Year of the Rats
January 7, 2008
It's a new year, and you know what that means. Time to tell yourself a bunch of lies about how this year is going to be different. You're going to lose that weight. You're going to get that raise. You're going to stop painting a tuxedo on your naked body and standing outside the deli waiting for someone to notice. All lies. And the worst part is, you know they're lies. Is that how you want to start off a new year? Feeding yourself yet another ration of crap?
Do something different this year. Tell yourself the truth. Not just about yourself, but the world around you as well.
Wideload’s preferred source for honest, unadulterated facts: GRR News. Every weekday we wake up, drink some hot coffee, and check out GRR for the real scoop. To say it has greatly influenced the development of Hail to the Chimp would be an understatement. Now they have a website. A website that humans like you can read. It's at http://GRRnews.com and it's updated every weekday. Should you check it out? Only if you're ready to learn what's really going on.
On a related note, you might want to check out the latest batch of photos on Behind the Load. Why? Well, here's a sample photo to get you started:
'Nuff said.
More soon - including news about the mysterious Cyclomite. And that's the truth.
A Load Both Wide and Squat
October 12, 2007
Imagine, if you will, a small green box. More of a forest green than a lime green. Not festive. Somber. Imagine someone hands you this box. Not some stranger on the street, but a trusted friend or loved one. Perhaps a parent, policeman or religious leader. And imagine that inside the small green box is a small, throbbing ball of white gauze. And inside that ball of gauze is the tiny, tiny heart of some small animal, AND IT'S STILL WARM AND IT'S STILL BEATING.
You wouldn't update your website for a few months either.
Apart from the occasional traumatic episode, things have been going quite well. For starters, we opened up a whole new wing of the company. Wideload Shorts is the name, and Cyclomite is the game. There will be many other games, but Cyclomite is the first. The folks at 1UP have written a little preview, but there's more info to come: watch this space. We'll have more info about Cyclomite and the men who are making it in the days and weeks to come.
Things have been moving along on the Chimp front too. There will be some lovely Chimp-related goodness very soon in the Behind The Load section. For now, you will have to content yourself with the charming Kickball Tournament photo journal, which will warm the very cockles of your heart. Your hideous, hideous heart.
The Load Goes West
July 20, 2007
There we were, on a beach in sunny California. It was just like that Wilson-Phillips video, except we were palling around with Mike Wilson rather than Carnie Wilson. Frankly, the chicken mask works better on Carnie. We know that's subjective, but we also know we're right. Don't ask how.
Anyway, we had all joined hands and were singing the triumphant final chorus of "Hold On" when it occurred to us that we probably ought to document this for posterity. Tom's soaring falsetto never sounded better, and we probably could have gotten a record deal if we'd been in LA proper instead of Santa Monica. Alas, no one had a camera. Not even a cell phone. Oh, the vicissitudes of fate! Our exquisite Load harmonies will have to remain the stuff of legend for now.
Since our collective dream of becoming the next Peter, Paul & Mary has been stymied, we'll just have to tell you about the other reason we were in California. It starts with an E and ends with an O. If you guessed "Captain Eo at Disneyland," you're right! If you followed that up with "I thought they stopped showing that years ago," you are right again. Where were you two weeks ago when we bought plane tickets, smart guy? With no other entertainment options in southern California, we ended up on the beach. Imagine our surprise when Mike Wilson of Gamecock Media showed up on the same beach, leading a parade of game press and other goofballs. Thinking quickly, we rushed to our hotel suite, set up the Xbox devkit we carry with us for occasions such as this, and began impromptu demos of Hail to the Chimp for the press. It went really well considering for something that was completely unplanned and improvised. Guess those plane tickets weren't a waste of petty cash after all.
Details of these demos are starting to leak out via the press. The Escapist had a very nice writeup, as did Gamespot, and IGN. Probably some others too. Looking for good places to track that sort of thing? Check out the fansites. The Wide Load just opened, and mainstays W.org and Rampancy will also satisfy the jones for the skinny on the Load. Say that three times fast. Not forgetting our own Behind the Load, which will be sporting some new info in the very near future.
So there you have it. We went to California. We showed Chimp to the press. We came back. Tom's still singing Wilson-Phillips songs. Just another week in the life of the Load.
The Load Reloaded
July 7, 2007
H.L. Mencken said, "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." We felt that way every time we looked at our old website. So we did the decent thing and took it to the website pound. You've heard of those, right? They're sprouting up in the more tech-savvy cities. The Chicago one just opened last month. They take in your website when you're too lazy to care for it anymore. They put it in a little server closet that smells of disinfectant and urine, give it some chew toys, and hang onto it for about a week. Maybe some kind soul in need of a website will wander in and adopt it. If not, they put it in a bag and throw it into Lake Michigan. You'd think we'd have a more humane way of dealing with old websites by now. Something painless and compassionate. Maybe that's what that whole "Web 2.0" thing is all about. But for now, it's a Hefty bag and the heartless embrace of the cold, cold water.
In any case, we replaced our smelly old website with this shiny new one. Isn't it gorgeous? We think so. It's so pretty it inspired us to create an entirely new form of poetry. No boring old sonnets for us! We are eager to share this invention with you, but our stodgy old lawyers insisted we hold off for the moment. Something about obscenity laws.
Rather than reading poetry inspired by our website, perhaps it would do you good to peruse the site itself. Check out that Behind the Load section, for example. Much Load-related goodness that cannot be otherwise classified will live there. Get in on the ground floor and watch as it grows, swelling to the bursting point with delights straight from the Wideload hive mind to you. It's like a giant suppurating abscess filled with pure joy.
Industrious types can check out the Work With The Load section, where contractors now have a handy-dandy form to inform us of their skills. More traditional, full-time jobs can occasionally be espied there as well.
There are links to our games on every page, so you'll never be more than a click away from finding out more about what we've done and what we're about to do. And hey! We have XML feeds now, so you can read all this stuff in your boring old feed-reader app instead of here on this exquisitely designed site.
Speaking of exquisite design, some words of thanks are in order. Firstly to our friends the Schiffmans in New York, who made this site ready for the prom. And also to our friend Robert "Psyrixx" Sogomonian, who made the back end of this site so Callipygian. Truly, his mighty hands have widened this load. And where would we be without humble Load Intern Justin Fischer, who wrangled the site into its final working form. We are impressed, young man, but not impressed enough to stop the beatings.
Finally, a note to our friends on the Isle of Man. We haven't forgotten you. Stay tuned.
That goes for the rest of you as well. Watch this space.