A Few Motivational Posters To Get You Through The Day

Zombies Vs. Ninjas - The List

So I've been pondering the Pirates Vs. Ninjas debate and I think one important aspect of this discussion has been overlooked....Zombies! That's right the walking dead...It's a well known fact that Ninjas and Zombies have had a poor relationship ever since that one office party at Hooters...So to help out with your score cards we've compiled a handy reference list of which group has the upper hand in everyday situations....

Aspect of Lifestyle:
Clothing

Zombies: Whatever they were wearing when they were infected…generally tattered and worn…Kinda like your face(oh Snap…totally got you with that "your face" dig…what are you crying?...I didn’t mean it…Damn your sensitive.)

Ninjas:All black... Period. So black that if you added pearls you could enjoy a nice evening at the opera and not feel out of place.

Winner:Black is the universal "goes with anything" color and Zombies aren't renowned for their fashion sense. However Black gets boring over time and Zombies have that blood and pus stain thing going on that's so bohemian right now. Winner: Zombies

Aspect of Lifestyle:
Fighting Style

Zombies:Mass amounts of undead swarm the farmhouse/mall/man-made cities in the wastelands where you are hiding…You can shoot them …they keep coming, you can blow parts off of them …they keep coming, you can force them to listen to Mariah Carey…they keep coming…THEY ARE INHUMAN!

Ninjas:You may be dead already. You just don’t know it.

Winner:Although the prospect of waiting out your days for the inevitable breach in your security system only to be overrun by rotting corpses while you look into the "glitch" is not that appealing, Ninjas on the other hand have crept through your entire estate leaving no one alive except you... just so you know that you are not safe ... anywhere... That's hardcore.
Winner: Ninjas

Aspect of Lifestyle:
Possibility of Encountering Them in Real Life

Zombies:Have you seen the people at the mall?...The Zombie Apocalypse is upon us and it's sponsored by the Macy One Day Sale!

Ninjas:Ninjas can be anyone. Your mailroom clerk, the bike courier you almost ran over this morning, your mom…that's right all those bridge club gatherings …covers for assassinations with massive geopolitical implications.

Winner: Ninjas win...hands down …You can totally take out the soccer mom aimlessly shuffling from one aisle to the next but to anticipate the strike from the shadows continuously will drive anyone to drink.
Winner: Ninjas

Aspect of Lifestyle:
Chance that you will have to wrestle one of them to assert your Alpha position in the pack

Zombies:If you get close enough to a Zombie to want to assert your Alpha position ...you, my friend, are an idiot.

Ninjas:If a Ninja wants your position in life they will stealthily deal with you and wear your skin like a Halloween costume until your life bores them in which case they will discard you for another. Kinda like that one person you dated.

Winner:Because the Ninja's way of backstabbery doesn't really constitute "wrestling" per se and Zombies could care less who's getting some on the side from that one girl who always sleeps with the last guy alive only to be dragged to her doom through a tiny hole in the wall/floor, this category's a draw.
Winner: Draw

Aspect of Lifestyle:
Ability to overcome obstacles to make your day just that much crappier

Zombies:Zombies are the masters of ignoring all surroundings on a single minded purpose of getting into your head... literally…put a wall in front of them, they will pile bodies up until they can cross it…cross a river, they don’t breath…manage to separate a body part from their torso, they won't miss it...Zombies are the perfect stalking machines...which is why they are turning to paparazzi work so much these days.

Ninjas:Ninjas show no fear, can leap staggering heights, blend with the shadows, are masters of disguise, and have that oh so perfect sense of what household decoration goes perfectly with your windpipe…However they won't even stoop to being paparazzi

Winner:Ninjas lose out on this category all because they have some sense of dignity …wimps…kidding
Winner: Zombies

So as you can tell neither the Zombie or Ninjas outdoes another ....however both of them will remove parts of your body that you will miss (with one of them eating said parts...probably while you're still conscious)....so if you are headed down a dark alley and Zombies fill the end you're heading towards and upon turning around you find a pack of Ninjas at the other end ...do yourself a favor and attempt to remove your heart with your keys...It'll put you at an advantage

A Holiday Blurb or Twas Another Damn Christmas Story

Twas a bit before Christmas

And Santa was perplexed

First, the elves got into the eggnog

And now the sleigh’s a literal wreck

And the reindeer are striking

Wanting a boost in their hay

Oh poor Santa was having

One heck of a day

Mrs. Claus spilled Merlot

Down the seat of his pants

And there was a pretty good possibility

That his bathroom had ants

The North Pole sign

Had been stolen by bears

And his hat no longer fit

But do you think anyone cares?

The elves were trying their best

To make things right

But his heck of a day

Was turning into one hell of a night

A call just came through

That Rudolph’s been found

Unfortunately for Santa

He was froze to the ground

And the Stocking Department said,

“We’re coming up short,

On the little chocolate things

It’s all in the report”

Santa went inside

To take a small break

For a very brief moment

He wished he WERE fake.

But his Holiday cheer

Broke through his blues

All he needed was a bite to eat

And a quick little snooze

When he awoke

A simple thought took hold

“This year I’ll make it easy

And everyone gets coal!”

So remember this story

With it’s lesson to learn

But as a small condolence

At least your present burns

Costumes are passe`...it's takes dedication to LIVE the part!!!!

These days it’s harder and harder to come up with a unique Halloween Costume so we here at Real Monkeys Play With Knives (Yes I know …it’s a schizophrenic thing) want to do our utmost to enable you to stand out at the party of your choice…AND you’ll look totally awesome in your mugshot! So here it goes…10 Halloween costume ideas to make your pagan holiday that much more special…..

1. Gather 200-300 of your closest friends and cover yourselves with white PVC piping and aluminum sheeting. Whenever anyone asks what the hell you’re supposed to be, tell them you are a Particle Accelerator. Demonstrate your costume by having two randomly selected people charge and smash into each other until one of them breaks into two or more smaller versions of them selves, each with similar but opposite personalities…Or until one of them is dead….either way good times will be had.

2. Get dressed in some of your most comfortable jeans and t-shirt then proceed to beat yourself about the head with a ball-peen hammer until you believe that the cast of the Real World have it hard. Congratulations, you now have the perfect Reality Show Fan costume … and quite possibly minor brain damage!

3. Find the top half of a 1940’s sailor outfit, put it on. Now drink shots of tequila until you’re belligerent, unintelligible and willing to allow someone to glue feathers over your exposed lower half. There, now you have the ideal Donald Duck costume.

4. Acquire a hand tailored suit and head to the Halloween party at the bar. When you arrive, start ordering the most expensive drinks you can while tipping you server as little as possible, saying”it’s just not feasible at this time.” After three drinks call the bar two streets over to order your drinks claiming they’re cheaper, stronger and the tipping is less there. You’ve got yourself one fine dandy CEO costume there….now drink up!

5. Obtain several dozen assorted tin cans and various scrap metal pieces and, using a pilfered welding torch, stick together a rudimentary metal suit. After cutting mouth and eye holes in the final coffee can you have created a suit of armor fit for the most valiant of Knights…(However, the entire time you’re in costume, you will be answering question about where Dorothy is while the only people who recognize you as a knight will be Monty Python fans who scream NEE!! at you for the entire evening…..it just goes with the territory)

6. If you’re under 40 find the tightest jeans you can squeeze into and a wife beater t-shirt or a nice new track suit. Now slick your hair back, find a nice gold cross on a necklace and grow and/or adhere some chest hair. If you’re over 40 trade the jeans and wife beater for a tailored suit…the track suits still o.k. … Mama Mia! You now have one hell of an Italian Stereotype costume….and you look fantastico ya goomba you.

7. Go wash your hands…Good, feel clean? … now go wash them a little more vigorously…They’re starting to get a little pink aren’t they?... now think about the millions of germs in the air, on your skin…you know the ones, like Staphylococcus or Naegleria fowleri…Just one microbial amoeba later and you’re a vegetable drooling on your collar…with that in mind go scrub your hands to get off all the unclean you picked up god knows where… there you go ...you hands are all chapped and chaffed…possibly a bit raw…now throw on some surgical gloves and a HEPA mask, lest you pick up more germs out and about…. Now you have the perfect OCD costume…and the best part is you get to be in costume for the rest of your life!! Yay!

8. Do not wash from now until Halloween… The morning before your costume party, slaughter several yaks and create a loose fitting jacket out of their freshly skinned hide…Form a jaunty hat from the leftover skull fur…during the party attempt to force yourself into situations where you’re not wanted and drink obnoxious cocktails such as horse blood and milk or redbull and vodka…That’s right!...you’re wearing a dead ringer of a Barbarian Horde or Celebrity Clubkid costume…now watch out for those paparazzi and/or archers…

9. Go to the store and select an off the rack costume…it doesn’t matter which…after putting it on and half-assed applying you makeup, head over to the party…while there repeatedly pound cheap beers from a keg while engaging in passing conversations with people you hardly know…towards the end of the night vaguely recall a nasty beer scented heavy petting session with someone you can barely recall and possibly wake up at said hook-ups place…. You’ve now dressed as 90% of Halloween Party Goers….it’s too bad you wore this costume for the last few years…

10. Throw on your regular clothes. To hell with everyone, you never win the costume contests anyway, no matter how hard you try…you’re just going to sit and pound shots until your visions blurry and you can’t tell if you have to go pee or not. You now have the perfect Angry Drunk costume…or you’re being yourself….but, only you know for sure!

And there you go….I know some are slightly harder than others to pull off but if you’re dedicated you’ll find a way….and remember ….. If there are no Treats there must be tricks….and the best Tricks involve fire …..

Why Gotham?

As a pre-warning this next post is a geek-fueled collision of the comic book world and realistic common sense…Mainly because I would totally dig superheroes cruising around the city but then reality steps in the way…

Why do people still live in Gotham? Seriously, this is a city that, not only is ripe with your everyday petty crime but, crazed individuals steal entire buildings here! This goes for Metropolis too! These things don’t happen in the country! (Although…Where do Super Villains go to unwind? Are there a series of resort destinations geared to their “special” needs? Or perhaps a cruise line with a “don’t ask” policy?) I mean, yeah you have some “special” people running around in spandex suits trying to stop the madness but to be honest they’re more than capable of claiming you as a “necessary” casualty. These are cities where you could be out, on your way to the corner market and suddenly you’re abducted from the sidewalk, taken to an abandoned amusement park, injected with some sort of poison and released back into society a gibbering, giggling meltdown of your former self with the hopes that someone will concoct an anti-venom in time to stop your brain from spraying out your ears.

And that’s something else….If these cities are the sparkling mega-destinations you’d think they would be, why is there so much available real estate? Every major city I’ve been to has had a complete lack of available warehouse space let alone acres and acres of abandoned amusement parks, carnival staging areas, discarded greenhouses, forgotten bioengineering labs, castles just on the edge of town and, well , empty apartment units. Have you noticed that every time Batman smashes through a window he lands in a run-down apartment complete with some sort of crates or other discarded packing material to land on and/or smash people into? Where did the apartment’s occupants go? And why didn’t they take their wooden packing crates with them? Were they too heavy?

What kind of recourse do you have IF a costumed avenger comes smashing through your living room while in the grasps of a shape shifting being from the farthest reaches of space? Can you bill them? Do they have a P.O. Box you can send your contractors estimates to? I know people have insurance but I’m not sure that the majority of policies cover acts of super-heroness….perhaps they do in these cities. That’d be a hell of a selling point if I lived there (…so you’re covered against fire, flood and homicidal rampages by super villains…now let’s talk life insurance…)

Perhaps the citizens of these cities have just become numb to these events… As they go about their day they casually avoid the aftermath of The Riddler’s latest spectacle or cross their fingers that Lex Luthor hasn’t shrunk the neighbor hood down again. (How odd must it be to leave work only to find yourself encased in a glass bottle on someone’s mantle? Come to think of it, how do the little delis keep producing little sandwiches?)

All I can say is that these metropolitan areas must have one hell of a welcoming committee….

Little Magic Glowing Boxes or How video games ruined my perceptions of the real world

If you are a child of the eighties you can remember, to the day, where you were when you first saw a Nintendo in action. If you were lucky you may have caught a glimpse of an Atari 2600 or an Intelevision, however the amazing graphics of the NES destroyed all perceptions of “gaming” as you knew it. That 8-bit succubus knew how to pull you in and keep you there until you were ready to accept its gleaming digital reality. The slick graphics and quick game play of Super Mario were enough to sway my easily gullible , and let’s face it, hopelessly optimistic mind with images of fantastic rescues in the nick of time and good always conquers evil….oh silly, foolish, gullible youth. Now in my thirties I know better than to believe the high paced, gorgeously rendered worlds that the new gaming consoles whore at me but sit and wonder sometimes what life would be like if video game features popped out into real life like I had imagined in those first few moments of Nintendo discovery so long ago.

Imagine this:

You pop out of bed realizing you're late for work. You hurry through your kitchen without time to make breakfast, so you tap the floating question mark box above your head with your fingers crossed that a “magic” mushroom will pop out providing sustenance as opposed to a glowing flower that only ends up giving you heartburn. After devouring your fungal breakfast you hurry to the bus stop just as you remember you left your pass at home. You hurry off around the corner to the floating brick and repeatedly slam your head into them, not in frustration, but in the hopes that golden coins will tumble out of them providing you a way to get to work. After you gather enough brick money you catch a bus and arrive at work, albeit a few moments late. As you walk into the office your boss comes storming toward you with the look of imminent doom on his face. You deftly reach into your desk and pull out the mystical star you have stashed in there, allowing you to ignore his repeated attempt to berate you in front of your peers. After several moments of fury he lets you go (not in a “get back to work” way but in a “if you’re here at lunch I may vivisect you on your own desk kind of way). Now that you have spare time on your hands you decide to see if you can slide down that flagpole on the building next to yours, you know the one that’s always playing music.

Now that I think about it, this is the average day of a casual drug user… That’s why the war on drugs didn’t, and doesn’t, work… it’s not the drugs, prostitution, theft and random killings that drive people to drugs …its’ the slim chance that, just for a moment, they may find the power sword, save the princess and totally change square pyramids from one color to another by jumping on them ( it’s Q-bert people, if you’ve never heard of it go look it up…one of the best mindless, no point to them video games ever) …

Damn you Mario, damn you and the little pixilated, green sewer pipe you showed up in!!!

Pick-up Lines: A How-to For The Have-Nots

Dating can be a strenuous environment for the unaware, unwary and the just plain unlucky, so we here at Real Monkeys Play With Knives (by which I mean me…yes, yes I know the ramifications of referring to myself in a plural context, but the other voices need recognition too!) want to help the lonely, desperate, frightened singles out there, mainly because they are the only ones that will probably take any of this advice seriously.

The ice breaker or “pick-up line” is the classic opening salvo in a chess-like banter of: will you (not likely) or won’t you (pretty much bet on it). In using this classic form of flattery/humor/desperation most people tend to stick to the tried and true one liners that everyone’s heard and a friend of a friend of a friend swears works for them every time. These phrases may have worked great in the seventies but they have gone the way of displaying medallions on hairy chests and “The Hustle” (it’s a dance, look it up… if I have to explain the references I make, this may take some time to read) People are very literal these days and may take your clumsy attempt at seduction the wrong way.

For Example: You’re at the bar and you see a fine specimen of (insert derogatory descriptive here). You manage to get close enough to the object of your momentary lust to talk over the jukebox and you blurt out: “Is it hot in here or is it just you?” Now, your intentions were that they would see a small amount of flattery in your bumbling efforts, think it was cute and continue the conversation with a possibility of this round of flirting culminating in the securing of “digits”. However, in this literal world of ours, he/she/it/they (I don’t know your particular attractions, I’m just trying to help here) may take it as the bar is particularly crowded tonight and you would like some breathing room as you may faint from lack of proper ventilation. Not exactly what you were intending.

Let’s look at another of the classics, shall we:

Perhaps you are at the club and you spot Mr. or Mrs. Right-Now across the floor. You shake your groove thing until you are near them and shout out “What’s a nice boy/girl/cephalopod (you’d be surprised at how often cephalopods get hit on at the bar) doing in a place like this?” Once again the hope is that the object of your desire finds this adorable in some way and continues the conversation. This particular pick-up line is faulty in so many ways. For instance, they may know the owner or be the owner of the club and take it as a personal insult, shiv you on the dance floor and leave you to bleed to death to the beats of Top 40 hits….no one deserves to die like that…or they may roll their eyes and walk away (possibly while squirting ink to disguise their escape route in the case of the cephalopods and some more experienced club goers) … but the most damaging result is the perception they get when they question why you fit in so well in “a place like this” when “nice” people obviously don’t

I guess the lesson here is to be yourself, (unless you’re a disgusting, foul-mouthed, slime ball, then perhaps be someone else for a change) relax, have fun and remember although the object of your attention is not as nearly as scared as you are, it helps to think that they are

A Simple Test For Serial Killers

These days it’s hard to know everyone that exists in your sphere of influence. Doris, the 50 year old friendly cashier at the gas station- On-Call mistress specializing in genital electro-stimulation….Joe, the guy who helps you out at the bank – secretly plotting a massive international internet crash in his spare time… Frank, the guy who helps you out with your groceries – Former gunrunner for the Giovanni family (now in hiding)…Seth, the lovable scamp who creates your morning coffee at the café down the road – loves the Republican Party … All of them have secret lives…Twisted secret lives….(especially Seth…that’s just wrong)

But the person you have to worry about the most may be the one you least suspect….the one who hides in plain sight, his secret life never far from his mind….we’re talking serial killers here people…Now I know you’re saying “I’d see them coming from a mile away” or “I’ve seen the movies and none of my acquaintances have ever returned from the dead or were raised by dead mothers in out of the way hotels”…to which I’d have to say “Really?...That kind of sucks , because think of the stories you could tell.” But anyway….Serial killers are not always so obvious which is why I’ve come up with a handy test you can use to identify the stalkers around you….

1. When receiving gifts from the person, are a good portion of them handmade out of self cured leather?
2. If you help them change a flat, is there an unnatural amount of hooks, knives or chainsaws on top of the jack? (We’re talking a lot here …I mean everyone has a machete or two in the trunk …don’t they?)
3. When you complain about the cost of groceries, do they offer you some odd tasting cuts of meat….Possibly with tattoos?
4. Do they have the odd habit of sniffing your hair in the elevator while commenting that they would love to “be able to wear hair like that someday”?
5. After you notice some blood on their shirt, they attribute it to a paper cut even though it’s about six square inches large… and on their shoulder?
6. Often offers to let you stay at their “vacation home” on the lake, but insists they drive you there…alone?

If your acquaintances fit into any of these questions, well you know some bizarre characters….who may be serial killers.

Now you can’t rely on this test alone to identify the crazed psychopaths around you …No, you must look into your hunches on your own….so go and sneak into their apartment while they’re at the corner store…or head to the basement storage area and pry open their storage unit…or get out of the city and break into the root cellar at the lake cabin….Follow them down dark alleys to get to the truth if you have to….because the only way you’ll know if they’re truly a serial killer is if you catch them in the act, stop their heinous acts and scold them loudly in the leaky factory where you’ve found them while telling them you will be contacting the authorities just as soon as you can get cellular coverage…Good Luck

Superhero Or Fetishist: You Decide

Have you ever considered that superheroes may just be kinky people with incredible powers? No seriously… let’s consider some things…

Superheroes like to tie up criminals in what ever lasso, web or ultra-polymer steel nylon rope they have lying about and leave them suspended in the air for the authorities to find…that’s all well and good but in the real world that’s just having a suspension bondage fetish… with possibly a little role-playing thrown in.

Superheroes also have a thing for flashy skin tight costumes with their emblems emblazoned across the chest, arm, waist or leg areas…. Don’t get me wrong, they look great in them and this may notify people who the good guys are, but it does have a striking similarity to Lycra fetishism…

Let’s look at the super villain for a moment, shall we? … they have the same basic situation as the Superhero but are much more likely to flaunt their fetishy side (Coulrophilia or the sexual attraction to, and from, clowns is apparent in everything the Joker is, does, or has around him….And he’s quite happy with that) but it’s the dichotomous relationships that they have with superheroes that leads me to believe that their entire attitudes that they retain with each other is just a way to express the Sadomasochist Agoraphilic (or enjoying beating the hell out of each other in public) relationship they have with each other…which anyone will tell you is pretty cool to see…until they drop a building on your car….then you get pretty pissed… as well you should…

Even the sidekicks, both Hero and Villain, have some fetish issues they’re working out …Villain sidekicks are going through a Hybristophilia, or arousal by people who have committed crimes; in particular cruel or outrageous crimes, phase … but they are generally very much open about it, much like their leaders…no, it’s the Hero sidekicks that have it the hardest…think about it…. they may have several fetishes all at once to deal with, while at the same time avoid having their little fingers removed by trained jackals or untying themselves from a thermonuclear device while desperately trying to remember how to disarm it… whether it’s Schediaphilia (being sexually attracted to cartoon and anime characters) or simply voyeurism these sidekicks have some serious mental hashing out to do everyday and still hold up their side of being captured and beaten/tortured by the villain while the Hero desperately looks for them and then finding and saving them at the last moment… now that I think about it, they may only be Masochists…

All together, this group of Lycra wearing, city destroying, world dominating super beings have enough fetishes and unreleased tension to destroy a small planet (which I know they’ve done…I was working on dramatic representation here…) ….Perhaps if we gave them some therapy sessions for Christmas … hmmmm… do you think they make those psychiatrist chairs in extra large?

Mad Scientists Need Love Too

Why do mad scientists have such a bad rap? These are people that are highly intelligent and well educated, although you would be hard pressed to find their Alma mater …anymore. (Perhaps there is a university somewhere that has a Major/Minor of doomsday devices/reanimating human remains… I would rather enjoy attending, just to see the midterm projects and Thesis papers …not to mention the wicked football team they must have with the genetic engineering and all…)

And yes, they prefer to work alone, but they aren’t above creating some random servants and companions out of spare body parts they have laying around. (Which is not only clever and resourceful, but, considering the recycling and reusing, is also very eco-friendly, ...When was the last time you saw government agencies be that considerate?...)

Speaking of being eco-friendly….Mad Scientists require incredible amounts of energy but do they go to big energy companies….NO…they turn to nature itself and harness it’s power directly…need a massive generator for your thermal laser powered up?...Lightning …Need to reanimate a hodgepodge of cadaver parts for a weekend party? ....Lightning…Having trouble locating your favorite desk lighter for your evening cigar? ...Lighting…See...These people are innovative and geniuses! ...

Now I can hear the naysayers in the group….”What about the Doomsday Devices?” … (Why don’t you cry a little more…Baby!) O.K. so they may have a thing about creating doomsday devices, but they very rarely set them off and when they do it’s actually beneficial for the economy…For example... say Professor Insanity has detonated his plasma vortex above …oh I don’t know….Ruby’s Diner just outside of Cleveland, OH (not that I have anything against Cleveland….But Ruby knows what she did) After the rubble is cleared…and the massive crater is filled in…think of all the jobs that are created to rebuild and/or pave over the now radioactive site….Ahhh, Progress ….

Look….All I’m saying is, if that creepy house at the top of the hill is purchased by a quiet, slightly off person of the scientific persuasion…Let them be …nothing hurts more than the disapproval of neighbors carrying torches and pitchforks....Heck…Consider yourself lucky….it’s very unlikely that they’ll destroy they’re own neighborhood….especially if they’re invited to the block party