Move to Iowa

Now that the California Supreme Court has upheld Prop 8\’s ban on gay marriage, it\’s time for Iowa to start wooing gays.  Here is how I would do it.

Thoughts of Mike Haggar from Final Fight

I realize this is a strange thing to notice, especially considering that I’m on a violent street rampage against Mad Gear, the evil gang that recently kidnapped my daughter, but Metro City sure had a crazy urban planner. There’s only one street, no intersections at all, and it runs the entire length of the city from left to right, from my office to the man who kidnapped my daughter, and with no possibilities of making a wrong turn. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining-I’ve never been good at reading maps-but it sure is weird.

You know what else is weird? That I got elected mayor of Metro City! I’m a former professional wrestler; why entrust me with running a municipal government? You know, come to think of it, I haven’t once met someone who voted for me. The only people I ever run into in this town are Mad Gear goons trying to kill me, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t vote for me since the whole reason they kidnapped my daughter is because they don’t like my anti-crime policy.

Speaking of Mad Gear, the number of goons in their employ is astronomical. On this one block alone, I beat up nearly 40 guys (most of who must be related since they look so similar). Mad Gear’s payroll is probably double that of Metro City’s. And I can’t even imagine their total overhead once you factor in costs like the ridiculous numbers of knives and dynamite they throw at me. I understand Mad Gear wants to increase profits by eliminating an anti-crime mayor, but I bet they could do a lot better if they just laid off some people and used that capital to invest in legitimate businesses.

Wow, back when I was a professional wrestler, if you told me I’d one day be thinking about city payroll costs, I’d have called you crazy or attacked you with my signature professional wrestling move, the spinning clothesline.

But look at me now, worrying about budgets and stuff. Maybe I really am cut out for this mayor job after all. And as second careers go, you could do a whole lot worse than mayor of the most dangerous and corrupt city in the world.

Oh look, a bunch more gang members. Time to punch them to death.

Punch, punch punch, boy these guys go down easy. I’m like 100 times the man they are. Probably because before being elected mayor I was a professional wrestler, I don’t know if I mentioned that.

Also, after I get my daughter back, I’ve got to remember to make an appointment with my eye doctor. I’ve been putting it off for way too long. Things don’t look blurry, per se, it’s more like everything is…chunky, as if I see the world built out of squares or something. I wonder if it’s astigmatism.

Whatever the problem, I really hope I don’t need glasses. Glasses make anyone look weak and dorky, even a former professional wrestler like myself.

Hmm…that’s strange there don’t seem to be any more goons and–OH MY GOD! Look at this guy, he’s huge! I used to be a professional wrestler and this guy is twice my size.

Why is he a criminal? He should be a professional wrestler. I mean look at him, he’s already dressed for the job. But who am I to criticize anyone’s sartorial choices? After all, I am wearing green pants with one suspender that magically changes sides depending on which direction I face.

Benjamin and Albert Franklin

Everyone knows Benjamin Franklin, inventor, author, statesman, diplomat and Founding Father. Few, however, know of his twin brother, Albert.

While Benjamin, even from an early age, showed a strong work ethic, Albert was satisfied to “just hang out, man,” and became widely known as a gadabout, vagabond, and ne’er-do-well. Although identical twins, Albert was easy to tell apart by his bloodshot eyes, dumb grin, and long unkempt hair (even by those day’s standards). It would take almost two centuries for historians to recognize Albert as America’s first hippie.

Unfortunately, the brothers had a falling out in 1757 when Benjamin, in an attempt to help his brother pay off debts owed to his Native American dealer, hired Albert to work the printing press for that year’s Poor Richard Almanac. It seems that right before going to print, Benjamin had to leave on business, and Albert, ever the joker, made unauthorized changes to the text.

The full extent of Albert’s handiwork will forever remain a secret, since Benjamin, upon discovering his brother’s prank, attempted to destroy each and every copy. But despite his best efforts, two pages of Albert’s version survived. They are currently held within a secret vault bellow the Smithsonian made specially to hide evidence of famous Americans’ embarrassing brothers.

And if you would like these pages as a desktop wallpaper, here you go.

Acting Coach: The Movie

Xtranormal is a website whose tag line is “If you can type, you can make movies.” Who’d have thought the only thing setting Steven Spielberg apart from you was Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing?

Their process is amazingly simple: you just write what you want to happen and then Xtranormal turns it into an animated movie that is as good as you might expect.

Here’s my first short, entitled “Acting Coach.” I hope you enjoy it.

An Open Letter to Professor Death Skull Inc. Employees

Memo

From: Cyrus Steeltooth, Head of Accounting

To: All scientists, secret operatives, henchmen, grounds crew, on site employees of Professor Death Skull Inc. and families thereof.

CC: Professor Death Skull

Re: Budgetary Concerns

The recent economic downturn has effected many industries, and even those of us in the Super Villain business are not immune. Sadly, threatening world safety is not as lucrative as it once was.

Like all of you, I am fully committed to extortion; chemical, biological and nuclear attacks; kidnapping; assassinations; genocide; and mass hysteria, but tough times lead to tough decisions. No one wants to be the bad guy, so as usual it falls to us in the Accounting Department.

The mortgage on our secret island doesn’t pay itself. And do you have any idea the kind of money needed to maintain our structurally precarious underground volcano lair?

Also, think about how much it costs to recruit, train, house, feed, and dress in identical jumpsuits a near endless supply of disposable generic henchmen.

Sgt. Freedom and his Liberty Brigade killed nearly four hundred of our men last year alone. And there’s only 5 of them! It doesn’t make sense to pour so much money into hired help if we’re not even teaching them basic marksmanship.

Make no mistake, our situation is dire. At our current rate we’ll be bankrupt in three weeks. We’d actually have gone belly up in the fourth quarter of last year if Professor Death Skull hadn’t wisely stashed away the MacArthur Genius Grant he won back when he was a successful scientist hiding an obsession with the occult.

I’m sure you’re all wondering what changes are in store, so let’s get down to brass tacks.

Right now we are not laying anyone off, but we do have to cut back on our cafeteria expenses. I’m afraid the surf and turf, macrobiotic buffets, and baked Alaska are a thing of the past. We’re still committed to the pizza Fridays, but they’ll be frozen Tombstone pizzas instead of fresh pies flown in from Naples.

Also we are canceling our satellite TV subscription. I know a lot of you were looking forward to the new season of True Blood, but it’s an unnecessary expense. Also the satellite dish is always breaking and it’s a nightmare getting a repair man here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Especially after last time when we killed the poor guy thinking he was attacking our base (though, to be fair, it was partially his fault considering he was three days late in showing up; a typhoon is no excuse for tardiness).

But here’s the big cut back. We have halted plans to simultaneously blow up the Sphinx, flood Venice, topple the Eiffel tower, decapitate the Statue of Liberty and have Michael Bay film the whole thing.

I know it’s a totally awesome plan and it’d make fantastic footage to incite fear as it’s played over and over again on cable news, but at the moment we don’t have the necessary capital.

I would, however, like to propose an alternate plan. What if we carry out the same attacks, but on the scale replicas in Las Vegas? And instead of Michael Bay, we use Uwe Boll (my cousin is friends with his podiatrist).

I know it doesn’t sound as spectacular, but it’ll be one eighth the cost and still look pretty cool on the news. Yes, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, but this is the only way we can afford to continue offering our free day care service that so many of you rely on.

I’m not happy about this either, but that’s just the way it is for now. Hopefully things will pick up soon so that we’ll have the resources to really tear everything down. And if you have any questions, feel free to see me, I have an open (trap)door policy. My office is on subfloor 5, sector b, right past the lava pit and on your left. If you reach the giant laser cannon, you’ve gone too far.

Star Trek: The New Star Wars

My thesis, in video form.

My defense of said (seen?) thesis in written, Photoshopped and T-shirted form.

The age old battle between Star Wars and Star Trek is over. Star Wars won. And it won by convincing the latest Star Trek movie to join the Force.

Old Star Trek was about exploration, moral dilemmas and social criticism by way of ridiculous alien races.

New Star Trek is about sword fights on platforms hanging thousands of feet above the ground.

In other words, it’s Star Wars.

But looked at another way, Star Trek is the real winner because Star Trek is a whole lot better at being Star Wars than Star Wars ever was. Star Wars’s greatest strength is exciting the imaginations of ten-year-olds who then go on to imagine Star Wars being better than it actually is. For example, consider Boba Fett.

In the original trilogy, Boba Fett was a minor character with no personality who dies by basically losing his balance. That’s not very cool. But because Boba Fett was such a blank slate, fans projected something cool onto him and now they think his costume is so cool that no one will notice their gut.

When writing about Star Wars, one is contractually obligated to make at least one fat joke, even if it's a reach.

Next, let’s consider Kirk in the latest Star Trek. He’s brash, he breaks rules, he’s good looking and he gets what he wants. To put it another way, Kirk is everything fans want Han Solo to be.

And this Kirk wouldn’t shoot second. He wouldn’t even shoot first. He’d just sleep with Greedo’s mom.

So Star Wars fans win by getting the new Star Trek. But Star Trek fans, who appreciated all the tough moral choices and political ideals of Star Trek, still do okay because they have the new Battlestar Galactica series. Which means the only real losers here are fans of the original Battlestar Galactica.

But that’s okay, they were losers to begin with.

Trek is the new Wars
Printfection
$25

Thoughts of a Chicken Breast

When historians ask what is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, be sure to point them this way.

Thanks to Mike DiBenedetto for voicing the chicken.

Thank You Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle’s appearance on Britain’s Got Talent made me question reality, more so than The Matrix even.

Apparently, someone bad at looking attractive can be good at something unrelated. What an Earth shattering revelation. How did it take me 28 years to learn this?

Sure, before Susan Boyle there was that Ugly Duckling fable, but fables use animals to represent people and that’s just confusing. Also, the titular ugly duckling is actually a swan, whereas an ugly person can resemble a wild animal but rarely belongs to a different species.

Also, there was the 1999 motion picture She’s All That, in which Freddie Prince Jr. befriends a bespectacled Rachael Leigh Cook (on a bet, of course), but then begins to fall deeply in like with her EVEN THOUGH SHE WEARS GLASSES! Sadly, halfway through She’s All That the life lesson is averted when the message switches from “people with glasses are worthwhile,” to “people with glasses can be worthwhile provided they take off their glasses and are actually really hot.”

In 2007, I almost learned my lesson when Paul Potts looked ugly but sang beautifully two years before Susan Boyle did the very same thing on the very same show.

Unfortunately I missed the whole “don’t judge a person by their appearance” message because Paul is a guy, and it’s much more common to see unattractive men on TV than unattractive women. To prove my point, here are some male and female actors from TV’s smash hit Law & Order.

vs.

In Law and Order’s world, the most important part of the New York State Bar Exam is the women’s swimsuit competition.

But thanks to Susan Boyle, we don’t live in a world of law and order anymore. Oh no, this new world is one of confusion and uncertainty where unattractive people might be capable of more than failure. It’s a frightening prospect and I desperately hope someone (attractive) will reassure me that Susan Boyle is not the beginning of a new reality but is in fact a solidification of our old way of thinking by providing us another uplifting exception that further proves the rule.