I just heard from one of my friends (who works for SunBow Entertainment - the lovely people who produced awesome shit like, oh I dunno, Transformers and G.I. Joe) that probably next fall Fox kids will begin airing one of my favoritiest animes ever:

One Piece

That's right, One "Luffy the Pirate's Gonna Punch Your Goddamn Face With His Rubber Fists And You'll Be All Like 'AAAAAAA HOLY SHIT IM MPUNCHED!'" Piece.

On the other hand, this is terrible news because that means fansub production's gotta stop. And it's going to air on a saturday morning. And I don't wake up on saturday mornings. And the dubbing's probably gonna be shit since there's no way it's gonna be subtitled.

But still, w00t.

Shhhhhhhhhh, shhhhhhhh! ::background giggling::

Okay, don't tell Ben this, but a few days ago I called up the landlord and we worked out a deal to actually have someone else rent the apartment below us! Oh man, it's too funny. I had to share with someone because this joke is just that good.

So, picture this: Ben is slaving away right now, packing up all his belongings and pulling up his roots. He'll hop into the drivers seat of his car, take one last, longing look at his house, and with a sigh and a wave he'll pull out of his driveway with an optimistic glean in his eye.

Ohhhhhh man, this is good. See, because while all of that is unfolding down in Deltona, our real new neighbors are moving all their stuff into what Ben thinks is his apartment.

Now, cut to Ben as he wearily pulls his van into the alley behind the apartment, happy to finally be in Chicago and ready to park in his perfect garage space (a real rarity here in the city).

But what's this... is.. that someone elses car in his space?

He walks around to the front of the building, where he sees brand new curtains and a sign that reads, "Home Sweet Home" hanging in the window of what he thinks is his apartment. He rings our bell, we come down to the street, and he asks, "Hey, is there.. someone in my apartment?"

GOTCHA!

LOL - Boy, will there be egg on his face!!1

I won't be aboard the good ship internet for some days to come as I prepare for the movening, but I will say this.

There's a new game coming out that should bring smiles to the losers who read this site. It's called "Destroy All Humans." It's a GTA style game where you're an alien with a seemingly infinite arsenal, hellbent on the utter destruction of the human race. Enjoy!

ben --out?

J.K. Rowling announces title of Book 6
by David Haber, Wizard News Wizard

Last Saturday, a fan reported finding the title of the sixth Harry Potter book behind "the locked door" on the official J.K. Rowling website. The new title was reportedly "Harry Potter and the Pillar of Storgé". The rumor was quickly denied by official J.K. sources, and on her own website, J.K. commented, "Storgé, for crying out loud. Come on, people, get a grip."

However, possibly due to the existance of these rumors, and possibly due to the fact that she was probably going to announce the real title sometime around July 1 anyway, today J.K. Rowling has announced that the title of Book 6 is "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince".

The announcement of the new title was very cleverly hidden on the www.jkrowling.com website. Thanks to Wizard News reader Tim Rouse in Cincinnatti, Ohio, and his daughters Reanne and Emily, here's how to see the announcement of the new title yourself:

The "locked" door is no longer locked. Access the door by clicking on the little doughnut thing (is it a hair scrunchie?) on the www.jkrowling.com main page. Then click on the door handle to open the door to expose a brick wall.

Next, there are 5 bricks within the brick wall that darken when you click on them. Find them by clicking around and note where they are. Number them, 1 through 5 from left to right and from top to bottom. If you click on them in this order: 3-4-2-5-1, the brick door falls away to allow you to see a small room. If you click on the fan, it will blow papers toward the screen until it blows a final page up onto the screen, and then letters appear as if being type-written, and that is the name of the book.

Click here to see a picture of the book 6 title behind the brick wall (courtesy of Tim Rouse)

____________
Story taken from Wizard News

I can verify the brick wall thing, it's pretty boffo. Still, it'll be interesting to see if this isn't another hoax or not. "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" sounds kind of Feygele

HAMMERMAN

Does half damage to old people, because the old people of the future have steel bones because gravity was reversed.

ROBOCOP

He has a bigger gun, but he has trouble carrying it.

ALMOST-DEAD HAMMERMAN INSIDE BRAINWALKER

Project Game?

THING THAT I'M NOT SURE WHAT IS

His wings maybe help him fly, but how?

Dear Viewers,
    As you are no doubt aware, the normal flow of information from POS has appeared to have stopped temporarily. As you are also no doubt aware, this site is under a strict contract to provide you (us) with, at minimum, one article a day. On June 26, 2004, it appeared that our normal flow of communication was interrupted, thereby terminating our contract. However, due to a time anomaly, the post didn't appear until June 27, 2004.
    On June 25, 2004, Jack, who is head of our Time Travel department, began mankind's first-ever attempt to travel back in time. His progress was to be broadcast to POS as he was making it, but due to a few malfunctions and miscalculations, the normal flow of communication was interrupted. Shortly after initiating the experiment, Jack became trapped in a time-variable matrix. As we all know, inside one of these matrices time itself is intangible and nearly non-existent. Communication was quickly severed, and we here at Mission Control were working feverishly to rectify communication. The following day, June 26, 2004, we though we had re-established communication with Jack. However, the only word we were able to recieve from him was "eh." Shortly thereafter, however, we were able to re-establish communication with Jack and the mission was ended safely.
    In the wake of this incident, you may have noticed a few anomalous entries on the site. Most notably, the absence of post on June 26, 2004. Our instruments aboard Mission Control indicated that Jack's message ("eh") was broadcast to the site successfully, however due to the time-variable matrix, it didn't appear to have reached the site until the following day, June 27.
    It appears Ben recieved an erroneous memo from HQ, who was largely unaware of the current mission status (we were busy trying to return Jack to the present). We will be working with HQ in the near future to improve intra-office communication to make sure such an incident does not occur again.

Thank you,
    Alex McClung
    Acting Spokesperson for POS Heavy Industries

Big time. Look at the calendar to the left to see why.

Eh?

JuliusBulius (3:48:27 PM): jack, can you help me get a better job?

JuliusBulius (3:48:41 PM): nobody believes me when i tell them i know how to use a computer

secondpillow (3:49:49 PM): If I get lucky and find some crappy restaurant to work in by the beach, I'll tell them I have an asian actor friend who knows how to make soy sauce.

JuliusBulius (3:51:19 PM): do you really?

secondpillow (3:51:33 PM): Yeah, it's you.

secondpillow (3:51:47 PM): You people know how to make soy sauce, right?

JuliusBulius (3:52:07 PM): what's soy sauce?

JuliusBulius (3:52:20 PM): oh, you mean ketchup? americans call it soy sauce, to us, its ketchup

secondpillow (3:52:45 PM): Like, do you learn the recipe when you're born? Or do you have to worship satan a certain amount of time before he gives you the reagent list?

JuliusBulius (3:54:27 PM): neither

JuliusBulius (3:54:28 PM): its like

JuliusBulius (3:54:35 PM): tattoo'd on our palms

JuliusBulius (3:54:37 PM): well

JuliusBulius (3:54:39 PM): the left one

JuliusBulius (3:54:47 PM): the right one is where they tattoo the karate

secondpillow (3:55:19 PM): Karate? Is that soy sauce with sushi in it?

Appleton

I'll see Ben's Robocop, my Batman, Juls' Spiderman, Ben's Good Eats, and raise you all one puppy.

The headline alone is priceless.

So I was all sad this morning, because Azureus was empty. Everything finished off pretty quickly once I was able to spoof my ISP with some mac address tom-foolery.

But then... oh god... teh sprays began when I came across this (or, rather, these):

(click for shot++)

Combine this with the acquisition of Mario Golf: Advanced Tour (the first golf RPG I've ever played on GBA), and my remaining Florida days are spent in relative sophistication. Also, once I'm in the big city, I can start with the yum-gun.

I'll see Ben's Robocop and raise him a Batman.

robots with guns.

These things are able to identify threats and stuff, and then shoot the pants off of crap and stuff. Their only human interaction is "should I kill this, boss?", which implies to me that someday, perhaps, they'll just start asking, and just keep killing.

It looks a lot like the original Terminators that you saw in Terminator 3. Good work, us!

I know that you've been stepping out. I found the movie tickets, in the drawer, and I've never seen any of these movies. I kind of need your help here, "buddy". You can lay off of the emails about "loan ana.lysis" and "fr.ee pen.is friend" and "not a dat.ing service, a sha.ging service!" that contain nothing but random words designed to defeat my intricate web of spam blockers. They will do nothing to repair our lost connection.

However, when you go out, it makes me play more Psi-Ops, which is a worthwhile endeavor to be sure. It has Head Explodey!

Love,
Ben

It seems Ben and Chris were too gussy to handle my second beard man. It seems that maybe one of them's got their dick in the other's ass. So, in order to accommodate their namby-pamby little psyches, I've cleaned him up a bit in Photoshop so that maybe now they won't cry home to their mamas when they see him.

I made two new friends today. Here are their pictures:

Karl-Heinz Hille of the Berlin Beard Club, Berlin, Germany

Alf Jarrold of The Handlebar Club, Manchester, England

You can see more of my new friends here.

He is, unfortunately, in league with Fuckman, though. It seems that my roadrunner access, which started incredible, and has been tapering off for a couple years now, is finally in the clutches of the vile Fuckman. It works for about an hour and then it stops working for about an hour, and after about 9 pm it doesn't work at all until about 8 am.

In other news, it looks like Jess and I will have some Home Theater Awesome up in our apartment, even if it is a little bit on the cheap side. We went with a Magnevox-Something-Or-Other-In-A-Box, a little under $140 with free shipping on amazon. Jess has, fortunately, been thinking constantly about the apartment's floor plan, meticulously deciding what goes where. Well, for her troubles, I'm gonna' pick up a little poster for our room, with hopes of framing it (as has been done in the past). It should go well with our predeclared black-and-white theme. Thankfully, we won't have any zen symbols in the mix.

Batman comes to chicago to fight green gublin with new armor from Interplay (STILL IN BUSINESS).

Holy shit! Joker comes to attack with his acidfuck, just like in the stories.

Frank miller's influence shines through as batman responds with acidfuck shield batman, COMING TO A shrek 2 near you.

He has to realize that the comics got it all wrong, and if spiderman really got bitten by a radioactive spiderman, he'd just turn into a huge monster spider, and not toby maguyar with some lucasfilm marker mask. Then it would be a big a big spider walking around the highschool instead of spiderman, which is truth.

The raimi clan also has to realize that if they're making a movie into comics, they can't have the wrong villain. Noman ossben is good and all, but he's too weak to win, and how is spiderman going to lose like that? If ossben had teamed up with the vulture, toby wouldn't have lost? But they need to make changes to the vulture, some ideas ;like:

The vulture is actually professor X who got bitten into the spider serum, so he turns into the opposite race. So Richard Pryor would play professor x vulture, which is the way the comics would have done if the movie hadn't ruined. So richard pryor could be spider swinging in his golden vulture chair and steal the jewels, which is where he gets his power from. Nom ossben would then get jealous of the crystal powers, so it would be a nice trible-cross.

That sene where aunt my is talking to park about how uncle ben dyed and he misses him at school party is sad, but could maybe use some comdey to lighten the mood so the next scene is more natural. Like, may is talking to park, and she pukes up some milk onto him, maybe just a little, and he stabs his bed with a pitchfork and then jumps out the window, and when he lands the whole house has green slime exlpode out the windows. Where did he get a pitchfork and why jump, it's funny!

Chronicles of Riddick is the best game that I have played for the Xbox. It's also one of my favorite first person shooters out there (up there with Half-Life, FarCry, and Unreal Tournament 2004).

The things they did with the Xbox. And for that matter, Vin Diesel. I feel conflicted. I mean, I hate that dude, but he works really well as a game character.

You see, I got the game for Jess's brother as a going-away present, and holy crap. I mean, I'd read the reviews that it was good, but I just figured people were starved for good games on the Xbox lately. It's fairly open-ended, and very balanced with a damn good story told by damn good voice actors (for an fps).

Also, there's Psi-Ops, which they should have called Sex-Ops. Or Smashing-Floating-Dead-Bodies-Into-Dudes-Ops.

And Theif 3. And Full Spectrum Warrior.

Sweet Jesus, Xbox. Where did this dark-action surplus come from?

In other news, Front Mission 4 is out, and I desire that as well. The PS2 is like, "me, too."

So this group, Move America Forward is trying to get the new Moore movie banned. Understandable, I guess, but when I went to their site to learn more, I wasn't sure what the hell was going on.

(Oddly enough, the liberal counterpart promoting the film is called moveon.org, whose creator actually spoke at Stetson recently but somehow I missed it)

Anyways, I went to the forum section and read this:

Re: WHAT HAS INVADING IRAQ GOT TO DO WITH WAR ON TERROR?

The answer is simple.

EVERYTHING.

We screwed up in Lebanon by not following through, because of the left, now we
need to kick ass, do an end run, and score big time by knocking the link out
that forms the chain from Syria to Iran. We have to eliminate their ability to
comunicate in almost any manner that could harm us or those in Europe. We owe
that to our long time allies. If we don't take a swipe at terrorism, and then
back off - what will happen next?

How much money do you have? Do you have enough to invest in the Quoran? That is
what the extremist Islamofascists have in mind. Every knee will bend to Allah,
and you will have no choice in the matter except whether you accept their
proposition.

Now, do you accept the proposition? Are you willing to surrender your freedom to
become a toy for some Immam?

Think about it.

I ordered almost $200 in DVD-Rs and cases right before I left for Chicago, and according to FedEx it arrived the day that I left. The only thing is, the box isn't at my house, like, anywhere. What the fuck has Will done? I mean, now no mail is reaching me.

My Cosí store is just down the street from our support center, so I have the opportunity to make connections throughout the organization. Before joining the team at Cosí I never wanted to stay at a job for more than a few months. I am proud to have just celebrated one year at my restaurant in New York City. I feel that Cosí is reflective of my own personality. Whether I am serving espresso and squagels or walking down the street on my day off, if I see someone frustrated or sad, I try to cheer them up. No one should be upset in the morning, the day is just beginning, so that is why I project a positive attitude all day.

Looking for a "sunny" beach party on the horizon? Try the Bahamas, "buddy!" But if you're looking for good family eating in a welcome downhome homepad, "look" no further than Ben's mom's house! The chocolate is always exist and the sofas are soft? Not the sleeping type? "Then" don't! But you'll be missing out a special treat. Friendly animals always join you in Ben's Mom's House! I woke up with three, plus a severed pig's ear!

Ben's Mom's House gets 4 out of stars.

mov

Today I went to my weapon master and leveled up. I'm now a Level 3 EOS PROJECT SCI/WEB DEVELOPER. They gave me a Paycheck +3 and I think I'll be getting a Vacation +2, though I don't know how they count the years since I'm on a weird leveling schedule.

Anyway, wooo for me. I think I'm going to start killing in the Catacombs now, if I can find a tank.

Worst. Trip home. Ever.

So, it was as Alex foretold: Jack and my first plane wound up being 2+ hours late, which would have resulted in a missed connection. It's good we didn't get on it, too, since there were no flights to Orlando from Charlotte the next day or the day after (there was one, but it was overbooked and it had people already on standby).

So, plan 2 was to ride a direct flight to Orlando that night; we found one and were put on standby, but only 1 seat opened up. So, we needed a third plan. When we returned to our ticketing booth we were turned away and told to use a pay phone and just call the airline to book another flight. The best part was listening to Rhapsody in Blue twice through before being dealt with, but I was content; we had a flight out the next morning going from OHare to Orlando with a connection in Pittsuburg.

So, without any money or gratuity, Jack and I returned to Will's apartment to wait for our morning flight. Since our luggage was already at our destination (it probably hopped a ride on the straight Orlando flight we couldn't get on), we had to go to Target to restock. $42.68 later and I had a change of clothes. Jack bought more of that terrible candy. We watched Rushmore, and that was good. I slept almost not at all that night, though, since I wanted desperately to have returned home.

In the morning we headed back to the airport, said goodbye again to Wicker Park, and got in a line to check in. When we were about 7 people from the front of the line the guy in front of us told us an awesome new secret: flight 1257 to Pittsburg was cancelled. Well, that was totally sweet, since what I wanted to do was not go home by this point.

Yes, I wanted so badly to stay in an airport full of assholes all day. After another hour of waiting we got to the front of the line and were told that we had been put on a flight to Philadelphia. So we waited. This flight wound up being an hour late, and since it was raining somewhere we had to take a massive detour and we hit the ground a total of 1 hour and 45 minutes late. Thankfully, this didn't cause us to miss our connection.

Though now, I wish that it had.

Jack and I ate some shitty but expensive airport food, quickly, so that we could be prepared for our 2 hour flight home. When we boarded the plane, I thought I saw a giant black dog.

Though the sky was initially clear, we ended up in a long line to the runway and it eventually started raining. At this point my narrative will lose structure, and my grammar will be murded by the Creature, since I'm so furious at how it was handled.

Plane did not go up into sky town until 4 hours later. We sat on the tarmac so long that we couldn't complete the hunt and the tribe will die.

2 rows behind first class, who got all the drinks that they wanted, is not where Ben likes to sit when he gets no drinks at all.

Jack had the terrible candy.

I sang to everybody on the plane once it finally took off. They gave me roses.

Candy? No. I'm good.

We landed in Orlando at 12:49 EST, a little more than 25 hours late. So I guess I won the race.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ!@#$%^&*()`-=[]\;',./~_+{}|:"<>?

So, I'm home in Maryland, and I have no idea what happened to Ben and Jack. We were gonna do this "Race to POS" when we got back, since we were supposed to arrive at our respective locations at roughly the same time. But the airport threw a giant diiiick in that plan. Their first plane wound up being an hour late, which would have meant he would miss his connecting flight. They tried to work something out, but I don't think Ben and Jack were able to leave yesterday. My plane was delayed an hour, too, and I wound up arriving in Baltimore around midnight, and home around 1am. Fucking doucheport.

In Ben's absence, I will post the resulting score for this week's vacation:

Alex: 10,000,000
Jack: Batman
Ben: 6,000
Eric: 1501
Chris: 1500
Will: 0
Alex: -∞

I think everybody had a good time, and came out as a winner since none of us did drugs. Winners don't do drugs.

I have to go back to Florida now. That's both lame and sweet.

New Species!

Alex just said "baloon knot" in reference to Chris' new boyfriend. That's a new one.

Here's some stuff that I've been rocking in Chicago since I last posted pictures.

This is Chris standing near his office downtown. Chris is the giant building in the background, and his office is the little dude at the bottom center on his way to Chipotle.

After we ditched that loser I went and stared at this a bunch.

Then I looked at this thing and laughed, as I always do.

Once we finally got out of the Dorkago Dorkseum I spotted one of the Mickeys.

Then, today, we decided to go out to the Aquarium out near Lake Michigan. They were open until 6pm according to the website, which was rocking, since it was like 2:30 when we finally left the apartment. Here's the lake from on top of the aquarium's massive stairway.

And here's a view looking back at downtown.

When we finally reached the top of those crystal stairne, we noticed that the Aquarium decided to close early today, so we didn't get to go. Here is Chris crying about how Will (who is in Virginia) screwed up our Aquarium adventure.

Then we walked about a million blocks until we passed the Buckingham Fountain, which is pretty, but which I did not photograph so that I would still have a desire to go back to it. After much citydventuring, we made it back home. As it turns out, there is a kickass gelato bar about a block from the apartment, so I rocked it with 3 scoops (1 pineapple, 1 kiwi, and 1 coconut). Also, the Flash owns the place, and he only hires people who are blessed (or cursed, depending on your outlook) with super-human speed.

So tonight we went to this restaurant out in some mall. While we were mulling over the menus I suddenly got up from the table and walked out of the restaurant without saying a word to anyone. I figured it would probably be funny. I walked for a little bit, and was soon lost. Unable to find my way back to the restaurant, even after spending five minutes looking at a map that doesn't mention the restaurant we were in, I ended the sentence and it was done.

Coming soon: Harry Potter vs. Year 6 of the Clown.

The work man slave driver pushed me into the hole again and I'm digging and digging and I can't make my hands make fast enough. I drank the coffee blood of working souls, which I never do. Now it's 2AM and the vile fire of starbucks double shot in a consumable can is pushing me forward and I can't bend much farther. I'm going to go home soon because the master's work is done and I fear that I may hate myself in the morning. Whisper in my ear with your sweet words and let that hair touch my shoulders there. It's whispy and tickles the tender parts, so please put me to sleep now. Thank you.

So tonight Ben, Eric, Jack, and myself are going to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban because a certain fiancé of Ben's already saw it because she's a two-timing jerk beast.

I think I tore my sack.

So, when I have like a billion dollars, I'm going to start Fightmuseum, the world's most important fighting museum in history. The Fightmuseum will house the largest collection of fighting-oriented artwork ever gathered under one roof (which will be shaped like a giant axe going through some dude's face). Dudes fighting other dudes. Dudes fighting animals. Animals fighting animals. Anything goes as long as something's fighting something.

During our survey of the Art Institute museum here in Chicago, I spotted Fightmusem's first few pieces that I shall soon acquire:

Piece #1 - "Dude Fighting Lion", Statue
Piece #1 - "Dude Fighting Lion" (detail), Statue

Piece #2 - "Dude Fighting Centaur", Statue
Piece #2 - "Dude Fighting Centaur" (detail), Statue

"Dudes Fighting Dragon", lithograph

Pigs vs Snakes, oil on canvas (interestingly enough, this was located right next to Grant Wood's American Gothic

Lastly, Dude Fighting Sheep

Right now Alex is playing Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Booby-boob and he just lost his partner (loser). His ultimate goal is to clothe all of the beach-goers in crazy outfits. He only needs like $40,000 more to buy the wedding dress bathing suit, which he can combine with a cowboy hat (hopefully).

Here is a teaser trailer:

In a world, where Fightmuseum exists, there will be no mousebreath, no problems with skiing on the ground, and new species. In a world where Alex will post pictures about Fightmuseum, all of you will look at Fightmuseum later. Coming soon to a that's-the-tooth near you.

I'm about to go to bed; I had originally intended to post all of the zoo pictures (and also descriptions about our previous pictures), but there are a lot of damn pictures to sort through. Instead, you can rock the whole 'monday folder' in the chicago repository. There are still a bunch of photos in the cameras from today but I'm too tired to rip them right now, and too hot to even think about having this laptop warm my lap-place any more.

I am posting because I've been absent from posting and teacher says post more. The rest of the guys are also tag-teaming a fan right now so that leaves me as the sorry suck who gets to post. Today the boys came out to my work space and we went to lunch. The original plan was for me to leave work at that time and go to the Art Institute with them. This did not happen. Instead, they got cultured and I stayed behind to upload pages for a ticket giveaway to a dinner theatre in Pheonix that's putting on a show of The Music Man.

Imagine my excitement.

I came home a few hours later and that's when we realized that Jack was lost. He had split off from Ben and Alex as they were making their way back from the Art Institute because he wanted ice cream. He'd been gone for 2 hours and wasn't answering his cell phone.

(dramatic pause).

I'll spare you any more suspense by first saying that no, hobos did not in fact make Jack their girlfriend, and second: yes, he did make it home safe and sound ... excluding the wierd markings we found on his neck and arms that he refused to acknowledge. We weren't sure what they were or how they got there, but I'm wagering it was an encounter with the kangaroo-mole-snake-tongued-armadillo they saw at the zoo the other day.

Anyway, we're home now and we have a new fan and Ben has some sheets and it looks like the apartment below is just moments away from being captured. We're going to have to wait until tomorrow for final word on that, though. The heat is cooking me in my room now, so I'm going to stop typing and go watch the kung fu treat queued up for tonight's entertainment.

Final side note: groans filter in from the living room as everyone learns that Alex is looking up the phrase "anal birth" on google.

click for folder.

v2 will have descriptions.

Here are movies of the sights in Chicago.

Right or Ctrl click to save as dawg.

Here is us playing Mario Kart: Double Dash.

Here is anal birth.

So I called up the landloarde so I could check out my new apartment today, but he didn't have the right key. I was gonna' take lots of pictures, instead I didn't. Now we're going to go to the Linkin Perk Zooe, where they have over 230 species of collectible creature, on average 4 of each. I'll take lots of puctures of that insteed. The Londlard is cominh back agaim at 6pm, and I'll get to see the aportment then.

I'm also really looking forwart to it.

By the wau, Alex's keybourd is bustod or something.

So we were all in this restaurant eating chicago-style pizza (which, for those of our readership who don't know, is basically a cheese and sauce pie), and twice during our meal I very loudly called out, "Now that's a SLICK DEAL!" After each time the murmur of the customer's voices grew quiet, and each time I couldn't stop giggling.

On the way home Chris started talking about the Sears Tower, and how we should go to the top of it. Then I piped in.

"I don't want to go up in that thing."

"Why?" he said, "Do you have that afraid-of-heights thing going?"

"No. First off, it costs ten bucks to do so."

"Yeah, that it does."

"And second, I hate that building."

The slightest pause.

"Why?"

"I don't know. I just hate that building. I loathe it. The thing disgusts me."

"Well, the view from it is completely awesome. "

"Yeah, said Ben, "You can even see the mud that makes up the rest of the state. Plus, you can look at the whole city and be Batman."

I let their words sink in for a moment.

"Hey, that sounds great. Let's go."

After a few moments it hit me that the arguments they used to convince me to go to the top of the tallest man-made building in the world were:

A) The view is really good, and
B) I could pretend I was Batman.

Here's a bunch of pictures. Post with text comes at the end of the night.

From Jess's camera:

From Alex's camera:

Alex, Jack, and Ben, adventurers, will be arriving at O'Hare Airport in Chicago tomorrow morning at 9:20 a.m. They have no idea how they are supposed to get into the apartment, because even if somebody emailed Ben directions they were swallowed by his computer on which he left Outlook open after he left his house for good.

Smells like a SITCOM.

Read the prequel first.

(The stage is dark, the curtains drawn. Occupying some of the central seats in the house are a group of people wearing expensive-looking suits, white gloves, and white coverings over the entirety of their heads. Each holds a large jar full of green liquid and a brain. They never acknowledge the audience, staring straight ahead. Soon the house lights dim, and a mighty, terrible storm of classical music and chanting rages through the house, growing more thunderous and epic with each moment. The curtains rise, like a god gingerly unfurling his fingers from a newborn world. The setting is a nondescript corporate meeting room, empty except for a table covered with plates of half-eaten watermelon. The music fades to a background level to accommodate a voice equally as thunderous and epic.)

VOICE: It was 4,000 years in the future. Man and machine had finally found peace after the 5,000 year long War where Man and Machine had warred for thousands of years. Their peace was uneasy until they were united by the coming of the Keatonians, who bestowed upon the war- torn earth the Brain Walkers, who-

(A few janitors approach from the side, trying to head toward the table to remove it.)

VOICE: Spies!

(A roped sandbag falls from the ceiling, blocking the janitors, who run away. The rope is pulled back up into the ceiling. The voice waits just long enough to make it as awkward as possible.)

VOICE: Who with the power of Keatonium brought man and machine into a deep sleep where they entered The Sleepening and battled in the Psychic wars against the Dream Tyrant and his legions of-

(The janitors approach the table again, noticeably more spooked than last time.)

VOICE: HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

(The pieces of watermelon float off of the table and toward the janitors, who flee. One of them is too slow, and the watermelon pieces are upon him, causing him to burst into flames. He pauses, calmly contemplating the flames that are engulfing him.)

VOICE: And thus were video games invented.

(The voice pauses. The man is still ablaze.)

VOICE: You.
MAN: Huh?
VOICE: Clean this up.
MAN: You want-

(A trapdoor opens underneath him, out of which emanates grisly red light and tortured screams. The door promptly shuts after he falls.)

VOICE: But all was not well. For the Chrono Wars soon erupted after the Tyrant of Flesh was freed from his crystalline ruby prison on the Second Crimson Moon, and he scattered all the video games throughout the time streams, knowing one would have to create the ultimate game to unite them once more.

(Some particularly loud screams come from underneath the door.)

VOICE: That time has come.

(The music comes to a close. A man is lowered from a rope above the stage, but not lowered entirely. There should be no attempt at creating the illusion that he's in flight; he is being suspended from a rope, and we know it. He is dressed in a modest business suit and holds a briefcase.

VOICE: How was your trip to the future, rope man?
MAN:I hadn't-
VOICE: Shut up. Where is your report?
MAN: (Gesturing with briefcase) Right here.
VOICE: Then feed it into the Maw of Unending Venality.

(The trapdoor opens. The man looks within it for a moment, not liking what he sees, then throws in the briefcase. The light briefly flares, then the door closes.)

VOICE: (Pause.) Your report.
MAN: Yeah?
VOICE: (Another pause.) It has spirit.
MAN: What?
VOICE: The words are too stupid. Read it to me!
MAN: But its-

(The trap door opens again and a flurry of papers are spat out of it, followed by the open briefcase, which lands on the stage with a clatter. The door slams shut. The man simply hangs for a few moments, silent. At this point, the brain walkers slowly leave their seats and start approaching the exits.)

VOICE: It's story time is what it is, rope man. Do you like being rope man?
MAN: It's-
VOICE: Is it a big rope party?
MAN: I was-
VOICE: Because there are plenty of others who'd like your job. Look at this fellow.

(Opposite from the man a scarecrow is lowered from the ceiling to be about level with him. The scarecrow is wearing a much nicer suit than he is. No one speaks for a few moments.)

MAN: (Gesturing towards the scarecrow's suit.) Is that Italian?
VOICE: It will be if you don't get to work.

(The scarecrow is pulled back up to the ceiling.)

VOICE: Story me!

(The man looks futilely at the papers scattered below him. Giving up, he starts jogging his memory.)

MAN:... Intermission?

(The curtains fall and the house lights turn on. However, a group of brain walkers stand in front of each exit door, blocking anyone from actually leaving. After a few minutes, the lights dim, the curtains rise, and the brain walkers return to their seats. The set is now an opulent Victorian library. The man is dressed in ornate finery and seated in a comfortable looking chair, to which he is tied by the chest. A great, bulky robot clonks toward him, bearing a silver tray of tea and cookies. The man crosses his arms and narrows his eyes at the robot, who belches a stream of fire at the man's face. Unflinching, arms crossed, the man takes it. The robot eventually ceases and walks away, the tray of tea unserved. Fuming and smoking, the man stares, infuriated, at the floor.

VOICE: Are you ready to stop playing with your dolls and get back to work?
MAN: (coughs up some blood, then regains composure) Teatime is the most important tea of the day.
VOICE: I've had enough of your experiments. Mankind will never accept fire, it's too dangerous. Project Game is what concerns us.
MAN: Shut up.

(A table falls from the ceiling and shatters over the man's head, somehow leaving him unharmed.)

MAN: Shut up about Project Game. It doesn't work as a theatrical presentation; there are too many characters, the script is pompous, and there's no fire.
VOICE: Project Games existed long before fire.
MAN: It wasn't even real fire.
VOICE: Because you've been too busy working on the fake kind!
MAN: I wouldn't bother with the fire if you would just approve the Project Game book.
VOICE: The book was stupid.
MAN: Why?
VOICE: Because it had too many stupid words.
MAN: What about those lame brain walker guys?

(The Brain Walkers shift uncomfortably)

VOICE: Focus groups have responded very positively to the brain walkers.
MAN: So what? They keep their brains in stupid green liquid. How stupid is that? You probably had a stupid focus-
VOICE: And what would you do? Some stupid fire?
MAN: (chuckles knowingly) It isn't just fire. You need robots, too.
VOICE: Robots came way before fire.
MAN: (Starts untying rope) And Stupid came before brain walkers, but that didn't stop them, did it?
VOICE: Know what else isn't going to stop them? Your robots, from kicking their asses.
MAN: (finishes untying rope, then stands up and tosses it to the ground) We don't have time.
VOICE: Why? You afr-

(The Brain Walkers fly from their seats towards the man, floating above the audience. A cadre of clonking robots marches out, all holding silver trays laden with tea and cookies, and surround the man. They then turn to face towards him, and they all vomit blasts of fire onto the man's face. The Brain Walkers land beside them and watch the spectacle.)

VOICE: This doesn't count. My brain men are broken.

(The man doesn't respond, absorbed in his tea. Teatime soon ends, however, and after the robots leave the man takes a seat and begins retying himself. As he does so, the curtains once more close, this time with no explanation. The house lights come up for ten minutes, during which sounds of heavy construction can be heard going on behind the curtain. The lights then dim, and the curtains, instead of opening, simply fall from the ceiling. Should the play run for more than one night, this happens only at one performance. The setting is once more inside the corporate meeting room, except this time a gigantic watermelon, several feet high, sits on the table. For about three minutes nothing happens, and then the watermelon opens its enormous, toothy mouth and starts talking.)

WATERMELON: Epilogue; Project Game having failed, mankind marched onward through history toward its destiny of slavery under the Tyrant of Flesh.

(The watermelon sits there for a couple minutes, doing nothing. A janitor then approaches the watermelon, who waits until he gets close, then opens its mouth, whereupon a car horn sound blares out of it and doesn't stop. The janitor looks around, confused, then bows to the audience and exits. The Man is then lowered to the stage via the rope. He bows, and while he does so the scarecrow plummets to the stage, startling him. Then they are both hauled back up into the ceiling. The watermelon finally stops making the car horn noise and puts on a big, eerie smile. If possible, the curtains close.)

I know. I thought it would suck too. But then I went on imdb, and I found out some news that will turn your expectations around. Here are the words of princecharmin107:

"Halle is going to be so good in this film. I cant wait to see this. This is not the summer's biggest flop. It is going to be one of the good films of the summer.The biggest flop will probably be the next Arnold,Vin Diesiel new movie and will smith new movie.who wants to see somw robots.I will rather see halle than will and some damn robots anyday!!!!"

Hear that? The next awesome movie won't actually be an Arnold,Vin Diesiel new movie! It's going to be Catwoman! I already tore up my preorder ticket for Isacc Asimov's Somw Robot.

In response to Alex's earlier post about the Zerg invasion, I present an article by some people who've found a very unique way to combat them:

Lookit.

" Jenna Jadin, biologist and cicada connoisseur, has cooked up all sorts of ways to eat the insects that have emerged from a 17-year slumber and are swarming in their billions to find mates across several US states."

Last night I dreamt that, for whatever reason, I was staying at this lady's house with Lt. Commander Data (the Lt. Commander Data). During our stay there, Data helped me with such tasks as folding my clothes from my suitcase (I even taught him the FOUR POINT EXPLODING SHIRT TECHNIQUE). He also helped me steal the lady's daughter's underwear from the hamper. I think we got up to 7 or 8 pairs before the lady got suspicious, at which point Data's plan got so incredibly complicated that I had to give up. I think there was way too much running around involved, so I said "effit". That was also when the dream ended.

Androids are the claziest peoples.

So I guess I shouldn't be upset.

I've starting following Ben's example that he put forth in his computer science class. My creative writing class now thinks that I'm a madman. There's this one girl who's doing a story about cliff jumping, and in it she mentions the cars that her high school characters are driving. For a while she talked about changing someone's Jetta to a Firebird or something. So I offered her a suggestion.

Me: I suggest that you take out all the cars...and instead put in flying machines powered by mystical crystals.

Her: (Uncomfortable pause) Do you think that will add something?

Me: (Staring at her for a few moments) High school.

Her: (Another uncomfortable pause) Did you have that at your high school?

Me: No. I just assume that that's how it is in other schools...during those times.

Dr. Raymond later asked me if I had read one of the student's stories, as I was supposed to. I hadn't, but I decided to try my luck.

Me:...Yes.

Raymond: Did you read the whole thing?

Me: Well, I did. In the sense that if you read one word of the english language, you've read every word.

Then I drew forth my popetar, whose strings were wrought from the lasers of satan, and wailed out a righteous tune so that the people's worlds were rocked.

but I have the feeling this will fall in the hands of too many stupid people.

So I'm totally home today from work cuz I'm sick. I barely survived the revolt from the Lower Intestinites early this morning. I was able to supress it, but not after unnecessary amounts of pain and bloodshed. I believed the Stomacons were on their way to revolt, too, but I was able to meet their demands with a few Tums and water. Now I think my Brainulons are beginning a revolt of their own. We'll see if the Naproxen Force can negotiate a truce.

Sick days are so not fun.