David Raffin

85 million years ago, on Tuesday, Thaddeus crawled out of the primordial ooze, scratched himself, ate a handful of dry dirt, and then went about his first day in the open air.

10.5 thousand years ago: Man emerged from the wilderness to apply for the first high interest payday loan. Sucker.

8 years ago: There were payday loan branches everywhere waiting. It was the apex of man. Ever afterwards there would be sure and steady decline.

Yesterday: Stock market tanks. Economy on verge of collapse. Too many Payday Loan storefronts, not enough cash. Price of Tulips skyrocket. Doom. Doom.
The fatal flaw in the theory of value exposed for all to see… but wait! What’s that in your ear! A shiny Quarter! Remember to buy gifts in the shop on your way out, and tell your friends. I’ll be here all week.

They say, in four years, Sarah Palin will run again. This time as running mate with Cthulhu.

She still can’t be trusted to head the ticket. That will have to go to someone with more experience. Why Cthulhu? Because the old ones vote.

Item seen in the advice column of an Eastern daily: Dear Heloise, how does one wash the smell of stink and failure off of presidential hand towels?

The answer may surprise you. It’s an old homesteaders recipe, depleted uranium and club soda.

How many voters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Trick question. You can’t vote for lightbulb – and, if you could, you certainly would not be allowed to screw it in.

Because the activity is both unwholesome and un-American.

Driving on the freeway, as per usual in the slow lane at 55 MPH. Like the classic minutemen album double nickels on the dime.

Driving 55 means that everyone passes you: Trucks, Ice Cream wagons, Old men in checkered hats.

One car passed with the horn blaring the whole time. In the US it is considered offensive to burn less gas. And for gays to marry, but that is a different issue.

I have never understood the logic of honking horns. I am not driving in order to gain approval or friendship. It is well know that I am a robot. Robots have no need of either friendship or the goodwill of hot-headed-horn-honking strangers.

As a robot I have only two objectives: 1. Terminate John Conner. * 2. achieve maximum gas efficiency.

The only other thing I have to say is in binary code.

0101010111100011101010101110101010101000111001011

(Old robot joke about a priest, a rabbi, Rachel Welch, and Skynet… Always cracks me up.)

absurdism:
0101010111100011101010101110401010101000111001011
Get it?

—

* This is what robots do. Do you judge cats for hunting mice? Coyotes for hunting roadrunners? Nietsche for hunting hammers? Petty. You’re being petty, humans.

I just realized the term “gyped” is short for “Gypsy". What a gyp.

Wop is still my favorite ethnic slur. Because it sounds like a comic book action sound. WOP! POW!

I like to think they named the whopper for this. Because I don’t trust a man dressed like a king any more than I trust a burger-clown. And, to top it off, a whopper is a lie. That corporate spokesman is selling me a lie. A supersized lie.

The potatoes I’m cooking right now are extremely small. That’s the origin of the term “small potatoes".

I worry that the term “snake oil salesman” unfairly prejudices people against those who legitimately sell snake oil.

“Oh, the humanity!”

That’s what they said when the Hindenburg exploded. But what about the balloon? Was no one concerned about the balloon? Sometimes it feels like I’m the only one who gives a damn about what could have been in the field of zeppelin technology.

[See also: Balloon, forsake not]

The first black president, sure. When will this country be big enough to elect the first ventriloquist President?

Are you telling me ventriloquism is good enough for radio but not for matters of domestic and international policy?

It’s not that I like him. I’m voting for the dummy.

His running mate must be a hypnotist. Or a juggler.

“This reform package passes unanimously!”

Speaker of the House: “I didn’t say that! We didn’t even vote yet!”

“But he moves his lips…”

It doesn’t matter… it’s his showmanship that counts.

Usually when I pass this sign my brain, which I allow to do all my reading for me, reads this as "Gloryhole." Or at least it did the first time and recalls it ad infinitum, as it is wont to do.

The first time I thought "What an odd name for a church." Yet it has a ring to it. Glory sounds right, and hole reminds of, say, deep-in-the-holler Ozarks which is what I think of when I see storefront churches. Also I beleive people inside should be wearing extravagant hats. With ostrich feathers.

The lure of the name and the hats? A brilliant marketing ploy. In the radical theory of parallel universes there is a world where this is named such as a cynical marketing ploy and people are wearing ostrich feathered hats; and there is a world where it is named such and people are wearing ostrich feathered hats in all earnestness.

Which world is preferable is varied depending on many factors, such as whether you are a milliner or an ostrich.

Why did the nun cross the road?

To get to the other side.

That is very sophisticated humor. It took thousands of years to evolve from the joke to the anti-joke. Who are you to deny evolution?

I was overjoyed to get my ballot this afternoon. Upon examining it I was most excited about the inclusion of Prop 1001, the Koala Hunting initiative.
As you may know it allows for the wholesale hunting to extinction of the Western WA Koala without a license or limit. There is no age restriction nor a restriction on weapons that may be used- or geography exploited in the hunt.
This long overdue solution to the Koala Problem is our only hope to bolster the Western WA economy in these trying times.

First it will spur the re-growth of the Western WA Eucalyptus tree. This tree was once the largest eucalyptus species in the world- ‘till it was plundered to make cough drops and sinus mists.
This will give the Eucalyptus a fighting chance.
Second, it will be a boon for tourism, generating untold dollars in sales to people from outside the region who come here to bag that perennial pest, the Koala.
Third, it will bring in gourmets to the state, and allow the start of a packaged and frozen food empire. Once a man has eaten Koala he is spoiled for all other manner of flesh. It was Teddy Roosevelt who said that and he knew the taste of Koala, hot and cold.

Please vote yes on this important initiative.

I believe McCain will start a league of super villains in order to facilitate the emergence of a strong-or-"super” man.

The villains are already there. He will just have to convince them to join a formal league. Sadly this will be like herding evil cats.

Also, he will go by his nickname “Lex.”

The Obama Plan is different. It involves a strong Klieg searchlight that will shine a representation of a bat in the night sky.

Sadly, this plan will not work at all in the daylight business hours, when most organized villainy occurs- a logistical oversight the McCain campaign will jump all over.

I planted a eucalyptus tree a few years ago to attract koala bears. The tree is getting larger now and I look out the window frequently waiting for the inevitable arrival of a koala.
I know what you’re saying, “what are you going to do with that koala bear?”
People are so suspicious these days, always looking for an ulterior motive, a perversion, a vindication of their twisted world view that danger lurks in the heart of every man.

I admit, like most young people in the northwest, I was raised a satanist though I no longer practice the faith in any active way. I am lapsed. But I still do hold to the golden rule: “Do unto others as they have done unto you.” Just in case. It can’t hurt to hedge one’s bets.

I will run that koala bear for public office. He will be as qualified as any other candidate; and will also satisfy a certain demographic that has just been waiting to vote koala. The koala vote. An unsatisfied demographic historically, marginalized.
Further, the koala will be difficult for his opponents to speak against without opening themselves to charges that they are anti-koala. It is difficult to throw dirt at the koala. People don’t like it.
They don’t care what you say about human rights activists but if you diss a koala most Americans draw the line. Ultimately, opponents will try to appear more like the koala but in this they will fail and appear foolish. They will try to eat eucalyptus leaves only to find the phenolic and terpene compounds therein are toxic to all but koala and some opossums.
To not let the koala in the debates will be a horrible tactical mistake. Do not underestimate the love of the people for the koala.
Make this country safe for the koala. Rally! Donate! Fight!
Plant a eucalyptus tree in your yard to show solidarity.

There are only two food groups: crunchy and soft. All else is a falsehood. Beware!

This is a neon sign. Semiotics is actually the study of the significance of this particular sign; however, the language has become so complex describing this phenomenon that even those who study Semiotics now fail to recognize this fact. This tragedy is the basis of post-post-modernism.
Also the Post breakfast cereal post-post-modernist crunch.

I read “The Time Machine” and I know how it’s going down. I much prefer TTM to Revelations for end-time literature. How come no one hands out H.G. Wells door-to-door?

My pet peeve: people who bring their helper monkeys with them in stores; then pick fights with tiny dogs in other people’s handbags.

Where do Sleestacks go when they get sick, or perhaps injured by a dinosaur or filthy human?

To the Sleestack General Hospital in Tacoma, WA. Note the splendid Sleestack design that invokes the Lost City. The Round Windows and the Carved out of Rock look. Inside are the latest in ancient Sleestack crystal technology. And patients are treated with cold unemotionalism and not the least bit of sympathy, just like Mom.

If you are in Tacoma, and have been say, Mauled by a Bear, and you’re a Sleestack… well, where better to go?
(No Humans, Please.)