Monkeys!

No, we have several holidays that are somewhat similar, but essentially we break your celebration into two components. And then we have one “thanksgiving” day which is totally alien to your world.

In the late months of the harvest time on Planet Neecknaw, we have a holiday that is probably closest to your Thanksgiving (which is really just a North American holiday, not a global phenomenon.)

Cram It!

This harvest festival is called Cram It! The name really explains it all. The focus is on the cramming or stuffing of things: delicate fruits and nuts into the hollowed-out abdominal cavities of tasty and unsuspecting foul; this and other foods crammed into the gullets of a glutinous simian horde; and for those monkeys who haven’t overdone the gastronomical cramming, there is a special “evening” cramming that happens when the little macaques are in bed, if you get my drift.

Famanguish

We then let the hangover from our Saturnalia-like Cram It! become a distant memory, before we celebrate Famanguish Day, which is when we force ourselves to spend the day with our extended family (whom we usually never see) and ask them to revive all of our crippling emotional traumas. Sometimes families are creative and come up with new traumas especially for that day. Sometimes many. Nobody looks forward to Famanguish, but everyone participates because, “you only have one family.”

Kangsgiving

Then when I was Overlord, I instituted Kangsgiving Day, which followed the day after Famanguish. Kangsgiving is a day of rest, in which you are supposed to sit at home and quietly thank me for not forcing you to go to work after the horrors of Famanguish. Also, you can drink as much coconut or banana liqueur as you’d like, as long as you agree to do a tour of duty in my crack Gorilloid Toilet Cleaning Service. This is a non-combat unit whose sole duty is to clean up after the Gorilloid Army. They can be messy — oh, let’s not mince words, the Gorilloid Army makes the Savage Pooflinging Brigade look fastidious — but hey, all the banana liqueur you want … and I send it to your house.

Next time: Last year you mentioned something about dark matter being a figment of my imagination. How do you explain the rotational speed of our galaxy then?

Other turkeys are being served at humor-blogs.com and alltop.

Otherwise, flying fecal matter!

Yes, a Japanese tavern has monkey waiters.

Link to video.

Other simian delights are available at humor-blogs.com and alltop.

Some of you may not be aware that Canada is having an election too. Isn’t that cute?

The cool thing about Canadian elections is that they can happen practically anytime. Well, not any time, but when whenever the ruling party decides that it can win another election. Yep, you read that right. The people in power get to look at all the data — the polls, where we are in the hockey season, the relative curl and humidity of the beaver-shavings found in Ottawa — and decide, “yes, we can win an election, let’s DO IT!” (Even if you’ve promised that you won’t call an election for another year.)

But the really cool thing is that the election only lasts a few weeks. That’s right, loyal readers from the US, weeks. Not months. Not years. Weeks. And there’s more than two parties from which to choose. (I believe the rest of you native English speakers probably hail from a Commonwealth country, where the system is similar.)

Unfortunately, that is where the coolness ends, and the childishness begins, as so ably pointed out by Rick Mercer:

Update:
If you want a nice collection of quotes on the nature of democracy, check out Head Wide Open. Here’s one of my faves:

“Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”
–George Bernard Shaw

And if you want to prevent a Conservative majority, here is a website that can help.

Thanks to Corey for finding this one. More childishness (the funny kind) at humor-blogs.com and alltop.

Well, on my home planet of Neecknaw, this is a simple affair. The new leader chooses himself.

Or herself. But we haven’t had a female leader since the Gloomy Ages (the interstitial period between the Dark Ages and the Time of Light) when the orangutan giantess Slothia sat on the preceding and diminutive warlord, Marmostak the Mighty. (Marmostak the Mighty Small the followers of Slothia called him.)

But you’re probably asking because of the upcoming so-called “elections” you are holding in the “democracies” of the large landmass you call “North America”. I think the political theatre you have invented is quite fine, actually, though it lacks a certain martial élan that we on the Planet Neecknaw like to see in our leadership hopefuls.

So in that spirit, I would like to suggest that in lieu of your “elections”, you should have some kind of television show in which the leaders of your political “parties” eliminate one another in gruesome (and entertaining) ways. Because you humans value guile and low cunning as much as the simian population of Neecknaw, I’d recommend something that compensates for brute strength alone — I’m open to suggestions in the comments. (Otherwise, I’m pretty sure Elizabeth May will have an unfair advantage over the other sissified leaders of Canadian political parties, and this should also make the US election more interesting to watch too, though they are already pretty bloody.)

Next time: In space, nobody can hear you scream, but if an alien is laying eggs in your Captain’s cranium, you still CAN scream, right?

An elimination match will now ensue between humor-blogs.com and alltop. If that is not entertaining enough, may I recommend the Carnival of the Insanities.

What do I do? Shouldn’t you be asking what will you do?

What I do is charge up the power cells in my Interstellar Ape-arda, fill the ships with hordes of uber-chimps hungry for adventure and loot, and set course for the nearest planet that hasn’t used up all its resources.

From there, it’s a simple matter of subduing the local sapient population (if there is one), and then setting up shop. Literally. The second major phase of any decent conquest is building the consumer infrastructure you need to plunder a planet. You’d be amazed how many societies are content to live within their means. Sustainable development is no good if you’re in the pillaging business!

Once you have them selling things bought or processed, or buying things sold or processed, or processing things sold or bought, then you’ve got an economy you can sack.

But that’s what I’d do (if I still had a fleet of space ships capable of faster-than-light travel and crammed full of bonobos with a jones for gold-plated walking sticks).

You can barely reach your own planet’s orbit, so you’re going to have to come up with a more creative solution.

Next time: What’s the etiquette when an alien bursts out of your dining companion’s chest? Do you wait for them to excuse themselves, or do you say “God Bless”?

More inexcusable horrors are available at humor-blogs.com and alltop.

Yes, yes you could.

You could be a female chimp of a certain age and inclination, and you could be in deep, chattering, pheromone-rich estrus.

But I suspect you’re actually asking, how could you be more sexy –

No, I’m asking it kind of rhetorically, actually. Sort of like the way Chandler might

What kind of nimrod asks a rhetorical question of an advice columnist? And who the hell is Chandler?

No don’t answer you hairless skin-sack, THAT was rhetorical too. How do you like it? Not so much I bet. Could you BE more of a fully bipedal over-craniumed wanker?

I will answer your question: think before you say something. Most people don’t find gross stupidity very appealing.

Next time: You seem like a very angry individual, yet you’ve been remarkably successful in your profession. How do you manage your all-encompassing simian rage and a career?

More laughable hominid rage available at humor-blogs.com and alltop.

Karl Gustav the German Hat-Wearer never understood why the French were always going on about the ‘English disease’.

For Gott’s sake they were French! Degenerate snail-eating, malodorous, cravat-tying, frog-frying French. The French had killed his son at Ypres, they’d fornicated with sheep, whose brains they proceeded to cook with wine and fungus. The French. The French and their worries about the ‘English disease’.

Then he met Baden Powell.

Humor-blogs.com and Alltop are also concerned about the French. You will also find a few people concerned about things, French or not, at the Carnival of the Insanities.

Claude 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.

I have never owned one of your quaint “internal combustion engine” vehicles, so I have not had to worry about the high price of gas, but I have been getting nailed on the cost of most foods appropriate for the Thringian Keg-Beast that I ride to work every day.

On my home planet, I fed my Keg-Beast leftover hyper-bananas from the über-chimp orgy the night before, but since I’ve been on Earth, there has been a dearth of both hyper-bananas (apparently they won’t grow in your frigid Earth climate) and über-chimp swinging events (this explains why I am so cranky). So, I’ve found alternatives; the Keg-Beast works best on a mixture of corn syrup, mescaline and the sweat of writers living in a state of quiet despair. Most of those elements are plentiful and relatively cheap, but do you have any idea how costly corn syrup is?

You humans are stupid! You’re burning fossil fuels to grow corn, which you turn into ethanol to burn along with your fossil fuels. Why don’t you just cut out the middle-man and take a flamethrower to your cornfields when they’re ripe? You will lose only a fraction of the energy value and most of the vegetable matter will end up adding to global warming. As an added bonus: big fire!

Then your planet will be able to grow hyper-bananas, and all will be well.

… Assuming we can get a few female über-chimps down here too.

Next time: I’m trapped in the Andromeda galaxy because my hyper-drive engine is asking for a better benefits package — how do it get it back to work without giving it full dental?

Alright, The Skwib has disappeared from the top thirty of humor-blogs.com. You know you have to sign up for an account and vote, or this sad state of affairs will go on? Do you really want such a travesty to continue? You do? Alright, then go visit Alltop instead. I won’t mention it again.

[Transcript begins.]

Professor Quippy:
Welcome to The Skwib’s first ever presentation of the Pre-Columbian Interpretive Dance Olympics, held here in sunny Southwestern Ontario, where the humidity is hovering somewhere near 90%, the air-quality index is “tubercular” and where I’m sharing the announcer duties with the lovely Dennis Travesty and her biographer and the last Dadaist, Toulouse Le Grandfig.

Welcome all. Now what can we expect to see today Dennis?

Dennis Travesty:
I’m hoping to see that hunky Cro-Magnon I saw hanging around the sausage vendor!

And then I’d like to see him dance. Oh, yes!

Professor Quippy:
Monsieur Le Grandfig, I’m told that you actually won this competition when it was held in Calakmul in 910 AD? Putting aside the issue of your longevity, what exactly will the competitors be feeling right now?

Toulouse Le Grandfig:
It depends a little bit on where they have done their training.

Some of the artists will have been to the Abstract School in Schenectady New York, in which case they will be feeling a sense of confusion and intestinal cramping–

PQ:
Cramping?

TLG:
Yes, their food handling techniques are notoriously lax. If they’ve gone to the Camus School, then the dancers will no doubt be feeling a sense of ennui and their own futility–

DT:
I’m feeling ennui right now!

PQ:
You seem strangely excited by it. Ah, here comes the first dancers.

DT:
It’s the hunk! And some kind of overweight tourist…

PQ:
Yes, our first dancers are the cave man Thag and Dr. Maximillian Tundra, performing: “Thag blog funny.” Thag is wearing some kind of fur loincloth and Dr. Tundra is wearing a Hawaiian Shirt, greasy jean cut-off shorts, and what appears to be a tiny bowler hat.

Toulouse, do you know where have they done they’re training?

TLG:
Thag is self-taught. It is clear from the way he’s carrying himself to the performance area. Do you see the way he’s dragging his knuckles? That is a sure sign of an amateur. Dr. Tundra has been to the Timothy Leary School. Or he might be a science fiction writer who thought this was the way to the Con Suite.

PQ:
Well, whatever the case, he seems to be getting ready to dance by limbering up. Do you see him touching his toes? Oh, no, sorry … it’s probably a case of nerves. I know that I threw up before the Oral Defense of my thesis.

DT:
Me too!

TLG:
He said “thesis” Den.

DT:
They’ve started!

PQ:
Now, what would that mean? It seems as though Thag is opening his arms to the sky, and Dr. Tundra is lying down.

DT:
Look at his arms!

TLG:
Ah, I see what they’re going for here. The Classic pre-Columbian Duality Dance. Thag is the positive force, and Tundra the negative. Do you see how he’s hopping from one foot to the other? And how Tundra is now turning over, as though he awoke and then fell back asleep?

PQ:
And he’s rolled in his own vomit.

DT:
Ewwwwww!

TLG:
It means that a successful blogger writes something new every day. The lazy ones roll in their own filth. Or it could be something about soup.

PQ:
Soup?

TLG:
Yes, baby fricassee too.

DT:
Oh Toulouse, you’re too much.

PQ:
Now what are they doing?

DT:
Look at Thag’s calves. Yummy!

TLG:
Yes, he’s kicking Dr. Tundra, repeatedly, to show how a good blogger isn’t afraid of doing the same thing over and over. Now, do you see how he varied that kick, with the heel instead of the toe — he’s saying that even if you do the same thing, you need to make it new and interesting. Newts and bowling, by the way.

[Professor Quippy stares at Toulouse Le Grandfig]

DT:
Oh, Dr. Tundra is getting up! He’s covering his privates.

PQ:
So is he saying that a bad blogger hides his personal life?

DT:
No, Thag is kicking him there.

PQ:
I don’t think we should be airing this in prime time.

TLG:
No the kids should see this. Do you see how Dr. Tundra is now huddled next to the bleachers, hugging himself and crying? They’re saying that too much self-love is not funny. You have to make fun of yourself if you’re going to refer to yourself, that’s why Thag is beating him with the sturgeon?

PQ:
Actually, I believe that’s a wiffle bat.

DT:
I love wiffles! With ice cream!

TLG:
Exactly, Den! They’re saying that puns can be humorous too!

PQ:
Now, why are there a troop of large apes entering the dance area?

DT:
Well, duh — monkeys are hilarious! And those are über-chimps.

PQ:
But why are they wearing tutus and fezzes? And why do they have tubas?

TLG:
Custard?

PQ:
Is that little one wearing a tiny Napoleon outfit? He’s adorable.

DT:
Wow, Thag is really laying into those über -chimps.

PQ:
Yes, the little one can’t seem to keep them in their ranks. He does a lot of shouting, doesn’t he.

TLG:
You see how Dr. Tundra is crawling away, hiding under the bleachers? And how Thag is wading in, knocking the über -chimps unconscious? That’s a metaphor.

PQ:
For what?

TLG:
Writing. The key to successful writing is never letting the critics get you down. Just wade into the crowd of monkeys and let fly. Only a failed writer will crawl away.

PQ:
I guess most of the crowd are failed writers too. They’re really emptying the bleachers quickly. Oh, look, some of the chimps –

DT:
Über -chimps!

PQ:
Über -chimps, are bringing the mouthpieces of their tubas to their lips. That can’t be good …

TLG:
Yes, yes, yes. This is great. Every pre-Columbian Interpretive Dance should end in some kind of catastrophic bloodshed. And onions.

[Catastrophic, Tympanic membrane-busting, sound. Transcript ends.]

The preceding was a dramatization; no actual tubas were hurt during its production, though Dr. Tundra did throw up. Its production was in answer to a “non-meme” created by the Menacing Brent Diggs, proprietor of the Ominous Comma, Lord of the Baleful Apostrophe, and Master of Threatening Punctuation. If you would like to participate in this “non-meme”, all you have to do is:

1. Write a funny post that includes an actual and helpful technical blogging tip or educational material helpful to new bloggers.
2. Challenge five other experienced bloggers of funniness.
3. Post it.
4. Link and badge up if you so desire.

I’m sure that most of the other funny blog writers at humor-blogs.com and alltop have seen this challenge, so I will “not-tag” the following bloggers: Mark, Archer,Ellison, Jon and Leslie. Now, if you have a humor-blogs account (or would like one), please express your joyous need for soup and tell everyone you loved this post.

This classic Harlan Ellison rant comes courtesy of Steve Davey, a travel writer and photographer who has been asked for his share of freebies.

You may want to watch Harlan explain his philosophy on providing free content before you read the rest of the post. Or not. He’s talking specifically about the studios, but he raises an interesting point:

“They always want the writer to work for nothing. And the problem is, there’s so god-damned many writers who have no idea that they’re supposed to be paid every time they do something! They do it for nothing. [raises shoulders and flaps arms] Guh, guh, ghuh, look at me, I’m going to be noticed, huh, huh, huh-huh.”

So all you bloggers out there, according to Harlan, we’re all “assholes”.

I say guilty as charged. What do you think?

Free content provided by YouTube. (Oh, the irony!) Link provided by Steve Davey. If you believe this is a funny blog — sorry about the lack of monkeys today — you should go to humor-blogs.com and vote. You can also find more humor at alltop.