The December Issue (Internet Edition)

Mindless Self Entertainment (Internet Edition)
By James del Rosario

Now, you didn’t really think the only type of electronic visual stimulation was the television, did you? Seeing as I’m addicted to the computer as well, I thought I’d try something a little different this month.

YouTube User-Uploaded Videos

Charlie the Unicorn

This video had me split two ways. It has terrible animation, most of the voice acting gets on your nerves, and the “Candy Mountain” song has given me a strong desire to slam my head through the wall. But it was the all the things that normally make a video terrible that made this particular one hilarious. It has me addicted, I can’t stop watching, and I hate it while loving it at the same time. So, to resist giving it a 4, I award it:
3 ½ out of 5 ticket stubs


Smosh Productions

Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox from Carmichael, California have created quite possibly my favorite series of videos to ever come out of YouTube. Each video is absolutely hilarious, and while they all induce the same type of comedy, they also renovate it each time to give each video its own personality. They’ve won YouTube’s coveted Best Comedy Award for their video “Stranded,” and their music video for the theme song of “Pokemon” was once YouTube’s most viewed video until it was removed due to a copyright claim by another user. I proudly give Smosh M.S.E.’s very first:
5 out of 5 ticket stubs (as we hear “Hail to the Chief” in the background)

Flash Games

The Grow Games

From Eyezmaze in Japan comes this Flash puzzle game called Grow. It's very simple to play: you drag and drop the "materials" over to the GROW symbol, and then they begin to—you guessed it—grow. Only one item can be dropped per turn and throughout the turns the materials level up. Depending on the order in which you drop them, some materials will level up more than others, and some will affect the way others grow. There’s only one correct order to level every item to its maximum. It’s challenging, cute, entertaining, and will hold your attention for hours. I award the Grow series:
475 out of 500 HP


Escape the Room

Many of us, including myself, have been captivated by it. Some of us, including myself, have been reduced to tears. And one of us, including myself, has chucked his computer out his window after being stuck in the same spot for five hours. The goal is simple: escape. Clues are hidden in the most unlikely of hiding spots, and you should be clicking every single thing in sight in twenty different places. There are games that are far too easy for the series, created by people with nothing else to do, and then there are games that seem to have no solution whatsoever, created by smarter people with nothing else to do. For making me cry, I give Escape:
300 out of 500 HP