Pop-Punk Frontman Worried His Girlfriend’s School Re-Opening Too Soon

Posted on by Lana Schwartz

MASPETH, N.Y. — Skull Valley frontman Jeremy Cesiro is worried his underage girlfriend would be put in danger by her returning to high school in two weeks, slightly creeped out witnesses protesting outside the school alongside the pop-punk singer confirmed.

“My girlfriend Rosa might only be 17, but she’s very mature for her age, and who knows how coronavirus affects people like her,” said the 25-year-old Cesiro. “She doesn’t realize she doesn’t have to do whatever adults tell her to, and that I could teach her so much more about the world than any school. Plus, since she’s been in a quarantine pod with me and my band, she’s the only one who can watch us practice. I don’t know who we’d play for if she got sick, and I really miss the crowd.”

Multiple witnesses report Cesiro held a sign that read “Protect Our Girls,” and asked school faculty members if the girls volleyball team would be resuming practice, and if so, when that might be.

“I don’t understand why he was at the protest,” said Maureen Nollen, the school’s gym teacher. “He was too old to be a student, but too young to be a parent. I told him I didn’t know yet if we’d have volleyball this year, but then he asked me about other sports, like soccer and softball. And when I told him I didn’t know about those either, he said I should watch his Valley Skulls or whatever on Twitch, because they do a nightly stream.”

“He was wearing a mask the whole time, which I appreciated,” Nollen added, “but his mask read, ‘I’d Rather Be Eating Pussy,’ which I found upsetting.”

Notably absent from the protest were Rosa’s parents, Milo and Donna Melia, who aren’t convinced that reopening schools is a bad idea.

“If I know for eight hours, every day, that my daughter is in school, that’s eight hours I know she’s not spending that awful boyfriend of hers,” said Donna Melia. “Of course I’m worried about coronavirus, but let me ask you: what’s scarier? Coronavirus, or your 17-year-old daughter dating a 25-year-old musician? We’re telling her to go to school without a mask on, because if they can’t see each other for two weeks, odds are good he’ll move on to some other teenager, and that’s her parents’ problem.”

While Rosa could not be reached for comment, we were anonymously sent a post on her finsta where she admitted to dating Cesiro because he has “really good weed.”

Review: Battletoads Is Another Perfect Game for the Pandemic Like the Last 10 Games We’ve Played

Posted on by Giovanni Colantonio

2020 has been a weird year, to say the least. With no end to the COVID-19 pandemic in sight, entertainment has become more important than ever. Fortunately, the new Battletoads remake is the perfect game for this moment, just like every single other game we’ve reviewed during quarantine.

Dlala Studios’ new Battletoads game isn’t simply a slick, colorful brawler that modernizes a rusty cult classic. By releasing the game in the midst of a global health crisis, Battletoads becomes a much needed trip down memory lane. As I revisited the classic motorbike level, I couldn’t help but think about my childhood; a carefree time where I wasn’t trying to shoehorn every piece of media I consumed under the lens of completely unrelated current events.

It’s the kind of experience that anxious players could use right now, similar to Animal Crossing: New Horizons. In our review of that game, we noted that, “Animal Crossing comes at exactly the right time; when we could all use a calm, desert island getaway.” We less convincingly made the same case in our Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics review, where we said the Switch game was “a bold reminder that you should own board games, because you never know when you will be stuck inside.”

Even with its gentle escapism, it’s hard to fully forget the grim reality that we face today. When I choose Rash from the character select screen, I’m instantly reminded of the horrible disease killing thousands of people in America every day. I’m not actually sure if rashes are a symptom of the coronavirus, but there’s no doubt that it’s a tone deaf inclusion on the developers’ part.

It’s the same achilles’ heel that caused us to sour on games like The Last of Us Part 2 and Resident Evil 3 over the past 6 months. While these are undoubtedly polished AAA titles that we would have loved at literally any other time, I can’t play them without imagining what it would be like to shoot my own COVID-ridden grandmother in the face with a pistol. 

Despite some unfortunate reality checks, Battletoads is the pinnacle of quarantine escapism. Hopefully the pandemic ends soon, because I have to write a PGA Tour 2K21 review soon and I have no idea how to frame that one. Are golf courses open right now? Maybe it can be about how Trump is golfing instead of passing relief payments. Yeah, okay, I can work with that.

Check out our comedy podcast The Video Game Super Show! Show, in which two of our editors watch and discuss every episode of  1989’s Captain N: The Game Master:

Steve Bannon Arrested for Gobbling Up Skiers at Bottom of Hill

Posted on by Mark Roebuck

WASHINGTON — Former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon was arrested yesterday on charges of reportedly devouring skiers at the bottom of a ski resort for the last several decades. 

“I’ve been saying it for years and no one believed me,” said Katherine Vaughn, who was present outside of the courthouse for Bannon’s arraignment yesterday morning. “We went skiing on a field trip in middle school, and after I had got stuck ass first in the snow while botching a trick attempt, I saw my buddy Calvin go a little farther down the hill, and this giant disgusting creature grabbed him and ate him like a candy bar. No one believed me then, and no one believed me in 2016 when he was on the news all the time. I’m glad we’re finally getting justice for Cliff, but it took far too long.”

Bannon has denied the rumors for years that he would lurk at the bottom of the hill at a ski resort and run out and gobble people up when the mood struck him, a claim that he and his legal counsel maintain despite yesterday’s arrest. 

“My client has been far too busy with his various endeavors to be lurking in between trees and ramps waiting for errant skiers to wander in his path so that me may ingest them,” said Greg Peel, Bannon’s legal representation. “Just fitting a simple description of a grey angry monster with no discernable soul and a clear disregard for human life is not enough grounds to subject Mr. Bannon to this kind of public scrutiny, frankly. There is no way these charges stick.” 

In addition to denying the charges against him, Bannon was reportedly furious about his arrest causing him to miss his speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention.

Check out our comedy podcast The Video Game Super Show! Show, in which two of our editors watch and discuss every episode of  1989’s Captain N: The Game Master:

The Top 5 Comments on Hard Drive Articles This Week

Posted on by Owen Crowlie

As gamers, we know that everything is a competition. While we compete with unlimited porn, video games and four-hour video essays for your attention, you compete amongst yourselves for our attention. Today’s the day that finally pays off. Every week, we will be going through comments on all of our articles and highlighting the best. It’s like a leaderboard, except you can’t put your name down as “ASS.” Let’s begin.

5. Host Offers Choice Between This Really Dope Board Game That Sounds Awesome and Two Others

Euro-games are actually so expensive due to the fact that a gun comes included in the box. Geoff’s Friday game nights look like the Russian Roulette scene from The Deer Hunter, if they were eating Fritos and listening to electro-swing. Thank you for being a Top Fan.

4. Images From 343’s ‘Super Mario 64 Anniversary’ Leaked and It Looks Incredible

Honestly Mark, I relate. I had the exact idea for Kung Fu Panda when I was 11 and still haven’t seen a cent from Dreamworks. To this day I have no idea how they got into my loose leaf binder. To Mark’s 194 followers (including our secret Hard Drive mole!), we promise to hold ourselves accountable in the hopes you can forgive us.

3. Police Abduct Enough Protesters to Upgrade Unmarked Van with Cool Flame Skin

According to Portland P.D., future upgrades will add super-cool tinted windows and increased capacity for arresting nonviolent civilians. We just have to hope they don’t get the Halo skin or else they’re gonna go hog wild on protesters. Anyways, good news is the upgraded police vans are worth double points if you destroy them.

2. Privacy Advocates Warn “Shrek Yourself” App May Be Used To Collect Names and Faces of Americans Who Want to Look Like Shrek

You know what? Adam is 100% right. I don’t care if this is my first-ever Hard Drive column, screw these video game nerds. This article insultingly assumes that anyone should be ashamed of wanting to look like the handsome and powerful ogre Shrek. We are tired of hiding and will not be silenced any longer. We’re mean, we’re green, and actually we’re not mean at all, we just want to look like Shrek and live our lives in peace. Get out of my swamp!!!

1. Local Middle Schooler Releases 2020 Dad Tier List

We’re sorry to inform you tuney, but gay dads have been banned from tournament fights due to being overpowered. No son deserves to see their father chaingrabbed the entire fight.

We’d like to extend a big thank you to all of our readers, and everyone for their wonderful comments. Hard Drive wouldn’t work without all of your support — especially Mark. Keep pumping out those tweets man, we have a site to run. See you next week everybody!

We Track Down Our High School Principal to Get Back Our Confiscated “Enema of the State” CD

Posted on by Dan Luberto

Like most Americans, we spent our time quarantined catching up on podcasts, learning to cook (shoutout my sourdough starter), and plotting how to get back at those who have wronged us. These constructive uses of our time will serve us well when we can finally do normal things again like cook for friends or exact revenge.

Our first order of post-COVID business: make our book club dinner. Right after we track down our high school principal, Mr. Thomas, and make good on our promise to reclaim our confiscated “Enema of the State” CD, that is presumably still locked inside his desk drawer next to a fleet of Tech Decks.

After some very mild googling, we discovered that Mr. Thomas had been pretty busy with his time. Shortly after we graduated, he left his position as principal and opened a poop joke-themed skatepark that was entirely made out of Dickies. He reportedly took up streaking as a hobby and was most recently released on bail after a hilarious misunderstanding involving his pet dog.

The state in which we found Mr. Thomas was difficult to process. The former educator was seen loitering in front of the very same school he once oversaw. He was wearing two and a half pairs of Etnies and nothing else. How this 76-year-old man was stuck as a 2000’s teenager in the year 2020 was baffling. He saw us and immediately called out, “Hey shitdicks! Let’s see some stinky titties!” It was hard to determine if his flagrant use of dirty words was more excessive or juvenile. Either way, it was hilarious. “I gotta thank you, fartcuck!” he continued as the reality of his situation dawned on us. “That vagina that plays music changed my life!” My God. The day he took that CD from us was the day his life took on a new, darker path full of angst and a twelve-year-old’s idea of edgy humor.

“Wheres my fucking CD, motherfucker?” we asked after regaining our composure. Before he answered, we saw the awful truth. The disk has been absorbed into the side of his head. He had fused himself with it. He was one with the CD. It was already too late so we got the hell out of there as fast as we could and went home to listen to the copy our neighbor, Tejas, burned us for $5 the day Mr. Thomas took it.

Republicans Can’t Decide if Pineapple Belongs on Boots or Not

Posted on by Ryan Danley

WASHINGTON — Republicans across the nation are reckoning with a party-wide fissure over whether pineapple is a suitable topping for bootlicking, sending think-tanks everywhere scrambling for up-to-date research.

“Listen, I’m from upstate New York. And we didn’t do any of that fancy, west-coast pineapple bootlicking stuff. It’s downright un-American. People think that Republicans agree on everything, but this is the great divide,” said Center for Traditional Values President Winston Stevens. “Growing up, when my Dad and I met a cop, judge, volunteer fireman, some guy who beat his children with a belt, or some authoritarian strong-man type leader, we would happily drop to our knees and start licking that delicious leather and rubber with no seasoning beyond the dirt it came with. It was perfect! And if it was good enough for that distant and abusive old white man, it’s good enough for us.”

Chance Turner, President of California’s Patriotic Youth Crusade, urged the party to accept changes.

“Yes, we all grew up with boring old Reagan-era boots to lick. We get it. But it’s OK to grow. Enjoying or not enjoying delicious pineapple while licking a boot isn’t going to own any libs,” Turner said from his parent’s summer home. “We shouldn’t be telling people how to live anyway. If I want pineapple while I’m showing an authority figure the respect they deserve, I’ll do it. Don’t like pineapple? Don’t lick one off your landlord’s boot. Easy. This ain’t some Antifa nanny state.”

While some are concerned the impasse threatens the GOP’s unity, governing bodies within the party think the argument is missing the point.

“While we would always love to agree on everything, we have to accept that times evolve. I mean, if we believed in the evolution hoax, that is,” said Wentworth Chandler, founder of the conservative think-tank Birch Project. “We need to all come together and be grateful that there are boots at all. And regardless of what is on the boot, all that matters is that it is in our submissive, authority-worshipping mouth.”

Senate Republicans were unavailable for comment, as they were too busy getting their boots licked by Senate Democrats to get a relief bill passed.

Relationship Win! Tear Gassed Boyfriend Crying for First Time

Posted on by Mark Maira

Big day in my relationship! At a protest yesterday, for the first time ever my boyfriend cried in front of me. Emotional communication is extremely important and, before this, I could never get him to open up. I don’t know what it was exactly that got him to such a vulnerable place—the impassioned chanting, the sense of unity, the tear gas canister that exploded on his chest—but thanks to that police officer for missing the elderly woman he threw it at, my boyfriend and I have never been closer!

My boyfriend, Connor, is a pretty distant person and doesn’t like to talk about his feelings, which was, admittedly, starting to take a toll on our relationship. It’s amazing that all it took was a militarized police battalion using gas banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention to get him to open up.

He kept screaming at me to “help” and that “my heart doesn’t feel right.” Can you believe that?? He’s finally sharing his innermost vulnerabilities and making sure I know that he needs me. I will hold on to this moment like the empty tear gas canister that bricked off his chest that I took home for our scrapbook.

Then, after the police broke through the chain of linked protestors and began striking Connor with batons, he cried to me that he would, “love to go to the hospital right now.” That’s right, he used the word “love.”

He’s been in a medically induced coma for a week now as doctors fight off an infection built up in his tibia that was shattered by Portland Police Officers. To be honest, it’s been great. He’s really learning how to listen over the noise of the ventilator that assists his lungs. His wheezing and struggling to get even a single word out really shows how much effort he’s putting into building true, honest communication in this relationship.

Mike Muir Removes Bandana to Reveal Horrific Exposed Brain

Posted on by Dan Kozuh

VENICE, Calif. — Suicidal Tendencies frontman Mike Muir horrified visitors at the boardwalk yesterday when he took off his trademark bandana to wipe sweat from his neck, only to show he was completely lacking the upper portion of his skull.

“My wife and I were eating some frozen yogurt when this large man walked right in front of us and said, ‘Boy, it’s a hot one, I could sure use a Pepsi,’” said local beachgoer Bernard Perez between bouts of vomiting. “Then he took off his bandana… and there was just this wrinkled pink mass of brain sticking out the top of his head. He tried making a little bit more small talk, but my wife kept screaming and asking him to get away. I’m not sure if this was some sort of science experiment gone wrong, or maybe he was just in a motorcycle accident and his brain hadn’t processed the trauma, but either way, I probably won’t ever sleep again.”

The incident was the first of many as of late, as Muir has finally come out into the open about his condition.

“Most people assume I was going bald like that guy from Poison, but honestly, I was born like this,” said Muir after doing a series of pullups at muscle beach. “I’ve always been very insecure about my exposed brain — when I was young, kids would poke it on the playground, or sometimes a nut would fall out of a tree and hit my frontal cortex and I’d forget where I lived. Doctors tried putting a metal dome on it, but that only made it more obvious. That’s when I discovered that a bandana actually looks pretty hardcore, and no one asked questions.”

Doctors say that, while it may look peculiar, Muir is in perfect health.

“While I am not pleased he just uses a piece of cloth over his grey matter, he is very good at keeping it clean and sanitary,” said Muir’s doctor, Dr. Jackie McDaniel, Ph.D. “He brushes his brain twice a day in a mixture of salt water and peroxide. Medical technology has advanced enough that he could do a scalp transplant, but Mike feels this is part of who he is now, and I applaud him for living his life to the fullest.”

Muir is looking forward to retirement, when he can wear a fisherman’s bucket hat to cover his malformation.

City Excited to Use Funds From Defunded Police to Build New Highway Through Black Neighborhood

Posted on by The Hard Times Staff

SEATTLE — City Council members announced plans today to use money diverted from the Seattle Police Department to fund a new highway initiative located in the heart of the historically-Black Central District.

“We’re committed to righting the wrongs that have plagued the city’s Black community because of police violence. That is why we are so happy to announce major cuts to police funding, which will be used to create a corridor that finally connects Capitol Hill and North Beacon Hill,” said council member Andrew Lewis. “Finally, residents of Seattle will be able to quickly traverse the Central District without fear to attend brunch in some of Seattle’s hippest new diners.”

Understandably, many residents along the route of the new highway were outraged.

“This is the same shit we’ve been dealing with for years: instead of injecting money into the community so we could have better access to small business loans, mental health programs, or, hell, even a quality grocery store here or there, they just plan to destroy a bunch of homes,” said lifelong Central District resident Tamara Powers. “We want less armed police officers terrorizing us in our own neighborhood — we don’t want a new four-lane highway so a bunch of rich people can shave 15 minutes off their morning commute.”

Activists across the country warned of city governments crafting similar plans with the money cut from police budgets.

“There are a lot of cities taking a long, hard look at how much money they waste every year over-policing poor neighborhoods, and that’s a great thing. The problem is when they direct the money towards pointless or unwanted civic projects that displace Black residents,” said Andre Leguya. “We’ve already received word that Minneapolis plans to use some of the money from the police budget to build a giant statue of Arthur Fonzarelli on West Broadway for some dumb fucking reason. ‘Happy Days’ wasn’t even set in this city, and nobody on the North Side wants a 50-foot statue of The Fonz — it’s just a way to get more white people to the city so they can take pictures in front of it while wearing leather jackets.”

Because of the negative reaction to the highway plans, Seattle City Council members vowed to fund 30 more payday loan facilities in lower-income neighborhoods.

Huge OST Fan Has Never Actually Finished Final Fantasy 6 Soundtrack

Posted on by Mark Roebuck

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Darcy Martin, an alleged superfan of original video game soundtracks, has revealed that he has never actually finished listening to the beloved Final Fantasy 6 score in its entirety, shocked sources have confirmed.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m very familiar with it,” Martin said of Nobuo Uematsu’s iconic soundtrack, addressing and confirming the rumors that had consumed the r/gamemusic subreddit for the last several days. “In fact, I bet I could pretty much imagine how it ends, based on the first few discs of Kefka’s Domain, and all of the other soundtracks I’ve listened to. Who says finishing something is a prerequisite to it affecting and being important to you?”

The statement was made in a recent video Martin has uploaded to his YouTube channel, where he defended himself against allegations of being a fake game soundtrack listener.

“That’s bullshit dude,” read one of many highly upvoted critical replies. “Don’t run around putting it on your list of all time greats if you’ve never even finished it. Darcy is just another video game soundtrack fan doing it for the clout and not the love. It’s just so god damned depressing.” 

Martin defended his citing of the soundtrack as an influential work despite him never completing it, citing the many ways he has listened to the first dozen or so songs over the years.

“I had the CD years ago, listened to a lot of it,” he said. “Then years later I downloaded the soundtrack onto my Android, but it never quite sounded right, so I didn’t finish it then either. I know I could get it through any number of online platforms, or even just grab the original online, and I am sure I’ll get around to it one day, but I don’t know, I feel like I get it, you know?”

As of press time, Martin is just listening to the Rocket League soundtrack again instead of something with a little more substance.

Check out our comedy podcast The Video Game Super Show! Show, in which two of our editors watch and discuss every episode of  1989’s Captain N: The Game Master: