Beyond the Sex Palace

INT. SEX PALACE - THE END OF TIME

JEREMY sits on an ornate throne atop a pile of jewels, overlooking the Sex Palace. He sighs as he sips his brandy, while below all kinds of rude action takes place. Above him, the universe continually tears itself apart, reforming again after a short while. Next to him, a PORTER stands ready to serve him.

JEREMY
(to no one in particular)
I think I have grown tired of this place. Perhaps it is best that I move on.

PORTER
Are you certain, sir? You know you can stay here as long as you like. I assure you, once you return to your home it will be as if no time at all has passed. You could even stay here forever, if you so desire.

JEREMY
I fear for my sanity, should I stay much longer. Besides, there is work for me to do.

PORTER
If I can do nothing to dissuade you, then I have no choice but to honor your wish.

JEREMY
You can do nothing.

PORTER
Then my duty is complete, save for this: a warning, for your protection. The way back is not as simple as the one you followed here. Take heed, for many a brave man has lost his way, and cursed himself to drift forever upon the River of Souls. I pray this fate does not befall you, young master.

JEREMY
As long as I have my wits, they shall carry the day.

PORTER
We shall see, sir, we shall see. May fortune smile upon you, and you once again behold the passage of time.

Jeremy stands, placing his brandy on the armrest of the sex throne. Carefully making his way down the jewel pile, he nudges his way through the throng of intercourse, and toward the darkest corner of the palace. As he walks, there appears...


INT. PATH OF LIGHT - THE FIRST SECOND AFTER THE END OF TIME

He walks shrouded in total darkness, only the path of light is visible. He stops for a moment.

JEREMY
At last, I begin.

He walks.

He walks for a very long time.

FADE TO:

INT. PATH OF LIGHT - STILL THE FIRST SECOND AFTER THE END OF TIME, THOUGH CLEARLY MUCH LATER

He is still walking.

JEREMY
I am STILL walking.

His pace slows now, as his walk melts into an exhausted stagger. He stops to catch his breath.
He realizes with a start that the path ahead of him is beginning to melt away. He lunges forward and runs as fast as he can. All he can here is the roar of his breath and the blood rushing through his ears. He runs, and he runs, and he FUCKING RUNS.

Without warning, the path slips away beneath his feet, and he falls. Possibly forever.

FADE TO:

EXT. TREE OF LIFE - DAY?

Jeremy awakes to find himself in a meadow. There is nothing around for as far as he can see. The only thing in the meadow is the a small gnarled tree, and in front of it, and old man chiseling away at some STONE TABLETS. He is the SCRIVENER.

JEREMY
Excuse me, old man, do you know where I am?

SCRIVENER
Hm? Where you are? Oh, it's hard to say for sure. But I can say with complete certainty where you aren't, and that's right here.

JEREMY
I beg your pardon?

SCRIVENER
This place, young man. This is the one place you most definitely cannot be.

JEREMY
I can say with relative certainty that here, wherever here is, is precisely where I am.

SCRIVENER
Impossible. Nobody ever comes here. You're somebody, ain't ya?

JEREMY
Yes, that much should be obvious.

SCRIVENER
Indeed it is. So you're not here, simple as that.

JEREMY
But, by the same token, should it not be obvious that I, a person, am standing before you at this very moment, in this very place?

The scrivener eyes him with some suspicion, then nods sagely.

SCRIVENER
I suppose so. Very well, despite everything I know to be true, you do seem to be here.

JEREMY
Well, now that that's settled, where am I?

SCRIVENER
Are you daft, boy? You've just answered your own question. You're here.

JEREMY
Yes, I know that. What I'm wondering is where exactly here is?

SCRIVENER
Ah. Well, that depends.

JEREMY
(laughing)
It depends? What, pray tell, does it depend on?

The scrivener gives Jeremy an icy stare, until at last the smile disappears from his face.

JEREMY (CONT'D)
Really now, old man, you've had your fun. Now be straight with me. Where am I?

SCRIVENER
Like I said, it depends. This place, it isn't a fixed point. In fact, it's not a point at all. It's somewhat of the opposite, if you can imagine that. Picture a single place, a single moment, if you will, stretched over all of creation. Or picture all of existence perched upon the point of a pin. It's not quite like either of those things, but it's the closest way I can think of putting it. This place is no place, and it is every place. So, to know where you are, need to know where you are coming from, and where you are going. With that information, perhaps you can find yourself, and maybe you can leave this place.

JEREMY
I don't quite understand, but I think I've got the idea. I come from the Sex Palace, and I wish to go home.

SCRIVENER
Ha! I should have known to look at you, boy. Tell me, do you think yourself some kind of hero?

JEREMY
No, I've never considered myself as such.

SCRIVENER
Really. That is interesting; few find themselves in your place without some kind of noble intentions, or pretensions, as it were. Are you sure you are not a glory seeker, young'un?

JEREMY
What? No! My patience with you grows thin, old man.

SCRIVENER
Come now, there is no need to hide yourself here. In addition to the other two things, you must also know yourself to find the road ahead.

JEREMY
It wasn't selfishness! I had to come. Vanessa--

SCRIVENER
(surprised)
Hold a minute, boy. What is your name?

JEREMY
It's Jeremy. Jeremy Clarke.

SCRIVENER
Excuse me for a moment, Jeremy.

The scrivener turns, and searches through his pile of tablets. He picks one up and looks over it. His expression lowers.

SCRIVENER (CONT'D)
I see. I'm sorry to have doubted you, Jeremy.

JEREMY
What was written on that tablet?

SCRIVENER
Tell me, did you find what you were searching for?

Jeremy lowers his head.

JEREMY
No.

SCRIVENER
I'm sorry.

JEREMY
Yes, well. Will you help me now?

SCRIVENER
I will do all that I can. Unfortunately, now that I know what I know, I cannot tell you where to go.

JEREMY
What? You son of a bitch, you told me you would help me!

SCRIVENER
I will, but you must be patient.

JEREMY
I have been patient. Do you know what I've been through to get here?

SCRIVENER
I do. And I know you must face further challenges still. And though I could help you avoid those challenges, I must not. I dare not.

JEREMY
You speak as though you know my future.

SCRIVENER
I do. It is written in stone.

He indicates the tablets.

JEREMY
My destiny is written on those tablets? Let me see!
(he picks one up)
I can't make this out! What language is this?

SCRIVENER
It is not language. It is simply... a record.

JEREMY
A record?

SCRIVENER
Of all of time and eternity. Everything that has been, or shall ever be, is recorded on those tablets.

JEREMY
You mean... everything? As in all of history?

SCRIVENER
Yes, and far beyond.

JEREMY
All of creation... is on THESE tablets?

He indicates the tablets. There are only a few more than a dozen.

SCRIVENER
As I said, they are not written in language. The symbols you see are very dense, infinitely dense in fact. Your entire life, along with billions of others, is recorded right here.

He points to a tiny symbol, almost indistinguishable in the mess.

JEREMY
Curious, how amongst all these lives you were able to recognize mine.

SCRIVENER
I am well practiced at reading the tablets.

JEREMY
No, it goes beyond that. Before you even consulted the tablets, you seemed as if you knew me. It seemed as though once you figured out who I was, you suddenly began to take an interest in me, where before you were aloof. Tell me, old man, were you expecting me?

SCRIVENER
Enough, it is time for you to go.

JEREMY
Aha! So you were. And why is that? What do you know of my destiny, what is so important about my life?

SCRIVENER
Fine! I will tell you which way to go. Begin at the tree, and face your shadow--

JEREMY
Perhaps I won't go. Perhaps I'll just take this chisel and end my wretched life.
He picks up the chisel, and holds it against his temple.

SCRIVENER
Please, Jeremy, I beg you. Do not do this!

JEREMY
Then tell me!

SCRIVENER
I'm sorry.

JEREMY
Not nearly as sorry as you're going to be.

SCRIVENER
No, I'm sorry for this.

In a heartbeat, the sky turns to black, and every single blade of grass loses its hold on the ground. Jeremy once again finds himself falling into the void. We hear a splash.

CUT TO:

INT. RIVER OF SOULS - ETERNITY

Jeremy falls into the river, flailing and splashing. He drives his way up to the surface and breaks through, gasping for air. His relief is short-lived, for he is immediately pulled back down into the water.

He thrashes against the thing pulling him down, while large gray shapes float past him. He kicks, again and again, but to no effect.

Suddenly, a bony white hand grabs him by the arm. He twists out of its grip, finally bringing him face to face with the horrific entity.

Its features are human, but its appearance is ghastly. They are gray-skinned and emaciated, with most of their bones visible through their skin. All are completely hairless. Around the eyes and nose and anywhere the skin is broken, an greenish gray liquid oozes out. Their eyes are the same milky gray as their skin, and their mouths are completely black, inside and out.

The one that has grabbed Jeremy convulses in pain as Jeremy twists its wrist in his escape. Quickly realizing this, Jeremy reaches out and claws at its eyes. Its eyes burst into sludge, and it clutches its face, sinking to the bottom. The display causes the creatures below him to loosen their grip, and Jeremy breaks free, swimming as fast as he can, the monsters chasing him closely.

He breaks the surface again, but instead of stopping for breath he pushes forward as fast as he can, blindly hoping that he's heading toward some kind of shore.

He pushes forward, but is now starting to slow. He is running out of breath. Several of the creatures leap on top of him, and begin to drag him down.

He stops struggling, resigned to his fate.

Suddenly, a hand appears just above him, reaching down to him. It is not the bloodless hand of the creatures, it is pink and healthy. Jerome grabs onto it, and it pulls him up and out of the water.


INT. SHORE OF THE DAMNED - CONTINUOUS

The hand pulls Jeremy onto the shore, where he coughs and sputters for a moment. He looks up to see his rescuer, a dour-looking man, in a black cloak holding a scythe. He is DEATH.

DEATH
I... am Death.

Jeremy takes a moment to take all of this in.

JEREMY
Really?

DEATH
No, not really.

Suddenly, Death's demeanor changes completely. He becomes cheerful and manic, and more than a little eccentric.

DEATH (CONT'D)
I mean, they call me that, sure. Gotta call a fellow something, I suppose. I guess I do look the part, what with this fucking thing, eh? I don't even know why I have it to be honest. Yes, yes, it's my name, too, I should mention I suppose. Though that whole process, ugh, gives me the willies, it does. Why they'd want to name such a thing after me, I have no idea. Hehe, corn spouts, after all, know what I mean?

JEREMY
Er, no. I'm afraid I don't.

DEATH
Oh, well you know, it's jealousy. Jealousy, yeah. That's why they done it. After that whole moon cat debacle, and all that. Now, can I fetch you some tea?

Jeremy looks around, it is blackness as far as the eye can see.

JEREMY
Um, no thanks. So you're Death and that--
(points to the river)
--I take it is the River of Souls.

DEATH
Oh yeah, the river. The river, that's where most of them end up, they get stuck in there, and forget they was people. Now they're nothing but kite strings.

JEREMY
Those are people in there?

DEATH
People who forgot how to be people. Now all they do is make others like them. It's all they remember. The fork, no, um, what is it? River! The river, it turns you. Into that.

JEREMY
My God.

DEATH
Oh yes, don't expect to see him around much anymore.

JEREMY
Wait a minute, are you saying that God exists?

DEATH
God? Who said anything about God? I'm just watching the leaderboards.
(singing)
"Brother can you spare an antidote?"

JEREMY
Right, so I'm not looking forward to going through this again, but can you tell me how to get out of here?

DEATH
"Brother can you give me your--"
(he stops singing)
Oh, no. No no no no no. You can't get out. If there was a way out, don't you think I'd have found it? It's nothing but marzipan in every direction.

JEREMY
How helpful. Well, if you think of anything, I'll just be heading off in this--

DEATH
Hey, you're the guy, right?

JEREMY
Excuse me?

DEATH
You know, the guy, the guy with the stuff. The one they've all been talking about.

JEREMY
Who? Who's been talking?

DEATH
Don't play dumb, you know what it is. It's... it's damned complicated, is what it is. We've been trying to make sense of it.

JEREMY
We?

DEATH
We. You know you, me, and the guys. We few. We happy few.

JEREMY
Well, it's been nice chatting with you.

DEATH
Oh it has, believe me, the pleasure is all ours. So long, Mr. Special Destiny.

JEREMY
What did you just call me?

DEATH
You're the one, the one who changes the world.

JEREMY
How? How do I change the world?

DEATH
Hey, I don't get bogged down in details. Big picture, big picture. If the pants fit, you gotta return them. NO! Don't return them!

Beat.

DEATH (CONT'D)
Too bad you ended up here.

JEREMY
What do you mean?

DEATH
There's no way out. Special destiny?
(blows raspberry)
All gone, like ice cream. Man, I could go for ice cream.

JEREMY
But, it's destiny! How can it change?

DEATH
They changed it, the dudes. Those dudes were real mad at you, dude.

JEREMY
That's it? After all that talk of how great I am they shove me down here because I hurt the feelings of some old man?

DEATH
Hey, could be worse.

JEREMY
How?

DEATH
You could be in there.

He points to the river.

JEREMY
That's not much comfort. Either I could be a mindless zombie in there, or I could wander around out here for an eternity.

DEATH
Time makes vagabonds of us all. For you, doubly so.

Jeremy walks a few paces and sits down facing away from Death.

JEREMY
I just don't get it, why me? What have I done to deserve this. I just...
(he starts crying)
I just wanted to see her again. It's not fair. Why can't... why can't I just...

He lets it all go, all the pain and all the hopelessness he's been keeping inside. In the background, we can see Death cleaning his ears with his scythe.

Death walks over and sits down next to him.

DEATH
Looks like you're done. You've reached the end. What are you going to do now?

JEREMY
(composing himself)
I don't know.

DEATH
The way I see it, you can either go gracefully, or you can go out kicking and screaming.

JEREMY
Oh, kicking and screaming, definitely.

He laughs, somewhat relieved.

DEATH
For what it's worth,
(he points with his scythe)
I have a pretty good feeling about that direction.

JEREMY
Thanks.

DEATH
Think nothing of it, kerosene.

With a great deal of effort, Jeremy scoops himself up and sets off in the direction Death has indicated.

He walks.

And he walks.

And he walks.

FADE TO BLACK.

Here Is a List of Games I Will Not Be Buying This Tuesday:

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2


2. Lots of other games

Now, number two is obviously a given, but why, you might ask, am I not buying what is likely to be the best-selling, critically-acclaimed game of the year? Is it because I am mad that there are no dedicated servers on the PC version? Last I checked I'm not not a douchebag, so that's not it. Am I boycotting it because of that leaked video where you play as a terrorist and kill innocent civilians? No, but I do have some thoughts on that, but we'll get to that. The real reason I'm letting this game pass me by is because of Uncharted 2.

When the first Modern Warfare came out, I thought it was the bee's tits (which is to say, I thought it was good). It was like being in a summer blockbuster whose budget was approximately all the money in the world, and you were the reliable mute buddy of the hero of the movie. Every single scene in that game could have been the big crazy climax of the biggest, craziest Michael Bay movie.

But therein lies the problem. If every second of the game is climax, then there's no pacing to it. You spend the entire game brutally charging forward, and when you reach the end of the game, it just stops. You can't even call it anticlimactic; it's everything BUT anticlimactic.

Uncharted 2 is similarly based on a big action movie that has been financed by God, but it introduces the concept of pacing. Hot damn is that game well paced. It follows this basic pattern of a few light gun fights, gradually increasing in scale, until you approach an epic set piece, kick its ass, and then there's some nice relaxing platforming or puzzle solving while you reflect on how awesome you are. It's these quiet moments that really drive home the sense of accomplishment. In Modern Warfare, you can't really enjoy the fact that you just blew the shit out of everyone with an AC-130 because it's 30 seconds later and you're already running down a street dodging rocket fire. It says a lot that the calmest section of the game is the part where a nuclear bomb goes off.

Another thing that sets Uncharted 2 apart is the fact that you're actually the wise-cracking badass hero of the game, rather than the retarded freak who's following him around. Captain Price is obviously the hero of that game, as he's the only person with any characterization at all, and he's the one who gets to do all the cool stuff. As Nathan Drake you get to jump out of moving trains and kick people to sleep, all while spouting cool one-liners (such as, "I'll kick you to sleep."). In Modern Warfare, the only meaningful way you can interact with anything it to put bullets into it.

Oh, and there's also the fact that Uncharted is an Indiana Jones movie (not Crystal Skull, one of the good ones), which automatically trumps the Michael Bay vibe of the Modern Warfare games in terms of style. Amazing action with deep characterization is just better than anonymous explosions.

It's actually kind of a shame these games came out so close together. If Modern Warfare were coming out in, say March, I might have been interested in it. But coming just one month after Uncharted, I'm having trouble getting it up for the similar but inferior game.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the terrorist thing. Ok, so if you didn't know about this, there's a scene in the game where you apparently play as a terrorist, going through an airport killing hundreds of innocent civilians. This has upset a fair amount of people, and unleashed a low-level PR shitstorm at Infinity Ward, the game's developer. Now, I see where they were going with this, it's like that scene in a movie where you see the villain do something really villainous and terrible, and that increases your desire to see them taken down. But the problem is, that doesn't really work in a game. In the movie you're just watching the terrible thing go on, but in the game you're actively making it happen. I know that playing that part of the game won't make me go, "these guys are fucking horrible, my passion for defeating them is renewed!" It'll probably be more like, "I'm not enjoying this, I'm going to turn off the game and listen to Bob Dylan for a while."

Even worse was what came out after the story broke. The developers revealed that the before the sequence happens, a message comes up warning about the upcoming content, and offering the chance to skip the section. Bullshit. Even though this idea turns me off, I respect their prerogative as artists to include it. But pussing out like this completely ruins it for me. This is not doing the respectability of the medium any favors. True art is not optional. When you watch the Godfather, you're not offered the option to skip the horse head scene. On the other hand, if the scene is skip-able because the developers don't feel the scene is absolutely necessary, then it shouldn't be in there at all.

Another rationalization they offered is that in this scene you are in fact not an evil baby-killing terrorist, but rather an undercover agent infiltrating an evil baby-killing terrorist organization. Something was said about tough decisions in the name of the greater good, but once again: bullshit. As far as I can tell the only choice you're offered is to either take part in the mass murder, or stand by and allow it to happen. That's not a choice. "Oh gee, should I kill and eat this puppy, or just stab out both its eyes and kick it down the stairs? Which is the moral thing to do?" And I doubt either option has any real effect on how the game progresses.

The thing that really annoys me is that they could have done the exact same scene, but had you play as a civilian rather than one of the murderers. Then the scene would have exactly the desired effect of horrifying you and filling you with righteous fury. But I guess they don't want to do that because they feel it would be too similar to something they did in the first game. As it stands, the only emotion it evokes is slight disgust. Which is not ideal.

Before this came out, I might have considered picking the game up sometime around next summer, or whenever they knocked a few bucks off the price. But at this point I think I just don't care anymore. Of course, not like that's going to stop the game from selling millions of copies.

Whatever. I think I'll go play through Uncharted 2 again.

An Extravagant Amount of Garfield

More Of Dreams

This afternoon, after having eluded me for about 36 hours, I finally caught hold of a decent scrap of sleep. During that time I was transported away to the strange and magical, and occasionally terrifying, recesses of my own mind in the form of the vivid hallucinations that sometimes accompany the rapid fluttering of the eyes. I have made the point before that if dreams do indeed offer a rare uncensored look into the processes behind a person's mind, then what I am about to reveal to you is probably deeply personal and very embarrassing. However, the narrative of this dream is just too hilarious not to share, so whatever to all of that.

As before, I can verify that all of the key elements of the following story were present in the dream, with embellishments only for dramatic effect or to ease the transitions between scenes. No major plot points have been added.




TRANSCRIBED DREAM BEGINS HERE



So, I’m walking along the beach, when I notice something weird about the ocean. The last few feet of the waves come up about a foot and a half above the sand, and just sort of hover there, never crashing down to the ground below. Clearly, I figure, someone has fucked up the coast. I call out to the Coast Guard, “Hey idiots, nice job on the coastline!” Suddenly the boat changes direction, and begins speeding toward the shore. People are starting to shift around, obviously terrified of the maniacs in the Coast Guard. Some people actually flee. Looking back, maybe I should have run too.

I stand my ground as the boat hits the small jump at the end of the sea and boffs onto the sand. Three large men climb out, and begin to advance on me. I find myself surrounded. One of them pins me to the floor and begins to handcuff me. I allow him to, and the man drags me to my feet. As they begin to take me back to the boat, god only knows how they’re going to get it back up into the ocean, I position myself behind who I take to be the ranking Coast Guard officer. Instantly, I dislocate both of my shoulders and throw my handcuffed arms over my head, bringing the tiny chain down around my captor’s neck. Holding this man hostage, I demand that my handcuffs be unlocked. They comply, and one of the men returns with a small key. The second he turns it in the lock and the handcuff pops open I whip the newly freed cuff into his face. I then throw my hostage to the floor and proceed to summarily kick all of their asses. As I leave the beach, one of them croaks out a warning. “The Coast Guard will not forget. The Coast Guard never forgets.”

The next day I am visiting my old high school with my good friend Superman. There is a commotion at the front gate, and we quickly realize why. The Coast Guard has shown up in force to arrest me. Quickly we move to the back gate to escape, but they have cut off our route there. In an act of desperation, we duck into an English classroom.

The Coast Guard eventually find us. Superman pulls a gun on them, and I simply place a hand on his shoulder. He understands now, this was all part of the plan. You see, what I have not told you is that I am a secret super-spy, and my mission is to take down the corrupt and brutal Coast Guard.

A man walks in who I have not seen before and introduces himself as Agent Johnson of Coast Guard Special Operations. He explains that I am to be taken out of the country for “deep interrogation.” Superman pulls out his wallet and gives me a hundred dollar bill to cover my expenses while in captivity, and I go with the Coast Guard.

Eventually the bag is removed from my head, and I find myself walking through a South American slum alongside Agent Johnson. I have no idea where I am, but luckily we pass a guide map. I notice there is a Sea World nearby. I point this out to the agent, and he looks away longingly. He confides in me that he has never been to Sea World, but it has always been his wish to go. I tell him how great Sea World is, lying my ass off. In truth, Sea World is boring and dreadful, but I sell it as the greatest thing entire goddamn universe. I am trying to earn his trust here.

Catching my enthusiasm, he buys us two tickets, and we spend the day at Sea World. During the Shamu show, there is an unexpected appearance in the show by Superman. The crowd goes wild. Superman says, “You know what I love best about Sea World?” He pauses for dramatic effect.

“BASEBALL!”

The crowd cheers as Superman produces some baseballs, and a bat. He knocks several home runs into the audience, and they all fly directly into my hands. I shove the baseballs into my pockets, because of course they contain secret coded documents relevant to my mission.

On the way out of the park, Agent Johnson stops to negotiate with a prostitute. He asks me if I am cool with this. “Hey man,” I say, “whatever you want to do.” He does not seem satisfied with this, and tells me never mind, it was only a joke anyway, but I can see in his eyes that he was serious, and now he is embarrassed.

We pass a door marked, “Employees Only.” The agent asks me if I’ve ever wondered what kind of crazy pumps they must need to pump all that water into the tanks, and haven’t you always wanted to see something like that? He takes my awkward silence as some sort of begrudging acknowledgement, and we begin to break into the backstage area of Sea World. We find ourselves in a hallway, and we hear footsteps approaching. The agent instructs me to hide, but it is a hallway, so the best I can do is to lie down on the floor. He places a small wastebasket in front of the door, and lies down next to me on the floor. The door opens, easily tossing the wastebasket aside, and a woman walks through. “Oh, Jorge,” she says, “somebody left a bin in front of the door, could you pick it up?” We look at each other realizing she somehow thinks we are the janitor, and incidentally one person, and begin giggling uncontrollably. She shoots us an annoyed look, and we look away innocently.

Finally arriving in the pump room, Agent Johnson is filled with a school child wonderment. He starts gushing about how he’s never seen pumps like these before, and isn’t it amazing, though wouldn’t they get more pressure if they were closer to the source, and on, and on, and on. It was starting to get really annoying, and I began to question whether it was really all worth it. I finally decided that it wasn’t, and I went home.



END TRANSCRIPTION

The New Version of Itunes Has a Problem

You know what it is? It doesn't play songs. Isn't that just wonderful, how it fails to do the one thing it's programmed to do? It's like if a company was making a blender, and when it got to the testing department, there was the following exchange:

Dickless Manager: So, does it blend?
Worthless Employee: Nope, I press this button and nothing happens.
Dickless Manager: Well, let's ship it out anyway, we can always patch it later.

Seriously Apple, that is some outstanding quality assurance. You should really branch out, just think of all the good you could do outside the field of computers. You could make a pair of scissors that can sing the alphabet backwards, but can't cut paper. Or a shoehorn that slices off your heel and attaches it to your ankle. Or you could make a staple remover that rather than removing the staples, makes your documents 50 times more stapled than than they were before you interfered.



What really makes me mad is that I just got the Beatles remastered stereo box set, and I decided it would be peachy keen if I could encode it in a lossless format. After some research, I figured the Apple lossless format would be the simplest without installing new software to learn, test, and obsess over. So now all my sweet, sweet Beatles albums are locked away in the oppressive .m4a format, and I'm to fucking tired to figure out how to get at them right now. I guess I should just learn not to update apple products, but they were doing so well for a while there. Maybe I'm foolish, and I just can't change the laws of the universe. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and Apple will fuck you over if you give them a chance.

Um, I guess this is the part of the rant where I vent about what horrible things I want to happen to them.

Um... hang on a minute...

Okay, I've got one. Apple, I hope whoever is in charge of your quality service department has to eat 52 beer bottles, shit them out, light them on fire, and then eat the flaming shit with the glass shards in it. I hope his legs fall off, and his eyeballs turn inside out, and everyone laughs at him and calls him fat. Then just for good measure you should blow up the department and kill anyone who has ever had contact with him. After that, you should probably start fixing your horribly broken program.

So Apple, until next time you decide to fuck me, hugs and kisses.

More From the Time Cabinet

Here is another thing I found in my journey into the past, written on a small scrap of paper. As to its age, I have no idea. I don't even remember writing it. It's clearly my handwriting though.




TRANSCRIPT BEGINS

Nobody ever told me where the secret to perfect waffles lay, but I found it in the heart of all of us. And that's how I saved Christmas from the mole people, whose hearts are full of love and kindness, two ideas wholly incompatible with Christmas. Ultimately, time will judge me, as it does us all. I hope it will judge me fit for duty, on the sandwich press of life. Gooooooood night!

END OF TRANSCRIPT




Final thought: Baffling!

Something From the Time Cabinet

While going through some of my old possessions, I found an old bit of writing I had done. It's a very short short story, more of a micro-narrative really, hastily scrawled while waiting in line for something, if I recall. It makes reference to Conan O'Brien's perceived nemesis from his Finland special, which I suppose would date this to about 3 years ago. I should warn you, it's not particularly funny, it's ridiculously short, and doesn't make any sense at all. In fact, the only person this thing is probably of any interest to is me. But I do feel bad about not posting anything, so here's a bit of silliness.






Only once did I have the pleasure of meeting Forss Fagerstrom. It was the winter of '88, the coldest one yet recorded by the weather gypsies. As I recall, he was wearing forest green moccasins, and smoking a rather large rubber phallus. We were at the same fancy dinner party, on the occasion of Admiral Forsythe's eleventh birthday bash. Fagerstrom's eye caught mine, and for whatever reason he chose to impart some wisdom.

"Jimmy," he said, though my name was Wagsley, "Jimmy my boy, has anyone ever taught you the secret to successful banking?"

I could honestly say no one had.

"Well, the secret, dear Jimmy, is to take all of your money and fashion it into tiny paper boats. And the change, well, they can be sailors, can't they?"

I saw no reason why they couldn't, yet the entire process still confounded me. "And how does one gain returns in such a venture?" I inquired.

"Poor naive Jimmy," he ticked. "Don't you see? You send the ships out to sea, and they return from the new world with gold, and spice, and stuff."

His breath reeked of cheap brandy as he leaned forward to deliver the final word. I wasn't sure which "new world" he was talking about, so I did the only rational thing I could. I drew my revolver, pulled back the hammer, and blew out the back of his head all over the balloon animals.

In the ten years since the murder, and the resulting police shootout that claimed 18 lives, I have been able to see that his words, though profoundly stupid, do carry some wisdom. He didn't mean physically fold your money into ships. Or maybe he did, point is it's a metaphor. Probably. I'm not really sure, but then I guess I'm not as smart as Forss Fagerstrom.

He really had so much to teach us. It's a shame his life was cut tragically short by me.

I Finally Found a Use For My Wii...

So, I picked up a wireless adapter for my Xbox 360 today, and it turns out both it and the cooling stand I have the beast sitting on have incredibly short cords that can only reach the same lone USB port on the back of the console. Now, the cooling stand (which is an absolute necessity if you own a 360, that fucker will start to melt if you leave it running on its own) has its own little passthrough port so you can plug two things in, but the wireless adapter doesn't seem to like it very much.

The solution it turns out lie three inches to the console's left. The Nintendo Wii, which other than being absolutely delightful for a period of three and a half days coinciding with the release of Wii Sports Resort, has simply been gathering dust over there. Well, not anymore. Now, useless Wii, you finally have a purpose. Your sweet USB ports will power my Xbox's cooling stand. This is the true power of the Nintendo Wii, that even when turned off it delivers 5 volts of glorious phantom power through those cute little ports.

Plus the best part of this little tip is that based on sales numbers, if you're reading this there's a very good chance you own a Wii. So go on, put that little bastard to good use.

Proud Parent of an Accelerated Reader

That's what I saw on a bumper sticker on the back of a car today. “Proud Parent of an Accelerated Reader.” I actually had to think about that for a second, because at first those words didn't seem to have any meaning. Obviously in this context, “accelerated” means at a level above some sort of national average, but then that's not the word that confused me. It was the word “proud.” I just don't see how that would be a matter of pride.

Now, I'm all for reading, I think reading is kick ass. You're reading right now, and for that, I love you. Seriously, reading is totally great, and being good at reading is important. But is it really something to be proud of? It seems to me that as a kid I was only peripherally aware of so-called reading levels. I guess people made kind of a big deal out of it, but I just really didn't care. I never knew what level I read at, because I was more concerned with what I was reading.

After all, who cares how well a child can read if he goes on to read is fucking terrible? What if that little fucker goes on to read Twilight? Or anything by Dan Brown? Are you still going to be proud of that little dipshit? Your skill at reading is completely meaningless unless you can read something fucking decent.

It's all part of a very disturbing and disgusting trend developing in places of learning. Primary education has always been and will always be an utter waste of time, but this goes to something deeper. It seems the further we go, the more our schools want to do their best to protect children from accidentally learning something. The objective becomes not to actually learn, but to be able to pretend well enough to fake it. Lessons are not an experience, but an outline for what will be on the test. SAT training consists mostly of pattern recognition, even going so far as to identify what is statistically the most likely response should the student be completely stumped and need to outright guess. All of this to then find out that all these skills you've developed for beating the system you will never get a chance to use again. It's a bit like training to play basketball by memorizing the specifications of the court.

Not to mention how these supposed halls of knowledge consistently reward ignorance. You have grades where you either get a check, a check plus, or a check minus, and they're all pretty much the same thing. You put in some amount of effort, and no matter how small, it will be acknowledged. You have participation trophies, where everyone involved is a winner. You have student of the month awards that everybody has to win at least once. I remember they had this policy when I was in fifth grade, and because I was so rebellious against their bullshit, they almost didn't even give me one. Almost. The bastards didn't even have the balls to withhold their own meaningless award from me. And believe me, I made life hell for the administrators of that school, though that is a story for a different time.

And then we come to tonight, when I almost stormed out of my research methods class at ITT. The teacher was yelling at us because we hadn't managed to correctly interpret the cryptic syntax of his crazy description on the syllabus. We had each done the assignment to the best of the ability using common sense, but because it was missing one insignificant formatting element, he had a fucking conniption. So I started yelling back, that he didn't have a right to talk to us, a room full of adults who were in his class of our own agency, like we were naughty children. I would have walked out too, except that then he kind of relented, and tried to defuse the situation with a joke, and though it didn't really satisfy my complaint it made it kind of awkward for me to leave.

Then while driving home and still kind of seething about it, I saw that stupid fucking bumper sticker, and it seemed to sort of encapsulate everything. Because even though I hate that class and everything it stands for, I am still acing it effortlessly. I suppose when you set the bar so low that a one-legged dog could roll right over it, you feel justified in treating your students like children. I come from the first generation to witness the society-destroying horror of the participation trophy, but at least back then it was confined to the education system. Now it's starting to seep through into the real world, and that's scary. Are we setting ourselves up for a world where it doesn't matter whether or not you try, as long as you put in the time? I suppose you can argue that for most corporate workers, we're already there.

Damn it, trying matters! Don't you see that without doing our best, we're just going to have to settle for mediocre in every aspect of our lives? We're training an entire generation to just give up on what they believe in!

Oh, whatever. I don't care anymore.

Best of Garfield - Part 2

Welcome back, cats and kittens. Today on the show we continue our journey into the past with the second, and thankfully final, part of our retrospective on my silly Garfield comics. We're going to now take a look at Series 2, the current run of Garfield strips, of which there are 60. What's that you say? The last strip I posted was numbered "59?" Hm, that's very interesting...

Once again, this collection is far too magnificent to be viewed on this puny blog, so whenever you're ready, HIT THE JUMP!

The Best of Garfield

As you may or may not know, one of the things I like to is to take Garfield comic strips and replace the text in them to make them either much funnier, or much stupider. But what you may not know, is that I've been doing this for a much longer time than I've had this blog. So, if you've only seen the ones posted on here, then you've missed out on over 100 of these very special strips. Today I am going to share a few of these with you. I'm not going to share all of them, because on the whole most of them tend to fall on the stupid side of the funny/stupid scale, especially the early ones, so I'm just going to share the ones that I consider good or noteworthy in some way. And, because I'm apparently a pompous asshole, I'm going to provide commentary on each one, so yay for self-aggrandization!

Before we begin, I should point out there are two series of these comics. I started Series 1 back in high school, and I never really bothered to keep track of them, so there are a few that have probably just disappeared. Of the ones that didn't succumb to my foolishness, there are 75 left. I have never posted any comics from Series 1. Series 2 was where I started to take things a bit more seriously, and tried to at least make most of them actually funny, instead of just weird or somewhat amusingly vulgar. I also began to order them, which I didn't do in Series 1, which makes them a bit more cohesive. Because yeah, that's what they needed, cohesion. So, do I sound enough like an asshole yet? Good, now take a deep breath and brace yourself for the coming storm.

When you are ready to continue, please click here.

Two Things

Okay, I've got two things I want to talk about.

First, today is the National Day of Reason. This day is observed in response to the National Day of Prayer, the national holiday declared in 1952 when Harry Truman and the 82nd United States Congress decided that pesky First Amendment was just getting in the way of all the state-sponsored religious fun they could be having. Personally, I'm going to celebrate it by telling random strangers that I think that the separation of church and state is super neat-o keen! So go out and proclaim your love of the Establishment Clause today (and if someone tries to pull the "fact" out of their ass that the Constitutional Convention began with a prayer, you can tell them that was a myth, and what really happened: that Benjamin Franklin suggested this and the rest of the representatives did their best to ignore him and move on). And for those who can't see how having a state-funded day of prayer is offensive, apply this simple test to see if your religious authority has overstepped its bounds. Simply change all references to the religion in question to references to Scientology. If you are appalled, then now you know how the rest of us feel. Please enjoy your Scientology Day of Thetan Acquiescence Auditing.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I am now the top result in the Canadian version of Google for the search string "is there such thing as a purple cat" (in American Google, I'm only the second, boo). I know this because some enterprising young Canadian (I'm actually just assuming on all three of those, actually) found my blog using just such a string, and being so enterprising, and young, and Canadian, clicked on the first link and found themselves on this very blog. Of course, they didn't stay long, as the only thing on the page was a ridiculous short story about doobies and detectives, and absolutely no evidence whatsoever for the existence of violet-colored felines, and thus exited the page, perhaps cursing themselves for being a bit too enterprising for so quickly clicking on such obvious twaddle. Well, nuts to you, my annoyingly enterprising friend from the Great White North, but thank you for bringing to my attention my prominent status in those fine frozen servers that make up Canadian Google. In celebration of this event, I have created the following graphic:







People of Canada, consider this picture to be my gift to you. Here at last is the proof that not only does the purple cat exist, but it is Canadian too! And for your generosity, perhaps I'll mention something about Alberta in my next Shandley short.

Okay, I know it seems like I've been having a bit of fun at the expense of Canada, so as a show of good faith I would like you all to please rise for the Canadian National Anthem. This is definitely not a joke.





See? What could possibly be more serious than that?

Dick Shandley and the Purple Cat Conundrum

Dick Shandley marveled at the object which he now held in his hands. He slowly rotated it around, regarding it from all angles. He reflected on all the hard work he’d put into it, getting it just right, just perfect. Looking at it now, he was certain that he had succeeded. He had just rolled what might be the world’s fattest doobie. He dropped it onto his desk, eliciting a clearly audible thud. This motherfucker, he inferred, was dense. A little too dense, maybe. With a slight bit of trepidation, he picked up the object and placed the end of it in his mouth.

A few moments later, the office began to shimmer, and Dick felt his stomach start to turn as he experienced a sudden jolt, as though the world had just dropped down two and a half feet. As his eyes refocused, he found himself staring at a short haired purple cat sitting at his desk, which in turn was staring at a point approximately six inches behind Dick’s head. Dick removed the joint from his mouth and stared at it in disbelief, not least of all because he hadn’t lit it yet. The purple cat cocked its head at the white, bulging object in the strange man’s hands, wondered for exactly six tenths of a second what was supposedly so damned interesting about it, then set about systematically hunting down a passing speck of dust.

Dick Shandley, now reasonably convinced that the ends of his joint were not the least bit singed, put his mind to working his way around his next mental block, accepting that a purple cat had, thirty seconds ago, spontaneously materialized in his office. He worked out the following premises: firstly, that thirty seconds ago, his office had been completely free of cats, and second, right now there was a cat in front of him. He had no problems with either of those ideas separately, but putting them together caused his brain to just sort of lie back and think of England. He set aside for the moment the fact that the cat was purple, as that was a detail, and Dick found that details only served to slow him down. Much to the agony of his clients, Dick was a sort of big picture private eye. On his last case he had been hired to find some proof of infidelity. Realizing that his target would probably have some suspicion he was being followed, Dick instead tailed a random person. He had tried to explain to the frantic woman how this man he had photographed was a perfect sample of the human condition, and how the way he held his fork in the restaurant implied the adulterous nature of man. This was how Dick had his nose broken for the third time.

Dick looked down at the cat, which had now stretched its purple body out on his floor. At last Dick reasoned that there hadn’t been a cat there before, but there was now, and to just leave it at that. The left and right sides of his brain shook hands and agreed to never speak of it again.

So, now, on to the third and final problem: what was he going to do with this cat? Dick didn’t consider himself to be the type to own a cat, or for that matter any sort of animal, child, or houseplant that would have to depend on him for its survival. At this point, he slid the massive doobie into his coat pocket. He supposed he would have to take it to the animal shelter.

Dick tried to find a box to put the cat into, but the only one he could find was the one his Blackadder DVDs came in, and that obviously wasn’t big enough. In the end he would up just wrapping it up in a bundle of old towels.

On the bus, a man named Lyle Davitian sat across from Dick. For some reason, something about this man with his ugly green coat and his pile of smelly towels caught Lyle’s attention. He wondered why the man had cut so many holes into his towels. As he took all of this in, a small purple head popped out of the end of it. The man quickly shoved it back into the bundle. “A purple cat!” Lyle shouted with amusement. He looked around; everyone on the bus seemed very annoyed with him, and the man with the purple cat simply shook his head at him slowly. When he got home that night, he told his wife, “You know, I saw a purple cat on the bus today.” She said nothing, so he repeated it, a bit louder this time. “That’s nice, dear,” she told him. “I don’t think you heard me properly, honey,” he returned, now getting somewhat cross, “I said it was a PURPLE CAT.” This caused his wife to begin to heave a long sigh, one that didn’t end until they were divorced six months later. Years down the line, he would still tell the story as he drank alone in a different bar each night. “It was that damn cat, it was the start of it all,” he would tell the bartender, “If it wasn’t for the cat, everything would still be like it used to.” Finally, one night Lyle Davitian’s ex-wife came home to find her ex-husband hanging from the rafters of her bedroom by his neck. She collapsed to the floor, her breath too shallow to even afford her full sobs. The only sound that could be heard was the gentle sway of the rope, back and forth. Back and forth.

Dick Shandley stepped off the bus, annoyed at the scene that idiot had caused. He walked into the animal shelter and presented them with the cat that had appeared on his desk. “Oh, not another purple cat,” said the man at the front desk.

“Excuse me?” asked Dick. “What do you mean, ‘another one?’”

“We’ve been getting purple cats in all week, we’re up to our arses in purples cats.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” the man replied, “you look back there, you’ll see nothing but purple cats. Well, we’ve got a couple of hairless ones, and possibly a beagle too, but mostly it’s just purple bloody cats.”

“I see.” This had caught Dick’s attention. Whereas before the color of the cat had been a trifling detail, a matter for the universe to work out on its own, now it represented a pattern. A very small cog in Dick’s brain had moved a quarter turn to the right, filling him with a new vigor. Where he had simply given up before, there was now something in the works far too engaging for him to ignore: an investigation.

“How long has this been going on?” Dick asked the confusingly British man behind the desk.

“Couple of months,” the man replied. “We couldn’t believe it at first, a purple cat. We thought somebody must have dyed it that, but over the next couple of weeks we noticed that the fur was actually growing in purple. It was around that time that someone brought in another one. Boy, if you thought one purple cat caused a commotion, you should have seen the stir that two raised. Of course, within a few weeks they’d be bringing them in every day, and before you know it we’re up to our—”

“Arses, yes, I know,” Dick interrupted. “Was there anything else unusual?”

“Well, now that you mention it, a few days ago this man comes in here asking about purple cats. He wants to know if we had any, or if we’ve seen any. I told him I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

At the sound of this, Dick increased his rate of blinking by about six hundred percent for a few seconds. “Why on earth would you tell him that?” he asked.

“Well, what would you do? A man coming in out of the blue, asking questions about purple cats all of a sudden. Doesn’t that seem a bit suspicious?”

“Well,” offered Dick, “isn’t that what I’m doing right now?”

“Yes, well, you’ve got an honest face.” This comment surprised Dick more than anything that had happened to him this entire day.

“Here,” said the man, offering Dick a business card. “He gave me this, told me to call him if I found any purple cats. Maybe you can make sense of this whole kafuffle.”

Dick looked at the business card. It said, “PurpaCat Industries,” and it had an address and telephone number. On the back of the card was scribbled the name, “Jared Neely.” Dick thanked the man for his information, and set out on his way.

On the bus, Dick was seated next to an incredibly hairy man wearing a sleeveless shirt with his head buried in a newspaper. Every time the bus hit a bump, he could feel this man’s thick, bushy arm hair brushing against him, like he was being scrubbed. He finally got off the bus, really skeeved out and contemplating what bad day it was for bus travel.

Inside the PurpaCat Industries headquarters, Dick had only to peel back a layer of towels in order to get a private meeting with Mr. Neely. When Dick entered the office, the first thing he saw was a young man in an business suit, fresh out of college, or possibly high school, who was obviously scared shitless over the amount of responsibility he had. The youth directed him to sit down.

“So, Mr... Shandley? What brings you to PurpaCat?”

“Well, Mr. Neely, I’d like to know what the deal is with the purple cats.”

“Yeah, uh huh, sure, well, you see the thing is, we’re kind of trying to keep the whole purple cat thing under wraps, so I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t, you know, tell anyone about all this.”

“Oh, yeah,” Dick blustered. “Mum’s the word, I won’t tell a soul. Now spill it.”

“Well, you see,” Jared stammered, “there’s kind of this whole thing, with like the universe and shit, oh, sorry, I mean stuff.”

“Oh no,” said Dick, “shit is fine. Continue.”

“See, whenever something goes wrong with the universe, like someone does something they’re not supposed to do, like go faster than the speed of light or kill their grandfather or something, it makes a purple cat appear. We don’t really know why.”

“Wait, so if I went out right now and killed my grandfather, it would make a purple cat?”

“No, man, you have to like, do it before your parents are born, or something.”

“Oh,” said Dick, “you mean like a paradox.”

“That was the word I was trying to remember! Exactly, so if you cause one of those paradox things, poof! Purple cat. Oh, also some other bad stuff happens too, but the cat is the first sign.”

“Other bad stuff?”

“Like the universe implodes or some shit, I don’t know, there’s some other agency that handles that kind of stuff, around here we mostly just gather up the cats.”

“So what you’re saying, is that because I have this cat right here, the universe is in danger?”

The kid thought about this for a second. “Oh, yeah, good point. You should probably take it to them and get that straightened out.”

Dick had already been to two different places with this cat today, and the idea of getting back on the bus did not appeal to him. “I don’t really have that kind of time, isn’t there something you can do about it here?”

“Um, okay, I guess. What were you doing when the cat appeared?”

“Well, I was in my office, and I was—” In a startling moment of clarity, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his amazing mega-spliff.

“Holy bejeezus!” shouted Jared. “That’s the biggest damn doobie I’ve ever seen! No wonder you broke the space time continuum with that thing!”

“Seriously? I may have just destroyed the universe by rolling out a joint?”

“Hey, there are some things you just don’t fuck around with man. But hey, what are we doing? We’ve got to destroy that thing!” After a moment’s pause, he added, “Um, with fire! Over the course of the next hour or so. And we should probably open the window.”

Dick held it up to the light, the most important joint in the universe. “Well,” he said solemnly, “if that’s what we have to do.”

And that’s how Dick Shandley saved the universe by smoking out with a guy named Jared.

THE END





AND HERE'S A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE KIDDIES:

This Is an Important Post

I would like to reiterate that this is in no way a total waste of time.



















Click here for love.

Your Weekly Schadenfreude, Brought to You by Idiots

I've been trying to avoid any news about this woman who recently gave birth to octuplets (which my spell check tells me isn't even a real word) because really, I just don't care. But, while flipping through channels today I discovered this hilarious new development. Apparently her doctor offered her the option to selectively abort a few of the fetuses so that they wouldn't, you know, kill her on the way out or something. She was told that having that many babies at once, they would have to spend a lot of time in intensive care. Well, the hospital has started tallying up the bill for that hospital stay. They estimate that the eight weeks of care will cost $2500 per day, PER BABY. For everyone who isn't a genius who did the math in their heads instantly just now, that works out to a total of just over...

ONE MEEEEEEELLION DOLLARS!

So yeah, since she apparently already has 6 other kids, this woman now has 14 children, no job, and one million dollars in debt.

I've done some stupid things in my life, but I take great comfort in the fact that I've never done anything this dumb.

How to Save an Industry

So, I was just watching the Daily Show, and as the guest they had on the show one Walter Isaacson, who wrote the cover story on this month’s Time Magazine. It’s about how print journalism is dying because everyone gets their news for free on the web (if you want to read this article, you can easily find it for free on the web). In it, he lays out that the problem is that people have come to expect free news, and that internet advertising no longer is a viable business plan. And what is the solution? According to Mr. Isaacson, it’s that most hated of business models, micropayments.

Here’s the thing about micropayments. Even though they seem to actually work, this is largely because they’re the only game in town for digital distribution. Nobody actually like buying songs one at a time on Itunes, but that’s the only legal way to buy digital music. And besides that, it’s a completely different industry. Mr. Isaacson, you cannot simply steal an idea from another field and call it innovation, it doesn’t work that way. A song at least is a complete product; could you imagine someone selling individual pages from a magazine or newspaper? And how much do you charge for a single story? A newspaper costs 50 cents, so how much does that make one story worth? Some fraction of a cent? Do you have to pay one penny for every three stories you access? In that case, can’t you just keep creating new accounts every two stories and never have to pay for your super-premium content? And perhaps the biggest question of all: why would I bother with any of this when there will always be people willing to provide your service for free?

You see, Mr. Isaacson, the problem isn’t people’s browsing habits, or flashy new business schemes. As a journalist, you would think that you would already know what matters the most in this business: content. Ever heard the saying, “content is king?” If you can provide something people can’t get elsewhere, then people will be willing to pay for it. If you can’t get people to subscribe, that says more about your publication than it does about the general public. If you were at a bake sale, and someone was selling bags of dog shit marked “candy,” and another stand was giving away free muffins, and they were delicious, which one would you give your patronage to? The fact is, the internet is providing better coverage, better journalism than you, and they’re doing it all for free.

The problem is the print journalism industry itself. These days most publications just take a few stories off the Associated Press, change a few words, and if they can be bothered make a couple phone calls for some pull quotes. It’s become tired and bored, and much like the recording industry instead of trying to provide a more meaningful service when its very existence becomes called into question, it instead seeks to railroad the people who care enough about their profession to take their passion directly to the people. Instead of complaining or grasping at straws, why not reinvigorate yourselves? You have more resources than the bloggers do, you could very easily do a better job than them. That they are reporting circles around you with no press passes or foreign correspondents is absolutely pathetic.

Mr. Isaacson, while bringing up your article, I was subjected to no less than six spaces reserved for advertising, and a very large pop-up, as well as four separate links to subscribe to the print version of the magazine. Also, the article is cleverly split into four parts, so every page turn pulls up a new set of ads. Of the entire page that your article appears on, about 30% of it is content. Not that I am complaining, this is the price we pay for free journalism (though in Time’s case, it is a bit ridiculous), but if you can’t make money with 28 separate revenue streams per article, per reader, plus the cost of print subscriptions, then you have no business running a company. You probably shouldn’t even be running a lemonade stand, because you would be spending six million dollars for every lemon you squeeze. You say that online publishing cannot be supported by advertising dollars, yet the people who are driving you out of business don’t seem to have any trouble doing so.

In your article, you mention how the Wall Street Journal has been successful with an online subscription model. This is because the Wall Street Journal actually has content. Which is exactly my point. In fact, it’s kind of odd that you bother to mention it since its success flies in the face of the argument you are trying to make. The Wall Street Journal is absolutely essential to people in business. They use their resources to find facts and figures that most people don’t have access to, and they provide worthwhile expert analysis. Publications that can’t manage to stay relevant will die off. Sorry, but it’s a competitive industry.

So, to Walter Isaacson and every one else trying to defend the print industry by whining and stamping your foot, please shut the hell up. Pull yourselves together, you work in the single most important field in the world, the one that the founders of the United States of America thought so essential that they guaranteed it as the first enumerated freedom of our Constitution. You have an incredible responsibility to the public, and the fact that someone snatched the torch away from you means that you weren’t fulfilling our expectations. Stop acting like children, and start acting like fucking journalists.

A Writer's Journey: Part 3 - Journey's End

Well. It's been three weeks, and here we are. I've held a lot of jobs in these past three weeks, and made several attempts at what those of the writing persuasion call "the Life." I tried writing for a nature magazine, but my article, "Marmots: the Silent Strangler of Small Children" received so much negative feedback that they had to let me go. So too was met my canceled-far-too-soon column in Highlights Magazine, "the Anarchist's Cookbook for Tots." Perhaps a more moderate success was my attempt at an advice column, entitled "Eli Says Shut the Fuck Up." Because of the profanity in the title and spaced every four words throughout the text, it was only picked up by the Seattle Sanguinerican; and though it received positive feedback from all four of the publication's subscribers, I unfortunately can't pay my bills with the rendered payment of "all our hopes and best wishes, man." And of course, the less said about my travelogue of the Mediterranean that landed me in front of the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal, the better.

I guess what I'm trying to say, internets, is that while I was dejectedly bouncing from failure to failure, occasionally popping into dark alleys to avoid Interpol agents before changing my face and name, all I could think about is the good times we had. Back before all this heartbreak and deadly games of cat and mouse, writing was fun. I used to love sharing my thoughts and opinions here, and I never once had to kill a stranger in cold blood to procure a counterfeit passport. So, in the interest of my emotional stability and personal safety, I'm returning to what I know.

The world of professional writing is an enticing and alluring one, but it is one best left to the professionals. But, I know there are people out there, people who are born to be professional writers, people for whom failure is an aphrodisiac, who thrive on self-destruction, and aren't afraid of having their fingers broken by men in suits in a sunless room deep in a small fortress that appears on no map, somewhere off the coast of Ibiza; and perhaps, perhaps there are some of those people reading this blog right now who have the requisite nerves of steel, or perhaps valuable state secrets with which to bargain, but have no idea what to write about. Well, fear not, potential example, for I, in my infinite compassion, have decided help you out.

What follows is a list of story fragments I have written, and each one is virtually guaranteed to inspire the next New York Times Bestseller. All you have to do is take the fragment, the "heart" of the story, if you will, and surround it on each side with a hundred pages or so of exposition and resolution. Simple, right? And because I'm such a generous guy, I will provide these royalty free. All I ask in return is that the dedication page of your book read, "To Eli Derbestershire, without whom none of this would be possible, and I would be a complete failure in every sense of the word." Again, a mere pittance, in exchange for what I'm providing you.

And now, the stories:

“I’m going to kill you!” the man shouted, pointing his finger at me. “I’m going to kill you until you are dead.” Then he walked away and I never saw him again.

--

Everyone knows that Jumbilaxes hunt in groups of three. That’s why I always carry a spare Junmbilax with me wherever I go. It worked perfectly until the day we stumbled upon two sleeping Jumbilaxes…

--

“Back in World War II, we used to use them as candleholders,” the old man explained. “Sometimes just for a bit of Sunday tea.” I had no idea what he was talking about.

--

It was Jackie’s 17th birthday. There it was in front of her, the only thing she had ever wanted. The complete destruction of the universe.

--

The smell drifted down through the darkness, between the dripping pipes down to the three frightened figures huddled on the floor. It forced itself into their nostrils, clawing its way through the walls of the nasal cavity, all the way to the olfactory center of the brain. “Bacon!” shouted the Professor, “Of course, it all makes sense now!”

--

My father used to tell me, a man only needs two things to be happy: the love of a good person, and a rockin’ personal theme song written by the Pretenders just for him. Now if only I could find someone to love me…

--

Lieutenant Belfast could not believe his eyes. The Captain, murdered, and right in front of him no less. Sitting back in his armchair and taking a sip of his Blue Hawaiian, he knew it was going to be one of those days.

--

74,000 people used to live in this town. Then they moved to that town over there.

--

“Wherefore!” shouted the man in the silly raincoat. He did not know wherefore.

--

Only a vampire could know how to use the Doomsday Machine, or so said the common wisdom. Wexley knew better, for in his experience most vampires were fucking retarded.

--

The guns finally fell silent. The soldiers, not knowing what to do, simply looked at each other. Was it a trap, a clever ruse to get them to peak out, maybe venture out in the open before beginning the barrage again? Or had the impossible happened? Had they finally achieved peace? Maybe the war was over. Maybe they could finally go home, and see their families for the first time in several very long months. The captain tentatively pulled himself over the edge of the bunker. It was unbelievable! The enemy was retreating! The men whooped and hollered, caps were thrown into the air, when suddenly, like a gunshot, from within their own ranks someone let out a tremendous fart. The captain looked up just in time to see the enemy artillery spinning back around to face them...

--

"Oh my god, is that a bear?!" the worried patron shouted. "No," I replied, "that is not a bear."

Shakily translated from a foreign language version:

"Oh my god, is that bear?"
"No," said man, "is not bear."

--

"How often does it do that?" asked the bank manager. "Constantly," replied Jenna. "It is always doing that?"

--

"Maria, it's over between us. I could never love you now. I'm going to go sleep in the Corridor of Eternal Flame."

--

The promotion offered one full grown African rhino in exchange for 14 bottlecaps. One one level, Douglas knew what he was getting, but on another, more practical level, he was kind of a dumbass.

--

The TV came on by itself; its light played across the faces in the dark room. "Who wants to kill themselves?" it cheerfully inquired. The youths conferred amongst themselves, finally announcing that none of them did. The TV apologized for its intrusion, and turned itself back off.

--

Miley Cyrus stared deeply into her burrito, focusing all of her sad thoughts into it. She devoured it, confident that soon she would poop all her sorrows away.

A Writer's Journey: Part 2

Okay, so my plan did not go so well. Even though I sent my manuscript out to every publisher and built up a good buzz here on my blog, nearly 48 hours have gone by without anyone offering me a contract. But that’s when I realized: not everyone makes it that way. The number of unknown authors who get novels published on their first try is actually quite small (who knew?). So instead of starting at the top, I guess I’ve got to find a somewhat thankless writing job and work my way up from there. Fortunately, I have already acquired that job, writing jokes for the Good Humour Popsicle Corporation. And I’m so excited, I can’t just sit around furtively watching small children slowly eat popsicles just so I can get some feedback on my work, so I’ve decided to share my first batch here. Please let me know what you think.

Q: Why did the dentist bring a file to work?

A: He was feeling a little long in the tooth.


Q: Why did the elephant buy a PDA?

A: It needed help managing its tusks.


Q: What did Delaware?

A: That sentence contains no verb, and therefore is grammatically meaningless.


Q: Why did the alligator cross the road?

A: It was anti-semetic and there were some Jewish people next to it.


Q: How much did the chicken’s abortion cost?

A: A poultry sum.


Q: Why did the rubber fly off the dick?

A: It was pissed off.
(credit to your friend, the fool for this one)


Q: Why did the rabbit shoot itself in the head?

A: It was having a hare-ible day.


Q: In which country can a horse be king?

A: France.


Q: Why did the boy throw his clock out the window?

A: Because he is a naughty child, and he will rot in the pit of Perdition for all eternity for his crime, where ravenous birds will peck apart his flesh for all eternity, and every night his flesh will be restored so that the monstrous process can begin anew.


Q: What did Hitler say to his chamber pot?

A: I don’t know, I don’t speak German.


Q: What did the snow say to the mountain?

A: “I’m better than you in every way. Including sexual performance.”


Q: What was the name of Shakespeare’s dog?

A: Fuckface.


Q: What is the worst crime?

A: Raping and murdering one’s own entire extended family, then blowing up a very important bridge.


UPDATE: I’ve been fired!

A Writer's Journey: Part 1

There comes a time in a person’s life when he has to let go of the comfortable, peaceful life, and accomplish something truly great. I feel this time has come for me, to become what I’ve always suspected I’d become someday, a professional writer.

There are only two things required to become a professional writer: A kickass blog (check) and a pair of eyeglasses (check and check). As you can see, I possess both of these things, and am therefore, a professional writer waiting to happen. Well, then I shall not struggle against inevitability for much longer, and give in to my true destiny.

Like most people with spectacles and a blog, I have of course written a novel. This is no big secret, for if you have been around writers for long, you will find that those who have not been published yet have written exactly one novel. Perhaps you will be discussing a type of fine quiche, and they will mention that the specific quiche you mentioned just happens to be the quiche of choice of the main character of their novel. Or maybe you will be talking about Johnny Carson, and your writer friend may say, “Johnny Carson, say, he has hands, doesn’t he? You know who else has hands? The characters in my novel.”

But, dear reader, I am not here to bore you with the details and structure of hands, for I am sure there are less mundane, and less retarded aspects of my book that you would like to hear about. My novel is entitled, “Jake Headstrong, Freelance Pugilist, in the Case of the Estonian Phosphorite Conflict.” Hopefully you can glean much of the story’s plot from the title, namely that the main theme of the story is the international intrigue and espionage over Estonia’s coveted phosphorite minerals. In this setting, Jake Headstrong, a bespectacled professional writer and soldier of fortune with nerves of steel, biceps of rough, tanned leather, and a kickass blog, is called in by the United States government to solve a crisis brewing in Eastern Europe. The reader is then invited to thrill in the escapades of Jake Headstrong’s straightforward, take no prisoners approach to the keeping of peace and the kicking of asses.

It would, of course, be quite impossible to publish all 619 chapters, 4,890 pages worth of action, adventure, and romance to this blog, not to mention that someone could easily steal my work and pass it off as their own. But then, it would be equally cruel to deprive you of it entirely, so in the spirit of compromise I have agreed to post a sample chapter for your enjoyment. Be aware, however, that this is one of the slower chapters, giving Jake a chance to catch his breath after a huge action scene. It is presented here merely to whet your appetite, and prepare you for the excitement ahead should you choose to buy a copy of my book (forthcoming).

In the meantime, set back, and enjoy this sample from:


Jake Headstrong, Freelance Pugilist
in
the Case of the Estonian Phosphorite Conflict

Chapter 62 - National Security

“You’re safe for now, Mr. President,” Jake Headstrong said to the president. “Those ninjas won’t bother you now.” The President awoke to find himself laying on the sofa in the Oval Office. Jake Headstrong turned away from the President and quietly kissed his two fists, Rapscallion and Haymaker. Before turning back to the President, Rapscallion grabbed a huge cigar from his pocket, and Haymaker obliged him with a light.

“Thank you so much, Mr. Headstrong,” the President blubbered. “I don’t know what I would have done without you. I’m so sorry, I’m just not strong enough to run this country!”

Before he could comprehend what was happening, Haymaker was slamming into the President’s chin, lifting him off the ground. As the President landed, he heard Jake Headstrong’s gruff voice shouting at him, “Snap out of it Mr. President! Fine, if you won’t run this country, then I will.”

Without warning, Jake picked up the red phone on the desk, and shouted into it, “now hear this! This is Jake Headstrong, and I’ll be in charge of things from now on.” He slammed the phone down without noticing the confused voice of the Russian diplomat on the other end. From there he marched directly into the War Room.

The men inside the War Room did not know who this man was, but they stood at attention as soon as he entered. Jake Headstrong took one look the screen, and said, “this situation in Iran is getting ridiculous. Let’s just bomb them.”

The Secretary of Defense sheepishly raised his hand. “Um, sir,” he said, “you want to bomb the whole country of Iran?”

“That’s what I said,” Jake Headstrong bellowed back at him, “and when I say I want something done, that means I want it done now.”

“But sir, the sheer amount of explosives, not to mention the diplomatic recours--" The Secretary’s protest was interrupted by Rapscallion entering his skull through his right temple, and exiting through the back of his skull. “I am now also the Secretary of Defense, as well as the President,” Jake declared. The rest of the cabinet silently nodded in agreement.

Jake Headstrong’s next order of business was to address the United Nations. “I want Marine One in the air right now,” he shouted at someone whose name he didn’t know. “Sir,” the frightened voice came back, “Marine One is fueled and ready to go. It can take off as soon as you arrive.”

“God damn it man, there’s no time! Get that bird in the air now!” As the aide, or whatever he was, stuttered into the radio for the helicopter to take off. Jake Headstrong, meanwhile, was already climbing the stairs to the White House roof, taking them six at a time. Bursting his way onto the roof, he sprinted toward the rising helicopter. With a majestic leap, Haymaker and Rapscallion soon found themselves wrapped around the landing gear of Marine One. Jake Headstrong pulled himself up into the helicopter. “Pilot,” he said, “I need to get to UN Headquarters, and make the post be haste.” The pilot slowly turned around, revealing himself to be AN 800 POUND GRIZZLY BEAR!

Using its ability to run at a top speed of 40 kilometers per hour, the bear rushed at Jake Headstrong at a rate of 38 kilometers per hour. It swiped a mighty paw at Jake, tearing his shirt off and leaving a gigantic oozing red claw mark across his chest. Jake, for his part, did not seem to notice this. Instead he wound up his arm, and planted a firm Rapscallion right in the hairy beast’s mouth, knocking all of its teeth out. The bear fell to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. “Don’t worry, noble creature,” Jake said soothingly, “I’ll make it quick.” He quickly straddled the great beast, and wrapped his arms around its head, solemnly snapping its neck.

It was then that Jake Headstrong noticed the chopper was losing altitude...