I've been meaning to update for two days, but there was something wrong at blogger, and every time I logged in, it took a big javascript dump on my web browser, so I couldn't do anything. In the music world, I'm coming closer to getting my Zelda Dungeon Covers to recording mode. I figured out how, I'm just tweaking them so it doesn't sound just like the actual music the whole time. I have to kind of give it my own feel. Ya dig? I don't have anything to update with at the moment, as I'm working on something at the moment. Oh yeah, my computer is back to royally fucking up, so I'm getting booted from Diablo 2 again. Yay. And lastly, Dave Xeno's changed his page to this address. I've stuck it in my links page too.

Actually, I think I'll write something. Today's lesson in life is:

How to be Pretentious

Wait... shit. Yahtzee's done this. I don't want it to look like I'm stealing material from him if it isn't intentional. Uhh...

How to be a Hip Cat

Uh, yeah. That's it.

First of all, you have to know what a hip cat is. For those not in the know, it is not a feline that hangs around street corners smoking cigarettes, frowning at everything, and standing cross legged. It's slang, from "hip", meaning "keenly aware of the latest fashions or trends", and "cat", which means a person, much like the Japanese "nin". This man is always stylishly dressed (That is, a bright pink fedora with extrodinarily wide brim, a muu-muu, crotch hugging underwear worn overtop of tights, sandals and black Argile socks.) He stolls around the Five and Dime, whistling to women he finds attractive, and makes sure to use the latest slang, such as "What's happenin' daddio?", "Let's take our dogs down to the ole' main drag.", or "I might need to jet for a tick so I don't squelch those boondoggles."

That's not quite working... hmm...

How to be an Action Hero

First, you have to have a very high paying job, such as Bomb Defuser, Tax Evader, or Professional Spoonsmith. Next, you must be in excellent physical condition, so you'll have to invest in some TV excersize equipment and use it every day for about 5 years.

Then, you have to find a supermodel, marry her, and get her to mother two children for you, one male, one female. Next, you must either A.) Have your wife killed, B.) Have your dog killed, C.) Discover a secret plot to overthrow the government, or D.) Get really pissed at the world for no good reason. Oh, I don't mean you should hire someone to kill your wife or dog. I meant more along the lines of it just somehow occuring.

Now you'll have to go down to your local illegal government weapons "surplus" store, and pick up an assault rifle/machine gun with large ammo belt, about twenty grenades, and a "heavy weapon". Here, you can customize. You can go with your flame thrower, rocket launcher, grenade launcher, or my personal favorite, an ambulance chasing lawyer.

Ok, now, go to the nearest military base/abandoned warehouse where the bad guys are and sneak in. As soon as you're in, though, go on an insane killing rampage. Find a good hiding spot directly above your adversaries and wait there until one of your bodily fluids falls down, alerting the adversary.

*NOTE* Urine is not a very good tool at this point. Sweat or blood drops are much more conducive. */NOTE*

Now, when they both look up, startled, drop in on them. Once they are knocked out, snap both of their necks and throw a grenade at the remaining bad guys. Don't forget to pull the pin! Or better yet, send the lawyer out in front of them, and use him as a human shield. Just make sure you're wearing a kevlar vest. Lawyer blood is quite acidic. You don't want to ruin your clothes do you? Blood can be washed out with a mixture one part bleach, two parts carbonic acid, and an indisciminate amount of English. Acid will leave clothing in tatters.

What the hell am I going on about? How about this:

How Not to Write an Update for a Humor Website

See above.
posted by Slade at 11:26 PM

Well, I 've just had my first day as a senior in High School, and I can safely say it was just as sucky as my other years. It's still chock-full of immature assholes who cover up their own insecurities by lashing out at everything, and cover their fear of change and deviation from the norm by attacking anything that isn't exactly like them. Ah, society. If only I could figure out a way to use that my to advantage to topple the whole system... Perhaps I should try to get in touch with that human collective subconsiousness Jung was always talking about... On second thought, I'm going to play some Diablo 2. But first, a little bit of ranting.

I find it amusing about how some people try to philosophize about the second Matrix movie, and come up with these elaborate interperitations of things that were just crappy writing. Case in point: One person noted that there was no centralized enemy for the heros to fight. Normally, the heros are united against an enemy with a head of power (Sauron, Bush, Rufus' teacher from Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey) In Reloaded, our heros are pitted against Agents that can be fought and won against, and lots of sucky Agent Smiths.Was it poor writing? Of course not! It just means that the machines aren't the real enemies here. He decided that the climax will be against some new enemy. Are we going to see some final battle with the true "ruler" of the Matrix? No, we're going to see Neo fight 500k more Smiths, and then zap some sentinels with his lightning non-matrix power thingy. And then, if the Wachowski brothers have any taste left at all, the machines will end up winning and creating a new Matrix at the end.

The school library is closed for a few weeks while they put air conditioning in. (Leave it to our school to put air conditioning into the coldest room in the school, while we can't afford new science equipment.) That means I won't be updating very often. I'll try though.

Oh, Dave has changed his site address to something at angelfire, but I don't have it at the moment. When I do, I'll update the links page.
posted by Slade at 4:41 PM

Oh, and this just in! My article is up at Lance and Eskimo! Click here to read it once you're done with the other one.

Sorry, but this means no content tomorrow. No one at L&E told me it was going to be up today, so you get two updates in one day instead of one on two days. Ah well. Adieu.
posted by Slade at 11:20 PM

Ah, the mall. Where hundreds of people you don't know get together just to irritate you. My favorite place while I have cash, my worst enemy when my pockets run dry. Yesterday I went clothes shopping for school, which will start on Thursday. It's going to take some adjusting to get used to going to bed early and getting up even earlier. Then there's putting on clean socks and underwear, and dealing with another group of the most judgemental folks on the planet. What a life to lead. But I'm not here to ramble on about high school sucking ass. I'm here to recap my experience at the mall.

So, we stroll on down to the mall. Well, not so much as stroll as drive.

So, we drive on down to the mall. Well, not so much as drive, as use a machine to transport us there.

So, we use a machine to transport ourselves down to the mall. Well, not so much down, as across and around terrain.

So, we use a machine to transport ourselves across and around terrain until we reach the mall. Well, not so much as reaching the mall itself, as reaching the parking lot.

So, we use a machine to transport ourselves across and around terrain until we reach the parking lot of the mall. There, we walked inside through the JC Pennys' entrance. I picked up a white Super Mario Bros. T-Shirt and a grey T-Shirt that gives instructions on Homer Simpson's donut curl excersize. Then, we walked around in Penny's until I spotted plain black T-Shirts. Well, not so much walked as strolled.

So, we strolled around in Penny's until I spotted plain black shirts. They were 3 for 20$, so obviously I was ecstatic, but my mom wouldn't let me get any more black clothing, so I only got one black shirt and a pair of gym shorts. Bummer. We had to pick up a knee brace for my sister because she's doing a bunch of cardiovascular excersizes for varsity swimming, when we noticed a most excellent sale. Ten Reeses Peanut Butter Cups for 99�. Well, not so much as 99� as 99� plus tax.

So, we bought ten Reeses Peanut Butter Cups for 99� plus tax, and then headed down to other clothes shops. It was about this time I realized that I was getting a bunch of looks. You'd think no one had ever seen a guy of average height with black shoes, khakis, a black T-Shirt that had Bart Simpson on the front looking sour and with the caption "I have issues.", longish brown hair, and a navy blue fedora on. Sheesh! Well, not so much sheesh as geeze!

Geeze! And while we were jaunting on down the isles, we heard someone yell, at the top of their lungs "Well, maybe if you didn't buy all that shit...". Yes, just when I think I'm away from the inbreeding (the mall is in a city, afterall), someone has to randomly curse loudly in the middle of a crowded store. Gee, thanks, you fucking hick. Lets just remind the whole world about how you're married to your own brother, and get paid allowance from your parents for having less teeth than them. Now don't get me wrong. If you've got a good reason to swear, be my guest. Just A.) Don't do it in a crowded place when you're 20 minutes away from Redneck Central, and B.) Don't swear where I can hear it. Well, not so much as where I can hear it as where any civilized person can hear it.

So anyway, we meander on down past The Gap, where I try my best not to vomit on passers-by, and H&M, and we enter the only store I go to get my clothing. Hot Topic. They might have new management or something, because A.) The shitty n� rock wasn't blasting in my ears, and B.) The store people were much more friendly. Now, if you've ever been in a Hot Topic, its sort of like a punk store. You've for your people with piercings in places I didn't even know existed, very strange hair cuts, and lots and lots of black, non-advertising T-Shirts. So, first off, I notice the shirt I'm currently wearing, which has a picture of 8-bit Samus shooting a Leever with a missile, with the caption "Beat the mother brain." on it. I naturally had to procure it. Well, not so much procure as buy.

So, I bought that, and noticed next to it, a shirt that lists the top 20 things you learn from video games. First of all, you have to eat everything you find off the floor. You can drive any vehicle without any training, and people dissapear when they die. I already knew that, of course. I wandered past all of the spikey bracelets and mesh clothing, and spotted another shirt. It reads "I'm like a superhero! (Without any powers or motivation.)" It sounded too good to be true, but then I noticed the other one. A hamster with wings, the caption reading "The flying hamster of doom rains coconuts on your beautiful city." I was torn between funny, and just plain bizarre. I eventually opted for the superhero one. I noticed the black trenchcoats, which were too damned long. It was the right size and all, but it went all the way down to my feet. Oh, and it was 70$. I don't want a trenchcoat like Neo wears. I want a normal one. But it took me a year to find my fedora, so I'm not worried. Well, not so much worried, as unhappy.

So, not unhappy, I turned a full 180 degrees, and spotted a Pac-Man arm band. I bought it, and am currently wearing it. So, I will enter my senior year in highschool more strange than ever, not caring in the slightest, and enjoy my last days in hell. I'm already plotting about how to get some freshmen.

Oh, and everybody I made eye contact with in Hot Topic said hello to me. It was wierd, and kind of creepy.* I don't like talking to people I don't know, especially when I'm in a public place minding my own business. Stupid people, being friendly to someone they don't even know, just because he dresses in clothing remotely similar. Damn it. What do you want, peace in this world or something?

Well, not so much peace, as tolerance. And that's me, signing off. You'll be in for a treat pretty soon. I'm thinking about doing some of my masterful graphical work (banners, buddy icons, or something like that). It appears I'm back to updating sort of regularly.

* I kind of liked it, actually.
posted by Slade at 10:33 PM

Today will live in infamy as the day I upload my first guest update! It's from a guy I met in Six Flags in Virginia during my NYLC trip. See, we both hate rollercoasters, and as anyone who's been to a Six Flags knows the only other attraction is the arcade. So, there I was, playing some decent FPS and killing everyone I saw somehow, when I noticed a bunch of people gathered around the Dance Dance Revolution machine. My new friend was one of them. Picture a pasty white redhead male of average hight with a green hat (a real one, not a baseball cap), and a dark red Hawaiian shirt, and you've got Dave. As luck would have it, he was also an agnostic atheist who was into video games and computers. I admired his crazy arrow stomping skills for a bit, and somehow got into a conversation with him. We walked around for a while, got to know one another, and before I left I got his AIM screen name. When I got back to my house, I kept in touch, and introduced him to my website. Pretty soon (read:yesterday) he asked to do a guest Contra Comic. I naturally was exuberant about it, and when it was done, I deemed it worthy of my site. Here it is, in all of it's glory: Through the Eyes of Red Pants.

He told him not to eat anything off of the ground...

So there you have it. I'm also putting a link of it up in my Contra Comics section as well. And tomorrow, you will get to hear all about my experiences going clothes shopping today. I think my pac-man wrist band speaks for itself as to the spiffyness of my jaunt. Oh, click here to check out Dave's website. It's not up yet, but he said it will be by by Monday. Which is in about fifteen minutes. I think he meant later than that, but I like to take things more literally.
posted by Slade at 11:46 PM

You know, i've been thinking, I could quite easily be a superhero. I'm faster than the speed of sarcasm. Able to connect two completely nonsensical and unrelated ideas in a single sentence. Always trying to look out for my fellow humans. It's a nerd! It's a three headed giraffe! No! It's angry spiteful cynical nihilistic stuggling website humor writing man! I try to warn the general tiny humor website following population of various evils that plague our world. I've done combat, some of it mortal, with corporations, hoardes of flesh-eating equestrians, demons, and extra-terrestrial invaders. (Ok, so I've just complained about them, but the point is, without me, we'd all be mindless zombie slaves that sit around and attempt to stimulate ourselves by watching a series of still images that when projected onto a screen and played rapidly and in the correct order conveys a sense of motion, while obeying this screen's every whim, the whim itself being controlled by evil faceless corporations.* Oh. Shit.)

So anyway, I'm sure that by this point you're on the edge of your seat, trying to figure out just what in the Burning Hells I'm trying to play up in an attempt at a better word count. I won't ask you to stave off your curiosity any longer. I'm here to talk about that most awesome bad-ass, the ninja.

"What is a ninja?", you might ask, if you've lived under a rock, or been in cryogenic hybernation for the past few milennia. Well, ninja is a Japanese compound word, from "nin" meaning endure and "ja" meaning person. But "one who endures" isn't what we think of, is it? The origial ninjas were 14th century mercenaries who were trained in the martial arts and hired for covert operations such as assassinations and sabatoge. Those warlords were cut-throat, eh? But enough of this history lesson**, what does this all mean? Ninjas were silent, deadly spies, doing their dirty work before the "fifth freedom" was even thought up. Kicking ass while dressed in black and speaking Japanese. What isn't there to love? Apperently, alot, if you happen to be the writer of a generic, no-name TV action series, such as "The One with Pamela 'I have big boobs!' Anderson", "That Show With the Three Kung-Fuing Women", or "The Show With that Guy, and that Other Guy."

Now, the reason no one has ever heard of these shows is because they are te second lowest form of moving picture entertainment, next to reality shows. They are played late at night, on the channels no one ever watches, so no one has to hear the horrible one liners, clich� villains, and cheesy chop-socky fight scenes. One liners such as shooting a generic, faceless henchman that somehow knows martial arts and exclaiming he's going to have a headache in the morning.

Clich� villains that must always tie the heros up to a slowly descending rope that ends in a vat of acid while leaving them alone with two faceless henchmen. Why can't you just shoot the assholes. We already hate the heros; no one will cry if you kill them off now. In fact, we'll pay you extra, and you could get your own spin off show. Anything to end the horrible experience we're having because the only other choice of television is an infomercial for a home tumor removal kit.

The fight scenes are where the ninjas come in.

It always starts where the horribly acting heros are walking down a street/snooping around in a warehouse/eating crumpets, trying to solve the mystery of who stole that big leather suitcase full of money, who pilfered that microchip to a weapon powerful enough to destroy the world, or who killed all of the brain cells in the writers' heads. Suddenly, a group of nameless henchmen slip out from behind crates/lamp posts/fall from the balcony and proceed to attack the protagonists. Of course, the martial arts every henchman learns in Lacky 201 aren't enough for the skills learned in Hateful Heros 199, and pretty soon all of the henchmen are unconscious/knocked into boxes/fallen off of the balcony. Even the guy who had a gun!

And then in drop the ninjas.

We've established that ninjas are silent assassins, so what are they always doing falling in from the sky and going "Whoooooooooaaaaa!" while flipping their katanas around in some vain attempt at showing off their skills? Then there's the nunchuku, which the hero(ine) always manages to steal, using the chain in the middle. C'mon, ninjas can kick everyone's ass except a pirate riding a dinosaur robot that breathes Febreeze^TM. And I havn't even mentioned that katanas were used by Samurai, Japanese knights, more than by ninjas. By paying absolutely no attention to any accuracy, the writers of these shows are wasting airspace by depricating and defacating the ninja. Only morons think that ninjas flip out and kill people. In reality, if a ninja dropped in on a target, he would drop in from behind, silently, and slit the throat of his victim before he or she could utter a sound. He wouldn't be easily dispatched, along with his three fellow ninjas, while armed might I add, with a few badly timed punches and kicks. Ah fuck, this turned into just rambling. My bad. I'm just too offended by these shows to apparently write anything worthwhile at the moment. But hey, there's still my trip to the District of Columbia, and rumors of a guest update have been floating around my AIM windows. Only time will tell... seriously. Wait until tomorrow. Crap, it is tomorrow. Wait until this afternoon then.

*That was one horrible, run on sentence. I apologize for 1/1000^th of the confusion that it causes you.

**The common nightstick used by pigs... err, "police officers", is actually an ancient Japanese weapon known as the tonfa. Make of that what you will.
posted by Slade at 12:46 AM