You've Got Mail

Predator Press

[LOBO]

You readers know I love you, right?

I would do anything, anyplace, anytime for either one of you. I would even dredge Lake Michigan eventually!

... But I absolutely live for Saturday mornings.

There's nothing like padding around in your footie pajamas and watching cartoons until noon.

On Saturdays, no one gets mad at me for it; but when I do it on Tuesday, oh holy crap it's all 'bitch, bitch, bitch'.

On Saturday mornings, I don't always answer the phone either.

Ironic, isn't it? That I will spend a fortune on a security system with thermal detectors, a moat filled with starving alligators swimming in napalm and a perimeter surrounded by high-powered motion-detecting laserbeams? Nothing can pierce the heart of this tranquil womb of solitude.

Except the telephone.

As Ethan is calling, I'm sipping a latte and fiddling with the security cameras, zooming in and out of what has become a bizarre and intriguing discovery.

My front yard has fallen victim of some kind of crazy litterbug.

I pick up the phone absently.

"Yeah?" I says.

It's Ethan.

"Are you watching the news?" he asks.

"No," I says distantly, zooming the camera onto a small pile of smoldering rubbish on the sidewalk. It looks like a bag.

"Bob Guccione Jr just got arrested for starting all those California wildfires."

"No shit?" I says, zooming in on a second pile over on the walkway. It's another scorched sack of some kind.

This one appears to be labeled 'US Mail'.

"Yeah," Ethan continues. "They caught him red-handed burning a script someone mailed him."

Panning out with the camera, I see three of those little mail trucks, all oddly peppered and scarred with what appear to be burns from high-powered motion-detecting laserbeams.

An ashen dust-devil whips through a charred and blackend skeleton, hanging listlessly from the seatbelt.

Well, it appears my Saturday is completely fucked already.

Feeding Me Softly

Predator Press

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Are you "feeding" this site? I just checked the "feed" and everything looks out-of-sequence.

With no discernable traffic, I'm thinking about cutting my RSS.

Please "check in" somehow if you are.

Synchronicity

Predator Press

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"So you got kicked out of California too?" says Ethan.

"Well, if you call being handcuffed into the luggage compartment of a Greyhound bus at gunpoint 'kicked out'." I says. "I considered it more being escorted. Besides, it was a mutual decision. I'm just too edgy for conservative prudes like that."

"You don't have many states left."

"I know," I says, setting my watch back to central time. "This whole country is going to crap."

"That clock is a few minutes fast," Ethan points out.

"Why is it," I complain, "that every clock in this building says something different?"

"Hey, feel free to fix them yourself," says Ethan dismissing me with a hand gesture absently. "You can't really travel much anymore. Might as well make yourself useful."


***

The reason Ethan gives me these technical jobs is because of they are often fraught with hidden complexities.

For instance, I would set the clocks at 2:35, but the Predator Press warehouse is massive; by the time I got done, the first one would be several minutes off.

In an effort to synchronize them perfectly, I tried running, but the Safety jerks yelled at me out of fear I would get hit by the swarms of well-orchestrated forklifts and equipment.

I got 16 people -one for each clock-who were all supposed to simultaneously set their respective clock when I stated the time over their radios. But when you hand 16 industrial guys radios, suddenly they think it's Karaoke night; I couldn't get a word in edgewise between the howling, tone-deaf tinny choruses of "I Got Friends in Low Places" and "Take this Job and Shove it".

The only way I'm going to be able to do this effectively is going to be by setting the clocks, and then turning them all on at the same time. And the only way to do that it appears, will be by pulling this 'Main Power' swi

Headless Chick Haunts Mountain During Blizzards

Predator Press

[LOBO]

As you know, I neither read, make up, or verify anything.

But it's all right there plain as day on Sarcasm Abounds ...

Livin Large

Predator Press

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So here I am at Qualcomm Stadium with the rest of the Californian evacuees, getting a massage and blogging after my yoga lessons.

Honestly, I don't know what those Katrina people were complaining about; this is the best vacation I've ever had.

For dinner, I had a 24oz brick of "Evacuee Cheese", and it was splendid.

The tan woman distributing the rescue food was obviously distressed.

"Wouldn't you like some lobster tail?" she asks, concerned. "Or some baked Alaska?"

"No thanks," I says, grabbing some eating utensils. "But I'll take a 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew if you've got one."

"Aren't you worried about your cholesterol?" she persists.

"Why?" I says, looking around nervously at the crowded scene. "Are these infidels trying to steal it?"

"Infidels?" she asks, handing me a 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew.

"Well, that's the only explanation isn't it? I mean God clearly hates you people." While taking a deep swig, I eye the inside of the cap. "Earthquakes, fire tornados, floods, tsunamis. Take the hint already, and stop hanging around here trying to steal cholesterol!"

"No," she clarifies, smiling politely. "I mean high cholesterol can lead to heart attacks."

"My heart is completely incapable of any attack whatsoever," I assure her. "I doubt it could even successfully lobby for trade tariffs. Now this here cap says I won a 'free 2-liter Mountian Dew'. Will you honor it?"

She nods. "But you should get some exercise and eat better."

"It gets cold out here at night. I kinda like that hot, burning sensation I get as the blood squirts though." A portable radio is blaring some fat sounds I like. "Who is that?"

"That's Given Up by Linkin Park," she says, handing me another 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew. "They've been one of the biggest bands in the United States for almost five years. You've never heard of them?"

"No," I says.

"Not very hip, are you?"

"Maybe I'm too hip to notice," I retort.

"Are you even a citizen?" she asks.

"What?"

"Hablo un poco español; ¿comprende usted?"

"How dare speak to me in 'Tongues', you common Babylonian whore?" I demand, making a Cross symbol with my plastic knife and spork.

"Security!" she cries. "Security!"

"So where's your fancy pagan 'français parlez' now?" I demand.

God, I don't understand why these things continue to happen to me ...

FEMA Isn't Racist, Just Lazy

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Ethan says, "Go cover the story in California."

I figure cool right? Nice mild weather, tanned chicks in bikinis, sushi, and being harangued by anti-smoking laws. Bob Gucionne Jr just gave me $50 of blow money minus the shipping costs too; I figure I'm going to go see my "Brokeback Mountain Troll" script being planned by Miramax in style.

Well, it turns out that California is on fire.

I can't believe the sheer irony of my huge story being ruined by California being on fire.

Where the fuck are all the firemen, you hippies!?

Rear-Entry in Dumbledore Saga Jolts Potter Fans

Predator Press

[LOBO]

If you care about this, you're either too old to be reading Harry Potter in the first place, or too much of a paranoid homophobic religious nut to be taken seriously.

Still, I'll be looking forward to Book 8: "Harry Potter and the Brokeback Mountain Troll"

I've already drafted the sure-fire blockbuster.

It's amazing.

Even Ethan says I did a fantastic job, but the "Bazillion Wax Cauldron" scene is simply too horrifying; Rowling will want to 'soften that part up' a bit for the kids.

And I'm cool with that J; I'm not some snooty pantywaist that doesn't like people messing with my "art". You can do whatever your brilliant and lucrative storytelling heart wants to do with my ideas for the right amount of cash: bastardize it, change the ending, take pictures of friends urinating on it in the shower, whatever!

In advance anticipation of generous and substantial gratitude for my fine, exhausting efforts, for your convenience I've put the only copy of the script, my copyright application information, a half gallon of gasoline and a book of matches in a Overnight Fed-Ex envelope, pending only your cashier's check and address verification.

... But act fast: Bob Guccione Jr has already offered me 50 bucks.

72 Hours of "Empire at War" Causes Hallucinations

Predator Press

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Predator Press Upset With Vista, MicroSoft, Gates

Predator Press

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This computer worked just fine thanks.

I know I can't legally say outright that Bill Gates has caused me so much excruciating grief over the past few days -what with these "innovations, enhancements and improvements"- swift and lethal payback is in order.

But we just bought this computer ten years ago. It was $350! And frankly, that thing was nothing more than grief.

Bill Gates has completely ruined the internet; this supposedly "modern" one doesn't doesn't even have a 5 1/2" disk drive or a 56k modem!

I know I can't legally say outright that Bill Gates has caused me so much excruciating grief over the past few days swift and lethal payback is in order, so screw it. I won't.

jerk

Weapons of Mass Dysfunction

Predator Press

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What? Too soon?

Mukasey: Torture Authority Memo 'Mistake'

Predator Press

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As Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey was admitting that the now-famous document written by General Jay Bybee and endorsed by Alberto Gonzalez was a mistake, I thought, "well duh."

Wow. Memos are horrible and dangerous things.

WTG genius.

As you readers know, I already know better than to put anything really crazy in writing. So I'm suffering jetlag and airline-food indigestion only to learn once again I'm light years ahead of the government? When Ethan told me to go to Capitol Hill to cover the 'torture memo' story, I thought it would be a saucy sex scandal!

I got bored quickly. And God bless me Ethan, I even tried drafting a story about this guys' horrible tie ... but I was just powerless against the oppressive, excruciating blasé of listening to those old guys.

An irritated Secret Service guy nudged me rudely awake. Said I was snoring. I asked the guy if there was anyplace to get coffee, and he put his finger to his lips and 'shooshed' me.

No, I'm serious. The prick shooshed me!

He took a few minutes quietly explaining to me how I'm "supposed to be quiet," and "you can't get coffee during Capitol Hill proceedings," and how the porn I was browsing on my laptop was "offending the people behind me."

This guy must be just as bored as I am.

I decided to engage him in conversation. I tried to explain that the crunkly old white people here were pent up about porn because they had all the collective sexual attraction of a sardine stuffed the wrong way through a mallard. And that the secret to attracting these chicks is probably only wearing a decent magnet considering the bling on all the trophy wives in attendance.

And even as I was beaten and tased, I knew I was on my way to a Pulitzer ...