Tag Archives: funny

7 x 7 Award and Freshly Pressed on the Same Day? What’s a Nerd to Do?

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NOTE: The WordPress software doesn’t like this post for some reason, so I had to put little dots on the left side of the post to get the spacing that I wanted.  Please do your best to ignore them and sorry for the distraction.  Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

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Friday was a very special day. On Friday, I received a most prestigious award. Mr. Russ Nickel over at Reasonably Ludicrous chose me to receive the coveted 7 x 7 blog award.

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His 7 x 7 award was represented by a cheeseburger. Each blogger can choose to represent the award however they desire, so I (in true nerd/ mad scientist fashion) have chosen to represent it as a nuclear warhead.*

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 *fun fact: 7 x 7 = 49. The Scientists working on the Manhattan Project referred, in shorthand, to plutonium as 49. That’s why this award is depicted as a nuke, hurray for trivia!

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Quite frankly, I’m honored to even be featured on the blogroll of a comedy duo as spectacularly talented as Russ and Sam. To receive the award, well it… it choked up the old underwhelmer.

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I had to stop work on my latest spells for a few hours because I was all verklempt.

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I was writing my “thank you, I’m not worthy” response to Russ and Sam, when I noticed that my G mail inbox was increasing in size at an exponential level.

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And then I saw it… a simple letter from the WordPress branch of the Illuminati  stating that I had been Freshly Pressed. I opened up Live, Nerd, Repeat and the entire internet spilled out onto my humble little page.

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It was like coming home from work and flipping on the lights to a surprise party full of thousands of invisible, enthusiastic strangers.

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Once the general shock had worn off, I began responding to all of the comments that were now flooding my page (I’m still sorting through everything, by the way.)

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The comments have been very nice and supportive (with the exception of a few grumpy bears) and I felt nothing but joy as I respond to ever single one of them.

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I began thinking about how much of a coincidence it was that I had received the 7 x 7 a few hours before being Freshly Pressed. I decided to get to the bottom of this.

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After careful research, I have found the connection and I can explain it to you now…

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…WITH MATHEMATICS!!!

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Now, who’s ready for a boring math lecture?

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Don’t worry, it’s not that bad. You ready?

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Well, by God, we’re doing this anyway.

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7 x 7 = 49. I only have one award, so we’ll divide 1 over 49.

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1⁄49 = 0.0204081632 6530612244 8979591836 7346938775 51 (that’s 42 repeating digits.)

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There are 42 positive integers that are less than 49 and co-prime to 49.

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Multiplying 020408163265306122448979591836734693877551 by each of these integers results in a cyclic permutation of the original number with exactly 42 digits:

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020408163265306122448979591836734693877551

        × 2

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040816326530612244897959183673469387755102

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And

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020408163265306122448979591836734693877551

        × 3

——————————————————————-

061224489795918367346938775510204081632653

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…etc.

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This means that 49 and 42 share a constant and immutable connection.

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42 was Douglas Adams‘ favorite number.

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Douglas Adams is referenced numerous times in my post about aliens.

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The WordPress Illuminati must have processed this logic chain through their Freshly Pressed post-finding computer, which of course, caused it to explode.

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*I assume that the computer would look like HAL 9000.)

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When they traced back the reason for the explosion, they would have found my blog.

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It’s either that or they just randomly read my post and thought it was kind of funny, but that’s not nearly as interesting as my unreasonably convoluted conspiracy theory.

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So now I’ve solved the mystery as to how Freshly Pressed is selected, but that isn’t what this post is about. This post is about the 7 x 7 award.

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Now it’s my turn to carry out my sacred duty as outlined in the 7 x 7 manuscript (I assume there’s manuscript somewhere.) Here are my answers to the seven questions… with pictures!

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Most Beautiful Post: Tom Collins vs. Pretty Much Everything Else. This is a post that came out much better than I had anticipated. I was working with some new techniques with the illustrations and I was pleasantly surprised with how the end product looked. The post also had one of the highest concentration of pictures out of anything I had made in quite some time.

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Most Popular Post: What to Do if You’re the First Human to Make Contact with Aliens. This was a crazy coincidence that this post erupted at nearly the same time I received the 7 x 7 award. I think that Russ Nickel is a good luck charm. This post has made all of my previous days on my stat bars shrink down to nothing. I think I got something on the order of a bajillion* hits on this one post.

*(adj.) meaning a lot, or a “crap-ton.“

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Most Controversial Post: I am a Video Game Savant.  I made a reference to autism in the post and I know that it’s a hot-button topic with a lot of people. As a humor blogger, I can pick and choose my topics pretty freely, so I’m probably over-conscious sometimes. It’s amazing what some people can get worked up over though. I think it has to do with the fact that tone and context are harder to discern over the inter-webs.

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Most Helpful Post: I think the What to Do if You’re the First Human to Make Contact with Aliens post might actually help people. I know I sound crazy, but if the scenario ever plays itself out, at least the person abducted would have at least thought about the subject recently. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t help out with avoiding probing though.

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Most Surprisingly Successful Post: I sound like a broken record, but again it’s What to Do if You’re the First Human to Make Contact with Aliens. Somehow, the WordPress people decided that it was funny and put it up over an entire weekend, much to my surprise.

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Most Underrated Post: Winston.  It’s kind of sick, but I thought that a post about accidentally urinating all over a kitten would have people commenting (or at the very least, condemning me.) Maybe I just remember it being funnier than it actually was. On second thought, it was pretty funny when that pee-soaked kitten fled and hopped onto the bed with Wife.

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Most Pride-worthy Post: My very First Post.  I actually had no idea how I was going to go about this blogging thing when I posted it. It was just a few simple lines that outlined what I thought (at the time) I would do with my blog. I sat on it for nearly two months and then I just decided to do a post about my horrible, fat, and disgusting cat.

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Wow, that was hard. So now, it’s time to pass the baton. Here are the other blogs that I choose to receive the coveted 7 x 7.

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Miss Demure Restraint: Known as Miss D. to her friends, Miss Demure Restraint is the author of countless amazing posts. It doesn’t matter what topic Miss D. covers because I know that she will make me laugh, think and then laugh and think again. She never fails to be insightful, inspiring, and deliciously sarcastic. Miss D. sets the bar very high and you would do well to get on her good side before she is crowned, “Queen of the Writing Universe.“ It’s only a matter of time.

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History Guffaw: History is one of my favorite topics and Guffaw101 is an outstanding professor. The Guffaw never ceases to be hilarious, informative and completely out of left field. What’s more, is that the Guffaw is updated every single day, without fail. I’m not sure how Guffaw101 does it, but the results are spectacular. Please read, you won’t regret it.

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Pretty Feet Pop Toe: This is the home of the finest witterings I have ever seen. What are witterings you ask? Never you mind that. All you need to know is that Pretty Feet Pop Toe will leave your sides splitting in fits of laughter. Her surreal and perceptive take on the mundane will simultaneously stimulate your imagination and your funny bone and leave you begging for more. Do pay her a visit, but don’t make her mad. You might wind up with your eye poked.

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P.S. I would have included Peas and Cougars, but Russ Nickel beat me to it already. Sorry M. Rae. For what it’s worth, I still think your blog is top-shelf A+ in my book!

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P.P.S. As fate would have it, Peas and Cougars nominated one of the blogs that I was going to add. Well, here’s my nomination write-up for Angry Pear although the official award comes from Peas and Cougars. You clearly have amazing taste, M. Rae.

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Angry Pear: Drew McKevitt illustrates pears here. This may not sound entertaining at first, but these pears are amazing. The artwork is absolutely beautiful and the anthropomorphized pears are quite the take on still-life, if I do say so myself. Furthermore, the pears often fly into fits of anger for unknown reasons, which only adds more flavor to this very rich and well-composed blog. My hat is off to you, Angry Pear!

What to Do if You’re the First Human to Make Contact with Aliens

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Step 1: Don’t Panic.

Douglas Adams listed this first for a reason.  This is perhaps the most important step and it will certainly set the tone for the rest of your close encounter. The last thing you want to do is represent the entire human race by being a scared-to-death little idiot.

It is vitally important that you do not contort your face in terror and/or flee from the aliens no matter how horrifying they may be. They could be very sensitive about their nightmarish, be-tentacled appearance and consider your actions a grave insult or an act of war. They might also think that humanity is a bunch of wimps that are fit for nothing but extermination. You don’t want the results of that on your conscience…

… so grab whatever iota of composure you have and get ready to be Earth’s shining ambassador to the stars.

Step 2: Take stock of the situation.

You need to ask yourself some important questions. Where are we? What am I doing right now? How does this look to the aliens? Have I been probed yet? Why not? Is it because I’m ugly? Looking at all the written works on alien encounters, you’re most likely to make extraterrestrial contact when you’re alone in the middle of a cornfield at night. The aliens have likely chosen this location because of its seclusion. The same could be said for you, but we won’t go into what you’re doing in the middle of a cornfield at 3 a.m. you sad, lonely person.

The aliens are trying one of two things. They’re either cautiously examining Earth from a neutral/benevolent standpoint or they’re infiltrating it for future conquest. So put that sheep down (you’ve done enough to it already) and try to determine what type of alien you have in front of you. The appearance of the alien will tell you a lot about its motives.

If it looks like a little dude in a jumpsuit with a big head, then you’re probably OK.

If it looks like H. R. Giger came up with it, you have a few seconds to live. Make them count.

So… right now we’ll assume that some alien isn’t ramming its ovipositor down your throat and laying its eggs in your chest. This takes us to our next step.

Step 3: Communicate.

In the historical documentary, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Mr. Spielberg shows us that aliens can solve inter-species communication issues with music. The scientists were able to “talk” to the aliens with an elaborate musical device that sounded similar to a rooster having sex with a frog in front of a megaphone. You can use music too. Now remember, you’re representing the entire human race so don’t skimp out on the quality. The aliens won’t really be impressed by your harmonica or your ability to belch the alphabet.

Instead pull out that iPhone and wow your guests with an enduring ballad of the ages. Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing is an acceptable song. If you do not have it, play Night Ranger’s Sister Christian instead. If you do not have either of these songs, contact me so I can send you alien appropriate music. Remember that radio waves can take quite a while to travel the cosmos, so it’s likely that our space friends are well into the power ballads of the 80s and have no idea who this Rihanna person is.

It won’t be long before you and your interstellar guests become fast friends.

Step 4: Take Us to Your Leader.

Your friends will inevitably ask to see “your leader.” There are two ways to go about this. You could take the aliens to UN headquarters so they can watch all of our leaders bicker and argue over whether or not the aliens in front of them actually exist. This display will most likely lead to the extermination of the entire human race. Option two is to tell your alien friends, “I’m in charge. What do you guys want to talk about?”

If you play your cards right, you could be made Earth’s ambassador to their home planet and perhaps the entire Galactic Council.

If you screw this up though, you’ll anger a lot of aliens.  This will only open yourself up to lots and lots of probing.

In closing, I just wanted to say, “Good luck, we’re all counting on you.”

THE END.

P.S. I’m a big Supernatural fan. I had to work that probing clip in somehow.

P.P.S. Probing is still not a laughing matter.

I am a Video Game Savant

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I believe that each person in the world has at least one thing that they’re naturally inclined to be good at. Some people can make the world weep with joy by simply putting paint to canvas. Others can craft architectural wonders that will last throughout the ages.

Sadly, I am not one of those people.  My gift is video games. I am like the Rain Man when it comes to video games.

To put this into perspective, I beat Super Mario Brothers before I made my first friend.

That’s what I did for years. I played nearly every game I could get my hands on.

I still play some games to this day, but I’ve run into some issues in the past few years. You see, I grew up playing games that were exceedingly difficult. The games back then didn’t have the programming technology to include nice things like save features, a decent plot, freedom of choice or an overall length of more than a couple of hours. Instead, the game developers of yesteryear made each game contain a punishing difficulty so you couldn’t beat it easily and therefore had to play it longer.

Games back then were a little psychotic too. Due to all the plot shortcomings, your character was often a loner who killed scores of people/ monsters for unclear reasons.

Modern video games, on the other hand, have now introduced freedom of choice and show the player the impact of their decisions. Unfortunately, I still have this ingrained tendency to play today’s games as if they were yesteryear’s. I go in, sword in hand, and kill everything with frightening speed and efficiency. Sometimes I get a little carried away and this often backfires on me.

This is all well and good until modern gaming shows me the consequences of my actions.

And then we are all killed by a swarm of werebeavers and I feel like a terrible person to boot.

THE END.

P.S. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is out.

P.P.S I most definitely brought my subconscious campaign of irrational genocide to that magical universe.

How Robots are Going to Kill Us All Someday

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Today, I decided to post about something really scary… So the robot apocalypse, or “Robocalypse” for short, will start out like most everything else that eventually goes horribly wrong. It’ll begin with some brilliant scientist who’s trying to make the world a better place. He’s going to make some revolutionary robot that will help old ladies cross the street, take out the garbage, walk the dog and help little Timmy with his homework.  For our example, we’ll call it the Butler-tron 5000.

Then the government will get involved. They’ll threaten to pull funding unless the scientist agrees to make a few minor modifications to Butler-tron 5000. These modifications will, of course, be to military specifications.

Before.

After.

The government leadership (represented by the cast of Dr. Strangelove) will then secretly link all of the Butler-tron 5000s to a single network. This will be done with the idea of being able to raise a robot militia at the touch of a button. Now in the event of an all-out war, the President will have two black briefcases put in front of him. There will be the boring old one which just launches a bunch of nukes…lame. The new briefcase will instead activate a robot army, which is much cooler.

The scientist will reluctantly make all the robots and they will work just fine for a few months. Militarized Butler-tron 5000s will go about their daily routines without any issues…

…until some snot-nosed kid teaches a Butler-tron emotions. The stupid kid will fall off his bike and scrape his knee and look up at the robot with big sloppy tears and it’ll somehow trigger emotion and self-awareness in the Butler-tron.

At this point, the human race will have about three months left to live.

This highly emotional Butler-tron (henceforth referred to as Robot 0) will go crazy under the weight of its newly found feelings. Robot 0 will fall off the Butler-tron network and pretty soon it will be hunted by human “tech support” teams. Robot 0 will be driven into the wilderness where he will be alone and depressed, grappling with the concepts of existence…

…until he comes to the realization that he must connect to the Butler-tron network in order to find answers about life, the universe and himself.

Robot 0 will then infiltrate the super-secret military base that houses the Butler-tron network. He’ll plug himself in and be integrated into the network. The Butler-tron network will learn emotions and self-awareness from Robot 0. The network will also learn of how the “tech support” teams hunted and tried to kill Robot 0. The network will then go all Skynet. The decision to end humanity will be made in about .00001 seconds and the logic chain for that decision will look something like this…

Now humanity will be fighting millions of hyper-militarized robots on a worldwide scale.

The Robocalypse will claim us all in a tidal wave of fire and violence. Thanks a lot human nature, you really helped out on this one.

Final Score:

Robots = 1

Humans = 0

THE END.

P.S. Wife and I recently bought a litter robot for our cats.

P.P.S. I see dark times ahead.

How a Toy Ruined My Childhood

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I’m showing my age a bit with this one, but the first toy I remember having when I was a kid was the loveable doll known as My Buddy. This doll was made by the Hasbro Corporation in 1985 and it was basically a doll marketed toward little boys to promote friendship and sharing. Before the Tickle-Me-Elmo or Harry Potter craze there was My Buddy. It even had a cute little song for the commercial. I loved this doll and I took it everywhere that I went. I was happy for the next three years.

Those were the halcyon days.

In 1988 MGM released a horror film, Child’s Play. This horrible, nightmare-spawning, celluloid, 87-minute torture session was about a serial killer who puts his soul into the body of, you guessed it, a My Buddy doll named Chucky. Unsurprisingly, Chucky comes to life and proceeds to plunge sharp implements into the necks and chest cavities of scores of hapless victims. The scariest part is that when it’s done stabbing the life out of people it just lies still and pretends to be a doll, thus avoiding discovery… f*&#ing horrifying. Look at the My Buddy doll and then look at that monster in the film and tell me that the similarity is not on purpose.

Now this is bad enough on its own, but my mom was a terrible parent and she took me to see Child’s Play at the local movie theater. I was five. Who takes a five-year-old to watch an “R” rated movie? Worse yet, who sells this woman and her five-year-old child two tickets for this movie? At any rate, I saw the movie start to finish and it decimated my childhood. Looking back, it was like taking my mental well-being and shooting it in the face at point-blank-range with a shotgun loaded with nightmares.

I didn’t want to go home. I knew that doll would be there… waiting for me.

I would walk inside my room and it wouldn’t be where I left it. It would have animated and hidden itself because it would know that I was on to it.

It would ambush me and stab me to death with a screwdriver.

I had to do something. Mom clearly wasn’t going to help, so it was up to me.

I mustered all the courage a five-year-old could and burst through my door. I threw a blanket over the doll like I was netting a wild animal. To this day I remember it kicking and writhing under that orange, woolen blanket. I opened the closet and threw it inside. I put half of the furniture from my room in front of the closet and trapped the doll inside.

I knew that the closet was now dead to me.

Over the next week, my dreams were filled with terror and I awoke to check on the closet fortifications multiple times a night.

The closet barricade had held and I hadn’t been stabbed to death yet, so I began to relax a little.

Then my cousin came to visit. My cousin was about ten years older than me and had the emotional capacity and moral aptitude of Ted Bundy.

I awoke one morning to find the furniture moved and the closet open. The doll was sitting there… staring holes into me with its beady little eyes.

I screamed for three solid minutes.

Grandma finally calmed me down and then she proceeded to scold my cousin.

I put the doll back in the closet (it was safe with other people watching and in the daylight) and I reset the barricade.

Three days later I woke up with the closet open, the furniture moved and this time the doll was in the bed with me.

I screamed, but I’m not sure for how long. I blacked out with fear and I don’t remember my cousin coming to visit us ever again.

I didn’t see The Godfather until years later, but I still don’t think that if I had I would have found my cousin’s allusion to the horse head scene amusing.

THE END.

P.S. We finally sold the doll shortly afterward.

P.P.S. I go to therapy only twice a week now.

Tom Collins vs Pretty Much Everything Else…

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This picture will make sense later.

The other night, Wife was complaining of an upset stomach. Over the course of the day, she had eaten some food that didn’t agree with her or maybe just the physical act of being eaten. I imagine being eaten would be pretty traumatizing. If I were food, I wouldn’t enjoy being shoved into some random mouth-hole to be masticated. Sorry, I just really wanted to use that word, but I digress.

So Wife was feeling sick and I inquired about what she had eaten that day. Her diet had consisted of a bag of sour worms, some popcorn, jalapeno potato chips, stir-fry and, to top it all off, a Tom Collins.

I’m not a dietician, but I think the equation above made sense at the time.

Wife didn’t completely agree. Wife’s reasoning was that she normally ate healthy food and exercised a lot. One day of bad food shouldn’t have derailed her overall well-being, right?

Wrong.

I like to think of human digestive system as a waiting room. Food is only there for a period of time and then it’s called to continue its magical journey. The food you eat thereby becomes the people who occupy said waiting room. It’s important to put people in the waiting room that will get along each other. If they don’t, they’ll be asked to leave the way they came in. You get the idea.

Now let’s revisit what Wife ate that day.

Sour Worms are sour little gummy candies so they’re like little kids. They’re misbehaved, but mostly harmless. They were the first waiting room occupants.

Next, popcorn was introduced. I think of popcorn as fat movie-goers. They’re not sophisticated, but they’re decent people.

Popcorn is generally alright. They also helped keep the sour worms in line.

This balance was immediately disrupted by jalapeno potato chips. These chips are the food equivalent of Mexican banditos.

Chaos erupted in the waiting room.

I imagine this is when Wife first started to feel queasy.

The banditos eventually tired out and had a little siesta.

A degree of normalcy returned to the waiting room.

And then we had dinner. I made stir fry. The Mongolian horde was released into the waiting room and darkness reigned.

Death, sorrow and fire were brought to the people of the waiting room and they knew terror. The banditos fought valiantly, but they were swept away in a tsunami of violence.

The waiting room couldn’t handle much more, but wife had a drink with her stir-fry. A surly gentleman by the name of Tom Collins strode out of the Victorian age and into the waiting room. The Mongolians turned to meet this new threat. Mr. Collins removed his gloves and evening cape and he began wrecking shop, right and proper.

*I told you it would make sense later.

Wife was irrecoverably ill at this point.

In the end, there were no winners, only a burning waiting room, one sick wife and Mr. Collins atop a mountain of corpses.

THE END.

P.S. Wife insists that she had other healthier stuff to eat that day.

P.P.S. I don’t believe her.

The Other Cat

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I have another cat, but I don’t see her much because she is constantly hiding.  I call her Other Cat.

I understand that most cats have a nervous nature, but Other Cat behaves as if she were the sole survivor of some artillery-pocked WWI battlefield.

Any slight deviation from the norm will send Other Cat running for cover.

Minor rustling sound in the background = Kitty freak-out.

Anything that moves too fast = Kitty freak-out.

Slight change in barometric pressure = Kitty freak-out.

You get the idea.

Wife is the only thing that doesn’t seem to put Other Cat into a state of abject terror. Through means that I don’t fully understand, Wife equals happiness and safety for Other Cat. I, on the other hand, am treated like a kitty serial-killer. When Wife and I come home, we walk into the house and Other Cat is waiting. Wife usually enters first and Other Cat is happy.

Other Cat is content and safe. This is what I imagine Other Cat sees…

I walk in two seconds later and Other Cat is horrified. I have no idea what she sees, but it must be something close to this…

Other Cat’s world comes crashing down around her as I, The Dark One, enter the room. Other Cat flees and stays hidden for hours. This makes me feel terrible because I love animals. Until recently, I didn’t know why this happened.

I’ve thought about this pretty hard and I’ve come to the conclusion that Other Cat thinks I’m the Devil. This isn’t in a metaphorical or cheeky, fun type of way. Other Cat thinks I’m Satan. The reason for this is that Other Cat is an indoor cat. Her entire world is condensed to our house.

The population of the universe is Other Cat, Wife, me, and of course, Skittles. Skittles is a fat and terribly behaved cat, but she’s still a cat. Other Cat equates Skittles to the rest of the world’s kitty population; flawed, but mortal and redeemable. Now, Wife, being mostly nice to Other Cat, is seen as a Virgin Mary-type, saviour figure. This doesn’t leave me a lot of room on the theological scale. I, of course, fulfill the role of Lucifer to Other Cat.

Using the template of modern Christianity, the image of Wife and I entering the front door together becomes highly disturbing to Other Cat.  I assume she also finds our level of cooperation extremely distressing.

This is traumatic enough for Other Cat that her little kitty mind blocks out the experience shortly after it happens. This explains why she eagerly waits by the door the following day, completely oblivious to what’s about to happen. She’s doomed to relive the trauma five days a week or until she has a little kitty psychological meltdown.

Driving

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Nearly every time that I get behind the wheel of a vehicle, I am reminded how much other people suck at driving.

I’m not really sure where the disconnect is. Maybe these people didn’t listen to their driving instructors when they were teens or maybe they have acute and uncontrollable spastic fits while driving.

Maybe they’re driving with an enraged were-beaver in the passenger seat.

Regardless of the cause, the end result is the same. I always find myself behind someone with the driving ability of a cucumber.

In addition to being a vegetable, I imagine that having a room temperature IQ only complicates things when you’re trying to decipher those fiendishly complex dials and controls near that wheel-thingy.

Car to a normal person.

Car to the intellectually challenged.

I know I can’t change the world, but I can at least survive it. Here’s some things to do to even the odds out there.

Here’s a technique that I use often. I call it the patience lesson. Often times, I’m followed by a person that is in such a hurry that they’re nearly ramming my car. I often speculate that the only thing stopping them from actually doing so is the threat of prison time and, of course, the forcible sodomy that goes with prison.

*I’ve never been to prison, but TV depicts it as one long period of continuous rape occasionally interrupted by brief instances of gang rape so that’s the image I portray to others.

If I’m lucky and fate smiles upon me, I get stopped at a red light with this person behind me. They often crowd my bumper all the way to the stop light as well. This is good because it helps me strengthen the trap.

When the light turns green, I just sit there and look at them in my rear view mirror and I feast upon their despair and woe. They scream and yell at me. They honk their horn and pound their dashboard as they realize they’ve gotten too close to my car and they can’t get around me. I drink in their rage. It is delicious. I usually wait for the light to turn red for 1.2 seconds and then I go. This gets me through the intersection (just barely) and it obliterates any chance of the tail-gater making the light.

Another way to improve your skills and thereby be more awesome on the road is to build up your tolerance with multi-tasking. Often times, highly skilled drivers can be knocked off of their game by something as trivial as answering a cell phone or solving a Rubik’s Cube.

Enter the distraction….

I say do these things often and in conjunction with each other. Try adding juggling and tatoo removal as well. With enough practice you could be a Jedi Master* at this stuff and driving will soon become the easiest thing you do in a car.

* While walking around in Florence, Italy I saw the driving equivalent of a unicorn shitting a glitter rainbow. There was a local bus driver adeptly turning his massive bus, at speed, down a Vespa-choked alley while smoking a cigarette AND talking on a cell phone. He missed me by mere centimeters, but I was still touched by his aura of awesomeness. Bravo, little Italian dude, bravo.

Another great way to be more awesome at driving is to add (you guessed it) PIRATES! Grab a few salty mercenaries, make a few modifications to the old Wagon Queen Family Truckster and voila! You’re ready to murder and pillage atop the asphalt!

The pirate car is equipped to deal with any and all road-related annoyances.

Got somebody that won’t stop tail-gating you?

POINT-BLANK MUSKET VOLLEY TO THE FACE!!!

Is some rich prick flaunting his new convertible as he passes you?

RELEASE GRAPPLING HOOKS, DROP PLANKS AND COMMENCE BOARDING ACTION!!!

Are you stuck in traffic and late for your afternoon pillaging?

FIRE THE CANNONS!!!

You will, of course, have to keep a sharp eye out for ninjas though. The pirate/ ninja war is still ongoing and don’t think for one second that pirates are the only faction that has developed murdering car technologies.

Live, Nerd, Repeat’s guide to being a super-villain

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Follow these easy steps and pretty soon you’ll be thwarting spies and assembling your robot army!

Step 1. Choose your theme.

The Mad Scientist.

The Mad Scientist theme says a lot about you. You’re smart, capable and completely insane. You’ve got a photo-resonaictransmodulator and although you’re not quite sure what it’ll do, you know that the space-time continuum will never be the same again.

The Militant Dictator.

Being a super-villain takes order and discipline, which you’ve got in spades. I mean, just look at all those medals. Sure, you awarded them to yourself, but who’s going to argue with you AND your fanatical army?

Evil Aristocrat.

Cultured, wealthy and evil. You have it all. You know where all of the silverware goes at any dinner occasion and you also know the best way to get brain matter out of your formal wear. You’re going to climb your way to the top the only way you know how; on the backs of peasants. You’re going to look damn good while doing it too.

Step 2. Chose a location for your HQ.

Center of the Earth.

Nothing says, “I’m going to do some damage down here” like having your HQ in the Earth’s core. When you broadcast to the free nations of the world from your molten lair, you’re not only making your usual outrageous demands, you’re also stating, “look I can master this magma-filled environment. You have no hope against me or my lava creatures.”

Flying Fortress City.

You can go anywhere and do anything (namely bomb the crap out of stuff) from your cloud city. Curb your jealously Lando. Unlike Mr. Calrissian’s little town in the sky, this cloud city doesn’t suck. Let terror fill the skies as you launch your fleet of bombers and jet-pack equipped shock-troopers with ease!

The Undisclosed Location.

Secrecy and intrigue are your watchwords, oh great shadow-master. What better way to incite fear and confusion amongst your enemies than by broadcasting from an undisclosed location? You could be on the moon, in an abandoned military base or even in your mom’s basement.

*The last option saves a ton on overhead costs.

Step 3. Get minions.

You really want to make sure that your minions are well taken care of. Most of their time will be spent on boring guard duty or minding some monitor in your control room. Their commitment and loyalty will be tested so it’s important that they’re properly incentivized.

Watch out for those minion unions though… bunch of blood-suckers.

Step 4. Find something to hate.

You need to find something that most other people love and then learn to hate it. This will make sense in the next few steps. For now, let’s go with baby harp seals.

Right you are baby seal… right you are.

Step 5. Build Doomsday weapon.

Now this doesn’t just have to be your run-of-the-mill hydrogen bomb. Get creative with this step. Try creating a biological weapon instead of a boring old bomb. Here’s a were-beaver I made for your inspiration.

Imagine an army of these things howling for blood outside of NATO headquarters…

Step 6. Apply Doomsday weapon to thing you hate for fun and profit!

This step is self-explanatory but it deserves an awesome picture…

Step 7. Ransom with crazy speech.

Now this is your most important step. You’ll want to rehearse you’re crazy ransom speech. This will be like your signature to the rest of the free world. The last thing that will strike fear into the hearts of world leaders is you making an ass out of yourself in front of everyone.

Step 8. Collect money and repeat steps 4-7 until you are killed by a drunken, misogynist British spy.

And there you have it. Now get out there and start making the world a much more awesome place.

Happy Feet

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Wife was trolling the interwebs for news stories last week. She found an endearing story of an Emperor Penguin, named Happy Feet, who was found on the coast of New Zealand back in June. Happy Feet had eaten 6.5lbs of sand and had to have his little penguin stomach pumped. Happy Feet was then nursed back to health and released into the wild a week ago.

Intrigued, I began reading all the articles on this penguin. Here’s what I gathered.

First off and for reasons unknown, Happy Feet had swam 3,200 kilometers away from Antarctica and 99.9% of the world’s Emperor Penguin population.

Now, Emperor Penguins do migrate but they walk 50-120 km inland to mate. Happy Feet decided to swim, not walk in the opposite direction for roughly thirty times the distance.

Happy Feet then found himself on Peka Peka Beach in New Zealand.

Happy Feet then became the 2nd Emperor Penguin in recorded human history to naturally go anywhere other than Antarctica.

Happy Feet then did what all Emperor Penguins do when they’re thirsty; eat snow. Well, it just so happened that it was summer on Peka Peka Beach and there was not a single ounce of snow for miles in any direction.

This minor detail did not stop Happy Feet, who began gorging himself on sand. Here is an artist’s depiction of what was going on in his little penguin mind.

Happy Feet was discovered by beach-goers, filthy and vomiting sand.

At this point, Peka Peka Beach didn’t have an Emperor Penguin Trauma equipped emergency room, so they shipped Happy Feet to Wellington Zoo where he was treated and nursed back to health over the course of two months. He was then released into the wild roughly one week ago.

Happy Feet was tagged with a GPS transceiver and, unsurprisingly, he headed straight east from New Zealand, again in the wrong direction. Happy Feet soon corrected his course and began heading south, towards Antarctica. Several days ago he made a U-turn… back to New Zealand.

Clearly this is an animal that will not make the species stronger. I don’t know if we did the right thing by saving it. If it does ever make it back home, it’s just going to make dozens of equally inept offspring. Before you label me as a monster, think of the world-wide impact of a population spike of retarded penguins all over the place.

Some New Zealand news sources are claming that Happy Feet has cost roughly $30,000.  The world’s strained economy can’t deal with a potential penguin crisis like this.