. Other than to say this is the oddest thing we have ever linked to. Ever.

Just watch.

Badvertising: Video Game Course

August 7th, 2012 By C J Davies

Fact: you have been told lies all your life.

From ‘why, your home cooking is delicious’ to ‘no, seriously, season four of The Upper Hand on DVD is exactly what I wanted for my birthday’, fibs and fabrications have a habit of springing up like poppies on an abandoned battlefield.

Want to know the worst lie ever, though? The time a kindly teacher told you to work hard at school, with the encouraging lines ‘if you study well and get good grades, you’ll be able to do whatever you like in the future! Like get a job you really enjoy!’

David Foster Wallace Dead At 46

March 25th, 2009 By C J Davies

Kind of outside the hecklerspray remit, this, but a sizeable chunk of you seem like a literary bunch and might not have heard yet: writer David Foster Wallace has been found dead at his home in California.

Wallace was reportedly found by his wife on Friday evening. He had committed suicide.

He was best known for his sprawling 1996 epic Infinite Jest – an epic satirical panorama which simultaneously enthralls, infuriates and excites. It’s without doubt one of the most remarkable books published in … well, forever … and if you haven’t tackled it yet you should run out and buy yourself a copy.