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Ask General Kang: The Home Edition

By on August 1, 2008 in Ask General Kang

Ask General Kang (home edition)The walls of my house are bleeding, and I keep finding an ax next to my bed when I wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of bells. Do you have any idea what color I should paint my kitchen?

I guess that all depends on if the walls there are bleeding. If so, I’d go with a nice arterial red. Otherwise, I really like . . . wait a minute, do you live in a firehall? Because, if you do, then you’ll have to check with the regulations to see what colors you can use.

Otherwise, yellow.

I’m not happy with the way poltergeists are rearranging the furniture.

You need to find a way to fire them. When I was Overlord of Beltron IX (the all-gorilloid planet) I had a Major Domo who was a royal pain the nether-regions, if you get my drift. Now, like your poltergeists, he came with the house, so I couldn’t just ask him to leave. I checked out the paperwork in the offer, and there was no disclosure about his position, so I sued the agent, the previous owners and the city (just to be thorough). When that didn’t work I sent them all work in Beltron IX’s infamous bulemium mines. I hired a nice bonobo to do all the housework, and the place was great after that.

Um, I think I may have a cockroach problem. Either that or there’s a decomposing body in my basement. What should I do?

I sincerely hope it’s the previous owner, moldering in your crawlspace. If it is cockroaches, you have two possible solutions — sell the house (just make sure you don’t sell it to me) or have an exterminator try to get rid of them. I had a similar problem on Numneuts XII, and we ended up having to glass the planet. I have some spare nukes lying around if you have to go that route.

Next time: All your base are belong to us.

Humor-blogs.com and Alltop are also under construction.

Vote for this post and nobody gets “glassed”.

Great Summer Reads: $everance

By on July 31, 2008 in But is it art?, Parody & Satire, Skwibby fiction

$everance cover artRichard Kaempfer’s $EVERANCE is a spot-on satire of the dangers of media consolidation. It cuts a swath through the evils of corporate America, the shrill inanities of the whole left-right political farce, and the corrupting influence of Wall Street.

The story follows Tom Zagorski, a popular radio DJ in Chicago, who wants his severance cheque. Instead of firing him outright, Zagorski’s boss is doing everything he can to make his life miserable, hoping that Zagorski will simply quit. But the resilient “Polack-American” has other plans. Instead of caving, he sends an incendiary email to the CEO of the corporation that owns Zagorski’s station, suggesting a series of absurd changes that would “save” the company even more money.

But the CEO takes Zagorski seriously, and even worse, his absurd reforms (which include posting security guards to protect all office supplies, and the NASCARization of the evening news) does save the company millions of dollars. Instead of getting him fired, the email gets him promoted — to Chief Operating Officer!

Now he’s even farther away from his severance cheque — and the only way he can get fired now is to destroy the corporation’s stock price, but Zagorski has the golden touch.

The book rips along, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, and if you have any interest at all in what has happened to the media landscape in the past twenty years, you’re going to love it.

This is published by ENC Press, who published my first novel, THE AMADEUS NET. (Available for purchase here.) I’ve read a number of the other authors that Olga has published, and I’ve enjoyed every one immensely, though I have to say I have a soft spot for fellow Canadian Craig Forgrave’s DEVIL JAZZ, in which the Devil recruits the souls of Hitler, Marylin Monroe and Van Gogh to bring about the end of days.

You will find some free reading in the form of funny blog material here and here. Vote for this post here.

Juggernaut Business Mechanicals — Evil Overlords Rejoice

By on July 30, 2008 in But is it art?, Odd Science, Parody & Satire

Cyborg from JBM Corporate WebsiteFinally, JBM has launched its corporate website. Though it is ridden with problems, evil overlords, interstellar overlords and meglomaniacs worldwide will be relieved to know that JBM is open for business again.

From the JBM corporate website:

JBM — Famous for our Juggernauts, but expanding

Ever since Dr. Malifico founded JBM, we have been known world-over for the quality of our business mechanicals. They are not only gargantuan in scale, and lethal when required, but they are well-suited to modern business environments as well.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, JBM underwent a major restructuring, and instead of catoring exclusively to would-be evil overlords, bent on extorting a large percentage of GNP from both the free world and the Communist Bloc, JBM started catering to large business.

Our state-of the-art RED Juggernaut is still our best seller, and few business would be better served by other mechanicals. However, we are expanding our range, and creating LaserBots, TaxCrushing Servo-motors, and we are moving into industrial applications as well.

JBM corporate logoIn a statement released to the press, our CEO has sated: “with a modicum of talent, ruthless efficiency and some element of surprise, JBM should be in a position to destroy the competition and own the juggernaut business mechanical sector..”

As I said, their website is a complete disaster, but their product offerings will be of interest to any up-and-coming evil mastermind bent on world domination.

It would appear that both Alltop and the funny blog aggregator, humor-blogs.com, are out for world comedy domination.

Vote for this post, or General Kang will send a Red Juggernaut after you.

Manky phrases in referral stats become a source of mirth

By on July 29, 2008 in But is it art?, Parody & Satire

BUMONSI CITY (The Skwib) — When hilarity blogger Captain HaHa discovered the phrase “penguin nun sex” in his blog stats, he decided to turn taboo interspecies romance into pure comedy gold.

“Yeah, initially I was totally weirded out by finding the phrase in my search string stats, but then I thought, hey that’s kind of funny. I should blog about that,” the pseudonymous blogger told The Skwib in a phone interview.

He went on to write a long post about how a large number of pervs were finding his perfectly normal website using freaky search terms. And then to make the post even funnier, he posted some of the other search engine referrals that weren’t necessarily rude, but were definitely odd.

“I especially liked ‘Captain HaHa hepatitis cures’. I mean, that means someone was Googling my pseudonym!” the blogger said as he stroked his keyboard obsessively.

According to statistics from ThoughtCounter.com, nearly all bloggers will blog about their search term referrals at some point in their writing careers.

“It’s almost irresistible,” Leslie Flapkak, PhD candidate at a ‘leading’ university, says. “Posts about search engine terms combine four of the five primary elements of all successful blogging: strange facts, self-absorption, statistics and some form of writing. On occasion, they even include references to cats, and in those cases, you have a perfect blog post.”

For “hilarity” bloggers such as Captain HaHa, the search engine referral post is a surefire way to get laughs.

“According to my research, the only things that are funnier are fake news stories and pictures of monkeys dressed as some kind of historical personage, such as Hitler or Stalin,” Flapkak said.

In related news: Blogger ponders on things instead of musing about them

You will find a great many other instances of hilarity at this humour blog list. Alltop will also have a fair few. Vote for this post and save the nuns! Or the penguins!

Grandfig: Beaver Travels with Toothbrush

By on July 28, 2008 in Monkeys!, Toulouse Le Grandfig

Wrestling through an existential crisisClaude was having an existential crisis.

He’d tried to deny it, but just as Brother Sartre had suggested in a recent penmanship competition, it was becoming clear to the strapping Greco-Roman enthusiast that his life was devoid of meaning, unless he could give it some himself.

But where to look for meaning?

Then Serge put him in a sleeper hold. A delicious, overpowering sleeper, pungent with Russian vodka, sweat, and dare he say, import?

From the Toulouse Le Grandfig collection. Other existential crises seen at Alltop and at thisfunny blog aggregator too.

A Meat-Stealing, Advice-Ridden, Vomitus O-Rama

By on July 27, 2008 in General Skwib

The ever-vigilant Mr. Snitch recently noticed an interesting story about a New Jersey man stealing $100 worth of meat by stuffing it down his pants. This is not a phenomenon restricted to the Garden State. I happen to know on good authority that our local ValuMart (here in sunny Wortley Village), has suffered the same indignity of pant-stuffing meat-lifters. They are easily apprehended because most men are not adept at running with large pieces of beef slapping around in their pants. (Present company excepted, I’m sure.) However, Mr. Snitch then goes on to ask the obvious question: what happens to the meat afterwards? Is there a discount for “slightly used meat”, or do the police hold onto it, so to speak, pending trial?

The verdict is in on The Dark Knight (it’s the feel-good movie of the year), but until I read this Compendium of Killing Jokes, I thought it was supposed to be laughing AT The Joker, not WITH him .

While we’re on the topic of movies, you’ll want to run right out and get some of the Exclusive X-Files Merchandise available from NeonBubble. I can hardly wait until my David Duchovny’s The X-Files: I Want To Beekeep kit arrives, but I’m a little anxious about what the “8-inch hive tool” is for.

I’m not nearly as concerned about the delightful brain of the historian Rob MacDougall; it’s recently applied its wattage to a trio of world-building exercises of the steampunk variety. I especially liked “The Kinematrix Has You”.

What can Brown do for you? Well, it can help you if you’re caught short, but only if you’re a damn fast folder.

Mean Ol’ Meany has more advice for everyone on how to avoid other kinds of intestinal distress, though nothing to cope with the kind of idiocy in the clip below, which is reminiscent of my last peyote bender. (Warning: This Family Guy segment may make you feel a bit squingy.)

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Once you’ve recovered from that, you may want to learn How to be #1 on Humor-Blogs.com. Advice from LOBO, who’s deranged blog is a constant worry to the authorities. (Incidentally, The Skwib was once #1 on Humor-Blogs.com, but that was before the new voting thingy. You can help The Skwib crawl its way back on the leaderboard by signing up for an account and voting here. Don’t make me get the ipecac! )

Did any of that unhinge you slightly? Well then perhaps you’re ready for the Carnival of the Insanities now.

You’ll find more meaty links many a funny blog at Alltop as well.