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Masquerada: Songs and Shadows (PC) Review

Developer: Witching Hour Studios | Publisher: Ysbryd Games || Overall: 8.5/10

One thing I’ve always had an interest in was creating lore from scratch.  I’ve got a couple of projects that I’ve worked on but never got too far in fully fleshing them out into a self-sustaining, interconnected, and intellectually interesting universe.  Masquerada: Songs and Shadows accomplishes this feat while telling an entertaining story and even some gameplay to boot.  While its hard to make all the connections to this and that unless you really pay attention, the developers at Witching Hour Studios really did an amazing job in crossing their Contadini’s and dotting their Regenti’s.  Oh, excuse me, I meant T’s and I’s; sometimes its easier to just make up words and hope you remember what they mean.

The immediate takeaway of Masquerada: Songs and Shadows is that it is uniquely themed.  The buildings, words, and the way people dress are considered “Venetian” — to better put it into context, think 17th century Europe.  All of the terms, people’s names, and frankly just about everything is finely crafted in giving this “Venetian” feel.  This is in spite of the game taking place in a fictitious country named Ombre, and obviously not taking place in “Earth’s history” either.  The centerpiece of the lore is the magical masks, called Mascherines, and how their use brings out magical powers that its user would otherwise not be able to have.  From this simple concept grows the impressively detailed political situation of the country of Ombre, with upwards of twenty different factions, groups, organizations, and government entities, all vying for power in the world… and a place in your brain.

In fact, the game is so lore rich that I’ve spent what feels like half of the game time reading rather than playing.  This can be fine to a point, and it is definitely “optional” but if you want the full experience of the narrative, its necessary to take a 10-15 minute break every time a bunch of new lore entries open up in the Codex.  As the story progresses, you’ll unlock one of the grayed out squares in non-sequential order (they are also ordered by categories), and since there are made up names for just about everything and it can be hard to keep track of it all; it’s going to test your patience.  One Codex entry opened up about the relationship between the main character and a good friend of his, and it was probably about two pages worth alone; I didn’t care that much and I just said fuck it!  Sometimes it’s a huge pain to break up the gameplay flow to take these “lore breaks” and is the one obvious flaw of this title.

Obviously, there’s no way they could have included most of what is in the Codex into the actual game, since most of it has to do with everything other than what is immediately going on.  It would have been nice to have been able to experience as side stories or extra quests or something more involved like that.  By my fifth hour, the game felt exclusively just reading/watching an interactive story.  Not to mention, they hide many of the core lore entries on the map and you have to find them by exploring a little bit; this means you can potentially miss them.  The business of the story delivery is cumbersome, but the story is interesting, so I can give them a pass up to a point.  They made up so many fucking terms it’s like I’m reading a different language and its hard not to glaze over terms if you’ve forgotten their meaning.  In the end, the effort on their part and your part go hand in hand.  If you skip over the lore, you are doing yourself a disservice in playing the game.  But it would have been nice if they gave us a Venetian diagram (get it?) or a geographical map at least.

So I’ve talked about the story up until now, and while it is the center feature of this title, there is a battle system.  I would quantify the battle system as “light” — there is no experience grinding and skill points unlock after certain story events.  The talent system is varied enough where you can make different builds or choose different elements (fire, air, water, or earth) for your main character.  You can also set up tactics for your AI teammates, or take direct control of them if you so choose.  The battling takes place mostly with melee attacks and elemental-themed spells.  A group of three or four enemies will spawn and then you just try to kill them before they kill you.  Healing is mostly passive, and attached to other spells that go off, so it isn’t a mechanic that requires a lot of attention.  If an AI teammate falls in battle, you can revive them Call-of-Duty-style by hovering over their body and pressing a button.

Presumably you would replay the game with different builds if you wanted to experience the different intricacies of this battle system, but I can’t say I would personally be interested.  The battles aren’t really that hard on Normal — there is a difficulty slider including “Story,” “Normal,” and “Hard.”  I don’t know why anyone would really want to waste time potentially wiping with a Hard difficulty considering the only reward the game has to offer is more story.  There is no character progression or gameplay elements that motivate you to do well in the battle you just fought or take on a harder challenge for that matter.  Only a few encounters demand elevated knowledge of the battle system and tactics, which is unfortunate.  There’s also not a whole lot of exploration involved; you are basically going down corridors and running around in circles to make sure you pick up any codex entries before you move on to the next area.  Since the story is so heavily scripted I can appreciate that it would be hard to allow freedom of discovery, but nonetheless the beautiful art, music, and professional voice work try to paper over any of these particular faults.

Masquerada: Songs and Shadows will hit the “story RPG” itch you might be yearning for.  With its unique Venetian theme, there’s not much that can really compare.  Being overwhelmed with lore words aside, the experience is not as daunting as I may have made it sound like, and while particular points kind of grate my soul, presentation-wise with the Codex entries, I am still well entertained.  Considering the story gets more and more interesting, it’s hard to not want to see the adventure through.  There is also a recently released New Game+ mode that actually adds more content, so you can think of it as a “director’s cut” of sorts with expanded features, dialogue lines, and a couple more boss encounters.

What Do You Know About Killumbus?

Killumbus was in his castle, counting his stacks of money.  Scholars have asked each other, “what do you know about Killumbus?” and their answers have always been “not much.”

What they do know, is unconfirmed at best.

What they do know is the following:

  • He might live in that big castle over there.
  • He might have lots of money.
  • He might have killed lots of people to get it.

Killumbus was once an explorer of nations.  He took his fleet of ships through the seas and found new people to kill.  He kept a room of massacred bones from magical peoples, living in self-imposed exile.  As his name might imply, he couldn’t stop killing.  Everyone.

Killumbus’ weapon of choice was the fan of knives.  He would throw knives up to 250 yards with deadly (that’s a pun) accuracy.  Once when he had visited the Exiled Land of Juziviel, Killumbus had already stuck a knife in 40% of the island’s population from the assaulting rowboats.  The massacre took only three days, and once the dead bodies had been deboned, they put them on the barges and shipped them to the next target on their map.

Killumbus’ Magical Map was a map that allowed them to find magical and mystical places that were hidden from the normal explorers of the world who did not want to kill everyone they saw.  Killumbus’ greatest conquest came in the form of the country of Debrine.

Debrine was a fantastical country full of prosperity and equality.  The culture of Debrine had evolved over centuries to become one of valuing your community and promoting self-worth.  As a result, Debrine’s streets were always clean and there was never any traffic.  Yes, life was good in Debrine, until its streets were full of blood.

Killumbus rode in on the coattails of the night, when many of the guard towers of Debrine had begun their transitional period of turning the lights on.  But since they didn’t have timers in their lighthouses, they always had to judge whether it was a good time to turn on the lights once the sun had begun to lose its light.  Killumbus and his elite squad of bad asses rowed in right underneath their noses, climbed up the infiltrated guard tower and chewed up the guard beyond recognition.

The country of Debrine was as big as a large metropolitan city, and to eliminate a city full of hundreds of thousands of people was going to take a long time.  Killumbus established the Guard Tower as his base of operations and renamed the beach into Killumbus’ Landing.  The Guard Tower was also expanded into a proper castle, in which Killumbus now resides.

The government officials of Debrine did not understand how an outsider was able to find their land, considering a magical sorcerer had enchanted their land with a hiding spell.  When one of the ambassadors came to open negotiations with the hostile force, he had met Killumbus in his base of operations – well before the castle had been created.

Not much has been publically released to Debrine as to what had transpired.  But this is what happened:

  • The ambassador of Debrine was led into Killumbus’ tent.
  • The ambassador of Debrine was instantly stabbed and began spewing blood.
  • The ambassador of Debrine had his intenstines removed.
  • The ambassador of Debrine was then choked with his own intestine.
  • The ambassador of Debrine’s lifeless body was hung outside on a pole for all to see.

Needless to say, Killumbus was one sadistic a-hole.

While the government of Debrine deliberated what they should do to repel the intruders, Killumbus and his crew fortified their position and eventually he built his castle.

Why was Killumbus such a sadistic bad ass?  Well, let’s start at the beginning.

It was recess in Kindergarten at Joy Flower Elementary school in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Killumbus’ original name was Christopher Kohlrhombus and he liked to watch cartoons.  His mother was a businessman and his dad was a female stripper.  Before you ask why you are so confused about the way the genders are referenced, maybe you should ask yourself why you are so gender-biased and re-evaluate the way you live your life.

One day at Kindergarten class, Mrs. Gallagher played the piano, signaling that it was time to stop having fun and start being real.  On their way in, Christopher and his friend Christopher put away their imaginary swords after re-enacting an episode of their favorite TV show Pensacoli Wily Weasel Fighters.  They always had fun running around fighting each other and they were good friends.  Poor Christopher Kohlrhombus never saw this friend again after that day, because when they graduated from Kindergarten they went to different first grade classes that never interacted with each other.  Christopher had built this relationship over the course of a year only to have it thrown away by society’s bureaucracy.  He might not have cared as much if some loser from 2nd grade said that going into 1st grade wasn’t that scary because he still got to hang out with all of his same friends from Kindergarten.  Why did he have to lie?  Instead of having the same friends he had NO friends because he didn’t see the same people he used to go to school with.  It’s not like his mother let him go anywhere during the weekdays, so the friends he did have stopped wanting to hang out with him.

Anyway, Christopher was in the backyard of his apartment building, digging at the ground because he had nothing else better to do.  He lived in an apartment complex and for some awful reason they planted two ugly trees behind the building.  A wizard by the name of Magister Buy1Get1Free was growing senile and had decided that very week to hide his map full of magical secrets between these two ugly trees because he thought the map would grow a more beautiful tree.  Don’t ask me why he thought that, he is senile for a reason.

Christopher spent all day digging, since he had no hobbies at the time, and found the map.  At first the little boy thought he had found a treasure map!   But really what it was is a map to a map.  And it was also a map to all the coin-operated laundromats in the city.

Not five minutes after having found the map, the asshole boy Fookfase The Asshole Kid started throwing ice cubes at Christopher!!  He pelted him pretty good this time because he caught Christopher off guard.  Christopher had to run home with ice scratches forming on his arms and legs.

Christopher, with map in hand, ran to get his baseball glove to run back outside to catch the ice cubes being thrown at him and throw them back.  But his mom asked him what he was doing.

“I’m going to go catch ice cubes and throw them back at that guy throwing them at me.”

“Oh no, you’re not.  That’s too dangerous and I don’t want you getting into trouble.  That’s why I took you out of tee-ball, I don’t want you getting hit by baseballs or ice cubes, for that matter!”

So, bored and shamed Christopher was confined to his room for the rest of the day playing video games and rubbing his scratches instead of taking revenge on the bully he had seen only once before.  Christopher looked at his map – it showed the path to a secret room in the apartment complex that may have been interesting.

Under the guise of night (at 7 pm), after his parents had gone to sleep, Christopher left with his map and started walking through the apartment complex.  He approximated the directions of the map and he came to a room which he had only seen once or twice before.  In reality, it was the senile wizard, Magister Buy1Get1Free’s apartment.  He pays 350 dollars a month on average for the room because half the time he’s able to make it disappear and make everyone forget about it, but since he’s getting older he forgets to hide his apartment from people’s minds on rent day.

Christopher touched the doorknob with his hand at which point the door disintegrated into magical dust and a dark room appeared before him.  There, on a couch sitting and staring into the dark room in front of him was Magister Buy1Get1Free.  His apartment was strangely decorated – there was two of everything; two TVs, two couches, two lamps, two dining room tables, and two microwaves among other things.

“So, you’ve found my map, have you?”

“Y-y-y-yes, sir.”  The young boy replied.

“That map you have holds special power, my young friend…  it allows you to see what is not there.”

Christopher looked with amazement at what he held in his hands.  The treasure was not what was ON the map, the treasure WAS the map!

“Let me tell you, young friend.  I am getting old.  I am not as sensible as I once was.  My years of extreme couponing and buying one item to get one free have taken its toll on me.  And my sanity.  Too much free stuff goes against free enterprise and the economic system we have in place, and as a result I have grown senile with guilt of taking advantage of those multi-million dollar corporations.”  Magister Buy1Get1Free rambled on.

Christopher didn’t understand anything the guy was talking about.  He was like 6 years old.

“I can grant you a power to destroy those whom you call your adversaries.  With that map in hand, you will have the power to end all of those bullies and assholes *I* encountered during my journeys.  I will use you to exact my vengeance…!”

With that statement, Magister Buy1Get1Free got off of his plastic-protected couch and waved his arm around.  Two staves flew into his hands and he waved them around.

“Young boy whom I do not know the name of…!!  You will now be a bloodthirsty maniac of the high seas and destroy the most sacred secrets this world has to offer, one by one!”

Christopher floated in the air and he began to shout as his thoughts became pure bloodlust.  Senile magic created a monster that would one day kill millions of magical peoples and destroy their civilizations.  He had created Killumbus.

Killumbus was given his magical Buy1Get1Free Fan of Knives set that allowed him to spawn two knives for every one thrown.  Hundreds of knives were at his disposal, and each were recoverable by encanting his retrieval spell.  Killumbus was one of the forefront killing machines ever created.

To set sail on his journey, he would need to acquire a crew of the most sadistic homicidal maniacs ever known.  Fookfase The Asshole Kid, with his special ice cube throwing skills, was immediately abducted and magically (literally) convinced to accompany Killumbus.  Other punk kids from the neighborhood, like Mark the Indian Burner, Carlo the Shark Biter, Stephen the Pincher, and Joy Love the Biker Bitch made up the core of Killumbus’ crew.  Their normal identities were erased from memory and Magister Buy1Get1Free conjured up ships for each of his core crew to command.  The Magister hid in the deep bowels of Killumbus’ Rhombus Destroyer.  The other ships were named The Friction Conviction, The Big Biter, The Ouchy Pincher, and Hell’s Envoy.  For the next 15 years, these ships had tracked down and destroyed one civilization after another and ended up on the shore of Debrine in the year 2012.

The Debrine campaign has just begun.

To be continued…?

nefinn

nefinn – v. to build a country on the ocean by linking together boats, and inviting people from all around the world to bring their boats and renounce their citizenship of their particular country and call themselves Citizens of the World Ocean.  The new continent built out of boats expands as more and more boats link themselves together.  The closer you get to the center of the continent, theoretically, the older it gets.

The End of the World Theory

No no no, i’m sick of all this comet and ice melting crap…the world isn’t going to end like that, see…the goverment of every country will give money to people and the people will run to the casino’s and spend it all…so the whole world goes bankrupt, but then all the casino’s in the world will flood with money and all the people will drown by getting coins and stuff down there throat. When the coins hit the ground, the aliens (who can hear a pin…i mean pants drop from long distances…) think the sound of a coin drop is someone dropping there pants and mooning them…and flashing your ass to aliens is a serious offense and you get your ass chopped off and forced to eat Laxatives (stuff that makes you poop A LOT) and be forced to look at a toilet….the horror….anyways the aliens come and give everyone in the world a purple nurple(twisting your nipple) and a kick in the ass. Now everyone is getting kicked and having aching nipples and so they start a moon war, where who can blind the most enemy eyes with one ass. Now it would be a hard war to win but eventually an old Alien guy called Bubba Lubba Fat Ass Tubba Witha Bubba Tummy Tom would show his big ass and the whole human race will go blind and they’ll be forced to watch…i mean listen too porno movies with out picture (cause there blind) and they’ll kill themselves and the aliens will rule the earth. It’s the truth…

Literacy Rates

Literacy Rate is important. No one wants a stupid country. That’s just not good. Who wants to be allies with a country during a war that can’t read any of the things you send them saying, “hold your fire! we’re not going to war!” and instead, they bomb the whole damn country that you would have gone to war with. Please learn to read and write. (but if you can’t read, why are you here?)

Stuck In the Past

This was written for class, and was supposed to mirror a main point from one of the parables of the horrible book, The Joy Luck Club.

————————————–

It was yesterday, when Alan was told that his parents were going to get a divorce. He didn’t understand what that meant at first, but his mom simply said to him, “You’ll never see your dad again.” Alan became confused, and wondered what he had done to make his dad not want to see him. Because he was so young, at the age of 8, he had no way to express his sadness to anyone except to cry himself to sleep.

Less than a week after his mother told him about the divorce, Alan and his mom moved across the country. As if his parent’s separation wasn’t hard enough, he had to cope with completely new surroundings. All that Alan wanted was to be alone, and to accept that his life would never be the same again. He thought constantly about how everything had changed: where his new home was, the friends he would never see again, and so much more. Soon enough, he began to blame all his sadness and anger on his father.

Alan was viewed by the other children at school as an outsider. He never talked to anyone, participated in class, or even did anything but drown in his misery during recess. His mind often wandered during class, thinking time and time again about the drastic changes in his life. He didn’t feel comfortable being anywhere, except in his own dream world, where his life was perfect again, before all the changes.

The image of his father, had warped into something evil. His father had become the devil he cursed everyday before bed. As the days turned into months, and the months into years, he came to the conclusion that he never really knew his father. This man who came home everyday late at night, and never spent any time with Alan, except a few hours, if that much, on the weekends. Alan often asked himself “Who was this man?” Alan didn’t even remember what his father liked to do in his spare time, or even if he liked to eat any of the foods Alan liked to eat. It was his mother who was the victim, and the man he didn’t even know was the person responsible for murdering who Alan would have been some day. He could have been a successful businessman, but instead he was a drunkard, at the age of 16. He often drank until he was sick. The funny thing about it was that there wasn’t any peer pressure involved. Alan never had any friends, and was consumed by his hatred and sadness, even after all the years that had passed.

Alan had distorted all the details of what the first 8 years of his life had actually been like. All the memories of playing catch with his father were gone. They were replaced with illusions of his father beating Alan with the baseball bat that was used for batting the balls. He also replaced all the memories of his father teaching Alan how to swim with his father trying to drown him in the bathtub. His father became the worst man ever to live in this world.

Alan never talked about any of these horrible thoughts with his mother. Alan’s twisted attitude towards life went mostly disregarded by his mother, because she thought he was just “going through a phase.” Not until Alan’s mother actually caught him with an empty bottle of vodka, did she have an epiphany that her son truly had serious problems. It was after this event that Alan’s mother confessed to him that it wasn’t true that his father did not want to see him all those years, but rather that she had not allowed his father to see Alan. It didn’t matter at that point though; the mental damage had already been done.

Capitalistic Tyranny

I wrote this for English in my senior year of high school in 2004.

——————————

A man with a briefcase walks out onto the sidewalk. In the country Yahoo 57, one of many owned by the corporation Yahoo, the sidewalks moved you along to your destination. The year was 2082, and the man had a calm look on his face. Thirty seconds after getting on the sidewalk, squares formed into a disconnected globe around the top half of the man’s body.

The squares were green, until images started appearing inside the squares. The images started advertising different products that were being sold. The products advertised ranged from hair products to exercise weights. Each commercial didn’t last for more than 5 seconds before another took its place.

As he was transported along the sidewalk, other people on the sides of the road were surrounded by similar green globes, even a baby in its carriage. About 10 minutes later, the man stepped off the sidewalk. After finishing their last messages, the green squares disappeared. On his way into the Yahoo 57 Capital Building, the man had already decided how he would use his next paycheck.

Percy’s Day Out – The Prequel to Sniper Problems…

“Oh boy oh boy!” Percy was excited. Today he would be deemed Burger Castle’s Mascot of the month! He glued a wood block to each bare foot and clomped out the door. Since he was payed less than minimum wage, he couldn’t afford shoes. Or a house for that matter. He just lived by a trash can in an alley way near a place called Elm Street.

It wasn’t the award he was excited about. He’s seen it before. You can’t pawn it off for more than 20 cents. But the big thing was the 300% raise you get when you become mascot of the month. That was an increase of 5 dollars! Almost 5 anyway…but that’s not the point. With that kind of money, he could rent some space in a sewer out, without a bathroom.

But that’s besides the point. He knew he had been doing a good job. He did have a Masters Degree in being a mascot. All those ballet classes take a lot out of you…

He hid behind a parked car waiting to find a car he could ride on to Burger Castle. It was pretty hard since it was New York, and pretty much everyone that saw him on their car, punched him off and drove off.

Just then, a blue Cadillac appeared and Percy jumped on top of it. He almost slipped off but grabbed onto the bumper. Luckily the trunk was open, so he got in.

When he saw he was near Burger Castle through the keyhole, he jumped out of the car. Luckily, they weren’t on the freeway, like a few times before.

He clomped down Castle Street toward Burger Castle. When he got there, a baseball hit him in the head. That wasn’t enough to knock down the month’s best mascot! But 253 other baseballs shot at the same time, was. It was a trap! I knew it all the time, of course.

Percy went into a dream…and it was something like this:

“All ABOARD!” said the post office man as he got onto a giant giraffe. “oh no! I’m gonna miss my plane!” said Percy. Percy had a very important meeting with the Scottish Windbag Company about the next shipment of kazoos.

Kazoos were vital to people with the rare disease, “Iwantakazoonowium.” Kazoos were made in China then sent to Denmark for testing and then sent to Scotland. Really nice kazoos came from Japan. Those were sparkly.

Percy hopped onto the girraffe after giving the post man a paper towel, which was the ticket, that had: I am a very important antelope” written on it.

After a couple minutes, the giraffe lifted off the ground and flew into the sky. They kept climbing until they got to Scotland. In this world, Scotland was 500 miles off the ground, floating in the air.

The highest country in the world is Jamaica, since everyone smokes pot there, but that’s besides the point…

When he got off the giraffe, he saluted to the post office man and called for a taxi. Taxies in Scotland are actually anteaters, they clean the streets. Percy hopped on one of them and trudged down to the Scotland Windbag Company’s main building.

They made all type of things at the Scotland Windbag Company, but their most popular products were Whuppi Cushions, kazoos, and Wind Chimes that burp.

When he got off the anteater, he ran down to the building and rang the doorbell. “Who is it!??” the intercom said. “Its me! Percy, from the United Iwantakazoonowium getter-ridders!” The intercom replied, “Oi! We’ve been expectin’ ya, laddy, come right een!” The door opened, but instead of walking into a floor, he slid down on a big slide into a dungeon!

It was a trap! But I knew it all along, of course, of course. “NOOOOOOO” Percy yelled. Percy yelled and yelled and yelled until his lungs blew up! Not because of the fact that he was in a dungeon, but because of the fact theres a big fat guy in leather and a mask on his head, with a whip, walking around a guy that was tied up with nothing but one leather strap! All of a sudden he felt a slap across his face, and he woke up from his terrible nightmare.

You may think Percy was all good now, but you shoulda seen the first person he saw when he looked up! It was Joan Rivers! THAT HORRIBLE BITCH! That did it for Percy, he got knocked out again…

(see what happens in Sniper Problems…)

The Baked Beans Story

Once upon a time, there lived a man who had a terrible passion for baked beans. He loved them, but they always had an embarrassing and somewhat lively reaction on him. One day he met a girl and fell in love. When it was apparent that they would marry, he thought to himself, ‘She’ll never go through with the marriage with me carrying on like this, so he made the supreme sacrifice and gave up beans. Shortly after that they were married.

A few months later, on the way home from work, his car broke down and since they lived in the country, he called his wife and told her that he would be late because he had to walk. On his way home, he passed a small cafe and the wonderful aroma of baked beans overwhelmed him.

Since he still had several miles to walk he figured he could walk off any ill affects before he got home. So he went in and ordered, and before leaving had three extra large helpings of baked beans. All the way home he putt-putted. He putt-putted down one hill and putt-putted up the next. By the time he arrive home he felt reasonably safe.

His wife met him at the door and seemed somewhat excited. She exclaimed, “Darling, I have the most wonderful surprise for you for dinner tonight!” She put a blindfold on him, and led him to his chair at the head of the table and made him promise not to peak.

At this point he was beginning to feel another one coming on. Just as his wife was about to remove the blindfold, the telephone rang. She again made him promise not to peek until she returned, and she went to answer the phone.

While she was gone, he seized the opportunity. He shifted his weight to one leg and let go. It was not only loud, but ripe as a rotten egg. He had a hard time breathing, so he felt for his napkin and fanned the air about him. He had just started to feel better, when another urge came on. He raised his leg and rriiipppp! It sounded like a diesel engine revving, and smelled worse. To keep from gagging, he tried fanning his arms a while, hoping the smell would dissipate. Things had just about returned to normal when he felt another urge coming. He shifted his weight to his other leg and let go. This was a real blue ribbon winner; the windows shook, the dishes on the table rattled and a minute later the flowers on the table were dead. While keeping an ear tuned in on the conversation in the hallway, and keeping his promise of staying blindfolded, he carried on like this for the next ten minutes, farting and then fanning each time with his napkin.

When he heard the phone farewells (indicating the end of his loneliness and freedom) he neatly laid his napkin on his lap and folded his hands on top of it. Smiling contentedly, he was the picture of innocence when his wife walked in.

Apologizing for taking so long, she asked if he had peeked at the dinner table. After assuring her he had not peeked, she removed the blindfold and yelled, “Surprise!”

To his shock and horror, there were twelve dinner guests seated around the table for his surprise birthday party.

The Sentinels of Sismob

In the distant land of Bomsi, there lived a fair ruler, that received daily blow jobs from every hot woman in the place he rules. Even little girls, as soon as they are taught how, gave the king blow jobs. Yes, life was good. The children’s mouths almost resembled the shape of the king’s “weewee.” They were told this was good, because it would be a better advantage for them when sucking off the king because he would like it better.

The king loved his wife, but getting 2,000+ BJs a day wore him out. He had to take weekends off. But on the weekends he got to roam the streets of Licenburg, the capital of Bomsi, and fondle anyone he saw fit. What could the king do? He was a horny bastard.

But that’s when the army, called The Sentinels, from the neighboring country of Sismob invaded. Sismob had heard of these lude acts performed by the king and decided to put a stop to it, for the people of Bomsi’s sake. The Sentinels had advanced items of warfare – – swords. All that the defending Bomsians could do was just give them BJs to stop them, because that’s all they knew how to do. The sentinels felt sorry for them, and decided to kill them even before they touched their belts.

The General of The Sentinels, Hulk Hogan, had the most blood on his hands. He set aflame villages after villages with his monstrous Python Flamethrowers. He was called Devil Hogan by the Bomsians. But they’re just stupid.

When the King got word of the Sentinels of Sismob kicking ass, the King packed up his things, his wife, left his kids and went to a secluded area at the edge of the world.

After the Sentinels killed everyone in Bomsi, the Sismobs moved in, polluted the area with their SUVs and horse carriages and moved on. As for the king, he still got 2,000+ BJs, but from only one person. The Queen. She had the strongest jaw muscles in the world.

30 Things to Do On an Exam When You Know That You Are Going To Fail

1. Get a copy of the exam, run out screaming “Andre, Andre, I’ve got the secret documents!!”

2. Talk the entire way through the exam. Read questions aloud, debate your answers with yourself out loud. If asked to stop, yell out, “I’m SOOO sure that you can hear me thinking.” Then start talking about what a jerk the instructor is.

3. Bring a Game Boy. Play with the volume at max level.

4. On the answer sheet find a new, interesting way to refuse to answer every question. For example: I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that it conflicts with my religious beliefs. Be creative.

5. Run into the exam room looking about frantically. Breathe a sigh of relief. Go to the instructor, say “They’ve found me, I have to leave the country” and run off.

6. 15 min. into the exam, stand up, rip up all the papers into very small pieces, throw them into the air and yell out “Merry Christmas.” If you’re really daring, ask for another copy of the exam. Say you lost the first one. Repeat this process every 15 min.

7. Come into the exam wearing slippers, a bathrobe, a towel on your head, and nothing else.

8. Come down with a BAD case of Turret’s Syndrome during the exam. Be as vulgar as possible.

9. Bring things to throw at the instructor when s/he’s not looking. Blame it on the person nearest to you.

10. As soon as the instructor hands you the exam, eat it.

11. Every 5 min. stand up, collect all your things, move to another seat, continue with the exam.

12. Turn in the exam approx. 30 min. into it. As you walk out, start commenting on how easy it was.

13. Get the exam. 20 min into it, throw your papers down violently, scream out “Fuck this!” and walk out triumphantly.

14. Arrange a protest before the exam starts (i.e.. threaten the instructor that whether or not everyone’s done, they are all leaving after one hour to go drink.)

15. Show up completely drunk (completely drunk means at some point during the exam, you should start crying for mommy).

16. Comment on how sexy the instructor is looking that day.

17. Come to the exam wearing a black cloak. After about 30 min, put on a white mask and start yelling “I’m here, the phantom of the opera” until they drag you away.

18. If the exam is math / sciences related, make up the longest proofs you could possible think of. Get pi and imaginary numbers into most equations. If it is a written exam, relate everything to your own life story.

19. Try to get people in the room to do a wave.

20. Bring some large, cumbersome, ugly idol. Put it right next to you. Pray to it often. Consider a small sacrifice.

21. During the exam, take apart everything around you. Desks, chairs, anything you can reach.

22. Puke into your exam booklet. Hand it in. Leave.

23. Take 6 packages of rice cakes to the exam. Stuff at least 2 rice cakes into your mouth at once. Chew, then cough. Repeat if necessary.

24. Masturbate.

25. Walk in, get the exam, sit down. About 5 min into it, loudly say to the instructor, “I don’t understand ANY of this. I’ve been to every lecture all semester long! What’s the deal? And who the hell are you? Where’s the regular guy?”

26. Do the entire exam in another language. If you don’t know one, make one up!

27. Bring a black marker. Return the exam with all questions and answers completely blackened out.

28. Every now and then, clap twice rapidly. If the instructor asks why, tell him/her in a very derogatory tone, “The light bulb that goes on above my head when I get an idea is hooked up to a clapper. DUH!”

29. From the moment the exam begins, hum the theme to Jeopardy. Ignore the instructor’s requests for you to stop. When they finally get you to leave one way or another, begin whistling the theme to the Bridge on the River Kwai.

30. After you get the exam, call the instructor over, point to any question. Ask for the answer. Try to work it out of him or her.

Joke #5270

Once upon a time, a blonde became so sick of hearing blonde jokes that she had her hair cut and dyed brown. A few days later, as she was driving around the countryside, she stopped her car to let a flock of sheep pass. Admiring the cute wooly creatures, she said to the shepherd, “If I can guess how many sheep you have, can I take one?” The shepherd, always the gentlemen replied, “Of course.” The blonde thought for a moment and for no discernible reason said, “352.”

This being the correct number, the shepherd was, understandably, totally amazed and exclaimed, “You’re right! Okay, I’ll keep to my end of the deal. Take your pick of my flock.” The blonde carefully considered the entire flock and finally picked one that was by far cuter and more playful than any others.

When she was done, the shepherd turned to her and said, “Okay, now I have a propostition for you. If I can guess your true hair color, can I have my dog back?”