Recently, however, a cabal of thirteen demons, inventively calling themselves the Thirteen Society, have made an attempt to take over the internet and, soon thereafter, the real world. They've already broken into several parts of cyberspace and set up shop, and someone's got to stop them. I've decided that someone should be me, mostly because I've got already got a blog and I may as well do something with it. So, that's my secret, shadow life, the life I live in Cyberspace.
Demon I is Lou, who's taken over the Guitar Hero universe. His shtick is media, using it to shape our culture in unpleasant ways. For example, men and women are legally equal, but thanks to widespread sexism in the media, the reality is very much different. Of course, shutting down Lou won't stop the things he's already set in motion, but at least it'll stop him from setting anything ELSE in motion. I've already hooked up with a bunch of Sprites (gameworld characters, for the uninitiated) and started a band, which has since then become basically the most popular thing ever. Lou is our manager, but didn't know I was plotting against him until very recently. Now that he does, he'll probably lure us into a trap at our next performance and try to claim our souls. This, of course, is all according to plan, because when he tries to claim my soul, I'll have a chance to eradicate his.
Demon II is Skorne, who's taken over the Guantlet universe. His shtick is deceit. He tricks people into handing over their freedom, usually in exchange for security, and then sets up a dictatorship. He's sent his eight armies to conquer the eight realms of the Gauntlet world, and I and my brother Noah promptly blew them all up. We also defeated Skorne's manifestation in the real world, chased him back to the Underworld and destroyed his body, and then returned to our wizard mentor Sumner's tower to celebrate, only to discover that the sorcerer originally responsible for summoning Skorne, Sumner's brother Garm, had absorbed Skorne's essence and effectively replaced him, and began attacking the tower. We beat back the first attack, and decided to take advantage of the lull in the battle to warp out. Garm hasn't made any trouble since, but he's still got a sizeable army, so we'll see how that turns out.
Feature number two. If something's bothering me, I'll write about it here. Nothing's bothering me today, so we'll skip that one.
Feature number three. Random rants! This is where I go to the Random Topic Generator at http://www.blogtap.net/blogtopicgenerator/ and hit the "All" button to get my topic for the Rant of the Day. And now let's roll the dice!
The Origin of Pi
We don't know where Pi came from, but our best bet would be the Ancient Egyptians, because they invented everything. They were China before China was China. And oh, what a good thing it is that the Egyptians invented Pi! Without Pi, the Egyptians could not, for example, have pressganged hundreds of thousands of their civilian population into building massive, mathematically perfect tombs for their royalty.
How awesome would it have been to be an Egyptian Pharaoh? Answer: Probably less cool than it would be to be Joe Hardluck today. See, the Pharaoh only has a heavy workload in times of crisis, like wars or famines, and in those times, there's basically not much he can do except turn to his advisors and say "Now what?" And then do what they say, unless he's got a brilliant idea of his own, but really, having brilliant ideas is a plus, not a requirement.
Meanwhile, Joe Hardluck has to take orders from his boss all day. That has to suck, right? Well, sure, but in exchange, he gets money. Money which lets him buy things like, for example, air conditioning. Television. Electric lights. Clean water.
And then there's internet access! Joe Hardluck can almost certainly spare the cash required for web access, and with that, he has access to virtually unlimited stimulation. He probably had more entertainment options than the Pharaoh did! For example, let's say that you want to play some games to pass the time. The Pharaoh has to find a competent opponent and basically has one game to choose from, some Egyptian thing whose name I forgot. Joe Hardluck can log onto Kongregate and have access to literally thousands of games absolutely free, hundreds of which are guaranteed to be at least worth a look at. Or maybe you want to listen to some music? The Pharaoh must call up his personal band, wait for them to set up, and is then restricted only to the number of songs memorized by a single set of musicians, which is probably not more than three or four dozen. Joe Hardluck can go to Pandora, which has hundreds, if not thousands, of songs, and which will automatically determine which one's he'll enjoy the best. Food? The Pharaoh's selection of foods is actually about the same as Joe's! The average food court offers the same variety as a Pharaoh's kitchen staff at much greater speed.
And all of this is assuming that Joe and the Pharaoh only want to indulge in pleasures that I, myself, care about. What about Rule 34? What if the Pharaoh is only turned on by girls trimming lion-shaped hedges while stripping off clothes made entirely from duct tape? Tough luck! Not only do none of your three wives know how to trim hedges, but you have a public image to maintain! Joe, on the other hand, can probably find someplace, somewhere on the internet that will give him those images, and the more obscure it is, the less likely they are to charge. And if Joe is still depressed because the only girls who will strip for him are either desperate attention whores with deep issues or else girls desperate or shameless in need of extra cash, he can always get himself addicted to cocaine, or a variety of other drugs. The Pharaoh, on the other hand, can only drink booze. Primitive booze, at that, with none of the advantages of modern brewing techniques and chemicals.
So unless you are, in fact, homeless, you lead a better life than the most powerful man in the world circa 3000 BC. We have absolutely no reason to complain about life. Unless you want to be buried in a quite literally monumental tomb when you die.
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