Man Dials Random Number, Gets Wife
Waking up one morning five years ago, David Brown found a mystery mobile phone number running through his mind.
When it refused to go away, he decided to call it.
It turned out to belong to Michelle Kitson, at the time a 17-year-old student living with her parents more than 60 miles away.
Even the most die-hard romantic would have forgiven her for ignoring a message from a strange man she had never met or heard of before.
But she decided to respond and after a string of text messages, a phone call and a letter the couple met and fell in love.
…
What are the chances that two fat dateless losers found each other by some sort of clairvoyant drunk dialing, as opposed to say… oh, gee i dunno… calling fucking 1-900-DIAL-A-DATE? Reporters can be so fucking stupid sometimes.
Sorry about the April Fools joke being so lame.
What’s really sad is that I redesigned the header to look like a generic web 2.0 header, but people actually liked it more than the regular header, so now we need to debate black buttons amongst ourselves. I guess there’s a reason why the web 2.0 trends exist.
Some artists such as Wonchop and TLGmedia contributed fun April Fools submissions, so thanks for that. I’m thinking for next year, we need to have an April Fools contest where everyone submits spoofs of their own works… You heard it here first, so keep that in mind as 2008 rolls along! This way, we can supplement whatever bad joke we come up with by posting lots of great spoof movies and games by artists on the site. It will be a noteworthy part of our 2008 history!
Speaking of history, I finally (tentatively) finished up the 2006 History of the Flash Portal. This brings us up to EIGHT YEARS of history for the Flash Portal, to compliment 12 years of history for Newgrounds as a website. Crazy, right? 200 years from now, historians are gonna refer back to these pages and be like, “look at this crap.”
Hello NG-fans! P-Bot here, with today’s hottest games and movies submitted to the Portal:
Jellyfish, by Vengeance (also known for Uzi-Man)
Notters Film Reel, by Artist-Lost
Nightshade (Spray Remix), by GoshaDole
30 Hour Limitation, by yodd
Attempting Suicide, by moldboy
We also have new submissions by the following popular artists:
BabyMitts, BlueHippo, CameronClunes, dadidu, Dugh, Emptygoddess, EvilDoc, GazSmithGames, Gurnz, highwatermark, Jonimator, Krisantus, MentosClock, Oney-Sephiroth, Psyreaper, Roaltyx, rubyrulez, shadradson, SlashFirestorm, SwimtheSwan, Totaya17, UnderARock, ZekeySpaceyLizard and Zotz
What does everyone think of these new submissions?
It’s the dailymail so automatically 90% of the story is made-up or exaggerated.
Sharkey. What’s going on, man? First, get this forum fixed. Next thing, get some interesting posts going. Get those creative juices flowin’. I lurk for a reason.
Yeah -please me funnier and fix everything so that Zatko doesn’t have to lurk anymore. Thanx!
The less he posts, the less these damn spammers ruin the site.
Take as long as you need, man, and bring down your righteous fury on these assholes.
The protagonist’s name is Niko Bellic. (Likely to be Crotian in origin)
* Niko was persuaded to move to Liberty City by his cousin Roman, who claimed to be living a wonderful life there with two beautiful women, fifteen sports cars, and lots of money etc, but he was infact telling a lie in order to hide his own failures. Roman is the only person you know in Liberty City at the beginning of the game, and he becomes one of your major connections at the start. Niko is a tough character whereas Roman is friendly. Roman is heavily in debt and a lot of people are after him – he needs Niko’s support. They are constantly bickering.
* Variations in the terrain cause realistic changes in the walking animation of Niko. The physics have also improved and character movements are more realistic.
* Multiplayer will exist, but it will be something that coincides with single-player and will not be an MMO.
* The MetLife building now bears the name Getalife, the Statue of Liberty is now the Statue of Happiness, and DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) is called BOABO (Beneath the Offramp of the Algonquin Bridge Overpass).
* In Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar have recreated 4 of the 5 boroughs in New York, as well as part of New Jersey. Broker is the GTA IV equivalent of Brooklyn, Manhattan is now called Algonquin, Queens is now Dukes, the Bronx is Bohan, and New Jersey is Alderney.
* There is only one city. There may be motorcycles, but there will be no planes, rollerblades or unicycles, and I wouldn’t expect jetpacks or Harriers. Rockstar wants the city to feel realistic and fit the style of the character.
* The city is almost as large as San Andreas, but will not have any useless space like countryside or desert. Every space will be cram-packed with detail.
* The city will be highly contrasted between daytime and nighttime.
* Freedom is emphasized. You continue to take orders from mission givers, but you are not forced to spend your time being a slave to them. You can go see who you want to, practically when you want to. You just call someone up and see if they are available.
* The story unfolds in a number of different ways. R* is giving people more freedom, more choice and more sense of control over their destiny – the structure of the storyline is quite different to previous games.
* Contacts will be called from your cell phone. Its LCD screen has options for Phonebook, Messages, Organizer and Camera. Niko’s Phonebook has options such as: City Contact, Docks Friend, and Cab Contact. The cell phone will allow the player to call contacts instead of meeting them in person, which should make the player feel more independent.
* Game Informer playtested the Xbox 360 version. It is to be identical to the PS3 version except for episodic content.
* The voice talent for GTA IV will be less big names and more suited to the characters. The soundtrack will also be geared more towards the feel of the city and less focused on big names.
* The game will load once and then never again, and not even during interior transitions.
* It is implied that there will be greater emphasis on pedestrian AI, and they will come with all sorts of temperaments. They will also be seen doing realistic things like smoking a cigarette, reading a book, sitting on a bench, etc.
* You will also see a lot more of pedestrian criminals being arrested by the police.
* Rockstar have now spent over 3 years developing the game, and Dan Houser compares the leap from GTA III to GTA IV, to the leap from GTA to GTA III.