The Viking Game Plan

Bricheezie, remarkably yes, I have consulted the Worst Blog Ever charter and we do have a Viking Contingency Plan (VCP). As the plan is fairly simple, and a must for every community, I have put together this brief synopsis as a public service.

1. Confuse the Viking onslaught with inane and embarrassing infighting.
2. Merchandize,

merchandize,

merchandize.

MATTERS OF INTEREST: Entropy And The Human Condition (a.k.a. Let’s Get Old And Die)

Tragically, the fates have conspired to vomit up another mucus sheathed MATTERS OF INTEREST. In a paroxysm of fatigue induced hallucinations, I am Matters.

Before forcing entry into, and burglarizing this week's topic, let me take a moment to trivialize and ridicule some of my critics in the grand tradition of scientific punditry. A whole litany of confusing "terms" and "phrases" has been leveled at this column of late. A random sampling of these absurd accusations is provided below:

• "intractable hell storm of verbal diarrhea"
• "an irrelevant fiction"
• "pantheon of mediocre musings and redundant ruminations"
• "dumb"
• "inaccessible, protracted, and elitist"

To my critics, I say if haphazardly jamming unrelated sentences together into a half plagiarized diatribe against reason and accepted truth makes me a bad writer, well then I guess I'm a bad writer, Mr. Critic.

I will be happy to respond to further criticism for a very minimal processing fee of $24.99. I can accept cash and PayPal. See me in the comments section after the column if you are interested.

This week's topic is extremely relevant to all of our lives: death. That's right. In the interest of restoring balance to the universe after A-Dub's life-affirming wedding piece of last week, I am obligated by journalistic integrity and my undergraduate minor in quantum physics to examine chaos, death, and the decline of the human form. This topic is especially relevant to me, as I spent the day painfully cracking open the hardened carapace of my 23 year old skin and emerging as a spongy pale 24 year old.

Since time immemorium, human kind has searched tirelessly for a way to beat the reaper. From Explorer/Rapist Ponce DeLeon, who scoured the Florida everglades for the fountain of youth, to Scientist/Inventor Ray Kurzweil, who scoured the internet for people willing to spend money on his book, we have been largely unsuccessful in our quest for immortality. In this contemporary painting Ponce (red arrow) can be seen drinking from an animal urine contaminated stream, much to the amusement of his crew and native guides.

The following table indicates the names of some quasi-famous people who would have liked to live forever, their proposed means for cheating death, and the reason for their embarrassing failure.

[Person] (Means of Cheating Death){Reason for Embarrassing Failure}

1. [Ponce DeLeon] (Fountain of Youth) {Alligators}
2. [Jesus] (Nepotism) {Interpreted bible literally}
3. [Rasputin] (Black Magic) {brill-zinsser disease}
4. [Ray Kurzweil] (Vitamins, Nanorobots) {Age. Too bad you're not my age Ray}
5. [Tom Hanks] (Live on in Hearts and Minds) {Tom Hanks Disease}

For reasons scholars do not fully understand, Madman and I frequently discuss my prospects for immortality. The conversation is formulaic, and goes as follows:

Madman: Blah blah blah, you're going to die blah blah.
Matters: Au contraire Adam, you forget that I'm going to live forever.
Madman: Haha ha. No you're not.

Why can Madman afford to be so cavalier towards my posturing and grandiose proclamations of immortality? Confidentially, between you, me, and the internet, I had the opportunity to perform a little covert reconnaissance at the Madman family farm this summer. In the dark recesses of a musty old shed in an abandoned corner of the property I found the following painting:

Fortunately for the free world, I had my spy-camera-hyphen-prosthetic-third-arm attached at the time, and if I may say so, the image quality is very impressive. I think it's obvious exactly what kind of cruel unnatural plot is unfolding here. While Madman lives a life of hedonism, devoted to the sole pursuit of sensual earthly pleasures, this piece of artwork has been aging in his stead. I'm sure that in the Grand Design our eternally youthful friend Madman will be on the business end of some heavy-handed moral lesson. Perhaps in the end his story will prove to be a lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception, or a perhaps a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Or dare I say, both?

Whatever the reason, I'm jealous. I'll gladly be the punch line in some edifying morality tale in exchange for a modest slice of eternity and perpetual youth. Whether by means of frivolous wish or diabolical dealing, Madman has rustled himself up a sweet deal, and I want in.

With that end in mind, I began an exhaustive 15 minute search of my kitchen for any items that might be the key to eternal youth and beauty. I found this Frosted Flake that was my surprising likeness. I muttered a quick incantation over it, and have since kept it in a shoebox under my bed, next to my invisible powers pickles and mind bullets saltines. I have not yet determined if the flake is aging in my stead, but I am happy to report that it is aging quite a bit. It's been almost completely consumed by mold since the experiment began one week ago.

At any rate, I have already kicked off the marketing campaign for my new cereal, loosely based on this discovery. You can see they have 10 of something essential. I hope there aren't going to be any copyright infringement issues. If you're interested in purchasing a carton, see me in the comments section after the blog.

That about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week when I will consider violently probing a bottle of vodka.

~Matters

Say What?: Five Things You Should Know

Being the dramatically mellow yet ignorant Asian I am, I come to at least five realizations each week. On the two days I don't have epiphanies, I am too busy licking the KFC-chicken grease off my fingers, or winning a Bomberman deathmatch. I never lose. There. If its on the internets, it must be true.

I previously assumed that my revelations were new to me alone, but last night, when I was satisfying my sleepytime munchies with some seafood pasta from Cinderella's and guzzling down Matters' TAB cola (Matters, now we're even for the meatballs and sausage pizza), I shared one of this week's revelations with Buck, upon which he sprung out of his seat, ripped his clothes off, and played the theme song to Family Matters on Tom's keyboard with his left testicle, before imploding.

Matters, I have some Febreze in my car, to get the smell of bike grease and Connecticut out of the carpet.

The point is people, after experiencing what happened to Buck, I decided that it was crucial to inform you, the loyal fans, of these revelations I have each week, to avoid further implosions and genitalia-invoked TV theme songs.

Revelation #1: No one is good at karaoke.

The majority of people think singing = karaoke singing. Not true. Karaoke is significantly harder that normal singing for several reasons. Foremost, the background music is purposely horrendous. It'd be easy enough to use real music, with real instruments, but thats not karaoke. Karaoke is about singing to a bad polka-ized MIDI rendition of a song that is faster and in a different key than the original. The key is what always gets ya. Sure, you know for a fact that you can hit the high notes in "Fly Like an Eagle"...but can you hit the high notes in Polygram's techno version of "Fly Like an Eagle" in C#dim7sus9?

Revelation #2: Garbage bins are better than trash cans.

For our huge End of September bash, Madman and I placed a garbage bin in the apartment. A week later, it's still there. Why? Because its so goddamn convenient. it holds significantly more than our puny trash can which we have to empty twice a week. Yes it's ugly, and we think there's something living in the bottom of it, but it's abundance of utility greatly surpasses its lack of glamour. And whatever is living at the bottom of it will eventually die.

Revelation #3: Friends don't buy friends inflatable presents.

All good birthday presents induce orgasms, taste good with beer, or last forever. Inflatable products do not fall into any of these categories. Well...there are some exceptions.

Revelation #4: The international integration of product and capital markets has been constraining private sector employment as well as the financial viability of the welfare state.

Since the second oil-price crisis of 1979/80 was met by restrictive monetary and expansionary fiscal policies in the United States, the steep increase of real interest rates in the international capital markets forced other central banks to raise interest rates accordingly. As a consequence, employment-creating investments could only be maintained if the share of profits in the national product was significantly increased. Well...there are some exceptions.

Revelation #5: You don't have to eat everything on your plate.

Yes, people in are starving, but...well shit. I don't want any more fries.

PS. Sponsor a child today.

MATTERS OF INTEREST: The Great Saurian Menace

Fantastically, it is time for yet another MATTERS OF INTEREST. In a state of manic hypoxia, I am Matters.

Friends, devoted and/or apathetic readers, me (if I'm reading this later), and fellow mammals, this installment of MATTERS OF INTEREST is not the typical capricious frolic through the neither-realms of science, nature, and the universe that you have grown to so complacently expect. I shall make every effort to refrain from over stating the importance of my message, but the next few paragraphs will definitely save your life. If you stop reading now you are certainly doomed to suffer a tragically-avoidable, yet pedagogically-gruesome death. Your instructively-awful demise will coerce future generations to embrace the heavy hand of SCIENCE.

What is this four-part tragi-comedy, artfully presented in a five act burlesque of photoshop detritus? I refer, of course, to THE GREAT SAURIAN MENACE (see red arrow).

Mammal-kind, since the dawn of time, has made what scholars agree is a Faustian bargain with the previous inhabitants of this planet, known as Dinosaurs. The compromise itself is as ancient as it is complicated, and understanding its explanation entails a deep understanding of prehistoric law - a discussion we will not entertain this week.

But today, that compromise, so crucial to our survival as a phylum, is on the brink of collapse. For those familiar with the plight of Faust, it may alarm you to know that some mammals, over the past few million years, have exhibited an increasing incidence of spontaneous antler growth. Is it the retribution of the great lizard-Satan, and a sure sign of the impending apocalypse? Or merely the latest in trendy evolutionary extravagance from the Holocene Epoch? The issue remains healthily debated.

One fact is certain. Mammals are the good guys. Mammals have, throughout history, been largely civil creatures. Except for a few regrettable incidents, such as the savage mauling and subsequent savage digestion of this innocent giant land slothe (now extinct), we have cooperated with one another, and harmony has reigned.

In contrast, the terrible lizards of yore were ruthless and cruel. Dinosaurs are shifty and untrustworthy. Modern science tells us that Dinosaurs did not have the ability to formulate strategic action plans, or monogram their socks. They were uncivilized and lazy, not having bothered to develop opposable thumbs. Their deadly razor sharp claws prevented them from manipulating even the most rudimentary of tools, and their walnut sized brains made Dinosaurs awful cooks, and worse company.

Anecdotal evidence, the most rock-solid of all types of evidence, will support the assertions I have just made. Early texts describe the first arrival of mammals to the planet. Dinosaurs, in a duplicitous show of faux-hospitality, invited the early mammals to a pot-luck supper. Few details remain from this era, however, we can be sure that the Dinosaurs offered a vile "tar casserole," made from the carrion meat of week-dead pterodactyl, and that the ensuing blood bath would strain future relations between the Dinosaurs and the newly formed mammals.

In those days, Dinosaurs were more genetically advanced than their mammalian counterparts. This lead to terrible and humiliating defeats on the court. As inhabitants of the future, we are free to understand that if you're going to play a Velociraptor in basket ball, it should not be attempted on a unicycle.

The temptation to believe that "everything will be fine" is strong. "Facts" tell us that Dinosaurs are extinct, and that zombie Dinosaurs are a modern rarity. However, just because our reptilian overlords are confined to museums, deserts, and the molten core of the earth, we cannot yield to complacency. Even now, Dinosaurs strive to corrupt our youth and murder our paleontologists, as the photo-evidence clearly shows.

The following images contain content that some readers may find disturbing in nature. I feel obligated to remind you, however, that if you decide to stop reading now, you will likely fall victim to a Dinosaur. Here we see that even long dead and skeletalized, Dinosaurs have the audacity to pedal drugs to museum-going children in broad daylight.

The second photo shows us that Dinosaurs yet retain the savage power to kill. This image documents a "bone eruption" at an excavation in the American Southwest. Seven talented paleontologists and an intern lost their lives in this tragedy.

The enmity displayed in such senseless killing of academics only serves to illustrate the innate disdain for life inherent in all Dinosaurs.

What should you remember to avoid being victimized?

• Stay indoors when Dinosaur activity is forecast to be high.
• Write your congressman. Ask him to address the Great Saurian Menace through effective legislation.
• Look out for Bone Eruptions if you are traveling to fossil rich areas.
• Tuck your pants into your socks if you will be hiking in the forest. You may look foolish, but Lyme disease is no laughing matter.
• If playing sports with a Dinosaur (or any cadre of deadly beasts) avoid the use of a Unicycle.
• Finally, if you do find yourself being eaten by a Dinosaur, remember to present your mewling pleas to him in a language he can understand, such as FORTRAN or COBOL.

It is my hope that this manuscript will serve you well. If it does not, please entomb your complaints in the bowels of the earth to allow the fossilization process to occur. The process may take six to eight weeks to complete, depending on the depth of the hole and acidity of the soil in your area.

~Matters

Bomberman 2

Advice for anyone who has spent a Sunday trying to blow up Mad-Bomber-Man and Henners: wait till their lady friends come over. They will be distracted.