He pulled the princess to his side, guiding her from the wolf cages.
"The guards will protect you from the king's wolves. Spare it no worry."
She eyed the guards at either side of the cages. They looked as mangy as the mutts.
"Yes, but who will protect us from the guards?"
"Don't worry. It's a secular society."
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Bathroom Monologue: No Militaries in the Gay
Listen to the MP3 edition of our news report here.
In a radical reversal of roles, today the U.S. government banned the military from gays. War will no longer be allowed to be declared where there are any gay people, to avoid exposing soldiers to what one White House staffer called, “uncomfortable environments.”
The Prime Minister of Iran quickly explained that earlier speaking snafus were mistranslation and there are indeed homosexual people in his country. In fact, he added, “I may be gay, or may have a gay person near me at all times!”
In related news, the governments of North Korea, Sudan and Venezuela have begun importing people of alternative lifestyles in bulk. Massive tax credits, free upscale housing and ludicrously generous civil unions have been offered to lure these sexual expatriots, or "sexpatriots," as bloggers have begun to call them.
North Korea and China entered a bidding war this morning to attract the cast of the now-defunct Bravo television series “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” hoping to have them spruce up their capitols. Anonymous sources close to the bidding war say government heads hope to make their populations look more fabulous and thus render their countries even more immune from military action.
No officials would confirm these allegations.
“We’ve been planning this for a long time,” explained one North Korean insider. “Our tight borders have left us unfashionably stuffy. The glorious leader is a longtime fan of Queer Eye. This has absolutely nothing to do with avoiding being attacked by a major superpower.”
More as this story develops.
In a radical reversal of roles, today the U.S. government banned the military from gays. War will no longer be allowed to be declared where there are any gay people, to avoid exposing soldiers to what one White House staffer called, “uncomfortable environments.”
The Prime Minister of Iran quickly explained that earlier speaking snafus were mistranslation and there are indeed homosexual people in his country. In fact, he added, “I may be gay, or may have a gay person near me at all times!”
In related news, the governments of North Korea, Sudan and Venezuela have begun importing people of alternative lifestyles in bulk. Massive tax credits, free upscale housing and ludicrously generous civil unions have been offered to lure these sexual expatriots, or "sexpatriots," as bloggers have begun to call them.
North Korea and China entered a bidding war this morning to attract the cast of the now-defunct Bravo television series “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” hoping to have them spruce up their capitols. Anonymous sources close to the bidding war say government heads hope to make their populations look more fabulous and thus render their countries even more immune from military action.
No officials would confirm these allegations.
“We’ve been planning this for a long time,” explained one North Korean insider. “Our tight borders have left us unfashionably stuffy. The glorious leader is a longtime fan of Queer Eye. This has absolutely nothing to do with avoiding being attacked by a major superpower.”
More as this story develops.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Bathroom Monologue: Easy as 2 + 2
Mathematics were shaken today with the discovery a new virtual particle. The "Duo" particles only exist in pairs, possessing one half-spin each and locked in orbit around each other. Unlike Quantum Theory's behavior of quarks, Duo Particles remain part of our physical world consistently until meeting another pair. When two Duo pairs collide, they undergo a plane shift that can cause one or both pairs to cease to exist. In some cases both pairs remain in existence and a third appears, making this a solid case of 2 + 2 = 6.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
No Thanks, Biological Father, OR, Believe it or not, inspired more by Tokyo Godfathers than a decade of disappointment
That’s right. I’m giving her away at the wedding. Not you, Dad. Me. Her brother, who’s been a better father figure for years anyway. I saved her from the suicide attempt. I helped her on the term papers. I watched all those shitty movies with her while you got high with your new wife. I’ve protected her, listened to her, had dinner with her, bought dinner for her, and had her wish she could buy dinner for me. One day in the middle of a study session I showed up with malted milk balls just because I’d heard he was craving some. I watched the national spelling bee with her fiancé. I picked up her dog’s ashes from the vet. What have you done for her other than contribute the occasional panic attack during Sunday night phone calls? Oh, but I forgot. We enable her. She made up her psychological issues, because secretly she enjoyed crying, cutting and spending a thousand nights alone in her room. That’s fine. You get those irrational beliefs. I get God, and I get to walk her down the aisle. If you want to be close when your daughter says, “I do,” you’d better show up early and get good seats. I’ll see you from the altar.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Bathroom Monologue: Toilet Tissue Tears It
But when Andrew opened the bathroom door he heard an even stranger voice.
“Oh no!” squeaked something at about pelvis level. He instinctively shrank back, even though he had no idea what was talking or if it wanted to punch him in the gonads.
On the wall the toilet paper dispenser shook. The roll of toilet paper popped off and… well, rolled across the floor until it bumped into his foot.
“I’m not taking shit from you anymore!” it squeaked, then rotated and rolled between his legs. Andrew turned and watched it fall off the first step of the stairs, then bounce the rest of the way to the ground floor.
“What the Hell?” Andrew asked himself. He grabbed a box of tissues, and when it didn’t protest, entered the bathroom. This was weird, but he really had to go.
“Oh no!” squeaked something at about pelvis level. He instinctively shrank back, even though he had no idea what was talking or if it wanted to punch him in the gonads.
On the wall the toilet paper dispenser shook. The roll of toilet paper popped off and… well, rolled across the floor until it bumped into his foot.
“I’m not taking shit from you anymore!” it squeaked, then rotated and rolled between his legs. Andrew turned and watched it fall off the first step of the stairs, then bounce the rest of the way to the ground floor.
“What the Hell?” Andrew asked himself. He grabbed a box of tissues, and when it didn’t protest, entered the bathroom. This was weird, but he really had to go.
Monday, October 5, 2009
BM: “in some places the number of photons was actually less than zero” –from the March 5th Economist, OR, Really loud and breathless monologue
“When a particle and an antiparticle meet they might explode and nullify time. We’ve never encountered that explosion, or so they say. Yet what if reality is reversing time to flee from that explosion? And we didn’t evolve for that chronology, so we don’t notice that God’s rewinding all of this? It would explain our fascination with History – it’s what’s coming! Do you understand? The smallest particles of the fastest thing in the universe, that feed life on this planet and let us see anything, are actively fucking around! There might be less than none of these particles in some places! An infinitely small teapot could be orbiting the sun right now. Fuck that! A trillion infinitely small teapots could be orbiting an electron in your brain right now! Okay, that’s scientifically preposterous, but the principle of a universe that acts against our prescribed laws when we aren’t watching it is staggering. Science, understanding how this universe works by checking, could be life’s own in-joke on itself. The vast majority of the universe is not being observed the vast majority of the time, so the whole general mishmash could be giggling at us right now! Teapots! Maybe that’s where life came from: the cosmos was tripping balls from not being observed, and poof, created observers! Plus, since particles have to react to each others presence in an non-conscious way, are they not technically observing each other physically? And thus is our presence about some of its particles not similar to us actively observing, even if we aren’t looking? The stimulation can be there on a nanoscopic level. So maybe some photons react to Saturn like it’s watching. So maybe they’re in order for a second, and at the speed of light, not again! Do you understand? No, of course you don't. If you did, your hair would be on fire!”
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Bathroom Monologue: Bumper Sticker Threat Level
0: Could have any range of opinions. How many 9/11 hijackers had bumper stickers? Could be a Philosophy professor, a soccer mom or an alcoholic who is about to back into your new car. Zero bumper stickers is the unannoying and unknowable zone.
1: One? This better be good. This better be the cleverest dig at Wal-Mart I’ve ever read. If it isn’t, why are you attracting my eyes to read when they otherwise could have been glazed over as I drove in a speed-limit fugue to the sweet tunes of the soft rock station? Just because it’s short doesn’t mean it wasn’t annoying while it lasted. Choose wisely.
2: Oh no. Maybe with 1 you were just really proud of your child going to college. At two bumper stickers, your bumper is yelling at me about something. The platform has expanded to denounce abortion and a president (who isn’t even in office anymore) at the same time. You will tell me nothing essential to my driving, nor anything that will change my mind about anything, but now you’re doing it in stereo. The slope is slippery from here.
3: The threshold at which the driver leaves merely seeming annoying and becomes decisively annoying. It does not matter if you want peace in the Middle East, are proud you work at a pet shelter and have a son in the seminary. If you’re advertising all three simultaneously, I resent you (possibly because those are never the three things your bumper stickers say). The owner of three bumper stickers crosses another threshold: I now give up hope of ever reasoning you out of anything, and conversations are incredibly likely to turn into debates when I’m not looking.
4: I can no longer hope to win the debate. By no means will I think I’ve lost, but the other person is so detached from anything that she doesn’t believe that the very nature of discourse is undermined by her having a driver’s license. At four stickers, I feel dread when even imagining talking to you about whatever your bumper advertises.
5: It was possible at three and likely at four, but now there is no way you have all those bumper stickers on your bumper. The back of your car has been colonized by the pithy and the trite. Even people who are bored behind you in traffic will not read all of your messages, nor should they. Look at that. At least one of them is faded and/or peeling. You’re not keeping up the maintenance of your messages anymore, just adding more to the pile. You are the textual equivalent of the white kid who rolls through my neighborhood with rap pulsating from his closed windows.
6 and Up: No one has ever seen a car with six bumper stickers. Five stickers is when people experience the “Wall of Text” effect and any hope of anything registering, even memory of how many stickers were on the back of the car, vanishes. Ninteen bumper stickers are the same as five in every way except that I will point at the nineteen-stickered vehicle so my family can laugh at it. Even then, no one in my car will read more than five of them.
1: One? This better be good. This better be the cleverest dig at Wal-Mart I’ve ever read. If it isn’t, why are you attracting my eyes to read when they otherwise could have been glazed over as I drove in a speed-limit fugue to the sweet tunes of the soft rock station? Just because it’s short doesn’t mean it wasn’t annoying while it lasted. Choose wisely.
2: Oh no. Maybe with 1 you were just really proud of your child going to college. At two bumper stickers, your bumper is yelling at me about something. The platform has expanded to denounce abortion and a president (who isn’t even in office anymore) at the same time. You will tell me nothing essential to my driving, nor anything that will change my mind about anything, but now you’re doing it in stereo. The slope is slippery from here.
3: The threshold at which the driver leaves merely seeming annoying and becomes decisively annoying. It does not matter if you want peace in the Middle East, are proud you work at a pet shelter and have a son in the seminary. If you’re advertising all three simultaneously, I resent you (possibly because those are never the three things your bumper stickers say). The owner of three bumper stickers crosses another threshold: I now give up hope of ever reasoning you out of anything, and conversations are incredibly likely to turn into debates when I’m not looking.
4: I can no longer hope to win the debate. By no means will I think I’ve lost, but the other person is so detached from anything that she doesn’t believe that the very nature of discourse is undermined by her having a driver’s license. At four stickers, I feel dread when even imagining talking to you about whatever your bumper advertises.
5: It was possible at three and likely at four, but now there is no way you have all those bumper stickers on your bumper. The back of your car has been colonized by the pithy and the trite. Even people who are bored behind you in traffic will not read all of your messages, nor should they. Look at that. At least one of them is faded and/or peeling. You’re not keeping up the maintenance of your messages anymore, just adding more to the pile. You are the textual equivalent of the white kid who rolls through my neighborhood with rap pulsating from his closed windows.
6 and Up: No one has ever seen a car with six bumper stickers. Five stickers is when people experience the “Wall of Text” effect and any hope of anything registering, even memory of how many stickers were on the back of the car, vanishes. Ninteen bumper stickers are the same as five in every way except that I will point at the nineteen-stickered vehicle so my family can laugh at it. Even then, no one in my car will read more than five of them.
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