I know I spent far more time reading the manuals than playing. Especially reading monster descriptions, treasures, and equipment. I was mostly interested in D&D but probably read manuals for at least half a dozen different game types, just out of curiosity, even though I never played any of them at all.

Hah. No, but carrying a large knife does very adequately suggest, "Don't stand so close to me."

I think you overestimate the amount of authors who are either top-selling or locked into a rewarding specialty niche. I'd bet it leaves 80% or more in what you're calling "the dreck." There's bound to be middling writers who don't have the clout or fortitude of the top-sellers, rising stars who just want to get into lots of hands, promising beginners who are happier with Amazon's $1.33 than they would be with a traditional publisher's $0.50 for their debut, niche authors who don't have command of a good audience for whatever reason, the poorly advertised and undiscovered, and, yes, of course there's still drek.

You know what lots of other people call a carefully crafted misdirection? Wit. Or humor. Why is it automatically "a dick thing to do" and not one of the former? Because Jesus is involved?

You're forgetting the Bioshock scenario here. That would be far more sensational.

Very modern humans with excellent nutrition. It can be delayed by poor nutrition. I'm pretty sure I've seen people talking about that number dipping lower in recent centuries. I suspect it was higher in neo/paleolithic ages, when the food supply was less consistent.

The largest number of birds I've ever seen in flight came right before a massive blizzard. I was standing by a river and over it tens of thousands of ducks and geese were flying due south, away from the incoming snow. "Wow, that's ominous," I said, before going home and being trapped inside for several days by nearly three feet of snow.

What do you mean I don't own it? I can burn a CD and keep physical copies. Plus I can also get a new copy from Apple if I lose both the physical version and the digital version on my computer/iPod.

I've got a much better record buying from them than I did in previous years buying physical media that, once broken, borrowed, or lost, didn't have a replacement.

It's a fun site, though some of the entries are so far off I lean toward assuming they're jokes/spam rather than real. (Then again, someone above claimed they heard "pet shark" for "best shot" so maybe anything really is possible.) Good way to spend some time, though.

Reminds me of the old quest catchphrase "Committed to Service Inaction" that you'd hear on TV commercials.

The next version of the commercial they changed the pacing so that it was "Commited to. Service. ... In. ... Action" in a really halting speech.

The next version of the commercial, they either dropped the phrase or changed it entirely. It just wasn't possible to say it clearly.

I tried playing that one without the benefit of a manual. I didn't even know what I was looking at, to know what things would kill you or were safe - I remember reloading and just walking around waiting to see if/when/how I died. I'm pretty sure I didn't know I needed to use a second joystick, so that may have made things much worse. In my memory it's the most frustrating Atari game I ever played, and this is coming from a guy who beat and replayed E.T.

There's a sort of reverse Mondegreen at the end of Queen's "One Vision" where they sneak in some funny words that most people pass off as more normal words. After repeating the title phrase frequently in the song, at the very end they sneak in a "fried chicken!" It's easy to miss, and was put in as a joke. I cracked up a bunch of college friends by pointing it out to them. They had to listen to it half a dozen times to believe it was really in there.

Conversely as a kid I ended up singing "Robots in the skies" instead of "Robots in disguise" to the Transformers theme song. To be fair, many of them could fly.

Later in the same song where it says autobots "wage their battle" I was convinced it was "pledge their phantoms" which I guessed was some kind of swear on their souls sort of thing. Apparently I'm especially prone to these things, or was as a kid.

Yeah, I settled on "big-ol' Carolina" for years before figuring that one out.

I remember hearing "Please Molly Dodd" when I was a kid, partially explained by some show with the title character Molly Dodd being on the air that my mom used to watch.