Printer Error!

For the love of God why?!?!

I have spent the last two hours attempting to print a single document from my computer. What inefficient garbage these electronic devices are. If it had simply failed once and spectacularily in the first place, I could have had Matthew dictate the document to Alphonso who would have had it typeset in no time. But no, instead the infernal machine decides to fail in repeated and varied half-starts and limited successes, leaving me complete uncertain what is the problem or why.

I have reinstalled the drivers twice, claiming my printer to be a 690c or a 650 or a 695, whatever seems to most suit the whims of the fickle and demoniacal windows. I have changed my ink cartridge, I have printed test pages upon test pages, I have printed from three different Word documents and from a Notepad document, always with different results, not the same failure -- lord no, never the same, repeatable and predictable failure, but a different unique failure which leads an optimistic person such as myself to believe I am making progress.

At first I thought trouble-shooting sounded like an excellent idea, until Matthew informed me that it involves clicking more goddamn boxes, not blasting the living shit out of my printer with an elephant gun.

I really can't believe that Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard have driven the respectable Herr Gutenberg out of business with the sort of substandard goo-gaws they pass off as printers. Their products are worse than the ersatz offal on display in the Saigon boat market.

Oh, how I pine for the days when things either worked or didn't work, when men and women were innocent of this ridiculous state of 'well, it kind-of, almost, sort-of works, adjust the printer properties and try it again.'

An Informative Look at Roman Catholicism and Borino the Secret Religion

Many people have been asking me about what bearing the selection of a new pope has on the apocalypse. The truth is that it is of very little relevance and any intelligent apocalypse insider will tell you the same. The catholic churches positions and actions have no bearing on the occult phenomenon which underlay our day to day existence and for the most part I pay very little attention to these things.

Truth be told, I first heard about the new pope after doing a google search for the term "Ratzinger." I had been hearing it mentioned often of late and I was beginning to wonder if something had gone horribly wrong deep inside the Celestial Seasons corporation. These makers of mediocre herbal teas have done quite well for themselves with flavours such as Lemon Zinger and Wildberry Zinger, but I remember thinking "Rat Zinger? That doesn't sound appetizing at all. The name doesn't even have a good rhythm, Sewer Rat Zinger, would have had a much nicer ring to it."

Had the people at Celestial Seasons actually released such a variety of herbal tea for mass consumption, that would have been a much clearer sign of the apocalypse than the election of the new pope. In all honesty, the soap opera of the Catholic church is mere parlour games when compared to the internal power struggle within the Borinian Hierarchy.

Many people know nothing of Borino, even though it is one of the seven great religions which mankind has known. The first is the true original religion which has been lost to us and which appears only as shadows and glimmers within the texts and rituals of our present religions. Obviously Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity are included in this number. The seventh major religion is Borino, the secret religion from xxxxxx which xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxx x xxxxx and xxx xxxxx xxxx. Borino is based on xxx xxxxxx xx xxxx of magnesia xxxxxx and the belief that solar xxxx xxxx xxx will lead to the heat death of the universe unless xxx xxxxx xxx. Borinian priestesses perform elaborate xxxxxxx xxx and rigorously choreographed xxx xxxx but never without a xxxxxxx. Should any male wish to participate in this ritual (let's be honest, who wouldn't) he will first have to learn to xxxxx x xxxxx without xxxxx xxx xxxxxx. Borino is perhaps most famous for being mentioned repeatedly in the celebrated pop song xx x xxxxxx xxxxx by xxxxx. Unfortunately he was killed three weeks after releasing the album which contained the aforementioned song on account of xxx xxx xxxxxxx.

Of the seven major religions only Borino has any direct relevance to the timetables of the apocalypse. This is because of the massive xxxxxxxxx which will occur if all 756 Borinian priestesses ever achieve xxxxxx during an eclipse.

Should any of my inquisitive readers wish to learn more about Borino please feel free to contact Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxx at (XXX) XXX-XXXX.

At NO TIME was I EVER a member of The Hitler Youth

Recently, I have been inundated by accusations from all sides that I, like Cardinal Ratzinger (Now Pope Benedict XVI), was a member of the Hitler Youth during the second World War. Perhaps this slander has arisen because, unlike most, I am proud of my Germanic heritage or perhaps it is because of the correspondence which occured between myself and some of Hitler's chief lieutenants during the 1970's on account of our mutual interest in Ragnarok. Whatever the reasons, this type of defamation is patently ridiculous.

For one, I love the Jewish people. I have several good-natured Jews working for me. They run the Usury Department of my financial empire and they have earned me an astounding amount of money over the years. Secondly, while I remain sprightly and chipper to this day, I was far from falling within the conventional definition of 'a youth' during the 1940's. Although I allied myself with the Germans in the FIRST world war, I took no part in the SECOND. At the time, I was lost in my studies of Obeah, living with Alphonso in a decaying mansion deep in the bayou. In fact, I was not even aware that the second world war had taken place until 1957.

I hope this missive has set my readers hearts at ease.

The Loss of Pork Moss

I recently visited my butcher in Kensington and discovered the tragic news. PORK MOSS is no longer available commercially. In fact, Falco, my butcher, says that he's worried pork moss might become completely extinct. He says consumers these days just aren't interested in consuming anything that "grows on the shady side of the pig."

When I heard this, my ascot was stiffened straight as a board by the fury-based-radiation (rageiation) emitted by my ancient Sumatran mood necklace. People today have no taste! I remember when PORK MOSS, sometimes called "hog's moss" or "hog's maws" was considered one of the greatest delicacies in the world -- ranked fourth in Billionaire Gourmand Magazine (at the time the only subscribers were myself and Carnegie) after whale eyes, sturgeon roe and truffles.

What is more disturbing is that Falco informs me that an entire generation may have already grown up never even having heard of PORK MOSS. In my opinion, one can hardly be said to have reached adulthood until one has tasted a fresh plate of PORK MOSS.

For those who have had the misfortune of being until now unaware of PORK MOSS, I will enlighten you. PORK MOSS is a kind of fungus, a very picky fungus which grows only on the smartest, bravest old hogs. It appears as a bloom of curly red hairs, which gradually grow thicker as they plumpen themselves upon hog. Eventually, a ripe batch of PORK MOSS will reach the diameter of spaghettini and it will be ready to harvest.

It does indeed grow best when shaded from the sun, and a good hog-herder will have his hogs walk in a gigantic demi-circle throughout the day, so that one side of the hog always faces away from the sun. The fungus is extremely painful to the hog, because it feeds directly on the hog's blood, but the type of hog that the fungus targets is far too proud to ever hint at his pain.

PORK MOSS rightfully deserves its place as the fourth best delicacy. It has the flavour of particularly oily and vibrant Shitake mushrooms, fortified with oaky notes and a punch of anise, infused into this potent flavour, and mind you naturally infused, are all the most subtle and poignant flavours and aromas of world-class thick-cut smoked bacon.

If any of my readers currently have access to PORK MOSS, I urge you to send me a live sample immediately so that I may devote a portion of my vast wealth to the creation and maintenance of a fully functioning and sustainable PORK MOSS farming operation. The loss of PORK MOSS would be not only a sign of the apocalypse, but for this old gourmand, too much to bear. I will stand on my roof, amidst my dozens of chimneys and wave a flag of surrender before the four horseman if I have to live another day in a world without PORK MOSS.

Cost of Living Analysis

Here is the first statistical evidence that I have found that the apocalypse is close upon our heels.

The Onion is now reporting that the cost of living outweighs the benefits.

Darkness Shortage!

The wonderfully astute fellows at boing-boing, a few weeks ago posted a link to an article about the "Global Darkness Shortage."

At first, I thought perhaps this article would have something to do with the increasing prevalence of octoroons in the media. I myself have been wondering where all these octoroons are coming from, and a genetic darkness shortage of some kind would certainly make a lot of sense to me. It would be a terrible blow to multiculturalism, were we to run out of darkness.

I began reading the article with the following Masta Ace lyric in mind:

"I'm ghetto like them chicks that hate kobe's white fiancee
And wanna try to fight her, Brandy and Beyonce."

As I dug deeper into the article, I realized that this was not the kind of darkness the article was referring to. They in fact mean the type of darkness that prevents one from seeing one's own hand in front of one's own face. The type of darkness that seeps out of alleys and collects in pools in the deep, clutching forests of German fairy tales. The kind of darkness that is always disrespected by know-it-all scientists (who actually don't know-it-all) who go about defining it as the absence of light. This is a desperately important type of darkness both in regards to our quality of life and the horror movie industry. If this darkness shortage is as bad as it seems, it is certainly a sign of the apocalypse.

I also found an article in Spacing magazine which suggests that this is a significant problem even in Toronto, where I currently reside. The article wistfully recalled the lusciously obsidian evenings which occurred during last year's blackout. Oh how I agree! I recall that I, in order to honour the jet-black sky embedded with sparkling fragments of crystal, took my deepest, darkest red wine and poured three bottles into a gigantic Baccarat crystal decanter and went out into a public park. The last thing I remember before succumbing to that delicious blackness was spreading good-will towards all by delighting young women with a surprise fondling from my old, gnarled, but still wondrously manful fingers.

I can only imagine how many young women went home thinking, "Lo! I am truly blessed to have received such a miraculously firm yet subtle groping. I feel so invigorated and feminine. Those manful and manicured fingers, it must have been Von Mustard, but now where has that playful knave disappeared to?" And then they would presumably titter and cover their mouths and head home to pen passionate perfume-soaked epistles.

It was then that I fully realized what a tragedy it is that the modern world has lost the providence of smothering darkness which our primitive forefathers were blessed enough to experience night after night.

Don't get me wrong, I believe that a drawing room, such as the modern jewel of a room in my own home, should be cheerful and golden, lit with the best gas-lamps the twenty-first century has to offer, and it should sparkle deep into the evening, whether one is entertaining company or simply relaxing at home lounging about in nothing but shirt-sleeves and a tie. However!, this cheery glow should not be allowed to leak out of the home, and when one steps into the street one should instantly be hit with a black tsunami of heavy, dripping darkness.

This is the perfect challenge for a wealthy industrialist such as myself and I have already taken it upon myself to go about fixing the problem.

The local situation should be easy to remedy, I will simply use my Shattenmaschine, which I mentioned in one of my earlier posts about the difficulties of zeppellin travel in a post 9/11 environment, to generate a great cloud of darkness to hang over Toronto to suck up all the light pollution leaking from family homes and choke the pitiful little streetlights.
Considering his usual tendency towards idiocy, Matthew actually did an admirable job explaining the Schattenmaschine in the comments to that article and I will quote him here:

"As an aside, a Schattenmaschine is not a bicycle precursor, it is a large engine containing certain rare crystals and noble gases which somehow generates immense, but somehow curiously unremarkable, shadows. As far as I know the only one in existence is contained in Von Mustard's Zepellin and I am not at all clear on the principles by which the machine works. It apparently has something to do with introducing "shadowy corpuscles" into the "formative matrix of the ether itself."

Of course, as we can see he has a very limited comprehension of the tenets of advanced corpuscular physics, but through judicious quoting of someone much smarter than himself, he has managed to get the point across.

The Spacing magazine article suggested that "the most serious impediment to the campaign to reduce light pollution is the public's fear that if light levels are reduced our city streets will become unsafe." This is a valid concern and in order to avoid this problem I have genetically engineered several thousand gigantic mugger-hunting vampire bats which I will release into the first night of man-made shadow in order to assuage the public's fears. The loud leathery flapping of their wings, invisible in the darkness above, should be reassurance enough, but, just in case, I have trained them to land their entire fifty furry pounds upon the shoulder of passing citizens as they walk the streets so that they can actually feel the warm presence of protection.

As far as the global problem goes, I know from personal experience that the deepest darkest Congo has a grave and deadly excess of darkness. Lord man, that darkness was so thick it would clot in a man's nostrils and choke him if he did not keep his hankerchief over his nose and mouth, even during the day. After eighteen days and nights, I pressed my musket close against the velvet flesh of Ricardo, the world's only literate panther, and told I would let him live because his critical essays on James Joyce's Dubliners had touched me deeply. He then shook my hand with his paw and we parted best of friends.

But I digress, I shall get Alphonso to work syphoning off the excess darkness from the Congo and distributing it to those cities most in need.

Or black holes, that would work too.

Meta-sign of the Metapocalypse!

Here is something strange -- hits upon my humble site have doubled, perhaps even tripled this past weekend. At first, I thought, ah good, the word is out, the world is finally recognizing my unparalleled brilliance. But upon looking deeper into my sitemetre statistics, I noticed that no one was staying very long.

How could this be I wondered? What kind of numbskull when exposed to my site for the first time, would not want to stay for hours? Then I realized it, these are not my usual well-heeled readers, arriving through lofty links from revered referrers, no these are the scum of the internet, people referred from search engines.

But why would I suddenly be receiving more hits from search engines you might ask? Well, by looking at the terms people have been searching for I realized that searches for "Signs of the Apocalypse" have increased tenfold this past weekend. I can only assume that this is as a result of the pope's death. People see it on tv, they wonder if it is a sign of the apocalypse, and then they go to their computer and type it in. The blogosphere is a very strange place my friends.

I've got a longer post prepared about a more astounding sign of the apocalypse, but I'll put it up mid-week. It is less relevant to current events than this.

Since I have now mentioned the pope and the pope's death on my site, my traffic will presumably have trebled again by then.