Science Is A Wonderful Thing

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[Mark]

Science is a wonderful thing. Science, for instance, aided me in waking up this morning. Of course, if you're not great at waking up and find the experience utterly repugnant and liable to leave you in a foul mood for at least the first half-hour of consciousness - a quick wave to my wife here who may be reading - then you may conclude that science in this particular case is decidedly not a wonderful thing. As an amateur scientist you are perfectly within your rights to come to that conclusion; the beauty of science is that it's great to be wrong. For you.

Science is a wonderful thing. Science, as I've mentioned, aided me in waking up this morning. Science made it possible for a production line of six-year-old Thais to put together the components of my digital alarm clock. Science was also involved in the biological processes that gently shifted my body out of its comatose state, through an interlude of dreaming the likes of which would blow your mind were I to divulge its thread of insanity, and thence to a state of near-alertness primed to ensure the alarm clock entered its so-called "Snooze" state as soon as humanly possible after blasting out and flashing into life.

Some people, it seems, are irritated by a pulsing, blue glow accompanied by the local radio station's attempt to promote a local double glazing manufacturer with an obviously-locally-produced advert through the medium of a happy jingle and unoriginal tagline at 200dB at 6:45 in the morning. A quick wave to my wife here who may still be reading.

Science is a wonderful thing. Science, as I've explained, aided me in waking up this morning. And, after waking, science then assisted in ensuring I was ready for the day by permitting my house's artificial intelligence computer network entity to manufacture a series of deadly pits, logic puzzles, and feats of strength between the bedroom and bathroom while I slept. Cleaning your teeth with a heart rate of 187 beats per minute while tending to an oxyacetylene burn on the thigh and contemplating the best way to dispose of a vicious - but now vanquished and rapidly rotting on the hallway carpet - chimeric nightmare formed in the cloning lab in the attic is how I like to prepare for whatever life can throw at me.

That's all thanks to science. And a lot of money. Obtained with the help of gun science and a look of fury that said "turn that effing thing off and let me go back to sleep and do something with your life before I strangle you" from a certain someone, early one morning, many years ago. A quick wave to my wife here who may be skimming down the page by now.

Science is a wonderful thing. Science, you're aware, aided me in waking up this morning. Thereafter, science came together in a show of force to ensure I was at peak mental and physical efficiency for a day of work. You won't be surprised to learn this: that's science work!

Today I engaged in scientific research. The size of a man's vehicle is inversely proportional to the size of a man's preferred tool of reproduction; we all know this to be fact. I and my team at the We'll Study Anything If There's A Grant Involved Foundation, however, also ascertained that there is a directly proportional relationship between the size of a man's vehicle and just how much of a dick he really is.

Science can now confirm that a man who drives a Fiat Punto is most-likely great all round and well-endowed, bus and truck drivers are total tossers with shrivelled appendages, and captains of oil tankers deserve every piratical act that happens upon them and never visit the toilet without a pair of tweezers for assistance.

Yes, science is a wonderful thing. Oh, and I used to drive a Fiat Punto. A quick wave - and a wink - to my wife here who may have skipped to the end.


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The Brood Network

Predator Press

[LOBO]

A vague dalliance with "Facebook" has given me an often-unrequested glimpse into the past, and friends from way back are beginning to build their own blogs and web page variants.

One remarked recently that Predator Press was weird.

"Weird!" I says indignant. "Just look at her site. It's like 1000 pictures of her kids she slapped together a few months ago."

"Blogging means different things to different people," Terri defended.

"Well that's weird if you ask me," I retort. "Putting up pictures and the names of your kids on the internet seems like an invitation to weirdoes. And if your audience is weirdoes, that's weird by definition."

"What's your point?" she asks sarcastically.

Skimming, I scroll down to the bottom of the page and find the following quote:


NO TO PLAGIARISM
***Please don't RIP nor COPY any CONTENTS here.***
***LEARN TO RESPECT***


"WTF?" I demand. "Like some retired international jewel thief is scouring the internet for pics of children to claim are his? Imagine the overhead on that operation," I surmise. "The child support alone would be staggering."

Terri chuckles over my shoulder. "She's obviously very protective."

I scowl checking the hit counter. "Well we got kids fair and square. I might want to capitalize on this idea while I can -particularly with Screechy on the verge of moving out on his own."

Terri stares. "He's seven."

"We can't coddle him forever!"

Ask LOBO

Predator Press

[LOBO]

People are always asking me ”LOBO, if e^2x -5e^x +6 = 0, what is the value of X?"

At this point I'll ask for some scratch paper, and reach into my shirt pocket for my pen.

-But the unscrewed pen contains about a gram of painstakingly separated blue granules from a box of Tide Ultra: when they return with the paper, pow, I puff the tiny payload of pure unadulterated Mountain Breeze Freshness™ into the unsuspecting smartypants' eyes.

Once that fat little unibrow starts screaming, I've got a good two or three minutes to find a fire extinguisher -or anything of adequate weight really- to smash through the window so I can escape into the safety of the parking lot. The office VCR is an excellent projectile for this because it contains the much-desired security tape: with that tape in hand, I get to say something clever and cool like "Wow this store really is convenient!"

Time permitting, I like to douse the side of the building with gasoline and torch the place too. But I'm not real "hard and fast" with this policy: it all depends if I'm on my way to an appointment or something. It's not that I'm not thorough ... I'm just one of those busy-type people, you know? And besides being expensive the gas smell seems to linger. You can't, for instance, go to a wedding smelling like gasoline. You have to go change your clothes.

In any case, I'll never shop for wedding presents at a Pic 'N Save ever again.

Those people are jerks.

Floor 33

The Discreet Charm of the Middle Class

[Alex L.]

“Hello... hello... hello” I can remember saying, or asking, I'm not sure which, an elevator door opens and the entire room in front of you is black you're not really remembering the grammatical inflection you put on things.

“Hello... is any body here?” I asked, I remember that one. Stepping out into the blackened room, my eyes slowly adjusted to the blackness, all the lights were off but I could barely make out the cubicle in the distance. Behind me the door dinged and closed shut the elevator pulling away.

“Oh god” I murmured starting to get a little scared. It wasn't every day you get told to deliver some mail to the 33rd floor.

“I have some mail... I'm just going to leave it on the table over here” I peeped moving to the table and dropping the large orange envelope, I stepped back to the elevator door and pushed the green up arrow. I looked back at the envelope for a second. In the corner of my eye I noticed the light above the cubicle flicker on. The light buzzed and spluttered into life, under it I could make out the top of his head.

I pushed the button again, this time harder.

“Whose that?” The voice said from inside his tiny three and a half walls.

I couldn't push that arrow any harder unless I was attacking it with a bat.

“Umm, its me the mail boy...” I said slowly turning back to the cubicle.

“I have a mail?” He said again from within his composite board fortress. The one light on the roof illuminating just that. I could see the top of his head shining.

“Please, bring hence forth the mail of mine” he said loudly, after that he began murmuring under his breath, his arms flailing about in the air every now and then.

“O....k... “ this was more than slightly unnerving, I walked forward the ground beneath me crunched for some reason but I wasn't looking down, that seemed like a mistake.

“Be careful in sector 6a...” He said from within his domain.

“Why” I almost squealed searching around me for some sort of sign post to tell where I was.

“Radiation” He said casually.

“Radiation?” That time I actually did squeal.

“What from?” I asked not wanting to know the answer.

“From the monkeys” He replied.

“Monkeys!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah, the spider ones are the worst... oh that and the Nesmith... You hear that you hat wearing bastard” He said standing up and screaming the last part, shaking his fist furious at the darkness.

“Screw you to jackass” Came a scream from the darkness followed by some quiet monkey cooing. I stared out into the blackness, it could have come from anywhere the darkness seemed to stretch out for miles in all directions. I looked back at him standing up now still shaking his fist at seemingly nothing. He was still doing it when I wandered over to him.

“Um, here is your mail Mr...” I said before being cut off.

“I'm not finished yet” He said still shaking his fist. I looked blankly at him, and he wasn't he still had a good few minutes of that shake left. And there he was, and that was why his head was shining. The horns were a nice touch, but a Viking helmet made from tin foil can't have provided that much protection.



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Predator Press Declares War on Australia!

Predator Press

[LOBO]

EVERYBODY knows how America got started: in 1776 a bunch of us hated soccer so much we loaded up the Nina, the Pinto, and the Santa Fe, and left the oppressive British monarchy forever. We’ve been freely oppressing ourselves ever since.

But what about Australia? Hm? Heck, we left Britain voluntarily … those people were kicked out!

The reason this comes up now is because it’s a matter of National Security: I recently caught Australia skulking up and down the West Coast. It wasn’t doing anything particularly suspicious -in fact at first I thought it was Kirstie Alley; it just rented a boogieboard and tooled about in the surf. But in retrospect I’m almost sure it knew I was "on" to it, and it was trying to look nonchalant.

Exactly why Australia has been sneaking around isn’t quite yet clear, but it has a long history of subtly messing with us with acts such as the “Coriolis Effect”; the Coriolis Effect -first proposed by famous mobster Don Coriolis- suggests that Australians often amuse themselves by flushing their toilets the same moment we do, thusly causing ours to back up.

But now the Aussies have become so brazen they are patrolling well inside our oceanic borders in broad daylight; if you listen closely and the wind is right, you can hear the war didgeridoos blowing in the distance. How long until Australia comes straight up the Mississippi and parks itself near St Louis? Inside agents such as Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson could just wave their arms wildly an yell “Hey! Over here! Lookit my new movie!” and pow, we got Yahoo Serious in the White House.

One only has to see a few photos of the well-decimated and uninhabitable Australian landscape to realize that St Louis, nay, America doesn't deserve a similar fate: an Australian invasion deeply offends my national sensibilities, and I won’t take the inevitable sneak attack lying down.

Unless of course it occurs during my nap.

-In which case I would hope they do it quietly.

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In the Symphony of Dissonance

Predator Press

[LOBO]

On Sunday, Terri came across this great little story on Joshua Bell and we spend a good hour "buzzing" about it: this guy lays a hat down at a subway station and earns $32 in forty-five minutes.

Now the fun comes in when you find out he's one of the best violinists in the world, and a few days prior had sold out a show at the paltry sum of $100 per head. The violin he used? Well I'm guessing he wanted to get a really old one so he could fool his audience, and "beater" violins are hard to come by: this one set him back $3,500,000.

For "non-readers," a good YouTube distillation of it can be found here, and the site Hoax-Slayer asserts the story's truth.

Anywho, boom: switch to Monday Night.

While sifting through blogs a thought crept into my braincase, and I'm particularly aware of this because of the rarity of the event: Why is that Joshua Bell story so interesting? Is clever irony that difficult to find? What makes a good post or story in the first place?

I decided to make a little log of little things -good or bad- that caught my eye as I surfed. I'm not going to link them up as some of them aren't particularly flattering, and I'm far too young and beautiful to die.

But here goes:


Hip Hop Hats:

Are you "positive" you are wearing your clothing correctly?

According to GQ, a properly-placed cap faces the same direction as your toes -unless you were horribly disfigured in a car accident and your toes don't point forward. In this case the bill should be on the same side as the zipper on your pants.

If your toes were horribly disfigured in a car accident and you're wearing parachute pants you're pretty screwed. Start listening to country music instead: those hats are generally invertible.


The Title "Our Journey To Forever":

That slays me. You know how you brain skims lines and finishes sentences for you? While the page loads my brain reads "Our Long, Long, Long, Long Journey ..."

The word "long" isn't even in the damn thing.

This title sounds excruciating; when I visit, I half expect to see skeletons with backpacks scattered around a cobweb-covered egg timer.

If we have 'forever,' I'm just going to chill here for a few thousand years.

Don't wait up.


The Title "A Mother of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow":

I'm no master of the use of the comma, but this gives me a mother of a headache. You know, the one you inevitably get while watching sci-fi stories about wormholes and stuff?

Okay. Is there only one mother, or are they three different ones? Can 'mother of tomorrow' get me lottery numbers? What if you had the baby the day before yesterday ... who was the mother then? If it wasn't you, how can you be a mother now? What happens to the 'mother of tomorrow' if the ‘mother of yesterday’ decides to wear a condom instead? Can 'mother of tomorrow' beat up 'mother of yesterday' due to better technologies, or would 'mother of yesterday' murder 'mother of tomorrow' before she even knew about it? If 'mother of tomorrow' kills 'mother of yesterday,' mother of yesterday won't exist tomorrow -thus, 'mother of tomorrow' has no one to kill when the scenario arises: what happens then? Is yesterday's tomorrow today -so this whole thing only lasts for a total of three days- or is today tomorrow's yesterday in perpetuity? And if mothers are so good at time travel, why the hell do my socks keep disappearing ... ?


The Terms "Pinay" and "Pinoy":

If my mom said "We're going to the boardwalk, and I'm going to push you around in a stroller with a pinay on top," I would be, like, cool with it. But then I would think Man my mom is weird. And then I would think I couldn't even fit in a stroller, could I? And then I would think WTF is a "pinay?"

Well it turns out "Pinays" aren't those shiny colorful things on a stick that spin in the wind. Those are pinwheels. This whole time I figured maybe a "pinay" was a pinwheel that spins clockwise, and a "pinoy" is one that spins, you know, counterclockwise.

But actual "Pinays" are very heavy in contrast, and often accompanied by large contingents of "Pinoys."

Well good luck getting those on a factory spec stroller.

Mom is just plain 'ol racist and mean.


The Overly-Optimistic Idea Of How Cute Your Kids Are:

Okay, for the last two years we’ve seen a huge surge in stay-at-home mom bloggers. Fine. But moms are notorious for thinking their kids are the “cutest thing” -I think it’s a primitive biological survival trick by Nature so's most of our species is fooled into not leaving them in prom trashcans.

Darwin, I love you ... but yikes, man! Some of these kids have big freaky bulging eyes and that trailer park dentistry where the heavily-gapped teeth seem to whirl and snag in impossibly horrible different directions.

-I don't know how people can sleep with one of those creepy drooling bald things crawling around the house.


Catchy Graphics:

Okay this one requires an example image. Check this out:



Kewl, huh? A powerful, scantily clad-sorceress with decorative intimidating entourage accessories: at first blush this says "Tremble before my blog, ye misogynist dragons!"

-But wait.

Ummmm .... okay. I'f she's preggers, it has to be from the weird blue guy on the far right of the lineup: her +6 Mace of Eye Burning would have likely worked on all the others 'cuz they all actually have eyes. As a result her Child Support will arrive only sporadically, and often in the form of alien heads and pelts.

But if she's not preggers it gets exponentially more complex; wouldn't one of those big scary thugs at some point question her powers -powers that have thus far failed to conjure her up even a Nordic Track?

Well which is she now, a shameless mystical warrior space floozy or a soon-to-be-behemoth, Coors Light guzzling magical fraud? I don't know. But I've come to your blog to be entertained, not to be exhausted by speculation on this woman's brazen equivocation and loose morals. At least she'll be too busy skulking around dungeons to make a blog that I gotta see her kids on.

Still, it does beg the question of what medieval trailer parks might look like. And in a universe utterly devoid of El Camino hubcaps, what in the world would she use as a candy dish? A shield maybe?

-Okay, screw it. This is flat-out the best banner I've ever seen, and I'm "bookmarking" this site.

Anywho the "moral of the story" is sure there's a lot of mind-numbing stuff out there. But don't be one of the 1000 plus people that rushed past Joshua Bell while he's playing his heart out: if any one of them took pause to consider what they might be missing, they coulda bashed him upside the head with a tire iron and grabbed that $3,500,000 violin.

-A violin I could have easily fenced for sixty cents on the dollar.

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On This Day In Predator Press History

Predator Press

[LOBO]

On August 25, 1980, while General Zod made his play for control of the Earth, I wore down Ursa's morale by covering her MySpace with anonymous obscenities and slanderous allegations about her sexual proclivities; General Zod had a "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and this fatally undermined the military effort.

And can you really be a 'general' if your entire army is only three people?

Thanks to me (and a small supporting role by Superman), Zod, his "army," and his hairline were all soon receding into the furthest reaches of outer space.

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