Sonic the Hedgehog Found Crushed to Death Inside Vegas Slot Machine

Posted on by Mark Roebuck

LAS VEGAS — Tragedy struck at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino today, as the squished and dismembered carcass of beloved cultural icon Sonic the Hedgehog was discovered in the inner workings of a slot machine. 

“Oh my god, I told him not to crawl in there anymore,” said an associate of the hedgehog, a flying squirrel that wished to remain anonymous. “He kept scurrying up inside and I would be so afraid but fuck me if he didn’t hit once in a while. I knew it felt dangerous, but he kept telling me it was fine and asked what the worst was that could happen. I guess we know now.” 

Casino employees were disturbed by the incident, but reported that it was not an isolated one. 

“We knew this was going to happen eventually,” said Vinny Bowen, a pit boss at the infamous resort. “These rodents crawl up into these machines, and I don’t know what the hell they’re doing exactly, but they’re robbing us blind. This business has changed a lot. Used to be you get a rat or a hedgehog in the machine, worst case scenario it fritzes out and you have to replace it. Nowadays, you could lose your whole ass in a wrongful death suit.” 

The news of Sonic’s untimely demise was met with mixed emotions by Doctor Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik, a long time professional rival of Sonic’s.

“He’s really dead?” asked the mad scientist who has long aimed to take over the world. “I mean, I guess that’s pretty exciting, but still, sort of depressing to find out that some Grey’s Anatomy themed slot machine managed to do what I couldn’t for decades. Ah well, now that that pesky hedgehog is out of my way I may finally take over the world!”

As of press time, Sega was scrambling to find a replacement for Sonic in next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing.

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Top 5 Songs You Wish You’d Lost Your Virginity To Instead of ‘Cotton Eye Joe’

Posted on by Dan Kozuh

Everyone wants their first time to be special. It is one of the few moments of your life that you will think about for the rest of your life. While everything might not go as exactly as planned, it is a genuine shame that every time you reminisce about the first time you had sex the 1995 hit “Cotton Eye Joe” by Swedish Eurodance group Rednex is all you can hear.

Here are 5 songs that would have been so much better.

The Stone Roses – I Wanna Be Adored
Had you just waited for one more song in the mixtape given to you by your first partner then every time Ian Brown sang “I don’t have to sell my soul, he’s already in me,” you would have been reminded of this special time. Instead, you become eerily aroused every time someone jokingly sings, “Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Joe?”

Jimi Hendrix – Voodoo Child
Oh, how nice would it have been to make love for the fifteen-minute duration of Jimi Hendrix’s epic song rather than not even making it the entire three minutes and fifteen seconds of “Cotton Eye Joe” before the experience was over.

Roberta Flack – The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
Of course, you didn’t expect to lose your virginity in your friend’s furnished basement next to a broken pinball machine while seven other people were upstairs watching “3rd Rock from the Sun,” but life doesn’t always happen as you planned it. Had you turned on the radio, instead of a burned CD-R, you could have heard the most romantic song ever recorded instead of a song that didn’t even crack the top 50 of The 100 Biggest 90’s Dance Anthems Of All Time.

Savage Garden – I Want You
It’s too bad you weren’t listening to “I Want You” for your first time, instead it was playing for your second time: over the PA system of a Sam Goody where you worked part-time before being fired for having sex in the stockroom of a Sam Goody.

The Prodigy – Firestarter
This feisty, energetic song would have been a great soundtrack for the intense, spontaneous situation you found yourself in that first time. It was, however, playing on the car stereo, when your first lover broke up with you in their car after finding out you had sex with a random co-worker in a Sam Goody stockroom.

Man’s Woke Tweets Almost Outnumber Sexual Assault Allegations Against Him

Posted on by The Hard Times Staff

OAKLAND, Calif. — Local singer-songwriter Vince Valdez is less than a dozen woke Tweets away from eclipsing the massive amount of sexual assault allegations he has piled up during his time in the scene, sources wishing he would go live in the woods and not bother anyone anymore confirmed.

“My Twitter is a place for people to educate themselves and to learn the correct opinions on a lot of current events — like my tweet about how Kamala Harris is responsible for locking up a lot of men of color for smoking weed,” said Valdez, who artfully avoided mentioning assault allegations against Trump and Biden for years. “My feed is not a place for people to come and harass me because I ‘coerced them into sex’ or ‘posted nude photos of them online.’ This is a safe space for everyone, and I don’t want my followers to be triggered by your anger.”

One of Valdez’s followers, Abram Kostecki, is one of the musician’s most avid defenders.

“Who cares how many women have accused him of rape? It’s clear that he hates capitalism, voted for Bernie in the primaries, and is a vocal critic of the police,” said Kostecki. “Even if the accusations were true, I’ve already decided to forgive him. I think there are a lot of people who don’t like how he speaks truth to power and want to try to derail his message with dozens of baseless claims from multiple women that establish a pattern of disturbing behavior. It’s clear they’re just haters.”

Social media analysts note that users will often publicly overcompensate for the heinous acts in their private lives.

“Online behavior is often in stark contrast with what a person does behind the scenes,” said independent researcher Cam Anneli. “Every time a new accusation against Mr. Valdez surfaced, he would find an artful way to redirect the anger. He went after a taco cart that used Goya beans and directed his followers to boycott the business in an effort to distract from a particularly damning accusation against him involving an underage girl. Similarly, he also went after a family-owned diner that allegedly used Aunt Jemima syrup for a brief period in 2012 after an anonymous Twitter user demanded he take a paternity test to determine if he was the biological father of her child.”

Valdez is currently on the defensive after 36 new women provided proof he assaulted them while on tour, subsequently unleashing a Tweetstorm against a local seven-year-old that he overheard call another child fat.

On the 7th Day God Rested, That Means There’s a Way To Kill Him

Posted on by Dan Rice

“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.”
– Genesis 2:2

“If it bleeds, we can kill it.”
– Arnold Schwarzeneger, Predator

I am a good Christian. I adhere to the 10 commandments and live in accordance with the teachings of Jesus Christ. I do these things because I was told that I exist under the tyranny of an omnipotent, undefeatable being who created the universe and would smite me if I didn’t. Now that I’ve figured out that God must have a weakness somewhere, defeating him has become my only goal.

Why would an omnipotent, all-powerful immortal being need to rest? If God were truly the boundless, all-powerful, beyond-time-and-space-existing motherfucker Father Mulcahey makes him out to be, why the fuck would he need a nap? Something doesn’t add up here.

If we catch God at the right moment we can take him out.

I figure our best shot at smoking his holy ghost ass is to get him to create another universe. I know he rests every Sunday, but considering what little he’s done for the last 6,000 years he’s probably still pretty spry. Creating a universe really seems to tire him out. I don’t know if that means we need to destroy this universe first or, like, maybe there’s a multiverse or something, but we need this dude making shit to get him vulnerable.

On the first day, he will create the heavens and the earth. On the 2nd, he will create light. That’s when I’ll pick the best spot for a sniper’s nest. There I will wait patiently smoking cigarettes and snacking on rations as he spends the better part of a week separating light from darkness, water from land, and creating living creatures. The second he creates man and says, “all of this is yours,” I take the shot.

The first thing I’m doing after God is dead is coveting my neighbor’s goods and wife. He’s already got a PS5 and she’s a total smoke show. I’m tired of not being jealous. After that, I’ll call up my dad and tell him that he is foolish, which has been a long time coming. Then I’ll eat a little meat on a Friday, steal a few Blu-rays from Walmart, and make up some new God.

I’m thinking the new God should be a woman who isn’t a baby that needs to sit down and suck on their ba-ba every time they create a universe. And she should be a total knock-out, like my neighbor’s wife.

Woman Delighted to Learn She’s Aged Out of Dating Local Musicians

Posted on by Taylor Roebuck

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Local 30-year-old and former band girlfriend Jenna Nuccio was delighted to realize yesterday that she’s finally aged out of dating local musicians, contented sources confirm.

“I thought this day would never come. And to think I bawled my eyes out on my birthday this year,” said Nuccio of aging out of her 20s and fucking the countless “weak dick motherfuckers” that came with it. “It dawned on me that I can’t remember the last time I matched on Tinder with anyone who had a guitar in their pics. And the dude with the Black Flag tattoo at the gas station didn’t even so much as glance at my tits! This is the greatest day of my life.”

Nuccio’s friends are also relieved, having bore witness to her slew of less-than-stellar musically-inclined suitors.

“Well, when we were in high school, we thought the local band dudes were the coolest because they bought us booze and treated us like they didn’t care whether we lived or died… which I guess was where we were at that time,” explained Mara Weinberg, Nuccio’s best friend. “But now it seems a little weird. There were plenty of age-appropriate women around — why did they want to hang out with high school kids? Those ladies obviously knew something we didn’t. And now we’ve lived long enough to be the old, unwanted broads who have things like actual orgasms, and boundaries, and credit cards with a $5,000 limit. And thank God for that. The circle of life.”

Though Nuccio’s friends are happy for her newfound age-based knowledge, her mother is a little concerned by the recent developments.

“Look, honestly, whatever gets me grandkids faster is OK by me. I can understand not wanting to date musicians after the time she’s had, but I do not like the idea of narrowing the pool,” said Maxine Nuccio, Jenna’s mother. “My girlfriend Margie’s nephew is single, he’s a prep cook — lots of tattoos of knives and all kinds of things. I passed along his number. Fingers crossed!”

At press time, Nuccio was shopping for a sensible pair of shoes, having finally gotten rid of all of the ones that consistently make her feet bleed.

The Top 5 Comments on Hard Drive Articles This Week

Posted on by Owen Crowlie

While it seems like many people were underwhelmed by the most recent Nintendo Direct, I would like to personally thank Nintendo for finally giving me the Mario Golf that I’ve been craving for years. I have no interest in 9 irons, but if you put one into Wario’s hands, you have my attention (and 60 dollars). Honestly, you could have the Mario cast doing anything, and I’d buy it. Mario Deck Building? I’ll preorder it. Mario Tax Filing? I’ll speedrun that shit, and have Peach filing by February 12th. But until I can tee off with Yoshi on that beautiful green, I’ll be reading your comments to keep myself entertained…

It’s embarrassing to admit, but this actually happened to me. I only realized when literally everyone moved out of my town, and one of the actors sent me a text asking when they’d get their last paycheck. I should’ve expected this all would happen when I agreed to give away my branding rights while signing up for Disney+. You really gotta read those terms and conditions!

The true fantasy story is a Dungeon Master actually writing the book they’ve been talking about for years. You keep saying it’s “Game of Thrones” meets “Discworld,” but it seems like that meeting keeps getting pushed back.

Listen,  we know everyone jokes around about it, but we didn’t actually write this article about you, Richard. Hard Drive would like to officially apologize to Richard’s players for giving him ideas.

Well, you know what they say: men will literally buy loaded sanity dice instead of going to therapy. The temporary buff from buying a new game may seem nice, but you’re going to have to address those base stats eventually.

That’s a great point. Bill Burr will probably be the next actor to be fired from the series, of course, for being Irish.

Thank you so much for your comments, everybody. Remember: if you want a chance to be in next week’s column, be sure to leave a funny comment on any of our posts on social media!

NASA Sends Probe to Jupiter to Get More Stupider

Posted on by Jeremy Kaplowitz

WASHINGTON — Following the successful landing of the rover Perseverance onto the surface of Mars, NASA has launched a probe called Insistence that will land on Jupiter in order to get more stupider, sources confirm.

“Our top engineers and scientists have explored the halls of college in order to receive knowledge, but we need to go further. That’s why we’re sending Insistence to the surface of Jupiter. It’s not just about NASA or the United States. It’s about getting more stupider for the entire human race,” explained Acting Administrator of NASA, Steve Jurczyk. “Things have been pretty stupid the last few years, I’m sure we can all agree — but we can push further into the unknown. There’s just no bounds to how much stupider our society can get. What was once considered an impossible level of stupidity is now just a few years away. We can get there. Hell, we will.”

In a video uploaded to NASA’s social media pages this morning, engineer Robert Barker explained how Insistence’s mission will function.

“As soon as Insistence lands on the surface of Jupiter, it will immediately start collecting stupid particles to bring back to Earth,” said Barker. “Obviously, we don’t know for sure that we can get more stupider by going to Jupiter. It’s going to take years of exploration, as well as studying samples back here at the NASA base in Florida. But we’re fairly confident that there are signs of stupid on Jupiter, or at least signs of the materials needed to create stupid. In a few decades, we could be sending manned missions to get more stupider in person.”

According to social media reactions, Americans were mostly supportive of the announcement.

“This is absolutely ridiculous. I remember hearing that phrase ‘girls go to college to get more knowledge, boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider,’ as a kid, but it’s not actually TRUE,” said Facebook user Maria Stone. “Everyone in their right mind knows that Jupiter isn’t a real place! NASA is a front for a Satanic cult!!! Open your minds, people!!!”

At press time, NASA confirmed that they had received all of the stupider they needed when Insistence exploded minutes after leaving Earth’s atmosphere.

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Daft Punk Breaking up Just Proves That European Automation Will Never Replace the American Workforce

Posted on by Zach Raffio

As European technological innovation has caused countless industry jobs across the globe to become obsolete, the United States has proven time and time again that this Eastern tech takeover will never be a match for the gritty American workplace, as evidenced by the news of French electronic duo Daft Punk’s break up.

They had a good 28-year run, but much like the European dry compass and the compound crank of 1335, these European advancements were not meant to be commonplace forever. Their cold, hard, croissant crumb-covered bléeps and blôôps are no match for the sweaty, corn-fed American blue-collar warriors who spend countless hours each week producing sick loops ripe for sampling. Strip away all the glitz and glam of Daft Punk’s shiny suits and fun spaceships, and you’re left with a product that’s no match for our hard-working, salt-of-the-earth mid-westerners waking up at the crack of dawn to write phat beats for Beck.

Need more proof? Just look at their touring schedule. They haven’t played a live show in 14 years. American electronic pride Felix Da Housecat, on the other hand, hasn’t stopped touring in decades. Mr. Da Housecat has the thick American blood that pours out every time you put your booty on the floor tonight.

“Get Lucky?” No thanks. I don’t need luck; I’m an American.

Their downfall is not a fluke but rather another domino in the long line of unsustainable European Windows 95 enthusiasts with funny names and/or costume gimmicks, preceded by the Swedish House Mafia and likely followed by, let’s be honest, Crazy Frog.

So no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard they barter, and no matter how hard the second half of “Too Long” goes, Daft Punk could never live up to the standard of quality set by the longstanding American workforce. It’s only a matter of time before French indie-pop stalwarts Phoenix succumb to an equal fate, squandered under malleable, calloused hands of the industrial Matt & Kim complex.

Woman Makes Uncomfortable Small Talk With Herself During At-Home Haircut

Posted on by Rachel Higgins

BOSTON — Local woman Jenna Jenkins allegedly made uncomfortable small talk with herself yesterday while self-administering a haircut at home, sources making an embarrassing attempt to feign human connection report.

“I can’t afford a salon visit right now, but due to my steadily declining mental health, I decided I couldn’t go another second without cutting my hair,” explained the 33-year-old from her bathroom. “I spent hours saving dozens of reference photos on my phone and I watched almost three entire YouTube tutorials, so I was feeling pretty confident.”

Jenkins, who lives alone and has been working from home since last spring, credited the few, brief physical interactions with others with her conversational skills.

“As soon as I got started, these questions just came pouring out of me. ‘How are you today?’ ‘What do you do for work?’ ‘Are you sure you want bangs? I’m not sure that style suits you.’ You know, standard line of inquiry,” Jenkins recalled. “Gradually the conversation pivoted to more poignant topics like, ‘I can’t believe how early the sun sets this time of year,’ ‘I really like your necklace,’ and ‘Casey is definitely the hotter Affleck.’ It really felt like I was there, at the salon, staring at my practically disembodied head in the mirror thinking, ‘There’s no way I actually look like this.’ Finally, some normalcy.”

When asked how she felt about the new ‘do, Jenkins was outwardly pleased, though she admitted to spending several of the following hours in tears and making a desperate call to friend and salon owner Heather Flaherty for affirmation and guidance.

“In my professional opinion, I think introducing a few more topics like how dry her hair is, if she found a good parking spot, and her lackluster love life would have really elevated the experience,” Flaherty stated. “Polite but irrelevant small talk is just as important as the haircut itself. It’s just fucking weird if you don’t say anything. I hope she left herself a nice tip.”

Jenkins has since acquired a stylish but not overcompensatory hat, as well as a renewed sense of agonizing loneliness.

Opinion: Bruce Springsteen Should Be Allowed To Drive Drunk

Posted on by John Danek

As time goes on, I realize America isn’t the country I once thought it was. I honestly believed that work ethic and ingenuity would get you far. But nope, it’s all a sham. A big fat lie.

How do I know? Because Bruce Springsteen was arrested for taking one measly shot of Patron with some buds before hopping on his motorcycle to ride off into the night. Probably to write his next masterpiece. And goddamnit, if an American has earned the right to bend or break a few laws, it’s The Boss.

Let me be clear: I am not advocating for drunk driving. It’s morally and ethically reprehensible. I don’t think anyone should do it. Unless you wrote Born to Run, Nebraska, and Born in the USA. In that case, you get a few free passes to do whatever you want. You created “I’m On Fire”? Cool, you earned a couple of arsons, on the house.

And hell, he was riding a motorcycle! It’s not like he had some innocent bystander wrap their leg’s ‘round his velvet rims and strap their hands across his engines. Bruce was only endangering himself, and barely at that. If anyone could survive a horrific motorcycle crash, it’s The Boss.

And just to further emphasize that I am anti-drunk driving, anyone involved in an accident with a shitfaced Springsteen should be arrested and have their sentences doubled automatically.

His concerts are sometimes 4 hours long. Think of the sheer amount of joy he brings to fans at his shows. So maybe he takes out one or two on the ride home? I personally would be honored to have the hand that strummed “Atlantic City” end the lives of me and my family. God forbid he sip on a Miller High Life while cruising down the Garden State Parkway after a long night of belting anthems for the everyman.

Bruce Springsteen is a broken hero on a last-chance power drive and if he wants to have a few before riding through mansions of glory on suicide machines, that’s his business.

We let Donald Trump commit multiple acts of literal treason without so much as a slap on the wrist. What has he done for the culture besides ruining Cheetohs for a while? Nothing. He hasn’t earned the right to break the law.

The Boss has.