Onward and Downward: The shit list

By Adam

With the “Exit Theory” retrospective in the can and an unnecessary hiatus under the belt, we return now to our regularly scheduled blasphemy and rancor. I’ve been gone a long time, so we have a lot to catch up on. That means I get to use one of those bullet-point lists that I so love doing! What am I going to sodomize today? Read below for protracted colons!

• Fucking Republicans. I try to be politically neutral here, but you guys are a whiny group of bitches.  Every time I turn on the television or listen to the radio some right-wing talking head is giving a fucking sermon on how Democrats are systematically ruining the nation. Are you guys fucking retarded, or what? This country has been fucked for decades. Really, there’s no way to win anymore: healthcare is boned, you will never be able to fully afford a visit to the hospital; social security for my generation is a pipe-dream; and we couldn’t stay out of a war with brown people to save our goddamned lives. Just because democrats have control the nation suddenly turns to shit? This is America, folks. Self-destruction is kind of our deal.
• Hollywood Movies. People keep telling me Star Trek is good, but people insist on being wrong so often I just don’t know whom to trust anymore. “Well,” I said to myself, “better fucking try it for myself.” When you peel back the glossy special effects and the gritty, thick-like-an-Alabama-single-mother sexual tension between Spock and Kirk all that’s left over is the pussy from Troy screaming about some stupid planet. So his planet was destroyed, right? And the only way to save it was creating a massive black hole, right? I’m not a theoretical physicist, but doesn’t that sound fucking stupid to you? And if you could back in time to destroy Leonard Nemoy, why not just go back in time and warn everyone about the coming apocalypse? This isn’t hard. And that Wolverine movie! Holy god, that movie gave me fucking cancer. I hope my mom doesn’t spirit me away to die in a lonely Canadian cabin so she can draw attention to her crazy-ass beliefs. Paging Dr. Münchausen.
• Swine Flu. Oh no, not the flu! So this killed like a billion people in Mexico, right? Listen, I have been to Mexico, and I have seen some of the hospitals they have there. A prescient man once said, “I hope I don’t die in some Mexican hellhole.” Methinks he was commenting on Puerto Vallarta. That city was built in a pattern: it alternated between herpes-ridden night clubs boasting “bubble nights” and hole-in-the-wall medical institutions that make the movie Hostel look accommodating. Swine flu is also great in that it disproves Catholicism—anyone else find it odd that the country in which every single human being is Catholic gets dominated by the flu? I mean, really, the flu? But I could be wrong about that one—Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachmann found it interesting that the last time swine flu was a problem a Democrat held the highest office. Wow, huh? What a cunt.
• Television season finales. I used to be that guy that was all “Man, you watch Lost? What an asshole.” After watching the show I became all “Lost? I LOVE LOST.” After watching the season five finale, I wanted to stab a puppy. What’s even more frustrating is that it was critically adored! Television critics are a perfect analogue to crack whores: They’ve got to get that money somewhere, so if someone offers them a baked-diarrhea pie to eat, they think they got to eat it. But if it works once, it will always work. If you say an episode is awesome when it fucks all the continuity in the ass, introduces not one but two deus ex-machina characters, and ends in a fucking nuclear explosion, writers are going to think they can get away with that! Enjoy your baked diarrhea, fuckers! I’m done with this shit.

Rest assured, this isn’t all that has me pissed off over the past few weeks. I will be back, and I will be pissed, and you will read this shit. If you want to get pissed as I as go, follow me on Twitter.

The Cigarette Noise: Scared of the Swine

By Ryan

I’ll admit that I’m an easily irritated person.  Little things annoy the hell out of me, and I have some bubbling rage issues that may need to be confronted at some point in time.  But I don’t think I’m alone on this one; we can all agree that the swine flu hullabaloo is reflective of the general stupidity of the masses.

Is this what the swine flu virus looks like? I'm not sure. Does this image come up when you Google "swine flu"? You're damn right it does.

Look, I’m not gonna spend all day on this.  Swine flu is weak, and, probably, even more so than the normal flu, a virus that most people get at some point(s) in their lives and are better within a few days.  Yet I see folks on the subway with gas masks, hear about people quitting their gyms over swine flu fears, and have to deal with the onslaught of media coverage.  It’s like no one even paid attention the whole bird flu non-event of a few years ago; if something was actually a major threat to your health, cancelling high school sports won’t save you.

What really sticks in my craw—and it’s a damn sticky craw to begin with—is that the type of people who get all worked up over this crap are the ones we all wish would come down with it.  We all know these people, the ones who take every national news story personally.  We hate them, and if we don’t, we should.

That reminds me of an idea I once had to make America a better place.  It goes like this: every single week, theatres across the country release one “trick movie,” a movie that looks so stupid that no one would ever think of seeing it, and then, during each screening of the movie they gas the audience that was dumb enough to go see it.  We could start with just reusing Eddie Murphy movies, and then eventually we’d run out of them and have to move onto Rob Schneider and Tyler Perry stuff.  The caveat is that this would be a public plan, so people would know the risk when they went to a movie; if you’re not sure if you should see Christmas with the Kranks or Finding Neverland (a decision I actually heard a couple debating over dinner in late November 2004), just play it safe and stay home.  How does this not improve the general intelligence?

Furthermore, if you’re a terrorist—and Lord knows if you’re reading this blog, that’s a distinct possibility—what do you hate more: the hardworking folks in NYC financial offices or the tools who laugh at Carlos Mencia?  Which America is more disgusting to you?  Because I know which one I hate more, and I think if you looked into it, you would too.  So yeah, that twenty-five year old guy in a gas mask in line to see Dane Cook in Cleveland?  Go for it; you’ll do my blood pressure a favor.

Onward & Downward

By Adam

Get it? The computer has a virus. Like it’s a person! Also, it has a watermark that says “stockphoto” because we stole it.

 

 

Writing this from a computer literally riddled with trojan viruses developed by the meanest internet nerds you’ve seen in your life, I had an epiphany: the internet is a dangerous place.  In order not to infect Ryan’s computer with viruses that are probably draining my bank account as I type this, I’m instead updating from the girlfriend’s computer, who was kind enough to help out.  Until I get some actual gear to get back to work, the traditional Onward and Downward you’ve come to love (remember, just search for bloody vaginal secretions!) is going to be replaced with vintage shit I find on this computer.  Consider it a “Greatest Hits of Things That Never Deserved the Greatest Hits Treatment” type of deal.

Up first in the cycle is a paper I wrote for my College Composition II class back in good ol’ 2002, when terrorist attacks were still fresh and exciting.  It was a guide I wrote for the discerning zombie about what a healthy diet should include.  I wrote this for a college class.  I remember there being a peer review process involved in the editing cycle, and a middle-aged gay man who called himself Monkey gave it “two thumbs, way up!”  Actually, Monkey lent me a copy of The Hawkline Monster, the best book ever written by any human being, ever.  I subsequently lent this book to a friend for three months, and Monkey told me that if I didn’t return his book the next day he would stab me with a knife.  To punctuate that point, he thrust the blade of said knife into the table.  Well, my friend was actually out of town for that week, and I had to break into his house to get the book back.  This was easier said than done, because I didn’t have a key and none of the windows were unlocked.  So, I took one of the windows out.  That’s not to say I removed one of the storm windows or some pussy shit like that, I literally performed destruction and removed the entire window, frame and all.

Listen, I’m rambling, and a little bit drunk.  Without further ado:

                The clouds obscure the full moon, but not enough to completely eclipse it.  A crack of thunder booms in the distance as your hand breaks through the topsoil.  An eerie moan fills the graveyard, as the dead slowly come back to life to feed.  But as today’s health conscious zombie, you can’t help but ask what’s healthier for the decaying public: Flesh or brains?  Although located on the same body, the differences in these two post-mortem delicacies are great.

                Obviously, the more abundant of the two foods is easily flesh.  Found on every human, the “meat” is found all over the body, while brains are limited to just the head section of the body.  Also, depending on the size of your prey, you could end up having enough flesh to fill your coffin with during the long winter season.  The downfall, though, is that eating the flesh will transfer the plight of the undead to the victim, which floods the market with consumers and raises the already high prices of zombie food.

                Not nearly as available as the “meat,” the brains are the most coveted part of the human body.  Although harder to access than the flesh due to the presence of the skull and the natural human reflex to not allow a creature of the night to devour them, brains are the most highly revered food source in the zombie republic.  The effort involved in getting the brains is worth it, since those without brains cannot become zombies (due to the strange and wonderful rules of zombie physics) and brains can be sold for a high price on the zombie black market.

                Flesh is very malleable when it comes to preparing dishes.  Many chefs in the various undead cooking circles have agreed that “meat” can be used in so many different ways that it’s possible to never prepare the same putrid dish twice.  Also, many zombies who can’t afford the luxury of the fiery pits of Hell to cook their food can eat it straight from the bone, a classic throwback to ancient zombie culture.

                Brains, on the other hand, are very hard to prepare correctly.  Not many different meals can be prepared from the staple of undead food, but that doesn’t mean nothing can be done with them.  The majority of zombie chefs recommend boiling the brains in their own juices, while adding two tablespoons of paprika for the best possible stew in Halloween Town.  Furthermore, a lot of the new age zombies have found that brain smoothies are the perfect compliment to a “meat” and potatoes dinner.

                The biggest factor in deciding on what to feast on during All Hallows Eve is what will provide you with the most nutrients and vitamins to keep going, even after you re-die.  While more abundant and easier to cook with, flesh is not very healthy at all for the decaying zombie.  Filled with fatty tissue and blood, flesh becomes more of a problem than a solution.  The undead suffer from slow movement already, so why compound that problem by becoming an overweight zombie?  Moreover, blood serves no good to the corpse and actually causes more harm!  The FBA (Flesh and Brains Administration) has run conclusive tests to show that the consumption of blood will adversely affect the zombie by adding weight to the body.  Also, the addition of fluid to the system will cause the zombie to become unbalanced as you shuffle through the night and it sloshes around in the stomach.

                Brains, on the other hand, are totally good for the decaying zombie.  The FBA has proved that the consumption of brains will actually increase the intelligence of the normal zombie tenfold!  In layman’s terms, this means that any zombie who eats enough brains over the course of his or her un-life will cease to be a mindless killing machine and become the smart and savvy zombie that everyone wants to be around.

                While the work and dedication involved in acquiring brains may seem too daunting, the pros definitely outweigh the cons.  Although easier to find and consume than brains, flesh doesn’t provide what a zombie needs to shamble through the night and stalk the living.  So when Halloween comes around this year, make the smart choice and choose brains. You won’t live to regret it.