Mister Blister

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Well, Obama has been in office a full day and I’m still unemployed.

-I’m starting to have my doubts about this administration.

But the employers aren’t really helping themselves in this regard either. There’s nothing I like better than uploading a spiff resumé to Careerbuilders or Monster only to have to spend an hour doing it all over again: you hit “Apply Now,” and then have to engage in the redundant cutting and pasting of essentially the same information.

-And oh God help you if you get called in for an interview: then you get to fill out the same information once more by hand.

By the third permutation of the same info, if I don’t get the job I should be able to murder your Human Resources person with cinderblocks and pointy sticks.

It's at the handwritten application stage where they will sneak in a question like Where do you see yourself in five years? The correct answer for this is generally some variation on “blowing my boss,” but I don’t think they get that one very often frankly: I usually put “chewing on an adrenal gland of an endangered Mojave desert box tortoise, and crashing my nuclear hovercar into the competition’s cafeteria. This often causes survivors third degree burns, and fuses rayon and polyester to flesh.”

If you want to know the truth, the third version of my resumé always generates a high degree of internal doubt your company is really worth a crap in the first place. Seriously. Have I committed a felony since you called me to come in thirty minutes ago? No. To be brutally honest, the only thing that’s changed is now I know you don’t bother actually reading anything.

And as a result, now I don’t think I want to work for you: I picture my tenure with your company as furiously composing unnecessary faxes with irrational demands –demands that are forwarded to another fax machine on the other side of the building occupied by an effective battalion of hot secretaries who promptly stamp it “For Corporate Consideration,” copy it, scan it, email it, print it, copy the email, and file them away for future shredding –all the while complimenting my industriousness and brazen ambition.

“He’s going to go far in this company,” one will remark, shredding my proposal.

This is of course a highly abbreviated remark: over the years I will have fought hard against them gossiping about how attractive and sexy I am.

At some level that’s just not professional -and besides I am happily married.

I would have to write a memo like: “Ladies, this is a workplace. Despite my distracting good looks and overpowering 'machismo,' you must keep your base visceral instincts and urges under control. Put your blouses back on. This is harassment!” where it will be promptly stamped “For Corporate Consideration,” copied, scanned, emailed, printed, and filed away for future shredding.

The future is bleak.

Sexy, but bleak.

I, Omega

Predator Press

[LOBO]

I have concluded that about one in thirty of our population is either a dumb fuck or an asshole.

Does that seem high? Really? Don’t we all tolerate one at our jobs and -rather than rooting out the Evolutionary throwback- rationalize ’There’s one in every workplace?’

I remember going to see “The Devil’s Own” in the theater about ten years ago. I’m not proud –it’s undoubtedly one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. But I fell victim to Hollywood’s big hype about Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford’s big co-screen effort.

There’s roughly thirty people in the theater. And after $10 per ticket, $10 per person for crap food actually valued in pennies, $10 for parking, et cetera, a guy decided to answer his cellphone mid-movie.

People muttered –indeed, even his date seemed aghast- but this only seemed to make him louder.

About ten rows behind him, I began pinging his noggin with ice from my $4 Coke. If your Coke is $4, every piece of ice comes out to about 10¢; still, he pretended to ignore this. And after about $1 worth of improvised ammo did nothing, I just beaned him with the whole cup.

It was spectacular, and people applauded as we slipped out the fire exit.

So due to my 30-to-1 ratio “theory,” I dislike going to the theater: I built a pretty solid home entertainment system to avoid screen talkers and lines and blah blah. And at home I can eat good food, pause the movie to use the bathroom, whatever.

-Assuming I can get the movies.

Blockbuster Video had a pretty good program to facilitate this. For about $20 a month, you can get unlimited movies -like four or five at a time- mailed to your house. And if you return them to a Blockbuster store, you can avoid mail altogether and get a free one on the spot.

But for whatever reason those movies seemed to have a problem disappearing. In the span of 4 months, 4 of the movies returned to the store simply vanished ... and despite protest Blockbuster dinged our credit card an additional $80, thus doubling our membership fees.

So Terri and I went to Netflix, and this went surprisingly well for a time. Firstly the discs seemed to be in better condition overall; we had only one single episode of an unplayable movie whereas with Blockbuster we had dozens.

But more importantly Netflix has an online “Watch Instantly” feature. This to me signals a company that has it’s eye to the future: why mess with postage and discs at all when you can simply stream them legally from home? Sure the selection was pretty crappy, but this could improve over time, right?

Well in October Netflix forced a movie player “upgrade” called Silverlight, and we haven’t been able to finish an online movie since. And despite literally hundreds of easy-to-find comment threads online complaining about Silverlight, Netflix insisted it was our bandwidth -so now we’re going to pay an additional $15 a month to our service provider for the next 2 years.

And this solved nothing.

Now there’s a new little kiosk at our grocery store called Redbox. Good idea. For $1 a day you can get a pretty decent selection of new movies. But the device is slow, and people take forever “browsing.” To simply return a movie I've stood in line for 25 minutes.

This brings us back to dumb fucks and assholes. We’ve all had people cut in front of us in line at convenience stores, right? In Illinois it had happened to me maybe once or twice a year. But in the span of 3 months in California it’s happened to me dozens of times already. Is there a connection? Is this population so docile it’s okay? Is there a significantly higher ratio than 30-to-1 here? I don’t know. But yesterday a Hispanic “gangsta”-lookin punk tried it on me at the Redbox kiosk.

I politely invited him to go fuck himself.

He, eh, “protested,” but as I edged him out of the way with my shoulder I further instructed him to “never ever ever speak to me under any circumstances.”

I then returned my movie. But now surly, I wasn’t in the mood to rent another -this would end up being fortuitous as I would have had to use my traceable credit card. I went and paid cash for my groceries and headed out into the parking lot.

And there he was with two friends, quickly surrounding me on all sides as I exited.

I had half forgotten about the previous altercation and chided myself or not seeing this coming: the gangsta dweeb started to say something I didn’t catch because I was too busy jamming a 2-liter Mountain Dew medicine ball-style into the the solar plexus of another. And as he keeled over wheezing, I pounced the original punk.

I’m not Chuck Norris. This wasn’t like we squared off and started boxing: it was all fistfuls of hair and whatnot until we were on the ground and I was on his shoulders ready to drive his skull into the concrete. The third guy courageously ran off into the store calling for help, and this alarmed me.

Long story short, I just boogied. I’m not going to jail because of a curiously high concentration of dumb fucks and assholes. Groceries lost? $8.06. Waving and beeping at the wanna-be thugs as I drove off? Priceless.

Anyway.

As far as I’m concerned, from here on out I’m sticking it back to Hollywood. Screw every writer, actor, director … hey, do you know what a ‘gaffer’ is? No? Well screw him too. I’m done “playing ball.” While I’ve spent months getting raped by Hollywood distribution deals, unconscionable middle men and souless corporations, the whole time there were numerous online sites that offer high-quality bootleg copies of movies that aren’t even out yet.

So until the multi-billion dollar “Entertainment Industry” gets all this all locked down, I’ll be at home in a big comfy chair with $1.99 box of Orville Redenbacher, twirling the keys to a woefully antiquated and obsolete empire.

Do Sharks Fart?

Predator Press

[LOBO]

I know I said I wasn’t going to post for a few days, but science waits for no blog -not even Predator Press, dammit!

And you may remember that Predator Press is one of the few blogs that actually has a 47’ Great White Shark in captivity. And if Predator Press was going to keep this as an “exclusive” we needed to act fast.

What if Kathy at The Junk Drawer tries to 'scoop' me on this?

Hm?

So at great expense to you, Predator Press scienticans have been dragged out of various pubs and meth labs to answer the burning question on everyone's mind: Do sharks fart?

But good Predator Press-like science is a harsh mistress, and these experiments were beset with difficulties from the outset: immediately selecting 10,000 Taco Bell Fresco Bean Burritos as our explosive gas-inspiring catalyst, no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t get Daisy to eat them.

This was perplexing. I have personally witnessed Daisy, our monstrous oceanic hunter, eat everything from Pearl Jam albums to pimply gangsta teenagers that piss me off in a swirling bloody chainsaw-like fashion. But guacamole? Wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole no matter what we did.

So I figured we feed them to one of the Predator Press Scienticians, and then feed him to the shark, right? Well it turned out that Predator Press Scienticians were too lazy and worthless for this historic opportunity.

I was frustrated. This is California for god’s sake: the odds of Nicole Ritchie finding out there were 10,000 Taco Bell Fresco Bean Burritos laying around here and us catching her before she threw them up couldn’t possibly be improved upon!

This was going to take all my cunning.

-And frankly having them delivered to a Weight Watchers meeting was sheer genius.

Daisy broke wind at precisely 3:51 this afternoon.

Two Wrongs? No. Three Lefts? Yes.

Predator Press

[LOBO]

“No,” I tell Terri. “It’s not writer’s block. It’s more in the area of trying to come up with an original topic. Everytime I think of something some other blogger has it covered.”

In the Google searchbox, I type does my unicorn have leukemia?, press ‘Enter,’ and about 500 blogs on how to diagnose and cure unicorn leukemia emerge.

I scowl disbelievingly into the monitor.

“Those bastards are everywhere!"

Tilt

Predator Press

[LOBO]

[total silence, text fades in and out of darkness one line at a time]

Are you tired of writing your blog?

Or are you just too busy?

Well millions of wealthy and high-powered CEOs and celebrities just like you suffer from many of these same issues.

And so do some robots.

[cut to woman in pantsuit, dramatic music begins]

Woman in Pantsuit: “I’m a very busy executive, and in charge of a lot of things. Between flying my private jet and watching my stock market ticker, I just don’t have any time for blogging.”

[pan back to see baseball player behind her hit a home run, run the bases and then get swamped by masses and masses of cheering fans. cut back to woman -now confused, tearful and afraid.]

Woman in Pantsuit: “I don’t know anything about baseball. I sure hope Predator Press can come up with something that rich entrepreneurs like myself can pay for so people will think I do!”

[cut away to man in suit with pistol, firing at henchmen in a castle]

Man in Suit with Pistol: “After a hard day of espionage, who has time to blog?”

[short martial arts sequence with ninjas]

Man in Suit with Pistol: “Oh Predator Press I live in bloggless shame! Can’t you find a way to aid me with this difficult burden that I must bear for my entire life forever?"

[fade to black, dramatic music builds, narration begins]

Narrator: “In a world that has turned it’s back on Humanity.”

[fade in footage of Wall Street and tanks and bombers and stuff]

Narrator: “In a world that has turned upon itself”

[footage of, like, Hitler or something]

Narrator: “In a world that has turned upside down, because that’s what happens when you turn something round upon itself. And remember how it 'turned it's back on Humanity'? Well the world would be facing it again now ... assuming it's a sphere.”

[hey, who the &@# hired this *@#! narrator?]

Narrator: ”In a world where very busy rich people have no one to turn to.”

[okay. maybe rats, like gnawing through a bloody argyle sock. no, wait! like picture the dude in front of a gigantic citizen cane-style fireplace just typing into a laptop and then like ten rats just start eating his legs. twenty rats. a million rats! he tries to fend them off with his cognac snifter and a big cigar, but finally succumbs to them right on top of his bear skin rug as blood sprays everywhere. yes. kiss my ass, spielberg.]

Narrator: “One man answered the desperate call of a dying planet."

[cut to tinfoil fedora. hey, if we use the 'raiders' theme, do you think anyone would notice?]

Narrator: “One blog rose to the challenge.”

[cut to Predator Press logo as logo is struck by lightning and explodes into like a million pieces. but don’t make it a million pieces because that'll be a real bitch to clean up … make it like 12 or 15 pieces. and make it of Styrofoam. and then cut to me looking cool.]

LOBO: “Hi. My name is LOBO, and I’m here to help.”

Narrator: Hey, isn't that the 'Raiders' theme?

[ignore the narrator, but cut to guy on yacht before the dumbass says anything else]

Guy on Yacht: “Thank God you finally have arrived LOBO. I have to decide between blogging and going to the Big Party tonight. And Princess Fantasia is going to be there! What shall I do?”

LOBO: “Have no fear my wealthy friend. I can write your blog for you!”

[i open my laptop, and like golden rays of sunlight beam up and a subtle angelic hymn begins]

Guy on Yacht: “Really LOBO? You can write my blog?”

LOBO: “Yes it’s true. For an astronominal fee you can go to the Big Party and leave all your blogging worries to me.”

[cut to surgeon, surrounded by nurses mocking him]

Nurses Mocking Surgeon: "Be careful or you'll bore the patients to death!"

[nurses exit laughing stage left]

Surgeon: “LOBO, chicks think my blog is really dull. Can you help me spice it up so they will dig me?”

[i take the laptop off of the patient’s chest and hand the surgeon his glimmering scalpel, confidently smiling.]

LOBO: “Do you want 'Dangerous' or just 'Freaky'?"

[cut to leper on table]

Leper: “But with all the working out you obviously do, you can’t possibly have time to help all of us.”

LOBO: “Why yes I do my friend.”

[i touch the leper’s forehead, and he is, like, healed.]

LOBO: “Yes I do.”

[here’s where I narrate a montage of really scientific-looking lab equipment. cue upbeat sciency music]

LOBO: “See we here at Predator Press have always prided ourselves in looking out for the welfare of very, very wealthy people. And very wealthy people often have very difficult and expensive obstacles in the way of their blogging destiny."

[cut back to nurses previously mocking surgeon, all staring into a computer monitor]

Nurse Previously Mocking Surgeon: "Wow was I wrong about that surgeon! Did you know the government is considering replacing George Washington’s image on the quarter with his?”

Other Nurse Previously Mocking Surgeon: "Yeah. And last weekend he saved a puppy out of the shark tank using nothing but a carpet deodorizer!”

Another Nurse Previously Mocking Surgeon: "Do you think the surgeon would mind if we all go skinnydipping?”

[other nurse previously mocking surgeon begins to unbutton her blouse]

Other Nurse Previously Mocking Surgeon: “Race ya!”

[cut to surgeon in front of shark tank, giving “thumbs up” to camera]

Surgeon: “Thanks Predator Press. "You have completely changed my life forever.”

Former Leper and Nurses Previously Mocking Surgeon: [splashing, laughing off camera] "Thanks Predator Press"!

After Math

Predator Press

[LOBO]

“Last place, D?” I says.

“Hey, it only means I had the tenth funniest blog last year,” he beams. “I’m just excited to have been nominated.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, D.”

“Stop calling me ‘D,’ okay?”

“Maybe this will cheer you up.”

“Hey, this is a bill for $45,152!”

“And as your P.R. Agent, I suggest you pay it. You don’t want a reputation as a deadbeat.”

“You aren’t my P.R. Agent!”

“Would anyone other than your P.R. Agent make you this?”

Predator Press Semi-Annual Caption Contest Winner Announced

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Congrats to Alex L., author of the relentlessly insightful Discrete Charm of the Middle Class for his winning entry.

Well, the only entry actually.

-But I’ve grossly underestimated how much work goes into having these “Caption Contests,” aka judging them and stuff.

With all my candor I’m sure it’s very easy to forget that I’m a dignitary -an emissary from the great nation of LOBOnia, a 10-foot mobile US breakaway province that surrounds me at all times.

It tends to be very time consuming.

And we often mutually benefit from the intertrading commodities -LOBOnia even uses your American currencies.

“Hello you wonderful Americans!” I always singsong as I enter a gas station.

See, America and LOBOnia have great relations overall. In fact there’s nothing I enjoy more than bursting into large groups of industrious hard-working Americans and greeting them effusively.

Invariably, I am met with those silent smiles, the smiles of people drinking in the goodwill and friendship established between these two mighty empires. Seizing the moment, I will approach the countertop deskspace –the area where the proprietor carefully checks his magazines for unsightly typos.

“Ahmed my good man,” I says. “Have you voted for Diesel yet today?"

"Who?"

"Diesel. He's a famous guy on the computer thingy. Drives a car with a clitoris?"

More polite smiling.

"-ah forget it. Ahmed, I wish to engage in a series of negotiations which will allow me to import a rather large emergency cache of Funyuns.”

“Isle Two,” says Ahmed.

“Your assistance in these matters are as always appreciated,” I says embarking for "Isle Two" ... about three feet away. “When your American President inevitably seeks an audience with me, I will be sure to underline your vigorous efforts to facilitate our frequent commerce.”

“$2.11,” says Ahmed.

“It says $1.99 on the bag.”

Ahmed rolls his eyes. “It’s an import-export tariff.”

“I have authorized no such levee.”

“$2.11,” says Ahmed.

I shake my scepter warningly. “But it says $1.99 on the bag!”

[*sigh*]

-Being a dignitary is very time consuming.

Congrats Alex!

There's An A$$hole in the Bucket List Dear Liza, Dear Liza

Predator Press

[LOBO]

I've never seen "The Bucket List," but I've seen a jillion posts about it. And I was cool with steering clear of the topic despite it's intriguing nature.

So I'm dead last with my 'Bucket List' post.

-Mine is to have my life made into a major motion picture, and being subsequently driven from the movie's premier by the resulting angry, bloodthirsty rioting mob.

I swear on a stack of Bibles that's mine.

So now that I've ripped off 1,116 other bloggers of a post premise, I might as well go the distance and rip off Diesel too, right?

I am proud to present Predator Press' very first Semi-Annual Caption Contest!

"But LOBO," I can hear you saying. "How can you possibly have time for Caption Contests while trying to defend the Earth from the unrelenting tide of the Great Zombie Omnacracy?"

Easy!

Getting rid of zombies isn't like, say, getting rid of Jews or anything: zombies are dumb. So I've decided that I will make the caption, and you -the loyal reader- will do all the Photoshopping. Seriously. And have you seen my Photoshopping? Ughh.

-You couldn't possibly do any worse.

Besides ... by doing this, I've reminded you to vote for Diesel in a sneaky, subliminal hypnofied way: it's like jamming broken and salted vote for Diesel glass into your Frontal lobe. If you don't vote for Diesel, you will doubtlessly wake up out of breath, heart racing, dripping sweat with a nosebleed and the subject of a new Stephen King -no, a Dean Koontz novel.

-And all the while wondering why you didn't just simply vote for Diesel.

So here it is:




Good luck to all!

The Ingredients of a Good Thriller

Predator Press

[LOBO]

The sales of Chris Wood's new book The Ingredients of a Good Thriller appear to be outpacing the free Predator Press Temporary Advance copies of This Book Kicks the Crap Out of All Those Other Books by an extraordinary margin.

-I mean I don't even think this is a real number.

My advisors tell me this is largely attributable to me never actually having written "This Book Kicks the Crap Out of All Those Other Books."

And as far as my Astrologers? This was the first they had heard of the thing.

I would fire everyone, but I don’t think I’ve paid them for six months or so already anyway.

-And hey, the Astrologers shoulda seen it comin’.

It's the Thought that Pounced

Predator Press

[LOBO]

“Why don’t you try making some money with Predator Press this year?” suggests Terri. “You know, like maybe a book deal or something?”

“I think people have come to regard Predator Press as sort of a public service,” I shrug. “You don’t get people hooked on heroin or cocaine and then start charging them for it. It’s just not done.”

“How about taking on a charity?”

“Like when you encouraged me to push little old ladies across the street?”

“I said help little old ladies across the street.”

“You really don’t read the police reports very closely, do you?” I observe.

Ask LOBO: Women and How to Understand Them

Predator Press

[LOBO]

People are always asking me, ”LOBO, you are so smooth and cool when it comes to women. What is the secret?”

Well I’m glad you asked me that.

-It just so happens I live with two women as well: my lovely wife Terri and teenage daughter, eh, Complainy.

So who better to lecture comprehensively on this subject?

Hm?

If you think about it, I’m what you might call an expert.

Yeah.

As a species I wouldn’t trade with women in a million years. For starters there’s that whole “Childbirth” thing. For those of you not familiar with the concept of “Childbirth,” “Childbirth” is where you essentially try and crap a chair. And not just any chair either: it’s like crapping one of those folding steel chairs you see on the WWE.

The weird thing is women keep doing it: even as you read this, somewhere a woman is going through “Childbirth” –and all in the full knowledge of what she’s in for.

It’s pretty crazy if you think about it. If I had fifteen minutes of advance knowledge I was going to stub my toe, I would have the evil building and everything within four square blocks demolished by professionals, burn down the rubble, and after a proper Catholic ceremony have the ashes launched into the sun.

-These people have like six months of advanced knowledge.

Weird!

In an effort to explore this inexplicable trait, I have gone through Terri and Complainy’s bathroom cosmetics. I found mostly unpleasant-seeming things such as “Apricot Scrub.” Yuck. There’s a tube labeled “Morning Burst” that makes me wince just thinking about it: can you imagine stumbling groggily into your shower, and BANG!, getting a burst of any kind? Unless it’s the shrapnel of coffee in paste form, I don't want it.

“Cranberry Tart Body Butter” got my attention. Firstly, on the label “Cranberry Tart” is written in an elaborate flowing calligraphy and looks like “Cranberry Fart” until you look at it closely (I'll take a picture of it when I get my camera back).

But what the heck is “body butter?"

-And wouldn’t something that made your farts smell like cranberries been infinitely more practical?

Well, that’s all the time I have today to lecture on women and how to understand them. I thought it would only take about 20 minutes, but women are a little more complex than I initially thought: I’ll obviously have to do the other half some other time.

In the meantime, the kids are away tonight and Terri is going to be home in a half an hour. I’m going to answer the door absolutely slathered in body butter, and in nothing else but a loincloth made from toast.

I hope she’s hungry.

:)~