Wisdom on the Radio Waves
By Shehtaz Huq

THE music scene that is captured on 106.1 Kiss FM has established, among other things, this one sobering fact. The entirety of pop culture revolves around airplanes, setting beds on fire, swaggering like Mick Jagger, and the odd rude boy or two. One almost feels as though one is living one's own version of The Truman Show's eternal loop, with every hour spent listening to the radio mirroring the hour preceding it. Aside from withering brain cells, this prolonged exposure to the power of the three-chord formula can successfully put one in a catatonic state where one is free to ponder the many lessons of Kiss FM.

So hot we'll melt your Popsicle
The hotness of human skin, in theory, could melt iced dessert on a stick. Either that, or the lyrics are intended as a sexual innuendo, in which case one must applaud Katy Perry/her producer/her songwriter for cobbling together this gem of an extended metaphor. Also worth applauding is the message of how California girls (meant to rhyme with 'hurl', since one is at liberty to malign syntax at this point) are best known for their bikini-clad assets. Because it is always dangerous to take those silicon-implanted bust lines and collagen-enhanced facial muscles and apply them to any real world skills. Forget a career in chemical engineering. One's life ought to be spent frolicking in the sand, in the hopes that some music video director from the 90s will be inspired to recreate some iconic rolling-in-the-beach moments.

Next to Oprah and the Queen
There are many things one can do with that multiple-figure salary. One may be featured in Forbes magazine next to a talk show host or a reigning monarch of England; one may eradicate world hunger; one may even hold court with the leader of the free world and toss fistfuls of hundred-dollar bills out the window of Air Force One if the aforementioned is to take one's fancy. Of course, the one in question, Travis Mccoy, has much knowledge to impart with the world. There is not a lack of imagination on his part, oh no. He possesses the rare gift of putting a vaguely comprehendible concept and fleshing it out in layman's terms.
I want to be a billionaire so frickin' bad. Set, game, and match.

Tick tock
Once the pounding, grinding techno beats are slowly hammered into one's head and one swims through the momentarily mind-numbing Ke&sha-ness of Ke$ha, one is once again confronted with a union of soul and music so holy, so perfect that one can only sit back and gape. Here is carpe diem at its finest. Clubbing partying drinking shooting drugs dismissing sexual advances from drunken men getting out of bed with a splitting hangover swaggering like Mick Jagger the barrage is inundating. If one harbors the sneaking suspicion that it was exactly this lifestyle that landed Lindsay Lohan in jail then one is obviously delusional.

There's so many ways to love you
Apparently, along with truncating already simplified expressions of shock/awe/disbelief, one has to suspend the notion of subject-verb agreement. Step down from your niche, Leonard Cohen and Sam Beam, Netspeak has arrived. OMG. Those second-grade grammar lessons of plural verbs paired with plural and singular with singular take a backseat to the wonderfully rendered romantic sentiment that Usher croons. Women all around the world shall now clutch their hearts and swoon.

And you keep them real while them others stay plastic
It is a general rule that women want to be told they hold sway over their men. In fact, the power that they wield can only be comparable to a Nintendo 64. B.o.b knows, and knows well, that equating the concept of love with an archaic video game consoles will prove to dearly beloved better halves that no biped in the world could have nothin' on… dem. Love is no eternal Garden of Eden whose fragrant boughs rustle in the breeze of adoration. Them Shakespearean ballads had it all wrong.

Like a lovesick crackhead
Auto-tune and simplified similes go a long way. Ke$ha, the beacon of musicality that she is, knows just how to tap into the well of human emotion. As far as literary devices go, no comparison goes farther than what $he has to offer. Because your love is a drug like that.
(No wonder a particular stretch of Texas highway has such high accident rates. One wonders if there is an inverse relation between grey matter and Kiss FM…)

AS I sat inside Air Force One, Obama trying to fill me in on USA's current plan to decrease the percentage of obesity in the country from 99.7% to 99.69% (the .3% were all actors, he told me), I could barely concentrate on what he had to say. My mind was in turmoil; the new facts that I had learned were going through my head like shrieking bullets from that oh-so-horrible Clive Owen film, Shoot 'Em Up. Well, apart from the parts with Monica Bellucci in them.

The plane was headed for Madrid, and while my head still jumbled thoughts of Larissa Riquelme, her assets, and the storm Lady Lovelove was brewing at home and how I would calm said storm, I was wondering what I would do when I reached Madrid. I needed to confront the King and Prime Minister and for that to happen, I needed an appointment and that wouldn't be easy, even for someone as Grand as Myself. I snapped at Obama to shut the hell up and both of us sat quietly throughout the journey, playing NFS at intermittent intervals in the PS3 which was built into the cockpit. Obama hinted to me that he could use NSA satellites to spy on hot actresses across the globe, and though it was quite a good idea, I wasn't comfortable doing that with another guy by my side. So we landed in Madrid and immediately headed for the Palacio de la Moncloa, the official residence of the Spanish Prime Minister. The place, I saw, was guarded by ten Spanish Chihuahuas, and one man who sat at the gate, looking intently at passer-bys, and at intervals talking into a walkie-talkie in Spanish. I approached the man and asked if I could see the Prime Minister. He didn't understand a word I said, which I assumed to mean his uncooperative nature. I was about to tell the Secret Service to pin him down so that I could tickle him mercilessly but Obama interjected, saying that he could speak Spanish quite fluently. I was quite surprised. An American President with skills? Who'd have thought?

They exchanged some words, while my impatience grew and grew, and when Barack finally came back he told me what he had found out: the Prime Minister was currently in a meeting with the King himself and would be unavailable for quite some time. What were the chances? The two men I wished to confront at the same place the moment I got here. My intense psychiatric sessions with Sylvester Stallone after the Rocky movies (He had been having problems forgetting that he was actually Rocky, and this was interfering with his filming of Rambo, where he would randomly start punching his fellow actors, one time even picking up a six-year-old and slinging him around his waist, pretending he was his Heavyweight Championship belt) had taught me that there were no such things as coincidences, except for the second consecutive term of Bush. I gave Obama a stern spanking for bringing in this bad news and told him to translate for me while I threatened the man. I told the Secret Service men to pin him down once more when suddenly, the man dropped to his knees and started kissing my feet, crying “Doctoro Amouramour! Amouramour!” I didn't know Spanish, but I could see that he had recognised me, as was inevitably the case with everyone in the world. He let us in, swiftly, and as I entered the grand hallway of the palace, I could immediately detect a stench of siesta meat and, most strikingly, mussel.

The walls of the hallway were covered with huge pictures of letters. There were five in total. I passed each of them, designed with a squirmy, squiggly, mossy, sea-infested font. First there was a P and then a U, followed my L, P and O. Pulpo. I wondered what that meant. American President he may be, but he had proved more intelligent than most Americans, and so, hesitant but thinking it was worth a shot as we moved towards the ballroom of the palace, I asked Barack if he knew what Pulpo meant.

“Octopus.”
Octopus. The word reverberated menacingly within me, like the sound of Lindsay Lohan driving a car: it was dangerous. I was now convinced of the ties between Paul and the Spanish hierarchy, and as I entered, I saw what would change the course of history: two men, whom I recognised as the King and Prime Minister themselves, with their two wives, five children, and the King's eighteen grandchildren, bowed before a throne. And on the throne was Paul, a gold crested crown stuck firmly on his head and written right above his head: Reina Pulpo Paulina. I asked Obama what that meant and when he told me, I knew there was so much more hidden beneath the surface than I had at first assumed.

Not only was Paul female, namely Pauline, she was actually the true Queen of Spain.
(to be continued.)

Problems, inquiries, endorsements and KMAs: dr.lovelove@live.com

World Cyber Games 2010
By The Anarchist Kitten

THE only people who may be surprised at former South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung's remarks about gaming, “Cyber games are a business with high added value, based on knowledge and cultural creativity. It also serves as a link that interconnects young people of the world…” are people who have either lived under a bridge all their life or… yeah there aren't any other kinds. It is positively refreshing that we're living in a world today where our leaders are finally taking notice of the uniting power of games.

The world's first and largest cyber game festival, a rapidly growing international annual Olympics where the best gamers in the world compete for glory, World Cyber Games, is back in town this August with Qubee as its Internet partner and registration for it opens on the 29th of July, 2010. The registration for World Cyber Games 2010 Bangladesh National Championship which will start on the 29th of July will continue till the 31st of July at three different select Qubee Stores at different points in the city: the Qubee Store in Gulshan, the first floor on Casablanca Ridge Park in Gulshan Avenue, the Elephant Road Qubee Store on the 5th floor of the Multiplan Centre and the Uttara Qubee Store on the 2nd floor of H.M. Plaza, in Uttara sector 3. The registration fee this year per player per game is TK 300 and with each registration the participant will get a unique World Cyber Games T-shirt and bag. The registration only requires one picture of the participant of any size.

E-sport, where sport is conducted within the medium of cyberspace, is becoming the largest sports market in the world. World Cyber Games is the global tournament in which a million players compete against one another for the title of world champion. World Cyber Games is also a gaming industry conference drawing the industry pundits and leaders in the largest, six-continent encompassing gaming event held annually. Over 70 countries participate in this Olympics inspired event held in different cities across the world each year. Bangladesh has performed admirably in every competition thus far, and this year is especially promising after a Bangladeshi bronze in the game FIFA 2010 at the World Cyber Games Asian Championship. This year is also anticipated given WCG's partnership with Qubee, who will set up their fast and quality Internet service for the event nationally.

The WCG 2010 official games for the PC are Warcraft III: Frozen Throne, Counter-Strike, TrackMania NationsForever, Carom 3D; for Xbox 360, the official games are Forza Motorsport 3, Guitar Hero 5 and Tekken 6.

As Bangladeshi gamers gear up for the face-off, one can definitely see Bangladesh's technological prowess and how far we have come. The WCG slogan, “Beyond the Game”, means that the WCG is not just a world game tournament, but also combines the world to create harmony and enjoyment through the emotions that are shared while playing a good game. The WCG slogan also stands for the peace that emerges during this tournament, fostering mutual respect amongst all young participants from all over the world. In this regard, WCG is one of the largest youth oriented cultural festivals.