Back again. I know, I know. It’s
been about a week and a half since I last posted some of my amazing and poorly
edited prose and all of you, my dozen loyal readers all across the globe: The
U.S., Russia, Romania, Great Britain, Vietnam, Canada…wait. Vietnam? While I
appreciate anybody and everybody who would take the time to actually read the
stuff that falls out of my brain and on to the keyboard, I even appreciate
Nebraskans, I wonder why Vietnam? Not that I have anything against any nation
or any people that inhabit these nations, it’s just strange to see Vietnam pop
up on the views list. The first thing that comes to mind when I see this, is
that someone is trying to steal all of this valuable information that I put on
here. Then I think, well maybe I’ve truly
reached across nations and cultures, and that the web really does have the capability
to bridge gaps and bring us all together as one world, as human beings, instead
of violent defenders of cultural and religious identity. Then I realized
that the internet has, in the not too distant past, been used to Rickroll one
another and to proliferate Nyan cat. Maybe that’s what my blog has become: the
new Rickroll or Nyan cat. Damn it—anything but Nyan cat. [BTP] All of you have
been wondering, waiting, salivating over what comes next. nyan
nyan nyan nyan nyan nya-nya-n-nya-n-nya-nyan. NO! Get out of
my head Nyan cat and go back to 2011! nyan
[BTP!] If you’re wondering why my [back to point] has an exclamation point within
the brackets that would be because I just wasted twenty minutes of precious
life watching that accursed flying Pop-Tart cat.
Honestly though, the
whole Nyan cat is a step up from what I usually have to endure. You see, I have
a 15 year-old step-daughter. And the thing with 15 year-old girls is that they absolutely
love the most horrific music. Case in point: “Somebody I used to know,” by Gotye.
Not more than a week ago I, again, found myself in the unenviable position of
being trapped in a moving vehicle with music which, I am almost sure, was
forged in Hell’s bowels. Notice I didn’t say, the bowels of hell as one would expect. This was not a grammatical
oversight. I believe that by ascribing Hell’s bowels to the place of origin from
whence this song sprang is the only way that one can get a full understanding
of the fecal-ness of the noise which was permeating my ears, my mind, and my
very being.
To be fair I didn’t
hate this song the first time I heard it; nor the second, or the third. It really
is a good song. But the thing about 15 year-old girls is that they haven’t developed
the element of self-control and are a slave to their impulses. So after hearing
the song approximately 8,439,228,991.16 times over the course of two weeks, I
hate it. Not a mild loathing or an extreme dislike, but hate—deep, dark, black,
soot-covered flaming hatred. I’m beginning to wonder if the 15 year-old is using tactics
on me similar to the tactics used when the U.S. invaded Nicaragua or Panama, or
whatever country it was, back in 1989. When Noriega holed himself up in an embassy
and the U.S. military used psychological warfare and blasted bad ‘80s metal at
the disposed ruler on loudspeakers for days on end
which finally pushed him to madness and he ran screaming from his redoubt and, after
setting fire to his own genitals, drowned himself in the Panama canal? (That was a
historical fact I just stated. Don’t believe me? Read it again. It’s on the
internet, so it must be true). This may be the situation I’m facing here. But I
refuse to yield. There aren’t any major bodies of water near my neighborhood in
Devil’s Tookus and I don’t have the nerve to cook my junk. [BTP]. Nyan
nyan nyan nyan nyan nyan—No! Wrong point! http://nyan.cat/
[BTP again] My wife and
I were driving the 15 year-old female vessel of impulsiveness and materialistic
pining to a mid-week church thing. All the while I was planning a desperate
flight away from the maniacal repetition of that God-damned song, when, lo and
behold, we arrived at the church. Praise the Lord, though I just used his name
in vain, I was forgiven, relief found me and the music ceased. I told my, recently minted,
step-daughter to have fun learning about Jehovah with an I. Nobody got my Indiana
Jones reference so I slunk back in the seat and enjoyed the consolation of relative
quiet.
As we exited the church
parking lot my eye caught sight of something so terrible and so heinous that I
could barely contain my rage. There, in the playground of the church day care,
were climbing apparatuses shaped in the form of a Hippopotamus and a Crocodile.
What the flip, my mind screamed.
Okay, it wasn’t flip I thought, but I
do, on occasion, censor myself. It wasn’t the Crocodile that offended me, it
was the Hippo. Kids know instinctively that Crocs are dangerous and violent creatures,
that’s why they have shoes named after them. But Hippos? Hippos appear to be harmless;
big toothy smiles inviting young children to play in their gaping mouths. But
these animals are one of the most dangerous creatures on the face of the Earth.
What the hell were these church administers thinking? The irresponsibility was
mind-blowing. These kids are going to grow up thinking Hippos are safe and cuddly pets. Then they will travel to Africa, go out on pontoon boat (I don’t know
why I chose pontoon boat, I guess it’s because I rarely get to use the word ‘pontoon’),
and get bitten in half by the massive jaws of a Hippo. Hippos will bite you
half. They do it all of the time. Don’t believe me? Google Hippos biting people
in half and I’ll bet you’ll find at least a hundred stories on Hippo bitings. I
then had a greater realization: Noah’s Ark. There are stories of this guy
building a big-ass boat and stocking it full of Hippos. According to the story
the Hippos were passive as they entered the Ark. Bull. (This reminds me, male
and female Hippos are called bulls and cows, which further lends itself to
false notion that they are safe. What could be safer than mankind’s primary
food source?) I knew at once that the story was designed to lure children into
the false security that Hippos are safe and gentle and that I had stumbled upon
a greater conspiracy.
Hippos in the
playground? Hippos in the Holy writings? I believe this to be some sort of
twisted plot to cull the human population. The authors of the Bible knew the human
population was getting out of hand and therefore decided to remedy the situation
by making people believe that Hippos were, and are, safe. They already had
people putting their faith in the text anyway, so why not add in a little population
control? What they didn’t know was that Hippos didn’t exist anywhere else in
the world other than Africa and that the Hippo-less Asians would be such
prolific breeders. I guess the Supreme Being forgot to mention that to them.
For those who are offended by the Asian remark—what? They’re not? There are two
Asian nations that have a population of over a Billion people and there isn’t a
Hippo in either. I only state facts here.
I feel it is incumbent upon
me to warn the people of this great planet of the danger Hippos are to the
human race. Don’t let yourself fall complacent in your vigilance against the
Hippo menace. I will use this forum to be ever watchful. Maybe we really can
use the internet as a force for good? Nyan nyan nyan nyan nya
nya nyan. ...Shit. Maybe not.
For more info on my upcoming novel Rise of the Penguins, follow these links:
