The Elephant Man Called; If You’re Finished With It, He Said He’d Like His Ugliness Back

I’d like to devote today’s instalment of Waspinator for President to the burning subject of Nineties' put-downs.

In fact, ideally, I’d like to create an online 'knowledge base' of insults originating from (what I'm quasi-reliably informed is) this all-time-great decade. For insults. But I can’t tackle this task by myself, oh no. To build this amazing repository of incredibly useful insult-related social history, what I also really need is you! You, my dear reader, have quite an opportunity ahead of you. You, and only you, can help me help the world help you by logging your favourite insults of the Nineties with the research staff here in the Waspinator secret bunker. All of us here are feverishly awaiting what is sure to be your extremely insightful input, so get using that email button, and get sending us your amazing contributions. I’m looking for classics such as “Pathetic, Tennessee. Population: You!” or perhaps the ever-green “I’ve done the math, and it’s not going to happen”, or even the quick and lively (if a little context-specific) “Cheque, please!”

Now, I can't stress strongly enough the weighty importance of this endeavour. It's weightiness is like a collapsed neutron star, balanced on top of another collapsed neutron star, balanced on top of your fat momma. To be clear: this is important. And importantly weighty. And weightily important. But wherefore is it so weighty and important and also weighty, you ask? What is the purpose behind building this high-tech insult knowledge base, you enquire? Well, iterate your wondering no further, my dear reader, because I'm only too happy to tell you.

What this boils down to, in all honesty, is that I have a bit of a problem. It's quite a serious problem, actually, and I'm really not too sure what I can do about it. I guess this might not come as too much of a surprise to you. You've probably had your suspicions for a while now. Probably, you've had your suspicions for a while now because you're an overly suspicious sort of person, and maybe that's something you should address about yourself. But don't address it right now, because we're not currently talking about your problems, unspeakably legion though your problems certainly are. Now that I come to think about it, in fact, it's actually quite a surprise that we're not talking about your unspeakably legion problems right now: by the laws of chance alone, you'd think it would be hard not to hit on speaking about one of those unspeakable problems. But no, just this once, we've found a problem that you don't have. Because this, dear reader, is my problem. And it's big.

Yes, my problem is quite a big problem indeed, because, to put it simply for you my dear and simple reader, my problem is you. Or, rather more specifically, my problem is that I have finally run out of ways to effectively describe just how very awful you are. Terribly inventive as even I am, and inventively terrible as even you are, I have simply run flat out of appropriately rancorous speech with which to circumnavigate your badness. You, my dear and horrible reader, are so bad that you have plunged right out of linguistic efficacy. In no uncertain terms, you have become both figuratively and literally nothing. I'm not sure I can help you with this, but I am absolutely sure that you can help me to help you to help me with this. Because, you see, only you in your infinite terribleness can possibly hold the key to describing you as you fully deserve. Only you, in your deeply dark darkness, can summon up an insult so peculiarly invective that it can properly be applied to your titanically terrible totality. Finally, you can do something to help your situation, even if that something is only to give me some new ways to put you down. Which I think we both know is what should really happen here anyway.

So there we are. Between us, I honestly believe we can make this latest project into internet gold. Now, I think I’ve done the hard part in suggesting this wonderful idea. The rest, as they say, is up to you.


Notes: Sometimes, in these notes, I retract or otherwise turn around the propositions put forward in the main body of the post. This is partly about maintaining a kind of structural running joke (structural jokes being the best kind), but it's also a nice way of taking the sting out of any mean words or insults. Anyway, sometimes I do that. 

A Growing List Of Reasons Why We Live In A Really, Really Imperfect World

Where I live, you can't order pizza when you get up in the morning.

When that pizza doesn't come, it's also not delivered by Michaela Strachan, 20 years ago when she was hot. 

When that pizza doesn't come, and it's not delivered by Michaela Strachan, 20 years ago when she was hot, I still have to get up instead of going back to sleep to dream about Michaela Strachan 20 years ago when she was hot.

When that pizza doesn't come, and it's not delivered by Michaela Strachan, 20 years ago when she was hot, and I still have to get up instead of going back to sleep to dream about Michaela Strachan 20 years ago when she was hot, I have to go into work. 

My place of work does not employ Michaela Strachan.

Time machines do not exist, and cannot be used to go back in time 20 years, or, for that matter, to watch yourself in bed with that hot chick who you broke up with the day (just one day!) before you got your digital camera.

Aforementioned hot chick's name was not Michaela Strachan. 

Notes:

1. 'Michaela Strachan' is, of course, used here as a metaphor. 

2. A metaphor that I should have used 20 years ago.

Well, That’s All Fine Then

For five long, lonely, dark and terrible years, the dim-lit halls of Waspinator for President have kept time with the sickly slow beat of my beleaguered soul. The underground bunker, resonating with the staccato drum of the surrounding earth (well, that and the nuclear generator), have steadily harmonised with my own internal, infernal pace. As I dwell underneath those I despise, so too has my heart sunk down beneath; as I tunnel further in my quest for renewable energy sources, so the less renewed has my own hope for renewal become. My dulled and despairing thought, ever below, has long found itself mirrored not merely in the unquiet mere of my noisome heart, but also in this my surrounding architecture: a bunker outside my self almost as massy and impenetrable as the bunker within.

For five long years have I marked off time along these walls, in scratches of chalk and chalky blood. For five years too long have I marked off time on walls as grey as graves, with the promise of graves, with the malice of graves…but no longer. No longer will I accept this state in which I’ve locked myself. No longer will I walk in a prison of my soul. No, dear reader, because this time, this time is my time. And there’s only one thing I want to do with this time that is also my time. And that thing I want to do, my dear reader, is ask you a single very important question.

Would you mind helping me redecorate?

Thanks.



Notes:

1. So what I’m doing in this latest clever blog entry is to compare the state of my soul with the state of the Waspinator for President underground bunker. And what I’m doing with this comparison, you see, is drawing attention to the fact that they’re both a bit bleak, although I suppose the underground bunker is a little bit more bleak, given that it is in essence entirely fictional. My soul, despite a great deal of compelling moral evidence to the contrary, is not entirely fictional.

2. So having made this comparison between the bleakness of my soul, and the bleakness of my fictional bunker, what I then did was to ask you to help me redecorate. Perhaps, now that I come to think about it, some light pastels would be nice. Well, look, anyway, this is all clever and also funny because what I should have done, really, was to ask you to help out with the bleak soul issue, whereas what I actually did was to ask you to help make the bunker look snazzier instead. And that was the wrong thing to say in context, and hence an unexpected outcome, even as it was also very expected, but also that very sense of expectation was probably interesting to you.

3. So as usual I’m having to provide a commentary on what I’ve been doing because otherwise, to be quite honest, you probably wouldn’t get it. But also, you see, I could actually be asking you to help redecorate my soul, rather than the bunker. So it’s a joke that’s also a metaphor that’s also simply true, which makes it very different from all the other blog entries here and really quite smart when you think about it and not redundant.

4. So also, this blog replaces one of last week’s promised titles, ‘This Pleonastic Meme I’m Currently Experiencing Is A Bit Pleonastic’. You know, unless I decide to repeat myself.

Your Upcoming Blog Titles Are In! (Volume 2)

Here at the Waspinator for President secret bunker, I often (okay, just this once) like to replace an actual blog by telling you about blogs that will appear in the future.

I’m a busy guy, alright? You can tell how very busy I am, simply by noting how long it has been since I last posted here. That’s right, I have better things to do. And, like many busy guys with better busy guy things to do, I have lots of busy, better things with which I ought really to be getting on. Right now, for example, I’m still working on tracking down little Miles Mayhem, who escaped from the Waspinator secret bunker back in 2008, and hasn’t been sighted since. Oh, and also real things as well. Yeah. But still, I’ve been feeling pretty bad for taking down this blog and thereby denying you my non-daily thoughts. So, I’ve come back to make you a promise. I will definitely make posts here, sometime in 2011. No, I don’t know when. But I do know what the titles might be, and I'm more than willing to give you a glimpse into this promising future space and time. Like so:

I Hope My Own Flash-Forward Is To The Season Two Opener Of Flash-Forward Because I Can’t Wait!

Your Upcoming Blog Titles Are In! (Volume 3)

Why Don’t We Sit Down And Have A Nice Long Chat About Those Of Whom We Do Not Speak?

In This Blog I Will Find You, If Only By A Thorough Process Of Elimination

What On Earth Just Happened Because I Don’t Even Know

What Particular Brand Of Poison Is In Your Secretly Poison Filled Glass Today?

This Pleonastic Meme I’m Currently Experiencing Is A Bit Pleonastic

I Hear That The Masters Of The Universe Are Currently Recruiting

Among The Orcs, I Am Known As ‘That Long-Bearded Racist Guy Who Killed My Children’

See how great they all sound? Can you imagine the endless fun you’ll have reading them? I think you can. And can you imagine if I don’t actually make any of these posts at all? I think you can imagine that, too. Good for you. Well, either way, come back throughout 2011 for all this and probably less. You might not regret it.

Notes: Yes, of course I am aware that there is no volume 1 for which this is the subsequent volume 2. Thank you for your enquiry.

An Undiscoverie Of The Internet

Yeah, well. Turns out I didn't like that whole reactions/monetise metric. Because it was pretty terrible, all things considered. So, you know, it's gone.

Also, can all the people I don't like PLEASE stop reading this blog? Thanks.

A Discoverie Of The Internet

Three revelations in today’s posting. Number one is that I’ve just worked out how to add ‘reactions’ to this blog. This is, as I’m sure you’ll agree, quite exciting. Do scroll down and view the end of this post for the tick boxes to which I refer. There are a choice of fine options for your most delicate deliberation, and I encourage you all to make full and appropriate use of this wonderful new facility. But wait, what if you’re reacting in a different way to the slim choice of options given? Well, tough. From now on, I dictate what your reactions will be, and I only wish I could do the same thing in real life. For example, last Tuesday I believe I made a relatively obscene suggestion involving me, you, your sister and my Lego City playset. Your actual reaction at the time: bemusedly disgusted. Your new suggested reaction: pleasantly surprised.

The second revelation is also the reason for working out how to add ‘reactions’ to this blog. You see, I’ve taken a step forward in my life – by attempting to understand this brave new world called the internet. Hint: when Miranda, at the end of The Tempest, says ‘O brave new world, / That has such people in it’, it’s supposed to be dramatic irony. She may, or may not, mean it. But the point is that, in The Tempest, we’ve just spent two hours watching the people who are supposed to represent said brave new world acting in ways which are neither new nor particularly brave. She, on the other hand, has been living in a cave playing chess. Now, chess may well be the game of kings and smart people in public parks, but I don’t think this lifestyle choice makes her the most able of social commentators. The distance between what we think she thinks and what we know we know is what makes it irony, okay? So when I say that the internet is a brave new world, I obviously mean that it is actually a huge pile of manure. And just like Biff in Back to the Future, I am not fond of manure. Are you with me? Have I explained the joke sufficiently for us all to be on the same page at this point? I do hope so.

The third revelation is the revelation which explains why I’ve been trying to understand the internet. Not to put too fine a point on it, I’ve just heard that this internet thing can make you money. Like, a lot of money. In fact, I heard that you can make it rather big, just by doing things with the internet. And no, I don’t mean the kind of things that you do with the internet. I mean other, legal things. Things that don’t leave you in need of a shower, and then also leave your shower in need of a shower, and then also leave that shower in need of another shower – until all the world is one huge showering shower that constantly cries to itself because it just can’t get clean.

No, what I’m planning to do is, if anything, far dirtier and more unscrupulous. That’s right, I’ve decided to ‘monetise’. I’ll admit that when I first read the word monetise, I had no idea what it meant. I thought it might be something to do with the Power Rangers’ latest special abilities, to be honest (and I’m not sure I’m entirely wrong, either). But no, apparently it just means offering advertising space in this, my personal area of the web. As I understand the situation, the internet is basically a small and limited space, and thus those poor advertisers have nowhere to put their adverts. But there’s a silver lining here, because in return for giving over what I’m sure is a tiny amount of space to some discreet and delightful advertisements, I could, I’m reliably informed, receive considerable amounts of gold. And, partly as a result of my pirate roots, I quite like gold.

So, here’s the part where I turn things over to you, my dear readers. Shall we experiment in the wonders of capitalism, in ways that will no doubt lead us straight to the bank? Or shall we leave undespoiled the hallowed halls of the Waspinator-for-President campaign factory? Only you, dear readers, can decide. And, just in case this part wasn’t clear, you can indicate your decision by way of the appropriate box below. I’d invite actual comments instead, but, well, you’d only go and say something stupid.


Notes: Yes, I modernised that Tempest quote. Want to make something of it? Well, I’d rather you didn’t, please. Thanks.

This Refreshing Cold Lemon Tea Sure Would Taste Even Better Hot, And Without The Lemon

Just like the long-dead Autobot Impactor, in issue #84 of the Marvel UK imprint of the Transformers comic, I have good days and bad days. 

Now I’m not saying I’m like Impactor in many other ways: I haven’t died twice, or even once; I don’t have a cannon on my shoulder; and I’ve never been leader of the Autobots ‘elite’ commando unit, the Wreckers. I don’t have a cool name like Impactor either. What’s more, I’ve never called Emirate Xaaron, the near-eastern-sounding Cybertronian Autobot leader, a ‘wily old buzzard’. I don’t even really know what ‘wily old buzzard’ means, although I’m generally suspicious of a 4 million-year-old robot calling another 4 million-year-old robot ‘old’. But Impactor and myself have this in common at least: we both have good days, and we both have bad days. And just like Impactor in issue #84, I’ve just suffered a really bad day.

Of course, Impactor’s really bad day (as chronicled in #84) involved squaring off against three Decepticon Triple-Changers. To be fair, I haven’t done that today. I mean, yeah, the three Decepticon Triple-Changers did actually turn out to be three Autobot Triple-Changers in disguise (you’d think a Transformer would look out for things like that), but it was still a really bad time for Impactor. Like issue #84 says, ‘welcome to one of his worst [days]!’. And sure, I think we can all agree that, as worst days go, it might not have been quite as bad as issue #88, where he got killed taking a bullet (okay, laser blast that went ‘Cham!’) for his buddy Emirate Xaaron. And it probably wasn’t as bad a day for Impactor as in issue #169, when following a brief resurrection he got re-killed saving Emirate Xaaron from the machinations of evil scientist Autobot, Flame. And, I think, not as bad as all the other issues, where he didn’t even get a mention, let alone some sort of thanks for dying twice. But still, yeah, in issue #84 he had one pretty bad day.

So look, my points here are twofold. Firstly, Emirate Xaaron is the worst Autobot leader of all time; secondly, I too have experienced a worst day. Now, on balance, my own worst day might not have been as bad as that time I got cut in two by the rotor-blades on Miles Mayhem’s plane-copter when he escaped my bunker (please come back, Miles). And, okay, if we’re being honest, it might not have been as bad a day as the day when [redacted], which I honestly will write about one day soon, when I get over the nightmare-inducing horror. And yes, on the whole, this worst day probably wasn’t quite as bad as all the days I didn’t get mentioned in UK Transformers #1 through #332, no matter how many nice messages I sent for possible inclusion in their letters page. But still, it was bad.

Why was it so bad? Well, if you’ll just shut up for a moment, I’ll go ahead and tell you. It’s nice to tell people about your troubles, you know. I mean, if you’ll let them get a word in edgeways. Just like it would have been nice had the Transformers letters page listened to me, and perhaps provided proof of having done so in print. Hell, I could understand Soundwave not replying when I wrote to him in his position as host of the letters page, or ‘Soundwaves’, as the page was cleverly entitled during his surprisingly lengthy tenure (issues #22 through #73, excepting issue #41). Soundwave is a dirtwad decepti-creep after all, and frankly not to be trusted at epistolary communication. He probably just turned the letters into energon cubes or something. Likewise, Dreadwind’s ‘Dread Tidings’ page (issues #184 through #299) couldn’t really be expected to dignify my missives with anything remotely like a deserving response.

And, you know, I could understand Grimlock not giving me the time of day when I wrote to him as host of ‘Grim Grams’ (issues #75 through #182). Grimlock couldn’t really speak beyond sentences like ‘me Grimlock smash brains’, so to expect him to compose a written response to my consistently erudite queries might have been a bit much. Similarly, Blaster can be let off the hook, I think. I’m fairly sure Blaster left most of the actual work to either Steeljaw or Ramhorn, his small cassette-tape friends. As highly advanced Transformer lifeforms, Steeljaw and Ramhorn had the ability to assume the form of either a cassette-tape or, respectively, a lion and a rhino. In neither shape, I imagine, would either of them be able to instruct anyone in the details of a response, let alone pick up a pen or hammer out an essay on the office Commodore 64.

But Ratchet. Ratchet really let me down. Picture the scene, if you will. It’s issue #41. It’s time for a change from Soundwave’s evil ignorance. It’s time to draw a line under the shadows of the past. It’s time for ‘Rat-Chat’, starring everyone’s favourite Autobot surgeon and all round good guy. A man (okay, robot) interested in helping people. A man (okay, robot) who prides himself on intellectual, moral conduct. A man (okay, robot) who, you might think, would be only too happy to reply to a letter from yours truly. Well, you’d think wrong. Because, frankly, Ratchet left me high and dry.

Yes, that day, that terrible dark day when Ratchet didn’t heed my keening call, was a pretty bad day indeed. But actually, and I’m just thinking aloud here, I think the day I’ve just had might have been even worse than that, bleak experience though that undoubtedly was. On the whole, then, it would have been nice if you’d let me tell you about it.

Notes: In all honesty, the onomatopoeic laser blast might not have been ‘cham’. It might well have been a ‘kazz-zap’ or even a ‘krrooom’. I don’t remember, and I couldn’t be bothered to look it up. Take that, academic referencing standards.

I Specifically Requested Mandrake The Magician For My Birthday Party, And All I Got Was Lothar

Dear So-Called "Defenders of the Earth",

Okay, so I’ve got a bone to pick with the lot of you. I’m going to state that I have said bone straight away, so everyone just knows where the hell they stand. When I saw the ad in the paper, no lies, I was just amazed. Really floored. "The Defenders?", I thought. "Are available for parties and events?" I’m not exaggerating when I say I fell giddily to the floor in something akin to religious rapture. Imagine! The Defenders of the Earth available for hire, and my birthday currently without any kind of entertainment booking! Well, I thought, this is simply too good to be true. And you know what, Defenders? It was.

Let’s be clear about this. Despite your claims to the contrary in company advertising, the good Mr. Lothar's strength was NOT a legend, and his skills did NOT conquer all. What Mr. Lothar did do, very successfully, was make a pretty bad mess of my piñata. The one that I had specially made for my best friend, Tommy. You want to know how that made Tommy feel? Well, you can see how it made him feel in the picture I've attached. He's the little boy in the middle, crying. Yes, the one in the wheel chair. The boy who your employee addressed as (and I quote) "Octon". Tommy bears no resemblance to Octon, Defenders of the Earth. Octon, as if you needed to be reminded, is a dome-shaped artificial intelligence with eight spider-like legs. Tommy is a five-year-old paraplegic. Also, Octon is remorseless in his desire to aid Ming the Merciless take over the cosmos, and the only thing stopping Octon from aiding Ming the Merciless in taking over the cosmos is Octon’s long and comedic rivalry with fellow henchman, Garax. Tommy, on the other hand, is remorseless in his desire to catch and play ball like a normal boy, and the only thing stopping Tommy from catching and playing ball like a normal boy is his long and not-particularly-comedic rivalry with a heartbreaking disability. You do see the difference, right, Defenders of the Earth?

Don’t misunderstand me, DotE. I get that Lothar was always kind of “required” on your team, if you know what I’m saying. Got to keep the minorities happy, am I right? But still, honestly, you'd think you could have found someone with an actual power. I’m not saying it has to be a super power, but something, you know? Like you’ve got Flash, who’s all about the rockets and whatnot, Mandrake does his magic, and Phantom has the whole beast-calling angle covered. And now that I think about it, DotE, any of these three members would have made for fine party entertainers. Little Tommy, so far as I can tell, is extremely fond of fireworks, magic, and animals. But come on, Defenders: which part of Lothar’s particular skill-set did you really think would be transferable to the small-venue entertainment market? His ability to punch people, perhaps?

Frankly, DotE, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Also, while I’m writing, please tell Flash Gordon to unplug his dead-wife-who’s-now-the-team-computer. It’s been long enough.

Why I Hate All Of You; And I Really, Really Do

Let me put this simply, and in language that even your tiny, self-involved, and self-important brains might just about understand. I hate you. No, seriously: I hate you.

And by hate, I don’t mean that kind of nominal, vague sort of hate that is sometimes useful as a neutral descriptor of everyday or common dislike. This is not the kind of hate that someone means when they say ‘Oh, I hate Mondays’, or ‘Ow, I stubbed my toe – don’t you just hate that?’. No, this is not that kind of hate at all. This is a very personal, burning kind of hatred that seethes in the deep, dark recesses of my very soul. This is the sort of hatred that makes me feel like I’m going to have a stroke, just because I don’t know quite what to do with the molten feelings clawing at my insides. This is, basically, the sort of hatred where I’m going to have to choose between killing you, or killing myself out of sheer frustration. To be clear: I dislike you very much.

And when I say you, I don’t mean that nominal, vague sort of you that I sometimes find useful as a neutral second party to these blog postings. Someone who I can make fun of, or joke with. No, I don’t mean that at all. I mean you. You in particular. Yes, that’s right, you. You right there. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I hate a lot of people. And I hate those people a lot. But out of all those people who I hate a lot, I hate you the most.

But wait, because when I say all, I also mean literally all of you. I mean, yes, I hate you in particular, very much, but that ‘you’ I use is not necessarily a particularly particularised particular. That is, I have more than enough room to specifically hate you all an individualised amount, even as I continue to hate you all as a group even more than I hate everybody else. I hate you in an amount which is, if you like, variable, to allow an increased amount of hatred for whichever of you is currently the subject of my hate. Which, not to put too fine a point on the matter, is all of you at once. I mean, you might think I’d run out of hate. But you’d be very wrong. Oh, there’s plenty to go around, don’t you worry about that. Frankly, I’m a conveyor belt, endlessly spurting out hatred patties like a metaphorical version of a fast-food burger chain, and also like a literal version of a fast-food burger chain.

Now, when I say ‘and I really, really do’, what I’m trying to get across there is the sheer weight of seriousness with which I’m willing to back the idea of my hatred for you. I mean, I’m not just sure that I hate you, I’m double-really sure. I’m laying it all on the line here. This isn’t like hating milk or jelly beans or the concept of free enterprise, something that I might hate one day and then not hate the next. No, it’s not like that at all. This isn’t a fly-by-night sort of hate that’s going to turn into something else with the rising of the sun. This isn’t like ‘oh, I hate war’ or ‘oh, I hate starvation’. No, this is for keeps. This is real. This is really, really real.

But you can forget all that, because what’s important here is the why. That’s the heart of the matter, even as the matter of my heart is currently consumed with the most hateful of hates. Even as I am consumed in flames of raging ire, it is the reason for it which is truly the burning issue. Basically, I hate you all so very much because I love you all so very much. And on the whole, it’s a bit maddening.

Notes: Sometimes when I say one thing in this blog I might actually mean the opposite. I do this as a representation of how clever I think I am. It’s all a real mindbender really, isn’t it? Or maybe it isn’t. Or maybe it is. Well, whichever it is, please make it stop now. Or don't.