Tag Archives | swine flu

Somewhere in the Heartland

By Mark A. Rayner on August 31, 2011 in Parody & Satire, Toulouse Le Grandfig

The economic downturn and subsequent collapse of civilized society was not welcome by most people.

But for the Pesquahoddy Mustard Gas and Swine Flu Enthusiast’s Club, the collapse had been a panacea.

Membership was way up, and their annual soiree, the much-anticipated Gas Masquerade actually turned a profit this year!

Membership in The MonkeySphere is also climbing. When it reaches 500, I’m giving away a Kindle. ($139 Amazon gift card, if you already got the ereader). More chances to win if you buy one of my books. Full contest details here.

Alltop is also a porcine enthusiast. Thanks to Foxtongue for the pic. Originally published April, 2009.

Counterintuitive Fairy Tales: Doug’s Disaster

By Mark A. Rayner on November 13, 2009 in Monkeys!, Skwibby fiction

bus grill Doug was freaked out.

Global warming was going to melt his face (right after it killed all the polar bears and drowned the Maldives). It was a maxim that terrorists or free-roaming gun-nuts boarded his bus and either blew it up, or shot him with a semi-automatic. And if those disasters didn’t strike, it was only a matter of time before he was felled by SWINE FLU!!

He could read it right there in the headlines. It was on the radio. The TV. It was inevitable. Doug was going to catch SWINE FLU and die. He wasn’t on the priority list, and then it would be too late.

Then a happy thought struck him. None of that had happened. And wasn’t there some kind of Bird Flu scare just a couple of years ago? He never caught that …

What if there was some sort of inverse relationship to disaster and the amount of fear churned up by the media: the more ink and airtime devoted, the less likely there would be a disaster?

It was a reassuring thought, and for the first time in many months, Doug didn’t feel freaked out. He felt safe. That was probably why he didn’t look before crossing the road to catch his transfer.

And that was when the bus struck him.

Happy Friday the 13th! Alltop and humor-blogs.com both enjoy an inevitable bus ride. Image by Melyviz

Ask General Kang: If we have love in a time of cholera, what if do we do we have in a time of swine flu?

By Mark A. Rayner on May 4, 2009 in Ask General Kang

Ask General Kang Interesting question, but I’m not convinced that swine flu is the next killer pandemic, mostly because of Kang’s Corollary.

Kang’s Corollary?

You know Murphy’s Law, right: “Anything that can go wrong, will.”

Kang’s Corollary is: “Anything that can go wrong, will, unless the we can get the media to talk about it incessantly, in which case, something else will go even more horribly wrong.”

Wow, you really are a pessimist.

Realist, please. Besides, you’d have a dark side too if you’d conquered half the civilized universe just to end up as an advice columnist.

But to answer your question, if you have love in a time of cholera, I’d say the best thing for a time of swine flu is Tupperware Parties.

Next time: Is there any way to escape the digestive tract of a Megnomian Wonder Beast? I mean, other than the bad way?

Alltop and humor-blogs.com are hard to flush from your system.

Carnival of Satire (#113)

By Mark A. Rayner on April 30, 2009 in Carnival of Satire

Carnival of Satire (#113) Isn’t it wonderful living in interesting times? This month’s edition of the Carnival of Satire demonstrates how even dire news has its satiric side:

Lobo kicks things off with this useful advice on how to prepare for the biohazard finale.

Rickey has equally helpful hints in his (un)Official Guide to Swine Flu.

Up until this swine flu thing, the media seemed pretty excited about Twitter. Little did they know that Kneon has been making webcomics with his Tweets. You can jump straight to the comic here.

You may also want to check out the Twitterpocalypse, which we related last week.

Sticking with the web, Juliet Chase has A new approach to SEO .

And yes, the economy is still a worry. Generation Bubble puts it in perspective with Yakk in the USSR, or How I Learned to Love the Bubble .

Clearly, Diesel’s strategy for coping with the recession is to try and ride it out in prison. Or perhaps this is just a cry for help. He is trying to sell a novel, after all: I Got Yer Inconsistent Use Right Here. Decide for yourself, then go sign his book thingy so he’ll stop harassing nice people on Facebook. It’s literally the least you can do.

Mike Sowden has his own creative project on the go, and it looks like Fox might be interested — Stellar Quest 1: The Beginning .

Madeleine Begun Kane is still waxing poetic, but this time her limerick has gone to the dogs.

And we’re all not obsessed by current events. Ellis imagines what Elvis would be like if he were an elderly Jewish man.

You know, I had some of the same thoughts when I saw that picture of the five presidents together. Tim Slowikowski has a warning about Jimmy Carter, a bad muthaf*cka.

steven germain presents Rough Fractals: Blog Bail-Out.

Satire Patch presents NRA Releases Message On Recent Shootings .

In in our one non-satire slot: Vanessa Wolf has an intriguing tale about British PM, Gordon Brown: Confucius say: When glass eye fall in soup, remove with spoon .

And that’s it for the 113th edition. Thanks to these fine folks for helping us with webby-stuff: the Blog Carnival for their form; and the listings at the Ubercarnival, Ferdy’s permanent floating ping festival, and for the listings at the Blog Carnival too. Also, you may find some satire here if you poke around a bit. Here too. Thanks to Hobbit90 from Freaking News.com for the pic.

Ask General Kang: Should I be worried about what the swine flu may do to the economy?

By Mark A. Rayner on April 27, 2009 in Ask General Kang, Parody & Satire

Ask General Kang Absolutely. You should spend a lot of time worrying about it.

You should probably go on some kind of epic alcoholic bender to help you forget about it, but then discover that it’s not really making you forget, so then take a lot of drugs. (Start with anything that is best injected. Note: you can save money by sharing needles.) Don’t get any rest. Replace food with coffee. Stop washing your hands.

Really let it get to you. I’d like to see you on a regime of sleepless nights, and bone-crushingly torpid days, when all you can do is think, “what is the swine flu doing to my savings? What if the Nikkei average loses another .02 percent of value?”

So, when you’re really exhausted, and when your immune system is as depressed as you are, then I want you to go to Mexico.

Next time: I believe my accountant may have lupus. Will this affect my EBITDA?

Alltop and humor-blogs are both trading derivatives. Asinine G&M article that “inspired” this: Swine flu outbreak dampens recover hopes. A few cogent questions and answers from the New Scientist: what you need to know about swine flu.