They still call him "The Elephant"

"See that?" General Maximillion Johanasson asked.

His troops replied with a unanimously, and hearty, "Sir, yes, sir!"

"Know what it is?" was the follow-up question.

A less hearty, "Sir, no, sir."

The general did not smile and began pacing, "That, my boys, is a live satellite image of the most fortified bunker in the entire world. It's got fences made of linked razor wire topped with barbed wire; triple thick doublesteel walls; a camera grid with redundant coverage of every area within a quarter mile; automated defense turrets with machineguns powerful enough to blow a sunroof in a tank."

Now the general smiled, but it was clearly an ironic smile, "And boys, we need to get inside."

Just then the image of the bunker on the satellite exploded. The troops at the base were in an obvious panic and they fled wildly. The troops watching this began cheering, thankful they didn't have to go in there.

One impetuous young lad asked his general, who now carried a mad grin, "Sir, how did this happen?"

"Just watch the image carefully boys, you'll see him any—ah ha! There!" He pointed to a giant silhouette the size of a car lumbering through the smoke and fire.

The impetuous soldier asked another question, "Uhh, but, sir, who, or what, was that?"

"I can answer both of those. He's The Elephant, he's an elephant, and the best damn mammal I have under my command, no offense, soldier."

A Positive Benefit From Hangovers

These last couple of days I've been sick. Really sick. Probably not fatally sick, but sick enough to realize that being sick sucks.
It was cool when I was a kid and being sick enough to skirt responsibilities meant having a particularly nasty cough; but now that I am distinctly less kid-like, it means taking enough medication to kill a horse. This is because, like so many others, I am a wage-slave and unless I physically am incapable of moving, I am going to work that morning.
Take this morning, for instance: my entire head was, quite literally, full of snot. That is as gross to me as it sounds to you, and then when you add in some pressure headache and a lack of sleep after a ten-hour shift at work, you just know you're going to enjoy that next ten-hour shift.
But, getting up and getting what needs to get done done, in spite of feeling adverse is no stranger to me. This is because of the wonderful character-building provided by alcohol. Liquor has a two-pronged attack; first, it makes it so you both don't want to sleep and then can't; second, it leaves you hung-over and in pain many hours later. What's more is that you can't jolly well not show up to work after a night drinking because, in spite of the fact that you feel far worse than you did when you skipped a day of seventh grade, you inflicted this upon yourself and no one will accept the excuse: not even yourself.
So, thanks primarily to alcohol, I have developed a robust character for showing up to work feeling less than 100%. One might also pin this on stupid and unlikely shit such as work ethic.

My German fanbase

My article on post-irony has received some international attention.

I know have a German fanbase. This is even more interesting than the simple fact that I possess a German fanbase because I acquired them prior to obtaining a familial fanbase.

"Fan" might be the wrong word to use here, since the two Germans (or Austrians, I'm not really sure) who read my article both seemed to dislike it. Part of the problem has been my inability to speak German and the rough-edgedness of Google translator, but I also suspect that the Germans and I have a different definition of the issue being discussed.

Here are the very poorly translated comments the Germans gave me:

Commenter A:
I find odd ... he sees as a postmodern ironic indeed a tightening of the ironic, the good stuff fades completely. clearly are also "stupid" things to experience again a revival, but this is not necessarily postironisch. are at least t-shirts with stupid sayings for me, the sheer irony of the times for taking up what he calls. you are hit with such a shirt even a stamp, which is rarely true with something to do, what you really is or what you really want to say. I am slow to ask is whether it is at all feasible, a universal definition of post-Irony to create self-irony of this is not really succeeded, but because everyone somehow his own presentation of these well understood and will probably always have .

Commenter B:
I can only agree with you ..
did the post / link posted to the bewildering range to show what post-irony, and everything is subsumed, or for what purpose, and illustrations of more or less current sensitivities to PI zurechtgebogen abused.
itself, I think the author of this post is highly ironic and sarcastic style of the late 90s.

Though, fundamentally, the Germans and I agree. My German is a tad rusty, but they seem to embrace post-irony as a way for unlimited creative freedom, since, with post-irony, everything has beauty. While I state that under post-irony, "anything is cool." So we both agree that everything has merit and it's just locating the proper perspective and context to make it worthwhile/cool/beautiful.

The reason they appeared to have disliked it probably because of my general irreverence to their subject. Much in the same way certain Christians dislike the Buddy Christ. Deep down, we believe the same thing, the Germans just take it more seriously than I do. I have survived my first exchange with German intellectual snobs.

Power Outage

My power was out last night. Actually, it was a whole lot more than my power. At about 10:30 (I worked until 11), my buddy from the same apartment complex called me to let me know that the power was out in our whole area. A few minutes later, the lady who works at the front of the store came by and mentioned that the whole strip mall I live behind was out of power, in addition to a few stoplights. "People gotta rely on the courtesy of others out there. I nearly died."

When my shift ended and I was able to survey the lightlessness situation and, sure enough, the lights were off in the strip mall; with the notable exception of Walmart. Thankfully, the street lights were back up, so I did not have to rely on others being friendly. I cursed that any night in which the area lights were out was undoubtedly a cloudy night, meaning I could not gaze up at the stars and pretend I wanted to do this all the time.

I scooped up my aforementioned electronically-stranded buddy and we hit the nearby bar we frequent because they have $5 pizzas in the evenings. Shooting the shit until one o'clock, when the bar closed, to kill some time because no one under the age of 30 gets tired before 2 am; at least, no one I would hang out with. You know, since I work until 11 and all. Plus, they're squares.

Eventually, the surly bartended gave us the boot and we prayed in vain to pagan gods we were sure were dead that our electricity would be restored but, alas, the area was still shrouded in darkness. It was deeply terrifying, in a way: all that mankind can do can be shattered by nature and rendered inoperable, and worse boring. Darkened, abandoned buildings is how I've always envisioned the world after it ends. I had to suppress a very strong urge to begin looting.

Upon returning home, I lurked for a while before brushing my teeth in total darkness and otherwise preparing for bed. Then, as I was still not tired enough, I did some exercising. Seriously, there's just nothing to fucking do in pitch blackness at 1:30am in Indianapolis.

Then, right as I was realizing that working out and not having any AC was a terrible combination, the power was restored. I crouched in the darkness for a few more minutes, listening to the renewed beepings and whirrings, distrustful, assuming that someone was trying to lure me into a trap. When I finally accepted this new reality, which was really just a restoration of my old reality, I check my email and went to bed. Since I was tired.

"They call him The Elephant"...

… said Sergeant Major Colin Buckingham.

"Why's that, sir?" asked the sniveling and forgettable private lucky enough to find himself in the presence of the Army's most innovative officer.

"Because he's an elephant."

The private looked confused. To his mind, elephants were lumbering creature, totally incapable of performing secret missions on behalf of the military. But his mind was wrong. The Elephant was, as his name implied, utterly unstoppable once he'd built up momentum, able to recall even the most minute details of anything he'd encountered before, and proficient in charming audiences with tricks. In short, the stupid private did not realize, when he spoke his next words, that he was insulting the greatest agent the world has ever known out of sheer ignorance. "But wouldn't an elephant make a terrible soldier?"

Sergeant Major Buckingham glared at him. "Evidentially not."