How To Execute Gingerbread Men

So, your gingerbread men have come to life. Congratulations, you are now supreme overlord to a population of tiny edible people. However, being an overlord can be stressful – it’s not all about being worshipped and having your bidding done. Overlords must also crush rebellions and keep fear alive in the hearts of their underlings. To that end, hear is every overlord’s helpful guide to executing gingerbread minions!

Method One: Death By Sogginess
Gingerbread men are made from gingerbread, and although there are no known viruses or bacteria that attack gingerbread (making your minions impervious to sickness), gingerbread still has a fatal defensive weakness: it becomes soggy when wet. Sogginess is the ultimate cruelty to gingerbread men. Soggy gingerbread men will break very easily, and are susceptible to fungi. In order to make a great example of a gingerbread man, dip him into a vat of hot tea, and then sting him up at the public square. Allow a fungus slowly to spread over his body, forcing him to become hideous, making him a constant reminder to his people. I recommend keeping one such example publicly dying at all times.

Method Two: The Consumption
Also known as the TB (Tea Biscuit) method. You see, gingerbread men are made from gingerbread. And whilst gingerbread is not part of a healthy diet, meaning gingerbread men have no natural predators, gingerbread still has a fatal defensive weakness: it is edible. Being eaten is the most delicious form of cruelty you can mete out against the gingerbread rebellion. Consuming another creature is the most effective gesture of superiority. It says, “Your puny lives are a testing snack to me”. Not only does it effectively demonstrate power, it is delicious. I recommend eating gingerbread men regularly, to keep them paralyzed with fear.

Method Three: Crush into Dust
Sometimes, when crushing a rebellion, it might be effective to literally crush some offenders into dust. Unlike most living creatures, gingerbread men have no circulatory systems. While this prevents gingerbread men from bleeding out, it means that gingerbread men have a non-fatal defensive flaw: their limbs can be methodically smote, one by one, forcing them to observe their own destruction, until their is nothing left of then but dust. This is the most dramatic form of cruelty you can send down upon the gingerbread masses. But why go dramatic? Well, one should never underestimate the power of theatrics over the gingerbread psychology. In order to truly crush their spirit, you must allow them to see how easily their bodies can be crushed. I recommend using this method only in cases of open rebellion.

For now, you should have more than enough methods of executing gingerbread underlings. Peace and love, dear readers, and remember to rule with an iron fist.

5 Great Housekeeping tips

Living in a house is very important for your health. Society is always telling us about the importance of not being homeless, but it rarely ever mentions the upkeep of a house. Homes, you see, are pernicious and malevolent creatures, hellbent on draining your resources and time, effectively ruining your life. That’s why, in every family, their tends to be someone who stays at home: to take on the suffering of the house, so that the rest of the family won’t have to.
What follows is some helpful tips for combating the evil that is the homestead.

1) Have a small house

The larger a house is, the more powerful it becomes, thus making it more able to ruin your life. Your first step in combating this dark treachery must be to keep your house as small as possible. Small houses have diminished life-ruining capacity. Ideally, your house will be even smaller than you are, so that you may intimidate it with your size, but this is usually impractical as a living arrangement.
I happen to have a friend who is also a giant, so although my house is much larger than me, my giant friend can sometimes walk by, and give the house mean looks, just to keep the house in line. If you must have a large house, try to befriend a giant.

2) Bake Gingerbread Men

Gingerbread men are a beloved tea time snack, made in the image of man. The great thing about Gingerbread men is that they may come to life, and can be used as slave labour for the upkeep of your house. However, this is not a simple matter. Once Gingerbread men become animated, they tend to be free-spirited and lively, and one must first subjugate them before they are useful.
To begin subjugating Gingerbread men, first find the most charismatic ones, and publicly execute them*. This should serve to teach them fear. Once they fear you, must begin to pacify them.
Try establishing a drug trade in the Gingerbread community. If at all possible, try to create two different drug traders, as this will cause gingerbread infighting. Should one drug trader seem to be gaining the upper hand, provide weapons to the other trader.
Also, if you have baked any gingerbread women, this is a most opportune for creating a gingerbread sex trade. If this is done properly, this will distract the gingerbread men, and they will begin to oppress the gingerbread women. Use in conjunction with gingerbread drug trade for best results.
Of course, there will always be gingerbread people who abstain from worldly pleasures. For them, we have something special planned. Gingerbread religion. When the plight of the gingerbread people becomes dire, choose a gingerbread prophet. Give the prophet scripture, and spread a doctrine of abstinence and hard work, for the sake of their creator (you).
Once you have pacified the gingerbread masses, you can use their hard work to suit your divine command, and wage holy war upon your house.

3) Threaten violence

Sometimes, when your house is acting up (roof leaking, wiring faulty, etc.), it is useful to shout vague threats of destruction. Try to shout loudly enough for the other houses to hear, so that your house knows you mean business.

4) Threaten to leave

Houses love nothing more than to keep you trapped in damaging relationship. If you want to modify your house’s behaviour, threaten to leave it for a small apartment. Maybe sometimes, just pack your bags, as if you’re really about to go. Try to make your house as insecure as possible, as this will get it to try harder. Confident houses should always be sold, as they have great self-worth.

5) Keep little pieces of frozen water

Just in case.

*Remember that there are many methods for executing a Gingerbread man, but the most delicious of those involves dipping them in a hot beverage, and eating them alive

The Public Diary

Last night, after a comedy gig, I had a chat with one of my wise friends, DrunkSage. He’s a real person, but that’s not his real name. DrunkSage is brilliant. He is intelligent, he’s empathic, educated, and jovial. He has two bachelor degrees, but in the fine arts, so he works in a book-store while trying to find success as an artist. DrunkSage also has an alcohol abuse problem, but it doesn’t matter, because he is an artist, you see.

Fine art, for the uninitiated, is the most arty of all art forms. It doesn’t get any artier than fine art. Nothing that Performance Art or Music can do will ever be good enough for the Artfather, but Fine Art can do no wrong. Fine Art, as DrunkSage informs me, is also the subject of a great deal more “intellectual pomposity” than comedy. As much as DrunkSage loves art, he disdains the art world and the people that inhabit it.

DrunkSage and I are talking about social media. I have a problem where I don’t filter my thoughts thoroughly (or at all), and it has caused me some problems (which I will write about another time). I’ve never had a blog until last week, so I’ve been using my Facebook profile as a sort of public diary instead. DrunkSage congratulates me on starting a blog, he believes this is an excellent move for me. He criticizes me for using social media to track my thinking, and tells me that there is no such thing as a public diary. The phase ‘public diary’ is an oxymoron, according to him. I disagree, so we’re talking about it.

I enjoy the idea of a public diary, and I believe that I (and anyone else who tries) can tailor existing social media constructs to suit my personal psychological needs. I see that there are social norms and conventions for using Facebook and Twitter, but I don’t see that I need to use it in the same way. I can use it in whichever way suits me. As with most products, the number of possibilities for use are greater than the number of intended uses*. However, using social media in my own way is not a clean hack, due to the social interference that social media encourages. Who would have thought? DrunkSage says I cannot change the social aspects of social media. He says that one cannot post in public without seeking public opinion. To reiterate, DrunkSage says that there is no such thing as a public diary. Anything anyone says in public is open to public scrutiny. I disagree.

My philosophy on thought and speech is fairly simple. I believe that people have the right to speak about whatever it is we’re thinking, and that we’re allowed to explore all mental concepts. For example, I have every right to explore the ideas of racism, from the perspective of a racist. As long as this doesn’t influence me to take racist action, it doesn’t matter what thoughts and perspectives I employ. To that end, I believe that I ought to be able to say whatever I like. It doesn’t matter whether the things I say are true or false. Most importantly, however, is that we ought not to be ashamed of our thoughts, and that, unless we seek to govern or represent our fellow man, we are not accountable to our fellow man. What this means is, because I’m a nobody without any social or political or economic power, I cannot be held to a high standard of thought. I cannot be held hostage to explain myself, and that I am not deserving of having my opinion come under attack. I believe that, as a nobody, I should be able to write my thoughts out into the world, where anyone can choose to read them or not read them (not reading is very easy), and that I can explicitly reject comment from others. I cannot be forced to hear others opinions, because it’s not like those others are my constituents.

This is why I believe in the public diary. It’s putting your opinion into a public space, and expecting nobody to interfere with your thought. This is not unreasonable, because these thoughts are written out, and anyone can choose not to read.

I should explain why anyone would want to post their opinions in public, if not for the public to read those opinions. I, myself, have one reason. Posting my thoughts in public affirms that my thoughts are nothing to be ashamed of. I believe that am free to think whatever I like. I put my thoughts in public, as if to tell myself that it doesn’t matter if anyone reads my thoughts, I have nothing to be ashamed of.

DrunkSage, like many other people who have peeked at my Facebook exploits, maintains that Facebook is not the correct place to exercise this philosophy, as Facebook has a comments section. A blog, one without a comment box, is the correct place. In additions, Facebook is in people’s face, whereas a blog is not, making Facebook less suitable to the task. And on this point, I continue to disagree.

The fact that people are able to comment, but know not to do so (except to affirm my thought) is the ultimate affirmation of my freedom of thought. Facebook having a comment box better suits it to serve my needs as a public diary. The fact that my thought is under the nose of other (procrastinating) people, where they can still easily refuse to read it, is the cherry on top. Facebook is ideally suited to be a public diary, if such a thing is possible (and I believe that it is).

However, the principle problem remains, using Facebook as a public diary is not a clean hack. There is social interference. As my social circle grows, this problem becomes more and more apparent. The heart of the problem here, is that the people on my Facebook age are part of my social life. Sometimes, my thoughts involve them, and even when my thoughts don’t involve them, they seem to think my thoughts do. I have not yet overcome this problem. I’ve considered just filling my Facebook up with people I don’t know, but I don’t want to do that. What I really need, is to convince all my Facebook friends not to treat my Facebook proclamations as their concern (because it isn’t their concern in any case). DrunkSage says that, in addition to how this can’t be done, to do this is to ignore the reality of social media. By expecting people not to comment in the little box that says ‘Write a comment…’, I’m ignoring reality. My rebuttal is that this reality is a social reality. It is only made so by the fact that public opinion makes it so. If public opinion changes, the reality changes. I will it to be different, and if enough other people buy into my will, it becomes truth.

DrunkSage was still in the process of counter-rebuttal, but we then needed to call it a night, as the venue was closing. So we agreed to disagree. And that’s all I have to say about that.

*See Life Hacks

How to speak and write postmodern

I have never reblogged a post before. As I write, I have no idea what is going to happen.

On Passwords

It’s not as if passwords are never useful. Passwords are plenty useful.  My pin code is important, it prevents people from accessing my bank money. If I’d led a military, I’m sure I could find a good few uses for a password here and there. And God knows, passwords have kept many a young lass out of boy’s only tree-houses. But nation, this password fever has gone too far.

Just now, in order to create this blog, I was prompted, nay, hostaged, to create a password of more than six letters. This password could not contain only lower case, oh no! It required a mix of some sort. And here I must take issue. Folks, my banking details are significantly more important than my social media accounts, and all my bank requires is four random numbers, each number ranging from zero to nine. There are only six and a half thousand combinations of such numbers, and millions of people use the bank every day. There are twenty-six letters in the alphabet, lowercase, and if I must use six, that’s three-hundred-and-nine million combinations. This standard of security is not sufficient, according to WordPress. Going by raw password protection standards, WordPress seems to believe that the security of my blogger account is six times more valuable than the bank thinks my money is*. I’m not sure I need password protection at all.

Sure, a password is all that prevents some asshole from logging onto my Facebook and playing on my Scrabble account, but I’m going to be honest here: I don’t really care about Scrabble. And I’m not afraid that someone is going to log onto my blog and write new posts.

You see, people of Earth, I’m just not important enough to be screwed with like that. What narcissism is this, that compels the common man to protect his social media with passwords? I happen to know for a fact that most people who have Facebook accounts are not important. Nothing about their lives really matters to or appeals to the interest of humanity at large. We’re not royalty, or governors, or spies. Our opinions are self-regarding, and anyone who pays attention to them does so from their own accord. We don’t need to protect the means of sharing our opinion. We don’t matter

And then, I’m willing to bet that most passwords cracked are cracked for the novelty of it. Nobody wants to mess with me particularly; take away my password, and you take away most of the fun of messing with my account. If you mess with an unsecured account, you’re not being a clever mad HaXXor. You’re just being a dickhead, and nobody appreciates dickheads when they’re not clever (except other dickheads, but they can quickly be compelled or violenced into a different paradigm of thinking). And yet, I couldn’t choose not to have a password. I can’t even freely choose to have a shit password. Internet culture has invented this game of creating security, and then having those security measures overcome. It’s a game of cat and mouse, and everyone is forced to play. Passwords are important, we seem to tell ourselves. I’m pretty sure we’re wrong.

*These calculations are all inexact, and I’m not sure that they’re right at alll. Besides which, this is a poor measure of importance, I’m just saying it for novelty.