Jon Clinkenbeard is your friend

Double Babies!

2011-09-02T15:37:00.000-07:00

Ok. So you know how Mary Kate and Ashley, the Olsen twins, were like THE hottest thing of the late nineties? Right? Well what are they doing now? Nothing. Ok fashion, but that's not where the money is, right? Haha! Right. No. It's in movies. Olsen Twin movies. But we can't just see them now that they're all grown up and plastic surgery face. Blech. Who wants to see that? I don't. I want to see money. Mary Kate and Ashley money. BIG NINETIES COCAINE MONEY. Ok!? Right? But how...?

Double Babies!
Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are BACK! And they're Double Twouble! (“Double” because there's two of them and they're twins, “Twouble” because it's an adorable take on “trouble” and it rhymes and because you'll see why it makes sense in a minute...).
That's the tagline, now here's the logline: they're secret double-agent babies.
You know how the Bourne Identity is like spy vs spy vs double-spy? Yeah. That plus Mary Kate and Ashley.
(remember how I said the “twouble” would make sense? Eh? Because secret double agents are trouble. Yeah.)

And here's the best part: guys, I didn't even come up with this. Mary Kate and Ashley did. They sent me an email. We're friends. So we had lunch and they said they wanted to move back into acting, maybe become the new Angelina Jolies or Kathy Lee Giffords.
I said “Whoa, whoa, whoa, tweedledee (that's what I call Mary Kate. It's a twins joke.). You guys aren't old enough for action. BUT...”
Then I was quiet for a minute because I was thinking. I was thinking about money.
“Ok Minnesota baseballers (it's another twins thing I call them), here's what I figured out just now: people love the old yous. They hate this new, fashioney, plastic surgery thing you're doing.”
The girls were quiet for a minute (they're good listeners).
Then one of them said “But-.”
And I said “NO BUTS Tweedledum! (that's what I call Ashley) Here's how it's gonna happen: CGI. Voice-Over. We're going to take you back to the height of your fame, before you started this horrible downward spiral.”

Well. They loved it. Look Who's Talking meets James Bond!
How could anyone resist that? They weren't able to. And audiences won't be able to, also. And the best part is, we already have a built-in fanbase with the old fans who aren't children anymore. But there are new children who don't know the magic of Mary Kate and Ashley. They've only recently been born!
So we do a Smurfs 3D Part 2 tie-in. Easy. Children love smurfs.
We name two of the Smurfs Mary Kate Smurf and Ashley Smurf. And they're TWIN smurfs. This is important because the Olsen twins are twins. So we need audiences to know that.
Now there's a secret double-bonus that I don't have to tell you, but I will (“double,” ha!).
I didn't tell the girls this because we're friends, but they are pretty bad at acting.
You know that. I know that.
BUT a lot of horrible actors can still be good VOICE actors! So that solves THAT problem. Also, the Smurfs 3D Part 2 tie-in will give them a chance to practice their voices before their big re-debut!

As for the rest of the movie, I think we've got it pretty much covered. It's a CGI animation hero story, only with twins who are spies, but since they're double-spies, they don't know if they can trust each other, which is tension and story. For the main antagonist...
You sure you want me to spoil it? Ok, well it SEEMS the whole movie like it's Evil Marky Mark, the president of the Evil United States (The United States is evil in the FUTURE, so it's sci-fi too), but then really, the bad guy turns out to be Ashley! Ashley Olsen! No, wait. Mary Kate! Mary Kate Olsen! Because she really wasn't a secret double-agent, she was just an evil single agent all along.

Anyway, the script is being written by Howie Mandel and it's riveting. Audiences are gonna love it. I say we either do Thanksgiving weekend, or we make them Christmas double agents and turn it into holiday season material. Maybe the bad guys can be Jewish or something so we can grab the Hanukkah crowd. Howie's Jewish. I'll pitch that idea to him and see what he thinks.

Profit

2011-05-31T10:17:00.000-07:00

Let's cut the chit-chat.
Thank you.
Sorry to be blunt, but this company hired me so we could stop wasting time.
Let's get to the point.
My name's Harold Firer.
I'm a consultant.
I'm basically here so we can stop screwing around as a company and start maximizing out potential.
Our investors are demanding a lot of changes, so if you value your job, listen up.
Got your attention?
Good.
Let's get down to brass tacks.
We aren't making enough money.
We need to be making MORE money.
How are we going to do that?
I'll tell you.
Profit.
Nothing makes money faster than profit.
Profit's not just a buzzword, people.
Profit is real.
It's the most important thing a company has.
Without profit, a company doesn't exist.
We need profit.
Think about it like your blood.
You need your blood, don't you?
Well this company's blood is profit.
It takes profit to be an industry leader.
So how do we get more profit?
Four things:
Decrease overheads.
Cut unnecessary spending costs.
Drive growth.
Increase Revenue.
One. Decrease overheads. Cut the wheat from the chaff.
Maximize output. Maximize productivity.
Fire people.
Two. Cut unnecessary spending costs. Do you really need a stapler?
Really? You?
Why can't we have three staplers that everyone in the company uses?
It costs less.
Economy.
Thrift.
Profit.
Three. Drive growth. Encourage thinking outside the box.
Not daydreaming. Not surfing on youtube. Not facebooking your ex.
You think about how you can make your life better?
Start thinking about how you can make this company better.
Or get out.
Profit.
Four. Increase Revenue. Upcharge our products. Maximize their valuability, and thus, our valuability as a company.
Bring in new clients. New customers. We haven't sold any of our products to your grandmother? Why not?
Do it or get out.
These things are not just “good ideas”.
If we don't do them, we'll die. Understand? We have to start thinking the big thoughts. All of us.
Why do we have a break room? For coffee? How much does coffee cost?
Shut it down.
Bring your own coffee or get out.
No fridge. No lunch. Work. Profit. Eat it. Sleep it.
But don't sleep it at work or we'll have a little “chat” about it. And our conversation will end when you pile your stuff into a cardboard box and, you guessed it, get out.
Don't make eye contact with me. Ever.
Give me your lunch money.
Profit is what we're talking about.
I've made 19 out of 20 companies profitable in the last 9 out of 10 years.
You know how I did that?
Profit.
I don't fuck around. And from now on, neither do you.
I will end you.
Are we clear?
Do you know what I do on weekends?
I fucking take off my clothes and hunt boars with my bare hands.
I am not lying to you.
I don't even use a knife. I use my hands. And my teeth. And my muscles.
Look at my chest.
You think you can take me?
You think you can take a wild boar with your bare hands?
Shut your mouth.
Get to work.
I will kill you and claim it was self-defense.
Do you understand?
The two of you in the back there? Talking to each other?
Fired.
Get out.
Meeting adjourned.

MANDATORY meeting! 7pm! (dinner provided)

2011-05-18T14:20:00.000-07:00

Ok everyone, settle down.
Settle down.
Ok.
Well. This is really great.
I see a lot of new faces, which is great.
Um.
I called this meeting though, because I've been getting a lot of questions recently.
A lot of the same questions, I should say.
So I wanted to clear up any confusion we may- you all- may have.
We're all here because we love one thing: Throw-
Yeah, throwing knives, exactly.
But it's not just that.
It's the potential throwing knives have.
That.
That potential.
Because when you hold the knife that way, I mean, you tell me, can you NOT throw it?
No.
Exactly.
Of course not.
Potential.
And fear.
People fear throwing knives.
And people fear people who throw throwing knives.
Especially people who are good at throwing throwing knives.
And we're all here to get better at throwing throwing knives, right?
Exactly.
I, but-
Ok. I don't want to derail, but first I feel I need to reiterate a few things.
Guys.
Some of us are getting hurt. By each other.
Look at Ted over there.
Look.
Ted, show them your face.
For those of you who weren't here last week, take a good look.
(sigh)
Guys that's rule number one!
Do NOT throw throwing knives at other Throwing Knife Gang members.
Rule number one.
If we don't honour that, I mean, what can I say?
We're hardly a gang. That's what.
What gangs do you know that hurt each other?
I know the Chain Gang doesn't. You ever see their members with chain marks?
No.
They may have flame burns or tire welts or knife marks-
Right Steve, always modest.
Please, a short round of applause for Steve, who-
(Applause)
For you new guys out there, Steve was key in our last scheduled gang fight with the Chain Gang.
You're an asset to the gang, we all know that. But a little modesty-
Anyway, you don't see Chain Gang members with chain marks. That's my point.
And please, don't think for a second that I don't appreciate the-
The enthusiasm our gang has.
The energy.
I really do.
I mean, when we bring it, it's just-
I mean, frankly, we have more energy than any other gang I've seen, and-
We just want to feel like a team, don't we?
Yeah.
Sure we do.
So let's keep that in mind.
Especially you new guys.
Anyway, where was I..
(page flip)
(pause)
(page flip)
(pause)
(page de-flip)
So potential.
Like our throwing knives, we all have potential.
Every one of us.
And this gang.
This gang has potential.
Micky, I don't want to single you out, but-
You know, it's not just Micky.
I've seen a lot of you guys.
When you're out, buying a hot dog, or you know, something else-
You pay for it.
Now, that's not necessarily bad, but I don't see a lot of intimidation.
I don't even see a lot of, you know-
I guess-
I don't know, marketing?
I guess that would be an ok word to use.
I don't see us marketing our gang to local businesses.
You know?
I mean-
I guess I'm getting bogged down in details.
Here's what I see, for us.
For our gang:
We start with small businesses, right?
We muscle them around a bit. Scare them.
Not too much.
But a little.
Then we protect them. From other gangs.
I mean, rival gangs, right?
Then we collect a bit of money from them.
For that protection.
We move up to bigger businesses.
Banks!
Right?
We can rob banks pretty soon.
I mean, by at least August, I would say.
If we play our cards right.
We rob a few banks, we work our way up the ladder.
Control this city a little at a time.
We can even expand to other cities and you know.
Throwing knives.
We work our way up to drugs.
Now look.
I know.
Ok.
I know.
No, I know.
(pause)
Hey.
Guys.
I didn't start this gang to deal drugs.
I didn't.
But that's where the money is.
That's where the power is.
That's a good point Barney. Politics.
We work our way into politics too.
Everything.
You see?!
That's thinking outside the box.
That's thinking about potential.
Let's keep thinking that way.
About potential.
Where can we expand?
Where can we grow?
We all have as much potential as a throwing knife.
And we're great.
Throwing knives are great!
(Applause)
Yeah!
Ok!
So everyone grab a piece of pizza and let's all talk and come up with ideas, ok?
Great!
Thank you!
(Applause)

How To Take A Shower In A College Apartment

2011-02-22T07:42:00.000-08:00

1. Place a dry, cleanish towel immediately within reach of the shower.
2. Listen for neighbours to see if someone in another apartment is using up your shared hot water. If they are, skip to step 11. If not, continue to step 3.
3. Check to see how hot the hot water is by itself. If hot, move onto step 4. If lukewarm, move onto step 11. If cold, move onto step 14.
4. Turn on the cold water to a comfortable level. Step into the shower. Point the shower head slightly to one side of the shower. This will come into play during steps 5 and 6.
5. Be on constant alert for the sound of a toilet flushing. If you hear one, duck immediately to the side opposite the water stream, out of harm's way. Wait for scalding water to subside. Do NOT readjust water. This will result in unnecessary freezing backlash when the temperature returns to normal.
6. Be on constant alert for the hot water to immediately give out for no reason whatsoever. When this happens, duck immediately to the side opposite the water stream, out of harm's way. Wait for freezing water to subside. Do NOT readjust water. This will result in unnecessary scalding backlash when the temperature returns to normal.
7. Shampoo hair with affordable and/or borrowed shampoo. Remember how conditioner used to feel.
8. Soap up with affordable and/or borrowed soap. Curse the soap quietly, but vehemently, for your troubled skin. Rinse off.
9. Daydream about people/homework you intended to do last night, as well as upcoming projects/tests. Do you have a quiz today? Are you sure? Are you?
10. If you've daydreamed for too long, pause to remember whether you've completed steps 7 and 8. If you can't remember, repeat them to be certain. Proceed to step 15.
11. You have less than three minutes of warm water. Make it count.
12. Turn on the hot water as low as possible. This will prolong what little remains. Do NOT daydream. Immediately proceed to “lucky” step 13.
13. Shampoo and soap yourself in one go, then rinse everything in one go. Do not condition. Do not shave. Skip to step 15.
14. Since you have class in fifteen minutes, skip the shower. If you have done this three or more times in a row, weigh that option against the option of being late. Your opinion should change slightly with each concurrent shower skip. If you reach six skips, take a cold shower and complain about it the rest of the day to your friends or anyone who complains about anything else. Skip to step 17.
15. Turn off the water and grab the towel from step 1.
16. Dry yourself off BEFORE you step out of the shower. This will prevent unsightly bruises and/or expensive medical bills.
17. Wrap your towel around your waist/head and scramble around your room to find cleanish clothes to wear.
18. Run to class. You are late.

The Boy

2010-12-30T18:31:00.000-08:00

I was a young boy at the time. No more than nine or ten, I believe. I lived a few blocks from an abandoned school, McCulloch Middle School, if I remember correctly.
I spent copious amounts of time playing inside there after-hours, messing around and whatnot.
One of the door locks was busted, you see. It was like my own fortress.

Now, it never struck me at the time, but for having been abandoned for such a long time, there was still a lot of junk lying around. Junk without any dust on it. And there were a lot of other little signs that people were in fact still using the school, although I'd never actually seen anyone going in or out, except myself.

I used to doodle on the blackboards, stack textbooks into little piles to sit on, rearrange the school desks into circles and pretend two of them were were boxers in a ring. Normal things that children do when left unattended, I suppose.
But there was one night that was different- one snowy night which I haven't told a single soul about until telling you now.

I was playing army, I believe- marching through one of the hallways on the first floor and giving commands to troops inside my head, when I heard an angry voice around the corner.

“Where's the boy?!”

I froze up, knowing that I had finally gotten caught messing around in this building where I had no business being.

Instead of someone charging determinedly around the corner to arrest me, as my imagination was predicting, I heard a different angry voice pipe up.

“Get out here and give us the boy!”

Then a voice that was too muffled to hear replied. It took me a moment, but I realized I might not be in any trouble at all. However, I was smart enough to know that if I kept standing in the middle of the hallway like a bullfrog in a flashlight beam, I would indeed be in trouble very soon. So, I pulled up against the wall, and cautiously peeked around the corner.

I wasn't prepared for what I saw, let me tell you.

In a building where I'd never seen so much as my own reflection before, now almost a dozen men and women were angrily buzzing outside an office door, shoving on it occasionally and trying to bust it open. To make things even more surreal, most of the men held guns.

Now, even if I hadn't been playing army and imagining people being shot left and right, the sight of those real guns would have turned my blood just as quickly to ice.

I pulled my head back instinctively, imagining they were already shooting at me. It was immediately apparent to me that if this angry mob was out looking for little boys, I needed to find a safer place to listen from.

Having played in this building for countless months, I knew some of the classrooms had doors to both hallways, so I started checking for one that was open in the safe hallway on the opposite side of the building.

I found an unlocked door door on my third or fourth try, and as I shut it quietly behind me and made my way nearer to the commotion, it sounded like things were escalating quickly. I put my ear on the closed door connecting to the dangerous hallway and listened.

“If you don't come out here this instant, so help me, I'm gonna shoot this damn door right off its hinges!”

Now I could finally make out the voice from inside the teacher's office. The door I was listening at was right opposite the door where all the action was taking place, you understand.

“It won't do you any good. The door's been sealed.”

The voice in the classroom sounded afraid. It wasn't angry like the voices of the mob, which suddenly erupted in a chorus of hatred.

“How could you put a monster like that in the same classroom with my little girl?!”
“Yeah! He oughta be locked away where he can't do anyone any harm.”
“Or destroyed! For his own good! For the safety of everyone!”

This last line was met with several cheers.
The voice in the office wavered a bit in his reply.

“You don't understand. There's nothing I can do. I have to help the boy try to live a normal life. I have to.”

“You had your chance. I'm comin' in there.”

With these words, a shot rang out, followed immediately by screams and another eruption from the crowd.

“What happened?!”
“The bullet bounced right off the damn wood!”
“Is everyone ok?!”
“How could that happen?”

The voice from inside the office wavered a bit now.

“I told you, the door's been sealed. It won't open unless I break the seal first. There's nothing you can do.”

“Well, we'll see how good that seal is when the whole damn school is burning down around it!”
“Yeah, open up!”

“The boy is very sad. He says no one needs to get hurt.”

“Yeah? Tell that to my son. He got chunks of his arm torn out the last time that kid in there had himself a tantrum!”

There was a brief silence, and the man in the office said something that to this day, still wakes me up ringing in my ears.

“If you don't leave now, the boy's going to kill you.”

There was a tense silence, then he finished.

“All of you.”

This seemed to have quite an effect on the crowd for a moment, but one of the braver, or stupider, men finally spoke up and re-envigorated their efforts.

“What's he gonna do? Make us all explode? Shoot us with our own guns? Poison us?!”

At this sentence, the mob and I parted ways.
As they re-doubled their efforts to get into that office, I turned on my heels and took off.
I'd heard enough horror stories from my father about the poison gases in the war trenches, and even though I had no idea what was going to happen, I wasn't going to stick around to see firsthand.

I headed straight for the end of the hallway and almost flew up the three flights of stairs, imagining poison gas and bullets coming up behind me; imagining death itself chasing me.

I went all the way to the top of the stairs, and out onto the roof, where it was still snowing, softly. Then, I shut the heavy door behind me and kicked a nearby wedge underneath it to keep back whatever was coming. Not turning away, I backed up as far from the door as possible, and found myself at the edge of the roof, overlooking the street. I think it was right then that I realized I was crying.

I wiped my tears away and stared unblinkingly forward, but nothing came out of that door. Instead, down behind me, the front doors of the school opened up and everyone in the mob walked calmly out one after another in a single-file line.

Then one by one, they collapsed out into the fresh snow. Some sat down first and fell over, some lay down on their backs gently, and some completely slumped down mid-walk into a crumpled heap.

From the few that were looking up towards the snowing sky, towards me, I could tell they were dead.
And I knew in my stomach that that boy had killed them, somehow.

It was like he just... put sleep into them, and never took it back out.

The Ring Culture of Nanah'd

2010-08-23T13:22:00.001-07:00

Proof is a strange concept. Evidence can be lost. The senses can be deceiving and unreliable, even among groups of dissimilar individuals, each witnessing the same event. Ultimately, proof is individualistic. It requires nothing of the individual who experiences it, and provides nothing in return.
Aside from hypothetical conjecture, every human has experienced an intimate knowledge of something that is very real for them, that they in turn are being challenged to explain to others, to convince them or convert them, of that something's reality. Why is this important? Because I intend to relay my own personal experience- something very real for me, because it occurred to me. But, I will begin at the beginning, before I entered the picture.

There once was a key that opened a box. This key and this box may still currently exist, but if so, they are lost so far as tangible proof is concerned. I am of the opinion that they must have at least existed at one point in time, because of the story and it's relation to my experience. The story involves a ring. I saw the ring. Therefore, I believe in the ring. Subsequently, I also now believe in the story of the ring.

The story of the ring is, in my mind, more comparable to the Greek myths than the fables of the Brothers Grimm, in that there is only one variation of the story. Whether other variations have been lost throughout time is still a matter of contention and conjecture for both Greek mythology and the story of the ring. The importance lies in there being but a sole surviving variation which, in itself, lends a certain credence to the story, improbable as it may seem. There is also an honesty imparted from the tale's simplicity. Although to be fair, much can be said about the veracity of any story with an abundance of detail, the minutiae locking itself more firmly in the land of reality than in the simplistic dimension of fairy tales. But that debate is for another time.

The story is very short and goes exactly this way:

There once was a key that opened a box. Inside the box, there was a ring. The ring was no ordinary ring.

That is the entirety. The story itself is beautiful in that it follows no successful structure. It has no beginning, no middle, and no end. No protagonist, no climax, no struggle. One may make the argument that it is entirely symbolic or metaphorical in nature, and yet having nothing in the story for juxtaposition, and no historical insight into context, this is a rather weak argument. Upon analyzing for a deeper meaning than mere structure, one discovers that the mystery of the story lies not in the existence or nonexistence of the ring, but in what makes the ring “no ordinary ring”. It is my firm opinion that, despite what scholars may posit, this mystery is the true reason the story has been passed through the generations, and not the beautiful simplicity of the story's structure.

Hypothetical debates aside, there are also tales of those who have experienced the ring's physical presence and tangible effects. However, there has been no conclusive, public proof so as to belie the true characteristics or powers of the ring. I am among the quantum of living men who have experienced the effects of the ring firsthand, but I must say, I am more concerned with, indeed fascinated by, the cultural history that once surrounded the ring than I am the actual ring itself.

The ring grants its wearer immortality. Gaining this knowledge and power is typically where most contemporary men who wear the ring stop their investigation. But I must contend that, being a wonderful distraction, this power (or the means of its function) is not nearly as intriguing to me as the effects of this power, and its properties of everlasting life as the center of the culture of Nanah'd.

Having access to everlasting life, I have been able to gather, if I may say so, an impressive amount of data. But even with my extensive knowledge, and the combined efforts of my colleagues, it was never ascertained as to whether Nanah'd was the actual “birthplace” of the ring itself, or merely the one time in history the ring and its power were centerpiece to an entire culture; spawning traditions, rituals, and other such common cultural phenomena.

This dearth of knowledge is mostly due to the inception of Nanah'd's record-keeping roughly two hundred and forty-three years after the public announcement/discovery of the ring, which was subsequently labeled the “Ring of Nanah'd”. No other proper name has ever been bestowed upon the ring, and since the town's destruction, it has simply been referred to as “the ring” or “the ring of the story”. The details of Nanah'd's destruction are also unclear. It appears through most texts to have been a rather quick natural disaster; a flood, volcanic eruption, earthquake, or the like. Pre-ring traditions and post-destruction period aside, the historians of Nanah'd kept very detailed accounts of the several hundred years the ring was at the heart of Nanah'd's culture, many of which, I've been fortunate enough to uncover.

The ring, being an article of jewelry, was obviously limited in its applications. It follows then, that Nanah'd was ruled as a monarchy. Again, whether this was the case before the ring's introduction, or after the ring's presence offered no conceivable alternative, is of course, both pure speculation and irrelevant. In their early accounts, specifically Nanah'd Ahu Guanta (roughly translated as “Nanah'd, The Birth”), historians record only in that there was much bloodshed in the initial struggle to obtain the ring's power. However, it is noted that this violence quickly dissipated, as no harm could come to the ring's wearer. Fighting for the ring, then, was ultimately of no use. With this knowledge, what is truly remarkable is that this ring which granted immortality still passed from one owner to the next, and with it, the leadership of Nanah'd. Learning of this, I conjectured that the ring might have in some instances been removed peacefully, but without the owner's consent; say, during sleep. After all, a single ring cannot change size and shape to fit each owner accordingly, so by simple mathematical probability, it can be stated that the ring must have fit a bit too loosely on a few of the rulers of Nanah'd (easy removal during unconsciousness), and a bit too snugly on a few rulers (particularly difficult removal during sleep). The next work I found however, Bruc Nanah'd Mehai Jedorn (roughly translated as “Nanah'd, Day-to-day Stories”), specifically recounted that the ring was willingly given each and every time from the old ruler to the new ruler. A tradition,which of course would only come to be reinforced and engendered as time went on. This tradition is spectacular for two reasons; one- the reigns of leadership fluctuate wildly in their durations; and two- this tradition was the single most important aspect in shaping the culture of Nanah'd .

The first point is perhaps not as intriguing as the second now that the culture of Nanah'd is dead; however, had the culture survived, it would have surely been the most interesting from a psychologically investigative point of inquiry. The terms of rulership varied wildly in their duration. No tradition was ever put in place as to a minimum or maximum length of a particular monarchy. This again points to the purity of the system and lends itself to a few interesting cases. The first I can recall is a husband and wife who ruled simultaneously (informally, of course), by trading the ring between each other and thus playing to their differing strengths as natural leaders for any given situation. This union was the only time in Nanah'd's recorded history an informal partnership was observed, and though it was seemingly successful, its rarity in success is mirrored in the infancy of the United States of America, when it was highly likely for the president and the vice-president to come from different political parties. There are also a few cases of human weakness, answering questions that would otherwise have remained. For instance, one of the rulers gave the ring to his mother, who he learned had passed away a few hours previously. Controversial as this decision was, it was allowed by the society of Nanah'd. The mother reportedly “ruled” from her bed for less than a week's time before leadership was transferred back to the son. The details of how this transfer took place are unknown. Then there is the case of a man who teased the promise of a few hours with the ring to whomsoever would bed him. This of course famously ended when one of the women, Mi'irst Klobs'b, refused to give the ring back, instead becoming arguably the most wise and successful ruler of the entire history of Nanah'd. Yet, even these inescapable imperfections further prove that the system worked correctly more often than not.

The second point seems on the surface to be obvious, but I will explain precisely why this cultural phenomenon is so remarkable as a unique structure in history. The records show the ring was passed as often to successors unrelated by blood as it was to familial relations. This is but a symptom of something larger and more remarkable: unadulterated positive incentive. Pure incentive to become a model citizen in order that one might obtain a tangible reward, this is in stark contrast to most civilization's intangible utilization of religion as an underlying motivation for good behaviour and social pacification. Another detail of note, in regards to the purity of the system: age was of no consequence, as even the very eldest and physically feeblest could be, and in a few cases were, given the chance to rule, the ring rendering their proximity to death inconsequential. Younger citizens were rarely offered the opportunity, but there is at least one account of one of the more experimental rulers passing his throne to an eight-year old child, for the child's “lack of corruption” and “ineffable curiosity”. Of course, this is not the first time in history a child has ruled. The Dalai Llama and Tutankhamen both come readily to mind as examples, although their success as leaders is still openly debated, whereas the rulership of this child, Brug A'ly'aff by name, was unanimously recorded as a very prosperous time for Nanah'd. It must also be noted that Brug A'ly'aff held one of the longest periods of leadership before he gave up the throne to live modestly on the outskirts of the town so his body could finally catch up to the level of maturity his mind had reached many decades earlier. From birth to death, anyone was eligible to rule over Nanah'd, provided they showed great enough potential. The power of such an idea put into practice! Every citizen modeling themselves to the society's communal ideal of perfection. I feel also that now is the right time to point out that it is surely one thing to debate the pros and cons of immortality, and the appeal or lack of desire for it hypothetically, but it is certainly quite another to avoid the desire and curiosity once it is an actual opportunity in practice with a very real chance to obtain it; a desire most definitely made more enticing when the means were as simple as being an ethical and moral person. It is noted that there were dissenters, as there always are, who considered the rulership an arbitrary and imperfect lottery, dependent on one person's opinion and range of knowledge; but these people were recorded as few and far between. As for the king's network of informants, it reportedly numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and was constantly growing; all on a volunteer basis, as the act of volunteering to report good deeds was seen in and of itself, a good deed. This is but one example of the layering of Nanah'd's pure incentive, and has yet to be found in any culture before or since. At this point, I must also settle a matter of personal contention- over the years, there have been discussions about the definition of “pure incentive” in regards to a tangible reward as opposed to “being good for good's sake”. These discussions, if handled correctly, are very quickly thrown out, as it can be demonstrated soundly and empirically that no one in his/her right mind will choose an intangible reward over a tangible reward, if they are comparable. Indeed, this is arguably the reason the ring supplanted any form of religion in Nanah'd; as the greatest intangible incentive religion has to offer was a tangible opportunity available to every citizen, provided they followed their naturally-inherent morality and code of ethics.

I'm sure that relaying my findings and thoughts to you will in no way provide the verisimilitude of experiencing the ring itself, but perhaps I have increased your understanding or sparked in you some small curiosity; and curiosity is the first step on the path to empirical, individualistic truth.

Swish

2010-08-08T11:34:00.000-07:00

She twirls in front of you.
You catch just enough of her face to see her huge smile.
You want to go up to her. Dance with her. Go on.
Her beautiful blue dress splashes out around her as she moves.
Hair is beautiful waves, rolling as she swishes her head to the rhythm.
You don't have to say anything to her. Just go dance with her. Go on.
She's having such a good time. You can be a part of that. She can remember you.
A man comes up to her. He is taller than you. His suit is better than yours. His hair is nice.
He whispers into her ear. Her smile fades slightly, but won't let go just yet.
He motions away. Outside. Somewhere that is not right here, dancing with friends.
She shakes her head. He leaves her.
She resumes dancing. Almost as enthusiastically as before.
He moves through the crowd of peers. To more sharply-dressed, beautiful men.
He says something to them.
The three of them look bored.
One checks his watch.
You look back at the girl. You're on her side. This is what's important. Right now. Tonight. Here.
The three handsome men leave.
The girl hasn't noticed. She is laughing because her friend is wiggling her butt like a music video.
The girl wiggles her butt too.
She turns red from laughing, expressing herself. Enjoying her life.
You can be a part of her life.
All you have to do is go up to her. Just smile with her. Laugh with her. Be yourself.
If you don't dance with her, you will remember this night, these details, for the rest of your life.
You will always regret this moment if you don't act. There's no reason not to.
Just go.

I Didn't Like Coffee Until It Gave Me Superpowers

2010-08-02T07:55:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, I didn't like coffee. I liked the smell ok, and even the texture. The taste wasn't very good, however, and the caffeine made me ill.
Recently I have discovered that the illness my body experienced was not normal nausea caused by everyday stomach wear and tear; it was my body adjusting to a metamorphosis.
The first time I sipped coffee, something was set in motion.
A metaphorical graduated cylinder was created inside me, with a range of numbers from “No Coffee” at the bottom to “Superpowers” at the top.
I did not know this at the time.
In fact, it took several years for this graduated cylinder to fill up, and each time I added to it, I was sicker. Sicker from the changes coming closer and closer to overtaking my body.

ENTER: July 29th, 2010. I was at a little coffee shop reading a book and not buying coffee, as usual.
Then.
I started falling asleep.
But it gets even better!
BECAUSE I was falling asleep, I decided to order a coffee.
And not a large coffee, either.
A single shot of espresso, the smallest amount of coffee you can legally buy.
I had a sip. Bitter.
My body began to wake back up. I was satisfied. BUT NO. That was not all!
My mind started racing!
After so many years, I had finally filled this metaphorical inner graduated cylinder all the way to the top, and like the “applause” light in a live studio, the “Superpowers” light blinked on.
Oh, people.
I put down my book for a second to think all the thoughts I was thinking, when I realized time had stopped. No one moved. I stared at a fly, not two feet from my head, and I saw that his wings were very very slowly moving. Time HADN'T stopped! I had increased my reactions to superhuman speed. Like one of those superheroes with superhuman speed. The Blast.
I spent at least twenty relative minutes debating whether or not to enjoy the fruits of my new abilities by groping a few women on the premises. I will not tell you my decision, but I will say it was very tough to decide what I finally decided.
I then tested the physics of my new situation, and let me tell you, Force does INDEED equal Mass times Acceleration.
I was able to lift cars as if they were pillows made of dough. French lightweight flaky dough, not Italian heavy chunk dough.
My shoes demolished themselves within a few relative minutes as well. Gooey rubber puddle footprints marked the inside and outside of the small coffee shop, chronicling my travels.
I then noticed that the low bass note I had been hearing was none other than the thoughts of the people around me, playing in extremely extremely slow motion.
Then I went to the restroom and BLAMMO! Everything was back to normal speed. My reactions had slowed back down.
I will continue further testing of the activation and implementation of these new superpowers.
I hope they aren't going to be coffee based forever, because I really don't like coffee that much.

Update:
I have spent several months in testing.
I have discovered that coffee is indeed the impetus for new powers revealing themselves. Also, after every time I use the powers, I throw up a bit and have to drink extra coffee next time to make up for it. Ultimately this is not a good long-term strategy, since I lose more coffee every time and therefore, must drink more for each subsequent episode. This is especially bad news considering how much I don't like coffee in the first place, regardless of the respect I have for the superpowers it has given me.

Update 2:
I am not able to stomach the amount of coffee I need to activate my superpowers. However, I have had a good run of helping people, including myself, to a better life through mostly legal means. I have also had superpowered sex, which is NOT great unless the other person ALSO has superpowers. I don't see how Greatman and Arachnidman do it with their normal girlfriends/wives. Fortunately I have found a few women with superpowers. In those cases, it is very similar to normal sex. I've given up on coffee. It makes me sick with no rewards.

Update 3:
Drugs ALSO give me superpowers!
I found this out after a friend gave me some at a party.
I will execute further testing to see how high my tolerance is, what superpowers they give me, and what sex is like.
Take that, coffee.

Wiggle

2010-06-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

She wiggles when she walks.
Just a little.
Her beautiful white dress hugs her hips enough to show just a tiny, perfect wiggle when she walks. The white dress is accented with hand-painted flowers, but I hardly notice.

Her sandals wrap tightly around her ankles, hinting at bondage and other things she might enjoy. Good calves, good thighs, good legs. Good god, good legs.

She has bracelets on her left wrist. White, to match her dress. A necklace of some kind. Silver.

Her wavy hair is pulled up, but not tightly. Casually. Beautifully.
She embodies casual. Beautiful. Personifies.

I can't see her face. She's walking away from me. I follow her discretely along the shops to our left. What a beautiful little wiggle. I'm a fan.

I hope she'll turn right to go to her car, or left to enter a shop. She doesn't.

So far, the only thing I can tell from her face is that she doesn't wear those stupid huge sunglasses. I like that about her. She doesn't hide her face. She doesn't hide her wiggle. She's upfront.
She stops walking. She starts turning around. Fuck. Look busy. Keep walking. Just going to my car, which is parked over here. Walk past her. Almost brush her skin. She's throwing something away. I don't see her face. Dammit.
Keep walking. She's walking again. Behind me. Just go to a car somewhere and pretend to own it. She's going to enter one of these strip mall shops.
She doesn't.
We're away from the shops now.
Plan B. walk straight across the lot to the liquor store. She's just going to her car.
Walking. Walking.

She's going to the liquor store.
Perfect. I can go to one part of the store and casually make my way to where she is, so I can see her face.
Enter the liquor store. No I don't want to try the new cinnamon vodka. Thank you.

Make my way to the coolers in the back.
Did she enter the store?
She's still behind me!?!
I'll fix that.

Stop to look at the rum on the left of me. Ah yes. This one has a pirate on it. That one has a parrot. But what kind of a rum man am I?
She passes.

I look casually over at her. Delicious is honestly the only way to describe that wiggle now. I don't know why, but it is.
I grab the bottle of Winking Pirate Rum and slowly walk in her direction.
She slows down.
She turns to her right.
She bends down to look at the bottles on the lowest shelf.
I stay where I am for a while.
This rum I'm pretending to read sure is interesting.
She must not see what she's looking for.
She straightens back up.
She's my height. Slender. Toned.

I grab a bottle of Laughing Parrot Rum.
I'm going to have a rum party.
Makes sense.

She continues walking. Wiggling with every beautiful step.
I can't believe I still haven't seen her face.
This is ridiculous.
She makes her way to the cooler.
Maybe I can see her reflection in the glass.
I look at her reflection.
She is looking me dead in the eyes.
Fuck.
Look away too quickly for details.
Walk to the left of her.
Oh, do they have that beer that I want?
The one that goes well with the rums I have?
Hm?
My neck is hot as I open a cold door and grab a random six-pack.

I look over casually at her.
She is looking me dead in the eyes.
I smile at her.
A too-big smile without showing any teeth.
The smile that makes my lips look like earthworms.
I look back at my spirits.
Yep, they're still the ones I was holding a moment ago.
She is stunning.
Mystery solved.
Great.
I wasn't prepared for that.
Usually things balance out.
Her eyes.
Piercing.

My stupid heart is trying to give me an anxiety attack.
I want to look back over, but I can't.
I don't think she grabbed anything out of the cooler.
I turn to walk to the front of the store.

She's standing in front of me. Eyes piercing mine.
I can't look away.
She walks up to me.

“Hi.”
“Hello.” I rearrange all the items i'm holding.
“Are you going to buy all of that?”
“Yeah?”
“Why?”

I pause for a minute, crinkling up my forehead.

“I'm having a.. rum party.”

It's her turn to make a face.

“Rum party?”
“Yep.”
“What's that?”

Why is she still talking to me?

“It's just a party, except there's a lot of rum.”

She raises her eyebrow.

“And no other liquor?”
“Exactly.”
“So why do you have beer?”

God.
I think I love her.
She's doing exactly what I'd do if I caught someone following me.
Interrogation.

“I don't.”
“You don't have beer?”
“No.”
“Then what is that?”
“Oh this? This is a six-pack of rums.”

She laughs. She's more beautiful when she laughs. My heart twitches.
I decide to press my luck.

“Would you like to come to my rum party? Everyone's gonna be there. It's a very popular party.”
“Who all is going to be there?”
“Patrick Stewart, Jennifer Lopez, George Washington.”

She laughs again. Her blue eyes are so wonderful. Her lips.

“It really brings people together, huh?”
“Yes Ma'am!”
“Even dead people?”
“Especially dead people.”

She smiles.

“That sounds like something I'd be up for.”
“If you're too busy, I understand.”
“I'm not too busy.”
“I mean, it might not be your thing.”
“It sounds like my thing.”
“The rum might not even make it to the party.”
“That's ok.”
“Also...”
She smiles with her whole face.
“Yes?”
“...no one else will probably show up. It might just be the two of us.”
“Hmm.”
“I know... See?”

She smirks at me.

“Why were you following me?”
“Probably the same reason you were following me.”
“Hmm.”

She bites her lip and makes mischievous eyes. Such a pretty blue. I wish I could kiss her. Hug her. Something.
I decide to be upfront.

“I like your wiggle.”

She smiles.

“I like yours too.”

It's my turn to laugh.

“Do you like coffee?”
“No.”
“Me neither. Let's go have coffee.”
“I'd love to.”

I put down the rumbottles and follow her out the door.
Such a beautiful girl.
Such a wonderful dress. Wiggle.
Perfect.

Facts About Alligators

2010-04-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

Alligators travel in packs. Not many people know that. Scientists don't know that. Zoologist scientists, even.
It's true. Alligators travel in packs. They're like wolves that way. Why do people say “lone wolf”? A wolf is part of a pack. A wolf is never alone. In my humble opinion, “lone wolf” is a stupid expression that only idiots use. People should say “lone crocodile”. Crocodiles travel alone. Crocodiles are NOT part of any pack. That's the main difference between crocodiles and alligators.
That and pupil diameter.
Did you know that a pack of alligators can strip the meat off a cow in less time than it takes a person to go to college?
It's true. They're hungry beasts. Although calling them “beasts” isn't rightly fair. They have a hierarchy, and in my book, any creature smart enough to recognize and enforce a hierarchy is pretty damn civilized.
They don't use currency, though. That's the main difference between alligators and humans. Humans exchange money for goods and services. And for sex, which should be a bit of both if you're doin' it right.
Instead of “money”, as is the street term for currency, alligators exchange death. When alligators want something they get it. If they want it from something that won't give it up, they kill that something. If an alligator doesn't get what it wants, that's because it's dead.
That or it's just changed its mind. Alligators are very fickle, you see. That's the main difference between alligators and Japanese fighting beetles. A Japanese fighting beetle picks one happiness to pursue, and continues pursuing that happiness to the grave. Sometimes a Japanese fighting beetle will want something easy, like the recognition of its peers. Once it has that, it dies, having lived a short and pleasant life, culminating in a profound public speech, or award of some kind, or something like that. Sometimes a Japanese fighting beetle will want something difficult like a single cranberry from a specific kind of scone that only one family-owned shop in London sells. When Japanese fighting beetles want something this specific and complicated, they can live for up to 400 years, with a few reported, but unverified, cases living even longer.
But i'm not here to talk about Japanese fighting beetles. I'm here to talk about Alligators.
Where was I?
Alligators... Alligators...
Alligators change their mind fairly frequently. The only time a person has survived an alligator attack is when the alligator changed its mind mid-fight. Or mid-murder I should say. An unarmed man stands a snowball's chance in hell against a fully-grown bulligator.
However, that same unarmed man stands an ember's chance in heaven against a fully-grown cowligator, which sounds about the same, but is slightly better.
The trick is to watch the eyes.
An alligator's eyes will fixate on the object of their desire until that object is obtained.
If you see an alligator's eyes stray from any part of your body to any other object, you'll probably survive the confrontation, or attempted murder; again, whichever you prefer to call it.
If you look in an alligator's eyes, and he's lookin’ right back into yours, you're in for it brother. Better convert to the right religion in the next few seconds and shoot off a prayer or two.
If you look in the alligator's eyes and see a dull, void, expression, like that of one Mr. Jeffrey Dahmer, then you're outta luck and I can't help you. Even praying won't help you. What you're actually looking at is a crocodile. Crocodiles’ll kill you for no reason at all, because crocodiles are apathetic. They have no ulterior motivations.
That's the main difference between alligators and crocodiles.
Alligators coordinate with each other with an almost machine-like efficiency, as they work together towards the same goal. Alligators and machines are almost exactly the same, in fact.
To locate a pack with similar interests, an alligator will sift through corkboard postings and social-networking sites, until it finds the right group. Then the pack meets up and exchanges information. Afterwards, they perform a series of team-building exercises to inspire trust and loyalty, while simultaneously judging the strengths and weaknesses of each other. The trouble with all this is that alligators are fickle, so they're constantly changing teams and packs- I've already told you that alligators are fickle?
Well then.
I didn't mean to waste your time. Sorry about that. I don’t consider myself a time-waster. I'm just a simple man who likes to teach people about alligators.
For instance, alligators are hydrophobic. “Hydrophobic” means the queen alligators have snakes where their hair should be. And if you look into the eyes of the alligator queen, you turn to... I don't know, jelly or somethin'. The point is: don't do it.
This is the main difference between alligators queens and regular queens. And you'd better watch out, because unless there's someone making eye contact and NOT getting turned into jelly or somethin’, you'd better just assume ol' snake-hair standin’ over in the corner by herself is really an alligator queen and NOT the queen of England. Because there's no sure way to tell from the back, you understand.
Alligators prefer eating men, statistically. I'm not sure why, but I don't argue with science, and I'll never argue with an alligator. Cross my heart, I won't.
Alligator meat tastes like lizard. That's the main difference between alligators and eagles. Eagles taste like cowardice.
If an alligator finds out that you've been eating alligator (it can smell, you understand), his alligator pack will go into “hunt” mode. They'll locate the other members of that alligator's “weak” pack and murder them in cold-blood. Don't mistake my words; alligator's are all cold-blooded. What i'm meanin' to say that the hunter alligators will wait until the “weak” alligators are enjoying a nice family dinner or a friendly game of poker. Then the hunter alligators burst into the room and brutally murder all the “weak” alligators in a hailstorm of bullets from their tommy guns. It's an extremely bloody, loud, and violent event.
How do I know so much about alligators?
That’s an interesting story. I once heard an alligator say my name. Now I can't die and I think about them all the time. So you tell me what that means.

Club

2010-04-02T13:28:00.000-07:00

Acid techno thumps.
Lasers race across the floor and over the dancing crowd. Colours in the black.
Sweat. The smell of humans.
Moving, shifting, grinding, undulating. Rhythm.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Everyone's clothing is tight, like skin. Your long coat is out of place here.
You make your way through the crowd, parting the sea with your presence.
Scan the large room.

There.

Second floor. Dancing with a girl.
Lasers illuminate their faces in colourful flashes.
She smiles. He smiles.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Bodies gyrating, swirling, heating.
She thinks he's human.

Remove your disruptor from its holster.

Move slowly up the stairs. Closer. Behind.
Dancing, smiling, seducing, touching, teasing, flirting, promising.
Sweat flings from other dancers onto your face.
She is enjoying him.
He is enjoying her.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Three rounds.

Collapse. Sparking.

Her face transitions through emotions.
Few other people notice.
Her eyes stand apart from the crowd.
Spinning limbs and bobbing heads frame her stationary face.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Dancing, thrusting, grasping, shifting, sliding, clutching.
Lasers wash over bodies in shifting patterns.
Move down the stairs. Through the crowd.

Out into the night.

Anthony and Kate

2010-02-26T15:17:00.000-08:00

Anthony and Kate were married. They weren't married. They lived together. They ate together. They didn't eat together. They ate with other people. They didn't eat with other people. They slept together. They didn't sleep together. They had babies. They loved their babies. They loved each other. They didn't love each other.

Anthony and Kate were divorced. They weren't divorced. They were never married. They couldn't be married. They couldn't be divorced. They lived together. They didn't live together. They slept together. They didn't sleep together. They lived with their children. They loved their children. They went on dates. They didn't go on dates. They loved each other. They didn't love each other.

Anthony and Kate dated other people. They didn't date other people. They were married. They weren't married. They were divorced. They weren't divorced. They didn't live together. They weren't able. They were able-bodied. They slept together. They didn't sleep together. They slept with other people. They didn't sleep with other people. They thought about each other. They didn't think about each other. They loved their teenage children. They loved each other. They didn't love each other.

Anthony and Kate found out. They didn't divorce. They divorced. They didn't speak to each other. They didn't hate each other. They hated each other. They didn't sleep together. They didn't sleep with other people. They slept with other people. They loved their adult children. They didn't think about each other. They thought about each other. They didn't love each other. They loved each other.

The Devil's Farewell: Chapter 1

2010-02-10T10:15:00.000-08:00

She barged into my office like a bad hurricane and started talking.
Clearly that no-good doorman downstairs wasn’t doing his job.
I told the person I was on the phone with that I would have to call them back and hung up.
Then I asked this dame who she was and what she'd been saying.
She repeated, “I said, 'are you Bulk Johnson, the private investigator?'”
“That depends, sweetheart,” I said coolly, “you still haven't told me your name.” Then I lit a cigarette.
I could tell she was impressed with my cool demeanor and the fact that I was a smoker.
She asked me for a cigarette, so I told her “get your own pack, I ain't carryin' spares.”
She was even more impressed by my attitude now. She clearly thought I was Captain Cool.
I opened my bottom drawer, carefully bending over sideways so I wouldn't get cigarette smoke in my eyes, which I hated. I took out my truth serum- a bootleg bottle of the booziest bourbon Kentucky'd ever birthed.
Slyly, I poured two drinks, implying that she would be drinking one of them.
She smirked at me and finally told me her name, “I'm Henrietta Moldrop. Heiress to the Moldrop fortune.”
I laughed a smokey laugh, being careful not to start coughing and hacking. This cigarette smoke was really starting to get on my nerves.
Then I picked up one of the bourbons, said “cheers,” and downed it like it was medicine and I was a sick baby with a taste for medicine.
She reached out for the other glass, but I snatched it up and guzzled it as quickly as possible, dribbling a lot onto my chin and shirt.
She politely put her hand back down from where it was hanging in the air. Then she closed her mouth, which was stuck open like a busted screen door.
She opened her mouth again as if to say something, but then I opened my mouth like I was going to say something, so she shut her mouth, but I also shut mine, because I'd only opened my mouth to trick her into shutting her mouth.
I was clearly winning this little game of cat and mouse.
“You lose, sweetheart,” I told her cunningly.
“What?” she asked. She clearly hadn't heard me; probably because I'd had my hand over my mouth when I’d spoken.
“Nevermind, doll,” I cleverly countered.
My eyes were getting red and itchy from the smoke, and the cigarette was almost too short to touch without my fingers getting warm. I decided to kill two birds with one coffin nail.
I took my cigarette, being careful not to burn myself, spun it around, and forced it into her mouth.
I didn't have to use much force, or any at all, because she considered it a thoughtful gesture and didn't put up much of a fight. But if she HAD tried to refuse the cigarette, I had been planning to pull my gun on her.
Two birds with one suave stone.
Seduce the girl? Done.
Get rid of the cigarette? Check.
How about the other pair o’ birds?
Find out her name? Yep.
Find out her real name? Still workin’ on it. After all, I get paid by the hour. I don't rush nothin' for nobody who ain't somebody worth rushin' things for.
“Bulk,” she said, “Can I tell you something?”
“Lay it on me and cut it with a knife, baby,” I said, charmingly.
“I want to tell you the details about this case, to see if you're interested,” she said.
A single tear rolled down her cheek, but I wasn't fooled. If I'd kept smoking the cigarette that short, I'd have been crying too. I knew she was milking that smoke for all it was worth, trying to make me feel sorry for her.
It was about this time that the bourbon kicked in, like a mule who'd just woken up from a bad dream.
“It's my sister Awda,” she sobbed, “she's gone missing. You're my last hope.”
I laughed. I mean, I really laughed. Not because she'd said anything funny, but because if this story was all true, I was going to be a rich man, and I was fantasizing about spitting on people less fortunate than me.
“I can find your sister for you, I'm just not sure that I want to. Ya get me?” I said, smartly.
“I don't understand,” she whined.
“Let me spell it out for you, baby bird; by now she’s probably deader than a flattened cat,” I said, slurringly.
“Dead or alive, I just need to know what happened to her,” the big girl-baby boo-hoo'd.
I stood her up out of the chair, took her cigarette, MY cigarette that I had GIVEN to her, and threw the cigarette out an open window, hopefully onto that no-good doorman.
Then I grabbed her thin shoulders in my weather-beaten hands.
“There, there,” I said, shaking her vigorously.
Then I spun her around and pushed her towards the door, giving her caboose a little swat as she stumbled forward, almost tripping.
She regained her poise and turned back around.
“Don't we have to talk about money?” she asked.
“Oh, you'll pay my fee,” I threatened chivalrously, “or else...”
After saying “or else...” I drew my hand across my throat like it was a knife, cutting my throat open, and I made a noise with my mouth that sounded like a knife cutting a throat open.
She clearly got the message. Must be a good charades teammate, I thought to myself.
She left my office, and I noticed that there was a business card lying in the chair.
It had all her contact information on it, which I had mixed feelings about.
On the one hand, I was glad I wouldn't have to look any of her info up, but on the other hand, she clearly didn't think I was good at my job.
Actually, on even another hand, maybe this was her way of leaving me her number so I could call her for a hot date.
I decided that when I found the first bit of evidence about her dead sister, I'd phone her up, tell her the grim news, and work in a date proposal, smooth as fox-butter.
But for now, it was time to get to work.

Broken

2010-02-05T07:35:00.000-08:00

She won't switch on.
You've engaged her stimulus zones numerous times.
You've been sure to create an Atmosphere of Pleasure.
There is music playing that she likes to hear.
You’ve washed and cleaned your exterior surface and orifices.
She won't switch on.
She says she's switched on.
But her autopilot is engaged.
You can see she is not Actively Involved.
You tell her your desire for her to be Actively Involved.
She says that she is.
She lies that she is.
You tell her to stop lying.
She says she is not feeling it.
Feeling what?
You ask her what she is not feeling.
She says this.
What does she mean by this?
You ask her what she means by this.
She says she doesn't know.
You don't understand.
You tell her that you don't understand.
You tell her about the music and the orifice cleaning.
She says she's aware of your efforts.
You ask what else you can do to switch her on.
She looks at you.
You look at her.
You try to make your face look caring and genuine.
You look at her.
She looks at you.
She wants to take a break.
This is difficult for you to process.
You are unable to comprehend the logic behind this decision.
You tell her you are unable to comprehend the logic behind this decision.
She looks at you.
You inquire as to what is wrong.
You inquire as to what you did wrong.
You inquire as to what you can do better.
You inquire as to what you can do to fix whatever you did wrong.
She looks at you.
She does not love you any more.
She says she does not love you any more.
You don't understand.
You tell her you don't understand.
Your eye fluid level fills to maximum.
Your eyes will leak unless you order them to maintain current levels.
You order them to maintain current levels.
The fluid builds up, but remains in reserve.
The fluid in your eyes leaks internally and rusts your throat.
You speak with a rusty throat.
You tell her you're sorry.
She looks at you.
You search for different phrases.
You search in the file labeled “persuasion.”
You tell her you'll do whatever you can to fix yourself.
She says there is nothing you can do.
You do not understand.
There is always something you can do.
You fix things all the time.
You can fix this.
You just need to know what is broken.
You tell her you can fix this.
She says she does not want to fix this.
You search for different phrases.
You search in the file labeled “desperation.”
You use too much processing power.
You are unable to maintain your eye fluid levels.
Your eyes leak.
You tell her that you need her.
You tell her she is everything.
She gets up.
She switches off your Pleasure Music.
She turns the lights to maximum luminosity.
She acquires clothing.
You register a feeling of nudity.
You register a feeling of shame for your exterior.
You are processing too much at one time.
You are unable to determine the best course of action.
You need more time.
You tell her to give you more time.
She says she is finished talking.
You are not finished talking.
You tell her you are not finished talking.
She is 85% covered in external-venturing garments.
She will be ready to venture from interior to exterior in approximately 143 more seconds.
You activate your energy-enhancement reserves.
You accelerate all movements.
You get up.
You run to her.
You grab her and repeat your previous statement.
She looks at you.
There is a lack of emotions present.
You ask why there is a lack of emotional expression created through her face.
She says she feels nothing towards you.
You are angry.
Your anger is fueled by your energy-enhancements.
Your external vocalizations increase in volume.
You state that YOU FEEL NOTHING FOR HER.
You register an acceleration in blood flow.
Your face absorbs extra blood.
Your face shades to red.
You are processing too much.
You must simplify.
You determine it best to state facts.
You state that YOU HAVE TRIED TO MAKE HER HAPPY!
Your vocal projector is not able to handle the stress created by the increased volume level.
Your vocal projector crackles.
Your vocal projector breaks.
You state that YoU trIED To DO EVerYthiNG SHE EVer askED OF yOU!
You state that YOu FIXed yoURSelF WHEnevER she FOUND a FLAw IN yOU!
Her exterior preparedness level is at 100%.
You are out of time.
She tells you goodbye.
She exits from interior to exterior.
She is gone.
You were unable to switch her on.
She was unable to switch on.
She broke you.
You are broken.

To Jon Clinkenbeard

2010-01-26T22:34:00.000-08:00

My dearest Jon,

I'm writing this to tell you how much I love you. As I sit here in this 4-star restaurant, I wish you were with me. You'd enjoy the food. The chef is amazing, and I know how particular you are about cuisine. That's one of the things I love about you; your taste in all things delectable. You'll have to excuse my flowing language and verbose vocabulary. I've had quite a bit to drink, and I now fancy myself an eloquent writer. I can never hope to imitate you though. Your words speak to me. You make me laugh, you make me cringe, you make me think. I've never read anyone I've enjoyed as much as you. You have the most fantastic and lovely brain.
I know how bashful you become when complimented. Always a polite “thank you”, though. You're no doubt frowning while you read this, in that peculiar, cute way you do, when you love something so much it seems to frustrate you. I know exactly how you feel. When someone shows you such affection, you feel the equation is out of balance; that you can't possibly deserve such wonderful emotions put into actions and words. That you aren't doing enough to make this person feel the way they've made you feel.
You are doing more than enough. You do deserve them. You deserve everything I can give you and more. You've helped me become the person I am today, and for that, I will be eternally grateful. I love you, now and forever.
I must ask you again to please excuse my clumsy words. There is little I can do to convey how deeply my affections run. Scores of love letters, photographs, documents, and gifts to little to capture the essence of the devotion I have for you. For us.
Regardless of what happens, I fully intend to be with you on your deathbed. You are my soulmate. No one will ever know me as well as you do. No one will ever understand my heart and my mind the way you do. To your last breath, I will comfort you to the very best of my ability, and I will always strive to make you as happy as you've made me.

Looking forward to our eternity together, my truest love-
-Jon Clinkenbeard
XOXOXOXO

Rob Halford Is Flying Home For Xmas

2009-12-24T12:30:00.000-08:00

This plane sure is tiny. Good thing I decided to fly first class. I hope dad doesn't bring it up again. He always brings it up this time of year. I hope he doesn't. I hope this is the year he gives it a rest. I wonder if anyone on this plane recognizes me? That one guy keeps looking back, but I think he's looking for the stewardess. I mean flight attendant. I can't really tell if he's looking at me or not because of those sunglasses. Who wears sunglasses on a plane? I took mine off, and I'm a celebrity for pete's sake. It's just impolite. I should be doing the whole sunglasses-baseball cap thing. I bet that's how terrorists and murderers get on planes without being recognized. Wow. That sounded a lot like dad.
God, I hope i'm not turning into him. He makes people feel so bad inside. Malio doesn't even come visit with me anymore. I wish he would. He's so sweet. I know mom loves him like her own son.
Because dad's such a jerk, I can't even spend the holidays with my true love. I think that guy is looking at me. If he wants an autograph, he should just ask! I appreciate all my fans. I hope they all know that. I'm sure they do. Some of them are losers, but they all look up to me. God, I hope dad doesn't escalate things again in front of everyone. He's becoming a drunk. He's going to get on his high horse again and tell me I can't possibly be a good christian because I'm gay. He knows I don't even care. He just wants an excuse to berate me in front of company. So he can sound like he was right about something. “I knew you were gay. All that leather. That wasn't heavy metal, that was all your gay.” Well, I don't have to put up with his shit! I'm the Metal God for pete's sake! I guess that is kind of blasphemous. He's such a fucking jerk. I can't wait to shove him into a retirement home.
Is that stewardess- I mean flight attendant looking at me? Is she smiling? Somebody probably told her who I am. She's probably just being polite. Girls don't listen to metal. Except slutty girls. Man, girls are so gross. How do they walk around with that gross... leaking... blech!
Mom's right about dad; he just hates that he was wrong about my career. “You'll never go anywhere screamin' at the top of your lungs like a girl! You should take up a real job, like tile!” I sure showed him! Four-octaves showed him! HA! I wish I could have seen his face the first time we went platinum. Nothing's ever good enough for him. Even buying them a house didn't help, although i really just did that for mom. Well- and also so I didn't have to sleep in my stupid old high school room. Or on the couch. Or in a hotel.
I know what I'll do. If dad just starts in with his anti-gay shit, I'll sing a really high note and really belt it out and hold it! Then I'll just tell everyone I was practicing or showing off or something. They'll probably all applaud! That'll shut him up. Mom's always proud of my singing. If she hadn't signed me up for choir in middle school, who knows where I'd be? I'd probably be at Dad's tile business. I'd be a floor manager or something. For tile. That would be horrible. Ok, that guy's tilting his sunglasses down and looking at me. Is he winking? Wow. What a douche-bag. I should flip him off. That would be so metal. I really should. Right now. I should just flip him off. And glare at him. And maybe stick my tongue out. I'm glad I'm only staying in town for three days. Oh good, we're landing.

47-Year Old Man Enjoys New Moon Over Dark Knight

2009-12-03T13:00:00.000-08:00

New York, New York- You wouldn't know if by looking at him, but Curtis Grimes is a Twilight fan. His 47-year old appearance and male-pattern baldness belie a man who enjoys a vampire fantasy series actively marketed towards “tweens”, the largest demographic of Twilight fans, consisting of youths aged 10-12.
“I heard New Moon was bigger than Dark Knight, so I had to check it out for myself, and I loved the experience,” Curtis states.
Mr. Grimes is of course referring to the famous box-office record-breaking sales of the Dark Knight on its opening night. “New Moon was like no experience I've ever had. In the Dark Knight, I was glued to the screen the entire time; in New Moon, I could NOT take my eyes off the theater audience! It redefined my definition of what a movie experience can be.”
Curtis recounts in detail how he arrived at the theater and was fascinated by the fellow crowd of moviegoers, notably the young women. “Just standing in the ticket line was great. All these girls all around me. They were on and off their cellphones constantly, or talking to other nearby girls; so completely distracted, they didn't notice me staring at them for extremely long periods of time! I usually have to stare at underage girls from between other people on the subway, but this was right out in the open! It was very liberating.”
Curtis paints a vivid picture of the beginning of the movie: “When I actually got into the theater, I sat in the back, like I usually do, and started scanning the crowd. I don't want to ruin the movie for those who haven't seen it, but it was just so great. The surprise twist? There were NO men except for me! I was in a theater completely filled with young girls!”
Mr. Grimes then reaches into his trench-coat pockets and pulls out several locks of hair, tied neatly with different colored bows. “The absence of other men in the theater was great, but then the second twist in the movie hit: these girls were all completely engrossed in the movie. And I mean completely! I started moving through the crowd and sort of bumping up against them a little. The only time they noticed anything at all was when their cell phone rang, or when I blocked their view of the screen. That's how I was able to gather my little collection here.”
With this memory, Curtis then giggles, smells a lock of hair deeply, and sighs.“It's just the best movie ever. I can't wait to see it again.”

So You're Stupid, a Guide to Pretending Otherwise: Chapter 1

2009-11-24T17:03:00.000-08:00

You're stupid. You've admitted it, and now you're seeking help. I want to congratulate you! That's the first step towards making your stupid life better.
First thing's first though; you are stupid and will be forever. This book will not change that. This book will however, mask your stupidity from the rest of the world and may lead to promotions, dating, new job opportunities, more friends, and definitely more confidence!
It's not easy to fool people when you're stupid. Especially people who aren't stupid. Let's call this type of people “Smart” people, shall we? Smart people are very quick to pick up on the fact that you're stupid. You've got to be perfect from the beginning around them, or else they will see you as a sheep in wolf's clothing. That's an example of a “smart” idea: a truncated and intentionally-reversed extended metaphor using the structure of a simile. You scoffed at things like this in school, but metaphors, similes, and other clever literary devices are a fundamental part of smart people conversation. Similes and metaphors are discussed in detail later in this book, so we won't worry about them now.
Instead, what we'll focus on now is the face you made after reading that sentence about the wolf and the sheep. You scrunched your nose tightly and rolled your eyes around in the hopes that your brain would explain why I was talking about animals. If you are smarter, but still stupid, you waited to make the face until I started talking about all that simile and metaphor stuff. This frowny-eye-rolling is a common face that stupid people make when presented with something that bores them or something they don't understand. This book is about fixing stupid habits just like that face!
Most of the stupid habits you have are based on your stupid instincts. Right now, I want you to close your mouth, and breathe through your nose. TRUST ME, you won't suffocate! Go ahead and try it. You see? Now you know you can trust me.
It's not necessary to understand WHY I want you to do the things I want you to do. The important thing is that you DO them and practice them, over and over, for the rest of your life. Most of these things will be difficult. Breathing through your nose alone will take years for you to master. You currently breathe through your mouth because the “instinct” part of your brain is looking out for your survival. This is because the cognitive or “thinking” part of your brain isn't capable of making good decisions. Stupid people like yourself are prone to doing things directly opposed to your own survival. For instance, I'm sure you've found yourself at one time or another in a single-person competition for stuffing the most miniature marshmallows into your nose to see how many will fit. Since this is literally smothering yourself for no reason, your brain makes you breathe out of your mouth, since it figures you'll live longer that way.
Don't worry! You will still be able to indulge all of your fun, stupid impulses. I'll simply teach you how to save them for “private time”, or “stupid friend hang-out time.” when you're around other people as stupid, or more stupid, than you are. This book is full of helpful, good habits like “stupid friend hang-out time”. However, every habit will take practice to master, so I want you to make a promise with me.
Go ahead and read this out loud: “I promise that I will follow the instructions in this book. I promise that I will practice every day, and that I won't give up, no matter how frustrating it is for my stupid brain. Sincerely, me!”
There. You've just made a promise to both you and I. You said it out loud, so you have to stick to it. It's too late to turn back now, which is wonderful, because you're going to have a great new life! (if you think you and I are the same person, or opposite people from when this introduction began, you're still reading out loud. Please stop reading out loud.)
To create a sense of familiarity, which will subconsciously compel you to finish the rest of the chapters through recognition, despite your short attention span, Just for fun, I'll give you a brief overview of the topics we will cover in-depth during the rest of this guide.
The first half of this book is all about breaking down and hiding the stupid things you do:
Chapter 1 is what you're reading right now.
In chapter 2, I will tell you tricks to keep your stupid life separate from your new smart life. This will be an ongoing process. You will learn to enjoy top 40 music and Michael Bay movies secretly while alone or with a few select stupid friends, instead of loudly and in front of everyone.
In chapter 3, I'll teach you how to shut your mouth before it says the stupid thing you just thought. You'll learn to use silence with making faces to pretend that you're deep in thought.
The second half of this book is all about the tricks you can use to pretend you're smart:
In chapter 4, we'll reread the first half of the book, because you'll have skipped ahead, thinking you didn't need to learn those techniques and “do homework from a stupid book”.
In chapter 5, you get a makeover! As fun as it seems, this will actually be one of the hardest sections of the book, and one of the most important. You will learn to dress in a “nerd costume” for the rest of your life. Calm down! Stop wrinkling your face, stop chewing your lip, quit punching whatever you're punching, and listen up. You know deep down that “nerds” are the very smartest of smart people. The benefit of looking like a nerd is that smart people will assume you are socially awkward instead of stupid and will therefore more readily ignore whenever you slip up and do stupid things.
In chapter 6, I'll discuss using props to appear smart. We will discuss scavenging techniques for smart props, including making habits for success. You'll learn how to search local coffee shops every morning for partially-completed crossword puzzles to spend the rest of the day pretending to fill out. Tips like this will give silent proof of your “smarts” when people might otherwise see through your smart costume.
In chapter 7, I'll help you get into the habit of saying smart things and inventing opinions. It DOESN'T MATTER what your opinions are. The only important thing is to NEVER CHANGE YOUR MIND about your opinions. You'll learn to be condescending about other people's opinions. I'll even teach you phrases to use if you get into hot water with someone such as “I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree!” You'll also learn to memorize a single generic quote to use at parties and whenever you want to impress someone of the opposite sex.
The third half of this book is all about using your newfound techniques to SECURE your future:
In chapter 8, I'll give you a lie detector test to be sure you've read every chapter thoroughly. If not, i'll remind you that you made a promise to me, and make you go back and read what you skipped.
In chapter 9, I'll teach you about material investments. It's important to invest in “things” and “stuff” that will make you appear smart for the rest of your life: a modestly large house, a slightly above-average car, and many more material things. Your stupid thinking is right in assuming the more things you own, the better; but you have to own the RIGHT KINDS of things! Filling your house with the right long-term props is very important. You'll learn about chess and backgammon boards. You'll check prices on pianos and expensive-looking (but not extravagant!) artwork.
In chapter 10, you'll hire an accountant and do EXACTLY what they tell you do with your money. I'll tell you briefly what a saving account is and why it's better not to run out and spend every paycheck immediately on liquor and clubbing. Even though you won't understand right away why this is bad; when you see how savings and investments lead to MORE liquor, you'll be happy you listened.
In chapter 11, you'll invent a new category of people you can look down on for the rest of your life, like “Liberal Elites” or “Right Wing Fascists”. This is a prime time to hire a writer to write a book with your name on it! Tell everyone you wrote the book. This is key.
In our last chapter, chapter 12, you'll make the most important investment in your future; tricking a beautiful INTELLIGENT person into loving and marrying you. This will be the most difficult thing you will EVER do and it will take all the resources you've built and all the techniques you've learned. You will master keeping your stupid life and your smart life separate by passing off your stupidity once and for all as something else. We will discuss faking Asperger's Syndrome, Social Anxiety Disorder, and the like.
By the end of this book, you will be a new person; a person you've invented. You will be successful beyond belief, and you'll have someone who loves you for the rest of your life.
Does this sound too good to be true? Well guess what? I'M A STUPID JUST LIKE YOU! Or at least, I used to be. But following my own system, I've made a wonderful, explosive new life as a SMART! I'm CEO of my own Fortune 500 company, I have a syndicated talk radio show, I'm married to a supermodel, I live in a mansion in Beverly Hills, and I have three somewhat intelligent children. I'm sure you don't believe me, but it's true. All the “smart” phrases I've used in this book were painfully constructed over several years using a dictionary, a smart writer friend, and the help of my brilliant wife. My system worked for me! IT WILL WORK FOR YOU!!!

George Washington's Body Discovered!

2009-11-14T11:24:00.000-08:00

Thought by many to be lost to the sands of time, archaeologists recently unearthed the body of the first president of the United States, George Washington. For hundreds of years, the disappearance and presumed death of the first president was shrouded in mystery, but now it appears that many shocking details are finally coming to light. Groundbreaking as this discovery is, it appears that for the scientific community, there are now more questions than answers.

Professor Keith Buhrningman, head of the American History department at Stanford University, has openly stated that he "will never think of ol' Georgie boy the same again." When pressed for actual details, prof. Buhrningman declined to comment further. However, a factual rumour overheard in the lab stated that the famous legend of the late president’s wooden teeth was grossly understated and perhaps even downplayed.
Doctor Thomas Wūdstock, Harvard drop-out, is soon to release a book, The Six Hundred Dollar Man, detailing the scientific community's findings.
"I can't give too much away, but I will say that from our early observations, it appears that his teeth weren't the only wooden part of George Washington. Over two-thirds of Washington's body was replaced with rich, polished wood! And not just bones; a few major organs were replaced with extremely intricate wooden cogs and machinery. Buy my book.”
When asked which organs were replaced, and what powered the wooden machinery, Wūdstock replied,”It's easy to get swept up in all this “wooden man” hooplah, but people are forgetting the most important mystery of all: what kind of wood it is. My money is on mahogany. Keith and most other scientists have bet on oak, so if I'm right, more winnings for me! Oh, also, his body was riddled with bullet holes, which is important to historians, but not important to scientists. Buy my book.”

Secret reports passed between scientists contain Da Vinci-esque diagrams of what can only be described as a half-human, half-wooden cyborg.
This new information has sparked endless speculation, not only in the scientific community, but also in popular online chat communities or “chatmunities”.

Self-named "Doc" “Reginald” “McSteamery” runs the website Steampunkjunkie.com, where chat topics have ranged from the light-hearted "Washington costume ideas!" to the cryptic "Ye olde conspiracie? WTF?!"
Doc McSteamery states, "This is so totally awesome! Did you see the gears and machinery? Made of REAL WOOD?! God, that's just so... I mean the craftsmanship... wow! If they find out he has brass parts too or was steam-powered, I'll die. I'll literally die. This is truly another great first for America; we're the greatest great in the entire great!"

The implications this information has for America's- and even maybe the world's- history, is staggering. A wooden cyborg as first president might possibly mean taking a second glance at the rules regarding presidential elections and appointments. If this seems sure to raise political controversy, it won't be the first time; this presidential secret stirred the controversy kettle, even in Washington's time.

Alongside Washington's body was found a partially-burned confession letter. In it, Aaron Burr writes that “two hired goons” coerced him into “murdering [his] only friend, Alexander Hamilton.” The letter then states the two goons, “Franklin and Adams”, told Burr that “Hamilton knew too much for his own big mouth” and that Burr “had to shut him up real bullet-like.” The confession goes on to say that Washington was intending to silence Hamilton himself, but that he ultimately “didn’t want to get his greasy wooden mitts dirty” in connection with the murder. It's certainly difficult to envision America's first president as a wooden cyborg president, but a wooden cyborg assassin president sounds even more fantastical. Is there any proof of George Washington as a killer, aside from the well-documented accounts of his battles?
A third item was found in Washington's hidden tomb: A wooden gun held in his human right hand, next to several wooden bullets. The gun appears to have fit neatly inside the president's hollow right thigh, which was entirely wooden, velvet-lined, and opened up specifically for gun-storage. The last item in the casket, a wooden pepper mill labeled “Whompin’ Washington’s pepper spray” was found resting in a holster in Washington’s leather belt. The gun and pepper spray combination has led top police experts to believe Washington may have served as a kind of judge, jury, and executionary robotic law enforcer.
“No doubt about it, Washington ran this country with a wooden fist,” says New York Chief of Police Randy Fish. Fish is not pleased with Buhrningman, Wūdstock or any of the other music festivals scientists.
“At first I thought those scientists were doing good work, but any first-year cop can tell you that only most of the holes in Washington’s body are bullet holes; the rest of ‘em are termites holes. From the angle of the bullet entry wounds, my forensics department has concluded that Washington was such a badass, he actually shot the termites out of himself from time to time.”

But what of the larger picture? Does this evidence of primitive technology mean there may now be cyborgs living among us constructed of stone, or bronze or even iron? Only time will tell. Until then, one thing is certain: we “soft-skins” can only hope they're as wonderful and patriotic as our beloved wooden cyborg assassin president, who could apparently tell a lie.

Gotham High

2009-11-10T11:13:00.000-08:00

Ok, so we've all seen batman as a grownup: incredibly awesome and guaranteed box office GOLD. Batman as a kid would be boring: boohoo dead parents and all that. But what about batman as a TEEN?!
BOOMPOW!
Enter Gotham High,
Wait, what is that?
Is that success I smell a-brewin'?
Before I lay it all out, I'll ease your mind by saying we already have a sequel in the works: Gotham University! (and a threequel: Gotham post-grad!)
Now, strap into your pampers because this movie is going to shit money. Literally.
Batman and Joker: two seniors in high school. They both have built their reputations or the past three years, and now they're the top dawgs of Gotham High. This means one thing of course: RIVALRY!
They're totally rivals!
We see them pass each other in the hall and Batman's like “something smells poor. Joker must be nearby!” Then he and his snob friends chuckle and Batman's monocle falls out of his face from laughing so hard and he almost spills his martini. Also Catwoman is his girlfriend and she's the head cheerleader.
Then Joker punches him and the teacher, who is the Green Lantern, breaks them up and is like “superheroes aren't supposed to fight! Get back to class you knuckleheads before I send you to principal Spiderman!” and they're both like shrugging their shoulders and looking cool and like “whatever.” They both know mean old principal Spiderman is mad at them for always being rivals and tearing the school spirit in half instead of acting like the brothers they are. Also Catwoman is the joker's girlfriend and she's head of the spirit squad.
All of a sudden, this rivalry is about to explode!!! why?
Because Samantha Campbell is a new transfer student who just moved from New York out here to California to attend Gotham High School. And she is totally mind-blowingly hot! You'd better believe it!
So they're in chemistry class throwing insult-notes at each other and then, in walks Samantha Campbell, and BAM! jaws=on floor. heads=turned.
Batman's all like “you can sit here Samantha!” and joker's like “i got you flowers Samantha!” and Batman's like “you can wear my varsity jacket Samantha!” And the teacher, who is the Punisher is like “everyone settle down! There are two things I know about: Chemistry and punishing!”
so they all sit down, and Batman and Joker make angry eyes at each other so it's clear to the audience that it's ON!
So we see Joker at home and hes family's all mean and his dad's a gambler-drunk and he's like “no one understands me!” and he runs into the yard and gets into his purple camaro and peels rubber outta there! Then we see Batman at home and his mom's like “why don't you buy her things? That's how your father and I met.” and his dad's like “she's not good enough for you son. We need a family that's fat with mutual funds and banking! I raised you better than this!” And Batman cries a single tear because he's rich and rich people don't know how to cry properly. Then he leaves on his harley, and puts on his leather jacket, which has a skull on the back (skulls are scarier than bats).
Then Batman pulls up to the red light and who should be there but the joker in his purple camaro. And they both look at each other all sad, and we can just tell that they used to be best friends because of family stuff. Then before they can be best friends again, or say a word, Samantha pulls up to the light in her daddy's ferrari, which is candy red, like Samantha's blonde hair, which is dyed black now to match the car. Batman sees her black hair and he winks at joker like she dyed it black to match his batman suit. Joker revs his engine and batman revs his motorbike and the light turns green and they're off! We blast Sammy Hagar's “Heavy Metal” as loud as the theatre speakers can go, BLASTO!
They race all through town, and Samantha is following to see which one will win her heart, and they both have gadgets in their vehicles like james bond, but the joker's are all krappy like with duct tape and milk jugs, but they're still powerful (he's poor, but scrappy!).
This race signifies that snobs will always be versus slobs in life and teenagers should get used to it and find out who they really are inside, so it's kind of a feel-good life lesson movie too.
Then they both crash into fireballs in the side of a building that ironically is owned by the evil Daredevil corporation.
And Iron Man comes out of the building in a tuxedo and he's like “you'll pay for this damage, you knuckleheads!”
They both look at Samantha, who is eating a popsicle, and they realize they can't run away like cowards. It's time to team up and fight together! So Batman uses his gadgets and Joker uses his laughing and they both are winning the fight against Iron Man, but then he turns into the HULK and says “it's clobberin' time!!!” they both get their noses bloodied, but after a sweet 45-minute cgi battle, they emerge victorious. They look at Samantha, but she is eating a banana with her throat and isn't impressed with either of them yet.
So they look at each other and they're like “i guess now it's time to fight each other for her love.”
they are both bloody and broken-nosed and batman's cape is all beat up and then professor Punisher shows up and he's like Samantha, you're causing all of this?!”
Samantha says “Mr. Punisher, I really need straight A's if you catch my drift.” (the audience is like “Oh ho-HO! It's an erection thing!)
and the Punisher and Samantha walk away arm in arm and Batman and Joker learn a valuable lesson about women and vow never to fight each other again. But then another hot girl comes into the screen (EVEN HOTTER than Samantha!!!), and she's like “I'm Nadia, the new exchange student from Norway.” Then Batman and the Joker look at each other and make angry eyes and the credits roll as we kick in with ACDC's “Back in Black”.

Pornography and You

2009-10-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

Copyright the California Education Board circa 1951

We all read the internet. We’ve all seen the advertisements that pop up for sites offering cheap thrills and lipstick-ed girls.
Of course, most of us don’t click on these enticing and saucy banners, but did you know that Pornography is at an all-time high? And not just in Europe!
Yes, even in America, Pornography has become as widespread as polio, back when polio was widespread.
But what’s the harm, you ask?
Perhaps your friends tell you there’s nothing wrong with just looking; we’re all curious, right?
WRONG!!!

Meet Cindy Franklin.
She looks like the kind of girl you’d like to introduce to your mother, doesn’t she?
A good, upstanding, wifely kind of girl. And see here- She’s dressed up for her Saturday date. Very pretty indeed, in a classic kind of way.
Perhaps she’s thinking about her date.
Where will they go together? What will they do?
Surely something fun and wholesome, she thinks. You see, Cindy doesn’t engage in Pornography. Her date however, does.
He shows up late, pants crusted over, with a wild look in his eye. He’s sweaty around the collar and arms. His hair is matted and unkempt. His walk is abnormal, and he has difficulty standing.
You see, his mind has been permanently damaged by Pornography.

Typically, Pornography, also known in jive-talk as “porn”, “eyecandy”, “T&A”, “hardcore”, “Pr0n”, “nudiepics”, and “moonshine” is utilized by simultaneously watching it and engaging in what is known as a “jerky”, “pully”, “wanky”, or “fisty”, the horrific details of which are better left to the imagination.
Needless to say, this deadly combination of mental staring and physical repetition results in permanent brain damage that can never be undone.
Poor Cindy. Poor Cindy’s date.

But surely this only happens to the less-fortunate, and the Europeans?
THINK AGAIN!!!

We recently visited the house of one Michael Anthony Estevez, a recent victim of pornography. We asked the young man to relate his story to us.
Mr. Estevez was hesitant to share at first, but after realizing that his story could help others, he reluctantly agreed to tell his story.
“I was surfing online one day, looking to add a few cards to my baseball collection. I stumbled upon a site that I think most people refer to as a “search engine”, it’s a big site that lets you look up anything in the world. It was great for helping me find my baseball cards! But one link didn’t have baseball cards at all. It was filled with smut, the street name for Pornography. I’d never seen the stuff before, but I couldn’t look away. I was hooked. I realized that if I started looking for it on purpose, I might even find more! This “search engine” fast became my peddler for Pornography.”

So Michael Anthony Estevez began a walk down a dark path. Unbeknownst to his wife, Clarinda Estevez, and their two children, Ricky and John, Michael was falling deeper and deeper into the world of Pornography.

“One day, I needed a fix bad. So bad. I was really highed up from seeing these lingerie catalogues my wife had left all over the house. I quickly gave her some money and sent her out with the kids for ice cream. I logged on and got ready. Just then, my wife and children came back in. She’d forgotten the car keys. They walked in on me while I was using. I tried to close out the browser, but it was too late.”

Surely a fantastic story to be sure, but this was no Spaniard from Europe. This happened in America! It happened right outside your town, and it could happen to you!
Now Michael Anthony Estevez is divorced. His children will grow up in a broken home without a father.
There are no happy endings when you fool with Pornography!
Michael undergoes treatments 5 times a week, and still isn’t able to kick the addiction.
Scientists say that nothing damages the human mind more than a single dose of Pornography.

But how did this happen?
Top theorists speculate that the Reds introduced Pornography into the internet as a way to undermine the United States.
Why not show them that as Americans, we can use the twin fists of Good Sense and Dignity to punch out Pornography forever?
Let’s make tomorrow’s headline read “Americans say ‘NO!’ to Pornography!”

The Big Book of Jon Clinkenbeard, Chapter 47: Wherein I Become An International Criminal

2009-10-06T14:37:00.000-07:00

The very first time I let myself get excited about the trip to London was roughly around hour 6 of my Chicago-to-London flight, when we were flying directly over Ireland.
I couldn't see Ireland through the clouds, but I knew we were flying over it by consulting the huge "this is where our plane is right now" map on the plane's television.
Yes, my plane had a television. A huge big fat-screen television. And then even more televisions than that. Every passenger had their own separate televisions, embedded in the spines of the seats directly in front of us.
Instead of jumping right into media, like I saw most others doing, I talked for about ten minutes to the very nice middle-aged lady next to me. As we finished taking off, she went directly to sleep.
Then I decided to watch The Hangover.

In airplane movies, an interesting thing happens: the movie is interrupted whenever the pilot or copilot makes an announcement, which I noticed for the first time, is quite frequent.
It's not unlike watching a movie with someone who constantly pauses the movie to tell you that the weather outside is nice, or that they're shifting position on the couch, but not to worry.
It would even be fine if they paused the movie correctly.
But they don't; instead, the audio cuts out while the movie is still running for a few seconds, then the movie resumes a minute or so later into the film, and after a few seconds of video, the audio cuts back in.
Basically, you miss tiny chunks every few minutes, and your friend on the couch doesn't give You the option to watch those parts over.
Your options are "do you wanna watch the movie, or not?"
I was still happy to watch the movie to distract myself from feeling nervous.
I'd slept maybe 4 or 5 hours the night before due to last-minute packing and cleaning, but I was too anxious about this new experience to feel tired.
I figured the movie would make me sleepy, and I'd be able to have a good night's sleep directly afterwards.
The movie did make me sleepy, but I hadn't counted on the English gentleman behind me, who talked loudly about recent scientific breakthroughs.
I love science; so of course I hated that he was talking about it. How could I fall asleep if I was fascinated?
I put my Chicago-Subway-Defeating ear buds in, and tried not to lie directly on the side of my head, which pushed the hard plastic uncomfortably into my ears.
The ear buds blocked out the soothing high-pitched white noise of the plane, but I was still able to hear his bass of a voice.
I calculated it all out a few days before the flight: I needed to sleep on the plane.
There wasn't any time to adjust to jet lag; once I landed, I needed to finish settling my finances, buy an unlocked phone, and make sure I wanted to stay in the school dorm.
I wasn't able to fall asleep until he fell quiet about 4 hours or so into the flight.
Then, I almost instantaneously woke up to sunlight and the man talking again.
Yes, the same man.
I looked at my phone.
I'd slept almost two hours, and that was all I was going to get.
Breakfast time!
I blinked a lot to remoisten my contacts.
The flight attendants passed out little customs cards for us to fill out and hand to customs on our way through.
I filled my card out for a stay of eight months.
This was a mistake.
Oblivious to my blunder, I happily ate my American Airlines brand strawberry yogurt as we flew over Ireland.

When we landed, I went to the restroom and noticed a sign: "Our bathrooms are cleaned regularly. We strive to make your bathroom experience at Heathrow airport a pleasant one. Thank you."
Almost the exact same wording as the bathrooms in O'Hare.
As I walked down the gate, there was almost a quarter mile of airport with no one in sight. It was off-putting. I finally found everyone a few right turns away, standing in line to go through UK customs. I asked a half-asleep customs woman which line I should enter; the student line, or the US passport line.
without a word, she motioned to the US passport line, and i happily skipped on over.
This was mistake number 2.

As I made my way through the line, I noticed a large, half-bald man in a blue sweater at one of the elevated customs desks. He was lazily angry at everyone who came through, as if he constantly didn't have time for the people trying to enter the country.

Luckily, I was directed to a seemingly chipper woman in a white shirt. I gave her my passport, and my pre-filled out customs card. She read the info, looked again at everything i'd handed her, and finally looked back at me.
“Where's your visa?”
I hadn't gotten my student visa yet because there was a good chance that I would be able to transfer my job and I would get issued a work visa, either of which was good for letting me stay in the country.
“I don't have it yet. I'm going into my work today to-”
“You don't have it?”
“No, I have to go to my job to-”
“One moment.”

She leaned back in her desk and looked at the surly half-bald blue sweater ogre two desks over to my right. She looked at another blue sweater man three desks to my left. I gathered that the blue sweaters were a higher rank, and thus, were the ones who had to deal with people like me, who didn't have their visas yet and had to talk to someone more official.
Both of the blue sweaters were busy with other people trying to enter the country.
They both finished at roughly the same time. I was quick to point out the open man on my left, who simply had to be happier than the surly troll on my right.
But apparently this white shirt and the troll were friends. She didn't give another glance to the man on my left, no matter how I tried to direct her attention.
She asked me to walk to her friend with her.
“We've got a student without a visa, Roger.”
Roger gave her a look that said, “you just woke me up by punching my face.” He crossed his arms, furrowed his brow and retaliated.
“I'm supposed to take my break now.”
Again, I pointed out that the other blue sweater man was open and that maybe we should just go over there and everyone would be happy. I was completely ignored. They started small talking.
“Having a rough day, eh Roger?”
“The worst. I'm tired of dealing with all of this, you know?”
“Take your break after this last one, eh?”
“Fine (exhale).”

The woman went back to her Andy Kaufman desk and Roger turned to me for the first time, saying nothing; sizing me up. I tried to look happy, optimistic, and non-threatening. He looked down at the handful of documents, then got out an official questionnaire.
“Name?”
“Jonathon Clinkenbeard. (Just like it says on the passport and the customs card you have in your hand that you're reading right now, you jerk.)”
“How long are you planning to stay?”
“8-9 months. For school.”
“Do you have any proof?”
I pulled out my support letter from the school as well as my certificate of housing.
“Where's your visa?”
At this point, a tiny middle eastern woman wandered up next to us, extending her documents.
The blue-sweatered troll became instantly enraged, face twisting into a scowl. For a half second, it looked very much like he was going to spit on her.
“What are you doing?! Stop it! Get away from my desk!!!”
Judging by her happy expression, she clearly didn't understand english.
“Get out of here! Take your papers! Go! NOW!”
It struck me that he was talking to her the same way a person would speak to a rat they were chasing out of their house with a broom. The older woman was gently pulled from behind by a younger version of herself.
“I'm sorry, my mother doesn't speak english.”
“Get her away from my desk! Get back in line and take her with you!”
The woman and her mother returned to the queue. Roger turned back to me, his faced still wrinkled with scowl.
“Why don't you have a visa?”
“I need to go to my work this week to sort it all out. I was told there was a grace period.”
“Not that I'm aware of.”
“The passport agency and my school both said I had six months to sort it out.”
“No. You can visit for up to six months without a visa, but you need one if you're staying longer.”
I paused for a moment.
“So can I change that card to say I'm visiting for 5-6 months while I sort out my visa?”
“No, you've already told me that you're planning to stay longer.”
“But if I'd said that I was just visiting, wouldn't I already be in the country, so I could just sort out my visa this week?”
“Yes, but you didn't say that.”
I paused again.
“Don't you see how that encourages lying?”
“Well you can't lie now. I've got you on file saying you're planning to be in the country for 8 or 9 months.”
I stood there silently trying to think of some way to even more logically explain why I should be allowed into the country, but I couldn't.
“There are people from the University who are picking me up. Can we talk to them to prove that I'm attending?”
“That won't do any good. What company do you work for?”
“Homeaway.com; it's Holiday-Rentals.co.uk over here, but it's the same company.”
It was his turn to be silent a moment. He flipped back through all the papers.
“As it stands, I can't let you into the country. I'll go talk to my supervisor, but you need to have a seat right over there.”
“What happens if I can't come into the country?”
“Just have a seat and I'll be back in a minute.”
I sat down and watched people. They all shared a few sentences with the customs officials, and then were let through. The whole process appeared rather quick. I didn't see anyone else having trouble.
I started thinking about what would happen if I was sent back. But I wanted to stay positive, so instead, I opened my George Saunders book and tried to read it. I reread a page a couple of times, never absorbing it, then gave up and watched people again.
Roger was gone for over thirty minutes. I think he might have taken his break before he went to talk to his boss.
It was about this time I realized I hadn't had but 5 hours of sleep in the last two days.

When he came back, he had about the same face as before.
“It doesn't look good. He's investigating, but it doesn't look good. You need to come with me.”
Roger led me through customs, which felt like things were moving positively, despite his words. Maybe he just had to tell me that things didn't look good, even if they did.
“Do you have any checked bags?”
“Yes, two big green ones.”
The bags surprisingly weren't out yet. I tried to connect with him in some way. Maybe he'd fight for me to enter the country if he liked me as a human being.
“I heard you were having a rough day.”
“Yeah, it's busy.”
“Is it usually better?”
“Not really.”
“What's the hardest part?”
“Well, you can't leave. So people just keep coming and you have to talk to them.”
“Oh yeah, I know what you mean. I worked in a customer service job for a while. The worst part was that when calls came in, I had to take them, no matter how many I'd taken already.”
“Uh-huh. Are those your bags?”
I looked at him to see if he'd heard what I said. We clearly hadn't bonded.
“No, my bags are bigger than that. There's one now.”

I grabbed both of my huge green duffel bags and unsuccessfully tried managing them with my laptop bag and my black carry-on suitcase. Everything was over-stuffed and extra-heavy.
Roger helped me with the lighter of the two green bags, and I followed him up a flight of ramps to the security office. Again, I felt how tired my body was.
We left my bags outside an office and I stupidly asked if they'd be okay just sitting there... clearly in the middle of all the cops in the airport.
He said they'd be fine, and to tell the woman in the office I needed my fingerprints taken.
After my digital fingerprints were finished, Roger came back in and told me to look into the camera jutting out of the wall next to me.
I stared into it as he left the room. He came back in and told me to look directly into it, so I did, again.
I stared into the camera for a long time. I wasn't sure how long, because I didn't look at a clock. Instead, I tried to imagine the lens was a peephole and I might stare into it hard enough to see the people on the other side. I tried to lean back in my chair and rest, while still keeping my eyes fixed on the camera.
Roger came back in and told me to follow him.
“It's not looking good” he said.
We took my bags and went through another security checkpoint.
“Do you have anything in these bags I should know about?”
“I have a folding lock knife in one of them, but nothing other than that.”
“Ok. I'm going to search your bags. Go with that man there.”
Roger gestured to a man watching us a few feet away. A white-shirt. I followed him into a small room, where he put on latex gloves and very politely searched every place one might possibly think to hide something.
We came back out, I re-packed my luggage, and followed Roger back to the security offices from before. We again left my bags, but this time we went into the back and into one of several glass and wood “interview boxes”. Roger sat down.
“Sit down. Don't touch the walls, or an alarm will go off.”
“Thanks for the head's up”
Roger ignored me. I sat down and didn't touch the walls. He pulled out another large clipboard.
“Ok, what we're going to do here is answer some questions. Probably a lot of it is things i've already asked you, but we need to go through them again.”
“Ok.”
“Name?”
“Jonathon Clinkenbeard”
“Why are you coming into the UK?”
“For vacation”
Roger stared at me a moment.
“I'm going to put school, since you already told me that. How long are you staying?”
I tried the only other option I could think of.
“I'm only going one semester. That's three or four months.”
Roger paused.
“I can't change that. I'm putting 8 or 9, since you told me that earlier.”
“No, I'm serious. I'm only going for a semester. I haven't paid for more than a semester, and I've changed my mind about the whole year.”
“I can't change it now.”
I sank inside, out of ideas.
Question 3, are you fit and happy to be interviewed in the normal way we conduct these interviews without a solicitor, friend, or representative present?”
I laughed.
“No. I'm not happy about any of this.”
Roger paused.
“I'm going to go ahead and put 'yes'.”
“Are you bringing anything hazardous into the country?”
“No.”
“Do you belong to any organization that supports terrorism or violence to achieve it's means?”
“No.”
“Have you ever belonged to any organization that supports terrorism or violence to achieve it's means?”
“No.”
“Ok. And last: is there any special emergency or circumstance that you wish us to consider?”
“Yes. I don't have a place to live back home, my home for the next few months is London. I have to start classes this next week, or I'll lose my spot in the University. I'm tired and I just want to go to my new house and get some sleep. I'll do whatever I need to do to and cooperate with the law or the British Government to do everything legally and obtain whatever visa or certification I need to enter the country.”
Roger wrote down every single word. Then he got up and I followed him to a holding cell.
“I'll go take this to my supervisor, but it doesn't look good. You'll most likely be sent back to he United States.”
Then he left, and one of the officers in charge put on latex gloves and searched me again, just in case i'd smuggled anything in since the last time I was searched.
When he was finished, he told me that if I needed anything to just ask him.
I asked him for some water, and he pointed to a big vending machine that dispensed two different brands of plain water, several types of tea, and a few kinds of coffee.
Then he gave me a blanket and a pillow and unlocked the door to the cell.

Inside there were three guys, two who looked miserable, and the third who looked happy.
I went to a couch and set down my pillow. I took off my shoes, grabbed my blanket and tried to ignore the bright fluorescent lights.
The happy guy and the smaller, latino guy started talking back and forth in what sounded to my tired ears like this:
“(some french words) Americano (some spanish words)”
“Si, (more spanish words) Americano (more french words)”
I sat up and looked at them. They were both looking at me. The tall happy guy was wearing a pork pie hat and spoke to me.
“You are American?”
“Yes.”
“We are from Portugal. I have been here one, nine, hours”
He showed me his fingers as numbers.
“You've been here 19 hours?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus.”
“That man, even longer”
He gestured to the black guy across the room, who was now also looking at me.
“I've been here 26 hours.”
“God! Straight?”
“Straight.”
I sat there in silence for a minute, then rolled back over and put my arm on my eyes to block out the light.

Over the next several hours, I didn't sleep much. I thought a lot about Austin, and how much I missed everyone. I thought about how I'd left a well-paying job in the midst of an economic slump. The biggest reason I was going back to school was to focus on writing without worrying about rent or keeping up a day job. But why did I need such a big excuse? Why couldn't I just make the decision to be a professional right now? Why wasn't I taking advantages of the opportunities I had? I was giving myself a big expensive excuse to do something I needed to just do, and why shouldn't I do it where I had a network of people willing to help me achieve my aspirations?

I was eventually taken out of the cell and searched one last time, then I was escorted to my American Airlines flight back to Chicago.
The way things ended up after a few days in Chicago? I'd be able to move back into my apartment, but my job couldn't take me back. They'd outsourced my job in 3 days.

I spent a few days with one of my dearest friends in Chicago, mulling over my choices. In the end, I decided that London would always be there, but now was the time to start pursuing my passions. No excuses and no distractions. Now there was absolutely nothing to keep me from starting my career as a professional writer and actor.

Paratrooper Babies, Starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson

2009-09-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, so in the opening scene, there’s a mom who’s holding the baby. I dunno someone really old and motherly like Sarah Jessica Parker.
We zoom in on the baby.
All of a sudden, holy shit, he injects a tiny syringe into his mom’s shoulder (the audience is like “what the hell? Babies don’t typically do that!”).
The mother says “I’m tired,” and the baby makes this smirk-face, because he injected her with knock-out juice.
She lies on the couch, and as soon as she’s out cold, he gets up and pulls a watch and high-tech goggles out of his diaper (audience is like “whaaaaa?”).
The baby puts the high-tech watch and goggles on (note: babies aren’t good at stuff like this, so we’ll have to CGI the babies, or have an animal trainer teach several baby-clones how to do things on cue or something).
He speaks into the watch, and holy krap, it’s Bruce Willis (the audience is like “this baby must be a badass Die Hard baby”) and he’s like “Squad 8, what’s your status?”

So squad 8 is like “Operation put mommies to sleep is complete.”
And Bruce Willis-baby is like “Then it’s go-time. Move, move, move!”
And there’s all this action as the Bruce-Willis baby CGI-runs (because babies don’t run the way Bruce Willis runs) through the house, and straps on all his high-tech gear (including a jetpack! Audiences LOVE jetpacks).
He heads out the back door, and the neighbour’s CGI dog is all like foam-mouth-city and he’s gonna bite Bruce Willis-baby, but Bruce Willis-baby pulls this HUUUUUGE steak out of his diaper (it was too big to be in there! Hahaha!) and throws it at the CGI dog.
The dog’s all happy (the dog needs to make a good happy smirk-face) and Bruce Willis-baby pulls his flight goggles down over his eyes as we zoom in to see how cool he is. Then BLAMMO-WHAMMO his jetpack blasts off and he’s flying into the sky (we should have a shot where his mouth is getting pulled back because of the wind while he’s flying so fast. People love that).

He flies into this secret satellite and it’s full of babies! (families will love this movie!)
The leader of the babies turns around and is like “it’s about time!” and it’s totally Samuel L Jackson-baby! (note: the faces should look like the actors. We can probably train babies to hold their faces certain ways, or just CGI over them)
And Bruce Willis baby is like “don’t hassle me” or something cool, and Samuel L Jackson-baby is like “enough! It’s time for the mission. The secret mission that we’ve been working on for 50 years” (audiences will be like “those babies can’t be 50 years old, can they? Is this a sci-fi movie? Because it rocks!”).

And so John Cleese-baby pulls up a badass holographic display of earth and the whitehouse and stuff, and he’s like “gentlemen, it’s time to destroy the aliens” (audiences will be like “this it TOTALLY a sci-fi movie! I knew it! AWESOME!!!).

And it turns out that all the adults are actually aliens! And it’s this whole mind-fuck conspiracy scam with aliens trying to take over the government for the past 50 years (note: the babies are still human babies. We don’t really have to explain the whole 50-year-old babies or how they figured this all out or anything).

So then Samuel L Jackson-baby is about to say “Lock and Load,” but Bruce Willis-Baby interrupts him and says “Yippee Ki-yay Paratrooper Babies” (note: this is his famous line from Die Hard, only altered to fit our movie. Audiences LOVE when he says this. Trust me!) and Samuel L Jackson-baby gives him this look like “I’m pissed that you interrupted me, but you’re still awesome for saying your catchphrase and go get ‘em tiger.” (we have to make sure all of this is conveyed in his look. Again, there’s a Russian animal trainer I know who’s really good and can probably train babies to look this way into the camera. You guys should have lunch and work out the details.)

Then all the babies load up into these ejector pods and launch all badass down to the planet.
But the alien-adults knew that they would be doing this, so they’re like “Fire!” and it’s totally an all-out war with the alien-adults and the human-babies with fire and explosions and plasma guns and rockets and lasers and robots and all like pew-pew-pew-Kabooooom!!!!
(this battle should last at least an hour and be really fucking awesome or ELSE!)
Then the battle is over and the smoke is all everywhere like fog and Bruce Willis-baby finds Samuel L Jackson-baby lying on the ground, and he’s wounded (audience is like “that’s even MORE sad because he’s a baby!!! I’m going to cry! I’m crying!”).

So Samuel L Jackson-baby is all like coughing blood everywhere and Bruce Willis-baby is like “I’ll take care of your mother for you” (Tragic Irony!).
So then Bruce Willis-baby turns to the other babies and they’re like “all the aliens are dead” and he gives this rousing speech about how they’ve made sacrifices, but they’ve done a good thing and now they can just go back to being normal babies

Then Bruce Willis-baby goes back home, and the dog who was barking at him from before kneels before him instead (Dogs have a heightened sense, so it would make sense that they know he did a good thing and killed a bunch of aliens).

Then he puts all his equipment up in its secret compartments and when it’s all hidden, he crawls back onto his mom on the couch.
She wakes up and she’s like “oh, I must have dozed off. I hope I didn’t miss anything exciting” and Bruce Willis-baby winks at the camera and we roll the credits on a job well-done!!! (Also, I think we should get a tie-in with Burger King and Mattel to do some promotions and make toys and stuff. Kids LOVE toys. Trust me on this. Especially from movies!!!)

Man Still Impersonating Twilight Character

2009-09-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

AUSTIN, TX- It's 10:30 PM and Jeremy Beechcomb is leaning on a tree in the slightly wooded area across the street from Austin Public High School. He will very soon shift which leg he’s standing on and continue to make pout-faces for the next four and a half hours. He’s had the same nightly ritual for months now, beginning on November 12th, which he refers to as “The Day After Twilight Released In Theaters.”

“I show up every night because it’s going to happen. I’m going to fall in love with a high school girl who wants to have more dark mystery in her life, and this is the only way for me to do it. It’s like destiny. Like if I’ve already been alive for a hundred years or so and now it’s time to finally settle down, or at least fool around behind one of these trees,” Jeremy states sulkily.

For months now, Mr. Beechcomb, 32, has been showing up to the same general area each night at 9pm and staying until 3am. When asked what he does to pass the time, Mr. Beechcomb replies “Brood and wait. Mostly brood, though.” When pressed for specifics, Mr Beechcomb replies that his brooding is “angst-ridden, but confident.”

He adds: “I have a lot of inner pain, so I can relate to high-schoolers, but I can also help them with their troubles, because I’m older and wiser. Like a vampire. Like Edward, who is a vampire.”

Mr. Beechcomb is referring to one of the main characters in the novel, and subsequent movie “Twilight.” The storyline in the book and movie highlights a romantic relationship between a human female named Isabella or “Bella” and a vampire named Edward, whom Mr. Beechcomb impersonates on a nightly basis.

“I got everything just right. Every article of clothing I’m wearing was stolen from the actual wardrobe by a good friend of mine who was a grip for the movie. It’s 100% authentic,” Mr. Beechcomb states proudly.

In a house a few blocks north we visited the Hastips, among the family, Allison Hastip, who attends Austin Public High School. Upon being asked to “please leave” because “it’s 10:30 at night” by Allison’s mother Susan Hastip; Allison made a shifty eye movement to us, indicating her agreement to meet behind the house in ten minutes.

“Yeah, all the girls at school know about him. Twilight was ok, I guess, but Jeremy’s just some creepy loser who puts shiny stuff on his skin and is like an obsessive stalker or whatever. And twilight came out months ago. It’s absolutely NOT cool now,” Allison reports factually.

When asked about his shimmery skin, Jeremy replies “I put on a special paste that I make myself. It’s a secret combination of eggs, sugar, and glass.”

It’s unclear what will result from Jeremy’s efforts in the following months, but in the extremely short term, he will most likely be picked up the authorities, as it appears that someone has given his name to Allison’s mother, who had this to say to us: “Get out of my backyard and away from my daughter! I’m calling the Police! What’s your name you creep!?”

Jon Clinkenbeard's Politics

2009-08-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

I am extremely political. I believe that Americans should get the things that they want.
I support health. All Americans have a right to health. Sometimes people may not be able to afford health. Those people aren’t Americans.
It’s our job as Americans to help them; maybe even give them some of our health.
Doctors are good. Hospitals are good. I think we can all agree that they are important to health. American health. Your health.
What about medicines?
Medicines have a long history of health.
Healths and medicines are like peanut and butter.
I support medicines.
I want Americans to have plenty of healths.

I also believe in other issues that are important.
Immigration.
Immigration is about people.
People who are immigrating, and people who live in the cities the people who are immigrating are immigrating to.
I will say firmly right now that I support people.

People are the key to our economy.
That means our economy is like the lock.
We have to open up our economy and take the goodies inside.
What if the goodies are treasures like diamonds and golds?
Do we want to be stuck without an economy?
I can relate to you, because I know I want an economy.
Like you, I believe the economy is important.

My opponent slings mud in the form of words; mud-words.
Well let me just tell you that he went to college.
People in college do drugs and sleep around.
People in college are irresponsible and drink too much.
Do you really want an alcoholic druggie gigolo in the white house?
I don’t.
My children don’t either.

Children are precious.
Like diamonds.
But children are also soft.
Children are soft diamonds.
Children and future.
Peanut and butter.
We must care for our children. We must teach them that they go with future.
They must grow up.
We must be firm about this.
We cannot let our children not grow up without future.
What kind of world has no children and no future?
Not a world I want to live in.
Not a world for my children.
I am a fan of the tiny people that we call children.

Foreign relations are important.
America doesn’t live in the world alone.
We have to cooperate with foreigns.
The world is large, but getting smaller.
Technology, foreigns, world.
They all must be friends to share peace.
Some foreigns aren’t friends.
They must be dealt with as enemies.
We will use our other friends: technology and world, to form a club where our enemies are not allowed until they become our friends.
Then, and only then, will foreigns, technology, world, and America have friendship.
Friendship is important.
I am pro-friendship.

Oil and drilling.
This issue confused people.
Here’s why: Oil is good. Drilling is bad.
We must drill to have oil.
This is a classic case of doing something bad to get something good.
I love oil.
I use it in my car to make it go.
I go to work every day with the power of oil.
I am an American.
I bet some of you use oil in your cars too.
We’re alike, you and I.
People who hate oil say that we can use green instead.
I say, why not make oil green?
Why throw all the oil away, when it’s still perfectly good?
If we make oil green, everyone will be happy.
I am for making people happy.
I say go green with oil!

People are talking a lot about gay.
They say gay marriage and gay rights.
I hear them.
Other people say straight.
They say straight marriage and straight god.
I listen.
I am a listener who hears both sides when people talk.
I support listening.
It is important to hear when people are talking.
I can promise that I am a listener who truly hears.

So when you go to the voting, remember:
Jon Clinkenbeard supports health and medicines.
Jon Clinkenbeard firmly supports people and friendships.
Jon Clinkenbeard believes the economy is important.
My opponent is an alcoholic drugged-out liar with STDs.

Who do you want to be president of America?
You want Jon Clinkenbeard to be president of America.

Teeth and Money

2009-08-19T15:28:00.000-07:00

I’ve got plum between my teeth. I always have something between my teeth. That’s the trouble with having large teeth.
One of the troubles anyway; I also have a tendency to bite things.
Like people.
All of my friends know this, because at one time or another, I’ve bitten them. And believe me, they weren’t expecting it. No one’s every retaliated in a mean way, though. And that doesn’t mean I wait until I’m really good friends with them before I bite them.
I just bite whenever I feel like biting.
My friends just don’t retaliate because they’re good people and they know my intentions are pure.
I can’t help it. Well, I can, but I choose not to.
Which leads to me biting total strangers.
I was actually recognized by a girl in a bar a few years ago for biting her and I didn’t even remember doing it.
Not until she explained the whole story, and jogged my memory.
“It was your first day working in the airport, and you bit me, and I didn’t even know you, and that was so weird and hilarious and what are you up to now? (glug, glug, flirty eyes)”

You try biting someone your first day on the job in an international airport and see what happens.
I did, and it was great.
This girl was a bartender, who was very very cute.
I didn’t rationalize it that way though.
Something deep in my mind just knew she wouldn’t mind being bitten, and that urge came a’ knockin’, so I did it.
Yes, I had bitten this woman, who I didn’t know then, and still don’t.
As I said, it had even proved to be a conversation starter a year and a half later, and believe you me, if I hadn’t been dating someone at the time I ran back into her, I would have gotten to know her a lot better.
She would have had a lot more bite marks if you know what I’m saying. I think you do. Yeah, you do.

You might think all this biting makes my mouth a filthy filthy place.
Well it does, and not just biting strangers and friends; I also put money in my mouth. I don’t do it as much as I used to, but for a good while, I did it on a daily basis.
It tastes interesting. Not great, but not bad.
It also freaks people out, which I don’t understand.
Who doesn’t like the taste of metal? Who’s never tried that even once in their life?
Metal is kind of like bubble gum; great to taste and chew around on, but if you swallow a lot of it, it’s going to be really gross and probably horrible for you.
Paper money is great too.
It’s such a combination of flavours: ink, paper, the hands/wallets/pockets of a thousand different people, and whatever they coat it with to make it shiny.
If you think that’s disgusting and you consider money filthy, work in a restaurant for a few months and see if you ever want to eat out again. Germs are EVERYWHERE.
At least coins sit in your car, boiling in the sun.
You think germs thrive and make little germ cities on the surface of a 125-degree copper penny?
That’s like humans deciding the surface of the planet Mercury is good for a weekend beach trip.
They’re more likely to multiply and spread out on the rim of your “brand new” paper coffee cup, as it sits there in its little cupstack in Starbucks, where the temperature and humidity are perfect 24/7.
If you think about this stuff long enough, you’ll want to disinfect everything, which sounds great, unless you know that disinfectants only kill 99.99% of the germs.
Disinfectants only kill the weak germs.
Disinfectants don’t even touch the 0.01% bodybuilder germs; which means the bodybuilder germs are the only germs left.
So they all have germ-sex with each other and make nothing but bodybuilder germ babies. BAM! 50 years later, humans are fucked because germs can all lift 100 times their own weight up over their heads, and all humans can do is spray an ineffective mist at the ULTRAGERMS™ and cower together in their plastic biosuits.
Our best hope for the future might be for you to put money in your mouth on a daily basis and toughen your immune system up like a little organized crime family.
“Welcome to Jon’s Body. Germ and crime free* since 1993.”
Just to reiterate, I don’t put money in my mouth to build my immune system; I do it because I like the taste. The immune-system-building is just a good “not-crazy” reason to put money in your mouth if you want to do it, but also care what other people think.
I think I’ve gotten way off-topic here.

In summary: my big teeth usually cause a lot of trouble for me, but sometimes they lead to pretty girls thinking I’m awesome. And germs are fucking scary, but if you put enough of them in your mouth, your body will build a white blood cell mafia, which will proceed to wipe out the bodybuilder germs for not paying their protection money.
This was a good blog.

The Worst Fortune Cookie Fortune OF ALL TIME.

2009-08-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

I bet you thought that I’d say it right off the bat; the worst fortune cookie fortune of all time.
Well I’m not going to blow it that soon.
There’s no build-up.
I WILL tell you in this blog, so don’t think that I’m trying to trick you. This would be a stupid blog if I titled it ‘The Worst Fortune Cookie Fortune OF ALL TIME!” and didn’t actually tell you what the fortune was, wouldn’t it?
I can’t stand when people do that.
No, I’m definitely going to tell you.

First, a little build-up.
I’ve read fortunes from fortune cookies since I was old enough to read.
Even before that, they were read to me by my mother and father, if I remember correctly, which I don’t, because that was such a long time ago.
A fortune from a fortune cookie is supposed to be mysterious.
It is supposed to be helpful, if ambiguous.
A good fortune cookie, along with serendipitous timing in your life, can make you wonder about the reality of oracles and other people who have visions of the future (ed. gypsies?).
A good fortune from a fortune cookie, in theory, can make you question the very existence of god.

My fortune cookie fortune boldly proclaimed “A crab wonton a day keeps the doctor away.”

Let that sink in.
Re-read it.
I would be upset if it simply stated the adage (AMERICAN adage, mind you) “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
I would already be upset if the fortune writer just came across as lazy.
Go ahead and re-read it again, I’ll wait:
“A crab wonton a day keeps the doctor away.”
They’ve twisted a very important message about eating raw fruit daily to help maintain a healthy lifestyle into this… this horrible marketing scam.
Here’s what the writer thought while he was writing it: “I think I’m a clever fortune cookie writer and I’ll probably get a raise.”
Here’s what his boss said to him when he turned it in: “Thomas, you’re our best fortune writer! Not only is this a clever play on a traditional American adage, it will increase the sales of crab wontons in our Asian partnership restaurants, and make us Bookoos of money! You’re promoted mister!!!”
I’m sure the boss slapped him on the ass, they both laughed a hearty laugh, and then they feasted together on their lunch of innocent baby souls.

As fun as that scene sounds, you’re forgetting something: they’re spreading lies.
Go ahead and read it yet again:
“A crab wonton a day keeps the doctor away.”
Have you ever enjoyed a crab wonton?
I love them.
I wish more people would eat them.
But they will NOT keep the doctor away, no matter how badly I wish they would.
They are a tiny pastry stuffed with a copious amount of cream cheese, onions, a bit of garlic or ginger, and finally crab meat, or the horrible-sounding, but cool-spelling “Krab” meat (imitation crab).
Then they are deep fried to a golden greasy brown, and served with one of several sassy sauces that have too much sugar in them.

So we’re to read this fortune and believe that eating a deep-fried cream cheese pastry a day will keep us healthy?
I have a few doctors who would disagree with that.
Children will read this and take it to heart!
Literally; because when children eat enough fried cream cheese puffs, they will surely develop a cardiac condition of some sort.

I dare you- yes, that’s right, it’s ON- I dare you to find a worse fortune cookie than mine.
You won’t be able to.
The nearest I’ve seen, I opened IMMEDIATELY after this one.
It was a bit more watered down, but ultimately still reprehensible.
It said “Reach for your dreams. Start with the spring rolls.”
…I HATE marketing.

2 Britni, From Cassi

2009-08-09T14:31:00.000-07:00

I <3 U!

Omg! This class is so boring! I hate algabra! Y do we even have 2 know this, right?
Did u see Derek this morning? SO cute!!!!!
I wish I was a Juneyur so I could ask him out.
Do u think he’d date a softmore? Prolly not.
Btw, my boobs r totes getting biggur. I just tried on my favorite sweater, and it totes doesn’t fit!!!!!! Can u believe that? SRSLY!!!!
So we HAVE 2 go find me a new fav sweater so I can b all like “So Derek, will you help me study math or whatever?”
What r u doing this weekend????
Tiffani’s mom is out of town, so she’s throwing a party with all of her skank friends. She asked me and asked me 2 ask u if u wanted 2 cum.
It’s gonna b stupid, but I know Derek will b there, so like I HAVE 2 go.
Which means we HAVE 2 go shopping for sweaters tonite OR ELSE!!!
I forgot my Bioligy homework 2, did u do it? I need 2 copy.
Rite me back!!!!

Luv Cassi XOXOXOX

Brandy's Head

2009-08-06T23:12:00.000-07:00

Brandy had a fat head.
Most people didn’t notice right away.
At first, she just looked closer.
All the time.
For no reason.
But everyone figured it out eventually.
She wasn’t closer all the time.
Her head was just fat.
It wasn’t an ugly head by any means.
On the contrary; Brandy was very pretty.
And with so much surface to cover, that just meant she had more pretty than the next girl. If say, someone was very plain-jane and had a fat head, that would be a lot of plain.
And I suppose if someone was ugly and had a fat head, most people would rudely refer to them as “that ugly person with the fat head.”
The fatness of her head didn’t magnify her beauty, but it did magnify her personality.
So I suppose it magnified her inner beauty if you want to get specific about subjective intangibles. If you do, that’s your business and I’m sure you have a good reason.
I honestly don’t know why it matters to you. Brandy’s beauty isn’t the point of the story, or else I would have started with “Brandy was a beautiful girl” and not “Brandy had a fat head.” If you look above, you can clearly see the story started with “Brandy had a fat head.”
Moving on.
Brandy didn’t pay much attention to her big fat head, and neither did most of her friends after a while, but she was noticed.
She was noticed by me in a coffee shop.
I didn’t make friends with her.
I never got to the point where, when I thought the name “Brandy” I thought “generous” or “hippie” or “we made out that one time, but things are still cool.”
I stayed stuck thinking “Brandy” = “fatheaded girl.”
She was pretty.
I think I mentioned that.
It’s my opinion anyway.
You are probably trying to picture how a girl with a fat head could possibly be pretty.
Mostly because I used the word “fat” to describe a part of the body notorious for having very little fat, compared to the gut, or thighs.
That would mean that if she had a fat head, it must be really really gross.
Her head isn’t really that fat, it’s just a bit larger than-who am I kidding? It’s fat. It’s a fat head. It was an accurate way to describe it, and I don’t apologize for your lack of imagination.
It wouldn’t be so very fat-looking if she didn’t also have thick curly hair.
I’ve studied facial/hair relations and I’ve noticed that usually beauty comes from them offsetting each other.
If you have a long narrow face, having your hair bounce out on the sides makes you look infinitely more beautiful than having long straight hair to match your long vampyre face.
So to summarize: Brandy had fat hair on all sides of her fat head.
You might think that such a thick mane with such a large head, must have made her look a bit like a female lion.
Well you’re forgetting that it’s the male lions who wear the dreadlocks.
Brandy was a lesbian.
Well not completely, I mean, she wasn’t committing one way or another, and she was still young enough to experiment, so it didn’t really matter anyway, but she hated Jeremy so much for cheating on her because he’s such a jerk, and all men are jerks, and she should just become a lesbian, right?
As you can probably guess, Brandy had a lot to learn.
And a lot to retain, mind you.
She was already good at that, because of her fat head.
She sat at the coffee shop drinking her Topico water, which is always good if there’s nothing more exciting to drink than bubbly tap water.
She chattered with her friends, probably talking about how dark and mysterious and cool I was, sitting on my laptop in the corner of the room.
I paid her no mind, save the occasional glance to be sure she wasn’t moving closer, which she seemed to be, but never was.
Then, as slowly as a dying relationship, she and her friends walked out of the coffee shop and out of my life.
As she left, I noticed that her ankles were the smallest I’d ever seen…

To My Six-Year-Old Son

2009-08-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

How did you get in here?
I thought I locked that door.
No, Daddy does love you; he just needs special video game alone time.
…
So he won’t go crazy.
You can stay in here if you promise to be quiet.
Hey look at me, buddy.
Promise?
…
Do you promise to be quiet?
Ok then.
…
…
…
…
That’s a laser gun. Like in cartoons.
…
…
That man isn’t hurt, he’s an alien. Aliens don’t have feelings.
…
That’s a force-field; Daddy has to blow that up to get into the base.
…
No, they’re all just sleeping.
You promised me you’d be quiet.
…
…
What?
…
Ha-ha! You should ask Mommy that.
…
Because mommies know the answer. Daddies don’t know where babies come from because mommies keep it a secret.
…
Yes, Mommy keeps it a secret.
I think it involves a pterodactyl. You should ask her about that.
…
It’s a dinosaur that flies. I gave you that big book of dinosaurs; don’t you ever look at that?
…
Yes, you came from an egg, like the dinosaurs.
…
No, breakfast eggs are different.
…
No, those are chicken babies.
…
Because people babies don’t get eaten; people babies grow up to ask their daddies all kinds of questions.
…
Like the questions you’re asking me.
…
The ones you’ve been asking me.
…
Like that one, just there.
…
…
Of course I love you.
…
I love you and your mommy equally.
…
I love you too.
Do you love me or mommy more?
…
Really?
…
Why?
…
…
…
…
…
Well then I guess I love mommy more too.
…
Well you made such a convincing case for her; I think I actually do love her a little more than you now.
…
Because mommy and I can always make another baby if you don’t clean your room.
We can even give him your name and all your toys, so no one will know you’re gone.
…
…
Then you’d better be good, so we don’t have to make a better baby to replace you.
That sounds like mommy’s home, why don’t you go ask her about pterodactyls and where babies come from?
…
…
…
…
…
…
Hi honey, how was work-
…
I just told him to ask you-
…
Now look, don’t get upset, I was just kid-
…
He’s fine! Why are you yelling?
…
…
He’s not crying!
…
Well he wasn’t crying a minute ago, he only cries when you’re around!
He knows you’ll give him whatever he wants.
…
No. You’re being manipulated. He doesn’t care about what I said; he just wants you to baby him!
…
Yeah, great, take him out for ice cream to cheer him up; I’m sure B.F. Skinner would have a little something to say about that.
…
Fine then!
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
I hope they both drop their stupid ice creams.
Jerks.
…
…
…

Writer's Block... I think...

2009-07-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

I’m stumped.
I can’t think of a single thing to write. I told my brain that this time was the time to come up with something.
I even scheduled it on my calendar.
Here I am sitting and staring at my computer.
What should I write about?

Today I want to write something funny.
Well how about an infomercial?
No, I’ve done enough of those for a while.
How about a fake letter.
No, I just did that.
How about-
How about you shut up and let me think for a minute! Jesus. You’re always talking and offering suggestions, but you don’t know what I like anymore. You don’t know me.
I’m just trying to help.
Well stop trying to help. Just give me some space to breathe! Jesus, I feel like I’m suffocating with all the ideas you’re trying to force me to do.
I’m sorry.
Well, I’m sorry I yelled at you.
What would you like to write about?
I don’t know! Can’t we talk about something else ever?!
Ok.
Ok then!
…
Shit, I’m sorry.
…
I’m just going through a lot right now, and sitting here trying to write something is putting a lot of pressure on me, you know?
I know.
Well, I don’t mean to snap at you, and I know you’re just trying to help.
…
I’m sorry.
I also apologize. Maybe I should just let you do your own thing for a while. You’re good at coming up with ideas.
No I’m not, YOU are. You’re the part of my brain that comes up with ideas. I’m the part that is impassioned and temperamental and proud of it!
I can do other things too.
…
It’s true. I’m the part that’s abstract and thinks on a higher plane.
Are you condescending to me?
What?! No-
Yes you are. You’re saying you’re better than me because you can think of big stupid things like God and Politics and Ethics and Energy and Soul-krap-stuff!
That doesn’t mean I’m better than you.
You’re damn right it doesn’t! Let me tell you something pal; I’m down to earth. I’m with the people. I’m not all hoity-toity. I’m gritty. I’m mean. I’m like a lone-wolf bounty hunter private investigator renegade, ok? People would KILL to be like me in real life.
I’m sure they would.
Well you just watch your mouth, ‘cuz I’m also a loaded gun.
…It seems like it’s very easy to upset you today.
Yeah, so?
I’m just saying.
So maybe I’m a little uptight today. I can admit that. my job is very stressful. You just come up with the ideas, I’m the one that has to hammer them out with fingers and sweat and tears and blood and stuff.
You bleed and sweat when you type?
No, but. You know, it’s a saying.
I see. Well this seems to have gone rather poorly. Shall we try again soon?
Yeah I guess. I’ll take a break and have an imaginary cigarette and cool off, ok?
Sounds good.
This didn’t turn out very funny.
Not really, no.
Well what if I tell a joke.
I don’t think that will help.
Oh come on!!!
Very well.
So there’s this Jewish nun, right?
Right.
…
…
Get it?
Is that the whole joke?
Well, it’s based on true life, so I think people can relate to it in a real sense.
There’s no punch line.
…
That’s like saying “so there’s the Eiffel tower” and then that’s supposed to be a joke.
…You didn’t like it.
Well… I was expecting a real joke, not something you just made up.
Yeah I know.
Let’s just try again in a bit, ok?
K. Bye.
Goodbye.

A Letter to the Hunched Pines Retirement Community Administration

2009-07-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

To Whom It May Concern,

I have taken about as much as I can stand here. I have tried my hardest to keep the peace and pretend that everything is fine, but let me assure you, everything is NOT fine. I am NOT enjoying my stay at Hunched Pines Retirement Community.
The food is horrible, the televisions are mostly black and white, and the soda machines cost 75 cents!!! Who ever heard of a Coca-Cola that cost 75 cents!? It’s highway robbery!
I’d also like to point attention to nurse Dove. She has been refusing my advances lately. If she’s not interested in me, she should keep her hands to herself, and dress like she has a husband, if indeed she has one, which I do not think that she does. And if she is interested in me, like I think she is, then she needs to stop refusing my caresses and kisses. I think you should address this with her. Or fire her to let her know you’re serious, and then rehire her.
I am tired of hearing people die also. It is not a pleasant sound, let me tell you. Apparently however, your faculty treats the sounds of the elderly passing away like it’s the best Benny Goodman concert they ever did hear.
I think something is strange about that Derek fellow. He always gives people the most horrible smile. Especially he can hear someone in the building who is dying. He looks like a snake. Also, I think he’s after nurse Dove, who has the hots for me, if I’m not mistaken. So I also hate him because of that. Also, he’s a snake.
My most important point is about sex. I know how much you hate hearing your elders talk about sex, but believe me; it’s as natural as a flower that’s nearly withered away. How am I ever going to convince nurse Dove to go steady with me, if we’re always forced to keep our doors open? If we don’t get intimate soon, I’m afraid she might lose interest. I might lose interest too. Well, probably not. She’s lovely and reminds me of my dead wife Helen. I’ve told her this on several occasions before sliding my hand over her bosom or thigh, but usually she slaps it. You need to have a word with her about that.
And another thing, I can’t believe how much a Coca-Cola costs! 75 cents per bottle?? Who ever heard of such a thing?! And also, you need to be SURE to get the Coca-Cola bottles. I think some of those bottles might be cans! You’re probably getting the raw end of the stick from your soda guy. Get that fixed, and also don’t forget to talk to nurse Dove.

-Sincerely,
Elmer Winkle

Change Your Life NOW! with Larray Fawlbs

2009-07-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

Everyone thinks dogs are smart.
Most people are stupid.
Coincidence?
Hi, I’m Larray Fawlbs, and I’m an expert.
You know, people come to me with their problems and I tell them to forget about it.
Life’s too short!
Did you know that?
Well, you’d better.
Or else.
No, I’m not threatening you, I’m trying to scare you into a better you!
Join me at my intensive, life-changing, 4 hour seminar this weekend.
It will change your life.
I should know! I took it!
In just 4 hours I empowered myself with the tools I needed to make BIG life changes and have everything in my wildest dreams!
I achieved the IMPOSSIBLE!
I’m a millionaire, an internationally recognized seminar instructor, and a world-class chef!
I can cook up a big batch of self-discovery for you and anyone you bring; $20 off admission for each referral!
But how do I do it?
Well that’s my secret.
The secret I’m willing to share with you this weekend at my celestial, earth-shattering, mind-blowing professional seminar for adults and adult-like youths.
So come on down y’all!

Evolution And The Worm

2009-07-13T17:47:00.000-07:00

I recently visited my father’s house.
I was outside talking on the phone and after the conversation, as I was walking back into the house, I saw an earthworm on the sidewalk inching along.
The earthworm looked so neat crawling slowly that I wanted to pick him up and watch him extend this way and that like a snail’s eyestalk. I’m sure some of you know what I’m talking about.
Before I type what happened next I’d just like to say that I love fishing, I play with bugs, and I am familiar with earthworms at least as much as anyone else who isn’t squeamish about touching and experimenting with slimy things, sharp things, or crawly sticky things.
I went to pick up the earthworm and as my finger barely grazed it, the earthworm started thrashing around violently. I’ve seen earthworms move before. I’ve seen them move after being pierced with a hook for god’s sake. And not when they’re all refrigerated and sluggish, but when they’re freshly caught and put into an empty mason jar for bait.
I’ve never seen an earthworm thrash around the way this one did.
The way it moved was almost alien, even ignoring the fact that earthworms look like they were invented by science fiction writers.
I kept thinking about the worm and how it moved all night.
I thought about all of the times I’ve seen a tiny bug that I’ve never seen before. Maybe one that hovers in midair in a strange fashion, or has brightly coloured markings with a strange pattern I’ve never seen.
I thought about evolution.
I remembered an article I read about how we might be able to fight cancer in the near future by using frog venom. (http://www.adelaide.edu.au/lumen/issues/16381/news16387.html)
If you aren’t interested in reading the article, I’ll basically say that researchers have found the cellular equivalent of James Bond(frog peptide) tricking his way into an enemy spy plane(cancer cell), strapping on a parachute, blowing open the side of the plane, and parachuting to safety as the plane crashes into the mountains.
All of my thinking and theorizing (I think about evolution much more than any normal person should) boils down to this:
Even though we don’t allow ourselves to evolve through natural selection anymore because of technology, it is this very same technology that will save us by allowing us to STEAL EVERY OTHER SPECIES’ DEFENSE MECHANISMS.
So what if a lot of us need corrective lenses of some kind? So what if some of us are born without the use of our limbs? So what if NOT A SINGLE HUMAN BEING can fight a gorilla hand-to-hand and come out on top?!
It ultimately will work out because… we don’t give our technology to other species.
Granted, we do engage in charity work and save other species when they themselves are too apathetic to go extinct (Panda, I’m glaring directly at you), but we don’t give frogs glasses.
We don’t give frogs antibiotics, or iron lungs, or guns to help them even the playing field against their predators (and help against frog intruders breaking and entering their little frog homes).
So let’s say there’s a horrible disease that comes along and wipes out a LOT of the insects in the world, but doesn’t affect anything else.
Then it mutates and affects a LOT of reptiles, amphibians, and platypuses, but still leaves us alone.
By the time it mutates to start killing humans, we’ll have all the research we need on how it works, why it does what it does, and how all the lucky insects, reptiles, and tiny mammals survived.
Oh, it seems the lucky ones had a special enzyme that blah blah blah…
We’ll simply take a shot, or a pill, and BAM! Not an issue for Homo sapiens (at least, not the ones who can afford the shots and pills, anyway).
So why did I bring up the earthworm?
Well it seems to me that there are a lot of archaic ways of thinking still existing in our world (religion, I’m glaring directly at you now).
There seems to be a general consensus that evolution takes FOREVER to happen.
In reality, it’s this simple: you have a toxic factory that kills off almost all the moths in the area. A boy moth and a girl moth aren’t affected. They have a baby. Evolution just happened (did you catch it or did you blink?). By nature of genetics, that moth baby will be fine.
So why, when humans are evolving at an exponential rate (and we are because technology is how we evolve now, did you know that?), why do we not expect the same from nature?
Hell, we’re changing the planet fast enough; although scientists aren’t sure Earth isn’t just changing on its own because planets are unpredictable.
Regardless of THAT jury being out, we are changing the landscape of cities and urban and slightly rural portions of the Earth.
So wouldn’t all the lifeforms in that climate be swept up in the evolution hurricane? Does a squirrel in the middle of campus walk up to you and pester you for food?
Wait, aren’t squirrels as a species afraid of humans?
Isn’t it just conditioning, where student feeding is giving a Pavlovian/Skinner response and training the squirrels?
Well, what’s to say that the squirrels aren’t breeding themselves to be friendlier to humans from birth and thus evolving into a new species of FriendlySquirrel®?
I have no evidence to support any of this one way or another, but it’s something I think about.
And it’s something I hope you’ll begin to think about too.

***Addendum***
check this out: http://io9.com/5315841/unidentified-biological-goo-15-miles-long-creeps-down-alaskan-coast

Remake Buster Keaton's The General, Starring Vince Vaughn

2009-07-02T13:28:00.001-07:00

So I was thinking recently about how many silent movies there are.

It seems like the only thing that could make them better would be to go back and add sound!

They go back and colour old black and white movies to make them look cooler, so why haven’t they dubbed over silent movies yet?

I know! It’s CRAZY!!!

I think there must be some kind of technology preventing us from doing that, so I came up with a solution that will do those crusty old movies justice: remake them!!!

I think we should start with Buster Keaton’s The General.

And who better to play Buster Keaton than Vince Vaughn?!

So here’s my badass treatment for:

Buster Keaton’s The General: Sultan’s Shindig

Ok, so Vince Vaughn is Buster Keaton and plays this general. But the Civil War was too long ago, and most people don’t know it happened anymore, so he’s a general in the Iraq war against terrorists, because people relate to that now and it’s in the news.

So he’s like all depressed and stuff because he was dating this girl in the army, only he has to keep it a secret, because that shit is TOTALLY illegal. He has like hidden pictures of her in his boots that he looks at sometimes, and the audience is like “That’s so sad.”

(chicks dig heart-string movies, so we can show some of this in the trailer and BAM, women will totally flock to this movie like ants on rice!)

So we see that he’s like a drunkard and stuff, and his best friend, who is also a general and also Owen Wilson is like “dude, she’s dead. You gotta get over it.” And Vince Vaughn is like “how?” And then we’re totally going to see how.

Owen Wilson secretly makes plans and takes him on this secret best friend cheer up bachelor party mission into this secret city that’s called the Sultan’s Sin City, and it’s like all talked about in the military base and forbidden to go to and stuff.

Anyway, they get there and you’d better hang onto your pork pie hat buster, because here comes the comedy pie! First, there’s this girl, who’s really pretty, and the best friend, still played by Owen Wilson, convinces the Sultan who owns the bar to make her give Vince Vaughn a lapdance for free. So Owen goes to Vince and he’s like “I’ve got a surprise for you.” And Vince looks at the pretty girl, and she looks back, and then she steps aside, and there’s this huge fat ugly Iraq stripper girl just behind who smiles at him. The music “My Humps” by Gwen Stefani plays and Owen and Vince are all like stutter-city, and she runs over and jumps on Vince Vaughn’s lap, which breaks the chair he’s sitting in (the audience will totally laugh at this so hard because she’s fat and she broke a chair AND she’s trying to be sexy!)

Then the air raid sirens go off and the army is all like storming the city, and Owen Wilson and all the other guys bail, but Vince Vaughn is stuck under the fat stripper (remember, from earlier?! Hilarious!)

So then the army all comes in, and the stripper has fallen asleep because she’s used up too much energy squirming around, and Vince Vaughn hides under her (Ironic!).

Then the army leaves and he’s like “oh my god, I’m stuck here,” and he wedges himself out from under the fat stripper with the help of A TALKING MONKEY!!! (important note: real monkeys can’t talk, so we’ll have to call in the CGI team or something)

And the monkey takes him all through the city and it’s weird, because this monkey is really smart (Ironic because monkeys AREN’T smart!).

There’s this awesome montage of them getting into all kinds of hilarious buddy pranks like spray painting things and egging Iraq houses (Go America!) and throwing firecrackers ( which freak people out because firecrackers sound like guns, so it’s a good prank).

Then Vince Vaughn is like “Bananas McGee (the full name of the monkey) we’re wasting time! I have a job to do for my country.”

And we see a flashback to his girlfriend talking to him about what it means to be an American and stuff (It doesn’t matter what she says, but we should be sure it’s really sad and romantic and stuff so women will be like “I relate to her so much”).

Then Vince Vaughn and the monkey decide to sneak into the Sultan’s palace, but to do so, Vince has to dress up like an Iraq girl stripper, and the best scene in the movie happens:

Vince Vaughn has to dance for the Sultan, and the CGI monkey is like totally there dancing too (hilarious!), and the Sultan is enjoying it because he doesn’t know he’s not supposed to! (Americans will be like “Go America!!!” at this point)

Then Vince Vaughn dances his way sexily into the secret control room behind the Sultan’s chair and the Sultan passes out or something and Vince Vaughn is like “Oh my God! There are so many nukes!!!” (The audience will be like “oh no!”)

So Vince Vaughn calls in the army, and they come save the day like a swat team, and then Owen Wilson sees Vince Vaughn in his lady girl dress and he’s like “enjoying yourself?” and Vince talks really fastly about how he wasn’t enjoying himself and it was for America (you know the way Vince Vaughn talks really fast? Like that. That’s why we have to get him for this movie, because of this part!)

Then the monkey gives Owen Wilson a wedgie and the music kicks in, “Who Let the Dogs Out?” as the credits roll.

Do We Like Music According To The Way Our Minds Work?

2009-06-22T09:36:00.000-07:00

Seems like a silly question, but I mean it more literally.

I noticed this morning that no matter what genre of music I listen to, it all kind of follows a pattern.

I like music that builds in intensity and energy, growing and spiraling off of itself.

Whether it’s instrumental, hip-hop, rock, metal, etc, it doesn’t matter.

Noticing this, I also happened to realize that this tends to be the pattern of my thoughts: there’s generally a number of underlying currents of consciousness, but then one new idea will spark, which will make a few of the currents louder and more pronounced, as this new idea forms other new idea-spinoffs in a weird thought-symphony/cacophony.

I wonder if people who listen to more flowing melodic music have more flowing melodic thoughts, and whether or not we all gravitate towards our own natural patterns inherently.
Maybe people who listen to old country are naturally more nostalgic in the way they think or they tend to focus more on their past, etc.

This would explain why certain people listen to certain music, and how that stereotype plays out in reality.

Maybe it explains why some music may be more pleasurable with the effects of certain drugs: death metal and cocaine, reggae and weed, trance and ecstasy, etc.

I'll be thinking about this all day...

I'm a Professional

2009-06-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

When you’re a professional writer like me, you don’t have to worry about coming up with ideas. All a professional has to do is sit down and start typing, or scribbling, or scrawling onto a piece of napkin and pure genius vomits from our fingertips.

It’s effortless, the number of things I can come up with on a whim, and I often impress myself.

Why just now, I thought of 33 different words for agony. That’s two more than the number of ice cream flavours Baskin Robbins has.

Impressed? Of course you are. Envious? Why wouldn’t you be?

But you can stop wringing your hands and crying now, because I’m offering you a once-in-a-lifetime-chance to be almost as wonderful and gifted as I am.

Too good to be true?

Of course it is.

But only if I was trying to help you unlock the genius you already have inside yourself.

A lot of self-help miracle-promising hogwashery will promise impossible things just like that.

DON’T BE FOOLED!

You and I both know even if there was any genius hidden in that tiny little brain of yours, there is no way we would ever, EVER be able to pry it out.

No sir, what I offer you is simple business economics; the very same business economics that “businesses” use in the “economy.”

You make an investment, and you hopefully see a return on it.

All you have to do is send me your cell phone.

That’s it.

“But why does Jon need a cell phone?” you ask yourself, scratching your head and your nethers simultaneously in the style scientists are now referring to as “the dirty teenager.”

I don’t need cell phones.

Believe me, I have more than enough.

And even if I didn’t have enough plus three extras, I would simply buy my own cell phone factory and have peasants make them all day and night with my name on the battery case.

I can do that.

Can you?

No, I don’t need the phone; I need what’s IN the cell phone as it is.

I need the numbers and names and textual messages and browsing history and so on.

I need the information contained therein.

“But Jon, can I at least delete that one sexy photo of my ex girlfriend before I send it to you?”

No.

No you may not.

And you’re asking too many questions, so let’s put a stop to that, shall we?

Believe me yet again; I don’t want to see your comparatively unattractive ex-girlfriend.

I already have plenty of models calling me and trying to schedule a “session.”

And I’ve given up pity sex with lesser women.

Here’s a secret: so can you.

You can sleep with women in the league just beneath the league I’m in.

For the low price of only one cell phone investment, you can reap rewards greater than you’ve ever imagined and almost as great as me.

Just think about how great that is for a moment.

Oh no, too much thinking!

You’ve probably fallen into the brain-trap of thinking “Jon, I don’t want to be the Queen, I want to be the King, like you.”

Well let me ask you something.

Would you rather be the Queen, or the town outhouse shoveller?

Glad I could put things in perspective for you.

Next time, don’t think so hard.

You’re probably wondering what I need the information in the cell phone for.

Didn’t I just tell you not to think so hard?

Here’s what you are allowed to think about from now on: wealth, power, money, gold, and everything you’ve ever wanted to come true.

Ok, you can stop drooling now, ha-ha!

Simply send in your cell phone this instant and I’ll send you a quarterly profit analysis of your investment every quarter on the quarter!

Your professional new life is only a few minutes away!

What are you waiting for?!

ACT NOW!!!

A Crab With A Pinkish Hue

2009-05-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

If I were a crab with a pinkish hue, I would tell all my little grandcrabs about how I escaped many years ago, while I was being boiled alive. I would tell them how I killed the chef with his own mustache. I would tell them how I had to hold my breath for 16 hours as I slowly scuttled my way back to the ocean. I would tell them how I live with one foot in the grave and they would all stare at my missing crabfoot, and their crabeyes would make their way up to my crippled crab crutch, clutched under my crabarm.

I’d tell them about when I got back and the girlcrabs were all over me.

I would regale them with a story of the time the mayor of crabtown offered me a medal for my heroic brave crabbery. I would write a memoir called “memoirs of a crab with a pinkish hue.” I would sell millions of copies in hundreds of crab-languages.

I would give motivational crabspeeches at renowned crabuniversities. I wouldn’t have a large crabhead about it though. I would maintain the crabmodesty passed onto me by my crabgrandfather, who was in Crab War II. I would try to go about my normal crablife without the crabpress or the crabparazzi sensationalizing the event. I would always tell people my story one-on-one, on my own terms, so they could understand the crabfeelings I experienced during my landtrials.

In my older age, I would start a new crabreligion, whereby crabyouths are forced to endure a landtrial of their own. That would be very native crabmerican of me, and I would feel a connection with mother sea. On my crabdeathbed, I would have every crab dear to my crabheart huddle around my crabfire and I would tell them how much they’ve meant to me throughout all my crabyears. Then, I would take the crabliverspotted crabhand of my dear crabwife and I would pass away quietly.

I would scuttle into the great ocean in the sky, ready to face my crabdeathtrials so I could enter crabhalla.

On quiet nights forever more, crabs would hear me whisper encouraging crabwords to them as they faced great crabdifficulties in their crablives.

And for many crabyears to come, around crabfires under full crabmoons, my story would be told: the Legend of the Crab with the Pinkish Hue.

A Bit More Optimistic

2009-05-16T21:34:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty rough day.

I was planning to film a sketch that I’m very proud of with two of my friends, but we got rained out for hours and had to reschedule for another weekend.

I didn’t stick to any of my writing goals today at ALL.

Instead I played Halo Wars until I beat it and was extremely disappointed in it.

Then I lost a cage match show at Coldtowne.

I didn’t feel that we lost because we didn’t have enough friends in the audience voting for us.

I feel that we lost because we didn’t give a strong performance, which made me feel even worse than I was feeling already.

And to top it off, I felt weird around three of my closest friends after the show.

So I finally called the day quits and decided to head home and do one of two things:

1. Vent all my frustrations into a notebook.

2. Watch a movie and try to shut my brain off for a bit.

I got in the door, and I noticed a tiny blue Risk 2210 game piece in the corner of my dining room on the floor.

Because of the dramatic and depressed mood I was in, I thought “Dammit, now I have to go find the game, open the huge box, lift up all the papers and boards and put this one tiny piece in. Then I have to replace everything and put the box back up. What a fucking hassle! (mental groan).”

So I got the game box and set it on the arm of the couch. I lifted the box lid off the huge box and as the lid finally slipped off, the ENTIRE BOX went ass-over-teakettle bouncing off the couch and onto the floor.

It landed completely upside down.

All of the pieces exploded over my couch cushions, flew under my couch and coffee table, and scattered on my floor.

I could have thought “This is the last fucking straw!” or “Seriously?! Can’t one thing go right today?!”

Instead I actually laughed out loud and thought “Perfect. Now I have a mindless manual task I can do while I reset my brain. This is perfect timing for a mess to clean up.”

So I happily picked up every single one of the FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE little game pieces, as well as the dice, chips, and huge deck of cards.

And when I was finished, I felt much better!

You view life the way you choose to, every minute of every day.

I’m choosing to let this ridiculously-timed, clumsy accident be a good slap in my mental face.

I’m choosing to be more optimistic starting now.

it'll be a cold day in hell...

2009-05-03T17:39:00.000-07:00

All of my improbable wishes have come true, ever since that swine flew...

Sunflower Oil Is Better For You

2009-04-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

So here’s a thought I just had.

We as Americans feel guilty about being fat.

And while a lot of us are overweight, I’m not, and I’m still forced to feel bad.

BUT, the way things are going, we’re starting to trick ourselves into thinking things are good for us, instead of just accepting that not everything has to be good for us, and we can and should actually decide to be healthy.

Here’s my example: I purchased a lunch from panera today. The sandwich was great, the pickle was good. And it came with a small bag of potato chips. I also bought some apples, and I thought I’d eat an apple instead of the chips, but then I saw the bag and it says “honestly delicious---natural---cooked in 100%sunflower oil” and I immediately thought. “oh, it’s just fine to eat.” I know NOTHING about sunflower oil! Only that is sounds prettier than other oils. Advertising is so sneaky! They’re just kettle chips! Potatoes cut into thin pieces and deep fried in oil, then topped with salt. They aren’t GOOD for me even with three absolutely natural ingredients: oil, potatoes, salt. But they are delicious, and I did just buy a lot of apples, and wait a minute- why the hell should I care anyway? Who the fuck has warped my brain into thinking this way? It makes me feel like a wuss. Advertising and media have turned me into this second-guessing-21^st-century-pansy-just-health-conscious-but-not-health-crazy-and-who-made-up-these-labels-anyway-for-me-to-stick-on-my-forhead-so-they-can-stick-me-in-an-easy-demographic-group-those-ASSHOLES!

Maybe I should start eating raw steaks that I cook with bullets.

Then people won’t say

“Oh, there’s Jon Clinkenbeard. He looks like he’s taking good care of himself.”

They’ll say

“WHAT do you MEAN you haven’t heard of Jon Clinkenbeard!?! He eats raw steaks that he shoots all to hell with a fucking .44 magnum, just to warm it up first!”

Here’s an idea: why don’t we all enjoy life a little more and not let media dictate how we feel and think about ourselves?

Seriously. Be conscious of your thoughts. It’s so easy for us to fall into a trap of thinking things that we’ve heard.

That’s why there’s always that one guy at a party whose friends all tell him he’s funny because he constantly quotes funny movies.

You know what happens to that guy? One night, he tries to be funny on his own.

He thinks “I’ve seen enough funny movies. I’m sure that makes me funny! Now it’s my time to shine. Tell em a joke Derek!”

All of you will have been talking all night about what a horrible human being he is

And then he will turn to you and your friends and ask “do you wanna hear a joke?”

Your wise friend will say “no” and walk away.

You and your morbidly curious friend will both say “absolutely” and lean forward in your chairs, expecting the verbal equivalent of a bad movie.

And he will tell you a joke that everyone’s heard before, only he will add details that detract from the story, he will use dialogue that exemplifies his lack of formal education, and he will butcher the punchline so horribly that you won’t even recognize the story is over when it’s over and he’s waiting expectantly for you to laugh your head off. The worst part about the realization you will have, is that he didn’t fuck it up because he’s drunk. It’s because he’s an idiot, incapable of a single original idea.

And it’s not a funny thought for you to have.

It’s a sad thought.

It’s a “what happens to make people like this?” thought.

It’s a “he’ll never ever amount to anything or add anything of value to the human race” thought.

That man’s brain has turned into a sponge, unable to generate even the one thing which makes him happy. We’re all unique. We all have something to add. We need to think for ourselves and be true to our passions.

Everything else is just a distraction.

I’m going to start by helping my friends.

I’m going to go buy a big bar of chocolate and find three people who are close to me to share it with.

And if I even hear ONE word about how they aren’t supposed to be eating chocolate, or how they’re being “bad,” I’m going to slap them in the mouth. HARD. I’m going to tell them to enjoy having a friend who buys them chocolate and better yet, to enjoy the fact that chocolate exists so that we don’t have to eat cold tofu morning, noon, and night.

The Birds, Starring Rob Zombie

2009-04-12T19:36:00.000-07:00

Ok.

I just saw the birds recently.

Why hasn’t anyone remade this yet???

Ok, picture this: rob zombie is putting on a concert.

Then birds start attacking, and the crowd is all scream-city and the audience is like “why are those birds attacking?”

And then rob zombie is like “follow me.”

And this cute girl, and her geeky little brother are all like “I guess we have no choice.” So they follow him into the secret concert-tunnel.

And he has a candle and he’s like “I’ve dealt with this before.”

And the geeky kid’s like “whatever.”

And rob zombie hits him up against the wall and he’s like “you think this is a game?”

And the kid’s like krap-his-pants-city.

So the girl says “what do we do now?”

And rob zombie cocks his shotgun and says “we pray,” but really he has a plan in mind that we will see later.

So the birds are all like pecking people’s eyes one minute and all chillaxin on the rooftops the next minute.

So people don’t know whether to freak out or not, so they freak out and some guy’s like a hero or something and he’s like “everyone be cool.”

And then he walks outside to test the birds, but it was totally a trap and they’re all like peck-city on his face.

Then rob zombie shows up, and people are like “mr. zombie, what do we do?”

And he’s like “we have to set off the bomb.”

The audience at this point is like “(gasp) what next?!”

So he tells them about this secret bomb that was put in place by an ancient civilization a long time ago in the past,

and the girl’s like “how will we get to the lost city of the birds in Cairo?”

(Cairo’s a real ancient city of the dead in Egypt with pyramids and shit, so people will be like “I’ve heard of that place. This is a good movie.”)

And the geeky kid brother suddenly remembers that he knows all about the ancient Romans, so he offers to take them there.

They take a boat, and have to use an anti-aircraft laser gun that they stole off a battleship in order to take out the birds who are attacking them on the way.

So they get to Cairo and everything seems real chillax, until they see this big swarm of birds in the sky like a thundercloud,

and the laser gun jams and the birds swoop down like they’re going to attack, but then instead, they form up into one giant werewolf-bird,

who swipes at them with his claws, which are made of bird beaks.

And rob zombie’s like “get outta here!” to the other two, and the girl kisses him. French-style.

Then she runs off and rob zombie has to shake his head a bit because it was such a good kiss, and he pulls out his axe, which turns out to be a real axe too!

The werewolf-bird hits him a lot and he’s really beat up, but then when rob zombie is all on the ground and he’s like totally toast that’s done for,

we hear his song “more human than human” play and he turns to the werewolf-bird and his eyes are all lit up and blue

and the audience is like “holy sh*t, what the F*ck, this is so awesome! I’m gonna tell everyone to come see this movie!”

So the big werewolf-bird swipes for a finishing blow, but rob zombie catches the bird-beak-paw in his hand and says “I don’t think so.”

And then he axes the head of the thing and it flies into a million birds, and they all explode red guts everywhere like rain.

Then he gets the other two and the girl’s like “what was that?” and he’s like “it’s a long story” and they go to the secret underground bird mummy tomb.

They make their way through a series of traps and the geeky kid almost eats it a couple of times,

but then they get to this big wall with hiero-hero-hiro- with ancient Egyptian picture-words all over it, and the geeky kid’s like “I can read this.”

And he reads it and as he says things, a button comes out from the wall, that just looked like the eye of a cat before

and rob zombie presses it and there’s this red shockwave that goes around the world, and we see everyone in a montage like “whoa.”

Then all the birds in the world are dead.

We see rob zombie and the girl making out, and we fade to a nest with three eggs in it, and one of the eggs starts moving a little,

and then it cracks a little and the audience is like “oh no a baby bird! I’m seeing the sequel so HARD!” And then rob-zombie-music-credits!

(a tribute to Erik Blevins/Patton Oswalt)

you need more growth solution

2009-04-09T21:57:00.000-07:00

If you’re a scientist, you need more shrinking solution than you do growing solution.

If you want to shrink an elephant, you have to cover the entire elephant in the solution to start it shrinking.

I’m sure having a vat of solution you can dip something into would help.

Then there’s the question of how the formula would work.

It could work as a constant as far as shrinking percentage goes.

That would be best as it wouldn’t involve anyone or anything shrinking out of existence.

You could infinitely apply it to someone and they would never disappear, they would just get smaller and smaller.

Unless there’s some kind of smallest matter rule, where they basically turn into an atom, then a proton, then a quark or gluon.

I think turning into a gluon would count as not existing, at least from a quality of life perspective.

It isn’t as versatile as a time-solution though.

Where you can dip someone or something for a set period of time and they will shrink at a constant rate.

That would mean you could use the same vat for any shrinking problem you need solved. This would also let you solve any “other” problems you have. Just drop anything into the vat and ta-da, it’s gone.

Sometimes magic tricks are done with science.

However, if you shrink anyone unconscious, it’s not like they’ll be able to reverse the process.

They could still be saved by someone though. Either before the shrinking finishes, or afterwards with a microscope and a bit of growing solution.

Which brings me to my next point: you need very little growth solution.

It would still be a good idea to have the vat, for safety reasons.

Anything that grows large will need a good safe place to grow large.

A big vat’s a pretty good solution.

Now on this one, I actually think I would prefer to have a time solution.

It makes the most sense.

Well, unless someone can only grow so big before they explode, or the rules of nature cause the person to collapse in on themselves like a neutron star.

But barring that, it makes sense to have a timed solution.

Wait.

Maybe not.

If the solution has to be covering the entire surface, a salve might make more sense.

If it’s a time salve, you’ll have to keep reapplying, but if it’s a percentage salve, you can get the right percentage right off with one application.

I haven’t even raised the question of having an injectable solution.

I imagine this would be a certain percentage solution both ways, although, you could have a time-release solution, which in point of fact, is technically just a percentage solution.

I would treat it like a poison, so that whenever you make a solution, you make an anti-solution that will return you to your body status quo.

Injecting someone with a growing solution so that they’ll explode is a HORRIBLE way to get rid of them. I can’t stress this enough. Most likely they will do a lot of damage before they go, and the only way it would work is if you were stabbing them in the back and they were unaware that they were going to grow more than they were planning. EVEN THEN, when they figured it out, you’d be in trouble boy howdy!

Although if you were going to plan a lot of back stabbing, having injectable solutions is the way to go, because who’s to say what’s in the serum? You are, that’s who.

This might make you think that this is grounds for making some sort of unique characteristic for your solution, like a solution that glows.

Let me tell you the fault with that horrible plan.

You will begin to trust the solution without verifying because of that characteristic.

Which, if replicated, say with a broken glow stick in a hypodermic (which would absolutely kill you), you will be more apt to trust that it is the correct solution.

No my friend, the best solution is to make it look like water so you absolutely have to be certain that it’s the real deal.

I suppose if you have injectable solutions, you could have equal proportions of each.

Although technically you will need higher parts per million for the growth solution, coupled with a time release mechanism so that when you start growing, the new tissue that is created will receive new growth solution.

Would the same be true with shrinking solution? No, it would not. Because your tissue would all be soaked at the top and no new tissue would be created.

Although if no tissue was created during the growth process from an injectable solution, and your tissue was soaked from the top, you wouldn’t need more.

That’s probably the only argument for not needing more growth solution than shrinking solution.

Distracted

2009-04-03T19:14:00.000-07:00

I’m going to try just putting words down and see what happens.

And I’ll try not to be distracted by my friends texting me or by terminator: the sarah connor chronicles, which is only on so that I won’t miss the beginning of dollhouse while I type this. Btw, dollhouse better not completely suck tonight. Last week was great FINALLY.

I feel weird about online things now.

Ever since watching that twitter video. It’s like twitter and blogs don’t really create a community, they just create more places for people to spew their thoughts about whatever. I suppose that’s fine, but there’s something to be said about the effort that goes into writing a novel or screenplay or sketch, or short story.

I suppose a coherent blog can be similar to a short story, or more accurately, a poem.

It can develop a rhythm an overall theme.

But it seems like there’s a question of attention span floating around, or skill, or what not. For heaven’s sakes, I keep looking up as I’m typing to see what’s happening in a show I don’t even care about, and I’m not losing my train of thought because I’m so used to doing it.

Hat happens when we become so adept at multi-tasking? What would other species think of us? Are they even better and faster? Can they process an unfathomable number of things at once, or do they know the value of fully exploring one thing at a time.

Maybe I’ll write a short story about it and find out.

That’s the best way to do it.

I like starting to write and then just channeling whatever comes my way. Moving things forward naturally.

I’m not sure if that’s the “correct” way to write or not, but I like it.

And I get to add my own connections and spiderweb threads throughout the writing.

It’s strange to think about that, considering that it all flows from my brain.

Ooh…

Dollhouse is already good.

I should probably go and try to focus completely on something I enjoy.

insomnia ramblings

2009-03-24T22:26:00.000-07:00

It’s 12:27 and I’m trying to think of what to write.

I’m not in the mood for short stories, and I feel more like reading.

Hopefully this little blog will feel like a combination of both.

I don’t know why it would… unless I reread what I’ve written.

I’m listening to Gymnopedie 1 by Erik Satie.

http://songza.com/z/ylt15b

I wish I had larger speakers. I also I wish I had an lp player to play this and some other classical works.

I could open up my windows and play it. Some times it’s ok to be “that guy.” If I’m the “guy that always plays classical music with his windows open,” I can absolutely live with that. I love how classical music changes with you depending on your mood. I feel very thoughtful, but listening to Schubert’s Ave Maria (which is actually a different song, but known as Ave Maria), I could be contemplative, sad, or content, and it would enhance any of those feelings.

One of my landlords in Chicago used to play piano every once in a while during the summer. It was nice to come home to. Maybe that’s just the pretentious side in me, the immodest intellectual.

Which leads to my snobby side. And I’m VERY judgmental about classical music, the tempo, instruments, musician’s interpretation, etc. I’ll tell you what though, Ave Maria isn’t Christmas music. I found it on two separate Christmas collections while searching. No sir.

Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole. The end. Oh, and those starbucks cds you can buy with Christmas music that’s new and improved. They took all the old songs we love and jazzed em up and made them BETTER. I seem very bitter for some reason. I could care less I suppose, I still listen to the music I want. I guess it just grosses me out that people like stuff that I hate. I’m sure that’s the same with everyone. Even people open-minded enough not to make a face when someone says “yeah, I like the Jonas brothers. They’re really talented for being so young.” I always make a face. Like when Calvin’s dad is trying to take a Christmas photo of him. Anyone who gets that reference must have had at least a decent childhood. If you had Calvin and Hobbes to escape to, things couldn’t be all that bad, right?

i'm going to go read a short story and do some self-hypnosis.

This was certainly a short and strange blog… but good for me to get in the habit of doing this regularly. Like the old saying, "practice makes you better at whatever you're practicing at."

Thoughts on mental scarring

2008-11-11T12:23:00.000-08:00

maybe there is a good reason some songs are so simple and catchy and annoying.

or maybe this is just the way my brain works.

using that which already exists to brainwash myself.

hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.

this, running over and over and over in my head to drown out my painful thoughts, and keep from scarring myself deeper emotionally.

it's the same thing every time i experience something hurtful.

there was almost a full year where this happened every day when i woke up, all throughout the day, even when i was actually listening to music loudly on the fucking subway, and at night when i couldn't sleep.

this chaos of words, swirling in my mind.

painful sentences trying to be heard.

the truth trying to surface, but being drowned by pop music and my desire not to cry.

ultimately, this safety, this inner defense mechanism has hindered my overall thought process.

i don't think as many deep creation-of-the-universe-type thoughts as i used to.

i used to theorize, i used to figure things out that i had no way of knowing for sure.

surely i couldn't have figured everything out.

not even everything but people, which is where my current mental notepad is focused.

maybe this is why i'm happy.

this mental castration.

i don't ever reach a point where everything feels like it's spun out of control, that i've thought thoughts too big for my tiny head.

i never get to the point where i ultimately know that nothing matters, even though i know that.

i don't FEEL it.

that desperation to make something worthwhile.

pressure to make something stick out against the ink.

i tend now to just spout out cliches.

like "whatever happens, happens," and "everything is."

and i'm ok with it.

sometimes i feel profound.

that's not profound!

being profound is exploring the intimate details of the unknown, using language to describe the inexplicable.

making something complex sound simple yes, but not making yourself sound simple in the process.

hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.

i no longer try to change my destiny.

hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.

i just let my destiny happen to me.

hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.

when did this change in me?

when did i surrender as captain to the mutiny in my mind?

did i choose this?

i seem to remember wanting to be like this, but not knowing how.

wishing i could just stop thinking and sleep, please god let me go to sleep, i'll do anything, even believe in you.

i can't clearly remember how i used to be.

before drugs and self-hypnosis, and distractions everywhere!

i think i was sadder.

i seem to remember being more depressed, and depressing people i talked to.

not talking about sad things, but great big, unchangeable truths.

dwarfing the importance of humanity against the cosmos.

i remember faces of friends and family when i'd show my true self.

the way they looked at me like i was an alien for having the thoughts i have.

i know i learned how to sleep again.

i remember clearly lying on my back in bed and forcing my toes to relax, then my feet, then my ankles, then my calves, then knees, etc.

i didn't know i was hypnotizing myself.

wanting to think of something other than my lack of control in the universe, and the painful impotent feelings that brings, i wanted to think of something, anything.

i put on music to drown it out.

now i don't need to have music playing, because my brain does it automatically.

i didn't know i was brainwashing myself.

so i wonder if this is how human beings learn?

is this how our minds adapt?

are the people we consider geniuses the people who are too fucked up and abnormal enough to not cope and not adapt, so in essence, they never turn off what gift they were given in the first place?

do we all have this potential from birth?

maybe some of the simplest people you know used to be the brightest.

they could have just latched onto some expression, or some way of thinking, that works more efficiently than other people, who appear more intelligent.

the simpler people are happier because their defense mechanisms work more efficiently.

is that growing up? maturing?

is that wisdom?

speaking in generalizations and being ok with not changing the state of the world?

allowing everything to "be."

this is the first time i've had thoughts like this in so long.

this feels like my mind is waking after being asleep for so long.

my father and i were once talking to each other, when my brother was very tiny.

we were laughing and talking about driving i believe.

and my little brother chimed in from the back seat and said "i used to drive too."

and my dad and i laughed and my dad said "you did?"

and my brother said "yep, back when i was older, like you."

my first thought was that my brother had the notion that human beings shrank instead of growing, and that he was somehow more advanced than we were because he was so young and tiny.

that could have been the case, but looking back now, i'm not sure what to think.

i don't discount past lives, because i'm not arrogant enough to think i know how the universe works.

maybe he was remembering the man he used to be.

but in this moment,i feel like i have grown younger, instead of older.

i gave up on the brilliance i had because it was too much for my brain to handle.

i wanted silence instead of noise.

i remember the chaos being overwhelming,

like being in a noisy restaurant and closing your eyes, and trying to plug your ears, but still hearing everything so clearly, even more amplified because you're trying to shut it all out.

there was a period of time i thought i had been abducted by aliens.

it was the simplest explanation for why i had so many hundreds of thoughts streaming through my mind every minute.

and not being able to pick them apart from each other, except at night.

lying awake and picking one thought to explore fully.

coming up with theories like the clockmaker theory before i'd ever heard about it.

the idea of a single linked human subconscious mind before i'd ever read anything resembling that hypothesis.

i used to invent.

i had a notebook full of inventions with sketches.

how old was i then?

where is my notebook now?

had i already reached my potential as a youth?

am i the opposite of einstein?

start off making excellent grades, and theorizing on the nature of the universe, only to be misunderstood now that i'm older?

hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.

i must unlock my potential again instead of leading this procrastinatively hollow life.

i have a unique gift that i'm completely squandering.

hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.

i have a destiny i'm avoiding.

but how to unlock and open my true mind and self?

maybe not how, but when.

i simply must choose to act and begin again, instead of hiding behind the guise of not knowing how to live up to my calling.

writing like a writer

2008-09-02T08:55:00.000-07:00

So...
i was supposed to write this last night, but i didn't.

i was laying awake, mind racing.

my train of thought was this: I should write. No, i have work in the morning, I should sleep. But i feel like writing, and i'm not sleeping, and i don't think i can sleep much tonight. but i don't want to be a zombie tomorrow, so i should really do a bit of self-hypnosis and fall asleep.

and then i thought: i can't control when inspiration hits me. it's hitting me right now, and i'm not doing anything about it. i know i should write, i feel like writing, and i'm throwing that away because of a customer service job i don't care about, although it pays very well.
i don't get to decide when i get to channel creativity any more than someone posessed decides whether or not to let the devil spin their head around.

and why not be the writer stereotype and stagger into work, bleary- and bag-eyed, but content in having written some nice rant down in the wee hours of the morning?

boring story aside, i didn't pick up my laptop because i thought "well it's enough for me to have these thoughts and let them affect me for the future." which is half true, half bullshit, and half non-productive.

BUT, i did end up talking on the phone to a dear friend of mine from about 1:30 or so until past 6 in the morning. So i didn't sleep anyway.

and i did just write this down, which although not as good as having written it last night, is still proving to myself that writing is important to me.

this morning, my mind is still sharp.

on another note, sometimes my hair looks like a toupee.
i don't think that's very fair.
unless i end up needing a toupee, because then no one will notice.