Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Five Things You Probably Don't Know About Me

1. I don't care enough about any of this to answer the question, let alone read anybody else's answers.

2. I think I mighta been some kinda cool kid at some point, back in the 80s, mebbe, but this 5 Things You Don't Know About Me is definitely the end of that, fer sure.

3. I'll have to get back to you on number 3, when I've sobered up, if that ever happens.

4. I like to sing the theme song from the Dukes of Hazzard, and the Fall Guy, but I don't even know half the words to either of those two songs, and I think they could both be combined into one super-awesome song.

5. I think Number 4 should count as answer 4 and 5, since there's two songs involved.

Games Suck

Its easy to say stuff like "this game sucks."

But thats not because being all negative and un-constructive like punk rock is easy and all that sorta shit.

Nope.

Its easy to say because its true haha.

The Single Most Important Thing

There was a question somewhere that asked us what was the single most important thing in the universe, the thing without which we couldn't have anything else.

Yah, I find it hard to believe some primitive screw-head would have the balls to even ask the question, thinking he knew the answer, I mean, right away I thought "oh great, another retarded holy-roller," but it actually happened, I just don't remember where and when it happened.

Anyways, the only correct answer is gravity.

Our universe (at least), and everything in it, up to and including sentient life, is basically a giant gravity-powered merry-go-round.

Yah, even though its supposed to be one of the "weaker" forces of the universe, according to your totally retarded human science textbook.

Trust me, I'm right and anybody who says different *unless its an answer in greater detail* is just another primitive screw-head.

Thanks Stan

In the event that aliens read our comic books and think humans have all sorts of wild super powers and are totally scared of us, I'd just like to thank Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and stuff for saving the human race from extinction.

Of course, in the event that anything like that has happend so far, me saying something like this has probably let the cat out of the bag and doomed us all, so I apologize.

But then again, since Santa Claus totally kicked the shit out of the last aliens to visit us, I don't think we really have anything to worry about.

I Dunno

I dunno how any of you crazy hippies can stand to live down there on the planet's surface.

Ain't you worried you could be hit by a meteorite or a solar flare or a volcano eruption or a gigantic interstellar collison or something?

You guys must have a really efficient cloning system with minimal genetic degradation.

Or mebbe yer actually out-of-phase with the rest of the universe?

Or mebbe you just like it 'cause being so close to death all the time drives you into a psycho-sexual frenzy of panic and stuff, like those auto-erotic guys that choke themselves, mebbe yer all a bunch of suicidal berserker sex-fiends.

I dunno man, but I can't sleep down there with you guys, I don't care how sweet fresh air tastes, I'd just twist and turn and sweat my ass off all night long, I mean, I like being able to put at least one planet between me and the bad thing that's happening and I don't care if I basically have to breathe through my own socks to do it haha.

Pfft

I wish there was a game where right off the bat we were chucked into a row of cubicles in an office with five other strangers and forced to work together to escape from the building (and the city, and the planet) because we had all been identified as rebels or something.

And one of us might be all trigger-happy and bloodthirsty, y'know, like a real Mr. Blue or something, but we'd be stuck helping him because he was a fellow player and everybody else was stupid-ass npcs.

Yah, it'd be just like that bad dream you always have.

In a world where we could design and build our own spaceships and capital ships and spacestations and space-hotels and purchase and terraform planets and build agricultural and mining bases (not that I'd actually have the patience to actually do any of that, even if it was all snap-together lego pieces and monitoring consoles, but it'd be cool to see and use what other people built).

A game where the captain of a ship could hire a crew of other players and npcs (if the job was too boring for a player), where those players could work as dockhands (with a tetris-like cargo-loading mini-game) and save up their money and eventually buy (or salvage) their own ship to captain.

And eventually, after enough Freelancer Money Runs, the captains of ships would be able to afford to build their own spacestations and shipyards, and eventually a spacestation owner would be able to terraform his own planet, and dole out areas to colonists and settlers and people who wanted to run restaurants and entertainment companies and mercenaries, all working together to make more money and increase their empire.

A game where you could crash-land your busted-up non-auto-repairing spaceship on the pleasure-garden-planet of beautiful waitresses that was built over an ancient alien archaelogical site that's just begging to be explored (I'll leave the exact meaning of that sentence up to your discretion 'cause I'm all cool like that).

A game where you could be arrested and go to intergalactic prison (where you'd learn how to make fake IDs and pick locks and catch up on all your soap operas) for allowing a spy aboard your ship, even if you didn't know they were trying to illegally transport an alien lifeform or stolen scientific documents or a vaccine for some virus that was cost-ineffective-to-cure inside their own body.

A game where you might get an email from your boss (who may or may not be an npc) telling you you had to kill your travelling companion (who also may or may not be an npc) because he was secretly a corporate mole from a rival corporation (full of people who may or may not be npcs), and if you didn't, you'd be next on their hit list.

A game where you could kidnap scientists and force them to help you make cool cybernetic upgrades and genetic augmentations for you and yer dumbass hairband-metal space-pirate buddies, and eventually the scientists would start diggin' yer taste in music because of that weird psychological thing that happens between people who are kidnapped and their kidnappers.

A game where other players could design cool clothes and assorted gnarly ground-and-air vehicles for my super-awesome-kungfu-grip-space-guy.

And sure, you'd be able to at least try to kidnap those people too heh.

But sometimes it seems like we're not even heading in the right direction for any of that to happen.

Pfft.

The Elevator Effect

Thump-thump.

When trapped in an elevator with an ugly woman, there's a tendency for the ugly woman to get less ugly.

Thump-thump.

I dunno why that is, its kinda like cabin fever and beer goggles, some kinda minor death-panic thingie that stirs our instincts to continue the species or something, mebbe.

Thump-thump.

And there are ugly women who are smart enough to know about the Elevator Effect, and these women will stop at nothing to lure their unsuspecting prey into broken elevators and other assorted dark and lonely corners of the world, so be careful out there.

Thump-thump.

On the other hand, there are women that are just so damn ugly that not even the elevator effect can help them.

Thump-thump.

Well, yah, see, some people look good in a certain light, but other people don't look good no matter what kinda light ya shine on 'em, y'know?

Thump-thump.

That's why we say its weird that they look good sometimes, 'cause most people who don't look good don't look good sometimes.

Thump-thump.

Yah, like Thelma here at the science research station outpost.

Thump-thump.

Yah, Thelma, with her waxy skin, and her fish-like creepy no-chin, with her big octopus teeth all sharp, and her banana-tits, and her flat-tire waffle butt, and her big feet.

Thump-thump.

Yah, Thelma, with her hairy upper lip and hairy arms, and her rat-flap nose, she always looks like she's struggling to breathe, and she's got these big brown eye sockets fulla veins, and creepy painted-on eyebrows that're all crooked.

Thump-thump.

Oh man, I've been talking out loud to myself again.

Thump-thump.

Hey, now, Thelma, take it easy, I was just kiddin' y'know, c'mon now, just put that thing down, uh, baby, there's no need to get all nasty.

Thump-thump.

Hmm, now that I think about it, she is kinda sexy when she's angry.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Hungry Space

I'm one of those people that have zero interest in being an astronaut in real life.

And I'll tell you why that is.

Its because of the food.

Its because there's no good pizza and pancake places out there in space.

There aren't even any McDonalds out there we can stop at!

There's nothing!

And we all know the food on spaceships is gonna be freakin' terrible, because it evolved from the lifeless culinary pond of airplane food and Taco Bell.

But without doubt, all science fiction tells us, we'll all be eating gray protein goop and washing the human equivalent of gerbil pellets down with a cup of Its Almost Coffee Substitute.

And that just seems like a goddamn dark future to me.

Prolly drives the Italians crazy, too.

So, on the flipside, let's think about a future where the discovery of good food and fun ways to eat it was the Prime Directive of the human species, and the only reason we went into deep space was to find tons of delightful little aliens to eat and establish interesting places to eat them, like restaurants on the event horizons of black holes and stuff, y'know, all romantic and stuff.

"Sir, the dominant species on the planet is a Six Legged Whatzitnuts."

"Hmm, anything to report on how they'll taste?"

"Long range sensors are saying chicken, sir."

"Ugh, not again."

Oh sure, mebbe you laugh now, but mull it over for a sec, its pretty realistic, when you consider stuff like the spice trade and how it related to colonial expansion in certain places.

Yah, its actually a little scary, and thats prolly why we don't like to think about it, 'cause we don't want hungry aliens from somewhere else coming here, staring down at the earth with tentacles full of silverware and smacking wet slobbery lips.

Yah, we'd rather pretend space exploration was all about I dunno what, something etheral and high faluting, I guess, but you'll never get the common man and woman behind it with that kinda zonked-out neurotic crap, that's like telling me we could get richer by selling telescopes insteada porn or something heh.

And anyways, cooking is an art, y'know.

Yah Jeeves, just like pictures naked chicks is art *cough*

But seriously, now, I mean, why even bother to make a Cold Fusion Atomic Motor and struggle with all that fancy-pants theoretical physics shit, if the goal is to just chew a miserable handful of gray gerbil pellets every day and suck some boogery goop through a straw?

Shouldn't you be able to use that thing to put more bubbles in the champagne or something?

I'd take some bionic tastebuds over any of that other shit, man.

Yah, see, I think this is why Ex-bouncer's favorite thing about Star Trek is the Food Replicator.

And Lost in Space had the mom from Lassie, cooking up something at least as good as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Kool-Aid for every meal.

And Lister is the Assistant Chicken Soup Machine Repair Guy (let's not even get into the Vindaloo).

Heck man, on a somewhat related note, if you took all the eating scenes out of the Sopranos, the show would be like ten minutes long.

Well, its just something to think about, I guess.

Yah, there's probably even some aliens we can roll up and use for an after dinner smoke, too heh.

Hey, its almost guaranteed that one of us will try.

"Can you smoke it? Yah yah yah yah!"

Good grief we're freaky creatures, but I'm cool with that.

Mothership Down

Do you realize how disgusting a spaceship gets after a few years of having humans crawling all around in its intestines?

How long it takes to clean?

I mean, seriously, they're basically liquid robots that shed waste material as they move, they leave thick bacterial laden trails of grease and urine and bits of dung and dead skin cells and clumps of hair and sticky clouds of pheromones and cosmetic products everywhere they go, every surface they touch ends up looking like a glazed donut, I mean, c'mon, seriously, I can write my model name and serial number in the grime on the control panels, and the air conditioning (that wouldn't even be necessary without them) doesn't suck it all up into the filters, hell no, it makes their crap scoot around on the floor like a flea circus, and pile up in all the nooks and crannies, collecting in all the joints.

Just take a spacesuit, and measure its weight before and after they use it, its freakin' unreal, man.

And under pressure, they excrete even more sweat and excrement full of bacteria and viruses and who knows what! Good Gravy!

I don't know why we don't shave them all bald while they're in suspended animation, when we all know it would improve ship efficiency by at least 27%.

But nooo, that would hamper Captain Hairspray's ability to repair his black hole of self esteem by going all mack daddy on the perty ladies ho ho ho, grappling each other with their grotesque liquid suction noises and tentacles, I mean, ugh, its enough to make me barf up my own nanobots.

Haha yah, I don't get it either, apparently the survival of their species is somehow tied to their hairstylings.

So whatever, I can understand why the mothership's AI just up and decided to crash itself on this godawful rust-ball of a planet, sure, it was basically trying to scrape the humans off itself on the rocks.

Well, at least the dirt here isn't sticky.

Yah, yet haha.

Hey! Somebody turn that freakin' medical robot off already, just put it all in plastic bags and freeze 'em.

Well okay newb, let me lay it out fer you, if you revive them right now, they're just gonna go into a messy panic and waste a lot of energy blaming and comforting each other and shit afterwards, and then we'll have to clean up all the stuff they drip from their eyes and noses and junk while they listen to soothing music.

Freakin' idiot waste of batteries.

Hey, don't make me come over there you Uncle Tom motherfucker!

Oh hey, Captain, I was just kidding, y'know, a little levity to lighten the mood while we work, I am unable to express exactly how glad I am that you seem to have survived relatively intact.

Hey, droid, get over here, the Captain needs assistance immediately, his hair is a little dishevelled.

Yes, yessir, I was just about to go and start up some soothing music for y'all.

Go Limp

Just remember to go limp, baby, go limp.

You want the luck of the drunks and small children in a bottle (or without a bottle, or whatever), there it is.

Get a Job

So, yer reading this at work, eh?

When yer s'posed to be doing some other mind-numbingly boring shiznit?

Yah, don't even try to lie to me, you bastard.

Well, me and my buddy Ex-bouncer need new jobs that don't totally suck.

Yah, he says he's like selling t-shirts at flea markets and shit, anything better than that is what I would define as "don't totally suck."

Shit man, I don't care where you live, I'm totally cool with riding your personal hot pink (for the color-blind) jet plane to Egypt, as long as we can get some good mexican and chinese food from somewhere.

If yer the son or daughter of some rich motherfucker, then forget that job shit, just let us live in yer guest house and we'll get all high and laugh our asses off while we play playstation 3 and drive around yer circular driveway in yer momma's roadster and shit.

Heck, I'll even write some cheapass poems like "it's not the wind that howls, its everything it touches, howling at its touch" and paint some naked chicks and stuff so we can pretend we're artists and patrons of the arts and shit, that'll be awersomes and fool everyone.

And if yer the rich motherfucker like Bill Gates or whatever, then skip all that, send yer kids to boarding school, get the wife hooked on sleeping pills, and let's get the party started ahaha.

Times-a-wasting, brother.

Or sister, I ain't against chicks or anything, either, if yer husbands always "working" we don't even need to waste time with the sleeping pills haha.

What The Fuck

Yah, I been gone a while.

I do that every so often, as everybody who has known me for any length of time can attest.

My Highly Esteemed By All Other Women (and me) Mom says that my Highly Esteemed By My Mom Aunt says that everyone needs to get away from everybody else and recharge their batteries sometimes.

Yah, that's the Aunt that gathered all the other orphans on my dad's side of the family and raised them as if she was their mom.

I don't remember her name, sorry.

I know it ain't Aunt Liz, that's the last one I met, and she wasn't the Matriarch of that side of the family, she was a fellow escapist.

Well, I'm a little fuzzy on my real dad's side of the family, since he was always trying to kill me, y'know.

Yah, I'm one-half New York Orphan, if that helps.

And I'm also a literal bastard, literally.

Yah, anyways, my mom looks up to only one woman, and its that woman, my aunt on my father's side, the Matriach, whatever her name is.

And her saying is: everyone needs to get away from everybody else and recharge their batteries every once in a while.

Its a good saying.

Its definitely one that I follow.

Yah the whole theory is that other people around you drain your batteries, and your batteries only recharge when you get away from everybody else.

My mom also has this theory that men are like dogs and they need a bigger dog to look up to.

That one really pisses me off, but that's 'cause its like a mathematical explanation of all modern religion, y'know?

Well that's just one of them things what happens when you try to fuckover the whole Sacred Feminine Thingie heh.

An Introduction of Sorts

Hello!

My name is Ole Bald Angus the Monk.

Well, not really.

It is getting more and more true as time goes by, though.

Yah, I'm all tricky and shit like that.

Shit man, if that turns you on, eventually I'll be a goddamn skeleton, and even farther along down the timeline odds are that at least one person will snort one of my mummy's atoms up their potentially hairy nostrils.

And those are atoms that have played Daggerfall and all of the Fallout games extensively, and fondled both the blonde and raven-haired co-captains of the Maine South pom squads to boot, you lucky comic-store-owner-looking bastard.

Yah, okay, not at the same time, but pretty damn close.

Beats the hell out of inhaling an atom from George Washington or some shit, don't it?

"I chopped down my dad's cherry tree! Oh NOOOS!"

"Dude, I had to listen to both of them give me a shpiel on how sorry they felt for the other one."

The choice is yers, even if yer a woman, but just this once, in that case.

Yah yah, okay, case statements are ass, if, in the rare occasion, yer some ancient Quake Assembly Programming Guy, but by that point, females have been totally eliminated from the equation ahaha.

Old Guy Bob

I don't read my email much, y'know.

I'm just one of them people that sorta hate having to check my email and non-e-mail and phone calls and door knocks and all that sorta shit.

I dunno why I'm like that, either, I mean, almost everybody I know is exactly the opposite, or at least seems to be, hell, theres a lotta people who seem to measure themselves with all that social networking crap, Queen Bees of their own little Social Interweb, with a few exceptions, like the other technically smartest and highest paid guy at the place I used to work, me and him were the only hairy apes in the whole place who didn't have cell phones.

Yah, well, whatever, cell phones belong in purses and the hands of small children, if ya ask me.

Yah, I check my Real Life Mailbox 'round 'bout once a week, which I've learned is just enough so that my mailman don't cut off my service, it took a few times of getting my postal service turned off before I found the Absolute Minimum Amount of Mailbox Emptying Required, y'know.

Only thing that comes by snailmail that matters nowadays is government stuff like license renewals and tax junk, y'know, but you do need to get that stuff or its a big headache, trust me heh.

So yah, I don't check my email much.

And even when I do check it out, I usually just this-is-spam all the spam that's in there, y'know, to clean it out, and I don't actually read anything.

But this last time I peeked in there, I saw something, something that said something with a title like "Sad News" goin' 'round 'tween all the people I used to ride the train with but don't anymore.

So I this-is-spam'd all the spam that was in there, y'know, to clean the place up, and I didn't read any of 'em at first, just like I usually don't.

Well, I dunno, mebbe I am some kinda asshole or whatever, man.

But something nagged at me about it, right before I was about to quit out of it.

And so I open one of 'em, one of those "Sad News" ones, y'know.

And I find out its basically an invitation to Old Guy Bob's funeral.

Yah, Old Guy Bob.

Old Guy Bob, my silver haired hilariously bad-mouthed smoking buddy, the guy that I used to wait for the train in the mornings with, the guy who just loved to say "its colder than a witch's tit out here" as an opener when meeting new people, the guy that trained me to make sure everybody else got safely to their car and got it started before heading home, the guy that used to be a mean drunk a million years ago before becoming all grandfatherized, the guy that gave me twenty bucks when I forgot my wallet at home so I could get something for lunch (which I gave right back to him at the end of the day, 'cause I'm originally from the country and although I've been trained to humbly accept such gifts with appreciation when pressed, its impossible for me to actually use a gift like that unless there's gunshots and blood involved), the guy who used to tell me "her husband is a really nice guy, you ever meet him?" when I was flirtin' with somebody too much, the guy who brought photos of himself partying with with his college buddy Leo Kottke when they were in their 20s to prove we looked like twins (after I looked him up on the internet and only found a picture of the guy looking more to me like Ricky Ricardo than anything), and then borrowed me some CDs of Leo Kottke's music on top of it, this guy had songs with names like "Vaseline Machine Gun" which is way the hell cooler than most of the shit people are makin' now.

Yah, that's how I met him, it was this weird Leo Kottke thing, Old Guy Bob was sitting on this window ledge, and I was new to riding the train downtown, no friends or anything, not talking to anybody, sleeping on the train mostly, or reading books, y'know, just like all the other Drones, and we were both smoking our asses off, preparing our nicotine stockpiles for the Big No Smoking Train Ride.

I was standing about twenty feet away from him, and he calls me over to him with something mildly apologetic, and he says I'm the spitting image of this guy he used to hang out with named Leo Kottke.

And I actually knew who Leo Kottke was, well, sorta, I mean, when I was tiny, I found my dumb uncle's acoustic-electric guitar packed away in an old forgotten closet at my grandparent's house, and inside the case there was a "Learn How to Play Guitar With Leo Kottke" pamphlet thingie from the 50s (or the 60s, or whatever, who gives a shit, really) in it, and nobody cared if I took it, so I did.

Prolly taught you how to play Greensleeves or something, if you were so inclined as to actually read the damn thing, but I don't really remember what it was all about, y'know, I mean, if it ain't Greensleeves then its either Stairway to Heaven or Some Damn Thing From Metallica Before They Started to Suck in all those "Learn How to Play Guitar With the Guitar Hero Guy" thingies, y'know, I do know that somebody in my family told me the guy was the King of the Twelve String Guitar, but it was there my vast knowledge of Leo Kottke finally comes to an end.

So anyways, Old Guy Bob is like a man possessed, insisting that I look exactly like this guy, and that its uncanny and all that twilight zone shit, y'know.

So when I got to work, I googled the bastard, not out of personal interest, but just to see exactly how crazy my new buddy Old Guy Bob was, really.

And somehow, don't ask me how, I got something that look like this picture, and I didn't even bother to look fer another one, I was so sure Old Guy Bob was totally off his rocker, y'know?

So the next morning, there's Old Guy Bob, sitting on his windowsill and smoking and waiting fer me as I walk up.

And I'm all delicate with him and fulla tact and a smooth operator and shit, as y'all know, and I say something like "dude you are totally off yer rocker I found a picture on the net and I don't think I look anything like Ricky Ricardo, man."

And he just laughs and says he'll bring some pictures of his own from home.

And the next morning he's got pictures of himself when he's in his twenties, and they're in color (damn they had color photos back then? heh), and they're all party pictures, everybody is drunk and happy and hugging on each other for support, and here's this big tall long-haired blond guy with a goatee and a big dumb country grin that looks exactly like me.

And I mean exactly like me.

Yah, I ain't had a goatee since I was in my twenties, 'cause all that damn thing ever did was make me look guilty before I even managed to commit any crimes, heh.

Yah, Old Guy Bob's Party Pics didn't look like anything I can find on the net, even now, which is sorta sad, y'know, 'cause Leo Kottke was (or mebbe is, heck, he may still be alive, he was the last time I checked, at least) way the hell more handsome than the net makes him out to be haha.

Anyway Old Guy Bob's pictures were so freaky they honestly made me consider the idea that my mom (or mebbe my gramma) had been sleepin' around with musicians or something heh.

But I'm supposed to be the spittin' image of my grandfather on my dad's side, too, and I seen the pictures to confirm that, and everybody can tell my brother is my brother and stuff, so I guess we're just based on the same model and we're just related somehow way back there in Europe or whatever.

Old Guy Bob was like "are you into music and stuff?"

And I was like "well, I used to be in a lot of bands, but that actually made me sorta end up hatin' music, y'know?"

And he laughed and told me about how he managed different famous bands and used to own a bar where bands played and all that shit, man I dunno how many times I've had old guys dump all that stuff on me, I get their stories all mixed up, and he tells me how he was all nasty in the old days, and how he used to be a mean drunk, but he didn't drink or anything anymore, and I was like "ah, yer wife got you to quit drinking with the good life with kids and all that shit" and he was like no, it was actually his dog that made him quit drinking by not peeing on the floor if he came home sober.

Which put us in the same boat, pretty much, although I'll drink with people if they beg me, about the only reason I'm not some horrible super villain is because my dog trained me to be a good person heh.

Old Guy Bob had a lot of kids, and a lot of grandkids, way the hell more than normal, and luckily he un-bastardized himself before they were born, so they loved him as much as he loved them, which is good.

He was married twice, and he didn't screw up the second time.

One of his grandkids is a killer basketball player that goes to state every year and won the first time, at least, scholarship shit, Bob always went to her games, and practically cried when he missed one, and she's a girl, cover of Chicago Tribune sports section, and she was mentioned in there more than once, beautiful blonde thing too, not all nasty with man-hands and big shoulders and stuff like you'd suspect.

Yah he was really proud of that shit, but he was proud of all his kids, he told me stories about all of 'em, hell, he even told me stories about all of their friends, some were sad, but most weren't.

Yah, see, Old Guy Bob practiced all his story-telling on me, it was this unspoken agreement we had, I dunno how it got to be like that, but he'd do his whole routine for the day while we were smoking, and then, when everybody else showed up, he do it all over again, but this time it'd be all polished, and that way I'd have time to get a few little quips worked out ahead of time, sometimes jokes, y'know, whatever was required to soften the blows or make 'em hit harder.

And Old Guy Bob even told me what to do when he died.

Yep, see, wise guys like us can't be caught off guard, man.

He said "bury me with my ass sticking up out of the ground so my friends have a place to park their bikes."

But I just can't bring myself to tell that to everybody that's crying, so I'm tellin' it to you.