Hard Digest September 12: Early Access Dog Adoption, VH1, Divorced Dads, and More

Adoption Form for Elderly Dog with Gangrene Requires Everyone in Household to Have Pentagon Clearance

By Jordan Liffengren 

OAKLAND, Calif. — The adoption form for an elderly dog with gangrene at Pups in Paradise Animal Shelter required everyone in the rescuer’s household to have Pentagon clearance, reported several baffled sources.

“This isn’t a game. We take adoptions seriously around here,” said rescue director Sharon Bell, as if scolding a classroom of elementary school students. “We require applicants to submit at least seven forms of identification, a round of blood tests, and hold Pentagon-level clearance to be considered for adoptions. We feel it’s our duty to be thorough for the sake of these innocent creatures, which is why we partner with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to ensure our adopters’ records are squeaky clean. You’d be surprised how few people meet these basic requirements. It’s truly disappointing, because our oldest dog, Crumbles, is patiently waiting to find his forever home. Yes, he has a slew of high-maintenance ailments to treat, and you have to hold his head up to keep his windpipe from collapsing, but we’re willing to wait for the right person.”

Dave Jackson was crushed when he heard he was denied approval to adopt Crumbles.

“I applied for a maximum security job at NASA once, and the background check to adopt this dog was 10 times more intense,” said a deflated Jackson. “My buddy was actually able to buy a gun with less paperwork, which is insane. I was really looking forward to having that little guy to spend the day with. I knew it would have been a huge commitment with his gangrene and all, but I wanted to give Crumbles the life he never had being cooped up in that rescue shelter. Even though my credit score is 800 and I have a full-time, work-from-home job with a house and a yard, Sharon said I ‘wasn’t the right fit.’ She also said she didn’t like my shoes and that my face looks weird when I smile, which I found unnecessary.”

Crumbles admitted that Jackson probably wouldn’t have been able to handle his growing list of conditions.

“This kid thought he could bust in here like my knight in shining armor, but he wouldn’t survive a single night with me,” Crumbles said through his oxygen mask. “I need military-grade medical attention round-the-clock, and I fear he’d forget that I can’t have treats, and then I’d choke on one since I have no teeth. Or he’d try to give me a bath like it’s no big deal, not realizing he needs to use a special sponge prescribed by my vet so that my flesh doesn’t slough off my body. What would he do when I forget where I am and start screaming as loud as I can at 4 in the morning? Sharon is my only advocate, and if she thinks it’s best to stay in this small cage near a drain, she’s probably right.”

A follow-up with Pups in Paradise revealed that Crumbles was adopted 2 months later, but promptly returned, as his mere presence had cursed the only family given adoption approval.

Man Asserts Being Conservative Divorced Dad Whose Kids Won’t Speak to Him Anymore is The New Punk Rock

By Tim Graham 

DERRY, N.H. — Conservative divorcee and frequent conspiracy forum visitor Ken Doherty claims his lifestyle epitomizes the punk rock ethos, according to sources who follow his Telegram channel.

“Punk rock is about going against the grain and saying ‘Fuck you!’ to authority,” explained Mr. Doherty as he fastened a Back the Blue flag to his truck. “Right now, mainstream culture in this country is all commie and woke. I’m 100% anti-woke, so I’d say that makes me punk as fuck. Punk rejects the trappings of a society that tries to drag you down with things like a wife or a relationship with your ungrateful kids. My son is a beta cuck soyboy and my daughter is a typical leftist NPC. I guess they went no-contact on me because they couldn’t handle all the counterculture truth bombs I’m always dropping.”

Doherty’s daughter Clementine has a different opinion regarding her estrangement from her father.

“He was actually a pretty decent dad growing up,” said Ms. Doherty. “But when he got into the MAGA and conspiracy stuff, he changed. He said Obama was a Muslim terrorist sleeper agent, and that Hillary Clinton was a literal demon. He was at the Capitol on January 6th, of course. The last straw was when he blew my parents’ retirement savings on Trump NFTs and Infowars supplements. So now this piece of shit wants to say he’s punk because he’s going against the norms of decent society? That’s bullshit. And dad, if you’re reading this: Three Doors Down and Kid Rock are not punk. Punk is the stuff you used to yell at us to ‘turn the fuck down.’”

Music journalist Layne Harvey says conservatives have been attempting to co-opt punk almost from its beginnings.

“Fascists have no culture of their own, so they rely on absorbing and perverting existing art and music in a parasitic manner,” said Harvey. “In the early ‘80s, British Conservatives tried to portray Margaret Thatcher as some kind of iconoclastic punk icon, which of course failed miserably. Somewhere there’s a warehouse filled with unsold ‘Punks for Thatcher’ posters. In the US, Reagan’s White House communications director Pat Buchanan was forced to dress punk in a doomed bid to attract a younger demographic. That effort was cut short when one of Buchanan’s liberty spikes nearly put out the president’s eye.”

At press time, Mr. Doherty had reportedly been prompting ChatGPT to rewrite Bad Religion lyrics as pro-Trump anthems.

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David Zaslav Deletes Film Mid TIFF Screening

BY Matt Fresh 

TORONTO — In the latest of his string of film deletions, David Zaslav has deleted a film for tax write-offs in the middle of its TIFF screening.

“As I was in the theater watching it, I was gauging the interest of the crowd and using my acute film executive acumen to predict how it would be received,” said Zaslav in a post screening interview. “By about the 15 minute mark of the film I figured this would get an 8, maybe 9 minute standing ovation and that’s just not good enough for the profit margins we’re looking for. Anything less than an 11 minute ovation is a disaster so this film is basically unreleasable. That’s when I stepped out, went to the projectionsist and held a gun to the kid’s head until he stopped the movie, and I proceeded to destroy the only copy.”

Brian Mallory, who was making his directorial debut with the film, says he and Zaslav spoke after the screening about the film’s deletion.

“I was really excited for this obviously. It’s every young filmmaker’s dream to make a film and debut it here at TIFF and I was looking forward to getting my artistic vision out into the world. David took me aside and told me that if I just go along with it and make the shareholders happy he’ll give me an unlimited budget to make The Flash 2 so he’s the boss and I guess the film just wasn’t working. I’m proud of the cast and crew for all the hard work they did but I guess it just wasn’t good enough. Zaslav knows best.”

Martin Scorsese was in the audience for the screening and was asked afterwards about his thoughts on the matter.

“Look, all I’m going to say is that I know some people, they paint houses and it’s my understanding David Zaslav needs his house painted. It’s what it is.”

At press time, David Zaslav has reportedly allocated the write-off money to greenlight Joker 3.

Sony Announces Pro Version of Boots for Geoff Keighley to Lick

BY Matt Fresh 

SAN MATEO, Calif — In the wake of their announcement of a pro version of the PS5, Sony executives have also announced they will now be donning a pro version of their boots to usher in the next generation of Geoff Keighley licking them.

“We could never forget about Geoff,” said Sony executive Ike Cassidy in a press release. “He’s been with us for years, whether our boots are clean or full of absolute filth, he licks them with a smile on his face. So when we decided to make a pro version of our gameless console that offers little to no value proposition to consumers, we knew that we needed a pro version of our boots as well to offer him a slight and almost invisible to the naked eye upgrade in performance to his licking.”

PS5 Pro architect Mark Cerny also helped with the upgraded boots for the executives and spoke about the process of designing them.

“Well the previous boots offered up a wonderful base to start from. You can see from all of Geoff’s previous boot licking just how great those boots performed. But obviously as the competition gets more defeatist and Sony grows more arrogant it becomes harder for Keighley to keep pace with the boot licking needed. We knew that releasing a $700 machine that only has two exclusives and nothing to truly show off what it can do would require boots that could sustain a quadruple amount of boot licking from the face of gaming to help get through to the more gullible consumers.”

Keighley himself is very thankful for the upgrade to his corporate boot licking ability.

“You know I boot lick for a lot of companies and it gets really tough a lot of the time. Whether I’m avoiding talk of layoffs or crunch or mass harassment and just gassing up releases that are five years away and only have a 30-second cinematic teaser, it’s strenuous and the boots these other execs wear take their toll on my tongue’s processing power. But with Sony’s new pro boots, I can boot lick as much as 14 tweets defending a poor product presentation in the span of an hour without even feeling an ounce of disgust in myself. It’s great.”

At press time, Geoff Keighley is reportedly adding a “Best Pro PS5 Console” category to The Game Awards.

Gaming Exec Gets Blood All Over Bonus Check After Culling Studio

BY Johnny Amizich 

WALL STREET — A prominent gaming executive has reportedly gotten blood all over their bonus check after culling a studio who failed to meet their nebulous expectations.

The executive was dissatisfied with the performance of the studio’s latest game, which led to the bloodletting, according to a source close to the matter who anonymously leaked the incident on social media.

“The game launched and was a critical and commercial success, it even won a few awards, but the boss said he expected more from them,” The source said. “It wasn’t the biggest seller of the year, but how many people can you really expect to play a narrative driven rhythm game? The boss saw it differently I guess. The last thing I saw before it happened was him leaving the building with a sawed off shotgun and a Bowie knife, and humming ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’.”

A survivor of the massacre, who was asleep in the closet reserved for QA testers to get a couple hours of sleep between twenty hour shifts, recalled what they heard happening once the executive arrived at their satellite office.

“There were a lot of screams of confusion, and high maniacal laughter between the gunfire,” The tester recalled. “Our creative director tried to intervene, but was cut off mid-sentence after getting his throat slashed with the Bowie knife. After that I could hear him going through the rest of the studio ranting about a lack of monetization, in-game currency, or a battle pass, but he was the one who signed off on all those decisions! At one point he opened the door to the QA sleeping closet / utility room, and just said ‘Remember what happened here’ before walking away.”

Audio recordings made in the executive’s office shed some light on the immediate aftermath of the slaughter.

“I told them this would happen if they didn’t meet expectations,” The executive said on the recording. Another as yet unidentified person responded, “You can only give so many warnings before you’re forced to make an example out of some of them” The voice agreed.

“Anyway, that should make the shareholders happy. Till next quarter anyway.” At this point in the recording the two men laughed together for approximately five minutes before the executive exclaimed, “Dammit, I got blood all over my bonus check!”

At press time, the coroner was loading the bodies of the slaughtered into vans and the main office issued a statement calling it “A tragic workplace accident”.