Entirely too Much Ben
Jon Monster is: Almost Awesome
Jon Monster is not an interesting man. He does not do anything terribly special. He doesn’t even have an interesting job. When Jon Monster goes home he eats a remarkably bland TV dinner that was designed by the chefs at Banquet, Tyson, or Swanson. If he was feeling incredibly adventurous he might eat a Marie Calendar pot pie, which was something he’d enjoyed since childhood. The only thing even remotely interesting about Jon Monster was something that nobody even knew existed; his imagination. Jon Monster uses his imagination at all times. Every moment of every day he sees the world in a way which is completely unique to him, and I have to say, it is beautiful. Jon Monster has never told anyone about his imagination, although his friends think there must be something going on up there. They have never been more correct.
Jon woke up this Thursday the same time he usually woke up on weekdays, five thirty seven a.m. After his initial, and most obnoxious, alarm went off at exactly five thirty, and shortly before his second, but ever so much more accommodating alarm, went off at five forty. Every morning Jon would wake up three full minutes before his second of three alarms. He figured that he had to set all three alarms or he would only wake up two minutes before his five forty alarm. Which would not give him enough time to fully explore his morning world of wonder and excitement before his second alarm jerked him back to reality, reminded him to shut off his third alarm so as to not annoy the neighbors by having it go off while he took a shower.
This particular morning looked odd to Jon Monster, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it as he switched the third alarm on his bright green alarm clock to off. “This can’t be right, I could have sworn my clock was white,” mumbled Jon Monster as he slipped from his bed discovering as he did so that his floor wasn’t quite where he thought it was. In fact, his floor was indeed far, far away from where he thought it was. To be precise, he hadn’t hit it yet and honestly he was starting to wonder when that might happen. “Oh, it’s a dream, this shouldn’t take long, I’ll just wake myself up.” But Jon Monster didn’t wake up when he pinched himself, or when he pulled some arm hair. So there was only one thing left for him to do. He hit himself in the face.
“Well that’s a remarkably strange thing to do while falling. I usually try to fly, or slow myself down at least,” supposed a very odd looking green-haired man who was now falling next to Jon. “I guess I’ll have to try it though, you never know, it could help!” At this point Jon Monster was at an utter and complete loss. He was falling with increasing velocity down a rather large hole in his floor, had a terribly sore face, and was now being addressed by an incredibly odd green haired man wearing a yellow polyester suit. Who by the looks of things was falling very comfortably at Jon’s side, despite now having a rather sore face, thanks to Jon’s wondrous idea. “Well that’s just ridiculous, if I had known that would hurt so much I’d never have tried it! You are an odd duck Jon Monster. Remind me not to do what you do without question anymore.”
“Wait, you know my name? Who are you? Why am I falling?”
“Hmm, yes, I had heard you ask quite a few questions. To answer your curious nature, yes, know, and how should I know? Did you step in the hole next to your bed?” Replied the Man in the yellow polyester suit calmly. “Because that would be quite silly.”
“No? You won’t tell me your name even though we’re falling to our deaths together!?”
With a perplexed sort of look, the green-haired man shouted (he had to shout as they were falling terribly fast now) “To our Deaths? Are you serious? Why would I fall to my death? That’s what the mushrooms are for!”
“Mushr?-” Just as Jon Monster began to respond he was interrupted by a sudden and inexplicable collision with a giant mushroom with the consistency of a marshmallow which almost immediately stopped his free fall and allowed him to slide to the almost fluorescently green grass below as softly as if he had just gotten out of bed. Where he immediately noticed the green haired man standing next to another giant mushroom looking very satisfied with himself.
“Oh I’m sorry I forgot earlier, was a bit busy trying to get the mushrooms in order and all. My name is Know, Mr. Know if you will, you know as in Know it all?” blithely stated Mr. Know, smugly admiring his giant white marshmallow mushroom all the while.
Sadly, right before Jon Monster could so much as say one syllable. There was a sound from far, far above the two strange comrades. The noise was very familiar to Jon Monster, who was suddenly being rocketed skyward as a result of.. something. “I’ll see you later Jon Monster! It was a real p…” shouted Mr. Know, quickly fading into the distance.
Then, as if nothing had ever happened. Jon Monster was in bed again, sitting on the edge, listening to his second alarm go off. That whole time he was falling, and talking to Mr. Know, and landing on a giant marshmallow mushroom. He had actually been in bed, imagining the whole thing. “This is going to be a long Thursday,” mumbled Jon Monster as he turned off his third alarm for the second time today.
Copyright: Ben Hinrichs
Regina Spektor is so wonderful.
So instead of just news this time, today there’s news, pictures, and snarky commentary. Cool, eh?
Starting off, some news from the Philippines. The people of the Philippines have once again been surprised by a flood. Yes, the people who live on tiny islands and get hit by tropical storms and monsoons “several dozen times a year”, are baffled by this most recent flood. I know it came at night, like a monster in those books you read to your children. Its not a myth people! ITS WEATHER! There are two things you can do in that situation, A) take precautions so as to not be completely shocked by a flood or a storm every week or so, or B) Move.
Now a section I’m going to call “Why Americans need to step up their protesting.” Thoughtful and concerned citizens have been going around the country and propagating this “Occupy Wall Street” movement (really if you don’t know who they are you must be living under a rock with a direct connection to this tumblr), and I am all for the ideals, they are actually quite important. However, the points not really being made. Nobody is saying “Man, we have got to fix our shit, because these people gettin crazy up in this bitch!” Point not really made, I mean we get it, its important and we all should care. Thing is I really don’t. At least not enough to do anything meaningful about it.
On the other hand in Egypt they are protesting like a mother fucker. To the degree that the police / armed forces are really oppressing them. They are literally destroying their own country to make their point. Now, that’s a bit much, but you have to be impressed with their conviction! They are trying to make the point that the military is still in total control of the government in Egypt and guess what? It’s now national news! Their leaders are saying there has been no violence when there have been dozens of videos showing the horrendous violence to which these protesters are being subjected to. Point made Egypt, well played.
Now not all protests need to be violent, in fact some of the best protesting throughout history was done completely non-violently. Ghandi, and Martin Luther King Jr. are just two of the many figures throughout the ages that have made incredible changes all the while advocating and being a part of non-violent protests. Point is, protesting needs to make an impression, and if you can do it peacefully then more power to you, but if that doesn’t pan out, just start tearing down the world around you. Burst the bubbles of the affluent leadership and aristocracy guiding the world around you. Step up or step aside.
Ahh, that was a bit depressingly serious, now on to something more fun. Pictures!
There, that was more fun. Now the things that almost made the cut.
Hi, my name is Ben, and I’m just another guy with another opinion about stupid things goin on around the world.
First off we take a trip down to a Malawi, Portugal. Where a baker named Mahomed Hanif Valimamade has come up with a new cash cow, “Bin Laden Bread”. He says theres nothing really special about it other than it vaguely resembles middle eastern bread. Apparently the people of Malawi are just too cool to just call it bread. The customers themselves came up with the moniker, Valimamade just saw an opportunity and took it! To which I say, bravo sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar. If only more people could look past their politically correct ideology and just have fun with life. This man took the idea and ran with it, since the Bin Laden breads renaming and subsequent success. Valimamade has come out with both Barrack Obama, and George W. Bush bread. Which I hope are respectively really dark wheat, and terribly bland white bread with hilarious packaging.
News from Scotland is that recently there was a tremendous storm system that rolled through, with gusts of up to 165 mph. For those of you who cant grasp exactly how fast this is, here is an example; this is a race car going around the Kentucky Speedway going that fast. Watch as the poles in the fence at the right go rocketing by and imagine yourself standing in a rainstorm where the rain is moving that fast.
Getting back on track, the storm in Scotland put over 50,000 Scots out of power. Which is sad, but the thing is… its summer. What happened to the Scottish birds? I can only hope that they were as dumb as the Scottish nobles in Braveheart, and got suckered into getting hung by an English king. Otherwise they might have rocketed through the air motivated by 165 mph gusts hopefully ending in their imminent demise like little bird rockets into a cleverly placed wall. Silly birds, flying’s for people. (Wait, what?)
Moving on, NASA impersonating Ahab has now created a space harpoon that will be able to let us impersonate the Doctor Who episode “The Beast Below” where the human population needed to escape earth so they roped themselves a star whale. In the time honored human tradition of exploiting and abusing animals they burrowed into its head and used a steady dose of electroshock torture therapy to get it to take them to a new planet. NASA says that it will be used to harpoon space debris and take samples so we can find out more about the universe and eventually stop our reliance on foreign oil (kidding). Really though, if were not using this to hunt the Moby Dick of space, we should at least be gunning for some of those cosmic space fish from the Muppets From Space.
In more local news Americans are being arrested for looking Mexican. A big shout out goes to the Department of Homeland Security for being the Rosa Parks of re-segregation. Really makes me proud to live in a country completely created by immigrants that has now created immigration laws so strict that they are deporting our own citizens. Its been stated that a “low but persistent” percent of the nearly 400,000 people who are deported yearly are actually citizens. I’m not sure that number translates that well until you realize that 1% of that is 4,000 people. I don’t know what the percentage actually is, but unless its literally below one percent, we are deporting about four thousand United States citizens annually. In response to which Homeland Security said: Whoops, our bad. Paraphrasing of course.
Ben.
Things that almost made the cut:
Bugs now bring new meaning to the old biblical plague of locusts.
Corporations are brainwashing us once again, one impulse purchase at a time.
