Furious Birds

It is kind of disconcerting that what is, by far, the most popular and addicting game for the iPhone involves shooting what are, in essence, suicide bombers at buildings in order to make them collapse so that everyone in them is killed.

I'm talking, of course, about Angry Birds, a simple game where you launch birds from slingshots in order to defeat the evil pigs who have stolen the birds' eggs.

It is that stupid and frighteningly addicting -- I have recently "unlocked" the Angry Birds Addict "achievement," on account of having played this game for more than 15 hours. The fact that I have played this game for that amount of time is more than a little sad. I mean, even watching TV is more productive. Unless, of course, you're watching Glee.

But, in that time, I have managed to get three stars in every level, which requires a modicum of dexterity and dedication to a single cause. I am strangely proud of this achievement even though I recognize that my bragging rights are commensurate with those of someone who is pretty good at tic-tac-toe.

Of course, I am most bewildered by the random feelings that crop up when I'm playing the game. I can spend hours (yes, hours) trying to get that damned third star in a particularly frustrating level. And when I finally get it, I pump my fist and yell and would absolutely chest bump someone if I didn't live alone. And, frankly, this reaction kind of makes sense. Now that there's no one to play beer pong with, Angry Birds has become the only outlet for competitive achievement in the field of "sports."

That might be the saddest thing ever written on this blog.

Except it might be topped by this one -- when I fail to kill all the pigs, and they break into their hideous, smirking, leering smiles, I feel a level of rage and revulsion that used to be reserved only for the Urkels and Napoleon Dynamites of the world. I find myself wishing to visit an inordinate and irrational amount of violence on what are, at heart, nothing more than pixels in a video game made for cellular phones. I feel angrier than the actual angry birds. The fact that I can feel this much hate concerns me. Maybe I need to go for a run or something.

Now that I've managed to make you all concerned for my mental well-being, I finally get to the point of this post, which is to post this video. It's called "Angry Birds Peace Treaty," and it is terrific.

Say what?