A+E

A.) Jerry Ardolino, Extreme Cop: Chicago PD—The True Story of the Wildest, Toughest, Most Violent Cop in the History of the Chicago Police ("And that means in the history of the world")

B.) Vicki Pettersson, The Taste of Night: The Second Sign of the Zodiac ("Are you Light? Or are you Shadow?")

The excerpts:

1.) "And then I looked at him, really looked at him; seeing past the lank and greasy hair, the face that was usually grime-streaked and the body normally draped in a beggar's clothes, and I saw the man who led this city's fight against evil ..."

2.) "I pulled the sap out of my waistband, and gave the asshole a concussion. When I say a 'concussion,' it is truly an understatement as his entire frontal lobe area was opened up ... I called it in as an 'on-view injured person found' ... and I never heard a thing about the incident afterwards."

3.) "I'd enjoy having him inside me, that much was true. You didn't have to know Hunter when he was sober and in save-the-world superhero mode, to know there was a world of possibility waiting in those arms."

4.) "BOOM! Big hole in the head and he was still sliding. I figured let's end this, cock, BOOM, cock, BOOM. The dog had dropped."

5.) "And he face-planted into a stinging sheet of balled energy. I'd have laughed as his eyes rolled into his skull, except my own had probably resembled slot wheels only seconds before."

(Answers: 1–B; 2–A; 3–B; 4–A; 5–B.)

You've seen them. Maybe you've even been one. Those losers sucked into video slot machines, feeding the contents of their wallets and purses into the blinking lights, getting up only to go over to the casino ATM and get more cash, a digitally updated replay of that classic Twilight Zone episode where the one-armed bandit chases the poor sucker up to his hotel room and right out the window to his demise ...

Well, we've all been there at least once. And the next morning, when we're sorting through the loose change in our pockets, hoping to cobble together enough for the two-buck breakfast specials Downtown, we've wondered—What the hell was that all about? The games aren't that entertaining. With what you dropped in one session, you could've gone to the movies and hit the bars, trying to get lucky in a completely different—and more likely—way.

Now there's an explanation. The slot machines really did hypnotize you.

Up in Canada, gaming regulators have pulled 87 slot machines, all made by Konami, out of Ontario's casinos after an investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation revealed that the machines' video screens were flashing subliminal messages at the players. As the CBC News put it, "The games flash winning jackpot symbols at players for a fifth of a second, long enough for the brain to detect even if the players are not aware of the message." Adds Roger Horbay, a psychologist specializing in gambling problems: "I think it's part of them trying to make their games more attractive to the players to keep them at the game longer."

That would be the rationale, all right. Whether the subliminal skullduggery actually works or not is still being checked out. The Konami corporation has stated that the flashing jackpot symbols are just an unintended "software glitch" that they're already in the process of fixing. In the meantime, here in the U.S., the private labs that test slot machines are investigating as a result of the CBC story, and some of the various states' casino commissions are considering whether to pull the machines. No word yet from the Nevada Gaming Commission whether the suspect slots are on their agenda.

Then again, maybe we shouldn't pull them here in Las Vegas. If we leave at least a few floating around, we'll always have an excuse to give to our significant others, for why we lost the rent money: "The machine made me do it." –K.W. Jeter

Which TV commercial is creepier?

• The Burger King spot in which the young guy finds the King in the peep-show booth.

• The Burger King spot in which the father hamburger gives his son—also a talking hamburger—an extra napkin to keep in his wallet.

• The Alltel commercial in that ends with one guy asking another, as the sound of a vibrating cell fills the air and a look of euphoria spreads across the second one's face, "Exactly where do you keep your phone?"

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Although not a documentary, Fast Food Nation ($27.98 aaaa) is a based on a cautionary work of nonfiction by Eric Schlosser and fits neatly alongside An Inconvenient Truth and Super Size Me in the emerging enviro-horror genre. Although the film is awash in corporation-bashing rhetoric, Richard Linklater's frightening message can't be easily dismissed by those who abhor liberalism—after all, outbreaks of E. coli virus and other food-borne diseases are reported with alarming frequency. Like the makers of Super Size Me, Linklater and Schlosser aren't preaching at the altar of veganism. Instead, they employ a fictional framework to underscore how the demands of the fast-food industry—and institutional greed—have forced meat processors to cut corners and speed delivery. Linklater also describes how the food-service industry turns a blind eye to the treatment of undocumented workers and how dispiriting it is for kids to start out as slaves to the minimum wage. Among the actors are Catalina Sandino Moreno, Greg Kinnear, Kris Kristofferson, Patricia Arquette, Bruce Willis, Luis Guzman and Wilmer Valderrama. Besides the featurette Manufacturing Fast Food Nation, the DVD also adds the Flash-animation Meatrix trilogy and The Backwards Hamburger. If kids were required to watch these cartoons, McDonald's executives would have to start looking for work at the Gap.

– Gary Dretzka