Hard Digest December 23: Early Access Caroling, Santa, Hot Topic, and More

Black Metal Christmas Carolers Only Reach Three Houses Before Murdering Each Other

By Steve Packosky

SEATTLE – Christmas carolers and members of local black metal band Kirkeråte only reached three houses before succumbing to the urge to kill one another, mystified sources reported.

“It was our mission to invert the perverse faith of the Christians and convince them that they are helpless to the evil that pervades this dying planet,” gasped lead singer Tom Brafton as he was dying of multiple stab wounds at the hands of his drummer. “Such evil is channeled perfectly in our music, which provides the filth necessary to corrupt the purity of the Christ child that infects this neighborhood every holiday season. It’s unfortunate that the infighting over which of us is more ‘kvlt’ really came to a head while we were caroling. Our bassist Erik couldn’t get out of his shift at Wingstop to join us, so I at least hope he makes a necklace out of bits of my skull.”

Neighborhood resident Lisa Derlione was baffled at what she had witnessed.

“I could hear them from down at the end of my street, which is apparently where they had begun,” Derlione reported. “It was this really high-pitched shrieking that I found extremely unpleasant. In between the shrieking I could hear these guys audibly bickering about which of them ‘harbored more hatred for the Nazarene.’ I have no idea what that was about, but by the time they were next door their arguing had clearly devolved into violence. What’s crazy is the sound of them dying is the exact same as the sound of them singing.”

HOA Board Member Jamal Stelnick offered his insight on the situation.

“The minutes from our last meeting made it explicitly clear that all metal bands were forbidden from caroling this Christmas,” Stelnick said angrily. “After all the chaos that resulted in past years, we decided on an ‘only clean singing’ rule that would preclude all of the baggage that comes with extreme caroling. We only just finished cleaning up all the beer and vomit littering the sidewalks after the thrash metal caroling debacle from last year. And I thought I had my hands full with all these decorations that aren’t up to specifications.”

At press time, a new group of pop punk frontmen decided to resume the caroling, seeing as how they had to travel door-to-door to notify residents of their presence in the neighborhood anyway.

Opinion: There Are Dozens of Songs About Wanting to Fuck Santa But I Write One Song About Getting Snowplowed by Frosty and Suddenly I’m Banned From Caroling

By Matt Husser 

Go through the Christmas carol canon and there are dozens of songs about wanting to to fuck Santa Claus. “Santa Baby.” “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” I only hear snippets of ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ in the background at shopping malls, but I imagine it’s probably about Santa spreading his festive seed all over town in one carnal night. Based on the sheer number of songs celebrating Santa’s fanciful fornication, his reindeer should be getting bonus pay for dragging his big ol’ yule hog around the world. Point is, Christmas songs are full of lyrics about getting dicked down by jolly ol’ St. Nick. I just find it a little hypocritical that if you write one song about getting snow plowed by Frosty the Snowman, suddenly you’re on the naughty list and get banned from caroling at the local old folks’ homes.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Frosty? That’s right, his powdery-soft badonkadonk that puts the ‘ass’ in ‘Christmass.’ I know nothing gets me into the holiday spirit like a festive jingle about Frosty busting it down snow-angel style on some freak shit, but apparently the Puritan brigade at my choir found the title ‘Frosted by the Snowman’ in poor taste. These old bastards survived the Great Depression and a World War, you think they can’t handle a song about getting blizzed on by the world’s sexiest snowman? Ageist if you ask me.

Just look at the original lyrics to 1950s Frosty the Snowman: ‘Thumpety thump thump,
thumpety thump thump, look at Frosty go!’. The subtext is clearly about Frosty taking someone’s mom to plow town while the kids are busy outside playing in the snow, they just couldn’t come out and say it back then or they’d only play your songs in underground jazz clubs in New Orleans. Only difference between that song and mine is I have the snowballs to come out and sing about Frosty’s voluptuous curves in great detail.

We haven’t added a new classic Christmas carol since Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’, and I think it’s because we’ve pumped both that well and Santa dry. It’s time we added a little spice to caroling, stopped censoring brave artists, and finally celebrated Frosty’s sexual prowess with a tasteful five-minute power ballad about the legendary round mound of pound.

Hot Topic Employee Traded to Ann Taylor After 25th Birthday

By Cory Cousins

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Local angsty teen goth hang and ironic t-shirt purveyor Hot Topic traded one of their employees to the more age-appropriate Ann Taylor this week after celebrating her 25th birthday.

“My shift started out pretty great,” noted recently released employee, Anna Gonzales. “My co-workers were really sweet and got me a cake to celebrate my 25th birthday. They even got me a few presents, but I knew something was up when I opened them. It was all pantsuits, cardigans, and blazers. I was expecting something along the lines of a denim Hello Kitty skirt, fuzzy platform boots, and a My Chemical Romance hoodie. It’s like they wanted me to cosplay as an old boring person or something. Then they started shepherding me out the door chanting ‘LOFT’ and I knew it was all over.”

Hot Topic manager and “Nightmare Before Christmas” Funko collectible enthusiast Draven Ravenscroft provided an insider look.

“We at Hot Topic believe that all of our employees should be able to explore new horizons at other retailers after their 25th birthday. Plus, they’re just fucking old,” replied the 19-year-old Ravenscroft. “We really have to consider our clientele. I mean, who would want to buy their Grinch mini-backpacks and spiked eyebrow barbells from some decrepit ghoul in their mid-twenties? No thank you. So we send our aged-out employees to Ann Taylor and in return they set us up with a case of unused safety pins. We go through those things like crazy.”

Further investigation into the little-known rite of passage of mall employees from Hot Topic to more age-suitable retailers revealed that there have been some rocky transitions in the past.

“Oh yes, I remember it quite well,” regaled local Hot Topic historian Luna Thornsberry. “About twenty years ago, an elderly employee refused to move on, so mall security sedated her with a goblet of absinth, put a lavender cashmere sweater on her, and assisted her to Ann Taylor. Next thing she knew, she was selling leather tote bags and plaid blanket scarves to suburban moms. You really hate to see things go down that way so publicly.”

At press time, corporate lawyers successfully made a deal with Talbot’s and Lane Bryant to help displace the abundant rapidly-aging Hot Topic workforce.

Luigi Mangione Escorts NYC Mayor Eric Adams to Prison

BY Andrew Quemere 

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted on federal bribery charges in September, was escorted to prison by local folk hero Luigi Mangione.

“Eric Adams is a crooked, venal man who has victimized the residents of New York City for far too long,” Mr. Mangione said during a brief press conference. “Bringing him to justice felt gratifying, but he kept staring me in the eye, which was unsettling. I mean, like, have you ever heard the weird stuff that guy said about 9/11?”

The embattled Mr. Adams now faces additional counts of corruption, according to court records.

“Shortly before Defendant was taken into custody, witnesses observed him stuffing wads of cash into a burlap sack with ‘ILLEGAL BRIBES FOR MAYOR ADAMS’ written in the Comic Sans font on its side,” the documents say.

Political analysts predicted that Mr. Mangione’s approval rating, which already surpasses that of Congress, will receive a significant boost from apprehending Mr. Adams.

“The images of Mangione from the perp walk were instantly iconic,” said one analyst. “He looked so poised, so powerful. And Adams, as usual, looked like a perplexed Mr. Potato Head protruding from a suit.”

Mr. Mangione ended the press conference without taking questions, simply telling reporters, “I have bigger fish to fry.”

Texas Instruments Announces TI-83 HD Remake

BY Peter Cunis 

DALLAS — Just in time for Christmas, Texas Instruments CEO Haviv “Texas Toast” Ilan took to X to announce the upcoming HD Remake of the classic scientific calculator known as the TI-83, much to the elation of calculator enthusiasts around the world. 

“We’re excited to revisit this classic so that a new generation can experience it for themselves,” announced Ilan, “Our development team has been hard at work upgrading the graphics by adding a third color. For those of you who crave the nostalgia of the original, you can switch back over to the greenish-gray and black scheme you remember from your glory days.”

Ilan followed up his post by describing some of the features that would be included in the HD Remake of the TI-83 (which fans are already calling “TI-83.5”).

“The HD Remake includes a museum section where you can look at all of the old manuals and advertisements for the TI-83’s 1996, 1999, and 2001 releases,” Ilan’s post continues, “And we’ve included social media functionality too, so you can share all of the sines and cosines you make with your friends. You can even challenge them to beat your high score in that terrible version of Mario that only one kid in high school knew how to install.”

However, while the response on social media has been largely positive, some prominent content creators have made videos criticizing the upcoming release.

“First of all, it’s absolutely insane that they’re remaking the TI-83 before the TI-82,” said calculator vlogger MathMatrixPromVarsClear in his latest video, “The TI-83 HD Remake Is BULLSHIT.” “We’ve seen this sort of so-called ‘remake’ from the calculator industry before, and it’s proof that they’re all just out of touch with the community. We don’t want tooltips for the weird buttons that tell us how to use them. We want to stare at all the weird little buttons on our calculators and just imagine what happens if we push that one that says MATRIX.”

 The TI-83 HD Remake will release in x years, where x = 3x^(2 + 17.32x) ÷ (∑(i=27)^32 (i^2)x + 18.2313^27.23x + 23y.