Hard Digest August 22: Tom Morello, Early Access Friendship, Charmin Bears, Lars Ulrich, and More

Exhausted Tom Morello Faxes in Protest of Chicago DNC

By Rob Ryder

CHICAGO — Guitarist and exhausted activist Tom Morello faxed in his protest of the Democratic National Convention report disappointed political activists and Rage Against the Machine fans throughout Chicago.

“Just as it was in 2000, we are not letting the streets of Chicago get taken over by the Democrats, Republicans, or anyone in the political establishment who just want to maintain the status quo,” said Morello while stirring a mug of chamomile tea. “I’ve written protest songs, organized rallies, even gotten arrested pushing my message right into the face of our oppressors. But this strongly worded memo that I plan to fax to the Tribune sometime this week…this just hits different. It’s going to rock the DNC harder than we two decades ago.”

Activists at Chicago rallies were skeptical of the impact the fax would have on the delegates and voters watching around the country.

“I had heard rumblings weeks ago that Tom was planning something, we even saw him checking into the Peninsula Hotel with a guitar case in his hand,” said Maureen Harrington of Wicker Park while gluing herself to a door handle at the United Center. “Bare minimum, I figured he’d be out there with a fucking old school bullhorn to rally the troops and get everyone fired up. Hell, maybe he’d even get the guitar out and play some Woody Guthrie songs. But now we’re starting to wonder, it’s been 3 days and where the fuck is he?”

Political Analyst Geoff Roland acknowledged Morello’s impact in the past, but wondered if it was time to pass the torch to a new generation

“We want more celebrities to be here in the streets with us and use their platforms to foment change. However, we would really prefer someone like Chappell Roan over Tom Morello, no offense to Mr. Morello, but he’s just not going to be able to speak to the youth like he used to,” said Roland. “His style of intellectual discourse, willful civil disobedience, and harnessing the power of the system against itself is just old hat. It’s time to let the man rest.”

“The next generation better get it together quick,” Roland added. “If they’re not careful, Tom DeLonge is gonna show up throwing alien conspiracy theories at the crowd.”

At press time, Zack De La Rocha was said to be landing at Chicago O’Hare Airport with a plane full of 300 Cuban Marxist Guerillas to join the fray.

Name Officially Added to Contact List After Three Years of Friendship

By Julien Perez 

ELK GROVE, Calif. — Local man Ron Gibbard finally added buddy Jake Monroe to his contact list on his phone despite three years of friendship and countless text conversations, confirmed sources.

“There are only so many times I can ask who’s number this is after I get a text from him, so I decided to add Jake to my list of half a dozen contacts,” said Gibbard while messaging “sorry, just seeing this now” on his phone. “It’s just a hassle I don’t want to deal with when I get a text from a new number. Apple makes it so needlessly complicated. You have to tap their number to find the ‘info’ button and God forbid you accidentally call them. Then you’re suddenly forced to pretend like you meant to call them or that it was a butt dial, even though you haven’t been able to convincingly use that excuse since 2011. Either way, it’s humiliating.”

Monroe was dumbfounded and noticeably upset when he heard of the news.

“He’s just now adding my name? That’s messed up, man,” said Monroe. “We’ve been through so much together. I’ve said shit to him I’ve only ever said to my closest friends. He was the best man at my wedding for chrissakes! Not only that, he’s my emergency contact on all my important documents. Plus, I heard my grandma is an official contact in his phone, despite them only talking to each other once in their entire lives. I don’t get it.”

Dr. Linda Blackwell, a sociologist at Stanford and author of “Lazy Pieces of Shit,” believes Gibbard might have some sort of disorder.

“It’s common for people to avoid difficult situations. Sure, for normal people adding a person’s identity to their phone number moments after exchanging information can be simple but for others it’s on par with asking them to renew their car registration,” said Dr. Blackwell. “They would rather pass on this discomfort to a future version of themselves, hoping along the way their nascent maturity will finally overcome this mental roadblock allowing them to have the strength to face their problems head on, even though deep down they know they will never change and the only way to truly change is to actively make efforts to fix these flaws. No one ever fixes their own flaws though. That’s just human nature.”

At press time, Gibbard finally accepted Monroe’s friend request on Facebook after ignoring the request for three years.

We Tried to Interview the Bears From the Charmin Commercials, but They Wouldn’t Stop Talking About Their Assholes

By Steve Packosky 

We all know the feeling: you’re sitting down with a big, sloppy chicken parm sandwich to revisit an old episode of Chopped when the commercials start. The light goes out of your eyes as you watch the timer slowly tick down the 120 seconds, cursing yourself for being too cheap to shell out the extra ten bucks a month for Hulu Premium as anthropomorphic bears rattle on incessantly about how they’re constantly shitting their collective brains out.

Are they really that one-dimensional, or is there something more to these bowel-moving Berenstain ripoffs than meets the eye? We recently sat down with them to find out.

The Hard Times: Hi everyone, how are you all doing?

Father Bear: We’re doing great, thanks to new Charmin Ultra Strong!

Son Bear: You bet! My hiney has never felt this clean!

HT: Oh…cool. Well, we’ve really been looking forward to this interview. It’s not every day that you get to interact with bears that can speak like humans. Do you know if there are other bears like you?

Mother Bear: Well, I can guarantee you no other bears have bottoms as clean as ours, thanks to Charmin.

Daughter Bear: You’ve sure got that right, Mom!

HT: Ugh, fine. Well, the fact that we’re speaking with you actually raises a pretty deep question about the nature of perception. Aristotle famously opined that the ability to reason and reflect is what separates human consciousness from that of animals. The fact that I’m able to have this conversation with you, however, completely upends such an assertion. When did you realize that you had this remarkable ability to not only rationally perceive of your positions in your respective environments, but to communicate openly with human beings?

FB: When I was stranded in the bathroom with single-ply TP! It was terrible!

MB: Oh yes, I remember that, dear! Luckily, I had just returned home with a Mega Roll of Charmin Ultra Gentle.

FB: I was able to get my bottom Charmin-clean with no chafing!

HT: Jesus Christ. Well, we honestly can’t even humor you on this subject. We just had a bidet installed in our office, and —

DB: What the fuck did you just say?

HT: Uh, we haven’t really needed to spring on name-brand toilet paper since we got a bidet.

FB: Are you fucking kidding me? We wouldn’t have signed onto this interview if we knew it was being conducted by pretentious bidet users! I’ve never been so furious in my life!

MB: Oh no, look what you’ve done. I can’t say you motherfuckers don’t deserve it.

HT: Wait, what?

SB: Get ‘em, Dad!

FB: RAAAAAAWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRR!

At that point we hurried the fuck out of their weird, animated house with a gigantic, red-furred bear hot on our trail. Luckily he had this goofy-ass gait using only his hind legs, so we managed to escape pretty easily. Better luck next time, we guess.

Lars Ulrich Threatens to End Metallica if Other Band Members Keep Missing His Sweet Jumps off Diving Board

By Chris Bratton 

MIAMI — Longtime Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich was seen threatening to break up the band if his fellow bandmates continued to miss him jumping off the diving board, confirmed sources who called his bluff.

“It’s outrageously embarrassing to completely destroy a sick belly flop or one of those jumps where you keep running mid-air after already going off the diving board, and then you come up for air and look over to see none of your bandmates are acknowledging your aquatic skills,” Ulrich complained. “I also told Hetfield to pick me up some Dr. Peppers and he came back with some store brand commoner bullshit called Dr. Riffic like I don’t work hard and earn the good stuff. Almost ended the band after that incident too. Oh, and when I wanted to play tetherball, they were suddenly all too busy relaxing in the cabana, being snooze-fests. That’s grounds for dissolving the band too. Let’s just say I almost nixed Metallica 12 times this week over various offenses.”

Lifeguard Brian Marino was visibly annoyed after jumping in to save what he believed was a drowning victim at the time.

“I saw a bunch of thrashing around and flailing, and dove in straight away. When I swam over it was a 60-year-old man, he made a shushing motion and whispered something about how he was trying to get Kirk Hammett to jump in and save him. Then he asked me if I saw him rip a cannonball and how big the splash was,” Marino explained. “He needs to learn that if he’s going to act like this then there would be consequences. I told him he needed to take the swim test again if he wanted to stay in the deep end. He told me to fuck off then spent an hour on the phone with his awyer trying to get the pool facilities closed down.”

Family therapist Michelle McCoy compared internal band relationships with family dynamics.

“Sometimes the role of the youngest child is used to act out against others in your band,” said McCoy. “I gave Lars a deep breathing exercise to calm down during a tantrum. But when he would try to count to 10, he would instinctively start air drumming after one, two, three, four. I haven’t seen such dysfunction since trying to moderate board game night between Simon and Garfunkel.”

While Metallica still remains together, there is a worry that a band trip to Disneyland next week could put an irreconcilable strain on the band.

More From The Hard Times:

John Hughes Characters Ranked by Their Likelihood of Pushing an MLM Scheme

Court Awards PlayStation with Weekend Custody of Xbox Games

BY Matt Fresh 

San Mateo. Calif — In a landmark ruling, a federal judge has awarded PlayStation with custody of Xbox games on the weekends.

The ruling comes from Judge Franklin Bash who has presided over the messy divorce proceedings between Xbox and the competitive hardware business. 

“It is my opinion that this divorce is not necessarily the correct course of action for the parties but if it’s what must be done then what we really need to think about are the poor games who will be affected by this. They need somewhere to go and they need to be nurtured and loved,” said Bash before giving his ruling. “The best way to achieve that at this point is for PlayStation to be given custody on the weekends. This will ensure that they get a fair shot at a normal life. Xbox can give whatever they can offer, funding, marketing, etc. and then PlayStation can swoop in to be the fun parent and get it nominated for awards.”

Bash later clarified to reporters how the custody agreement would function.

“Well since these are Xbox games, they deserve to be with Xbox and Xbox deserves to have them but on then on the weekends they will be released on PlayStation. As Xbox divorces the competitive hardware business it’s important to know how that affects their games. It takes a toll on them, they’re played less, by less people and sometimes even just left alone on GamePass for an irresponsible amount of time. Now they’ll get a more well rounded shot at life as they also get to be enjoyed by PlayStation players who don’t have games of their own to love.”

Xbox CEO Phil Spencer gave his opinion on the ruling, praising the judge for his decision.

“I applaud Judge Bash on the ruling. When everyone plays we all win and that’s been lost in this shuffle of this divorce. I’m really happy for the games, they truly deserve this. So whether you play on PC, on your phone through the cloud or even PlayStation, you will get to enjoy Xbox games just like all two dozen Xbox console owners.”

At press time, the developers of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the first game scheduled to go to PlayStation on the weekend say they’re excited because PlayStation lets them eat ice cream whenever they want.

Last Save Just Far Back Enough to Tolerate Annoying Glitch

BY Kyle Duggan ON August 22, 2024

OMAHA, Neb. — A local gamer is begrudgingly tolerating a frustrating bug because he does not want to lose the progress he has made since his last save, sources confirm.

“See? About half the time I press the ‘A’ button in dialog or menus, it doesn’t register,” said Phillip Mack, who was playing “Knights of the Manderline,” a new action-RPG. “And sometimes, it’s just delayed, so I’ll press it again and accidentally skip through important dialog or use an item when I just wanted to read its description. It’s so annoying. Unfortunately, I haven’t saved in, like, three hours, and I put in some work, man.”

“I am not going to re-do all of that just because of some tedious little issue like—fuck!” continued Mack. “I just insulted an NPC because I selected a dialog option when I thought I was just clicking through his line. He was important, too. Now that whole faction is going to be hostile to me.”

Mack’s wife, Christine, noted that this kind of behavior is typical of him.

“Oh, you mean the guy who didn’t transfer to his dream college on a full scholarship because they were going to make him retake a single core course?” said Christine. “You say that he won’t replay part of a game? Wow, I never would have expected that of the man who baked me a birthday cake with no eggs because he didn’t want to go back to the grocery store. If you think I’m making this up, just ask Katie, the woman he really loves. Too bad he met her after he started dating me, and couldn’t be bothered to start over.”

Singular Refraction, the developer of “Knights of the Manderline,” said they were familiar with the bug that was plaguing Mack.

“Oh, yeah, the ‘A’-button thing,” said Ron Lambert, a lead developer at Singular Refraction. “That goes way back. It’s ancient. QA pointed it out during the beta. People are always asking us to fix it. Thing is, it’s trickier than they think. The code that the bug comes from touches just about everything in the game. We’d have to rewrite so much of the game if we really wanted to sort that out, and frankly, we’d rather not. It would be a whole thing, you know?”

At press time, Mack had decided to revert to his previous save, only to accidentally overwrite it by pressing the “A”-button too many times while trying to load it.