Some of My Best Friends Are Blogs

Oh, So It's Like Risk?

2011-09-01T16:38:00.000-07:00

I open my eyes and am struck by the thought that I don't know where I am. I investigate my immediate surroundings. They are dark. My mind swims. My head tries to follow, and I realize that my face has been buried in a pillow.

I am in my room. It is dark, but not of its own volition. The blinds have been drawn, the door shut, a towel wedged into the crack between it and the floor. Through the gloom, I spy a large, hand-painted sign hanging lazily from a thumbtack-supported rope in front of my sole, small window. It reads, in bright red paint, "GO BACK TO SLEEP."

Always one to question signs written in my own hand, I sit up in my bed. I am comforted to realize I have slept in my bed and not, as is too often the case, on the floor, supported only by wrinkled, half-on clothing and a near-empty bottle of liquor. In fact, as my eyes adjust to being open, I notice the room is immaculate and tidy, which leads me to suspect my mother has broken in and cleaned the place while I dozed. I am about to call and berate her for intruding on my disheveled independence when another thought strikes: What time is it?

I glance over at my clock radio, which proudly boasts that it is in fact 11:47. But questions still linger: AM? PM? And what day is it? What month, even?

I need a calendar. Cal-en-dar. The word sounds funny, even in my brain; it is a word from a different world or someone else's life, a place full of events and plans and schedules. A place where the passage of time is not marked by the rise and fall of a dirty laundry pile. A scary, cold, unwelcoming place. A place, I am afraid, I now inhabit.

I reach over to my end table, beyond the suspiciously dusty clock radio, in search of my cell phone, which legend has it counts some kind of cal-en-dar as one of its many unused features. As I do so, the LED numbers cast enough light on my hand to make it recoil in horror from itself; it is covered in hair, nails stretching out far beyond any reasonable amount of growth. I bathe my other hand in the soft green light and it, too, is furry and long-nailed. I gingerly stroke my chin and discover I have a long, ZZ-Top-style beard cascading down from it. I dare not look at my pubic area.

I break out into a cold sweat as a single question loops in my mind: "How long have I been asleep?"

Desperate for an answer, yet wary of what I may discover, I leap out of bed--stumbling briefly as I adjust to the length of my toenails--and flick on the light switch. The bulb in the fixture above me hisses and rattles and pops, before exploding in a shower of sparks that very briefly catches my beard alight. I crawl back over my bed and rummage around the end table until I do find my phone, which offers no answers, its battery having died long ago. Frustrated, I throw it against the wall, from which it rebounds nonchalantly and lands safely back onto my bed, flipped open, mocking me with its blank expression.

I hop back off the bed and throw open my bedroom door, expecting to be bathed in light. Instead, more darkness. Curse my basement apartment! I silently cry. I am happy to remember I do in fact live in a basement apartment, and that my name appears to be Patrick, if the hand-written sign across the hall from my bedroom door is to be believed: "YOUR NAME IS PATRICK," it says, in the same bright red paint. Again, I am suspicious, but I have no reason to doubt it.

I advance down the hallway to the small kitchen, which, like my bedroom, is dusty yet tidy. With hibernation fueling my hunger, I open the fridge to sate it; this turns out to be a bad move. A pizza box beckons me closer, but upon throwing it open I am greeted by a surly face, eyebrows made of onions, a mouth of pepperoni, and teeth of what I swear is calcified bone but who would put that on a pizza? The pizza face snarls at me and bellows, "What? Come on, punk, I dare ya!" I slam the fridge shut. How long would it take a pizza to grow a face and develop vocal chords? I try to do some quick mental arithmetic, but my bowels don't like the sound of either of those words and urge me to visit the toilet post-haste. I do so. Unlike hand-written signs, I have learned from experience it is highly unwise to ignore your bowels.

I emerge, some time later, from the bathroom, having taken care of all my hygienic needs. Clean-shaven, nails shorn, and aerosol can of air-freshener depleted, I calmly move back into the kitchen, eager to start my day, first by figuring out exactly what day it is, and then hopefully moving on from there. I gingerly crack open the fridge door and politely ask Pizzaface if he can toss me a can of Coke; he obliges with a grunt, and though he whips the can out at me with unnecessary speed, I politely thank him and leave him to his privacy. I crack the can open and take a long, gluttonous gulp; it is delicious. Coke, unlike pizza, is indestructible. And they say it's bad for you!

My eyes having adjusted, cat-like, to the apartment's lack of light, I walk calmly over into the TV area, where I sit down on the couch to the accompaniment of a cloud of freshly-disturbed dust. My laptop lies quietly on the coffee table, sleeping peacefully. I am loathe to arouse it from its slumber, remembering my own rude awakening earlier, but this mystery needs solving. I lift the screen, and am greeted by another hand-painted sign, this one reading "I HOPE YOU'RE SITTING DOWN." I double-check to confirm that yes, I am sitting down, and I remove the sign from the screen and press the power button.

I sit. And wait. I sip some Coke. Still sitting. Still waiting. The laptop sputters and rumbles as it awakens from its sleep. I wish it would go faster, but I must be patient. I can empathize with it, after all. I, too, am a heavy sleeper. Apparently.

Finally, it is finished, and as my desktop appears I hover the mouse over the time display in the bottom corner and discover...

September. September? September!? September!

I run a song from my childhood through my head, a song about the months of the year. Which one sounds the most familiar...?

April! April. That sounds good. So, April, May, June...it must have been...five months! Five! Five months. How can I have slept for five months? Wasn't there something I should have been doing?

A panic grips me. I run down the list of things that I hold dear. It is a very short list. In fact, it is far shorter than the list of things I think I should probably hold dear, but aren't really gripping me at the moment. Employment? No, that's not it. I'm pretty sure I missed a few family birthdays, but that's fine, there will be others. My own birthday? Ha, don't make me laugh! A wedding or two? Graduations? Perhaps. But I'm sure a belated greeting card will smooth things over. What is it that is gnawing at my soul like a hungry beaver? What is it I have neglected to do? What is it that the world will have been missing?

At this point I notice on my desktop a singular icon, right in the middle of the screen. It is labeled "IMPORTANT!!!!" It is a generic icon, with no hint of what opening it will produce. With some trepidation, and a sip of Coke for courage, I hover the pointer over it and double-click.

A window opens up, like a web browser, but different; more sparse and unassuming, with not a drop-down menu in sight. A miniature 3-D model appears in the center of it, a series of tiny interlocking bluish-green lines, spinning away in front of a deep black background. I cannot for the life of me identify it. I search for a zoom tool but find none. In fact, there seems to be no way to interact with it at all. Slowly, I realize it is getting larger, albeit in no great hurry. It spins at a constant speed, gradually increasing in size. I notice it is somewhat triangular in shape, with a large, rounded bottom, tapering off at the top, but not to a point. In the middle of it, on one side, there is a large sort of bump, but what it represents I cannot tell.

I decide to give it some time, to study it as it rotates. As I do, my mind wanders. It appears to be in search of something. Normally, I would be hesitant to let it do so, but in this case, given my circumstances, I figure it can only lead to good, even if the information it recalls is horrifying. At least it would give me a reference point.

Instead, all it seems to come up with is "metal." I don't see how that helps.

The model on the screen has now approached about an inch in height, and there is definitely something familiar about it, but I cannot quite place it. My mind begins to wander again, and I implore it to do better this time. It ignores me, returning only: "usurpers."

Maybe it meant syrup, I think. I do feel like pancakes.

I turn my attention back to the model. It continues to grow, steadily, menacingly. My palms begin to sweat. My back begins to ache. I set my Coke down gently onto the coffee table. I put my hands to my chin. My eyes are glued open, focused on the screen. Something horrible is about to happen, I can feel it. My mind races, desperately, either to resolve this mystery once and for all or avoid doing so at all costs; I cannot tell. It is beyond my control. It continues tossing nonsense at me: "hands," "soccer," "skin," "flame," "future," "alive," "fiends." None of it makes any sense. The model on the screen grows larger. I prepare to cry, for no reason I can think of, but whatever it is it feels like a good one. Then my mind tosses the word "program" at me and I physically repulse; the 3-D model now spins into a recognizable shape, and I let out a girlish, high-pitched scream, and immediately wet myself.

It is a nose. A large, malformed, hideous nose. A "bleeder," as the medical professionals say.

And I know whose it is.

I let out an agonized, near-inhuman wail. Why have the gods cursed me so? Why was I not allowed to slumber? Why awaken me to such unspeakable horror?

And then, strangely, a calm, washing over me like baptismal waters. My mind slows down to a steady gallop, its synapses firing on all cylinders now. I sit up, ignoring the pungent wetness settling into the couch beneath me, and direct my web browser to Your Mom's Favorite Blog. And there it is. The reason for my awakening. The cause of all my anguish. The bane of my existence.

Eric Walkingshaw speaks.

He speaks of board games and their designers, of physicality and highfalutin. My blood boils. How dare he? I could have slept forever, but now this? This!? My peace disturbed and my pants wettened for an essay on the new version of Risk?

My mind gleefully throws another word at me: "revenge."

I get up from the couch, walk back down the hall, and re-enter my room. I move to the closet and, reaching up to the highest shelf, pull down a dilapidated, dusty cardboard box labeled "That Which Shall Not Be Opened." I place it down on the carpet and disobey my own handwriting, opening it, and removing the contents within. It is a board game. It is Risk. And in small letters in magic marker, written in a shaky, childlike hand, just below the picture of a 19th-century cannon, are the words "Property of Eric Walkingshaw."

I scoff. I take the cover of the Risk box and toss it contemptuously aside. I remove the board and unfold it, its color-coded continents staring up at me from the ground. I take out an army of plastic star-shaped soldiers, and starting with Australia, I spread them around the map, piling groups of them along continental borders except between North and South America where that cunning little bastard always has a truce with someone. After a short time, my task is complete; the board and its contents now represent, in fine detail, the state of Eric Walkingshaw's army, on the cusp of victory, only a single enemy soldier standing in the way of total victory, holding on for dear life in Irkutsk.

I remove the attack dice from the box and place all three of them into my mouth. I hold the two defensive dice in my right hand. With my left, I undo the button and zipper of my pants, and I crouch down over the Risk board, over Eric's massed armies, over the zenith of his military campaign, and with a great grunt and straining of muscles I unleash an atomic bomb of shit over his strategy-game world.

Beads of sweat dotting my forehead, I raise my right fist, clutching the defensive dice, high into the air. I swallow the attacking dice in one decisive gulp, and my victory complete, I shout to the heavens, "LEGACY!!!!!"

Your move, Walkingshaw.

Top 1 Liverpool Photographs

2011-04-05T17:09:00.000-07:00

It kind of says it all, really.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/10/11/article-1219274-06C39C4C000005DC-762_306x206_popup.jpg

Just a link until I can figure out how to re-size the damn thing.

Top 1 Liverpool Footballers

2011-03-02T20:39:00.001-08:00

Well, Eric is back, and thus so am I. And with Eric zooming into the lead with his mass of "favorite baseball player" lists, I suddenly, at one stroke, find myself at a disadvantage, superior Top 1 lists or no. So I too shall dip a toe into the sweat-scented pool of sport, and write for some considered length about footballers who have played for Liverpool.

There is a caveat to this, however, since I have only been an ardent Liverpool fan since round about 2002, when my love affair with The Beautiful Game* really began. That in itself is a story, mostly involving all-nighters, college, and a World Cup particularly suited to winning the heart of a Korean/American hybrid, but I won't get into that now. Suffice to say that England's strike partnership that summer consisted of Big Bad Emile Heskey and Speedy Little Runt Michael Owen, and when I found out they both happened to play for the same club team (Liverpool), my allegiance was decided.

The thing about Liverpool is that they, like most other European football** clubs, are a team steeped in history and tradition, of which for most of my life I was blissfully and completely ignorant. My life was consumed with thoughts of baseball and basketball and ice hockey and yes even American football, as strange as that may seem now. And then soccer-football--like an elegant and brilliant and beautiful young woman who comes swooping into your life when you're already settled with a wife and three lovely children and charms you with her grace, glamor, and glorious bazongas--came and swept me off my feet.

But I was still largely ignorant of the game's past and it's various storied histories, from the glories of World Cups gone by to the rich cast of characters who had helped shape and define the game in decades previous. Thus, strong as my ardor for Liverpool may have been, I had no first-hand knowledge of such greats as the goal machine Ian Rush, or the mercurial Emlyn Hughes, or stalwart mustachioed defender Alan Hansen, or rappin' John Barnes, or hard-charging Graeme Souness, or clever wide-man Steve Nicol, or even the great King Kenny Dalglish himself. I would learn their names and hear of their exploits, but I couldn't rightly claim them as favorites of my own; they simply lived on through the nostalgic cooing of Liverpool fans past and present.

Instead, my fandom began at a time when the aforementioned Heskey and Owen were leading the line, a tandem that these days seems hard to believe given the fall in fortunes of both those players. It was a time of expensive overseas flops like the much-reviled-yet-Eric-beloved El-Hadji Diouf, and the less-reviled but even more ineffective Salif Diao. In the years since there have been British flops as well, from Craig Bellamy's unfortunate disruption-to-goals ratio and Robbie Keane's disastrous short spell***. In short, it looks like I've hopped onto the Liverpool bandwagon just in time for it to go careening into the River Mersey.

Such complaints are relative, however, and despite what a lifelong Liverpool fan might consider a fallow period in their club's history, I'm rather content at what I've been offered over the last decade. While the Premier League title seems ever out of reach, two Champions League final appearances and one incredible, unforgettable victory in that competition is a lot more than fans of most clubs will ever see in their lifetimes. And while the cast of characters that has paraded through Anfield in those years might not approach the levels of Liverpool's former legends, there's enough to love about them that I've never felt short of people to root for.

It starts at number one and it starts at the back: Jerzy Dudek may never have been the most reliable of goalkeepers, but then again a consistent and reliable goalkeeper isn't exactly a common find. Even in a position known for its eccentrics, Dudek holds his own; he's given a goalkeeper shirt to the Pope, claimed his manager treated him "like a slave," has produced numerous comedy errors in the goalmouth; but most of all, he was gleefully, weirdly effective in that Champions League victory over Milan, wobbling his legs like Bruce Grobbelaar and hopping around the goal-line like a maniac in an effort to psyche out the Milan penalty-takers. And of course there's my favorite moment from that match: his double-save against Andriy Shevchenko in extra-time that prompted my all-time favorite cocky grin. Jerzy Dudek, 99 times out of 100, has no right to smirk like that; this time, I'll allow it.

Then there's the big Finnish center back, Sami Hyypia, who might well have been my favorite Red of all time were it not for the fact that he's likely Eric Walkingshaw's favorite, and I cannot bring myself to align with my enemy so. The definitive quiet, consistent defender, my favorite memories of Sami Hyypia have more to do with his offensive prowess. And less so the goals he scored from set-piece headers, but more the buildup; how the camera would cut to him as he labored up the pitch, like a loyal old hound dog being summoned by its master, and insinuated his tall frame in amongst the crowd of anxious defenders.

On the left side of defense there was John Arne Riise, really remarkable for one thing: his rocket left foot. Enjoy. Oh, and then I guess there was that time Craig Bellamy bashed his legs with a golf club following an argument about karaoke. But I'm not sure who the real winner is in that one.

Of course, Jamie Carragher will go down in Liverpool history as one of its finest center backs, his dogged defensive heroics a large part of their 2005 Champions League success and a huge part of the limited successes they've had otherwise. It's been enough to inspire the charmingly repetitive song "Team of Carraghers," set to the tune of "Yellow Submarine." But I'll always remember Jamie Carragher for the impenetrable thickness of his Scouse accent. Watch this video and close your eyes to avoid the subtitles, and see how many words you can actually understand.

There's not a lot that has to be said about Steven Gerrard, although I will say that I find the funny side in him being accused of assault after getting into a fight with a DJ who refused to play his request for Phil Collins in a club. And I can overlook his hypocrisy when it comes to diving because when a guy scores goals like these a few flops here and there aren't enough to sully my enthusiasm.

I briefly mentioned Emile Heskey and Michael Owen before, but I'll briefly mention them again. In his day, Michael Owen was a sublime finisher, and his blistering pace only added to his goal-scoring threat. It's hard to believe the man who scored this goal against Argentina is the same man who's been rotting on the Real Madrid, Newcastle United, and Manchester United benches over the past few years. But that's what chronic leg injuries will do to you, I guess. As for Heskey, I've always got a soft spot for forwards who routinely fail to find the back of the net. And Emile is no different. Fight on, Heskey, fight on.

Xabi Alonso is close to my favorite Liverpool player, but not quite there. It's true that the team has yet to find a suitable replacement for him in the midfield (also Javier Mascherano), and he's an underrated part of that Spain team that seemed so unbeatable and proved it to be the case. He put away the tying goal back in the '05 final, and then, of course, there was this.

People always mention his hard work and his never-ending running, but to me Dirk Kuyt's legacy will be this description of him: "like someone poured a pot noodle over Rutger Hauer's sister." Look.

More so than Emile Heskey, Peter Crouch is my favorite seldom-scoring Liverpool forward. His seemingly interminable, 19-game, four-month scoreless streak at the start of his Liverpool career--after a 7-million-pound transfer--made him a cult hero; his lanky, stick-like 6-foot-7-inch frame only helped matters. And of course, who can forget him doing the robot after scoring for England? Mock those robots, Peter, mock away! He's got a bit of skill, as well.

I'm still hurt over Fernando Torres leaving Liverpool, but I do hope that for his sake, and for lovers of the game itself, that he finds his best form soon. I'd hate to think that such a bright talent has flamed out so early, though if he has, that 50 million pounds Liverpool received from Chelsea for him will look like the steal of the century. Still, for ditching the team in the middle of troubled times, I can't look back too fondly on his time at Anfield.

But I can and do with my actual #1 favorite Liverpool player: Dietmar "Didi" Hamann, German defensive midfielder extraordinaire. In that magical Champions League final in 2005, Gerrard gets the credit for inspiring his team to victory, but what goes overlooked far too often is Hamann's introduction at half-time; it was his steady, disciplined work that laid the foundations for Liverpool to push forward, while keeping the Milan attack that had so thoroughly cut Liverpool apart in the first half at bay--and did so with a broken toe. A stalwart for seven years with the club, he was no mere side-to-side passer either; he had a propensity for getting forward at opportune times, and oh, yeah, he also had a cracker of a shot. He's the kind of unassuming, quietly consistent player that I admire, and thus earns top spot on this one-man list.

Honorable mention video goes to the Anfield Rap. Oh, the '80s....

And a final post-script: Dudek!

*This is the preferred way to describe soccer, if you want to sound like an insufferable prick.

**I refer to European soccer as "football" and North American soccer as "soccer," partly to reflect the regional differences in nomenclature, but mostly just to be an insufferable prick.

***I realize that technically speaking Robbie Keane is Irish and therefore not British, but I'm too lazy to re-word this paragraph and quite frankly, it's not as if anyone reading this really gives a damn. Besides, as the proud holder of the most incongruously Irish name in mixed-race heritage history, I feel I have the right to not really give a shit about this distinction. End footnote.

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Top 1 Nutz

2011-01-06T21:34:00.000-08:00

Deez Nutz:

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A Programming Note

2011-01-05T19:09:00.000-08:00

No, not that kind of programming note. I mean the kind where you're informed ahead of time about changes to your regularly scheduled programming. Like this:

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Sign Off - Richard Dawkins Will Be Here Tomorrow

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

March to Keep Fear Alive

See, with Eric embarking and, to my mild annoyance, seemingly intent on completing his marathon 333 Top 3 Lists, my stated aim of responding in kind to each of his posts with daring feats of textual mockery is in danger of being overwhelmed by the likes of "Top 3 Ways a Robot Can Remove the Brain From a Living, Breathing Human Baby," or "Top 3 Risk Games Eric Walkingshaw Has Played, In Order of Smugness of Victory." And while my wholly original (and in no way a shameless rip-off) compilation of 111 Top 1 lists may stem this tide somewhat, it appears I may have been too clever for my own good, seeing as how long after I've completed that list of lists, Eric will still be only one-third of the way towards Ultimate Victory.

This I cannot allow to pass.

So I am given a choice: change course and post my own marathon list of Top 3s, in order to match Eric at every turn; dive deep into the murky waters of my creativity and counter each list with a post of such awe-inspiring wit that Eric will wail to his robot masters in protest; or simply change the parameters of victory and thus ensure that I will have to muster no extra effort at all.

I am sure that my choice is obvious.

So from this moment on, I will not be trying to match Eric list for list; I will complete my 111 Top 1 lists, as I am a man of my word, but in-between, in order to not Hare my way to defeat against Eric's lumbering Tortoise of lists, I will pepper this blog with non-listy items with which to battle Eric's web-based hubris. Many of these will probably contain mangled metaphors based on old children's fables, but that is the price one pays in such a taxing mind-battle. The end result will justify such illiterate means, I can assure you.

So let me commence this slight change in course by simply pointing out this old video game, wherein you control a cyborg who literally kicks lumps out of rebellious robots (and, as pointed out in the below video, that is literally all you have to do):

Also, I'd like to counter Eric's boyhood fascination with Venus with this documentary footage chronicling my own visit to said planet, long before it was anything but a glittering gem in Eric's mind's sky (no, I don't know what that metaphor means, either). Try to ignore those wisecracking schlubs down front; they certainly didn't make our mission any easier.

Top 1 Gifts I Received This Christmas, In Order of Usefulness Against Possible Undercover Robot Eric Walkingshaw

2011-01-04T16:19:00.001-08:00

1. The Evil Robot Memory Eraser, via Bitchin' Brad McLaughlin (I hereby nominate "Bitchin'" as Brad's official nickname, a la Savage Steve Holland).

The Evil Robot Memory Eraser was a surprise gift from friend of P. and fellow anti-evil robot crusader Bitchin' Brad McLaughlin, who stopped by my home on what I can only assume was a rare Northern Excursion to battle the ever-increasing robotic hordes here in the Pacific Northwest. Purchased in his home turf of Greater Los Angeles, where undercover robots can be difficult to detect under layers of silicon, colagen, botox, and spray-on tans (you didn't think these were just anti-aging devices, did you?), the Evil Robot Memory Eraser is deceptively simple in design, but dreadfully effective. In fact, upon receipt of this gift I discovered that my own dear laptop computer, formerly thought to be an obedient and reliable mechanical slave, was actually an undercover Evil Robot Sleeper Agent! At least, this is what I assume, as my new Memory Eraser, as if propelled by some supernatural force, swiftly attached itself to the laptop and proceeded to purge its memory of all the surveillance data it had collected. I am forever thankful to Bitchin' Brad and his wonderful gift, as who knows what dastardly deeds my robot enemies could have perpetrated with their knowledge of my Netflix queue, copies of numerous failed novel and screenplay attempts, and video footage of me picking my nose while watching soccer highlights. I shudder to think.

If Eric Walkingshaw ever shows the cojones to travel up this way again, I can assure you, my devoted reader, that I will set upon him at once with this wonder device, and watch with glee as his bulbous face grows blank with the disappearance of all his binary knowledge, and he is rendered but a useless husk of synthetic flesh and simulated bone. Not too unlike my harem of provocatively-dressed love dolls, come to think of it. Thanks again, Evil Robot Memory Eraser, for preventing that embarrassing personal detail from becoming public knowledge!

That is...erm...oh. Uh oh.

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1 of 111

2011-01-02T02:28:00.000-08:00

So Eric is embarking on what seems to be a marathon blog-making session, documenting 333 of his patented Top 3 lists (patent pending). He seems to think it some sort of challenge, a gauntlet thrown down, a slap across my face with some kind of wimpy, sequined glove. As if I'd ever be drawn into such a petty pissing match, a meeting of the minds worth no more than the skin off a leper's toes! 333 Top 3 lists? You'll get no such malarkey here!

Instead, may I offer you 111 of my patented Top 1 lists (patent pending)? More direct and to the point than Eric's 3-item diatribes, I think you'll find my 111 Top 1 lists (patent pending) a suitable and pleasantly brief diversion to your normal Internet-browsing schedule. Which is to say, you now have 66% more time for Facebook-stalking girls you had a crush on 15 years ago. I'll win you yet, Shelley McDougall!

Without further ado:

Top 1 Deadly Robots That I Just Thought Up While Remembering That One Time Shelley McDougall Might Have Looked At Me Across the Gym During an Assembly:

Johnny Five!

Yes, that's right. Oh, sure, he's cute and all, winning the heart of the foolish Ally Sheedy. But lest you forget, all that winning curiosity and childlike naivete hides the capabilities of a cold-blooded killer. This is a war robot, designed to kill its fleshy targets and render them into consumable foodstuffs. Okay, maybe not so much that last part, but it does have rockets on its back for Christ's sake. Why are you playing Pictionary with it!? Get away! Away!

I would elaborate more, but Shelley McDougall just posted some pics of her nephew's birthday party, and I have to scour the photos for a moment of quiet reflection where she might have been thinking about me. I bid you all good night.

In Which I Rebut Eric's Philosophical Rebuttal

2010-12-31T00:44:00.000-08:00

While I can't fault the argument laid out by your cold, calculated, logical mind, I can offer some context for the philosophizing in question. Sure, this little piece of pithiness--

Happiness is a pause between 2 moments of suffering.

--might not be the greatest or most profound thing ever uttered by a human being (that would be this). However, I feel there is a little bit of context here that you are neglecting to consider; namely, the location of said philosophizing--the "2nd floor bathroom stall of the Kelley Engineering Center."

While I am unable to account for the personality or intelligence of your average restroom-occupant at the Kelley Engineering Center, based on the fact that one Eric Walkingshaw also seems to be at least a sporadic user of said facility, I can assume that they likely have a) an above-average intellect, b) a profound disregard or even open-armed acceptance of the threat robots pose to humankind, and c) possibly a large, wide-nostrilled nose. None of these things necessarily imply a lack of philosophical thoroughness, but they do point to a mindset that is probably focused more on numbers and data than the nuances of human suffering. Were this a bathroom on the 2nd floor of an English Department, on the other hand, you would hope to find a more accurate assessment of the state of sorrow, seeing as those miserable bastards quite honestly would have little reason to enjoy anything, or even live.

But even if we are to assume that the user of this stall and author of this sentiment happened to be a passing philosopher or lost and scared English student, the fact that it was written on a bathroom stall also leads us to conclude that more than likely this observation was made while said author was emptying their bowels, which as you may no doubt be aware is not the ideal state for profound thinking. Even the greatest minds and keenest truth-seekers can be forgiven for errors in thought as they take the train to Deucetown, so to speak. There is perhaps no philosopher who could be expected to make a sound observation on the travails of human existence in the midst of evacuating the citizens of Sphincterville. I would argue that there is perhaps no one in history whose best work and greatest ideas were accomplished while in the midst of an excremental excursion. Except maybe Arthur Schopenhauer.

Perhaps good Mr. Walkingshaw, given this context, should do what the author of the debated philosophy was clearly having trouble doing themselves, and simply give this one a pass.

In Which Eric Tries to Sneak Under My Radar

2010-12-30T23:41:00.000-08:00

And fails. Fails!

Did you think I would not notice, Walkingshaw? Did you think that your long hibernation would lull me into a sense of security and--dare I say--victory? Well you were wrong. Wrong! Unluckily for you, I cannot ever accept victory or success for myself. It is just one of many undesirable character traits that will keep me forever vigilant in my quest to let no Internet-based forum for your self-expression go un-countered. It may be dirty, unglamorous work, but the sheer unnecessariness of it ensures my undying devotion. It is a determination which is, ironically, un-prefixable.

So you awaken from your slumber and end your hiatus with two seemingly innocuous posts, about a month apart, like the clever little robot-monger you are. "Victory by degrees," you likely thought to yourself, and then you also likely thought, "That would be a good slogan for a brand of roll-on deodorant." Yes, Eric, I am in your head. And the accommodations are disappointing, I must say.

Santa Fe? Santa Fe? Santa Fe has been on your "to-visit list" for "years?" Santa Fe? Not Albuquerque. Not Carlsbad Caverns. Not even Roswell. Santa Goddamn Fe. What was it about the capital of New Mexico that so attracted you? The Georgia O'Keeffe museum, and its prized collection of vaginal-themed paintings? Were you simply stopping by on your way to Los Alamos to continue your side career in funneling secrets to Chinese robots? Or maybe just to gawp in wonderment at the awe-inspiring beauty of the Palace of Governors, which in no way resembles a 16th-century adobe strip mall? Whatever reasons you may have had, there are few words that can describe the type of person who would be so desirous to visit such a humble little burgh. "Lame" springs instantly to mind.

But the food! The food! As it warranted your first blog post in a year-and-a-half, it must have been something else, that authentic Santa Fe cuisine. Something exotic and far-fetched, that inquiring Internet passersby would no doubt be flabbergasted by its very existence. Something like...enchiladas, beer, and soup. Color me intrigued by these fascinatingly unique dishes!

Well, you're not the only one enjoying the fine dishes of some exotic locale. Just this evening I myself had quite the ravishing meal, traveling as far as the gas station down the road to acquire it. I don't have a fancy camera of the picture-taking variety to document it, but I do have the Internet and a search engine, so here is a close approximation of my Elegant Wonder Meal:

And don't think I didn't notice your toki pona cards, neither. Nena suli, Walkingshaw. Nena suli.

Schadenfreude

2009-05-21T23:02:00.000-07:00

I have nothing to say. This says it all.

In Which I Am Dragged Kicking and Screaming From the Womb of Inactivity

2009-04-06T18:01:00.000-07:00

So, at last, Eric makes his return, only to waste the world's time with sports-talk. Here we are in the midst of a global financial crisis, with barely-stable nuclear regimes threatening to collapse and bring down all of society with them, and Eric decides to respond to all this fear and uncertainty by making a definitive list of how much he likes the respective members of the Portland Trailblazers. And as if that were not enough, he goes on to present his predictions for how the upcoming base-ball season will pan out, although the voices clamoring for such input amounted to pretty much just one: his own.

But I will grant him this foray into idle speculation, if only because as I have mentioned before, the blog is indeed a tool of self-aggrandizement. Eric himself has even copped to this. Who am I, a Blog-Master myself, to pass judgment on he?

A hypocrite, that's who, and judgment I shall pass. You, sir, are a self-obsessed fool.

Ah, that felt good. It has been many months since I have been presented with material to mock and deride, and it thrills me to no end. At this very moment strange stirrings are being felt in my nether-regions which I will have to attend to shortly. But first, there is one small matter to deal with, and that is my own version of self-aggrandizement, which is inextricably linked to the peg-taking-down of one Eric Walkingshaw.

Eric's post on baseball got me thinking: it has been some time now that I have been under the spell of that grand game called football in most parts of the world, and soccer here in the good old U.S. of A. For the last seven years or so I have become completely seduced by it, seeking it out in whatever form I can find and reading about it in as much detail as I possibly can. With the arrival (or re-birth, some might say) of the local Seattle Sounders, I have become irretrievably entangled in its web, and it can easily be said that in many ways, there simply is no other game for me.

Even as the new baseball season opens with all its pomp and circumstance, I have been too busy following the Sounders and indeed the whole of the recently-opened MLS season; I have, after many a year of fruitless efforts, finally fully embraced its hard-tackling, mistake-ridden ways. Couple the Sounders' surprising successes with Liverpool's sudden resurgence across the pond, and I simply have no time nor inclination to pay any heed to the Mariners and their haphazard ways, awesome Japanese superstars or no. And, over the weekend, as I spent hour upon hour watching various soccer matches and their attendant highlights on the Internet, I had a eureka moment that I never previously thought possible: in many ways, the average baseball game, in comparison to the average football match, is, quite honestly, boring.

This is only a big deal in my mind because one of the key arguments of football (see how readily I slip into the more sensible nomenclature?) detractors is that it's so slow, and boring, and nothing happens, and blah blah blah whine moan piddle. Yet these same people will extol the virtues of baseball, that timeless pastime, with its...three-hour snoozefests replete with constant stoppages in the action and pauses for increasingly annoying commercial breaks.

Don't get me wrong; I still much enjoy the sport of baseball itself, but as a spectator? I much prefer the constant ebb and flow of a football match, punctuated by the scoring of a goal, and interrupted only by half-time and the occasional on-field injury. I still watch and will still watch the odd baseball game, but only in bits and pieces; even at the stadium my attention is diverted by conversation or food-gathering. But for football I will park myself in my seat and watch intently, with no inclination to do otherwise.

In all honesty, I know Eric to be "soccer" fan as well, and so this may not in any way offend him or push his buttons. But it has been a long time and perhaps this gap between mind-duels has softened my edges. Perhaps it is not annihilation and domination I seek but simply a victory on my own terms, a common realization of differing ideals and opinions. There is even the slight possibility that my previous incarceration by his robot-loving hands has defeated my spirit. Whatever the case, in this instance, there will be no gauntlet-throwing, no wild accusations or fist-shaking declarations of anger. There will only be my semi-dismissal of his chosen sport, an off-hand crack about robots (stupid heartless machines), and most importantly, a few paragraphs where I get talk about myself for once and not His Large-Nosed Majesty.

And by-the-by, Travis Outlaw? Fears and distrusts robots with every slam-dunking fiber of his body. Also, if I recall correctly, loves chalupas.

In Which I Am Given Precious Little to Work With

2009-03-10T18:50:00.000-07:00

Don't call it a hibernation.

Or do. I don't care. It is true that I have been away for some time, and by "been away," I mean "right here, doing nothing."

In my defense, however, I must say that Sir Walkingshaw has not taken full advantage of this opportunity. A full three months or so of consequence-free blog-posting? It's like the Summer of Love, and poor old Eric is stuck inside learning how to play the flute.

It has indeed been awhile; my double-entendres have gotten rusty.

I would go into detail to explain/justify my absence, but I find there is no need. Beyond UN-style non-binding resolutions and something called a "Wordle," it seems Eric has also spent some time alone in his own lair, doing God only knows what (assumption: training attack robots to focus their laser-beam eyes on a crude effigy of yours truly). I would return triumphantly with an incisive, witty take-down of Eric's recent postings, but alas, what could even the greatest of wordsmiths do with a "Wordle?" It is, in its own inimitable way, beyond reproach. And far be it from me to discourage Eric from his promises to occupy his time with activities other than plotting the downfall of mankind.

And yet, I cannot proclaim victory (actually, yes I can--victory is Mine!). No, no, it is hollow, meaningless, a husk. I have won nothing. Our mutual disappearances are, at best, the blog-battle equivalent of a 0-0 draw, minus the excitement. I have a heavy suspicion that Eric's time away from this blood-stained, metal-strewn battleground has been far more productive than my own, that he shall emerge, whenever he chooses to do so, a much wiser and stronger man than myself. And this fills me with a bitter rage that burns hotter than the glowing embers of a dying robot's energy core.

But what am I to do? Without my foil, I am at a loss. I am a balloon untethered, adrift from the finger of its owner. Where, and at whom, shall I direct all this dangerous energy?

The short answer is myself. The long answer is also myself, I just say it really slowly.

This is a blog, after all, and while I fought the good fight valiantly, I cannot tame this beast much longer. A blog yearns to be narcissistic and introspective. A blog's natural state is one of navel-gazing and self-aggrandizement. While I have ridden the coattails of Eric's blog rather successfully, his recent scorched-Earth policy has left me with no choice but to resort to cannibalism. That is a pretty sketchy metaphor, but in this blog's new era, that will be par for the course. There is no room for petard-hoisting in the Theater of the Self.

There is a shred of decency left in me, however, that resists the urge to head down this ugly path. It wants instead to grasp onto something--hope, is it called?--and await our nemesis' return. And since I am such a weak-willed (and weak-armed) man, I relent, to a degree. What shall follow in the days and weeks to come will be about me, as it must be, but it will be about me as I stand in relation to that dark, devious being down Oregon way; how I came to be the way I am, in such stark opposition to him and all he stands for (except baseball, which we are both rather fond of).

It goes without saying that robots will have much to do with it all, as they do with so much else.

Two Can Play That Game, Smart Guy

2008-11-14T20:17:00.000-08:00

Nice Halloween costume. Too bad you totally stole that idea from me and my totally real, totally non-imaginary girlfriend.

Here's a picture of my costume. And here's one of my girlfriend's.

Not be immodest, but I think we totally owned you guys.

In Which I Once Again Play Catch-Up With the Nefarious Mr. Walkingshaw

2008-11-14T19:48:00.000-08:00

Three more posts.

Perhaps it is time to admit that my foe is winning this battle. It is increasingly hard for me to muster up the motivation to denigrate him on the Internet, seeing as how all my previous attempts to discredit, capture, eliminate, or even simply momentarily sadden him have all failed miserably. Perhaps I should just change the name of my blog to "Some Miserable Douchebag Tries to Heap Said Misery on Another Human Being, but Being the Miserable Douchebag That He Is, Fails Miserably." That would be a long title, and difficult, I imagine, to slip past the Blogger character limits. Ah well.

So maybe I should just get back to work; put my shoulder to the grindstone and try, once more with feeling, to knock this wide-nostriled evildoer down a peg. But really, I must admit, my heart is not in it. I mean, look at the material I have to work with here: Jack Zduriencik? I have to waste two of my three obligatory posts talking about Jack fucking Zduriencik? Is this what my life has boiled down to? Debating about/sharing opinions on the newly-hired general manager of a baseball team that happens to call the local metropolitan area home? Why have a blog? Why not just call in to sports talk radio?

Christ. I mean, I have no real strong feelings about this man whom I've never met, will never meet, and who I would probably honestly not give two-and-a-half-shits about were it not for his present occupation. But apparently Eric does. Such strong feelings, in fact, that they are indeed mixed, and we all know that mixed feelings are the strongest feelings of all, and the kind most worthy of devoting words to on the Internet. Nuance and equivocation--those are the hallmarks of bloggerdom, and what truly every websurfer is looking for when perusing the wilds of public sports opinion. It comes as no surprise, then, that such thoughtful and non-reactionary sentiments are inspiring a virtual wildfire in his comments section. Despite the din, I do wish to offer up my own half-inspired opinion, if for no other reason than to keep this increasingly irrelevant and unnecessary little enterprise going.

First: Whatever Jack Zduriencik may do--and this includes running over Felix Hernandez with his car--it is rather unlikely that he will be a worse evaluator of talent and implementer of reason-based decision-making than the previous general manager.

Second: I base the first assumption on the assumption that Felix Hernandez does something worthy of being run over by a car, like deciding to continue "establishing his fastball." Not saying it was his decision to do that, just saying if he keeps on doing it, I mean come on doesn't the kid have a mind of his own and realize he is infinitely more talented than the hacks telling him what he should be doing? Just sayin'.

Third: Eric keeps talking about holes springing up in dikes, and while I understand the analogy, I also find it amusing that such an enlightened and technocentric person like himself still falls back on folksy Dutch wisdom.

Fourth: Thanks for the pronunciation guide! And to think all this time I was pronouncing his name wrong and nobody gave a damn.

Fifth: I agree that his firing of Fontaine was a downer, but I also understand that the guy probably wants to have (and now does have) his own team, of his own guys, to help him reach his goal of building this team in his own way. Whether that way ends up being fruitful or not only time will tell, but at least he won't be able to fall back on blaming it on holdovers from the previous administration. If he succeeds, he does so on his own merits and on the backs of his own decisions--and the same goes for if he fails.

Sixth: Also, any decision he makes that infuriates Eric makes me a little happier. Just a little. Is that a little smile forming at the corners of my mouth? Someone take a picture!

Seventh: Zed--can I call him Zed?--Zed and I are going to be fast friends, I can tell, and I'm sure he'll give me a good listen when I try and explain how valuable a player like David Eckstein can be to a team. And how we really miss the heart and team-oriented approach of Ryan Franklin around here. These issues should be addressed tout de suite.

Eighth: Eric probably disagrees with the last statement, but I'm afraid me and ol' Zed are having trouble hearing him from way down there in Corvallis. I'm sorry, Eric, but you'll just have to shout louder! Preferably in the middle of the night and directly at your burly, irritable neighbor's open window!

In Which Eric Hates On Australians

2008-10-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

There are times in life when one must take the good with the bad. For example, today, when The World's Greatest Company and Friend to All Mankind sent back my 4th-time's-a-charm repaired gaming console in time for me to fritter away my weekend hours without having to interact with other people. This was good. The bad came when I got home, and found myself on the receiving end of a two-pronged assault by everyone's favorite curly-haired, bulbous-faced robot sympathizer, Eric Walkingshaw.

The opening volley came via e-mail, where Eric gleefully flaunted his capture of Darryl Strawberry, a former fantasy baseball associate of mine who had undertaken a secret espionage mission against my former captor and sworn enemy. My perennially underachieving imaginary baseball team had, a few years back, provided an alibi for Darryl during one of his many run-ins with law enforcement, and by way of paying me back good Mr. Strawberry had agreed to snoop around Eric's home and work for a while and see what he could see. Unfortunately, as Eric's e-mail graphically made clear, things did not go so smoothly.

The e-mail in question was brief; two bravado-filled sentences accompanied by a photograph of Eric's beaming, cartoonishly-proportioned face. Next to his face, held up by one of his assumed-still-human hands, was poor old Darryl--captured, posed, and then somehow turned into either a three-ring binder or giant baseball card (it's hard to tell, given the extreme closeness of the photograph). There was nothing else--no ransom demands, no details on Darryl's health, no potential release dates--just unabashed, childish gloating. He was like a dictator holding aloft the severed head of a dissident, awash in the glow of his own self-satisfaction.

I have to admit I feel at least partially responsible for Darryl's likely demise, as a tall, pock-marked former Major League All-Star is a fairly conspicuous agent of espionage. But irregardless of Darryl's lack of stealth (which he should have enhanced by wearing that Cloak of Concealing I gave him, acquired after much toil under the watchful eye of the High Lord Razelmayne), Eric's cruel treatment of this one-time American hero is downright barbaric. Turning a man into a three-ring binder? What foul robot magicks my adversary must possess!

But before I get too depressed by imagining the details of this horrid transformation (just where did Eric acquire a miniature replica of a 1988 New York Mets uniform, anyway?), I must address Eric's other action against me--updating his blog. After working for nearly a whole hour to catch myself back up with Eric's sporadically-updated web diary, I now have to set fingertip to keypad for yet another foray into mockery? I am not a machine, Walkingshaw! I have my limits!

But in keeping with the theme of taking good with bad, the bright side is Eric's entry today was mercifully brief, and thankfully very bathroom-centric. I am well-versed in bathroom commentary, having honed my skills at the venerable Washington Institute of Juvenile Humor, and I am confident that my turd-riffic ability will have you all urine-ing for more--it is, after all, a highly sought-after commode-ity.

Eric's bathroom complaints center around the plumbing, which unlike my bowel movements is highly irregular. He pooh-poohs the faucet arrangement, noting that they're aligned backwards and control their opposite functions. Normally, I wouldn't give two shits about this kind of insignificant wankery, but one must answer when doody calls.

There is also a complaint about the wiring inside the bathroom, which leads to this wonderful moment of semantic brilliance:

Finally, there are two light switches which control two lights...

Genius! Oscar Wilde, eat your heart out!

And then, just when you thought he'd exhausted his supply of mind-bending comments for one day, he drops the A-bomb:

Maybe our apartment's construction crew was Australian?

I have to admit, even given my inherent disregard for Eric's personality, I was dumbstruck by this closing comment. In this day and age, to revert to such inflammatory and quite frankly bigoted speech is genuinely shocking. After all the torment that Australians have had to go through in this country--being sent to separate schools, forced to talk with a funny accent, dress up in kangaroo outfits and take their children and belongings and go live and work in Australia--Eric has to add accusations of incompetent apartment construction? Why? Is it really necessary to perpetuate the stereotype that Australians are foolish, no-good layabouts, concerned only with waltzing their matildas under their billabong trees and surfing with kookaburras? Uncalled for and unnecessary, in my book. How dare you, sir?

You should be ashamed to derive happenis from such bigotry. There was no need to go that fart.

In Which Eric Goes to Germany (While I Do Not), Which Conveniently allows Me to Catch Up on Several Blog Posts with One Unnecessarily Long One

2008-10-15T20:58:00.000-07:00

As you may know from reading Eric's blog (and don't expect any in-text linkage to his blog, either, especially since I've devoted the entire right side of my blog for that nefarious purpose), recently the curly-locked mecha-fetishist spent some time in Europe--Germany in particular; Munich in particular particular. Ostensibly he was there for some kind of computery conference-type thing, but I think I know Eric well enough to say that the real reason he journeyed halfway around the world was to get some nice, up-close sightings of Buxom Bavarian Babes, which I have capitalized because that's the way Eric tends to say it. I, as a human male of the heterosexual proclivity, cannot blame him for this. Nothing gets the blood a-boiling more than a Buxom Bavarian Bab e, with the possible exception of a cannibal's cooking pot.

However, it goes without saying that Eric's adventure in the land of lederhosen and dirndls left me feeling, well, left out. My current lack of educational funding (or, for that matter, desirable intelligence) leaves me out of the loop when it comes to this computer-science-brainbox-conference-trips-to-lands-with-high-populations-of-traditionally-dressed-and-attractive women business. Now I could take the "high road" and simply congratulate Eric on his successful trip and his wonderful foreign experience, but that's exactly what Eric and his robot pals would want me to do. Instead, I will thumb my nose at their elitist snobbery and instead take what I call the "low road," where I passive-aggressively mock his trip by focusing on my very own "staycation" and the wonderful adventures I myself had while he was away. As an added bonus, this allows me to stop talking about Eric for a while and start talking about myself, which any of my imaginary friends will tell you is my (and, incidentally, their) favorite subject.

So away we go:

Part One: Landing

I land here in Lynnwood not via plane, but via waking up in my bed in the morning. How's that compared to a ten-hour flight, huh?

Part Two: Day One

Upon venturing outside, I am awestruck by the beauty of the local skyline. Not every city has the vision to make all its buildings look exactly the same. It is a bold statement of solidarity, of the true unity of our people; these buildings represent our collective squareness and mundanity. Surely Munich, with its centuries-spanning architectural designs and elegantly crafted exteriors, suffers from a massive internal conflict, unsure of its true identity as a city. I revel in the dulling simplicity of this town's architecture; it's a reassuring breath of conformity in a time of great global upheaval, filling me with a strong desire to retire to my sleeping quarters and spend this wonderfully sunny afternoon mindlessly shooting at computerized space-villains with my video-gaming box. Which I do.

Part Three: Day Two

I will admit that Lynnwood is sorely lacking in Buxom Bavarian Babes, but what we lack in that department we more than make up for in unwed teenage mothers. Also sketchy-looking streetwalkers. Though the latter really only tend to appear sporadically, and in very specific locations. Still, not all the world can have Buxom Bavarian Babes; and every indigenous culture is just as valid as any other.

I do spend the better part of this day trying to engage the afore-mentioned locals in conversation, but my attempts are either rebuffed completely or misinterpreted--as either "bein' all nosy an' shit" about their bulging, pregnant bellies; or, more unfortunately, as some kind of solicitation. Which, also unfortunately, lands me in the local jail.

Part Four: Day Three

I am in the local jail. They are kind enough to lend me a pad and some very sharp pencils, which I question, given that prisoners aren't supposed to have anything they can kill themselves with. Upon my questioning, they also supply me with a short strand of rope, a loaded revolver, and several shards of broken glass. They are a strange folk, these local police. Especially the one who keeps taking "bets" on which "implement" the men around the precinct would rather watch me do myself in with. I say, not very professional behavior, in my book.

All in all, the jail is made up of the same sanitary drabness that seems to be prevalent in this area; no narrow staircases or lavish, ornate Bismarck-era ballrooms for us, no sir! From what I can gather, the typical day in the life of a Lynnwood law-enforcement officer consists of writing speeding tickets, teaching D.A.R.E. classes, confiscating minor narcotics from teenagers, and then "disposing of the contraband." I notice they tend to giggle a lot and congregate in unseen areas of the station while they do the latter. Must be some kind of local custom, probably going back to those heady settler days of the early-to-mid 20th century.

Perhaps not as exciting as having to calm down excessively ebullient Buxom Bavarian Babes, but these fine law enforcement officers are serving the public good in their own special way. Also they appear very red-eyed and somewhat paranoid a good deal of the time. This might require further looking into.

Part Five: Day Four

I try to take my mind off women, especially their relative levels of Buxom Bavarian-ness, by indulging in the vast array of local cuisine at my fingertips. For breakfast I had deep-fried egg product with the finest ground sausage patty, all sandwiched between a delectably moist biscuit bun and rounded off with a side of deep-fried pressed potato substance. Also I had a Coca-Cola--straight from the fountain! How many eateries in Munich have Coca-Cola fountains? Probably not too many, I'm guessing. They're too busy with their "fine beer" and "cognac" and "uncarbonated non-tooth-rotting beverages." Neophytes!

The choices for food here are astounding. Feel like teriyaki? Just walk five yards and look in a random direction! Poultry on the brain? Enjoy a bucket of fried chicken! A whole goddamn bucket! Or perhaps you're more into a hearty beef concoction? We can either slap it in a bun with some ketchup and cheese or put it on a plate with some other high-cholestorol products! It's your choice!

The air is truly fragrant with the mixed smells of the many small local eateries here. There is even, I hear, some kind of underground, subterranean place where you can have something called a "subway sandwich" made for you. I don't know what that entails, but it sounds like some good deep-fried deliciousness. I shall seek out this "sub-way" at another time; for now, I must scarf down my lunch of beef-pattie-on-beef-pattie-on-beef-pattie-on-piece-of-stringy-lettuce-on-ketchup-on-mustard-on-thick-gooey-cheese-on-bun. Yum!

For dinner, I had a triple bypass operation. The street doctor was very courteous and delicate, and only mugged me after he'd completed the procedure. Highly recommended!

Part Six: Day Five

I have a grease-and-heart-failure hangover. Thankfully, the quaint grocers nearby have an ample supply of foodstuffs and medications to get me through my day. Is that a fresh copy of
2 Fast, 2 Furious I see in the DVD aisle? For only six bucks? Looks like I've found my cure!

Part Seven: Day Six

I take a walk around town again, and realize I am running out of things to do. Bowling?

Alright. Christ. Bowling.

Part Eight: Day Seven

Buxom Bavarian Babes.

Buxom Bavarian Babes, Buxom Bavarian Babes, Buxom Bavarian Babes.

Eric, you propitious fiend!

Part Nine: Day Eight

Okay, so maybe things aren't looking so exciting right now. But maybe I'm just not digging deep enough. I must dig through the surface of fast-food joints and convenience stores and strip malls and unveil the thriving, idealistic, artistic underground of this fair town! Surely there is something here to rival the literary works of Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann, or the revolutionary artwork of Gabriele Munter, or the classic, mold-breaking films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog. All I need to do is find it.

And here, here on the south wall of this old school building, I believe I have stumbled across the canvas of the inspired youth! It's a drawing that is simple, yet evocative; inscrutable, yet somehow...oh Lord. Oh Dear Lord. That is foul. Loathsome. To draw that...on a public structure...oh, dear Lord.

But what is this, floating in the breeze? A scrap of paper...perhaps a romantic poem, a paean to a lover lost? Or an eloquent yet forceful diatribe against the power-that-be? Or...Oh. I see. Apparently the young lady mentioned on this scrap of paper "doesn't give it." Short, to the point.

Well, then, I suppose it's up to me. Let this hate-inspired blog stand as the pinnacle of Lynnwood's artistic endeavor! Let me carry the torch for for our grassroots arts community! Allow me the honor of being our, if you will, Laureate! And if this shall come to pass, then...well...in all honesty, that's kind of sad. I'm going to bed.

Part Ten: Day Nine

To cheer myself up, here's another Buxom Bavarian Babe.

Well played, Walkingshaw. Well played.

In Which Eric's Betrothed Becomes a Fencing Champion of Sorts

2008-10-15T20:41:00.000-07:00

Point 1:

Haha! Eric, you are the inferior fencer in your household! Looks like it's pretty clear who wears the knickers in this relationship.

Point 2:

As excited as I am that my dream of an Allison-induced Eric-stabbing closes in on realization, my joy is somewhat tempered by the fact that her grand victory has come over a man who swordfights with children for a living. Perhaps not the highest level of competition around.

Point 3:

On the other hand, I don't remember Eric saying he defeated The Instructor, so by the transitive property of fencing skill, Allison > Eric. How's that for pseudo-math, robot boy?

Point 4:

"Robot boy" is a childish, unimaginative insult. My aims would probably be better served by making some kind of snarky comment about the largeness of Eric's facial features, predominantly the nose.

Point 5:

Big-Nosed Robot Boy? Yes, that's much better.

Point 6:

Allison, if you are reading this and if your hangover has subsided, might I request that when you inevitably slay your collaborationist husband, you do so while declaring "From Hell's heart, I stab at thee!?" I'm sure Herman Melville would approve.

Found Data Structure

2008-10-07T22:24:00.000-07:00

I got your missing data structure right here, pal.

Right here.

Diary of My Discontent, Part 2

2008-10-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

I acknowledge that once again there has been a gap in my correspondence. I would take full responsibility for this, but as you may well know, that is just not my nature. So instead I'll lay the blame at the feet of the real culprits: court-appointed psychiatrists. As if I am somehow a "danger to society" who "harbors deep delusions about his fellow citizens" and "cannot be trusted with a toothbrush, let alone drive a car or ride public transportation." First of all, that toothbrush had it coming; secondly, do you realize how long it takes to walk everywhere in the suburbs? Rather a long time, I can assure you. The local grocer is open 24 hours and I still have to leave my house an hour early to get there before it closes.

Anyhoo, enough about my legal troubles; back to the action, eh? Just how did I intrepidly escape the clutches of that curly-haired nasal monstrosity called Eric Walkingshaw, and return to my less-than-grateful community? Well, read on:

Day 8

Depression. My escape is at least good two weeks away, if my calculations are correct; it is indeed difficult to register the days properly in my darkened prison tower/apartment bathroom, especially given the fact that I have adopted a few traits from my feline roommates and began sleeping at irregular intervals. Also I've begun combing my hair by licking my palms and running them across my scalp--which isn't all that bad, actually, since I'm beginning to resemble a Bunnyman. In any case, the grand Walkingshaw moving adventure will not be happening for some time, and I have two options: rack my brains to find an alternate solution, using all the willpower and ingenuity that I can muster to find my way to freedom; or, on the other hand, whimper and cry.

Day 9

I choose option two.

Day 10

Having nearly dehydrated myself with my weeping, I saunter over to the water bowl to find it empty. Strange, I think; then I realize that I haven't been fed for two days either. I also haven't heard the strange, deep-throated caterwauls that often wake me frightfully from my catnaps until I remember it's just the sound of Eric talking, and not some extra-dimensional monster creature bent on devouring my life-force. Have I been abandoned by my captors, left to rot in this large-laundried, racquetball-court-having apartment complex? The kittens are eyeing me hungrily. I meow threats at them, but they just cock their heads as if they can't understand. I can't help it if I have a thick accent! I was born human!

Day 11

At last, information! I heard the front door open today, and Allison rather foul-mouthedly celebrating a victory she had over someone called "The Instructor." I ask you: is it at all lady-like for a woman of such fine breeding to refer to male genitalia in such a derogatory manner? I submit that it is not.

There is a large amount of movement and rustling noises coming from the bedroom area. I fear the worst; thankfully, it is revealed that Eric is simply packing for some kind of trip, and it was not the audio portion of what I had assumed to be some kind of unclean co-mingling, if you catch my drift. As if my presence here wasn't horrific enough...

Anyway, Eric is apparently heading off to Germany for a while. Strange; I was not aware that the Germans were robot sympathizers--this may force me to re-think my love for gigantic unhealthy sausages.

No, wait--I can't help it. Robot-lovers or no, them Germans make some damn fine sausages. Herzerkrankungen!

Day 12

I yearn for gigantic unhealthy sausages. Instead, I am fed all the leftover bulk foods that Eric has left behind. I instantly gain 27 pounds.

Day 13

When all seems lost, hope, like the Terminator disappearing into a vat of molten steel, warms the cold, cynical insides of my heart. Allison's three-day-long bender following what I now understand to be a fencing victory of some kind has opened the door to my escape. Literally: she has left the bathroom door open after feeding the cats and I, having passed out on the floor, bottle of Jagermeister nestled in her hand. I slowly peer out of the open door, into the world that I left behind nearly two weeks ago; it is strange, for I feel almost reluctant to leave this place, as if it has become like a home to me. The two kittens I've spent so much time squabbling with stand awkwardly behind me; I cannot tell if they are wishing me farewell or pleading silently for me to stay.

Allison emits a loud unconscious burp. There is a widening pool of drool on the floor next to her face. Clearly, I have overstayed my welcome.

I step out of the bathroom and into the apartment proper, which is littered with empty bottles, all beer and liquor of German origin: St. Pauli Girl, Jagermeister, Warsteiner, and a variety of schnapps. It appears her victory celebrations have morphed into a self-destructive pining for her absent husband. I feel a tinge of sympathy, and then I smell something that eerily resembles the aroma of the litterbox, and I beat a hasty retreat.

The crisp autumn air smacks me in the face like the welcome-home slap of a jilted bride. I am free! Free! I do a cartwheel. I blow kisses at passers-by, shouting pleasantries at them, but they all look at me with a combination of fear and disgust. In my joy, I confuse this for wonderment, but upon reflection, I should have realized that when they were whipping out their cell phones and dialing hurriedly, they were not in fact calling friends and acquaintances to "get a load of this guy," but were instead informing the local police about the crazed man running in torn rags through the the streets of Corvallis, meowing like a kitten and looking oddly like he once belonged in a seminal 1980s rock band from Liverpool.

Day 14

The Corvallis jail is rather well-kept, I must admit. And the beatings are relatively gentle. If you're going to get arrested for indecent exposure and just generally being a transient crazy, might I recommend doing so in Beaver country?

The Diary of My Discontent, Part One

2008-09-17T19:42:00.000-07:00

Day 1

My plans of launching an electronic attack on Eric's cyberspace defenses has been derailed by the fact, unbeknownst to me, that Eric has lost his Internet connection. Whatever am I to do with these downloaded photographs of extreme fecal discharge now? Perhaps there is some adventurous college student with a score to settle that I can sell them to. Also, I appear to have dropped my lucky ten-dollar bill--probably in that dumpy town I spent the night in. Hopefully this development will not come back to haunt me in a bitterly ironic fashion.

Further complications arise when my plans to surprise Eric at his front door using my clever "Chloroform Salesman" disguise is thwarted by his insistence on not being at home. His friendly neighbor, possibly alerted by my incessant pounding of Eric's door and high-pitched wails of frustration, informs me that Eric and his missus are out apartment-hunting. I thank the young man for this information by chloroforming him. His face sure does look funny with a penis drawn on it!

I decide to take a more guerilla approach and, prying open Eric's balcony door, set about enacting Operation Kitty Kidnap. The results are disastrous: the kitties are in no mood for kidnapping, and express this via sharp clawing of my face and arms. I am tearing the black one from off my eyelids when the front door opens and, much to my surprise, Eric is not keen on my uninvited visit. Currently, I am occupying a closet in his bathroom area, which reeks from the unkempt litterbox placed nearby, as well as my own fearful perspiration. Thankfully, my captor has allowed me to keep my handy notepad and pen, which helps me occupy the time inbetween crying fits.

Day 2

I awake to a domestic dispute, which in this household consists of Eric and Allison talking reasonably and calmly through their disagreements. Eric seems intent on keeping me prisoner at least until someone named "Robby" is consulted, whereas Allison seems more interested in not having an abductee mucking up their moving plans. I attempt to voice my own opinion on this matter, but the two of them either ignore or cannot hear my demands to find my mommy.

For lunch, I assert my evolutionary dominance and manage to steal some bits of Meow Mix from my feline roommates. I wash it down with a few laps of toilet water, which is surprisingly pleasant.

It appears Eric won the argument, as I hear the doorbell ring and Eric greet the mysterious "Robby," whose true nature becomes apparent as their conversation proceeds thusly:

Eric: pleased, Wookie-like groan
Robby: Bleep bleep blorp!
Eric: confused grunt
Robby: Blorp! Bleep blorp blorp!
Eric: conciliatory walrus wail

From the cadence of his groaning, I take it I am to remain a prisoner for quite some time.

Day 3

Doing your business in a litterbox: why have we humans not adopted this practice? Possible answer: getting litter nuggets out from under your toenails is a bitch.

Day 4

Eric came home today griping about some pear that hit him on the head. Note to self: recruit more pears! They appear to be sympathetic to my cause, unlike those treacherous, backstabbing pomegranates.

Day 5

Confound it all! I had been hoping that my presence, not to mention my increasingly offensive body odor, would have Eric on a razor's edge by this point, and hopefully cause him to slip up, security-wise. But alas! Today he came home in good spirits, and celebrated by once again refusing to feed me. From what I gather, he was able to repair his car for free, acquired some tasty squash (squash! A pox on that collaborating vegetable!), and found himself a ten-dollar bill sticking out of the mud.

Wait a minute...lost ten-dollar bill...Albany...mud....

Nooooooooooo!

Day 6

Recently learned fact: flaky skin fragments are good for peeling, not necessarily for eating.

Day 7

The Walkingshaws have found a new apartment! My opportunity for escape may be near. Surely in the tumult of moving house, they will neglect their abductive duties and allow me to slip free. The time has come for a plan of some sort. Hours of neck-craning eavesdropping has allowed me to glean a few details, which may yet prove useful:

--There is no second bathroom in the new apartment! Oh, sweet smile of grace, you shine upon me! No more will I be relegated to sharing my existence with cat feces and toilet water! Perhaps I shall be confined to a nice, comfy utility closet, or simply beat about the head with a hammer and left to bleed to death. The flame of my hope has not yet been extinguished!

--A smaller on-site laundry. Does this mean my rag replenishment will become less frequent? But where will I get my nutrients?

--No racquetball court. Ha ha! Victory for the non-paddle-sport enthusiasts!

--Ping Pong table? Rats! Victory snatched from the non-paddle-sport enthusiasts!

--Bigger kitchen. Wait--bigger kitchen? Meaning to say they've had a kitchen all this time? Lying fiends! And here I am eating my own toenail clippings!

--Gigantic walk-in closet: Hel-lo, roomier cell!

--Right next to WinCo. Great. Even more frequent, overly enthusiastic testimonials about their bulk foods section.

--They'll be moving...I can't quite hear that...the moving date is...October 15th. October 15th. October 15? October 15!!??

Noooooooooooo!

...to be continued...

In Which I Explain My Unnoticed Absence

2008-09-16T20:30:00.000-07:00

It has been quite some time since I last posted, and quite some time since I have been able to sit comfortably in a chair, fully clothed, and enjoy all the wonders of modern computer technology. The reason for this is twofold:

a) I went on a journey a short while ago
b) Said journey developed into unexpected incarceration and mental degradation at the hands of the fiendish Eric Walkingshaw

Roughly three weeks or so ago, I decided that all this anti-blog blogging foolishness was just that and that I needed to undertake something more tangible, more hands-on, if I was ever to expose to the world the mad menace that my colleague/arch-enemy Eric Walkingshaw truly is. So I packed up a few supplies, drew up some rudimentary plans, and set off for the great wilderness of central Oregon, uncommonly referred to as "Beaver Country," which I can only assume is in relation to some kind of ritualistic, backwoods sexual depravity.

When I arrived things went smoothly at first: I found a cheap hotel with a one-eyed attendant who gracelessly showed me to my room and assured me the hidden camera that I heard whirring behind the bathroom mirror was not a hidden camera at all but simply "noisy insulation." From this impromptu and cockroach-ridden HQ I was able to study my plans, diagrammed to the finest detail on Denny's napkins, and prepare for the kidnapping, assault, or execution of Eric Thomas Walkingshaw, whichever came first and whichever proved easiest to accomplish with a belly full of peppermint schnapps and Mr. Goodbars. I then proceeded, as I had planned, to ingest copious amounts of peppermint-flavored liquor and peanut-inhabited chococlate bars, before passing out on the floor to the sounds of the motel proprietor chuckling perversely from within the wall cavity.

It was when I awoke that everything started to go awry. I kept a short journal while I was away on my mission, and in the ensuing posts I will reveal my entries to you, so that you may better understand the horrors I endured in that godforsaken savage-land.

In Which Eric Takes a Step Towards Umbilical Freedom

2008-08-11T20:21:00.000-07:00

More often than not I use this blog as a means to tear Eric down off his pedestal, or at the very least make petty insults about him. But today I find myself applauding Eric's efforts, since in this case he has shown himself to be selfish, childish, and unreasonable; shown himself, in fact, to be human, more so than he has in a long long time.

I've never known Eric to be much of a whiner, but given the natural tone and cadence of his speaking voice, I can only imagine that when he does whine it is well-near unbearable. So I could forgive his wife and friends and family for caving to Eric's demands to move his date of birth further from Christmas, as apparently all the love and adoration and material wealth he gained from his birthday and Christmas being so close together was not enough to sate his desire for acceptance and monetary manifestations of love. After all, surely it is easier to fork over the dough for a bloated DVD set of fantasy-film goodness than to listen to Eric gripe about it for hours on end.

But as much as I understand, or pretend to understand, his loved ones' plight, I am on Eric's side in this matter. As far as the subject of birthdays is concerned, I have long been opposed to their clockwork tyranny. Once a year, every year, the date never changing; as if we are not men of independent thought and free will, but slaves to the machinations of the Gregorian calendar. Fie, I say, Pope Gregory XIII, and to you as well, Aloysius Lilius! You spent your time devising and decreeing a restrictive, oppressive calendar system while the Incident at Honno-Ji was occurring? Have you no shame?

But I digress. Eric's fight against the might of birth-celebration convention is a worthy one indeed. I can't claim to have the same feelings about birthdays as Eric does--he being of the liking variety, while I find them to be inconsequential and overrated exercises in self-affirmation--but I fully support him and his second birthday, even though I won't actually celebrate it or send him presents or, for that matter, even really think about him. Even though we are enemies, there is no reason for our differences to impede our march towards a better world, a world where we are not slaves to the actual date of our vaginal expulsion.

I realize that perhaps some of you found that previous sentence offensive, and for that I apologize. I did not in any way intend to demean or ignore those of you who were born via Cesarean, or via test-tube; just because you weren't ripped from your mother's womb through her cervix and labia, with placenta and birth fluid dripping off you like gravy, doesn't mean you are any less of a person, though I am rather surprised at your ability to read this.

That said, I applaud Eric and give him kudos; although I would much rather see the practice of celebrating birthdays abolished altogether, simply changing the dates arbitrarily and even adding second or third birthdays is a great leap forward in the quest to undermine and devalue this absurd tradition. For the moment, Eric, we are brothers-in-arms.

And the card I bought for you must have been lost in the mail. Probably eaten by dingos. Curse the wild beasts of the Willamette Valley!

In Which Eric Plays a Shitload of Tetris

2008-08-11T20:12:00.000-07:00

So Eric played a bunch of fucking Tetris recently. He seems to think this is a really big deal. Meanwhile, a panda ate a whole bunch of fucking bamboo and some douchebag said a bunch of ignorant douchey things.

Also, Russia invaded Georgia...wait a minute....

Eric, are you controlling Russia's army with your Tetris!? You must stop! Or at the very least Allison you must improve because that means you're Georgia and all those deaths are on your hands! Your hands!

Actually, it turns out that Eric simply played a shitload of Tetris. Whooptee-goddamn-do.

In Which Eric Sucks All the Joy Out of Everything

2008-08-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

Do you love to play board games?

Neither do I. But Eric Walkingshaw does, and he has done for as long as I can remember. Back in those halcyon days, before he turned against his own race in support of the covert robot plot against us, Eric would often try and get his friends together for a bit of Risk, or maybe some Skip-Bo, or even try and lure us into his family's lair and spend the evening boring ourselves to tears with Settlers. So enthralled with tabletop gaming was Eric that he didn't even realize Skip-Bo was more of a card game than a board game, and when he finally did learn that distinction he plunged headfirst into that sordid, quadruple-suited world, wasting his teenage years sitting by campfires and playing pinochle and canasta and all manner of other games that sound like sexually transmitted viruses, often in the company of unsavory fellows like this one.

I will admit that I did engage in such chicanery from time to time, usually when the Risk train rolled into town and derailed my dreams of having everyone gather and discuss our favorite Tupperware products. But unlike dear Eric, I played to lose. The game itself was of little fun to me; the only enjoyment I got out of it was the backstabbing and frustration that boiled to the surface as friends and sometimes siblings took their dice rolls a tad too seriously. Also there was one time when someone started goose-stepping around the table. But Eric proved rather adept of this game of mostly chance, a fact he wasted much breath reminding us all about, gleefully celebrating his prowess with the kind of bravado and swagger normally reserved for American football players.

So I suppose I should have seen this board game post of his coming. All the signs were there from an early age that he'd get involved in some kind of maniacal boondoggle such as this. Also, there were his constant verbal affirmations that yes, he loved board games, and in fact liked to analyze them and figure out why he enjoyed them so much, and intended to write about them on his blog. And also the first post of said blog, where he mentions specifically that he'll probably write about board games at some point. Still, when I opened up my Microsoft-developed (and perfected, I might add) web browser (Go Microsoft!), and saw that long treatise explaining his pseudo-scientific process for evaluating his own enjoyment of board games, I was stunned. Eric Walkingshaw is many things, but one thing I did not take him for, despite his pro-robot leanings and disturbing sexual inclinations, was a soul-crushingly antiseptic stick-in-the-mud.

Although I hold many grudges and differences of opinion with Mr. Walkingshaw, I've never once denied that he is a man who enjoys things. From his glee at beating arch-nemesis Stallings the Elder at Risk or NBA Jam or Tip-21 or Goose-Hatchling-Smashing, to his enthusiastic love for the gastronomically-challenging eatery Izzy's, Eric's shit-eating grin is a common sight for his friends/wives/accused-but-never-officially-charged-stalkers. But as it turns out, behind that grin--a grin that could melt the face off the most innocent baby--is nothing but the turning gears and dull, mechanical musings of a killjoy.

Rather than just embrace board games--the games he loves, not I--for what they are (to him, as I hate them, you understand); rather than simply accept the magic and wonder that fills his heart as he claims a hexagonal piece of grassland or whatever the hell it is that he does; rather than give in to the moment and let his heart be captured by the character cards and the 16-sided die and the muted smell of Doritos and ginger ale; rather than do that, Eric has instead gone all scientific, ripping the heart out of the pastime he so adores and replacing it with analytic nonsense and introspective tomfoolery.

So Eric can talk about "compelling decisions" and weigh them against the importance of "creative play," can analyze and try to quantify the push-pull relationship that exists between the two concepts, and can aspire to devise a formula that will help create the "perfect" game according to his arbitrary standards. He is free to do so. But I wonder if perhaps the little boy that lives inside of him--that lives inside all of us, especially those of us who have mental handicaps, not that I'm saying that there's anything wrong with that or that I'm somehow unaccepting of such people--I wonder if that little boy is gasping for air, feebly wasting away as Eric's scientific endeavors draw the life from his frail little body, as his inquiries and computations stamp out the last remnants of imagination and wonder that linger in his soul. I've known for quite a long time now that Eric was losing his way--choosing computers over the arts, siding with robots over humans, refusing to admit that The Princess Bride is not nearly as good a movie as he protests it is--but I've never known, until now, how perilously close he was to abandoning the simple pleasures of ignorant, uneducated joy. Will he never again watch a butterfly float on the wind and giggle? Will he never again be surprised by an erection in the bath? Has he already forgotten the excitement of biting into a Mr. Sketch marker, believing it would taste exactly how it smelled?

If so, then the Eric Walkingshaw I once knew and somewhat tolerated is no more. If board games can do no more than elicit a curious, analytical response in him, then all hope is lost. It is only fortunate that when the day of reckoning finally comes, I will feel no remorse when I reprogram his robot bride to attack instead of seduce him, although in all honesty Eric could have made it a lot more difficult by not putting those two switches so near each other, and labeling them so clearly.

Top Five Favorite Active Baseball Players

2008-07-31T21:13:00.000-07:00

1. Jose Vidro
2. Jarrod Washburn
3. David Eckstein
4. Ryan Franklin
5. Omar Vizquel

Just missing the cut were Derek Jeter and A.J. Pierynski, and maybe Jeff Kent. Anyway, it's clear that I like clubhouse leaders who are undervalued by "statheads." Chemistry is the most important ingredient of a winning ballclub, after all. Bonus points if they're really humble, like Franklin and Pierzynski.

This list is never subject to change, because all these guys are totally fucking awesome.

In Which Eric Forces Me to Update My Links

2008-07-28T18:48:00.000-07:00

So in his latest act of mind-boggling hubris, Eric Walkingshaw has updated his website, not with any real content, but with a change of address. The new location? http://eric.walkingshaw.net

Ooh, bravo, sir. Well-played indeed. If only, in addition to changing your web address suddenly and forcing everyone to update their links (bastard), you provided us with an unsolicited list of reasons for this abrupt decision! Oh, what's that? You did? Well, sir, let's take a look:

1) With every at-bat that Jose Vidro steals from Jeff Clement I fear that I am closer to soiling OSU's good name with an obscenity laced tirade on this blog, previously hosted on OSU machinery.

Hmm. A noble gesture, I suppose, until one realizes that the "good name" of OSU has already been sullied by the likes of alumni Randy Conrads, who founded Classmates.com (thanks a lot for allowing my high school to continue to pester and mock me!), former Bachelorette Meredith Phillips (thanks for contributing to the downfall of society!), and screenwriter Mike Rich, who penned masterpieces like Radio and The Nativity Story...although I will give him a pass for Finding Forrester, since it gave us this beautiful line (at 1:25). So as much as you'd like to think otherwise, Eric, a profanity-laced tirade about Jose Vidro? That might actually be a boon for your educational institution.

2) There are some cool Blogger features that I couldn't use with the previous set up.

Yes, because Lord knows the world has been waiting for you to unleash some of those cool Blogger features on us. Many a citizen the world over is waiting with bated breath for this glorious day to come! I ask you this, Eric Walkingshaw, in half-seriousness: is there a feature that destroys undercover robot agents with the press of a button? Because I for one would use the shit out of that feature.

3) My new URL is my name.

Ah, and there is the crux of the matter. Well, kudos for honesty, sir. Even if it does mean I have to update my links. Do you realize how many mouse clicks that took me? Several, sir, several. I hope you're happy.

In Which Eric Forces Me to Consult Wikipedia

2008-07-28T18:17:00.000-07:00

It has been some time since I last posted, but since Eric Walkingshaw himself seems to have fallen by the wayside (dare I dream of the fall of mankind's most dastardly robot collaborator?), I only have the smallest amount of catching up to do. Alas, this first installment of delayed-reaction blogging has sunk me to a new low.

I have consulted Wikipedia.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "How exactly does this constitute a 'new low' for a man who once famously tried to wedge himself under a couch during a rather humiliating panic attack?" And you'd be right to think that, but you'd also be an asshole. So please stop bringing that incident up, won't you, asshole?

The reason for my foray into the unsubstantiated-fact-ridden-world of Wikipedia is Eric's post of Wednesday, July 23, entitled "The Ease of Metaprogramming with Echo." Now normally such a title would elicit a knee-jerk response of "Nerd!" followed by sneering and pointing and the threat of a swirly or some other toilet-related humiliation. Unfortunately, since Eric has decided to dash off to graduate school in the People's Socialist Republic of Oregon, he is not within swirly range, so I am forced to battle him with my words, which, as anyone who has happened to read this blog over the last month or so realizes, is a bit of a problem.

It's not that I lack the vocabulary to attack Eric: for example, "Eric's nose is so large and bulbous that it has been known to interfere with closing elevator doors." Also, "Eric Walkingshaw is a pooface." The problem doesn't lie in words, but, I am afraid, in context. While calling Eric a pooface is satisfying, it doesn't quite destroy his enthusiasm for "metaprogramming with echo," whatever the hell that means. And since I have long directed such childish taunts at Eric with seemingly little effect, despite the immense pleasure I derive from doing so I feel I must try something different, something more substantial, something more...informed.

And thus, Wikipedia. If this is where Eric gets his information, well then by Jove it's where I shall get mine too. He who lives by the scarily democratic and nerd-frequented online encyclopedia dies by the scarily democratic and nerd-frequented online encyclopedia. At least, that was the plan, anyway.

The reality is that I found this under the entry for "echo (framework):"

Echo is a web application framework that was created by the company NextApp. It originally started as a request-response web application framework that leveraged the Swing object model to improve the speed of application development. Through the use of the swing model, Echo was able to employ concepts such as components and event-driven programming that removed much of the pain of web application development.

I wasn't sure if this was the "echo" I was looking for. So I tried "echo (command)," and found this:

In computing, echo is a command in DOS, OS/2, Microsoft Windows, Unix and Unix-like operating systems that places a string on the terminal. It is typically used in shell scripts and batch programs to output status text to the screen or a file.

This seemed more likely, especially since the "usage example" looked fairly similar to Eric's example in his post (i.e. it was a bunch of nonsensical gobbledygook). So it seemed I had figured out what "echo" was, but the only problem was I still had no idea what the fuck it was. Slightly dazed by this unfortunate paradox, I decided to try my luck with "metaprogramming." The result:

Metaprogramming is the writing of computer programs that write or manipulate other programs (or themselves) as their data, or that do part of the work at compile time that is otherwise done at run time. In many cases, this allows programmers to get more done in the same amount of time as they would take to write all the code manually.

Okay, okay, some arcane terms in there, but I think I get the gist. The gist...well, I think the gist is...see, metaprogramming is like a program, right, but it writes other programs, and you can use this echo thingy to do it for you kind of, except what practical usage could there be, but there must be, right, because otherwise why would...no, wait, metaprogramming allows you to program things without programming...everything? Hmm...

You know what? Forget knowledge and context. Forget a reasoned, intelligent, informed cut-down. Eric? This is you.

In Which Eric Goes Name-Dropping

2008-07-22T22:06:00.001-07:00

Well well, it appears Eric Walkingshaw is no mere anonymous graduate student with an unhealthy association with numbers. In fact, Eric has a little bit of that wonderful currency, so rare and special in these modern times: close ties to a person of small fame.

Consider me awed, Mr. Walkingshaw! Here I was thinking you, like me, were a nobody, a person of unremarkable breeding and background cursed with a relatively advanced intelligence but no better for it. To toil in obscurity, your gifts going unrecognized--that was the lot for you and I. But no more! At least, in your case, anyway, what with your fancy baseball connections and all.

So it turns out Eric was childhood friends with a current minor-league baseball player. So it turns out Eric and his friends once beat this professional athlete and his friends at a game of pickup football. So it turns out that Eric, despite his current profession, closet full of board games, love for robots, and blog-happy ways, can count himself as one with the alpha males.

Well, well done, sir. I congratulate you on your promotion to the top of the pack. As I, with my brittle bones and lack of physical stamina, with my fingertips dancing delicately over the keys on my laptop, sit in this quiet room and dream not the pipe dream of athletic accomplishment, you can sit back in your Barca-lounger or La-Z-Boy or whatever comfy relaxation apparatus you might have handy and wistfully remember those bygone days, when you ran with the big boys and could beat them at their own game.

Don't think I don't know what this is all about, Walkingshaw: it's more gloating for you, a look-who-I-know-that-scummy-little-douchebag-Patrick doesn't. I see where this is all going. First it's this Minaker fellow (who, admittedly, seems like a genuinely good dude, what with his academic accomplishments and 10-point smile), next it's some Oregon native who goes on to play pro football, and then years down the line when you're rolling in your mountain of robot-love-doll-business cash, you'll casually drop me a line to remind me you're having a dinner that evening with several heads of state and the starting left back for the Parramatta Power. Fair enough. You win. That's right, you win. You are an athlete in a computer scientist's body; but with your social skills and your sheer physical determination, you will cast off the chains of intellect and mingle with only the coolest and most robust of our sex; meanwhile I will remain the faceless bag of bones that I am, whiling away the late-night hours giving serious contemplation to those phone sex ads on cable TV.

And as if that were not enough, you add salt to the wound by revealing your close kinship with Mr. Andy Stallings, a fellow man of letters whose poetic prowess is much admired by yours truly; surely he and I could be great friends indeed, uniting our pens in rebuttal to your gauche muscledom. But no! He sends baseball tidbits your way, keeping you up-to-date on all the latest in obscure record-assaulting, while ignoring me and my obscenity-laced treatises against all things Walkingshawian. He forsakes the art of the online hate blog and instead caves to your charisma and charm, no doubt aided by some kind of high-frequency signal radiating from your satellite-dish-nostrils to dull his senses and make him easier to manipulate.

Very well, Eric. Have it your way. Enjoy your status as an honorary "jock," and join in when your cohorts laugh down their noses at I and my fellow social outcasts. But don't be alarmed if you see me smiling, ever so slightly, from the corner of my little, seldom-kissed mouth; for I, too, have tricks up my sleeve. I, too, have connections--not minor-league doubles-hitting connections, but connections nonetheless, connections that may very well some day end up producing a piece of mass media that fictionalizes the rise and oh-so-glorious fall of a large-nosed, computer-literate robot fetishist, whose own hubris and predilection for all things chromatic leads him to end his life amidst the rabble of civilization, in dark alley outside let's say a baseball stadium, where his former buddies have forgotten all about him as they raise their trophies and trophy wives in celebration of some kind of ball-game victory.

Perhaps that character sounds familiar, hmm? And perhaps when this let's say Hollywood blockbuster multi-Oscar-winning film is released, you'll see a name at the bottom of the poster that rings a distant bell, that brings to mind a suburban high school and a red goatee and watching Adult Swim in someone's basement. And then you'll know whose bony hand has been working behind the scenes, whose soft, uncalloused fingers have been pulling the strings, and whose nasal voice will be breaking into a laugh as the plaudits roll in.

And if all of this isn't clear enough, let me put it another way:

My good friend Brad once worked with Justin Motherfucking Timberlake! Who's the alpha male now, bitch!?

It's me, by the way.

In Which Eric Uses Math to Zzzzzzzz

2008-07-17T21:28:00.000-07:00

Huh? Whuzzat? Hmm?

Oh, sorry, I must have drifted off there. Judging by the amount of drool that has congealed on my laptop, I've been out for a good hour or so. Boy. I wonder what prompted me to crash so quickly?

Oh, yes. Eric's walking post. Man, did that ever bore the socks off me. I mean, walking, right? How exciting can that possibly be? Just mentioning Eric's daily walk makes me very slnfjuwebfhkwjerbfk.

Oh, jeez, sorry. I passed out again. Man, that's some powerful stuff, that Eric's walking post. Even with the colorful (by CGA standards) graphs, and the fancy GoogleMaps link, I still find it hard to keep my eyelids open. And the math! Oh, the math! I tells ya, if this is the kind of excitement I missed out on by never taking a math class in college, then boy howdy do I regret it!

That, by the way, was sarcasm. I can understand if your senses were so dulled by Eric's walking post that it's hard to discern sincerity from irony at the moment. I know for me it's becoming harder to discern pleasure from pain...no, wait a minute...I remember...it's coming back to me...yes! "Pleasure" is a world where Eric's walking post does not exist. "Pain" is the opposite of that.

Still, as my therapist says, "Try to think positive, you miserable little worm!" And so I shall. There has to be a silver lining in all of this, and I think I know what it is: Eric's daily route to school. With this information, I can now plan an assault on him when he least expects it! I'll simply wait for him as he takes a diagonal route across one of those...sleepy...reszidennnnshullllllllllllll...

Huh? Oh, cripes, I fell asleep again. This shield of tedium is impenetrable indeed! How can I ever formulate a successful attack plan if I keep falling asleep at the proverbial wheel? Damn you, Eric Walkingshaw! Damn you and your confounded banality!

And by the way, I did try telling that guy that those aren't significant savings. And do you know what he said?

"Do you mind!? I'm trying to eat a big-ass hamburger over here!"

He may not look it, but he's a reasonable man. And one thing's for sure: he'll never bore you with a walking story. I mean, honestly, look at him! The man travels by forklift, for Christ's sake!

In Which Eric Tries to Pull a Fast One On the Scientific Community

2008-07-17T20:47:00.000-07:00

New dinosaur indeed!

Attention, scientific community! Are you really prepared to allow this sort of fabrication and self-serving exaggeration into your ranks? Have you no respect for yourselves and your profession? Have you learned nothing from Piltdown Man, the Tasaday Tribe, or the Bat Child? And since when is Eric Walkingshaw's personal blog the appropriate forum for announcing amazing new discoveries? Has Scientific American fallen so low in the public's esteem?

The very idea that there was once a book-shaped dinosaur, who apparently wore Ray-Bans as early as the Late Jurassic Period (before everyone started wearing them, as the hipstersaurs might say), is quite frankly ludicrous. Everyone knows that there was no such thing, as evidenced by the simple unanswerable question, "If there were dinosaurs shaped like books, then why didn't the dinosaurs learn to read?" The logic there, I'm sure you can tell, is infallible.

I have been to the Badlands, and I can assure you: nowhere in that desolate, incomprehensibly protected wasteland is there any shred of evidence of such a creature ever existing. The few paleontological sites I was allowed to visit/trespass on were inundated with tiny bone fragments, smarmy graduate students, and lots and lots of goddamned rocks, but nothing that looked even remotely like the fossilized remains of a giant, book-shaped dinosaur. As the scientists present shouted at me to remove my ass from the premises post-haste, at no time did they say anything about their amzaing new discovery, which one would assume they would, given that they spend so much time with their noses in the dirt with often nothing to show for it aside from a dirty nose, back pain, and the demoralizing knowledge that there are thousands upon thousands of less-qualified, less-intelligent college undergrads having way more sex than they are. And as the local sheriff's office whisked me away in one of their fine vehicles, giving me a lovely from-behind-caged-windows tour of the entire park, not once did I hear about the overwhelming media presence, or even a complaint about those pesky scientists getting all rowdy in celebration over their book-shaped-dinosaur discovery.

Quite frankly, scientific community, I am disappointed in you. I expect better! Why do you insist on faking new dinosaurs when your time is much better spent on more important discoveries? And that reminds me, if I take more than the recommended dose, does that mean it'll explode? Because I do not want that.

And while I'm on the soapbox: South Dakota, the hospitality of your prison cells is less than satisfactory!

In Which Eric Continues to Insist on Not Dying

2008-07-17T18:25:00.000-07:00

I suppose it was inevitable that Eric, being the master tormenter that he is, would return once again to the subject of fencing, specifically the part that doesn't result in his own gruesome death. About a week or so ago he informed the world of his brilliant and unbelievably romantic idea to celebrate his first wedding anniversary by engaging in a duel of swords with his betrothed. Whereas most new grooms would be content on going out to a fine restaurant, writing a beautiful lyrical poem, or simply treating his wife with the grace and devotion that they deserve, Eric instead opted for the less-popular option of putting on claustrophobic fencing gear and slashing at each other for a half-hour or so. I suppose this is the sort of social behavior one picks up from the farmlands of Western Oregon. Is it any wonder that the state allows medically-assisted suicides and once elected a nefarious toe-sucker to the U.S. Senate?

Anyhow, the great First Anniversary Fake Murder Extravaganza apparently went off without a hitch, as Eric dutifully (and long-windedly) reported on the action yesterday. I must admit I found it hard to read, not only because of the prevalence of opaque fencing terms, but also because I knew that at no point in the story, no matter what the result, would Eric die an ignoble death. The whole thing was just a big tease.

Still, there is value to a close examination of Eric's blow-by-blow account; it gives us, the future fighters for human freedom, some insight into Eric's battlefield thought process. Are there weaknesses we can exploit? Are there tendencies we should be aware of? Does the comical size of his nose in any way affect his mobility? Is it a weak spot, like Achilles' heel or King Hippo's bizarrely-taped belly button? Let's see what answers lie within:

The anniversary duel turned out to be as epic as the billing promised. As reigning first session champion, Allison got to select the terms of the fight: 7:00pm, first to 15 (win by 2), on the strip, under the covered basketball court outside Lincoln Elementary School (the premier fencing domain in Corvallis).

Two things: One, Corvallis clearly is lacking in quality fencing domains. What, did they shoot for ball first? Was the match make-it-take-it after two stabs? Second, if the duel was indeed as epic as the billing promised, one of those two (preferably Eric) would be dead. I call bullshit!

Eric then gives us an unsolicited glossary of fencing terms, clearly believing that there are people in this world currently uninvolved with fencing who are chomping at the bit to learn more. Excuse me, Mr. Walkingshaw, but some of us have better things to do than feed our minds with knowledge. For example, feeding our stomachs with shitty junk food.

In his prelude, Eric offers us this observation:

Going into the match I was planning on being much more aggressive than usual. My lunge and reach are longer than Allison's and when we free fenced the week before, I noticed that she was caught off guard a bit by my aggressiveness.

I plan on taking this quote out of context, adding a few strategic ellipses, and then using it as a means to portray Eric as a perpetrator of domestic abuse. To wit: "...I was planning on being much more aggressive than usual. My lunge and reach are longer than Allison's...I noticed that she was caught off guard a bit by my aggressiveness..." Stay tuned; later on I will add words that appear innocently in the rest of his report and my slander shall be complete. The pen, as they say, is mightier than the sword, especially when the sword is a rubber-tipped fencing toy and the pen has been dipped in poison and also shoots lasers.

For now, however, let battle commence:

I could tell that Allison was caught a bit off guard by my aggressiveness so I only pressed harder, extending the lead to 6-3. I think all of Allison's points up to this points were off ripostes, as she wasn't being very aggressive and I wasn't giving her any time to think about attacking. At this point I thought I was going to run away with it, as I had both a pretty good lead and a lot of momentum. I thought about toning it back a bit to avoid any hurt feelings, but Allison quickly forced me to reconsider. Deciding that the best way to combat aggressiveness was with aggressiveness, she started attacking like crazy.

For all of Eric's adoration of robots, and the cold, unblinking rationalism that is inherent in their being, Eric himself is and has always been an unreasonable, unpredictable human being, just like the rest of us canned-cheeseburger-eating, toe-sucking, Battlefield-Baseball-enjoying schlubs. It is with no small amount of pleasure that I discover Eric's lead evaporated at the same time that he considered relenting in his non-stop assault on his wife. It will probably do nothing to raise the esteem of humanity in his eyes, but at the same time Eric was getting beat by a girl, so it's well worth it. Also, the idea of Allison attacking Eric like crazy is the sort of thing he'll have to get used to, as she is the key to saving the world from his menace.

But I'm getting off-track here. Allow me to skip ahead a little bit, and dispense with a few snarky comments:

Our blades got bound up multiple times, I lost a tip (the little plastic thingy on the end of the sword), and things were basically just messy.

Oh, the "tip" is the thing on the end of the sword? The "tip" of the sword, if you will? Thank you for clearing that up for us, Eric, and thank you as well for assuming our IQ to be in the single digits.

...my sword was flat against her side, I went into a sort of sawing motion and managed to catch her with my tip before she got in a riposte. It was ugly.

We are talking about fencing here, right? You know, there is a place on the Internet for this sort of lewd writing. It's called...well, the Internet, actually. Carry on.

I saw an opening and went for the fleche. Bad move. Allison avoided it easily and stabbed me on my way by to even things up. She said after the duel that I've never scored against her on a fleche, and looking back, I think she's right.

Aha! Note to future self: goad Eric into attacking his wife with something called a "fleche." Wife will stab Eric. Eric will perish. Humanity survives. Also, be sure to grab something at the drug store for your flatulence problem. Also also, try to refrain from revealing embarrassing personal details about yourself in notes to yourself.

So it's all tied up and our instructor is desperately trying to get us to tone things down a bit and recapture our form.

Wait...there's an instructor present during all of this? Is this the kind of education we taxpayers are shelling out for? Bloody students! We've got wars to fight and mortgage companies to bail out!

Allison lunges as I coupé, a bold move and a really nice, clean point into my preparation.

I can only assume/hope that "preparation" is a fancy fencing euphemism for "balls."

Finally, there was a lot of frantic action that ended with us both standing there stabbing each other...

What a lovely anniversary! You know, you think you've seen true love in your life, you think you know all there is about what makes a happy couple, and then lo and behold the Walkingshaws show up and take everything you know and throw it all right out the window. For nothing screams romance like the frantic jabbing of one another with fencing swords. I can only hope that one day I, too, will get to experience such deep and meaningful love!

I think we may have an anniversary tradition on our hands.

Oh, great. So that means we get to hear about it all again next year, and for years to come. Whoopee.

So all in all, not too much valuable information to glean here. Allison was nearly a match for Eric and has sworn vengeance, which we know she will achieve when humanity needs it most. Eric is a weak fleche-er, if that is the correct term. Apparently Eric's enhanced nose-size is not necessarily a weakness, although it is funny-looking indeed. Despite all that detail and all those words--those interminable words!--we are left with little to aid us in our fight against this machine-loving villain.

But on the plus side, I have been able to complete my slander. Et voila!

"...I was planning on being much more aggressive than usual. My lunge and reach are longer than Allison's...I noticed that she was caught off guard a bit by my aggressiveness...I bound her up...There was a lot of frantic...stabbing...and Allison vowed vengeance."

What a lout thou art, Monsieur Walkingshaw! Thou deservest the gallows for thine callous treatment of thine lady!

At least, that's how I imagine your fellow fencing dweebs would say it. What a bunch of wusses.

In Which Eric Feebly Attempts to Embrace Failure

2008-07-15T17:38:00.000-07:00

I had to take a brief sabbatical following my near-mental-breakdown after responding to Eric's last post, but I am well refreshed now and ready once again to attempt to tear Mr. Walkingshaw a new butthole, although this time, due to court order, I must do so from a distance and with words instead of in person and with a butter knife (note to self: next time, bring Ginsu!).

In today's post, Eric addresses his second great love, baseball (his first love, of course, being the robotic re-creation of Wayne's World-era Tia Carrerre). Specifically, he addresses those local Sultans of Suck, the Mariners, and their recently released giant first baseman, Richie Sexson. What insights does Eric have to bring us about the aging athlete and his rapid decline from free-swinging power hitter to free-swinging douchebag non-hitter? Well, if you count numerical gobbledygook as "insight," then plenty. If, however, you're looking for the kind of wit and inside-the-box thinking of such laudable luminaries as ESPN's Jayson Stark or Fox Sports' Mark Kriegel, then you're left sadly wanting.

Like a math teacher in an after-school special (the kind where the teacher inspires the students, not the kind where the teacher statutorily rapes them), Eric believes that through the power of numbers we can come to understand our world, and solve the mysteries of the universe. Thankfully, most of us abandoned such wild hopes once we stopped watching Sesame Street, or at the very least once we figured out that math is hard. And with his magical, mystical "numbers," Eric attempts to show us that contrary to popular belief, Richie Sexson was not a terrible defensive first-baseman, but actually an unsung defensive hero, snagging errant throws with a dexterity not even matched by a level 50 Half-Elven Thief. But numbers schmumbers, I say! We all know Eric's little theory is far from true, not the least because Richie Sexson has never proven himself capable of performing a successful saving throw when encountering a master-level floor trap in the Cave of the Unguarded Magical Pantaloons (Who has, you ask? Just a certain native of Kara-Tur who goes by the name Satrick Pheehan, that's who).

I counter Eric's "numbers" with the most irrefutable evidence available to mankind: the eyewitness account. I have watched the Mariners play their game of base-ball on at least a half-half-dozen occasions, one of which probably featured Richie Sexson at the first base. And while he is no doubt a large man and has been known to have an admirable love for drink, I could detect, with my own two peepers, no great skill in his ability to catch balls thrown at his face by diminutive Caribbeans. In fact, it seemed to me that he did so with great reluctance, as if he was tempted to let the balls smash into his enormous, flat-faced noggin and remove him from this mortal coil. On at least two occasions I can recall the big fella simply letting balls go right by him, refusing to stretch his tree-trunk arms an extra seven feet to interrupt the errant throw on its way towards the right field corner. "You lousy bum!" the disgruntled fan who'd mysteriously teleported from 1930's Brooklyn yelled from the seat next to mine. "Why, Roosevelt himself could have caught that zipper, and in his wheelchair too!"

I'm sure that many more such misplays have occurred over the course of Sexson's bafflingly long career, although they've probably been accompanied by fewer exhortations of the phrase "Dadgum!" than they were on that particular day. And how can I go about proving this, you might ask? Well, let me forgo Eric's quaint approach of "providing supporting evidence," and instead fall back on this time-tested and unbeatable tactic: Because God told me so.

Yup. That's right. Straight from the Lord's mouth: Richie Sexson is a terrible fielder. Told me in a dream, he did. What, are you calling God a liar? Because if you disagree with me, that's what you're doing, you know.

Good. With that settled, I'd like to point out one last thing: this whole "defending the indefensible awfulness of Richie Sexson's fielding performance at first base" trick is a clever, if over-used, ruse to get us to believe that Eric embraces the fallibility of human beings. Any casual Eric observer--or for that matter any obsessive Eric stalker with no less than thirteen restraining orders from seven different states--knows that Eric much prefers the steely, calculated perfection of robotics to the unpredictable, unreasonable reactions of humanity. But you're not fooling anyone, Mr. Walkingshaw! We can see through this transparent "I love Richie Sexson" act! In fact, you give yourself away within the confines of that very same post, where you carelessly extol the virtues of Albert Pujols, whom everyone knows is a robot hellbent on bending that beautiful human game of baseball to his iron will. Albert Pujols is one of the few robots brave enough to openly flaunt their roboticism, whether that be through self-portrait or simply by adopting the name "Pujols," a name so laughably ridiculous that only a nigh-indestructible machine who can melt your face off with its flame-hands would be brazen enough to keep it.

So nice try, Eric, but you'll have to do better than that to fool me. Why don't you go play with your precious numbers some more? I've got some important business to attend to; Goram the Dark has invited me along on his dungeon-raiding expedition, deep in the heart of the Foul-Tree Forest. I could really use a new pair of chainmail greaves, so here's hoping!

In Which Eric Confuses Mockery with Popularity

2008-07-12T21:52:00.000-07:00

While trumpeting his own virtues and over-reaching in his desire to call attention to himself at every opportunity are the cornerstones of Eric Walkingshaw's personality, I find his latest attempt at self-congratulatory blog-posting to be, quite frankly, a little puzzling. It has left me perplexed, staring at it with varying degrees of intensity and focus, trying to decipher its hidden meaning like I would a symbolic poem or Magic Eye poster. And yet, a full 33 hours after he originally posted it, I am no closer to solving this mystery than I am to growing a second penis out of the back of my neck.

What gets me is this: why does Eric Walkingshaw conflate my mockery with some kind of tacit approval? Is my message unclear? Have I been less than forthcoming? Have I unwittingly constructed my written thrashing of his self-important blog in such a fashion that upon a casual read it appears that I am in fact, as he puts it, his "biggest fan?" I have done much close reading of my own words, as well as a good deal of soul-searching (only some of which involved physically pleasuring myself), and have come to the relieving conclusion that no, I have not. The only reasonable answer I can come up with for Eric's bizarre misinterpretation of my intentions is that Eric Walkingshaw, married cat-fancier and 3-D fantasy board game enthusiast, is dumb as a bag of hammers.

Not in the general sense, of course; I would place a fairly large wager on Eric being able to beat a bag of hammers at a game of Trivial Pursuit, for instance, or at some sort of essay-writing contest (though the bag of hammers' 2002 entry, "Nail, We Are Brothers in This World of Toil" was quite eloquent). I'd even concede that Eric could score higher on an aptitude test. But when it comes to reading comprehension, I'm afraid Eric comes up short. While it remains to be seen whether a bag of hammers could prove its ability to read--its only form of communication besides the written essay, after all, is to shift its weight such that its contents rattle in varying tones--even if it couldn't, it would do better at understanding the written word than Eric has done in this case. The purpose of my blog is rather obvious. How? Let me count the ways:

1) The very first sentence I ever wrote on my blog begins like this: "Hello everyone, and welcome to my new platform for belittling Eric's self-aggrandizement."

2) Within the confines of my first post, I poke fun at Eric's nerdy interests, call him a "strange fellow," as well as an "aquatic rodent," and also expose his addiction to Wikipedia.

3) In my second post, I make the first of what is certain to be a massive litany of observations regarding the size of Eric's nose (it's big).

4) I also tease Eric about losing at fencing to a girl, and quite literally hope for a future, real stabbing of Mr. Walkingshaw to take place.

5) I pooh-pooh Eric's evaluation of several action/adventure films, all of which I found less satisfying experiences than he did. Granted, this is more a difference of opinion than an expression of disgust, with my opinion being that Eric's opinion sucks.

So the case seems pretty clear to me: I dislike Eric Walkingshaw. I express this dislike by mocking the words he writes in his blog, and whenever possible pointing out the enormity of his snoot. The only thing I can possibly imagine causing any kind of confusion is when I said "part of me wants to congratulate him;" but since I wanted to congratulate him on allowing his wife to practice murdering him, I'd hardly qualify that comment as anything approaching "fandom."

But I am a reasonable man--at least, that is what my therapist tells me when I break down in tears and threaten to run myself through with the meat skewer that I inexplicably bring along to all our sessions--so I will offer to clear up whatever misconceptions there may be about this blog by relating an incident from earlier in my own life, an incident which illustrates the difference between "popularity" and "a deeply held and immensely enjoyable disgust for another human being."

When I was in middle school, I found myself torn from the safe confines of a prepubescent world and dropped into the middle of a teeming morass of rampaging hormones and competitive jackassery. I was nearly destroyed by this maelstrom. Teased to the brink of--actually, often right over the brink of--girlish tears, I would while away the long school days by curling up into a ball in the corner of the room and fantasizing about growing wings and flying away from that horrible place, only to return with an atom bomb I had acquired on my travels and turn all those bastards into radioactive dust. But my innocent, childish fantasies could not protect me from the horrors of the real world, as I discovered one fateful day when a very popular brunette who was in my class came up to me in the hallway, looked me right in the eye, and said "You smell weird." And then she walked away. Now, I had two possible conclusions to draw from this encounter: one, that since a popular girl had spoken to me, no matter what she said this was to be taken as a sign of acceptance, and from that day forward I, too, would be one of the chosen ones, eating lunch at the same table and awkwardly fondling each other at the same eighth-grade dances; or two, she actually thought I smelled weird, and her telling me so was just an expression of her palpable disgust with my very existence.

Naturally, I chose to form the latter conclusion, which was both reasonable and the reason why to this day approaching brunettes fill me with a sense of dread and panic only relieved by the repeated mutterings of the words "everyone dies, everyone burns" in a hurried, hushed tone. However, inexplicably, when presented with what can only be described as an exactly parallel situation, Eric Walkingshaw chose to draw the former conclusion, and thus maintain his self-image as a man beloved by the people, a veritable demi-god who enjoys the worship of millions.

Which actually may be the case. Judging by the comments Eric has received on his posts, he is indeed a man of many friends. Why can't I have these friends? Why do they always tease me about my haircut? Why do they give me those strange looks when I leer at them desirously from behind my sculpture of myself with a penis growing from the back of my neck? It's all so unfair!

In Which Eric Tells Us About Fencing His Wife

2008-07-11T00:24:00.000-07:00

Eric's first official post, discounting The Inaugural Post, regards one thing we will likely hear much more about (his marriage) and another that, if there is a just God in this universe, we will hear much, much more about (Eric getting stabbed). Granted, the "stabbing" in question is of the fake, harmless fencing variety, but one can only hope that it leads to bigger and sharper and bloodier and more murderier things.

I notice early on that I am taking an extremely violent tack in this blog, and I find this disturbing. My therapist tells me that these feelings of aggression are, in fact, expressions of my own feelings of inadequacy, but she won't be saying that when I slice her face off.

Anyhoo, it turns out that Eric and Allison have been taking fencing lessons! This appears to have been going on for some time--"3-4 months," says Eric--and yet they are still taking said classes with children in their early teens. This slow rate of development is slightly puzzling; one would assume that a couple of healthy, fully-grown twentysomethings with college educations would quickly outpace their much younger, more awkward classmates and move on up the fencing education ladder to something at least resembling a Low-A baseball team. However, their continued toil in the lower depths of early teenage-level fencing leads me to the conclusion that Mr. Walkingshaw has found the sport of fencing to be a little bit beyond his grasp, a conclusion that seems all the more apt given that Eric himself reveals he lost the session-ending tournament to Allison. His wife. Who, I might point out, is a girl. Not that I believe she is incapable of being a world-class fencer; in fact, I have nothing but the kindest things to say about Mrs. Walkingshaw when it comes to anything except her worrying lack of taste in life partners. I am sure Allison has long been ready to move on from fake-stabbing middle schoolers, but has stayed back and even let poor Eric run up a string of unlikely victories against her in order to preserve what little remains of his athletic self-esteem.

But alas! Their next fencing lesson falls on the same day as their anniversary, and Eric has, in his infinite wisdom, decided it would be a great thing for this young couple to fence each other on that most special of special days (for married people. For people like me, a special day is a day when we don't wake up covered in sweat and wondering why our clothes our covered in the blood of neighborhood dogs and, in fact, the fur, teeth, and internal organs of neighborhood dogs as well).

So on the one hand, part of me wants to ridicule Eric for his choice of anniversary festivities (as well as the relatively large size of his nose). On the other hand, part of me wants to congratulate him, because it allows Allison to practice the spousal murder that she will one day have to perform, for real, likely in front of fewer horrified teenagers, that will save humanity from the Walkingshawian scourge.

Eric then concludes his post by drawing parallels between this upcoming Malice in Corvallis and famous duels in cinematic history, from The Princess Bride (over-rated), Star Wars: Episode One of the Sucky Ones (over-rated, by Eric anyway), and the new Indiana Jones movie (which I have not seen but since Eric seems to have liked it I will probably see, and then shit all over in the most gleeful of fashions). The key thing to draw from these comparisons is that in the film versions, someone dies at the end, while in the real life version, Eric will go on living happily ever after and I, as a result, will die a little bit inside. If only this silly little game of thrust-and-parry were for real!

The Inaugural Post

2008-07-10T23:38:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, and welcome to my new platform for belittling Eric's self-aggrandizement, and hopefully by doing so achieving some of my own. If you don't know who I am already, I am not surprised, nor do I blame you. My name is Patrick, though I have gone by other aliases, none of which, unfortunately, improved upon my given moniker. I am currently employed as an errand-boy of sorts; certainly not the lofty position of "grad student" held by aquatic rodent Eric Walkingshaw, but it does allow me considerable time to attempt to knock him down a peg. I myself am unmarried--in truth, unattached to anyone, romantically, to a rather embarrassing degree--with neither horse-trainers nor felines to call my own (I do, however, possess many pairs of clean white socks). This blog will mostly be about Eric's blog, which you can find here or, should you be so inclined, among the links in the sidebar. Thus, it will be excruciatingly boring unless you are into that sort of thing, which if you are means it would make more sense for you to read Eric's blog itself rather than this one. But if you're into blogs by people you're not interested in that are about blogs by other people whose lives you're not interested in, then this just might be the place for you (hi, imaginary boring person!). Occasionally it may feature posts on broader interests, but only if Eric himself posts on these things, and as his "broader interests" include such things as obscure board games and computer programming, you can just imagine how exciting that will be.

About the title

I spent very little time working on the title for this blog, as I already had the title of Eric's blog to work with, and as my blog's main purpose is to shadow and, whenever possible, openly mock his own, the title was very easy to come up with. Like Eric's blog's title, my title is also derived from a Kid Koala album, in this case Some of My Best Friends are DJ's. I profess no great admiration for Kid Koala, or kids and koalas in general, but I do have the Internet, a search engine, and time. Also, you may have noticed that like Eric I am linking to other pages for the subjects I am referencing, but you may not have noticed that those links do not hold to the Wiki-opoly that seems to have wrested control of Eric's soul. Instead, my links are (and shall be) to web pages that do not traffic in being informative, easy-to-use, or, for that matter, relate at all to the subject that I am referencing. For example: clowns.

I do recognize that this title is almost entirely inaccurate, since I have very few friends to begin with and none of them are, to my knowledge, blogs. However, I am leaving open the possibilty that in the future I will someday befriend a group of blogs, bond with them, and forge a long-lasting camaraderie with them, thus rendering my blog title true. The irony, of course, is that in a future where I am best friends with a number of blogs, Eric Walkingshaw will almost undoubtedly rule the world, and I as a consequence shall have been at best exiled to some hostile extra-galactic planet or, at worst, turned into some weird robotic love-slave, doomed forever to serve my master's bidding as a member of his obscenely large robo-harem. Eric is indeed a strange fellow, with strange desires indeed.

But at least I'm not saying anything untoward about his mother.