Ant War Part 1: Battlelines

It started off as any other move-in. I was re-arranging all of my possessions in my new place and thought “Hm, there are quite a few ants around here.” I lay a few traps and figured the people that used to live in my rental unit were lazy when it came to destroying intruders. “They won’t last the winter.” I foolishly thought. This was in 2009. Lo and behold, the spring of 2010 dawns and I start to notice the odd ant in my place. Then I found what I thought was a lone outpost outside my front door. No biggie, obviously, I can just run down to the old Home Depot, get some ant traps, and problem solved! Right? Wrong. The insidious ant knows no decency and the ant hill thrived in the face of my $3.99 poison delivery system. This meant war. And killin’ ants is nothing new to me. But let’s start at the beginning.

The first line of defence was probably my greatest mistake, since the senior BFGonia advisers didn't take the risk of ants seriously and bought these crappy things.

August 2009 – Operation Homefront

Upon moving in and discovering that the ant had decided to try and call BFGonia its home, I undertook a basic “homeland security” approach. Token defences included stomping the odd ant to make an example of it for the sake of the others or putting down traps. Needless to say, it didn’t matter, since the Calgary winter kicked in and negotiated an uneasy peace between the Ant Kingdom and BFGonia.

Aoril 2010 - Operation Surgical Strike

After a quick trip outside I noticed some ant colonies. No bigz, I thought, let's use that liquid ant killer stuff and just ice these mothafuckaz like it ain't no thang. The poison was applied, and nothing happened. I threw it all over their hill. The one hill I DOUSED was abandoned, probably because I made the soil basically poison as opposed to actually killing ants, but the remainder were treated too, and they grew more powerful.

Exhibit A - An enemy soldier.

May 2010 – Operation Toxic Embrace

A history lesson is necessary at this point. BFGonia is split into two allied nations: Main Level is the major economic and democratic engine of BFGonia, a region that is ruled by a wise king whose name is leant to the great BFGonia nation due to his benevolence and appeal to the ladies. Back Apartment is the seedy underbelly of BFGonia, where lawlessness and poor hygiene are the rules of the day. The identity of the slumlord that rules Back Apartment is forgotten by the wise BFG, for he has more pressing matters to remember. Anyway, the previous slumlord, while slumly, had an active interest in gardening. The trade agreement between Main Level and Back Apartment was that lawn maintenance would be exchanged for snow maintenance, and there was prosperity for the two regions. Upon the usurping of power by the new slumlord lawn maintenance had fallen by the wayside. Despite the negotiation of an identical treaty to that established before, Back Apartment labourers did not fulfill their part of the deal. This is why one day, no longer able to stand it, the king of Main Level took it upon himself to cut the grass.

What the good king discovered that day has since been immortalized by legend and song. Ant hills, many of them, at least 6, as far as the eye could see up until the fence. When they were run over by the cheap lawnmower supplied by Sze Corp., hardware supplier to BFGonia, the grass seemed alive in a writhing black mass. The king was overwhelmed by ants at times, but muscled through their tiny assault and continued the economic progress until the lawn was shortened. Initially, the front lawn outposts were thought to be the only stations that the ants used to assault the house. Upon inspection, it was clear that a large colony had been set up in the back and drastic action was needed to fight off the scourge of the Ant Kingdom.

King BFG is a peaceful man deep down, thus when he needs to murder mass quantities of living creatures he goes to the hellish wastes of the internet for the good of his people. His first general, General Murder, decided that the plan of mixing borax and sugar would deliver a dose of slow working poison that the ants would take home with them, which they would eat, AND THEN DIIIIIE!!! Unfortunately, after full application to the hills, the damage was zero. In fact, BFGonia scientists believe that the added dose of sugar lead to expansion of the Ant Kingdom.

BFGonian propaganda poster urging citizens to stomp them before they can stomp you!

To be continued.

Housesitting

I hope my boss wasn't too attached to his ice cream sandwiches or his ice cream in general. His washing machines are AWESOME! They clean my clothes so well it's like having new clothes. These machines could launch rockets, they're sooooo cool.

In other news, he owns a Wii. On one hand, I really appreciate what the Wii has done for making girls less likely to diss video games because they remember that time they had fun playing Wii Bowling or whatever. On the other hand, a lot of Wii games are total shit. To link a few. And the controls are kinda lame for most games. For some games they work, but I chalk my hatin' on the controls up to me only wanting to move my thumbs to attain maximum sedentary action!

Holy shit we beat Super C

This happened last week but I only got a chance to inform the greater planet at large now.

All must bow before our greatness. We don't even use our real names anymore, we refer to each other by our Contra names Corrigan and Ramierez. I'm Ramierez. Goddamnit me and Corrigan been through more shit than you'll ever see in your lifetime.

We also deliver wicked one liners like "See you at the party, Richter" and "It's a bomb!" and "Cohm wis me if you want to live" and "GOOOO! GEHT TO DA CHAAAAPAAAA!"

In looking for these quotes I found out that Arnold also gives out serious economic analysis to those who would question the American free market.

Hypothetically Speaking

Let's say you were getting married and you invited your friend who lived two time zones away. Your friend, at great personal expense, decides that they will fly back to their home town, bring their wedding-clothes, get you a gift, and blow off time at work because goddamnit you are friends and this is what friends do for each other when major life events occur. So, your friend RSVPs instantly for 1 guest, then a few weeks later asks if they can bring someone because they became involved with someone in the meantime. Your wedding isn't for 4 fucking months, so you should, presumably, be able to find an extra chair by then.

IN THEORY this shouldn't be a big deal. IN THEORY you should probably acknowledge that (a) your friend is coming back home FOR YOUR WEDDING, (b) your friend is spending a lot of money on that flight (P.S. you are a cheap motherfucker, that's why you would notice this) and your friend doesn't have a real job so they don't make real job money, and (c) it's early enough notice that you can help out your friend who was being pretty cool by letting you know so early.

Would you, after considering all this, opt to say something like "I hate to say this but we're pretty tight for space."? Would you really say that? YOU FUCKER! I BET YOU FUCKING WOULD!! Even after your friend had be all awkward and invite the person before contacting you after dating them for only like 3 weeks, since the person they invited has a batshit-crazy schedule and needs to plan shit months in advance and had to know today if your friend had any plans for the summer. SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!

Insane Clown Posse

Ok, so, ICP has been around for years. Decades maybe. I think in 2 years they will be 20 years old. For 18 years they have been getting fans from the Grade 9 to Grade 11 cohorts of disaffected high school students. After Grade 11, the cohort moves on but there is a new crew of 14 year olds to hear ICP "tell it like it is." These guys used to be kind of badass, I used to like it when they came on Loud because they had novelty value, like GWAR, except not infallible. Even when they were being dumb (this can't be serious, the beat sounds like it took all of 30 seconds to think up) it was kind of funny in a "it's 1997, I don't know no better" kind of way.

Now they came out with this Miracles song... What the hell? They went soft and just kinda let everyone know how stupid they are years ago, but what is this shit? This is why bands that suck should NOT be allowed to stick around, their dumb true colours come through. I was never a big fan, but this is just kind of sad to see. No matter how much novelty value they have, they should have quit and taken their legacy of being mildly interesting with them instead of just giving it all up and running out of ideas.

Deep-Frizzlin'

I deep fried a turkey last weekend, it was pretty awesome. We were at a party and thought shooting a .22 rifle and deep-frying a turkey would be a good idea. Turns out we know a good idea when we hear one.

Academics need to stop trying to have their cake and eat it too. When doing some sort of statistical analysis people are quick to point out "Oh, my estimates aren't causal" or "This is just an association, not causation." The rhyming is intended to scare away white people (90% of academics) so it normally lets them get away with it. Fine. But then they make a conclusion like "Since X and Y have this relationship, let's give people more X to make them have a more desirable level of Y." This implicitly means that they are treating X as causing, in some manner, Y. After saying "This is not causal" they go ahead and make causal recommendations on policy, etc. The irony would be delicious if it weren't something I am served up daily.

Causation, nooooo!

Cool Place to Park

Ok, ok, so what? I didn't post for a couple months, cut a brotha some slack. I've been busy with... stuff... Like, you know, all that stuff I've been doing.

What have I been doing? Oh, I dunno, maybe listening to wicked new music:

Austrian Death Machine. Hilarious metal band, based entirely on Ahhh-nuld movie quotes. Check out their newest hit single "I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle."

The Ravonettes. I had not heard of them before, but they aren't new. Good driving at night in the city music. Check the song that got my attention in my buddy's car. The video kinda sucks, but the music is all you need, so put it on and open a new tab.

Ya, that's pretty sweet, but what else? I've not been playing new video games.
"What's that?" I hear you asking in your mildly bemused yet superior tone, "BFG gave up on playing video games? Maybe he is finally growing up." Think again mothefucka. I'm playing OLD video games. If anything, I've regressed back to a point in my childhood so long gone that I am going to be the first person in history making negative maturity progress. How? The FC Twin, that's how. This borderline legal piece of equipment plays all the old hits for NES and SNES. Let's just say I'm bringin' back Contra. My boy comes over once a week and we take a go at Super C. They just don't make punishing games like they used to and we can get to Area 7, a feat I never accomplished in my childhood.




I dare you to play Super C. I fucking dare you. It will humble you.