I saw a special on Fox that said that NASA faked the Moon landings. Is this true?

Yes everything of Fox is true. It’s true and well researched. It’s true, well researched, and completely non-biased. It’s true, well researched, completely non-biased, and does not have an agenda. It’s true, well researched, completely non-biased, does not have an agenda, and is not evil. It’s true, well researched, completely non-biased, does not have an agenda, is not evil, and always makes perfect sense.

Is it true that Freemasons secretly control the world through international banking?

Did Mary have a little lamb? Was that little lamb’s fleece as white as snow? Did that little lamb follow Mary every where she went? Including to school one day, school one day, school one day? Did said lamb make the children laugh and play? Did the teacher turn the poor lamb out? And did the lamb wait patiently? Yes. Why you ask, well according to the teacher the lamb loved Mary. Does that answer this question?

Is Atlantis real?

Yes. For exact reasons please see the answer to the above question which states the reasons out more obviously. As you will see it turns to have to do with lambs, children, and teachers. We were shocked too.

Was the US government behind 9/11?

Normally I would agree with this theory but lets look at the facts. George W. Bush is easily the least intelligent human being to ever run anything, including this country. His entire life, and generally his presidency, are considered to be a failure. So with him at the head of the government believing this theory gives GW a splash too much credit. Granted he wanted a war and he did get one but I think it was more the fault of crazy Islamic people than the U.S. government

What is your theory about who built the pyramids in Ancient Egypt?

Our guess is Egyptians. Lots of them.

Do you know where I can find a copy of the Necronomicon?

Ahhh you mean The Book of the Dead. Bound in human flesh and inked in blood, the ancient Sumerian text which contained bizarre burial rights, funeral incantations, and demon resurrection passages. Last I saw it was in a graveyard somewhere. But before you pick it up remember to say these three words;  Klatu Barada Nicto, or Necktie, or Nectum, or Nickel, hmmm it’s definitely an N-word. Anyway be careful, it was never meant for the world of the living.

Is it true that the world leaders all secretly worship Satan?

Yes, obviously.

I’ve read that Swine flu is part of a government conspiracy to keep out illegal immigrants. With democrats moving forward on legalizing illegals, anti-immigration forces had no options left. The flu will be used to l close the borders once and for all, and reduce the population trying to get over the border in one ‘final solution’. Is this true?

For the record no democrat is trying to ‘legalize’ illegal immigrants. We here at OW love how desperate conservatives try to claim this. The Republicans (which is the same to say “Rich white people”) had 8 years with the most conservative president ever and were unable to solve the problem of illegal immigration, if anything it got much worse. Bush even tried to offer a temporary work permit deal that was blocked in a democratic congress. Then the rich white people lost control of the entire government and went crazy when a black man took office. Rich white people do not like black people, especially smart progressive thinking ones. But I digress. So what your saying is that the government made a virus that would target only people that are trying to cross the mexican/us border? Well it worked right? I mean only sneaky Mexicans got the flu and there are no more day workers at my Home Depot. Wait, everyone got the flu…hmm still no day workers though…wait is that because Bush tanked the economy? Well it seems Bush did fix the problem.

A while back we wrote an article about how 2D gaming is better than 3D gaming, which it clearly is. We here at OW have been getting increasingly frustrated with the lack or creativity and push towards realism in games. To address this issue we made some phone calls and told Nintendo that we would have to pull our support if they didn’t rectify this situation. Fearing what in the industry is called the “OW Sega affect”, Nintendo acted quickly and came out with what is easily the greatest game to be released in the 2000’s. So here it is, finally the OW review of the new Super Mario Brothers Wii. After getting back to OWHQ from our holiday vacation our email, snail mail, and fax machine were flooded with messages. Granted a lot of it was our usual fan mail and another good portion of it was our usual hate mail, but mixed in were questions asking; ” I think I like this new Mario game but wanted to know what you guys think?”, “Hi OW, love the site, should I like the new Mario game?”, or “Hi OW, hate the site, should I like the new Mario game?” So to answer the biggest question on the gaming industry’s mind right now, yes you should and can (we give permission) like the new Mario game.

The new Super Mario Brothers Wii is a incredibly creative and infinitely entertaining masterpiece of gaming. Sony and Microsoft should take note as we are losing patience with them. The plot is pretty standard, the princess gets kidnapped, a consistent problem in the mushroom kingdom, and the brothers go after her assisted by two toads. Right from the start the game is entertaining the maps are reminiscent of Mario 3 though the levels themselves are more like Mario World minus all the dinosaurs. Each level is super creative and it is obvious that significant amount of time was spent on level design. Even when the levels get super difficult, especially world 8 you can’t help but think wow this level is awesome, despite the fact that you just died a million times.

During your pursuit of the princess you have to defeat each Koopling twice per world, and Bowser jr. a few times on the airship. Each of these boss battles are far more creative than anything in Mario 3 or Mario World. The fist encounter is in the fortress and is usually a simplified version of the final battle. Some highlights are fighting Iggy in the last castle of the jungle world and Ludwig in cloud world. To augment Mario’s plumbing skills against this band of turtle creatures, a number of Power-ups are available. The standard mushroom, fire flower, and Yoshi return, but with them come some new ones, the ice flower, helicopter hat, mini mushroom, and penguin suit. Each power-up is unique, fun, and useful. The helicopter hat, our personal favorite, allows you to fly when you shake the remote, another creative aspect of the game. The ice flower can diffuse some fire and turns everything to blocks of ice which can then be thrown at other enemies or smashed to pieces. The most interesting use is to access secret areas by freezing certain enemies in just the right place or floating up through water jets. The penguin suit is a much more powerful frog suit from Mario 3. It gives you extreme swimming power, ice flower power, you can run and slide, and let’s be honest who doesn’t look good in a penguin suit? Finally the game designers seemed to add a challenge to the game with the mini mushroom, which isn’t exactly a power up, but does allow you to run on water and go into tiny pipes. Our only complaint is that you don’t see Yoshi enough throughout the game and you don’t get to keep him when you beat the level with him.

The fun begins when you play with multiple people, actually the more people you play with the more difficult the game becomes. Everyone gets in everyone’s way and death rates quickly mount. ZM and myself beat the game after a few days with considerable swearing, threats, and tons of laughs. Unlike the earlier Super Mario Brothers games, where even in two player mode you are basically just playing one player games, this time you are all in the level at the same time. What’s worse is that you get into each other’s way, can pick each other up, throw things at each other, kill each other, and generally make even the simplest level turn into absolute chaos. Yoshi also becomes more fun with multiple players as you can eat your friends and then spit them out where ever need be. Another version of the multiplayer game are the battles, the coin battles being the most fun in our opinion. Here all the chaos makes sense, you have to kill the other players and get the coins. We honestly spent hours playing this part of the game sometimes getting very few coins because most of our time was spent trying to murder each other.

Sadly had this game existed when we were children ZM and myself would have been the fat losers we described in out hardcore gamer list. OW has flexed it’s mighty arms and world is turning back towards fun 2D games instead of realistic wastes of graphics. The game derives it’s strength from it’s simplicity, the graphics are crisp and fun, and the game play is fully enjoyable. The only confusion is why two random toads come along for the adventure instead of one of the other cast of characters. The toads can become a little confusing in the multiplayer games with all the color changes and what not (especially when they both have afire flower or an ice flower). Some reviewers criticize the game because there isn’t an online way to play. To them we say “get real friends, you losers.” Half the fun is yelling at each other while you’re in the same room. If that’s your one complaint about the game you’re only complaining for the sake of complaining, and you probably have no real friends.

Nintendo need not fear, OW will continue it’s support for the time being, but our expectations have been raised. We hope Nintendo follows up with a new Zelda game on the Wii with the same format as Link to the Past (and why not make that a multiplayer game also). Sega on the other hand continues to be on our shit list and will still not be allowed to make a new system. For now they are denigrated to making games for their one time biggest competitors until we decide otherwise. As for the other game produces they should take note of the power we here at OW wield. With a single swipe of the OW sword companies fall, lives are changed, and fates are decided. We hope the age of realism in games is in it’s death throws. If not we might have to make some decisions, no longer will OW sit idly by while terrible games like Pokemon, Sonic the hedgehog, and Killzone 2 are made. Gaming industry you’ve been warned!

Our Rating:

Today the particle accelerator in Geneva has been fired up, some scientist think this experiment might create a black hole (alias a small amount of neutron matter=neutron star=black hole) do you think we are looking at a power source similar to the romulan one? spoken of in the episode of TNG “Time Squared” just curious about your opinion, I hope it will bring us closer to dilithium crystal fusion

There are so many things wrong with this question I have no idea where to start. Neutron matter does not equal neutron star which does not equal a black hole. They are very different things. I have no idea what Romulans use for power but do know that there is no such thing as dilithium crystals. Lithium is the third element in the periodic table and contains one electron in it’s valence shell. It is highly reactive and quickly forms a black oxide layer when exposed to moist environments. It can be made into crystals which form a BCC unit cell that contain 2 atoms per cell. That being said the word dilithium is meaningless. Our opinion is that you, like most of our readers, is a gigantic weirdo who thinks they understand science because they like Start Trek. The accelerator in Geneva will bring us no closer to understanding an episode of Star Trek, it may bring us closer to understanding how the universe was created and fundamentals of subatomic particles.

Where and when did the letter Q come from?

From the alphabet. It’s roots are from the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph and semitic word for ‘cord of wool.’ The exact when is up for debate as written records for that time tend to not write about the written records themselves.

Will they ever do a Star Trek Voyager movie?

Let’s hope not. God was that show terrible. They only thing that saved it was that we got to see the Borg own a good 1/4 of the galaxy. That was great. They should do an entire show on the Borg. I hated that show.

In the episode The Naked Now Just before the star collapses, the Enterprise is seen, in orbit, hovering over the Tsiolkovsky. But in the next scene, the star collapses and the Enterprise is 15 minutes away.

Really!?!? In the next scene!?!? Wow, hmmm, does that mean the advanced the story without the permission of the viewer? Wait is this even a question or are you just telling us that it happened. I don’t understand.

Why has no one ever recorded the lyrics to the original Star Trek theme?

Are there lyrics to the star trek theme? I thought it was because Gene Roddenberry loved classical music and just wanted a simple intro. Who cares?

In the holodeck, Data throws a rock at the wall. It hits the wall and the image of green plants temporarily blurs into squares. Shouldn’t the holodeck dissolve the rock and show a picture of the rock landing on the ground?

What!?!? That’s terrible. Those holodecks are always causing problems. I guess you’re right I don’t know though.

Ask Old-Wizard, Star Trek Edition, Part 1

Why do Americans hate the French so much?

Good question, I don’t know the exact answer. If it wasn’t for the French we wouldn’t have won the Revolutionary War, we wouldn’t have bought the Louisiana territory (an incredibly cheap deal made between Jefferson and Napoleon because the later needed some quick cash to trash the rest of Europe), or the Statue of Liberty. Historically we should like them, but they smell bad, eat weird things, have bad attitudes, and won’t give you extra syrup for hot cakes at McDonalds. Maybe the reason we don’t like them is that we had to save their asses twice from the Germans and still they had bad attitudes

Why are vacations in France longer than in the US?

I want to say that the French are lazy, because that would be funny, but I actually agree with this one. Stress at the work place is far from productive and vacations help get rid of that.

I am going to Paris. What do I HAVE to do while I am there?

I went to Paris once too. My hotel was near the Eiffel Tower,  at least I think. Somewhere within walking distance from the hotel is a McDonalds, it’s on a corner if that helps. Go into this McDonalds during the morning hours and order hot cakes, if they are still on the menu ( I haven’t eaten at one in many years). Now this set of hot cakes will come with one syrup cup, which by American standards is far from enough. Pay attention because this is the tricky part, return to the counter and ask for an extra syrup cup. Most likely they will give you a shitty attitude, don’t let that phase you, stay strong and get your extra syrup…..for America. This is something you HAVE to do while you are there.

I went to France.  The people were great what did you think?

You are obviously a French infiltrator trying to manipulate the opinions of us good and decent people. Nice try, we know you are all salty and superior acting, even though you are sticky and stupid. Nice try, Frenchman!

Have you ever had your picture taken with the Eiffel Tower as background?

Yes.

What is the worst time to say “Voila!”?

Right when you take your pants off.

What are some Napoleonic war strategies?

Well there’s the classic pincher move, the loopty loop, the 5 second rule, no givesys backsies, the Indian arm burn, calling it, running away, popping a wheelie, the human shield, bending, attack and release, and so on.

10. The first comment is “epic fail”

Epic fail is the go to phrase for the disappointed or angry nerd. Most of these dregs spend so much time playing video games, reading about video games, and being big fat smelly morons that their brains have been turned to mush. Therefore they go for the simplest and easiest way to express their feelings. The fact that this little sentence has three syllables is almost more than the average nerd can bear, hence the even simpler phrase “fail”. Most nerds don’t or can’t read an entire OW article, there are too many words, punctuation marks, and the like. Usually they look at the pictures, read the titles, and then check to see if they should agree with it or write one of the two mentioned phrases above. OW is full of great jokes, deep insight, and thought provoking ideas. But because the average nerd can’t read, most of these gems stay buried in the verdant ore that is OW. One of the best ways to check if you are reading an OW article is to look at the first comment and if its “epic fail” you’re there.

9. You’re at Work and All The Real Gaming Sites Are Blocked

Finally a gaming site that isn’t blocked, thank God. Those TPS reports can do themselves, and who can remember if there is supposed to be a cover sheet these days?  Hmmm this is interesting, it seems to be Nintendo themed but they make fun of Nintendo games, and what are these music lists all about?  That’s weird for a video game site. Strange there doesn’t seem to be any reviews of new games, and boy do they hate Sega. Ahhhh finally some serious articles on violence in video games, its about time somebody started a dialogue on this issue. Wait, I don’t remember Louisiana being like that, and I’m pretty sure Q-bert is on a pyramid not stairs, this doesn’t seem serious at all. Actually these articles are almost irresponsible in the obviously cavalier attitude they are taking about a potentially serious issue. Man I’m starting to use big words too, and for no reason, this website is having a strange effect on me. Okay I guess I’ll just start reading some of their lists…what! This is outrageous, I haven’t finished reading the whole article but now I’m going to leave an angry comment because just the intro to this has mad me so pissed off. Well now I’m distracted from work, angry, and I know I’m not going to be able to get anything done. Stupid website.

8. Full of Pretentious words

To compensate for their lack of wit and jocularity, Old-Wizard uses tangential phrases and tropes to cover their lack of substantiality. Always looking for new ways to say obvious thoughts, Old-Wizard gets out the thesaurus consistently to shower their harangues with a maelstrom of verbosity. What ostensibly appears as a grandiose style is really just a flatulent and purloined panache of hubris. Old-Wizard never makes an admonition towards the exigency of a dictionary when glossematizing their virtual parchments. They just want the reader to suffer through their idiosyncratic language like trying to solve a Rebus. The Old-Wizard Rebus; an eternal elegy for enantiodrama.

7. Not Very Funny

If OW is anything it’s not funny. Boy do we try though, but no matter what we do we just piss people off. Little did we know that nerds can’t take a joke. And God forbid you contradict the generic opinions on all the nerd forums. Nope, the only things that are funny are the things that people have already agreed are funny, oh and cat pictures with weird words typed on them. Those are funny. Mainly because of the extra ‘z’s everywhere. For some reason nerds like to see “z”s in cat pictures but do not like rap or hip hop because of the extra z’s and miss pronunciation of words. Just to be clear cat pictures are good because of the miss spelled words and extra z’s, rap/hip hop bad because of the miss pronounced words and extra z’s. According to the nerd community, as expressed through comments on our webpage and nerd forums, all OW does is make fun of stereotypes and that’s not funny. If, on the other hand, we posted pictures of cats we would be geniuses. We have learned that the only thing you can’t make fun of in the nerd community is the nerds themselves. Even when it’s not only funny but also true, which is the best kind of funny in our book. No OW is just a big mean website that is the bully of the internet community.

6. Not Very Insightful

God these jerks are so shallow. All they do is make fun of how fat, smelly, and gross I am. I’m so tired of hearing how I live in my parent’s basement, how my t-shirts aren’t funny, how extra baggy shorts which go down to my shoes aren’t pants, how there are more colors than black, how being a virgin isn’t a choice, how doing exactly what my gamer friends do isn’t unique, and how not taking my personal hygiene seriously is a big deal. Let’s be honest I don’t want to be another one of those corporate robots who go to work, have friends, hang out in public, have girlfriends, have money, have parties, have fun, laugh, go outside during the day, dress nice, shower, and generally look happy and presentable. They are only doing that because society dictates they have to. No, no, I’m happy in my little basement paradise. I love that nobody takes me seriously, that I don’t leave my mark on the world, that I haven’t contributed anything to society, that I just sit here and consume other people’s ideas and then rant how I could do it better using my parent’s computer and internet connection and then never doing it. No, I’m happy and this website never makes me think at all. Just because they write things I’ve never read before and have opinions I’ve never heard before doesn’t make them as cool as they think they are. Nope I’m going to go on my favorite forum and agree with everyone else about whatever they already think is cool.

5. You’re Offended

On many occasions we have stated that we are only creating this website for our own personal entertainment. We don’t care what most people think, and we are never happier than when people write us angrily disagreeing with our opinions. Generally speaking we despise all things mainstream and rarely agree with the internet status quo. Despite this, our readership keeps growing and over 80% of those coming to OW return. We can only assume that we are so smart, so far above average, so much better, and so different than you that it pisses you off to know end. One of the things we love above all is making fun of stereotypes. First because they are funny, and secondly people actually believe them. Go to a comicon, electronics trade show, or any other nerdfest and tell me that stereotypes don’t exists. All of these people are dressed exactly the same, terribly dressed I might add, and all of them claim to be unique or different. How? You look just like the next fat slob. Oh its society’s problem, no my friend it’s yours! You not taking your own appearance seriously is your problem, not society’s. The uniqueness of a person lies only in the personality, looking like, acting like, and dressing like a scum bag does in fact make you a scum bag. Are you offended? You should be.

4. You’re Bored

If OW is one thing its boring. All the articles are the same. Yes we get it Sega sucks, how many different ways can these idiots possibly say that? Yes, yes Oasis is the best and it’s completely obvious that the Beatles copied them. Man reading these articles makes me sleepy, not angry, nope just sleepy. Everything on this place is exactly the same as everything else on the internet. Nope, nothing new here all, the same and so boring. Oh look they think Mario is better than Sonic, well who doesn’t?  Nobody in their right mind would like Sonic more. Yup they think Sonic is a copy of Mario too, well so does everybody, who cares? Yeah this place isn’t different who cares blah, blah, blah. Its all the same.

3. Mentions Oasis

It should be known that the only person here at OW that truly loves Oasis is ZM. His office at OWHQ is a veritable shrine to them. What’s worse is that there is absolutely no arguing with him about it at all. He knows so many stats, figures, and facts that you become instantly bogged down in numbers, conspiracy theories, and youtube videos. Once we had an intervention with all of our friends and family. Afterword he had convinced five new people about the superiority of Oasis and sold copies of his CDs, needless to say it was a total disaster. What’s worse is that he tries to get the staff to slip his ideas into their articles. If you’re writing anything positive about music you’ll hear, “Oasis has to be number one, to keep the website consistent.” Why we have to be consistent about Oasis and absolutely nothing else completely escapes both myself and DM entirely. Hopefully this article makes it past the ZM edit, we’ll see, as he is relentless in his campaign to make sure everyone knows how awesome he thinks Oasis is.  DM and I have completely different musical tastes both from each other and from ZM, but he pays the bills so we are stuck. Go Oasis, Noel Gallager for life, Wonderwall, yeah!

2. Makes fun of Sega

Sega sucks. I know we have beaten that horse to death but we here at OW want to make sure we are on record about our feelings on this issue. If for some reason you are confused about who wrote the article see if it makes fun of Sega for no reason at all. I once wrote an article about economic sustainability of the Ecuadorian grape market as it relates to the Chilean wine industry and was able to slip a backhanded insult about Sega into the article. Our obsession with the destruction of Sega knows absolutely no bounds and may be the only thing consistent about this website. There isn’t any point in rehashing all the details about why we think Sega sucks, suffice it to say they aren’t in business anymore and are now making games for Nintendo. You can say whatever you want, come up with whatever argument you want; oh Sega was more creative, Sega was art, Sega was this, Sega was that, yeah well, Sega doesn’t make a system anymore. They failed. That is the crux of our argument and we always win our arguments. It’s hard to deny the facts, friends.

1. Written by Zeromage

ZM is the backbone of this bad boy and maybe the shoulders too. Definitely, the backbone, and the shoulders, oh and the brains. ZM is those three things, the backbone, the shoulders, the brains, and the heart. Hmmm, among the many analogies to the human body that ZM represents in reference to the website old-wizard.com he is; the backbone, the shoulders, the heart, the brains, and the lower intestine (because of all the poo this place puts out). He definitely writes the most, but he also stay on top of the rest of us to get shit done too. We all get those IM’s asking if we have the blurbs done or the phone call to shoot some ideas around. Never in my life have I talked to one person so much about how to piss off as many people as possible as I have with ZM. Though pissing off people isn’t really our mission all the time, maybe 25%, generally our opinions are really just that much different from the generic nerdy slobs your find in the N4g forums. There is no doubt however that without this dedicated effort there would be no OW and the world would most certainly be a better place. All those angry nerds could just be mad at is themselves for how much their lives suck. Now thanks to ZM we here at OW have become the scapegoat. So get back on those forums and make sure the world knows just how mad you are at us for pointing out the truth. That’s right we’re not making fun of you we’re telling you the truth….fatty.

Is Mario And luigi gay lovers?

No they are brothers.

Is the Mario Bros real?

Yes they are. They are two brothers who eat mushrooms and flowers, wear weird suits and capes, and save princesses from gigantic lizards. We thought that this was obvious.

How old are Mario and Luigi?

Depends. Did they go straight to trade school right out of high school? Did they apprentice right away? Maybe they decided to travel the world first, find themselves, see the aqueducts, and once they understood what it truly meant to be a plumber, then go back to school. So they could be anywhere between 18 and 40.

Why can’t Sonic be better than Mario My brother always was thinking that Sonic is better?

Your brother is obviously stupid. Sonic is not a bad game it’s just not a great game. You see, Mario Brothers is ground breaking, creative, and, at the time, completely new and different. Mario pushes the borders of gaming. Sonic, and Sega in general, are more of the status quo. Sonic was derivative, which means ‘loose copy of.’ You see, in terms of marketing it was close enough to Mario, but also just different enough to attempt compete with Mario. Sega was never capable of being truly new and innovative, they only pushed the boundary for the sake of pushing boundary, which is one of the many reasons they failed. Sonic can’t be better than Mario because Mario is better than Sonic. Do you see? It’s really quite simple.

In recent centuries the world has been racked with animal on animal violence. You need not look further than Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, and sometimes History Channel (check local listings). Every where we look some animal is killing another animal. But why? Is it for food? Are the creatures pre-programed to hate each other? Or has gang warfare spilled over into the animal kingdom? Only recently, since man has evolved hunting and tracking capabilities, has human on animal violence escalated. Some people, so called ’scientists’, have postulated that these behaviors are what allowed human beings to become the dominate species on our planet. A quick look out the window, if you live in an urban area at least, shows you that yes there are a lot of humans everywhere. But why has modern man chosen to still attack, kill, capture, and even eat animals? Is it because proteins obtained from meat and poultry are essential to a healthy diet? Is it because a number of domesticated species would no longer be able to survive on their own without human intervention? Or is it because of the destructive influence a certain video game has had on the populace?  As we have shown in previous articles, all violence in society can be blamed on video games, so it only make sense that animal cruelty must also be the fault of video games.

The game blamed for this recent surge in animal violence is, of course, Pokemon. In the game young children are encouraged to run away from home, live in remote areas, capture rare animals by forcing them to fight other rare animals, and then force them to live in small balls. A trip to a local pet store is all one needs to see the destructive influence Pokemon has had on the average pet owners. Small plastic balls are readily available for a number of different species. These balls force the animal to roam the house, walking in their own waste, attempting to free themselves before they are thrown at another animal and forced to fight it out for no reason what so ever. Small groups of children have been found wondering state parks attempting to capture animals and force them to fight each other. In a number of incidents the animals turned on their owners and mauled them. Not too long ago Michael Vick, and avid Pokemon fan, was arrested for running a dog fighting ring.

What is more disturbing is the far reaching nature of Pokemon. Because the advertising campaign was so wide spread and most people are so stupid, nearly everyone in the targeted age group was quickly swept up in the so called ‘pokemania’ leading to ‘poke-animal-abuse,’ ‘poke-black-market-trafficking,’ and eventually ‘poke-federal-prison.’ The U.S. Federal prison system is brimming with twelve year olds who played pokemon and then tried to buy a lion cub on the black market. Children could be seen jumping the protective barriers at zoo’s attempting to catch a rhino or battle a bear. Fighting fish sales jumped through the roof. Dog fighting, cat fighting, and in one disturbing case sheep fighting rings popped up with alarming numbers. Throughout the nineties and into the 2000’s local and federal agencies worked tirelessly to stop young kids from becoming wrapped up in the Poke-craze that put so many in jail. Similar to the DARE program, “Don’t catch any of them” campaigns were started. Though they had some impact little could be done to stop this violent trend.

Finally the poke-phenomenon has started to fade and so have the animal fighting rings. These strange events have shown us once again that video games cause more problems than the solve. If it weren’t for Pokemon most of the world would probably be vegetarian. With every new release of ‘different versions’ of Pokemon fears of violent resurgence worry the animal lover community.

10. Mac Fans

Macintosh computers are the popular kids of the computing industry. They are shiny, pretty, never get sick, and all generally look the same. For those with the money and with little computing ability they are great computers. The average Mac fan on the other hand is quite the opposite. They are the arm chair liberals, dirty stinking hippies, you know the type. The white kid with dreads, the hippie girl with a trust fund, your average coffee shop customer who loves to type in public over the latest latte flavor. These people are so annoying and only bought their computer because it fits into their pre-determined self image. When asked why they love to recite the TV commercials; “Oh they are so intuitive” or the ever popular “They never get viruses.” There are plenty of reasons to use a Macintosh; the proprietary hardware and software guarantees, better integration between the two, faster graphic computing ability, and simple one version OS to name a few. But that’s not why these annoying people buy them, they just love their pretty little shiny thing and love to tell people about their self righteous purchase.

9. Star Trek Fans

Star Trek is a great show, it has good plot lines based on intelligent problem solving, and it also has terrible fans. They are the bullies of the nerd world. They have their own conventions, their own languages, and they don’t like anybody else liking the thing that they love. In fact when the show Babylon 5 came out Star Trek fans were so incensed that someone would create another science fiction series that they began to attack the creator of the series. In one such event a virus was sent to him disguised as his a drawing from his toddler son. The virus destroyed his hard drive and left behind a Easter Egg claiming “Star Trek Rules”.  When Next Generation came out fans were also angered that someone other than Kirk was allowed to command the Enterprise. Star Trek fans live behind this ‘how dare you’ attitude that prevents anyone from doing anything that changes the status quo of the Star Trek universe. If they had it their way the only series ever would have been the original one, the only captain ever would have been Kirk, and nobody who doesn’t already speak Klingon would be allowed to watch the show. In fact most of the show would be in Klingon. Once again the fans of the show ruin the show. The only revenge us normals have on them is the new movie which was geniusly directed by JJ Abrams. I almost jumped out of my seat when watching Vulcan explode. No revenge could be sweater on the obsessive Star Trek fan then making the thing that they love a popular summer block buster. I mean who would have ever expected that Spock and Uhura would have a secret romance brewing. Yes the Star Trek fan is a terrible person but now that Star Trek is hip and Vulcan is destroyed perhaps their days will be numbered.

8. Heavy Metal Fans

Heavy metal fans are a lot like hardcore gamers. In fact if you drew a Venn diagram of hardcore gamers and heavy metal fans they would intersect quite a bit. Where some people drowned their sorrows in their parent’s basement by playing video games, some go out to heavy metal shows, dressed in the stereotypical all black, and mosh or headbang. When you think about moshing, its just a bunch of guys rubbing on each other, which, if you think about it, is kind of gay. Just like the hardcore gamer there are very few girls at these events, as most girls don’t like heavy metal. This further frustrates the heavy metal fan and leads to further violence amongst them. The heavy metal fan also likes to claim that they are railing against the life of the common man, the average, or the normal people. They do this by dressing exactly the same, wearing the same color, growing their hair long, and doing whatever they can to become indistinguishable from the next fan. This little contradiction never cross the heavy metal fan’s mind. Sadly, we here at OW love a number of heavy metal bands and have been to a number of heavy metal shows. Oddly enough we dressed in our typical jeans and a t-shirt where the most unique people at the show. One time I had to go straight from work which had me where a white polo. For those who don’t know white is the only color that can physically harm the heavy metal fan. Anyway I got a lot of bad looks at that show.

7. Pokemon Fans

Anyone worth their salt knows that these games were just one gigantic marketing campaign aimed at loosening the wallets of parents with young kids. We here at OW love Nintendo, but these ‘games’ are so stupid even we can’t support them. Each game is exactly the same and named after a different color, mineral, or gem. What’s worse is that the kids who loved Pokemon when they were young have now grown up and the brainwashing hasn’t worn off with time. They still swear up and down that these games are the greatest things ever and some even dare to refer to them as RPG’s. None of them have the ability to see that somewhere in Japan a marketing team came up with the most brilliant sales pitch ever. “Gotta catch em’ all.” And believe me they did. The caught all the games, all the action figures, all the playing cards, the t-shirts, the shoes, and just about anything else they could get their grubby, brainwashed hands on. None of them realize that each game is the exact same thing, that the cartoons, action figures, stuffed animals, and playing card game were all released at the same time. None of them realize that the simple catch phrases, bright colors, repetitive plot lines, and simple stories where only aimed at furthering their addiction. Nope they are all so stupid, so brainwashed, and so young they can’t see beyond the perfectly aimed marketing that they still, to this day think that pokemon was just a good game.

6. Dave Matthews Fans

Have you ever been to a Frat party? How do you feel about Birkenstocks? Backwards hats with curved brims? Greek letters? Chugging terrible beer? Keg stands? If the answer to each of these questions is resoundingly positive, then you may be  fan of the Dave Matthews Band. What is more interesting is that DMB is actually a talented band, with a  world renowned drummer, bassist, and saxophone player. Oh they also have this gigantic dude that plays violin. I don’t know if he is any good, and I don’t want to be the guy who tells him otherwise. In any case we here at OW generally like this band but boy do we hate the fans. They are either insanely obsessed or drunks looking for a party. Or sometimes both. We have even heard of DMB fans who will only listen to DMB because they claim nothing else is even worth it. Further research has even shown that there is an on going feud between DMB fans and Blink 182 fans. Why is completely beyond us. Going to a DMB show is like watching every jock, frat boy, and sorority slut get so hammered they forget they were even at the show. But don’t worry they have pictures on facebook to prove they were there.

5. Star Wars Fans

Some people worship God, others Allah, and others the dark lord himself. Star Wars fans, on the other hand, worship only George Lucas and accept everything he does as infallible perfection. The only movie that Lucas hasn’t ruined is his first original creation American Graffiti. And believe me if he could find a market for greaser action figures, the stores would already be packed. No Star Wars was ruined with twice for us at OW, first with the stupid remakes that added all sorts of crazy computer graphics in the background, and secondly with the prequels. We here at OW haven’t been able to watch anything Star Wars since viewing those tragedies. Yet the average Star Wars fan doesn’t see anything wrong with anything George Lucas does, in fact, they lap it up. ‘Hey look, he added Boba Fett into the scene even though he doesn’t need to be there and it really doesn’t make sense that he is there.’ Not only do Star Wars fans love these terrible creations, they will also buy anything with the Star Wars logo on it.  This includes; action figures, t-shirts, cups, costumes, shoes, curtains, underwear, soda cans, comic books, novels, pens, shoe laces, posters, fire places, pillows, dehumidifiers, carpets, coffee tables, no I’m not just naming things I see in my living room, and the list goes on and on and on and on. The worst thing about Star Wars fans is that they are the ones that ruined the thing they claim to love. Because they never held Lucas up to any type of scrutiny he has been able to roam free doing anything he wants ruining people’s childhoods and making money hand over fist while he does it. Star Wars fans are the mindless sycophants of the science fiction world and they have ruined the creation that they hold so dear.

4. Hulk Fans

In the world of comic books, there is no one more annoying fan than the Hulk fanboy.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with Hulk.  He’s a great character within his somewhat narrow boundaries, and when written properly he serves as a brilliant bridge into explorations of how the mind works and how we determine our basic humanity.  The problem is the fans who want to make Hulk into something he’s not.  No, he couldn’t really beat Superman, and that isn’t a bad thing.  He has so much more going for him than the Man of Steel as a character, though.   Unfortunately his full potential is never realized, as most writers use him as a big monster, going on mindless rampages until the real heroes take him down.   This is the reason most Hulk fans are about as dumb as he is.  The worst Hulk writing tries to bring him down to that level: just a big angry strong brick, with no complexity or torment, basically just a walking power set ready to smash anything in his way.   Hulk fans believe he can defeat anyone if he gets angry enough, I have even seen a thread on a forum where someone actually posted that the Hulk can return from being erased from reality by punching back into reality. I recall another Hulk fans even saying that the Hulk could defeat Galactus if he gets angry enough!  It is the biased stupidity of Hulk fans that I hate.  Its really the fact that both the Hulk and the Hulk’s fans think he’s unbeatable even though that is clearly not the case.  I don’t even mind delusional people as long as they aren’t trying to cram their delusions down my throat, and Hulk fans are notorious for this.

3. WoW Fans

I’m really not sure what I could say about World of Warcraft fans that South Park hasn’t already. They love this game as much as… say a crack head would love crack. They live, eat, and breath this game, and then inside the game they live eat and breath. In the real world the are generally disgusting slobs, far from the actors portraying them in the commercials. Are we to truly believe that playing World of Warcraft will make us as cool as William Shatner or that Shatner, with a very busy acting schedule would have time to play this game. When you hear about someone who started playing this game the inevitable reaction is “Oh, that sucks” as the realization sets in that you will never see that person again. When you hear of someone quitting the inevitable reactions is “Really! I’m glad to hear he’s getting his life back in order.” At a recent staff meeting, after the customary feats of strength and tale telling, we decided that  OW is going to open the first ever WoW rehabilitation center. All of the chairs will be extra big, the couches will have extra springs, and there will be no junk food, no TV, and certainly no internet access. We’ve decided that we can cure you in about six weeks at the nominal fee of $1000/week plus the cost of food. We may like to make fun of these people but were also happy to fix them…for a fee.

2. Phish Fans

What’s the difference between a  DMB fan and a Phish fan? Drug use. Your average DMB fan drinks a lot of beer, smokes some weed, and depending on how rich and white they are, do a little coke. Your average Phish fan is on everything from LSD to Heroin almost all the time. Where the DMB fan wears clean pressed button up shirts, the Phish fan might change cloths once or twice a year and generally walks around smelling like patchouli oil. Which, by the way, barely covers up the constant weed smell, since they smoke pot like cigarettes. Much like the DMB fan they are obsessed with all things Phish. OW has even heard stories about fans doing Heroin because lead singer Trey Anastasio was doing it. The difference being they were dirt poor, couldn’t afford it, and generally don’t have jobs. Much like the DMB fan, we here at OW enjoy most of Phish’s albums but, once again, there fans are terrible people who try to pretend it’s still the seventies. If it wasn’t for this band the tie dye industry would have disappeared years ago. Yet despite OW’s best efforts people still buy these terrible t-shirts.

1. Sega Fans

Sega fans can be summed up in one simple word: delusional. Let’s look at the facts; Sega has only had one successful system, it’s most famous character is an obvious copy of Mario, and has gone out of business at least once. They were so bad at making video games systems they had to quit. Despite this Sega fans still think that this is a good company. They still think that Sega is better than any other system. This obviously makes no sense, since, at the time there are no Sega systems. They failed. In order to save the company from complete destruction they had to start making games for their arch-enemy Nintendo. Sega has been reduced to a mere video game production company. Still the average Sega fans worship the failed company. This is equivalent to supporting the failed the candidate, following the loser of the war, or living in the burned out house. None of this makes sense. The average Sega fan however refuses to recognize that they worship a fallen hero. We here at OW have made it our mission to save these people from their own stupidity however, to date, we haven’t been able to recover any of them. This may because they are just too far gone, their minds warped, there bodies weak and frail, and their sanity completely lost. Still we refuse to give up. Eventually they will realize that even their own leader doesn’t own a Sega system and the halls of Sega fan HQ are hollowed. Eventually the light that is OW will bring these lost souls home where they can find whatever gaming system they so choose, as long as it’s still in business.

BEST FAN OF OLD-WIZARD

The Nominees:

David MacPhail
David McLeod
Gamer Muzz
Real Zeromage
Master Barker

And the winner is… David MacPhail!

This guy loves to read our website the same way we jump out of bed on Saturday mornings to watch Pokemon. Actually we hate Pokemon and have never watched it. David here, on the other hand, loves this website. He reads every article and leaves a comment on almost all of them. Unfortunately, however, we recently had to take out a restraining order on him because he was seen parked out front of OWHQ way too often. And with our late nights we can’t have this psycho lurking around trying to kill us. So, for that reason he wasn’t able to attend the Wizzies this year, so we will be accepting his award for him and will pass it along through our lawyers and the appropriate authorities.

BEST COMMENT ON OLD-WIZARD.COM

The Nominees:

Master Barker on “Horoscope by DestructoMaximo”
PHill on “Mail Bag Aug 14, 2008”
gameraXis on “Top 10 Ways to Tell If You’re a Hardcore Gamer”
Delta on “Superman vs Thor”
Vintage Junkie on “Top 5 Girls From the Wonder Years”

And the winner is…Delta!

As everyone knows Old-Wizard has the greatest/strangest set of fans. They either love us or they hate us. We have yet to find someone who thinks we’re okay. Either way our best fans/haters leave rather long, rather well thought out arguments. One of the longest was by Delta. Unfortunately we have no idea who Delta is, so we’ll accept his award for him. To be honest, we didn’t read this whole comment. Its long, and if you’re a fan of the website you’re well aware of our laziness and general lack of a work ethic. In any case, congrats, Delta and good job. I’m sure in some very small way you’ve changed the world.

BEST ARTICLE

The Nominees:

Is this a Unified Theory of the Brain?

Sega Gate!

And the winner is…Sega Gate!

Sure a theory of the brain is good and all, but Sega Gate showed that the leader of the Sega fan-boys never even owned a Sega system. I mean how much more ground breaking can it get? Here are all these deluded, confused, and rather unintelligent folks running around thinking that Sega was a good company. Then, with a little research and a lot of elbow grease, we find out that their crazed leader doesn’t even own any of the Sega Systems, completely pulling the rug out from under them. This scandal, of course, sent the hordes of Sega fans into a descending spiral of chaos.  Many were mauled to death, some ran to the hills to start small shanty towns, others went into extreme shock therapy programs and eventually realized that Sega was just gigantic failure and are now doing well.  And it was all thanks to Old-Wizard’s groundbreaking investigative report.

BEST WRITER

The Nominees:

Stephen King
Tom Robbins
Zeromage
DestructoMaximo
Sage

And the winner is… A three way tie between ZM, DM and Sage!

Accepting the award will be ZM, no wait, it seems DM is coming too!  And not to be out-done, Sage is getting up out of his seat as well. Interestingly DM and ZM have locked eyes and are circling each other in a rather animalistic manner. Ahhh Sage has made it to the stage, oh my God ZM and DM have tackled Sage and the three of them are rolling around in a rather comic cloud of dust. Now it seems that DM has bashed the other two over the head and is walking off with the now blood stained Wizzie. Well I’m sure those crazy kids will work it out.

BEST AWARDS

The Nominees:

The Wizzies
The Grammies
The Oscars
The Tonys
The Nobel Prize

And the winner is… The Wizzies!

Of all the award shows out there, we here at OW and the Wizzies are so excited that we have won our own award. I mean these other awards are important, but the Wizzy is the only one that we just made up and decided was really important. Only the best win the Wizzies, and since the Wizzies won the Wizzies, it follows that the Wizzies are the most important awards of them all. Winning this award makes all the work we put into them worth it. Thanks again to the Wizzies, and better luck next year to the others.

WORST WEBSITE:

The Nominees:

InmatesForYou.com
hamsterdance.com
myspace.com
pokemon.com
Seganerds.com

And the winner is…Sega Nerds!

Seganerds.com is a lot like a support group for people who refuse to move on. You see Sega is largely a failed company that had 5 descent games total, and that’s counting games from all of their failed systems. Generally speaking, the only thing memorable about Sega is Sonic, and Sonic is an obvious copy of Mario. Sega is terrible waste of video gaming and these people are terrible wastes of gamers who sit and sulk about how no one likes Sega. These degenerates truly believe that Sega is good company and that it actually made good games.  Its sort of like thinking Yugos were good cars, Skids were cool pants, and Enron was a good investment. In any case, this is a terrible website for terrible people, and for some reason the Sega nerds didn’t show up to the awards so we will accept it for them.

BEST WEBSITE

The Nominees:

Old-Wizard.com
Google
CNN
Wikipedia
Yahoo
Ebay

And the winner is… Old-Wizard.com!

Wow this is truly an honor. First we would like to thank Old-Wizard.com for honoring us, Old-Wizard.com. It truly shows how great a website like O-W is to honor O-W the way they have. We would also like to thank the great websites we were competing against. Google, because we probably use it more than we do our own website. Special thanks also to Wikipedia, we love this site so much.  First because you can change the articles and make them say ridiculous things, and second because it’s the site we use to do all our fact checking. Which may have led to a number of errors because of the former. Thanks again to O-W but we have to go because we have some auctions ending on EBay and we have to make sure we win.

Arthur asks, Who is the oldest brother in Super Mario Brothers?

Mario.

Ken K. asks, If the Super Mario theme could have lyrics, what would they say?

This is a surprisingly good question. What would the Mario brothers lyrics say? Would it be a theme to the working man and the struggling plumber? Or perhaps they would be more whimsical to reflect the strange situation that the brothers find themselves in. Maybe they would be an epic trilogy describing the plight of the mushroom kingdom, the arrival of the Mario and Luigi as the saviors, and the eventual defeat of the evil King Koopa. Might they include references to drug use and abuse that the game itself hints at, or maybe they are very serious to reflect goal of saving a kidnapped princess? Unfortunately we will never know what words we should sing along to this masterpiece of video gaming, but it is certainly fun to think about.

Jimmy asks, Why do I have that Super Mario Bros. (the original) song in my head?

Maybe you are subconsciously trying to figure out the lyrics.

Adam asks, Are mac computers better then dell computers?

Macintosh and all things apple.

Paul asks, What is the Illuminati conspiracy?

Something to do with candles I bet. I think when the light bulb was invented the candle industry got worried so they started this crazy rumor that light bulbs have an STD. Then the light bulb industry got all pissed off because they obviously don’t have an STD and started saying that the candle industry is a liar and is always so fake. So then the light bulb industry was totally like “Not Uh” and decided to go shopping with all it’s new money. But then they totally saw each other at the mall and the candle industry was all like “I saw your boyfriend making out with lighter industry after you guys were going steady” and the light bulb industry was like ” So, I made out with wick industry while you guys were going out before me and the lighter industry hooked up, and the lighter industry left you because you’re old” and then the candle industry is like “Bitch I dumped the lighter industry cus they’re totally lame and you guys can just go be lame together, I totally don’t care.” Then they started pulling each others hair or something.