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Hard Digest October 1: Vice Presidential Debate, Dave Grohl, Early Access Articles, and More
🕑 Added 2024-10-02 00:00:06 +0000 UTCTim Walz Debating Chatbot Trained Entirely On Your Uncle’s Social Media Feeds In Preparation For Vance Debate
By Tim Sheard
NEW YORK — Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz recently revealed that he has been practicing for the debate with J.D. Vance by competing against a chatbot trained on your uncle’s unhinged right-wing social media posts.
“We’ve all got those conspiracy-brained uncles and weird relatives that we’ll dread feeling obligated to split the turkey with next month,” Walz remarked to some of the pre-debate press. “J.D. Vance is basically Peter Thiel’s cyborg clone composite of the ultimate weird uncle. JD-GPT doesn’t understand basic social moves, Minnesota niceties, cultural sensitivities, or how to say anything with the slightest hint of human heart or sincerity. But neither does the real deal, flesh-and-blood J.D.! I’ve been playing this machine harder than my goddamn Dreamcast. Reminds me, it’s been collecting dust, oughta boot up Shenmue sometime.”
Your uncle offered his two cents on such a technology, and he appeared to express mixed feelings.
“My kids, nephews, and nieces are too afraid of the truth to return my phone calls. If an AI bot wants to take its talk from me, least that’s someone who wants to hear about childless cat chow, or the radical left’s plans to give everybody healthcare,” said your enraged uncle while forking over $490 to Donald Trump’s campaign fund. “All this shows me is that Tampon Tim is some sort of foreign communist hacker. If he actually cared about American jobs he would have hired me or my friends to debate him, but he knows he couldn’t match wits with us. He would rather have a robot steal work from us.”
Trump’s running mate and frequent subject of mockery J.D. Vance dismissed Walz’s methodology.
“Look, if they have to create a bot to recreate the stories that I create out of thin air, so be it,” Vance said. “But a bot can’t sow its oats. A bot can’t write a forgettable memoir to be adapted into a forgettable Netflix movie. A chatbot can’t nail the impeccable comedic timing required to improvise jokes about racist soda, or exhibit the bare minimum social competency required to order donuts. And most importantly, a bot can’t platform a rumor about immigrants that spurs bomb threats for days.”
As of press time, no one has laughed at Vance’s “jokes,” and no weird stains have been identified on any furniture items in the broadcast center.
News of Foo Fighters Hiatus Rocks World of the 5 Remaining Child Musicians Who Hadn’t Yet Been Invited on Stage
By LOS ANGELES — The Foo Fighters’ indefinite hiatus following Dave Grohl’s infidelity scandal is upending the world of the few child musicians who have not yet been invited up on stage to play with the band, inconsolable sources confirmed.
“I feel like I’ve wasted my life. I’ve spent the last four years perfecting my craft so Dave could call me up on stage, it was all for nothing,” explained eight-year-old Cameron Duckers, one of five children in the world still waiting for their chance on stage. “Everyone knows these days it’s TikTok, drop out of Juilliard, or get invited up on stage at a Foo Fighters concert. And my mom has made it abundantly clear she can’t afford Juilliard and I got banned from TikTok for trying to make usernames with variations on ‘dick and balls.’ And it wasn’t a far-fetched plan. My buddy Mike got brought up at their last tour and my buddy Kevin’s friend’s older brother was on the year before that. Mom was using my college fund for Ticketmaster fees. That’s how much of a sure thing this was.”
The implications of the band’s break also came as a shock to many adult fans.
“Of course I’m bummed. Foo Fighters have been my favorite band for almost three decades. I’ve been trying to get a viral video of Dave inviting a kid up on stage for years. But I’m always behind someone really tall or like one time I got too excited and dropped my phone in my beer,” said mega-fan Nora Rochester. “I’m actually in this Facebook group for viral video artists and I feel like I was getting so close to knocking this one off my bingo card. Now I have to depend on my stupid cat knocking a wedding cake off the counter or something like that to go viral, I’m screwed.”
Grohl admits the decision to stop touring has been a hard one.
“This is not something we took lightly, we know there are still a half dozen children out there who have not had the chance to play with us and it breaks my heart. When we talked through our options, I did a whole PowerPoint presentation on how this would affect the child music industry. But they wouldn’t hear me,” said Grohl. “They kept saying things like ‘That’s what you’re thinking about right now?’ and ‘Maybe those aren’t the kids you should be worried about.’ And I just want all the little Daves and Davettes out there to know that this isn’t their fault. I still love them. And they can totally come play on my new Podcast if they want! It’s called Dave’s Faves. I talk about my fave child prodigies.”
At press time, Grohl announced he would only grant paternity tests to women who beat him in a social media drum battle.
Noise Fan Attempts to Shazam Unbalanced Washing Machine Heard Through Apartment Wall
By Tim Graham
KINGSTON, N.Y. — Noise music enthusiast Craig Spencer tried in vain to identify the cacophonous racket heard through his living room wall, according to sources who had come over to buy weed.
“One afternoon I started hearing this wild music coming from my neighbor’s pad,” said Spencer while rearranging his record collection from alphabetical to chronological order. “The composition began with a deep, pulsing buzz and was soon overlaid with a rhythmic mechanical thrumming. I pulled out my phone and tried to Shazam it, but got no results. I sat there mesmerized until the track ended. Whatever it was, it ranks up there with some of the greatest harsh noise I’ve ever heard. I ran into my neighbor later and asked, ‘What was that incredible music you were playing?’ but she acted like she had no idea what I was talking about. I hate gatekeeping.”
Neighbor Gwen Dubovich was initially baffled by Spencer’s questioning.
“I try to avoid talking to Craig as much as possible, so when he came up to me I really wasn’t in the mood to answer questions,” said Dubovich. “But I eventually realized he was asking me about the day my old washer finally croaked. I had tried to wash my heavy duvet after my dog puked on the bed and it was too much for the thing. It started rocking and shuddering, and then fizzled out and began smoking. I guess I could tell Craig what the sound actually was, but I really don’t want to start another conversation with him. The last time we spoke he invited me over to smoke weed and check out something called Agonal Lust. I claimed to have diarrhea and made a hasty exit.”
Underground music scholar Creighton Blemer says Spencer’s experience is enviable.
“Mr. Spencer witnessed something very few of us in the harsh noise community have been privy to: The spontaneous creation of pure music, unsullied by the meddling hand of man. Compositions made solely by machines with no human intervention are in fact the most perfect form of music that exists. What better expression of despair, isolation and ennui could there be than the sonic death throes of an industrial automaton? There is no more fitting way to exemplify the failing anthropocenic experiment than the wailing of machinery as it breaks down and succumbs to the indifferent will of entropy.”
At press time, Spencer had been spotted sitting cross-legged next to a concrete mixer at a nearby construction site, listening with rapt attention.
Hypocritical Much?: This Boutique Retail Shop With “Trading Post” in Its Name Won’t Let Me Exchange My Beaver Pelts for Their Artisanal Soaps
By Ryan Dondero
Names used to mean something. They carried weight, tradition, and integrity. But not, apparently, for Wildflower Trading Post and Gifts—an establishment as far removed from an actual trading post as a silk cravat is from a fur-lined deerskin cap.
If you choose to include the words “trading post” in your name, you ought to be ready to barter your goods for another’s. For example, exchanging your fine artisanal lavender-rosemary soaps for one of the many beaver pelts I acquired while journeying deep into the Albany River basin in Northern Ontario this past winter.
Seems pretty straightforward to me. Well not so to the employees of this dishonest and defamatory purveyor of locally produced gifts and tchotchkes! The moment I stepped into this fraudulent “trading post”—my canoe slung over one shoulder, flintlock rifle in hand—I was met with disdain. A real trading post would welcome a weary trapper, canoe and all, not throw a fit about “store policy” or “safety concerns.”
A trading post that does not allow a trapper to bring in their canoe, rifle, skinning knife, steel traps, hatchet, powder horn, mallet, pemmican, cooking kettle, ammunition, snares, tobacco, stretching board, and bedroll is, in hindsight, one not worth engaging in commerce. However, and I’m embarrassed to admit this, I was so taken with the sights and smells that greeted me there, that I acceded to the demands of the shopkeeper and her cretinous minions.
I thought myself quite accommodating from there on out! I begrudgingly left my belongings outside of the “trading post” and, after multiple entreaties, stopped closely inspecting each piece of merchandise with my beaver-blood-coated hands.
The real trouble started when I approached the cashier, clutching the desired soaps, ready to finalize our trade. At a “cashless” “trading post,” it seemed to me perfectly ordinary to swap one of my smaller pelts for the artisanal goods I had my eye on. Apparently, I was mistaken.
The shock and disdain of the cashier as I placed the tanned and stretched remains of a beaver on the counter has left an indelible mark on my mind. Refusing to accept the pelt as payment for the soaps, he demanded that I pay using a “credit card.” When I politely shouted that this insistence on so-called electronic payment was a violation, and a clear betrayal of the “trading post” name, I was rudely asked to leave.
My experience at Wildflower “Trading Post” and Gifts left me feeling angry and disrespected. It is a feeling unlike any I’ve ever experienced. Mark my words, one day when our world collapses like a flimsy wooden palisade against a determined war party, we won’t be exchanging products via “credit card.” No, we will be doing so with beaver pelts!
Friend of Band Unaware He’s Their Manager
By Nathan Kamal
PHILADELPHIA — Local man Duncan Jackson remains utterly unaware that he is the manager of his friend’s band Black Lab and totally responsible for their professional career and financial stability, confirmed sources.
“I like Black Lab well enough and I was even one of seven of their monthly listeners on Spotify at one point,” said Jackson, who declined an “unknown caller” phone call from the band’s bassist. “I go to see their shows whenever it works for my schedule and to say hi to my buddy Steve [McTrain], who drums in the band. I just don’t see them ever really hitting it big or moving out of the local circuit here. They just don’t really seem to have any kind of direction or consistency in what they’re doing. They really should get a manager or maybe a PR person, but who would want to be affiliated with a semi-shitty bar band? Not me.”
Black Lab lead singer Pete Behan says that the band has been losing faith in Jackson’s managerial abilities.
“Dunko has been one of our favorite casual acquaintances for years before he became our default manager,” said Behan, using the band’s nickname for Jackson, which he is wholly ignorant of. “He’s a cool dude, but being cool is not what this band needs to succeed. It’s great that he always has constructive criticism about guitar solos and cover songs, but we need someone who prioritizes us over some shitty day job. I mean, I know that he’s technically the Deputy Comptroller for Philadelphia, so he actually has some pretty serious responsibilities over the metro area, but is that as important as us getting a paying gig for once?”
Notorious band manager and current CEO of HYBE-America Scooter Braun was familiar with the many difficulties of being a band manager, especially if you don’t know that you’re one.
“I’ll be frank, being a band manager blows,” said Braun. “I’ve managed weirdos like Kanye West, Demi Lovato, and Ariana Grande; trying to wrangle these Hollywood types is a pain in the ass at best and a good way to get doxed by Swifties at worst. I don’t know why anyone would ever be a band manager. I only got into it because I’m in a book club with Justin Bieber’s mom and drank enough Prosecco over ‘The Poisonwood Bible’ to think that I was just agreeing to sponsor that brat’s little league team.”
As of press time, Jackson’s spam email folder contained several offers for Black Lab to open for Journey.
More From The Hard Times:
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Window Washer Falls to His Death After Coworker Edge Guards Scaffolding
BY PITTSBURGH — Local window washer David Henderson fell to his death while on the job after being unable to use his recovery move to grab the edge of the scaffolding because a coworker was edge guarding.
“It was the dreaded phone call every window washer foreman has nightmares about getting,” said Frank Wasserman of Crazy Frank Wasserman’s Window Washers. “I’ve known David for a long time. You hate to see him go this way. He was the kind of guy to always let you have his Max Tomato if you weren’t feeling so hot. He will be missed.”
Bystanders questioned how Henderson’s coworker, Charles Frederickson, could have edge guarded someone on his own team.
“Look, it was an accident, okay,” Frederickson said. “I wasn’t even really edge guarding. A Poké Ball was falling off the scaffold. I thought I could grab it and I slipped. If I hadn’t grabbed the ledge it would have been splat down on the ground over there for me, too! And, no, this has nothing to do with the fact that David kept stealing all my kills by smacking everyone with a home run bat. We’re teammates. I was happy for him. I’m sure the detectives will find that Poké Ball somewhere nearby any minute now.”
Henderson’s wife, Kathy, said she was worried about her family’s future without their primary breadwinner.
“We had been saving up to buy a house on Onett,” said Kathy. “We figured it would be safer for the kids than our current apartment in the Brinstar Depths. Sure, they say the streets there are a bit dangerous because there’s basically no traffic enforcement, but at least ‘up’ is always ‘up’ and there’s no giant monster constantly attacking you. I think the police need to take a closer look at Charles. He had always been jealous of my husband because David had more trophies than him. You know, for employee of the month and stuff. That sort of thing.”
At press time, unconfirmed reports stated that Henderson was spotted back on the scaffolding after pressing start.
QA Tester Pads Out Resume by Also Listing Games That Thank the Player in the Credits
BY AUSTIN, Texas — Local QA tester Ryan Vásquez discovered a new job search hack that allows you to pad out your resume by also listing games that thank the player in the credits, sources confirm.
“Studios today simply won’t hire you for this line of intense work if you don’t already have some big names on your resume,” said Vásquez, repeatedly disconnecting and reconnecting his controller mid-cutscene. “For months I suffered rejection after rejection, thinking that exploiting glitches in the flash game my buddy made over spring break in 7th grade was all the experience I needed to get my foot in the door. Guess what? It wasn’t. But you know, you’d be surprised just how many titles out there throw a nod to the player in the credits, be it the name of your character or just a simple ‘Thank you so much a-for-to playing my game.’ What’s to stop me from listing these games under my relevant experience? I mean, I did test these games, technically. ”
Nicole Matthews, hiring manager for Retro Studios, details how she eventually chose Vásquez to fill one of the company’s hundreds of quality assurance testing positions.
“We had a lot of qualified candidates, but Ryan was easily one of the best—such great buzzwords! And that work history? Wow!” said Matthews, typing up an offer letter for one of the boss’s kids. “‘Final Fantasy VI,’ ‘Zelda II,’ ‘Portal.’ ‘EARTHBOUND,’ for crying out loud! I didn’t even need to see him in action—I just needed him to sign on with us before someone else got to him first. It’s been amazing. I have never seen a tester run a character head-first into a wall for seven consecutive hours as well as I’ve seen him do it.”
‘Earthbound’ creator Shigesato Itoi explains his connection to Vásquez.
“I can’t say that I’ve ever met this man,” said Itoi, hard at work not localizing ‘Mother 3.’ “But I hope to do so one day. All of the games I have been fortunate to help bring to life have been made possible by both dedicated teams of employees as well as the players who joined us in our journey. I truly believe that we cannot have one without the other, and for this I am eternally grateful for those that have chosen to share in this experience. Also, it says here he worked on ‘Viewtiful Joe’—do you think he could answer some questions for me about the making of that game?”
At press time, Vásquez was seen adding programming skills to his resume, stating that his time inputting cheat codes should justify its inclusion.
