Apocalyptic warnings have always been attractive to a certain type of person–bearded men without jobs primarily–and now that a lot more people are unemployed (and presumably bearded), anticipation of a world where our credit card debts have been wiped clean by a horrible calamity is building. What’s a couple billion dead if it gets Citibank off your ass, right? So, to see if there was any truth behind this 2012 phenomena, and track down where it originates from and what it could mean, I interviewed some of the leading specialists on history, science and new age studies from around the world.

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The Mayan Calendar
According to Dr. Jorge Estrada, an Archaeologist from the University of Caba and an expert on Mayan an Olmec studies, the Mayans used a cyclical calendar, where every 144,000 days (approximately 400 years) constituted a unit called a “baktun.” Several Mayan records warn that after 13 baktuns have elapsed from year 0, “something” would happen. What that “something” entails is far from clear. Inscriptions seem to indicate that after the 13th baktun elapses, “Black… will occur” followed by the descent of “Bolon Yookte K’uh.” Who or what a Bolon Yookte K’uh is–aside from a terrible name for a baby girl–is at this point unclear. Inscriptions found elsewhere describe Bolon as a god of war, conflict or the underworld.

Artist’s representation of Bolon Yookte K’uh.

So, to date the arrival of the apocalypse, we have to do a little math. Because the Mayans never heard about all the good work Jesus did, their year 0 is a little different than ours, and when that’s taken into account, the 13th baktun is supposed to elapse on December 21 or 23, 2012. Great. Because the holiday season isn’t stressful enough.

“I swear to God, I wish a tidal wave kills your parents.”

Dr. Estrada doesn’t put a lot of stock in the doomsday scenarios, but during our conversation, he did begin talking very excitedly about some new inscriptions he’d uncovered recently that shed some light on Bolon Yookte K’uh. His translation hasn’t been published or peer-reviewed yet, so take it with a grain of salt. The inscription appears to tell a story of Bolon Yookte K’uh meeting a “man-boy from the land of sparks and whispers.” This half-man apparently confronts Bolon Yookte K’uh on the day of reckoning. After that point, the inscription is badly damaged, and little else after that is legible, except for a glyph meaning “terrible violation.”

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Timewave Zero & the I Ching
Timewave Zero is a theory once proposed by a man called Terence McKenna. McKenna believed that the universe has a sort of interconnectedness which ebbs and flows over time. Ultimately this “timewave” will reach a crescendo, at which point shit will go down. The exact nature of the shit is uncertain, though from his studies of the ancient Chinese text the I Ching, and a computer program of his own invention, McKenna believed that it would happen in late 2012. It’s worth pointing out here that McKenna’s theories have been criticized on the basis that he had never, at all during his life, not been on drugs.

Press F3 to invert polarity of horseshit.

Still, his theories have been taken up by others, and I managed to speak to one of them. Daryl Kilsman of Santa Cruz is an expert teleologician, which is a word I think he made up right on the spot. I also feel it’s worth pointing out that I’m pretty sure I could actually smell this man over the phone. Kilsman has refined McKenna’s work, and by converting the output from McKenna’s Timewave program into a series of I Ching hexagrams, like some sort of Ouroboros of bullshit, he claims to have found another message. This message, told in the maddeningly vague manner of all I Ching prophecies, simply states the following phrases “Purveyor of cracked scrolls,” “Heaven Beast,” “Danger” and “Great Humbling Penetration.” Kilsman offered to share his interpretation of this with me, but by that point I had set the phone down to get some fresh air.

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Geomagnetic Reversal
Geomagnetic reversal is a term used to describe an event where the Earth’s magnetic poles will flip over. There’s geological evidence to suggest this has happened multiple times in the past, and that it is in fact long overdue. There’s absolutely nothing to tie geomagnetic reversal to the year 2012 however, and whether such an event would be apocalyptic or merely a nuisance is again, completely unknown.

Because no one of any repute at all will talk about this, I decided to take a compass, a globe and $33 to Madam Shandra, an “Attuned Plane Walker” and “Experienced Masseuse” whose flier ended up in my hands while researching an unrelated project. Madam Shandra greeted me warmly, and after I explained who I was and showed her I did in fact have the money, she seemed eager to help.

After dimming the lights, Shandra consulted her astral companion from the Ninth Plane, Toby. Together they confirmed that there was nothing to be concerned of: the Earth’s magnetic field was fine, and would be for another 10,000 years. However, as I was handing over the cash, Shandra seized upon my palm, very excited by a scar that I’d had since childhood. According to her and Toby, this mark implied that I was a child of destiny, fated to lead mankind during its darkest hour. When I inquired for more information, she told me that my complete fate could only be unlocked in the course of a special $45 massage.

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Galactic Alignment
The principle behind this theory is that due to a slight wobble in the Earth’s axis of rotation, the position of constellations in the night sky will shift slowly over a 26,000 year cycle. And, at or around the end of the 20th century, the constellation that rises during the winter solstice is Sagittarius, which happens to be the constellation hanging over the center of the galaxy. Lunatics have proposed that galactic energy will be beamed directly to Earth during this alignment. And, seeing that 2012 is close to the end of the 20th century, it would seem proponents of this theory have decided to climb aboard the 2012 bandwagon of crazy.

I couldn’t find any supporters of this theory willing to go on record; although someone in a related newsgroup did ask me to “STOP LEAKING BRAIN ZETA PROSPECTS OVER THE TORUS.” Browsing said newsgroup though, it seems these people claim the Mayans were aware of the cycles of axial precession when they devised their calendar. They even point out the existence of Mayan symbols like the Hunab Ku, which depicts a spiral pattern that could be a galaxy, and the Kwantk Phnag sequence, which they claim to be a representation of the apocalypse. This sequence depicts the Hunab Ku lined up above a temple, where priest/astronomers watch as a large bear forcibly has sex with a man.

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Nibiru Collision
This is where we find the real cask-strength crazy. Extra terrestrials have supposedly been sending zeta waves to receptive individuals on Earth, warning that a rogue planet called Nibiru would soon arrive in the solar system, wreaking havoc. Whether it collides with Earth or merely rips us apart via tidal forces is unknown, possibly because it’s completely, completely made up.

I traveled to the University of Portland, where I spoke with Dr. Jennifer Feits, who studies people who have claimed to be contacted by extra terrestrials. Feits explained how these stories become self reinforcing as they spread throughout the community. Susceptible individuals will hear a story, then realize/claim they had a similar experience themselves. Basically these people feed off each other, their shared fictions seeming to give further proof that there’s some truth they’re peering in on. In her research, Feits has gone to some length to isolate such individuals, to see if their stories matched up when kept independent of one another. And in all cases but one, they never did.

The anomalous story was an interesting one. Several people have all independently told a vivid story of a an emissary from Nibiru, who for all intents and purposes looked like a grizzly bear, and answers to the name Balon. Balon travels to Earth, where he randomly selects a representative for the planet. This one is described as a foolish and vain man with thin arms. During their meeting, the representative angers the great space bear with his terrible manners and sweaty neck. At this point the space bear vigorously molests the representative in front of the whole world’s press and dignitaries. “Everyone felt very embarrassed for this pathetic figure,” Dr. Feits said, looking at me curiously. “Apparently he did not comport himself very well, either as a representative of humankind, or even as a man. Lots of weeping and wailing,” she concluded, grabbing one of my arms and squeezing it experimentally. After I wriggled out of her grasp, she continued her story with a shrug. “Anyways, after that Balon decides that the people of Earth are too pathetic to even be worth destroying. He returns to Nibiru and the planet continues on its way, leaving humanity alive and unharmed.”

“And, uh, what happened to the Earth’s representative?” I asked.

Dr. Feits looked at me blankly. “Who cares?”

____

As you can see, the threat of a disaster in the year 2012 is both real and too great to ignore. I encourage all loyal readers to donate thousands of dollars every day to the Prevent-Space-Bear-Rape-Fund, which will provide funding for protein shakes, free weights and Krav Maga lessons for the Earth’s representative as soon as he steps forward, along with $45 massages for the administrator of the plan, who, until further notice, will be me.

___

Lifehacking originated amongst computer geeks, who, after discovering they needed to nerd things up more efficiently, devised scripts and tools to perform unwanted or repetitive tasks for them, like shaving. The term “lifehacking” has since expanded in scope beyond the computer world, and now includes any creative solution to everyday problems. Productivity enhancers still dominate the field, but if you’re looking for a clever way to hang a cabinet or get skid marks out of your underpants, rest assured someone out there’s got your back.

Because people are always asking us here at Cracked how we do the things we do (a question only exceeded by its mate: “Why do you…”) I thought I’d share some of the lifehacking tips we’ve accumulated over the years that help us produce the high-in-quality-but-low-in-brow comedy we’ve become famous for.

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1. Use To-do lists
Any paint huffing idiot can make a to-do list, but making a to-do list that actually works requires the higher cognitive power only a felt-pen sniffing idiot possesses. Leading felt pen sniffers agree that three key steps are required to get your to-do lists to work:

1a. Break items up into manageable chunks
Let’s say I put in my to-do list the following entry:
Defraud Swaim out of Swaim family fortune.
Looks good right? It’s important, and now I won’t forget to do it. But there’s a problem here. The task is too big. Dozens of steps will be required in executing it, and I might not know where to begin (I do in this case: past post scheme at a rigged cockfighting parlor, or a confidence scam hinging on the price of potato futures). But by breaking this item up into several steps, I can tackle them individually with minimal stress and delay, and before I know it, I’ll be$5,000 richer.

1b. Review the list regularly
Just like pornography, a to-do list won’t work if you never look at it. Either keep your to-do list front and center in your work environment so it’s impossible to not see it, or set a regular time to review it each day. Like right after pornography time.

1c. Keep separate lists for different environments
The tasks you’ll have to do at work will be different from the tasks you have to do at home, so why confuse your to-do lists? Anywhere you have a lot of work to do or spend a lot of time is a valid candidate for a to-do list. I keep separate lists for work, home and school, and I know DOB keeps a special one just for the bathtub.

1d. To-do list software
In terms of software, there’s tons of options available. I’m a minimalist, so I just use a plain text file and a program called Samurize to embed it in my desktop.

Note my simple priority system.

2. Coding Tips
Cracked.com makes use of all the latest web technologies like HTML, CSS, XML, TDI, GHB, etc… Given the challenges of working with these diverse technologies, our web developers have developed a number of Greasemonkey scripts which they use to steal code from better websites. Most of our front end is simply Fark with some different colors, and our forum was lifted entirely from this place here.

3. Keeping A Schedule
This shouldn’t be that hard. Calendar programs like those found in Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar or your smartphone are all great at keeping schedules and reminding yourself of deadlines.

4. Find pictures of crotch bulges
Google Image Search is the classic way for doing this, but there are other superior ways as well. Try installing a pinhole camera in the dressing room of your local vintage dress store, and you’ll soon have pictures of hipsters trying on tight pants–along with other images of some value–streaming into your inbox faster than you’ll know what to do with them. (Hint: You can sell them.)

5. Bail a coworker out of jail
It’s a common enough occurrence at Cracked that we have a system all set for this. In our area, the bail amount typically set for public nuisance is a few hundred dollars, depending on how many chickens were set loose. So not a huge amount, but not trivial either. Fortunately we’ve got a mason jar in our kitchen area, which works sort of like a swear jar, only it’s for frustrated crying jags. Every time someone bursts out in tears and says, “Fuck you guys, I quit,” they have to put in a quarter. There’s usually a couple thousand bucks in there, so we just dip into it when we need it.

6. Put out fires
In the Cracked offices, none of our fire extinguishers are charged, and haven’t been since Gladstone’s last birthday party (“Fuck you guys, I quit.”) So we’re a little limited with firefighting options. Fortunately you can make your own fire extinguishing system by dumping a bottle of Mr. Bubbles in a dishwasher and taking the fuck off. Finally, remember that “stop, drop and roll” only works if it’s you that’s on fire. We found that out the hard way one hilarious, but tragic, (but hilarious) day.

7. Look like you’re working harder than you are
Oh don’t look so surprised, Jack. Angling your computer monitor away from coworkers, using alt-tab and wearing a green accountant’s visor are all time honored ways to look like you’re doing more work than you are. Here’s another little trick I picked up from Brockway:

“Replace your keyboard with a really loud one. Clickity clack clack clack. You know, super loud. Cowbell loud. Make sure everyone knows how loud it is. Then record yourself typing very rapidly. Then, when you find a suitable time, playback the recording on a loop. Then, when everyone thinks you’re working, whiskey jacks.” (”Whiskey jacks” is a game Brockway has devised where he drinks a pint of rye whiskey, and then throws things on the ground.)

8. Instantly come up with synonyms for male genitals
Whether you’re a comedy writer or an appeals court judge, you can never have enough synonyms for junk. Here’s a pro tip: Grab a thesaurus and look up all the synonyms for “Love” or “Lust.” Pick one of those at random, then go to the Home Depot website, close your eyes and click around a bit.

“Love Baluster”? Good, but maybe a little esoteric. “Passion Lathe”? Sure, why not. “Deep Caulk Gun”? Yes.

9. Get rid of a whole bunch of puppies
Because of the amount of comedy that gets done in back alleys and underneath bridge overpasses, Cracked staffers are always finding and bringing home stray dogs, on account of our enormous hearts, and the uncooked ground beef management requires us to carry around at all times. (Official company motto: “Never a bad time for tacos.”) This means that we constantly have to sweep the office of puppies and dogs, and because of the strict ethical code Cracked employees follow, we have to do it safely and hygienically. Our best trick is putting them in the elevator and sending them to the eighth floor, where Redbook is published. If Redbook is not published in your building, consider moving.

10. Hide in a toy store overnight
Comedy’s written during the day, and it’s starting to get dark out. Time to find a place to sleep. Like all who hail from the race of Men, Cracked writers constantly dream of spending the night in the local Toys ‘R’ Us. But this can be tricky. All of the obvious places will be inspected by store staff for homeless comedy writers before they lock up for the night. What to do?

The trick then is to hide in a non-obvious place. Like that huge bin of rubber balls they have near the front of the store. With the help of some accomplices, first stage a distraction. A good one is to have two friends walk around, loudly discussing how toy stores are similar to petting zoos, if you really think about it. While store security is busy dealing with them, you’re wading into a bin of balls, quickly concealing yourself. That smell friend? It’s not the toxic off-gassing of cheap Chinese rubber. It’s success.

11. Find things on Japanese websites
Even the bravest comedy writers have yet to plumb the complete depths of Japanese insanity, a fact which renders this small island nation into a limitless source of hilarity.

Japan.

A key element of Japanese-mockery lies in gathering the appropriate images. The problem lies in the fact that, thanks to a fluke of geography, the Japanese weren’t brutally conquered by the English and now speak some bizarre Eastern tongue. Navigating Japanese websites is thus ridiculously, ridiculously hard. Even finding a suitable Japanese website can be nearly impossible.

One trick is to take the word you’re looking for, punch it into a web translation engine and translate it to Japanese. Depending on the language packs you’ve got installed on your machine, you may or may not see Japanese characters or complete gobblydegook, but regardless, paste that shit into Google, and see what it digs up for you.

Did you try it? You found some pretty shocking pornography, didn’t you? Yeah, that will happen. I was going to warn you before you did that, but then remembered that I didn’t want to.

____

However the parts of that story concerning idiots were uninteresting to me, given my heavy exposure to idiots on the Internet already. What sparked my imagination was the idea of a madman working on antiquated methods of transportation in his backyard and getting his children to test them, like they were monkeys or something.

Truthfully, I was amazed I hadn’t thought of it myself. Children share many of the same characteristics of monkeys, in that they’re trainable, lightweight and love bananas. However, unlike monkeys, few people actually care about the welfare of children, making them ideally suited for such dangerous work. I have to applaud the boy’s father’s genius. Sending children into the sky in wacky Victorian modes of transport would make for incredible TV. Hell, we just watched it make for incredible TV. Someone get on this.

Because no one ever “gets on something” when I ask them to, I decided to do a bit of research on this myself. Below are 18 of the most preposterous methods of transport I could find. It turns out that many of these are hilarious even independent of their ability to endanger children.

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The downside with conventional hot air balloons is that you’re basically at the mercy of the winds when it comes to where you’re going to go. Here that problem has been solved by harnessing the predictable forces of an angry elephant.

_____

A Tricycle built for nine. Perfect for taking your entire family on a trip to the park or down to the Thunderdrome to fight for your meal. I seriously hope they have a parking brake on this thing, because a lot of people are going to lose a lot of hit points if it starts rolling.

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“English women are frigid ice queens. I bet American women will put out for my genius. Here I come, America.”

_____

Wow. This businessman looks determined. “There is no way some GODDAMNED OCEAN is going to keep me from winning that Jenkins account.”

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Propeller powered monorail. I don’t know enough about aerodynamics or mechanical engineering to know whether this is a good idea or not, but I do know that these would make those railroad-crossing safety videos 10 times funnier.

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It’s hard to tell when it’s not in motion, but those three wings coming out each side of this lunatic device are actually meant to rotate in the manner of an egg beater. If built, this would have been the only known aircraft powered by the embarrassment of its occupants.

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“With my new Enveloping Unicycle, I can travel twice as fast and in three times the style. If only I had some place to go.”

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Most of us will be familiar with autogyro contraptions from that wild-eyed, snake throwing motherfucker from The Road Warrior. But few know that these were actual things that were actually built by real grown up people who wore ties and hats and everything.

This one is called the Fairey Rotodyne, and isn’t technically an autogyro. It’s actually a gyroplane – the difference being that the top rotors are themselves propelled. In this case, by fucking jet motors mounted in the rotor tips. There’s a video of it flying here. The project was eventually canceled, and the Rotodyne destroyed, doomed for being too beautiful to exist in a world such as ours.

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This is a three man, four-wheeled, pedal-powered cycle. It was featured heavily in a series of novellas from around the turn of the century about a group of teenagers and their dog who went around solving mysteries.

_____

“Hey! Jebeidiah!”

“Yes, Samuel?”

“Fuck you!” –zooms off-

_____

“I was wrong. American women are frigid, too. Well let’s see if Canadian women like the cut of my jib.”

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“Gracious. I can see why ladyfolk like riding these so much.”

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An illustration of Robur’s airship from Jules Verne’s famous series of novels about the air pirate. Robur used it to conduct raids on the industrial nations of the world, but after analyzing its design, modern engineers agree it could also be used to save your game or reform your party.

_____

Similar to the Mystery Machine above, this was a tricycle designed for police officers to be able to transport an Irishman to jail in great haste. For balance issues, it was recommended the rearmost passenger have an enormous mustache.

_____

I honestly have no idea. Someone here’s clearly misinterpreted a textbook figure on the density of hay.

_____

Wow. Lots going on here. One, it turns out sulky isn’t a made up a word, and is simply a name for a two wheel carriage that my city-boy ears never learned. Two, it’s made by an Italian, so you know it’s reliable. Three, 116 miles per hour. Fuck you common sense, I want one of these, and I want it yesterday.

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“Gentle sirs, with this device, I guarantee that you shall not find a more civilized way to convey your lady at high speeds into a marsh and Expire.”

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“Can you believe these Canadian women, Reginald? I can’t believe I came all the way here for these bitches.”

“That is too bad, Victor.”

“I suppose something good has come of it though.”

“You mean how you’ve perfected your Two Person Crotchpiston Drive?”

“No, Reginald. I mean how I’ve made a friend.”

_____

One of 24 Cracked Comedy Satellites in a constellation of high inclination orbits.

This past week, while examining a section of sky near Gemini for scraps of an anecdote about an alien farmer’s daughter, I came across an anomalous signal. Fairly quickly I determined it to be human in origin and, as it was unencrypted, I was able to reassemble its meaning without too much difficulty. (Before I became a columnist I was actually part of Cracked’s SIGINT division.)

The signal I was receiving was a journal, sent by the lone occupant of a space vehicle on its way to Mars. This vehicle was secretly launched by NASA in March of this year under the guise a mission to place a “space telescope” into “orbit.” Composed of individual journal entries, transcripts of communications with mission control and wild, unstructured rants, this compilation told the story of a man who, in his own words, “had gotten royally screwed, right in the mouth.”

So, as a service to all the conspiracy theorists and amateur radio astronomers who make Cracked.com their first stop every morning, I present a lightly edited version of this journal to you below.

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Journal Entry: March 7, 2009
Ugh. I will never get used to that. Being launched into space SUCKS. It feels like being the turkey in a sandwich, except the bread is a family of fat people. Heh, that’s a good one. I’m going to let the guys in control know about that one, so they can add it to the list.

Journal Entry: March 7, 2009 Addendum
OK, apparently they’re not adding any more sandwich ones to the big launch metaphor list. Fuck those douches.

Journal Entry: March 8, 2009
Post launch rest period concluded. Time to get down to work. The purpose of this mission is to conduct a trial run of the systems in a habitat module intended for a potential Mars mission. So strictly speaking my only real job here is to stay alive. I think I can manage that.

Whoops! Almost died there. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Just kidding diary.

Seriously though, I’ve got a whole checklist of things to do here, so I’d better get started.
Day 1:
Item 1: Use Toilet
Item 2: Disassemble Toilet

Huh.

Popular astronaut.

Journal Entry: March 14, 2009
Apparently I’m not alone up here. In another compartment in the module is a monkey. He’s got this little machine that provides food and water, and he’s hooked up to medical monitoring equipment. But what the heck is he doing up here? He wasn’t mentioned in my mission briefing. Which was actually kind of rushed now that I think about it. I guess it makes sense. Looking at my checklist, it looks like I’ll be working on his toilet quite a bit later on.

Journal Entry: March 16, 2009
The food here is terrible. The larder is fully stocked, but with really inappropriate food. It’s got nothing but soup in here. And not astronaut soup. Cans of Chunky. It’s like someone raided a Costco for a fucking space mission. How am I supposed to eat this? Is this someone’s idea of a joke? It’s been a week and this place is already covered in brown smears. All that toilet maintenance can’t be helping.

Journal Entry: March 20, 2009
I should be able to see Earth out of one of these windows, right? I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed that until now. When I checked in with control, they said it was normal. Apparently I’m in a highly elliptical orbit. They called it a Bigh-Bie orbit. Never heard of it before. Named after its inventors presumably. I could have sworn I heard them snickering when they said that though.

Journal Entry: March 28, 2009
OK, this is bullshit. Every other task on my checklist involves using the toilet and then immediately taking it apart. Shit is literally getting out of control. Diary, do you know what comes out of an astronaut who eats nothing but soup? Or a monkey at any time, in any situation? This whole place is disgusting.

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TRANSCRIPT OF HAB MODULE ARES-1B COMMUNICATION TO HOUSTON- MISSION CONTROL – 0815hr 04/16/2009

MC: Hi, Tim? This is Mission Director Mike Atkinson here. Have you been communicating with control on this frequency? Because the people on this line are not Mission Control. Do you know a Ron Berton or Aaron Grimhorst?

HM A-1B: Yeah, I know those two guys.

MC: Yeah, OK. Look, I don’t know what those guys told you, but this is supposed to be an unmanned mission. I don’t even know how you got in there. This is a real situation.

HM A-1B: You’re telling me, Mike. I have been cleaning up my own shit for two weeks now. Also, what do you mean by unmanned mission?

MC: Well it looks like these guys played a bit of a prank on you, there. This was an unmanned mission - well, a one monkey mission - and Aaron and Rob somehow snuck you on board. I’m not exactly sure how – this actually represents a pretty fundamental failure of several hundred different protocols. We’re actually kind of lucky you’re still alive. But, if you’ve got air, water and food, I guess you can hang out a bit longer. In the meantime we’re going to have to see how this affects the mission. You sit tight, OK?

HM A-1B: Can do Mike. I’ve got another toilet check coming up on my checklist anyways.

MC: Uh, yeah. Yes. Stick to the checklist. We may get back to you on that as well.

___

TRANSCRIPT OF HAB MODULE ARES-1B COMMUNICATION TO HOUSTON - MISSION CONTROL – 1942hr 04/16/2009

MC: Hi, Tim. First thing I want you to know is that we’re going to be disciplining Aaron and Rob. What they did was not cool. I want you to be sure that this kind of behavior will no longer be tolerated. Right now HR is redrafting our Tolerance and Harassment Policy to make this kind of thing explicitly prohibited.

HM A-1B: That’s good.

MC: Furthermore, Aaron and Rob will both be speaking with a counselor, and this incident will go on their permanent records. I can’t really go into the details, but between you and me I’d be surprised if either of them gets much more than a two percent raise this year, Tim.

HM A-1B: I am glad to hear that. What about the rest of the timeline? I’m still scheduled for reentry maneuvers on Thursday?

MC: Yes. No. About that. You are actually traveling towards Mars at a very high speed.

HM A-1B: I see.

MC: We’ve had the boys running the numbers here to map out a way to get you back to Earth, and it turns out the answer is pretty simple.

HM A-1B: Oh good.

MC: I said simple. Not good. You are not coming back to Earth. It’s just completely physically impossible. The guys tell me we could send you to Jupiter. Do you want to see Jupiter? I’ve heard it’s pretty big. You’ll, uh, almost certainly starve to death before then, but you know. An option.

HM A-1B: …

MC: You still there Tim?

Jupiter is prettybig.

HM A-1B: Forgive me if I seem a little dazed by this. How? Why exactly am I going to Mars?

MC: Well, contrary to whatever these guys told you, this mission was primarily intended to test the shielding systems on board the habitat to see how well they protect the craft’s occupants from solar radiation. That’s why the monkey’s there.

HM A-1B: I’ve been calling him Buzz.

MC: That is certainly your right. Anyways, the reason there’s been all this secrecy around the mission is because we needed to do live testing on this shielding, but didn’t want to make it public we were using an animals. In fact, if you could check yourself for cancer real quick, that’d be super handy for us. Much more ethical.

HM A-1B: -Finally cracking up- I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this. I’m going to die? I can’t believe this. Oh God! My wife! She’ll be devastated.

MC: Ahh, well I’ve got good news there, Mike. She’s been cheating on you for the last eight months. With Rob actually. Hey guys, knock it off. Seriously. That’s inappropriate. They just high-fived here, Tim. I’ll talk to them about that. Anyways, hang tight. We’re not completely out of ideas yet. And I’ve got good news! That checklist you’ve been working on, uh, your duties? You can stop that now. That was part of the prank. We’re going to upload Spider Solitaire to you right now, OK buddy? That should keep you busy. And we’ve got a dozen guys working on getting you Freecell. Great things are a foot!

-Editor’s note: What followed next was 43 pages of extremely bitter commentary about a woman named Helen, and many faults she purportedly possessed. In the author’s mind she appears to be some sort of mythical beast of legend, sort of like a Hydra. The most concise definition in the extract is “a frigid ice bitch with 80 bitchy heads bitching all the Goddamned Time ABOUT BULLSHIT.” This section has been removed in the interests of taste and narrative flow. -

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TRANSCRIPT OF HAB MODULE ARES-1B COMMUNICATION TO HOUSTON- MISSION CONTROL – 1114hr 04/27/2009

MC: Hi, Tim. Regarding your transmission, we passed it on to Helen, but I don’t believe she read it. I did though. Jesus man, that was some pretty nasty stuff. I mean, I know you’re in a bad place, but seriously, that was a real dick move.

______

Journal Entry: May 28, 2009
They asked me to leave the monkey alone, because he was “important.” But screw them. Me and Buzz are death row buddies. We are going to have a ton of whimsical adventures while we wait to die, just like that terrible Tom Hanks movie.

Anyways I let him out of his module this morning, and showed him around the main hab. I think I’ll try and teach him some games next.

Journal Entry: June 5, 2009
Buzz is super smart, but he seems to be having a lot more difficulty in the zero gravity than myself. Maybe it’s because he’s so small, but he keeps getting stuck halfway between walls, flailing around and screeching like mad. I had been helping him when he got stuck, but this morning I left him like that, trying to coach him to rescue himself. That turned out to be a mistake. I don’t know what they taught that monkey, but it would appear he has a very good grasp on Newtonian mechanics and their application with respect to poo flinging. And I had just gotten this place clean again.

Journal Entry: August 17, 2009
Fuck that monkey. I don’t know how he did it, but he got into my locker and took all my pants and wouldn’t give them back. Then when I tried to catch them, he ripped them to shreds. This is bad news. It’s kind of chilly up here, in fucking space.

For now I’m wearing my extra shirt as pants. This is bullshit. It’s like eighth grade gym all over again.

Unpopular astronaut.

______

TRANSCRIPT OF HAB MODULE ARES-1B COMMUNICATION TO HOUSTON- MISSION CONTROL – 1114hr 09/23/2009

HM A-1B: Hi, Mike? I think I lost Buzz.

MC: How’s that?

HM A-1B: I put him back in his room last night, and when I returned this morning, he wasn’t there. Actually his whole room wasn’t there.

MC: Yes, that’s normal. That part of the module has detached.

HM A-1B: Detached? Where’s it going?

MC: Once around Mars, then back to Earth. There’s a wealth of scientific information stored in that monkey, Tim. He should have just enough food to make it home.

HM A-1B: But not me.

MC: Yes. Tim, I’m going to be level with you. You’ve just kind of annoyed a lot of people around here over the years, and on the balance of things, no one here appears to be that sad to see you go. The monkey’s great. Everyone loves that little bastard. You should have seen him at the launch party.

HM A-1B: You like the monkey more than you like me.

MC: Dude. Dude. I don’t know what it is man. You tell such terrible jokes. And you always laugh at them. Have you ever noticed that? How when you tell a joke, you’re the only one laughing, and everyone’s standing there uncomfortably, like you’re a guy in a funeral procession and your penis just fell out of your pants? And you’ve got that horrible voice and face. Also a lot of the girls say you make them feel uncomfortable. And that denim jacket.

HM A-1B: That’s a pretty comprehensive list.

MC: We’ve actually got a white board in the conference room here that’s been filling up pretty quick.

HM A-1B: I see.

MC: See that’s another one! You always say shit like “I see,” like you’re some kind of smug, morally superior robot. Hey Karen? Can you add “smug, morally superior robot” to the board?
____

TRANSCRIPT OF HAB MODULE ARES-1B COMMUNICATION TO HOUSTON- MISSION CONTROL – 0954hr 09/27/2009

MC: Tim, this is Mike here again. We’ve been going over the figures, and we think we’ve found a plan you’ll be pretty happy with.

HM A-1B: Go ahead.

MC: Basically, we’d like to slam you into Mars while traveling several kilometers per second, and see what happens.

HM A-1B: …

MC: You still there Tim?

HM A-1B: Fuck you, Mike.

MC: I know that sounds bad, but think it through. Because your other options include starving to death or freezing to death. Plus, this way you’ll be the first person to set foot on Mars.

MC-2: He’ll also be the first person to set knee, arm, shoulder and face on Mars, in extremely rapid succession.

MC: Ron this is a private channel, but excellent point. Yes. So five separate records! Tim, I will look into seeing if we can get all those for you.

_____

TRANSCRIPT OF HAB MODULE ARES-1B COMMUNICATION TO HOUSTON- MISSION CONTROL – 1114hr 09/30/2009

MC: Hi, Tim. The Guinness World Record people got back to me, and they said they’ll only give you the foot thing. They also said they’re probably going to have to put an asterisk beside it on account of, well, you know.

___

Editor’s note: At this point, the communication stream devolves into the word FUCK printed a little over twenty-seven hundred times, and then just the letter F repeated endlessly, as if someone had set something down on a keyboard.

__

So I decided to apply my powerful brain to the problem, and find out what Windows 7 would mean for you, the average user. With only pre-release versions and betas available for download, to get a copy of the actual release version, I had to turn to eBay, where leaked copies have shown up recently. $150 and two days later, a package of bubble wrapped, technological delights arrived on my doorstep. I giddily tore open the packaging to reveal the contents.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

Also included, but not pictured, was a small note from the seller, making some pretty inflammatory claims about my mental capacity. I took the matter up with eBay Fraud Protection, but they had similarly unkind things to say about my Internet savvy, only they used longer words. So, my attempts to get my money back from UR_a_Ediot67 were at a standstill. Unfortunately, I still had a column to produce, and as “23 Reasons Punching a Wall Really Hurts” didn’t have the sort of broad appeal I normally like to include in my articles, I decided to plow ahead with my original plan. So below I present my review of “Windows 7.”

Installation
Very difficult. The install for Windows 7 comes on four floppy disks, and as my laptop doesn’t have a floppy drive, I was worried I’d have to travel 10 years into the past to find a computer that did. Fortunately, my local Best Buy was offering a USB floppy drive for $80, which, not withstanding certain recent software purchases, struck me as the greatest ripoff the world has ever seen. I’d advise anyone wanting to install Windows 7 on their own machine should make sure their hardware can support it.

After that rocky start, the rest of the installation went relatively smooth, although I had to fiddle with the BIOS settings to get the floppy to boot. I chose to install all the options, including something called Microsoft Fax, simply because it sounded fucking amazing. After the install, the computer rebooted without incident, and I was up and running.

Hardware Support
Terrible. I don’t have any particular exotic hardware on my system, but Windows 7 still struggled to find drivers for basically everything. Screen resolution was limited to 640 x 480, and my external mouse didn’t work because apparently Windows 7 doesn’t have USB support. Bizarre. I’ll spare you the details of what I had to do to get the wireless working, but let’s just say it involved 27 hours of crying.

Finally got the Internet working!

Included Software
Windows 7 comes packaged with Internet Explorer 2.0, which I will admit to being a little disappointed with. It can render text and images however, which if you think about it, is probably the most important 40 percent of the Internet anyways.

The flying Window icon lets you know the Internet is working.

Set Up The Microsoft Network
Right in the desktop was a link to something called “The Microsoft Network” which the instruction manual promised would provide the unheard of ability to use chat rooms or check the weather. Unfortunately, the set up didn’t seem to work–it evidently requires a phone line to work, and I don’t actually have one of those. So be advised that to fully utilize Windows 7, and experience all of its weather checking glory, you’ll require some pretty specialized telecom equipment.

Long File Names
While checking the manual, I noticed that it also promised that Windows 7 would be able to handle long file names. I honestly didn’t know we were limited before, but I guess this isn’t a bad thing.

Long file name

My Briefcase
This is a little synchronization tool that lets you keep files in sync across multiple computers when transferring files by floppy. I don’t have any other computers with a floppy drive, so couldn’t test it out, but I guess this would be a useful tool for the Amish.

Start Button
The classic Windows Start button is back, and it works pretty much the same as you’re used to. You click it, and a list of programs comes up in a branching menu. If you can’t figure that out, no amount of Matthew Perry videos will help you.

Taskbar
The venerable old taskbar is back in Windows 7, looking a little retro, but otherwise in good shape. Definitely a “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it” situation here. Curiously, the useful Quick Launch bar seems to have disappeared. I guess with limited room on the floppies, space had to be made for the popular Microsoft Fax.

Windows Explorer
I was very disappointed with this. The improvements made to the most recent version of Explorer were one of the bright points of the whole Vista debacle. The version on display here in Windows 7 is remarkably spartan, lacking many features users look for, like thumbnail previews or frequently used shortcuts. I think Microsoft definitely crapped the bed on this one.

Multitasking
I was very impressed here. To test performance, I ran a stress test consisting of a word document, two Internet Explorer windows and Minesweeper. Everything worked pretty smoothly.

Stability
Terrible. Possibly related to the previously mentioned hardware difficulties, I found stability to be a real issue with Windows 7. Crashes were frequent, including Blue Screens of Death. Error messages were cryptic and meaningless to me – see below.

Overall
In general I was highly disappointed with Windows 7. Although performance has improved since Vista, major features appear to have been lopped off the OS to meet these performance marks. Additionally, the hardware incompatibility and stability issues that have long plagued Microsoft OS releases appear to back in full force. Unless you’re one of those deviants who always has to have the latest OS, or have very specialized faxing needs, I’d strongly recommend avoiding Windows 7 until at least the first Service Pack is released.

Two stars.

**

___

The linked article goes off into a discussion of online privacy in the face of ever improving technology and changing social norms, but once it started using complicated words like “homophily” and “principle” I kind of lost interest. Anyone trying to make a point without first breaking it down into a list of the 10 Most Hilarious Episodes of The Gummi Bears isn’t going to get a lot of traction with me.

No, instead of caring about the actually-interesting privacy issues, my first though upon reading this was one of concern. You see, I haven’t been particularly discriminatory when adding friends on Facebook. As a ruggedly handsome Internet humor-smith, a significant number of people have realized their lives would be meaningless without adding me as a friend. And, perhaps due to childhood memories of loneliness and having to ride the teeter-toter with the school janitor, I haven’t rejected a single friend yet. As a consequence, my Friends list is now inflated with a significant percentage of people I’ve never met at all.

So my worry, given the probable-depraved nature of anyone who would find me amusing, is what would someone running a similar algorithm on me find? Based on the company I supposedly keep, would a researcher conclude that I’m a fan of mustache-rodeos? I had to find out.

So, using the computer knowledge that all white guys with glasses possess, I fired up my laptop, and during a techno laden montage of progress bars and really fast typing, hacked in to an MIT mainframe and stole a copy of the code used by the researchers. After reviewing it, I saw numerous opportunities to expand upon the student’s work, and over the next four minutes made several improvements to the original algorithm. Most notably, I implemented several heuristic generalizations into the code and gave it the ability to pivot on all possible classification criteria, not just homosexuality. Once activated the software would comb my list of friends, their lists of friends and so on, computing a list of attributes that all my accidental acquaintances possessed. If I had a significant number of friends with a given attribute, the algorithm’s output would then indicate that I myself share the same attribute.

It was clear that activating such a wide-ranging piece of software would potentially be a violation of Facebook’s terms and conditions, set me up for felony charges and usher in a dystopic world where privacy was nonexistent, and government boots were constantly pressed to our necks. So I had a nice stiff drink first. The program’s output and my accompanying notes are recorded below.

__

YOU ARE: Straight
Whew. I can’t say I’m that surprised, but I guess Dad will be happy.

YOU ARE: White
Nothing to disagree with here either, although I think for a later version of the software it would be amusing to quantify just how white I am. (Correct Answer: 786.2 Greg Bradys on the Stanford-Brady Complexion Gradient Scale [revised] [1994])

YOU ARE: An alcoholic
Well that’s wrong. And no, I’m not just saying it’s wrong because I CAN QUIT ANY TIME (smashes a glass on the wall). Although I like beer, and drink beer, and have good times with beer, we also know we don’t have to spend every waking second with each other. The time apart makes our relationship all that much stronger. However it looks like a lot of my friends don’t feel the same way. I’m guessing the software observed that many of them have pictures of themselves doing keg hoists or shooter blasters or whiskey felchers or whatever it is the kids do now a days.

YOU ARE: A fan fiction author
So it seems a lot of my friends like losing themselves in their own worlds full of popular, copyrighted characters. Nothing wrong with that I guess, but I don’t think it applies to me. Some of you may recall the early months of this column, when I used to write highly sexual tales featuring Lieutenant Worf and Count Chocula, but those were actually sonnets and not fan-fiction, if you look carefully.

YOU ARE: Chinese
This one confused me, because earlier it said I was white. Then I wondered if it thought I was Chinese as in nationality-wise. A review of the data revealed that a big chunk of my friends are Chinese spambots. Surprisingly this subset included two of my ex-girlfriends, which upon further reflection probably explains why they kept selling me all those region-free DVDs.

YOU ARE: A communist
At first I assumed this was caused by those Chinese spambots again, and thought the irony of being tagged a communist by associating with spambots (the armpit of capitalism) was pretty rich. But further review revealed that a sizable number of my friends have been chattering about health care reform, and my apparently staunchly-conservative computer has rather editorialized their views rather harshly. That may be a bug.

YOU ARE: An arsonist
Err. I may be splitting hairs here, but I’ve always considered an arsonist someone who burns things because they like watching them burn. I only burn things because it’s funny. I’m going to give my friends who enjoy flame-based comedy the same benefit of the doubt.

YOU ARE: On an FBI watchlist
I think this is actually pretty standard for anyone who’s friends with Cracked Columnist Dan O’Brien.

YOU ARE: A hermaphrodite
You see? This is what I was worried about. Apparently 43 of my friends are part of some group called the “Chicks With Dicks Alliance.”

YOU ARE: Capable of fellating yourself
Hang on. Nope, not even close. Although I guess congratulations to my statistically significant number of friends who can.

YOU ARE: Interested in knowing what Bert and Ernie are like, off-camera
This is completely true.

YOU ARE: Being stalked by eight people
Evidently eight of my friends are also stalking me, operating in shifts. They’re organized, well equipped and have a particular interest in “ass-shots.” Hey team.

YOU ARE: In terrible danger
The software seems to think that one of my admirers has been reading up on African tribal rituals, and is now convinced that by consuming my blood they will gain my powers. The algorithm is only supposed to pick up on statistically significant groups of people though, so this is probably a bug too.

YOU ARE: They’re in the house. Fly you fool!
Evidently the program has taken up my sense for melodrama, and also my deep passion for plagiarizing Tolkien. These bugs are starting to annoy me. As soon as I get back from investigating that noise in the cellar I’ll take care of them.
___

Follow Cracked on Facebook and you’ll be the first to know about all the ways you’re being spied upon. Well, the first to know besides whoever is spying on you.

Anyways. Mondays.

I bring this up because it (partially) explains how I ended up with several hundred dollars worth of mint condition Care Bears in my possession. The details of how this happened are unimportant, although I will say that it occurred a few weeks back and involved the twin scourges of eBay and expired Kahlua. (Mondays again.) Consequently, I didn’t recall making said purchase, and was initially delighted to find two Care Bears sitting on my doorstep a few days later. “What a magical day!” I remarked to no one. However after further reflection, aided by my girlfriend, I realized this may not have been one of my savviest investment decisions. Using the reasoning and logic that all people who don’t use the Internet possess, she observed two key points:

1) Our landlord was unlikely to accept rare stuffed animals in lieu of rent money.

2) She would leave me if I didn’t return the damned things.

___

Initially I looked into re-listing them on eBay. Having never sold anything on eBay before, I was pants-crappingly annoyed to find out how high their fees were. For some reason, the idea of losing money on my very first Care Bear flip didn’t sit right with me. “No way,” I said, silently applauding my gutsy, Warren Buffet-esque investment genius. Lacking any better options, I decided to list the bears on Craigslist. Not only was the ad free but, judging by the people I see on public transit, the municipality I reside in has an ample supply of libidinous cousins. I was sure to find someone damaged enough to buy these off me.

MINT CONDITION CARE BEARS! HOLY CRAP DUDE, THIS IS YOUR LUCKY DAY. YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW

Bedtime Bear!!!!!
Love-A-Lot Bear!!!!!!

COME ON DOWN AND GET YOUR *&(@ING AMAZING BEARS. THIS WILL BLOW YOUR MIND’S ASS.
$20 OBO

As predicted, I got a ton of responses. Sensing the opportunity to start a bidding war, I directed most of them to come by my house Friday evening. I had the place to myself that night–my girlfriend was going to be at her parents for the weekend, where no doubt my qualities as a provider and human being would be discussed. “No real job.” “No prospects for same.” “Can only use a digital watch.” Etc.

The first caller came by a little after eight. I opened the door to see a man standing there, looking kind of nervous, a backpack slung over one shoulder. He appeared to be in his mid 40s, and had the look of a fellow who’d never once lost a fight with a cheeseburger. There was something a bit off about him, though he didn’t look threatening in the least. I guess this is what Care Bear enthusiasts look like. “Hi,” he said. “I’m hear about the uh, bears?”

“Yeah, come on in,” I said, opening the door and making room for him to enter. “You were…?”

“Mike. I sent you an email.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I remember. Mike. Come on in.”

He followed me into the house, past the front bathroom and kitchen to the living room. I had set out the two bears on the dining room table. “Here we are,” I said, gesturing at them.

“Nice. Very nice!” he said, looking around the room. He seemed more interested in the house than anything else. Eventually his eyes drifted over to the table. “Wow. Awesome bears! I haven’t seen those for ages.”

“You don’t collect them yourself?” I asked, slightly off balance. Why did he want them then?

“No, no. I mean yeah, I’ve got a bear right. Sure. For quiet time. But I don’t collect em like some of the guys.”

I struggled to piece all the words he had just used together into a better sentence. What the heck was “quiet time”? Before I could ask him to clarify, he excused himself to use the bathroom. I reeled, mouth hanging slightly open. Not actually recalling a time when I gave him permission to use the bathroom, I just sort of stood there, dumbstruck. Once the bathroom door shut behind him, I shook myself out of it. Well. Probably best not interrupt him now. But assuming he didn’t rape and kill me, I decided he was going to be asked to leave pretty soon. That’s probably the Emily Post preferred method of dealing with this sort of situation. When dealing with a prospective raper in your home, in all circumstances make him known where the door is. If it is the Autumn months it is expected you provide a tweed coat for him.

The doorbell rang, interrupting my meditations on tweed clad rapists. I walked to the front door and opened it to find two girls standing outside. They were not attractive in a conventional way, or, for that matter, an unconventional way. If pressed, I would probably have described them as “very nice people.”

“Hi,” one of them said, “I’m Cynthia. I emailed you earlier.”

“Right. You were the one who asked if you could bring your friend?” I asked quizzically. “I don’t see why you’d think that would be a problem.”

“You’re so sweet,” her friend said. She wasn’t wrong, but I played it cool and didn’t say anything to indicate I agreed with her assessment. I opened the door for them. As the pair walked past me into the house I noticed they had those huge bulky purses girls seem to love these days. Like they expect to have to set out for the headwaters of the Congo at a moment’s notice. Following them in, I frowned at the bathroom door as I passed it. Mike was bumping around in there, not making regular bathroom noises. Fucking Craigslist. This was becoming a very weird scene.

“Wow, you’ve got real Care Bears!” Cynthia exclaimed.

“Of course. That’s what the ad said. Look,” I said, rubbing my hands together, anxious to get this over with. “Two hundred a pop. You interested or not?”

“Two hundred?” The girls looked at each other, confused. “The ad said twenty.”

I stared blankly at them. Had I messed up the ad? It was entirely possible. The user interface for Craigslist looks like something that fell out of a monkey’s ass. Frowning, I crossed my arms and looked them over. “OK, well, that was a mistake then. Each bear’s two hundred.”

“Each bear?” Cynthia asked. “Your ad said $20 for admission.”

“Admission? For what?” I asked, incredulous. Behind me, I heard the bathroom door opening.

“Hi Cynthia!”

“Hey Tiger!”

I turned around to see a fat tiger standing on its hind legs in my living room. Stunned at the sudden appearance of a bipedal jungle cat in my home, it took me a moment to realize this was Mike. “Holy cats man, what are you doing?”

“Just getting a little more comfortable,” he said. An incredibly disturbing sound emitted from his head somewhere. Hours later I would realize, while shaking violently, that this was meant to be purring.

“Here’s your money,” he said, putting $20 on the table. Cynthia’s friend placed $20 on top of that and, with a wink, ducked past me and headed to the bathroom.

“Wait, whoa. What exactly do you people think my ad said?”

Cynthia and the fat tiger exchanged a glance with each other. “You said you were a furry enthusiast who wanted to hold a party.”

I gaped, incredulous at what she just said. “My ad? The ad which said I had two mint condition Care Bears for sale? A Bedtime Bear, and a Love-A-Lot Bear? That ad? You read that and thought I wanted people to come over, dress up as animals and fuck each other in my house?”

Cynthia squinted at me, as if I was the one being insane in a tiger costume. “You posted an ad in the Services Offered section with the words ‘Bear,’ ‘Bedtime,’ ‘Love-A-Lot’ and ‘Come on down?’ Dude. You knew what you were asking for.”

“You’re saying I posted a coded message advertising my fervent desire for people to get their sex smell all over my house, WHILE DRESSED AS ANIMALS!?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Well, that makes perfect sense then. All right. Have fun.”

Cynthia and Mike the fat tiger looked at me blankly.

“GET THE FUCK OUT!” I shrieked at them. “DON’T ANIMALS UNDERSTAND SARCASM?”

With surprising speed the fat tiger suddenly lunged at me. I recoiled in horror, stumbling to the ground as I backed away. The man-beast fell on me, using his extra 50 pounds to easily pin me down. “Growl,” he whispered in my ears.

It was right around here when I think my penis retracted itself entirely within my body cavity. If it helps, please visualize the remainder of the story as if told by a hermaphrodite.

Full body panic spasm. I was suddenly in the middle of a very special episode of the 80s sitcom that is my life. But I knew there was no Mr. Drummond coming to make everything better. I struggled to fight the man-tiger off, but given my reluctance to touch any part of him, I found the process somewhat difficult. I was forced to devise a new martial art on the spot, using nothing but the principles of elbows and cringing. Big playful, furry slaps and terrifying noises greeted my ineffectual blows.

Elsewhere in the apartment I could hear Cynthia letting more people in. Very quickly the house began filling up with people clad in costumes. Cats, dogs, gerbils, hamsters, wolves. Winnie the fucking Pooh. They were mostly just talking and chatting first. Someone found the stereo and put on some music. Did you know that furries have their own music? I do.

Not long after that, Mike the fat tiger got off me, but by that point I had completely lost control of the situation. Apparently word must have gotten out on some sort of Furry phone tree, because people started showing up by the car load. In very short order the chatting and music was drowned out by an entirely different, and much worse type of sound. It was the aural equivalent of tasting someone else’s barf.

I was going to actually go out and find real pictures of furry humping for this article. But then after thinking about it for a bit, I didn’t.

Naturally I called 911. They did say they’d send animal control over right away, but it wasn’t until five minutes later that I realized they were fucking with me. My experience with Mike the fat tiger demonstrated that I wouldn’t get far trying to physically throw these people out. I found a flashlight, and using the old shine a light on the ground and see who chases it trick, managed to lure a couple guys dressed as cats outside. But that was the extent of my success. This was happening. Watching it happen was out of the question. Reluctantly then, I retired to the porch, where I spent the next six hours crying and collecting admission.

EPILOGUE:

All told, the furries were actually OK people. The house wasn’t that badly messed up at all, although I cleaned it thoroughly regardless, and in truth, will probably never stop cleaning. The Care Bears were gone. I was OK with that. I don’t think I really wanted them back anyways. Some good news though: I cleared $2200 at the door.

Though that’s also probably bad news, the more that I think about it.

__

At midnight on Monday evening, copies of the latest book by Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol, went on sale to interested consumers of fast paced bullshit. A direct sequel to The Da Vinci Code, the new novel features Brown’s go-to protagonist Robert Langdon, performing all manner of breathtaking off-the-cuff art appreciation while on the run from shadowy forces. More than that, Brown’s latest is a stirring gong clash for the publishing world: proof that you don’t need wizards or vampires to make your book a bestseller, so long as you write for a fifth grade audience.

To prepare for this event, last night I camped out at my local bookstore to get a copy. Cracked doesn’t rely on advance copies for review, as those are frequently sent out to reviewers in fragrant, jewel encrusted wrappings, perhaps to tempt less upstanding critics into squeezing more favorable reviews out into the toilet bowls that are their respective publications. That’s right, here at Cracked we buy our copies for review, if not shoplift them outright. That’s Our Commitment To You.

Six hectic hours of caffeine fueled reading later and I’m here to report to you on whether this book is worth your time or, more accurately, whether the first 80 and last six pages are worth your time. The short answer: Yes, but only because we both know how valuable your time is.

The novel begins with Robert Langdon being invited to speak at a conference in Washington by a man who will inevitably die in the first few pages. Sure enough, after arriving in the Capitol building, he discovers a gruesome murder scene laden with dense Masonic imagery and blood. Langdon then spends the next couple of pages kicking down doors and looking behind curtains, trying to find who’s fucking with him. He is pissed. “Who do you think I am, fucking Angela Lansbury?” he screams.

With no response forthcoming to his query, Langdon reluctantly takes on the role of elderly woman detective one more time, to investigate this murder and the preposterous circumstances behind it. As was widely rumored, Freemasonry plays a key role in this novel, particular its ties to Washington - both the man and the city. A whirlwind trip around D.C. offers scenes set in the Capitol building, the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, where Langdon decodes some of the dense symbolism present in the famous works of art there. The central secret all these works point to is too good to spoil, but let’s just say that George Washington’s penis was made out of solid diamond and he used it to communicate with aliens. I won’t say anything more.

By fucking them. OK, that’s it. Not another word.

Unfortunately, setting the novel in the nation’s capital makes it feel like the book is covering the same ground as those National Treasure films. It really feels like the lengthy delay between the publication of The Lost Symbol and The Da Vinci Code may have cost Brown some of his momentum–he’s been overtaken by his imitators. Still, Brown’s eye for detail and knowledge of the minutiae of famous historical sites is superb, and it immediately becomes clear he’s still a master at weaving a gripping yarn. A scene where Langdon and his companion visit the Lincoln Memorial and climb up the hollow pant leg, to discover the true Emancipation Proclamation (it’s a huge gold penis) packs more tension and interest than a dozen Nick Cage turdstravaganzas.

I won’t spoil who the true villain of the novel is (let’s just say he’s the CEO of Apple) but the antagonist who features most prominently throughout the course of the novel is a tattooed Masonic thug named Mal’akh. Throughout the novel he uses his secret Masonic powers (polishing, grout work and levitation) to stymie Langdon’s efforts at every turn. Like many of Brown’s villains however, he comes across as a little flat. Worse, Brown’s attempts to inject some personality via a catchphrase (“I will kick you right in the box!”) feel forced and unnatural.

Brown’s greatest skill as a writer is his ability to infuse a sense of tension in all scenes, and it’s in full effect here. Curiously, though, he backpedals in some scenes in an attempt to infuse a note of levity in the proceedings. This is an admirable goal, as the unrelenting tension can be overbearing at times, but many of these “comic” scenes too frequently degenerate into the realm of slapstick. What would be a nail biting chase down the Potomac, is nearly ruined when Langdon spends much of it dragging the preserved corpse of John Adams behind his boat. They end up escaping the villain and winning a waterskiing competition, but the whole chapter just felt disrespectful to me.

Langdon’s romantic interest this time around is Dr. Katherine Solomon, a specialist in noetic science, which is a field I’m not even going to bother relating here. OK, I lied. It’s horseshit. Regardless of her career, like all of Langdon’s companions, her sole purpose is to ask a lot of leading questions to Langdon as they rush past important pieces of art. She’s also the descendant of King Solomon and has a map to the moon tattooed on her back–facts which may become relevant in later chapters. I won’t spoil it for you.

The frantic pace of the book helps conceal some shortcomings. Notably, the motivations held by many of the characters break down when studied closely. In one scene, instead of waiting for the police like a normal person might, Langdon and Katherine will run off with the president’s trousers in search of the next clue. Mal’akh is even worse. Bizarrely, at one point he drops everything to go to Taco Bell for Fourthmeal. The frantic pace means this will all seem to make perfect sense during a casual read through, but later on you’ll think back and realize in every scene someone was eating a chalupa.

The long delay in this book sparked rumors that Brown had developed a case of writer’s block. Others have less charitably suggested that, buoyed by success, Brown had developed a distaste for the formula that made him a success and was raging internally at having to write another such piece. You can see this conflict when in one early scene, a character remarks to Langdon about how much he enjoyed reading about his antics in Paris a few months ago in The Da Vinci Code. When Langdon turns his back the character makes a “jerking off” motion with his hand. Even stranger is another scene set at a cocktail party, were actor Tom Hanks meets Langdon and tells him that he likes the “cut of his jib.” Another character nearby, introduced as Ban Drown, comments: “Can you believe the sheep who keep eating up this shit?” He then shares a high five with Tom Hanks, before they drive off together in a Hummer-limo full of models. After that, the next 11 pages are left blank (although in my copy a couple appeared to be stuck together with spit).

When all was said and done though, I ultimately enjoyed the first 80 and last six pages of The Lost Symbol, and have every reason to believe the rest of the pages were about as good. It was fast paced, interesting and was printed in a nice, easy to read typeface. There were shortcomings, but despite those, I’m give this book the highest rating I’ve ever awarded a book here on Cracked: two stars.

**

___

Special bonus content for die-hard Bucholz-fans (hi grandma): An off-site article I wrote for the upcoming film Zombieland, entitled How Iconic Movie Characters Would Deal With A Zombie Attack. You should definitely check it out.

___

So a movie called Gamer was released this weekend. You probably haven’t heard about it–the producer’s have evidently done everything in their power to prevent people from actually seeing the film. It has no advertising budget to speak of and is apparently only showing in a single theater located in a network of Taliban controlled caves in western Pakistan. Why the film’s makers don’t want anyone to see their movie is an open question–I, as always, choose to blame the gypsies.

Hanging a column premise on a movie no one’s heard about or seen is a pretty bad idea, but I’ve never been one to back away from one of those. So I guess I should explain a bit about the film. The premise is that “in the future,” mind control technology will advance to the point that we’ll be able to control an individual’s every movement. In the film this technology is used to implement real life video games, where convicted criminals play the role of video game characters. Naturally these video games will be played to the death, because evidently “in the future,” our children and children’s children are all going to grow up to be amoral monsters. What up wit dat, parents?

A key plot point in the movie is a device that allows the player to speak directly with the character they’re controlling. Angry arguments about the necessity of all those rocket jumps presumably. I’m unlikely to ever learn what they actually talk about, since the odds of me seeing this film are roughly similar to the odds of me winning a high jump competition thanks to the power of my own flatulence. Which is to say, possible, but unlikely.

However, this got me to thinking: What would classic video games be like if you could have a conversation with the character you were controlling? What would they think of the twisted obstacle courses we put them through with our clumsy childhood reflexes? I decided to start this thought exercise with what is probably the most recognizable video game character to ever live, Mario, in the classic NES game, Super Mario Brothers.

___

Level 1-1

Mario: Whoa! Where am I? What the hell is going on? And now I’m walking!

Chris Bucholz: Oh hey dude. That’s just me. I’ve got the stick now, you just relax.

M: I don’t understand! I have no memory of anything until… Whoa! What the hell is that?

CB: Chill dude.

M: Don’t go near that! Don’t go near that! That’s bigger than I am. OHHHHHH SHHHHHIIIT. Gross!

CB: See? It’s nothing.

M: What was that? That thing that I jumped on. I ki… you killed it! You’re a monster! It wasn’t going to hurt anyone.

CB: No, it’d have killed you. Trust me.

M: Why should I trust you? Who are you? Hey slow down. Don’t jump here! OW!

CB: What? I just got you got a coin. We’ll need that later. Hey, does that hurt?

M: Does smashing a solid metal block with my head hurt? YES IT HURTS, DOCTOR ROCKET GENIUS.

CB: How about this?

M: OW!

CB: So the brick ones hurt too. Huh. They look squishy.

M: Listen jackhole! When I figure… OW!… out who you… OW!… are… OW!… I’m going to- don’t eat that mushroom! Are you crazy? Oh! Oh fuck, yes! I am huge!

CB: Thought you’d like that. Now you want to shut up for a bit?

M: Yeah, yeah, you seem to know what you’re doing. God. I feel fantastic. Look at this shit. I’m jumping like 30 feet in the air. This is sick! Wait till Luigi hears about this.

CB: He can jump higher.

M: What? You are out of your fucking mind. That little stronzo couldn’t jump to save his life.

CB: Well in the accepted canon, he can jump a lot higher and further than you. Though not in this game, I think. I think in this game he’s just got different pants.

M: This is a game?

CB: Yeah. We’re just going to run off here and score some points and save the princess.

M: You sound like you know what you’re doing. You’ve played this game before then… ow!… I take it?

CB: Yeah, but it’s been like 15 years. Just doing it now for work.

M: Bustin’ your hump for the man. I hear that. Hey what’s that? That flowery thing. It looks tasty. I totally want to eat that.

CB: You will definitely like this.

M: Oh rad! Ha ha hahhahahahhahah! Pop pop pop! Take that you little pricks!

CB: Told ya.

M: Pop! Pop! Pop pop! Hahahahahah!

CB: Heh.

M: Whoa. Did you just kill a turtle? Not cool dude. He looked scared. I could have just jumped over him.

CB: Uh-huh. Or maybe you could have run around him?

M: What’s “around” mean?

CB: Nothing. Just checking something.

________

LATER

M: OwOwOwOwOwOwOwOwOwOw. Fucker! So what’s the deal again with all these coins I’m getting?

CB: If we collect a hundred of them, you get an extra life.

M: Cool. Very cool. Followup question: Why would I need an extra life?

CB: Hmmmmmmm.

M: Hmm what?

CB: Hey, check out that flag!

M: Oh cool!

_________

Level 1-2

M: So these blue guys are just like before, except now they’re blue.

CB: Yeah, exactly the same. We’re dealing with a pretty limited palette I’m afraid.

M: Oh! Careful! Watch the turtle! OW OW OW OW OW OW!

CB: Shit. Sorry dude.

M: You fucking dumbass! That really hurt! And now I’m tiny again? How does that work?

CB: It’s cool. I’ll be careful.

M: Oh you’ll be better than careful. You’re going to murder every turtle you see from now on. I mean it. Turtle holocaust. Go.

________

LATER

CB: Hey, how do you feel about warping?

M: I don’t know what that means.

CB: It means we get to skip a bunch of levels. Beat the game faster.

M: Will we bypass any turtles?

CB: Oh yeah. Bunches of them.

M: No deal. Those guys have to go.

CB: OK, no warping. Let’s do this old school.

M: Old school!

________

Level 1-4

M: Jesus Christ, where did all this lava come from? How deep do these pipes go?

CB: This is a boss level. They like lava. It’s kind of a cliche now, but this was pretty cutting edge in 1985. I guess lava is more intimidating?

M: Damn right it’s more intimidating. Careful!

CB: Relax, this is an easy one. I haven’t even died yet.

M: What?

CB: Nothing.

M: No, seriously, what did you just say?

CB: Can’t talk now.

M: Whoa! Look at the size of that bastard! Let’s jump on him!

CB: Not a good plan.

M: Holy shit! He’s shooooooooting at us!

CB: Hang on.

M: Don’t land on that axe! That’s gonna kill! Hey. What just happened?

CB: You won dude. Congrats.

M: Boss!

CB: Now run in there and meet the princess!

M: Yeah!

CB: -

M: Who’s this little turd?

CB: Heh heh heh heh heh.

M: Oh you bastard.

_______

Level 2-1

CB: Oops.

M: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

M: What the hell happened? I was falling into a bottomless pit and now I’m back out here.

CB: Oh, so you can remember what happened. I was wondering about that.

M: Did I… die?

CB: Total accident dude. Sorry. Did that hurt?

M: Physically? No. I don’t think so. But that was terrifying. Like my brain was just sundered in two. It feels like I’m still screaming. Like I’ll never stop screaming.

CB: Bummer dude. Well, we’ve got three lives left. Let’s go.

M: What? Wait! We’re going to keep going?

CB: Can’t turn back. See?

M: Wow. Where’d everything behind us go?

CB: Excellent question.

______

Level 3-1

CB: Oh, I remember this bit.

M: What bit?

CB: Hang on. We can get a whole bunch of extra lives here.

M: Yes I see the point of those now. Let’s definitely get a whole bunch of those. How do we do that?

CB: You jump on that turtle there about a hundred times or so.

M: Fuck that turtle. Let’s fuck up his whole day.

_____

Level 4-2

M: Seriously, I’m going to kill the next guy that lives in a princess-less castle.

CB: Heh. Yeah, they’re notorious. Hey, has your attitude towards warping changed? We’re coming up on another one.

M: Fuck this noise. Let’s hit it.

_______

Level 8-4

CB: I said I’m sorry all right? The eighth world is fucking hard!

M: You know what’s hard? Plummeting into bottomless pits, getting beaned by a dozen hammer throwing cocksuckers and having bullets the size of a car smash into your face. How about you take all the dicks out of your mouth, and then stop killing me?

CB: Hey. It’s not that simple, ass. You have any idea how floaty the controls are on 25-year-old video games? You handle like a fucking post office.

M: Oh this is my fault is it? Well maybe if your parents weren’t twins your thumbs wouldn’t come out of your wrists.

CB: Hey? You know what? Fuck this. I’ve beaten this game a billion times before. I’ve got enough material for this column. See ya later chump.

M: Fine with me penis-sheathe. Better off without you.

CB: Oh yeah? Hey, how’d you like it if this masking tape played for awhile?

M: What?

CB: Yeah? See that lava over there? How’d you’d like to run into that 82 times in a row? -tapes down button on controller-

M: YOU BASTARD!

CB: Hahahahahahahhahah -walks out of room-

______

LATER

M: ARGHAAAHHHHSFHGDN

CB: -eating nachos, laughing- HA HA HAhahahahahhahahahahh.

________

This past week, shockwaves were sent across the Internet when images appeared on a handful of websites depicting the KFC Double Down Sandwich. The images showed a “sandwich” where the bread had been replaced with two fried chicken fillets. The ads also boasted that the sandwich contained something called “Colonel’s Sauce.” Since then commentators have been angrily shaking their fists at the sky, cursing the god that would allow such an affront to decency to exist.

As the Internet’s preeminent voice on fried meals, Cracked.com obviously had to find out what this sandwich was all about. And as Cracked’s foremost “columnist with no outstanding warrants,” I was the only one capable of crossing state lines to do this–a necessary step, as the Double Down Sandwich is only available in select test markets. When it became clear I’d have to travel to land this scoop, and after Cracked Editor-in-Chief Jack O’Brien agreed to pay absolutely none of my expenses, I decided I might as well go full bore, and visit KFC’s corporate headquarters in Kentucky: The so called “Sleeping In Your Car State.”

When I arrived at KFC Headquarters, I showed them my business card and several back issues of Cracked magazine, and then explained what exactly Cracked magazine was, and then maybe lied a bit to make us sound more influential in the poultry industry. My bona fides established, I was granted an interview with Senior Vice President of Product Development Frank Bryant. A cheerful receptionist ushered me into a meeting room where I was told to wait for Mr. Bryant. While cooling my heels, I admired several paintings depicting chickens dressed in business attire and sitting around in office settings; making phone calls, taking stenography, that sort of thing. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Bryant entered the room and introduced himself, insisting I call him Frank. Standing by the window overlooking the KFC campus, I launched into my list of questions.

“What is the deal with the Double Down Sandwich?” I asked, shooting my wad immediately.

Frank laughed. “I thought you’d ask about that. I’ll be happy to tell you.” A strange look came over his eyes then, like a great weight had just settled upon him. “I can also arrange a tasting for you, if you wish?” I indicated I’d appreciate that, and he made a quick phone call. Hanging up the phone, he turned to me, took a breath and began speaking.

“A couple years ago, KFC Corporation was in really bad shape. Growth had stalled, and even reversed in some markets. Some restaurant sales were way down. We were getting hammered in the press, especially on health issues. And on the flip side of the coin, we were getting squeezed by competitors offering triple stacked burgers with two types of bacon, cheese flavored mayonnaise and so forth. So we were starting to lose the ‘Experienced Eater’ market as well.”

I started dutifully writing all of that down, but soon discovered I couldn’t write that fast. I angled my notebook away from him and faked it. In fact a lot of what he said in the previous paragraph is completely made up. Sorry.

He continued. “It was around this time that we were coming up with some of our worst ideas.”

I nodded. “You’re talking about the Famous Bowl.”

“Yes, the Famous Bowl.” He shook his head and stared at his feet. I gritted my teeth, then stepped forward, slapping him as hard as I could. I think I left my feet.

His head recoiled from my blow, and he stumbled backwards, knocked off balance. He rubbed his jaw, staring at me while he regained his composure. “Thank you,” he finally said.

After a moment’s pause, Frank continued his story. “After a while, a new vice president, recently transferred from our European division, offered an unusual solution. His name was Mannheim Fritzpain, and he observed that for the past 20 years KFC had been chasing trends instead of setting them. Sometimes this strategy worked, sometimes it didn’t; but it always meant we would be behind the curve. Fritzpain observed that the only time in our company’s history when we were groundbreaking was in the early years, after the Colonel perfected his original recipe. Back then, no one had ever seen anything like it. We changed the world.”

“So this guy suggested a new groundbreaking direction for the company? Like the Double Down Sandwich?”

“No, he suggested reanimating the corpse of Colonel Sanders.”

A rush of blood to my head. A buzzing sound in my ears. I felt dizzy.

“Our European division has a weird history. Lot’s of….” he waved his hands around searchingly, “…former Nazi scientists. For lack of a better word.” He leaned back and adjusted himself in his seat. “Feel free to report that incidentally, no one will believe you.”

I reminded him about the exacting standards of journalistic excellence Cracked was known for in the poultry industry, but he waved his hand as if swatting the issue away. He continued his story.

“Anyways, once the board voted on it, Doktor Fritzpain moved with remarkable speed.”

“He’s a doctor?”

“You know, I’m not exactly sure. That’s just what everyone called him. He was always wearing one of those reflector things on his head.”

I scribbled this down furiously.

Frank was kind enough to supply a photograph of Mannheim Fritzpain. He noted that this isn’t in black and white. That was his actual skin color.

“Anyways, the Colonel’s body was disinterred from its vault a couple days later, and then we just had to sit around waiting for the next thunderstorm. Then Hey Presto, there’s the Colonel again.”

“And how was he? How did he, uh, enjoy the experience?”

“Well, he was completely insane unfortunately. I mean even before he died, he was always a little…” Frank held his hand out and twitched it back and forth a little. “But it was definitely worse after. Just screeching and spitting and biting at anything that moved. Doktor Fritzpain had to keep him chained down and feed him Famous Bowls through a funnel.”

My shoulder flinched, as I instinctively made to slap him again. I caught it in time though, and steadied myself on the table. Frank watched all this impassively.

“A couple days later, the current CEO goes down to see this monstrosity.”

I nodded, beckoning him to continue.

“The Colonel,” he said before pausing. He swallowed. “The Colonel broke his chains. Killed the CEO and ripped the Doktor to shreds.”

“Jesus,” I shuddered. What a cliché. That’s fucking terrible. “What happened next?”

“Well,” Frank said, his tone suddenly meek. “According to Kentucky law, if you kill an executive of a company in one on one combat, you immediately take on his role and responsibilities.”

I shook my head in amazement. Those backward hillbillies.

Pictured: The Louisville Chamber of Commerce

Frank continued. “So now this abomination of God’s Will is in full control of the company! He immediately focuses his attention on Research & Development.”

“So it was the Colonel who pushed the creation of the Double Down Sandwich?” I asked, trying to pin Frank down.

Frank nodded. “He’s got chicken madness. No concept of chicken proportions. Everything has to contain more chicken, across the board. Chicken soft drinks. Chicken napkins. Stuff that doesn’t even make sense. Chicken athletic apparel. Chicken vowels.”

Frank’s expression changed. He looked scared and bewildered, lost in some terrible memory. I felt sorry for him. He shook his head, clearing his expression and then glanced at his watch. “If you’ll come with me, I have something to show you.” He gestured to a door. I acquiesced and followed him out of the room.

As we walked down the completely unremarkable looking corridors of KFC’s corporate headquarters, I found it hard to believe this was the site of blood-steeped rituals of unrelenting darkness. Well. Harder to believe. I asked: “So with his chicken madness, he must eat nothing but chicken then?”

“That’s what’s so crazy! He can’t stomach it! He’s tried. He’s tried a thousand times, but the only thing which slates his hunger now is human flesh.”

I bit my lip. “And is that a normal Kentucky thing, or is that new?”

“No, no. It’s new. And it’s not cool.”

I exhaled in relief.

“For the first few months he subsisted on the dessicated corpses of Doktor Fritzpain and our former CEO. Then a month ago he killed our Operations Manager when he protested about the new uniforms his people had to wear.”

“Chicken suits?” I guessed.

Frank shook his head. “No. Well, yes. If by chicken suit you mean a jumpsuit with dozens of pieces of chicken taped to it.”

I shook my head. That wasn’t what I meant by chicken suit.

We continued walking in silence. I got the impression Frank was leading me towards the research labs. “Frank, I do have one question. Why are you telling me all this?”

Frank looked me in the eye without saying anything. He opened a door, indicating for me to enter. It was a lab area. Spotless work benches. Stools. He gestured for me to take a seat. Finally he looked at me, a burning intensity in his eyes. “He’s changing the recipes. In some… pretty fundamental ways.”

“I don’t understand.”

Frank’s face fell. He looked utterly defeated. “You will. For now, though, I only ask one thing: Tell my story. Tell the world my story.”

Hesitation. “OK,” I finally said. “If I can get it under a thousand words,” I added quietly, trying not to move my lips.

He nodded. “Wait here.” He walked to the other side of the lab and through a pair of swinging double doors. On the other side I could see what looked like an industrial kitchen.

Speakers set into the ceiling began piping in music. The volume increased steadily. I didn’t recognize the song. It was some guy rapping, comparing eating fried chicken to having sex. It was pretty awful. I swore I actually heard someone screaming in the backing vocals at one point, but that was probably just my brain expressing its distaste for the music.

Eventually the music was shut off. A young woman in an apron came out of the kitchen holding a platter. On it sat a Double Down sandwich. She set it down in front of me and looked at me expectantly.

___

In the end, I found the KFC Double Down sandwich to be crisp, mildly tangy, a little messy and a harbinger of a blood soaked world of unrelenting pain. I give it two stars.

**

_____