The End is Near

Predator Press

[LOBO]

“Egypt has a Revolution, Japan has Earthquakes, nuclear meltdowns are imminent, we’re bombing Libya -” I throw my hands in the air in crisis fatigue. “And now this?“

“Honey,” Terri soothes. “It’s toilet paper.”

“It’s 1-ply!”

Driving Miss Crazy

Predator Press

[LOBO]

“You need to slow down,” scolds an already irritated Terri. “You know why they put those ‘Children Crossing’ signs up, right?”

“Sure I know” I says. Decelerating, I sigh and roll my eyes. “They have to. Because children are stupid.”

“Children are not stupid.”

“Oh reeealllly,” my eyebrows arch in a mix of fury and snark. Spotting a little girl at the stop sign, I press the button to roll down my window. “You!” I points to the little girl. “Who won the 1994 World series?”

To this, the little girl stared confused -and after a moment decided to smile and wave.

“Ptthbtt,” I says,  rolling my window back up.  Proceeding into the clear intersection, I underline “See that?  Dumb as a fuckin' post.”

Terri scowled. “There was no World Series in 1994. The players went on strike that year.”

“Really?”

Predator Press Reviews: The Ingredients of a Good Thriller

 Predator Press

[LOBO]

All attempts to review one of Chris Wood’s books -The Ingredients of a Good Thriller- have been encumbered by the stubborn necessity of actually having read it first. I am immediately alarmed at the prospect: Chris is both a good friend and -typically- a great read, but this book doesn’t contain any pictures whatsoever … I already have a disinclination to like it.

But -despite my diminished hopes and the inversely growing sense of foreboding- I wanted to make good on reviewing it fairly.

-Predator Press readers would demand nothing less, right?

Finding a homeless guy to read it to me was unnecessarily complicated process, as I immediately tried to seek out “Golden Voice” guy Ted Williams. Williams, it turns out, isn’t homeless at all ... And neither is any of his security entourage, who summarily beat me into unconsciousness with a handy ice sculpture and escorted me off of the Estate.

Nonetheless Good Fortune lent a hand, I turned out to be locked in a car trunk with none other than my dear dear friend Flandsa Ha’asasanba -the hard-working and genuinely homeless immigrant I ruined by hijacking Predator Press from.


“What’s that sound?” I says, flicking on my lighter.

“It sounds like we are leaving,” says Flandsa.

I pull out a cigarette.

“Can I have one of those?” asks Flandsa.

 “Dude, we’re locked in the trunk of a Mercedes. Both of us smoking? That’s like second-hand smoke a go-go. Besides, I‘m only doing it because of how you smell.” I wince in the dark. “Jesus. You people would get a lot more help if you called yourselves ‘The Showerless.’”

“I suppose,” Flandsa sulks. “What do you think Ted Williams is going to do to us?”

“Well Ted Williams is formerly homeless, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’m assume he’s going to have you beaten to death with a shovel somewhere out in the dessert. But maybe he’ll have me dropped off on the way.”

“You think he’s going to let you live?”

“Well, he’s not going to kill me like I’m some homeless loser” I says, exhaling deep smoke. “I had a reason to be there. I wanted him to read me The Ingredients of a Good Thriller.”

“By Chris Wood?”

“No shit. You’ve read it?”

“Read it?” says Flandsa. “I memorized it. It was a brilliant and well-written ‘how to,’ essential to not just thriller writers, but to general thriller fans. Would you like me to recite it to you?”

“I dunno,” I say. “I’m going to be pretty busy locked in this trunk and all. If I loan you my laptop, will you just write the review for me? Just tell me if I liked it or not. Oh, and also ding him for not having any pictures.”

I kick on the lighter again to examine the trunk contents, and calmly evaluate the crisis at hand. “No ashtrays back here. Jesus. Spare tire, jack ... This is a Mercedes, right? The condiment dispenser only has domestic mustard, and where the fuck is the beer? You might think those Brits would take that into consideration when engineering these things."

“But Mercedes isn't-”

“Shh!” I says. “We’ve stopped. What has it been? Four hours maybe?”

“It’s been around eleven minutes.”

“We’ll split the difference. Four hours divided by eleven minutes, times sixty miles and hour …" I rub my temples. "Shit, we must have gone out to the dessert first.”

The barely-audibly engine is turned off, and we hear the four car doors all open and close individually.

“Well it was nice seeing you again Flandsa,” I says, as inches from my head a set of keys work the trunk lock. “Can I have my laptop back now? Did you save your work?”

The suns screams violently in, and I am instantly blinded in the hot and dry. Hands roughly drag me out and stand me up by the lapels.

I suddenly realize I am surrounded by dozens of Flandsa Ha’asasanba’s.

And they are all carrying shovels.

-I think I screamed.

Internet Swag

Predator Press

Canadian Breakin'

Predator Press

[LOBO]

“How come you never mentioned you had an uncle in the National Hockey League?" Terri asks, pointing at the scrapbook picture.

“Well he wasn’t a very nice guy,” I says. “He was stubborn, over-achieving, and fiercely anti-symmetric.”

“But we aren’t Jewish.”

My Uncle had more hits than Wikipedia.

“No. He was fiercely anti-symmetric," I correct.  "He would come over at Thanksgiving and start stacking all the furniture in a corner.” I flip the page, and we see his laminated newspaper obituary. “It is widely suspected that's how he ended up dying in fact. While rearranging the zambonis at Philips Arena, he fell through the ice and drowned.”

“Huh," says Terri. "But I thought hockey rink ice was only a few inches thick?”

“Hence the ‘stubborn’ and ‘over-achieving’ part,” I shrug.

To Clarify

Predator Press

[LOBO]

US Katrina Death Toll: 2,000

US 9-11 Death Toll: 3,000

Japanese Death Toll: 10,000

(currently)

Japan is roughy the size of California in square miles.

California has 36,961,665 souls

-Japan has 127,176,667

HEAT

Predator Press

[LOBO]

I may have written about my “Bucket List” -a bunch of crap I want to do before I die- already.

-But all you die-hard Predator Press readers immolating yourselves should know this is a brand new post -so no matter how bad those gasoline fumes are, read this, shut the fuck up, and think about what you’ve done.

-Assholes.

But -as was saying before I was rudely interrupted- for the most part my "Bucket List" is sophomoric criminal bullshit:

1) steal a cop car and lead the cops on a high speed chase, or

2) steal an armored car and lead the cops on a medium-speed chase until I can

3) steal the helicopter cops use for high speed chases (eh? Eh?), and

4) screech to a halt just past a sign on a bridge that reads "County Line," and park to wave back happily at the fleet of furious cops that can no longer arrest me because I'm 6 linear feet outside their jurisdiction.

My 5th "Bucket List" item is more a pair of scientific theories I want you people to finally prove. (I would prove them myself in life, but because they are scientific theories, they may -MAY- require some ‘Mathematics.’ And while not willing to dabble in such pagan hoodoo, I do want the credit.)

Theory A) I think if you’re pulled over for a DUI and the cop asks you to take a sobriety test, you’re already fucked. Right?  He’s just making you do tricks so he can laugh watching them on his VHS later that day:

T       F

Theory B) You know how you can live on a rural street -middle of nowhere- and maybe six cars go by all day, but when you get in your car and start the ignition it’s like Chicago I-94 all of the sudden? Or how it seems every light is red?  Well, I think there is a well-organized squad of old people with walkie-talkies fucking with us. War vets -? They radio when we leave the house, where we're going, what and what bank teller lane we're getting into, et cetera.

But why 'old people,' o Brilliant One?” you are probably asking.

See, that logic took me a while. The Opportunity was never in question ... trust me: when I can‘t sleep and my dick doesn‘t work anymore, I‘ll be hassling you.  But what is the Motive? What the fuck do these geezers have against us?  I don’t want to put deer stalker hat factories out of business or anything …. I’m just sayin this blue haired buzzard bait has some crazy reason for doin’ this shit, right?

Eventually I crunched the numbers on Excel. I found that elderly people have a slower reaction time -sometimes half that of a person in his twenties. Then you factor in how they drive about two-thirds of the speed limit. And when these behaviors are coupled with frequent, sudden naps and crashing into 7-11s, it doesn‘t leave much actual “driving” -in 2.5 hours, your garden variety Senior Citizen will be closer to home than his or her original desired destination.  And over a long enough timeline, they will actually owe some driving …

T       F

Anyone else need a cigarette?

Wind-X Men

Predator Press

UFC Headline Match Cancelled Due to Japan Earthquake

Predator Press

[LOBO]

While UFC President Dana White did not accept questions, his words peel through clearly: the 2012 AMA Madison Square Garden Match of the Century -contracted at a whopping $7b- will indeed not be taking place as billed.

“We are looking at 2014,” says White cautiously. “But while Godzilla’s alibi for the 2011 Earthquake is airtight, we did come across some information that is troubling in the process. In the interest of the sport, we have declared Godzilla ineligible for competition until further notice.”

While White tactfully avoided the controversy of Godzilla’s recently testing positive for Gamma Ray radiation, he admits, “Gamma Rays can potentially make your skin stony, give you an elastic-like ability to stretch, give you the ability to set yourself aflame and fly, or -via invisibility- let Sue Richards give Reed 24/7 shit until he is driven to a suicide-by-cop killing spree.”

“We are stunned,” says Mothra’s trainers. “After studying hours and hours of Gamera fight footage, we never once suspected any ‘juicing.’ I guess it only makes sense if you’re 45,000 years old.”

But while Mothra’s camp has been considerably restrained on the subject, Chuck Liddell -formerly accused of injecting Charlie Sheen Tiger Blood- has not.

“I will eat Baby Godzilla the morning of the match,” says Liddell. “And I will crap Baby Godzilla all over Godzilla’s defeated carcass!”

All Blogs Go to Heaven

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Getting back into the blogging “groove,” I’ve done some visiting to old friends’ blogs -and found many of them are either dormant of gone entirely.

In possession of an unprecedented and staggering intellect -the equivalent of a hundred men or five or six women- I am forced to conclude that, in addition to Twitter and Facebook watering down our numbers, we are up against a battle for relevance.

The choice is clear: to rise once again to former glory, we bloggers must either focus ourselves on topics of social significance or start doing pornography. And because my beloved wife stubbornly won’t let me do porn, my current options appear fairly narrow.

Undeterred, I have decided that Predator Press will have to be a blog of Social Conscience, thus the pacecar for the generations of blogs to come. And it is in pursuit of these lofty goals that I announce -without equivocation- that Predator Press has solved two of the greatest problems ever to face humankind simultaneously: that of 1) forever being free of Middle East oil, and B) the elimination of abortion.

What am I specifically speaking of? The single most overlooked, most economic, and most renewable energy source the United States has ever had: orphans.

First of all, unless they are in a musical, nobody really likes orphans. They are grubby and smelly, often terrible at shoplifting, and do nothing but complain. As CEO of the most profitable orphanage in New Jersey, I can‘t tell you how sick I am hearing that same ol‘ singsong bullshit all day and night, “O I wish I had a mom and dad,” or “I’m so hungy!” Orphans, left to their own devices, are nothing but inexhaustible whiners.

-But we can change all that. Why have big ugly windmills blocking your skyline when you can lay them down and have orphans spin those now-inconspicuous blades for you? And with some advance planning, we don’t have to give up our kewl cars either: 20 buried orphans will, in a few years, completely replace the much-maligned dinosaur and the fuel it produces. And c’mon … what the fuck have dinosaurs ever done to you? Has a dinosaur ever abandoned mopping the floor to break into some annoying weepy song and/or monologue, thus exposing you to potential slip-and-fall lawsuits from your dinner guests?

Crash test dummies can cost thousands of dollars. Impact-absorbent NASCAR walls can run into the millions. And forget the delight of simply punching one; have you ever tasted orphan meat? It’s like tofu: it takes on whatever flavoring you add. Why eat, say, endangered bald eagles when there are thousands of these little bastards … and they are virtually everywhere?

I say the potential untapped technologies based on an ample and replenishable orphan supply have been ignored for far too long, and it seems to me Humanity owes it to the Mother Earth to give it a shot.

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Charlie Sheen's Winning Recipes from Charlie Sheen