Facebook

BREAKING NEWS!

CRITICAL UPDATE! 

FACEBOOK (meta lol) IS TRYING TO STRONG ARM ME! 

DON'T MISS MY VAST OPINION!

COMING UP NEXT! 

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Dear Facebook (meta lol):

Look, guys. I don't have a phone, and I'm sure as hell not giving my number to you even if I did, after that GESTAPO THREAT TACTIC of losing my Facebook account without a phone number that you guys are demanding. 

I DON'T HAVE A PHONE BECAUSE I DON'T WANT ONE. I CAN DO ALL THE COMMUNICATION I NEED OVER THE INTERNET, WITH ALL KINDS OF SOFTWARE THAT'S AVAILABLE, WHICH WORKS EXACTLY THE SAME WAY AS A PHONE DOES. GOT IT? I HAVE AN INTERNET CONNECTION AND A VALID EMAIL!

AND, you guys already have two of my valid email addresses. Actually, three - my Gmail, my Hotmail, and my Yahoo. 

So... I'LLBE DAMNED TO HELL BEFORE I GIVE YOU GUYS MY PHONE NUMBER, IF I EVEN HAD ONE, WHICH I DON'T, AFTER THAT THREAT. MY PHONE AND WALLET WERE STOLEN ALMOST A YEAR AGO, AND IT WAS MY PERSONAL DECISION NOT TO GET ANOTHER PHONE. IT'S NONE OF YOU GUYS'  BUSINESS.

And... WHY SHOULD I PAY EVEN MORE FOR A PHONE, WHENEVER I'VE ALREADY CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET, WHICH I CAN USE TO COMMUNICATE WITH ANYBODY AROUND THE GODDAMN WORLD? ARE YOU GUYS RETARDED? ARE YOU STUPID? DO YOU REALLY THINK THIS STRONG ARM TACTIC BULLSHIT IS GOING TO WORK? 

Now. If you guys hadn't tried to strong arm me, I'd have posted my number as a general rule... and probably my relatives' numbers, like my sister or my mom or my brother, once I got around to it like I always have. But now? 

No fucking WAY.  

I also have an Oculus Quest 2 that I paid $350 for, including the elite head strap. So, what's it gonna be? Do you want my money whenever I pay for apps and games for my Quest 2? Do you want the guaranteed continued source of revenue from me due to my Quest 2 when I pay for games and apps from your store, or do you want my phone number that doesn't even exist? 

Also... How am I supposed to give you a phone number if it doesn't even exist? Riddle me that, geniuses! You can't force me to go out and buy a phone and pay a phone bill. That's my right, and I ain't going to do it. I was thinking about it, but after this... no way. 

Or... I just might do it, but you ain't getting the phone number. No way in hell. It would be like me handing a shotgun to someone, threatening me that if I didn't give them the shotgun, that they would kill me with their AR-15. Do you see the lack of logic in the situation? Exactly which one of you retarded autistic troglodytes came up with the idea of demanding phone numbers, or cutting off Facebook accounts? Who's the unfettered mongoloid that thought that threatening your user base was a super-awesome idea? 

That's how stupid it would be for me to give you my phone number if I had one after that threat I just received from you guys. If it wasn't for my Oculus Quest 2, I'd be long rid of you assholes. you run a gestapo state with your online community, and I tolerate it because it keeps me in touch with certain people. But I can be in touch with those same people without any help from you guys. It's my Oculus Quest 2 that is really pissing me off about the threat you guys issued me. Terminating my Facebook account if I don't hand you my phone number means losing access to my Oculus Quest 2, which also means that I'm out the $350 that I paid to you freaking criminals. 

That threat of shutting down my account if I don't have a phone which I'd have to pay an extra phone bill for won't just end with me. If you guys shut down my Facebook account, you guys will be in PR hell. Do you want to be in PR hell? Oh my god, you guys will be the shit show of the decade. Imagine a thousand, 100,000, a million angry Facebook users with Oculus VR headsets getting their accounts shut down because they don't want to give you their phone number, and then complaining about it to everybody who will listen - including the associated press, the local press, the TV news, the internet news, oh boy. You guys must really be looking for the next way to shoot yourself in the goddamn feet. Not foot, feet! That's how stupid you guys are for threatening me like this.

If you guys cut off my Facebook account and I can't access my Oculus Quest 2 anymore, there will be hell to pay. I can't repeat that enough times. Do you know why I know this? Because I'm not a retarded mongoloid, and I realize that you guys are making threats like this to other people. You know it's real easy in this day and age for victims of strong-armed tactics issued by multi-billionaire companies like you fag-holes to make a great big ruckus about it and cause a scene that will get noticed. 

Here's a head scratcher for you to ponder in your free time... Do you know what your tactics are? They remind me a lot of communist USSR, fascist Germany and Italy, underdeveloped nations in Africa and North Korea, and big fat assholes smoking cigars counting money at boardroom tables coming up with ways to make threats that will only affect a small portion of their user base, but you've got that wrong, morons. 

Why? Because I'm this day and age people can band together and get noticed. And by threatening me by saying that you're going to terminate my account if I don't give you my phone number, that's a big mistake. And just because you've renamed yourselves meta doesn't mean jack shit. 

Also... Your meta isn't as meta as you thought it was going to be, you know. You're going to need all the users that you can scrape up to populate your brave new world. And if you do this to enough people, a class action lawsuit will result. You'll be taken to court, and not by just one person defending themselves against you, but thousands. and our lawyers will match your lawyers in a heartbeat. And you will lose. even if this comes to head and doesn't go to court, the PR damage will be enough to ruin you. you'll be really sorry. I can just imagine a big fat boardroom shit-heel ssmoking a cigar and crying into an ashtray.

You cannot demand this kind of stuff from your customers. Not only is it morally wrong, it's simply despicable. It's a sign which rentals the vile structure supporting your company. Threatening to terminate my Facebook account means terminating my Oculus Quest 2 access. 

If you bastard ass clowns think you can get away with strong armed techniques like this to force me to give up personal information, you've got a great big kick square in the nuts coming, right around the corner.

So... I DON'T GIVE A FLYING RATS' ASS IF YOU'RE A PUBLIC OR PRIVATE COMPANY. AND CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT OR NO, IT WON'T MATTER BECAUSE THE PR DAMAGE WILL BE IRREPARABLE. 

DO YOU GUYS REALLY WANT TO RISK THAT? BECAUSE YOU AIN'T GETTING MY NONEXISTENT PHONE NUMBER. YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO GET SOME OTHER PEOPLE TO GIVE YOU THEIRS, BUT NOT MINE. AND I'M NOT ALONE. I GUARANTEE YOU, IF YOU CUT OFF MY ACCESS TO MY QUEST 2 BY TERMINATING MY FACEBOOK ACCOUNT WHICH I'VE HAD SINCE 2008, YOU GUYS JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND THE SHITSTORM THAT WILL BE HEADED YOUR WAY. BECAUSE I WILL MAKE THE BIGGEST RUCKUS THAT ONE MAN CAN MAKE, AND IT WILL SPREAD. BECAUSE THIS IS WRONG, IT BRANDS YOU AS AN EVIL CORPORATION, AND YOU JUST MIGHT GET BOYCOTTED. YOU MAY BE A MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY NOW, BUT BIGGER COMPANIES THAN YOURS HAVE FALLEN BECAUSE OF INFLATED EGOS AND HUBRIS. 

Again... ABOUT YOUR THREAT. MY PRIVACY IS MY CHOICE! I LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES, NOT BUM-FUCKED EGYPT. AND LIKE I SAID, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT FACEBOOK IS PUBLICLY TRADED OR STILL PRIVATE, THAT WON'T MAKE A DAMN BIT OF DIFFERENCE WHENEVER THE BALL GETS ROLLING, WHENEVER I SPREAD THE NEWS ABOUT THIS BULLSHIT.

You guys are already recovering from some really bad PR by leaking all of that personal information from your customers, so threatening to terminate my account if I don't give you my phone number is tantamount to committing PR suicide. 

SO... don't even try to pull this shit with me. You'll be sorry, and everyone else you try to pull this shit with is going to feel the same way, and eventually it's going to build up into a shitstorm that you guys do not want to be rolling down the avenue, ready to encapsulate every one of you in suffocating, stinking piles of legal sewage. 

One last thing, you goddamn unfettered moronic retarded troglodytic mongoloids. If I receive another threat from you about cutting off my account because I won't give you a phone number that I don't have, I'm going to report this shit to every news source that I can. 

You won't believe how many thousands of emails I will send out. And I'll try my damnedest to spread this story to the media. Other people will know about this. This is a ball of diarrhea you guys do not want me to build just for you, all wrapped up with a bow on top. I'm an American citizen, and I have a right to my privacy. You're a company and you provide a service, but you're evil, and that is bad PR. You'll wind up ruined and Google-Plus will take your place. How humiliating will that be? It's happened before. 

It amazes me that evil of this magnitude exists in the world. You guys should be fucking ashamed.

DON'T FUCK WITH ME AGAIN. PUT ME IN FACEBOOK JAIL IF YOU WANT, I DON'T GIVE A SHIT. I'VE BEEN THERE A HUNDRED THOUSAND MILLION TIMES. HALF THE TIME I DON'T EVEN KNOW THAT I'M THERE, BECAUSE I POST WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT. AND YOU GUYS ALWAYS MISUNDERSTAND IT. IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE ALL STUPID STUPID TINY LITTLE PEOPLE. TINY STUPID PEOPLE WITH LOTS OF MONEY, WITH NO IDEA HOW TO BOLSTER YOUR PR, OR TO RUN A MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR CORPORATION WITHOUT THROWING ALL OF THAT MONEY AWAY BECAUSE YOU'RE TOO STUPID TO PUT IT ON THE TABLE NEXT TO THE STOVE AND NOT ON TOP OF THE GODDAMN BURNER. YOU RETARDED, STUPID STUPID PEOPLE.

Don't threaten me again. You won't receive a nonexistent phone number from me. You won't receive revenue from me because I own an Oculus Quest 2. I'll never buy another app from you guys. I'm one man, but revenue from one man down the drain can add up to revenue from a thousand people down the drain, then 100,000 people down the drain. 

You've already got a lot of competition in the VR arena, so I wouldn't fuck it up like this. Because that's what you're doing, and that's where this will lead you toward. A big fuck up with your VR game, and other companies will be glad to take your place. Don't fuck it up. Don't fuck with ME. You have no idea what I'm capable of. And truthfully, I don't either... but I'm pretty sure we'll both find out, and this will all end in tears. 

-Ash

Shuttle

 The pictures:

1. Parts of my X-Wing/space shuttle Columbia combination model. The ribbed structure on the fuselage will form the layer of insulation blanketing common to the shuttle Columbia and Discovery.

2. The same parts of my model - front fuselage, cockpit, under-structure, and a 'stand in' canopy, roughly assembled.

3. Photograph of the thermal blanketing visible on the side of the shuttle Discovery, which I am duplicating with the ribbed structure on my X-Wings' front fuselage. After sanding the ribbing down, I will apply layers of fabric medical tape to give it the look of the insulation blanket in the photo of the Discovery.

Everything is rough, and needs refining. I'm not worried about detailing the cockpit perfectly because it will be covered by the canopy and won't be that visible.

The canopy I've built in the photo is just for show, as I will have to design and custom build my own canopy to fit all of my modifications.

The Fartists

REGARDING MY BLESSING TO POSTERITY REGARDING MY UNCERTAIN FUTURE!

I OFFER TO THE ACADEMIC SOCIETY A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE COMMON FART! 

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If it is my destiny to go down in history as an aging, gaseous expulsion of methane... Let it be known that I prefer the term 'Vetus crepitu', better known colloquially as 'Ye Olden Fart', a title reserved for those with a lifetime of experience studying the 'Art of the Fart', for Fartists such as myself. For the sake of our future posterity, I offer another title reserved for those not yet wise in the way of the 'Ars Crepitu', that out 'Apprentice Flatulators'. Myself, I began my career in the Russian village of Borodino during the Napoleonic Wars as a 'Foedus Filii Pedit, or 'Journeyman Flatulator', and was instrumental in saving my Master, Cryssipus the Foul from the French assault which took place behind the redoubt of earthworks which forced the retreat of the Russian army and the wholesale destruction of Moscow.

I must admit was my idea to set the 7th Cossack Infantry to work in saturating the more volatile structures of the Russian capitol with the first use of widespread chemical warfare with the most unlikely of weapons - an entire brigade of methane excreting Cossack assholes, thus creating the circumstances which led to the destruction of two thirds of Moscow by 'Ignis Crepitu' or Fire Farts, thus depriving Napoleon of his prize, was my own idea. I received 'The Gold Silken Fart Saturated Seat Cushion' for my quick thinking, plus 'The Royal Brocade Of Her Lady Of The Holy Outgassing', which I presented to my lifelong suitor, who was later canonized as 'The Patron Saint Of The Ugly Stick'... and I'm a bachelor still, which was my plan all along! Clever of me, no? 

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HERE COMES A DIGRESSION!

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Perhaps I was hasty in my rash insinuation that all Fartists should be relegated merely to the rank of 'Fart Head'. A noble profession, but not applicable to all, as you have made clear. which is the original Latin description for a term which has changed drastically with the evolution of the English language across the eons. The Latin 'Crepitu', first referenced close to a thousand years ago by the Norsemen of Scandinavia in the Old English epic poem 'Beowulf', was a cautionary tale regarding the dangers of the constant boozing and farting around of an enclave of drunken, loudly shouting and farting Norsemen, which caused the 'unprovoked' attack by the 'monster' Grendel upon the kings' hall (as the story goes), prompting the scouring of the Northlands for a hero great enough to slay the beast named Grendel. This hero was, of course, Beowulf - kind of an anti-hero if you ask me. Some literary scholars even go so far as to call Beowulf out as, and I quote -

"Beowulf was an asshole of the highest order, second only possibly to Oedipus. Grendel on the other hand, was a tortured being born of the sins of his father through no fault of his own, and forced nightly to endure the constant partying of, yup - his FATHER, while also enduring the noises and varied stenches emanating from this certain meade hall, which made sleep practically impossible for poor Grendel. Grendel supposedly endured this torture for as long as any creature could be expected to until, sleep deprived and in agony (Grendel had a very sensitive eardrum, of which practically any noise above absolute silence caused him unendurable pain), one night - obviously hallucinating and possibly driven to madness, well - Grendel crashed his dads' party (at least once, possibly twice), uninvited (why was Grendel never invited to his own fathers' celebrations?) and acted on impulse - Grendel started fucking shit up." * (citation needed)

Yes, the argument can be made that Grendel possibly went a little overboard by biting the heads off of scores of drunken revelers and smashing flat a bar maiden or two, but Grendel was specifically forbidden to kill his own father, arguably the Biggest Douche Bag of his entire entourage! So, Grendel expressed some of his frustration by murdering a bunch of drunken idiots who probably needed to be culled from the gene pool anyway, and squashing some hysterical screaming meemies. And what did the king, Grendels' own FATHER do in response? Why, he nailed a want ad to every tree in the Northland Realm, stating this:

"EPIC HERO WANTED BY HIS MAJESTY OF 'THE KINGDOM OF THE MONSTER-FREE MEADE HALL' FOR SLAYING A MONSTER! GRENDEL IS HIS NAME, AND SO FAR HE HAS CRASHED ONE OR TWO OF MY PARTIES! HE ALSO HAS AN IRRITATING PENCHANT FOR BITING THE HEADS OFF OF THE LOUDEST, MOST ABRASIVE OF MY GUESTS AND SQUASHING MY WAITRESSES! KILL THIS THING, AND I'LL THROW IN THE QUEEN AND THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM!" * (citation needed)

So this asshole of the highest order* (citation needed), this Beowulf character, hears about this want ad from, I dunno, LEAGUES away, and decides to answer it. After Beowulf shows up, of course a great party erupts in order to attract Grendel (what a bunch of assholes!). Well, Grendel shows up AGAIN, pissed off but ready to talk, it can be argued, as Grendel actually does talk this time... not that anyone was listening.

So imagine this. You've never had a single wink of sleep for your entire life! That's your problem. Now, put yourself in Grendels' shoes: wouldn't you just possibly, maybe, bite off somebody's head? Say, the nearest one that was howling? But Beowulf, obviously aware that Grendel can talk (he brags right to Grendels' face right before ripping his arm off), an asshole of the highest order*, (citation needed), sets about pretty much kicking Grendels' ass right from the get-go. 

Picture this: here's Beowulf, a frikin HERO (why they made a narcissistic asshole the sole hero of the land is beyond me) who is obviously skilled in hand to hand combat! And how many times has Grendel actually been in a fight again? One, maybe two times? Anyway, Grendel may have size and strength, but he obviously hasn't been trained as a warrior by trade, nevermind as a HERO, and his mental faculties are obviously child-like. He cries, he pleads! As in, Grendel has quite likely not interacted with many other intelligent creatures, save his mother (who, by the way, qualifies as an iron-clad bitch of the highest order) during his short life. In fact, Grendel likely IS just a child!

Sure, Grendel deserves an appropriate punishment, considering that he has likely never been raised by a responsible parent, with the difference between right and wrong instilled in him since birth....

But what Grendel definitely does NOT deserve is to have his arm forcibly ripped - not sliced, RIPPED! Brutally! From his shoulder, which is of course exactly what Beowulf does to the poor creature. Perhaps, just perhaps... before issuing Grendels' death warrant, the king could have nailed a few want ads for an EPIC DIPLOMAT - as perhaps EPIC ASSHOLE, I mean, EPIC HERO, wasn't the best, first choice. If morality had actually played even a minor role in this story, that is.

Now... an EPIC NEGOTIATOR /(counselor?) could have solved this matter over a table, a few tankards of meade, and a guided back-and-forth father and son therapy session! Instead, this is what we get - a fat, drunken sluggard of a 'king', a few soused and rowdy Norsemen, a score or three or four screaming bar maidens, and a completely misunderstood 'monster' - I however prefer the term 'forest creature' or 'spelunker'. 

Anyway. If diplomacy HAD been considered as another option, bringing the grand total of options all the way up to TWO, then all of the over the top, competely unnecessary, ultra-violent bloodshed which ensued, resulting in the humiliating death of Grendel - who was highly likely a one-of-a-kind creature, and probably the only example of his species in all of existence - then the chances that Grendel might NOT have suffered a humiliating death at the hands of the Penultimate Asshole, and one which was carried out with EXTREME PREJUDICE! Just might have decreased by up to 50%.

One can only feel sympathy for Grendel once the entire epic poem is taken into context. Like all Gods' creatures, Grendel was cranky - yes, cranky after a bad nights' sleep. And although Grendel did tend to go a little overboard by biting the heads off of many of the drunken howling revelers, and stomping screaming bar maidens flat (in Grendels' defense, all the howling and screaming was causing him excruciating pain), Grendel was still obviously capable of speaking and of being understood... if anyone had just shut the hell up for half a minute. Wouldn't his FATHER, at the very least, have known that Grendel posessed at least a modicum of intelligence? One would think that a king - nevermind a FATHER, but especially a wise king (assuming this king was wise, which is questionable) would have been able to piece together exactly what was happening, and why...

If only a little diplomacy had been pursued!

Instead, Grendel was not only subject to the cruel taunts of Beowulf (I mean, if absolutey any effort had been made by the king to, you know, shutting the hell up and LISTENING; possibly positing a question or two to his own SON instead of resorting immediately to hiring the first musclebound psychopath who answered his want ad, the king might have (it's possible!) sought the council of his advisors and actively elicited more than, you know... just ONE solution to the whole Grendel problem to which monster murder wasn't the only option. This meeting of SOBER minds which 'might have been', may have eventually resulted in a breakthrough of some kind - one which first proposed the dissemination of a much more reasonable ad, such as: 

"ANY CHRISTIAN PRIESTS STILL IN THE REGION AND NOT MURDERED YET, THE KING OF THE LOCAL MEADE HALL IMPLORES YOU FOR HELP! IF IT PROVES POSSIBLE TO SUMMON YOUR GOD, THE MAN JESUS, PLEASE! WE REQUIRE YOUR SERVICES FOR THE PURPOSE OF EXORCISING A DEMON! OR AT LEAST CAN YOU USE YOUR EDUCATION TO FIND OUT WHAT'S BOTHERING IT SO WE CAN SOLVE THIS ISSUE LIKE MEN? AND MONSTER?"* (citation needed)

Ok, that was quite a long digression, but i've been meaning to get that off of my chest since high school English class.

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HERE COMES ANOTHER DIGRESSION!

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Going back to Latin, Old English and, of course, later appropriated as a valuable transition term from Middle English to Modern English by Geoffrey Chaucer some four to five hundred years after Old English began to evolve - specifically, from 1387 - 1400 in 'Tales of Canterbury' or, in Modern English, known simply as 'The Canterbury Tales' - this work is known as a pivotal piece of literature of the time, as it was written almost directly on the cusp of the transition from Middle English to Modern English. 

As may be known to some, The Canterbury Tales is a series of twenty-four stories which comprise a 'story-telling contest' amongst a group of pilgrims journeying from London to Canterbury. The prize for the best tale is a golden dildo. However, what most scholars are NOT aware of is that there were actually twenty-five stories, with the twenty-fifth story consisting of three words - ferten, feorten, and farten (Middle English words meaning 'fart'). However, although these words were in fact uttered and submitted as the twenty-fifth story, known as 'The Fathers (Farters?) Tale', immediately after uttering these three words, The Father wrapped his four year old son amidst his voluminous robes, thus inflicting the first recorded instance of a 'Dutch Oven' being performed in public.

"The Father' (farter? It's never been clear) was unanimously voted the winner of the contest, and was awarded a cast iron Dutch Oven, much to the Fathers' chagrin. The golden dildo was awarded to 'The Handmaiden' for her tale of woe.

And now you know!

* The vast opinion of the author

Dinobirds

 

Glen Holley:

I'm going to give you an example here, a comparison of words and ideas in order to clarify my point, as it exists in direct opposition to yours - with a strategy of changing your mind by presenting indisputable facts regarding the evolution of life on Earth for the past 4 billion years, starting mainly with The Cambrian Explosion, which saw the first complex, multicellular animals with organ systems - the amphibians and reptiles. And those guys are still kicking it, right? Kudos to them!

Now I want to bring up the great apes... Hominids, or more technically - Hominidae, which constitute two families of the great apes superfamily, Hominoidea. The other distinctive families of great apes are the Hylobatidae (gibbons). These two families of Hominidae include great apes such as orangutans (pongo), gorillas (gorilla), chimpanzees and bonobos (pan) and Homo Sapiens.

There, I hope that made sense to you. Just keep reading it until it does, if it doesn't.

Typically, this family of Hominidae is further classified into two more families, distinct from Hominoidea and Hylobatidae. One called Ponginae contains only the orangutan, and the other Hominidae consist of humans and the African great apes...

Although many hominids, including homo sapiens, bonobos, chimps, gorillas, and orangutans are considered to belong to the great apes family, none of these apes can viably reproduce with a human, or even from ponder species to another!

So the obvious conclusion here is that human beings, or Homo Sapiens are an entirely new and distinct form of great ape. In saying that, I'm making an extremely important distinction between humans and the other great apes, such as gorillas and chimps.

This is a very important observation, because it signifies the first MAJOR divergence in the families of apes, both lesser and great, since Austropilithicines was first discovered.

It would be a mistake to classify Homo Sapiens as closely related with our distant relative species, the great apes, because they are not the same species. They barely exist within the same family. I believe right underneath the family is the genus, and that's where most of the great apes reside individually. Hominidae is one of the families of great apes, and Ponginae is the other.

The reason why I'm talking about great apes, is because I'm using them as a direct comparison to the dinosaurs. At least the ones that survived. Now, I haven't reached the real detail regarding 'dinosaur survivability' just yet, but hey, just bear with me,k? I'll get there.

Firstly, so far:

Do you see the point I'm building up to? Let's look at things from a slightly different angle. Currently, today, there are four distinct families of apes, belonging to two superfamilies - Hominidae, the great apes and Ponginae, the lesser apes. Homo Sapiens belongs to the family Hominidae, or Hominid, along with the families, genus, and subspecies of great apes, consisting of about eight subspecies.

It should go without saying that none of the species or subspecies in either superfamily of apes, be it the great apes or the lesser apes, can mate with one another.

Therefore, they all belong to different species. This means that CURRENTLY, there are families of great apes which survive concurrently with the other species, such as the families of primates, and homo sapiens.

Now, a few paragraphs ago I made the distinction between Homo Sapiens and the great apes because Homo Sapiens has clearly evolved from great apes, and beyond, into something spectacular...

A life form invented by mother Earth, which then deposited us here upon her surface to do with it as we must in order to preserve life throughout the galaxy for the greater good, even at the sacrifice of the parent planet.

That simple concept is what makes Homo Sapiens completely special, and even the simplest single celled bacterium, because as far as we know, there is no other life in the universe. I'll admit it... that seems kind of unlikely that out of the trillions of galaxies and septillions of stars, only a few microbes have spontaneously created life from non-living matter, the way it happened here on Earth - as far as we know.

The answer to the question of 'where are all the aliens', is that there might be some kind of great filter which kills off alien species before they can get a chance to develop any real technology.

Or, and to me this is the much more likely scenario - life in this universe is incredibly rare. Think. Every single condition had to be met PERFECTLY for life to gain a foothold on Earth.

 1. Our absolutely massive Moon. 

The Earths' Moon is the largest in the solar system in relation to its' parent body. In fact, the Earth-Moon system is a double planet. As for the formation of the Moon... It is theorized that a Mars-sized planet named Theia collided a glancing blow to the Earth 4.5 billion years ago, and within a year, the moon had formed from the orbital debris, and the Earth was spinning far more quickly and was on its' way back to recovery. The importance of the Moon cannot be understated - the Moon keeps our axial tilt at precisely 23.5°, giving us the four seasons, and the Moon started the Earth spinning as a result of that ancient collision. It's theorized that some of the first single celled, extremely simple life forms likely formed spontaneously in tide-pools because of, you know... the Moon, and its' influence on the tides.

2. The Goldilocks Zone.

You've probably already heard of this, but there is a zone of habitability around our parent star, Sol, and given the right conditions of a planet forming inside this Goldilocks zone - a planet with a thick atmosphere and liquid water with complex chemistry occurring almost constantly - means that it's really not that unlikely of a scenario for an ideal planet for life to form in this region. As it stands, Venus is on the very inner edge of the habitable zone, and Mars is on the very outer edge. All three worlds had planet spanning oceans early in their histories. 

How I would love to see those, just to go back a few billion years to see Venus covered in oceans with a comfortable temperature, and the same thing with Mars. But the Earth, who knows? It might still be in the middle of forming, with a molten lava surface. Likely though, it will have began to solidify and form plate tectonics between four and three and a half billion years ago, and over the eons, comets would have delivered most of Earth's water. Lightning storms could have provided catalysts for chemical reactions, specifically energetic reactions amongst the plentiful volatile elements which exist in the upper layers of the Earth's crust.

3. Jupiter, the Mega-Maid!

Ever since 1994 when Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacted Jupiter, it became clear that the extremely large planet was adept at deflecting objects away from the inner solar system - objects which could have posed a hazard to planet Earth over the eons. 

Now, ever since that July day in 1994 whenever we saw a comet slam into Jupiter, we've actually witnessed another one. That's two comets that Jupiter has sucked up within two decades. So, in order for life to survive, it needs to be stable environment. The Sun has been unusually stable throughout almost all of its history, and the Giant, massive outer planets have served to keep the solar system nice and tidy so that a dinosaur killer only occurs once every 100 million years or so.

4. Water, Amino acids, hydrothermal vents, phosphorus for food, and no oxygen to speak of.

This was the way it was on Earth for a billion or so years. Unicellular life had already evolved deep underneath the ocean near hydrothermic vents where nutritious materials and metals were being spewed out - materials which the single-celled bacteria used to convert to chemical energy. Then green algae evolved, one of the first plants, and over the next billion or so years again, first the oceans were saturated with oxygen, and then the atmosphere. 

It proved extremely deadly to all pre-existing life, but to all life that was to come, the oxygen was absolutely necessary. Not just to breathe, but ozone is an oxygen molecule which blocks harmful UV rays from Sol. 

And here are the four specific amino acids, which can come together in orders of three to form the four types of nitrogen bases found in nucleotides: 

Adenine (A)

Thymine (T)

Guanine (G)

Cytosine (C)

These four amino acids will only combine 3 amino acids at a time, forming the 'ladder steps' of an RNA molecule or a DNA double helix molecule. It's not difficult to understand, but understanding exactly what code you're looking at can be daunting.

5. Spontaneous generation?

For a long time, mostly before doctors thought it was good idea to wash their hands, it was widely believed that maggots formed on rotting meat by way of spontaneously generating from nothing at all. 

Ironically, this is very much likely to be the truth of how life got its' first start here on Earth. Just some incredibly lucky event - a quadrillion to one against chance led to the organization of the DNA double helix molecule and stored it as chromosomes in the nucleus of every single cell of every single and/or multicellular creature. 

The odds of life spontaneously arising from dead matter are so staggeringly low, it is hard to believe it, or even give it its' fair due. What we DO know is that whenever life started on Earth, it started almost as soon as it was able to - It started about 4 billion years ago, when the surface of the Earth was still mostly molten.

This is such a gigantic 'fuck you' to the second law of thermodynamics, that codons of amino acids can just 'self organize' into more amino acids, which in turn form the specialized proteins which function by storing genetic information in the nucleus of each cell as molecules of tremendously complex design, that one really does begin to wonder about intelligent design, or panspermia at the very least. Because the alternative means that it's EASY for order to stomp a mudhole right in entropys' ass, and that should not be the case! Just check the 2nd law of thermodynamics! It's INSANE!

The only conclusion left to draw here is that we, the intelligent life which formed of Planet Earth, are EXTREMELY lucky, and hold a great burden of responsibility - to ensure the survival of life throughout the Milky Way. And the indisputable fact remains that the spontaneous formation of RNA and DNA base pairs, equipped with ribosomes for cutting the double helix DNA molecule, then putting it back together correctly but BACKWARD, suggests a level of complexity here which absolutely should not be allowed to exist because it basically gives a double middle finger to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Oh yeah, and it screws the 3rd law of thermodynamics too, which states that a system containing and doing work heat MUST lose that heat to entropy until the temperature of that body is absolute zero, which my lovelies, just ain't possible to make anything that cold!

aBck from the digression...

 Over the past several million years, it had been nigh on impossible to discover, extract, and examine ancient Hominid fossils which could provide an absolute proof of 'The Missing Link'. Therefore, it would be folly to make a discovery of a brand new Hominid, then lump it under the old taxonomy of the great or lesser apes.

Now! Fun! 

Answer me this question if you can. You say that all birds are dinosaurs. Oh, and just to hell with 65 million years of evolution, because screw all that - that would mean that the surviving dinosaurs may have had a really really good chance of evolving into a completely different and unique animal. You know, like a bird? One that flies? You tell me. 

Were there any dinosaurs that flew? I'm not talking about pterodactyls, they weren't dinosaurs. I'm not talking about the archeopteryx, that was merely a precursor to a modern bird which happened to have its feathers fossilized very neatly.

So, according to your theory, the dinosaurs didn't have any kind of problem surviving an impact that would have changed the coastlines forever, sent up billions of tons of mantle material which over the next following few days, would re-enter the atmosphere, heating it up to about 600° all the way to the surface, killing just about everything that was too large to find shelter. 75% of all life on Earth was extinguished because of the KT impactor.

But you're telling me that the dinosaurs survived. Okay, I can dig SOME of that, a teensy PART it. Maybe they did survive for a little while. Maybe they flourished, after the Earth had cleared its atmosphere, established new food chains, repaired the biosphere, and prepared itself for a lower oxygen content by about 10%, so that warm blooded mammals could flourish. And dinosaurs, those guys were warm-blooded. You do know that, right? I sure hope so!

So anyway, after this impactor which wiped out 75% of all life on Earth, mainly on land, had set the atmosphere on fire for days, where merely standing outside would get you baked at 600 degrees because of all the in falling ejected material heating up the atmosphere as it succumbed to gravity, somehow 25% of life on Earth was left pretty much alone. 

Probably the marine life, some hardy plants, some hairy rats, and a few very small dinosaurs - think, procompsignathus - which either already had feathers but almost certainly couldn't fly, or didn't have feathers at all, removing them even further from modern birds.

But dinosaurs already had feathers, I think.... but that doesn't mean that birds are dinosaurs, though. Look at that fuckin' ugly son of a bitch, the platypus. What the hell is that thing? It has hair, like a mammal, it has a bill like a bird or a duck, it has venom in its rear claws, it has a tail like a nutria rat, and it lays eggs! So tell me. What the fuck is a platypus? Don't you dare call it a dinosaur. 

However, the platypus actually DOES exist, beyond all that is good and holy. It does no guys any good to wonder about this abomination. Just don't say it's a dinosaur!

I'll say ponder some thing about it... Ponder what it AIN'T. It sure ain't something that survived the KT impact 65 million years ago. I mean it's obvious this thing evolved over the next 65 million years, up until today.

So, we're forced to observe the platypus and recognize its existence. It doesn't fit neatly into any taxonomical category, except maybe mammals because the thing has more hair than it has of anything else.

So, now that I've pointed out the completely fucked up enigma of the platypus, what is that thing anyway? A dinosaur? Is the platypus a dinosaur? See, I ain't even gonna Google it. I want you to answer for the platypus! It has some things in common with birds, like laying eggs, being warm blooded, and even having a nice fancy duck bill. I'll bet you do think that this THING is a dinosaur, don't you? Hell, humans have more in common with birds than a platypus! Therefore, humans are more likely to be descended from dinosaurs. Correct?

Let's dive deep into a dinosaurs' cloaca, shall we?

The Taxonomy of Dinosaurs

The two main orders of dinosaurs are Saurischia and Ornithischia, based on their hip structure. These divisions have proved remarkably enduring, even through several seismic changes in the taxonomy of dinosaurs.

Benton classification

As most dinosaur paleontologists have advocated a shift away from traditional, ranked taxonomy in favor of phylogenetic systems, few taxonomies of dinosaurs have been published since the 1980s. The following is among the most recent, from the third edition of Vertebrate Palaeontology. The classification has been updated from the second edition in 2000 to reflect new research, but remains fundamentally conservative.

Michael Benton classifies all dinosaurs within the Series Amniota, Class Sauropsida, Subclass Diapsida, Infraclass Archosauromorpha, Division Archosauria, Subdivision Avemetatarsalia, Infradivision Ornithodira, and Superorder Dinosauria. Dinosauria is then divided into the two traditional orders, Saurischia and Ornithischia. 

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READ THIS ABOUT THE DAGGER!

The dagger (†) is used to indicate taxa with no living members.

READ THIS ABOUT THE DAGGER!

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Order Saurischia

Suborder Theropoda

†Inftaorder Herrerasauria

†Infraorder Coelophysoidea

†Infraorder Ceratosauria+

†Division Neoceratosauria+

†Subdivision Abelisauroidea

†Family Abelisauridae

†Family Noasauridae

†Subdivision Ceratosauridae

Infraorder Tetanurae

†Division Megalosauria

†Subdivision Spinosauroidea

†Family Megalosauridae

†Family Spinosauridae

†Division Carnosauria

†Subdivision Allosauroidea

†Family Allosauridae

†Family Carcharodontosauridae

†Family Neovenatoridae

†Family Metriacanthosauridae

Division Coelurosauria

†Family Coeluridae

Subdivision Maniraptoriformes

†Family Tyrannosauridae

†Family Ornithomimidae

Infradivision Maniraptora

†Family Alvarezsauridae

†Family Therizinosauridae

†Cohort Deinonychosauria

†Family Troodontidae

†Family Dromaeosauridae

Class Aves

†Suborder Sauropodomorpha

†Thecodontosaurus

†Family Plateosauridae

†Riojasaurus

†Family Massospondylidae

†Infraorder Sauropoda

†Family Vulcanodontidae

†Family Omeisauridae

†Division Neosauropoda

†Family Cetiosauridae

†Family Diplodocidae

†Subdivision Macronaria

†Family Camarasauridae

†Infradivision Titanosauriformes

†Family Brachiosauridae

†Cohort Somphospondyli

†Family Euhelopodidae

†Family Titanosauridae

†Order Ornithischia Ornithischia pelvis structure.svg

†Family Pisanosauridae

†Family Fabrosauridae

†Suborder Thyreophora

†Family Scelidosauridae

†Infraorder Stegosauria

†Infraorder Ankylosauria

†Family Nodosauridae

†Family Ankylosauridae

†Suborder Cerapoda

†Infraorder Pachycephalosauria

†Infraorder Ceratopsia

†Family Psittacosauridae

†Family Protoceratopsidae

†Family Ceratopsidae

†Infraorder Ornithopoda

†Family Heterodontosauridae

†Family Hypsilophodontidae

†Family Iguanodontidae *

†Family Hadrosauridae

READ THIS ABOUT THE DAGGER!

The dagger (†) is used to indicate taxa with no living members.

READ THIS ABOUT THE DAGGER!

Wow, look at all of those daggers... or are they crosses? Nah, they're daggers. They symbolize the murder of the entire taxonomy of every dinosaur KNOWN to be alive and existing before the KT impact.

Too bad, really... there's not a single living dinosaur listed in this most comprehensive taxonomy.

Well, there it is. Some kind of taxonomy for dead dinos. All that is supposedly the taxonomy of all of the dinosaurs from the Cambrian Explosion, throughout the Ordovician Era, all through The Triassic Era, spending The Boring Billion building up the O2 and ozone by photosynthesizing green algae in the atmosphere, then on through The Jurassic Era, right up to the Cretaceous Era - at which point the Cretacious-Tertiary boundary occurs in the geologic strata, delineated by a black layer with abundant fossils underneath, and barely any above. 

The black layer means a shitload of dead dinos, burnt to a crisp.

An extinction event is obvious, and once the Chixiclub crater had been confirmed by very slight fluctuations of gravity at ground zero, where mantle material must have been squashed to unreal densities and thus forming the caldera of the crater and explaining the gravitational anomalies detected by satellites, the Chixiclub crater was finally made clear.

There. The smoking gun that roasted every land animal that was too large to escape underground, or wasn't suited for survival in the oceans. Thus, the dinosaurs were pushed out of the spotlight. It was the turn of the small greasy pestilent ridden mammals that hid in filthy, musty holes in the ground. And whatever poor chickens... I mean dinosaurs that they felt sorry for.

NOT!

That an extinction event occurred 65 million years ago is now obvious, and once the presence of the Chixiclub crater had been confirmed by very slight fluctuations of gravity at ground zero, where mantle material must have been compressed enormously by the asteroid impact, the outer ring of the crater was discovered via detection of anomolous distributions of gravity which persist around the rim of the crater to this day.

Now, here's a nicely rounded taxonomy for birds too. For fun, compare it to the one up there for dinosaurs:

(NOTICE HOW THE BIRDS LISTED ARE TOTALLY NOT EXTINCT, AND THERE'S NO SIGN OF DINOSAUR ANYWHERE)

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Kingdom:  Animalia  

Taxonomic Rank: Class

Common Name(s):Birds [English]

Taxonomic Status:

Current standing: Valid

Data Quality Indicators:

Record Credibility Rating: Verified - standards met  

Global Species Completeness: Latest Record Review: 2013      

Taxonomic Hierarchy:

Kingdom: Animalia 

Subkingdom: Bilateria Infrakingdom: Deuterostomia

Phylum: Chordata, Chordates

Subphylum: Vertebrata Infraphylum: Gnathostomata

Superclass: Tetrapoda

Class: Aves, birds

Direct Children:

Order: Accipitriformes - hawks

Order: Anderiformes - waterfoul

Order: Apodiformes - swifts

Order: Apterygiformes - kiwis

Order: Bucerotiformes - hornbills

Order: Caprimulgiformes

Order: Cariamiformes

Order: Causuariiform - emus

Order: Charadriiformes - gulls

Order: Ciconiiformes - storks

Order: Coliiformes - Colies

Order: Columbiforme - doves       

Order: Coraciiformes - Kingfishers

Order: Cuculigormes - cuckoos

Order: Eurypygformes - falcons

Order: Falconiforme - falcons

Order: Galliformes - field

Order: Gaviiformes - loons

Order: Gruiformes - cranes 

Order: Leptosomiformes - roller

Order: Mesitornithiformes

Order: Musophagiformes

Order: Nyctibiiformes

Order: Opisthocomiformes 

Order: Otidiformes

Order: Passeriformes - perchers

Order: Pelecaniformes - herons

Order: Phaethontiformes

Order: Phoenicopteriformes  – Flamingos

Order: Piciformes  – eoodpeckers

Order: Podicipediformes  – grebes

Order: Procellariiformes - albatross

Order: Psittaciformes  – Parrots

Order: Pteroclidiformes  – Sandgrouse                          

Order: Rheiformes - Rheas 

Order:  Sphenisciformes - penguins               

Order: Steatornithiformes - owls

Order: Strigiformes - owls

Order: Struthioniformes - ostrich

Order: Suliformes  – cormorants  

Order: Tinamigormes - tinamous 

Order: Trogoniformes - trogons      

Ok, there. A  fairly complete taxonomy of birds down to the major orders. How's does it compare to the dinosaur taxonomy chart? Home run? Close, but no banana?

I've mentioned the Dinosaur Killer, the 6 mile wide asteroid which impacted the Chixiclub basin, just North of the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, and mostly impacting completely over the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico about 65 million years ago, largely stomping out practically ALL dinosaurs bigger than a breadbox.

We know this K-T boundary located in the strata was laid down by a massive impactor because of its' location, which matches radio isotope dating which lines up to about 65 million years ago... and also, the ratios of iridium isotopes, which are extremely rare on Earth but are relatively abundant in nickel-iron and carbonaceous chondrite asteroids, is found imbedded in the KT boundary, providing literal proof that the KT boundary wasn't caused by volcanism or climate change or a supernova or a hands ray burst, for Gods'sake... It was caused by an iridium-rich nickel iron or carbonacious contrite asteroid.

So. Is it the feathers that make the dinosaur? Is that it really? Is that what's got your underwear in dire need of rescuing, the fact that a lot of dinosaurs had feathers? And that. It's a relatively new PR piece? Not to mention more accurate visual data for how dinosaurs actually looked? And here we are 65 million years later, and there sure are a shitload of creatures with feathers. Are they ALL dinosaurs??

Surely not every one of our fine feathered friends is a dinosaur! I mean, there have been cases of multiple evolutionary parts which were completely unrelated yet LED too the same function, over and over. Take the eye, for instance. That thing had evolved independently more often than feathers I'll wager, but I'll also easy that feathers also evolved multiple times, independently from ponder feathered animal to another.

The ones that are the most familiar to us, well, we call those birds, mind you, not dinosaurs. I mean, a case can be made for their very distant relation to dinosaurs, MAYBE, but it ain't a no-brainer like you make it out to be, for the love of Pete!

So the burden of proof exists with you, by proving that birds really are descended from God's own dinosaurs that survived the KT impact 65 million years ago. According to you, birds are exactly the same thing as dinosaurs. But are dinosaurs exactly the same thing as birds? It's not a trivial question. 65 million years ago, the largest mammal was about the size of a rat. 

65 million years is an immense amount of time for evolution to take place, and during that time, the first primates (monkeys) and then the first great apes appeared, until Homo Sapiens had evolved to a point as to being physically indistinguishable from us today, going back 200,000 years. 

The only difference between a Cro-Magnon and a modern Homo Sapiens is their culture. Before that, we had homo erectus, who was known to use tools and fire, but had a much smaller cranial capacity of about 300 square centimeters, and died out around a million years ago. Then there was homo neanderthalensis, the closest relative to modern humans which existed side by side with the Cro-Magnon people as soon as 40,000 years ago. 

It's believed that cro-magnons and homo neanderthalinsis could procreate, but unfortunately the Neanderthals went extinct when the ice sheets in France melted. It truly is unfortunate, because neanderthals had an exceptional cranial capacity, rivaling cro-magnons. That's about 1200 sq cm for a neanderthal, compared to about 1400 sq cm for a modern human. 

Then there's the Austropilithicines, an interesting footnote: who were among the first great apes who stood upright. These great apes have long been debated to have been our first definite lineage of ancestors, and one found in Africa was named Lucy and was carbon dated as being the oldest hominid fossil ever discovered. 

A lot of people began referring to Lucy as Eve, being female, and the oldest example of a fossil which might be related to modern humans. Still, these apes went extinct about 2 million years ago.

LET'S RECAP! 

So you can call a gorilla a great ape, and a human being a great ape, but you can't call a human being a gorilla. Now listen carefully. According to your logic, which isn't entirely misplaced, you can call birds dinosaurs ubiquitously, but you can't refer to all dinosaurs as birds. 

There's a stupid upshot here, one that requires critical thinking and a willingness NOT to be wildly ignorant. I know, a tall order. Personally though, I'd rather be right than wrong. And since I'm not disagreeing with you 100% - I'm disagreeing with what seems a reckless bit of ubiquitousness naivety on your part - I'm still willing to be convinced, if you can convince me.

Still, the fact remains that you are simply ignoring 65 million years of evolution! Where is your evidence that modern-day dinosaurs, or the birds descended from dinosaurs, would be able to procreate with their ancient brethren? Even if the offspring was sterile? When does a dinosaur stop being a dinosaur, 65 million years later?

Want me to provide some good hard evidence just like the kind I asked for from you, right this second? Ok.

One more thing. Monkeys. Monkeys are, of course, primates, but they are not great apes. However, they are related to great apes, and that relation also extends to humans, but more distantly. However, it's one which saw monkeys split from great apes millions of years ago, which gave rise to the great apes we know today, including us. 

But it is a grand mistake to call a human being a monkey, because humans are not monkeys. Gorillas are not monkeys, either. They all have a common ancestry, though. See how you can take yourself up in the midst of your fervor, even if cold hard evidence begins to wear down on you? Why would you want that?

Now, I do believe birds, at least some of them, are descended from some of the smaller, hardier dinosaurs which were able to survive the KT impact. However, a lot of evolution can take place over 65 million years. Just up and saying that all birds are dinosaurs is a logical fallacy and really is irresponsible. 

The Story of what's his face.

I had something similar happen to me whenever I was the second shift supervisor at a privately owned 7-Eleven franchise store. I had started working there in December of 2007, and by the summer of 2008, back whenever the store was still corporate, I was chosen to be trained for management because I was making a good impression, and was being noticed. I was asked if I wanted to be trained for management, and when I replied in the positive, I was sent to... and I shit you not... real live 7-Eleven University! Yes, there is really such a place. A 7-Eleven University where they send management trainees. I of course graduated, and I was the assistant manager of that particular 7-Eleven for about a year and a half.

Then, in the winter of 2010, the store was sold to a private owner as a franchise, and I was fired on the spot by the new owner from my job as assistant manager, along with about 90% of the employees who worked there, so he could hire his own fresh batch of brand new employees. 

Another year passed while I collected unemployment, and I guess the new owner decided that he had possibly made a mistake when he had fired almost every single person on the spot who knew a damn thing about how to work at a 7-Eleven, so he offered to hire myself and the other assistant manager back, and we agreed to come back.

However, he wouldn't let us perform any of the management duties we had both been trained to do. The new owner was actually a really great guy, but he was very, VERY adamant about running the management part of the store by himself. Nobody else was allowed to do the books, make the cash drops, reconcile the inventory with the manifests - he did almost everything himself, except eventually for ordering product. After a couple of months the work was just too much for him so he relented, and allowed me, the other assistant manager who had been rehired, and a couple of other employees to do most of the ordering. 

While my new title was second shift supervisor, and I was making the same amount as I had been making as a REAL assistant manager, my new role had become basically Captain of the Cooler. I was in charge of ordering everything in the cooler, making sure it was always stocked, and keeping it tidy. Otherwise, that place became a chaotic mess in no time!

Over the next several years I continued working as the second shift supervisor, ordering all of the alcohol and soft drinks and dairy that go in the cooler... and as for my second shift supervisor job title, it really didn't mean anything. 

Technically I was in charge, but I didn't throw my weight around. I helped out new hires, showed them how to do their jobs, made sure that the drawers were counted at the end of each shift, did the shift reports, and since I was pretty much the highest ranking guy there (the other assistant manager had since left for another job), I was also the go-to guy to cover for anybody who didn't show up for their shift. That meant lots of overtime, and even in a franchise store, there are laws to enforce that kind of overtime whenever it is demanded of you. The owner hated having to pay overtime though.

And I worked a shit ton of double shifts, because third shift is the most hated shift at a 7-Eleven, and about a quarter of the time employees just wouldn't show up! Third shift had the highest turnover rate, and I was constantly working double, 16 hour shifts - my shift, which was from 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., and then third shift to cover for whoever didn't show up, from 10:00 p.m. to whatever time the owner decided to show up. 

Many times I worked until 9:00 or 10:00 a.m., especially on truck nights... because one person on third shift simply cannot check in all of the product deliveries, both from the main trucks and from CDC which supplied all of our fresh food, plus perform all of the other third shift duties such as cleaning the entire store - including scrubbing down the grill every night, doing all of the paperwork that came with the CDC order every night and the main truck orders which were delivered twice a week, as well as getting the breakfast rush ready by setting the grill up and loading it up with breakfast items, and cleaning all of the coffee pots and the cappuccino machine and making fresh coffee...

There was a shitload of work to do on third shift, and these were all duties that had to be performed every night, by one person, because the owner wouldn't schedule two people for third shift. That's why so many people either quit, or just didn't show up to work. The owner was a great guy, and I'm sure he still is, but what can I say. He was a cheapskate whenever I worked for him. 

I worked at that particular 7-Eleven for 10 years, until 2018, and other than the raises that corporate gave me when it was still a corporate store, I got one $0.20 raise by the new owner over an 8-year period. And looking back at that, I'm baffled. Anybody else would have asked for at least a couple more raises, but I just never did. I didn't want to put the financial pressure on the new owner, because I was developing a personal relationship with him and his family, and I cared about them.

Here's a piece of advice - don't let yourself get personally or emotionally involved with your boss and his family, ever!

Now, everything I've just told is merely history and really doesn't matter when it comes to the main story, except to establish myself as the longest working employee at that store, the highest 'ranking' employee at that store, as the only employee with an actual job title at that store, which was second shift supervisor, and to demonstrate my work ethic over the course of more than a decade at probably the most shit job you can work at for such a long period of time.

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Now comes the fun part of the story! In the summer of 2016, the owner hired a new employee. Let's call him Simon. At first, Simon was a really easy person to get along with. He was very nice, he was always giving compliments to EVERYONE, he always doing altruistic things like sharing his lottery winnings whenever he won something substantial on a scratch off, and he would actually volunteer sometimes to help me out and take up some slack that I was always getting stuck with, such as covering for workers who either called in, or just flat out didn't show up to work. On third shift, that was extremely common. Simon did his job really well.

At first Simon and I got along really well, too. Hell, Simon got along well with everyone, it seemed. I visited his apartment several times, and we would habitually trade our favorite science fiction and fantasy novels, as we were both avid readers and fans of the genres. 

I didn't start getting a real clue about who Simon really was until one night after work, when he and I were spending some time together at his apartment, having a few drinks. We talked about a lot of things, but as we kept drinking, the topics started to become a little more, well, controversial, I guess. At this particular time, the topic had turned to abortion. I was against it, he was for it.

The conversation became an argument. I was adamant about my position, and so was he, and I spent a lot of time trying to explain why I thought abortion was so completely wrong, and even tantamount to murder. Until this point neither of us had raised our voices, but as Simon began to become frustrated, he started raising his voice. 

I kept asking him to calm down, and that there was no need to shout. He would chill out for a while, but then he would inevitably begin to raise his voice again. Eventually, he was screaming at me at the top of his lungs! I'm sure he woke up the neighbors, who probably had to listen to him screaming, as this went on for about 15 minutes. 

The only time I ever raised my voice that night was to be heard over him, and to ask him to lower his voice. I finally just grew weary of the entire situation. We were both drunk, I was getting tired and sleepy, and as he was screaming at me at full volume, I abruptly stood up, picked up the books that he had laid out for me to borrow, left mine on his coffee table, and said:

"Sorry Simon, but I'm not going to continue with this. I'll see you at work tomorrow. Thanks for lending me the books!"

I left his apartment and went home. That was the first volley of what eventually would become nuclear combat, toe to toe between the two of us.

The next day, Simon demanded his books back from me. So, after the shift, I went home and got them and brought them to him. When I asked him for my books back, he made up some kind of excuse about having to go see his girlfriend for something. 

I asked him several times for my books after that, but he would always say that he had forgotten them, or he would leave immediately when the shift ended so that I couldn't bring it up. I never got my books back.

As the weeks went by, Simon became more and more passive aggressive, until his personality toward me had changed to one of genuine dislike. We never had friendly conversations anymore, and when we did talk, it was only about our job duties. 

I even tried to apologize to him for that one night when we had the argument about abortion, even though I hadn't been the one doing the screaming... but that turned out to be a big mistake. The fact that I had actually apologized infuriated him for some reason, and he began screaming at me again! As soon as that started, I walked outside and just left him in the store while I smoked a cigarette.

That was the second volley.

As the weeks turned to months, I began to suspect that Simon was a flat out narcissist, and possibly a con artist with his always available charm, which he could turn on and off at a whim depending on who he was associating with. I even began to suspect that he could be a psychopath. Statistically, one out of every 100 people on the planet is a psychopath, so the chances that I've run across a few during my life, or that anybody has run across at least one psychopath during their lives, is pretty much guaranteed. 

In my mind, as time went on, I began to suspect more and more, merely by observing how Simon interacted with particular people and how his attitude, his friendliness, his charm, his anger, and even his assumed mantle of authority - which I'll get to in a minute - changed, depending on who he was talking to. He was seeming to be more and more like a manipulative bastard.

Simon and I worked together on second shift together for about a year, and at the end of that year, I was absolutely convinced that Simon definitely had some kind of personality disorder. It was becoming easier and easier to tell when he was just flat out lying about something, or bragging about something that had never happened in order to impress people. The simple 180° change in his personality toward me, along with several other of my co-workers, told us that there was definitely something wrong with Simon upstairs. 

I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but I'm such an avid reader that I know anywhere from 'just a little' to 'quite a bit' about just about any topic that's thrown my way, as I've read anywhere from 'just a little' to 'quite a bit' about almost everything, especially the sciences. 

So it was that, according to my layman's knowledge, it seemed likely to me that Simon was possibly exhibiting narcissist, codependent, borderline personality, and possibly even sociopathic and psychopathic behavior. Looking back on it now, I'm fairly positive that Simon was a narcissist, and there's a good chance that he was also a psychopath.

I didn't come to these conclusions all at once; it was a gradual kind of coalescence of my idea of Simon based upon his erratic behavior over the course of a year spent working with him, dealing with him, watching his behavior, and coming to understand how he operated with his put on charms and his subtle manipulations of people.

As I've already mentioned, Simon worked at that 7-Eleven for about a year, in total. Then something inexplicable happened - near the end of his year of employment, Simon just up and promoted himself to store supervisor! This wasn't any kind of title which was given to him by the owner, it was just something that Simon had made up!

With his newly self bestowed title, Simon began to try ordering me and other coworkers around. When he pulled that shit with me, I just ignored him as if I hadn't heard what he'd said at all. When he pulled that shit with our coworkers, they always turned to look at me after receiving some kind of order from Simon. If what Simon was suggesting was legit, I'd just nod my head. If Simon was truly being an astronomical douchebag, I'd say:

"You don't have to listen to Simon, he doesn't have any authority over you." 

After I had completely negated Simon's presumed, self-promotion several times, well...

That was the third conventional volley, and Nuclear combat inevitably ensued. What follows is a detailed description of the events which triggered and all out nuclear exchange between Simon and myself. 

One night, Simon and I were working together as always, and I turned down a customer who was wanting to purchase cigarettes, because his ID was obviously fake. The customer then went to Simons' register and showed him his fake ID, and Simon turned around to get the cigarettes for the customer.

"DON'T YOU DO IT!" I said loudly to Simon.

That's the only time I ever raised my voice to almost a shout at Simon. It's the only time, the one single time, that I ever pulled rank on him. Simon was so shocked to hear me ORDER him not to sell cigarettes to that customer, that he quietly turned around, put the cigarettes back on the rack, and told the customer that he couldn't sell him cigarettes.

Things were silent between Simon and myself for about an hour after that, and then Simon started talking. I don't remember exactly what he was talking about, as he was mainly just bitching and moaning. Then he started complaining about what had happened, and how I shouldn't have ordered him not to sell cigarettes. 

I replied very simply to Simon occasionally, but mostly I just ignored him entirely. As time passed, Simon began to bitch more and more about what had happened. He would not shut up about it! Eventually, he was screaming at me again. And this is when EVERYTHING exploded:

Simon: "And another thing. How DARE you try to order me around whenever I'm your superior! You're not the supervisor here, I am!" 

WHAT. THE. FUCK. Okay, I'd held back for a long time. I'd kept my nukes in storage, very patiently... but now it was time for Nuclear Combat.

Me: "Simon, I don't know where the hell you got the delusional idea that you're the supervisor of this store. What's amazing to me is the possibility, due to some kind of malfunction in your misfiring neurons, that you might even believe that it's true! If that's the case then I have some bad news for you, Simon. Call it a Reality Check. Be sure to store this information in a part of your brain that's not malfunctioning, for future reference, because here it is. Simon, if there's anybody in charge around here while the owner is gone, it's me. I've worked here for 8 years. You've worked here for almost a year. Based simply on the amount of time I've worked here compared to you, I have rank over you, plain and simple. I have rank over everybody in the store, except for the owner. You can ask him about that, because he gave me that authority when he hired me. Several years ago when the store was corporate, I was an assistant manager. Whenever the store became a franchise however, instead of assistant manager, the new owner changed my title to second shift supervisor. The next time he's here, we can even talk about it with him if you want to, just to clear things up, because you are not in charge of me Simon, or anybody else in this store. I've already asked the owner about this delusion of yours, by the way. I asked him if he had made you the store supervisor, with authority over everyone including myself, and do you know what he did? He laughed! He laughed and he said: 

"Hell no I didn't make Simon store supervisor!" 

Simon, if there is a make-believe ranking system here that extends beyond my authority as second shift supervisor, then according to that ranking system, you are the lowest man on the totem pole. As a matter of fact, everybody here has worked here for longer than you Simon, except for the new third shift guy. So, just to make things crystal clear, I'm going to explain one simple fact to you, and here it is - I am your boss, Simon. I've never gone out of my way to hold that authority over you in any way, and I've never pulled rank on you or told you, or even asked politely, for you to do anything until about an hour ago when I ordered you NOT to sell cigarettes to that guy, after I had already denied selling him cigarettes, because selling him those cigarettes would have been fucking illegal, because his ID was fake! Maybe you didn't realize that, because you haven't been here for 8 years. But I have, and I know what a fake ID looks like. Besides, that doesn't even matter. What matters is that you tried to sell him cigarettes after I had already told him no, and by ordering you not to do that, I prevented you from committing a crime, Simon. And that's why I'm your boss, and not the other way around. So get this straight right now Simon, right quick and in a hurry. I am your supervisor. I am your boss, when the owner isn't here. So, in the future whenever we're working together after the owner has gone home, if and when I ever tell you to do something, you do it! Just like you did an hour ago when I ordered you not to sell those cigarettes. That's the first time I've ever given you a direct order Simon, and it's because you were about to break the law. Now that you know that your job is to follow my orders to a reasonable degree, I expect you, in turn, to do your job, competently, and with no conflict as far as our work relationship goes. Unless you try to do anything stupid again, I'll probably never come right out and tell you to do anything ever again, because you already know your job really well. And you do it well! You're a good worker here, but something is wrong with the way you process information, Simon. I don't know what that problem is, but I hope we've at least cleared it up as far as the two of us are concerned. If you are still adamant with your delusion that you are the supervisor of this store and the boss of everyone here, including myself, but barring the owner, then tomorrow we can bring this whole thing up with him and talk it over... but you're not gonna like how it turns out, Simon. Because if you're bound and determined to believe that you are somehow my superior here, my supervisor, and the supervisor of this store, including all employees except for the owner, then we need to clear this up with the him right away, tomorrow, at the beginning of the shift, before he's gone home. And that's all I have to say, as far as you and I are concerned. Whatever you have to say next, unless it's "Okay I understand," or something similar to that, I'm just gonna ignore it because this issue is OVER WITH!"

Simon didn't say anything after that. He didn't say another word for the rest of the night. In fact, I don't think more than two dozen words were passed between us for the remainder of his tenure as 'cashier'. I never brought that up to Simon, but that was his actual official job title. 

Simon didn't bring the issue up with the owner, and he never brought it up again. It was done. Resolved. Finished! And that was my 1 megaton nuke, detonated at an altitude of 10,000 feet - known as an 'air burst' - directly above Simon, a carefully calculated detonation meant to combine the ground level pressure fronts, effectively spreading the maximum possible energy of the resulting shockwaves over the largest area for the purpose of inflicting Total Destruction. 

Simon's return volley - a spread of several 10 megaton MIRVs - all exploded harmlessly inside their own silos. Allow me to explain.

A few weeks later, I was informed of a cabal which Simon was actively trying to form against me, involving as many of our coworkers as possible. Simon was planning an ambush, and he was recruiting an alliance! 

I came about this knowledge one night whenever the new third shift guy - let's call him Rick - basically just told me all about it. Here's what Rick said, word for word, as clearly as I can remember, as to the plan Simon was plotting against me, one filled with carefully and craftily constructed lies. Here are the details of his evil plan to get me fired:

Rick: "Hey Ash! I don't know if you know this yet, but Simon is hatching lies about you. He's trying to gather up as many employees as he can and get them all on his side, and then invent a bunch of lies about you that he would then email to corporate, in order to get you fired. Last night, he asked me if I would help him with this evil scheme. I laughed and said, 'Are you fucking crazy, Simon?' He also said that the store owner made him the supervisor of the entire store, and that he's your boss, and that if it came up and you said anything different, that you're lying. Just so you know, that guy really has it in for you for some reason. He sounds crazy. I think he's a fuckin' nut job!"

Really! Thought I. I can't say that I was shocked, but I actually was a little surprised. That was the exact moment however, that I made the mental note that I was dealing with someone with narcissistic personality disorder, and very likely a bona fide psychopath.

Of course, nobody agreed to join the conspiracy Simon was trying to plot against me. Actually, it was pretty ironic, because if Simon really was the supervisor, he would have known this fact:

For a franchise store, corporate has absolutely zero control over who gets hired and who gets fired. That control is strictly in the hands of the owner of the franchise. The OWNER. Not some entity that was in charge 6 years ago, and gave up that power in order to sell one of their 7-Elevens to a private owner. Again... OWNER is the key word here. Simon just didn't have that info. He thought that corporate had control, and that he could actually hatch this scheme of lies against me and then present it all to corporate, with the support of several store employees, in order to get me fired!

I'll tell you this: the only thing that would have happened if Simon had been successful in recruiting even just one employee, or if he had decided to risk it and just do it all on his own, is that corporate would have forwarded the information to the owner, and the owner would have laughed his ass off and fired Simon.

A few days after that, Simon was trying to order me around whenever I told him to fuck off. He flew into a rage and screamed, "I QUIT!" As he was storming out the door, I shouted at him:

"That's no way for a store supervisor to behave! You've got responsibilities here, man! A real supervisor would have handled this situation like a professional, and not stormed out like a little titty baby and quit in a fussy rage!"

It was too late for poor Simon. After I'd delivered my final message to him, which he actually stopped in his tracks in order to listen to, he stormed out the door, never to be seen or heard from again (except for one more time).

Bye Simon, you fucking reptile! If I ever see your ugly mug again, I hope it's either in a police lineup, a mugshot, or in the obituaries! 

And that's my story of the failed, evil plan and nonexistent cabal which a co-worker of mine, who we've been calling Simon, tried to put together and pull off in order to get me fired. Yeah. Simon was, and most likely still is, a certified lunatic.

p.s. A few months later Simons' girlfriend came into the store, and I asked about him. She said that they had broken up a few months earlier, and that she never wanted to see that crazy fucker ever again.

The Retarded Side of The Force!

Oh, how I have fantasized about murdering Jar Jar Binks for the last twenty years. First degree, premeditated murder. Here's how I imagine it, step by step.

1. Tap that living insult to morons on the shoulder.

2. As it turns to face me -

SMASH! There go those ridiculous dentures, right down its' fucking gullet with the butt-end of my blaster!

3. Serious death occurs now as my blaster, set to fully automatic, happens hundreds of times to Jar Jars' face.

4. Jar Jar finally hits the ground, flopping. 

I've spent almost a quarter of a century as a haunted man, pondering this crime committed against Star Wars. Why was the fourth bonafide Star Wars movie presented as an exquisite turd and then served to us on a plate of bone china? 

Here's what I think happened.

One Friday evening, evolution must have been REALLY tired after trying to make sense of the latest assignment handed to it by the Universe - evolving the Gungan. 

It's not hard to imagine a thoroughly frustrated evolution sharpening pencils, tearing holes in the blueprints with used up erasers, knocking over the coffee in the process, all the while frequently glancing up at the clock until it FINALLY advanced to 5:30 pm, then -

"Fuck this, It's Hammertime!" 

And out the door evolution went in the flick of a millennia, off to get thoroughly hammered.

Now imagine some brown nosing intern working overtime at the evolution factory and deciding to have a crack at these Gungan creatures over the weekend... and ohmygod. When evolution showed up to work Monday morning, still half drunk and hung over, it must have taken one look at what the intern had done and just said, 

"Fuck it. That's a Gungan."

Remember a long time ago, in a theater far far away near you, when Jar Jar Binks was first unleashed upon us? I bought a ticket for The Phantom Menace on the day it was released, and eagerly took my seat in arguably the shittiest seat in a theater jam-packed with Star Wars nerds. I didn't care! I was about to see the first Star Wars movie in 16 years!

I left the theater that day, scratching my head and thinking...

WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED? 

Something had just gone spectacularly wrong with Star Wars, as if millions of Star Wars fans had suddenly cried out in terror. However, I decided to give The Phantom Menace the benefit of the doubt. I bought ANOTHER ticket, hoping beyond hope that this time Qui Gon Jin would simply take a couple of steps back and allow that troop carrier to smear Jar Jar Binks across the forest floor and into a delicious, Jar Jar flavored paste.

NOPE!

It took years of denial for the enormity of it to sink in. Gungans. That's what had happened to Star Wars. Fucking Gungans! Because of those goddamn things, I've been suffering from Star Wars PTSD for twenty years! I'm now permanently FUCKED IN THE HEAD!

Ok, everybody pay attention, because this is what happens when evolution shows up to work drunk -

After a couple of shots of hair of the dog, followed by carefully cramming one last 'fuck it' into a space clearly labeled 'shits left to give', then hammering a handful of Legos from the Abomination Box into that exact same space, what emerged was a race of semi-sentient cartoons with an overdose of permanent retarded built right in! And ever since evolution went Full-On Retard, Gungans have been on the production line, with no sign of running out! 

So, one may as well beg the question:

"Is it possible that a Gungan genius might actually get shat out into the general population now and then?"

Yes! However, other than naturally knowing shit from shinola while navigating alien planets on foot, a Gungan genius merely rivals the intelligence of a Kowakian monkey-lizard.

Since we've been reduced to begging questions about Gungans:

"Are 'retarded' Gungans possible? "

YUP! But only rarely does a creature so magnificently stupid survive instant murder. Guess who? I'm referring to Jar Jar Binks, of course. According to Jar Jar, it's because, "Meesa... clumsy." 

Yeah, yousa clumsy all right, Jar Jar. Clumsily shitting directly into the public cistern will get you pyoonished by Boss Nass, the Lord Marshall of The Morons! Even millions of exceptionally stupid creatures have their limits.

Here's a horrible tidbit of info. The Gungan tongue occupies precisely 99.999% of the space inside its' skull, restricting the maximum size of a Gungan brain to about a cubic millimeter. In Jar Jars' case, that cubic millimeter houses almost exactly an extra cubic millimeter of the tongue apparatus, which is constantly squishing against TWO NEURONS... and that goddamn tongue is hammering against them ceaselessly as it deploys, again and again! 

Like Frodo Baggins, I frequently call out into the void and ask, "Why did this have to happen to Star Wars in MY time?"

The answer arrived as an epiphany the other day as I was imagining torturing Jar Jar Binks for the eleventy-zillionth time. During this particular occasion, I was happily deep frying one side of his noggin in a frying pan filled with the rendered lard of his opposite ear.

Observe.

Jar Jar Binks: "Meesa Senator of allsa Naboo! Meesa help make Grand Republics! Whysa you always torturing meesa?"

\Me: "My dear Jar Jar... what a deliciously ironic question. I, too, often ask this question. Not TO you, but OF you! As for whysa I'm doing this? Since it's impossible to outright murder you, it's just revenge,  pure and simple. Your very existence is an insult to a galaxy filled with common morons! Jar Jar, if the Universe decided to commit suicide, it would be because of you - the ultimate 'I'M SORRY!' of creation!"

Jar Jar Binks: "But meesa still not knowing why... OW!"

Me: "Yeah, I know. It's because you're a retarded mongoloid. Now shut up, I'm trying to think." 

That ridiculous tongue simply had to go this time, and for good. In my mind, I unrolled Jar Jars' tongue with a set of red hot forceps, amputated it with a dull deer antler, and shoved it down his throat. The resulting peace and quiet nudged the afore-alluded to epiphany into existence! 

Consider...

What if Jar Jar Binks has Force mind control over those around him? Would this not explain why he is inexplicably tolerated by those within his sphere of influence, allowing him to hitch-hike through the entire Phantom Menace without serving a SINGLE PURPOSE? 

Jar Jar also manages the impressive feat of NOT getting instantly murdered, while constantly navigating through a quagmire of fuck-ups! What else could explain the toleration of Jar Jar Binks by the people he inflicts himself upon, except through some bizarre machination of the Force? 

WHAT IF -

Jar Jar Binks is... I suppose we need to call him something. A Shith Lord? Yeah, that works! What if Jar Jar Binks is a Shith Lord, and master of a previously unrecognized RETARDED SIDE OF THE FORCE? What if... a single midichlorian in his bloodstream randomly mutated, and then grew exponentially, like a retarded midichlorian tumor?

Here we have a creature described by Qui Gon Jin as 'brainless', mere seconds after he encounters it. A one-in-a-trillion creature, who's truly a master of all things retarded, INCLUDING THE RETARDED SIDE OF THE FORCE! I know, a seemingly inescapable oxymoron, but... 

THERE HE IS!

Jar Jar Binks is a genetic fuck-up of such profound stupidity that minutes after setting foot on Tatooine, he steps squarely into a pile of bantha shit. I'll bet he even gets some on his tongue! Is this not evidence that a hitherto unknown retarded side of the Force is guiding his every STEP?

I understand that this explanation remains unsatisfying. So, we can either accept this distasteful truth, or we can sacrifice the truth for the comfort of lies. However, not only does that way lead to the dark side of the Force, but now there's the retarded side of the Force to deal with, too!

In order to supply myself with at least a modicum of comfort, I find it very handy to apply the principle of Occums' Razor -

"The simpler explanation which accounts for all the facts is more likely to be correct." 

With that in mind, which is more likely? 

Door #1. Jar Jar Binks miraculously bumblefucks through life without getting murdered. 

Door #2. Jar Jar Binks is an unwitting Shith Lord, and he constantly wields this retarded power with the awareness of an infant in possession of a Force powered paddle ball of intolerable annoyance, and quite frequently, random destruction!

Or...

Door #3. Door #2!

Occums' Razor demands the simplest explanation! It's Door #3, of course! How else can Jar Jars' rise to prominence be explained, except via some harum-scarum stratagem conjured by the mindless apparatus of the retarded side of the Force? 

And what kind of planet would actually elect Jar Jar Binks as their representative in the senate of the Galactic Republic? I'll tell you what kind. One with an entire population compelled by retarded Force mind control!

Still, amidst this clusterfuck of brand new information delivered with the Force of a hyper-drive powered kick right to the balls, one glaring question remains which simply cannot be overlooked. 

What about Anakin? HUH? Remember him?

Think about it. If Anakin really was created as the result of immaculate conception by a bloodborne pathogen in order to fulfill the prophecy of the Chosen One, then why did he go and do the exact opposite of that? And how exactly was Anakin supposed to be the Jesus Christ of Jedi Knights and bring balance to the Force -

Which, by the way, George Lucas took a galaxy sized shit upon by explaining away what made the Force so damn cool to begin with, the very MYSTICISM of it, with... midichlorians? FUCK THOSE THINGS, FUCK THE VERY IDEA OF THEM SIDEWAYS, FOREVER!

- if he, along with every Jedi Knight and Sith Lord for thousands of generations had never even caught a whiff of the retarded side of the Force? HUH?

JUST WHAT THE HELL WAS THE PHANTOM MENACE ALL ABOUT THEN, ANYWAY? INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW, DAMMIT!

Well, guess what? Yup, I have the answer to that question, too! And no, the 'Phantom Menace' isn't Senator Palpatine. True, he's a menace, and yes, he manages to hide his dark nature from the entire galaxy... thus, the 'Phantom' metaphor. But by now it should be obvious who and what the REAL Phantom Menace is. It's Jar Jar Binks! By his mere existence, Jar Jar is enough of a 'Menace' already. However, it's his undetectable nature as Shith Lord that makes Jar Jar Binks the true 'Phantom' Menace!

Now. 

Imagine this alternate scenario of events, if The Retarded Side of the Force had been discovered while Obi-Wan and Darth Vader were dueling on the Death Star, just as the Millennium Falcon was about to make its escape.

FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS KIDDOS', BECAUSE THIS RIDE IS ABOUT TO GO OFF THE RAILS!

.

.

.Obi Wan: "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful..."

...awkward moment...

Together: "WHAT THE FUCK?"

...slow comprehension between the two of them...

Darth Vader: "Did YOU know about this, uh, Retarded Side of the Force, my old Master?"

Obi Wan: "Huh? You mean... I mean, A Retarded Side? Of The Force? Of course not!" 

...suspicious pause...

Obi Wan: "Did YOU know about it, Darth?"

Darth Vader: "What? I just asked you the same question! I mean, one minute we're dueling like the old days, and the next, it was as if a brand new dimension of The Force was simply FORCED into my awareness!"

Obi Wan: "Yes, that's it exactly! However, and no offense Darth, but you're about as dumb as a bag of hydro-spanners. You demonstrated that quite clearly, decades ago when I held the high ground, but you decided it would be a good idea to perform a perfect triple gainer directly into a whirling lightsaber. So, with my obviously superior intellect, I can only assume that reality must have been SHIFTED, just now, in some inexplicable way which I still don't fully comprehend. I should have detected this - Retarded Side of the Force, for God's sake! - back when I was still just a youngling!"

Darth Vader: "Really? It IS a shock, admittedly, but I'm not the one having a hard time coming to terms with it. I can't imagine what it's like for YOU, having spent the entirety of your life believing that you're actually smarter than the average bear, only to discover that you're only just a little bit smarter than the average retard! Anyway. Where was I? Oh yeah. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner. Now I am the Master. Also, Occams' Razor suggests..."

Obi Wan: "Yes yes, I know all about Occams' Razor. I'm the one who taught YOU about it -"

Darth Vader: "No you didn't."

Obi Wan: "Yeah, I did. And you're only a master of evil, Darth, and a master of changing the subject. I'm still WAY smarter than you.'

Darth Vader: "No you're not."

Obi Wan: "I wonder, are there even any midichlorians left floating around in there, ever since I carefully disassembled you back on Mustafar? Or did they all abandon ship after you jumped headfirst into a lightsaber powered woodchipper? The last I saw, I had YOUR lightsaber, and you were an on fire torso, with a head and one mechanical arm! Now look at you. My, how you've grown. You're practically a walking, talking gee-gaw. Lemme guess. One of those buttons on your chest is a midichlorian recharge button?"

Darth Vader: "Impressive... most impressive. Yoda - I mean, Qui Gon - has taught you well... you know, I've often wondered, but never gave enough of a shit to ask... but now that the question is up in the air, who the hell was the Jedi Master who taught you when you were a padawan learner, anyway? Yoda or Qui Gon? You told Luke it was Yoda, but then, when I was just an annoying little brat on Tatooine, weren't you Qui Gons' padawan learner? I'm pretty sure I remember that. You know, way back when you guys showed up on Tatooine and kidnapped me? Forget it. Who cares? Its just another completely obvious Star Wars fuck-up. Anyway, yes. It's this button which injects midichlorians directly into my circulatory system. And the one right next to it is for methamphetamine... comes in real handy when I actually get to fight with my lightsaber. And this one, right under the meth button, is for heroin. And right beside that one, this one is for DMT, and THAT one is Valium. Oh yeah, and THIS one is for MDMA..."

Obi Wan: "Yeah yeah, I can understand how you'd need drugs just to stick it, what with being forever stuck inside that real comfy looking costume. I'll bet you just drift right off to sleep in that thing at bedtime, huh Darth?"

Darth Vader: "As I indicated, this button is for Valium. And you interrupted me before I could show you this one, the most kick-ass one of all, which is for the Ketamine Hole..."

Obi Wan: "Oh for Gods' sake, I'm sorry I ever mentioned the buttons! You know, Darth, everything was going great until you had to go and join forces with that Olden Fart, Palpatine. I mean, one second you're practically a Jedi Master, then... BOOYAH! After a lifetime of training, you're instantly demoted to a lowly Sith apprentice."

...laborious but somehow ominous breathing...

Darth Vader: "I AM a DARK LORD of the SITH!"

Obi Wan: "Bullshit you're not, not as long as your Master, Emperor Palpatine, still runs the show. Remember the Sith Rule of Two? What, did you think you're special somehow? One Sith Lord, one Sith apprentice. You're no Sith Lord. You're merely a squire for Darth Sidious!"

...laborious but somehow chagrined breathing...

Darth Vader: "...Why, you obnoxious, geriatric old bastard - fuck you, man! And even if what you say is true, AND I'M NOT SAYING IT IS, but if it was, how is that any different than when I was a Jedi, but the Jedi Council kept refusing to promote me to Jedi Master? Even though I could have kicked all of your asses at the same time? HUH? Riddle me that! Besides, If I killed Palpatine - which I totally could do anytime I wanted, by the way - then I'd have to go looking for my own Sith apprentice. Yeesh! What a hassle."

Obi Wan: "Oh. Is that the real reason? Or isn't it that you're just scared of getting your ass kicked by the Emperor? You're just a big fat fraidy cat! And it's not like there isn't a veritable pool of millions of potential Sith apprentice candidates to choose from. What about all of those stormtroopers who call you 'Padawan Vader' behind your back? Surely at least ONE of them are Force sensitive, now that they're not just a bunch of retarded clones anymore."

Darth Vader: "WHAT? You... that's not true, you just made that up! Your powers are weak, old man!"

Obi Wan: "Yeah? Who's the Jedi Master here, and who's the pathetic Sith apprentice?"

Darth Vader: "At least I'm not the one who's been hiding in a cave on Tatooine for two decades. I'VE been ruling the Galactic Empire!"

Obi Wan: "HA! Now that's hilarious. NEWS FLASH, Darth! Palpatine, aka THE EMPEROR, is the one who's been ruling the Galactic Empire. In fact, according to the political hierarchy of the Empire, aren't you supposed to be Vice Emperor, or something? Yet, from what I've heard, this... Grand Moff Tarkin - who you totally outrank, by the way - has you by the short and curlies. Do you deny that Grand Moff Tarkin is, in fact, holding your leash? Why do you think the Emperor put you on a leash and gave it to Tarkin to begin with? Maybe to keep you from Force choking every valuable, high ranking official who happens to piss you off at board meetings by pointing out, and rightly so, your sad devotion to The Dark Side of The Force? How humiliating!"

Darth Vader: "Why you! You... ancient, shriveled up, petrified Jawa turd..."

Obi Wan: "Come on Darth. You used to be kinda cool, but ever since you turned to The Dark Side, you wield your power like a youngling throwing a temper tantrum. And I don't need to use The Force to sense that you've shit your suit. My olfactory senses can perform that function without any help, thank you. So, is it possible for you to at least try to retain some dignity?"

...awkward silence...

Darth Vader: "Aw, fuck it! Very well. You're right, it's humiliating. PLUS, this recently acquired knowledge of a previously undetected Retarded Side of The Force, which has apparently been hiding in plain sight for thousands of generations of both Sith and Jedi, has me somewhat discombobulated. BUT! I don't even have to SMELL it to know that you've also shit YOUR garments. There's a freshly laid turd, right at your feet." 

Obi Wan: "What? Where? I..."

Darth Vader: "I'm looking at it right now. WHOOPS! Uh oh, you just stepped in your own shit! HA!"

Obi Wan: "Oh, yuck... Ok, ok! This bickering is pointless. I think we've both established clearly that neither of us ever, ever ever EVER had an inkling that there was a Retarded Side of The Force."

Darth Vader: "And also that we've both apparently shat our robes, as a consequence of the shock upon receiving this new revelation."

Obi Wan: "Yes, I suppose so. Unlike the Retarded Side of the Force, the smell of shit is impossible NOT to notice."

Darth Vader: "Impossible NOT to notice unless you've already stepped in it! BWAHAHA!"

...meanwhile...

Luke: "Wait a minute. What's Ben doing over there? Who's that other guy? Ohmygod! Are they fighting laser swords at each other??"

Han Solo: "Blast the door, kid! Hey, where's that princess of yours... Huh? Say again, Chewie? Oh, Lord have mercy. Hey, your Royal Majesticfullness! Quit farting around over there, the Millennium Falcon is THIS WAY!"

Princess Leia: "Somebody has to save our skins!"

Han Solo: "WHAT THE FUCK? You're just firing your blaster, over and over, set on STUN! for Gods' sake, at the same door that the kid just blasted!"

Princess Leia: "Somebody has to save our skins!"

Han Solo: "Oh my God. Chewie! Go grab that nut and put her on the Falcon! Lock her in the smuggling compartment."

Chewie: "Arrgghllgglle!"

Princess Leia: "Somebody has to save our... Hey! Lemme go, you big walking carpet!"

Chewie: "Blarrgghllgglle!"

Han Solo: "You said it, Chewie."

Princess Leia: "Excuse me??"

Threepio: "If I may, Princess Leia, I believe Chewbacca just referred to you as 'One Royal Pain in the Ass'!"

Princess Leia: "WHAT? I was trying to save our skins... :::GASP:::! You came in that thing? You're even stupider than I thought!"

...meanwhile, meanwhile...

Luke: "Ben! Come on, we're about to escape!"

Obi Wan: "Run Luke, Run! Darth and I have suddenly discovered much more important things to... uh, talk about. And we both need to change our garments! That's definitely going to take a while. Anyway, go on, I'll catch up! Hurry! Don't worry, I'll be safe."

Luke: "Uh, ok, if you say so, Ben.

Threepio: "Now that things have calmed down considerably, would it be proper to suggest that Artoo should reactivate the garbage mashers on the detention level? Artoo? The computers, please?"

Artoo: "Tweet!" (I'm not permitted in there, it's restricted.)

Threepio: "Why, you malfunctioning little twerp!"

...uncomfortable silence...

Darth Vader: "Uh, what exactly is my old protocol droid doing here? I specifically programmed that thing for etiquette and protocol, and for helping mom around the house. Shouldn't it at least be helping SOMEBODY around the house? Or doing etiquette and protocol somewhere?"

Obi Wan: "Nevermind! Just try to forget that shiny, solid gold plot hole for now. And the other one too, that Artoo unit. Hell, I don't even remember ever owning a droid, but R2D2 claims that we were best friends for years during the Clone Wars... anyway, this sudden appearance of a Retarded Side of The Force is of much more import. You see, I don't think it's an accident that we've both been made aware of a retarded nature of The Force just now, simultaneously. I sense the presence of my old Master, Qui Gon Jin - yes, he is communicating with us through the Living Force! He's, uh, over there. Yeah, crouched behind the soda machine. His Force Ghost! Do you see him, Darth?"

Darth Vader: "Ah. Yes, I see his Force Ghost. So, Qui Gons' spirit managed to endure after getting his ass handed to him by Darth Maul?"

Obi Wan: "That's hardly fair. That red, transparent force field closed right before I got there, or else we would have turned that butt-ugly demon looking thing into pimento loaf."

Darth Vader: "Maybe you should have used Force speed. Remember when you guys did that to run away from the Droidekas thirty years ago, on that Trade Federation ship?"

Obi Wan: "I was still a padawan then!"

Darth Vader: "Not according to the opening title crawl, which specifically mentions TWO Jedi Knights. So does that protocol Droid, TC-14 - 'The Ambassadors are Jedi Knights, I believe.' I'm pretty sure that's what it said to Nute Gunray. Oh. And the tea that TC-14 brought you could have been poisoned, you know. That was really stupid when both of you guys just slurped it right on down, especially considering that mere moments later, poisonous gas was being pumped blatantly into the waiting room, where both of you were so nonchalantly slurping down that tea!"

Obi Wan: "Whatever."

Darth Vader: "Well. I don't see why Qui Gon gets to live forever as a Force Ghost. For a Jedi Master, he wasn't exactly ethical. He basically lied and cheated the whole time he was on Tatooine."

Obi Wan: "Darth, shhhh! Qui Gon is trying to tell me something! He's saying... Everything that he did on Tatooine all those years ago to acquire a new hyperdrive - all the begging, borrowing, drinking, smoking, bragging, showing off his lightsaber, throwing it like a boomerang in barber shops, racial insults, calling Jabba the Hutt a swollen garbage bag, picking fights with little kids, walking out on bar tabs, lying, cheating at Chinese checkers, stealing, shitting in public, pissing in peoples' hats, coughing up loogies and spitting them into the public cistern, soothsaying, slandering, witchcraft, drug dealing, poaching, bounty hunting, pirating, profiteering, pillaging, kidnapping, pimping, raping, human and alien trafficking, torture, dismemberment, murdering jawas and sand people for sport, serial killing, assassinating, propaganda, political intrigue, weapons dealing, backstabbing, double dealing, treason, warmongering, wanton misuse of The Force, unsolicited telemarketing, practical jokes, outright jackassery, blaming his farts on other people, ALL OF IT - was because, unbeknownst to him, he was being manipulated by the Retarded Side of the Force! And that Jar Jar Binks was the source of it!"

Darth Vader: "Jar Jar Binks? I always hated that retarded creature. Ok, yeah. If there's a Retarded Side of The Force, it's definitely lingering around that thing."

Obi Wan: "Say again, Qui Gon? Uh... you sure about that? Absolutely sure? Well, ok, I guess. Hey Darth, you're not going to like this. Qui Gon says that we both need to kill each other, right now! He promises that we'll both be Force Ghosts! He says -"

Darth Vader: "WHAT?!"

Obi Wan: "Just hang on and let me explain. Ok. Remember when Jar Jar Binks was the Senator for Naboo - I can see you rolling your eyes inside that helmet, Darth. I know, ridiculous, right? Go figure. Anyway, remember that one time when Jar Jar referred to the entire Senate as 'Dellow Felagates'?" 

Darth Vader: "Ohmygod, yes. I hadn't even teamed up with the Dark Side yet when that happened, and I still wanted to throttle that retarded creature."

Obi Wan: "Yeah, me too! But right after that, remember when Jar Jars' fried, smoking carcass was found outside the Senate building with his tongue wrapped around that negative power flux coupling?"

Darth Vader: "Oh yeah, I remember that, too! I was so happy that Jar Jar had somehow, against all odds, finally managed to murder himself. Good times, good times!"

Obi Wan: "Yup, good times. Anyway, here's what Qui Gon is saying. Right after Jar Jar said that - WHAT? Holy shit...ohmygod, it was Senator Palpatine! HE murdered Jar Jar with Force lightning, simply for uttering something so unforgivably retarded on galaxy-wide 3V!"

Darth Vader: "WOW! You know, there was always something I liked about that guy."

Obi Wan: "Yeah. He's a Sith Lord, you jackass! Wait... Uh huh. WHAT? Oh shit. Hey Darth. You're not gonna believe this, but it turns out that Jar Jar Binks was a Retarded Force Master, and he lives on as a Retarded Force Ghost! He won't leave any of the Jedi Force Ghosts or the Sith Force Ghosts alone in the Force Ghost Realm. He's driving them all batshit insane! Qui Gon says that only through our combined might as Force Ghosts can Jar Jar Binks, a Retarded Force Ghost, finally be permanently murdered!"

Darth Vader: "Wow. A Retarded Force Ghost? Good grief. Ok, but can I at least change out of this shit stained suit first?"

Obi Wan: "It won't matter after we're dead. Qui Gon has just now promised that we'll both leave our shit stained garments behind, once we're Force Ghosts!"

Darth Vader: "Oh, very well. Does Qui Gon have a plan as to how exactly we should go about this? This murdering of one another simultaneously?"

Obi Wan: "Well, the whole trick here is for both of us to die at exactly the same moment. This is very important! So, the way I see it, we have two choices. First, we'd need to contrive some type of device which would function, essentially, as a mutual murder/suicide machine. However, as I indicated earlier, precision is of the utmost importance! We both have to die within microseconds of one another, which will require some pretty fancy programming. I'm not a fancy programmer. Are you a fancy programmer, Darth?"

Darth Vader: "You know damn well I'm not a fancy programmer! Besides, even if I actually WAS a fancy programmer, we'd still need a fancy engineer to invent this ridiculous device. And before you ask, NO, I'm not a fancy engineer either. I don't suppose you picked up a fancy engineering degree while you were gathering dust for decades on Tatooine, my old Master?"

Obi Wan: "No, I'm not a fancy engineer, you smarmy bastard."

Darth Vader: "You said there were two choices. What's the second choice?"

Obi Wan: "Well. Since neither one of us are fancy programmers or fancy engineers, our only other choice is either mutual murder, or mutual suicide. We can do it on a count of three. Personally, I'm kind of leaning toward mutual suicide."

Darth Vader: "Why is it that you persist on believing that I just fell off of the turnip truck yesterday? There's no way in hell I'm trusting you to ignite your lightsaber on a count of three, especially if we're committing mutual suicide! Besides, didn't you say that accuracy within a microsecond was the whole key here? Either way, I'm the only one capable of counting down from 3 to 1 in microseconds, due to my cybernetic implants. What are you going to do? Just switch that thing on and hope everything turns out all right? Heh. A count of three. Really? Kind of makes your superior intellect seem rather retarded, doesn't it?"

Obi Wan: "Dammit... Oh snap! Hang on Darth. Luke! Hey, Luke!"

...meanwhile, again...

Luke: "WHAT? We're trying to escape the Death Star over here."

Obi Wan: "Luke! Slow down! Don't do any running yet!"

Luke: "But you just said -"

...interrupting...

Darth Vader: "Luke! Before you go running off like a wild lunatician, do what Obi Wan says. Trust me Luke, I'm your father."

Luke: "No. NO! THAT'S NOT TRUE! THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"

Darth and Ben together: "GOOD GRIEF."

Darth Vader: "Luke! Son. I really didn't want to have to break it to you like this. You see, I had this really cool plan all set up and ready for the next movie. A father-son bonding session, so to speak, with this really kick-ass lightsaber battle between the two of us. I was gonna take it real easy on you and just chop off your right arm, a little below the elbow, then let you escape. See? Then after that, you'd have a cybernetic hand just like mine, to remember me by!"

Luke: "That sounds like a shit plan to me. So, were you going to just keep on chopping off little pieces of me, one at a time, every time we got together?"

Darth Vader: "Well, yeah. That was the idea. But I guess we can just flush those plans down the commode now."

Luke: "Ben! He's lying, right?

Obi Wan: "Search your feelings Luke, you know it to be true."

Luke: "But you said that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered my father!"

...interrupting...

Threepio: "I'm truly sorry to interrupt a family quarrel, but under the present circumstances, should I reactivate the trash compactors on the detention level myself? Artoo seems to have picked up a slight flutter. In fact, he's acting like an overweight glob of grease! And it would only be polite..."

Everyone together: "SHUT UP, THREEPIO!"

Artoo: "Chirp!" (LOL)

Threepio: "Just you reconsider reactivating the garbage mashers on the detention level for them!"

Artoo: "Blippity bloop." (Oh very well, you mindless philosopher.)

Threepio: "Don't get technical with me!"

Artoo: "BLAP!" (Shut up, I'm about to get technical.)

Threepio: "You know Artoo, I don't think anybody likes you at all. And no, I don't like you either."

Artoo: " Bloop." (LOL. I don't give a rats ass)

...short pause...

Obi Wan: "CAN I CONTINUE NOW? Have all the tractor beams been shut down, the garbage mashers on the detention level reactivated, and the doors sufficiently blasted?"

PA Announcement: "CLOSE THE BLAST DOORS! CLOSE THE BLAST DOORS!"

Luke: "The blast doors haven't been blasted yet."

Obi Wan: "Good! Now, Luke. What I told you was from MY point of view, NOT yours. And don't tell me that you're not glad to be off of that hell hole of a planet. YOU'RE the one who expressed the wish to be teleported off that rock, remember? And wow! Now look at you, following old Obi Wan on some damned-fool, idealistic crusade like your father did! You're on a space station the size of a MOON, for crissake, when just a few hours ago you were bitching and moaning about finding Artoo and high tailing it to the south ridge to fix those condensers, under the threat of 'Hell To Pay!' by that asshole uncle of yours."

Luke: "Well. Ok, the last few hours HAVE been pretty frikin' awesome. Oh, and there's also this hella fine chick that we just rescued..."

Obi Wan: "Don't even go there, Luke. You're a hick fresh off the moisture farm, and she's a Princess! Oh yeah. She's also your sister."

Luke: "Huh? Wait, what? You mean, I'm a PRINCE?"

Darth Vader: "HUH? WAIT, WHAT? You mean I have a daughter, TOO? Obi Wan! Do you have any idea how close I was to executing her, my own DAUGHTER, before you guys showed up? I mean, I'd just finished spending hours, happily torturing her... my own DAUGHTER! Why did you never tell me? Do you have any idea how much it would have simplified things, knowing that Princess Leia was my DAUGHTER? Plus, I have visitation rights too, you know! Just because I'm Darth Vader -"

Obi Wan: "OH FOR GOD'S SAKE, SHUT UP! Now Luke, here's what you have to do. Once you escape in the Millenium Falcon, line up in that huge trench that goes around the Death Star, and fire a proton torpedo right into the small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port!"

Darth Vader: "Hey, that's the whole reason why I've been going to all this trouble, so he wouldn't know that!"

Obi Wan: "Do you want to be an Eternal Force Ghost, or don't you? This is the only way we can trust each other to die at the exact same time!"

Darth Vader: "Well... Dammit! Ok. Luke! Do what Obi Wan says! Use the Force, Luke! I don't care which side. Just use it! Huh? Oh yeah, don't use the Retarded Side! And remember, don't try to have sex with Princess Leia! She's your sister!"

Luke: "Rats... Ok, I'll do it. But only because YOU asked me to, dad. Ben, you lied to me. Fuck you, man. Oh yeah. And It's Prince Skywalker to you, from now on."

...moments pass...

Darth Vader: "They should have blown up this thing by now."

Obi Wan: "Yes, puzzling. Maybe they didn't have any proton torpedoes?"

Darth Vader: "Hmmm. Say, maybe we should rethink..."

.

.

.

KABOOM!!!

.

.

.

Darth Vader: "Well, whaddya know! I'm a Force Ghost!"

Obi Wan: "Me too!"

Qui Gon: "Hurry! Let's combine our Force powers before..."

Jar Jar Binks: "Meesa so glad to see you, Little Ani! You too, Master Obi! Oh what fun weesa gonna have for ALL ETERNITY!"

Qui Gon: "SHIT!"

Darth Vader: "Why do I suddenly feel so retarded?"

Obi Wan: "Because we've both been had! Tricked, by the Retarded Side of the Force!"

All together: "NOOOOOOOO........!"

Jar Jar Binks: "Meesa so glad we all together now! Was bombad mood before, but now weesa all have forever to beesa bestest friends!"

Obi Wan: "...Uh. Is it possible for a Force Ghost to commit suicide?"

Qui Gon: "YEESH!"

.

.

.

SEE? NOW, AT THE END, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

I feel as though I've sufficiently demonstrated, by the application of logic, circumstantial evidence, and through the sheer Force of imagination, that the Retarded Side of The Force exists, and that it explains almost EVERYTHING that's wrong with The Phantom Menace. And also every single Star Wars movie since Return of the Jedi, as a matter of fact! 

As to why I just went to so much trouble to explain the hidden truth behind a shit movie... well, I did mention earlier that because of this movie, I'm FUCKED IN THE HEAD. Permanently. Anyway, that's as good an explanation as any for why I do the things I do. 

Plus, I simply can't ignore this added bonus!

Since I'm the only one who's ever actually detected the retarded side of the Force, that means I'm FORCE SENSITIVE! Even now, I can feel the Force flowing through me! I mean, I think I can... 

Yup, that's definitely it! The Force! But... why do I suddenly feel so retarded?

OH, HELL NAW! I'm Force sensitive to the retarded side of the Force??

WAIT A MINUTE! THIS SUCKS!