Boohbahs on Parade
Believe it or not, but there are some things out there more frightening than children's television. In fact, while bravely prowling the unexplored jungle (or junkyard, depending on how you look at it) called The Interweb, I stumbled across this... this horrid... thing. Some twisted, twisted company has created these pear-shaped creatures, and called them Boohbahs. This link will take you to their world. Abandon all hope, ye who enter. If you do click on it, make sure you're not holding any weapons so you don't break your monitor in self-defense, and repeat a calming mantra so you don't have a nervous breakdwon. Try chanting something like "George Bush is our president." That ought to keep you calm.
Skipping the introduction, which it may or may not show, the first thing to load is the home world. It may not seem too scary yet.
This is the enemy's domain. Know it well.
Try running the colorful, sparkly mouse cursor over the page without clicking on anything. Squeaky, neh? Click on a bubble to go to a confoundingly dull minigame. I'm not even going to suggest one because it's all so bloody pointless! There are twelve of these bubbles, and they're almost all the same. Something to the effect of "click on the Boohbah to make something happen", or "move your mouse somewhere to make something happen". The Boohbah in question may move, it may make sound, but if you're really lucky they'll change color! Sometimes there are bubbles instead of Boohbahs. Now, the bubbles are cool. Compared to bubbles, Boohbahs look like inane little squeaky pears. I have nothing against the bubbles.
The most important thing on their main world is the spiral in the center. Check out one of the gifts it spits out when you run your mouse over it. The defining feature of the game the gift launches is that it actually has people in it. It's beyond me why anyone would willing put their put their picture in the Boohbah world, though. If I participated in the Boohbah project, I wouldn't be able to show my face in public, and my parents would disown me, and my best friends would try to stone me, and I would have to live life as an exile, selling overpriced candy bars to tourists in Washington D.C. and wearing a hideous Mardi Gras mask, never daring to expose my face to the light of sun again, lest someone discover that I was one of the Boohbah People, thus making me flee to another metropolitan area like Baghdad, where they eventually find my body, murdered and my kidneys stolen. But I digress.
Back to the games. The coolest of these games by far is the one with the horn. Two people (who I later discover are Grandmamma and Mr Man) are standing in place, and when you blow a horn at them, they get knocked down! But they get up again! I feel a song coming on.
Just imagine yourself pointing two pistols at their feet and saying, "Dance for me."
Eventually, once you've wasted your time on most of it (oh yes, the time does get wasted), you'll realize how sad the boohbah's existence really is. They're incapable mutants trapped in a boring world and forced to dance whenever clicked on. And once you see their side, that is when they have truly won. Never let them win. Close the window before it's too late. Go spend a moment with your family and let them know that everything's all right, that the Boohbahs are trapped and can't get to you, that everything's safe, everything's safe.
Next time: Descent into the Boohbah's Den: A look at the developers of Boohbah!
|
