Relativity

M. C. Escher whispers, "Don't trip in here or you'll break every bone in your body. Twice!"

Video Game Development 101

In this 9-week class, each student will experience the roles of software engineer, artist, producer, designer, and audio composer.

Ken Harsha, in his role as engineer, asks current producer Jen Hollcroft about the streaming of assets in the game.

"We'll be streaming audio in-game," she replies, "and animations during cut-scenes."

Made Up Games

Tonight's Made Up Game takes place around the escalators in a 3-floor Macy's department store. Adam Carolla sneaks around silently while contestants scavenge grenades off the linoleum-tiled floors. The few who collect the grenades then load them into 8-foot long cardboard tubes. Mr. Carolla needs only to spill a little of his can of Diet Coke in view of a contestant to knock them out of the competition.

Round 2 features stop-motion animator Jon Berg as the director of a yoga class. He instructs his students to reach towards their outstretched toes. His eyes languish luxuriously across the long foot of a female student only to be stopped short when they meet with her unpopped-corn-kernel toes.

"Tabasco," he mutters.

Lost Dog Savers

The 'LDS' spies a lady driving a grey Mercedes Benz sedan past a Starbucks. The car slows and the door opens. She shoos a baby daschund out of the passenger door into the gutter.

"Shame on you!" one of the LDS shouts as the grey sedan speeds away.

Hours of investigative detective work lead the trio to an old Chicago apartment complex. A green Volkswagen Beetle zips into the parking lot as they question security. In the evening's dying light, exploring the lifeless landings in the forest of timber staircases feels like tip-toeing through an alien landscape captured within the vacuum of an empty snow globe.

Mall Tour

Joey and Dad visit shopping malls around the world.

At a Japanese mall, Marianne and Diana join Joey and Dad. Shoppers can rent a Skitter-like shopping 'racer' that has room for one adult and 1 child (with room for purchases). Joey and Dad enjoy swiftly coasting through the linoleum-covered floors, dodging walking shoppers and bumping into other Skitter riders.

In pods of eight racers, shoppers can also participate in several video game scenarios by wheeling into brightly lit multicolored elevators.

Joey and Dad fight valiantly against their on-screen adversaries along with seven other groups in Skitters. The gameplay consists of quick cuts of Japanese anime styled robots and Power Rangers protagonists battling.

GAME OVER!

It turns out that Marianne and Diana returned their Skitter racer and became separated from Joey and Dad. Dad borrows a friendly local's cel phone but is unsuccessful in calling Marianne's phone, becoming lost in the esoteric menu system.

Dad wheels through corridor, elevators and ramps into a meeting room where Ben Smith agonizes over last night's homework assignment entitled '10 most common math mistakes'.

Wild West Arena

Today's contestant is successful in defeating Wild Bill Hickock (played by Sam Elliott) finally finishing him with six shots to the face.

Fog Bank

Each episode begins with Steve waking up in a fog bank, still unclear about his identity.

Braking to a stop in a fast food parking lot, creeping.
Noticing children's silhouettes floating.
Rummaging through car floorboard flotsam for blue jeans fumbling.
Contorting his body reversing.
Inching backwards in a three point turn by a slowly moving car squeezing.
Gazing along the length of an impossibly long green Mercedes limousine barely grazing.
Spying the turquoise Hyundai 3-wheeled Trihawk-inspired coupe wondering.
Following the vehicle the fog lifted in his motorized two-stroke recumbent scooter transforming.
Reaching under the seat to increase speed throttling.
Cruising noisily through early morning school campus covered walkways battery dying.
Coasting slowly to pause at a container of Lysol Disinfecting Wipes opening.
Running joggers pass by thirsty asking.
Hooking up the small battery Steve sees his quarry disappear around a corner skidding.

Big Poppa

Craig Mack and crew rendezvous at the crib around two.

A t-bone steak, cheese eggs and Welch's grape what they be mackin.

American Orphan in Tokyo

Komiko, a Japanese girl living in Tokyo, befriends an orphaned American toddler she finds in a parking garage.

A popular tourist shopping mall sits at the top of the parking structure, and the two friends eavesdrop on passersby from underneath a frayed Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade serape.

"They have escorts!" one shopper exclaims.

Dad & Son At The Movies

Today's feature is a 30 minute Alice In Wonderland spoof.

Dad pulls out pocketfuls of quarters and dimes, and arranges them in two dollar-sized piles in order to buy nachos. The cashier stands inappropriately close.

After the show there's always an arcade game to play. Today it is a first-person virtual reality helicopter simulation flying over battlefields in World War II. Dad scoffs at the historical inaccuracy as Nazi machine gun nests open fire on his sickeningly circling gunship. In the next scenario the helicopter is circling inside a hotel courtyard as enemy soldiers stream from inside the rooms.

Black Cube Nickel

The Black Cube Nickel is a federally recognized unit of currency with a face value of 5 cents. It weighs 4 ounces, measures 2 inches on an edge, is made of 100% black aluminum and engraved on 5 of the six sides with Jefferson's profile, the Monticello, and the requisite United States mottos, phrases, date, and mintmark.

The sixth side is missing, allowing exactly 20 'regular' nickels to fit inside a specially-shaped hollow cavity.

Unfortunately, besides it being unique, the Black Cube Nickel is endowed with a mysterious and powerful ancient and foul curse which bestows incredibly bad luck on its owner. Negative effects that have afflicted owners include depression, weakness, loss of appetite, intoxication, memory loss, foul body odor, blindness, physical mutation, rotting flesh disease, arterio-venous malformation, being visited by cyberdemons, and death.

675 Sycamore Drive

Friday and Saturday night parties in a converted office building.

A local collector has set up four transforming gaming machines that look at first like a wheel-less version of Scooby-Doo's Mystery Machine, then open up and expand to reveal 8 San Francisco Rush The Rock linked arcade units.

On a nearby whiteboard a message is scribbled in green dry-erase marker, "There's a BONG on floor 3nd and NOTHING ELSE!" The building is a single-story structure.

Four Reunions and a Wedding

This show combines a four-year high school reunion and the marriage between two of the attendees.

Tonight's show spotlight's the 1988-1991 graduating classes from Leigh High School in San Jose, California. The reunion and wedding take place in an auditorium and we see each graduating class file in following an announcement and roll call.

Ron Bryan, Phil Clark, Darrin Garcia, Raymon Powers, and Stephen Riesenberger are among a few of the representatives from the Track Team in attendance.

Darrin's twin toddlers dance to Grover Washington Jr.'s - Just The Two Of Us on top of a table.

0-0-0

The team informs Lou that he has a meeting on floor 4.5

French Creative Writing

Eager to discover his grades on the most recent writing assignments, Steve rifles through the pile of graded papers for his own, stopping to gloat to Phil Campbell over the 'A' he received on his poem on the subject of meat, complete with a cut-out illustration from the cover of Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Searching the stack of papers further, he finds his second poem, a ballad on the subject of his assault on the world-record high score for the video game, Robotron: 2084, and ascending to the rank of 5th place on Twin Galaxies' websites. Even with additional liner notes composed by Jared Greene, Steve still only earns a 'B' on the opus.

LTV - Life Television

Amateur video clips are broadcast in 2-3 minute bite-sized ADD-friendly chunks.

Caught on mobile video, a group of teenagers break into an abandoned shack and proceed to cull together ingredients to make Jose Cuervo margaritas.

Later, at a college football game, a group of spectators smoke marijuana cigarettes, not knowing that Mother Nature looks on from the sidelines. Later, she confronts one of the miscreants from inside a glowing coffin.

Finally, a security guard attempts to confuse a Lovecraftian octapus-tentacled demon by turning on showers in the men's locker room showers. The demon manifests itself as a female torso with impossibly long flowing black hair. The hair follows the flowing water down the drains, clogging them.

The Clarinet Case

The Case is at an airport, in a cab, then on a bus.

One of the twins buys Princess Zelda a new part for her flute.

ALFASBG

Always Late For A Softball Game

Text Adventure Reality TV

A text log scrolls along the bottom of the screen while actors in a Reality TV show carry out the instructions in real-time. In an atrium at the center of one of P-Diddy's mansions, a Vanessa tastes a Capri-Sun, decides she doesn't like it, then shoves it into Carlos' mouth. Steve asks her what her favorite drink is and she responds, "Stoli". Steve exits the atrium to the >EAST and takes a >LOOK around.

A number of men and women are performing yoga in an indoor gymnasium. The female instructor is topless. Double doors lead >NORTH

Steve is in a room over a garage. In a corner of the room a dog-nosed boy watches a television as his nanny looks on. "I in here," says the boy. A long hallway leads away to the >WEST

Steve runs down the long hallway, side-stepping the receptionist in a dog-leg of the hall. The hallway bends to the >SOUTH and Steve emerges into an atrium. Doorways lead off in 4 directions. He hears the sound of approaching running footsteps so he decides to jump >DOWN through an opening in the ceiling panels below.

Steve is in the midst of a collection of office cubicles that are tracking the Pogo.com subscriptions of the women on Morgan Street in Flagstaff Arizona. The office workers notice Steve as he remarks, "I just set up my account last week!"

Gameshow Network Scandinavia

On a Swedish gameshow, contestants are challenged to answer questions on geography while riding a bicycle down a street with an enormous electromagnet embedded in the asphalt in order to win a Swatch wristwatch.

During a commercial break, a plumber up the street from where the game is taking place urinates into the sink since the toilet has not yet been installed.

The 88th Wiggly Wayne

That's The Name Of The Game

New Millennia Thriftshop

Mr. Kenneth Kambara Ph. D. helps customers with electronic devices in a 21st century Goodwill.

Tonight's episode focuses on aural, visual, and electro-stimulating brainwave entrainment devices and plasma TV's.

Oldfellas

Four Italian-American men - "Fat One" Jimmy Fatone, "Val's husband" Sal, Tommy "Ten Times", and Vinnie "The Barber" Barbarino - in their late 60's have a sit-down meeting to discuss their plans to import deli sandwiches from Italy.

One of them does a Regis Philbin impression to emphasize how 'out of control' the sandwiches are.

At the time of this posting, Abe Vigoda is ALIVE!

Weird Alleys

Steve and Piggyback Jake take you on a tour of little-known shopping streets in San Francisco. At a corner store there are no signs or welcoming doors. Entering is like letting yourself into an abandoned house. The merchandise is not marked. Browsing the various rooms gives you the feeling of walking through an insane serial killer's home, stepping gingerly on squeaky floorboards and avoiding eye contact with zombielike characters watching television. Squeezing through a boarded-up door on their way out the guard dog barely shuffles.

Day turns instantly to night (or do they wander indoors?) as they stroll teeteringly down the street. The alley is confusingly wide, forcing one to swivel one's head completely around to see the other side. Silent shoppers in ski masks peruse the contents of another store through the front window, deciding whether to enter the dark premises or investigate the new double-headed shopper that has emerged on the street.

A makeshift arcade boasts black-lit garish swirls and patterns, as well as a Whack-a-Elmo game. A sit-down thrill ride entitled "GEEZ" releases its passengers as the barker inside ushers them out with spooky clichés and cackles.

Ad-mageddon

Mervyn's going-out-of-business sales advertisement campaign is a celebration in devastation. Using a post-apocalyptic 'motif' to drive victims of the fallout towards their 'shelters' Mervyn's stores have installed afflicted neighborhoods surrounding stores with destroyed buildings, debris, flaming wreckage, and even actors hired to fill the roles of dead and dying victims.

When potential customers walk or drive past these 'fallout' survivors, the actors are armed with flyers and discount coupons redeemable at the stores.

Emergent Sporting

Tonight's show focuses on the combination of competitive Water Polo and Hacky Sack.

The new rules of the sport require the players to tread water to remain off the bottom of the pool as in Water Polo, but the opposing goals are both underwater, as is the ball for the majority of the game. Athletes pass the ball, which is a cross between the Hacky Sack and a Water Polo ball; its buoyancy is governed by fluid inside the ball. Athletes are prohibited from using their hands or forearms to contact the ball.

During an exhibition match, a spectator falls into the pool, remarking that only 3M's Mucilage glue would feel stickier than the water in the pool.

CSI Anytown

Jeff Levy, owner of 'Fly By Night' helicopter pilot training school is under investigation after a motorist dials 911 after seeing two of his school's single-seater helicopters (which resemble Air Hogs toy helicopters) plummet from the sky over the freeway.

One of the small helicopters slammed straight into the pavement, bursting into flames, while the other one sped off. Even as the motorist was on the phone with 911, Levy arrived on the scene and began painting the pavement nearby with gasoline.

The remains of the bright green helicopter, along with its pilot were burned into ash before emergency services could arrive. The pilot of the bright yellow chopper has not been located.

Flats

Host Simon Cowell drives on a congested downtown London street and smells the unmistakable aroma of marijuana smoke. The source of the odor is a convertible Mini Cooper taxi: its rear-facing backseat passenger is smoking the drug through cotton balls.

Wending his way to a friend's apartment, Simon waltzes through the tiled foyer and relaxes on a couch watching the telly. A German cooking show appears. In the background in the kitchen on the show is a do-it-yourself rolling polished nickel shelf unit laden with bread-loaf-sized bricks of Switzerland cheese. This is odd because it is an exact replica - brick for brick - of the bread-loaf-sized cheese-brick-laden rolling polished shelf unit in the kitchen not 5 meters away from where Simon is sitting.

Hidden Message

Right now
and all around the world
every single person is at peace.
Just imagine if that statement were true
even if only for
a second;
nobody could be more careless.

How could such
a sentiment,
seemingly impossible, ever become a reality?

Could it be that in
another time or place
never before
conceived by mortal man
each being can finally achieve the
respite that he or she seeks?

This message brought to you by Bayer Aspirin!

Good Deed Doers

Phil and Anthony, two brothers from Compton, attend a local street fair and agree to look after a vendor's booth while she goes for a jog around the block.

They sell $1 bottles of Arrowhead water as well as many of her beaded earrings and necklaces laid out on a small ironing board.

Fantasy Resort

This reality show spotlights a fake tropical resort on beachfront property in Los Angeles county. White sandy beaches with palm trees, bamboo bungalows right up to the water's edge complete with Jacuzzi tubs and fireplaces greet vacationers.

Their journey begins at the airport where they are picked up by a shuttle van which takes them to an office building service elevator, then to the roof where they board a helicopter. The chopper deposits them in a clearing near a small lagoon where they walk down a pier and climb into a catamaran. Actors dressed in Polynesian accessories paddle them towards the fictitious resort compound.

Brought to you by Duraflame firelogs.

How We Roll

JTC and STV kick it in their garage with a 20-year-old female friend. JP rolls in with their project car: a lavender 2008 Scion XD. While JTC pours Bacardi liberally into a plastic tumbler, STV remarks, "Just one or two drinks this time." (meaning drinks of water)

Later, STV remarks to JP that he registered to vote at an elementary school near JP's house.

Matt, Mike & Steve's OK Journey

While attending a sales and marketing meeting at a hotel in New York City, Steve finds three Gibson guitar picks and passes them out to his two co-workers commenting on how 'lame' the whole trip has been.

At that very moment, his two coworkers suddenly morph into Mike and Matt, two of his friends from high school! Awestruck at how this could have happened, they convene at a Denny's restaurant across the street to figure things out.

Steve explains, "I remember getting into a cab and hearing the driver ask, 'Are you guys buzzin' yet?' to which I remarked, 'We're gonna DO stuff!' at which point some weird space-time continuum crap happened that you only see in the movies. That's when I remember finding the guitar picks and handing them to Kevin and Ryan, and then they transformed into you two."

"Well then," says Matt, "we'd better call up Ivan."

Driving Hazards

This week's show focuses on dangerous bridges. Steve drives a Mark I Mini across a multi-lane bridge in Scotland during a rainstorm. With rain-slicked roads and grades approaching 40 degrees, the Mini soon loses traction and slides like a hockey puck into oncoming traffic!

So You Think You Can Dance Some More

Winner of So You Think You Can Dance's 2008 season, Joshua Allen, makes a guest appearance and performs with another male dancer to country singer Craig Morgan's "Tough".

This New House

Today's project is a Jacuzzi in the basement of the Castillo home. A bare dirt hole is in the process of being dug in the corner of the dark, unfinished basement. Along one wall, we can see open ventilation pipes and ducts and hear strange echoes of sounds - like a sick wolf's cry and alien babies - carried from other parts of the house.

Host Fred Miller, whose claim-to-fame is the Hoop It Up 3-on-3 World Tour Arcade redemption game, shows us through the owner's bedroom: it contains not one but two bunkbeds and a stereo plays the Dance Dance Revolution original game soundtrack

EA Sports FIFA 2008 - Austria vs. Poland

The world's brightest video game players compete online in real-time playing Electronic Arts' FIFA 08 video game.

Stephen Riesenberger represents Austria and Adalbert Mlak plays for Poland in this red-on-white on white-on-red matchup.

Feeling Marsala

Early morning before work, Steve is awakened by the sound of a car pulling up on the street outside his 2nd story apartment bedroom window - it sounds like his Honda Civic. Looking out the window, he notices that it's a white Toyota RAV4 instead.

He rises, stopping to deliver a stuffed monkey to Juli, explaining that the reason that it smells like cigars is that he'd been keeping it inside a cigar box, "Just ask for their empties," he suggests. Then later, following her to the bathroom, he asks for the transcript of last night's presidential debate while she sits (clothed) on the closed toilet.

At work at Electronic Arts Los Angeles, Steve jokes to Robin about following Matt, saying, "It might turn into a free lunch." However, Matt relays an important mission, one that involves a terrorist plot to bomb the cafeteria, and Steve's new assignment to assassinate the bomb carrier while en route by staking out the reflecting pool.

Steve arms himself with 12 finger rockets.

Acquaintances

After discussing the gameplay, sightlines, vantage points, affordances, and potential for carnage in the Venetian gondola area of the Countries-of-the-World-themed first-person-shooter deathmatch level - using virtual reality helmets to visualize the layout and commenting on the giant animated gong complete with sound effects (and stretched 3D rigging) in the Asian area - Steve and Monica play soccer with a half-peeled Haas Avocado.

Later, while trying to locate a radiator cap at a Raley's supermarket, then waiting in line at the sushi counter, Steve runs into Mike, Ryan, and Paul (who is curiously working at the credit union inside the store) standing around a Japanese San Francisco Rush 2049 - offroad truck version arcade cabinet with HD flatscreen display complaining about the machine's inability to accept quarters.

Role Models

Ryan rolls up to the motel in his faded red pickup truck, pulling into a space in the gravel parking lot. Staci and Jen invite him into their room to watch an adult Japanese anime video under the pretense that they're getting into character for upcoming roles.

Ryan's mother confronts her tenant next door, demanding a letter of intent. On the TV set in the living room is the making of footage from a Crest toothpaste commercial. In it, an actor in a giant ape costume rampages through a miniature mock downtown skyscraper set.

Mr. Moms

While dropping off his kindergartners early one morning, Chuck runs into Frank in an empty classroom, watching a football game on an old weathered black-and-white TV set.

The Chicago Bears are up 2-0. Somehow the ancient television has a built-in digital video recorder that captures the picture, static and all.

A Man's World

Terry is a journalist researching sexual discrimination in the world of automotive sales. Today he's finally gotten the hand of walking in heels.

He carries a granite paper weight in one hand, cel phone to his ear with his left, as he walks up and down the street trying to remember where he parked his 2008 Infiniti G37 Coupe, trying to ignore the curious stares he gets from passersby.

He recalls his trip to Beijing where he got the same reaction, only without the wig, dress, and high-heeled shoes.

Star Trek Union

Two new elementary school employees - a Klingon and a Ferengi from Star Trek : The Next Generation - demand special holiday pay for cultural and religious celebrations.

Need a Penny?

Steve is an eccentric billionaire who travels across the country visiting convenience stores and chatting with cashiers, routinely starting the conversations over the 'need a penny' receptacle placed on the counter near the cash registers.

At one 7-Eleven store, he encounters a World War II veteran and they talk for several minutes about history while Steve sorts through the change in the 'need a penny' cup.

The discovery of a 1913 Cent prompts further investigation of the cash drawer. This search reveals a Walking Liberty Half Dollar and a worn Mercury Dime stamped onto a copper Penny blank.

The veteran is rewarded with a check in the amount of ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine dollars and thirty-nine cents.

Life Detour

A young couple drive down a familiar frontage road in the middle of the day and encounter a new detour. A police cruiser parked off to one side of the road accompanies a barricade.

As the husband rolls to a stop to speak with the officer stationed there a tan Ford Expedition rolls to a stop on the opposite side of the detour.

The passenger emerges from the vehicle doubled over in pain and - leaning against the barricade for support and the police officer for moral support - she quietly urinates, crying and humiliated as the young couple take in the scene.

Undergraduates

At the gym, James and Staci do their core training together. The usual banter turns awkward as James attempts to conceal his true feelings for her.

Tearing across campus on his Specialized Fat Boy BMX bike, Stuart arrives early to his Philosophy class, sweating the take-home quiz he spaced on. Glancing over the first question, he surveys the variables: and elephant, a crowd, an ostrich, a sand box, and a soccer ball. Students arrive as class starts. The professor immediately dismisses the class and Stuart hops in an 80's Honda Civic and cruises across the quad, down the stairs diagonally and passes another student coming out of a restaurant.

The two strangers share the exact same thought at that moment, that of, "I wonder if God ever gets angry over petty misunderstandings."

Wedded Bliss

After ignoring the hole in their fitted sheets for weeks, the Smiths awaken one morning to find the sheet split into four quadrants, still clinging to their king size Sealy Posturepedic mattress by the elastic strap.

Mr. Smith tears off the shredded remnants of the bedding when Mrs. Smith complains of tripping over it during her midnight bathroom visit.

Urban Wilderness

Spiders infest the local high school.

In the boy's locker room, a basketball player finds two spiders have crawled into his New Balance sneakers. He reaches down to squash the one as it rests motionless atop his foot and realizes as he presses down on it that it is a deadly Black Widow!

A computer-generated extreme close up shows the spider's fangs pressing through his sock and against his flesh. Drawing in a nearly silent choking gasp, he mentally plays out the entire scenario of being bitten - his body reacting to the venom, and the subsequent rush to an emergency room screaming in agonizing pain - then holds his breath for what seems like minutes as he deftly removes his shoe, brushes the spider away with it, then squashes it flat with the sole.

Inspecting the second spider closely, he notices it is a common Wolf Spider. Leaving nothing to chance, he executes the second arachnid in similar fashion as the first.

The bell rings for the next class.

Harvest Nights

A farmhand precariously places pieces of a broken-down stainless steel Frigidaire refrigerator together and is startled by the sound of livestock grunting in their sleep as it echoes from the barn wall behind him.

Achtung Fleisch!

An American documentary crew is thrown in an Austrian jail for attempting to bribe a police officer with a Harris Ranch 12 oz. rib eye steak.

The Scavengers

Carter and Steve scour over remnants in a church rummage sale, eating Pringles potato chips.

Laid out on a card table are several 'stretched' coins; Steve finds a penny with two tails and proceeds to trick Scott out of his chips, flipping the Lincoln Memorial over and over until he fumbles a catch and the fake coin goes rolling.

The boys chase the penny into a dark dusty corner and they both spy it there, tails again of course.

Taco & Gary

The boys find an abandoned red MG Midget and take turns pulling it down the street.

Taco powerslides the car like a shopping cart through the T-intersection on their street and slams the driver's side wheels into a curb.

The two wheels are folded underneath the chassis, 'tacoed' as both friends erupt with peals of laughter.

Under Construction

Jeff unexpectedly leaves the company. None of his coworkers have any idea why and a succinct email message offers no more information: "I'm leaving."

Mike returns from Home Depot with his crew of dudes in bright orange jackets.

Detective Story

A mysterious white panel van (not a Ford Econoline) attempts to elude our heroes.

At the conclusion of a high-speed chase, it is spotted in the parking lot of a run-down apartment complex.

Pilot

Welcome to Seventies Television!

Bits and pieces of Steve's dreams turn into 70's TV shows.

Sponsored by Electronic Arts.