_{[This Week in the Community is your weekly look at some of the best Community related work that has come from the Community Blogs and Forums.]}

Anthony Burch, in a Phallus Knife Fight production: The Chocolate Taco. This video is based on a joke from one of the HAWPcast episodes which I have no idea if it's really funny because I haven't listened to it and may never will because ANTHONY BURCH IS A JERKFACE!

Togail draws, megaStryke guest starred on a Internet Web series, the C blogs have new features, Funktastic has over 1,000 games now and plenty more happened in the community over the past two weeks.

It's no secret that Destructoid seems to attract talented artists from all walks of life. Still, it's always exciting seeing the art you guys and gals put out over on the Community blogs and Forums. Forza 3 released not too long ago and players can pimp out their rides with custom created artwork. 

Dtoiders exodus1925, Jon B and Ocified-Xboxer all had the same idea and designed some Dtoid themed cars in Forza 3 which can get for yourself from their storefronts. Who else has created some custom art for Forza 3? Show us in the comments or over on the Forum thread!

_{[Community blogger megaStryke likes to play old games that ripped off other games for his Off Brand Games feature. -- CTZ]}

It wasn't that long ago when just about every item on store shelves came packed with some cheap promotional crapware. Every box of cereal, every magazine, every pack of Maxi pads had a CD or DVD stuffed in a flimsy plastic sleeve or an offer to obtain one in exchange for an obscene amount of UPC labels. On those discs were cheap-o edutainment shareware, PlayStation demos, or a couple of episodes of some underperforming children's show. And let's not forget all those bullshit AOL trial CDs which were only ever useful as wheels for my mousetrap car in my 9th grade engineering class.

Rarely would any of these wastes of pressed plastic entertain a child for more than five minutes. What can you offer for the rock-bottom price of free without severely cutting into any profit you'd hope to see from selling an extra box or two of Cheerios? The only things that grab kids' attention anyway are big licenses like SpongeBob SquarePants or soulless, effects-driven cinema pap, and those never come cheap.

There must have been some allure to this marketing madness. Whoever pioneered it must have scored so big that other companies couldn't wait to jump on the fadwagon.

In 1996, General Mills wanted to make sure children the world over couldn't start the day without a truckload of Chex cereal funneled down their throats. They needed some way to convince kids that Chex was rad and that it totally did not taste like cardboard. Kids love them some videogames, especially that there DOOM business. How can we combine the wholesome morals of DOOM with the nutritional value of Chex? 

_{[Editor's Note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware it may not jive with the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs.]}

This post may contain spoilers of spoilers and nautical navigation.

Gamers are like horseflies. They’re drawn to sh*t. Just as the horsefly seeks out the stinkiest, most putrid piles of crap in which to lay their eggs, gamers seek out the most ridiculous, embarrassing topics to roll around in like a proverbial pile of mind feces, diving in headfirst as if they’re Scrooge McDuck going for an afternoon swim in his money bin.

This is nothing new to the sane gamers here, but there’s still one thing that has the power to get nearly all of us riled. It’s not dedicated servers or any other recent debate, sane or not. It’s something far more Keyser Soze, if you’ll allow me the indulgence of using a proper noun as an adjective.

It’s the plague of the spoilers, which seem to be coming like a swarm of locusts lately, filling your favorite social network with angry posts and warnings not to watch videos or use any of those Internets. But are spoilers really that bad, and why do they seem like a far more troubling problem in games than any other storytelling medium? It’s because we’re too damn neurotic. If you want to sail the seas, but you don’t want to get wet, you’d better learn the fine art of staying below the poop deck. 

_{[Community member Anus Mcphanus recounts his adventures at Eurogamer Expo with DtoidUK. -- CTZ]}

Last weekend was the second Eurogamer expo held in the United Kingdom. This was also one of the best weekends in my recent memory and perhaps my whole life EVER and not just because of the expo.

No, this was the first time Dtoid UK arranged to meet up and be sexy with each other. 

_{[Editor's Note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware it may not jive the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs.]}

There’s a very obvious divide in the way that people, even on this “hardcore gamer’s Web site,” approach videogaming. To some, it is their lifeblood -- a thing of utter divinity that cannot be trifled with by anyone. To others, it is the silly, nerdy hobby that you’re still secretly embarrassed about participating in. Others enjoy it as a passion, and still others use it to provide their livelihood. We’re all slightly different in our judgments of gaming.

Yet some still don’t seem to know how to feel about gaming. They make arguments like “it’s only a videogame,” while arguing with someone else who maintains that a game shouldn’t be made unless it’s art. The seriousness of gaming is called into question, and our weaponry consists of empty statements such as “gaming is serious business.” We join sides and create silly wars, attacking some for being overcritical of a game, and attack others for not being critical enough.

The problem is that we’re not taking gaming seriously on the right level. It’s not completely serious, and it’s not completely frivolous, and any argument made to the contrary is utter nonsense.

_{[This Week in the Community is your weekly look at some of the best Community related work that has come from the Community Blogs and Forums.]}

Cataract has once again taken charge and is holding an unofficial Destructoid Secret Santa. Hit up Cataract with your details if you'd like to give a Dtoider a little Christmas gift this year. You can get more details over on Cataract's blog.

DtoidUK visited Eurogamer, Destructoid community discusses returned, check out some of the Halloween costumes Dtoiders wore, IRC is full of love and much more happened this past week in the Community.

_{[Editor's note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware it may not jive with the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs.]}

Scandal! A short while ago it was revealed to us Metroid is undeniably the same as Citizen Kane. But that, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg. Through extensive research and wild stretches of the imagination I have made the shocking discovery that the plots of all our favourite games have been blatantly copied right out of other forms of media! Years of boredom and paranoia pay off as I connect the dots and cast aside the facade that has blinded us for years. Join me now as I uncover the truth behind this conspiracy that will surely rock the games industry to its very core.

I suggest you put on a hat, ‘cause I’m about to blow your mind.

As the site continues to grow, we continue to see the amount of great write ups increase that you all provide over on the Community Blogs. Anyone and everyone is welcome to write a blog. The good ones will get fapped and highlighted on the weekly Community Highlights feature. The best blogs will get promoted to the front page. The point of blogging is to put yourself out there and we do our best to make sure you get noticed by all on Destructoid when you deserve it.

I took a break from recapping last months promoted blogs (read: forgot) so here we are with a double feature of everything that was promoted since September. Nearly 50 blogs, both Monthly Musing and general awesomenss were promoted.

For September's Monthly Musing theme, we wanted to hear about old games that you think people needed to be made aware of again. We also saw a handful of other blogs promoted including ScottyG's epic PAX community mosaic project.

October's Monthly Musing theme was "Nothing is sacred" and we wanted to hear about standard design concepts that are overdone to death. October also saw other non-Musing write ups such as Scary Womanizing Pig Mask's huge examination of Giygas from Earthbound. Plus, there were a couple of art blogs that got promoted such as SiK99's Mr. Destructoid in LEGO form.

Hit the break for the full breakdown of promoted blogs.

[This Week in the Community is your weekly look at some of the best Community related work that has come from the Community Blogs and Forums.]

This week's setup belongs to mrberns. He somehow got a 56 inch 1080p TV for free, a bunch of consoles and a copy of Ratchet & Clank Future signed by the entire team at Insomniac. Check out the rest of mrberns's setup over on his blog.

Anthony Burch hates you, Knives uploaded the entire PAX 09 panel, everyone is still Double Downing, Japanator has C Blogs and more stuff happened over the last two weeks in the Community.

[Editor's note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware it may not jive with the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs.]

Some of you may already know this, but I hail from a place that is both Mexico and not Mexico at the same time: the newer of the Mexican lands, specifically, a town called Albuquerque. It is a place famous for hot air balloons, Bugs Bunny’s poor navigational choices, and…we named our minor league baseball team after an episode of The Simpsons.

The evidence is incontrovertible: Albuquerque, New Mexico is truly the greatest place on Earth.

But what’s this? A hidden layer of this great city that has long been forgotten? Indeed, what very few know about Albuquerque is that it has offered the single greatest contribution to the world of videogames. Without it, the industry’s landscape would be nothing more than a disfigured scarecrow standing in a field of crap.

Yes indeed, Albuquerque is the home of American Laser Games, creators of laserdisc lightgun games.

So, come on your pilgrimage, all true believers in gaming, as we visit the one true gaming mecca and pay tribute to its incredible contributions to our lives.

_{[dTunes is a community organized blog showcasing the musical tastes of Destructoid's users. For two weeks, the editorial team is commandeering the series because, hey, we like music too. To further expand your horizons, make sure to check out the dTunes blog.]}

Alright, it's finally my turn!

Music has always been a part of my life. Back in the 80s, MTV was one of the only pay channels on cable my mother bothered to put money down for. Many of my earliest memories include watching music videos, listening to the radio, and learning to recite the lyrics of the songs on a Black Crowes tape that played infinitely in the car.

Due to my upbringing, I grew to love music very much. So much that I can't say there's any type or genre that I absolutely hate. My tastes are wildly varied and sometimes pretty strange, and that made it pretty difficult to pick a small number of songs to show off my tastes here. I finally got it down to 12, but I can cut down my list no further. Phew.

Hit the jump for musical goodness, or at least sound waves that my brain happens to translate into musical goodness.

Update:  Today is the last day to enter the raffle.  Good luck!

A wise young man at PAX once asked me: "Why the hell is it so hard to meet up and play with people on Dtoid?" Good question! So we got to work and today I'm proud to unveil the new version of our community gaming meetup thing.  Try out Destructoid meetup+play!

How it works: We pick a handful of the most popular games on PC and consoles.  You add them to your Dtoid profile and set what timezone and times you're usually up for an online game. People can then see what games you own and you can send them a private message to meet up. You can even score the results of the match if you want to play competitively, and each PM gives links to your personal private chat room to facilitate meetup communication without compromising your privacy.

Try it out for a chance to win sick Vigor gaming PCs. 

We'll enter your name in a raffle for $1,500 gaming PC just for adding your games and sending one request to play.  Next week the most active players will be invited to a private meetup against Dtoid editors to compete for gaming prizes for Intel, including a beastly $5,000 PC courtesy of Vigor Gaming.  Don't you wish all beta tests worked like this?

[dTunes is a community-organized blog showcasing the musical tastes of Destructoid's users. For two weeks, the editorial team is commandeering the series because, hey, we like music too. To further expand your horizons, make sure to check out the dTunes blog.]

If you were to ask people about folk music, they'd probably look at you funny. This is the 21st century, right? A few people might drop some names like Gillian Welch, Simon and Garfunkel, Nick Drake, Steve Earle, or Emmylou Harris, and maybe even Old Crow Medicine Show or Nickel Creek or the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. And that's totally cool, but there's a whole new current in music that's using a lot of the traditional instrumentation and structure of folk and bluegrass music, and, even better, most of it is pretty good.

The new wave of folk music didn't really grab my attention until I got to college at the University of the South. Nestled on top of the Cumberland Plateau, traditional music kind of hangs in the air up here, and I've been lucky enough to be exposed to a tiny bit of it's more recent offerings.

So, hit the jump for a TON of my favorite bluegrass-tinged music. As a Southerner, I kind of feel obliged to let everyone know that banjos are cool again, and that there's more going on in the Dirty South than Deliverance.