BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #102:

Could it be that the Genocyber DVD dreamed me into existence to become its perfect owner?

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #267:

PRESIDENT TRUMP THREATENED TO DEPLOY TREASURY SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT’S EPIC ERMAHGERD FACE TO COW THE PEOPLE OF CANADA INTO SUBMISSION. ECONOMIC WARFARE EXPERTS SAY THIS IS YET ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF MR. TRUMP’S UNPRODUCTIVE PERFORMATIVE PUD-PULLING THAT MAY BE INTENDED TO DISTRACT AMERICANS FROM THEIR RAPIDLY DECLINING WAGES, HEALTH, AND HAPPINESS. A SOURCE CLOSE TO THE PRESIDENT SPEAKING UNDER CONDITION OF ANONYMITY SAID, “THE PEOPLE VOTED TO BURN DOWN THEIR OWN HOUSE BACK IN THE FALL OF 2024-MAY AS WELL ENJOY THE FINAL ACT OF THIS INFERNAL CLOWN SHOW!” . . . STOCKS ARE UP . . .

THE NEW SIGNAGE #37:

VORTEX OF BLARNEY, NONSENSE, AND WHIMSY NEXT 2 EXITS.

MANDATORY RULE #23:

All Bloomberg Terminals shall now come with Doom, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and Tetris pre-installed.

This I command!

THE NEW DREAM #63:

some vague dream of doom

WWIII, climate inferno, plagues, rogue AI

everything’s in the bad zone

it’s not good

at some point

there’s a real Book of Revelations thing going on

a miasma of dragon heads and tentacles and sternly written books of law and continent-sized tornados and counterintuitively fun-sized hurricanes and city-scaled prisons and everything’s sharp’n’rusty’n’glazed in a shimmering heat haze

none of this is easy

it’s a tough scene

suddenly: blazing light

I’m seated in a seminar-of-seminars

I’m well dressed, hungry

everyone else’s like me

Omelette Jesus sweeps onto the stage

suddenly: we’re all seated at a big dinner table eating breakfast-a bit of a mismatch, but we’ll let that go

I keep it to myself

now the double feature

vision blurring in and out

I’ve got two pairs of hands

I’m at the table and in the game room simultaneous

I’m eating a grandiose omelette that never gets eaten even though I keep on eating it

I’m working a SNES control pad, can’t even see the screen, don’t need it, ‘s a game of the mind

I horde it all to myself

I’m gorged on myster-

some vague dream of pursuit

there’s an army of detectives on my ass

I fake them out by running towards ‘em and they take flight

but then they’re on my ass again

it goes back’n’forth like that

I’m chasing

I’m chased

F.A.Q. #34:

Q: I know you’re not religious, but do you have a favorite religious character from scripture or some other source?

A: I’d say my favorite religious character would be the priest from the movie The Living Skeleton.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #115:

Axel Foley successfully executes a triple Axel.

THE NEW PARADIGMS IN BRAGGING RIGHTS #31:

I’m so stimulant that depressants organized a vicious smear campaign against me and my policies.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #266:

OPINION/COMMENTARY: THE PLACE IS EARTH. THE TIME IS NOW. LAST WEEK I SAID KEN BONE IS NOT COMING TO SAVE US, AND THAT WE MUST DIG DOWN DEEP TO FIND THE KEN BONE WITHIN. AND I MEANT ALL OF THAT. TRULY, I DID. BUT NOW THAT I’VE HAD SOME TIME TO THINK ABOUT IT . . . MAYBE WE COULD DO MORE? LIKE, WE SPEND TRILLIONS ON THE DEFENSE BUDGET, AND WE DON’T WIN ANY WARS, WE JUST END UP COMMITTING WAR CRIMES, WE CREATE SITUATIONS WHERE OUR MILITARY PERSONNEL SUFFER NEEDLESSLY ACROSS MULTIPLE EXTENDED DEPLOYMENTS, WE BECOME CYNICAL, WE BECOME CRUEL, WE INTERNALIZE OUR MILITARISTIC AGGRESSION AND USE IT AGAINST OUR DOMESTIC POPULATION WITH THINGS LIKE WARRANTLESS SURVEILLANCE AND THE BORDER WALL AND THE I.C.E. DEATH SQUAD AND ALL THE REST . . . LIKE MAYBE IN ADDITION TO THE KEN BONE THING . . . I DUNNO . . . MAYBE WE COULD REDISTRIBUTE SOME OF THAT PENTAGON MONEY SO WE CAN HAVE UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE? SOMETHING LIKE THAT? . . . TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH . . . AFTER I DUG DEEP INTO MYSELF AND FOUND THE KEN BONE WITHIN . . . I TRADED IT AT THIS RETRO TOY CONVENTION FOR A MINT-IN-BOX NEMESIS ENFORCER ACTION FIGURE-THE WINGED DUDE FROM THE 1980s G.I. JOE ANIMATED MOVIE. YEAH, IT WAS A GOOD DEAL. I DEFINITELY TRADED UP. COULD BE A LESSON IN THAT, BIG DAWGS!

THE NEW SIGNAGE #36:

VORTEX OF SCRATCHIES, WALKIES, AND TREATS NEXT 2 EXITS.

MANDATORY RULE #22:

The moment you find Carmen Sandiego is the moment you become Carmen Sandiego.

This I command!

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #44:

A remake of Three Amigos starring John de Lancie’s Q (from the Star Trek media franchise), Mister Mxyzptlk (from DC Comics), and the Impossible Man (from Marvel Comics).

F.A.Q. #33:

Q: What is your favorite snack?

A: To tell you the truth, I’ve turned against snacks. Frankly, I think eating between meals is both a sign of and a contributor to the total breakdown of discipline in the nation . . . although . . . now that I think about it . . . every meal is between meals . . . which means that snack is inescapable . . . snack is just fate by another name . . . alas . . .

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #114:

An axiomatic shopping cart successfully executes a triple Axel.

THE NEW PARADIGMS IN BRAGGING RIGHTS #30:

I’m so sleepy my dreams wake up from boredom.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #265:

OPINION/COMMENTARY: THE TIME IS NOW. THE CRISIS IS REAL. KEN BONE IS NOT COMING TO SAVE US. WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO DIG DOWN DEEP AND FIND THE KEN BONE WITHIN.

THE NEW SIGNAGE #35:

VORTEX OF DESIRE, CORRUPTION, AND MURDER NEXT 2 EXITS.

YOU (DON'T) KNOW #7:

You think you’ll have a better time with the alternate timeline version of things wherein the heroes are villains and the villains are heroes . . . but you just can’t shake the feeling that you’re now stuck in a trifling “Opposite Day” type of deal. 

And even if you could switch back to the “Original Recipe” timeline . . . well, how long before you just start resenting that as a numbingly obvious status quo, eh? 

And then if you try to hop back and forth between the two timelines . . . well, how long ‘til your legs start getting tired?

You can’t just plop down between the two destinations-that’d be like sleeping at the airport or bus station, wouldn’t it?

If only your legs never got tired!

If only you could do without sleep!

If only you could stay forever on the run!

If only you could overcome your stern need for definitiveness and embrace the whimsy of a grandiose Opposite Day!

Alas . . .

FUTURISTIC MEAL PLAN

THINGS NEVER SAID #65:

“I went to the place where all the chess guys play chess . . . but I didn’t know how to play chess. I never learned. What I told people in those days was I only ever learned checkers. The idea was that I would lull the wannabe Bobby Fischers into a false sense of confidence. And then, at the last moment, I’d hit ‘em with checkers stratagems injected into a chess context . . . but that didn’t ever work, because those chess guys were all over my ass as soon as I ever started moving those chess pieces all wrong, just started shouting at me, ‘Stop! You can’t do that! The hell is wrong with you? Get outta here!’ . . . but, actually, things were even crazier than I just told you . . . because I didn’t even know checkers. I told people I was a checkers guy to trick them off guard . . . but then when I sat down to play I hit them with my Axis and Allies skills-boy, did that piss everyone off! I’m slapping down playing pieces for tanks and bombers and munitions factories-the chess guys are like, ‘The fuck is this? Get your shit off the board!’ I’m even making the battlefield sound effects of guns and cannons and explosions and heavy bomber engines. You’d think that would’ve won people over . . . but it gets worse. After pulling this kinda shit on the chess guys for a few years-oh, I traveled from place to place all over the country to outrun the bans on my ass-I went home one evening only to find that my Axis and Allies board game had left me a Dear John letter. Right there on the shelf where it used to be . . . if there was ever a time I wished I couldn’t read . . . I had become such a relentlessly irritating person that I ended up pushing that Axis and Allies board game set into spontaneously manifesting consciousness, literacy, and the power to levitate itself right out the door. That’s how irritating I was back then. It was something . . . I look back on all this . . . and I’m impressed. Because, in recent years, I haven’t done anything like that. Got married. Had two kids. I got a pretty good job. Money in the bank. Diversified investment portfolio. I have a mistress. I got a woman on the side. I play all kinds of tennis. My joint health is spectacular. My cardio’s next level. I never get dizzy in the sauna. I meet up with my boys two nights a week for Texas Hold ‘Em. I’m loved. I’m respected. I’m viewed as a rock solid adult type of guy. My mother’s so happy I stopped being a massively weird fuck-up. My father shook my hand . . .and I tell you . . . I can barely stand any of it . . . Look . . . back then, with my antics, I got to the point of inducing consciousness within a bunch of inanimate board game components, okay? Who does that?! I did. I was like unto God with my powers and shit once upon a time . . . and then I got scared . . . gave it all up to do what a million other people do . . . honestly . . . I only ever played Axis and Allies like . . . once? It takes so long to set up, and then it takes forever to actually play-and the whole time I’m like, ‘Dude. This is just fighting World War II all over again. We could’ve already fought World War III!’ . . . we’re always re-fighting the last war, I guess . . .”