If you happen to live on one of the many planets inhabited by CEOs, you may find yourself wondering: “how do I not get eaten?”

You may also wonder if there is sunblock powerful enough to prevent dermal incineration when lanced by particle beams. (There isn’t.)

However, have you considered living underground? All you need is a pipe for air, a small amount of water, and vitamin supplements to augment your diet of worms and other burrowing creatures.

Of course, you will also need enough time to dig a hole — these inhabitants of Neebie-neebie waited until a large pack of CEOs descended on a nearby city, enslaving and devouring the hapless and (dare we say) ill-prepared tiny and polite humans. While this carnage was underway, they had lots of time to build their holes, and even a few tunnels between them, so they might breed more tiny and polite humans.

Ah, the circle of life!

Alltop enjoys their human cooked funny. From Toulouse Le Grandfig in the Land of the Future | photo by Duesentrieb. Originally published November 2007.

Having settled the issue of if the members of the Thunka Grunka tribe had free will or not, Thag settled back into life with his tribe.

For once, it was almost peaceful. He and his new mate, Twigla, were happy. Thag enjoyed the prestige and respect everyone gave him for leading the hunters so well. (Not to mention how they grokked his cave paintings and practically worshiped his beer.)

He and the other decent hunter, Fonzag, were in the process of training a new generation of young men. But they were having problems with Donjuag.

Donjuag was the son of Gnock, whom Thag had been unable to save from cave lions, so he felt even more responsibility. But Donjuag was a moody fellow. Unpredictable. He was also in love with Fonzag’s mate, the luscious Vunga.

“Heyyyyyy,” Fonzag said to Thag, as they walked out to their hunting grounds. “He’s being uncool with my lady.”

“Him not do anything,” Thag told Fonzag. “Him just infatuated.”

Donjuag ran by, his spear held high above his head, whooping with excitement.

“What him do?”

“Thag, that cat is full of energy,” Fonzag explained. “He’s not sleeping well either, at least that’s what his mom said.”

“Him crazy,” Thag said while Donjuag finished his sprint with a forward flip. The young hunter over-rotated and did a face plant. Thag laughed. “Donjuag funny.”

Donjuag, undeterred, got up, and did a back flip, whooping with delight.

Fonzag looked on, worried. Thag slapped his diminutive friend on the back (careful not to touch Fonzag’s ridiculous hair) and said, “Fonzag not worry. We wear Donjuag out on trail. Him too tired to pitch woo at Vunga.”

Donjuag started running again, landing a forward flip this time, and Fonzag grunted. “I don’t know, he’s got a lot of energy.”

New Scientist: Puppy love makes teenagers lose the plot. Photo by esterase. Look here forhumorists with too much energy. Originally published 2007.

Every morning before they started the hunt, Thag would sit down away from the others, close his eyes, and listen to the wind. It was more than that, but that is what he told the other hunters. Really what he did was sit, and let his mind go blank.

At first it would be filled with thoughts and concerns — mostly about Onga, his mate, and his running feud with that phallus-with-ears shaman, Weasel-Scratch-Face-Brother. He would not concentrate on those thoughts, but let them wash away, and eventually, his mind would loosen, and he could hear the wind distinctly; its whooshes and gusts, its whispers, and then the smells would come to him.

This morning ritual heightened his ability to sense the prey.

In stark contrast to Thag, Gnock had another way of preparing for the hunt. This ritual involved a lot of shouting, and banging the shaft of his wooden spear against his head, numbing himself to pain, and more importantly, fear.

Gnock had been doing this since his brother Grunk had been killed by the wooly rhino.

One morning, Thag came back from his meditation earlier than usual, and told the other hunters: “go higher ground, upwind. Smell cave lions. Many.”

“Many hunting us?” asked Vlog, one of the sharpest hunters.

“Un,” Thag confirmed.

This was bad news indeed. Cave lions did not normally travel in groups, and they would not fear the humans if they had numbers on their side.

“Much goodly!” Gnock, who had stopped bashing his melon long enough to hear this news, said.

“You mammoth gas sniffing?” Vlog asked Gnock.

Gnock just grinned insanely, and said, “hunt us cave lion!” Then he started shouting: “here cave lion. Lion, lion, liiiiiii-on!”

“Gnock be quiet,” Vlog hissed.

Gnock ignored the sensible suggested: “Lion, lion, liiiiiii-on!”

Thag had been meditating, but if anything it made his reaction quicker. He used his own spear to whack Gnock on the back of the head, much harder than Gnock had been doing to himself.

The shouting stopped, but the trouble was just starting. The wind stopped blowing for a moment, and Thag heard something. He told the others: “they come. Climb trees.”

Vlog looked at Gnock and said, “what him?”

Thag looked down sadly at Gnock, and just shook his head. “Not time carry up tree.”

Scientific evidence: Meditation builds up the brain | Gene turnoff makes meek mice fearless. Other head-knockers and skull bangers here. Originally published 2005.

It had been an unlucky hunting season.

First of all, their big man, Grunk, got himself gored by a woolly rhinoceros in the first week of the expedition.

Grunk — always the big swinging dick that Grunk — had tried to stab it in the eye instead of dodging to the side. Still, if he’d been successful, that would have been sweet. They could have ended the trip right there. The jackpot. Instead they had to chase the rhino until Grunk’s massive bulk finally fell off the horn.

After Grunk’s wipe out, morale was low. Their youngest and cockiest hunter, Mrog, made the somewhat risky decision to prove to the others that the Thunka Grunka clan still had the moxy to take down any prey they wanted. Including cave lions.

Yep, Mrog had been an idiot. It was probably best that he hadn’t had a chance to mate before he became cat food.

That just left Thag as the only other hunter with an ounce of creativity or ambition. After all, if they came back to the Grunka village without a shitload of meat, his mate Onga would be sharing slappies with that bastard shaman, Weasel-Scratch-Face-Brother the next time he went out hunting for sure. Especially since their last fight and the total failure of the shalli whacker.

So when they saw it, Thag knew they just had to take it down. It was the fabled unicorn — basically a tall woolly rhino with twice the speed, and twice the horn.

Remembering Grunk, the other hunters were keen to just let it go on its way, but Thag said no, they should risk it, but no hot-dogging. They would work as a team.

Later, Thag would remember that as the defining moment of his life, and always told the youngsters to take risks, but calculated risks.

It didn’t solve the problem with Onga though.

Inspired by:
Elasmotherium | Too scared to be a millionaire?. Originally published in 2005.

Now all our horny creatures are on the web.

Thag was preparing himself for a long hunting trip.

He’d already sharpened his fire-hardened spear, and collected fresh grasses for insulating his clothes and moccasins. The last thing he needed to do was cut himself a fresh set of knives for skinning the many mammoth that he would no doubt catch. (Well, him and the other guys.)

But he was worried. As he knapped a piece of shalli — the name they gave to their local flint — slowly breaking off flakes to create a sharp knife, he thought about the problem.

He’d seen the way that his mate, Onga, had been eyeballing the shaman, Weasel-Scratch-Face Brother.

He wasn’t supposed to think of Onga as his, per se, but there was just something so creepy about Weasel. The thought of Onga doing it with the gimpy medicine man made him itch with annoyance.

“Shit,” he said as he broke his skinning knife in two.

He looked at the siltstone he’d been using to knap the knife. It was long, tubular, polished smooth. He took the shard of knife and etched a ring around the top of it.

Yes, that looked about right. He would give it to Onga as a Parting Gift. Perhaps that would keep her distracted enough to forget the dubious pleasures of Weasel-Scratch-Face Brother.

And if it didn’t work out, it would still be a tremendous shalli whacker.

The archaeological evidence: ancient phallus unearthed in cave. You may also enjoy the primitive humor-knapping of these folks. The next chapter in the Thag Saga.

Originally published in 2005.

Unlike all the other inhabitants of Planet Heliumbag, Larry and Wanda were unable to levitate at will. This was a genetic problem that could not be cured with standard DNA Invasion (TM) technology, and so, they had to go through life, drearily trudging around their homeworld, which was not designed for “terrestrials” as they were so cruelly called by the indifferent, bloated citizens of Heliumbag. (Most entrances to buildings were at least thirty feet off the ground, so both Larry and Wanda learned how to climb walls and scale smooth surfaces at an early age.)

It was inevitable that Larry Pogo would one day meet Wanda Stiltskin, that they would fall in love, and find solace in one another. But nobody could have predicted that they would share their lives sixty feet up in the air, balanced precariously on SmartPoles(TM) made from a kind of nano-tubing Wanda had developed. (Ironically, Wanda invented this while she recovered from a fall trying to get into the Levitation Institute, which helped other Heliumbagians float higher than thirty feet. The fall had shattered her legs and left her paralyzed from the hips down.)

Larry was able to manipulate his SmartPole(TM) with his feet, while Wanda had a special “adaptation” for her SmartPole(TM) that she usually hid with an elegant, deeply shadowed dress or skirt. So long oblivious to their struggle to maintain just an ordinary existence, the Planet Heliumbag now made celebrities of the mercurial Larry and always-smiling Wanda. A Grand Tour of the Corporate Imperium was suggested and it was a huge success, leading to a gala performance on the homeworld of NaziWorks 3000 (The Caring Company).

Unfortunately, their SmartPoles(TM) put them at perfect snacking height for the gigantic, flesh-rending CEOs that roam the planet at will.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com are also lifting.

From Toulouse Le Grandfig in the Land of the Future | photo by OzJulian

MONKEY SEE is a charming and satirical examination of the question: “what would happen if monkeys could talk, and they had their own 401(k)s?”

It is also a love story, an etiquette manual for talking apes, parenting help for said primates, and a demented “how-to” guide for the aspiring evil scientist.

You’ll notice I used the words “evil scientist”, not “mad scientist”, because really, you can’t explain anything to mad scientists. They spend most of their time frothing at the mouth or terrorizing the village after drinking/injecting/inserting/stepping into/ or otherwise using the newly minted insane formula/device they have created to solve the problem of “what should I do this afternoon after I’ve finished eating bugs?”

Evil scientists, on the other hand, have a plan.

So it is with Dr. Harold Cogitomni, who is hatching a diabolical (evil) plan, to turn a Spider Monkey (Gigi), into a 60-foot, poison-breathing (to be clear, breath that is poisonous to others), crystal-spike-tailed behemoth capable of crushing houses and tanks. (Always a useful ability in a behemoth, or even your run-of-the-mill leviathan.) Continue reading…

The Giganto-Schism occurred sometime just after the establishment of the Trans-Vatican and the first RoboPope, Clagnor The Irrefutably Lethal. (This was dawning of the Genetic Fruit-Topping Wars). While the people of St. Tropezia were still somewhat bemused by the dire calamities promised by the Trans-Catholic Church, they found themselves drawn irresistibly to the gigantic women of their saucy little planet, and formed the Giganto Creed.

In particular, they loved Our Lady of the Massive Legs and Leopard Skin Camisole (especially when she was bathing). The Giganto-Schism further widened when the Victoria Secret Galaxy joined the Corporate Imperium, and they unleashed their first catalog of “Euretro-Genita Coverings for the Monumental Goddess” collection upon the unsuspecting Trans-Vatican.

The Robo-Pope never recovered, especially when he discovered that several of his Death Cardinals of Extreme Planetary Retribution kept copies of the catalog under their mattresses.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com also have big dreams.

From Toulouse Le Grandfig in the Land of the Future | photo by Odegaard

Here at NaziWorks 3000, The Caring Company, we hold it self-evident that all cybertronic humans are created equal, no matter if they are eye-barred, groin-grappling, finger-pointing CEOs of major multi-dimensional super-corporations, or whether they are tiny and polite unmodified humans waiting to be eaten by their betters.

We care about everyone.

Especially how they taste.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com are both delicious

From Toulouse Le Grandfig in the Land of the Future.

Do you mean the form of punctuation, or what happens to your lower intestines after you’ve eaten improperly prepared Thringian Gitworm sashimi?

Because if you’ve eaten bad ThriGit sashimi, and its still-living spawn are now lunching on your colon, then yes, that is something to be feared; it may even be horrifying.

If you are talking about the form of punctuation, then you are wise to be fearful. Back on Planet Neecknaw, I had a crack brigade of battle-ready gorilloids, armed only with copies of Fowler’s Modern English Usage and their intimate understanding of advanced punctuation warfare. You’ve never seen anything as terrifying as a gorilloid demonstrating an impeccable use of the semi-colon.

(Unless you’ve visited a ThriGit recovery ward.)

Next time: What’s the best way to stop Cerebral Space Weasels from nesting in one’s duodenum?

Question via Neatorama: The Usage of Semicolon is Confusing; Most People Are Afraid of It. Alltop and Humor-blogs.com are also unafraid of the semicolon; they are terrified of the em-dash, however. Note: this post previously appeared in February 2008.