Pound of Flesh

Predator Press

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I listen to a lot of news on the radio, and it’s not uncommon to catch an accidental three or four minutes of Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity from time to time.

-I don't avoid them because I'm 'Liberal.' I avoid them because, well, I'm not a mushhead.

"Mushheads" aren't necessarily stupid, they are just too busy to do their own thinking. But my wife will tell you I do a lot more thinking than doing ... thus, apparently, mushheads doing the stuff I'm thinking about are an essential part of our overall ecology.

Were it not for all those hard-working mushheads, I'll daresay I would probably have to cancel one of my naps. As a consequence, Predator Press, a very mushhead-friendly website, will tolerate exactly zero "mushhead-bashing" in the future. Nadda. Zilch. And when you’re standing there alone and with no mushheads of your own -doin your own laundry or whatever- don’t come cryin’ to me: you’re gonna hafta get your own mushheads just like everybody else.

Anyway. Today Hannity opened his show with the proclamation he was against celebrating Halloween.

Need to read that again?

Today Hannity opened his show with the proclamation [*cough*] he was against celebrating Halloween.

-To paraphrase, he thought it taught little kids to be door-to-door beggars.

Well thank God after almost a year of Obama oppression, the Republicans may have finally found a platform from which to attack -and a platform of exponential potential! Little kids might’ve joyously loved this 'Halloween' thing not being politicized for decades were it not for this bold stance, and Hannity "stuck it" to generations of dangerous, egg-throwin masked little Liberal pricks good 'n proper.

While somewhat perplexed at this recruitment strategy, I for one am glad Hannity put the kibosh on this ‘Halloween’ nonsense once and for all: in the eyes of God, we're far better off with this 'Harvest Festival' thing -where history celebrates the bloody massacre of livestock- than all this Satanic mumbo-jumbo anyway. One can only hope these pagan Halloween bastards'll one day grow up and thank Sean for such acute “finger on the pulse” social insights. Where would we be without them? Don't fool yourself: you weren't 'Bobbing for Apples' -you were bobbing for souls.

Frankly I don't think Sean has gone far enough: we should introduce legislation so he can allowed to just kick the crap out of children with impunity. You know, if he sees one of 'em getting out of line, pow, a backhand upside the head -that'll teach those 2-8 year old little moochers juiced on Pixie Sticks and unrealistic expectations what the spirit of Halloween is all about.

Nobody smites evil like Sean: legend has it his belt has been blessed by the Vatican. Like a samurai sword, it has been folded, like, a jillion times, and once procured it must taste backside. And once Sean gets to smiting, look out! -he is known to have smoted an entire Miley Cyrus concert: in one evening, he blistered thousands of those lil pagan keysters all the way back into Jesus' flock where they would be safe from evil.

Maybe Sean and Sarah Palin can team up, and hunt down trick or treaters with her helicopter! Oh man, that would be awesome -stubby lil ghost and goblin arms and legs flailing everywhere as they swoop in from nowhere blarin' Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, darkening the sky with the righteous fire of religious pamphlets and darts laced with Ritalin.

Bravo, Sean. Bravo.

What's next? Christmas maybe?

In Loving Memory

Predator Press

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My family is Christian, Catholic … I dunno, something.

Cremate, bury, priest, yes, no, blah blah ….

I want a dead chicken revolved over my grave for twenty years.

And a monster car rally.

-Exactly as Buddha would have wanted it.

Cynical Airline Denies "Pay It Forward" Frequent Flyer Miles, Haley Joel Osment Stranded at O'Hare

Predator Press

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At some point, one of the kids is going to inherit the LOBOnian Empire.

-And before you ask, no, I don’t intend on dying. But while the LOBOnian Empire is a vast and complex kingdom, it’s also often excruciatingly boring too: I wouldn’t have bothered having kids were it not for the need of someone to dump bestow it upon.

Regarding the ability to run said empire, it’s too early to tell with the youngest, Screechy. He's seven. At this age, he has the attention span of a gnat -no, that’s too moderate: picture a hyper spaz gnat, suddenly paroled from a ten-year stint in prison, jazzed up on a half gallon of expresso, and then dropped off immediately at the gnat equivalent of the Playboy Mansion. Scatter empty juice boxes in the most improbable places you can think of, stir in an insatiable appetite for restless eight-second viewings of Spongebob Squarepants, and there you go: Screechy.

I’m forced to admit Screechy’s cousin, a year older, currently looks a bit more promising: she’s not only focused, but she’s a conniving, relentlessly talkative tattletail that -over a long enough timeline- drives everyone in earshot murderously insane.

-As a potential heir, she’s light years ahead of any of my immediate brood.

Her name is, eh, Freckles or something I think. And at the request of my mother in law, I’m taking her to school this morning. This is not a big deal as Screechy goes to the same one -but as a consequence of the unexpected detour, were running the risk of being late.

“I’m going to be Darth Vader,” Screechy says of Halloween, tiny feet beating the pavement hard to keep up with us. I can’t see his face under the hood of his jacket, but you can tell by his voice he’s beaming. “I got the cape and the and the mask 'an lightsaber and everything!”

“I’m going to be a princess,” Freckles challenges.

We’re at the crowded and narrow school gate, and this is where the whole ‘bonding with the kids’ thing pays off for me and I humiliate them mercilessly: the last time we were here it was “Crazy Sock Day,” and in front of a boy Freckles has a crush on I pointed at the sign and announced loudly, “See? I told you. Crazy Sock Day -there’s no such thing as Crazy Face Day!”

Freckles -having no appreciation for the laughter she inadvertently provided- turned beet red and smoldered with mixed rage and embarrassment instantly.

Well that was only a week ago. She shoulda known better than to set me up with this ‘princess’ thing. And as a potential heiress to the LOBOnian Empire, she's going to have to learn to anticipate these things.

“You can’t be a princess,” I explain, wading through chattering waist-high traffic. “You have to be nice to be a princess. I think you guys should trade costumes.”

Wobbling dangerously under the weight of his backpack, Screechy punches my thigh. Simultaneously, Freckles doubles the distance between us.

“You’re a princess!” she taunts.

“Nice comeback, Potsie,” I says

-Because nothing cripples the logic of an eight year old little girl like ‘Happy Days’ references.

“I’m calling you princess from now on, Ha ha,” she says in sing-song, skipping. “Prin-cess, prin-cess … “

Under dozens of tiny amused stares I lost a beat pondering this. How bad could it be? I’m thinking. Nice cars, a big castle, and a cadre of servants … I could lay around poolside drinking margaritas. You know … eye candy. And make people try to slay dragons and stuff.

Assuming there’s no homosexual component, the only downside of being a princess I could think of would be having a tennis instructor and a fitness trainer … but surely my dungeon could always hold a few more, right?

Heck, I would probably make a kickass princess.

“Fine,” I says, aloof and to no one in particular in a British-sounding falsetto voice. Holding up my hand daintily, I swish a bit as I walk to her and stick my foot out. “And my first act as a monarch is to command you to kiss Our Royal Pinkie Toe.”

“You’re a jerk,” she says.

“Princess,” I correct.

T Tauri

or "Woke Up on the Wrong Side of the Universe"

Predator Press

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One can only assume God, in His infinite wisdom, put me on this imperfect world in order to straighten some of this crap out.

So, bound by this sacred duty, I’m occasionally impelled to inform you of how things are going.

The current State of Affairs is “This Sucks.”

Now I know “This Sucks” is the same State of Affairs as the last time and the time before that-

-you know what? Now that I look, they all say “This Sucks.”

No, wait. Here’s one from when I was in college:

“****, This Sucks!”

Based on the steady decline of profanity in my notes, one can infer there has there has been some progress I suppose: “This Sucks” is clearly more subdued than “****, This Sucks!,” reflecting a small -yet undeniable- measure of suck reduction.

In fact if you think about it, Humanity is already reaping the fruit of my hard sacrifices and labor. There is no need to thank me -my humility suggests I would likely be too embarrassed anyway. Moreover I have deliberately made your doubtless gratitude for my contributions nigh impossible to express: you cannot, for instance, send me precious metals, high end electronics or luxury cars -heck, until my preemptive Temporary Restraining Order is lifted, you can't even call.

-But now that I think about it, a world without routes to ingratiate me seems a cruel and inhumane world too horrible to imagine. Fine. I will set up a PayPal account or something if you promise to stop sidetracking me with your incessant, woefully unrequited appreciation.

Anyway where was I? Oh yeah. The State of Affairs. This is probably the last one: I have decided to cancel all future 'State of Affairs' updates unless there is a change in the "This Sucks" status. Why? Because “This Sucks” appears to be the upper end of the spectrum for what even a gifted and impossibly handsome mortal man such as myself can accomplish, and I deem these reports redundant and needlessly depressing. The Earth sucks. There. I officially said it. And I know this will come as a rather unpleasant shock, but let not your heart be troubled: if necessary, cheer yourself up by beating the crap out of an environmentalist or something.

Worsening things the economy intrinsically bound to Earth sucks, and the hope for getting off of this planet and finding another one to complain about is unlikely in the near future: such exploration is often dicey and extremely expensive. Thusly forever imprisoned, we may find some solace in that the rest of the universe is a dump too -but isn’t this dubious comfort merely a further symptom of the colossal galactic scale of improbable and staggering suckitude that permeates all things known and unknown?

The mind reels ... with this irrefutable proof that my presence has made the Earth suck slightly less, how can we quantify the mind-bogglingly vast amounts of suck probably out there where I am not? You would have to invent, like, a whole new math. And math sucks, don't forget -this only deepens our situation further.

Everywhere else in the universe, clouds of hydrogen are collapsing upon themselves due the inescapable power of suck, igniting their cores to create mammoth fusion-powered suck machines that suck on each other to form globular clusters of suck that will one day explode their suckiness all over the rest of the infinitely vast and insatiable sucking void. We have that to look forward to. And that will really suck.

A famous smart guy once wrote something like “And with strange aeons, even sucking may suck.”

Man that guy was ahead of his time.

It was probably me. Or Einstein.

There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe

-as retold by Predator Press

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Humpty Dumpty knocked on the outside of the massive shoe.

No answer.

He knocked again. Louder.

"Who is it?" she cried from deep within.

"It’s the Humpster, baby" Humpty grinned into the peephole.

"Come on in. The door isn't locked."

He opens the door a few inches.

"You busy?" he calls into the seemingly-cavernous shoe.

"No," she grunts. "I’ll be there in a second."

"Damn girl," jokes Humpty. "You ain’t havin another baby, are you?"

There’s an awkward silence.

"Aw, congratulations!" says Humpty. He grabs some towels, and heads over to the kitchen to boil water.

Man this crazy ol lady sure does love to get her 'freak' on, he thinks smiling to himself. Shoe or no shoe, this girl knows what to do.

He fires the burner, and fills the pot with water smiling to himself, "Well, you know what they say about women with big hands and big feet."

"What?"

But Humpty, struggling for his asthma breather, didn’t hear her. The sight of the boiling pot of water had triggered a panic attack; all he could hear was the voice of his mother saying "That’s what happened to your father. One minute he was driving a forklift at a macaroni factory, and the next-" she pauses for effect, "Poached!"

"Hey are you alright?" asks the old woman. Now dressed in a sweatsuit, she alertly helps Humpty fumble his breather to his mouth. "What’s wrong?" she asks.

"Poached!" his mother echoed in his head.

"I’m sorry," he chokes, tears streaming. "Every time I see boiling water, I just want to grab a Bushmaster AR-15 and kill everyone I can find."

"Well I do loves a man with an eye for safety," she whispers. "I like Armalites ... don’t get me wrong. But they just don’t have the Viper range safety device that Bushmans do." She throws his arm over her shoulder. "Humpty, have you met my kids?"

Humpty leans away from the kitchen counter, testing his weak and wobbly legs. "Probably not all of them ma’am."

With her arms still around him, she helped him stand. Perhaps it was the proximity or the moment of utter vulnerability –maybe it was merely the smell of her perfume- but Humpty decided if ever there was a moment to tell her how he feels, this is it.

"Baby," he says, staggering to look into her eyes. "We’ve known each other for a long time. How come we never, eh, 'hooked up'?"

"Oh, Humpty," she blushes. "I’m very flattered, but you’re an egg. What would my friends say if I started dating an egg?"

Humpty, pride mortally wounded, looked away to hide the tears. Despite his aching heart, Humpty fought to reply. "You know," he sobbed. "We have our differences. But I have yearned for you for years now. I know your favorite band, favorite color, favorite flower … Damn it I love you."

The woman, shocked, stared in disbelief.

"And I don’t care that you’re an old woman that lives in a shoe," Humpty continued, grabbing her shoulders forcibly. "Can’t you see that discrimination is tearing us apart!?"

The woman’s pupils narrow.

"Get your filthy egg-hands off of me!" she screams.

"But baby-"

She dives for her cellphone, "How dare you!?"

"But I was only trying to-"

"Hello?" she barks into the phone. "Is this all the King’s men? A filthy egg is attacking me!”

Humpty lunges for her phone, and wrests it away from her. "God damn it woman, all the king's men will be trying to kill me now!"

Suddenly, Humpty realizes he has a .45 caliber pistol pointed into his temple.

The woman growls. "You make a sound before the cops get here, and I’ll blow your yolk all over the goddamned insole."

"Jezebel!" cries Humpty, lashing out.

Eyes bulging she chokes, "You damn ... dirty ... egg!" and falls limp in his arms moments later.

"Oh my god," cries Humpty as police sirens wail in the distance. "She’s dead!"

And even as the galloping sound of all the king’s horses become deafening, he calls out into into the sky, "Oh sweet Jesus! what have I done!?!"

George Lucas Weighs In On Swine Flu Vaccinations

Predator Press

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Harvester of Marrow

Predator Press


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This “blog,” while still somewhat of a pipsqueak, reaps some benefits Entrecard. Aside from an occasional random-seeming traffic burp, it averages 300-500 hits a day -roughly half of which are directly EC-related.

And I am what Entrecard users classify as a “Harvester.” Harvesters are the villainous and much-hated dastardly bastards that skim through sites at the highest velocity possible. The rate I “drop” versus the rate I read is hideous: when an Entrecarder blogs “I get a lot of new traffic, but they only stay for a fraction of a minute -clearly not reading,” they are complaining about me.

But let’s examine that for a second.

You got people to your site. Correct?

-And nobody reads your stuff?

So your conclusion is the failure to recognize your “brilliance” is because nobody recognizes your brilliance, right?

The fact is getting people to your blog is 95% of the battle; I assert that complaining they don’t stick around is essentially howling to potential new readers “My blog sucks, and it's your fault!” I'm concerned over zombie uprisings and the worrying speculation my burnt toast might’ve once had Jesus’ image on it: don't take it personally, but WTF could I possibly care about your coin collecting and Peruvian copper speculations? Gee, I’m sorry I wandered onto your site. Is there a quiz?

You’re an asshole for bitching that -despite the best possible opportunity- you have failed to grab people’s attention.

-You're probably a zombie too. And stay the fuck away from my toast!!!

I have found some great sites via EC. I've gained some great readers, too. Beyond that, I've clicked on a site 100 times before seeing something that interested me, and then started reading it regularly.

Plus, let's face it: we “Harvesters” are the best EC ads to buy. I’m not particularly disciplined, but I have enough regulars to break 100 or so a day daily –and with high-speed internet, I can do it in 20 minutes or so. Thus, if you’re advertised on my site, you’ll get the bulk of those hits reciprocated.

EC whiners shouldn't feel bad. Human history is chocked full of unrecognized "brilliance."

They won’t be lonely.