The Konstantino, Author at HARDTIMES

Olimar Insists Red Pikmin are “Virtually Immune” to Drowning

Posted on August 8, 2020 by Jeremy Kaplowitz

PNF-404 — Captain Olimar insisted to a group of red Pikmin today that they need not worry while trying to cross a river because they are all “virtually immune” to drowning.

“It’s the craziest thing! Scientists — all the scientists are saying this — they don’t even understand how — but it’s impossible for red Pikmin to drown in water. Impossible! So there’s just nothing to be afraid of at all, and everything is totally very good, because I’m a brilliant Captain, very good — much better than that crooked Captain Alph,” Olimar said to the Pikmin, standing in front of a rushing river. “So we’re going to open up the river for crossing. Many of you will die — but not, a lot, it’s very rare — if you do die, you very likely had diabetes or something very bad already — but it is what it is.”

Despite Olimar’s comments, many red Pikmin have been cautious to enter the river.

“I just watched like forty red Pikmin go into the water and drown. Why would it be impossible for us to drown? It makes no sense at all,” said one red Pikmin. “I get that we’re trying to rebuild Olimar’s ship, and that’s important, but can’t we just wait until we have the necessary materials to build a bridge? I don’t know… sometimes I wish we had a different Captain, but I didn’t get a say in the matter. I was just plucked into this life.”

Not all Pikmin in Olimar’s crew, however, have disagreed with his statements. Scores of blue Pikmin have come out in support of opening up the river for all to try to swim.

“If you’re too afraid to jump in some water, you’re a big fuckin’ baby,” said a blue Pikmin. “I have never once been afraid of jumping into water and I wouldn’t dare lose my freedom of Being Across The River just because some dumbasses think red or yellow Pikmin drown. Grow up! We need to stop whining about this baby shit and start facing the real issues in our society, like how we all need to be afraid of fire.”

At press time, after thousands of red Pikmin deaths, Olimar was able to cross the river and finally obtain the compelling cookie he saw.

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:

Identical Tournament Fighters Grateful They Wore Different Pants

Posted on August 8, 2020 by Mark Roebuck

OUTWORLD — Two participants, who by all accounts appeared to be exact replicants of one another, were reportedly grateful to have brought different colored pants to the Mortal Kombat tournament, several sources have confirmed.

“You know, I had a feeling this might happen,” said Liu Kang, a lifetime resident of Kansas City. “I’ve been confused for the other Liu Kang once or twice when I’m fixing someone’s air conditioning, and I guess in a weird way that was maybe what made me think I could compete in this tournament. And if I got in, I figured he sure the heck did!”

Although the fighters weren’t both meant to be included and the second Liu Kang had just been invited to participate as an understudy if need be, as is common practice, a last second drop out meant that the spare Liu Kang was actually in a position to help the tournament deal with the emergency.

“Yeah, that guy really helped us out this year,” said Monty Henderson, an intern who’d been put in charge of scheduling the evening’s rounds. “Baraka can’t get a flight out of whatever fuckin’ swamp he lives in, and he decides to tell me that today! Unbelievable. If that weird extra Liu Kang hadn’t been here, Shao Kahn would’ve had my ass. For real. He puts Intern Asses on his office wall. It’s an intimidation thing. It sucks here.”

Though not commonly discussed, some veterans of the tournament verified the importance of thoughtful wardrobe choices.

“Yeah, first year we showed up, me and Scorpion had the same colors on,” said Sub-Zero, one of the iconic faces of the Mortal Kombat tournaments throughout the years. “That’s why we always wear the blue and yellow ever since, because it was such a disaster. The referee said I won, even though I hadn’t and he had just gotten switched around in his head. Scorpion cut his ass off and hung it on his wall after that. If you think I am joking, I assure you that I am not.”

Unfortunately, the two Liu Kangs will not face off in the second round of this year’s event, as many had hoped. Blue-panted Liu Kang was matched up against police officer Stryker in the first round, who just shot him in the face with his gun.

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:

Body Positivity Movement Afraid It Might Be Inclusive of White People With Dreadlocks

Posted on August 8, 2020 by Meg Indurti

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Body positivity advocate and campaign spokesperson Brianna Martin openly worried today that the movement may have to include white people with dreadlocks in order to fully live its ideals.

“Our slogan is ‘Every Body Is Beautiful,’ but we didn’t mean for that to resonate so strongly with white potheads or Post Malone,” said Martin, showing several photos of Caucasian men in Bob Marley shirts who paid to join a body positivity conference she’s organizing. “We just meant that healthy people come in different shapes and sizes. We don’t condone white dudes in dreads… even if they’re playing a pirate.”

“It’s tricky, because we wanna inspire people to be bold and be themselves, but that’s exactly the kind of message that might inspire more white people to get dreads,” she added. “Or worse, embark on a SoundCloud rap career.”

Martin’s assistant Allison Beatriz agreed, pointing to an uptick of registrants from liberal-identifying white people, most of whom seemed to be traveling from Portland.

“We think they found us through our Instagram ads,” said Beatriz, showing their ad of people hugging with the phrase, “Your body is not wrong, society is.” “Inclusivity is important to us, but right now there’s a lot of hippies and white girls who dated one Black guy in college planning to attend. They always show up with incense and set off the fire alarms, and they still have the gall to ask if they can touch my hair. Why? You already have dreads. Touch your hair!”

Martin is actively trying to rebrand the movement to discourage Caucasians who went to Jamaica once and made Rastafarianism their personality from joining. However, the latest focus group results showed that the campaign is still too inclusive.

“People point at me on the street and make fun of me because of my dreads,” said alabaster-white focus group attendee Brain Wojcik. “It sucks! I’m glad I found this body positivity support group. Discrimination is still alive and well in this country.”

Compounding the problem, the conference is also plagued by an influx of anti-mask protestors who resonated with the slogan, “My Body, My Rules.”

“Beavis and Butt-Head” Revival Gives 41-Year-Old-Man Something to Talk About With His Mom

Posted on August 8, 2020 by Jerrod Kingery

SPOKANE, Wash. — The upcoming “Beavis and Butt-Head” revival on Comedy Central has finally given 41-year-old Paul Moreno a topic of conversation to share with his mother during their monthly phone calls, ambivalent relatives confirmed.

“This is perfect. I’ve been trying to call my mom more, but we never really have anything to talk about other than the fact we both own cats. But now I can bring up ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ since she forbade me from watching it when I was a teenager. Of course, I watched anyway,” said Moreno. “I figure, if there’s a lull in the conversation, I can get her riled up by mentioning the time she wrote a letter to the cable company about how MTV was the work of the devil, and how she blamed the show for the town’s library burning down.”

66-year-old Olga Moreno only vaguely recalled her objections to the show.

“Oh, that was the one where those boys were very rude, right? I never watched it, of course, but I heard there was lots of satanic stuff and black leather, and so much nudity,” explained Mrs. Moreno. “Maybe I was a bit harsh, but parenthood is all about depriving your children of enjoyment — whether it be that Beefis and Buttmunch show, or ‘South Park,’ or ‘WWF’ wrestling. And who can forget that nasty Weather Channel! Some of those low-cut tops on those meteorologists were unseemly.”

Family psychologist Dr. Allison Washington claimed Generation X mother-son relationships often devolve into conversations about what the now-adult children are now free to do.

“We found that 65% of long distance conversations, whether it’s by phone or FaceTime, mainly consist of ‘remember when’ discussions,” Washington said. “From the men, it’s about how they weren’t allowed to go to a Toadies concert in 1994, and from their moms, it’s how their son’s hair turned a funny color with Sun-In; former disapproval of eyebrow rings; or how much the flannel they wore smelled like B.O.”

At press time, Moreno was excitedly reading up on the fatalities in the latest “Mortal Kombat” game with the intention of describing them in detail to his mother.

COVID-19 Least Dangerous Thing in Reopened Dive Bar

Posted on August 8, 2020 by Mark Hassenfratz

QUEENS, N.Y. — Patrons of neighborhood dive The Rowdy Owl discovered yesterday that potentially contracting COVID-19 was the least dangerous part of the recently reopened establishment, disgusted sources confirmed.

“I was so happy when I heard The Owl was back! Drinking Bud Light at home isn’t as fun as it is here, and I missed all my buddies — Big Andres, Matty the Brit, Pinky… and don’t even get me started on Dirty Doug,” said Rowdy Owl regular Buck “Loudmouth” Sheldon. “Maybe it’s just because I haven’t been here in awhile, but it actually looks a lot dirtier than it did before lockdown: I saw some greenish-brown liquid dripping out of the walls, and my feet stuck to the bathroom floor. And the rusty nails sticking out of the bar definitely gave me pause… as well as some really nasty gashes in my knee that I think are infected now.”

Rowdy Owl staff calmy assured guests that they heard their concerns and were doing everything in their power to create a clean, safe environment.

“What are you, a fucking pussy? The moldy carpeting is no big deal, and we cleaned up most of the dirty needles. My buddy Zeke is gonna come by next week and replace some of the ceiling tiles so none of the birds swoop down on customers to defend their nests,” said bartender Al Bolling. “As long as you don’t stand directly underneath any of the hanging lights, you got nothing to worry about.”

Experts suggested that dive bars aren’t the only places where COVID-19 is making a negligible difference in potential hazards for consumers.

“As businesses reopen, it’s important to assess risk: not just of contracting or spreading COVID-19, but of other kinds of bodily harm and dismemberment. Surprisingly, we’re seeing that catching COVID-19 is the least of consumer worries in many businesses,” said economic analyst Denise Raynaldi. “Gator farm tours, public dirt bike tracks, discount fireworks stores — these businesses are only slightly more dangerous with the presence of COVID-19.“

At press time, Rowdy Owl staff discovered the largest rat living in the bar’s kitchen has recently learned how to swing a knife.

We Rank These 5 Guitar Pickups Despite the Fact That They Sound Goddamned Identical

Posted on August 8, 2020 by John Danek

We here at The Hard Times love guitar players! Sure, we might rag on them from time to time because they never practice, they’re always late, and they have egos the size of the full stacks they use at basement shows, but we still love ’em. We will hand it to them though, they do put a lot of effort into making sure their gear is the absolute best. So we decided to give all you guitarists out there some of that juicy, guitar clickbait we know you’ll love and went out and bought five pickups to rank. However, they all sounded identical and now we’re wishing we had tried them out at the store first.

Gibson 498T Humbucker

This is the stock bridge pickup that came in our sick Les Paul, which our parents gifted us for successfully appealing a DUI charge (this time is actually was entrapment). It sounds fine but this is just the base model. We’re sure all the other pickups are gonna blow this away. Time to bust out the soldering iron and see!

Gibson Classic ‘57 Humbucker

Hmm. Is it possible we accidentally installed the same pickup again? Nope. This is definitely the new one. We’re not noticing a dramatic difference in sound. Ooh, we hear something! We think maybe, no, definitely, there’s a little more high-end clarity, possibly. Wait, no. We bumped the treble knob on our amp. Well, this was two Gibson’s back to back. We’re sure a different brand will be vastly different.

1972 Fender Telecaster Deluxe Wide-Range Humbuckers

What the fuck? It’s the same! It must be this piece of shit guitar. Parents are the worst.

Middle-Earth Mithril Overwound Humbucker

Okay, now this is ridiculous. This boutique manufacturer claims to have replicated Tolkien’s fictional metal and they make pickups from it, but it still sounds like a NORMAL FUCKING GUITAR. This one took us two hours to install too because it’s shaped like an fucking axe and we had to route the new guitar we bought midway through writing this article. And for what? For us to play the “Smoke on the Water” riff and still sound like an amateur? Hard pass.

Gibson 1959 PAF Humbucker

FUCK YOU, GIBSON. ALL THIS SHIT SOUNDS THE SAME. Fuck all you dipshit guitarists. Want to sound better? Just fucking practice.

Does anyone want to buy five broken, expensive pickups?

McDonalds Removes McRib So Ronald McDonald Can Suck His Own Dick

Posted on August 8, 2020 by The Hard Times Staff

CHICAGO — Fast food behemoth McDonald’s announced today that they will remove the McRib from their menu worldwide to enable mascot Ronald McDonald to effectively “go to town on his horrendous knob.”

“After years of weighing the pros and cons of doing so, I am grateful our leadership is removing one of our most popular menu items and enabling me to live as my true self,” the mascot clown said during a press conference. “With the McRib gone, there is nothing keeping me from scrummying down on my delicious, Grimace-shaped McPenis.”

“I haven’t been able to shake the idea ever since I saw the Hamburglar robble-robble his own beef patty back in the ’90s, so I’m incredibly excited to start my journey to a swift and easy nosh on my own rod,” McDonald added. “This is the real me: a clown whose big shoes are filled with feet, and whose mouth will soon be full of my own surprisingly slender penis.”

McDonald’s spokesman Joseph Ebert fielded questions.

“Ronald has been in talks with our head of development about this for years now,” Ebert remarked. “Although this might be off-putting or even upsetting to some, I urge you to go into this new period with an open heart and an empty stomach. Ronald has done so much for this big, blue marble we call home, and it’s about time we let him do something for himself.”

McRib fans were understandably vocal about the decision.

“Yeah, I was pretty confused, if we’re being completely honest,” said concerned McRib enthusiast Dom Anderson. “Like, I don’t absolutely love the idea of a clown stuffing his face full of his downstairs pork… but if that’s what he needs to be happy, then go for it. In the grand scheme of things, what’s a little self knob-slobbing gonna do to hurt the rest of us? Although I’ll miss the McRib, I’m happy for the guy.”

McDonald will live stream the results of the McRib removal via the digital menu at all McDonald’s locations this coming Wednesday.

Impossible Fall Guys Achievement Awards Players for Entering 5 Consecutive Matches

Posted on August 7, 2020 by Kevin Flynn

LONDON — Following a recent patch to the popular new battle royale game, gamers have discovered the addition of an impossible-to-get achievement in the game Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout that requires the player to successfully connect to 5 consecutive matches.

“We thought the ‘Infallible’ achievement would be a lot harder for people to get, but they blew right past that,” said Joe Walsh, the game’s lead developer, referring to a previous achievement that required players to get first place in 5 matches in a row. “So we thought we’d up the ante with the new ‘Unthinkable’ achievement. Overcoming a pile of flailing bodies on Fall Mountain is one thing, but navigating the pitfalls of our intensely crowded server traffic is a whole ‘nother story. All I can say to our players is ‘buckle up.’”

Achievement hunters are intimidated by the challenge posed by the new achievement, but players are already sharing strategies on the Fall Guys subreddit.

“It seems like the optimal time to attempt ‘Unthinkable’ would be in the middle of the night, maybe somewhere between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. EST which is when a lot of servers usually go down for maintenance,” said user BouncyCastle32 in a trending post on r/FallGuysGame. “There might be some trial and error until we figure out the patterns there. Some guys in the Discord have already figured out that Friday nights are the worst time to attempt this because you can’t even connect to the game once, so we’re making progress at least.”

Despite the new update, thousands of players responded to a picture of a pigeon tweeted by the Fall Guys Twitter account demanding their $0 back.

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:

Fall Guys Griefer Just Misses Human Contact

Posted on August 7, 2020 by Peter Kemme

CINCINNATI, Ohio — Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout player Tim Williams insists that the only reason he grabs others at the finish line is due to his severe lack of person-to-person contact that has come with social distancing measures of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’ve been isolated in my apartment alone for months, news getting worse everyday,” Robinson said. “If the closest I can get to a hug is grabbing a jellybean man wearing a pigeon outfit, then at this point I’m gonna hold them for as long as I can.”

When servers of the massively popular game went down, Robinson was reportedly ashamed to admit that he joined the review bomb effort to plummet the indie releases rating. His 0-star review of “I was a man starving for touch and you offered me a can of contact, only to snatch it away?! THIS IS THE ONLY THING THAT HAS SATED MY SKIN HUNGER! Also, fruit chute is bullshit!” has since been removed.

“Yeah, I was really raw when I wrote that. The last round I played before getting disconnected, someone had the online ID of ‘Tims_Big_Daddy,’” Robinson explained. “My dad just got the news he’s cancer-free and all I want to do is grab him and tell him how happy I am that he’s still here with us. But I can’t because he’s high-risk, so instead I grabbed my dog-headed bean dad and refused to let go until the servers ripped him from me.”

Robinson said that he realizes his finish line hugs can be annoying to other players who are just trying to win their first crown and has started experimenting with other games as an outlet for connection. He recently got The Last of Us Part 2 where he lets infected swarm him while softly saying “Bring it in.”

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:

I’ll Listen to Your Demos If You Peep My Unfinished Accounts Receivable Claims

Posted on August 7, 2020 by John Danek

Wow, that’s so incredibly gracious of you to reach out and share the carefully crafted demos you recorded in your friend’s basement while blackout drunk! I can’t wait to press play on this bad boy as I’m sure, of all the unsolicited band links I receive, your unfinished, unpolished demos are going to very much reward me for clicking.

But, hey, while we’re sharing sloppy works-in-progress, could you do me a solid and peep these accounts receivable claims? Thanks bunches.

Work is breathing down my neck and, while I typically wait until these spreadsheets are fully approved by supervisors before submitting to the clients themselves, I thought you would definitely have a great time giving everything a once-over.

What’s that? You don’t want to? Come on, it’ll be fun! It’s actually pretty similar to you expecting me to enjoy your band’s amateurish, muffled recordings, isn’t it? Sure, you could spend your afternoon reading the literary classics of Chinua Achebe, Harper Lee, or Sandra Cisneros, but I truly believe that these incomplete debts owed to my employer are just as good. Come on, these spreadsheets really mean a lot to me! I’m sure they have just as much artistic merit as this first track you sent me, “Shitfight (Redux).”

Seems like a fair trade, right? I spend time ignoring my own thoughts to hear your poorly EQ’ed guitar amp and out-of-tune vocals and you can scan my inaccurate, typo-filled Excel mastery. My unfinished spreadsheets are art. They’re like jazz; it’s the numbers I’m not crunching.

Actually, while you’re at it, why don’t you also make a “music video” that solely consists of shots of you in your rehearsal space and apartment? Preferably in black-and-white, so I can really feel the vibe. In return, I can send you a time-lapse video of me in my cubicle. We are both artists in the exact same way.

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