Woman: Hey there. Orlando, right? How’s the cleaning going?
Orlando: Pretty good. I was just checking the outflow levels.
Woman: Really? How are they? Hey—do you want a drink? I make great drinks. Let me get you a drink.
Orlando: I’m okay. Besides, I need both hands to skim the water for dirt.
Woman: Wow, I never noticed. Your muscles. They’re so…so defined. So sculpted. So powerful.
Orlando: Oh, this stuff? (holds up chemical). Yeah, it’s pretty potent, it’ll kill most of the debris. Not the big ones though. It doesn’t kill the leaves (laughs).
Woman: Um, yeah. Hey—is it just me, or is it hot out here? (takes off robe revealing bikini). Wow. It is really hot today. Hot, hot, hot. Hot.
Orlando: Yeah, that’s why I decided to mesh the external humidifier with the internal evaporator. I mean, it’s not necessary, but it’ll help your pH levels.
Woman: Yeah…well, uh…did I mention that my husband is out of town? He won’t be back until late tonight. That’s hours from now. Hours.
Orlando: Really? Damn. I need someone to help me remove this filter grating. It’s a two-person job.
Woman: Oh. Well…I guess…I could try to help?
Orlando: Great! You should probably put some clothes on, though. This thing’s filthy.
Woman: Okay.
Orlando: And it smells like shit.

Daniel: Well, the apartment was a decent size, but still pretty expensive for a one-bedroom.
Rob: Yeah, this is definitely a renter’s market. I think you can afford –
Steve: Hey guys, you talking Doritos?
Rob: Come on, Steve. Don’t do this again.
Steve: I just thought maybe you were having the old Doritos discussion.
Daniel: Dude, for the last time: we’ll tell you if we ever have a conversation about Doritos.
Steve: You promise?
Rob: Of course, Steve. We know how you love Doritos.
Daniel: Yeah, man. Everyone knows.

August 6 – Land ho!  We have nearly reached the New World, and the crew is positively giddy with anticipation and scarlet fever.  The only thing we love more than the thrill of exploration is the prospect of meeting new friends along the way.  We have all shaved our beards so as to appear non-threatening.

August 9 – I have stumbled upon a campground where natives are burning trees to the ground using our gunpowder.  Is this some sort of spiritual offering?  I plan to return tomorrow with my men so we can begin an open-minded discourse on the comparative merits of our two religions.

August 10 – We returned to the campground today, but the natives refuse to enlighten us with their worldview.  Instead, all they do is bow to us and bring us gold.  I keep telling them we just want to talk, but they won’t stop chaining themselves together and performing menial labor long enough to listen.  Whenever my men and I attempt to free them with our tools, they stubbornly insist that the only tools they need are the Bibles they have already stolen from us and memorized.

August 13 – Our ship is so full of gold that it can barely stay afloat.  I don’t know when the natives transported it all, but they must have somehow done it while we were asleep.  My only wish is that we had known ahead of time so we could have helped our generous new allies, or at least removed their shackles.

August 16 – Now that they have no more gold to give us, the natives have taken to destroying their homes in frustration, and also building churches.  My crew and I have no choice but to bathe in silent protest.

August 20 – The natives keep running up to us, taking our weapons, and using those weapons to kill themselves before we have a chance to stop them.  This has happened twelve thousand times.

My library is a grand, majestic building in the midst of the city.  The names of all the great thinkers are carved above the front portico, Aristotle center among them, because the engraver made a mistake.  Also it should be Plato, with a ‘t.’ All citizens are welcome in my library, but only serious readers dare enter, and also the building is unfortunately not handicap accessible.

When you enter my library, you will be standing in the marble lobby which was donated by a very wealthy family, who if you see them, please tell them the library is a hospital.  The reading room is a cavernous chamber on the second floor, tastefully but impressively furnished with mahogany tables and oriental rugs, though please bring your own chair, and a surgical mask.  Nestled in the stacks you will find my private office.  This is my ‘sanctuary’ which I use for quiet contemplation and to escape extradition.

We do things a little differently in my library.  No computers for us, just an old-fashioned card catalog run by an army of robots.  We also have one computer room, for porn.  We trust our patrons, so there are no overdue fines except under one of two circumstances: 1) the book is recalled, or 2) the book is our Gutenberg Bible.  The library is open twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year, except Presidents Day (we’re not heathens!).  There is no children’s section in my library and children are not welcome, except on Wednesdays when we open up the indoor theme park and they just love it.

The books in my library are arranged in alphabetical order—no fancy-shmancy Dewey Decimal System here—and then shelved according to year of publisher’s founder’s birth.  Our collection contains a copy of every book ever published and, just as in the Library of Congress, each book is stamped “Library of Congress.”  We have two copies of Moby-Dick, lest we forget the perils of whaling.  All tolled, the library contains over sixteen million items, not all of which are books!  Mostly they are dust mites.

In many ways, though, my library is very much like others.  Everyone maintains respectful quiet at all times, and even though Thursday night is mud-wrestling night, it is quiet mud wrestling.  Like other libraries, mine has faced its share of setbacks over the years.  We had a terrible fire in 1970 and, ironically, the library’s only copy of Jack London’s To Build a Fire was lost, along with approximately four million other volumes.

I hope you will enjoy your next book at my library!  Or at the very least, that you will send me some money for no reason.

When my son was 10, I started compiling tidbits of advice about life in general, especially as it pertains to embarking on epic adventures. Here is the list, even though my son is dead now.

- Remember, son, that ninjas are bad warriors and samurai are good warriors.

- If you see a samurai on the street, talk to him. He will ask you if you want to be best friends.

- If you see a ninja, remember these famous words of advice: “Remember, son, that ninjas are bad warriors and samurai are good warriors.”

- When choosing members of your adventuring party, and you have to choose between a samurai and a ninja, choose the samurai if you would like a smart, loyal and reliable ally in battle or choose the ninja if you want somebody who will sneak up behind you and light your shoe on fire while kicking you in the nuts.

- Always keep a bucket of water at your side if you are hanging out with a ninja. You never know when you will need to extinguish a ninja-made shoe fire.

- There are so many weapons that samurai and ninja use. Nunchaku, Kitana, Sai, and Bo are all of them.

- Son, do you think it’s kind of retarded that a bo is basically a big piece of wood?

- The silly thing about ninjas is that it is very unwieldy to be holding nunchaku while attacking an opponent’s foot with a lit match.

- If you pick up a stick on the ground and give it to a ninja, he will go “Cool! A Bo!” That’s when he’ll kick your ass with a Bo.

- If you at some time notice an uncomfortably warm sensation on your foot, look at your foot. It might be on fire. Ask that ninja lying on the floor if he did it.

- You know how sometimes somebody will give you a really nice foot massage? That’s what it feels like to hang out with a samurai. You know how other times you’ll be standing there and your foot will catch on fire? That is a sensation in some ways akin to when your foot is on fire because a ninja lit your foot on fire.

- They say when a ninja stands in the shadow, he is invisible except for the lit match he holds in front of him at all times, thus illuminating his entire face and most of his torso.

- Always flush a public urinal with your elbow. You need to keep your fist free in case of ninja attack!

- “The only good injun is a dead injun.” The same holds true for ninjas. Another kind of good ninja is one who is about to give you a root beer.

- A favorite deceitful ninja trick is to hand you a root beer and tell you to drop it on your foot. It is then that you realize that the “root beer” is actually a lit match and your “foot” is actually your other foot. A variation of this is when the ninja pretends that he himself is a root beer. Then when you drop the ninja on your foot, he is in a great position to light a match!

- I have never actually been given the hotfoot by a ninja, but one time while I was watching Karate Kid 2 I dropped a cigarette on my shoe.

- I have never actually been given the hotfoot by a ninja, but one time while I was watching Karate Kid 3 I stepped in the match flame of a ninja who was lying on the ground holding a lit match out against my shoe.

- The ninja code requires that any ninja who fails a mission must suffer punishment most dire. He must hold a lit match to his own shoe while pretending to be distracted watching The Next Karate Kid.

- If you see a ninja, call a samurai. They are the courageous men who walk around from village to village with wet paper towels that feel nice on your feet.

Everybody in the school shows up in tears.  When the popular girls cry it smears their makeup and they look ugly; meanwhile, my makeup looks great, so great that in the middle of the service, Jared stands up and demands to be buried in the coffin with me. The priest says it’s okay.

Everyone is trying to figure out why I chose to kill myself on November 15th.   Then someone realizes that it’s the six-year anniversary of the day Korn broke up. When Korn finds out what I’ve done, they get back together and write a song about me, with Green Day (who all join Korn.)

Suddenly, the lead singer of Creed stands up and reveals that “My Own Prison” was based on me. Everyone is shocked. Then the New Yorker announces that they’re going to publish “Black Sunshine,” a poem I’m going to write between now and when I kill myself.

Jodie isn’t invited to my funeral and she tries to have her own little funeral at the same time, but no one goes to hers.

Meanwhile, Green Day is in the middle of “time of your life” (they say it’s the last time they’re ever going to sing the song) when all of a sudden the Priest unplugs their instruments. “I’m afraid I have to interrupt Ashley’s funeral!” he says. “I have some alarming news.  The yearbook has been cancelled. It seems there are no photographs of any of the JV teams.” Everyone starts murmuring and crying because they’ve been looking forward to the yearbook for months.

“But the JV photographs were Jenny’s job! How is this possible? I thought Jenny was on top of all this?”

“Why did this happen,” the Priest says. “Why?”

“I’ll tell you why,” Billie Jo Armstrong says. “It may have been Jenny’s responsibility to take the photos, but Ashley was the one doing all the work, even though she was only the Junior Associate Editor!  She never got any credit for it while she was alive.”

Everyone is stunned. Some people murmur that maybe Ashley should have been elected Senior Associate Editor, in place of Jenny.

When I get to Heaven, the girls I killed in the murder part of my murder-suicide are waiting for me.

“It’s okay Ashley, we deserved to die,” says Tina. The rest of the volleyball A-team nods. “We understand why you had to do it,” they say. “We forgive you and now we all can be friends forever. In fact…put on this jersey, captain! We’ve got a game in half an hour!”

“I’m sorry about the yearbook stuff,” Jenny says. “And I also understand why I was killed.”

Just then Green Day all kill themselves and the funeral party moves up to heaven. They play “When I come Around” and “She.” Then my parents take me out to IHOP and order me the Rooty-Tooty Fresh ‘N Fruity with a side of Canadian bacon and I don’t gain any weight.

The End

Finally, an amusement park for real men.  Check out our rides:

Twisted Metal
Tired of lame free-fall rides that go at the girly acceleration of gravity?  This monster hurls you from the height of a 23-story building at over 3 G’s—onto your face.

Wheel of Death
You better leave your skirt at home, because by the end of this ride you will somehow be wearing one.

The Snake Charmer
When some sissy-nerd said that “you can’t go home again,” he was probably thinking of this ride.  After tasting The Snake Charmer’s nasty twists and daring descents, you’ll find your house burned down by a park employee.

Not Your Grandma’s Coaster
There’s a pretty good chance that your grandma never rode on this recently restored old-fashioned wooden coaster.

Earthbound
Do you know how it feels to experience an emergency reentry into our atmosphere in a speeding NASA spaceship?  Neither do we.  This ride is a shaking room with different-colored flashing buttons.

The Centrifuge
Think you can withstand 14 G’s of awesome bone-crushing power?  Scientists beg to differ.

A Giant Catapult
Get ready for some surprises.

The Carousel
Circle around on a horse with a pole through it.  Did I mention that it’s a live horse? Good, because it’s actually a dead horse.

Straitjacket
You’re about to get the shit kicked out of you.

The Pain Café
Try the Extreme Manburger, the Five-Pound Chicken Wing Manbucket, or Sergeant Pulverizer’s Danger Explosion, an undercooked chili dog.

Take-a-Break Lake
While the others test the limits of their manliness, this soothing water ride gives grandpa a chance to rest his feet before killing him.

Everyone knows the famous palindrome, “A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!”  But there are also lesser known regional palindromes.  Here are some:

Place?:  “c” Alp!

Emirates; Irate me!

A rake, a snake: Lakes!

Camp = A bank

A go to Lebanon? – No thanks!

Paraguay!  Eat some dirt.

When my dad turned 40 he had a mid-life crisis.  One night at dinner he just started yelling.  “Goddamn it,” he shouted, “I bust my ass for twenty years at the firm and for what?  So I can sit here eating this horrible food with my ugly wife and my retard son?”  I felt kind of bad when he said that.  I mean I don’t get the best grades but I work really hard, especially on dinner.  And my mom may not be pretty but she has nice tits.

The next day we traded in our minivan and bought a Lamborghini.  Then we traded in the Lamborghini for a race-car.  Dad stopped going to work and just hung around the house with professional wrestlers.  Then we had to live on a glacier.

But my dad still seemed kind of depressed.  “What’s the point of all this?” he’d often ask.  And I’d have to explain the rules of Monopoly again for like the 900th time.  And he’d say “No, not that, though I still don’t really understand the rules.  I mean life.  What’s the point of life?”  So then I’d explain philosophy and religion, but before I even got to the Enlightenment he’d just shake his head and kick over the monopoly board.  He wasn’t upset or anything.  He just thinks that’s how you play the game.

At this point my mother had had enough.  The glacier had collapsed and she was trapped under 50 feet of ice.  So dad introduced me to my new mom, the Brazilian girls volleyball team.

Finally, my dad seemed happy again.  One day he told me his secret.  “You know what’s really important?” he said as he took me on his knee, “The little things… mice, babies, electrons, elephants.”  He was just kidding about the elephants.

When the order came to take Hill 19 the Sergeant ground his cigar stub into the fine white sand of Tojaida Island and bared his corn-yellow teeth. “Not that it’s ours to take,” he said, rubbing his thick, calloused hand over the stubble of his square jaw. “You mugs understand we have no property right in the hill, or any moral claim to the area it encompasses.” He shifted his packed, hard body and spat into an overturn C-ration can.

“But is it correct, from an ethical standpoint, to allow physical force to be the deciding factor in disagreements between nations? What would Thoreau say?” It was Dough-Boy, the freckle-faced infantryman with the crooked, midwestern smile and innocent grey eyes that blinked whenever you poured pencil-shavings in them.

“Difficult to say,” the Sergeant replied, pulling a cigar stub from its wrapper. “Kant would subscribe to the deontological theory of moral imperatives.”

“Check!” interrupted Grease-Monkey, the cherub-faced mechanic and former professor of Linguistics at Cornell. “He’d want us to examine our motives in a neutral environment, not the biased circumstances of war.”

Bull, resting his muscle-bloated body on a rusted oil drum, had been shoved to the breaking point. His broad, featureless face exploded in fury as he jumped to his feet. “Talk, talk, talk … all we do is talk. Me want to clobber the enemy, not talk!” As he worked his massive mandibles the others rolled their eyes.

“Reminds me a little of Benjy, the simple-minded Christ figure in Faulkner’s The Sound and Fury,” muttered Stir-Fry, the platoon chef.

“Philistine,” said Germ-Jockey, the seasoned medic.

“Leave ‘im alone,” ordered the Sergeant. There was a long, embarrassed silence as the rage melted from Bull’s boulder-like head. “Hey, like … like me sorry me got mad,” he grumbled, like a friendly grizzly bear endowed with the miracle of human speech. “It’s just dat I didn’t do the readin’ this week.”

The platoon burst into gentle laughter as the Sergeant gave Bull a manly but affectionate kick in the head. “Hell, that all? Jesus, Bull, you can catch up. It’s only eighty pages of Flaubert and we’ll help you with the French.” The Sergeant’s words stretched a broad, moronic smile across Bull’s acre-wide face and helped the platoon temporarily forget the horrors of jungle war.

“Alright … alright,” shouted the Sergeant, shouldering his book bag, “load up and remember … no shooting. We have a moral obligation to preserve all life, regardless of the demands placed on us by an arbitrary government.”

“Even if they shoot at us first, Sarge?” asked Slim-Jim, the munitions expert and beef jerky magnate, as he unloaded his rifle. “I mean, some interpret Ghandi’s later writings as …” The Sergeant interrupted his discourse with a powerful right to the solar plexus. “I’m not takin’ any revisionist up the hill with me,” he added, turning his back on Slim-Jim’s wheezing form, “so you can sit here and stew while we’re gone.”

At the call to “fall out,” the small platoon lined up and began its rigorous but sensitive trek through the dense jungle.