Colynemery, Author at HARDTIMES

Serious Hardcore Fan Sleeps With Arms Crossed

Posted on August 9, 2019 by Eric D

LEWISTON, Maine — Local hardcore kid Ernie Gibbs is reportedly such a serious hardcore fan that he goes to sleep every night dressed in a black T-shirt with his arms crossed, sources who have caught him in slumber confirmed.

“I’ve been around the hardcore scene a long time — probably a lot longer than anyone I know. I’m most comfortable standing with my arms crossed, sleeping with my arms crossed, and hell, even shitting with my arms crossed,” said Gibbs. “Every band promo photo I was in, I had my arms crossed. I eventually got kicked out of that band because they didn’t feel my drumming was as good as it could be because I wouldn’t uncross my arms. But honestly, it’s their loss.”

Noted sleep psychologist and former drummer of Boston hardcore band Forgotten Punishment, Dr. Angelo Carey, believes there is a deeper meaning behind Gibbs’ sleep habits.

“This all stems from hardcore kids having no idea what to do with their hands when they’re standing still. A lot of them might put their hands in their pockets, or throw a thumb through their belt loop… but at a hardcore show, you leave yourself vulnerable,” said Dr. Carey. “Sleeping with your arms crossed every night will eventually lead to some serious spinal problems that could limit your moshing ability, cause early stage dive retirement, and lead to sleep apnea.”

Indeed, Gibbs’ longterm girlfriend Shannon Keller admitted that her partner’s dedication to hardcore has led to intimacy issues.

“I’ve spent a lot of nights on the very edge of the bed, because any time I get close to him, he makes a fist and sticks his arm out to keep me away,” said Keller. “If I bump into him too many times in a row, he’ll eventually throw a couple of mule kicks my way, or push me super hard and say if I come near him or his girlfriend again, he will ‘fucking wreck’ me. I know he’s asleep, but it’s still kind of scary.”

“And when we actually get intimate, I have to dodge his pointy elbows… and it always just looks like I’m bothering him,” she added.

Keller also admitted that Gibbs forgot her birthday once again last week, yet somehow still has the lyrics to every hardcore song written in the last 35 years committed to memory.

Goth Not Sure How Many Corsets to Pack for Camping Trip

Posted on August 9, 2019 by John Danek

COVINGTON, Ky. — Magick shop owner and obvious goth Maryanne “Luna” Hobbes couldn’t decide this morning how many corsets to pack for an upcoming family camping trip, irritated family members reported.

“I’ve always supported Maryanne’s… er, I mean, Luna’s preferences and tendencies as best I could, but this is outrageous,” admitted her father Scott Hobbes, tapping his foot violently while waiting by the minivan as the rest of the family sat inside. “I want her to be able to express herself, but she’s already doomed us to ungodly traffic. Not by one of her curses, mind you, but by her indecision. Let’s get this show on the road!”

Luna contended, however, that a sufficient number of corsets, fishnet stockings, and opera gloves are necessary for her to maintain her identity while camping in the West Virginia mountainside.

“Of course I need corsets while camping,” defended Luna, proprietor of the Lovin’ Coven magick shop near downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. “My business would take a dive if someone found pictures of me in some normie shit like Lululemon or Patagonia. And I need enough for variety, and so they don’t start to smell like tit sweat.”

“They’re tough to pack, though,” she grunted while kneeling on her suitcase, attempting to zip it closed as corsets poked out the sides. “My family should just be happy I still come on this fucking trip every year, and that this time, I promised to smile in two photos.”

Luna’s mother admitted the family’s acceptance of Luna’s goth lifestyle has been tough.

“A few years ago, I recommended my brother Joe get her a new corset for Christmas,” recalled Deb Hobbes. “I told him to go to the mall and head to Hot Topic, but after she unwrapped the sexy, white lace $800 Agent Provocateur bustier, the rest of that Christmas was very quiet. He hasn’t been invited back since — he kept asking for pictures of her wearing the gift.”

At press time, Luna was being rushed to the emergency room after her kayak tipped and she nearly drowned, dropping straight to the bottom of the lake due to the weight of all of her ornate jewelry.

Awkward Man Botches Handshake After Failing Quick Time Event

Posted on August 9, 2019 by Kevin Flynn

NEW YORK — Missing the necessary half-second window to input a button press, witnesses say local gamer Roger Dawkins completely botched a handshake with his friend Armando Kaye when they ran into each other on the street.

“He looked like he was reaching his hand out to shake his friend’s hand like a normal person, but suddenly there was this loud buzzing noise like someone had lost on a game show,” said witness Mary Romano. “Then he lurched forward like he had overshot the distance between his hand and his friend’s hand. He tripped off of the sidewalk and knocked into a bike messenger who sent him flying towards traffic and he ended up on someone’s car hood. It was honestly terrifying.”

According to those at the scene, Kaye rushed to help Dawkins up from the side of the road which resulted in Dawkins’s hand slipping again and knocking into a passing dog, who responded by biting onto his shirt sleeve and dragging him further down the street.

“It’s lucky they got him to the hospital when they did, because he was in pretty bad condition,” said Dr. Karen Anderson of Beth Israel Medical Center, where Dawkins was ultimately taken. “And fortunately, we were able to resuscitate him with a series of incredibly rhythmic and precise chest compressions. Once we schedule some physical therapy where he can practice completing incredibly slowed down quick time events, he’ll be on the road to recovery and walking upright again.”

Sources say that although he knows the incident wasn’t his fault, Dawkins’s friend Kaye was beginning to wonder whether he’s too forceful and aggressive with his handshakes and whether he had intimidated Dawkins with his incredibly small input window.

Check out the newest episode of the Hard Drive podcast where we watch and discuss every episode of 1989’s The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!

I Put My Chucks on One Foot at a Time and Before My Pants, Like Anyone Else

Posted on August 9, 2019 by Collin Canning

I Gotta eat and piss and shit like everyone, I need to sleep and breathe. I put my Chucks on one foot at a time, and before my pants. Like anyone else.

Hey! I get it. I’m “Different.” Whatever the fuck that means to YOU. To me, it don’t mean SHIT. Because we ain’t different. We’re all human FUCKING beings. I’m like you: I bleed red. Sometimes I ooze more of a purple/black and under less than ideal circumstances hygienically, but we are still the same! Especially in the ineffectual way we apply our footwear.

We’ve all been fired from the Dairy Queen at the mall because our ‘tone’ was ‘scaring customers.’ We’ve all looked those customers in the face and said “FUCK YOUR KID’S FUCKING WHALE CAKE!” It’s what makes us human, just like our daily morning struggle to get our skinny jeans over our high top chucks.

Like you, I got two pairs of pants that I cycle through and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna unlace these all stars every 10 days just to do that. It’s basically the only shoe you can do that with which is both the reason I stole them and the reason I don’t know how long my toenails are.

Rich, Poor. Fat, Old. Stupid, Lazy, unemployable, bad son, stank-y: These are just labels. A true measure of a person is what’s in their sole. And for me (and as we’ve established, you as well) those soles are quite worn.

Man Wins Yet Another Round of Laser Tag Using Only Melee Attacks

Posted on August 9, 2019 by Ben Doyle

NAPERVILLE, Ill. — Undefeated laser tag champion Patrick Manzke won his fifty-second consecutive melee-only game this morning, leaving some opponents “shocked” and others permanently paralyzed from the neck down.

“I guess it comes naturally to me, I don’t know,” said Manzke, wiping blood out of his ear. “It’s like, I’m just in the zone. All these lasers coming at me, I don’t even flinch. I just start swinging. Close quarters, kid spamming my chest sensor? Kick him over the railing. Kid over there, trying to snipe my shoulder sensor? Bam, gun to the teeth. Hit him right in the teeth. These guns are metal, too, so he’ll know to stay away after that.”

9-year-old laser tag veteran Alice Meyers managed to land a few critical hits on Manzke, but was quickly bested when Manzke picked her up and threw her through the drywall.

“It’s an interesting technique to introduce to the meta,” said Meyers. “I was going to discuss possible counters with my friend [Claire Quimby], but she’s in the hospital with this tube in her mouth, so that writeup is going to be a little delayed. For the time being, I’d recommend ranged attacks and calling ‘timeout’ when necessary.”

Concerned parents brought Manzke’s unorthodox playstyle to the attention of LazerZone employee Campbell Baker, who had little to say on the matter.

“Look, this place has got three rules,” said Baker. “No food or drink inside the arena, and no running. And there’s a third one, but I don’t really remember what it is. It probably doesn’t stop him from hitting those kids in the teeth, though, so you can stop telling me about that. If you don’t like it, you can go to Dave & Busters.”

At press time, Manzke was experimenting with his melee-only technique in a local bowling alley, to great success.

Check out the newest episode of the Hard Drive podcast where we watch and discuss every episode of 1989’s The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!

Woefully Misinformed Frontman Thinks Some of You Might Know This Next One

Posted on August 9, 2019 by Mark Roebuck

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Tigerpanther frontman Nicky Pittman drastically misjudged his audiences’ level of familiarity last night with several of his songs, reportedly leaving attendees confused and a little embarrassed on his behalf.

“That guy was something else,” said concertgoer Lindsay Taylor. “They played that one song everybody knows right at the beginning and everyone got excited. If I had to guess, he probably read way too much into that and thought we knew the rest of their stuff. Poor asshole.”

The opening song, “I Can Feel You Feeling Me,” is the band’s lone charting single, made popular in the summer of 2007 as the opening track on VH1’s short lived reality show, “Ashlee Simpson Adopts A Kid.”

“Hell yeah, I remember that song! My ex loved that show,” exclaimed showgoer Denny Traore. “I didn’t know the name of the band that did it, and I actually already forgot it. They seem like really nice guys, though. I bet they banked off those royalties or whatever.”

Despite only one hit, Tigerpanther has toured with various lineups ever since their brief stint in the spotlight — with Pittman as the sole remaining original member.

“Glad you guys enjoyed that one!” said Pittman, visibly intoxicated and excited, after playing their one hit. “Hey, I got a feeling some of you might know this next one. Let’s take em back to ’04, boys! You know the words!”

The song from ’04 was the band’s first ever single, “(Got) My Eyes (Set On You),” which failed to chart but gained short-lived internet notoriety after a live performance of the song at a backyard show resulted in Pittman’s electrocution. Unfortunately, the crowd was noticeably silent before, during and after the song.

“He kept telling us to make some noise,” said fellow showgoer Dale Duggan. “But he really should’ve been more specific, because everyone started booing him and chanting, ‘Who are you?’ I give that dude credit, though. He just kept on rocking out up there.”

Tigerpanther’s set was cut short after Pittman sustained several injuries when a stage dive attempt was thwarted by the inattentive crowd.

Lifelong Heckler Tells Children Talking at Park to Shut Up and Play

Posted on August 8, 2019 by The Hard Times Staff

DOVER, N.H. — Avid heckler Roland Cobb was escorted out of a local park today for yelling at a group of small children talking amongst themselves, telling them to “shut up and play,” irate sources confirmed.

“Those kids were just standing around, wasting everybody’s time, probably gossiping over who wet the bed or whatever. I gave them a gentle reminder that the sun is going down and none of us are getting any younger around here,” said Cobb from the sidewalk perimeter of the park. “I just said what everyone else was thinking: their parents didn’t come here to watch them talk about what they learned at preschool, or who has cooties. They came here to watch their kids play tag and barrel down some fucking slides.”

Gina Cummings, whose daughter Cobb accosted, was outraged by the grown man telling her child what to do.

“The kids were all laughing to themselves, having a great time… and then I heard this guy boo them from a distance. I didn’t think much of it, until he got next to them and cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, ‘Shut up!’” said Cummings. “Then he tried to start a ‘Duck, duck, goose’ chant. When Emily started crying, me and the other parents ran him out of the park.”

Local bouncer Emmet Roberts allegedly has had many run-ins with Cobb over the years.

“Any time Rolo comes to a show, I know eventually I’m going to have him in a hammerlock as I lead him to the door. I honestly don’t know what his deal is. Once, he wouldn’t stop screaming ‘Born to Run!’ at a bartender; and another time, he tried to start a ‘This place sucks!’ chant in the bathroom,” said Roberts. “Last week, I saw him at the supermarket, walking up and down the aisles muttering, ‘Freebird!’ and whipping half-empty water bottles at the staff. It’s not much fun.”

At press time, Cobb was forcibly removed from a Little League baseball game after yelling, “Throw a fast one!” before each pitch.

Punk Starts New Drawer of Out-of-Compliance Shirts

Posted on August 8, 2019 by Josh Fernandez

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Local punk Ivan Gomez gingerly set his “Meat Is Murder” T-shirt today into a new drawer set aside for band shirts he is no longer allowed to wear in public, sources close to the somber man confirmed.

“I remember seeing Morrissey in Austin… I was so inspired, I jumped on stage to hug him,” said Gomez, weepily folding his bootleg “First of the Gang to Die” Morrissey/Misfits shirt into a perfect square. “That night, his security tackled me, Morrissey spat in my eye, and then he kicked me square in the face. It was the best night of my life.”

“Man. I really used to respect that dude,” Gomez added. “But now he’s just a racist lunatic.”

However, Gomez’s partner Nick Lane is relieved that artists doing stupid shit in the face of slow album sales is affecting Gomez’s choices.

“I love Ivan, but let’s be real — he wore his As I Lay Dying shirt to our anniversary dinner. Something needed to change. He even had the nerve to wear a Fred Perry with the gold trim to my mom’s funeral like it was some sort of fucking tuxedo. I almost broke up with him right there,” Lane said. “I mean, sure, telling your fans that Britain isn’t ‘white enough,’ or hiring a hitman to murder your wife, or starting an anti-Muslim fraternity that isn’t allowed to masturbate is probably bad for the world or whatever… but, for some people’s fashion, it’s actually a positive influence.”

Indeed, with Morrissey’s management scrambling to spin their client’s blatant xenophobia into a positive, publicist Nigel Peters has already found solutions.

“We’re working with IKEA’s hottest designers on a dresser with a hidden, extra drawer just for your problematic shirts,” said Peters, who visibly flinched every time he received a text message. “Whether it’s Morrissey memorabilia, or a Skrewdriver shirt you really want to hang on to until the controversy dies down, you won’t have to throw it away. Just stuff it in the problem drawer, and wait until the hype blows over.”

However, the new drawer, slated for release this autumn, isn’t happy with its task.

“I will be packed day in and day out with racists, murderers, and sexual molesters. I don’t deserve this,” said the drawer. “Fuck me… why would anyone buy a Burzum shirt in the first place?”

We Sit Down With the Sick, Sad Man Who Allows Websites to Send Him Desktop Notifications

Posted on August 8, 2019 by John Danek

Sure, it happens to the best of us- You’re reading the internet’s funniest satire site, The Babylon Bee. You get to the bottom of a hilarious article about Joel Osteen being in the next Avengers movie and through tears of laughter you notice that the page is suddenly filled with an insufferable number of ads. But your eye catches “10 Sleepaway Camp Actors Who Are Still Hot Today” and you can’t resist. But before the slideshow starts, there’s a popup. “Would you like to enable desktop notifications for SuperMegaPop.com?”

“No,” you whisper to yourself. Possibly a “Fuck no” or “Who the hell ever clicks ‘Yes’ on these?”

Well, reader, after setting up a reverse proxy to spoof SuperMegaPop.com for the past few years, we finally found the one sad, pathetic human being who clicks Yes.

“I think it’s a really neat feature that you can automatically know when they publish a new article,” explained Wells Fargo risk analyst Michael Smith in an exclusive Skype interview with The Hard Times blog. “Otherwise, you would have to sit here and refresh the page. That could get tedious and you could hurt your finger with all that clicking! Ha ha ha!”

Smith, whose cubicle is sparsely decorated with a lone kitten calendar, elaborated that he doesn’t just use the feature on pop culture clickbait farms.

“I make sure to also enable desktop notifications on every single tech news site,” Smith continued. “What if Apple announces a new Apple TV remote? Oh boy, I’d have egg on my face if my coworkers found out before me! LOLOL”

Mystery solved. We found that the only person in the world who enables desktop notifications for mindless, unimportant websites is a bank analyst named Michael Smith. We thanked him for hopping on Skype with us, and caught a glimpse of his GOATWHORE forearm tattoo as he closed his laptop.

Resurrected TV Show Comes Back Changed, Comes Back Wrong

Posted on August 8, 2019 by Jeremy Kaplowitz

LOS ANGELES — Fans of a popular television show were reportedly horrified to discover the altered state in which it came back to life after successfully petitioning to have new seasons air on a different network.

“I… I thought I could just have my beloved show back… oh Jesus what have we done?!” muttered Maria Collette, a distressed viewer witnessing the tortured form of her favorite TV show writhed its way back to life. “Some things are meant to stay dead. We’ve played God… but no one can bring back a show… not NBC, not Fox, and not God Himself. And now we all pay the ultimate price: having to watch the twisted version of a thing we once loved beg for death.”

According to witnesses who saw the monstrosity with their own two eyes, the soulless resurrection is merely a putrid, shambling husk of the formerly great television show. Where once it was teeming with life, comedy, and drama, there is now nothing but rot, as described by those at the scene.

“We all just wanted to spend one more day with the characters we considered to be family. But these… these aren’t those characters anymore. These are but pale reflections of the beings I once spent every single Tuesday night with, at 8 p.m / 7 central. We should have heeded the warning of that haunted, old executive producer. History repeats itself,” said another viewer, John Bierman, loading up a rifle. ”Once upon a time, there was nothing I would not have done to bring back this show. But I now know what we must do. We have to kill it. Again. And this time, it has to stay dead.”

As of press time, four hundred thousand fans had signed a Change.org petition begging networks to end the zombified version of the program, explaining that they had once known and loved the show — but that was a long, long time ago, and some things can never be the same.

Check out the newest episode of the Hard Drive podcast where we watch and discuss every episode of 1989’s The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!

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