"Dick" was my father's name. You can call me "Mister."

Seriously, though, a little respect pleaz?

Y'all hyped for the swine flu? I always said that no good could come from a man fucking a pig (or vice versa), but I'm not too proud to admit that I was wrong. Someone, somewhere, has done something... unfathomable to a piggy, and yet the coin of global karma has landed heads up! (Heads up is good.) We got a pandemic! Hooooray!

As of this writing, we are at "pandemic alert level 5." As I understand it, this means that the pathogen has us all by the balls, and there's no need anymore to be fucking pigs to get it (thank God!). The WHO's pandemic alert scale goes up to 6, but I have the feeling that they'll raise that level cap if it looks like everyone is having fun. Look no further than the World of Warcraft ("WoW"... "WHO"... coincidence?) for an example. Now, my own adventures in the world of Warcraft were tragically cut short at level 3, when the game administrators realized that I was spending all my time tracing out a giant penis on the game map. I figured if I walked that course long enough, I would wear a line in the Wargrass. I think I was on to something too, because after a few weeks the night elf Lord Dandy Hugepenisdrawer was kicked off the system. Hey, nerds... y'all can call me Mister now too.

Anyway, I've been told that level 60 used to be the maximum on WoW(za), but they raised it due to popular demand. I think that with a little effort, we can push this pandemic up to a fearsome level 50! That'd be, like, your eyes would melt whenever you looked at a pig, and saying any word that started with a "P" would cause you to lose a childhood memory. It would be... whorable! (i.e. great.)

PS—The last mighty swine flu pandemic (some refer to it as the "Spanish Flu," but not me) in 1918 killed my great-grandfather! So this is like Swine Flu II: This Time it's Personal! Although the 1918 flu infected a third of the world's population, so it's probably personal for a lot of jerks out there.

I’m no hero, but who gives a nut?

I suppose it happens to everyone at some point: you realize—suddenly or gradually, it doesn’t matter—that you aren’t the person you imagined you would grow to be. You should have been happier. You should have been smarter. You should have been kinder. You should have been stronger. There are so many things you know you should have done, but you couldn’t… because what you are and what you always hoped to be aren’t the same, and never will be.

You’re not your father. You’re not JFK. You’re not a scholar. You’re not a lover. You’re not a hero.

But, hey, who gives a milk, right? Sure, I’d love to be able to fly, see through ladies’ clothes, and kill a whale with a single punch, but I can’t, and I’m fine with that. Because even though I’m no hero, I’m pretty sure I’d make a damn fine villain.

Let’s take a personal inventory:

I don’t have whale-killing strength… but I have whale-killing will! I’d do it if I could! In a second!

I have an intellect like a needle taped to the end of a pencil—very sharp. Villains need this kind of smarts for formulating plans. And for making deadly new weapons. Like… needles taped to pencils. Or a different type of flamethrower.

I’m not afraid to take what’s mine. Like someone else’s car. Or a kid that I could get a big ransom for.

I know the key to human life: the heart. Stop it, and you’re pretty much dead.

I’m not afraid of being changed by lots of money. I mean, that would have been the idea in the first place, right? To be changed into a really rich guy.

This sort of thing makes sense to me. Keep your tights, Kent. If I want a career change, I’m going the other direction.

Put this in your mouth, hippie (your foot)

Hey y’all.

Despite what my criminal record might or might not (or might) indicate, I’ve got nothing in particular against “hippie-types.” Really, I judge them like any other minority: based on statistical trends I’ve heard about. Some hippies are fine people, I’m sure.

They sure can be aggravating, though, am I right? Hey, Starchild, I want to have a conversation, not hum simultaneously with you! How do you shake someone out of a reverie like that? (Without accidentally touching any of their dreadlocks, of course.) How do you break that slow stride, and force some active reflection? Impossible, right? No, not impossible.

One D. Chesterton, as it happens, was able to do it not once, but twice last night alone, without even trying. It just came naturally to me during what I thought was a normal conversation. I am that talented.

Occasion #1: “Check out my High School Musical beach towel. It has Zack Ephron and everything! But when I wear this on the beach, it makes me look like a pedophile. What a drag!”

Smile and nod at that, peacenik!

Occasion #2: “… Well, it’s a pretty funny story. See, I’ve been kind of depressed lately, so I’ve been drinking a lot…”

Cha-ching! You can take that silence to the bank, because it’s golden!

On the other hand, I also have learned how to quickly and gently slip a stunned hippie back into a comfortable and dreamy distant state: “Sure, the Mesozoic is the best—obviously—but most people don’t even know about the Permian! I mean, therapsids were basically mammals, and this is 250 million years before the so-called “age of mammals.” They had differentiated dentition and everything!

I’m like a skilled tiger-trainer. I know when to pet the tiger, when to yell at it, when to give it pieces of chicken liver, and when to sneak up and douse its sphincter with pepper spray. It’s the same with hippie-types. (Although, despite the loose-fitting clothing, it’s often difficult to really spray a hippie’s privates with severe irritants to the extant that you might feel they deserve.)

PS—I met some very friendly people last night!

Best wear sunglasses

Or you'll end up like Helen Keller. You'll still be deaf and stuff, but at least your eyeballs will still work.

I'm referring, of course, to what you ought to do when looking at my new web-diary top thinger. The thing up there that says "The Chesterton Review, etc" That's the sort of thing people get payed millions of dollars for, because designing that kind of practical art is not easy. Millions.

So I suppose I'm understandably a little proud that I payed an immigrant just seventy bucks for this one. His normal rate is a hundred, but I just told him flat out, "Hey, mon ami, don't put any colors in there and lets make it eighty." (He was a French Canadian.) And then I slipped him seventy dollars. Apparently in French Canada they use different numbers, because he didn't even notice.

How many different ways can I say OMG?!?

I can only think of two ways, actually.

Still, can you believe the Internet? With the help of a marketing campaign for some movie (I think it's the sequel to Bicentennial Man. Tricentennial Man?) I was able to see the robot that's living inside me! Am I the robot? Or is the robot me?



I was inclined to think that I was the robot... and then I saw this: (!!)