The first thing I remember was the light.

It wasn’t bright or blinding, like one would expect from the desert sun; it was cool and blue.  My head buzzed with questions and the remnants of the previous evening.  Where had I gone?  What had I done?  My memories were clouded by drink, a hodgepodge of flashing lights, ringing bells, and spotty memories of recalling the TCP/IP stack.

I glanced out the window from my hotel bed, then looked at the clock on my phone.  5:30.  I sat up, groaned, my head in a funk.  I remembered the drinks, the Cisco party – a plate full of spring rolls, sushi, and fried shrimp – and another 3 gin and tonics.  Life seemed so good then.  Zombie pirates.  Free food.  Free drinks.  A Cisco dogtag swung freely around my neck as I stood up.  It had been the five nines of uptime.

And now…system failure.  The drunk screen of death.

I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, still in my boxers.  I felt like a fraud.  What did I know?  The 7 layers of the OSI model?  The difference between star-hub and token ring?  RARP?  Child’s play.  I rinsed my face and shuffled back into the room.  I picked up my phone and started looking through SMS logs and my “sent mail” folder.  Shit.  Resigned to the damage, I cleared them away.  Today would be a new day – it was registration day for DEFCON.  It was 5:45; I scrambled to find some gym shorts and quietly left the hotel room.

I needed to flush my cache, and there was a drugstore across the street with a wall of sports drinks.  Down in the hotel lobby, I snaked my way through the casino floor.  Vegas takes its gloves off in the wee hours of the morning.  The cheerful dings and dongs of slots, video poker, and auto-roulette screeched a devil’s chorus; the victims still hanging from the limbs of the one-armed bandit.  Shaking, drunk, it would only take one more quarter.  One more bet.  You can look for whatever you want here, but you can’t deny seeing the wasteland.  I had a headache.  I had to get out.  When I did, I found the air outside to be cool and dry.  The streets were soulless, empty.  I inhaled deeply and walked to the deserted Walgreens.  I bought a large bottle of gatorade and a two-pack of asprin  before downing it all  on the spot.  I went back and bought two more large bottles of the stuff.  Back in the hotel, I fell back asleep, headache fading, hoping it was just a bad dream.

When I awoke, it was almost time to leave.  The headache was back, and my stomach pained.  We took a taxi to the faded “North Strip” about a mile away.  More wasteland here.  The Riviera – or “Riv” – looked like it was on Vegas death row.  It had aged beyond its years, and stood out like an antique among the other, newer properties.  Our taxi rumbled its way past the Riv and began a descent into the hacker underworld.

Here, underneath the relic from a better past, was the reason we’d come.  DEFCON.  The lower level doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss and we pushed our way through a seemingly endless crowd of technists on the casino floor.  A quick glance at some of the t-shirts, and you knew this wasn’t your standard “Women in Red Hats” party.  The “I void warranties” shirt on the lanky kid with the goggles and long hair, the “I <3 My Geek” shirt on a young woman who looked terribly out of place, and the “NINJA” shirt over a 40-pound cheetos belly.  It was a pretty impressive mix of people.  Young, old, men, more men, young men, the awkward 16-year-old MIT kid, also male, and the occasional girl-next-door in a corset.  No, really.

And then, of course, there were the “GOONS.”  A Goon at DEFCON is basically an official, something of a cross between a police officer, a malignant dictator, and Dennis Nedry.  The Goons wore red shirts which clearly disclosed their position of power, and they loved to yell at people.  I don’t really know what it takes to become a Goon, but I imagine the training program consisting of watching THX 1138 and making fart jokes – they were that distinctive.  In fact, I imagine you could tell who the Goons were even if they weren’t wearing GOON shirts, because they’d be the only ones wearing Camelbaks and Boonie hats indoors, while sweating as if they were out in the desert sun.  Goons are basically like mom and dad leaving the house and saying “while we’re gone, you’re in charge,” except it’s to the little brother with too many legos.

After enduring watching some Goons yell at some unsuspecting plebian, I scoped out the registration line.  It wrapped around the back of the hotel, almost swinging outside into the sweltering parking lot.  Sam and Charlie, who apparently do not feel the effects of MASSIVE quantities of alcohol as I do, said they wanted to hit the buffet for breakfast.  I considered it, still feeling woozy from the night before, before looking at the sign on the wall which finally convinced me.

Yeah, I bet.

So, there I was, at the back of the line, iPhone low on battery, waiting it out.  I met a couple of guys in line who were pretty cool – a guy who was in the same shape (mentally) as I was at the time, a lanky, over-energized network engineer, and his cute  wife, who had a tattoo on her chest that screamed “hey, look at my chest, there is a tattoo on it.”

The line went by more quickly than I thought.  Sam and Charlie, full of powdered eggs and soylent green, met me back up at the front of the line.  We were still in a daze, but managed to work our way to the registration desk, where we got our infamous DEFCON badges, marking the beginning of our voyage to the void of the nerd.

Imagine for a moment, it’s mid morning and you’re standing in a McDonalds wracked with guilt. Do you appease your intestinal lusting with a piece of midday sustenance or do you pounce upon a breakfast bite to better remind yourself of what could have been had you slept in? Desperate you look at the clock, time is running out. If you wait too long your decision will be made and breakfast will have died by the wayside.  But dammit, you still yearn for the comfort a breakfast sandwich brings even as you acquiesce to the sustainability of the ubiquitous burger. And then it hits you: the Mc10:35!

This magnificent piece of culinary composition is at its core a McDouble and an Egg McMuffin. It’s creation is even simpler. Once both items are procured, you carefully extricate the egg and canadian bacon from the McMuffin and add it to the top of the McDouble. It’s bliss in a bun giving you that last little bit of morning sunshine coupled with a nice meaty kick to get you through the day rest of your day. Now, seeing as it’s 10:20, I for one am off to the Golden Arches.

[via Consumerist]

*Picture courtesy of Consumerist since I work for the Man and have no access to a camera.

We can add another item to the long list of amazing things that I wish I thought of and yet have no time to ever accomplish. Patrick Acton of Iowa has completed an incredibly detailed match stick model of Minas Tirith. His labor of love began in April of 2007 and culminated last week on the 15th of February. He used 420,000 matchsticks to create the city and another 24,000 wooden blocks for Mount Mindolluin (the mountain the city is built into). You can catch more pictures of the model over at Matchstick Marvels and I must say, they’re pretty awesome.

[via Nerdesque]

I’ve picked up this game a few times over the course of my life, but never really had it in me to get into it.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe it’s because I have ADHD or I didn’t have time or I just didn’t have it in me or some weird shit, but I’ve been playing it pretty hardcore for the past week or so.  It might take an average player less time to beat this game, but I have a weird obsession with getting ABSOLUTELY ALL of the items, secrets, etc., that the game has to offer.

Anyway, it’s pretty cool, considering it came out in 1992, it’s aged really well.  I’m having a lot of fun with it, except it’s balls hard.

Seriously, it’s fucking hard, this game does not mess around.  I usually don’t feel compelled to throw my controller against a wall, but in several instances of this game, I’ve wanted to.  I might as well anyway, because my little brother borrowed (read: took without asking) it once and got soda in it, so if I let it sit for any more than like 6 hours, the buttons get sticky and I have to clean them out with a wet toothbrush; then they work fine.  Eventually, this trick will stop working, but until then, I’m going strong.

At any rate, if there is any one question this game’s programmers were asking themselves while making this game, it is this:

“How can we make this even more of a pain in the ass?”

Seriously, take this boss for instance, this boss is on the fourth or fifth major dungeon.  I don’t remember, probably because I was screaming in frustration:

Fuck this thing.

That is “Moldorm,” the gigantic centipede of doom.  I had to fight Moldorm between 8-10 times, and I consider myself to be an above-average gamer in terms of skill, especially for adventure games.  You see, every time Moldorm hits you, you get knocked to the edge of the platform that Moldorm conveniently hangs out on.  God forbid you be ANYWHERE near the edge of the platform, too, because if you are, you’re hosed.  If you fall off the platform, you fall to the room below, and you have to climb the stairs to go fight him again, except SOMEHOW he has all of his fucking health back.  Seriously, this guy is like Neo, except instead of bullets, he is able to recover from sword attacks.  Lots of ‘em.  In like 5 seconds.  I’m pretty sure that was in Beowulf or something.  Maybe you falling to the floor below gives Moldorm enough time to get some Neosporin, or PCP.  Who knows.

Anyway, the point here is, the game designers were like “nah, that’s not enough, let’s make this even more fucked up, we’ll put a hole in the MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING PLATFORM.  THAT WILL SHOW HIM WHO IS BOSS, THAT JERK.”  I’m glad I didn’t spend $50 on this game, I’m also glad I have save states, so when I get knocked off the platform, I press command+d and I’m right there, ready to go, for another round.  TECHNOLOGY WINS AGAIN, YOU PRICK.

Anyway, I found a picture online of someone who fits the profile of a typical Zelda game designer.

All Zelda games are pretty much the same.  First, you go get a sword, then you go do three minor quests that are all pretty easy.  It’s sort of like Nintendo playing with you.  ”This game is pretty cool, so we’ll do this to suck you in, then we’ll make up for it later in a sick bastard kind of way.”  Then you find out that THE PRINCESS has been captured by GANON, THE KING OF THIEVES, who is going to use his MAGICAL POWER to lock Zelda, princess of Hyrule, away forever.  Then you have to go get a Master Sword and do some other bullshit through like 7 quests, and then you fight Ganon and the game is over.  Somehow along the way, you end up picking up a boomerang that I still don’t know does what the fuck anything, a hookshot, a bow and arrow, some magic spells, the master sword, a mirror shield, some bottles, aaaaaand some kind of critical plot device that significantly changes the game’s environment.

Look, you can write your own Zelda game with this Zelda-o-Matic I wrote just for you:

Link, the (chosen one / hero / last of the bretheren) must collect the three (pendants / mystical orbs / jewels) to complete some (small virtually irrelevant task in the grand scheme of things).  But wait!  Zelda, the princess of Hyrule, has been captured!  Using the three (whatever), you can obtain the Legendary MASTER SWORD, which you can use to unlock the (seals / barriers / gateways) to the seven (pendants / maidens / pieces of Triforce).  In doing so, you prevent Ganon from obtaining enough power to take over Hyrule!  BUT WAIT!  Ganon already has some dark power, so you have to use the magical (wand / mirror / completely unheard of woodwind instrument) to BREAK INTO HIS LAIRS and DEFEAT THE GUARDIANS THEREIN.  Only then can you defeat Ganon by reflecting his attacks back at him, before he reverts into his true form, and then you win by shooting Ganon with magically imbued silver arrows. DONE.

Also, I don’t know if Zelda programmers have ever actually been in a dungeon, but I have, okay?  Dungeons are fucking lame.  I’ve never seen a rat in a dungeon.  I’ve also never seen moving spiked floors which shoot fire and death, but just, just throw that aside for a second, okay?  Have you ever needed a compass in a dungeon?  NO, YOU DON’T NEED A COMPASS TO NAVIGATE A DUNGEON.  A COMPASS DOES NOTHING FOR YOU IN A DUNGEON.  Also, why are there keys everywhere?  Who runs these dungeons?  Why would you hide a key inside a pot?  That’s dumb.  Finally, these dungeons don’t have prisoners, mind you, they just hide mystical pendants.  I don’t get it.  If Ganon really wanted to make Link’s life miserable, why wouldn’t he be like “HA HA, I BURIED THE PENDANTS IN COMPLETELY RANDOM LOCATIONS THROUGHOUT HYRULE, GO GET A SHOVEL AND START LOOKING, YOU DWEEB!”

I've got badass facial hair and an imposing black robe. What do you have, Link? That's right, you got nothin'.

Another issue here is that I’m sure Link suffers from “the Mario problem,” or just Nice Guy Syndrome.  Link is going to go rescue some broad on the advice of some old coot, which he does, and what does he get for it?  Some pieces of heart?  A better shield?  A fucking boomerang?  Are you serious?  Does he ever get to go out with Zelda?  I mean, every time I start a Zelda game, she is living in some castle, while Link lives in some shed or shack or tree or some other Anacostia bullshit.  Then she gets captured, and Link fights through Hell and back to save her, while Zelda is like “Thanks for saving me, Link, you’re such a great guy, but I’d hate to ruin our friendship with messy physical complications, so here is a magical shield.”  Not even a date?  Nothing?  Link’s not out there for Link, Link is out there for Zelda, okay?  He doesn’t get shit.  I want to play a Zelda game where Link and Zelda ride on a horse into the sunset together.  But I’m a hopeless romantic sap who suffers greatly from Nice Guy Syndrome, so what the fuck.

12 PLOWS-A-PLOWING

11 SCREENS-A-GLOWING

10 HUNTERS LEAPING

9 TORRENTS SEEDING

8 JAGERS BOMBING

7 CALLSIGNS HAMMING

6 LOVERS, EXCEPT JOE

5 FLAWLESS GEMS

4 SMARTRIP CARDS

3 MAC TVs

2 GODDAMN CATS

AND A POST HERE ON 930!

With all of the various options for starting/maintaining a home media server, the lowly Apple TV is widely disregarded by “power-nerds” as a viable (or particularly useful) home media solution.  I may not have the technical expertise, prowess, or, frankly, patience to create an amazing home-grown media server, like Edwin, but I am quite the Apple geek, I enjoy pre-fabricated gadgetry, and I have employee discounts to use.*

And no, you can’t have any.

What you can have, however, is a practical guide to getting the most out of Apple TV, which you can get for free, right here, on the Sector!  What a deal!

I’m splitting this guide up into three parts, because I want to advise you on some of the prep work involved before receiving your Apple TV.  If you want to order one, it isn’t actually too late, the Apple Online Store is offering free next-day shipping through Wednesday.  In other words, buy some stock in FedEx for a quick kill.**

Chapter 1: “Should I Actually Order an Apple TV?”

Apple TV is great for:

• People who use Macs, and dump countless dollars into iTunes.
• People who use Windows, and dump countless dollars into iTunes.
• People who have HDTVs.
• People who are not interested in buying Blu-Ray discs.
• People who lose their current DVDs all over the goddamn house and GOD DAMMIT WHERE IS MY COPY OF “THE SECRET OF THE OOZE?”
• People who like all of their movies, music, and photos to be accessible from a central location.
• People who like straightforward, easy-to-use, sleek interfaces.

It so happens that my mom (bless her heart) bought me a 32” HDTV for Christmas.  Sweet.  It also so happens that I am sort of an iTunes slave, and I have a Mac, and, well, that’s just kind of what happens when you work for Apple.  Whaddya know?

I’ll leave the extensive format war discussions to Sam and Andy Rush, but my short take on it is thus: I don’t like Blu-Ray.  I don’t think I really have a good reason to dislike Blu-Ray, I just don’t really like it.  Kind of like “that guy” at the college party who gets all the women to talk to him, effortlessly.  I don’t really know him, but I know he’s probably a douchebag.  Also, I don’t want to start a flame war about costs and Apple products, and formats, but I’m also having a hard time finding high quality Blu-Ray players for less than $200, and Blu-Ray discs are still hella expensive, while HD Movies on iTunes, for the most part, cost $15-19.99.  Just sayin’

I also don’t like “stuff,” I try to keep as little of it as possible; the less I have, the less I can lose or misplace or make a mess with.  I’m done with discs.  That’s just a personal thing, though.

Apple TV costs $229 from the Apple Store, but for some strange, bizarre reason, Apple does not include any component or HDMI cables.  In my opinion, that’s kind of like ordering a hamburger without a bun, but I guess people do that.  Do not buy HDMI or component cables from the Apple Store, or even Best Buy, for that matter.  Go to Target, RadioShack or Wal-Mart to save a few coins.

If you do not have an HDTV, do not order an Apple TV.

If you do not have broadband Internet, do not order an Apple TV.

If you do not feel like backing up your purchases to an external unit, do not order an Apple TV.  Losing a digital purchase, for whatever reason, is no different than losing a DVD.  If you lose it, you will have to buy a new one.

If you do not feel comfortable truly “owning” your content, do not order an Apple TV.

What’s that?  You got one anyway?  Cool.  It is actually quite a nifty gadget, and, like most Apple products, does more than people give it credit for.

Chapter 2: Prepping for Apple TV

Overview

Apple TV gets its data over wired or wireless Ethernet, via several methods.  It is possible to stream iTunes music, watch YouTube, view photos, listen to Internet radio, and, of course, “sync” your Apple TV with an iTunes library, much like an iPod.

This confused me at first, as I thought you could only stream iTunes content to Apple TV, which is not the case, as it is possible for Apple TV to store iTunes Library content locally.  This is also a misconception among my customers.  It is possible to transfer movies from your computer to Apple TV, and vice versa.  That is, if your content is purchased on the device itself, it can be copied to an iTunes library on your computer.  The device has a 160 GB HDD for content.

Step 1: Rip Your DVDs.

Apple TV does not play DVDs, which is where HandBrake comes in.  HandBrake is a free, very reliable, open-source piece of software for pulling DVD content from DVDs.

Now, the legality of ripping DVDs continues to be questionable; I’m not going to be held responsible for you if you distribute your ripped content in a way which violates copyright law.  I’m in the “if you own the DVD, it’s your DVD” camp, and have no moral objections to DVD ripping in this context.

If you need help using HandBrake, check the documentation on their website, this is not a HandBrake tutorial.  I do recommend you use “Apple Universal” (mp4) for the end format, however, and I personally shoot for a 1GB file size target for most movies, with 2-pass encoding.  Longer movies will warrant larger file sizes, though, so keep that in mind when you’re pulling the extended edition of Return of the King.

Ripping takes a long time, even on a fast Core 2 Duo.  Get a sandwich, something with bacon.  Rinse and repeat.

Step 2: Clean Up and Prep iTunes.

Apple TV absolutely requires you to use iTunes, but you probably knew that.  Once you’ve finished ripping your DVDs, it’s time to copy them into iTunes.  The easiest way to do this is to select “Movies” from the iTunes sidebar, and simply drag-and-drop movies into the pane.  You can also click “File,” and scroll to “Add to Library.”  From there, navigate to your movie file, and add it to your library.

IF YOU HAVE CONFIGURED iTUNES TO COPY ALL CONTENT TO YOUR LIBRARY FOLDER, WHICH I RECOMMEND, IT WILL LEAVE THE ORIGINAL FILE INTACT, LEAVING YOU WITH TWO COPIES OF YOUR MOVIE ON YOUR HDD.

ERASE THE FIRST COPY.

Once you’ve done this, you need to add the movie’s poster; it looks better in both iTunes and on Apple TV.

In order to add a poster to a movie, right click (or control+click) on the movie in iTunes.  Select “Get Info,” and then click on the “Artwork” tab.  The next step is to find a copy of the poster, which is best done by typing the title of the movie into Google Image Search.  For movie artwork in iTunes, use images that are around 700 pixels tall by 500 pixels wide.  For reasons that I do not understand, dragging and dropping film artwork into the artwork pane does not work, so I created a folder on my desktop called “movie posters,” saved the JPEGs into it, and applied them in iTunes via the “add” button in the artwork pane.

I’m still working on ripping my movies, but this is what my library looks like so far.

Next week, we’ll go over syncing, unboxing, and configuring Apple TV.

*The views expressed in this post are my own and do not represent those of Apple, Inc., FileMaker, or any of its subsidiaries.  For questions regarding Apple consumer policy, please visit http://apple.com/legal.

**I AM NOT A FINANCIAL ADVISOR.  DO NOT TAKE MY FINANCIAL ADVICE IN ANY SERIOUS CAPACITY; I GOT A C+ IN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT IN COLLEGE.  IF YOU SEND ME HATE MAIL AFTER YOU LOSE YOUR LIFE SAVINGS, I WILL LAUGH AT YOU WITHOUT REMORSE.

In a normal environment, a carcass gets cold in 8 to 36 hours losing an average rate of 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit per hour. However, the ice world of Hoth is not an average environment. The Star Wars database lists that Hoth reaches nightly temperatures of -60 F. In a frigid, sub-zero environment, body heat can be lost almost 32 times faster. This means a Tauntaun’s body heat could drop almost 51.2 F every hour. Considering that Han Solo’s Tauntaun died of severe hypothermia even before it was cut open with Luke’s light saber, one could assume it’s core body temperature was already well below normal. The problem for Luke is if the Tauntaun’s body temperature reaches freezing point those once toasty guts, blood, and assorted alien goo, will in fact become a frozen coffin. If the Tauntaun died of cardiac arrest due to hypothermia with an average body temperature of 75 F (23 C), and if Tauntaun blood freezes at 28.4 F (-2 C), then Han has roughly 56 minutes to set up a shelter before Luke once again is in danger of losing his life in the barren wasteland of Hoth.

If you’d like to read the whole article, you can find it here.

I’m not asking you technically, I mean metaphorically.

I know it’s some kind of wack-ass chemical reaction.  Something about juice and acid and gas (lol) and science.  It’s just “nature’s way” of saying “hey, hey buddy, there is nothing in here, so you better fix it, you nutjob.”  Reactions are for chemists.  I have another theory.

It’s a reminder of what we really are: animals.  Mammals with powerful, powerful instincts, and at 11:45 AM, those instincts are screaming only one thing at the top of their lungs:

MEAT.

Take me, for example.  This is what I look like around lunchtime.  Clean-cut.  Well-kept.  Good-looking, and with an uncompromisingly American attitude.

I'm single, for the love of God I'm single.

Inside, though.  Inside…there is only this.

I'm still single.

Sometimes you don’t even realize that you’re hungry, because your stomach doesn’t growl.  That’s when you’re really hosed, because then you realize that you have been chewing on the backend of an ST connector for half an hour, and you’re “pretty sure it ain’t gonna be working anymore” and you have to explain to your boss why you have a $25 fiber replacement on your expense report.  But I digress.

As it turns out, I didn’t know what to have for lunch today, even though I was in that kind of mood.  Part of me was saying “cheeseburger,” and the other part of me was saying “chicken nuggets.”  Generally incompatible, yes, but if you can install Windows on an Intel Mac, what can’t you do?  Legend tells of a sandwich outside the mortal realm, a sandwich which – literally – strikes fear into the hearts of even the most seasoned nerds.  Truly a diabetic debacle.  A gastrointestinal ghoul.  A nutritional non sequitur. Gentlemen!  (And Shannon and Lenore) THE MCGANGBANG.

Jesus Christ.

Now, if it is not obvious enough, a McGangbang is a McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger with a McDonald’s McChicken in the middle of it, a total cost of $2.19, plus tax.  I imagine it is called “The McGangbang” because that is what it feels like it’s doing to your digestive system as you are eating it.  If you use the $1 “McDouble” – McDonald’s way of being a bunch of cheap-ass bastards by yanking the second piece of cheese from the double cheeseburger so they could keep the cost at a buck – it’s not a McGangbang.  You really, really do need both pieces of cheese for this to work.

Now, being a nerd, something of an innovator, and someone who enjoys tinkering in general, especially with cuisine, I decided to approach the assembly of this atomic abomination with a few hacks.  Why?  Two reasons.

1: I don’t like mayonnaise.  At all.  I realize this is really a personal issue; I mean, I also like having Dock Magnification turned on, so it’s a wash.  What I do like, however, is Big Mac sauce.  Therefore, I ordered the McChicken with big mac sauce instead of mayonnaise.  I thought it would be free, but McDonald’s charged me 0.15 for it.  Fair enough, I’d bitch if it were more than a quarter.

2: There is really no need for four buns.  A third bun gives the sandwich balance.  A fourth is extra calories at the cost of the taste of the delicious meat.  Basically, having 4 buns on one sandwich is kind of like running Windows Vista in any capacity; there’s so much fluff, you have a hard time getting to the meat.

That’s what she said.

This in mind, I decided to christen my creation “The McGangbang 2.0″ because “The McMcMahon” is obnoxiously redundant.

Caloric Breakdown:

Double Cheeseburger: 440 kcal
McChicken with Big Mac Sauce and No Bun: approx 290 kcal
Small Fry: 230kcal
Diet Coke: 0kcal

Total: 960kcal.  Obviously not something you’d want to eat every day, but you could definitely do worse.  A double quarter pounder with cheese and a medium french fry will set you back 1120kcal, and probably be a lot less awesome.  Altogether was $5.21 with lousy 10% local restaurant tax.

I set out my ingredients before beginning assembly.  The fries were not involved with sandwich construction, but they were part of my lunch, so whatever.

I then proceeded to begin the construction of the McGangbang 2.0.  The most annoying part of it was separating the two cheeseburger patties, which had somehow managed to permanently fuse themselves together in a disgustingly glorious singular mass of cheese and death over the course of my five-minute drive back to my office.

It was unpleasant.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT.  BEHOLD:

How does it taste?  Well, the big mac sauce was on kind of thick, so your mileage may vary, but otherwise, it was really, really awesome.  I would definitely eat this again.  The lettuce gave it some oomph, and the McChicken patty is a peppery and heavily-breaded but otherwise pretty good piece of poultry.  Removing the fourth bun was definitely a good idea.  I like all the other ingredients (ketchup, mustard, pickles, lettuce, McDonald’s ghetto onions), so those stayed, which was also a good move.  It really did have a lot of flavor.

It's only truly horrifying if you stare at it for too long, like eating an oyster.

And how do I feel now?  Surprisingly okay.  My regret-o-meter is only rolling about a 3 out of 5, which is about what I was expecting.  Feeling pretty full/heavy right now, to be sure, but it’s pretty chilly outside anyway.  I’ll get a salad for dinner.  Or not.

So there you have it, folks, the McGangbang 2.0.  I recommend it.  Who knows, maybe it’ll catch on and we’ll get some more readers and be Internet celebrities or get some coupons.  So, until we get a shot at the KFC Double Down, adios.

I decided to search through YouTube and saw that while awesome, the Tetris skaters didn’t seem as dedicated to bringing to life source as the pixelated post-it note Donkey Kong team:

Nor were they as patient as the crew of  this stop motion Space Invaders performance created using an empty auditorium: