The Book of Despair

  1. In the beginning there was the Uncaring Universe. And the Uncaring Universe did not give a shit about you or your problems
  2. And, behold, the Uncaring Universe did look upon the vastness of space and say “that’s a lot of room. I should put some shit there”. And the Uncaring Universe did shit upon the space.
  3. And when the Uncaring Universe had shat upon space, it gazed upon its shit and it did say “Meh. Good enough”
  4. The Uncaring Universe did gaze upon its shit and it saw that one of the pieces was a little less shitty than the rest.  And it said “I should do something about that.  I will create Man and place him upon the less shitty world that he may cause the world to be more shitty.
  5. And the Uncaring Universe did place man upon the face of the Earth that he may go forward, multiply, and cause The Earth to be shitty.
  6. And shit happened
  7. And one day Ian the Campbell was born.  And behold, that was bullshit, because that was not his real name
  8. And Ian, whose name was bullshit, did grow into a man
  9. And Ian, whose name was bullshit, did wax wise in the sophistry of men.
  10. And behold, Ian, whose name was bullshit, did inflict his sophistry upon willing readers
  11. And thus he spake unto his willing readers
  12. “Willing Readers, this I desirest thou to know:
  13. People Suck
  14. When someone you’re not related to welcomes you to “The Family”, turn and run like a son of a bitch
  15. Whenever a manager uses the word “proactive” in a sentence, you know something is about to suck
  16. If wishes were fishes we’d have some to fry
    1. (Corollary)  Actually, If wishes were fishes, they’d probably all get that disease where the fish literally puke their guts out and die and float to the top and all the other fish would devour the dead fish–or wish–in an orgy of cannibalism.
  17. If someone preemptively assures you that something isn’t going to happen, you can count on it happening
    1. (Corollary) If someone preemptively assures you of anything, then they are full of shit.
    2. (Corollary) If someone preemptively asserts that they are or are not something then they probably are, or are not exactly that thing
  18. The bigger the pickup, the bigger the asshole at the wheel
    1. (Corollary) The bigger the pickup, the smaller the penis on the asshole at the wheel
  19. Suicidal teenagers are fucking annoying
  20. Teenagers who think they are Vampires are fucking annoying
  21. Teenagers are fucking annoying
  22. They have mobile phone coverage on the Summit of Mt. Everest now.  Climbing Mt. Everest has jumped the shark.
    1. (Corollary) The phrase “jumped the shark” has, itself, jumped the shark
  23. The driver’s side windshield wiper will always wear out before the passenger-side
  24. The shitty-ness of the music is directly related to the loudness to which a teenager will feel compelled to turn up the volume
  25. The internet is full of shit
    1. (Corollary) People on the internet tend to be full of shit as well
    2. (Corollary) …and they don’t know when to sit down and shut up
  26. Everyone thinks that no-one loves music as much as they do
  27. When picking up a take-out order from a restaurant, the special order you have to double-check before leaving will be at the very bottom of the bag
  28. In the parking lot, that stupid person meandering aimlessly in front of you will be parked right next to you
    1. (Corollary) They will also drive the way they walk
  29. Whenever someone comes into your office, the most embarrassing song on your your iPod will come up in shuffle.  No matter how many un-embarrassing songs there are to choose from.
  30. Nothing profound has ever been said on Twitter
  31. Nothing profound will ever be said on Twitter
  32. The further away from New York you were on 9/11/2001, the more likely you are to wax rhapsodic with affected pathos about The World Trade center on any given 9/11.
  33. Everybody thinks that they are more like grumpy cat than anybody else
  34. Wikipedia:  A million nerds can’t be wrong
  35. Unless they’re talking about women, in which case a million nerds are always wrong
  36. All internet comments sections are headed to the same destination:  a huge dick-waving contest.
  37. You will hit every light green when you just need 10 more seconds to finish surreptitiously sending that text message from your car.
  38. Everybody thinks the drivers in their town are worse than everybody else’s town.  The truth is everybody is a bad driver everywhere.
  39. Jaywalkers will always run across the two lanes you’re not in, then walk across the lane you are in
  40. Any person who declares that they were educated at “the school of hard knocks” or “the school of life” on Facebook is 99% likely to not only be catastrophically ignorant, but also noisily proud of their own ignorance.

It Came Out Alright in the End (Roommate Asylum, Part 3)

It Came Out Alright in the End (Roommate Asylum, Part 3)

By on July 18, 2015 in Roommate Asylum

What Brown did for Jerry

Early autumn had firmly engulfed campus in its chilly embrace–Halloween was around the corner!  It was the time of year I had to decided if I’d rather slog through the a mile of icy wind for 20 minutes, or wait with the weirdos for thirty minutes at the bus stop, then sit in the warm bus that smelled like armpits for another 30 minutes to get home.  My backpack was filled with textbooks which had cost enough money to feed a family of nineteen for a year and weighed several metric tonnes.  I opted for the fresh air.

By the time I arrived at home, I was thoroughly knackered.  I flopped down on the couch, not much noticing the dissonant vibe that was reverberating through my small apartment.  Jack was in the living room with a heavy coat on and looking deeply annoyed.  Jerry was in the kitchen banging dishes around.

After some time, the tension registered in my tired mind and I asked Jack why he was wearing his heavy coat inside the house.  He was in no mood to chat.  The extent of his response was “I’m cold.”

“Why are you cold?” I asked foolishly ignoring all the signs of danger.

He plunged a fork into a pot of boiling water and withdrew a piece of chicken the color of week old zombie

“The window in my bedroom was opened while I napped, and now I’m cold.”  An astute detective like Sherlock Holmes or Lt. Columbo would have caught that phrase “was opened”.  He didn’t say “was open”, he said “was opened.”

Not being an astute fictional detective, I barged on.

“Jerry?  What’s wrong?  You seem upset?”

With one final bang of a dish he said, “I had to take one of my home enemas, and then I had to go to go to Smith’s to get some food and when I was at Smith’s I lost my health.  I lost my health all down my leg.  And I washed my pants and hung them next to the window to dry.  And Jack’s mad at me now.  Do you want some chicken?”

He plunged a fork into a pot of boiling water and withdrew a piece of chicken the color of week old zombie.

“No, thank you,”  I said.

With that, he stormed down the hallway.  The zombie chicken splashed disconsolately back into the pot, having given its life for nought.

I sat down on the sofa and considered the evidence.  There was an enema.  There was a two-mile walk to the grocery store.  There was this mysterious phrase about losing his health.  And then there was an emergency washing of the pants.

Finally, I turned to Jack and said, “Jack.  Did Jerry give himself an enema and then walk to Smith’s and shit his pants?”

“Yup, I think so.”

I decided then and there I never wanted the visual image of Jerry’s ass in my mind’s eye again.  But sadly, it was not meant to be.

The Poo Flap Incident

There's a full Moon out tonight and it's a bad Moon rising!

There’s a full Moon out tonight and it’s a bad Moon rising!

One age-old Halloween tradition in colleges is to find members of the opposite sex, ask them out for Halloween and then drag them to a scare house in the misguided hope that you may accidentally get hugged.  A terror-instigated hug is still a hug, so shut up.

Jack, Carl, and I had lured three girls from the next building over to go with us to a cool haunted house set up in the old State Mental Hospital.  The six of us sat on our tatty couches in the living room awkwardly passing time until it was dark enough to be scary.

The darkness closed in, though none of us moved to turn on a light.  Our conversation stopped cold when a door creaked open from deep down the long and darkened hallway.  A great gasping yawn followed by contented lip-smacking assaulted our ears.  Jack, Carl, and I looked at each other in horror.  “Jerry!”  We thought he’d gone to some dance for lonely weirdos.  But we were proven wrong when a form emerged from the dark hallway.  His hand smacked around at the wall for a light switch.  When the lights came on, we saw Jerry standing there sleepily, wearing nothing but long underwear.  He wandered into the kitchen and poured himself some orange juice, and turned to head back down the hallway.

One of the girls squeaked in horror then quickly clapped her hand over her mouth to stop the squeak.  You see these things in cartoons, but never in real life.  Apparently, long underwear really does have a little flap that buttons closed to cover your ass.  Jerry’s wasn’t buttoned.  So he and his bare hairy ass meandered back down the hallway horrifying our dates for what seemed like an eon.

And not even one of the girls hugged us in terror.


Toilet Paper Image by “Toiletpapier (Gobran111)” by Brandon Blinkenberg. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Toiletpapier_(Gobran111).jpg#/media/File:Toiletpapier_(Gobran111).jpg

Moon Image by Gregory H. Revera, licensed under CC  BY-SA 3.0

About the Author

About the Author: Ian is a 3rd generation native of Southern Nevada, where he lives today in a quiet suburban neighborhood with his wife of twenty years and their two sons. Ian has earned his bread in a variety of occupations including stocking a beer freezer, mixing and pouring concrete, being a roadie for a synth punk band in San Francisco in the early 90's, being a not-very-well-known hard rock DJ, scenic carpentry, theatrical lighting design, theatrical sound design, playing Ku Klux Klan Member #5 in a professional production of "Grover", and writing for an virtually unknown, subversive, underground blog called Radio Free Las Vegas. .

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