Grandma's Magazine Subscriptions

Grandma has held subscriptions in her name since Nintendo Power first came on the scene, later buying copies of Official Playstation Magazine, Official XBox Magazine, and GamePro from the racks of the local supermarkets as the release of exciting games dictated. Today she only has three magazine subscriptions: Electronic Gaming Monthly, Computer Gaming World, and GameInformer.

As I began to write this post this afternoon, incredibly strange things happened. We found a cool mention of Grandma's appearance on MTV Overdrive on Dan Hsu's blog, the editor of none other than EGM magazine. Second, we found a mention to Old Grandma Hardcore in an article in December's GameInformer. It gets better.

Coincidence? Or Paul Thomas Anderson-esque proof of the existence of God?

I tend to think it's the former than the latter, but here's how it went down.

Grandma received both magazines in the mail today, which arrived as it usually does at 12:30pm EST. Grandma brought them both in, plopped them on the desk and started taking off the plastic that served as both an armor to the winter tempest and also to conjoin the magazine to some AOL disc which she quickly inserted into her paper shredder because CD shards in the wastebasket look fucking cool. I thought it strange that they arrived on exactly the same day and saw the opportunity to post about Grandma's opinions on upcoming games via her response to the articles. I took a couple pictures to accent the post, handed Grandma GameInformer while I browsed through EGM when suddenly:

"Hey! What did you get for Stubbs The Zombie?" she asked.
"Ummm... 8.5, 8.5, 9.0," I replied, feeling much like an Olympic Games commentator on a radio show somewhere talking about freestyle ice-skating.
"I got 8 & 7.5 in GI." This had begun to resemble cheating in Honors Algebra II.

It went on like that for a while until she started to read those "other" articles. You know the type- the letters section in the front, interviews with famous developers, rumors, etc.,- the kind she reads AFTER the reviews.

"HA! YEAH!!" Grandma belted.
"What?"
"There's an article on that pig-fucker Jack Thompson, it shows him getting his fucking HEAD flushed down the toilet!"
"Let me see-" I said, skimming the article. "Holy shit, Grandma we're IN this article."
"WHAT?"
"Here-"
"....Thompson recently contacted....proposition....$10,000 of his own....leaders in the industry.....OLD GRANDMA HARDCORE!! Holy shit, we're in GAMEINFORMER!"
"That's too fucking cool!"

After all that I called up the local GameStop thinking they would get a kick out of one of their regular customers appearing in their magazine. Shit, I was excited.

"Thanks for calling GameStop where you can buy and trade used games, this is Josh, how can I help you?"
"Hey Josh, who is the manager today?"
"That would be me."
"Dude did you get December's GameInfomer-"
"Can you hold for just a second, I have a customer right now-"
"Oh yeah, go ahead, no problem."

He set the phone down and I picked up the conversation with said customer.

[voice of woman] "So do you have any XBox 360's?"
[Josh] "No, we're all out, probably won't get any until February..."
[woman] "Damn... well they are popular..."
[Josh, typing] "Okay, it looks like we can't buy that one from you because this copy of GTA still has that.. um, adult element in it and we're not able to sell the old ones anymore."
[woman] "Really? I mean, it's my husband's game he said you could like.. I don't know, go with hookers and stuff."
[Josh] "Yeah, well there is more to it, there is this cheat where you can...control the man and the woman as they... well, you know."
[woman] "He didn't mention that part!"
[Josh] "Well, it's an extra, you have to do some stuff to find it..."
[woman] "But I could sell this myself then, right? This is probably why I couldn't sell it on Amazon."
[Josh] "Actually, because the unmodified game is harder to find now you could probably sell it on eBay and get some extra money."
[woman] "So like, how much would I sell it for?"
[Josh] "I'd start it at $20 or $30 bucks..."
[woman] "Okay, that sounds good. Thanks!"
[Josh] "Sure!" [picks up phone] "Okay, GameInformer..."
"Man, that's nuts you can't buy used copies of San Andreas that still have the Hot Coffee content?" I asked, distracted.
"No, it now has an Adults Only rating, so we can't touch them."
"That's wild, man. Anyway, turn to page 42."
"42...okay, what am I looking for?"
"See where it says "Jack Thompson Gets Roasted?"
"Yeah." [chuckles]
"Okay, go down to the third paragraph. See where it says Old Grandma Hardcore?"
"Yup!"
"She shops there, man! That GameStop is where she gets most of her stuff!"
"Cool!"
"In fact, a reporter from the Washington Post might have called you guys last weekend, he asked me where she shops and I gave them your address and number."
"Alright..."
"I was just being honest, man- anyway, I thought you should know! I'll talk to you later."
"Bye!"

I hope my over enthusiasm for our appearance in the magazine is apparent. I probably bugged the poor kid, but whatchagonnado, eh? You find something like this you want to tell people, right? Jose of the Washington Post has spoken to Grandma and I over the phone a few times in the past week, so his article may become QUITE a big deal. THE WASHINGTON POST!! I wonder if Hillary Clinton will read it when it comes out. Grandma has a few choice words for the woman about the Hot Coffee politicizing of video games.

Soon after the epiphany of the magic of internet publishing ascending to popular print publication and then mailed to us via the postal service faded (about three seconds or so), I checked my e-mail to see if anyone else had heard the news.

Ray from Chicago wrote:

Dude! I saw your Grandma on the MTV thing from Dan Hsu's Blog on 1UP, here's the link [blahblahblahblah] Man, you should capitalize on this shit, you know? Do you know who that IS?

Yes, Ray- we know who that is. Fuck yeah! It was an old post from November 17th; it was strange we didn't find it until today, but there it is. Dan Hsu, if you ever stumble across this blog, know that the copy of EGM Grandma holds in the MTV piece wasn't a prop, she actually reads religiously. That was HER copy. We're glad you found out somehow that your demographic swath is a bit thicker than perhaps you had thought. Thanks Dan!

So lets go over the phenomenona:

Grandma receives two magazines about video games on the exact same day. One mentions Grandma in an article about Jack Thompson, who led the attack against Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive in the production and distribution of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a game which is denied a trade from a woman who claims the game belonged to her husband (an adult) at the GameStop I call about the article, which might have also been contacted about Grandma via the Washington Post, the number one newspaper in Washington D.C., where Hillary Clinton, Jack Thompson's former partner in scandal, does business on behalf of her constituency in New York, where MTV is based, who hires Grandma to review video games in a video; a video seen by the editor of the SECOND magazine, who posts a link to the video in his blog.

[head asplodes]

I'm going to have to watch Magnolia again to get all this straight.

After the demonstrable evidence of the existence of the paranormal has found us today via this experience and also from Grandma's victory of a many armed bitch in Fatal Frame III: The Tormented that has plagued her for two days, Grandma has this to say:

"Hey cool! Maybe we can get a free magazine subscription or something! My renewal notice came with GameInformer today..."

...Game on!