Gistological Institute

Incognito

2007-08-27T22:46:00.000-04:00

You really don't remember our mission? Let me fill you in:

Picture it. Paris. 1941. The North had just invaded Atlanta, burning all crops within sight. General Washington was building a new American Empire by driving Attila the Hun to commit even more brutal actions than he would otherwise have taken. And there we were, atop the Himalayas. "Edmonde," says you, "when will the war end? When can we return to peacetime?" And I looked at you, and at the other children, and I said "the world we knew is gone. We must make Earth into whatever world we hope to live in." That's when the Abstractors initiated a memory pulse; I was the only one to survive with my brain patterns intact.

Why you called me "Edmonde" I'll never know. That wasn't even close to what my nickname actually was (the other children called me Scoots), but what really disturbed, what really perturbed, what really frosts my cake, is that you had the gall, the temerity, the outright fortitude to call me by the name of that venomous villain, that villainous venom-spewer, Edmonde. You think interstellar war is a game? That a slip of the tongue will -- what? -- break my silver concentration?!

I've never been broken -- not by King Kong nor Kublai Kahn, not by the C-SPAN personalities. Arlen Specter knows that I'm impervious to several strains of the truth serum firsthand, he was there the day the Abstractors invaded. He was among the cowardly "Save My Baby!" club that virtually ceded our homeworld to them bug-faced hugger-muggers in gray jump-suits, with their filthy reptilian predilictions. Sir! Senator Specter, I call upon you to renounce your ties to the vile invaders and their mothership! It is of national urgency! America can no longer withstand the continual exaltation to the aliens and their "special friend," George Bush. There's been a lot of talk about "sugary stars" and "intercontinental superluminary travel," but it's a crock pot of cuckoo clock theories. No hard evidence to back up their fireball tactics. They want our internal heat glands; that's all there is to it.

Senator, renounce the sugarship!

Mentor

2007-07-16T22:12:00.000-04:00

Like many of you, I enjoy the maritime sports. Water polo, water football, water bathing, I cannot get enough H₂O in my diet. So when I was offered the opportunity by the New York education department to run a camp for water-challenged children from desert families, I balked. "How can they learn to swim," I asked my would-be employers, "if they've never even had a glass of water?" I hung up and never wanted to see their extracurricular faces again.

But Gloria Chowski -- that's the name of the department representative -- was very insistent that I run the upstate Special@Water Project (or SWAP as the legend goes. The commercial at sign was too over the top for me). She called me back the day after I turned them down, during one of my ten major mealtimes. "I cannot be part of your sham 'education!'" I yelled, slamming my phone so hard I broke the mold. Relief! I was in the clear! Then... she called an hour later. Then a half hour after that. It continued in that regressive geometric pattern until the interval between calls was less than the time it takes to dial my number; I assume that by that point, someone was assisting her on a separate line.

"Sea witch!" I bellowed, "I will not sell out for a pair of water wings and a badge! Those children are your responsibility, not mine. I have no desire to- yes, I'm aware of your department's history, but I don't- no. Really?" Her kind words were melting my heart, by golly! We spoke for the next two hours about her grandkids and what I could do to improve my community, which apparently does not include having my neighbors' dog stuffed and mounted. "Gloria," I told her, "how was I s'posed to know that they would form an emotional bond with a dog of all creatures? I've only seen them feed and water it." She was pretty insistent on that point. But by the time I faked going through a tunnel to get her off the line, we'd really gotten some of the core issues sorted. I think I'm supposed to run a camp somewhere, but I don't know where... it is...

My Friend The Mailman

2007-04-06T00:14:00.000-04:00

Hanging out with the mailman was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Greater than sliced bread, but greater than fresh Italian bread? Forget about it. It changed my outlook on life, and ever since the first time I saw that guy wandering around my property, I've always felt a kind of kinship with said mailman. When I first saw el mailmano (henceforth referred to as "Doug") I thought he was a wild bear. My neck of the woods is home to bears, leopards, bridge monsters, and Ron Howard, so it wasn't that much of a stretch. Plus, Doug was seven feet tall and covered with a thick layer of fur (or maybe it was a just an overcoat. You be the judge). So at first I just walked right up to him with a handful of berries and spent about ten minutes talking in gibberish to see if he would respond to my gentle voice and eat the berries (which were poisoned, by the way. I hate bears) right out of my palms.

His refusal of my tainted offer, and the fact that he reported me to the police for tapping his phone, made me reevaluate my hatred of the bear race and the way I lead my life, in general. I came to realize that over the years, I've lost more than I've gained. And I'm not talking about weight. I'm talking about the little things: picking your teeth with a toothpick instead of a rusty nail, holding a hand to your head to get better reception on your iPod, going to Seaworld and punching a whale. I mean, I've punched a whale, but it wasn't in Seaworld. And it was in self-defense, for those of you "concerned" (wink, wink) at the thought of some colorful rogue running this way and that, punching random whales.

They've given me a lot of flak for my pro-whale-punching agenda in the presses. Steve Jobs sent me a letter of marque about it, though, but I turned him down. I fight whales because I hate them, not because some Apple bigwig offers me ten thousand dollars a blowhole. My standing rate is forty thousand, and if I don't have my principles, then what am I? Some kind of spineless Remora, beholden to the dorsal fin of the whale of industry? I'll never redact, I won't submit, not until the whale apologists recognize what those monsters did to Pinocchio's family. Only on that day will I, the Taker of Gist, accept such a paltry fee.

Santa Claus

2006-12-25T00:19:00.000-05:00

When I was a child, there was only one thing I wanted for Christmas: to be Jewish. Also, I wanted to be continent. When Christmas Day rolled around and I was still wearing rubber pants, I figured Santa probably didn't deliver on the second part of my wish either. He didn't take it too kindly when I accused him of fraud and threatened to sue him. Not having the money to follow up on my claim, I turned to the occult; if Santa wouldn't grant me a real spiritual conversion, I'd find a shaman or genie who would. Year after year I scoured the world, but I was forced to return to my homeland, Enewetak Atoll, after I found out the U.S. government bombed it in 1936. By the time I got there, nothing remained; the whole island was gone. Wiped off the face of the map in a nuclear test. That's when I realized Santa Claus must die.

Hear me out, now. It's not that I held a grudge against the late Mr. Claus. Indeed, I admired his organizational skills and work ethic. I had a part time job in his sweatshop cleaning looms as a young child, which is how I would have known where the breaks in his security grid were, if I did it. Ah, to be a child in Santa's sweatshop! The sights, the sounds, the occasional purges of elf unionists, the merriment! How I loved the reindeer; I would glue magnets to the stable floor and watch them try to walk over them. That's how I learned that reindeer don't wear horseshoes. Who'd've thunk it? Of course, I was very upset when the reindeer didn't stick to the ground, so I may have set off a few bottle rockets to rattle their cages. Raise your hand if you've never set off bottle rockets at a pack of reindeer. Anyone? I thought not.

Memories... how I long for those days, back before 24 hour news channels. I suppose they're a byproduct of the temporal distortion, though. See, after the government destroyed my homeland, I had one choice only: use Santa's time machine to go back and prevent Herbert Hoover from becoming the United States' only five term president. Naturally, Santa responded poorly to my requests: "Ho ho, no no! The integrity of the timeline is paramount. We can't risk a paradox." His sarcastic undertones haunted my dreams. So I may have made the case to Congress that Santa was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, and after the ensuing war with the North Pole, I may have looted his time machine from the wreckage of the old candy silo. But that's okay; I went back to 1929 and caused the Great Depression by walking into a single bank and yelling "they're out of money!"

This stroke of brilliance on my part threw millions into instant poverty and prolonged the Second World War for another ten years. But the thermonuclear destruction of Enewetak Atoll was likewise pushed back almost ten years, allowing the total population of six people a nice cushion of escape time. When I returned to the future, the world was completely different! My father went from being a mild-mannered office dreg to an accredited author, and there was a new car in my driveway. Cha-ching! And since nobody from my atoll died, I never goaded Congress into war with Santa, and the fat man never even realized I'd changed history.

I now had a time machine. Santa was completely out of the picture. Unfortunately, the device was stolen from me while I was karaokeing in Baghdad in 2002. Boy, breaking that egg to the C.I.A was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my real life. I mean, how do you tell the most secretive agency in the free world that Saddam Hussein himself may have the ability to change history? Bush himself got involved, and less than a year later Iraq was toppled, and the good people of Halliburton were spending millions of dollars sifting through the rubble to find even a hint of the time machine.

Success was elusive, but I was vindicated when the basic circuitry of the machine was recovered from an insurgent stronghold in March 2005. Alas, the Ptolemeic Stabilizer was damaged during the refurbishment process. Our first test run was an attempt to travel one day into the future. Instead of showing up in the test room a day later, the time machine materialized in the middle of some nebula a million light years away; exactly where the Earth had been one day ago. It was quite unfortunate, as the Iraq War could not be canceled out as the North Polar Conflict had been.

So I turned to the one man who could set everything right: Santa Claus, who still had the original time machine. I argued with him, saying that since time travel was the cause of the Iraq War, it should be used to prevent it. He argued that since neither Saddam nor the insurgents implemented temporal warfare, and since I lost the machine in the first place, he was not obligated to interfere in the affairs of the living. Bush waited patiently outside the factory complex in Air Force One for about three hours while we fought. When I walked out the front doors triumphantly, his heart skipped a beat. He looked me straight in the eyes and was all, "can we go back in time and cancel the war out? I've got a letter for my past self, if you need it." Then I told him the whole story, how Santa and I had reached an agreement. The Iraq War would not be altered through time travel, no.

But I wasn't wearing rubber pants anymore.

Historical Analysis

2006-12-12T23:51:00.000-05:00

Coffee! Coffee! Coffee! Boy, you know what I really love?! Tea. Ha. I bet you thought I was going to say "coffee," weren't you? Well, you're wrong. I've never touched the stuff. Makes you short. Minuscule. Not as minuscule as the Persian empire after the Byzantines got done with them. You know what I'm talking about. I've had a vendetta against the Persians ever since Thermopylae, when my beloved pet rock was trampled. I have not recovered from the shock of losing Rocky, but I suppose I can take solace in the fact that the Persians never got the majority of the Islamic world to accept their choice for Caliph following the death of Uthman. I mean, come on, Ali was totally not the right guy for the job. He was a lover, not a leader. I don't want to sound sacrilegious here, but I knew him personally. I was at his birthday party! Quite a guy. But I think (and the Catholic church will back me up here) Martin Luther was much better at partying.

That man could breakdance at the drop of a hat, and speaking of hats, he wore one constantly. I asked him about that once. I was all, "Hey Marty, why are you wearing that hat all the time? Is it part of your justification by faith alone?" And he looked me right in the eye and pulled it from his scalp. There was... nothing there. He was bald. Ever since Charles the Bald defeated my Viking brthers, I've had the unfortunate distinction of being a goði without an Althing. It was at that moment I knew Lutheranism had no chance outside Germany and parts of Scandinavia, so I bid him farewell and hobbled off to help my good friend Jon Stewart integrate himself into Daily Show culture.

Sheesh! I have never met anyone since then (with the exception of Cicero) who held a greater disdain of formal wear. "Wear a tie," I said. "You'll be more impressive," I said. But he stuck to his guns and that... that turtleneck of his. How I loathe turtlenecks... but that's not important right now. You don't have to understand the turtleneck-based sectarian divisions that tore my homeland apart. The point is, Jon Stewart ended up taking my advice and wearing a suit and tie; immediately after he did, the show was renamed to include his name. It was then that my cordial friendship with Jon took a nosedive. I told him flat out that if he didn't add an "H" to his first name the show would die within the year. He refused. We've never spoken since.

Thirsty

2006-11-29T22:15:00.000-05:00

Tarnation! I have never been so thirsty in my life. When I signed up for this "Genuine Desert Adventure" I assumed there would be amenities, man. Little umbrellas in my drinks, an ocean view, that kind of thing. Instead I find myself in the middle of the middle... east. I mean, who in their right mind goes on a vacation in the middle east?! It's a war zone! The travel agency said nothing about sectarian conflict. But then again, my travel agent is a convicted felon who introduced himself as "someone who has made, and will continue to make, consistently poor choices." Most people would hear that and a warning bell would go off in their uvulas. Not me. I'm more "evolved," you might say. When I was 17, a radioactive spider bit me. Also, I ate a meteor.

By my fortieth birthday my powers progressed to the point where I was able to not only fly, but sky-waddle! It's like walking, but you're levitating. The first time I tried that was 1912. On the Titanic. It didn't end well. After my fancy-pants lawyers managed to scapegoat a family of foreign-born icebergs for the tragedy, the League of Metamen paid me a visit. This was way before the age of comic book superheroes. The benevolent beings we know today as "superheroes" were then called Metamen, and were all from the same Iowa town. Ever wonder why superheroes fight for "truth, justice, and the American way?" It's because all modern superheroes are the spiritual descendants of the Metamen, who were basically goody-goody farmhands. Anyways, the Metamen broke my front door down (they paid for it, don't worry) and demanded--demanded!--that I, the great Taker of Gist, cease using my powers for evil purposes. Well let me tell you, I capitulated completely. I gave in to every single demand they had. It was as if some kind of ethereal force awakened inside my blistering gizzard, imbuing me with a momentary spark of divine knowledge.

Turns out, my appendix exploded. You don't need to be a baby Einstein to know that while the appendix is the most useless of organs, its value as a pain inducer is immeasurable. I spent over a third of my life recovering from the trauma of losing my appendix spontaneously, but you know, you've gotta get over these things. I only wish those "Make a Wish" people just couldn't wrap their brains around that. I mean, I tried to tell them I was fine, but those arrogant fools wouldn't leave my side during the whole ordeal. They insisted on reading to me, bathing me, feeding me through a tube... enough already! I get it! You're going to heaven! Stop rubbing it in my face, all right?

Giving Thanks

2006-11-24T13:40:00.000-05:00

The table was mighty cold this year; fuel (including glorious coal) has been going up in value ever since I was a toddler. It's getting to the point where not only am I not thankful for the high prices, but I'm actually starting to complain. Never before in the history of my life have I complained about anything, as my kindergarten teachers can attest. That's right, teachers. Plural. I had a real problem with my first kindergarten teacher (Miss Shelley), the way she would always make us recite the pledge of allegiance every morning to--not the American flag--but a bust of Ozymandias. Yes, that Ozymandias. When we asked--nay, begged--to pledge allegiance to the flag, she would cackle like some kind of storybook villain. Needless to say, her reign of obscure 19th century poetry love was brutally crushed by administrative dignitaries from the district office. And I... I was a mere child, caught in the crossfire of something I couldn't understand.

My second kindergarten teacher was a little nicer than that, but barely. Now, Ms. Washington-Lincoln-Jefferson-Roosevelt-Reagan never made us violate one of the ten commandments by praying to a graven image, but she did something far worse. She taught us to believe in ourselves. "What can be so bad about that?" you ask. Shut up. Maybe you can handle believing in yourself, but as someone with megalomania, I can tell you that it was a one-way ticket to juvenile hall. Telling psychiatrists about how you filled your uncles boots with fire ants is never a good idea, by the way. Just keep that one under your hat.

They say the third time's the charm, and as far as kindergarten teachers go, the saying rings... hollow. Yes, my third kindergarten teacher was by far the best, but he was comatose. At class parties we would dress him up in a little hat and piano tie and see if we could wake him up by shouting, but he never did. We never even found out his name, but he was good. I learned more in those last two months of kindergarten than I learned in the following thirty-four grades that followed. Remember, grades you repeat still count. So what I'm trying to say is, I'm thankful. I'm thankful that, despite the best efforts of the comatose, the poets, hippies, and "The Man," I managed to survive to reach the ripe old age of infinity. As Archduke Franz Ferdinand said at 10:00 a.m. on June 28, 1914, "I am invincible! No one can stop me now!"

The Non-Posters

2006-10-27T23:41:00.000-04:00

Now, I'm a patient man. When someone walks up behind me and slaps the back of my head, turns me around, and says "bark like a horse!" I'll be the first to oblige. There's a lot I'll put up with, being the last holdout of Byzantium and all. But then I find out the pioneer probes, the probes we sent out thirty years ago with information on our solar system, contained Pluto in our planetary layout. I find this so offensive that words cannot begin to describe the burning pain I feel right now in my left arm; we've all been betrayed by our forbearers and humiliated by circumstance.

Imagine: it's the year three million. Johnny Bug-Eyes from Nebulon 8 picks up one of the probes with his interstellar dump truck. His interest is piqued at the thought of a small, minuscule planet just beyond a series of gas giants. "Fire up the rockets, number two!" he calls down the jefferies tubes to his crack team of genetically enhanced navigators. At a moment's notice, the mighty warship (it's basically a warp-capable SUV) jumps to hyperspace. Five minutes later, the whole crew is laughing at what the "pitiful meat creatures" thought constituted a planet in 1977. Just for good measure, they blow up the sun. Hope you're happy, NASA.

You'd think nothing could possibly make me madder than the thought of alien forces blowing up the sun. If that's what you honestly thought, then you, sir, don't know me at all. See, I was frequenting a blog the other day, one that hadn't been updated in quite some time. A new bold post suddenly blared 'cross my monitor, all sparky and whatnot. And then... the nerve of this guy... he keeps talking like he never even stopped blogging. I mean, this guy let his blog go to seed for slightly over a month, and then with no explanation or warning, bang zoom, he's back. Makes me sick to my four stomachs. I have never witnessed such blind ostentatiousness and lived to tell the tale. Still, he made up for it by personally coming to my house and painting my mailbox a lovely shade of pistachio.

Presentational Speaking

2006-09-26T18:23:00.000-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a common enemy. And that enemy is ignorance. See, back during the Peloponnesian War, both Athens and Sparta vied for control of the Internet (at that time known only as "Asia") so as to absorb knowledge and become omniscient. But the Internet is not a dump truck that you just put stuff on, as the Athenians so painfully learned. It's a series of tubes. And by the end of this speech, you'll all be plumbers!

The first thing you need to know about the Interweb is that it's always a good idea to disseminate fallacious information about yourself. Put your house up for sale online, and write about how a Civil War buff once told you your house is built over a confederate graveyard. The best part is that it's impossible to fact check this kind of thing, and there are a bunch of really creepy rich people who would pay a king's ransom to live over a graveyard. Seriously, this one time, I was down at the nickelodeon (not the station, but an actual 19^th century nickelodeon) and this really old guy walked up to me and started asking about my precariously perched Gist Manor. Not wanting to offend the good sir, I told him the mansion was home to a host of calamities, ranging from attacks by a traveling cult of star worshipers to the origin of the stock market crash of 1929. Ha, I sold it to him on the spot for a whopping five bucks! And it wasn't even my property!

Like they say in France, no refunds. I never gave the fool his money back, and I used those five dollars to finance the first Trans-Neptunian Oktoberfest. Why would I do something like that? Imagine eating a delicious chunk of bratwurst. Now, imagine eating it on the icy slopes of Pluto! See the difference?! No? Well, you'd taste the difference, that's for sure. I'm positive that Oktoberfest will be made more festive by extraterrestrial flight; it's a gut feeling, you've gotta trust me. Trust me because deep, deep down in your gullet, you know what I'm saying is true. And that concludes this portion of the speech. I hope you learned a truckload about the Internet pipes; see you at the party!

Fingerpainting

2006-09-18T18:55:00.000-04:00

Ever since the Great Wall of China was put up, we've all had a certain morbid fascination with fingerpainting. I know that as a child, I was forced to paint picture after picture of birds and trestles, until I could stand it no longer. It made me the monster I am today. Y'all see, way back in the 70s, fingerpainting was the only fashionable way to make a quick buck. Down at the broadwalk, I would fingerpaint as Edmonde danced for Roosevelt dimes, playing his benchmark accordion. The people would stop and laugh, and I'd hand them poorly crafted works of postmodernist art; sometimes they'd let me take their boats for a spin.

But mostly, they'd just tip Edmonde while I sat in his shadow, peeling pecans. Once, and I remember this distinctly, a fat man in a red suit with a white beard came by. He saw how dehydrated I was and tried to give me a bowl of water, but Edmonde chased him off, yelling "Thief! Thief!" I never saw that man again, but I've always hoped he'd return to finish the job. I even built a little shrine out of an old barrel, so that I could practice various forms of primeval meditation. You know that I'm a spiritual guru, don't you? I mean, I've said it plenty of times that I am. Four years ago I won an award for being so spiritual, from the polytheists of Connecticut themselves.

Connecticut has always been a place of perpetual renewal. Though their polytheism is looked down on by the New Hampshirites and Vermontiers, by the light of the harvest moon, they're exquisite fingerpainters. The state seal of Connecticut itself is a patchwork of handprints from over 50 generations of corn-shucking pilgrims, starting with the colony's founder, Colonel Chickenpox the First. The Colonel Chickenpox I work with (or as he's more commonly known, "Bohemius B. Barnstrom") is the last descendant of Connecticut's royal scion (excluding his children and grandchildren). Blue blood flows though the colonel's veins, chocking him full o' fingerpaintin' ancestral power. Even now, the urge to fingerpaint... overwhelms his military sensibilities. It's not like he hasn't been overwhelmed like this before... back in the Crimea, his fingerpainting gave away his position and led his entire cavalry unit to be captured by wild turkeys. Not Turks, but actual turkeys. They've got quite the revolutionary movement going on, in the hidden barnyard underworld.

Groundbreaking Ceremony

2006-09-06T15:45:00.000-04:00

Today marks the beginning of a new era. For over twenty years, our little community has been bound by the iron will of Mayor Edmonde. I can see now that dissolving the town council and appointing him "Mayor for Life" may have been a bad idea, but I stand by my 20-year-old decision to do so. He may have turned out to be evil incarnate. He may have turned out to be a fiscally irresponsible fool who fakes magic tricks to get out of traffic jams. He may have even been one of the pod people; we can never know now.

One thing is certain in this time of great upheaval: we will prevail. I ask all of you to join hands... do it! I command you to join hands and be happy! Do it! Do it now! Okay. There you go. Now, where was I... yes, the ceremony. Edmonde has been a thorn in all our sides, what with the spending of our tax dollars on his forty foot catapult. I think we can all agree that when we elected Edmonde, we only wanted a twenty foot catapult. He thinks more is less, but I say that more is simply more. You can't sugar coat that.

Believe me, I've sugar coated many things. But I prefer deep frying them instead. I mean, when you coat things with sugar, you've got to use some kind of wax anyway. If you don't, the sugar just falls off. With deep frying, I can turn almost any substance into delicious sugary treats. See that pile of rocks way over yonder? No, you don't! That's a sample of Sugar Pebbles, next year's most popular breakfast cereal. At least, it could be if my deal with Kellogg's go through okay. And it's no surefire thing; many an entrepreneur went into the deep-fried cereal business only to be burned in the end.

Lumberjacks

2006-08-28T21:18:00.000-04:00

The lumberyard was nearly empty; it was, after all, the end of the fiscal quarter. Why would anyone hang out there? Besides myself, I mean. The office folk designated me to personally make the long and perilous trek to the lumberyard in search of coal to burn during the harsh autumn. We're very environmentally conscious, so the lumberyard we use has to have a reputation for being humane with the trees. If word got out that we were dealing with lumberjacks that took joy in the destruction of the great sequoia, it would easily become the worst public relations fiasco of the haydecade. And by worst, I mean best.

I can picture it now: me, standing at a podium in the Ronald Reagan Memorial Environmental Center, getting ready to accept the Humane Society's award for proper hygiene. But hark- off in the distance, a lumberjack chuckles mercilessly as an endangered square-rooted sabre-oak falls to the forest floor. Stripped of my honor, I'm forced to resign in disgrace, shunned by my family and/or coworkers. Fruitless, it seems, would be my pitiful explanation that I had nothing to do with the unemotional logger. "If only I'd known my company had hired an unauthorized person to log endangered trees with glee!" I'd cry. Then the bouncer would tell me to get lost, or he'd put a fist in my knee. The fool- I have no knees.

My entire body is the product of pure thought. You can't dilute that, despite what some keynote government motivational speakers would like you to believe. In the spirit of friendship and father-son bonding, I extended an olive branch to them all back in the 80s. The 1780s, right before the constitution was written. But they all spat on me- even Thomas Jefferson. And I carried him, man. Without me to supply a sleepy young Jefferson with coffee from the future, he never would have written the Declaration of Independence, the United States would never have purchased Louisiana from France, and Darth Vader would've been real. And did they even ask me if I might've wanted my face carved into Mt. Rushmore?! Bah! I don't need their pity. I'm immortal.

The Lady What Loved Jesus

2006-08-14T19:31:00.000-04:00

The hallway is empty, the lights are off. Why would the lights need to be on, anyway? It's the middle of the day. Waste of electricity, those lightbulbs would be.

I'm just sitting there- actually, I'm standing, minding my own business. Ah, how nice... how peaceful... how serene. Then, from the opposing end of the hall comes a voice:

"I love you Jesus! I worship you, Jesus! Oh, merciful..."

I turned my head up to see a middle aged woman walking by, declaring her undying love of the Christian messiah. She seemed to be heading toward the soft drink machine, so I just assumed she'd spent the day outside and was incredibly thirsty.

But she didn't buy a soda. Instead, she walked a little way down the hall, and back again. The whole time, she continued to profess her spiritual inclinations, apparently unaware of anyone else in the building. Three minutes later, she walked away, still praising the 2000 year old keystone of western civilization. I didn't say anything the whole time, since it was so unexpected I was caught off guard, and it's not my job to interfere with the lives of others. That's the prime directive, and I follow it to the letter. If I don't, Starfleet Command could give me a court martial. It happened to Kirk, you know. One day he's an admiral... then, bang! Captain again. Prime Directive, man.

Anyway, it wouldn't have seemed so strange if she hadn't kept using the word "Jesus" over and over again, in her unexpected run-on prayer. I mean, the variations were astounding.

It was sort of like going to a fancy restaurant, and the guy at the table next to you pulls out a set of bronze-plated utensils he brought from home. Completely unexpected, but not really a problem. And hey, the experience allowed me to combine Christianity and Star Trek in an exciting new way that's sure to become a literary genre decades from now.

Firefox

2006-08-04T17:51:00.000-04:00

Internet Explorer is too old, they said. Security holes, and whatnot. A complete lack of tabbed browsing betrays a sadness in the behemoth's rendering engine, one that a mere facelift can't cure. Opera's a nice browser. Reminds me of swiss cheese, the way is tears apart my carefully constructed web pages with a flick of the wrist. "Switch to Firefox," Edmonde says. "Firefox is the future!" I scoff at him. "Opera," I tell him, "is a million times better than your precious Firefox. When our brave laser battalions were Taking Gist in the War of Roses, where was your Firefox then?!" He goes silent.

It's not that I have a grudge against Firefox... I just... the logo. Think about it, people! Firefox's main icon (indeed, its only icon) is a fox racing 'round the world. What does that say about anything?! Look at Opera: A big red letter "O," shimmering at the edges. And Internet Explorer, a fancy "E" with a ring in an elliptical orbit. Notice anything? Anyone? I'll tell you, since you obviously don't have the willpower to accept the inevitable. Letters. They're both linked by letters. Vowels, to be precise. It has been standard convention, since the founding of the Internet in 1993, to represent the venerable medium with vowels. Firefox breaks this convention, throwing civilized society into chaos, disrupting valuable company time and resources.

Until such time as Firefox, as well as the other "leech browsers" (I include Safari in this bunch) clean up their act and make it incumbent upon themselves to join the vowel-based community, I shun them. I shun them all! I absolutely refuse to change the way I do business to "make room" for their irresponsibilities. Now, I've worked for Mozilla for over 20 years, back when they were still a garage band. I'm sad to say, the name "Firefox" might have been my own doing. You see, the band was falling apart. Microsoft tore us up at the "Battle of the Bands" the previous week, and we were looking to go in a new direction. I said, "why not change that big, unwieldy lizard to something smaller?" They ate it up; two days later, they left a forty-foot fox on my front lawn. I was outraged, and ordered the police to burn it. Once the Mozilla roadies saw what I was doing, it hit them: Firefox. And for that, I truly apologize to Letter-Theory web enthusiasts. I don't expect to be forgiven, just forgotten.

Global Warming

2006-07-26T12:19:00.000-04:00

They say the Earth is heating up. But, unlike some people, I'm not responsible. That's right, I'm looking at you. You thought all those years you thoughtlessly tossed apple cores into recycling bins, you were saving the world? Bah! You, the consumer, are directly responsible for turning our once-proud homeworld into the cosmic glue factory it's become. You say you still don't understand? Let me break it down for you.

A thousand years ago, the Earth was covered in ocean. No land at all. Then, one day, a rocky island sprang up out of the sea. And on it was a single turtle, her back covered with mushrooms and garden gnomes. Remember now, this was back before anything, so when that turtle wagged its little turtle tail, it caused a butterfly effect. Actually, back then it was known as the "Turtle Effect," as butterflies didn't yet exist. But anyway, the turtle's callous tail wagging sent the waves smashing, the baby seals thrashing, and the Windows 95 crashing. So I guess it isn't really the same thing as the butterfly effect... except for the waves. That remains true.

See, the turtle is a metaphor. Each mushroom on its mighty back represents a model of the many industries which sprang up around the time of the first world war. Why just the first world war, and not the other three? Well, it has to do with logistics. You really can't sustain an army with a bottle of barbeque sauce; believe me, I've tried. If I never see another fork... but that's not important right now. What is important is that you heed my warning and stop recycling. Recycling has been known to both reduce and reuse, to the detriment of humankind. Our precious industries cannot continue recycling indefinitely, and if something isn't done, the Earth will continue to heat. So for the good of the people, discard your plastic! Packing peanuts be free!

K-Mart

2006-07-18T11:05:00.000-04:00

Not many people would invest in K-Mart after it declared bankruptcy, but I did. Yes, I invested all my money into what I called "Big K." In fact, I went right up to the CEO of K-Mart, and was all, "Hey dude, change the name of the chain to 'Big K' as soon as you can! People will love it!" And he was all, "No. We've done enough damage to our poor shareholders. How can we justify changing the name?" That makes me mad, when industrialists try to philosophize. That's my job! It vexed me to the brink of madness, but instead of committing myself, I decided to run for CEO of K-Mart.

Promised more than I could deliver, some say. But I maintain to this day that had I been elected CEO of K-Mart, we'd be on the moon and speaking in emoticons by now. My lunar-based branding initiative could've been a cash cow of biblical proportion. Instead, it was relegated to the dustbin of history. How could such a bold, forward-thinking plan fail?! I calculated all the variables... except love.

And I tried to factor love into the plan! Really, I did. Seriously, dude. I went from house to house, knocking on doors and asking the occupants to marry me. All of them said no, leading me to refine my calculations to the point where I thought I could measure love. I petitioned Congress to fund my love-based mathematical boot camp. Two months and $46 billion later, my crack team of loyal arthropods discovered a formula to accurately measure love. And that equation is: Love = (Mass of kidneys / (average income * number of bathrooms in house)) / 0.

Technical Support

2006-07-03T10:02:00.000-04:00

Hello! How may I help you? Okay, please hold one second... okay, I'm opening a new case file... so, how's the family? Really? Really? I'm sorry to hear that. No... sir, I'm going to have to ask you to stop crying. Sir? Sir, a new case file has been created. Can I have the model number, please? Yes, it's on the back of the casing... no... yes. Yes. No, I don't think I've ever been to Berlin. Is that where it happened?

Look, buddy, don't get snippy with me! I've worked this desk for over a hundred thousand years, supplying quality service to people a hundred thousand times better than you'll ever be. What?! No you... my boss? Fool! I have no boss! My only enemy is time. Now, if you're not willing to tell me the service tag on the fridge, I'm going to transfer you back to sales. Yeah, I will. I'll transfer you so fast it'll make your head spin. I have the power of transfer!

Don't believe me? Neither did Colonel Chickenpox. And look at him now, the big lout. Mopping up the walls over at the blood bank every Saturday... yeah, I know! The walls! Sometimes, when they hit an artery, it just... sprays all over the place. So they bring the old colonel in to clean up. Just like he cleaned up in the Great War. Yes... okay, I'm writing the service number down. Okay, have you performed the necessary hat dance? No? Look, I can't ship a replacement part until you do the hat dance. Okay, but after this I refuse to make another exception. You'll just have to take it up with management. The hat dance is a time-honored tradition! Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, I'm going to have to put you on hold. Buh-bye.

Star Trek

2006-06-20T23:27:00.000-04:00

Why does everyone think I'm a Star Trek character?! Seriously, it's starting to get old. I walked into the doctor's office the other day, to have him take a look at my mullet. Those things burrow into your brain sometimes, causing mulletitis. I have, like, three friends who were hospitalized for mulletitis last year. It's a vicious disease, ravaging your soul and all that. But before I could see the doctor, I had to put up with this idiotic receptionist. I was all, "I need to see the doctor. I don't want to hear another lame story about your kids." I normally wouldn't make such egregious demands, but the last time I was in that office the receptionist tried to sell me a timeshare by talking nonstop about her kids. I'm not sure of the stratagem applied there, but it must have been powerful.

That's when the doctor came out of his office. "Edmonde!" I yelled, for Edmonde is the only doctor my insurance will cover. Never mind that the two of us had a falling out after he wrapped me in toilet paper and mailed me to Saipan. I'm a big fan of practical jokes, but on my birthday? Even I never sank so low, and I've had both the opportunity and motive. What kind of life involves Saipan?! I mean, the people of Saipan are all right, don't get me wrong. But it's just not Guam. There's no utilities, no atmosphere, no meat in that burger. I'm not a scholar, but even I wouldn't put an extinct volcano next to an aquifer. Still, they're a whale of a tale better than Jon Stewart.

Yeah, I was listening to that little dog and pony show he calls a "fake newscast," and I heard what he said to that "guest" of his. Yeah, the crazy guy is always the one getting up on soap boxes and blaming Roosevelt for stealing his couch. Sure. Let me tell you, I knew that man. And Jon Stewart is totally lying- Roosevelt did steal that poor soul's couch, and he enjoyed stealing it. I remember it clearly... the year was 1933. That poor, poor couchless man. It brings a tear to my eye that Jon Stewart, a man whose name is clearly missing a consonant, would have the audacity to malign the reputation of Crazy Joe Mama.

Open Letter

2006-06-03T20:15:00.000-04:00

Dearest Colleague,

Your intentions have been intuited, and I will under no circumstances refer to you as "Provost of Pork." Not only do you lack the required degrees to become the provost of any university, but the Department of Orwellian Agriculture has a court order preventing you from mentioning pork in any of your printed documents. I think we all know why, and the fact that you think you can subvert the will of the people pains me to no end. Have you no shame?

Furthermore, I humbly decline the stock options you offered me under duress. My sense of moral outrage forbids me from buying stock in companies that discriminate based on browser use. I mean, sure I have a huge problem with anyone who uses Internet Explorer. But I never actively screened them, put up some kind of script that would give them the eye wrinkles. Why do you have such a zealous hatred of non-Opera browsers? Firefox never choked a chicken, I can tell you that. But to imply that Internet Explorer is so inferior that its users will be cast into the fiery pits of Northern Kentucky is simply offensive. Sir, I admire your aspirations, but must decline your influence.

You have won many converts over the years on your message of Opera superiority, but the times are changing, my friend. Like sand through the fingers of a polar bear, so too are the new browser wars. You tried to rule by fear; history have proven this approach flawed at best. At worst, frosted. In the interest of international cooperation, I must insist that you cede control of the Ottawa Vice. May your shoes always be polished.

Punctually Incognizant,
The Taker of Gist, Third Class

I'm Going Camping

2006-05-16T11:20:00.000-04:00

I saw Edmonde at the mall yesterday. He was buying a tent and a box of beef jerky. I was all, "Edmonde, you aren't legally allowed to buy all that beef jerky. Remember the restraining order." But he promptly ignored me, causing me to spill my soda all over myself. I mean, who does Edmonde think he is? I practically raised him, ever since his parents abandoned him in the Pennsylvanian woods. They thought to themselves one day, "Hey! You know how we can save a whole bunch of money? We can abandon our kids out in the woods behind our house!" The next day about fifty kids wandered onto my ranch near Philly. This big fat one walked right up to me and tried to poke my eye. I totally put the smack down on him; perhaps next time he'll think before he accosts a stranger in a parking lot.

But getting back to the other kids, I've never seen such a ragged group of non-union laborers. They were uncivilized, and reeked of pine-sol. The next day I taught them to stomp grapes and plant apple trees. By the end of the week, almost all of them had earned the required number of merit badges and were quickly being adopted by parents who wouldn't abandon them out in the woods again. All except for Edmonde. He was still on his first merit badge, and I was getting sick of him. So by the end of the second week, I had him shipped off to boarding school. That's where he met Colonel Chickenpox and the two of them began plotting against me.

It's not like I'm a static character. I'm not flat; I've got a lot more than two arch-enemies. I mean, there's Edmonde and the Colonel, but there's got to be a million others. Just look at Jimmy Dean. Not the famous one, but my neighbor, Jimmy Dean. He keeps getting my mail, because apparently, "Taker of Gist" and "Jimmy Dean" are spelled so similarly that the mail carriers have a hard time differentiating. But does Jimmy tell me he got my mail? Not at all. I have to drag myself over to his house in the middle of the night, wake his whole family up, and scream, "Did you get my mail?! Don't lie to me, President Dean!" But as it turns out, he (or at least his lawyer) believes that he never got any of my mail by mistake. Suddenly the world feels a lot smaller.

Art School

2006-05-09T08:51:00.000-04:00

Art schools aren't something I'd look into most of the time. I mean, I'm a good artist. Good? I'm fantastico, as the King of Spain told me at my last birthday party. His exact words were, "¡Tomador del Quid, lavamos las manos antes comemos! ¡Ahora!" Then he took me out on the town, and we went down to the art district where I got him a dozen Picassos because he looked so depressed, being a mere prince. Yes, this was before he became the full-fledged King of Spain. And what does a mere prince know of diplomacy, or chocolate chip cookies, or dog training?

Turns out, he knew a lot. We were in roommate back in college, the King and I. Both of us were art majors, but he wasn't into it, really. He more or less went with the flow, unable to sit still for five minutes and plan out a roadmap to his future along the highway of scheduling. I should know, I was the school's registrar, and I couldn't talk to the man for five minutes about the difference between a mouse and a squirrel, let alone the number of classes and credits he needed to graduate within his lifetime. Every time I approached him and his friends, they threw soda and potatoes at me. Don't ask me where they got potatoes. I'm not from Idaho, I have no idea how potatoes grow. Why don't you ask Colonel Chickenpox?

Colonel Chickenpox is one of my oldest friends. The two of us really showed the government a thing or two when we refused to pay those lumber tariffs before importing lumber from Canada. Softwood, or so they say. But we really did need that lumber. The Colonel is an American hero, so why should he be forced to pay unreasonable tariffs like the average Joe Thousandaire? I mean, just look at Chickenpox's record. He's been melted on five separate occasions, and each time he comes back angrier and more patriotic than ever. Why, the last time he unmelted, he returned to life with not one, but two dollars. That's why he needs lumber, I think. It keeps him from remelting. The man is like Chuck Norris.

Walking The Dog

2006-05-03T08:43:00.000-04:00

I love walking dogs. I've told you this before, haven't I? Every day of my life involves walking dogs from Slyvester Avenue to Voldemort Boulevard. They called me "Mr. Scooper" because I was always cleaning up after those two mongrels. It never would have occured to any of those fools that I was walking those dogs involuntarily. But sadly I never had the option of not being a dog walker. Back when I was a mere lad of seven, my father looked me straight in the eyes and told me, "Son, I know that I'm a corporate tycoon and we've got millions for your education, but I want you to grow up and be a professional dog walker."

And ever since that day I've thought of nothing but walking dogs. Oh, how I love dogs! Terriers, spaniels, beagals. Bagels! Hot bagels with cream cheese on them! Sure they're not dogs, but they taste delicious. I should know; back in high school, I was captain of the Taste Testing Team. The TTT as it was known was founded back in the days before formal atire became the norm in acedemia. I distinctly remember receiving an inquiry into my taste testing abilities before they would let me anywhere near their reactor. Never before have I felt so insulted.

The captain of the TTT was none other than Edmonde (of course), and it was all his fault that I was rejected as an applicant. How I loathe you, Edmonde! Even back in high school, the fool was thwarting my plans. Just look at your own record, Edmonde. Back in 9^th grade, Edmonde poured a bowl of shaving cream onto our teacher's desk and blamed me. Then he ran over the principal's dog and also blamed me; dispair. I was forced to walk the flattened dog for many a year, which is where I got my acquired taste for walking dogs. And I distinctly remember velvet.

Censorship Rules

2006-04-25T13:03:00.000-04:00

I enjoy censoring things. The first time I censored anything I was in kindergarden. I remember it like it was yesterday, because it was. I was sitting next to my best friend Edmonde, and the teacher was all, "Can anyone tell me what four plus seven is?" I couldn't take it. "You can't use words like that in an educational facility," I screamed. The other five year olds joined in. By the end of the day a television crew recorded our teacher being taken away in chains to a federal detention center under the cover of darkness. It was that day that I began to realize that censorship was more than just a good idea; it's a way of life.

I set out at age eighteen with nothing but hopes, dreams, and red tape. I went from city to city, invading the libraries and crossing out parts of books that I didn't like. A few years later I progressed to movies. Remember in Bambi, how his mother died? No she didn't. At least, not in any of the version that I released to the public. The industry tried to stop me on numerous occasions, but failed every time because I have a constitutional right to censor. The children also backed me on this, adding to my credibility as a character witness. That would come in very handy during the intervening trial, in which I was forced to testify against myself. "But your honor," I cried to the judge. "I don't even know who I am! So how could a persona non grata knowingly break the law?" This threw him for a loop. "You don't know who or what you are, you unfortunate creature."

That was when I became a carnie. The jails were all full, so they sent me to carnie camp, where I began my lifelong association with clowns. I love clowns. Not in the classical way, where you'd just sit and laugh at the misfortune of a pathetic fool as he scrambled around in an ice hockey rink looking for his glass eye. No, this was something much more insidious. Something that Abe Lincoln would look down on. I began my descent into the bowels of carnie society with nothing but the highest expectations. But by the time carnie camp had ended, I had no idea what color was up. So then I logged into an instant messenger under someone else's name and messed up their reputation. The fool. I think it was someone named Kevin or Rob or maybe Lumley. Is Lumley even a real name? I have no idea. I'm just the Taker. The Taker of Gist.

Checkmated

2006-04-19T20:06:00.000-04:00

The bus stop ground to a halt. This big hulking figure squeezed out from behind the signpost. Despair. He walked right up to me and looked me right in the eyes. I knew that look. "Colonel Chickenpox," I beamed, "do you have any news from the front?" He looked down with a sullen scowl. "No sir!" he barked. "No news is good news!" This wasn't the first time he reported back to me with nothing of strategic import. I've had it up to your face in false status reports. I'm trying to wage effective war here, and Colonel Chickenpox is still operating on a pre-Gist mindset. He doesn't understand that in the game of Chess, you can never let the enemy capture your pawns. Even the lowliest of pawns can one day grow up to be a rook. The rooks are the ones who really hold the power. The queens think they're great, because they can move in any direction, but at the end of the day, who can castle?! Bah! You might as well En Passant a bishop in the study with the candlestick. King me.

But I really have great respect for the Colonel. Back during the sixties, he was the one who flew gold in from the moon. Why do you think no nation has ever gone to the moon since the early seventies? The Colonel did such a good job covering his tracks, no one ever found out about the hidden gold deposits buried just beneath the moon's surface. Oh, over the years there's been speculation, but idle speculation that didn't amount to anything substantial. If it did, you think the Colonel would've let it go at that? Chickenpox is a man not to be messed with, not in the classical sense at least. You can't just look at him sideways and expect to not get a shot in the jaw with his hefty left hook. That was the first mistake I made when I met him. Thought was all razzle, no dazzle. I've never been so happy to be proven wrong.

His grandkids don't like it, though. They know all about his lunar exploits, and how he accrued tons of gold for the government. But are they going to go to the press, to tell the people that they've been lied to for decades? No. They're just in it for the gold, the little grubbers. They even put the Colonel in one of those homes that you see on the news, where the elderly are forced to fend for themselves against bands of rabid dogs and squirrels. That's why I hired him as a security consultant. I didn't really need another strongman, but I couldn't bear to see my old friend rotting away over at Mouldy Acres Retirement Home. Now he's on my payroll, and I let him chase off all the teenage delinquints that he can find. He does enjoy the wheezing sound they make as they run, as most teenagers are now obese. A prince of a man.

I Care Too Much

2006-04-17T11:40:00.000-04:00

Take that out of your mouth! You think I go around all day, telling people how to live, because it makes me feel powerful? You bet I do! I care so much about controlling other peoples' lives that I regularly go to the state legislatures with radical proposals to eliminate taxes and rapidly increase spending on social programs. Why would I advocate so strongly for an economic plan that makes no sense? Because I can. Because it's the right thing to do. People don't like giving money away, but they want their government to provide for them. So why not just get the government to hand out free ice cream every week while simultaneously eliminating the taxes required to pay for the ice cream? I broached Congress with this plan last week, and I think they'll pass it. Of course, they won't credit me. I'm not a member of their exclusive Congressional Caucus. Haven't been since the fire.

They still talk about that crazy night. How was I supposed to know that the word "inflammable" meant "flammable"? I don't even speak English! And now I'm just supposed to lie down and accept the fact that my radical tax plan is being sent to the state legislatures? I didn't ask for this kind of responsibility, but now that I have it I must learn to use it wisely. Not to do so would fly in the face of everything I've ever believed in, like the tooth fairy. I just know the tooth fairy is real. All science that disputes this simple fact has already been excised from government records. I can't have that little nugget of information leak, now can I? The people must never learn that magic isn't real, lest they rebel.

Because magic is at the crux of my groundbreaking financial policy. And as president, I promise to uphold those views to within a tolerance of one light-year. Maintaining one's views is a delicate procedure in today's high-powered world of sonic vibrations and skyscrapers and orbital lasers. I have seen many good-minded people rendered inert by the sheer volume of technology. It's not good for morale, and someone like me needs to take care of it. I might as well do it, as I am the Taker of Gist, and my powers are near absolute. No one can doubt my ability to tear apart a bag of chips. You've all seen my do it. I grabbed both ends and ripped it to shreds. Then I ate all the chips without offering any to you. And why should I? You don't need more calories. You all make me want to learn to play the tuba, just so I can make a more accurate elephant noise as you waddle away, back to your domiciles.