Aunty Beeb Ropes Me In

For those of you that do not have a constant and almost psychotic admiration for all things British constantly surrounding you because you don’t live on a tropical island the British failed to protect during WWII (Thus somehow earning the eternal loyalty and envy of said island’s residents, to the point where they desperately wish they were British and even try to fake the accent, something to this day I STILL don’t understand), “Aunty Beeb” is a term of endearment those whacky British use to refer to the BBC, better known as the British Broacasting Corporation.

Having missed out on my Editor getting skewered for TV as a result of yesterday’s encounter with Saurophobia, imagine my surprise when the same editor said “BBC is coming in today at three, but I’ll be out at a meeting, try and keep them occupied until I get back.”

This, I figured, I could do.

However, a little later, he dug out the Playstation 2 and cables and asked me to hook the thing up to the LCD widescreen sitting on the gaming table. He also said we needed a two-player game to show on it. When I asked why, he said, “Because they need to shoot a couple of people playing games.”

Unfortunately, the only two player game we had that could run on the PS2 was the ancient Metal Slug (By ancient, I mean it was a side-scrolling 2D shooter in the same vein as Contra, and not looking much prettier) and so we had to make do with that. It’s at this point that I the first alarm bells started ringing and I asked, “Okay, so if they need two people, then you’re playing and who else?”

Of course, it was me.

I sighed, but I figured what the hell, it’s only B-Roll, it’s not like it counts for anything. However, because the alarm bells would not stop ringing, I went up to him later and asked, point blank, “Okay, so YOU as editor, that is to say, the face of the magazine who should do all PR stuff are talking, right? YOU. ME, as a writer, who is just a faceless cog in the machine and supposed to be a piece of background stay out of this, right? I don’t have to say anything?”

And he just grinned and said something to the effect of “We’ll just do whatever we have to.”

So of course at that moment I pretty knew I was screwed.

When the BBC people did arrive, I sat down with one of the interns and we played the archaic Metal Slug for the camera. However, when the interviewer, some Chinese chick with an American accent (Though I’m still not sure whether it was legit or not) asked “Who will I be interviewing?”

My editor of course pointed at me, and said, “Him.”

To which I replied, “WHAT? SINCE WHEN?!?”

And he just did one of those pish-posh motions with his hand as if I’d said “I’m not sure I want to eat this candy,” as opposed to “I’m not sure I WANT TO BE INTERVIEWED BY THE FUCKING BBC…”

However the deed was done, and so I got suited up with the clip mike, sat down on a stool so as to prevent nervous fidgeting and then asked a bunch of questions (I can already see the BBC titles now when my image pops up; under my name it’ll read “Game Journalist”) about my opinion on the Playstation 3 and whether they will continue to dominate the console industry the way they have the last 2 generations.

Of course, I talked too much, and she frequently had to ask me not to give Tolstoy-esque analyses and keep it to 20 second soundbites, so after a half-hour of interviewing me, I’m pretty sure the only she’ll go with is one of my final soundbites where I said, “Basically Nintendo and Microsoft have positioned themselves as Toyota and BMW. Sony has become Ferrari or Porsche, strictly for aficianados and connoiseurs who don’t care about price.”

I was also told I can probably be expected to be contacted again in November to get an “industry expert’s post-launch analysis” of the Playstation 3 after it comes out.

Which will be a problem since I won’t be able to freakin’ AFFORD a PS3 for at least 6 months to a year, so I dunno how they expect me to speak knowledgeably about it when I probably won’t actually touch one ’till 2008…