Education

I have to say, I'm really rather put off by the response I've been getting from my last posting. Yes, most people enjoyed the story and the deeper morals held therein, but with only one exception (thank you, Fiona) not a damn one of you understood the concept of Para-Geography. I guess I shouldn't really blame you, the reader, as much as I should blame your parents, your school, and the water you drink, because clearly these things all play a larger role in making you who you are than you do. (Determinism Fa-Eva!)

Since it's obvious that none of you understand the concept of P-G, I'll just elucidate in a big pile here on the floor and you can take however many handfulls you like.

The notion that boarders are not static is one with a long history. As long ago as the ninteen fifties China annexed Tibet for no good reason, it's boarder pulsing outwards like the kind of malignant tumor you see on those Discovery Channel shows. This is just one example of the general flexibility of human-decided boarders. In reality, they change all the time. This is known as "Expansionism" and is generally considered natural to the Humano-Capitalist understanding of the world. There is another theory, called the "Pancake Inclusionism Model," which states that any nation capable of making a really good stack of flapjacks is really part of a larger trans-national moral union and that all boarders seperating these are essentially "wrong" and should be completely disregarded. As this theory has really only found a foothold in Canada, no one pays attention to it, because Canadians are all a bunch of tools.

Anyway, there are some specific moments in this "Expansionism" when the land becomes inextricablly linked to the boarders and changes in the boarders can actually have a physical effect on the land included in these regions. This is known as a "Para-Geographic Locale" In the United States there are two major such Locales, generally regarded by the Jingoistic Journal of Para-Geography to be way more interesting than any other nation's P-G Locales. These are "Wyoming" (which I mentioned in my last posting) and The "Deloware Migrative Field."

In brief, "Wyoming" is a sort of large square blackhole which bends the land around it to actually hide the event horizion in all but a few places. In order to normalize the effects of driving "through" "Wyoming," the neighboring states have all set aside land as "Wyoming reservations" around the perimiter of the area and put up signs which say "Welcome to Wyoming." There are many groups devoted to ending this confusing practice, fighting the situation in courts, but, to date, none have met with very much success.

The other major feature, "The Deloware Migrative Field" is more complicated. This is a situation where the boarders and actual land of what was once known as "Deloware" moves about the country, sneaking through the boarders between other states, constantly on the move. "Deloware" moves at an average speed of 500,000 miles an hour, so it can be hard to locate and, once one is already inside, to leave. This would be the equivalent of stepping off a moving train traveling at roughly the speed of Finals Week, not a pleasant experience by any stretch of the imagination. Often, when the land is moving around a tight corner it will slow down to a much more reasonable speed and one can exit the state. These are known as "economic recessions" and are often difficult to predict. There have been many attempts to understand the phenomina, but it tends to happen most often when there is very little government funding for the project (or anything, for that matter) and as such most periods condusive to observation are missed. Once a year, in the spring, "Deloware" returns to its original position to mate.

What is most impressive about these features is that they are triggered, not by any natural phenomina, but by legislative acts of Congress. The idea has been put forward that this is related to the fact that the Capital Building is built on the the graves of radioactive ninja native americans who were clubbed to death by baby seals, but the connection has yet to be proven. (On a related note, I read yesterday that the lobby group connected to moving the Capital Building has changed their stated aims to moving the burial ground saying that, in effect "Itz really all da same shit, nigga.")

Again, to avoid being obscure, I will use specific examples.

The situation with "Deloware" is that in the later half of the 1800s there was a large groundswell of popular support for setting Deloware adrift and pushing it in the general direction of France because, as ancestor to the now-fameous Kennedy family Kipperdong Kennedy once said, "The bagel eaters've earned it." (Historians are in agreement that he meant to say "baggette," but was drunk and flying an airplane at the time).

However, Political up-and-comer Teddy Rosevelt stood up for the state, arguing that if there was to be a war with France, he would take care of it personally. Once it was agreed that this was the superior course of action Rosevelt was put on a boat and pushed in the general direction of the European contenant. His arrival would mark the beginning of what we now know as "Eurotrash."

Unfortunately legislation had already been put in motion which had changed Deloware's position within the Union from "state" to "place," and that is when Deloware got the quotation marks around its name. Seeing as how it was no longer allowed to block Maryland's access to the sea, something had to be done with it. Eastern European Physicist Nikola Tesla (to this day, no one is sure what country he's really from) discovered that it would be able to let the state just drift aimlessly throughout the nation. This plan of action was quickly agreed to in Congress so that everyone could go on Summer recess. Thus, "Deloware" became "The Vagabond State."

There is a lot of interesting culture that has accompanied Deloware's new situation, but perhaps I should hold off on that for now.

The other P-G Locale, "Wyoming," is not as easy to understand.

When Lewis and Clark were having their sex-venture across the contenant, they were charting their progress with the stars. Their average progess was about twenty miles a day, but one day they realized that they had, in fact, covered thousands of miles. When the explorers asked their guide about what had happened, she replied "Wyoming," and the name stuck. Interestingly enough, "Wyoming" is Sacegewia for "Not tonight, I have a headache."

Since this was before any act of Congress, there was no real answer as to what had happened. There were suspicions that the French, who had previously owned the land, had done something to make the Luisiana purchase less valuable, but Rosevelt was never able to beat a convincing confession out of any of the French Presidents he slaughtered.

The origins of "Wyoming" remained a mystery until about seven years ago when archeologist working in the public archies in Denver unearthed an ancient Native American parliment building under the big "X" on the floor. Study of the sight revealed that "Wyoming" had been created by this parliment in order to create an impenetrible sanctuary for the Sasquatch people. Obviously the entire Sasquatch population did not agree to living in this reserve, and the ancestors of those who chose not to live in seclusion remain among us today, working mostly as CEOs in the advertising industry.

So there you have it. If you have any questions about things I didn't explain clearly enough, you're clearly stupid, but I'll do what I can do dumb it down further if I have to.

Also, today is my birthday. Twenty-one years of madness, bitches.

Outlet time!!!!

Okay, so there's a lot of stress going on in my life right now and I need to do something creative to get it off of my chest. But I'm not really a very creative person. So, what I'm thinking is that I'll just tell a story that happened to me this one time a couple of years ago and maybe that will help me with the "boundless impotent rage" I've been feeling all morning.

Actually, that's all a bunch of crap. I've really just been wanting an excuse to tell this story so I made one up.

About thirteen years ago, when I was seven, my family and I were driving back from the west coast where we had just bought a big ugly van and a camper to pull behind it. This was our great road-trip, coast-to-almost-coast in a month. Since we had so much free time, we did a lot of sightseeing.

One of the things we tried to do was find Wyoming. Now, I know you're all reading this like, "Why would he be looking for Wyoming? It doesn't even exist!" I know. At the time, I didn't really understand the physics of it, but since then I've had time to peruse Tesla's "On the Western Black Hole Thingy," and while I, too, struggle with his metaphore of the cat who is both alive and dead and eating a meatball, I think I get the idea now. Kinda anyway.

But, either way, it wasn't my idea. My parents are really big on parageography. About two summers later we tried to keep up with the Delowarian migration for a couple of weeks, but lost it when it was skirting the Canadian boarder.

Anyway, I'm getting off track. This story is about looking for Wyoming.

So, my dad had heard a rumor that if you started on the top of a mountain in Montana, you could make your way down a narrow dirt road that ran very close to the Wyomingian Event Horizon. I later found out that he learned of this road in an issue Popular Contradictions, that the road was actually on a farmer's private property, and that he didn't believe in the Wyoming phenomenon and hated/liked to murder everyone who did. I promptly thanked my father for risking my seven-year-old life.

Anyway, this is what went down. We stayed the night before at a seedy hotel about ten miles from this "road." I overheard my dad telling my mom that he had asked about the road at the front desk and the lady there told him how to find it, for ten bucks and a bottle of tequilla. The five of us--my parents, myself, my brother, and the hellspawn Quarn'Dingo (that's a whole other story you'll have to ask about sometime)--slept in this seedy little place for about four hours until we heard an alarm going off outside. My dad woke up and rushed outside and we all followed. One of the rooms on the far side of the hotel was on fire. There was a small hand-crank-type fire engine trying to put out the flame, but they wern't having much luck. The lady from the front desk, now wasted off her tequilla, gave us our money back and told us to just leave before any more of the police showed up. We obliged and set off for the road. We had a damn camper, so we just parked on the side of the road and slept in it.

This, however, was not a more peaceful sleep. There was obviously something wierd going on in the woods. My dad just told me it was bears migrating, but I'm pretty sure that bears don't do that. I'm pretty sure it was sassquatch mating season. Now, whenever I see one of those proud, majestic creatures on the bus going to work, I always think of that night by the woods, listening to the crooning sound of rediculous furry-type sex. It truly is a beautiful thing, I think. Maybe. Well, if you're into that sorta thing. (301-555-2896 *wink*)

The next morning we prepared to visit the brink of infinity. I had my camera.

We took this back road for almost forty miles, seeing nothing but brush and trees and fur-filled condoms until, finally, something started getting wierd.

To our right, about ten feet into the woods, we saw there was no light, no trees, just a black nothingness.

This was it.

We had found Wyoming.

To think back on it now, I can't really believe it. A couple of years ago my brother and I went back to find that same road, and maybe we did or maybe we didn't, but we could never again find the sucking soul-eating bleakness that is Wyoming.

I remeber getting out of the car and walking into the woods, holding my mom's hand. We walked almost to the edge, but didn't get too close for fear of getting sucked in a system of debilitatingly poor public education and country music--truly a fate worse than death.

I stuck out my hand, just a little, and almost touched the edge. I wanted to, really wanted to feel the smooth black line where reality breaks down and infinite chaos reigns. I wondered, was it hot? was it cold? If I touched it, would it feel like fulfilling a life-long dream and satisfying an urge to knowledge that only a very few before me had ever known? Or, in touching it, would that desire be destroyed. If I had touched it, would the majesty and beauty of something forever outside my graps become something tangible and, therefore, insignificant? If that was the case, could I really live with myself if I had let the beauty of something unknown die at the hands of a lust to know? I thought, "Do I touch it, and forever understand? Or do I not, and continue to love the beautiful unknown?"

It was at this point that it finally dawned on me that I was really fucking GENIOUS seven-year-old.

I let my hand down. I did not touch infinity.

We stood there, the five of us, staring into nothingness for almost an hour.

Then we got hungry and went to IHOP. I had an omlette with pancake dough ON THE INSIDE! IT WAS AMAZING! Man! What a fucking omlette!

The next day we left the Wyoming behind and continued home. We saw a lot of strange things on that trip, but perhaps that will all have to wait for another day. Like, when I have more shit to do and I can put IT off by telling more stories.

At least it's something....

No cartoon today, sorry folks, but I can't seem to find my white-out.

So, in lieu of such, I'm going to tell you a story that really happened to me. Well, "happened" is a relative term. Actually, everything is a relative term. Everything is relative. Which is why you shouldn't sleep around, because that's probably your brother.

Anyway--and pardon if I've told you this one before--here is my story.

This happened about ten years in the future, when I was about thirty-2.
I was working in my secret basement lab on trying to recrate the conditions of this really cool experiment I had just done like a week before that resulted in the Boston Dinosaur Scare (which you can find on wikipedia, if you're so ignorant that you don't know what I'm talking about). I had all of the chemicals in their proper proportions and the apple was sitting on the cat, just like the time before, when I heard a soft "pop" noise from behind me.

When I turned around to see what manner of hell-deamon God had summoned to smite me this time, I was met with a sight stranger than I had expected.

Usually these demonic servants of the lord are tall and have big horn which I use to make really cool beer glasses, but this was no such deamon. In fact, it didn't appear to be a deamon at all. Actually it looked like a version of myself, about ten years older. It seemed obvious, due to the fact that his shiny future jumpsuit was shinier than my shiny future jumpsuit, that this was myself from at least ten years in the future, come back to tell me something of vital importance. I knew that whatever was about to come out of my mouth would change my life forever.

However, just to be on the safe side, I shot my future self with a lazer pistol and made a mental note never to go back in time to warn myself of anything.

I then went back to my experiment, which led to the Great East Coast Dinosaur Horror of '16-'23. Man, that was one wicked party. W i c k e d .

Anyway, about a week after that was over I was just sorta "chillin'n-out" in the Hague, and I realized that this story was so funny that I had to tell myself about it. So in my "hotel room," using bits of lint and a time machine I built a time machine, which I used to go back in time to my eleventh birthday and tell myself about the whole thing.

Now, this didn't go over very well, as far as I can tell, because in the act of telling myself this story I was arrested for crashing an eleven-year-old's birthday party, and for being generally creepy. I can remember hearing the story as an eleven-year-old and forever thereafter being totally enthused about dinosaurs.

Anyway, after getting arrested, I used my time machine, which I had hidden in my "pocket," to escape back to the present, which I know may be a little confusing given the context of this story, but, ya know, work with me here.

When I got back to the present, and really this is the best part, I found a muffin and I ate it and it was really good.

So-- and I don't even know why I would have to tell you this--is that dinosaurs invariably lead to muffins. However my lawyer would like me to again reiterate that I had NOTHING to do with the Rediculously Awesome Canadian Muffin Nightmare of '67. Tom Cruise admitted that he was beind that. It was all him. I was at home the whole time. Just...eatin' rice.

I'm famous!!

Okay, this'll be quick, because, if you didn't know--and that's not possible--I'm trying to write an IS. Actually, I'm trying to write two. G'Damn.

Anyway, I got my fanart up on www.whiteninja.com . If you don't know this site, SHAME!

My art is at http://www.whiteninjacomics.com/fanart/fa-intel.shtml

I don't like that it's in black and white, so here it is in color.










Okay, back to work. ENjoy!!