LIER Magazine | http://liermag.blogspot.com/

EXCHANGE Student Goes Abroad For Holiday

2007-09-01T23:43:00.000+10:00

Last week, LIER's chief journalist Chester Glyndonson was featured in the Higher Education section of the August 2007 issue of TIEM Magazine for his crackdown on university students who allegedly "go to class". Glyndonson found that "going to class" was just one of many new-age college euphemisms for "going to check my Facebook/MySpace in the school library" and won a Pulitzer's Prize for his feature article. There have been rumours that his article will be made into a Hollywood film.

To continue to trend, this week, Glyndonson is off hunting Generation-Y once again, and this time round, his prey is Chinese foreign exchange student, Cha-Siu Bao. Bao, originally from the island of Hong Kong, attends the University of Kingsfield, Australia and has spent the last 3 years maintaining his GPA of 7.1. When asked to comment on his amazing perseverance, Bao declined to comment, leading us to conclude that he must be a victim of Asian Parenting, a disease that is widespread throughout a large population of Asian youths.

Bao initially turned up to the exchange program information seminar accidentally, after being duped by one of his friends that an extra lecture had been scheduled for his favourite course, ECON1828, Economics for Elitists. After bugging Bao's house and recording his conversations with his parents, we found out that they were very much against the idea of him going overseas to further his study and preferred that he stay in Australia under their watchful eye. Sources tell us that Bao was very upset after the conversation and was in no mood to study that evening. His tantrum almost cost him his perfect GPA and he has since learned his lesson, after being reportedly spanked by his mother.

While he was very excited about going away to study abroad, after discussing the exchange opportunity with a academic advisor, Bao found that he was ineligible for exchange, as he was already under scholarship at UK. In a bid to somehow cheat the system, Bao photoshopped himself a fake birth certificate, a doctored application form and went as far as buying himself a new tie and growing a beard. Several weeks later, Bao presented the relevant documents to his parents and his mother fainted and had to be rushed to hospital. In the chaos that ensued, Bao, who had packed his bags weeks beforehand, took a cab to the airport to catch a flight to Tijuana, the happiest place on earth.

In the following 6 months, the University of Kingsfield became increasingly suspect due to the lack of correspondence from Ashwood University, the institution to which Bao had supposedly applied for exchange. The administration at UK began researching Ashwood University, and were unable to find the institution on the Academic Ranking of World Universities. Upon googling Ashwood University, the administration found that it was simply an Internet based "university" which was in fact just a degree mill that provides degrees with full academic transcripts for just $500 AUD. Realizing they had been duped, the University of Kingsfield began its search for its missing student.

Two months on, the University of Kingsfield and the federal police still believe that Bao is abroad. Their most recent lead traced Bao's location to the center of the Bermuda Triangle and have pronounced him dead. Bao has since continued to elude authorities and was last sighted sipping a Pina Colada on Brisbane's Gold Coast and is due to star in a broadway musical next month.

HARRY Potter 7 Spoilers Galore Exclusive

2007-07-17T14:44:00.000+10:00

With the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, geek communities worldwide have begun rioting over the inadvertent posting of the book's spoilers on Internet forums in every corner of the world wide web. So far there appears to be evidence that at least 12 characters will die, some of which will die on more than one occassion. The rumours of the deaths of Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley which were largely circulated by the media in the leadup to the book's release have since been proven false. On page 217, we discover that it is neither Hermione or Ron who dies but our hero Harry Potter. At this point in the book readers are left bewildered with the main character dead with yet another 400 or so pages to go.

Several new characters were introduced, with a muggle woman named J. K. Rowling. After careful analysis by multiple Harry Potter fan sites, we have concluded that the in-book character is actually an fictional autobiographical carbon copy of the author, Miss Joanne "Jo" Rowling. In the book Rowling's character is killed by Voldemort on page 512. Critics and book reviewers have condemned Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to be too violent, with media experts strongly suspicious about J. K. Rowling's signing with the directors of the SAW movie series. In no less than fourteen of the book's chapters, wizards are repeatedly cut open and sewn back shut by the Death Eaters and then served on a silver platter. Family values advocacy groups have petitioned to take the final episode of the Harry Potter saga off bookshelves of local libraries, churches and bookstores. There was no recorded mention of any form of action against Internet distribution of the book.

Avid geeks and lifeless Harry Potter fans living in the Oceanic region were meant to get their hands on the book on the 21st of July but the more desperate have been able to find scans and photographs of the seventh book on the Internet already. Unfortunately this method of getting the book earlier than everybody else has proved to be a double-edged sword. Government officials have been tracing the IPs of all downloaders and will phone their respective residencies with spoilers. Two men have already been arrested for unplugging their phone to avoid being spoilt and many more arrests are sure to follow.

At its premiere, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows grossed a total of 4 billion Euros, making Miss Joanne "Jo" Rowling the richest money-hungry school-teacher-author alive for the second time in a row in 3 years.

GIRL Dumps WoW Player for CS Player

2007-07-08T17:40:00.000+10:00

Known to be the first of her kind, today an unnamed teenybopper broke up with WoW-playing teen-hearthrob Jason Whitecastle in order to pursue a relationship with CS state champion Marc Brill. Scientific studies have shown a correlation between boyfriend qualities and the dominant video games that they play. For males who spent an equal level of commitment on multiple games of different genres, the team of researchers were unable to find any effect on their lousiness as boyfriends.

Interestingly, when the unnamed girl made her decision, she had not read the research study conducted by the aforementioned scientists. The consensus from the video game research community is that males who play World of Warcraft rank lowest on the "quality boyfriend" scale, with Counter-Strike players ranking slightly above. Research on DotA players was not part of the project, as the managing professor is a fan and frequent player of DotA at the Brookville Lan Cafe in Brookville, Victoria. He told our Victoria correspondent Neil Anstrom that a quick game of DotA is his favourite way of winding down after a long week at Melbourne university.

Jason Whitecastle regrettably told us that from now on he will have to control the other half of his 40-man raid group, which was the job previously assigned to his now ex-girlfriend. In an interesting twist, it turned out that Whitecastle's girlfriend had been cheating on him the whole time with one of his guild officers from his Forsaken-only guild . The two men settled the dispute in true World of Warcraft fashion, in a duel to the death between the two players. Unfortunately, due to Blizzard's carebear dueling system, the loser did not die and was greeted with many boos in guild chat. It should be noted that Blizzard Entertainment received boos later that day from the entire video game community for designing the most expensive-to-play MMORPG of all time.

The new couple were spotted at a internet cafe in Brokentail Hill sometime this week, with sources later confirming it was just a random Counter-Strike player and his sister. LIER correspondent Neil Anstrom is yet to make contact with Marc Brill as his details are nowhere to be found in the phonebook. We spoke with Anstrom yesterday evening and he has remarked that he is becoming worried that "Marc Brill might not actually be a real person".

DOTA Maphacker Exiled from Community

2007-06-24T19:18:00.000+10:00

This past week has been very eventful in the professional DotA community, with the public shaming of KANGA, a 14 year-old DotA player who was accused of maphacking in the DotA World Cup. KANGA's parents were contacted and the last thing they said to him was, "Go to your room." It is unlikely that KANGA will play DotA professionally ever again, after several of his fans expressed their distress in a forum post that his DotA career was ruined.

Based on inconclusive evidence, the most popular DotA forum DotA-Allstars.com banned KANGA from accessing any part of the site, including the new page titled "KANGA IS A ***** ******* **** ** ** * *****". The replay supplied as evidence was a game of Pokemon Adventure v4.55.w3x in which a player with the screenname KOGA was accused of maphacking by a player named Computer(Pro). After being refused any plea for a second chance, KANGA's team manager contacted their lawyer. No legal development has been reported as of yet.

Reactions of ordinary DotA players have been mixed, with some wishing it wasn't true, to those who have openly made claims they planted the maphacking program on KANGA's tournament computer beforehand. According to official DotA tournament rules, maphacking is an unofficial offense and is only considered a legal strategy in Soviet Russia. The administrators of the event did not show any mercy and were forced to enforce the punishments written in the ancient DotA scriptures. KANGA's severed hand will be auctioned off on eBay.ro as compensation to Romania for the disgrace he caused his home nation.

KANGA's girlfriend stayed by his side and denied allegations on his behalf on the DotA forum, but has received no form of reply other than "A/S/L?" from the community. When approached for an interview, KANGA's family refused to make any comment by saying, "No comment." The offence was not taken lightly by the Romanian Government, and KANGA may be charged with treason if he deliberately maphacked to taint his country's image. A spokesperson from the Romanian Conservative Party has issued a public statement saying that if they are voted into power at the next election, KANGA will be charged with treason regardless of circumstance. In response, many of DotA-Allstars.com's forumgoers have already cast their votes in support for the party's policy.

**EDIT: We would just like to clarify that our suggestion of KANGA having a girlfriend was completely absurd and has been hence disproven. It turned out that KANGA was simply posing as his imaginary girlfriend to regain what little shred of credibility he had to begin with.

CHINESE Gamer Pervs on Night Elf

2007-06-11T21:52:00.000+10:00

In a shocking forum post on the World of Warcraft General Discussion forums today, 31 year-old Chinese WoW player Li Cheuk Ho announced that it was his wish to marry his very own World of Warcraft character and commit his life to her. Unlike other parts of the world, video game marriage in China is in accordance with the state's law, having been passed into the legislation by Chairman Mao in his younger years. An unofficial biography of Mao revealed that he became infatuated with Pong during secondary school, but was rather unfond of Tetris because of her Russian ties.

Li Cheuk Ho plays a character named "Lenglui", which is a transliteration of the Chinese meaning "pretty girl". Cheuk Ho's parents considered the announcement to be a fitting celebration of their second anniversary, as Cheuk Ho has been playing with Lenglui since the game's release in China back in June, 2005. "Buddha make this arrange marriage. We so wonderful fortune," Mr and Mrs Ho said tonight to LIER Magazine China correspondent Eric Kwok.

The Chinese communist party has shown much support for the marriage and a spokesperson for the party has issued a public statement stating that there is absolutely no ulterior motive involved. Information from Blizzard Entertainment has indicated that at least 70% of the party members have active accounts on the Mountain King PVP Server (Asia). Chinese political analyst Chou Chun Yin suspects that the communist party is after Cheuk Ho's World of Warcraft gold. The exact amount disclosed by Blizzard Entertainment cannot be shown here for legal purposes.

The couple is set to marry in September this year in one of the country's finest Internet bars in Beijing. Blizzard representative Trent Fairfield said in a press release that the company is very happy Cheuk Ho was able to find love during his World of Warcraft experience and expressed their delight in knowing that Cheuk Ho will continue to renew his subscription for many years to come.

EMO Spotted at Hungry Jacks Exclusive Report

2007-06-08T18:00:00.000+10:00

Many thought that the emo population was growing out of control in central Brisbane. For at least a year now, the emos are believed to be the owners of the Queen Street Mall's Hungry Jacks. Today emo representative Jack "Pain" Frelle confirmed for LIER Magazine that the rumour was true, and that Hungry Jacks Store Manager Max Langley is a huge fan of emo band Panic! At the Disco.

The focus of today's emo news is centralled around a young girl named Emily D'estrang who is a regular participant of the emo clique's daily loitering exercise outside Hungry Jacks. Unfortunately, due to an unexpected spill onto her usual gothic-esque outfit, she had to venture out wearing clothes borrowed from her sister Jessa. LIER Magazine's very own undercover emo John "Death Angel" Hunter went deep within the emo community of Brisbane to interview Emily and this is her recollection of the events that occurred after meeting with her emo friends:

"I went up to them and I yelled, "You!" like I always do when I greet them, but they looked at me weirdly and turned away. It was like they didn't even know me. I told Mick, "It's me Emily. What is going on?" And then Cassie pulled him away from me. I felt so left out, it almost made me depressed. They were being so stupid so I decided to just go walk around the mall, and for the first time ever, people were smiling at me and saying hi. I couldn't take all the friendliness and smiles, it just sickened me and I began to cry."

Truly that was a very, very moving story of an emo who, for the first time in her emo phase did not wear black. This is a horribly pathetic reflection on the stereotypes and standards that exist within our Brisbane. The last we heard from Hunter was when he was busted for being a "phoney". He forgot to open up his Whopper the "emo" way and the emos immediately shunned and threatened to go write a sad poem and sing a sad song about sad poets without him. Needless to say, Hunter was hurt deep inside by this exclusion and had a mental breakdown at the scene. Unfortunately we have lost contact with him, but he was last spotted upstairs in Hungry Jacks taking full advantage of the free drink refills because all pseudo-emos secretly like Fanta.

In another emo-related news release, the Brisbane emos have been urged by the state government to boycott this weekend's Black Sabbath concert. Unfortunately, premier Peter Beattie has the IQ of a snail and has confused emo culture with satanism, and the emos were far too busy applying their wrist makeup to notice. It is quite possible that Mr Beattie is more intelligent than we just made him out to be and that he is having a rather witty stab at both communities, but LIER founder Alf Liero tips readers to place their money on the former alongside his $26 billion AUD.

TIME Magazine to Change Name

2007-06-05T16:20:00.000+10:00

In an unexpected announcement today, American publisher Henry Luce, founder of TIME Magazine issued a statement saying, "Our social analysts have discovered that TIME Magazine is no longer having the impact on the world like it did back in 1941. We have decided that what the magazine needs is not a change in management, but a change in name." Mr Luce revealed to our junior reporter Jason Thatcher that the idea for change was inspired by LIER Magazine. Believing that it was exactly the kind of reworking that TIME needed, Mr Luce has given an honourable donation of $40,000 USD to his local doctor's clinic where he first perused an old issue of LIER.

"LIER Magazine is the future," said field reporter Aaron Becks from our long-time rival TREWTHTELLAR Magazine. Later today he appeared in court, charged with accepting a bribe from LIER Magazine Head of Newstainment Rudi Blass. Mr Blass was also called to appear in court but was quick to assure the prowling journalists he would "bribe his way out of it".

Mr Luce told LIER that the change will be a $3.6 billion development. He expressed that TIME will have no regrets changing the official trademark to TIEM. The process may take up to 4 months, with renowned graphics designer Leon Myra as head of the development team. Mr Myra commented that this would be "his toughest challenge yet" and that the task assigned would be a test of his Photoshopping skills. His colleagues showed their true colours at the interview, displaying a mix of both congratulations and envy at the same time by the same person, for which an English word does not exist.

To anticipate the momentous name change, TIME Asia recalled 5.2 million copies of last week's issue from China. Head of TIME Asia Stanley Cheung stated, "If this change is to occur, it would be unacceptable if the correct Chinese characters in the correct order on the magazine's cover." Someone is yet to step up and correct his grammar. Several commoners in rural China were sentenced to capital punishment after refusing to return their copy of TIME. An unnamed source has reported that it was due to a miscommunication by TIME Asia, whom, for whatever reason, decided to issue the recall statement in Wingdings font.

ASIAN Man Caught Haggling for Pearl Ice Tea

2007-06-03T20:32:00.000+10:00

At around 12:40pm today, Asian migrant Frank Yum was seen bargaining with the EasyWay girl at Sunnybank Plaza's EasyWay Tea Asian beverage bar. Around 4 minutes into the haggling process, onlookers and waiting customers became impatient and called centre security. According to a news release, security did not arrive. Another source has confirmed security was not even called and that the instigator was simply checking his prepaid credit balance.

Mr Yum was told to cease and desist his "unethical" business deal with the young Asian girls working at the bar. LIER's Sunnybank correspondent Robert Cho arrived at the scene too late to be an eyewitness, but was able to gather some information to piece together this story. A middle-aged Caucasian male reportedly went up to Mr Yum to tell him to "get back on a boat back to his country". A group of three Asian youths told LIER Magazine that they were also planning to bargain for their drinks and had done it "many times before".

EasyWay employee Michael Lee was sacked later this afternoon but has repeatedly claimed that he was in the back room with employee Lucy Wang during the entire incident. Simone Cheung was the girl who served Mr Yum, who he noted was the daughter of a family friend. Several patrons had heard from eyewitnesses that Mr Yum was expressing interest in buying the store, and others claimed he looked vaguely similar to a convicted Asian pedophile. LIER correspondent Robert Cho was unable to make contact with Mr Yum for an interview, but was told by his wife, Mrs Yum, that Mr Yum was taken in by police at around 6:25pm this evening.

Despite information in a new press release stating that EasyWay employee Lucy Wang had planned to poison Mr Yum's drink for personal reasons and that Michael Lee had only attempted to detain her in the room, a spokesperson for EasyWay Tea Sunnybank vehemently pushed that the true story was that Michael Lee has been spitting in the drink mixes for at least the past month. In-store video footage from 3 June, 2007 revealed that none of the above was true. Centre Management announced soon after that they were unaware a security camera existed in the back room of EasyWay Tea Sunnybank.

Latest reports from Sunnybank correspondent Robert Cho inform us that Mr Yum received a Pearl Ice Tea for his inconvenience and had the pleasure of drinking it in custody.

STARCRAFT II News getting Old Already

2007-06-02T18:12:00.000+10:00

Starcraft 2 is the ultimate wet dream that every Western-world geek has been waiting for. Though some may consider this to be a negative reflection on the attitudes and values of white youths living in the 21st century, anthropologists have reassured the mature population that these fine young people will not grow up to be single, socially-inept 30 year olds, but instead die at the ripe age of 24 in front of a flickering computer monitor, doing what they love.

An estimated 400 million youths will have their sleep patterns altered prior to the release of this long-awaited sequel. Many Korean men have already filed divorces in preparation for 110% immersion into the World of Starcraft. Unnamed military sources reporte that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il has cancelled nuclear weapon development to engage in 6 months of intensive Starcraft training in order to maintain his title as Number One Gosu Dictator. Ironically, Korean legislation notes that Mr Kim is the only person in North Korea who has legal access to a personal computer.

Blizzard CEO Michael Morhaime has openly stated at a press conference that, "Starcraft 2 has been designed to be more addictive than World of Warcraft. It was specifically engineered to lure the playerbase of EA's Command and Conquer 3 to become loyal Blizzard fans for life. We hope that the Starcraft 2-factor will have such an effect on their belief system that they will give us their life savin-... er, souls. Our company's vision is to reward every person a private Protoss sacrificial ritual so they can be confident that their soul will be lost like a proud Protoss warrior.

Starcraft 2 has generated so much hype, that the late Gerrard Du Galle has risen from the dead to reprise his role as himself in the sequel. He has been spotted at net cafes in Marseilles, his home town, weeping over his wussy suicide back in Brood War. Protoss Carriers have been identified by the Hubble Telescope to be slowly approaching Earth. Astronomers have not yet made contact but are in the process of making some kind of plaque to aid communication with the off-world race. Had these science-geeks left the observatory to socialize during the 20th century, they would have learnt that the Protoss understood and spoke fluent English.

Pope Benedict XVI, the pope who seems to have an opinion on everything, ranging from strawberry icecream to coathangers, had this to say about Starcraft 2: "I sincerely hope that Christ Jesus will not return until Starcraft 2 has been released for at least 6 months. May the risen Lord forgive us all, for surely he Himself is waiting for the very same." Historians found this to be the first pope speech of which geeks and lifeless hobos could agree with, and the Catholic Church has welcomed this new harmony. Geek community spokesperson, teran_firebat69, who could only be reached on ICQ, was quoted as saying, "I haven't showered in 2 weeks, and I intend to stay in these clothes until the Starcraft 2 comes out!"

In other news, the International Garbology Institute counted more than 100 million Warcraft III CDs in their global rubbish collection for the week commencing 14 May 2007.

HARRY Potter 7 Busted with Revealing Details

2007-06-02T18:09:00.001+10:00

ANDY Qing, LIER's most professional investigative-journo-posing-as-a-janitor, managed to hijack a bypassing truck earlier this week. First believing it to contain enough beer to solve Australia's drought problem, upon negotiating the metallic safes (yes, plural), we discovered copies of the first print of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. Unfortunately, in order to prevent anyone selling them or keeping them for personal use, several of them self destructed. We managed to salvage half of one and a bit of another. From what we could put back together, we have a large portion of the second last chapter, since the self-destruction device was installed in the front of the book, possibly to injure thieving magpies.

Anyhow, here is the excerpt from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, the seventh and final book of the Harry Potter series, written by J. K. Rowling:

** WARNING: SPOILERS AND EXTREME WIZARD VIOLENCE**

- CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX -

The Dirtiest Deed

Dumbledore's charred remains showered the room and Voldemort blew out his smouldering wand. The dark room continued to remain lit after the spell found impact. Harry could not believe his eyes; the greatest wizard he had ever known was killed in a split second. Strangely, Voldemort's spell did not flash green, but Harry was too shocked to notice.

"You're next Potter!" cackled the dark lord.

Voldemort began walking towards the other side of the room.

"Harry! Harry! What are you doing? Run!" cried Hermione, who was still trapped under the broken pillar. While Harry stood there, he began to feel tears come from his eyes. Suddenly, warm hands came from behind and placed themselves on his shoulders. Harry turned around to find the last person he wanted to see, but the truth was, it was the only person he wanted to see. Malfoy began to stroke Harry's hair, saying, "Potter, it's not over. Stay strong." Harry was so touched by Malfoy's words that he could no longer hold back the tears and started sobbing profusely into Malfoy's chest.

"Spare me the corny soap opera and die! Abra Kadabra!"

Lord Voldemort shoots Rank 1 Death Coil at Harry Potter!

Harry Potter takes 220 shadow damage!

Lord Voldemort is healed for 220 damage!

Harry Potter runs in horror!

"Potter, you can't die now. I have to first tell you the truth about everything," whispered Malfoy. Although Harry had blood spewing out of his chest and desperately needed to go to the hospital, Malfoy turned him to face himself and said, "Harry, I love you. There is nobody else in the world who I would rather spend the rest of my life with than you." Being the type of girl who always did the right thing at the right time, Hermione used the last of her strength to cast a summoning spell to summon Celine Dion to the presence of the amorous lovers, who now had their bodies intertwined on the hard, stone floor of the underground tomb.

- END EXCERPT -

Many apologies to the kids and dirty perverts who really wanted to see more (pun intended). Hope we didn't spoil too much for you of what's to come in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. You can be sure that the content is retrieved is 100% reliable; no amount of "Made in China" stamps are going to fool us. We did indeed get our hands on the real thing, and if Miss Rowling is keen on sueing (sp?) LIER, our army of lawyers will be ready.

Regards,
LIER Magazine, Amateur Storywriting Department