Update: 05/24/2003 - Maxim did not steal my article. The similarities were a coincidence.

I've been getting a lot of email from people who have noticed that Maxim magazine has published an article similar to my muppet article that I posted back in September of this year. For those of you not familiar with Maxim, it's a soft-core porn magazine for men. Every issue is the same: some chick on the cover wearing a bra made out of her hands, an eight page spread on the same chick inside with an interview in which she tries to come across as "sexy with a brain," tons of ads, the latest discoveries in sexual positions from a crack team of scientists (complete with illustrations because apparently there's still something new to be discovered about sex), a sex quiz that will dictate your sexual IQ (because it matters), and the rest is mostly comprised of boner jokes and trivia. It was in a news parody that Maxim published a piece similar to mine regarding the muppet with AIDS.

The article in question is on page 68 of the December 2002 issue of Maxim. While there are a few similarities, I'll give Maxim the benefit of the doubt (despite finding hits from Maxim in my server logs). After all, it was a pretty obvious parody. So obvious that some random asshole with a personal home page like say, I don't know, me, thought up of the idea the day the new muppet with AIDS was announced (in fact, several weeks before a press photo was even available). Which is why it took a huge publication like Maxim and their highly paid writers with fancy degrees over three months to come up with the same idea. I can't believe how much I rule. Seriously, I'm not even paid to come up with this stuff and I'm kicking Maxim's ass. Why don't they just hire me instead?

There are some obvious similarities between my article and theirs, but they differ on a fundamental level: their article sucks. The premise is essentially the same: "foreign versions of Sesame Street give kids the gritty truth. So why can't we?" Then it goes on to list some character parodies. The first one is called "Cracky," with a quote that says "my pimp says four teeth be sexy."

Wow, that's clever. The caption underneath the picture reads "teaches kids: tie her up and Grandma's Hummels can be traded straight up for delicious drugs!" zzzzZZZZzzz. Moving on, the other characters they have are "Bookie Monster, Dorko Techsupportus III," and "Jean-Paul the Frog." The Jean-Paul caption reads "teaches kids: french children are just like American kids...except for the smell, the snottiness, and the mustaches!" Maybe they were planning on introducing the punch line in a later issue. Some of their puppets look better, but I don't have the benefit of having an art staff or photographers. In fact, I do most of my graphics in Paint for Windows, and it still rules all over the place. The problem with this article is that it just sits there. It doesn't make me want to do anything except turn the page (and since it's in a Maxim, you can be guaranteed you'll be turning the page to an ad).

All joking aside, I'd rather read my site than anything else at any given time, even though I wrote it. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that my site is the only thing worth reading on the internet. The internet had no purpose until my site came along and gave it some worth. I'm going to go out and buy myself a couple of birthday cakes, then I'm going to commission someone to sculpt a statue of me made out of beef jerky and shrimp kurma with pulao rice. Man I rule.

250,719 people paid Maxim $4 for an inferior article.

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