I used to be worried about Texas's recent announcement to change history textbooks in the state's schools. That all changed when I looked at my bookshelf and had a sudden realization from the past: students will be students. That is to say, those textbooks will not be opened for the entire school year.

I am both grateful and saddened that I belonged to the uncool, nerdy clique throughout my grade school years (in college I majored in IT, effectively making all of my classmates the nerdy and uncool). If any group in school would've read the textbooks, it would've been us. We didn't. For me, those textbooks stayed in an out-of-the-way corner of the floor from late August until early June.

I am worried, however, about changes to the actual curriculum. I, like most students in my school, got through by listening to the teacher and taking notes (okay, well, I rarely took notes myself, which led to some awkward moments when classmates asked to borrow them). If teachers actually start teaching on their political views, then there are some issues. We will have to see where things go.

by Jimbo
Jimbo Broadcasting Corporation

After its recent success in arresting a man for human-on-dead octopus pornography (sauce), the magistrates of Eastern Westfordshire have succeeded in prosecuting a 34-year-old man for possessing human-on-Fleshlight pornography. When pressed for a legal justification, a judge stated, "because it's icky."

The case is already stirring up a lot of controversy. Interactive Life Forms (ILF), the company responsible for Fleshlights, has publicly expressed its disagreement with the action. "Our products are perfectly safe and should be allowed in any pornographic material, either amateur or professional," says a company representative. "I mean, hey, that's free publicity, am I right?" Prime Minister Lewis Prothero even stepped up to the issue. "We have to get things moving in the right moral direction," he states. "If this sort of degeneracy continues, we will be on the path to godlessness. Let me say that again: godlessness. Strength through unity, and unity through faith!"

The defendant is understandably shaken up. "I don't understand what the problem is," he explains. "Who cares if I have a flashlight fetish that I satisfy only in the privacy of my own home?" We here at the JBC agree that this type of degeneracy is quite icky and should be outlawed. We remind all readers that government security cameras are your friends and should be treated with respect.

I know what a lot of you are thinking. "What's The Secret of Kells?" Well, if I told you, then it wouldn't be a secret, now would it? Bad jokes aside, this movie is an Irish animated children's tale of such astounding depth and profundity that the studio is sure to never release another film because not enough people paid to see this one.

The story is your standard children's movie affair. A boy of about ten from some suburb similar to, I dunno, yours is called upon an epic quest to acquire some MacGuffin. The main difference is that the gated community in this particular movie is situated in medieval Ireland and is about to be under siege by an army of marauding Norsemen. Everything hinges on the Book of Kells, a beautifully scripted collection of the four gospels. Fortunately, there is almost no direct mention of Christianity, and the whole film seems to spend a lot of time in Celtic pagan territory. The lead protagonist spends much of his time consorting with a wood fairy and playing Tron with a demon snake, presenting more evidence toward that belief system than anything written in the book he's writing. I digress…

The film's art style is what made me pay attention to the movie in the first place, and is still my favorite aspect. Almost the entire movie is presented in a "flat" style reminiscent of ye olde tapestries, before fancy-pants techniques like "perspective" had to go and ruin everything. Rather than blather on, I will just conclude this paragraph by saying it is very pretty.

I find myself in the awkward position of not having enough to complain about. I tend to reach for my old standby of a crappy ending, but I actually thought this film did a decent job of it. The follow-through is just the right length to not make me think, "gee golly willickers, that was sudden" or "gee golly willickers, could they drag that out any longer?" If I did have to complain (and, as a reviewer, I do), I would complain about the overarching plot's simplicity. It's the standard light versus dark affair. Honestly, this is a petty complaint. Such an issue could be levied against Star Wars. The movie was interesting and I enjoyed it from beginning to end.

I was rather depressed to hear that The Secret of Kells didn't win best animated feature. I am not holding back when I say it was far superiour to the actual winner, Up. It's fun, beautifully animated, has interesting characters, and it's an actual cartoon (none of that CG stuff). I give it a solid 10 / 10.23. I may refer to it as a children's movie, but it is certainly much more than that.

(Aislin is watching you masturbate)

You children might be a wee-bit too young to remember this, but the good ol' US was a very big part of the crusades. I remember it like it was just yesterday. In the year of Our Lord, 1095 in the morning, Pope Suburban the Second told everyone it was time to take back the holy land from those folks that don't know how to shave properly. I still remember the great yell, "Dieu li volt!" which, of course, means "Lightning God". With both Our Lord and Zeus behind us, the US and some other unimportant European countries set out to retake the holy land.

The first crusade was probably my favorite. That's where all the good atrocities took place. The retaking of Jerusalem was just a perk! Dangling people in cages and eating one's own feces was all standard affair. I still remember the day when we found the holy lance. We dug up that church floor and found that 10-inch pointy stick. To this day, my first thoughts still resonate in my head, "what, that's it?" Nevertheless, it led us to victory over Jerusalem, where we proceeded in our victory parade to trample babies and rape the townswomen. It was glorious.

The second crusade… uh… let's not talk about that one.

The third crusade was great, I tell you what. Sure, we didn't take back Jerusalem, but it was still really something! It had two awesome true action heroes: Fresh Garden Saladin versus Richard the Surgically-Enhanced With Actual Lion Heart Valves. The English like to think that Richard was theirs, but everyone knows we Americans won him after the Revolution. Maybe I'll tell you about him someday as soon as I make somethi- as soon as my memories clear up.

The fourth crusade is a little hazy for me. I don't seem to remember actually making it to the holy land that time. We sacked the poop out of Constantinople, not Istanbul. It's now Istanbul, but was Constantinople. And we gave Constantinople the works.

Anyway, it's time for you kiddos to go off to bed. Just try to think about this story of American history while you're tucking in. And remember, if you stay up too late… A CRUSADER MIGHT GETCHA! Ha ha, just kidding. Sleep tight.

(Do you know how bloody hard it was to find a funny picture for the crusades!?)

I think it's time feminists hold an award ceremony. They can name the best exemplars of their values in a variety of categories like movies, music, stage productions, &c. I, obviously, would not attend it. It would probably stir my internal male willingness to not get castrated, but I would have a recommendation for best feminist movie: Jurassic Park.

It seems that the only time a group of mostly men gets stranded on an island occupied solely by women is in the pornographic film industry. This movie breaks that mold by placing a group of mostly men on an island occupied solely by women and basically forcing them into retreat. Granted, the group of women on this island consists of hideous reptilian creatures, but, hey, that isn't much different from real-life (sorry, sorry, please don't type all caps at me!). Not only do these lovely ladies send all of the men packing, they prove that they do not even need men. They reproduce and happily live their lives without any need for those hideous creatures with their deformed sex chromosome.

The old way of male thinking, represented in the movie by John Hammond, is shaken up by the island's lovely ladies displaying that they will not be caged in and ogled by people lazily passing by. They lashed out and proved their independence, violently where necessary. And it was totally awesome when that tyrannosaur barged in and picked up that deinonychus velociraptor and… ahem, y'know, showed off that, err, feminist… stuff. Yeah!

(Full author disclaimer: author is a single male)

One day, Hollywood will make a movie called There's Something About Casual Games. It'll star Cameron Diaz and some other person nobody cares about and have a plot that has absolutely nothing to do with what I am writing about. I am writing about osu!, a free-to-download rhythm game that, I'm told, is a customizable port of Elite Beat Agents. Having never played Elite Beat Agents, I can't confirm the validity of the comparison, but it is, nevertheless, very fun.

I hate trying to describe certain games, because simplified descriptions tend to make the player sound mad. The whole point of osu! is to click and/or drag your mouse on circles to the beat of a song. That's about it. You're scored based on your accuracy and how large of a combo you build up. You are also graded by each individual song from the cream of the crop grade SS (schutzstaffel) to the go-sit-in-the-corner grade D (dreadful).

The song-list is what you would expect from any project spawned from the Internet. It is a mix of Japanese rock and pop, modern American rock, dance/electronica, and shameless Internet memes. The songs range from the easy (Ievan Polkka/"leek spin") to songs of such irresponsible difficulty that I wear my buttocks as a hat (for me, any song above normal difficulty). It's the songs in between the two ends of the spectrum that offer the most fun, such as Bad Apple or Auto-Tune the News 2.

The game even includes a tool that lets you create your own beat maps for songs. Frankly, I lack the creative drive to do any of this, but fortunately there are plenty out there who take up the cause. Though, why they would continue making such beat maps is beyond me, since the greatest song has already been prepared: