1UP's Jeremy Parish writes about all kinds of random stuff on his Gamespite.net personal blog, but I wanted to point to a recent post about the latest 1UP Show, currently available on GameVideos.com, in which there is apparently "...a brief West Side Story-esque musical interlude from Parish about receiving the [Super Mario Galaxy] in the mail", as Wii Fanboy notes.

These kind of shenanigans are why 1UP is my favorite major consumer game site, and what's even funnier is Parish's GameSpite-based description of the game journalism war [EDIT: Parish says 'complementary writing styles!'] that underlies the entire ethos which allows, uhh, West Side Story-style musical interludes in game videocasts: "Still, I like the idea of "Second Street Story," detailing the bitter feud between the Nets and the Sharkeys -- employees of rivals C|net and Ziff-Davis, thrust by fate into a narrow corridor of the same block in the ghettos bordering San Francisco's cutthroat financial district."

Oh yeah? "On one side of the dividing line, the Nets believe that videogames are consumer commodities and should be evaluated accordingly, without regard for individual passion or interest. On the other side, the Sharkeys are hard-livin' ruffians who see gaming as a personal, social experience to be extemporized upon from the heart. And the forbidden romance that tears them apart."

And with that, Parish dreams up some GameSpot-bating lyrics to go with the whole pastiche: "When you're a Net, You're a Net all the way, And your tone's corporate, When you write about games." He kids, abstractly, but in kidding, he speaks the truth more than he knows - at least, about the war between mechanical and inspirational game reviewing. C'mon, guys, CMP will referee your rumble next to that stupid silver sculpture!

[UPDATE: Oh yeah, and it's also worth pointing out that GameSpite Issue 1 is out, with a bunch of Gamespite forum-ites contributing interesting profiles of games from Deja Vu to Rhythm Heaven/Tengoku.]