RKNet Blog... Thing

Today, while walking to work, the darnedest thing happened.

A shifty-eyed man with a sparse mustache approaches me, carrying a large package. He’s dressed like a UPS man, but his uniform is generic. No badge. No hat. Are those Chucks peeking out from below his pants?

“Hi miss…” he stutters, spit collecting in the corners of his mouth. “You, uh, you heading to the mills?”

“Yeah… I work there… can I help you with something?”

“Yeah, yeah you can,” he replies, handing me the package, his arms shaking, still not looking at me. His fingernails are torn. Two have caked blood around their edges.
“Can you take this to…” He pretends to check the label, though it’s clear from his trembling hands that he knows exactly where this box is going. “Can you take this to Gloria Blacke?”

“Uhm, sure I guess…” I respond, not from any desire to help the man, but because this guy with his white spittle and earthquake eyes is beginning to creep me out. That, and because I want to make sure that, whatever this is, the Ironbauchs has it.

The man nods, thanks me and quickly disappears around the corner. I stand on the sidewalk for a moment, bewildered, and then start on my way. I haven’t taken more than five steps before, I swear, the box starts to move. A ball inside perhaps? Rolling around? Throwing the box off balance? No, no it’s not a ball, because now the box is making noise. Wailing. Crying. What the hell is inside this thing? An animal? A dog?

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“Jesus Christ,” I think to myself. What the fuck have I gotten myself into? I set the package on the ground and use my ring to slice through the tape. Suddenly, something is gripping my fingers… a hand! Holy shit, a tiny fucking hand!

“It’s a goddamn baby…” I whisper, but, there is something off about this baby-hand. It is strong, slightly gnarled. It isn’t soft, like a baby’s hand should be. No, good god dammit, this isn’t a baby. I rip my hand free and back away from the box just as whatever’s inside hoists itself out.

“Please.” It speaks. Tiny plaid pants. Tiny glasses. Its voice high and strained. “Please,” It says again. Standing before me is a tiny, tiny man. His body is perfectly proportioned, but he can’t be more than two feet tall. Oh my god; he is a primordial dwarf.

“Holy Shit!” I say aloud. I want to say: “I saw a special on you guys on TV once! Man! You guys are freaking adorable!” But, I don’t say that. I just stand and stare at this little man. I picture him dancing a gig. Okay, I’m fucked up.

“Please, read this.” He squeaks, handing me a folded piece of paper. “Please, don’t take me there!”

I take the paper from him, and began to read.

“Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry chops on each side until browned, about 3 minutes per side…”

“I don’t understand…” I said to the little man, though the pit iof my stomach is beginning to churn.

“Turn it over,” he tells me quietly. I’m impressed with his patience. I flip the page.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 tablespoon butter or margarine
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 4 cuts dwarf tenderloin
• 1 cup hot water

I actually laugh. I don’t know what else to do. I laugh! And then I look at the little man with his earnest eyes and trembling hands. I throw up on myself and on the recipe and on the torn cardboard box that my new friend is now standing behind.

“I wont take you there,” I tell him. But my head is already spinning. My hands shake- just like the man in the brown suit. Shit goes down when the Blacke One doesn’t get what she wants. Did anyone see me take that package? Does anyone know I’ve seen this little man? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Come on,” I say, taking his tiny hand. “Get back in that box. I’ll keep you safe…”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Good Afternoon,” the Blacke One grins at me, like a fox. She’s carrying a steaming plate from the kitchen. It smells delicious, buttery and sweet, golden chops glazed in brown sugar.

“I want to thank you for delivering my package today,” she says to me, her dark eyes locked on mine. She hands me the plate. “Here,” she says softly, “I made up a snack for you.”

Evening children, welcome to Clippings & Scribblings, a news entry with editorials. I’m Sketch E. Whiteface, and I’m an alcoholic… err, close enough.
In the musical metallurgy realm, if not already aware, the masked nine-piece band Slipknot is back and with full force with a new album dubbed “All Hope Is Gone” coming out this Tuesday. The band started performing for the first time in nearly two years in July on the Rockstar Mayhem Festival tour with Disturbed, Dragonforce and Mastodon. I attended the show in Mansfield, MA and breathed chaos from the energy exhumed, it was pure gold. If you’ve been keeping track of the tour or the band you would know that Slipknot’s DJ, Sid “0″ Wilson, had injured himself during on of the shows. In the body of their set he jumped off one of the raised platforms and broke both his ankles. Whereas some would put off the rest of the tour they marched on through and Sid was confined to a wheelchair until healed properly. They’ve gone through much worse injuries (especially Wilson), such as concussions, severe burns, lacerations and other often life-threatening bumps. However recently they’ve acquire a rather large set-back, an issued statement from the band apologized for the fact they will have to cut their appearances at the Reading & Leeds Festival in England and their European tour due to drummer Joey “1″ Jordison broke his ankle. Apart from canceling of a tour they subsequently had to cancel several appearances in light of the incident.
In other unfortunate news for entertainers canceling things, the highly anticipated “Ghostbusters” video game expected to be released this October is CANCELED. I’ll give you a few moments to finish crying and throwing your computer chair out the window. Activision was due to be the distributor behind the cult classic based game but dropped it and several other titles.  While franchise games such as “Crash Bandicoot” and “Spyro” where sold to Activision by Vivendi Games the interactive sequel to an iconic film series was left in the dust. However all hope is not gone for this game for the developers are searching for someone to release it and have assured fans that it will be released. Now on the commentary for this: are you fucking kidding me? You pass up something that’s existed for 25 years to something that’s been around only 10 aimed solely at kids? And keep in mind, the “Ghostbusters” game features the original cast and was penned by Reitman, Aykroyd and Ramis. This is more or less the sequel everyone’s been hoping for and courtesy of schmucks with calculators it’s left out in the desert with a canteen and a compass.
And now for more theoretical blabberings. Last weekend the nerd orgasm known as “The Dark Knight” was taken over at the box office by Ben Stiller comedy “Tropic Thunder“. However as it lowered to the number two spot it also arised to the number two spot at the all-time box office having earned $475 million dollars passing “Star Wars: A New Hope” and settling just under “Titanic” which holds the record at $600 million (for some reason.) Currently on IMDb.com the Christopher Nolan directed comic-book movie is holding it’s place at #3 on the top 250 highest rated movies, and also broke the record for being #1 after only two days of it’s release. Since the weekend prior it made it’s box office jump by a good $40 million and this fan has a strong belief that it will knock the boat over. I plan to toss another seven bucks into the pot this weekend and I strongly encourage you to do the same. One more hill to get over, people. Come on.

=Sketch/Ed

“Now drugged, and wielding a camera tripod, Blacky begins to charge…””

Last night, while flipping through the channels, my roommates and I came across an exceedingly misleading show entitled “Untamed and Uncut: Goose Attack.” Naturally, we were sold. The boys and I exchanged solemn nods. “Let’s do it.””Would it be weird to watch porn with my roommates? Such, apparently, specific porn? Don’t care. Maybe you missed the title…it contains the words “Goose Attack.” With visions of rampaging men and their equally rampaging and, well, uncut mansticks (too far?) goosing chicks (with, I like to think, perforated wooden paddles), I eagerly clicked “select.”

Well, “Untamed and Uncut: Goose Attack” was not a porn… I suppose I should have guessed. In fact, it was on Animal Planet, though incidentally, the description of the show straight from animalplanet.com is as follows:

Gritty, shocking, compelling, *and always raw*, each half-hour episode takes viewers on a journey around the world to meet the people who’s lives are forever changed by a moment in time with an animal.

I wish I could tell you I made that up.

No, “Untamed and Uncut” wasn’t porn. And it didn’t even feature animal sex (foiled again.) What it was, though, was one of those “when animals attack” type deals. And, just what was the series-documentary covering today? A rampaging bastard (named Blacky, oddly enough) looking something like this:

Dude, Blacky was a Beast; almost the size of an elephant! Motherfucker was raging his way through a little town in Thailand- tipping over motorcycles, throwing trashcans like fucking Donkey Kong and just generally charging around, terrorizing tourists, for three hours… Three Hours! At one point (after poor Blacky had been shot with a tranquilizer dart) the announcer actually said, “Now drugged, and wielding a camera tripod, Blacky begins to charge…” This show rules!

If you’re wondering what the deal with the “Goose Attack” portion of the show was all about… well, a goose attacks a fisherman and his dog. I’d actually seen it before and to this day it gives me visions of being mauled to death by legions of loons every time I go kayaking. Speedy fuckers.

For reference, film evidence of various persons being assaulted by large birds.

Whether or not you feel that you’ve just wasted four minutes of your life reading about my (decidedly satisfactory, though misguided) attempt to catch some silly porn action, I highly recommend you start watching this “series-documentary.” It’s got all the elements of a good “when animals attack” show: gratuitous violence, badly generated computer animation (though the website claims to offer “ground-breaking computer graphic imaging,”) stupid commentators and an obtuse morbidity that’s just damn funny (later in the show, someone says, “I was just waiting for that sickening sound of Stan’s flesh being chopped up by those propellers…”) If that doesn’t sell you, I don’t know what will…

I love the internet.
This is so gross, not for the faint of heart.
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A clear and flagrant disrespect for all things was extruded from the two young men chatting back and forth on the mostly empty train car and left the air palpably unclean. Crisp suits, slick and greasy hair, shifty bright eyes, and utter animal stupidity were readily apparent upon a quick glance. Typical upper-class white boys with no sense of purpose beyond where their dicks will be by the end of the night or who they can roll under the bus to get the next raise. No love except the long-since-abandoned love for mother, and a lust for money and the status associated with it that they assume is love.
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The network administrator is one of the funniest, most dedicated, generally awesome guys I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet. This morning I got copied on an email he sent to one of my co-workers regarding a rather unfortunate circumstance: a client of his was one of those people who gets a chain letter and forwards it to EVERYONE in their address book. This naturally included my co-worker, and the presence of giant attachments, unwanted witticisms and lots and lots of animated gifs was really starting to cramp the guy’s style.

Network Admin to the rescue! Below, with some redacted names to protect identities (because I try to be polite like that) is the solution.

Hey Todd,

I can block his e-mail address from hitting our server, but unfortunately he wouldn’t be able to send any e-mail to us at all if that happened-/probably/ not a good idea if he’s a client.

You can delete them, but the best thing to do is to ask him to stop sending them in the first place. The easiest way to do that is to make **ME** the bad guy, so the fucking idiot doesn’t get all offended and shit. Try something like this:

/”Good morning Mr. Latent Pedophile,

I can’t put into words how much sheer, unadulterated joy your wonderful e-mails have brought me. You see, before I starting receiving your witty and carefully crafted mass-produced chain e-mails my life was but a meaningless shell. Being on your “send” list has truly been a divine gift from above. Not only has it made me a better man, but flowers smell better, the sky is brighter, and food tastes better.

Best of all, it no longer hurts when I pee.

Alas, there is a problem: You see, the network administrator here is a real “type-A” knuckle-dragger. He’s an angry, angry man-the type of guy who has driven away anyone who has ever tried to love him. He is verbally abusive to his co-workers, and his breath is so bad that the paint around his desk *is actually peeling. *He monitors all of the network traffic to and from our e-mail server. Yesterday he waddled over to my desk, belched, farted in my general direction, and //then started screaming at me about bandwidth issues and security concerns. For this reason I must beseech you to stop sending me these types of messages. He assured me that if I receive any more he was going to dock my pay $10.00 per megabyte-so you’re most recent message for example could cost me $13.20.

I’m not sure how I’m going to cope with not receiving future chain letter messages from you. Alas, I may have to take up clown punching, chicken choking-or some other constructive way to vent my inhuman rage against the man. Thank you for your understanding.

I weep alone,

Todd T.
Resident Badass
“/

Give that a shot dude. Let me know how it works out.
*
**
Chris
*

Oh Chris, it is truly an honor to work with you!

Now here is a bit I haven’t done in quite some time! The Words To Know series had all but died. Tonight I feel like shaking the dust off, brushing away the cobwebs, and putting WTK to work once more. I’ve decided to go easy on the old girl, by featuring two terms, and peppering the descriptions with other delightful terms to incorporate into your vernacular. On we go!

Our first featured term is: Adroit - This is a handy way to turn a shocked and braindead exclamation of “Whoa! Skills!” into a pithy bon mot. For example, when watching Sonny Chiba in the film The Street Fighter, one might be able to say something like “That was the most adroit instance of someone’s testicles being pulled off I think I’ve ever witnessed!” Not-work-safe clip below for those who may not have had the good fortune to see the whole film. (Which, by the way, I strongly recomend to anyone.)

Our second word for the day is: Obstreperous. Obstreperous is a fantastic word to use to describe someone’s putrescent offspring who have decided that it would be a fantastic time to start various types of boisterous carrying on (running, yelling, messing with others’ belongings, etc.) when you have just been sealed onto a several-hour flight. It certainly passes over in polite conversation a lot more readily than simply turning to your seat mate to comment that the plane’s younger passengers are in fact “little fucking assholes” who should, in fact, have a rigorous application of chloroform applied to them posthaste. To make such a comment could be considered maladroit - the opposite of our first featured word - due to its utter lack of tact. The child pictured below, though adorable, may be one of these children whom the label of “obstreperous” applies.

Or perhaps these three might be more prone to various hijinks.

Hope you enjoyed this edition of WTK as much as I did! (If you did, won’t you show some comment love?)

Dear person who tried to use my debit card in Queens this weekend:

The joke is on you, not only did the bank call shenannigans on your attempt before anything was charged but I don’t have any fucking money anyway, so you would have been shit out of luck no matter what.

Thanks for forcing me to change all my service billing though, really appreciate having to sort through all of that.

Next time you’re scraping people’s personal information to buy crap, make sure the debit card you’ve snatched is attached to an account worth draining. Ass.

Also, thank you to TD BankNorth for being on top of this enough to prevent me from being robbed.

And another big fat fuck you goes out to Hannaford, since it is very likely my information was seized due to their highly unreliable credit card security.

Love, ~G