merry nickmas!

This is kind of a fake update, but thank you to everyone who wished me a Merry Nickmas today! It's kinda tough being the central figure of your very own religion, but I get by.

As a form of thanks, please accept this hastily drawn picture of a birthday cake robot, lovingly rendered in MS Paint.

That robot actually conceptually works, FYI. Don't ask me what all the different parts do; it's very technical. But all the asymmetry and superfluous-looking red ports -- they're there for a reason.

Merry Nickmas, one and all!

rerun: the ultimate zombie movie; my gift to you.

originally posted on January 9th, 2009:

I've tossed around an idea or two for my own ideal version of a zombie flick. I would really love to turn one of them into another stick figure zombie comic, but I lack the drive, the time, and the motivation. So I am throwing my babies into the wild, leaving them to fend for themselves, and hoping that they find a good home with a rich Hollywood movie producer with bad taste and a love of zombie holocaust movies. Here's the pitch; do with it what you will:

We all know the story of Lucifer's fall from Heaven, and how he came to earth and tempted Eve with the apple, and how he's the Father of Lies and responsible for all life's pain and suffering, et cetera. Imagine that, when Lucifer fell, he created a world of his own in retaliation, just to piss off God, and we all live in that world. That's why bad things happen to good people. God has no power here.

Jesus, ergo, would be the son of Satan, which is why he rose from the dead in a vile perversion of life (and why we celebrate that act on Zombiemas! Don't forget, people! Don't commercialize Zombiemas!), and ate the brains of the living (an act which was conveniently left out of most copies of the Bible, save for the one I have right here and I'm totally looking at right now. Trust me).

The movie takes place during the Second Coming of Christ, where he comes back in Zombie form (should that be capitalized? We still do the Him and He thing, right?), and starts turning his disciples into zombies, thus making this a true Zombie Apocalypse movie.

Along the course of the movie, a group of socially diverse people will be bound together by this set of events, and eventually find out the truth about Jesus and Satan's role in the development of the world. They will then decide that the only thing that can be done to stop this madness is to appeal to the Vatican, who will then fund the assembly of a crack team of commandos and special agents to drill to the center of the earth and take out Satan himself.

I imagine it being ridiculous in the Army of Darkness kind of way, but less Three Stooges and more Chainsaw-for-an-arm craziness, and totally un-tongue-in-cheek. It'd be totally straight forward and awesome.

I want to see this movie made. Somebody do this for me? Plz?

this would make the most boring action movie known to man.

I just murdered the shit out of some adware, in cold fucking blood.

Just like Arnold in the '80s classic Commando, I tracked the bastard down and fucking executed it for it's transgressions.

I don't even know how I got it in the first place, but it doesn't even matter. It was there, a new toolbar under the address bar in Firefox called My Web Search, advertising flowery mouse pointers and packs of 100+ emoticons, and I had to deal with it, because that's what real men do. I immediately started scouring the internet, gathering intel on it's possible whereabouts on my computer. Did it have a sizable army protecting it? Would I have to roll in, guns blazing, like Arnold in The Terminator? Or would a more stealthy approach suit the situation better? Like when Arnold came up from the ice and snuck into the party at the beginning of True Lies?

Turns out it was right there in the "Uninstall Programs" section, hiding in plain sight. You think you're so fucking clever, don't you My Web Search? Well, I've got news for you pal. You ain't leadin' but two things right now: Jack and Shit... and Jack left town.

I clicked the "uninstall" button, and this dialogue box popped up:

Was it really begging for it's life? In saying "click here to disable toolbar instead", it was really saying "look pal, I'll give you anything you want! I've got money! You want this watch? Have it, it's yours! You want power? I can make you the most powerful man in the world! Look, I'll disappear! I'll leave town! You'll never see me again! Oh god, just let me live!" Just like Richard Dawson tried pleading with Arnold at the end of The Running Man. You know how that turned out for him? He got a bobsled ride into oblivion.

This is a message to all adware trying to hid out on my computer and encroach on my internet space with their garish toolbars that replicate search functions that my browser already fucking possesses: you better watch your damn back. Because when you see me next, I'm not going to be like Arnold in Junior. I'm gonna come at you like Arnold in Conan the Barbarian, and you're going to be playing the part of Thulsa motherfucking Doom.*

*That is to say, I'm going to kill you. In case you've never seen Conan the Barbarian. Sorry.

rerun: girls - the eighth wonder of the world.

note: I've been with the same girl for going on seven years now; six of those years spent living together. I've completely reversed my position on the subject.

originally posted on February 10th, 2003:

There's a large misconception had by the world right now, and I feel it is my responsibility to rid the world of it. It's strange, because this misconception is even held by some of the people whom it directly affects, and they don't seem to think twice about it. In fact, most of them propegate it, and seem to run with it and become rather stubborn when faced with the truth.

I'll just get it out right now, right here, at the beginning. Girls don't poop. Girls don't fart, girls don't "piss", girls are incapable of any such bodily function, unless it is a toned down, cuter version thereof.

You may ask how this is physically possible, and I'll tell you a straight answer: I don't know. It defies all logic, really. I mean, where does it go? Does it even exist in the first place? There's so many unanswered questions regarding the entire thing, and this is why I think girls are the Eighth Wonder of the World. 'Tis truly a special creature which can take in a substance, retain the good portions, and poof!, make the rest defy science and vanish into thin air.

I've sat down with some like-minded individuals, and we've tried to think this out. We've drawn out a couple diagrams, a couple flow-charts, and really, it's just led to more speculation and further questions. There's a couple interesting theories we've uncovered though. I won't get into them all here, but one of them is what we like to call the "Trash Compactor" theory. It's where there's a special organ in the female body which compacts the would-be excrement into virtually nothing. After that, we don't know. It's all speculation at this point.

Another interesting theory is that, much like birds, all the waste that the female body produces comes out in one form. This is not the goopy white slop that birds produce, oh no. It comes out as what we have scientifically labled "wee-wee", or "tinkle" in some circles. Also, for a yet-unknown reason, the female will cover her mouth with a single hand and giggle 99.9% of the time. We don't know if this is because of an unpainful irritation somewhere along the urethra during tinkling, or if the tinkling releases some sort of chemical or something into the bloodstream, resulting in a temporary case of "the giggles." Once again.. all speculation.

This does not apply to all women neccesarily. For example, there are the girls you see on daytime talk shows, or the girls you see shopping at The Rave in the mall, or a wide variety of trailer park girls and girls from the south. These girls poop, these girls fart, these girls flat-out piss. I'm sure there's girls down there that have blasted dookies that would make a truck driver blush. I, myself, have hypothesized that, because of inbreeding and drug abuse while still in the womb, these women are not as high along on the evolutionary ladder, and therefore do not possess the required organs essential for fecal eradication. They can still go on and lead normal lives, no doubt, just with the added tasks of passing gas and "dropping the kids off at the pool."

With that said, the next time a girl approaches you and tells you "holy jeez I gotta pinch a loaf!", you look them straight in the eyes and call them on their shit.. or.. lack of. Wait, inappropriate wording. Just call them lying bitches, and present them with these facts. If they leave for the bathroom, just press your ear against the door and wait for the giggling to start. Trust me, it'll come. The door will open, and it will smell like rose petals, and you can say "a-HA! I knew Nick could never steer me wrong!"

Because I'm only here to educate.

my treatise on zombie biology.

In case you can't tell by the entries written in this journal thus far (and I'm sure this won't be the last tome written on the subject), I'm something of a Zombie Connoisseur. As such, it bothers me when people who have seen a few zombie movies start speaking on the matter as experts when, in reality, they couldn't tell a Romero zombie from a Return of the Living Dead zombie. Please, allow me to drop a knowledge bomb on you:

It's widely accepted that, when referring to zombies, the Romero variety are de facto. That is to say, the zombies that are sluggish, unintelligent (if you're discounting Romero's later zombie movies, which you rightfully should), and dangerous in groups. Contrary to popular belief, you become a zombie if your brain is intact when you die (regardless of if you were killed by one), and they can only be killed by destroying the brain.

Return of the Living Dead-style zombies are the ones that run fast and can maybe utter a sentence or two. They confront you head-on with their zombieness. These are the zombies that don't fuck around about being zombies. The zombie plague spreads via infection with the chemical 2-4-5 Trioxin. In the first few Return of the Living Dead movies, the only way to kill them was via electrocution; a fact which wasn't even learned until the second movie in the series. I think they only managed to kill one zombie in the first movie, and that was by dismembering him and putting all the parts into a cremation oven, and even that only served to form some crazy zombie-cloud that rained onto a graveyard and created even more zombies. Seriously, if confronted by a horde of Return of the Living Dead zombies in the Zombie Apocalypse, just put a shotgun in your mouth.

Now, here's what irks me: the Return of the Living Dead zombies are the only ones who eat brains. They say that eating brains is the only thing to numb the pain of being dead. Romero zombies are strictly flesh-eaters. I mean, they may eventually get around to eating your brains, but only incidentally. Each movie has it's own set of rules, and they're internally consistent, but they end up getting mixed up when brought up in conversation by novices in the field of Zombie Biology.

Let's set up a scenario. Stay with me now, I'm about to drop some science on your plebeian ass.

The common perception of the zombie plague is that it's spread via bite. So, you get bitten by a zombie, you die, then you return to un-life in your new zombie form.

 You immediately hunger for... brains?

 Alright, fine, brains. 

You saunter out to a safehouse and, with a little elbow grease, get in through a previously boarded-up window, perhaps with the help of some of your zombie brethren.

 You make your way to the first ripe melon you see, and then, after a brief struggle, om nom nom nom, brains!

 Satiated, you slump into a corner and groan to yourself, joined by your newly-created zombie friend, but not for long because uh-oh, here comes the redneck militia! You take a few shotgun blasts to the chest before finally being ended by a clean shot to the brain.

  fin.

Here's the problem with the above scenario: this is the way that you would think zombies work if you were to listen to dudes and ladies speaking of them in casual conversation, and you would all be wrong, because it makes no sense from a Darwinian standpoint. If zombies had a hunger for brains, but could only become zombies if their brains remained intact, then the Zombie Apocalypse would be more like a Minor Zombie Inconvenience. How would the zombie plague spread if all potential candidates were rendered unzombifiable in the process of conversion? George Romero thought this shit out. He's a smart dude.

So, in closing, leave the zombie talk to the guy with the PhD in Zombie Biology. Who's that? This guy right here.