FLAPJACKS: Hey, log on to your internet. I want to show you something.
ME: Why do you never just use the internet at your house? Is it wolves again?
FLAPJACKS: Sadly, my house has become the primary conflict site for a very small but extremely intense ethnic conflict. If I surfed the net there, I might step on a landmine. You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, right? Think of what Sally Struthers would say.
ME: Sally Struthers?
FLAPJACKS: Isn’t she the one who hates landmines?
ME: Well, I’m sure she’s probably strongly anti-landmine, but I think she’s known for campaigning against hunger.
FLAPJACKS: Well, you can’t eat landmines, so I’m sure she’s with me on this.
ME: On letting you use my internet.
FLAPJACKS: Yes.

ME: Well.
FLAPJACKS: I know!
ME: I see Gerard Butler is still making bad career decisions.
FLAPJACKS: Excuse me, but I think we just saw the sleeper hit of 2009.
ME: What, are you serious? It is the latest “man in competitive reality show” type thing. So it’s a video game this time instead. So what?
FLAPJACKS: Ah, but this trailer debuted on XBox Live!
ME: So?
FLAPJACKS: So they are marketing themselves to their target audience intensely! And you know how they are doing that? By tapping into primordial desires.
ME: Primordial desires.
FLAPJACKS: You see, whenever a child plays Halo, what they are really doing is sublimating their desire to kill people.
ME: I’m pretty sure most psychologists would tell you that you are wrong. And probably also bad.
FLAPJACKS: Possibly, but so what?
ME: I don’t want Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade sending their goons over here.
FLAPJACKS: They have goons?
ME: It’s a recessionary economy. Goons are a dime a dozen now. I considered hiring a goon just yesterday but then realized I didn’t have anybody I needed roughed up.
FLAPJACKS: I thought only SomethingAwful had goons.
ME: No, they have Goons ™.
FLAPJACKS: I am always impressed by your ability to pronounce the trademark symbol.
ME: Thanks.
FLAPJACKS: But what’s the difference between SomethingAwful goons tee-em and regular goons?
ME: It’s like the difference between Bayer brand aspirins and regular aspirins.
FLAPJACKS: Ah.
ME: Exactly!
FLAPJACKS: Anyway, I’m sure they won’t send any goons, because I’m totally right about this. See, consider little Timmy playing on his XBox, killing people with Master Shake.
ME: Master Chief.
FLAPJACKS: I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about that. So Master Shake shoots a guy and then they hump his face. But it’s not enough! “Gosh,” thinks little Timmy, “it would be awesome if I could kill people for real, but have it be as easy as playing XBox.” See, little Timmy is, like most gamers, quick to realize his own physical limitations.
ME: Is little Timmy in fact giant big fat Timmy?
FLAPJACKS: Don’t play into people’s preconceptions of gamers!
ME: But they’re so often true.
FLAPJACKS: Whatever. Little Timmy is a paraplegic. His only joy in life comes from playing video games. Are you happy now? Little Timmy, stuck in his wheelchair forever, doomed to die one day of bed sores just like Christopher Reeve did. All he wants to do is blow somebody’s head off in a spray of pink mist and have it be for real, and then be able to tell his parents “LOOK, I’M DOING IT” as he stands up on unsteady legs, totters over to the corpse and humps it, but little Timmy can never do that so instead he has to imagine the last part. Why must you deny little Timmy that pleasure?
ME: Because it would be murder?
FLAPJACKS: Ah HA, but that is the genius of Gamer! In this movie, all the real people getting shot and killed are convicted criminals sentenced to die! So it is morally permissible to kill them, and then force the person you are controlling to hump the remnants of their face.
ME: You know, even in the United States, they really don’t hand out enough death sentences to justify the bodycount of a movie like this.
FLAPJACKS: I’m sure in the dystopic future there are plenty more people getting death sentences.
ME: But are they getting those sentences for crimes they in fact committed, or were they shoved into the justice system by corrupt enforcers looking for additional profit?
FLAPJACKS: Oh, come now. Michael C. Hall is the inventor of the game! Would Michael C. Hall play a character who was morally ambigious?
(Long pause.)
FLAPJACKS: Okay, maybe he would. Damn. Now I am all conflicted.
ME: How so?
FLAPJACKS: Because on the one hand I want to see Gerard Butler shoot shit up and hump people’s faces –
ME: What is with you and humping people’s faces?
FLAPJACKS: …it’s been a while.
ME: Ah.
FLAPJACKS: Anyway, but on the other hand, I don’t want to encourage outright murder! Except when I do. It’s complex. You have to take each murder into account separately, weigh and balance them, that sort of thing.
ME: What if you pretend that this is not Halo, but Gears of War instead, and instead of other people Gerard Butler is shooting horrible mutant things?
FLAPJACKS: That makes things much better!
ME: I thought it would.

Top comment: I can’t wait for the riveting, dramatic scene where Gerald Butler is going to die because the kid got his camera stuck in a corner. — NCallahan

Top comment: How do you masturbate poorly? Do you just not finish? After you fail to masturbate would you look at yourself in the mirror and say “You’re just a fucking tease.” Can I take 20 to masturbate? — Lister Sage

but I am in the mood for a “nerdiest sentence ever typed” competition.

So I shall lead off:

My Hogwarts homebrew expansion for “Settlers of Catan” needs tweaking.

Beat that, nerds!

EDIT TO ADD: I would like to thank Mark S. for making the first Dr. Strange joke within the first ten comments, thus allowing me to win my side-bet with a friend. My twenty dollars is because of you, Mark S!

Top comments:

Oh, oh. Someone help me out. How do you say “It’s a TRAP!” in Klingon? –Zifnab

nuvonlI’!

… Yeah, I can’t believe that was on Google. — Emma

Top comment: Right ’cause a sheep can’t enjoy its sexuality without being labeled a slut! Such a double standard! Typical of this anthropocentric humanthiarcal society! Dworkin was right: all interspecies sex is rape! I long for the day this is not true and the sheep are finally treated as equals! — Al

I have decided that I am gonna start up my own life-hacking website, wherein I will teach people to do things in different ways than they previously did them! (I am not doing this to raise funds to change my name because I am afraid of Steven Seagal. We have chatted, and he is cool. Well, his answering machine message said nothing about murdering me, so I assume we are cool. STEVEN SEAGAL: if you are reading this and we are cool, please leave a comment saying we are cool or not cool.)

For example, here is the Flapjacks Band-Aid Hack. Are you tired of paying through the nose for brand-name finger bandages? Do you ceaselessly writhe in the grip of Big Finger Bandage? If so, then follow these instructions!

1.) You will need: scotch tape, sterilized gauze, a bleeding wound of some kind

2.) Put sterilized gauze on bleeding wound. (If you want to make this hack even hackier what you can do instead of buying sterilized gauze is to buy cotton balls and rubbing alcohol, sterilize the cotton balls with the rubbing alcohol, then use that instead. SUPERHACK!)

3.) Wrap scotch tape around gauze. PRESTO! You have just made your very own Hacker Bandage!

And that is only one of millions of hacks I have created! Also there is the Flapjacks Make Dishtowels Out Of Your Old Sheets Hack,, the Flapjacks Housing Insulation From Old Dishtowels That Used To Be Old Sheets Hack, the Flapjacks How To Fill Out Insurance Forms When Your Homemade Insulation Catches Fire Hack, and many others. You will hack your way to a cheaper, more efficient you in six weeks or your money back! (Assuming you can prove in a court of law that you put sufficient effort into your hacking. I mean, come on, I expect you to WANT it.)

ME: So get this – Steven Seagal is reading my blog.
FLAPJACKS: Steven Seagal, or some comedy nerd pretending to be Steven Seagal?
ME: I’m pretty sure it’s the real Steven Seagal.
FLAPJACKS: And he’s reading your blog.
ME: Yeah.
FLAPJACKS: No, he’s just following you on Twitter.
ME: Lots of people follow me on Twitter. A lot more, lately. There were a few people at first and now they’re coming regularly.
FLAPJACKS: Perhaps you have reached… twittical mass.
ME: Don’t do that. Don’t do wordplay with “tw” because it is Twitter. I hate that.
FLAPJACKS: Wordplay… or twordplay?
ME: Stop it.
FLAPJACKS: Anyhow, like I said, he’s just following you on Twitter.
ME: But I don’t have a fancy phone that can do Twitter things, so all I do with Twitter right now is points to updates on my blog. Therefore, Steven Seagal is reading my blog. QED.
FLAPJACKS: Perhaps he is only reading your blog titles. Did you ever think about that?
ME: No, because that would be retarded.
FLAPJACKS: Why on earth is he reading your blog?
ME: I think it’s because I’m awesome.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe this will lead to a trend of other C-list celebrities reading your blog. If Steven Seagal is reading your blog, how long until Kevin Pollak starts reading you? And once Kevin Pollak is reading you, it is only a matter of time before you have Claudia Christian, Kevin Sorbo or Mike Ditka. And from there, it is but a hop, skip and jump to the lofty peaks of Lorenzo Lamas.
ME: Are you seriously going to refer to Steven Seagal as “C-list”?
FLAPJACKS: The last thing I saw him in was that movie where he dies twenty minutes in and then Kurt Russell has to land the jet plane, so yes.
ME: I wasn’t trying to debate your definitions. I was pointing out that you just called Steven Seagal “C-list” and that he is going to read that you called him that.
FLAPJACKS: Say what now?
ME: This is gonna be a blog post.
FLAPJACKS: But you didn’t give me the hand signal!
ME: What hand signal?
FLAPJACKS: The hand signal that means “I am going to blog this conversation!” You didn’t warn me I was on the record!
ME: First, we don’t have any such hand signal. Second, I never warn you and you never complain.
FLAPJACKS: That was because until now you didn’t have anybody reading your stupid blog that could kill me by twitching his thumbs slightly! It’s all been various kinds of nerds! The type of nerds who breathe heavily when they get out of their motor scooters! Steven Seagal doesn’t have a motor scooter!
ME: Maybe he has one that he uses to kill people.
FLAPJACKS: That’s even worse! Now all I can think about is Steven Seagal coming after me with a motor scooter and death is in his eyes!
ME: Hey, Wikipedia says he has his own brand of knife.
FLAPJACKS: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!
ME: “The “Steven Seagal Edition” knives feature 4″ blades with his signature etched in, and no auto-assisted opening mechanism.” You know why there’s no auto-assisted opening mechanism? Because auto-assisted opening mechanisms are for pansy-men.
FLAPJACKS: Oh god he’s going to cut me up and eat me.
ME: He’s a vegetarian.
FLAPJACKS: He’s going to cut me up and feed me to some animal with a strictly carnivorous diet so as not to waste my flesh.
ME: Possibly.
FLAPJACKS: WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY “NO HE’S NOT GOING TO DO THAT”?
ME: Well, he wasn’t going to eat you, but I have to admit, chopping you up into food for endangered species is entirely possible.
FLAPJACKS: Oh god. Oh god. I need a plan.
ME: Sure, why not.
FLAPJACKS: Okay. Okay. He’s an aikido champion. Right?
ME: And?
FLAPJACKS: “Aikido is a defensive martial art which focuses on not harming one’s attacker.”
ME: So I am guessing that your plan, such as it is, is to not attack him and therefore he will not be able to use his aikido skills?
FLAPJACKS: No, because I’m certain he knows how to kick my ass through some other method. I plan to attack him constantly, so he will fall back upon the aikido at which he is most comfortable, and I will be safe because he will deflect me harmlessly! Eventually his rage will subside, I am sure.
ME: Unless he’s learned to modify his aikido to use with his particular brand of knife.
FLAPJACKS: You just have to ruin everything, don’t you?
ME: Hey, he has his own brand of energy drink! Maybe he will drown you in a tub of it.
FLAPJACKS: How would he do that?
ME: Well, you attack him, he uses his aikido tricks to throw you harmlessly wherever he feels like it, except the harmless throw lands you in a vat of Steven Seagal Lightning Bolt Energy Drink, and then he just has to kind of hold you underneath the surface one-handed until your pitiful struggle finally ceases.
FLAPJACKS: I hate you so much that it is like I am made of poison.

Top comment: He also follows LeVar Burton, so I wouldn’t get too excited. Well, he was Kunta Kinte, I guess. And Geordie LaForge. And Reading Rainbow Guy…

Never mind. You’re hot shit! — Bill Reed

Top comment: Now do Its vs It’s.

ONLY YOU, MGK, CAN FIX ALL THE INTERNET — Ilan

Best not come to battle because if you battle me
You’re gonna suffer a fucking bat-astrophe
Kal-El, what the hell, you wanna get in a fight
Fucker step off or I’ll synthesize Kryptonite
Diana, I wanna introduce my Batpole
To every one of your wonderful Wonder-holes
Green Lanterns? Fuck you, you’re alla you overpaid
I’ll beat you with daffodils, beat you with lemonade
Martian Manhunter’s tough, so I’ll light a Bat-Match,
Smoke a cigar and I’ll make him my bat-byatch
And the Flash? He runs fast, but you know he can’t handle me
I’ll just activate Anti-Flash Bat-Plan Twenty-Three
Aquaman, he’s a joke, you know he ain’t tough enough
Let him sit back till I want me some dolphin muff
Even Aquaman’s fishes, they know I bat-vicious
The League are my bitches, they do as I wishes
Cause if I don’t want it the bad guys will never win
Down ’em like House downs a handful of Vicodin
Lex Luthor, Ra’s Al Ghul, or even Per Degaton
They all the worst and I be the “better than”
Battle neverending you know that I fight it
My victories endless, you cannot deny it
Cause they dead y’all, and they dead y’all
My parents are muhfuckin dead y’all

(repeat last two lines until Batman breaks down crying in front of parents’ graves)

Top comment: Word to your momma. And your papa. Who are dead. — Dregoth

FLAPJACKS: So first you did those Fighting Fantasy gamebooks.
ME: Yes.
FLAPJACKS: And then you did all that nerd-lit from years gone by.
ME: Yes.
FLAPJACKS: You realize there remains only one true realm of nerd-bookery left to you.
ME: Unfortunately.
FLAPJACKS: A final frontier, if you will.
ME: Yes, very clever.

ONE
ME: So they’re stuntmen who double for children.
FLAPJACKS: They’re being totally dismissive when they say it’s a niche market.
ME: Really. How else can they apply it?
FLAPJACKS: They could stunt double for Michael J. Fox.
ME: Right.
FLAPJACKS: Because he’s short.
ME: I got it.
FLAPJACKS: Although they’d have to wiggle around a lot, I guess.

TWO
ME: What the fuck is this?
FLAPJACKS: They got rid of the original Amazing Race music and replaced it with a harder-rock version!
ME: This is total bullshit! The original theme music was timeless.
FLAPJACKS: They also have new fonts.
ME: The original fonts were time-tested and true!
FLAPJACKS: Wasn’t that a slogan for trucks?
ME: Don’t distract me from the issues at hand! They are trying to “coolify” the Amazing Race! And you can’t do that, because it is already just about completely perfect!
FLAPJACKS: They could put in a walrus with laser tusks.
ME: Hence the “just about.”

THREE
FLAPJACKS: The deaf guy doesn’t read lips?
ME: Apparently not.
FLAPJACKS: What a waste of a perfectly good deaf person.
ME: I think you need to rephrase that.
FLAPJACKS: Come on, reading lips is like being a super-spy, except everyday people get to do it. It is cool. And Lazy McDeaferson here doesn’t read lips, and instead has his mom translate for him? That is like saying “James Bond? No thanks, I think I’d rather be Larry in accounting.”
ME: It’s probably tricky. Can you read lips?
FLAPJACKS: Do I look deaf?
ME: Deaf has a look?
FLAPJACKS: Like Marlee Matlin!
ME: You certainly don’t look like Marlee Matlin.
FLAPJACKS: That’s probably for the best.
ME: Yes.

FOUR
FLAPJACKS: Preston and Jennifer are fighting only ten minutes into the new season! I think that’s a record.
ME: Which ones are they again? Are they the ones who said they fight all the time?
FLAPJACKS: Why is there always a couple who fights all the time on this show?
ME: Because there are a lot of out-of-work actors in Hollywood with dysfunctional relationships.

FIVE
FLAPJACKS: Hey! It’s Ernest!
ME: You mean Jim Varney?
FLAPJACKS: Yes.
ME: Jim Varney is dead.
FLAPJACKS: No he isn’t. Look, he’s right there, with his wife.
ME: That would be “Steve.”
FLAPJACKS: Assumed name.
ME: He died over eight years ago!
FLAPJACKS: No, he faked his death.
ME: Why would he fake his death?
FLAPJACKS: Legions of crazed Ernest fans.
ME: So let me get this straight. Jim Varney fakes his death to escape legions of supposed fans of the Ernest movies. He then gets married, builds a life for himself, then potentially ruins it all by competing on the Amazing Race, alerting said legions of supposed fans to his non-death.
FLAPJACKS: I never said it was a brilliant plan. I mean, come on. He was Ernest.

SIX
ME: The stuntmen look kind of like hobbits.
FLAPJACKS: You realize now that I won’t be able to think of them as anything other than hobbits.
ME: Tough noogies.

SEVEN
FLAPJACKS: Wait, the lawyer guy’s plan to fool the other teams into not taking the correct train is “well, we’re not sure if this is the right train, but we’re gonna take it anyway?” This is what an education at Harvard Law buys you?
ME: I bet they don’t consider that a cunning ruse at Yale.
FLAPJACKS: Would they consider it a cunning ruse at Osgoode Hall?
ME: I’m not sure. I’ll try it and get back to you.
FLAPJACKS: Don’t bother. I have decided, based on this one thirty-second segment of video, that all lawyers are much stupider than advertised and that a magical talking lion will represent me in all future legal dealings.
ME: Where would you get a magical talking lion?
FLAPJACKS: I have my sources.
ME: No you don’t.
FLAPJACKS: No I don’t, but for a second you believed.
ME: No I didn’t.
FLAPJACKS: And that is why the lawyer guy’s ruse was so stupid.

EIGHT
ME: And I see this week’s Traditional Insert-Country-Here Challenge Element is delivering cheese using what appear to be backpacks made out of wood.
FLAPJACKS: That’s how you know it’s traditional! Instead of using proper backpacks, they use old-timey wooden backpacks! Like Grandpapa used to use! Back in the days when Switzerland was called “Nazi Gold Depository,” before they invented the wheelbarrow.
ME: And instead of just driving a truck there, they have to go on foot!
FLAPJACKS: And instead of Velveeta, they are picking up cheese!
ME: That last one doesn’t work.
FLAPJACKS: Have you ever tried to carry two hundred pounds of Velveeta at once?
ME: Have you?
FLAPJACKS: In my other secret life as a daring criminal specializing in cheese food products.
ME: I am pretty sure you never did that.
FLAPJACKS: It’s a secret life.
ME: Anyway, these challenges are important, because they tell us something important about other cultures.
FLAPJACKS: No they don’t. Nobody does this stupid shit any more.
ME: No, they tell us that Swiss people like to drink beer and watch Americans do stupid shit nobody does any more.
FLAPJACKS: But everybody in the whole world likes to do that.
ME: And that’s why deep down, we’re all the same inside.

NINE
FLAPJACKS: To find the Pit Stop, they have to LISTEN for a group of yodelers? THE AMAZING RACE HATES DEAF PEOPLE!
ME: His mom will hear it.
FLAPJACKS: That’s not the point! They are anti-deafous!
ME: Not actually a word.
FLAPJACKS: Deafists!
ME: Also not a word.
FLAPJACKS: I am outraged about this!
ME: Look. He’s handicapped. There’s nothing wrong with it, but that means life is a bit harder for him as a matter of everyday course. If he really wants to prove that deaf people can do the Amazing Race just like everybody else, then that means the Race can’t go making accomodations for him just because of his disability.
FLAPJACKS: Just like it couldn’t make accomodations for Charla because she was a midget, or how they can’t make accomodations for the hobbits because they’re prone to being hunted by Ringwraiths.

TEN
ME: And that’s why Phil is the most awesome reality host of them all: because he bothered to learn the sign language to tell the deaf kid he came in first.
FLAPJACKS: If a team of Martians entered the Amazing Race, he would blink at them telepathically. That is how good Phil is.
ME: He can greet anybody in anything! There is nobody he cannot greet!
FLAPJACKS: Except people whose names end in “A.” I never knew “Amander” was a girl’s name until now.

(context here)

Recently, I was surfing the net looking for lols, and came across a personal ad on Craigslist. The ad was not in and of itself hilarious, but one thing struck me. The writer described herself as “nerdy,” and as an example of her nerdiness, explained that she loved to watch Desperate Housewives.

My god, people, have we allowed “nerdy” to be defined down so greatly that watching Desperate Housewives – a top 20 Neilsen primetime soap opera with no actual nerd content per se – qualifies as “nerdy” now? That is just wrong. The nerdular act cannot be allowed to be so mainstream. At this rate, in five years’ time anything that is not going out, getting wasted and watching strippers and/or football will count as “nerdy.” The word will lose all meaning! This cannot be borne!

Hence, I have prepared a handy guide for people to define their own nerdiness, based on a number of nerdistic passions. Quantification is the key, you see.

BATMAN

Not Nerdy: Going to see The Dark Knight in theatres
Slightly Nerdy: Dressing up as the Joker for Halloween (Heath Ledger version)
Fairly Nerdy: Buying Batman comics other than Year One or The Dark Knight Returns
Nerdy: Dressing up as the Joker for Halloween (Cesar Romero version)
Really Nerdy: Writing Batman fan fiction
Dangerously Nerdy: Writing Batman fan fiction where he has sex with Alfred

STAR WARS

Not Nerdy: Seeing the movies
Slightly Nerdy: Owning a toy lightsaber
Fairly Nerdy: Learning to play the Cantina Song on your musical instrument of choice
Nerdy: Knowing in which “expanded universe” novel Admiral Ackbar dies
Really Nerdy: Membership in a Stormtrooper fan brigade
Dangerously Nerdy: Defending the idea of Jar Jar Binks

HARRY POTTER

Not Nerdy: You read the books
Slightly Nerdy: You liked all of the books
Fairly Nerdy: You own a wand
Nerdy: You read fanfic that “fixes Rowling’s mistakes”
Really Nerdy: You are a fan of “wizard rock”
Dangerously Nerdy: You have an alternate “Hogwarts persona”

MAGIC: THE GATHERING

Not Nerdy: “They still make that? I played it when I was in high school for a bit, but never got into it”
Slightly Nerdy: “Yeah, it was fun, but I couldn’t keep up with all the expansions so I sold my cards”
Fairly Nerdy: “Do you mind if I use a proxy for Nicol Bolas? I mean, he’s forty bucks”
Nerdy: “You haven’t really played this game until you play draft; it’s how the game is meant to be played”
Really Nerdy: “Okay, if we’re all supposed to be planeswalkers, how come there are planeswalker cards? Am I Ajani? I don’t feel like a lion-man”
Dangerously Nerdy: “I’ve tested this deck against all comers and now all I need is to win free airfare and I’m on my way to the World Championships in Tokyo”

H.P. LOVECRAFT

Not Nerdy: Recognizing the name “Cthulhu”
Slightly Nerdy: Knowing the proper pronunciation of “Cthulhu” (EDIT: k’too-loo, for those wondering)
Fairly Nerdy: Owning a Cthulhu plushie
Nerdy: Running a Call of Cthulhu campaign
Really Nerdy: Organizing a chapter of the Campus Crusade For Cthulhu
Dangerously Nerdy: Actually reading any of Lovecraft’s stories

NERD TELEVISION

Not Nerdy: Lost
Slightly Nerdy: Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Fairly Nerdy: Battlestar Galactica
Nerdy: Stargate: Atlantis
Really Nerdy: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
Dangerously Nerdy: The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.

STAR TREK

Not Nerdy: The Next Generation
Slightly Nerdy: Deep Space Nine
Fairly Nerdy: the one where Picard rides a dune buggy
Nerdy: any of the novels
Really Nerdy: owning a phaser
Dangerously Nerdy: speaking fluent Klingon

COMPUTER USE

Not Nerdy: Macs
Slightly Nerdy: Knowing how to use Windows rather than just knowing “how to do emails”
Fairly Nerdy: Knowing the actual reasons Windows sucks
Nerdy: Anything to do with Linux
Really Nerdy: Getting all of the coding jokes in XKCD
Dangerously Nerdy: “I’m bringing BeOS back!”

ME: So the federal budget got announced –
FLAPJACKS: Oh, god, are we going to have the boring budget conversation? Stimulus infrastructure spending jobs jobs jobs. There. I said everything we could ever say about the budget. Can we talk about Left 4 Dead now?
ME: What is there to talk about? It’s a good game.
FLAPJACKS: I have moral issues with it.
ME: About a game where you shoot zombies.
FLAPJACKS: Yes.
ME: I somehow know I’m going to regret asking why you have moral issues with it.
FLAPJACKS: Well, technically they are not “zombies.” They are “infected.” Which is why they can run fast like in 28 Days Later, see. So that means that these are simply poor diseased people.
ME: But in the game society has completely broken down as a result of there being so many zombies, and as a result of their proclivity to murder anything living.
FLAPJACKS: But isn’t that breakdown our failure? Why are we punishing the poor, sick people who, were they in their right non-zombified minds, would be horrified by their actions, and also not very likely to chase after a pipebomb like they were cats pouncing on yarn?
ME: The pipebomb thing is weird, isn’t it?
FLAPJACKS: The game seems to say that zombies will chase after anything that beeps. So that begs the question: why don’t you get more things that beep? Screw the guns, I’m gonna go find me some battery-operated clock-radios. They’ll keep me alive longer. You don’t go to the gun shop; you find yourself a Radio Shack and you’re ready for any undead zombie swarm.
ME: But the superior zombies, the ones with powers – they ignore the beeping. So you need guns to take care of the big bad undead.
FLAPJACKS: Clearly second-stage undeath gives one eardrums of steel.
ME: I don’t think that’s right.
FLAPJACKS: And another thing. How come you can only carry one grenade in this game? Is that even remotely realistic?
ME: Sure it is.
FLAPJACKS: How is that realistic? Grenades are small.
ME: Think about it. Say you are wearing pants with pockets, a shirt, and shoes –
FLAPJACKS: And socks.
ME: All right, and socks.
FLAPJACKS: I don’t want my shoes to smell like feet in the zombie apocalypse.
ME: Yes. Okay. Socks. Anyway, my point is this: you wear the medpack like it is a backpack. You have your pistols in holsters. You have your primary gun slung over your shoulder when you don’t use it. This leaves you two pockets: one can hold your pain-pills, and the other holds a grenade. You don’t have room to carry a second grenade. Especially when you consider that your options are either a Molotov cocktail or a pipebomb, neither of which is exactly compact.
FLAPJACKS: Firstly, where are all the real grenades? I mean, you find dead Army guys all over the place in this game, and frequently you find huge piles of ammunition and assault rifles and combat shotguns just, like, lying around. They didn’t bring any grenades?
ME: What good would real grenades be, though? They don’t beep and they don’t set zombies on fire. Maybe the soldiers used all the real grenades and found out the hard way that grenades aren’t that useful against a zombie swarm.
FLAPJACKS: Actually, that makes sense.
ME: Of course it does.
FLAPJACKS: All right, I withdraw my complaint about the lack of proper grenades. But that doesn’t address my other issue, which is “why don’t I get, like, a fanny pack or something in which I could store extra Molotovs or pipebombs.”
ME: Well, you’d need the fanny-pack to be front-slung, right? For easy grenade access.
FLAPJACKS: Yes.
ME: So do you really want that much gunpowder and/or kerosene right up against your crotch?
FLAPJACKS: …point.
ME: There we go.
FLAPJACKS: Still, I would like to press the development team to include some of my ideas for the next patch.
ME: Oh, Christ, not the elephant stampede again.
FLAPJACKS: Come on. It would be the ultimate powerup. There is no problem an elephant stampede cannot potentially solve.
ME: Putting aside the question of why there would be enough elephants to stampede the zombies in the first place, and the question of how one could realistically summon a herd of elephants in this post-apocalyptic scenario, wouldn’t summoning the elephants be problematic?
FLAPJACKS: Why?
ME: Ever think that maybe the elephant stampede might be counterproductive?
FLAPJACKS: No.
ME: Well, what if you got caught in the elephant stampede? Or a teammate?
FLAPJACKS: Or Nelson Mandela?
ME: …what is Nelson Mandela doing in the zombie apocalypse?
FLAPJACKS: He survived brutal imprisonment for thirty years. He’d be able to handle some lousy zombies.
ME: Anyway, that’s my point. The elephant stampede – quite apart from being ridiculous – would be counterproductive.
FLAPJACKS: But that is exactly why it has to be included. It demands a greater degree of playskill to use effectively. It is not a bludgeon, but a scalpel.
ME: A scalpel that is made of maddened elephants.
FLAPJACKS: Exactly so.

1993: Saved By The Bell: The College Years debuts to thunderous acclaim after the original Saved By The Bell‘s Saturday morning run ends. The College Years leads its timeslot for the entire first season, and NBC commits to seasons two through four early on, locking up the actors at lower pay rates while they still can.

1993: Saved By The Bell: The New Class debuts on Saturday mornings, replacing the original Saved By The Bell’s slot in NBC’s Saturday morning lineup. Like its predecessor, it has tremendous success.

1994: After one season, NBC moves The New Class to Tuesday nights, creating the infamous “Bell block,” which becomes a ratings juggernaut.

1994: Tori Spelling leaves Beverly Hills, 90210 and rejoins the Bell cast in her role of Violet Anne Bickerstaff, Screech’s longrunning love interest. In order to make room for Spelling in the cast, NBC fires Kiersten Warren, who plays the nerdy-yet-cute Alex Tabor.

1994: Release of Saved By The Bell Rocks!, an album of teenpop “inspired” by the series.

1995: NBC debuts Saved By The Bell: Classless, a one-hour comedy-drama featuring Lark Voorhies and Elizabeth Berkeley (the two Bell principal cast members who did not sign on with The College Years) as their old characters Lisa Tuttle and Jessie Spano, who are now college dropouts trying to get by as Chicago waitresses/improv comedians. The show does not equal the ratings success of the Bell block, but performs respectably and lasts for three seasons before being cancelled.

1995: As the third season of The College Years comes to a close, NBC shocks the world by announcing that the fourth season of The College Years will be its last, citing ramping production costs as the reason. Industry insiders comment differently, claiming that hardball contract negotiation tactics on NBC’s part caused the rift. The fact that New Class will remain at NBC through 1997 causes many onlookers to wonder about the future of the Bell universe.

1996: Moments after the final episode of College Years airs, ABC announces that their fall lineup for the next year will include Saved By The Bell: AfterClass, a new one-hour dramedy featuring Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen as Zack and Kelly Morris, “entering the biggest Bell adventure of them all: parenthood.” Notably, AfterClass features no other Bell alums, although execs state that Dustin Diamond has been invited to “visit” the show for a potential guest appearance as Screech.

1996: NBC announces that Diamond’s contract obligations to NBC through The New Class will prevent him from appearing on AfterClass. Diamond threatens to sue NBC for damages to his career, and the New Class cast stands with him in solidarity.

1996: Kiersten Warren releases her tell-all book, Head Left Ringing, which luridly details the fast lives of the extended Bell cast. Warren claims that her firing was due in part to her refusal to partake in Bell sex orgies, because as the “new girl” it was her “duty” to service Dustin Diamond and Dennis “Mr. Belding” Haskins, who according to Warren had a penchant for double-penetrative sex. Warren also claims that the infamous “Jessie gets hooked on speed” episode was based on an actual cocaine addiction within the cast, although Elizabeth Berkeley was not the addict in question. The book tops the New York Times bestseller list for sixteen weeks.

1996: NBC fires Dennis Haskins and Dustin Diamond without explanation, replacing them on The New Class with Mario Lopez, recurring his A.C. Slater role as Bayside High’s new principal. Diamond goes on a rage-filled bender in Las Vegas and is arrested for dangerous driving and possession of a drug known as “llama cocaine.” Haskins announces in a press conference that he is selling all his possessions and moving to Tibet to study inner peace.

1997: After one year on The New Class, Mario Lopez leaves the show, saying that he only ever intended to put in a year to “stabilize” the troubled series, whose cast have been swapped and replaced constantly. He is replaced by Bob Golic, who played the student advisor on The College Years.

1997: Dustin Diamond is acquitted of all charges due to police misconduct in his arrest, and promptly gives a profanity-laden interview to media waiting outside the courthouse, repeatedly referring to NBC management as “cocksuckers” and calling out Mark-Paul Gosselaar for “never coming through” on promises of a recurring guest appearance on AfterClass. He announces he will go on tour with a lounge act in the next year.

1997: Comedian/magician Ed Alonzo, AKA “The Max,” is found dead in a back alley in Columbus, Ohio. Authorities suspect foul play as his death was “presumably due to bludgeoning.”

1997: ABC announces the debut of Saved By The Alarm Bell, a one-hour action/procedural series about private security forces, starring Mario Lopez, Elizabeth Berkeley and Leanna Creel (reprising her “Tori Scott” character from the final season of the original Saved By The Bell). Almost immediately, rumours emerge from shooting about a feud between Berkeley and Creel, with Berkeley claiming Creel to be a “wannabe” and Creel saying Berkeley is a “druggie princess.” Similarly, Lopez is rumoured to be having sex with both of his costars.

1998: Dustin Diamond’s lounge act fails to cover its operating expenses for the third tour date in a row and his road crew and band quit. Three weeks later, Diamond declares bankruptcy. Three weeks after that, he accepts a job on QVC, vowing to turn the Dustin Diamond Sales Hour into “the hottest hour of must-see TV on QVC.”

1998: Lark Voorhies is arrested for the murder of Ed Alonzo. Voorhies pleads not guilty by reason of self-defense, claiming that during her time on the original Bell, Alonso fathered her love-child, and that he had grown obsessive and violent in his wishes to see their daughter, to the point of stalking and attacking her outside of the “Beller” convention in Columbus in 1997.

1998: Saved By The Alarm Bell is cancelled after only one season. The cancellation is met with loud and public derision from many former The New Class actors, all of whom consider the original Bell cast to be living off luck and timing.

1999: Lark Voorhies is sentenced to fifteen years in jail for manslaughter. Her appeal is personally funded by Mark-Paul Gosselaar. It fails.

1999: QVC fires Dustin Diamond. Diamond vows to “set the standup world on fire,” and relocates to New York City, hitting comedy clubs non-stop. New York’s comedy culture swiftly ostracizes him, and he soon has no option but to play third-tier clubs in New Jersey.

2000: Citing personal reasons among cast members, ABC brings to an end the popular AfterClass, with Kelly and Zack giving birth to twins in the final episode. Mark-Paul Gosselaar uses his now-vast personal fortune to start up several dot-com B2B enterprises, all of which prove moderately successful and all of which make him richer. He grows more secluded over time.

2000: Tiffani-Amber Thiessen converts to Scientology.

2001: ABC reveals that as part of its fall lineup, it will air a seven-episode miniseries entitled Saved By The Bell: Class Struggle, wherein every single Bell alumnus will come together in an epic story about the future of Bayside High, now potentially the site for a new shopping center. At press conferences, development executives admit that getting Lark Voorhies temporarily released for work orders has been “difficult.” They also admit that Dustin Diamond has been holding out for more money.

2002: Mark-Paul Gosselaar drops out of the much-delayed and deeply troubled Class Struggle, claiming that the cast are “covered in filthy, filthy germs.” A fistfight breaks out on set between Dustin Diamond and three New Class actors when the former calls them “posers.” The miniseries’ development and production costs will eventually top well over $100 million, much of that due to the climactic “Bayside Inferno” scene, which in addition to costing $20 million claims the lives of Dennis Haskins and Hayley Mills.

2003: Class Struggle finally airs, having become the most expensive television production of all time thanks to lawsuits from the Haskins and Mills estates. It receives a critical and popular drubbing, scoring abysmal Neilsen ratings and mockery from all quarters. Tom Shales writes “I have seen more hubris in this production than in a thousand viewings of Ishtar. What was once great has become mundane thanks to the constant injection of Hollywood dollars into a story that was once pristine and true – a simple story of a blonde boy who spoke to the camera has become a pretentious nightmare.”

2005: Dustin Diamond is sentenced to twelve years in prison for trafficking in llama cocaine.

2008: Lark Voorhies is released from prison on an early parole for good behaviour.

2009: The CW announces that in 2010 it will air a series entitled Bell, starring “the next generation of Bayside students.” Tiffani-Amber Theissen and Mark-Paul Gosselaar (now both emerging from extensive post-traumatic therapy) star in supporting roles as parents of Cynthia Morris, the wisecracking, conniving daughter of Zack and Kelly. Lark Voorhies signs to a recurring guest role as Lisa Tuttle. The CW officially demands that the word “Screech” never be uttered on set.