Bathroom Monologue: Shadow of the Valley of Death, Redux

Livington is a wonderful town with a great view of the Purgatory. In the mornings the shadow of the Valley of Death passed right over them, but even this sight doesn’t help Livington’s poor tourism. You see the town council of Livington spent the entire treasury keeping any new towns from cropping up in the locale, zoning out developers who would block the view. They put their last pennies into advertising, but it didn’t catch. The ad was in Psalm 23 of “the Bible,” a very popular circular back in the day. With tourism being nearly non-existent, the town is pinning its budgetary hopes on suing the studio behind Pulp Fiction for cribbing from their ad.

Bathroom Monologue: The Wedding Volleys

No one in the chapel knew that the bride wasn’t crying. From afar, with her sniffling and red eyes and breathing hitches, she seemed the most emotional woman in America for a few minutes. This was all actually an allergic reaction to her sister’s vegan breakfast burrito, but they couldn’t tell, especially when she had the veil up.

Her father, who had eaten at the IHOP, did not know, and he soon pulled the antique hanky from his breast pocket to dab at his eyes over his pride and joy.

Now her mother was the extreme type. Extremely strong, for instance, during all the wedding planning and rehearsal dinners and such, with a proud lower lip and steely gaze. Yet she was also extremely sympathetic, and thus extremely compromised when both her only daughter and her only husband teared up in tandem. So soon her dams broke and she became the proper most emotional woman in America for a legitimate stretch of minutes.

The priest, who was both an emotional softy and a cardiac patient, looked away from the red-eyed bride and to the bawling mother, and he himself took a sharp sob for such love in life.

Those were the variables one needed to cover to watch weeping consume the dearly beloved host. The groom’s aunt, who basically raised him, basically fell out of her chair crying for her little man. In consoling her, both of her natural sons, aged 4 and 6, took to crying, perhaps a little more for never getting to see their cousin again, since they didn’t understand that Oregon is actually quite close to Washington.

It was that volatile an arena. You could not discern what set off the ensuing weepers. There was no good reason for the aged cowboy in the back pew to begin squirting tears. No good reason for the bride’s boss and her husband to clutch at each other and murmur about their wedding day and cry in-between unseemly open-mouthed kisses. You had that sort of thing happening, and then of course the groom’s fraternity brothers started crying for suppressed laughter at the hazing they’d put him through later.

It was the single loudest audience for a wedding the church had ever seen. If you paid close attention, which you couldn’t have since if you were there then you lost your shit, you would have noticed the groom was the last person to cry. What finally got to him was a secret he kept for five anniversaries, until his wife confessed about her breakfast burrito fiasco. If she was embarrassed at her tale, she was rankled to learn at what had set him off: he was good at faking it, and did not want to seem left out.

Bathroom Monologue: SmartShop Shoppers

Welcome SmartShop shoppers.

You already rely on SmartShop for the products your family needs.

No one beats our produce, and we’ve got all the fashion to keep you cool this summer.

But did you know there are now even more ways to save at SmartShop? We’ve slashed the everyday prices on over four hundred brands your family loves.

So why not spend more? Why not spend all your money at SmartShop?

Your kids will stop loving you if you don’t bring home Dark Berry Mountain Dew.

What do you need that money for, anyway?

You need food. You need clothing. You need a trendy car-mount for your cellphone.

You’re a modern person with modern person needs.

Modern people don’t need money.

Did you know ten out of ten modern people die? You can look it up on the internet.

Try our free WiFi station by the SmartShop Service Desk.

You can’t keep your money when you die. You can look it up on the internet.

If you died today, wouldn’t you want your kids to have all the food, clothing and Dark Berry Mountain Dew they deserved?

It’s something to think about. SmartShop recommends you think about it while you browse our newly extended Used Movies Aisle.

And thank you for being a SmartShop shopper.

Bathroom Monologue: Opposing Truth, OR, “Can you do a monologue attacking the truth?”

“The truth is the most oppressive force in human history. It is hard and fast. It does not compromise or offer alternatives. It allows for nothing but itself, and is thus selfish. The truth doesn’t set you free; it creates a tidy box in which you are allowed to think and function. You are derided for thinking outside it. Truth annihilates imagination and fantasy. Its religion is pragmatism, and its crusades are against anything else. The truth sees no liberty in the lie, the fiction or even the mistake. The truth sets no one free; it is a tyrant that plainly litigates that this is what you are, and this what is possible, and you shall be possible for so long until you die. Why would anyone want such a thing running our universe?”

Bathroom Monologue: My Zombie Apocalypse Team (see if you can spot the theme)

It’s 120 meters tall, mechanical so it can’t get infected, carries every Weapon of Mass Destruction known to man, has a flight mode, underwater mode, and always comes back in the last act of the movie no matter what went wrong. It's the Brains of the outfit because its brain is yet another laser gun, and since it has its own repair bay, it's set for Medics. A toy of Mechagodzilla can even suffice as our team Mascot.

Instructions? Point my “team” at the zombie apocalypse and leave town for a weekend.

Alright, I might have been kidding about the Mascot. If we're going to sell mechanized weapons at the end of the world, then he can tag along.

Consumed Episode 7: Legend of Korra, Diablo 3

Consumed Episode 7 is up today. It features the full crew of Nat Sylva, Max Cantor and myself, covering two primary topics and some new experiments in media.

The first big topic is a season round-up of Nickelodeon’s The Legend of Korra. We scratched our heads over the ending, but have to praise an excellent piece of animation. Or at least, two of us did. One of us may have ditched out in the first episode.

The second topic is Diablo 3 and its dreaded Battle.net. Having experienced so many ridiculous errors and played so many hours of a fun game, I have a lot to say on it. We got into my favorite underlying topic as well: if Diablo 3 is a great game, or just a competent execution on a genre that is always fun when done competently.

Korra and Diablo sandwich our experiments: each of the hosts brought something they deeply want our audience to watch, and each of us got sixty seconds to convince you. I won't spoil mine, but I will promise that it allowed me to discuss Goku Vs. The Terminator. Please vote in the Comments on which thing (or things) you were actually swayed to check out.

You can get Consumed Episode 7 for free right here.

Update on Will Corcoran’s Liver Surgery Campaign

Thanks to everyone who commented, e-mailed, tweeted or otherwise spread word about Will’s emergency this week. For those who missed it, my fifteen-year-old cousin Will Corcoran is struggling with cystic fibrosis and is in fatal need of a liver transplant. His mother is overwhelmed by the reception and well-wishes, and I’d like to update anyone who came into the campaign through this site.

A total of nine people reached out about potential liver donation last week. It’s the greatest testament to the internet as a force for good that I’ve ever personally experienced. The screening process is understandably rigorous, going through remote interviews before graduating to physicals and eventually to tissue tests in Connecticut.

So far three of the nine candidates have been turned down in preliminaries. We don’t know how many will be approved for tissue-testing, but if everyone who came forward proceeds then the screening process will temporarily be at capacity. We're suspending the campaign drive for a week or two to let existing potential donors go through the process.

If you’ve already contacted me or Bean, please continue with the process. You’re already in our figures, and the figures are determining the time frame under which we’re working.

I don’t feel relieved yet, because it’s easily possible that none of the applicants who do go through will be tissue-matches. If I get word that there are no matches or we’re running out of candidates, I will kickstart this drive again and beg upon your kindness to help magnify the message. It’s the frustrating situation where, if we don’t have a viable donor, we have to scramble. I’d like to dive in entirely right now and drum up as many potential candidates as humanly possible, but I respect the doctors’ and Bean’s requests and appreciate that processing takes a long time. Sometimes health is about hurrying up and waiting.

If you would like to be notified of a change – whether Will finds a donor, or the tests show we don’t have one – please leave your e-mail or Twitter handle in the Comments below. I’ll get in touch with you as soon as we have news.