YAAAAAARRRRR! Thar she blows!

As a favor to all of you scam artists and spammers who frequent my blog for mindless entertainment and easy money, I've decided to vomit forth a bit of educational sludge for your consumption and perhaps draw you out from your dead end jobs writing bots and spiders to crawl the web looking for morons like us.

To that end, and forthwith, heretofore, and et cetera, et cetera, to wit:

1. Facts are your friends. Feed them well, but not after midnight.

I had a Fact once, but with medication, it cleared up after a day or two.

2. Always spread goodwill and cheer everywhere you go. Nutella might work, but is messy.

I once knew a guy called Cheer Goodwill, but he overdosed on bullets, and his name was Stanley Vermicelli.

3. This space reserved.

4. This space is really number 3.

5. All things are ultimately educational, but not all educational things are really ultimately things, unless you count what isn't really being a thing which isn't.

6. Make sure you edit for clarity, because stuff in your mind is clear to you, but may be useless gibberish to the rest of the world.

I once wrote useless gibberish, but then the New York Times hired me full time and I got writer's block.

Good night everybody!

Sing Merrily

When Helios was high in the heavens, and the earth bore the fury of summer heat, near a quiet, glassy lake, sat a young shepherd, throwing stones into the lake.

He sat on the sandy shore and watched a few geese meander towards a laughing stream that fed the thirsty lake. The stream flowed down from the snowy mountains, and through a dark wood, until it reached the life giving lake, where sat the young man with his flock, and friendly geese.

But soon the curious laughing song of the river lured him away, to follow the bubbling stream, to find the source from which it sprung, to see the voice that sang the song. He left his work behind, and entered the dark wood.

Quickly, the soft mossy shores vanished, and the boy was left to climb on boulders and sharp rocks, and still he followed the voice that now echoed on the rocks, in harmonious song.

Soon the water turned white with rage, threating to dash the careless to pieces in it's angry froth. The voice was faint, nearly drowned by the sound of the violent tempest below, but the boy cautiously continued along, ignored the warning of the friendly stream, in search of the neverending song:

Sing merrily, we rush along,

come and dance with me!

Sing merrily, we'll rush away,

and find the crashing sea!

Dance endlessly, come dance with me!

And we will cross the sea.

Dance and sing,

Laugh merrily,

And we can forever be.

Now the flowing stream gave up it's warning, and revealed a deep blue pool, in the misty mountain. The siren song was now only whispered from the deep, but was overwhelming to the ears of the enchanted lad, who stared into the darkening gloom, hoping to catch a glimpse of the source of the song which had drawn him here.

Night had fallen and Helios' chariot had crossed the sky, the glassy surface of the deepening pool mirrored the refulgent stars above, and the moon illumined the sparkling eyes of a beautiful naiad with her sisters down below. Overcome, the young man hurled himself in, and descended to it's murky depths to join them.

Too tired to go on, must sleep

So I recently watched Repo Man, and I was struck by it's similarities to Donnie Darko. A somewhat angsty fantasy that not only makes a profound comment on society, but leaves you wondering what the hell is going on.

That both of these masterpieces managed to exist despite their respective creators provides me with a conundrum. I don't know if you've seen Southland Tales, or anything else created by the nutjob responsible for Donnie Darko, but they are really insane, as if the dude was given way too much freedom just because of his previous success.

Now I don't know what the hell else Alex Cox, the Repo Man creator did, but I think that proves my point. One burst of creative genius, and that seems to have been it.

Some guys keep doing the same thing over and over, capitalizing on their success, but ultimately driving the world to boredom in a great big monotonous bus. Tim Burton's is painted like a damn mime, and really creepy.

In conclusion, some things just appear to be stuck in a man's brain. Is there a way to escape this creative doldrum? Do escape attempts become monotonous and boring in and of themselves?

Did you know Jim Carrey plays a drugged out rocker in a Dirty Harry movie?

Randy Greenman's Completely True Tale

Greetings, boys and girls!

This message is brought to you by "Sasquatch" brand deodorant, because smelling like a mysterious hairy ape is sexy as snotballs.

I don't remember when it started, it could have been after Aunt Judy fried up a pair of gym socks and served them for supper, but I think it may have been earlier, perhaps when Grandma Fitzburger got caught breaking into the City Zoo again.

Somewhere around then, aliens stole Grandma's house, and the whole family all climbed aboard the Winnebago to get her back.

We hit the freeway a little after 3 in the afternoon, and before you could say "You must be kidding me!" we were airborne over the Piggly Wiggly.

Before long, we passed over the City Zoo, and my little brother pointed out where Grandma got busted a few days ago by where the zebras were kept, and we noticed that the zebras strips were all gone.

We drove and drove, and it grew increasingly difficult to spot the road signs through the many clouds below us, but we didn't worry much about making a wrong turn, because we could just follow the stream of geese flying away from the giant alien ship steaming through the stratosphere.

Anyway, we soon landed on the ship, climbed through a broken window, and, faster than you can say "Windows on a spaceship?" we had located a computer terminal with which to find Grandma.

We punched in a lot of random buttons, because alien languages are, um, alien and weird, and soon found where Grandma was held.

That's where it all fell apart. Apparently, using the computer terminal alerted the aliens to our presence, because they all rushed in and tried to arrest us. Thus began the first giant battle.

Dad got wounded a little, because we didn't know that alien guns can shoot through plastic, and he was hiding behind a plastic chair at the time.

When the battle slowed down a little, we made a break for the door, and ran around shooting aliens and looking for the room in which Grandma was being held.

Mom found finally found Grandma, and she had a big bag of zebra stripes with her!

We grabbed her and the bag, and ran back out the window of the ship and climbed aboard the Winnebago. It was pretty messy now after driving for so long, so she had to sit on a pile of dirty clothes and empty cans of Pringles.

But we made it back, and I think that's when the adventure really began.

Glorious Like Dreaming

Food for thought during Wimbledon

Anyone notice that John McEnroe sounds a lot like Bill Murry, or possibly Carl Spackler?

What's wrong with Alice in Underland

Why is Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland terrible?

Let's take a close look at this awful movie, and find out.

First, let me stop and say that I really enjoy the art design, and there is actually a lot to like about this, but altogether, it betrays a terrible misunderstanding of Wonderland as a whole.

Burton apparently didn't ever really "feel an emotional connection" to the original, so he found Linda Woolverton and used her story instead. Why? To refresh an aged and worn story we are all tired of? If we are tired of an old overplayed story, then why would another movie version be marketable at all? I don't think that's it. I think the problem is that Burton just doesn't care about the source material, and was never really a fan in the first place.

Carroll's Alice is a masterpiece of absurdity, instead of slipping a pill of a sermon to the audience by wrapping it in a worthless sugar-coated story (as Burton's Woolverton story does), Lewis served up a fantastic masterpiece that turned that little subterfuge on it's head.

While Burton feels the need to have Alice grow as a person and learn about herself (and her role as savior of "Underland" as it's been renamed, giving you an idea of how little Burton thinks of the source) , Carroll shows us an insane world of nonsense to revel in and enjoy.

So, given that Burton's version isn't anything like the original and Burton misunderstands and apparently cares nothing for it, how does his movie stand on it's own merits?

It's an ok movie set in a fantastic world which perfectly captures Carroll's Wonderland, but which completely misses the point and ultimately falls short of being anything other than a cliched mess. If I wanted to watch another gangly misfit find out they are destined to save the world and become a successful assertive adult, I could go watch pretty much any other movie.

Burton has a great eye for design, he's a great artist, and can spin a great tale when he wants to, his interpretation of Alice and earlier, his Willy Wonka, betray his complete inability to connected with, enjoy, or understand timeless classics. There is nothing wrong with adding your own spin on an old standby, but there is no point in stealing titles and themes to sell your own crap.

Listen to the wind rush through the trees, watch it ripple over the water.

Soon the big red robot steams through the wood, to the mossy shore, and sits. He casts a weary eye at the water and motionless remains.

As the big red robot watches the water, a purple iris nearby opens, and out peeks a little winged fairy. While the robot is motionless still, the fairy climbs atop his ruddy head, laughing, dances a little jig.

Dance and laugh, little fairy, and sit, big red robot, along the shores of the Lethe!

Poseidon's Non-Adventure

I guess it all started when Captain Winterbottomsmythe murdered Lady Fitzmattering on the Southern croquet court one nice day in May.

It all went downhill from there. The butcher when belly-up, the green-grocer was chased from town for being a commie sympathizer, and the newspaper (only one in town) was deep in the red.

Soon our little village was a wreck, and everyone treated everyone else with suspicion and little whispered threats under their breath.

The Winterbottomsmythes loomed bitterly over the whole shebang, unaware of the many ghosts that were on their way to haunt the joint.

* * *

From his point of vantage above the lonely village, Gerald tossed another paper airplane into a gust of wind. The wind picked it up and hurled it clumsily back over Gerald's head and over behind him somewhere. Gerald took spoonful of soup and began folding another.

* * *

Underneath the ocean, Poseidon puffed on a bubble pipe, and scratched his beard.

Guide of Guides.

Prefect Travel Guide

Survival Kit:

• Always remember to bring an egg of Silly Putty, because you never know when you'll need to copy a Bazooka Joe comic strip.
• You need a compass so you can draw perfect circles.
• A deck of cards to while away the time and make some money
• Bazooka Bubble gum for an adhesive and comics to read
• A real survival kit

Clothes:

Clothes are important because they keep you warm and keep spiders off of you. I recommend a hat; either a Fedora or a Bowler, depending on how British you are.

Pants are a good idea, and some gloves for when you need to pull a pizza out of an oven and you don't want to burn your fingers.

Shoes are important, as your feet are a large percentage of the end of your legs.

Kung Fu:

You will need several varieties of kung fu, as different places have different styles. Kung fu is banned in several places, so don't advertise your skills.

Food:

Always bring a snack. Ideally one that fits in your pockets, like jelly beans or club sandwiches. I usually recommend cleaning the lint out of your pockets before a journey to keep your jelly beans nice and lint-free, but some lint may come in handy on the rare occasion you need a good distraction or lint. You never know what you'll find to eat in an alien world.

Weapons:

While the bigger the better usually applies--on a trip, big weapons are exhausting to carry around, and attract the attention of gendarmes and golems, so I stick with the basics: knives, poisons, little beetles with machetes, and universal computer viruses.

Books:

Always bring a cookbook, a copy of "How to win friends and disembowel people", and a couple of really big books to impress people and flowers.

Top 10 myths about lawncare

1. Garden Gnomes keep evil spirits away.

This is a myth, Garden Gnomes, while fairly benign, are powerless against the elder spirits, bad or good. They do promote a healthy garden, but are likely to be vandalized, and the little imps are apt to play practical jokes and steal things. They really aren't worth it.

Theoretically, they do make good allies against the forces of evil, but are so amazingly fickle and troublesome, I recommend leaving them be.

2. Fire ants eat invisible parasitic organisms known as 'bacteria'.

Science hasn't yet convinced anyone that 'bacteria' exist, let alone what fire ants eat, other than chili peppers. Oddly enough, this myth is fairly widespread.

3. Cutting grass destroys precious fairy habitat.

While technically possible, most fairies prefer flowers over grass. Fairies are also happy enough living anywhere above ground really.

4. Lawncare professionals are stupid liars.

Nonsense.

5. Using chemicals will help my lawn.

Contrary to all recognized good sense and science, using harsh chemicals will only upset the delicate balance of magic present in the world. It's a waste of money, and may poison dryads and hot-air balloon aficionados. Experts instead recommend using the following nature friendly substitutes:

Beer - Fertilizer

Treacle - Pesticide

Lemon Curd - pH balance

6. Gas Powered machinery is alien to our world.

Internal Combustion Engines were developed here on earth, though the source of their original designs is unknown. I believe there is sufficient evidence to prove conclusively that these engines are purely terrestrial. Jet engines, of course, are advanced devilry from another planet.

7. Croquet may damage my lawn.

Croquet is ancient sport of kings and queens which most grass finds agreeable, though certain types of grass (crab grass, astro-turf, mercury spats, devil grass) may react violently or die without warning. Some grass has been trained to cheat visiting players at the game, so offer it some sweet wine before playing to make sure it's on your side.

8. If I leave my home, the grass stays there.

This is actually true, except in extremely rare cases, your grass should remain firmly rooted to the ground.

9. Scarecrows will keep pesky crows away from my lawn.

Scarecrows actually do little in the way of scaring crows. The only reliable method is to install peacocks or flamingos.

10. People will think less of me for having a sub-par lawn.

While there are a lot of jerks out there, the condition of your lawn is mostly a reflection of the condition of your soil than your soul.

Several cults originating in France found their way to suburban areas of the US, where people worship the gods of grass, instead of merely observing them in amusement. Members of such cults may turn up their noses at unkempt lawns, but they are snobby insecure little prats.

Monster

So anyway, Robert put the finishing touch on his new robot, and with a moment's hesitation, pressed the big red button and threw a giant switch, causing a shower of sparks to leap from the contacts.

The big red monstronsity before him shuddered and groaned, it resembled a collapsed scaffold with a few pieces of heavy machinery buried in the twisted beams of steel and iron. Big puffs of smoke spewed from the rusty behemoth's innards and sat fixed above like a dark omen.

A big red screen lit up and a few roman numerals flashed in sequence. Robert scrawled down the numbers on a notepad, and tossed another switch.

This time the monstrosity rose a few shakey feet into the air, accompanied by the screams of tortured metal and earth.

'OK so far,' Robert commented.

'Hurrrrrrrr' the robot said.

twitterschmitter

Almost forgot to say that our dear friend Cerebron has started a twitter account, because firing off updates in the middle of high-flying kung fu action is easier that way.

Twitter.com/CerebronIX (I believe) is the url at which you can find our favorite nut.

Smackadoo

Just thought I'd share with the tiny fragment of our demented world that is oddly curious about what an intergalactic journalist for the galaxy's foremost publisher of tripe and deceitful advertising has to say about essentially nothing, my latest creative epiphany of epic proportions.

Then I got to thinking about how I typically, and without warning—unless you are familiar with my fantastic and wonderfully predicable style—change the subject and radically dismiss everything I convinced you was important.

So I changed my mind and wrote something vitally important instead. I sent it off the the New York Times, and received a scathing letter of reprimand in return, rebuking my attempt to sully the good name of Benedict de Spinoza, and to please not use so many semi-colons and scatological epithets when referring to the Duke of Plaza-Toro's solicitors.

Nonsense, of course. My literary accomplishments have earned me the right to say whatever I want to say about whatever it is that strikes my fancy at the time, whether or not I forgot where I was going at this particular junction.

In this sense, one must understand that Achilles was not only a great and honorable warrior, but a true revolutionary in his re-evaluation of the honor system by which the Greek warrior lived his life.

One may be somewhat curious as to the state of mind of the author capable of writing like this, but one must not wear one's hat on one's nose, unless it's a very small beret or possibly a deerstalker and one is really ugly or perhaps one of the despicable crusty clown types.

This is of course, a proverb from the Zoroastrian guru, Mikhail Kittybottom. I've stolen it and have it locked up in a safety deposit box, lest the Zoroastrian religion once again spread across the land and consume all of our Tropicana Orange Juice, as it once did in the time of great cheese and rotten TV.

Take that you bastards.

Ok, wise guys, who's the hoppiest frood this side of Hawaii 5-0's Jack Lord?

You guessed it, it's me--Ford "the Cuticle" Prefect, posting one of my ever-popular Q&A sessions, and utilizing the lazy man's em dash.

Without further adieu (because goodbyes are so hard), let us begin at the beginning, where all good things start, unless you count epic poetry, which sometimes starts just before the middle begins.

Q. How you be so crazy?

A. Never you mind. This isn't the time, nor the place, Dr. Trussman. I know it's you, with your psychoanalysis, and your court orders, but this is a fun place for me to escape the misery of everyday life, to find release from crippling guilt over... nothing. I refuse to play your little game.

Q. How many strawberries does it take to change a lightbulb?

A. A house.

Q. What's the fun in stealing a car and driving it off a cliff?

A. I REFUSE TO PLAY YOUR LITTLE GAMES.

Q. What's your inspiration for writing?

A. The cast of Ghostwriter

A. 5th Element

Q. What's your favorite movie?

Q. Why would anyone leave spam comments on an otherwise unpolluted and awesome bloggomat?

A. They are nozzles of the highest odor.

Q. What convinced you that anyone would read this tripe, mildly entertaining though it may be?

A. I'll start cutting up these hostages man.

Q. So what would you say is a healthy level of exuberance in an average post-potty celebration?

A. I believe it's based on the amount of relief you experienced, times the density of the BM, minus the odor and only a fraction of a point for sticking the landing.

A. I heard you were a word nerd?

A. I tire of your insolence.

Q. Who would win in a battle to the death; Batman, or the Blob?

A. This is a trick question. Batman can't kill anyone, it's his only flaw. And the Blob may not even be alive.

Q. So, Donatello or Brunelleschi?

A. I think I prefer Bruneslleshi's simplicity over the complexity of Donatello. Turtle jokes aside.

Q. Seriously though, do you think the planet Hoth's gravity would have made the Empire's walking things impractical to use in the snow?

A. Wait, I've got a Ninja Turtle joke somewhere

Q. Do you think that my starter might be going?

A. Hold on, I've got an answer to that Star Wars thing

Q. I'm serious about my starter

A. I'm serious about my damn Ninja Turtle joke

Q. Moving on, I thought you were witty and had quick comebacks, like those people on the TV.

A. I'm doing my best. Wait, Donatello was the one with the stick right? Leonardo had the sword, am I right?

Q. Answer the question about my starter, then I have one more, and you can go back to playing video games.

A. Ok, does it click when you turn the key?

Q. What's the proper way to end an interview?

Video Game Review! Oh noes!

"Army of TWO: 40th Day" is an ambitious mess of a game. It opens with a bang, as an entire city explodes all around the player, but the game ultimately cascades down around the player in much the same way.

Ok. So it's actually really fun, especially with a friend. Customizing weapons and thinking out battlefield tactics, such as flanking maneuvers, cover fire, etc. are the main draw in this game, which is presented with an entertaining cinematic flair. The game is a fun experience with a friend along, and in fact, if you haven't got one, would seem to have lots of weird design decisions, like playing "rock paper scissors" with your teammate. Wait. That is still a weird design, why is that even in this game?

The game is plagued with horrible design; unskippable cutscenes abound, and if you want to play Versus, you have to load up a Versus menu (and load times are unbearably long).

I played with a friend, and--playing on a high difficulty because we aren't pussies, and we are slaves to the Achievement trap--we attempted a tough level over and over until we passed it, and then the game once disconnected us, and once just bugged out so no further progress was possible. At that point, the game was a chore and subject to much cursing.

Weapon customization is pretty fun, lots of crazy ideas can be played with there, do you want a polka dot sniper rifle, or a shotgun with a shield on the front? Go ahead, go nuts! But make sure you pass the next checkpoint afterwards, because if you don't, you will have to customize your weapon all over again, wasting even more time through loading screens, etc.

This game is actually pretty frustrating. Maybe if you've got a buddy and something to take the edge off, you'll enjoy it, but it's actually not a good game. It's an ok game, if this was 1998, it might be a phenomenal game, but why bother with a subpar mess of a game with horrible controls and terrible programming in this day and age? Or any?

Screw it. This game is pretty bad.

Jordan Stuart, Spaceman. Part II

Jordan Stuart peeked around the corner at the four grimy space pirates fumbling around with a large Pulse Repeater 3000, and, noticing that the Repeater's charge cannister had fallen on the floor, clicked the lever on his blaster over burst fire mode. He listened for the slight hum, and felt for the barely noticeable vibrations in the handle of the blaster that indicated a full charge.

Then, very coolly, and without pause, he raised the blaster to the ready position, and spun around the corner, fired four shots in rapid succession, and felled all four disgusting space pirates, three scaly, and one incredibly hairy.

This sort of thing had been going on ever since he and his incredibly beautiful and intelligent girlfriend, Zoe, and abandoned the Earth in the midst of a horrific zombification. Now their lives where filled with more adventure than a normal earthling could handle.

Not long ago, they had barely out-maneuvered a jagged and lumpy pirate ship through an asteroid field, stopped at a damp rest-planet to catch a game of space cricket. There, the pirates caught up to them, and they somehow ticked off the Glastic Royal Guards of Remly 9, and thoroughly riled the population of parasitic ice slugs orbiting Station Phi outside of Theta Quadrant.

Of course, all of this, new and confusing as it would be to any human, was taken in stride and handled professionally and with scathing wit and a great deal of exciting chases and sarcasm by Jordan and Zoe, and they zipped through the galaxy in their Silver Dart, the sexiest space-craft Earthman had ever devised, the first and only one capable of such adventures.

Right now, Zoe had fallen victim to the oldest scam in the galaxy, and been enslaved to some sort of tyrannical space bean, and once again, Jordan launched another hair-brained scheme to rescue her. Most of his schemes were too wild to work, but somehow all came together in the end to the benefit of the good guys.

This scheme mostly consisted of charging straight into the lion's den, and punching everyone in his way, shooting the odd alien who was either impossible to punch, or brandished some sort of weapon.

After dispatching the aforementioned pirates, Jordan made his way further into the pulsating moss-covered lair of the Evil King Bean, and found Zoe working her way out behind a hostage she was using to shield herself from various lasers, particle beams, and pesticides that were fired in her direction.

Jordan provided accurate cover fire, and they both edged out of the wide open foyer, and down into a random hallway where they could control the advance of their enemy, and enjoy the holographic artwork hanging on the walls.

Zoe kicked her hostage into an incidental table covered in knickknacks, and together, our fantastic couple backpedaled down the hallway, firing the odd shot at whatever alien was foolhardy enough to stick his head or whatever appendage had an eye on it around the corner.

Soon, they found themselves in the shiny metal shipbay area--a nice change of scenery from the creepy mold structure that made up the rest of the palace--and climbed aboard a small, round little contraption that hovered them out through the main gate, and they sailed away, back to the Silver Dart carefully hidden in a cave.

Caractacus

Sun set, that fiery chariot dove into the briny deep. Night fell, and the world plunged into darkness. The moon hid her face, and the world was still.

Swiftly through the night our hero ran, though the darkness hid his way. His feet well knew the way he trod, and truly kept the path.

One by one the stars winked out, and the way grew rough and wild. Yet on our hero went, slower now, and slower.

Why you ask, why this rush? Why at night this bold, courageous hurry? I'll tell you now, lend an ear, rest your head, and hear this song I sing.

The story of Caractacus, our hero brave, and Lily White, his love so true and fair; began so long ago, when first they met, at court one summer's day.

Their love was pure and fast, though doomed so soon by trouble. An evil sign, a bird flew by, and those who saw they shuddered.

The summer past, and their ways too soon were parted. Lily White was spirited away, across the mountains and sea.

So now our hero, Caractacus, has sailed off to find her. Across the sea, to foreign lands, wherever the wind did lead him.

Almost there, the darkness falls, and again, his love he loses. But when the stars come out, and in the night, of Lily White, a glimpse again he catches.

Regaining strength, his wits he gathers, and off again he flies. Forever lost, and yet so close, you'll find the hero, Caractacus.

His endless search throughout the world will never end, but sometimes at night, when the stars go out, you'll catch a glimpse of white.

And that, my friend, is prize he seeks, his love so true and fair. And sometimes at night, if the light's just right, you'll see the hero Caractacus.

Indeed.

Bah. The holidays are thingie and whatnot, leading to the whatsits and something, and a severe shortage of the various bits that make reading interesting.

However cobbled together these bits were, Todd continued wrenching them from the ether, in an effort to create what used to be described as 'stories'. These had disappeared over the years, in either the greatest, most devastating robbery ever, or perhaps just through apathy and a general miscarriage of justice.

Either way, Todd had no idea what he was doing, and after a few failed attempts, just started stringing together names of breakfast cereals and soft drinks.

This worked quite well, and established a good base for further attempts, using names of print shops and convenience stores. These latter attempts grew slightly more depressing as time went on, though several works were pure genius, and a few were hilariously bad.

Todd made a fortune from these works, mostly from large corporations paying for advertising. So, Todd's income depended primarily on large corporations, which unfortunately where destroyed in the 3rd Great Marketing Wars, leaving things a bit worse off, (notably, Todd.) However, the end of these monstrous corporations signaled the beginning of true creativity, hobbled though it may be by the lack of cereal boxes to riff off of.

Creativity, then, struck without warning, and with the triumphant decline of marketing organizations. Creativity blazed away with both barrels for a time, leaving people like Todd riddled with bullets and crippling holes in their chests.

Google Wave

Gonna play with Google Wave for awhile, I might attempt to integrate it with this site, but for what purpose?

It's like inventing a pivoting socket wrench before many people have bolts to deal with, it's a fantastic tool for solving an unimportant issue.

Anyway, how should I implement it?

1905 San Francisco

See ancient San Francisco, and marvel, all ye who look thereupon! The amount of awesome here is palpable.

Jordan Stuart, Spaceman.

One day, as Peter sighted down the barrel of his 30-30, searching for the most vulnerable part of the slowly advancing zombie, he paused to consider his various life choices that led to this horrible situation.

The monsters had attacked earlier, a sign of the impending apocalypse, but were largely ignored by the smart people, while the simple-minded loaded their rifles and let fly at anything that appeared suspect. Smart people are stupid like that.

Peter's life choices had been generally poor in the past, but deciding to always carry a rifle everywhere had been a spectacularly good one. Not only was it handy for shooting ATF agents and endangered species, it was also good for shooting zombies and monsters.

He spit a wad of chew into the bushes and squeezed off another shot, blasting a fountain of gore into the air.

"Eat that, ya dirty zombie" he quipped.

* * *

Above the burning apocalypse hovered a lonely spacecraft, a classic rocketship with big fins and lots of chrome, the kind that cool people fly. This little baby went completely unnoticed, as most of the people and institutions responsible for noticing these things were either zombified or on fire.

Inside was a really cool cat, the man who had stolen this sexy spacecraft from Ferris Aeronautics himself, Jordan Stuart. He chomped on a cigar, poured another shot of whiskey, and stared at the amber Earth below through his sunglasses.

"Dunno," he said to his amazingly beautiful girlfriend who sat next to him, "Think we should stick around?"

"Blow this joint." She responded. He flipped a switch, grasped the controls in his big manly hands, and stomped on something on the floor which sent them hurtling into the nether.

* * *

Below them, the Earth consumed itself. Ragtag teams of misfits and solitary heroes fought bravely, a few big budget explosions wiped out major cities, but the survivors didn't have a chance.

* * *

Aboard the Earth's only known rocketship, Jordan and his girlfriend Zoe poured over a bunch of charts and shopping catalogs. They sipped the drinks they poured, and relaxed in comfy chairs when they weren't in the control room pushing buttons and reading control screens. The life support systems would last indefinitely, and the chances of getting bit by a zombie were slim to none. Infomercials were a thing of the past.

Day after whatever you could call a day in space passed, as they rocketed through the empty night. Through the chaos, and past the edges of our known solar system, Earth's coolest couple flew. Where, they knew not. But they didn't care. Anywhere was better than the hell-hole they had left.

* * *

Ping.

Ping.

Ping.

* * *

While Jordan and Zoe slept, the ships computer recorded a signal emanating from a standard galactic navigational beacon. These were installed throughout the galaxy when super-high speed travel hit the mainstream, as normal dead reckoning methods were obsoleted, and new methods were required.

With no way to know this, our heroes continued to shoot through space, leaving the beacon far behind them.

Their passage was not completely without incident however, as the beacon relayed all relevant information regarding their passage to the Galaxy Travel Board (a now defunct agency), and a small device taped to the side of the beacon sent the same information to a dark and jagged ship orbiting a large asteroid nearby.

The jagged ship was crewed by a nasty band of outlaws, escaped convicts, tax collectors, the flotsam and jetsam of the criminal world, and general riff-raff of space. These turned to piracy as their main revenue source, and hid from the authorities in the far reaches of the galaxy, waiting on the signal from a hijacked beacon to launch them into action.

* * *

The Pirate Captain leered into his readout screen and tugged his beard thoughtfully.

"Unknown craft, probably a small private vessel." A nearby crewman read out, his tentacles waving around, pushing buttons and moving food in and out his various food orifices.

The Captain nodded, "We need the practice anyway."

He gave the order to attack.

Sir Lord John Fritzlebald's Adventure Journal

11/2/09 My last adventure was cut short as I had urgent business at home to which I was forced to attend, and after a great deal of thought and consideration, I have decided to embark once again on the Great Adventure. Having learned the harsh lessons the last failed adventure had to teach, I made absolutely certain that the booze would not run out.

11/4/09 I picked up some more Ovaltine, just in case, and stowed it among the boxes of fedoras and crates of alcohol already aboard the steamer Poseidon's Nipple, and set about a devious scheme to cheat the sailors at cards.

11/19/09 Sick, extremely sick. Most of the booze was lost in a card game which I pretty much won, but some sailors convinced me that sharing the booze was more advisable than getting stabbed for cheating at cards. I've been drinking water for 2 days and mal de mer is unbearable.

11/22/09 We stopped in some port or another, and stocked up on the local beer and wine, which is pretty vile, but it beats the bilge water I've been forced to consume. Also, the captain owns part of my estate back home, on account of a straight flush.

11/23/09 First mate Something Smith is now captain of this d____ boat, as the original captain left for home, probably to take command of my house and servants, which I hope murder him in his sleep, the cheating b_____.

11/25/09 Stock of beer is gone, we are reduced to drinking the local wines like savages. Several of the men have lit a fire on the deck and are roasting an animal or something over it, but as the leader of this expedition, I must attend to the important things, like building a still in the hold so we don't die.

11/27/09 Most of the ship was destroyed in a fire, but we've fortunately found a hotel here in Portsmouth and I've sent back home for more supplies. While the ship burned, the still failed catastrophically and I was unable to salvage it. Also, many of the men are dangerously angry for some reason. I hope their stupid hut they constructed out of charred boat pieces falls on their ugly heads.

11/28/09 Hotel is quite nice, I think I'll recuperate here before launching into another harrowing adventure, my supplies have arrived, and I'm quite content with the lodgings. I shall remain here until these supplies run dry and then will set out on the hazardous journey home where I shall confront said captain. This adventure is over for now.

Due to popular demand, I will appease my teeming masses of fans with yet another, shockingly terse and devastatingly hilarious postarooni.

I may have set the bar a little high there, so forget I wrote that last bit, and pretend that you aren't sure whether this will be a depressing look into refrigerator maintenance and repair , or possibly an erotic Mario Bros. fan fic.

You are know in the proper mood to enjoy the rest of this literary delight which I hereby present to you, the gullible little mook who has been tricked into visiting this page.

Ahem. Drum roll please!

And begin.

Whoops, had to close another window I was looking at which was Twilight related, and did not want polluting my above average mind which is rapidly filling with nonsense faster than I can spew it out of my fingers.

So now my mind is clear.

Begin.

Aeons ago, in a foggy grey land,

Sat a small village with a lonely kirk,

And a tavern, some sheep and a mule.

But deep in the woods, the foggy grey woods,

Lay two robots, silent and rusty.

Their eyes were stuck shut,

So they could not see the foggy grey land,

Nor the small village with the lonely kirk,

Nor tavern, the sheep or the mule, not each other.

Yet a high frequency blip echoed through the wood.

Oh, the Automaton sighed (for the blip was a voice),

Where am I? And where is my darling?

Where is my Android I've lost in the wood?

She shed a tear and and she sighed.

This is conducive to oxidation.

Another voice wanders through the fog,

In answer and sorrow.

It is quiet, and lost in the wood,

Without anyone to hear it or notice.

The mourning cry of the Android.

Though when the wind changes,

And the North Wind blows,

The Android's cry rides on the wind,

Carried across the water,

He cries for his Automaton.

Rusty and still, the Android sits,

His eyes swollen shut, his head in his lap,

And his heart in a thousand pieces.

His Automaton sits not a foot from his grasp,

But neither one knows this.

If ever you are in the foggy grey woods,

Past the old kirk and tavern,

Listen with care and with kindness

To find the two robots who are lost in the wood,

And oil their joints so I can sleep.

Polaroid Psycho Psanalysis

Polaroid photos make you look like a murderer. This is a fact. If you manage to scrounge up the now-discontinued-once-ubiquitous camera from the photographic netherworld, snap a picture of your sweetest little kitten or even a prairie dog, and prepare to cringe in an instinctual defense posture as the terrifying face of a psychotic killer stares back at you with cold, beady little eyes.

If you still have a box of old photos lying around somewhere, collecting dust, or have managed to slap those suckers into a photo album (like some sort of crazy person would put polaroids into a nice photo album,) you can dig those up and take a quick peek at your sad embarrassing past.

Done? Ok, are you surprised none of the subjects have murdered and raped their way into a mental institution? If not, you might have had a regular camera, better look a little longer. Polaroids have big white borders, an extra layer, and the image of the very devil captured in every one.

I have a few theories. One is that the polarizing effect only filters out whatever good is present in the world, and only captures the malignant and horrible.

The other theory is that the quality is shit and the lighting is pathetic, and the photographer has the skills of a manatee.

Neither theory is completely supported by the evidence, nor is completely thought out by anyone qualified to make that judgement.

Another theory is that the world is truly evil, and that the camera merely captures the truth of the matter; some have even posited that the mechanism of the camera works on an occult principle, using some sort of demonic imp inside the physical camera itself, sketching the world as seen through it's twisted little eye, but those people are nuts, one should treat their theories with caution.

Once upon a time, in some place or another, a tiny village sat.  Partly because of the steep and dangerous mountains that surrounded it, and partly because of the fierce dragon that guards it, this village escaped both the detrimental and beneficial effects of time that changed the world around it.

Inside this village, life is simple, vowels are frequent, fairies are benign, and the greatest mind the world has never known works diligently away in a dark and musty study.

Ancient tomes, bubbling concoctions, and whirling contraptions littered the already cramped study, reducing it from cramped to claustrophobic nightmare dimensions with just enough room for one man to navigate the gargantuan piles of books and oddities from cluttered desk to cluttered desk.

The wiry man behind the madness appears to work very hard translating an ancient document of some sort, surrounded by the appropriate paraphernalia related to such a pursuit, but instead he is about half way through a crossword puzzle that sits on his lap.  He taps a pencil idly on his chair, and in a moment, reaches behind him to place a phonograph needle back on track before leaning back and taking a sip from a glass sitting on the desk beside him.

This is the lair of one of the great heroes belonging to this village, the Mechanic.  The other two are the Captain and the Governor.  The Captain spends his days drilling and marching out of doors with his handful of deputies, and the Governor hosts parties every night.  Everyone else has a normal job, farming, shepherding, blacksmithing, keeping an eye on the dragon, or mining the mountains for sugar and precious metals.

Everyone in the village knows the Captain and the Governor very well, their hero status is unassailable, but the Mechanic is rarely seen.  A few people believe he is a normal villager, perhaps somewhat invalid, or a nut perpetuating a few myths, but he is, indeed, a hero.

All of the Captain's war machines (both of them) were designed by the Mechanic, the Governor's parties are powered by rumbling machines designed by the Mechanic, and oddly enough, the pretty pictures on the wall, and the dazzling coloured light displays are also designed by the Mechanic.  

Sir Lord John Fritzlebald's Adventure Journal

2/1/08 I joined the Intrepid Explorers League, and my first assignment was to explore Lost South American Dinosaur Mesas.  I packed up my belongings, and sold them at a slight loss, and then swapped assignments with the tall gentleman from Nice, and then stole the assignment back when he wasn't looking, because looking for Dinosaurs is much safer than exploring Detroit's sewers.

2/2/08 I headed out to Abercrombie & Fitch, American Outfitters, and Hot Topic to load up on supplies, and grabbed a pile of gummy bears and some pretzels for substinence.  My canteen was full of Ovaltine, and my heart was full of courage.

2/3/08 The aeroplane I chartered was a rickety old contraption built before the great war, and the pilot seemed about the same age.  I had my equipment and unconcious companions were stowed in the back, along with a years supply of booze and sunblock.  I entered a drunken stupor at 900 hours, and the flight left at 901 hours.

3/1/08 My drunken stupor has worn off, and I'm surprised to find South America is full of desert, and my mouth is full of blood.   I have no idea where the pilot went with the aeroplane, and I believe he absconded with all of my supplies and companions.   I have no hope of survival, no booze or women, I may as well sit here and die.

3/2/08 Praise the Heavens!  I have constructed a still and am distilling my own liquor from local cacti and crushed insects.  Now to do some exploring!

3/3/o8 Crickey, I'm plum done in, right knackered I am, best to sit here and drink a little moonshine.

3/10/08 I've run out of moonshine, and have decided to explore a bit further, perhaps I'll make it to that large house on the hilltop that has been haunting my dreams and hosting loud parties which give me wildly painful headaches.

3/11/08 Just my luck, the the gentleman that owns this house on the hill is an avid hunter, he desires to hunt the 'most dangerous game' in the world, and but I've seen that film before, so I've just bludgeoned him with a crudgel, and stuffed him in a wardrobe while I assault his wine cellar.

3/20/08 Wine cellar depleted, back to the adventure.  I crammed my pockets full of port and brandy, and my pack is full of various cheeses and a couple of tongues.  My canteen of Ovaltine is still untouched.  I swiped a map of the area from a filling station, but I can't read this silly colonial dialect. 

3/21/08 Deadly ill, must have eaten something bad, perhaps accidentally drank water?

4/4/08 Pretty tired of all this damned adventuring, I never expected life to be this hard, a couple bottles of the port are corked, and I have to carry all this crap myself.  I've been dragging all of my supplies behind me, and I'm exhausted. 

4/5/08 Hallejulah, I've been picked up by a kindly gentleman on his way to make a profitable business deal somewhere to the south, I'm well on my way now!

I didn't really have anything to write today, so I'm posting a few bits of my dreams I had written down not too long ago.  This one I had a tough time remembering, but it started with a journey through a enigmatic and eccentric building filled with odd bits buried in the cornerse of my mind somewhere.

The comforting reward room is packed with jokes and neat gimmicks, but somehow, it collapses into a disaster area, a pop-culture poster comes alive and suggests you take a random length of duct to a fabrication machine for some reason, but you can't find it, you notice things along the way that weren't there before, or are now ominous, in the way, or malfunctioning.

Screwing lightbulbs into a skull, in order to make the whole room descend like an elevator, can only tell that might happen from outside the room. The increasingly evil looking skull begins to snap at your fingers, and a bulb breaks.

The sky, seen from the backdoor is at the end of a beautiful sunset. Stars are visible, but there is a storm on the way.

One of the rooms you come across is now inhabited by odd fantasy-type characters, like toys come to life, they ignore you, and just do their own thing.

This one started differently, but I barely remember it, so it basically starts here, inside my bedroom.

Outside the window, something mysterious inexplicably grabs your attention. Your find yourself outside, where the horizon fills your view with the dark shapes of trees and nearby buildings, dimly lit by the night, until you look up at the sky, where a silently growing symphony accompanies your every glance, where all that are nearby are drawn, where the moon sits serenely, the quiet source of the curious music.

Lunar eclipse sends the world into chaos, surrounding clouds explode into reddish colored plumes overhead, framing the eclipse in wild shapes, growing shapes inside of which entire worlds of contrasting hues and shades seem to exist, until you are watching universes burst into being and then crash wildly into each other, sending galaxies of color swirling away together. Galaxies are filled with people and planets interacting, fantastic beasts and familiar memories of your past whirl together in the clouds, seeming to originate from the glowing lunar eclipse.

Is reaching this lunar spectacle possible? You feel as if it is close, as if you could climb a small stair and step inside this chaotic realm, where matters of divine importance call for your attention.

Dr. Pierce McWiggle scratched a writhing tenticle across his brow and tasted some of the charred honeydew melon.

"Interesting." 

Honeydew melon does not grow on this planet, though several varieties of vegetable and one animal are somewhat similar.  None of them travel at very high velocities, and few get charred on their own.

"Fruit may be extraterrestrial in orgin."  He jotted down with a serpentine finger a few more notes, and then got to work.

Dr. McWiggle consumed the entire Corpus Delicti with gusto and vinegar, and carefully filed away the report.

  

 

Little spherical bits of frozen vomit drifted aimlessly through space, clinked off a passing asteroid, and smashed into the atmosphere of a large pink planet.  The portions of scotch burst into flame, but the honeydew melon survived the journey, making landfall in several charred chunks.

The medical examiner dusted off his tenticles, and scribbled on a chart.

"Cause of death appears to be high-velocity impact of charred fruit of some sort, smashing the skull into itty bitty pieces."

Not wanting to fill his airsick bag yet again, Race Lardjaugh unrolled the window to his Xtireme fighter ship and vomited explosively out into the vaccum of space, the moist chunks of freezedried honeydew melon embraced in little orbs of bile and scotch got caught in the ships gravity well and began a revolting orbit around it.

Race rolled his window back up, and wiped his mouth.  

"Burp"

  

I've decided to shoehorn another post into this annual journey around the sun we've titled a 'year'.

This post won't be as morbidly introspective and incoherent as those previous, but hopefully, it will be slightly more pointless and wandering than usual.  Assembled at my fingertips before me are the keys to the universe, lit up with a soothing blue glow from the LEDs in my logitech G15 keyboard.  What a nice looking five!  

Gotta assemble some magic for a party later.  I'm a nervous wreck when asked to perform magic.  The problem, is that I always know how the magic works, and am not impressed at all, why should anyone else?

"Awwwwww" hollered whatshisface, referring to something that had previously occurred, and of which you were not yet cognizant.  However, you soon discovered the reason for this outburst.

"I was used as a springboard into another one of these silly stories!"  He muttered, and wandered away into the distance, disappearing over the horizon, the curvature of the earth swallowing him up and erasing him from your view.  You then sat down, and began typing on your IBM electric typewriter:

"Awwwwww" hollered whatshisface...

This time paradox feels familiar, you think, but your paper flutters to the floor on top of the pile of crumbs that had slowly built up over the hours you spend consuming mass quantities of corn chips and Chip's Ahoy! chocolate chip cookies.  Bending down to pick up the sheet of paper, you find a window into the unending depths of the universe on the floor, the entire cosmos spinning away obliviously into eternity to the strains of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.  

Mesmerized by the sight, you sit in your chair, lost in your thoughts, unable to remember the ones before, never knowing what the next may be, completely fascinated by the intricate ballet beneath your feet, until your sheet of unreadable text slips into the void, and sails away into the distance.  

Without hesitation, without a care, you follow it.

Completely motionless, the universe falls around you, all reason is lost behind, you are a mere spectator as the play unfolds, the ballet continues around you and you are numb to all but sight.

This is the place.  All things can now be easily understood, but nothing needs to be.  Nothing is important, you need not do anthing, and you are now capable of accomplishing any feat; but something needs you, something is calling desperately for you, but you aren't yet aware of it.

A passing planetary orb is torn asunder. Its flaming guts spill into the inky blackness and its several majestic moons wander off to find another home.  The planet rotates slowly, first nearly blinding you with the heat at its core, its flaming heart beating away under a cloud of magma, then rotating away, metamorphing into the face of a clock, ticking away the minutes.

"Time moves slowly like a hunter stalking its prey, but as soon as it realizes it has drawn attention to itself, sprints madly away at a pace unmatched."  

The clacking of typewriter keys snaps you out of your reverie, and you begin typing anew.

"Awwwwww" 

Aha!  Caught you on your way to forward chain emails again?  Stop. Please stop, it's pure torture.  I don't even read them, I just abandon the email accound and create another one that I wont share with you, until a moment of weakness down the road ruins everything and I have to create another one.

As usual, I refuse to stoop to conventional humor tactics and use dirty words or fart jokes to produce a nervous laugh or embarrassed chuckle.  Instead, damn butt boobies heiny poopoop fart.

Haha.  Slightly more creative maneuver there, with a setup and a punchline and all.  Fart.

That bit was the kicker.

  

The new Star Trek trailer has been out for a while, and I thought some opinions from a bona fide nerd would be in order.  I compiled my thoughts thusly:

Corvettes are cool.  There was a brief period during which they were hideous, but at that time, everything was.   Mechanically, older cars are more beautiful than the Enterprise, which is full of wingdings, widgets, and magics.  Nobody uses that crap anymore.  Magic went out with the wizards years ago, and while widgets are fine for things like books and blogs, it would be silly to run a spaceship with them.    

Why does everyone get so emotional and dramatic in Star Trek?  Real spaceships are filled with alcohol and boredom, puctuated with card games and depressing introspection.  The results are a lot of forced jokes, drunken stupors, fist fights, and lazy doodling.  (In that order.)  I usually spend the time reading or playing video games, not having heated discussions with the crew as to whether our course is right or our crystal magic is running dry.  That's what computers and other people are for.  

Now, for my money, the sexiest new tech in spaceships is Improbability.  It's often unstable, but boy howdy, is it fast.  

In all honesty, yes, I am the masked vigilante gluing your jenga blocks together

I'd like to take this opportunity to set the record straight concerning a few popular misconceptions running around and nipping the ankles of good sensible citizens of our Sub etha net.

First: yes, several advertising planets have exploded without warning into vast galactic confetti drifting aimlessly into space, and it was one of the greatest adverts a soft drink corporation could have asked for.

Second: no, I didn't post naked pictures of the star of the hit POI network dramedy "Zeali, the Vegelian Sea Creature Who is also a Police Detective!" packaged with a credit card stealing computer virus.  All of the naked pictures of Vegelian Sea Creatures posted here are virus free, completely unlike the actual star of the hit dramedy "Zeali, the Vegelian Sea Creature Who is also a Police Detective!" who has a great number of sea viruses living in a puddle of sea water pooled up in its ear scale.

Third: I have no idea who took a Flightbeam Instant Aero Transporter on a joy ride on Monday.  Whoever did was a fantastic pilot though, and should get a lucrative advertising deal with a soft drink corporation where he pilots one through several loop the loops and into space holding a bottle of soft drink in his hand.

Fifth:  For tax purposes, the fourth point is donated to charity.

Sixth: A gang of super hackers are actually running around the Sub etha net starting silly rumors about obscure mathematical functions and congressmen best ignored.  These rumors serve no purpose other than to rile up politicians, and--who are we kidding?  Fire away hackers!

Seventh: This is the actual end of this post, don't be fooled by the following advertisements.

"Please, please, please, purchase copious amounts of JaqueSuet Soda before we destroy more planets you ungrateful buggers!"

"Lonely? Looking for love? Try Sub Etha Net Harmony.Commercialsite.sub.lotsamoolah for carbon based lifeforms that are not likely to attempt to gnaw your arms off.  I did, and now I have a symbiotic parastite living in my skull!"

"Parajoy soda is planet destroyingly good!"

One dark day in the middle of a sentence,

two bad adverbs to fight got up,

back to back, each other they faced,

their swords they drew, and each other they modified.

Large & Small.

While the world is cold and the north wind blows,

I've lost my train of thought.

I looked everywhere, in the station and the depot,

It's not where I thought.

Cats perhaps, or leaves maybe rode there upon,

That's not what I thought.

It was fascinating, perplexing, and whatnot,

That's what I thought.

But I've misplaced it, it's gone and that's that.

So now I've got a new thought.

Or have I?

The Elusive 'Jump'

Notice: This is a rant, however, I have cleverly disguised it as an informative and slightly humorous blogopost.

How many times have you been reading an article, maybe a blogopost, or whathaveyou, and the article said:

More after the jump!

or

Find out, after the jump!

Well, I have news for you. Find out after the jump.







Did you see any jump? DID YOU?! HUH? No? Maybe? Don't know what a jump is?

I'll tell you.

Many, many years ago, there was only one screen resolution, 800x600, anything over that was only for stupid rich people, and anything less was probably what you had, because you suck, and are poor.

Webpages can scroll down many miles, some going into the center of the earth where they can get infected with demonic spyware and explicit hardcore donkey sex ads. After the Stockholm Conventions, where web developers decided to only scroll down to the earth's crust, someone got scared and, not underestimating the stupidity of the human race, worried that maybe humans are so incredibly stupid that they would not realize that the rest of the webpage scrolled down the screen. So they started leaving clues, like making sure a giant picture dribbled down the screen, forcing a scroll, or leaving the helpful:

More, after the jump.

HOWEVER, today is the future, and we have at least 100 resomolutions, and mine is pretty big, the screen is 22 inches for the love of all things sweet and sour. AND YET, never once, has that damn line break, that elusive jump, been at the bottom of the screen where it belongs, nor has it been even on the first screen. I always have to scroll down the page several paragraphs to find a completely useless and somewhat cryptic:

Find out more, after the break.

What the Care Bear screen size do they expect everyone to have? If I had the oh so common 800x600 or even a nice 1024x786, I would have to scroll a good 6 inches to find that stupid and useless misplaced insult to my intelligence.

So just stop, ok? Nobody uses that stupid crap resolution you think they do, nobody is so incredibly stupid that they can't scroll down the screen, and even if they were, you didn't put that 'helpful' hint in the right place, and you wrote it in web developer code, you stupid sqid ink.

Novel IIII

Swinging from the rafters was a DeVinci-esque gyroplane; fabricated out of wood and waxed paper, it appeared both heavy and fragile at the same time. Dr. Spaulding manipulated an array of pulleys and levers, and the gyroplane eased down to the floor.

Brick peered inside, and found a number of dials and levers, switches and buttons.

"What's this for?" He asked.

"I figured it would be safest to travel, um, not on the ground. That's why I built this, based on some ancient designs, it should keep us out of the reach of those beasts out there." Dr. Saulding jerked his thumb at the door.

"Ok, but I still prefer my bike."

I forgot

because Pandora is playing Bjork.

But other than that, everything is ok, nevermind the rabid wolves that are building an oil derrick in my neighbor's oatmeal.

Bjork. Honestly.

Anyhow, on to today's narrative explosion of epic tonality! Rawr! Bjork, Bjork!

Yosemite Thermite Johnson was a man, a big man, a man of unquestionable poise and unsatisfactory bearing. This posed no problem at all, except when he assailed an oil derrick held hostage by poor engineering and design.

Don Quixote once said something which is immaterial at this junction; however, Yosemite used semi-colons at every opportunity, even when unsure of success. For this purpose he carried an assortment of pens and Sharpies, and corrected grammatical errors to his own satisfaction, and not that of Gregg, nor even e.b. white.

Yosemite deftly shot apostrophe's and dashes at advertisments-things like posters or playbills-as well as a few decimal points for good measure.

The oil derrick in question appeared in a copy of 'Space and Ancient Greece', barely a month had passed before the derrick was assaulted by a hyphenating psycophath like some sort of raping serial editor, and woke up in a hospital a shadow of it's former self, an oi-derrick.

Yosemite scrawled a moustache and glasses on a Calvin Klein underwear model and yodeled away in his black Fiat Spider, scanning for unvandalized and uncivilized, unaesthetic and unironic text to 'correct'...

Until next-time; never "fear", for unecessary character may (or may~not) be "near".

Piracy their dreadful trade is

I want to start an internet website that is devoted to pirating Disney pirate movies. Why? You foolishly ask, knowing it will result in a long, and impossibly unfunny monologue?

Because it's possibly ironic, depending on how you understand the concept! I'd also like to see the lawsuit.

"Stop pirating our pirate movies, you dirty thief!"

"What? The movies that encouraged me to steal, rape, and plunder and rob, not to mention thieve and noddle and cob? Make up your mind! Is it good or bad to be a pirate!? Lolzz!1!"

I will call it "Captain Long John Jack Sparrow's Treasury of Pirate Fun and Disney Movies" and I will use their logos without permission. Also, I will include pirate recordings from Gilbert and Sullivan's productions, but not the filthy crudola that isn't Disney or D'Oyly Carte.

The lengthy legal proceedings will make for good watching, and that's how I'll make my fortune. If you pirate that, I will hunt you to the ends of the world, where we might fall off into upside-down neverland, if sources are to be trusted, AND WHY NOT, DISNEY IS HONEST AND TRUSTWORTHY, right? If they aren't, then their legal standing will be shaky, to say the least, and goofy, to make a painful and pointless, but perfectly played pun.

Yo ho ho and a bootleg DVD or two!

Novel III

"No need," Dr. Spaulding pointed out, "sensors indicate the intruders are retreating. Isn't that right girl?"

Dr. Spaulding's dog nodded in agreement, her ears twitching, searching for the sound of intruders.

"I've got a pile of new gadgets for you to test on your next run."

Brick eyed the pile with some interest, but nothing beat the security of his .45 revolver and his trusted damascus blade. Dr. Spaulding's inventions sometimes came in handy, but they weren't terribly reliable in 'real world' situations when hostiles were closing in hard and fast and you had no time to read the labeling.

The hum of the dog food can opening laser perked the dog's ears up, and she trotted over, her nails clicking on the flagstone floor. She nuzzled Brick's hand briefly, and then sneezed slightly when the scent of gun oil reached her brain.

Dr. Spaulding shifted a number of levers, and an array of pulleys and ropes leapt to life above their heads.

Princess Dairies

There, I finally got around to putting this review together. Death Race 2000 stars some really funky cars, like Hanna Barbara's Wacky Races or some such. They have teeth and knives and guns, or caricatures thereof. These are used to run over people in the cross-country (LA to LA, judging from the scenery) race. On purpose, for points.


We get some commentary from goofy TV personalities, like Old Guy, Overly Friendly Female, and Scary Druggie. They provide a lot of exposition, like how many points babies are worth, how Frankenstein is a "close, personal friend of mine", and which racer just drove off a cliff through a giant ridiculous fake tunnel entrance. Scary Druggie is fun to watch, because he is like a 70's clown, and is always incredibly excited by the slightest thing, if he found a penny on the floor, he would explode like a bucket of sheep filled with TNT.



Our hero (I guess) is David Carradine, played by Frankenstein, a mish-mash of human parts cobbled together after a gazillion accidents he's accrued through the years of racing. His experience and fan base is enormous, and so was the simile I was cooking up. That's his car, it's kinda cool. Is he a bad guy? A good guy? I don't really care if you ever watch this movie, but I won't ruin his story line for you, just in case you smoke a lot of pot and want to watch this movie while dropping acid and shooting up reefer. (I guarantee everyone in the movie production was, except Stallone, he hadn't even started on steroids yet.)

See?

His character's name is too stupid for me to remember, but he's a thug, or perhaps a hood. I forget. He slaps his girl around a little, and shoots a tommy gun blindly into a cheering crowd. A little like Rambo, I guess. He may be second favorite to Frankenstein, but he's a bigger star. Also, he has guns. I'm not talking about his arm muscles there, because I'm not sure he had them there.

The President of the United States lives on a pyramid, I guess, and nobody knows where. This may indicate a post-apocalyptic setting, but I can't tell the difference between the setting here, and really early Rockford Files. He acts kind of religiously, like the Death Race is a rite or something. He provides some exposition again, and some a plot point, but don't expect this to be clever like Ultraviolet!


The gaps between legs of the races is filled with horrible, horribleness. Oompa Loompa cameramen run around with toaster ovens strapped to their backs, and David Carradine stomps around like a leathery Darth Vader, and the female racers take their tops off gratuitously.

They have the complexion of Miss Piggy.



Thank God Miss Thomasina Whatsit does not remove a single article of clothing! She leads the resistance, which is comical, and attempts to sabotage the race by killing racers and airing her Weirdness on TV in protest. She makes speeches and eventually becomes the fascist she pretended to fight against. Just like Republicans.


The crescendo, if you will, is when the resistance brings in awesome air support in the form of this here aeroplane. It's pretty badass, except the whole scene put me right to sleep. I'm pretty sure an ambulance was there to for some reason. The president blamed the aeroplane on the French to conceal the fact that the resistance somehow got an aeroplane past security and is trying to kill people by boring them to death.

There is a bunch of plot, like Thomasina's daughter is in there, David Carradine has a handgrenade, and the twist ending which hits you really fast and gives you no time to savor what the hell just happened.

It's a great idea, just hampered by such things as the 70's, no budget, and thinking gratuitous nudity and gore can make up for not knowing how to make talkies. And probably drugs.

I managed to install linux mint on my mom's oldish notebook computer, and so far, she is happy with it. It eliminates a lot of the slow down (spyware?) and now I know for sure what is running on it, and what is not.

Installation is a breeze, unless you have low memory, and then it's a bit awkward. But it includes support for nearly everything, so it's an easy switch from Windows.

I've got Death Race 2000 on it's way now, and hope to have
a review for you soon.

While I try to install linux on this old POS

Come, let us hasten to a higher plane,
Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
Their indices bedecked from one to n,
Commingled in an endless Markov chain!

Come, every frustum longs to be a cone,
And every vector dreams of matrices.
Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:
It whispers of a more ergodic zone.

In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space
Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways.
Our asymptotes no longer out of phase,
We shall encounter, counting, face to face.

I'll grant thee random access to my heart,
Thou'lt tell me all the constants of thy love;
And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove,
And in our bound partition never part.

For what did Cauchy know, or Christoffel,
Or Fourier, or any Boole or Euler,
Wielding their compasses, their pens and rulers,
Of thy supernal sinusoidal spell?

Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain?
Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes,
A root or two, a torus and a node:
The inverse of my verse, a null domain.

Ellipse of bliss, converse, O lips divine!
The product of our scalars is defined!
Cyberiad draws nigh, and the skew mind
cuts capers like a happy haversine.

I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
Bernoulli would have been content to die,
Had he but known such a squared cosine 2 phi!

~Stanislaw Lem 'Cyberiad'

?

So, once upon a time, in a far away place, in New Jersey, a simple crocus bloomed auspiciously.

This wasn't unusual. However, Ted vomited as a result. I assume you know Ted? He's an ass.

Seriously. He's no fun at parties, unless you enjoy laughing awkwardly as someone pours his drink on his date's head and spews profanity in every direction like a particularly offensive malfunctioning septic tank. Anyway, this crocus was genetically modified to release noxious fumes when it bloomed.

The alien invasion had all sorts of trickery up it's figurative sleeves just like that. They spent a lot of time making sure we replaced all of our metal objects with low-quality plastics to ensure our defenselessness, and then resorted to petty pranks.

The latest of which was that damn crocus. The crocus spent it's childhood various schools, getting chewed on and starved by negligent children and pitied by poor teachers. Then an alien by the name of 'X'hcccrtryblax'tch teleported in one night and rescued it, along with some tadpoles and a lot of staples.

Ted was an ass, did I mention that? Oh, right. So this crocus gets modified with some standard DNA replication and some Whoopiematic Laughspew. Then 'X'hcccrtryblax'tch, disguised as a lilac dragon buzzed in and placed in on Ted's counter.

Ted didn't notice it, on account of all of the detritus and debris accumulated on his countertops, which mysteriously aided the growth of our crocus, and it bloomed.

I actually don't think the Laughspew was needed, that kitchen was nasty to begin with, and Gordy nearly tossed her cookies in there on a daily basis anyway.

Novel, II

Brick rubbed his eyes, and squinted at the martini glasses on the table before him. They shook a bit, and the room spun around them. He rubbed his eyes once again, and the room steadied. It was just the glasses moving.

"Um.." He was about to ask a question, but Dr. Spaulding beat him to it.

"That's my latest invention. It's an automechanical waiter!"

"Ah."

The glasses disappeared into the cavernous recesses of the machine, and a faint shattering noise resulted. Several fresh martinis were produced from another mysterious orifice, and were set down on the table.

"I think that's enough for me, actually," Brick said. He tossed another down to steady the room once again, and drew his firearm. He field-stripped it, and gave it a good once over. Once he had put it all back together, he fired a round through the window at a horrible face that vanished as quickly as it appeared.

"Maybe we should order some Molotov's." He quipped.

I have no idea what happened to the fonts.

Hit This!

HITMAN

I actually went and saw this movie, and it isn't too bad--if you played the game the movie is loosely based on. If not, then it isn't too bad.

The premise is that Mr. Agent 47 kills people and is really stiff and unconvincing in public due to some radical upbringing which turned him into the ultimate killer, and also makes him really stiff and unnatural in public. In the game, this is kind of hilarious, being bald and scary while delivering flowers to a sick perverted Jabba the Hutt guy draws absolutely no attention. It makes you kind of nervous, wondering why nobody just shoots you in the face as a natural reaction to your scariness. This is very odd on the big screen.

Also, the movie hitman spares the life of some hooker chick. I don't know if you play video games, but if you do, you would know how ridiculous that is. Typically, you kill everyone. (I know I do.)

It's kind of disappointing that the hero only changes clothes a couple times, unlike the video game version, where you wear tons of silly disguises.

Also, why do the soldiers dress like samurai from the future? Maybe the costume designer played the wrong game?

Don't expect much from this movie, and you wont be disappointed.

I actually only played the 2nd Hitman game, and didn't finish it, but I did watch my brother some of the other ones, and I can say that watching the movie was a lot like watching him play the game, except there weren't any angry rampages after failing multiple times to sneak past guards.

I haven't posted in a long time, but that was just to keep you desperate introverted internet dwellers in suspense. I also played a LOT of video games.

Why read blogs in the first place? I don't have a whole lot to say, I don't bore you with details of my toenail clippings (unless they are shaped like the virgin Mary. She probably got some later though, so she shall henceforth be known as Mary, virgin mother of Jesus, and later not virgin at all on account of her husband Joseph, who, in all likelihood, hit that, abbreviated as: MVMOJALNVAAOAOHHJWIALHT, because that's easier to say, which just makes sense.)


I shall instead, endeavor to entertain, which is pretty hard, on account of me being pretty damn lazy.

Today's entertainment is a Video Game Review. I am (to my knowledge) the only person to think of this type of review, and deserve to be honoured with much honouring, and especially honouring with a 'u', 'cause honour is worthless without it.

I played a game called 'Assassin's Creed' which was really fun, but didn't really have a lot of assassinating. Mostly it was looking for mines in a big mine field. I didn't understand why, of all things, an assassin would waste his time looking for mines, but it was really addictive. What if you were wrong, and clicked the wrong square? You might get blown to bits, or just have to start over with another grid.

A lot of hype was spread around with a spade or trowel, or whatever manure spreader kids are using nowadays about the A.I. and the graphical resomolutions and pixelatonomy there is in the game, and frankly, I was disappointed. I assume the game was written in Visual Basic, (which is really complicated, but far easier to master than say--Pharsi) and that probably limited the graphics somewhat, but they did look spectacular on my nVidia 8800GTS 640MB from evga, purveyors of fine electronics on an internet near you.

I tried to purposely click on the little landmines, thinking I was supposed to assassinate them, believing they were targets, like little ant-like soldiers, or political figures my ant-queen was conspiring against, but I'm just gonna have to accept the designers did a horrible job with the art design of the characters, and play as if they are landmines. It's more fun that way.


I believe the little smiley face on the top of the screen is the ultimate baddy, the bossus magnus, if you will. Maybe if I played for more than 10 seconds, I would be able to reach it and assassinate it's stupid mocking smirking face, but my computer reminded me it was time for tea, and I concurred.


I give 'Assassin's Creed' a 8.9 out of an old shoe.

*note, all images in this post are stolen shamelessly from Wikipedia, unless otherwise noted. If you squeal, I will blame you for it and hack your ip address which is 127.0.0.1. Go ahead, check it out. I was right, wasn't I? I hope that scared you, you backstabbing little shrew.