Chris Bucholz
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As a Cracked reader and red blooded individual, you're constantly looking for new experiences. "I want to live, God damn you!" you shriek at the sky, pounding your fists against your chest. "And not like the rest of these feeble minded food-holes. I need something real." A bolt of lightning strikes a tree behind you, sending it into flames, silhouetting you like an exclamation mark. "I need to attack an animal with a bicycle chain!" you say, and it is so true, the truest thing ever. "If only I had a guide to show me the way ..."
Welcome champion. This is the guide you were looking for. In the next few scrolls of your mouse wheel, you'll learn all the do's and double-do's of how to successfully attack an animal with a bicycle chain. I encourage you to use this advice as you make your way through the world, attacking animals and not telling anybody where you learned how.
"With this I will paint a portrait of pain."
Before we begin, it's important to pin down your motivation for attacking an animal with a bicycle chain. There are two primary reasons why you might want to do this:
1) You have a massive chemical imbalance in your brain
2) Other
Once you've selected which applies to you, be sure to act consistently, to make your behavior seem more plausible to the outside world, and to assist the actors who one day struggle to recreate your great deeds.
A bicycle chain is a segmented chain composed of tightly joined links, arranged such that they can only flex along a single axis of rotation. Bicycle chains are often found on bicycles, and in the hands of people with massive chemical imbalances in their brains.
These particular examples date from 19th century Italy, when young rogues used them to ride bicycles and thrash ugly dogs. The 30k dog-thrash biathalon remained Italy's national sport until the 1970's, when it was changed to smoking.
A bicycle chain has three main methods of attack:
Lashing/Whipping
Hold one end of the bicycle chain, and swing the remainder forward. A simple forward motion results in a lash - alternately, by recoiling your hand rapidly at the end of the stroke, the far end of bicycle chain will snap forward in a whipping motion. Both techniques can be effective at expressing how angry you are at an animal, and how superior human beings are for having mastered bicycle chain technology.
Because a bicycle chain can only flex in a single direction, make sure to whip your chain in that direction only. Rotating the chain 90 degrees and swinging it that way will not allow the chain to flex. Although this will certainly hurt whatever is struck, a solid impact will likely cause the links to shatter, leaving you chainless, and humiliating both yourself and all mankind.
Professional golfer Anthony Kim, seconds after shattering his bicycle-chain while chasing a gray squirrel. Note the look of utter despair, as Kim sits, doomed to forever wonder what might have been.
Strangling
Grasp both ends of your bicycle chain and, coming from behind, loop it over the throat of the animal you're attacking. This is a very intimate way of using a bicycle chain to attack an animal, and police profilers will assume that you knew this animal personally. "And possibly sexually," they'll say, before a snap cut to commercial.
Throwing
Wrap the bicycle chain into a compact lump, and heave it at the animal in much the same way as you would throw a ball or a smaller animal. This type of attack is largely ineffective, but may prove useful in specific circumstances. If you find yourself needing to attack a slow moving animal while in a seated position for example. In a lawn chair, attacking an insolent sloth in the sloth enclosure at the zoo is what I'm imagining, but please don't let that limit your own creativity.
Attacking an animal with a bicycle chain takes an enormous amount of mental discipline. A bicycle chain is itself a kind of untamed beast, and if you hope to master its sinuous wiles, you must learn to master your own chemical imbalances first.
There are three main emotions you may find yourself in when attacking animals with a bicycle chain:
Emotion #1: Fear
Fear can come from a lot of places. It might be exam-preparation stress, or the terror of facing a charging animal, or even the dread about what society will think when they find out what you're about to do to this duck. How you handle this fear is important - the adrenaline fear provides can cause your bicycle chain employing muscles to flex powerfully. Scientists call this Bicycle Chain Beast Mode or at least they would if they had any sense of showmanship.
Emotion #2: Ire
You've got good reason to be angry with the animals. You know who never has to pay any taxes? Animals. You know who shits wherever they like? Animals. You know who slept with your mother last night? etc... Animals can do whatever they want, wherever they want, and you're sitting there like a chump, pooing where you're told.
I've had enough with all your god damned rules toilet.
Like fear, rage will cause your adrenaline to pump, making you stronger. But you have to be careful, as it can make you overly aggressive, potentially getting you in trouble down the road. Many legal tests for self-defense collapse around the twenty-fifth bicycle chain lash. And if you chase a penguin across an entire zoo screaming obscenities at it, "That's not self defense at all," many judges will claim, shaking their heads with a confused and hurt look on their faces. "We don't have a crime for what you've done."
Emotion #3: Your Bicycle Repair Shop Is Under Attack By Animals
This is a complex and very specific emotion which is only really felt by bicycle mechanics, and even then only infrequently. But it's such a powerful one that it deserves to be mentioned here, and is perhaps the best and most focused mental state to be in when leaping from a work bench, bicycle chain a-whirl, shouting, "Welcome to my house of chain!"
Finally, here are some strategies for how to handle specific animals that you may find cause for attacking with a bicycle chain. Whether dangerous, adorable, or legally protected, know that all hate being struck with a bicycle chain.
Domestic Cat
This might seem like a good idea to start with, because domestic cats are small, and often a bit off-putting. But it turns out that there are cell phone cameras everywhere, all of them connected to the Internet at all times. There was that one woman in England who got caught throwing a cat in a garbage can, evidently because she was kind of a low grade supervillain. (AntiCatwoman?) She caught just enormous amounts of hell for that, and it's something you should probably avoid. No, I would suggest restricting yourself to attacking animals which are themselves attacking you, deserve it, or are less culturally embedded than cats.
Monkey
Monkeys are very curious animals, constantly getting into mischief, and often deserving of a good thrashing. They're also highly agile, and will prove difficult to strike with a bicycle-chain. Be wary of snaring your chain on a branch or other obstacle, which may allow the monkey to grasp the other end and enter into a tug of war with you. Losing a tug of war to a monkey and getting struck by your own bicycle chain is one of the lowest things that can happen to a man, and is the number one fear of all professional cyclists.
Wolf
The phrase "being fed to the wolves" typically isn't used literally any more, because of the relative imbalance between morality and wolves in our society. But that ratio is changing fast, and the way television is going it probably won't be long before someone - probably a failed contestant from The Bachelor -- volunteers to be actually fed to wolves in order to get on television.
"Please love us!"
If you think you're desperate and photogenic enough to be that person, heed these next words carefully: dual-wielded bicycle chains. Brash, kinetic, and wildly ineffective, a pretty girl swinging around two bicycle chains like a dervish will make for good television, and although you certainly won't win a fight against a wolf, you may survive long enough to get your own heavily-scarred, multiple-amputation themed Flava of Luv style show.
Bear
First, using basic weaving techniques, make yourself a suit entirely out of bicycle chains. This might sound insane, and it is, but it is much less insane then the next step, which is actually getting close to the bear. Bears are 800 pounds of furry violence, and are constantly eating things that aren't wearing 5/32" width bicycle-chain suits. Look it up.
Once you're up close to the bear and have had a good laugh at God, feel free to attack the bear in any way you see fit, although you'll be hard pressed to do any real damage to it. One thing I'd suggest is bear back riding, which if you manage to pull it off, is bound to get you mentioned in a Cracked article at some point in the future.
Giraffe
By the time you get to attacking a giraffe with a bicycle chain, you're clearly not a beginner any more. Kudos! As an expert animal-bicycle-chain-attacker-with, I'm going to propose a very advanced technique to you which is going to involve a very long bicycle chain, a high speed vehicle, and a whole lot of nerve. Because you're about to bring one of those fuckers down like an AT-AT.
Forget the Cracked article, if you manage to do this to a giraffe, people will write songs about you.
The Deadliest Animal Of All
As my editors have pointed out, when a fellow writes a guide about how to stripe animals with a bicycle chain, he's probably going to get a lot of angry animal-lovers who threaten to murder him, or at minimum who'll want to thrash him a bit himself with a bicycle chain. As my duty to provide useful advice to all readers of this article is absolute, I'd like to speak to the furious amongst you for a moment, and offer some advice on how best to beat me down like a rented mule.
- I am taller than average and will probably see you coming.
- I know no martial arts, but have seen Timecop three times.
- I tend to move to my right when dodging.
- I throw five knives out of my sleeves in a regular pattern, which should be easy to dodge.
- When I'm charging up my primary attack, Satire-Fist (where my entire forearm detaches and shoots across the room like a rocket) my chest glows red. This is my weak spot. Three strikes there with a bicycle chain and I will stumble, before entering my final form, Omega-Bucholz.
- Omega-Bucholz can be defeated by answering three riddles.
- If you finally manage to do all that, I will escape into the sky using one of my trademark trick umbrellas -- don't attempt to reload from a save point -- this cannot be stopped.
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For more from Bucholz, check out Every Chore's An Adventure When You 'Muppet Baby' That Shit and 27 Observations About The Goddamn KFC Line I'm In.
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