(SCENE: a nondescript hotel room, covered with paper, the television tuned to CNN. JOSH, TOBY, SAM, DONNA, and CJ are sitting around the room in various states of concentration.)

SAM: (reading aloud) “This election is important, not because it is about change but because it is about choice. As a politician, I choose to present you with facts. My opponent chooses to lie to you. Your job is to choose as well - but the other guy doesn’t want your job to be easy.”
TOBY: Shift from formal speech to informal conversation. Wait, did I say informal? I meant “folksy.”
SAM: Folksy?
TOBY: From my lips to L’il Abner’s ears, yes.
SAM: What’s wrong with folksy? People like folksy.
TOBY: How about he’s not folksy? How about it comes across as inauthentic? Like he’s trying to get people to like him?
CJ: But we are trying to get people to like him.
TOBY: There’s a fine line between charismatic and pathetic. You are jumping, you are vaulting over that line.
SAM: I’ll rewrite it.

Silence. Then:

JOSH: When did people stop doing math?
DONNA: For me, that would be grade eleven.
JOSH: I don’t mean - look. He’s promising to increase military spending and cut taxes, and his entire plan for not making the country go broke is cutting earmarks. That’s like you trying to pay off your credit card by saving your change when you buy gum.
DONNA: I don’t have that much on my credit card.
JOSH: Yes you do.
(Pause.)
DONNA: There was a sale on widescreen televisions.
JOSH: You watch the news and “Grey’s Anatomy.”
DONNA: And I can see every last one of their pores in glorious high definition.
JOSH: But you watch the news. Donna, how is the fiscal outlook of the United States right now?
DONNA: Are you asking me or are you asking the campaign’s press secretary?
JOSH: I’m asking you.
DONNA: Then it’s pretty bad.
JOSH: Then why does he think he can just yell out “tax cuts” and everything will work?
CJ: Because both parties spent years convincing the American electorate that we were on the wrong side of the Laffer curve and we needed to cut taxes in order to make the government more efficient and put more money in voters’ pockets.
JOSH: I know, but wouldn’t you think they’d have figured out we were all full of crap yet?
CJ: You’d think.

Silence for a while, then:

TOBY: I can’t take this any more!
JOSH: (checking watch) Who had eight-thirty to nine o’clock in the pool?
SAM and DONNA and CJ: (in unison) Charlie.
JOSH: Why do I ever let that kid gamble?
TOBY: How do I do this job? He just lies and lies and lies and nobody gives a damn!
JOSH: We do.
TOBY: You don’t count.
SAM: Black voters do. Hispanics do. Younger -
TOBY: Yes, Sam, thank you, I needed a description of the Democratic Party’s traditional base, now how about independent voters? You know, the stupid ones? I mean, I knew they were stupid, we spend most of every other year catering to their stupidity, but I thought until now they were just dense and uninterested, not actively handicapped!
JOSH: Look, we knew we’d have to grind this one out.
TOBY: This isn’t “grinding it out,” Josh. Every day they lie. Phyllis Schafly’s hot daughter is on the campaign trail every day lying - not shading the truth, not trying to make a bad thing look better, she’s just lying every time she opens her goddamn mouth about things that are in the public record for anybody to see!
CJ: Toby, the press -
TOBY: The press! The press! The press is useless, CJ! Worse than useless! Never mind that this year the choice comes down to a gifted young leader and the Cryptkeeper and they want “balance” - you know what they call them? “Distortions.” Not lies. “Distortions.”
DONNA: “Distortions” doesn’t sound that good.
TOBY: It sounds better than “lies” and that’s all that matters. People who don’t follow politics know what “distortions” are - they’re what you get when a politician tries to make something average sound good. But this - I don’t know to fight this. We call them lies, everybody will get caught up in a big round of “everybody does it” and nobody cares. Worse, we destroy what we’ve got - a guy who people think doesn’t like it because he doesn’t like it. We’re walking a razor here and I’m out of ideas.
(Pause.)
JOSH: I vote for beer.
TOBY: Is that your answer to this?
JOSH: It’s my answer to needing beer. Come on, Toby, let’s go get a drink and then come back and tackle it fresh.
(All rise and proceed to exit. From out in the hallway…)
SAM: You know, he jumps from formal speech to folksy all the time when he writes his own stuff.
TOBY: Great. Let’s get him a straw hat and have him hum the tune to “Hee Haw.” I bet that puts Alabama in play.

ME: Hey, whose “Equality” brand lemonade is this?
ERIC: It’s mine.
ME: Can I have some of your off-brand pre-made lemonade?
ERIC: Take as much as you want. Please.
ME: …is it bad?
ERIC: It’s really, really sweet. As lemonade it’s terrible. As a mixer, it’s tolerable.
ADAM: I find it goes well with gin.
KAREN ((Adam’s girlfriend): Honey, you don’t like gin.
ADAM: Yes I do.
KAREN: When we started going out, I remember one time we were at your place and your roommate offered us gin and tonics and you said you don’t like gin.
ADAM: That’s right.
KAREN: What happened?
ADAM: I drank some of it later on.
ME: That’s how you can tell he’s a professional chef. He’ll try anything to sample flavours.
ADAM: Actually, I wanted to get drunk, but that works too.
ME: Incidentally, this lemonade does go rather well with the gin, but…
ERIC: But?
ME: Now that I am drinking it, I find that I have my mind on my money and my money on my mind.

FLAPJACKS: I didn’t know Brendan Fraser competed at the Olympic level of killing mummies. Things you learn!
ME: Killing mummy. He only killed one mummy. Didn’t you watch the trailer?
FLAPJACKS: Yes, but he killed the same mummy twice. Like, once in 1928 in Amsterdam, and then he killed the mummy again in 1936 in Berlin. It was a major victory for Canada at the time, as we did not win many gold medals in those days.
ME: Of course people gave all the credit to John Hannah and chalked it up as a British medal by proxy, but we know now that John Hannah is a coward and that Brendan Fraser did all the real work.
FLAPJACKS: Still, we can’t ignore the fact that John Hannah was an early hero for gay athletics, as his lover Garath would attest.
ME: Interestingly, Brendan Fraser’s 1936 victories caused a major international rift because Hitler was determined to see Germany walk away with the gold medal for mummy-killing that year.
FLAPJACKS: He later claimed that Brendan Fraser was the crux of an insidious Jewish plot against the German people.
ME: Is Brendan Fraser Jewish?
FLAPJACKS: He was in School Ties. And what’s more, in that he was secretly Jewish.
ME: I never would have dreamt that Brendan Fraser would be part of the international Zionist conspiracy.
FLAPJACKS: They’re sneaky.
ME: All that having been said, I’m glad to see that the Beijing Olympics will reintroduce amateur mummy-killing to the highest level of competition.
FLAPJACKS: The five-hundred metre stealing of the canopic jars!
ME: Freestyle zombie decapitation!
FLAPJACKS: And of course the mummathlon, featuring shooting uselessly at the undead, flying a plane through a dust storm, driving through a crowded street without running anybody over, quipping, ancient-style swordfighting, and having your child age more rapidly than they should.
ME: The official motto of the International Mummathlete’s Association is “If you compete in any other sport, you’re a pussy.”
FLAPJACKS: Although it appears a lot of this year’s athletes are cross-training with mummathletes this year.
ME: Given how they’re exploding out of sand, I think they’re actually cross-training with mummies.
FLAPJACKS: Oooooh, the IOCC isn’t going to like that at all!
ME: Why not?
FLAPJACKS: Remember how hard they came down on steroids?
ME: …you mean pretending that steroids didn’t exist for decades, then doing an abrupt about-face and deciding they were the worst thing ever once their use became too prevalent to ignore?
FLAPJACKS: Exactly! The mummies have been behind the scenes since the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
ME: You know, I thought it looked suspicious when Alonzo Mourning opened his mouth crazy-wide and vomited a torrent of bugs at the Angolan centre in that basketball game, but the commentators said it was perfectly normal, and I don’t watch basketball regularly, so I figured it was just a normal sort of a basketball thing.
FLAPJACKS: Right. Anyway, this is all part of the Chinese Olympic mummy conspiracy -
ME: Wait, another conspiracy?
FLAPJACKS: Yes.
ME: This is different from the Jewish conspiracy, then.
FLAPJACKS: Don’t be silly, there aren’t any such things as Jewish mummies. Remember, mummies regard Jews as only fit to be slave fodder. Didn’t you watch the first movie?
ME: I see. Please continue.
FLAPJACKS: As I was saying, since Brendan Fraser killed all the Egyptian mummies, that leaves the Chinese mummies as the only mummies left to influence international Olympic competition. So the Chinese mummies have been “helping” athletes all along, either for money or, more nefariously, for patriotic reasons.
ME: So you’re saying that the Chinese mummies will stop helping athletes from other countries, and only assist Chinese athletes in the 2008 Olympics, thus leading to an unprecedented show of Chinese athletic superiority, which the Central Committee will then use for a propaganda coup?
FLAPJACKS: Exactly! Unless midway through the IOCC decides to crack down on mummy use finally.
ME: But how does the IOCC stop the mummies from, like, eating them and stuff?
FLAPJACKS: That’s what Brendan Fraser is for.
ME: And that, in turn, gives the Jewish people their long-awaited revenge on the mummies for enslaving them!
FLAPJACKS: There are so many levels to this thing it is scary.

A LAWYER: (noticing my nametag) Hey, are you the Christopher Bird who writes for thecourt.ca?
ME: Yes, I am.
A LAWYER: Yeah, I was reading your analysis of… uh… damn, what was the case?
ME: Hydro-Quebec?
A LAWYER: No, it was about crown liability issues? Policy versus operational?
ME: Right, I was talking about the Just test, that would make it… damn…
A LAWYER: Saskatchewan?
ME: Yes, that was it. So you read it?
A LAWYER: Yeah. Great analysis. You’re completely wrong, of course, but great analysis.
ME: Thanks?
A LAWYER: Well, you know, I just think negligence immunity from policy considerations is necessary for government to function. How do you respond to that?
ME: Well, I actually wish I had written the article a little better. You remember how I said that some level of tort immunity for policy consideration is necessary?
A LAWYER: Yeah.
ME: The problem is that in Saskatchewan, the policy was effectively to be deliberately negligent. Saying “well it’s policy so you can’t sue” in that instance just strikes me as giving government a license to behave in bad faith whenever they want. I should have made that clearer when I wrote it.
A LAWYER: I think it came through. I still don’t agree with you, but I get where you’re coming from. It was a great analysis, that’s all I wanted to say.
ME: Well, thanks again.
(turning back to KAREN, a friend/fellow law student at the session)
ME: That was so fucking awesome.
KAREN: You know, they have really good food here.

ME: So apparently the trailer for Watchmen will run in front of The Dark Knight.
FLAPJACKS: Because they are both comic book movies. I get that!
ME: Yes.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe they could run a trailer for the new Terminator in front of it as well, because they both have Christian Bale in the movie. And then maybe a trailer for Traveling because they both have Aaron Eckhart in it. And then - no, wait, Heath Ledger is dead, that one doesn’t work.
ME: It’s also available online.
FLAPJACKS: So we should watch it then.
ME: Aren’t we going to go see it this weekend? On a big screen?
FLAPJACKS: That would mean, like, waiting and shit.
ME: A cogent point.
FLAPJACKS: So let’s watch it now.
ME: All right.
We start watching the trailer.
ME: “In 2009, everything will change.”
FLAPJACKS: Previously, in 2008, the first thirty seconds of the trailer are watching the hairs on Billy Crudup’s arms stand up.
ME: Owlship looks cool.
FLAPJACKS: Yes. Hey, when did Silk Spectre plunge through a burning building and land with great agility on her feet in the comic book?
ME: I believe that did not happen.
FLAPJACKS: Oh.
ME: Adaptation!
FLAPJACKS: Originality!
ME: …wow, the “fling the Comedian through the window” scene seems… familiar.
FLAPJACKS: “THIS! IS! WAAAATCHMEN!”
ME: I thought we’d declared that joke dead.
FLAPJACKS: It’s relevant, because he also made 300. So it can be used this time.
ME: Can’t you come up with something better?
FLAPJACKS: “THIS! IS! AN OVERLY PRECIOUS SOULESS PASTIIIIIICHE!”
ME: Never mind.
FLAPJACKS: Ozymandias looks… what is it, when something is exactly the opposite of “intimidating”?
ME: Not intimidating?
FLAPJACKS: More than that.
ME: I just think he looks like a little kid playing dressup.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe that’s sharp, purposeful cultural commentary.
ME: It is a brief look at Rorshach! Does his mask go oogy with the moving blots? Rewind it! I want to see if his mask goes oogy.
FLAPJACKS: I don’t think it goes oogy.
ME: Crap.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe it’ll go oogy later.
ME: Okay, fair is fair: Dr. Manhattan looks exactly as creepy as he should look.
FLAPJACKS: I concur.
ME: …I think Vietnam is entirely greenscreened.
FLAPJACKS: I think your mom is entirely greenscreened.
ME: Shut up.
FLAPJACKS: Oh, quit whining. We’re supposed to be surprised that there’s greenscreening in a Zach Snyder movie? Did you even see 300? I think that title actually referred to the number of animators they had rendering CGI cliff faces.
ME: The Comedian also looks badass.
FLAPJACKS: Well, if you can’t make the Comedian look badass, you shouldn’t even bother making the movie in the first place. Making the Comedian look badass is easy. Making Nite Owl look badass, on the other hand, is hard.
ME: Nite Owl looks like a cheap Batman ripoff.
FLAPJACKS: Cultural commentary! He’s playing with our preconceptions! And stuff.
ME: Hey, can you see Dr. Manhattan’s dick in the trailer?
FLAPJACKS: …okay, why do you care?
ME: Look, we get an extended shot of full-frontal Manhattan in this trailer, I want to know if Zach Snyder is out to pervert the minds of nerd America.
FLAPJACKS: He could make it worse?
ME: Rewind, I wanna see.
FLAPJACKS: …I think they made his groinal area glow so brightly you cannot make out individual parts.
ME: Zach Snyder, you wuss.
FLAPJACKS: Well, I don’t think Billy Crudup wants to… well, maybe he does want to expose himself to teenagers. How would I know?
ME: “The most celebrated graphic novel of all time.” Wait, nobody told me this was Maus.
FLAPJACKS: That’s not fair and you know it. Come on, it’s Watchmen. It’s entirely fair to give it those props.
ME: All right, I guess - NO! NOT CGI PADDY HAT SOLDIER!
FLAPJACKS: He had four CGI kids and a fifth one being rendered!
ME: What will we tell his wife?
FLAPJACKS: Something in binary. Do you speak binary?
ME: Fuck no.
FLAPJACKS: Well, let’s not tell her anything then.
ME: Agreed.
FLAPJACKS: Okay, there is Rorshach’s mask going oogy for you. Are you satisfied?
ME: On that level, at least.
FLAPJACKS: And there’s the Mars jewel ship.
ME: Pretty cool.
FLAPJACKS: So, how do we rate this trailer?
ME: In terms of being a good trailer, A. In terms of making me think the movie will not be dogshit… I dunno, B minus.
FLAPJACKS: I’m closer to B plus.
ME: Yeah, but you like all that stylized compu-fighty stuff Snyder does.
FLAPJACKS: We will have to agree to disagree. Except about Nite Owl looking lame. We agree there.
ME: But do you think it was on purpose?
FLAPJACKS: …probably not.
ME: A ha.

WRITER GUY: So I have this idea for a story.
EDITOR GUY: Hit me!
WRITER GUY: Right, so it’s World War II, and Hitler -
EDITOR GUY: Whoa! Hitler!
WRITER GUY: Right. So Hitler meets this guy -
EDITOR GUY: - and it turns out to be himself! From the future!
WRITER GUY: But he’s dead in the future.
EDITOR GUY: Good point! Good point.
WRITER GUY: I was thinking more it could be a cautionary tale sort of a figure.
EDITOR GUY: Whom Hitler ignores! Because he is Hitler! And then Hitler kills the guy!
WRITER GUY: …why does he kill him?
EDITOR GUY: Because it’s Hitler.
WRITER GUY: Okay.
EDITOR GUY: And the cautionary tale figure, what does he tell Hitler?
WRITER GUY: Well, I was thinking something about the futility of fascism and the indomitability of the human spirit…
EDITOR GUY: BOOOOOOORING.
WRITER GUY: …Captain America is the figure and he punches him in the face again?
EDITOR GUY: Wrong company.
WRITER GUY: Well, how about -
EDITOR GUY: Now, now. I already know who the figure is. But wait. First Hitler kills Eva Braun -
WRITER GUY: But - wait, let me guess. Because he’s Hitler.
EDITOR GUY: Bingo. And then he goes and meets with his master scientists.
WRITER GUY: He had master scientists in the bunker?
EDITOR GUY: He does now. And the master scientists tell him the machine is perfected.
WRITER GUY: What does the machine do?
EDITOR GUY: Right, right. It’s a suspended animation chamber.
WRITER GUY: …why does Hitler need a suspended animation chamber?
EDITOR GUY: Because that way he can fight the Legion of Super-Heroes!
WRITER GUY: But I’m pitching you a story for Weird War Tales.
EDITOR GUY: Again, you have a good point. Okay, he has a suspended animation chamber because every 1100 years, history repeats itself.
WRITER GUY: …it does?
EDITOR GUY: Well, not so much.
WRITER GUY: And nobody’s going to say this doesn’t make sense.
EDITOR GUY: They read Superman comics. He is a guy in red and blue pyjamas who can fly.
WRITER GUY: Fair enough. What does Hitler do next?
EDITOR GUY: Well, he goes into the suspended animation chamber, and then kills the scientists -
WRITER GUY: …how does he do that?
EDITOR GUY: Excellent point! You’re a great writer, you know that? He has a loyal guard kill them.
WRITER GUY: I’m glad I could contribute.
EDITOR GUY: And then Hitler sleeps for 1100 years and wakes up in the future.
WRITER GUY: And the future is like World War II?
EDITOR GUY: Well, it’s future-ish World War II, but yes.
WRITER GUY: And what does Hitler do?
EDITOR GUY: Well, clearly he goes to take over.
WRITER GUY: Because he’s Hitler.
EDITOR GUY: Yes. He’ll have long hair, of course.
WRITER GUY: And a beard?
EDITOR GUY: No, just the little moustache.
WRITER GUY: His hair grew but not his beard?
EDITOR GUY: If he has a beard, how will we know it’s Hitler?
WRITER GUY: Okay. So what happens to Hitler?
EDITOR GUY: Well, he gets nabbed by guards and brought to see Future Space Hitler.
WRITER GUY: And what does Future Space Hitler do?
EDITOR GUY: You’ll like this - Future Space Hitler kills regular Hitler! Just like Hitler killed the portentous figure earlier!
WRITER GUY: Portentous figure?
EDITOR GUY: You know, your portentous figure. The one you wanted to write about.
WRITER GUY: Right.
EDITOR GUY: And it’s ironic!
WRITER GUY: How is it ironic?
EDITOR GUY: Because Hitler is killed by Future Hitler just like Hitler killed the figure, who was clearly past Hitler!
WRITER GUY: …but there never was a past Hitler. Nor, for that matter, suspended animation chambers in the year 900. Or a fascist empire around that time.
EDITOR GUY: Don’t be a negative nelly. You’ve written a fantastic story here! You’ll go places.

Yes, I know I’ve made fun of Paul Levitz here, who edited the piece. But Paul Levitz is an awesome dude and I do so out of love.

KIRK: Hey, man. You up?
FLAPJACKS: Blurrrgh.
KIRK: Yeah, but are you up?
FLAPJACKS: Ugggggh.
KIRK: Great. So can I borrow some rubbers?
ME: (opening door) Okay, look, you were here last night.
KIRK: Yeah.
ME: When he ate that sandwich from Subway.
KIRK: Yeah.
ME: And when he started vomiting two hours later.
KIRK: Yeah.
ME: And it turned out he had a mild case of food poisoning.
KIRK: Are you going somewhere with this?
ME: My point is you are aware he’s been up all night, sick as a dog.
FLAPJACKS: Guuuuhhhhg.
KIRK: Actually, that’s an observation. You haven’t made a point yet.
ME: All right - if you knew he was sick, why would you knock on his door at ten o’clock in the morning asking for condoms?
KIRK: Because I don’t want to get AIDS.
ME: No, that answers “why do you want to use a condom?” There are other places you can get condoms at ten o’clock in the morning, you know.
KIRK: Awesome. What brand do you use? I like Trojans.
ME: I was actually talking about the drugstore.
KIRK: I dunno, man. That comes suspiciously close to paying for sex.
ME: …just go to the drugstore, Kirk.
KIRK: Oh, all right. Hey, what’s that smell, by the way?
ME: I believe that would be vomit.

(SCENE. Two SNIPERS, BORISAV and CEDOMIL, crouch in the hills overlooking the airport at Tuzla. BORISAV watches the airport through the sights of his enormous sniper rifle.)

BORISAV: All right. Are we ready to begin our day of sniping?
CEDOMIL: That is certainly why I am here. I came to snipe.
BORISAV: All right. Let’s see… huh.
CEDOMIL: What? What is it?
BORISAV: There is a plane.
CEDOMIL: Well, yes, I heard the plane overhead. I am not an idiot, Bori.
BORISAV: I know, but this is an American plane.
CEDOMIL: Seriously? Hot damn! If we snipe Americans, then our little regional conflict will really make the big time! Perhaps we can even incite a new world war!
BORISAV: Oh, come now, Cedomil. Americans they may be, but would they send anybody particularly important to our little corner of the world? This is Bosnia, after all. We don’t even have any oil.
CEDOMIL: Good point. Look, just kill a soldier and we’ll -
BORISAV!: Cedi, shut up! You won’t believe this!
CEDOMIL: What?
BORISAV: It is Sinbad!
CEDOMIL: The comedian?
BORISAV: The very same!
CEDOMIL: If we were to assassinate Sinbad, what glories would fall upon us?
BORISAV: Certainly every movie critic in the world will give us thanks, promoting our cause. Did you see First Kid?
CEDOMIL: No, I missed that one. It was bad?
BORISAV: Oh my yes. I’m going for it. I am going to snipe Sinbad.
CEDOMIL: We are going to score with so many chicks because of this.
BORISAV: Excuse me, “we”? I am the one pulling the trigger.
CEDOMIL: But I am your spotter. I am the one who checks the wind speed so you can make your shot, and scopes the field for potential targets.
BORISAV: And yet you are not using your binoculars right now.
CEDOMIL: You said you did not mind if I made my Cup O’ Noodles.
BORISAV: That was then and this is now. Put down the Cup O’Noodles and check the damn wind.
(CEDOMIL reluctantly puts down his Cup O’Noodles and picks up his binoculars.)
BORISAV: Thank you.
CEDOMIL: You do not have to be rude.
BORISAV: Fair enough. I apologize. We will both get many chicks for having murdered Sinbad.
CEDOMIL: We will. All right. Wind speed three knots, correct.
BORISAV: Correcting.
CEDOMIL: Annd… wait, someone’s in the way.
BORISAV: I could shoot them first.
CEDOMIL: And give Sinbad the chance to get to cover? Pah. We will - oh my god!
BORISAV: What?
CEDOMIL: You don’t recognize her?
BORISAV: Recognize who?
CEDOMIL: That is the American musician Sheryl Crow!
BORISAV: I don’t know that one.
CEDOMIL: She does that song you like, the one where all she wants is to have some fun?
BORISAV: Oh, yes! I like that song.
CEDOMIL: Well, that is the woman who sings it.
BORISAV: Really?
CEDOMIL: Yes!
BORISAV: …could we not kill her?
CEDOMIL: I don’t know. I mean, you have to admit, she is an important target.
BORISAV: Perhaps we could say that we shot at her, recognizing her as an important target. And that we missed.
CEDOMIL: Due to a quirk of fate. A stray leaf drifting upon the wind, perhaps.
BORISAV: Yes. A quirky leaf. That seems feasible.
CEDOMIL: I will not say anything if you do not.
BORISAV: Agreed. Now, where is Sinbad?
CEDOMIL: Give me a second and I will find - OH MY GOD!
BORISAV: What? What?
CEDOMIL: IT IS HILLARY CLINTON, BORISAV!
BORISAV: Wait, the First Lady Hillary Clinton?
CEDOMIL: YES! YES! THIS IS IT! THIS IS OUR MOMENT, BORISAV!
BORISAV: Are we sure we want to assassinate her? Her husband will not be happy.
CEDOMIL: Look, we blame it on Muslims! The Americans will believe that! They can barely tell us apart at the best of times anyway!
BORISAV: That’s a brilliant idea. Although, I note that it means we can’t use this story to score with chicks.
CEDOMIL: We’ll come up with some variant where we attempt to kill the Muslim snipers. Come on, Bori!
BORISAV: All right, I am convinced.
CEDOMIL: Down four, windspeed three and a half knots, correct…
BORISAV: Correcting.
CEDOMIL: Take the shot!
(Pause.)
BORISAV: …
CEDOMIL: She doesn’t appear to be dead yet.
BORISAV: Well, she bent over to accept that poem from the little girl and I wasn’t expecting that, so…
CEDOMIL: So? Shoot her again!
(Pause.)
BORISAV: …dammit!
CEDOMIL: WHAT?
BORISAV: I missed again.
CEDOMIL: You’re the best sniper in Bosnia!
BORISAV: Everybody has bad days!
CEDOMIL: Oh, and look. Now she has people in front of her. Lousy shot.
BORISAV: I can still shoot Chelsea. She’s wide open.
CEDOMIL: Do we really want to do that?
BORISAV: Worth a try.
CEDOMIL: I suppose, but I’m not wild about it.
BORISAV: Just remember, we blame the Muslims.
CEDOMIL: Right.
(Pause.)
BORISAV: …all right, did you balance the sights on this properly?
CEDOMIL: I always balance the sights properly.
BORISAV: I’ve missed three times! Oh, and look, now the Clintons are getting in that armored car. No chance of sniping them now.
CEDOMIL: Damn. Well, you know what, killing them might have been counterproducting anyway. Let’s just settle for killing Sinbad. We can still kill Sinbad, can’t we?
BORISAV: Of course.
CEDOMIL: Good.
(Pause.)
BORISAV: All right, I never miss four times. What is wrong with this gun?
CEDOMIL: Well, we can forget about scoring chicks now. “Us? Yes, we’re the snipers who couldn’t kill Sinbad.”
BORISAV: What the - the gun isn’t loaded?
CEDOMIL: Do you mean to tell me you’ve been dry-firing all this time?
BORISAV: Well, it’s silenced and cushioned, so I wouldn’t feel much difference between a dry-fire and a real shot.
CEDOMIL: All right. We can deal with this. Sinbad is still there. Where are our damned bullets?
(Pause.)
BORISAV: You appear to be sitting on them.
CEDOMIL: Oh, for the love of -
(Pause.)
BORISAV: Are they -?
CEDOMIL: Yes. These rounds are ruined. And look, there goes Sinbad.
BORISAV: …perhaps we say that we had Sinbad in our sights, until another sniper’s careless shot scared the cowardly Americans off of the tarmac? Will that get us chicks?
CEDOMIL: I doubt it.
BORISAV: Oh.
CEDOMIL: On the other hand, we will look less like idiots, so I would suggest we use that story.
(Pause.)
BORISAV: Do you think they’ll believe it?
CEDOMIL: Why not? It’s not as if anybody is videotaping this.

(SCENE: The local multiplex. Enter MYSELF and my ROOMMATE, who has requested anonymity for the purposes of this post, and so shall be known as FLAPJACKS. We sit in anticipation of watching 10,000 BC, which we are certain is going to be very, very bad.)

ME: Okay, here we go.
FLAPJACKS: I am stoked.
ME: Be aware that at any point we can theatre-hop over next door if we can’t stands no more.
FLAPJACKS: What are they playing?
ME: College Road Trip.
FLAPJACKS: Isn’t that with Martin Lawrence?
ME: Yes.
FLAPJACKS: …let’s stay here for now.

(VOICE OF OMAR SHARIF begins narrating.)

ME: So there’s apparently a legend that never dies.
FLAPJACKS: Which died, but then Roland Emmerich went on an archeological dig and found stone tablets telling the amazing story and he brought it to life.
ME: A timeless story of true love, and mammoths.
FLAPJACKS: But not true love with mammoths.
ME: Although apparently in this story mammoths are called “manniks.”
FLAPJACKS: It’s so we know that these are old-timey times. The tribesmen speak perfect English, but they have different names for things. Because it is old times.
ME: So apparently this one hunter doesn’t believe in the disastrous prophecy and he’s taking off from his tribe to find a better life for all concerned.
FLAPJACKS: I wonder if that will be a plot point.

(A young girl is brought to the village elder, and a young boy stares at her intensely.)

FLAPJACKS: See? Timeless story of true love.
ME: …it’s kind of creepy seeing prepubescent kids acting like they’re in love.
FLAPJACKS: Well, Roland Emmerich is European. They have different morals than us. That’s why Roman Polanski lives there.
ME: Ew.
FLAPJACKS: I’m not wrong about that.
ME: What type of European is Roland Emmerich anyways? German?
FLAPJACKS: Whatever type is averse to spending money on good special effects.

(The young kids practice hunting.)

ME: Wow. That is one fake looking matte painting.
FLAPJACKS: Be fair - they obviously blew most of their budget on teaching everybody to talk like Zsa Zsa Gabor.
ME: …oh god you’re right. I was going to call you out, but you’re right. They do talk like Zsa Zsa Gabor.
FLAPJACKS: All they need to do is call each other “dahling” and maybe throw in a “mahvelous” or two, and this could be “Hollywood Squares” circa 1983.

(Now everybody is grown up, and the menfolk go hunting after mammoths.)

FLAPJACKS: These are some weak CGI mammoths.
ME: They’re not that bad. I mean, they’re as good as what was in Jurassic Park.
FLAPJACKS: Jurassic Park is fifteen years old. Granted, if I was a teenager again, I’d be stoned, so this would be awesome. But I’m not, and so I recognize these crap special effects for the crap that they are.

(BAD PEOPLE come and take away most of the villagers, except for D’leh (the hero), Tiktik (the tough old guy), Ka’Ren (the sidekick) and Baku (the annoying kid). And a bunch of other villagers, including the wise-woman of the tribe. Really, they didn’t get a whole lot of people, really, but they get Evolet (D’leh’s squeeze), so that is what is important.)

FLAPJACKS: Wow, that one bad guy with the one eye stabbed first before entering. That is planning.
ME: And he killed Baku’s mom! And then took off his evil mask. Why would he take off his evil mask?
FLAPJACKS: After you’ve accidentally stabbed somebody, sometimes you just need to take a moment and breathe it all in.

(The four aforementioned people with names chase after the bad people, with Moka tagging along after the three older men surreptitiously.)

D’LEH:Baku! Why are you here?
ME: “I have a convenient revenge subplot!”
FLAPJACKS: “I provide eye candy for the crucial tween-girl demographic!”
ME: “If I don’t come along, who will make the lame poop jokes and destroy suspension of disbelief? You need me, D’leh!”

(Lengthy travel montage.)

VOICE OF OMAR SHARIF: …and they journeyed for many days, and many nights…
FLAPJACKS: “…for what appears to be thousands and thousands of miles…”
ME: “…down, out of the snowy mountain areas, which are apparently right next door to a tropical rainforest…”
FLAPJACKS: “…because nobody could be bothered to disguise the fact that this is New Zealand, practically the only place on earth where you go from “tundra” to “jungle” in twenty feet…”
ME: While we’re dissing this movie, how come the lead bad guy speaks with an obvious vocal distortion? No way his voice is naturally that deep. It’s making the bass generators in the speakers go staticky.
FLAPJACKS: He’s Darth Vader, Mark One.

(Something attacks the slavers in the bushes.)

FLAPJACKS: What are those, I wonder? Sabretooth tigers? I heard there were sabretooth tigers in this movie.
ME: Maybe it’s velociraptors.
FLAPJACKS: Shame on you for suggesting that Roland Emmerich would lazily recycle from other, better movies, the way he’s cribbing this entire scene from The Lost World.
ME: Wait, are you saying The Lost World was good? The movie where the little black girl beats raptors with gymnastics, remember.
FLAPJACKS: It’s better than this. Why does everybody in this goddamned movie have dreadlocks? I mean, I get it, they don’t have scissors or the concept of cutting hair, but how did they figure out dreadlocks?
ME: Dreadlocks are cave-man-y.
FLAPJACKS: Are their fairly obvious body waxings and manicures also cave-man-y?
ME: They’re metrosexual cavemen.
FLAPJACKS: And how do they manage to shave their facial hear so neatly if they can’t cut their dreadlocks?
ME: They’re Rastafarian metrosexual cavemen.
FLAPJACKS: What’s College Road Trip about again?
ME: Well, Raven-Symone wants to go to college…
FLAPJACKS: That is definitely so Raven.

(D’Leh idiotically tries to free Evolet when the slavers are all intently on guard and a chase scene erupts. It turns out the velociraptors are, in fact, actually giant rocs.)

FLAPJACKS: Wow, these giant rocs are very much acting like velociraptors.
ME: Indeed.
FLAPJACKS: Roland Emmerich believes in evolution.
ME: If “evolution” is “stealing outright from Steven Spielberg,” then yes.

(Tiktik gets hurt by the rocs, and everybody but him and D’leh get captured/recaptured by the slavers, who herd their captives into a desert.)

FLAPJACKS: So let’s recap. They’ve gone from what’s pretty obviously supposed to be at least either Central Europe around Romania or possibly the interior of Russia, through a tropical jungle, and now they’re in a desert, presumably in northern Africa. This is a walk you can measure in the thousands of miles. You’d think they’d at least show some stubble.
ME: I wasn’t aware that there was a tropical jungle anywhere between Europe and northern Africa.
FLAPJACKS: Well, this is ten thousand years ago. Maybe it got cut down by the ancient Romans when they conquered everything.
ME: “But, Heroclitus, what about global warming?”
FLAPJACKS: “Look, these prisoners aren’t going to crucify themselves!”

(D’leh falls into a deep pit trap and falls unconscious. It begins raining thunderously, and he wakes up to see a sabretooth tiger trapped underneath some logs. He decides not to kill it.)

D’LEH: You’d better not eat me!
FLAPJACKS: It’s a giant cat, D’leh. You banking on it having gratitude is not exactly the smart play.
ME: “No, of course I won’t eat you. Not all of you, anyway. Well, not today, I might save some for later. What? I’m a fucking giant cat. At least I won’t play around with your remains too much, okay?”

(Amazingly, the cat does not eat D’leh, and he and Tiktik make their way to an African tribal village, where the cat shows up to protect them from villagers who think they’re enemies, then leaves.)

FLAPJACKS: “I was never here, okay? God, I’d never live this shit down if people found out.”
ME: I assume by “people” you mean “other giant cats.”
FLAPJACKS: Yes.

(After the giant cat leaves, the villagers are impressed.)

NAKUDU THE VILLAGE HEADMAN: You come with us, and eat.
TIKTIK: How do you speak our tongue?
ME: “Writer fiat. Why?”
FLAPJACKS: I wonder what the over/under is on the number of times Nakudu here will be asked to translate for Mr. White Guy Who Never Learned A Second Language.
ME: I know I enjoy nothing so much as watching people translate. Especially in an action movie. I like waiting that extra few seconds for crackling dialogue such as can be found in this movie.
D’LEH: Together, we can defeat these demons.
ME: Yeah, suck on that, Diablo Cody! You show D’Leh a hamburger phone and he’d try to eat it!
FLAPJACKS: After a five-minute scene where he would try to learn what a hamburger is, of course.

(The slavers make their getaway on boats. D’leh and Tiktik and Nakudu and the warriors of half a dozen tribes all head into the desert trying to find the city they’re headed for.)

ME: …why don’t they just follow the river? The river has water. Fresh water. The desert does not have fresh water. This really feels like a pretty simple concept here.
FLAPJACKS: Now, now - if they didn’t go into the desert, then D’leh wouldn’t have to invent star navigation to get them out of it.

(Finally, D’leh and company arrive at the slaver city - where the slaves are building pyramids.)

ME: Wait, they took them to Egypt?
FLAPJACKS: I think it’s not actually supposed to be Egypt, per se. I mean, from the steppes of Eurasia to Egypt would be a trek of, like, a year and a half? And note how everything only looks, like, pseudo-Egyptian.
ME: Didn’t Egypt only really get started around 4,000 BC anyway?
FLAPJACKS: You and your “historical accuracy.” Next up, you’ll be complaining about the fact that the reason the mammoths - excuse me, “manniks” - were disappearing from D’leh’s tribe’s homeland is because the fake Egyptians were stealing them to haul giant stone blocks.
ME: I don’t have a problem with the fake Egyptians stealing mammoths to haul giant stone blocks. But this is a desert. Anywhere there’s a desert means you’re probably a lot closer to actual plain old elephants, which are both more suited for the climate and not way the hell off in the middle of nowhere.
FLAPJACKS: “Manniks.”
ME: Also, if I were D’leh, I’d be all intimidated, because these guys are already up to Masonry and Bronze Working, and my tribe is still stuck at Hunting.
FLAPJACKS: That’s their secret plan - to build the Pyramids so they can discover Universal Suffrage a thousand turns ahead of schedule!
ME: “Shit, they probably have Axemen!”
FLAPJACKS: We are such nerds.

(D’leh sneaks into the city to try and convince the slaves to rise up against their masters, but they don’t want to because they think the slavers are gods.)

ME: Apparently “ancient” is synonymous with “retarded.”
FLAPJACKS: Come now. These are simple folk of their times, who do not understand the concept of “boats,” because nothing floated back then.

(D’leh and his allies sneak into the city again and pretend to be slaves, then stampede the mammoths over the slavers. The freed slaves start destroying all the monuments.)

FLAPJACKS: “…and that, children, is why there aren’t any pyramids in Egypt.”
ME: Can this movie get any worse?

(Evolet gets stabbed by the bad guy slaver, who incidentally is romantically obsessed with her by now. D’leh stabs him to death, then holds Evolet as she dies, but then the wise woman back at the tribe does magic and passes her life-force onto Evolet, who recovers from being shot with an arrow in the back.)

FLAPJACKS: Yes. Yes it can.

(Happy reunions all around as the remnants of D’leh’s tribe head back home, with seeds given to them by Naduku so they can become farmers, what with the mammoths not coming around any more.)

FLAPJACKS: Nothing quite like farming on frozen tundra. Why didn’t we go see the Raven-Symone movie with Martin Lawrence in it?
ME: I think technically Martin Lawrence gets top billing.
FLAPJACKS: Nobody puts Raven in a corner!

(SCENE: The Beguiling, in Toronto. I have entered to purchase a copy of the recently released The Order trade paperback - only $12.99 US, folks! Chris Butcher wanders up while I am looking for it.)

BUTCHER: Mr. Bird.
ME: Mr. Butcher.
BUTCHER: I love that we’re cordial.
ME: Likewise.
BUTCHER: So what were you looking for?
ME: That The Order trade.
BUTCHER: Here you go. Say, while you’re here, would you be interested in any of our ten-dollar Marvel hardcovers?
(He waves at a bunch of stacks of Marvel hardcover comics, mostly remaindered.)
ME: I dunno…
BUTCHER: We’ve got X-Men: Deadly Genesis…
ME: …I suppose ten bucks isn’t bad for Ed Brubaker stuff.
BUTCHER: And NewUniversal…
ME: Not sure about that one. I remember it being very Ellis-y.
BUTCHER: Oh, it’s quite Ellis-y.
ME: But not quite as Ellis-y as, say, Doktor Sleepless.
BUTCHER: No, it’s definitely not that Ellis-y.
OTHER BEGUILING GUY: It’s Ellis-y enough that you know it’s Ellis, but not quite so Ellis-y that you feel this is something you have already read three times.
ME: Ah, what the hell. Ten bucks means I can trade it in to a used bookstore for practically no loss later on if I decide I don’t want it.
BUTCHER: Sounds good.
ME: Anything else you want to try to sell me on?
BUTCHER: I’ve got X-Factor hardcovers…
ME: Got those last time.
BUTCHER: Moon Knight?
ME: Not so much my thing.
BUTCHER: But I thought you were all about trying before you buy. You know, with the illegal downloads.
ME: Technically not illegal in Canada.
BUTCHER: Whatever.
ME: And I did try. The entire point of “try before you buy” is that sometimes, you don’t buy. This is one of those times.
BUTCHER: I can’t imagine Marvel will be happy about that.
ME: I’m walking out of here with three Marvel books so far, all of which I read through illegal downloads before buying them. If Dan Slott wants to come after me with a baseball bat, that’s his problem.
OTHER BEGUILING GUY: He’s a big guy. Do you think you could take him?
ME: I bet he gets winded easily.
BUTCHER: Ah - volume one of Wolverine: Enemy of the State.
ME: Hm. On the one hand, it’s completely brainless. I mean completely brainless.
BUTCHER: But on the other hand, it’s Mark Millar giving John Romita Jr. an excuse to draw six issues of fight scenes. Twelve, if you count volume two, of which we currently have none. Is that not worth ten dollars?
ME: You have made a sale.
BUTCHER: All right, so…
(A pause.)
ME: What?
BUTCHER: Would you like a copy of Storm in hardcover?
ME: Wait, are you asking me if I want to pay for it?
BUTCHER: Are you?
ME: Christ no.
BUTCHER: Why not?
ME: Well, for starters, I don’t like Storm.
BUTCHER: Not at all?
ME: Not even a little.
BUTCHER: It has Black Panther in it, I think.
ME: Still, it says “Storm” on the cover, and that means I am not spending ten dollars on it.
OTHER BEGUILING GUY: But it’s written by Eric Jerome Dickey. He’s an important novelist.
ME: No.
BUTCHER: Okay, your bargaining skills are shrewd. One dollar.
ME: …I don’t know…
BUTCHER: Oh, come on! One dollar! For a hardcover comic book! You can’t do much better than that!
ME: You’re forgetting the mental anguish.
BUTCHER: What mental anguish?
ME: From buying a copy of Storm.
OTHER BEGUILING GUY: Eric Jerome Dickey wants you to buy it.
ME: That’s nice of him. No.
BUTCHER: But you could take it to the used bookstore right after you buy it and sell it. You’d be making a profit.
ME: Off Storm? Geez, Butcher, why don’t you just ask me to be a drug mule instead? It’s more respectable.
BUTCHER: Okay. Here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna give you this copy of Storm.
ME: You seem awfully desperate to get rid of this book.
BUTCHER: I think they’re starting to breed. Come on. Take it. Free book.
ME: Wow. This is amazing.
OTHER BEGUILING GUY: “Dear Penthouse Letters (and Eric Jerome Dickey): I never thought this could happen to me…”
BUTCHER: Take it.
ME: Oh, all right.
(Butcher hands it over, and as he does so…)
BUTCHER: …butyouhavetoblogaboutit.
(At that precise moment the book falls into my hands.)
ME: NO! DAMN YOOOOOOU!

ME: So I need some new opponents for Scrabulous. Who wants to fall before me?
SARAH (ANOTHER LAW STUDENT): Ooh, me!
MIKE (ANOTHER LAW STUDENT): You might want to qualify that.
SARAH: …at Scrabulous.
MIKE: Much better.
(A pause.)
SARAH: Hah, “dispose.” Seven-letter start!
ME: Big deal, you managed a seven-letter word with three vowels, an S and a blank tile. Next up: baby brags about successfully breastfeeding.
MIKE: I don’t know if I approve of Scrabble smack talk.
SARAH: What’s wrong with it?
MIKE: It’s a game where you’re allowed to play two-letter words. You can’t play two-letter words in Boggle, you know.
SARAH: Oh, god, are you going to go on about Boggle again?
MIKE: Boggle is to Scrabble as quantum physics is to arithmetic.
SARAH: You just like Boggle because you get to shake the container.
MIKE: You just like Scrabble because you can play it during class when you’re bored.
ME: Fair point.
MIKE: How do you even pass the courses, anyway?
ME: Natural brilliance.

ME: So, did you look at the clinical and intensive options for next year?
ANDREW (ANOTHER LAW STUDENT): Yeah. I’m liking the intensive research one.
ME: I missed that one.
ANDREW: It’s where you team up with three or four other students and you do legal research for an NGO. You know, Amnesty International or Greenpeace or that sort of thing.
ME: Sounds cool.
ANDREW: Yeah.
ME: And probably very liberal.
CLAUDIA (ANOTHER LAW STUDENT): And that’s a problem for you how?
ME: Oh, I’m not complaining.
CLAUDIA: Good, because if you wanted to go to a conservative law school, you should have gone to Alberta.
ME: “University Of Alberta Law: Did You Know You Can Drink Crude Oil?”
ANDREW: “University Of Alberta Law: Mussolini Wasn’t That Bad A Guy”
ME: “University of Alberta Law: Producing Future Members Of The Fraser Institute Since 1971″
CLAUDIA: Oh god just stop.
ANDREW: You know, actually, you can ask to set up your own research program if you can find a willing co-sponsor and other students to work with you.
CLAUDIA: So the Fraser Institute could underwrite my legal education after all!
ME: Well, they’re conservatives. They probably do spring out for more than the lefties do.
(A pause.)
CLAUDIA: You’re trying to figure out how often they’d buy lunch for you, aren’t you.
ME: Don’t knock free lunches, woman.
ANDREW: Free lunches are the fuel that drives poor law students.
CLAUDIA: I’m not arguing against free lunches, but don’t you care who offers the free lunch?
ME: Are you looking for an answer other than “no?” Because you’re not going to get one.
ANDREW: If the Fraser Institute shows up tomorrow and offers free lunch while telling us about the evils of public health care, I am there.
ME: Hell with the Fraser Institute. The Future Fascists of Tomorrow could show up the next day and offer a free lunch along with a lecture by Ernst Zundel and I’d go.
CLAUDIA: Oh, god.
ME: “This is the best sauerkraut ever!“

SUPERMAN: …maybe I’m not explaining this properly.
WONDER WOMAN: No, you’re explaining it quite well. I just don’t agree with the concept.
SUPERMAN: How can you believe that writers don’t deserve compensation for creating intellectual property?
WONDER WOMAN: Because they don’t create it. Artistic inspiration flows from Apollo.
FLASH: The guy over on Earth-50 who’s in the Authority?
WONDER WOMAN: Very funny, Wally. The god Apollo. Music, poetry and literature are his province.
BATMAN: I’m Batman.
SUPERMAN: Uh huh - look, Diana, even if I conceded that all artists owe a debt to Apollo for being able to create art - and I don’t, I’d like to stress that - then the residual fee for screenwriters is akin to royalties for novelists or playwrights, and an expression of consideration for allowing the work to be created.
WONDER WOMAN: But Apollo -
SUPERMAN: All right, for allowing humans access to the work that sprung from Apollo’s noble brow, okay?
WONDER WOMAN: Regardless of quality, it seems.
SUPERMAN: What’s that supposed to mean?
BLACK CANARY: I think she’s talking about the way Barry always used to bitch about that television show.
WONDER WOMAN: Precisely.
FLASH: You know, he really hated that they got Mark Hamill to play Trickster instead of him.
SUPERMAN: Regardless of the other qualities of that television show, you have to admit that it did poorly in the ratings and was cancelled, which means that, if you think the writers wrote a bad show, that they were thus compensated appropriately.
BATMAN: I am the night.
WONDER WOMAN: Sure - but why not simply allow these writers to negotiate individually? I see no need for a union in this instance. We are not speaking of workers toiling for a single corporate entity. There exists a market.
SUPERMAN: An extremely limited one. There are only six production studios in America, and they control just about all the production and all of the distribution of entertainment media in the country and the majority of it internationally.
WONDER WOMAN: But nothing stops these writers from attempting to leverage one studio against another for their own gain.
SUPERMAN: The self-interest of the studios keeps that from happening. Say I’m a writer. Why would Sony seek to give me a larger share of the profits than Fox?
WONDER WOMAN: To attract the best talent.
SUPERMAN: Writers will come work for me anyway, because people with an innately creative bent, as much as they want fair compensation, want to create more. If I discourage one in five writers from ever working for me, that still leaves eighty percent of them willing to work for me at the rates that I set.
WONDER WOMAN: But then quality will out, and the public -
SUPERMAN: Remember how much you complained about 300?
FLASH: Oh, god, don’t get her started again.
WONDER WOMAN: It was not historically accurate! Leonidas was not an honourable man, and the Spartans were resolute pederasts, and -
SUPERMAN: My point is that the public’s tastes are both fickle and often ignore excellent work.
BLACK CANARY: Somebody’s still not over their novel selling poorly.
SUPERMAN: I’m not saying The Janus Contract was a masterpiece, Dinah. I’m just saying it was better than The Da Vinci Code. I mean, we’ve gone back in time. I’ve met Da Vinci, for Pete’s sake…
BATMAN: The city calls to me.
FLASH: That reminds me, when is J’onn going to get back so we can swap Batman’s mind out of that chimp and into his own body?

Enter TWO COMICS GEEKS.

Each GEEK opens up a copy of All-Star Batman and Robin #1. They begin reading.

GEEK ONE: This beginning is…
GEEK TWO: Shit?
GEEK ONE: Would Frank Miller and Jim Lee combined make shit?
GEEK TWO: Surely this cannot be shit.
GEEK ONE: Perhaps we should read some more, to make sure of whether or not it is shit.

They put down issue number one and pick up issue number two.

GEEK ONE: This is starting to look very much like shit.
GEEK TWO: I concur with your declaration of shit.
GEEK ONE: Perhaps this shit is just a slow start, though?
GEEK TWO: I’m willing to give this shit a little more time.

They put down issue number two and pick up issue number three.

GEEK ONE: …wow, this really is shit.
GEEK TWO: I am amazed at how shit this is.
GEEK ONE: Black Canary is Irish? What the fuck is up with that shit?
GEEK TWO: Wow, Frank Miller’s rerunning his Superman versus Batman story again? That is some serious shit there.

They put down issue number three and pick up issue number four.

GEEK ONE: Holy shit, look at this triple gatefold foldout page of the Batcave!
GEEK TWO: Shit yes.
GEEK ONE: On the other hand, Batman just dumped Robin in the cave to die. What the shit?
GEEK TWO: I wonder if this is shit on purpose.

They put down issue number four and pick up issue number five.

GEEK ONE: Shit, Superman made out with Wonder Woman.
GEEK TWO: That’s total shit. Frank Miller has to know this is total shit. Right?
GEEK ONE: I’m starting to agree with you. This is some purposeful shit right here.
GEEK TWO: This is glorious shit.

They put down issue number five and pick up issue number six.

GEEK ONE: Shit yes! This shit is a parody!
GEEK TWO: Frank Miller is feeding us shit and making us love it!
GEEK ONE: I love reading shit!
GEEK TWO: This is classic shit right here!

They put down issue number six and pick up issue number seven.

GEEK ONE: This is some genius shit.
GEEK TWO: This is shit dialed up to eleven!
GEEK ONE: This is seriously postmodernist shit!
GEEK TWO: This is shit as critical commentary on the form itself!

They put down issue number seven anjd pick up issue number eight.

GEEK ONE: …you know, I appreciate that this shit is clever, but…
GEEK TWO: …in the end, no matter how crazy this shit is, it’s still shit.
GEEK ONE: Why am I buying this shit again?
GEEK TWO: Isn’t there less obvious shit we could be buying?

Exeunt.

KIRK: Why are people still out with their families so late?
STEVE: It’s the CNE [Canadian National Exhibition, for those not in the know] - they’re just getting back.
KIRK: That started?
ME: Yeah, last week.
BEN: Man, I should go to that.
ME: Ah, the only reason to go is for those little donuts.
STEVE: The ones they make in front of you?
BEN: Tiny Toms! They have them at Wonderland!
ME: And they come in the bag.
BEN: And then they put in the cinnamon and sugar, and they shake it, and hand it to you. Fresh little donuts.
KIRK: Ah, those aren’t that hard to make yourself. All you need is cinnamon and sugar.
ME: …and donuts.

KIRK throws his nearly empty coffee cup at me. And misses.

ME: Well, I’m not wrong about that. You do need the donuts.
BEN: Fuck, you got hot chocolate on my pants.
KIRK: So?
BEN: It’ll stain.
KIRK: But they’re brown pants.
BEN: They’re khaki, it’ll show up.
STEVE: So take them to the laundry room. If you wash them immediately it’ll come right out.
BEN: …nah, I don’t care that much.
ME: But the spots will show up.
BEN: They’re my work pants.
KIRK: I don’t even see any spots.
STEVE: That’s because it’s dark.
KIRK: I think he’s lying about the spots.
BEN: See, I stand behind a counter most of the day anyway, so people won’t be able to see the stains. I’ll just stand there and be thinking “ha ha, I have stained pants and you don’t know.” It’ll make the day pass.
KIRK: You know, when we move, I’ll miss Crawford Street.
ALL: (sounds of commiseration)
KIRK: When my buddy Mike Crawford came over, he so wanted to steal our street sign, but I told him no.
STEVE: That was good of you.
KIRK: I didn’t want people getting lost when we were having a party.
BEN: The roads around here are twisty. Good call.
KIRK: Hey, is it true that if you steal a street sign with your last name, it’s not a crime?

A pause.

STEVE: I believe that’s an urban legend.
ME: I think you meant to say “I believe that’s retarded.”
KIRK: So it’s not true?
ME: No, Kirk. It is not true.
KIRK: Imagine if it was true, and your last name was “Street.”
BEN: “I’m Johnny Street, and these are my road signs. Yes, all twelve thousand of them. It’s legal, you know.”
STEVE: “I’m gonna build a house out of them.”
ME: Imagine the precedent that would set. If your last name was Del Monte you could steal all the juice you could ever want and nobody could touch you.
BEN: It would be awesome for you, though.
ME: …why? There’s not a lot of stuff called “Bird.”
BEN: You could steal birds.
ME: Why would I want birds?
STEVE: There’s good money in birds.

Originally written May 5th, 2006.

NOTE: This really happened.

SCENE: Silver Snail Comics, where it is Free Comic Book Day. Enter CHRIS, bearing a cheapo Stikfas blister pack and a bunch of free comics. THE ASSISTANT SALESPERSON waits patiently.

ASSISTANT: And that will be seven dollars.
CHRIS: (hands it over generously)
ASSISTANT: Would you like a free action figure? In addition to it being Free Comic Book Day, here at Silver Snail it is also Free Action Figure Day!

The ASSISTANT gestures at a pile of dusty cut-rate “Stargate SG-1″ figures, all of them Richard Dean Anderson.

CHRIS: …nah, I’m good.
ASSISTANT: They’re free.
CHRIS: And yet, no.
ASSISTANT: Are you sure? Free! It’s MacGyver!
OTHER ASSISTANT: Actually he’s Captain Jack O’ Neill.
ASSISTANT: Right. And he’s free!

The ASSISTANT brandishes a figure good-naturedly.

CHRIS: No, I think I’m good.
ASSISTANT: Wow. I’m impressed.
CHRIS: Thank you.
ASSISTANT: You saw the temptation of free MacGyver -
OTHER ASSISTANT: Captain Jack O’Neill.
ASSISTANT: - free Captain whosisface and you were not swayed. You, sir, are an oak.
CHRIS: Much appreciated.
ASSISTANT: But I would point out that he is free.
CHRIS: I did indeed understand that point.
ASSISTANT: So would you like one?
CHRIS: No.

Pause.

ASSISTANT: I wonder if I am adequately explaining the freeness of him.
CHRIS: I really think I’ve got it.
ASSISTANT: He could go home with you right now.
CHRIS: Uh huh.
ASSISTANT: I could just, you know, pop him in your bag.
CHRIS: Or you could not.
ASSISTANT: He’s poppable.
CHRIS: Palpable, even.
ASSISTANT: Oh, touche!
CHRIS: Thanks.
ASSISTANT: So you’ll take one!
CHRIS: I didn’t say that.
ASSISTANT: Oh, come on.
CHRIS: What guarantee do I have that it won’t come to life and try to murder me in my sleep?
ASSISTANT: What?
CHRIS: I would like some sort of guarantee that this is not a killer doll. Like Chucky.
ASSISTANT: It’s not Chucky.
CHRIS: No, it doesn’t look like Chucky. But it could, you know, sympathize. With the killing.
ASSISTANT: But MacGyver is a good guy!
OTHER ASSISTANT: It’s Captain -
ASSISTANT: Nobody cares.
CHRIS: So was MacBeth. Then he murdered the King of Scotland.
ASSISTANT: Good point.
CHRIS: I thought so.
ASSISTANT: But this figure wasn’t made in Scotland! HA!
CHRIS: Where was it made?

The ASSISTANT checks. By this point, there is sort of a crowd gathering because it’s not every day you see two grown men arguing over NOT taking action figures.

ASSISTANT: China.
CHRIS: So it’s a Communist.
ASSISTANT: We can’t be sure of that.
CHRIS: But do I want to take a chance like that?
ASSISTANT: What chance?
CHRIS: Maybe it’s a killer revolutionary doll.
ASSISTANT: I think you’d be safe from him, then.
CHRIS: Excuse me?
ASSISTANT: You’re buying one Stikfas blister. If you were a member of the bourgeoisie, you would have bought more.
CHRIS: …okay, I concede that.
ASSISTANT: Aha! So you’ll take it!
CHRIS: But Chinese Communism was known for also being exceptionally concerned with cultural purity in the course of the revolution.
ASSISTANT: Meaning?
CHRIS: Meaning I don’t own any SG-1 stuff. I have never watched an episode of SG-1. Ever.
ASSISTANT: So?
CHRIS: So I might not be a member of the bourgeoisie, but I’m not culturally homogenous with the doll. He will look at my DVD collection in the night, deem me unworthy of a place in the glorious people’s collective, and slit my throat.
ASSISTANT: With what?
CHRIS: I dunno. Something sharp.
ASSISTANT: Where would he get something sharp?
CHRIS: It’s MacGyver, he’ll find a way to create a sharp edge.
OTHER ASSISTANT: It’s Captain Jack O’Neill.
ASSISTANT: See, for once she has a point. This isn’t MacGyver, so what would you have to worry about?
CHRIS: You still haven’t adequately addressed as to how I can be sure this isn’t a killer doll. Killer dolls find ways. They bide their time.
ASSISTANT: Well, this is a factory irregular doll.
CHRIS: Oh, great. So it’s not just a killer doll, it’s a bitter and rejected killer doll.
ASSISTANT: It’s not a killer doll!
CHRIS: Prove it!
ASSISTANT: It was made in China…
CHRIS: Yes…
ASSISTANT: (thinks) … and if it were dangerous it wouldn’t have made it through customs without a warning, which we didn’t receive!

A round of applause from the gathered onlookers at this brilliant gambit.

CHRIS: Okay, I think I have to concede that this doll is not, in fact, homicidal.
ASSISTANT: Great! So you’ll take one?
CHRIS: Well…
ASSISTANT: Go ahead.
CHRIS: Does it explode? I don’t want an exploding doll.
ASSISTANT: Technically it’s an action figure.
CHRIS: I don’t want an exploding action figure either.
ASSISTANT: Well, these don’t explode.
CHRIS: Sure?
ASSISTANT: Extremely.
CHRIS: How about implosions?

Pause.

ASSISTANT: You’re worried about the possibility of there being an unstable quantum singularity inside a Stargate action figure?
CHRIS: You never know.
ASSISTANT: Well, let me check for a second.

The ASSISTANT taps the figure.

CHRIS: Wow, scientific.
ASSISTANT: Nope. No black holes inside this figure. It’s Macgyverriffic!
OTHER ASSISTANT: Captain Jackoriffic.
ASSISTANT: Whatever.
CHRIS: So they don’t explode OR implode.
ASSISTANT: No.
CHRIS: That’s some security for me, then.
ASSISTANT: I’d say so!
CHRIS: Right.
ASSISTANT: So you’ll take one?
CHRIS: Can I have two?
ASSISTANT: Wait, you’ve been careful so far and now you want two?
CHRIS: I didn’t say I wanted two. I just want to know if I can have two.
ASSISTANT: No.
CHRIS: Why not? They’re free.
ASSISTANT: Yes, but -
CHRIS: So they have no intrinsic value as such, right?
ASSISTANT: Well -
CHRIS: And it’s not like you’re short of these things.
ASSISTANT: But if it’s Free Action Figure Day, once we’re out of these we have to start giving other things away. Ones that cost money.
CHRIS: So if I come back later can I have some free Stikfas?
ASSISTANT: No.
CHRIS: Why not?
ASSISTANT: We wouldn’t give it away for free. I think I have some Pokemon thingies in back. We’ll give those away next.
CHRIS: Ah.
ASSISTANT: But, regardless. Would you like a completely free Richard Dean Anderson as the guy from Stargate action figure?
CHRIS: No. I don’t really want to have one.

Pause.

ASSISTANT: Well, why didn’t you just say so?

Applause from onlookers. Exeunt.

SCENE. A bar. With drinks. And law students entering the Osgoode Hall class of 2010.

PROSPECTIVE LAW STUDENT: God, I am so sick of being called an “untouchable.”
ME: Those Hindus and their castes. Wacky.
PROSPECTIVE: No, I mean the Friedman thing.
ME (who knows what he’s talking about, but is enjoying his Strongbow, so why not let him exposit): The Friedman thing?
PROSPECTIVE: There was this book or article or something Thomas Friedman wrote about how lawyers were “untouchable.” Because of globalization. Being a lawyer is a skilled profession, it doesn’t cross-migrate. This country may not need call centre people at some point because they’ll all live in India, but it’ll always need lawyers.
ME: Right. So?
PROSPECTIVE: So lawyers aren’t the only untouchables. So are skilled tradesmen. Plumbers are “untouchable” too, because you can’t outsource fixing your sink to Singapore.
ME: I still don’t get why you’re up in a bunch about this.
PROSPECTIVE: Because in all these speeches at the orientation things. You know?
ME: Nope.
PROSPECTIVE: They all talk about how going to law school is an investment, because now you’ll be “untouchable.” But if that’s what you care about, why not save sixty thousand dollars and just become a plumber instead?
OTHER PROSPECTIVE LAW STUDENT (who has been listening in): I think the money has something to do with it.
ME: I dunno. A good plumber can make high five figures, easy.
PROSPECTIVE: Right. If I said “fuck the law, I’m gonna fix leaky pipes” right now, I could go do my apprenticeship - during which I would be making money rather than paying it out - for three years, and there you go.
OTHER PROSPECTIVE: Ah, but a lawyer can make so much more money.
PROSPECTIVE: Can, but very likely won’t. I mean, look around at the people here in this bar. Most of them aren’t going to be wearing fancy Italian suits and going “Denny Crane!” into the mirror in ten years’ time.
ME: Is that all their name?
PROSPECTIVE: Boston Legal?
ME: Oh, right. I’m older than you, so my TV reference for lawyering is The West Wing.
PROSPECTIVE: But my point is - I mean, you read those “so you’re going to law school” books, right? Only a tiny minority of lawyers practice high-hat corporate law and make an unholy shitload of money.
OTHER PROSPECTIVE: But the possibility exists that you can. Whereas, if you’re a plumber, there’s no such thing as fancy corporate plumbing.
PROSPECTIVE: You buy a lot of lottery tickets? I’m just asking.
OTHER PROSPECTIVE: Okay, say I accept your suggestion that lawyering isn’t that much more lucrative than plumbing is. Surely there’s also the benefit of prestige?
PROSPECTIVE: Meaning?
ME: I think he means that plumbers don’t generally get invited to fancy parties for charities and the like.
PROSPECTIVE: Quick quiz: would you rather go to a fancy dress ball or to a sports bar to eat chicken wings and drink beer?
ME: Now there’s a good point.
OTHER PROSPECTIVE: But lawyers get to change the system. Surely the attraction of altering and fixing law as you see fit -
PROSPECTIVE: Oh, come on. Firstly, your odds of becoming a judge are worse than your odds of becoming a rich corporate lawyer. And secondly, say you go into public policy. You’re not going to change anything. Liberals won’t let you because anything you might actually change could hurt the spotted owl or make gay people feel bad about themselves.
ME: In fairness, conservatives won’t let you because before they were elected they sold tires, so clearly nobody knows more about how the government should operate than they do.
PROSPECTIVE (waving his hands to concede the point): Exactly. So, again, I ask: why not be a plumber instead? Less stress, there’s still a lot of money in it, you get to work with your hands…
A pause as this is mulled over.
ME: I think we seriously have to consider how much we’re willing to pay to lessen the chance of coming into contact with poop as a part of our job.
Another pause.
PROSPECTIVE: Right, so are you guys gonna get a locker at Osgoode, or what?

Came across somebody on the blogotubes complaining (”No!” you exclaim, “people complain on the Internet?”) about this post, specifically the part where the author rants about stupid made-up fancy-dancy fantasy names like Silvuirielalala Tinyhands and the like. The complaint?

“Well, Tolkien did it.”

People. J.R.R. Tolkien was a actual honest to god linguist. He invented languages for fun long before he ever even started writing fantasy books about short people with furry feet, and even the other Inklings made fun of the elves in his books. In fact, the unabridged biography of C.S. Lewis records this interaction between the two great British fantasy novelists:

LEWIS: John, you wanker! Drop the elf crap and let’s go down the pub, Dyson is buying the rounds tonight.
TOLKIEN: One second. Just want to finish these notes on Dwarvish. You know, they use runes, and -
LEWIS: Oh, god, another language? How many does that make now? The elves have two, the humans have two -
TOLKIEN: Well, actually that’s just the good humans. If you count the evil humans it’s more like seven.
LEWIS: And you wrote them all up with dictionaries and everything, didn’t you.
TOLKIEN: …I was bored.
LEWIS: So, are the Dwarves going to have two languages? Oh, and what about the furry little fellows -
TOLKIEN: The Hobbits?
LEWIS: I keep telling you, people are going to think you mean “rabbits.”
TOLKIEN: Oh, piss off.
LEWIS: “Dear Mr. Tolkien, I bought your so-called “novel” because I was anticipating an entertaining story about rabbits, much like that Watership Down thing. Instead, I got midgets with furry feet. What the hell. Signed, J.M. Puddlepoof, Esq.”
TOLKIEN: But you said you liked the Hobbits.
LEWIS: No, I said that I liked that they spoke English rather than Hobbitese or Hobbitaya or something like that. It was not a wholesale endorsement of your disturbing midget fetish.
TOLKIEN: Oh, I do not have to take this tripe from Mister “Hey, What If God Was A Lion?”
LEWIS: Come on, that’s solid stuff!
TOLKIEN: And “Mr. Tumnus.” Why did you think naming a character after foot fungus was a good idea?
LEWIS: He’s not!
TOLKIEN: Sounds like it.
LEWIS: At least I’m not conceited enough to put bloody epic poetry in my books.
TOLKIEN: At least I’m not fool enough to make the heroes of my story a bunch of annoying brats.
LEWIS: At least I came up with a better symbol for evil than a damn ring. What did your wife think of that?
TOLKIEN: I can’t believe I bloody converted you.
LEWIS: Well, I didn’t become a pope-hugger like yourself, so I think technically I’m still a heathen or something, aren’t I?
TOLKIEN: Technically, yes.
LEWIS: All right then. Are you done crafting fantastic new verbs ending in the letter “a” so we can go get sloshed?
TOLKIEN: The Dwarves have a much more guttural language, actually. You’re thinking of the Elvish tongues, like Quenya and -
LEWIS: No, I’m thinking of a pint of bitter with my damn name on it is what I’m thinking.
TOLKIEN: Arse!

Actually this is much more fun than the actual biography in question. I should hire out.