GTA

(With apologies to Lead Belly and Credence Clearwater Revival.)

When I was a little bitty baby

My mama put Rockstar in my cradle,

Oh, the old GTA back home;

It was down in Coral Gables,

Just about a mile from Thompson's stables,

With the old GTA back home.

Oh, when Hillary's pigs come rootin'

You can't do very much shootin',

In the old GTA back home.

It was down in Coral Gables,

Just about a mile from Thompson's stables,

With the old GTA back home.

When I was a little bitty baby

My mama put Rockstar in my cradle,

Oh, the old GTA back home;

It was down in Coral Gables,

Just about a mile from Thompson's stables,

With the old GTA back home.

Oh, when Jack the jackass starts brayin'

You can't do very much slayin',

In the old GTA back home.

It was down in Coral Gables,

Just about a mile from Thompson's stables,

With the old GTA back home.

(Instrumental bridge)

When I was a little bitty baby

My mama put Rockstar in my cradle,

Oh, the old GTA back home;

It was down in Coral Gables,

Just about a mile from Thompson's stables,

With the old GTA back home,

With the old GTA back home.

Ristorante Ecoli Hamburg Now Open!

First we took Staunton — now we take Hamburg! Ristorante Ecoli Hamburg is now open for business!

Unfortunately, we had to get rid of the sniper rifle on the balcony due to local gun laws. But you can try our fresh bean sprouts at half price! A little complimentary surprise with every dish of bean sprouts!

Or visit us on the web:

http://www.grandtheftwiki.com/Ristorante_Ecoli

Dude, not funny? Well, then take it as a public service announcement.

Don't eat sprouts. Ever.

If you eat sprouts, you're asking for E. coli. (If the feds have to outlaw something, they should outlaw sprouts instead of weed. But I digress.)

Who eats that shit, anyway? I mean, really.

It's esthetically praiseworthy if you don't want to go the way of the beached whale, but steering clear of high-fructose corn syrup should be enough. Don't have to ingest those germ plants.

At least we know now why it's called Germany.

Quote of the Day

"If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right."

— Kenny Rogers, "The Gambler."

Sayonara, Bill Gates

I just fired Bill Gates. Explorer crashed on me once too often, so I made Google Chrome my default browser. I'm already using Open Office, and my next computer will probably run Linux.

Microsoft? More like Maxicrap.

That's capitalism, Bill: You manufacture crap, you go out of business. You won't be able to survive forever on the peons too dumb to install better software.

In related news, friend Kushal joins Reason and Liberty Central in applauding Google's decision to finally resist the Chinese commies.

"I wonder why the state's political power didn't get overturned in the US despite a complete freedom to call President Bush a jackass even while he was in the office."

If only it had.

I'm not quite sure, though, if he thinks pornography is damaging, or if he's just quoting the commies.

Me, I have never been damaged by pornography. On the contrary, things often get damaged due to a lack of porn:

Womb Raider: Legend Walkthrough, Level 1: San Francisco

Cut scene: Sarah gets a call from a law-abiding citizen that tells her that at a certain wedding chapel in San Francisco an illegal gay mass wedding is about to be perpetrated. McAllister flies her from Daft Manor to San Francisco. Shrub is airsick.

From Checkpoint 1, step forward to the front door of the wedding chapel. Interact with the door. It's locked. Shoot out the lock. Interact with the door again and Sarah kicks it open.

Enter the wedding chapel. Turn right and interact with the bronze reward in the vestibule to pick it up.

Enter the chapel proper. In the ensuing cut scene, Sarah reads the biblical riot act to the assembled homos.

Now be careful. The game is designed so that Sarah can't shoot the homos from the entrance or make it running down the aisle alive. Apparently, they're all with the Pink Pistols. At least that's what they pack (plus AKs and grenades), and they can make mincemeat of Sarah in seconds if she doesn't get out of the line of fire.

So jump to the first horizontal flagstaff either on the left or on the right wall. Swing along the wall from flagstaff to flagstaff. Jump to the altar and Checkpoint 2. Shoot the priest.

Take cover behind the stack of bibles on the altar. The homos' bullets cannot penetrate the bibles. Now you can gun them down at your leisure.

Pick up any health packs, grenades, AKs, and/or ammo the priest and the homos dropped. Grapple the rood, swing up to the ledge in the back. Grapple the A/C vent on the left. Duck in to pick up the silver reward.

Jump down. Interact with the stack of fake marriage licenses to set them on fire.

A short cut scene follows. Sarah spies something suspicious among the burning papers.

Roll forward, interact with the suspicious paper, jump back. This has to be done in quick succession, or Sarah will end up in the fire and burn to death.

Another cut scene: The paper turns out to be a piece of some document. The only intact words on it are: "Kenya Department of Health." Uh oh. That moment, a flashover sets the ceiling on fire. Seconds later, the roof near the front door collapses, barring that exit to Sarah.

Grapple the register in the floor. Drop down into the sewer whose fumes heat the homo chapel.

Proceed past Checkpoint 3 to the T intersection, shooting any sewer rats before they can bite Sarah. Turn left. Grab the ledge and pull up. Pick up the bronze reward.

Return to the intersection. Pass the branch to the chapel. Grapple swing across the main sewer. Turn around and grapple the bronze reward from the alcove on the other side.

Proceed along the side tunnel. Turn left into the second branch. Use the binoculars on the right wall. Shoot the crumbling section. Pick up the silver reward.

Return to the tunnel. Continue to the next main sewer. Jump in. In the cut scene, Sarah goes over a waterfall.

Swim ashore. Shoot the sewer rats on the ledge below the broken ladder. Grab the bottom iron spike. Swing up the iron spikes until you can jump to the lowest intact rung of the ladder. Shoot the rats above with the other hand.

Climb up the ladder. Shoot the manhole cover. Climb out into the basement to Checkpoint 4.

Grapple the vent under the stairs. Pick up the bronze reward.

Ascend the stairs to the waiting room of the abortion clinic. There's a phone on the deserted front desk. Don't touch it. The phone can be shot, but if that happens, the cops will come and shoot Sarah dead, and you'll have to revert to Checkpoint 4 and get the bronze reward again.

Shoot the mothers in the chairs in the head. Again, if you shoot them in the belly, a SWAT team will arrive and kill Sarah.

Shoot the medicine cabinet behind the desk (cabinet with Red Cross). Interact with the open cabinet to get the scalpel. Interact with the dead mothers to save the babies.

When Sarah has successfully performed the last Cesarean, bringing the gold reward into the world, a door in the back bursts open, releasing loads of nurses and doctors. If only one of them gets to the phone, Sarah's toast.

The nurses are unarmed, so you can shoot them at will. If you shoot a doctor, however, he will start throwing scalpels at Sarah. So you best use the AK to shoot the doctors, and try to target only one at a time. Once you kill the last nurse or doctor, Sarah climbs up to the roof, where McAllister picks her up with the helicopter.

Womb Raider: Legend Overview

Availability:

Womb Raider: Legend is banned in the UK, Australia, and Germany. It is, however, available at Wal-Mart for $19.99, in the same shelf space from which Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was pulled due to the hot coffee controversy. It even comes with a coupon from the Southboro Baptist Church for 10,000,000 hours of free internet access after your death.

Graphics:

Like with most video game heroines, Sarah Daft is designed to appear sexy to teenagers, or badass at times, rather than realistic. In the real world, nobody could run, climb, or swim in that dress or in those heels. Certainly not with a rifle slung over her back. Plus those twin pistols would of course be impossible to aim.

Personally, I'm annoyed by the fact that Sarah's a brunette. Well, you can't have everything. And that beehive hairstyle looks stupid, but must have been easier to animate than a braid. Honorable mention for challenging teenagers' assumptions about sexiness by giving Sarah those butt-ugly glasses. Plus she's somewhat less busty than the competition.

Otherwise, the graphics are impressive, like those wide open spaces Sarah can aimlessly ramble and even get lost in. The non-linearity, and sometimes sheer psychedelic surrealism, is beyond sane imagination. Only two words: turkey scene.

Cast of characters:

Sarah Daft

Sarah Daft is an adventurer, big-game hunter, and biblical scholar who seeks out sin and vice, fuelled by an obsession to execute the will of the great, ancient god. She is a superb athlete, fluent in a dozen hillbilly dialects, and will stop at nothing to get ahead.

When Sarah was crowned Miss Potato (she was the only contestant to have some teeth) in Womb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, and her adventure archeologist mentor Warmer von Cry continued to ignore her anyway, she murdered him and framed some weirdo Freemason/Shriner/Elk/whatever by the name of Elkhart for it. Now she's out to apply the final solution to all homos — and to all abortionists, drug fiends, fornicators, adulterers, and perverts, too.

McAllister:

An ex-Navy pilot that crash-landed one too many jetfighters on his carrier, McAllister now is Sarah's personal pilot and general right-hand (job) man. Always in contact with Sarah via her headset, he is able to instantly provide her with a wealth of misinformation by accessing spurious electronic reference resources, like Wikipedia and other online collateral misinformation databases. In his spare time, he tinkers around with electronics, developing new technology that might prove lethal to Gov. Daft in the field. In addition to being a savvy purveyor of all kinds of air disasters, McAllister is also a distinguished chef that has roasted whole bulls at some of the best barbecues in Arizona.

Shrub:

Shrub is Sarah's timid research assistant and a repository for a fantastic array of detailed biblical information. He confines his research to libraries and museums, however, concentrating on understanding and explaining what has already been found, as opposed to Sarah's search for new Sodoms. He's a fifteenth-year elementary student in special education and hasn't received his elementary school diploma because his belief that everything is connected to the great, ancient god makes it impossible for him to draw the boundaries required to stay in touch with reality.

Ollie:

Ollie's family has been with the Dafts for generations, and he has been the family butler since he was dishonorably discharged from the military in the eighties, just as his father before him. He moved into Daft Manor to stay as the only live-in staff when his wife died, before Sarah fell out of the idiot tree. He tends to all Sarah's household needs, going far beyond the duties of a traditional butler given Sarah's unusual lifestyle and pursuits, but he has never disappointed her. His loyalty to Sarah, her parents, and Daft Manor is beyond question.

Guns 'n' Gear:

Weapon-wise, Sarah starts out with just her twin pistols. Over the course of the game, she can acquire long guns, but she can carry only one long gun at a time: assault rifle, submachine gun, shotgun, or grenade launcher. If she picks up another long gun, she drops the one she had. She's got infinite ammo for her pistols, but she can carry only 150 rounds for her other gun. She can also acquire hand grenades (up to four) and health packs (up to three) which partially heal damage. What's more, Sarah starts out with binoculars, a flashlight, a magnetic grapple, and a headset to communicate with Shrub and McAllister.

Saving:

The game auto saves every time you pass a checkpoint. You can also save manually. However, when Sarah dies, or you reload a savegame, the game resumes at the previous checkpoint, so any progress past that point is lost.

Rewards:

Throughout each level there are hidden a number of bronze and silver statuettes, along with a single gold one. The more valuable rewards are of course harder to find. Once you have collected enough rewards, you can trade them for upgrades, like high capacity pistol magazines. Cheat codes can only be unlocked after you beat the "presidential election" minigame.

Quote of the Day

"I can't pay you and I wouldn't pay you if I could! Some young gang just jacked out the place! They took everything! You guys are useless. What kind of Yakuza are YOU anyway…? This ain't what I pay you goons for. If I wanted this kind of protection I'd have used the god damn police service."

— Uncle BJ, Grand Theft Auto III.