Dear Berserker,
I'm a big fan of Milton's Paradise Lost, but I can't seem to make it function in practical situations!
Please help. An upcoming dinner party hinges on my success in this matter.
Sincerely,
Mammon in Tights
Dear Mammon,
The story of Adam and Eve, as retold in Paradise Lost, can be tasked to function as a stirring critique of the kind of relationship that leads to dinner parties. The original sinners, naughty as they were meant to be, fundamentally serve as a schematic for dull relationships produced by settling for what's as hand.
What other choice did either of them have? They put up with one another, took what was available, found the whole thing a bit dull, and their efforts to pass the time wound up getting them kicked out of paradise. Quotidian domestic drudgery is the enemy of the delightful. Who the hell has time for dinner parties when they're busy screwing to the point of death by exhaustion? Nobody. The dinner party itself represents the same brand of inadequacy outlined by Milton.
The devil himself will choke on the irony, if the cooking doesn't get him first.
Regards,
Berserker
Monday, June 30, 2008
a doppelganger's dagger-dance duet
Nick,
Who would win in a fight between you and your doppelganger, and can you prove it?
Cringingly,
Thomson
Thomson, I understand your concern. Frankly, the possibility of a world with more than one of me is frightening even to ponder. Even locked in mortal kombat, there's the possibility that my clone and I might become distracted enough from eviscerating one another to notice the whole rest of the world waiting to be devoured. And with our forces combined, we'd either be unstoppably powerful or just dangerously disoriented. Risky business indeed.
As for brutalizing my own doppelganger, I've put some thought into the matter. The result depends on the duplication process. If it produces any discernible difference between the doppelganger and myself, every moment he took adjusting to it is a moment I could spend plotting how to use it against him.
The standard evil twin comes equipped with a sweet goatee, as seen here:
While my doppelganger was busy being distracted by his newly awesome facial hair, I'd be finding the nearest implement to tangle into that stuff and rip his face off. The same basic principle applies to any other variation.
In the other case, (where we are entirely indistinguishable, even to ourselves) one of me would be the winner either way. Good enough. Either way, I'd get to eat the flesh of my other self, absorbing his powers and becoming exponentially mightier than ever before.
For proof, I have a detailed predictive computer model of the fight. It can be viewed by using a microscope to examine the glint in my eye.
Who would win in a fight between you and your doppelganger, and can you prove it?
Cringingly,
Thomson
Thomson, I understand your concern. Frankly, the possibility of a world with more than one of me is frightening even to ponder. Even locked in mortal kombat, there's the possibility that my clone and I might become distracted enough from eviscerating one another to notice the whole rest of the world waiting to be devoured. And with our forces combined, we'd either be unstoppably powerful or just dangerously disoriented. Risky business indeed.
As for brutalizing my own doppelganger, I've put some thought into the matter. The result depends on the duplication process. If it produces any discernible difference between the doppelganger and myself, every moment he took adjusting to it is a moment I could spend plotting how to use it against him.
The standard evil twin comes equipped with a sweet goatee, as seen here:
While my doppelganger was busy being distracted by his newly awesome facial hair, I'd be finding the nearest implement to tangle into that stuff and rip his face off. The same basic principle applies to any other variation.
In the other case, (where we are entirely indistinguishable, even to ourselves) one of me would be the winner either way. Good enough. Either way, I'd get to eat the flesh of my other self, absorbing his powers and becoming exponentially mightier than ever before.
For proof, I have a detailed predictive computer model of the fight. It can be viewed by using a microscope to examine the glint in my eye.
booming grooming keeps us zooming
Dear Nick,
How is it that you can use the words "butt," "sauce," and "Marinetti" in the same sentence and maintain the glossy sheen of your berserker locks?
Love, Santa
Like this: "Marinetti once held an entire village hostage for ten days by threatening to cook his own <3utt in their only chef's most treasured marinara sauce pot."
Ironically, he later took a bunch of speed and did it anyway, and that is the exact secret recipe for Be®se®ke® brand conditioner. Keeps yer locks shining like the fresh-spilt blood of yer foes.
Love, Vidal Berserker Sassoon
How is it that you can use the words "butt," "sauce," and "Marinetti" in the same sentence and maintain the glossy sheen of your berserker locks?
Love, Santa
Like this: "Marinetti once held an entire village hostage for ten days by threatening to cook his own <3utt in their only chef's most treasured marinara sauce pot."
Ironically, he later took a bunch of speed and did it anyway, and that is the exact secret recipe for Be®se®ke® brand conditioner. Keeps yer locks shining like the fresh-spilt blood of yer foes.
Love, Vidal Berserker Sassoon
lovely locks leave lonely ladies lusting
Nick, why haven't you donated your hair to Locks for Love yet? Do you just not have a soul, or what?
A friend of mine from my fencing days caught cancer, and wound up doing the whole chemo/hair-loss adventure. It was not the best. I offered my hair, if she wanted it, but she didn't. She's still staying alive, and still beating the fuck out of people, but I'm still hanging onto it in case she changes her mind.
If I knew LoL were gonna make my hair into a wig and give it to some sad cancer kid, I'd probably do it. But if they're just going to turn it into money, I'd rather not. If all they're getting out of my donation is money, I'd be just as well selling my own hair and donating the money to curing cancer.
Or using my hair as a garrotte to slay my enemies so I can donate their hair.
A friend of mine from my fencing days caught cancer, and wound up doing the whole chemo/hair-loss adventure. It was not the best. I offered my hair, if she wanted it, but she didn't. She's still staying alive, and still beating the fuck out of people, but I'm still hanging onto it in case she changes her mind.
If I knew LoL were gonna make my hair into a wig and give it to some sad cancer kid, I'd probably do it. But if they're just going to turn it into money, I'd rather not. If all they're getting out of my donation is money, I'd be just as well selling my own hair and donating the money to curing cancer.
Or using my hair as a garrotte to slay my enemies so I can donate their hair.
dental domestication for the sake of decimation
Nick, why do so many people have to get their wisdom teeth extracted?
Shouldn't evolution have made our teeth come in straight?
Impactfully yours,
Andrew's teeth
Dearest teeth,
Here's the thing about wisdom teeth: they provide us with the unique opportunity to get pieces ripped out of our faces. Often, getting bodyparts ripped loose from one's person is accompanied with a significant loss of functionality (of one sort or another). Not very cool. On the other hand, getting a wisdom tooth yanked out of yer face is brutal and awesome, and it only makes life easier, so there's no reason not to.
It might seem that evolution should favor straight teeth, for function's sake. However, this ignores an important point-- evolution favors the agonizing, the brutal, and the terrifying. If you were a predator, which prey would you choose: the well-adjusted, well-fed, straight-toothed one, or the screaming, agonized, horribly crooked-toothed monster? (Your answer should be "both", but you see my point.) It is evolution's duty to make us unstoppable killing machines, and it does this admirably.
Good luck surviving the mutilation that shall soon befall you. If you don't make it, I shall see you someday manning the awesome fanged ramparts of Valhalla.
Yer pal,
Nick
Shouldn't evolution have made our teeth come in straight?
Impactfully yours,
Andrew's teeth
Dearest teeth,
Here's the thing about wisdom teeth: they provide us with the unique opportunity to get pieces ripped out of our faces. Often, getting bodyparts ripped loose from one's person is accompanied with a significant loss of functionality (of one sort or another). Not very cool. On the other hand, getting a wisdom tooth yanked out of yer face is brutal and awesome, and it only makes life easier, so there's no reason not to.
It might seem that evolution should favor straight teeth, for function's sake. However, this ignores an important point-- evolution favors the agonizing, the brutal, and the terrifying. If you were a predator, which prey would you choose: the well-adjusted, well-fed, straight-toothed one, or the screaming, agonized, horribly crooked-toothed monster? (Your answer should be "both", but you see my point.) It is evolution's duty to make us unstoppable killing machines, and it does this admirably.
Good luck surviving the mutilation that shall soon befall you. If you don't make it, I shall see you someday manning the awesome fanged ramparts of Valhalla.
Yer pal,
Nick
unceremonious introduction disco
It's about that time again.
Time to be honest with ourselves. When we live with someone who's immortal, omnipresent, and ambidextrous, its hard to really know if you are alone when you are with your special person.
Admit it. You've always had some questions for Mr. Salvatore. How'd you know I love to be picked up? Where do you get all of those tvs? Do you really just have a cartilage skeleton that enables you to bend so awesomely?
So now's the time. Ever wanted to ask God a question? This is kind of like that.
I'll start.
Nick, what's the best way to gut a fish?
Well, Jordan, it looks like you have a lot of questions today. Let's start from the beginning:
(It all started when I was having a brawl with the devil about the merits of sausages over tacos. We were both choking each other in mutual brutal guillotine holds, when I noticed we were both getting turned on. Must have been that auto-erotic asphyxiatiawhatsit, like on after-hours German pirate TV. Fair enough.
So I flipped her around and we screwed so hard that the inside of the monster truck overheated, hydrogen fused, and the engine block [which was bigger than a fucking city block, because back then they knew how to make fucking cars] blew up. It took out the entire Gigafuckarena, Oroboros-truckasuarus included. Let me tell you, the audience was so impressed they all cried tears of blood, then napalm, then blew up.
They're calling it the big bang these days, but I've had better.)
Now for yer questions:
1) I knew you love to be picked up because you have a body, and the body's natural inclination is to be flung awesomely through the air (either by explosions or strong Scotsmen who have run out of logs). Different people are in different degrees of denial about the underlying nature of bodily being, and this can even induce false consciousness and force them to think they don't like being picked up, but on some level they know this to be false.
You never struck me as the type to lie to yerself, so up you went.
2) The TVs come from dumpsters, mostly near my home. Cultural fascism has apparently convinced some people that there's ever any reason not to have more TVs, but this is tragically short-sighted.
3) Years of hauling an excessively heavy backpack at a formative age caused me to require a great deal of back-stretching and similar contrivances in order to face junior high without crippling agony. Then that didn't work, so I tore the spine out of one of those Cirque de Soleil creeps and paid my local barber-surgeon to sew it in. (I felt guilty about shafting him on the barber end of business, and wanted to do a good deed to impress my mom.)
4) Hold it in yer right hand, bite down around the head or middle, and jerk yer head sharply to the left. The process can be mirrored if yer right hand fails to work properly. If you have no hands, use yer teeth to place the beast on a sturdy table and apply headbutts to its flank.
Yer unstoppable pal,
Nick
Time to be honest with ourselves. When we live with someone who's immortal, omnipresent, and ambidextrous, its hard to really know if you are alone when you are with your special person.
Admit it. You've always had some questions for Mr. Salvatore. How'd you know I love to be picked up? Where do you get all of those tvs? Do you really just have a cartilage skeleton that enables you to bend so awesomely?
So now's the time. Ever wanted to ask God a question? This is kind of like that.
I'll start.
Nick, what's the best way to gut a fish?
Well, Jordan, it looks like you have a lot of questions today. Let's start from the beginning:
(It all started when I was having a brawl with the devil about the merits of sausages over tacos. We were both choking each other in mutual brutal guillotine holds, when I noticed we were both getting turned on. Must have been that auto-erotic asphyxiatiawhatsit, like on after-hours German pirate TV. Fair enough.
So I flipped her around and we screwed so hard that the inside of the monster truck overheated, hydrogen fused, and the engine block [which was bigger than a fucking city block, because back then they knew how to make fucking cars] blew up. It took out the entire Gigafuckarena, Oroboros-truckasuarus included. Let me tell you, the audience was so impressed they all cried tears of blood, then napalm, then blew up.
They're calling it the big bang these days, but I've had better.)
Now for yer questions:
1) I knew you love to be picked up because you have a body, and the body's natural inclination is to be flung awesomely through the air (either by explosions or strong Scotsmen who have run out of logs). Different people are in different degrees of denial about the underlying nature of bodily being, and this can even induce false consciousness and force them to think they don't like being picked up, but on some level they know this to be false.
You never struck me as the type to lie to yerself, so up you went.
2) The TVs come from dumpsters, mostly near my home. Cultural fascism has apparently convinced some people that there's ever any reason not to have more TVs, but this is tragically short-sighted.
3) Years of hauling an excessively heavy backpack at a formative age caused me to require a great deal of back-stretching and similar contrivances in order to face junior high without crippling agony. Then that didn't work, so I tore the spine out of one of those Cirque de Soleil creeps and paid my local barber-surgeon to sew it in. (I felt guilty about shafting him on the barber end of business, and wanted to do a good deed to impress my mom.)
4) Hold it in yer right hand, bite down around the head or middle, and jerk yer head sharply to the left. The process can be mirrored if yer right hand fails to work properly. If you have no hands, use yer teeth to place the beast on a sturdy table and apply headbutts to its flank.
Yer unstoppable pal,
Nick
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