I have never needed an "Abandon Thread" GIF more in my life.

Well this is a sad story which I regretfully find hilarious (don’t judge me, I already feel bad). If you’ve spent far too much time on the internet (like myself) then you have seen the “I Can Count to Potato” meme before. The most iconic facet of the meme was an Advice Dog image macro of a little girl with Down Syndrome. The little girl’s name is Heidi Crowter, and she and her family are not happy with what they’ve found. This is wrong because this innocent girl has been made fun of all over the internet. I’m not innocent, I’m still laughing. But that’s not the worst of it. The saddest part is how the family dealt with it. Take a look at the BBC story about it.

99% of the time, nothing good comes from mixing internet culture with the outside world. Like most internet memes, it ran its course fairly quickly and was rarely spotted online aftweward. But recently the family has made one of the biggest mistakes possible: they got involved with trolling. As you can see here, the interest in the meme has skyrocketed taken a cocktail of steroids and meth amphetamines. All they did was bring attention to it and hurt Heidi even more. Thanks to the combination of the age of the picture and how quickly people lose interest in memes, she might have been able to go her whole life without knowing about this or anyone knowing it was her on those templates. But no, it’s too late now. Now more people than ever are making fun of her. Judging by the fact that the parents were hiding this, I don’t think Heidi’s friends at school knew about it. I’m sure they do now.

I also want to touch on the BBC’s “reporting”. They have no idea that this is bigger than Facebook. If they had taken 5 minutes to search the web after seeing the pages, they would have had a much better perception of the story. But since they are  lazy and know nothing about the internet, there was no mention of FunnyJunk, 4Chan, or even Know Your Meme. These people should be ashamed of themselves. The research would have taken two hours, tops.

If the Crowt family is reading this, I offer an apology and a piece of advice. On behalf of the internet, I apologize for turning Heidi into a joke. But in these types of situations, doing nothing accomplishes the most.

Okay, time to accept it. The newest Halo video game is coming out November 6. We’re already getting details about the multiplayer and we’ll have a pretty good idea of what to expect by this fall. It’s only a matter of time until the internet contracts this cancer. My RSS reader will be filled with Halo news and there will be dozens of over-used memes.  Then we’ll get parodies from the webcomic artists. It will be Skyrim all over again, but with teabagging and space marines.

We don’t have to go down this road. We can stop it. How? Don’t talk about Halo. Don’t read about it or watch videos about it. You can still buy the game but you have to remember… you know what? I can’t do this.

The real reason I don’t want to hear about Halo is that I can’t play it since I have a Playstation 3, not an Xbox 360. Halo 2 for the original Xbox was the first FPS I ever played. It will always remain one of my favorite games and franchises ever. I love the story, the Chief, the gameplay, the music, all of it! I even downloaded Xlink Kai so that I could play online even years after Microsoft dropped support for Live on the original console. But when Halo 3 came out, Microsoft decided to make it Xbox exclusive, rather than have it on PC too. So now I have no way to play the new games. I don’t even understand why they did this. Microsoft owns Xbox and Windows. They would make millions from the PC gaming demographic. So what is a poor Halo-less sap like me supposed to do when everyone starts talking about it? Even Conan O’freaking Brian is promoting it!

Who wouldn’t follow this man into war?

So if someone could just buy me an Xbox 360, I’d really appreciate it.

“Thank You, ”Yes, I Agree to the Terms and Conditions” box I have to click in order to download software. You know full well I didn’t actually read the terms and conditions. For all I know, I just agreed to become the new face of herpes. But I’m still gonna click you.” -Jimmy Fallon

I was going to write an intro for this post, but I think Jimmy pretty much nailed it. The basic premise of these are to give you guidelines on how you should use your software in a legal way. But here’s a problem: no one reads them. We can’t be expected to. These are written for lawyers, by lawyers. I for one don’t want to read 60+ pages of small print legal-speak so I can color when i’m bored.

If you read the fine print you’d know the real reason it’s called GIMP

It’s a real problem because you never know what you’re getting into when you agree to something. But once again, I have an idea. Companies and lawyers start taking notes.
When your software/service’s EULA/Terms of Service loads up, instead of the law school reading assignment you usually show, there will be a simple outline no longer than a page long. This will be easy to understand and readable in less than two minutes. If some person trying to sue you smart user wants to get the legal interpretation, all they have to do is click the headings which will expand into the style that we all hate. It’s simple to execute and gives users a better understanding of what they’re agreeing to. You’re welcome, corporations. I’ll be waiting for my check.

EA: Challenge everything

Before you read this I want to thank Event Status for informing me on EA and giving a gaming news digest through his YouTube Videos. Subscribe to him on YouTube and like him on Facebook. 

For years Electronic Arts has a trusted household name in the video game industry. They publish Battlefield, Mass Effect,  and Madden, among other franchises. I used to love EA. But now we’re over. For a while now EA has been going to war against its own customers. It wants control over the market and even how we game.

One of the first steps is the implementation of  online passes. They make you register your game online even if all you want is to play single player. The online pass strategy has accomplished little but give customers a horrible experience and line the pockets of EA. EA whines and moans about the effects of used gaming on their revenue, yet they have enough money to send copies of Mass Effect 3 into space? Or how about when they spend $100 million on Battlefield 3′s ad campaign? I don’t even want to think about all the game development or staff salaries they could have used that on.

But as always it’s not all about the money. When EA launched Origins, its competitor to Steam, no one expected what came next. We found out that the program was not only spying on what games you have on your hard drive, but also spying on your tax documents. Let me make this clear: this is illegal. You should not stand for this.

Have you ever heard that a corporation has legal similarities to a human being? Well apparently EA is a sensitive little girl. On numerous occasions, EA has banned gamers’ accounts for difference in opinions on forums. This is not the behavior of a professional business. 

All of this and more is why I’m making the personal decision to boycott EA. It wasn’t an easy choice. I haven’t played an NBA game since the Nintendo 64. I’ve had my eye on Mass Effect for a while now. I’m sure that Mass Effect 3 is a wonderful game, which makes it kind of painful to hear people talking about it all the time. But this isn’t about me. This is about consumer rights. I haven’t decided whether or not I will buy their games used as long as they don’t require online pass or Origins account (EA gets no money for used games sales). I refuse to support this company through purchasing games until they remember how to conduct themselves and treat consumers. Remember, the video game industry is full of sheeps. If EA can get away with it, eventually everyone else can.

I don’t even have to tell you what day it is. When we were kids this holiday was all about whoopie cushions and kick me signs. April Fool’s used to be about trolling people. But then the internet happened. Mass trolling is an everyday occurrence on the net. In this kind of environment, April Fool’s turns into just another day. But just like it did with everything else, the internet turned it into its own thing.

Think about all the pranks played today. Generally, they weren’t saying “Haha fooled you!” as much as they’re saying “Wouldn’t it be funny/cool if…”. If a website couldn’t do that, they probably didn’t even do anything. It makes sense that things went in this direction. The internet is the world’s largest collection of information. It’s pretty hard to be fooled. Everyone would just be annoyed by whatever people came up with. I guess people react better to the crazy “what if” theme. Today Ubuntu announced Ubuntu Eyewear. Mountain Dew came up with a new flavor. But the winner definitely goes to Cartoon Network. They revived Toonami out of the blue on Adult Swim. They did a little of both on that one. I still don’t know what to believe about that.

See you next week. Until then, happy trolling.