KIDNAPPED

"I don't remember much of my early childhood, but I remember the day it happened. The day they took me away from my home and brought me to this place. I remember the long trip in the back of the car. I remember when they brought me here and put me in my new home. 'Home' is no word for this place, for this prison. The cold steel bars stand in silent opposition to my freedom. I am fed, but it is nothing like how I used to eat. This food is always the same. Always dull and tasteless. To the point where I despise it and eat it only to sustain my life. My cell is rarely cleaned. My own filth covers the floor.

I remember having a mother. I remember her voice. I remember her singing to me. Now there is no singing.

I am awakened suddenly by the sound of something hard being ran across the bars of my cell. I open my eyes and see the eyes of one of my captors. This is the larger of the two. It is he who brings my food. He who slides the bowl of warm water into my cell. He looks at me and laughs. It is a horrible laugh. Loud and ferocious. Like the roar of a lion. He speaks to me and bangs the bars of my jail. I do not understand a word he says.

I have tried to learn their language. Tried to find a way to communicate with them so that I may plead for my freedom. I managed to pick up the od phrase here or there but I don't really know what I'm saying. When I say the snippits of dialect that I have learned, the cruel beasts only laugh and point at me.

My soul sinks deeper and deeper into the darkness of depression as I lose all hope of seeing my home or family ever again. I cry at night... So that my kidnappers won't hear. Life seems hopeless.

Suddenly I am yanked from my thoughts by someone banging fiercely against the bars. I start and look to see who has come to torment me. My heart sinks. It is the shorter one. He is the bane of my existence. He tortures me daily. He screams at me through the bars and laugh as I cringe. He throws little stones in at me and sneers. When will this horror end?

I want to go home."

Spy School: Lesson 1

"Welcome class. My name is Loftman... Mr Loftman. I will be your instructor today. Now if you will all get out your spy training manual and flip to page 74 we can begin. Ok, so the topic of today's class is: How to avoid detection. Now, this is a very important skill for any spy considering that most of what you will do you will not want to be caught doing. At the same time, there are likely to be a large quantity of individuals who are very motivated towards insuring the oppasite. And so, your ability to avoid detection will become quite important to you. Now, let's have a brainstorming session for a moment. What are some ways that you can think of that could allow you to avoid detection? Yes, you there with the raised-ish hand."

"Uh, you could like... be really sneaky?"

"Ok, you can put your hand down now. And I would ask that you move yourself to the rear of the class and refrain from any more input of any kind what-so-ever. Thankyou. No, behaving sneakily is a stupid answer. And what happens to stupid spies? The get shot... if they're lucky. You see this..."

(teacher removes shirt and turns around to reveal a tatoo of Donald Trump between his shoulder blades; class gasps; teacher puts shirt back on and turns to face class)

"Exactly. You think this job is glamerous? All martinis and romance? Well it's not! I got this baby from some -dealers in Saigon. They'll do whatever it takes to get you to talk."

"So did you talk?"

"I believe I told you not to add any more input. This is not a day-care it is an academic esstablishment. Try to spell that: academic establishment. That should keep you busy for the rest of class. NO, I did not talk. And now I have a permanent reminder not to get caught. So, how does one avoid detection? The answer is a simple one although it's a bit tricky to get the hang of. To avoid detection you must behave as though you truely belong where everyone knows that you do not. The enemy is looking for people who are not supposed to be where they are guarding. To avoid detection you must simply act as though you really are supposed to be there. The key is confidence. If a person is not where they are supposed to be they seem nervous or agitated because they fear detection. If you are confident that you are supposed to be in the records vault of the CIA it is very unlikely that anyone will accuse you otherwise. If perhaps you are accused of being somewhere that you are not supposed to be, get angry. If you are a guard and someone is yelling at you it is easy to assume that they are not afraid of you. If they are not afraid of you they can't possible be a spy. Take advantage of people's assumptions. If they ask you for credentials look at them as though you are very influential and very insulted and inform them that you intend on telling their superiors about how inconsiderate they were to you. This is how to avoid detection."

"That doesn't seem like very good advice. What if they aren't intimidated and they threaten to kill you if you don't prove that you are supposed to be there?"

"What, did you beat a toaster at a game of chess and now you think that you know everything about everything? Listen here cheese-head, I've been spying since before your mother dropped you on your head as a child. I'm teaching this class because I am a respected authority on a very prestigeous trade. I won't stand for any more of your disrespect. This is how to avoid detection and that is final! Now, who wants to see me make Donald talk?"

(teacher removes shirt again, turns around, and begins flexing in a patter that makes it appear as though the tatoo is speaking)

"I'm Donald Trump. Who wants to be my next associate? Hey, you in the back, you're fired. Ha ha ha!"

(teacher replaces shirt and faces the class)

"Well, that's it for today. Please submit a twelve page essay on Avoiding Detection by friday. Class dismissed."

BAAAA - LOVEBUG

It's that time of year again. That day when all those with a significant someone spend ridiculous amounts of money (making the makers of chocolates, flowers, teddy bears, and greeting cards clap their hands in prosperous glee) while the those who lack a love-struck someone furrow their collective brow in disgust at it all. There is also, of course, those individuals who have disfunctional attitude glands and get abhorably happy during every holiday... but our discussion today does not include the festive-loving fringes of our society, but the average Joe or Janice Shmoe. Is Valentine's Day destined to be loved by those in love and detested by the dateless?

I say, "It doesn't have to be that way!" I wish there was a font that would be universally recognized as needing to be read by some confident super-hero guy in that confident super-hero voice so that I could instantly convince you that I was right. Without such a tool I will have to rely on good arguments and fancy rhetoric... or at least a cool slogan.

Let us make Valentine's Day a day for a new kind of love. Let's make it a day where we take the time to love and appreciate our friends. You know... friends: Those people who are probably cool enough to hang out with somebody with better hair than you but for some unexplainable reason they hang out with you anyway. Those people. Did you realize that we have a day designated for leprechauns, mouthy mythological midgets who havn't done anything for any of us, and yet there's no holiday set aside just to appreciate a good friend? Can I get a "What the heck? That ain't right Mr. Blogger Man."?

No? Ok, moving on then...

This Valentine's Day, whether you're single or one of those annoyingly lovey couples, take time to let your friends know that you really appreciate their tendancy to hang out with you. Let them know they're swell and that if something heavy fell out of the sky and crushed them to that you'd totally take the day off from school or work to write a touching poem about how cool they were.

Ok, good arguments... check. Fancy rhetoric... check. Cool slogan... oh right, I said I'd have a cool slogan. Ok, here goes...

"Forget Valentines Day, I'd rather do Love-yer-pals Day!"

What's that? You think I'm lame and you imagine that any friends I might have once had just left to find people with better hair? Yeah... ok. I'll go now. But seriously think about Love-yer-pals Day. The worst thing we do every day is underappreciate the ones we love.

Johnny the Clam

Johnny the clam was a... well he was a clam. But he was a really swell clam. He generally did nice things when he could remember to and always told ladies that they looked nice. One day Johnny the clam decided that perhaps there was more to life than the somewhat lumpy patch of sand that he called his home. And so, Johnny the clam set out on his first-ever adventure. His first concern was a mode of transportation. He started by sucking in small quantities of water and then spitting them out at high velocities in order to propel himself backward. Then he tried to hitch rides by clamping onto the fins of other fish. Finally, he would prop himself up on his side and roll along like a wheel. Using these three methods, Johnny was making good time. He saw many things as he traveled. He saw shipwercks and coral reefs, submarines and baluga whales, mermaids and sea-horses. He was quite adventureous and tried foreign food wherever he was. Sometimes he would get indigestion and have to leave his stomach somewhere. One day Johnny was rolling along on his side when he realized that he was lonely more than anything else. All of the adventure in whole world wasn't enough to stop the yearning in his heart for companionship. So he tried going to sandbars to pick up cute clam chicks. That didn't go so well so he just rolled along and tried to make conversation with passers-by. One day he met a tigershark named Avery who seemed quite friendly. Johnny told Avery all about his adventures. He told him about the amazing things he'd seen and the strange things he'd eaten. Avery laughed and laughed.
When he learned the Johnny had grown tired of traveling he said, "Wow, you quit before seeing the amazing ice shelf. That's too bad."
"What's that?" asked Johnny.
"Oh, it's only the most amazing wonder to behold under the sea," replied Avery.
Johnny became very excited and begged Avery to take him to the amazing ice shelf.
Finally, Avery relented and said, "Ok, I'll take you. Just hope in my mouth here and I'll take you right there."
And so, Johnny hoped in Avery's mouth and was promptly eaten. What sort of moral can we derive from such a sad tale? Well, either don't trust hungry people with your life... or if you're a clam, a great way to get around is by rolling around on your side like a wheel. Well, I don't know about you, but i feel ike some clam chowder right about now...

My Criminal Mind

Is it bad to think about how to rob places? I'm pretty sure that unless you started considering how much money you could nab you're all right. I'm mean some things everybody's thought about robbing. Junk food freight trucks for example. I bet those guys are a nervous bunch. It'd be like driving one of those bank truck except without all the armour or shotguns. When you see that Coca-Cola or Doritos lable on the side of a truck you can't help but think about how much fun you could have with a truckload of that stuff. It rarely occurs to you how sick you'd be afterward. You start wondering about the probablility of you being able to pull off a James Bond leap from the roof of your vehicle onto the roof of the truck. "I could so make that," you say to yourself. Then you think of a non-violent way to take out the driver. You come to the conclusion that climbing in through the passanger door and giving him a little neck chop isn't really all that violent and your conscience lets you get away with it. Then you picture yourself driving off into the sunset with a truck-load of goddies. A trick-or-treater's dream. Sometimes I think that the only reason that this doesn't occur more often is because it would be ridiculously hard to make a clean gettaway in a truck with a huge label on the side. It wouldn't take the cops long to find you on the free-way. So, yeah, about something a little more legal...