Archive of entries posted on January 2009

A Story Bit-By-Bit
Hellbender: Chapter 46 – Separate Reality

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“Dude.”

There was nothing but darkness around them, yet they could see each other just fine. The ground below them still looked like the floor from the building, but a few yards away it faded into nothingness. It was like the entire world had faded away and all that was left was the little piece of floor they all stood on. Around them was nothing but the eeriest quiet… until a woman started screaming.

“Chi-something, handle up on your people!” Bryce shouted, still holding up the small, glowing cylinder.

“Okay, but what’s happened?” Chimezie turned to the freed prisoners and smiled unconvincingly. “Everything is under control, I think.”

Lulu addressed the group. “Here’s what’s happened: We destroyed the generators in the building that were holding wastelands at bay. We stole some portable reality stabilizers Ronove had made…” She took one out of the metal case and turned it on. “Thus we’re all safe from irreality… as long as the batteries hold out. I really don’t know what the battery life is on these things. For those who can’t understand what I’m saying, I’m going to smile now so you know everything is happy.” Lulu smiled.

There was a third reality stabilizer in the case and Doug took it. “So will the wastelands stop Loch?”

Lulu shrugged. “I dunno. Seemed worth trying at the moment.”

“And we weren’t on the ground floor,” Charlene shined a flashlight into the darkness, but it didn‘t yield. “Shouldn’t we have fallen when the building was ripped apart?”

“Hey, I don’t know how it works when reality falls apart, okay?” Lulu said. “We’re in unchartered territory. Ooh! I could write an article about this if we somehow survive.” Lulu turned back to address the rest of the group. “Just stay near us so you don’t get ripped from reality.” Lulu frowned. “I can still remember Lara! That means she wasn’t ripped from reality! Well, hopefully something else horrible is happening to her.”

“I think it’s time we pick a direction and start walking,” Bryce said.

“I’m in charge I get to pick.” Lulu looked around and eventually pointed one way. “We go this away.”

They all started walking. “Don’t look at any circles in here,” Doug told Chimezie and the others, “or your head will explode because of the pie.”

“Thank you for helping us,” one woman said uneasily, obviously not adept at the language.

“No problem!” Doug said cheerfully. He looked around the darkness. “I just hope there is an end to all this.”

“There is never an end.” The horrible voiced echoed all about them.

Doug shoved the reality stabilizer into his pocket, drew his sword, and shouted into the air, “Leave us alone!”

“I am a being beyond your comprehension,” Loch said, sounding like he was coming from all directions at once. “Do you really think you can stop me with a piece of sharpened metal?”

“Maybe if I stab you in your stupid face!” Doug shouted despite Loch’s apparent lack of a face.

“Come on!” Bryce whined. “We’re a bunch of pathetic idiots! There has billions of more important things for a being such as yourself to worry about.”

Loch laughed. “The others have their thoughts on what to do with your world, but all I enjoy is making you things suffer.”

“You will fall, demon!” Chimezie yelled. “We are protected by the Lord, and your power is still no mach for His!”

“Yeah, what he said,” Lulu added. “We’ll smack you around with the Lord and stuff.”

Loch laughed again. It shook the ground and felt like it was about to shatter Doug’s skull. “You humans have always come up with such odd notions to give yourself hope. I assure you, I will inflict upon you such agony that you will beg for death within seconds. Within minutes you shall realize that such peace will never come for you. There is nothing that can stop me. You were created for no other purpose than this agony.”

Doug felt a tight grip on his arm. Charlene was beside him, rifle in one hand and looking as scared as he had ever seen her. “He’s wrong. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.” Doug looked up again. “If you’re so powerful, come and take me, asshole!”

“Alright.”

The darkness gave way slightly and now they could see creatures approaching from all around. First they were just moving shadows, but soon they could see limbs with claws. Some of the people screamed, other fired weapons in panic.

“Run!” Bryce yelled as he fled in one direction, firing ahead of him. The others followed, but then the ground started to move. The darkness faded some more, and Doug could see they were on Loch’s ship which was slowly rising out of the ground. He fled towards the edge of it, but then turned to see the creatures had descended upon most of the group and he couldn’t see his friends. Then something sharp hit him in the back. He fell to the ground and saw nothing but jagged teeth before his face.

Gunfire stunned the beast, and Doug stabbed it with his sword and knocked it off of him. Charlene then grabbed him and helped him from the ground. “We have to get off of this!” she yelled.

Doug looked over the edge of the ship into more black. He had no idea how far down it was, behind him were the creatures and everyone struggling against them. “We can’t leave everyone.”

Charlene looked a little uneasy, but she quickly firmed her resolve. “Okay.”

A beast leaped upon her. “Char–” Doug started to yell, but something swiped him in the face. Before he could regain his senses he was falling, staring up at Loch’s ship as it receded further into the darkness. Soon he lost sight of it entirely, and it began to seem like he would fall forever into nothingness.

But it did come to an end.

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IMAO: The Blog with No Name

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The whole whining about Rick Warren thing has got me thinking. See, the liberals are in charge now and pretty numerous, but they also freak out easy and get hysterical over stupid things a lot. What we should do is be like the Man with No Name and just kinda waltz into town and get different liberal factions to fight each other until their whittled down to the point that we can just finish off who is left. Like we can play those itching for some socialism against the anti-war crazies. Now liberals love forgetting the big picture and fighting pointless battles (remember the Daily Kos obsession on Joe Lieberman?), and the more we have them hissing and scratching each other over things no one other than them cares about, the less time they have to screw America up militarily or economically.

For instance, conservatives could all go on TV and say, “I’m just glad Obama is protecting marriage from teh gheys.” Then liberals will start shrieking and shaking their cages, forcing Obama to focus on that issue allows us to continue torturing people we suspect to be terrorist unabated.

Just remember: Liberals are useless people who have nothing better to do than screw things up for people who aren’t useless. Thus it’s best to keep them busy, and what better way to keep them busy than slap-fighting each other?

Racist, Sexist Hollywood

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You ever think about how Hollywood is supposed to be the most liberal and enlightened, yet they have the most illiberal hiring policies? Can you think of any other industry where the are so conspicuous about discriminating on race and gender (“We’re only hiring white males for this role; blacks need not apply.”)? Also, they’re constantly using child labor as well.

Furthermore, despite being in California, they somehow get access to fully-automatic weapons. That part is cool.

Upcoming Movies

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Most people laugh when they read Iowahawk, but I get depressed and wonder if I should give up even trying. Well, I may write crap, but at least I do it every day.

Economic Theory

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The solution to current economic crisis is to give failing businesses money. This is not supported by any economic theory I know, though. The main mechanism of the economy is supply and demand, so if we want an actual solution we need to apply Science! and come up with a strategy based on sound theory. Now, you can increase revenue by increasing demand, but increasing demand means making better products which is a hard thing to achieve definitively. The other strategy to increase revenue is to reduce supply which is easier to achieve. For instance, we could hit farms in other countries with Agent Orange to destroy their crops and increase demand for ours. Also, we can destroy their production plants to increase demand for our products. Another strategy is to threaten to kill people if they don’t import our goods, which falls under the realm of increasing demand. Now, this may cause other countries to react harshly, but that is something outside of economic theory so it must be ignored if we want a solution based on Science! and logic.

Neither Hope Nor Change

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Iranians are burning pictures of Barack Obama? Don’t they know who he is? Don’t they feel the hope that he brings? Don’t they know he’s going to take America in a radical new direction? Didn’t they see the Yes We Can video? And where is the fire marshal?

Actually, Iran is probably a little ahead of the curve on realizing what everyone will find out eventually: There is never change. We like to play up on things will be radically different from one politician to another, but the fact that they are politicians makes them about 90% the same right there. Yes, Bush and Obama are different from each other, just like Los Angeles and New York are far from each other — though it doesn’t seem like much of a difference if you’re commuting from Alpha Centauri.

So, in Iran, Obama means change — he’s a new picture to burn.

Aggressively Christian

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The gay Episcopal bishop Obama is having for his inauguration was lamenting about how “aggressively Christian” inaugural prayers have been and wants to go for something more neutral. You may just laugh and say, “There goes a liberal, more concerned with multiculturalism than what’s supposedly his religion,” but he might actually have a point if you look at some of the previous inaugural prayers:

“Lord, thank you for this country and its prosperity. And thank you especially for Christianity, the only non-hellbound religion. While Satan made all the other religions, you made Christianity so people who aren’t depraved or a pervert have a religion to be in. May anyone who is not a Christian who hears this stop their foolish ways before Satan claims them forever. Amen.”

“Jesus, please take care of our country. Jesus, the only son of God, help the president in his decisions. As you are the only path to heaven, Jesus, please keep this country on the right path until judgment day comes and all those who don’t believe in you get what’s coming to them. A-Jesus-men.”

“Lord, please watch out for this country. And while watching this country, please keep an eye out for non-Christians and smite them. Please kill them and send them to burn for all eternity in hell. Also, kill anyone who even thinks badly about Christianity. Also kill their families and pets. Thank you Christian God. Amen.”

AI

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SarahK is blogging American Idol at Snark Raving Mad. Frankly, I’m happy this year they have less train wrecks… other than Paula.

Another “Conservative is Cavalier About Torture” Post

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A judge is saying the reason the “20th highjacker” was never prosecuted was because he was tortured. But here’s the description:

Qahtani “was forced to wear a woman’s bra and had a thong placed on his head during the course of his interrogation” and “was told that his mother and sister were whores.”

Doesn’t that just sound like male bonding?

Best Conservative Blogs

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I forgot to link to this, probably because of my poor showing. IMAO was the third funniest conservative and warranted mention nowhere else. Apparently, back in 2003 I actually had enough exposure to make the overrated list but have since fallen to obscurity. Well, something to work towards this year.

I’m shocked … shocked! … to discover gambling at Rick’s

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So, Barack Obama has tapped a socialist to be his energy czar.

The thing that amazes me … is that anyone is surprised that a socialist would have a socialist in his inner circle.

Obama Family Announces New First Dog

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 President Elect Barack Obama announced that the family  has found a new First Dog.  Said the President Elect, “After much deliberation, and after promising my daughters that Hope does indeed hold a brighter, clearer future for all of us. Whether you were born an Obama or married into the Obama family, we are all One Obama family, with one hope, one promise, one dream, and one marvelous dog. Socks the Dog is the culmination of that hope and dream and we pray that God will bless this family with many good and valuable memories. ”

This announcement so confused the press they dropped their preassigned Obama questions. Asked one reporter, without express permissions previously from the Obama team, “Isn’t that a cat? Specifically, isn’t that Socks the Cat?”

As with other selections, this choice of “dog” has aroused a certain amount of pushback from critics who maintain that President Elect Obama has done nothing but recycle the Clinton’s trash, white and otherwise.  Said one critic, “What experience does this creature have in being a dog? I can see if we wanted a cat to take up a less important position, like Secretary of Education, but First Dog has a proud tradition.”

The President Elect, speaking quickly lest he go into nicotine withdrawal, emphasized that in choosing a real dog, he ran the risk of finding one that might accidentally be asssociated with the Bush Administration. Socks the Dog will be moving in with the Obamas next week.

So How Are Your Stupid Whore Mothers?

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Failure.

lolbama! Part 5

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This week, That One. Next week, terrorists. Submit for either at lolterizt@gmail.com

Meanwhile, pass ’em around, spread the love, and if you make your own, don’t be shy about dropping a link to your pics in the comments. The more, the merrier.

NOTE TO READERS: Hovering your mouse over the picture activates closed captioning for the l33t-speak/txtmsg impaired.


[reference link]

From Dan:

From Stephen:

My favorites from the submissions using last edition’s uncaptioned picture:

From Chuck:

From Critical Matt:

From Dodsfall:

From Jason:

[reference link – adult content]

From Jones:

From Pork & Beans:

From Slaphappy1975:

[reference link]

From The Bob:

This week’s uncaptioned picture for you to play with:

PRODUCTION NOTES:
#1: When creating lolbama! pictures, please caption with either black or white text, as colors like red and yellow tend to blur badly when I compress the images.

#2: Standard image size for these posts is 350px wide by whatever high. If you can have your images 350px wide before you caption them, I won’t end up shrinking your captions into illegibility when I re-size the images.

MAKE YOUR OWN: The free lolbuilder from I Can Has Cheezburger.

STYLE NOTE: Short captions are usually better. Your goal is 10 words or less, with humor value tending to increase exponentially as the number of words approaches 1.

Send your submissions to lolterizt@gmail.com and – if they aren’t obscene (IMAO is a PG-13 site) and don’t suck too terribly bad – I’ll post them for you. Remember to include your name (and blog URL, if applicable) so I know who to thank.

A Story Bit-By-Bit
Hellbender: Chapter 45 – Plan B

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“I found him!” Lulu called out. “He got the crap beat out of him by a girl.”

When Doug reached them, Lulu was helping Bryce to his feet. Bryce’s face was covered in blood, and he did not look very happy. “You should see her.”

“I’m sure you mussed up her hair something fierce.” Charlene said as she walked up behind Doug. “Being stupid is supposed to be Doug’s job.”

Bryce smiled and tried his best to act like nothing happened. “I just had a few things to discuss with my lady friend. If she said anything useful, I think I forgot it due to the concussion.”

“Whatever.” Lulu let go of Bryce. “The important thing is…” She pumped her fists in the air. “Hellbender is back together! Yay!”

“What’s the plan now?” Chimezie asked as he caught up with them, Ronove’s prisoners following him closely.

“We’re back together plus!” Lulu shouted.

Bryce noticed one of the females in the new group and smiled. “And how are you doing?”

She smiled back. “No speak English.”

Bryce sighed. “Yeah, they’re not going to slow us down.”

Explosions rocked the building. “So do we have a plan to get out of here?” Doug asked. “I think like everybody is warring outside, so I don’t think it’s very safe out there either.”

Bryce took a long look at Doug. “Loch wouldn’t have any special reason to want to torture you and your friends would he?”

Doug shrugged. “Not any more reasons than anybody else.”

Another explosion shook the building. It felt like the forces outside were trying to bring it down. Hellbender’s new recruits were starting to panic. “Tell them to calm down,” Charlene told Chimezie, “We have a plan for this situation.”

“I don’t speak all their languages,” Chimezie said.

“Just do something!” Charlene shouted.

Chimezie looked to the freed prisoners and smiled while giving them a thumbs up. It seemed to help a little.

“So what’s the plan?” Doug asked.

Bryce took the metal case from Doug. “It’s the sort of plan it’s best not to think about.”

Lulu smiled. “But if it works, it will be crazy!”

More explosions outside. Doug wasn’t sure if Asmod’s and Serpine’s forces were soon going to be invading the building or if they were just going to level it. “Shouldn’t we do the plan now?”

Bryce looked a little nervous. “Um… I’d rather wait until things are just a bit more dire.”

“I assure you things will never be more dire for you.”

A feeling of dread filled Doug, and he turned around to see Ronove standing in the hallway. Ronove was not alone, though. The place began to darken, and before anyone could react the walls were ripped open by black tentacles that grabbed them and held them all in place.

“I regret to inform you,” Bryce said, “but some crazy woman took your cube. You better handle up on that.”

“I’ll leave that to the concern of Asmod and Serpine,” Ronove said. “Loch and I have decided other things are more important.”

A laugh echoed about them. A horrible voice both high-pitched and low said, “So many things to play with.”

“Let everyone go!” Doug shouted angrily.

“Do not waste your breath,” Loch said. “I cannot comprehend any noise you make other than screams.”

“DO WE NEED TO TALK LOUDER THEN?” Lulu shouted.

Ronove approached Doug. “There is only one way out of here. We will help you find it.”

Doug looked around. Everyone was bound by the black things at Loch’s command. Charlene was next to him, and she struggled to get her mouth free from what was wrapped around it. “Detonator in my left pocket!” she yelled.

Doug jerked his right arm and free and reached over into Charlene pocket and pulled out a small device. He fiddled around with it until he found a button. Then he pressed it.

There was an explosion below them, not nearly as loud as those outside, but suddenly all the tentacles retreated and Doug was dropped free to the ground.

“What did you do?” Ronove asked.

Doug shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Hi-yah!” Lulu launched into a flying kick at Ronove, sending him falling backwards. Bryce scrambled for the metal case.

The building was now shaking continuously and Doug could hear a sound like metal being torn apart. “So what did I do?”

Bryce took a cylindrical device out of the metal case that . Charlene motioned for everyone to get close. “Stay near us if you want to live!”

Everyone seemed to understand and huddled near Bryce. Doug could now see down the hallway blackness coming towards them. The void of the wastelands was folding in on them. “Oh crap.”

Bryce held up the device which had rings around it that started to glow. “If this doesn’t work, just know the devil told us to do it.”

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