Hypothetical Questions

Right. Seamus here. A few questions:

• What's the going rate for 1 kilo of uncut heroin?
• Is baby laxative acceptable for cutting heroin?
• How likely are drug dealers to hold a grudge once they discover they've been ripped off?

No reason, just curious.

Seamus

Paaarrrttttyyyyy!!

Right! Seamus here. The Manions are long gone, and I'm in the process of selling off their earthly possessions. Anyone want a sofa? It's priced to move and loaded onto a backyard catapult for easy delivery.

Things have been pretty good here. After I sold their car, I threw a massive party, with strippers and cocaine. Cash is running low, though, so if anyone wants their stereo equipment, or power tools, or anything else of theirs, let me know. I'll be posting a listing on ebay shortly.

In the meantime, I'm about halfway through their vintage port collection. That 1970 Sandeman gives a nice mellow buzz. It was nice of them to save it for me. Rot in Hell, Manions.

Love,

Seamus

The Story of Mrs. Manion

The fifth anniversary of my marriage to Mrs. Manion is upon us. I thought I would take this opportunity to mention a few of the many things I love about Mrs. Manion.

In no particular order here are some the reasons I adore Mrs. Manion:

• She's really smart (teaches at MIT and all)
• She has a beautiful singing voice
• She's been thrown out of both Hong Kongs for bad behavior (dive bar in Boston and Cambridge) Seriously! Is that cool or what? This girl can rage...
• She's a terrific writer (who should really get around to shopping that novel to some publishers)
• She cares, not just about those close to her, but about the whole world
• She seeks justice
• She's willing to do that thing, with the jello, and the trapeze. Never mind.
• Because I picked her up at a bar
• She loves the plays of Sam Shepard
• Because she is who she is

Happy Anniversary, sweetie.

My New Best Friend

Mrs. Manion and I went to the mall the other day to do our duty as good little consumers. The trip itself was uneventful. It was the journey home that will remain forever etched in my memory. As I came around a corner, the driver behind me started laying on his horn. After a few seconds, he pulled around, even with me. As he stared resolutely ahead, he continued to press on the horn, and extended a fist out the window. From that fist, he extended the universal finger of friendship.

Now, I've been honked at. Not often. But it happens.

I've even been flipped off. Not often. But it happens.

The thing that I don't get here, is that I have no idea what I did to incur this guy's substantial wrath. Was I going to fast? Too slow? Did I cut him off? If so, how? (I hadn't changed lanes in miles)

Now, I like to think I'm a pretty good driver (the propensity of my cars to die violent, high-speed, twisted metal deaths notwithstanding). Sure, I see speed limits as more advisory in nature, and I've sent cars down exit ramps sideways with tires squealing, and cops in pursuit, but I wasn't doing it that day. I've replayed everything about the trip, and I honestly have no idea what set this guy off.

In all the other cases, I've at least known why the other guy was pissed. I haven't always agreed, but at least I've known what frosted the other guy's nads.

So if you're out there reading this, Mr. Bald Freaky Looking Middle Finger Guy, what did I do?

LM

Mercenary Words on Vacation

I feel that I need to warn our reading public. The Mercenary Words publishing organization is going on vacation next week. Mrs. Manion and I are going to Provincetown, Massachusetts for a week with the rest of the Manions. P-town, as it's often called, is a fun place. Although, if you're not a fan of gay marriage, you probably shouldn't visit. Personally, I'm more than willing to let Bruce and Mark get married if it puts a dozen world class restaurants within a mile of one another. They can't possibly screw up a marriage worse than Britney Spears.

But hey, that's me.

The big danger with going to seaside resorts is always the sun. I'm pale. Real pale. It's my cursed Irish descent. I don't tan. I burn. It peels, and I'm pale underneath. That's how it works. My Channel Seven Safe Sun time is about 13 seconds. And yes, I use SPF 14300.

Mrs. Manion is similarly pale, although she gets to blame the Germans instead. My theory is that in rainy, dark places, it became an evolutionary advantage your tribe could locate you by the faintly flourescent glow of fish belly pale skin. On the other hand, someday when we have children they'll run outside to play and burst into flames.

But I digress. So while we're on vacation, I'm leaving the organization under the leadership of Seamus, the Mercenary Words intern. Although he's been fired twice, we've taken Seamus back after listening to his story. According to Seamus, he has an evil identical twin, also named Seamus, and the evil Seamus is responsible for the poison snakes, vandalism, grafitti, and fiduciary misconduct.

Something about the story bothers me, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
So you may want to start preparing now for the slight drop in frequency and quality of posts while we let Seamus, or possibly Seamus, run the show.

LM

Driving Songs

So I cruised into work doing about 80 this morning. Part of it is due to Grand Theft Auto. It puts you into that "breakin' the law" frame of mind. And part of it is due to the music I was listening to. As a public service, I'm listing the top 5 driving songs of all time.

Now before you go off and burn a CD to listen to these all at once, remember two things: Cops can't ticket you if they can't catch you, and if light is bending around your car, you're going too fast.

Okay, here we go:

5. Synchronicity II, The Police - With that creepy siren in the beginning, and a lyric about humiliating kicks in the crotch (And I promise, that's the last groin reference for at least a month), this song grabs you by the stick shift and doesn't let go.


4. Volcano Girls, Veruca Salt - Veruca Salt was great. Two girls, Nina Gordon (the talented song writer) and Louise Post (who rocked so hard you thought her head would explode). Unfortunately, Nina slept with the Louise's boyfriend, and it all went to hell. Nonetheless, we're left with one of the great chick rock songs of all time. They're pissed off and they don't care if the world knows it.


3. When She Begins, Social Distortion - From the initial guitar slide, to the final arhythmic (no, I don't know if that's spelled correctly, and I'm not going to to look it up. Rock and roll, man!) drum beats, this is just a song about a guy "hanging with a couple of chicks, man just looking for kicks..." If you're not doing ninety by the end of the song, Barry Manilow has already claimed your soul.


2. All Revved Up With No Place to Go, Meat Loaf - "I was nothing but a lonely all american boy, looking for something to do. And you were nothing but a lonely all american girl, but you were something like a dream come true... All revved up and no place to go!" 'Nuff said.


1. Miami 2017, Billy Joel - Now I know you're saying, "But Lance, Billy Joel? The former Mr. Christie Brinkley? The guy who wrote Don't Go Changing to Try and Please Me? Didn't you once say that song should actually be titled Why the Hell Arent't You Changing into Someone Who Gets Me a Beer?" Okay, so Billy got real wussy real fast. But that doesn't change the fact that early in his career he wrote the greatest song ever. And that song is Miami 2017. It's a rocking little ditty about post apoclyptic New York. As in "...the flames were everywhere, but no one really cared, they'd always burned up there before."

If, while driving, you listen to all five of these songs in sequence, all they will ever find of your car is flaming tire tracks, like in Back to the Future. It's actually against the law in most states for radio stations to play these songs back to back. That's why most commercial radio sucks.

So there you go. The best driving songs of all time. What most blogs would do now is say something like "Hey! Write back with your favorite driving songs! It's a meme or something stupid!"

But this is Mercenary Words, and we do things a little differently here. Instead, I'm going to say the following:

This list is final and legally binding. If your list is different, it is wrong and bad and you hate America.

LM

One of the proudest moments of my life

Today I was going to write about the guy next to me at the urinal. He was talking on the phone. I was even planning on closing with some joke to the effect that he had better not forget which hand is holding what.

But all that's changed now. I just checked my hit counter. And I saw something that's going to change my life forever. Someone visited my site from Karnataka, Mysore, India. That's pretty cool. But that's not what's making me so proud. This person was coming from Google India.

And he was searching for the string "punched on the groin"

And Mercenary Words was on the first page of results!

WE'RE THE NUMBER ONE SITE FOR INDIAN GROIN PUNCHING!!!

Can you believe it? I know I can't. It makes me incredibly proud, that on the streets of Bombay, whenever people want to know about "punched on the groin", they'll be coming to my little corner on the web.

And I'll be there, to.... do.... something....

Okay, I haven't fleshed out that part of the plan. But it means something. And I'm going to go out and get really wasted in order to find out what.

In the meantime, We're number 1! We're number 1!

LM

Update: 7/6/05
If you Google for the string "punched on the groin", we're now the only search results you get in U.S. Google. I weep a small tear of joy. My parents would be so proud.

The Three Piece Poo Suit and the Malaysian Goat Maneuver

I'm pretty zonked. Here at Penetrode Inc., we've been trying to get our software out the door for a few days now. The problem is the QA department keeps finding major bugs. I've repeatedly suggested firing the QA department as a solution, but no one's taken me up on it. And now the QA department is acting all surly towards me.

Software releases are weird things. Everyone wants it over with, but no one wants to declare things done just in case it turns out that 10 minutes later the product blows up and that person gets fitted for a three piece poo suit.

What's a poo suit? you ask. Well draw up a chair and get ready to learn some stuff they don't teach you at business school. That's us at Mercenary Words. Clown sex and career management tips.

That's us at Mercenary Words. Clown sex and career management tips.

There is such a thing as a poo suit. It's not a real suit made of real poo. At least not at any place I've ever worked. (If a real one exists at your place of employment, get your resume out there pronto) It's the business equivalent of a dunce cap. After you've screwed up, you get to wear the poo suit. Somebody is always wearing it. The important thing is that the wearer be someone other than you.

Once you've been poo suited, you remain poo suited until someone else screws up sufficiently to take over wearing the suit. One interesting corrolary is that managers who probably should be wearing the suit often put it on one of their minions.

So this is running long. I ramble when I'm tired. You're probably saying, "Lance, I'm a corporate minion. My manager makes Inspector Clouseau look like Sherlock Holmes. How do I avoid the poo suit?"

The answer is simple. I call it the Malaysian Goat Maneuver. You have to plan ahead, but it's well worth the peace of mind, knowing that you have a get out of poo free card.

As soon as you have the chance, go out and get yourself some porn. (Come to think of it, this is always good advice) Anyway, get some really nasty stuff. Personally, I favor Malaysian Goat porn, but whatever works for you. Some people like Japanese Tentacle porn. And there's always Brazilian Toad porn. Make sure that you put this porn in somebody's office. Preferrably someone you don't like, because even if this person would really enjoy the gift of Brazilian Toad porn, you're not doing them any favors.

Make sure that wherever you stash the Toad porn is a place where it's not likely to be found by the office occupant, but someplace where you could conceivably have seen the person put it.

Then, when the poo suit is headed for you, perform the Malaysian Goat maneuver.

Take this incident from last week, when I was called into the HR office. Again.

Penetrode HR - "Lance, we're a little alarmed about the documentation for Penetrode Enterprise version 5. You've worked on it for six months. We release in twenty minutes, and you've written a total of 3 pages of documentation. And two of those pages are lists of cheats for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."

LM - "Yeah, it's been really difficult since..." *chokes up*

HR - "Since what?"

LM - "Well since I saw the Manager of QA watching Australian Koala Bondage porn in his office. It's just been really distressing. I didn't want to say anything."

HR - "I see. That's quite interesting."

LM - "I thought you'd think so. *sniffle* It's above the third ceiling tile to the left of the entryway."

HR - "I see. It's especially interesting given that this would be the fourth QA manager to have hidden pornography in the ceiling tiles. We had "Bruce dips Sheila the Sheep, followed by "Weasel Salsa Muy Caliente, and then something so nasty that our DVD player just dissolved into slime."

LM - "Truly, I share your disgust." *dabs eyes with tissue*

HR - "We're beginning to think that you might actually have something to do with this."

LM - "I'm deeply, deeply hurt by that accusation. But I suppose I shouldn't expect much from a man who would conceal Siberian Elk Orgy footage under his file cabinet."

HR - "What are you talking about? I don't..."

And at that point, a bunch of goons from the head office came bursting in and arrested him. As well they should. That was some seriously freaky stuff.

Watch and learn, people. Watch and learn...

LM

Clown Sex

Okay, this particular iteration of Mercenary Words is going to be a little more hardcore than usual. I'm just warning you. If you're a total pansy wuss who can't handle the concept of freaky clown sex, stop reading here.

Still reading? Of course you are, you freakin perv...

Freaking perv...

Okay, so I was watching Real Sex on HBO. Like there's another reason to watch HBO. I actually find it reassuring. There's nothing like watching a show devoted to the biggest freaks in the world to reassure you that your own kinks are pretty gosh darn vanilla. Thank goodness. I was beginning to the think that I was the only one who got hot at the sight of fabric softener.

Anyway, there's a group of people out there who get off on dressing up as clowns and have horn honking, floppy shoed, red nosed, pie throwing sex.

(I'd provide a link, but I'm at work, and there ain't a chance in hell I'm going to risk getting caught with a clown sex site. There's only one honorable way out after that.)

The word "doooiiiinnnggg" is real relevant here. The episode filmed a clown orgy. It took place in one of those small cars. It eventually degerated into a cake throwing, butt paddling, flower squirting mess. At least I think that was a flower. God help me, I feel unclean.

I'm not sure what the draw is. To be honest with you, I suspect that HBO has a room of people that they hire to concoct the weirdest stuff imaginable. "How about a group of people who dress up as plants and have tree sex? Gives new meaning to the term woody, doesn't it?" Then they hire some desperate actors to produce it.

Suffice to say, I thought the clown sex was real disturbing. I also hope that nobody was using trick condoms.

LM

What Is It With the Lemurs?

Many of you have written to me asking, "What's up with the lemurs, man?" The answer is actually pretty simple.

• Lemurs have big googly eyes - Come on. Is that cute or what?
• They're among the most primitive primates - I can relate to that.
• They like to scent mark their territory - Some even smear their poo on tree trunks. Who doesn't dream of doing that? I know I do. I just like to blame it on the cat.
• One species of lemur, the aye-aye lemur, has an extended middle finger - Plus its hair looks like it's been plugged into an electical outlet for three days. A major middle finger and a wild 'do. Punk ain't dead. It's digging bugs out of a tree in Madagascar.
• The red-bellied lemur is sexually dichromatic - I have no idea what this means, but it sounds pretty kinky to me.
• Some species of lemurs have blue eyes - Hey! Me too!
• The lesser bushbaby species can leap fifteen feet in the air - Not bad for a guinea pig sized critter.
• The name is just darn fun to say - Try it with me. Lemur. Leeeemmmmuurrrr. Lemur! LEMUR!!

Tapirs, on the other hand...

The tapir thing was actually an accident. I saw a picture of one and thought it was cute. I also thought is was cat sized. Turns out they're more hippopotamus sized. Try housebreaking one of those...

LM

The 'Nads of Poetry

Mrs. Manion sometimes does some editorial work for the fiction quarterly Ploughshares. This work gets her invited to some of their literary events. As her spouse, I get to attend as "Mrs Manion and guest". What follows is the harrowing tale of one pickled technical writer in a world of poets and short story writers.

The evening started with a release party. My employers had just finished a major version release of some enterprise software package or other. Traditionally, this happy event is celebrated with something called "release shots." Of course, it's horribly rude to turn down a release shot...

Anyway, I leave the release party and wobble down to the literary party. Mrs. Manion is shmoozing. I'm oozing. It's all good. And she introduces me to this poet. I forget his name, but he was a rising star in the poetry world. I'm all tequilaed up and friendly. I'm trying to be flattering...

So I say "Hey, I hear you're the 'nads of poetry."

"The 'nads?" he says, frowing.

"Yeah, the 'nads," I say. "Like gonads, but shorter..."

Like gonads, but shorter...

He just looks at me like I've done something unspeakably disgusting.

It must be unclear, I think. I'm a helpful guy. I'll explain. "It's a contraction or something. It means you're cool. All the kids are saying it...."

As I'm cheerfully digging the hole deeper, Mrs. Manion is dragging me away. Apparently one should not make genital references in the first 30 seconds of meeting someone. Who knew?

Mrs. Manion propped me up at the bar and asked me not to offend anyone else. But the night was young, and the drinks were free. I started nursing a Heineken and hanging out. After a while another woman at the bar asked me my association with Ploughshares.

I explained that I had already offended the rising star of poetry and was keeping a low profile. She asked the nature of the offense. I told her.

Turns out she thought the 'nads thing was great. Poetry should be similarly visceral and such. She wished people described her as the 'nads. We started talking. I found out later that she was some sort of high powered poetry publisher.

In one of life's little coincidences, it also turns out that my poetry buddy had been trying to approach her all evening. So as I'm talking, he walks up, interrupts, and introduces himself to the publisher. She mentions that she thought the 'nads thing was great.

"Yes, very amusing," he says through gritted teeth. "What do you do for a living?" he asks me.

"I flip ones and zeros," I say.

"And how many times a day do you use that joke?" he asks.

"Usually one or zero," I reply.

This guy is beginning to harsh my buzz. I hang out for a few minutes and walk outside. I found out later that the publisher also thought he was a jerk. So I feel better about that. Eventually the party ended and we went home.

The moral of the story? Poets do not like being called nads. Publishers groove on it. Plan accordingly.

LM

My Canadian Friends

I work with a lot of Canadians. I like it. Canadians are very polite, friendly people. But what I really like is when they go "eh" or say things like "aboot" or "tuque" (what would be called a ski hat in the states).

It's like a little thrill every time. I'm not really sure why, but it's become my mission to get them to sound as Canadian as possible. I suppose my dream then, is to work with Bob and Doug MacKenzie.

We'll have conversations like this:

LM "Is that an in value?"

Canadian "No"

LM "What kind of value is it?"

Canadian "It's an oot value."

LM "What's that again?"

Candian "Oot"

Because they're so polite, they never complain. It's awesome. I can keep them going for hours. The best part is, the more agitated they become, the more Canadian they sound. Eventually I get such gems as:

"Oot! It's an oot value, eh! Oot, hoser!"

My dream Canadian sentence is as follows:

"I was oot and aboot to find a new tuque, eh. Take off you hoser."

I'm gradually conditioning them to use words with the oo sound as much as possible. Eventually I hope to have them walking around the office making a steady hum noise. I'll probably need to buy electrodes for that.

LM

1000 Hits

Yeah, it's a milestone. And here at Mercenary Words, we're pretty gosh darn proud of it.

So this salute goes out to you, you crazy Deutsche Telekom Ag employee. You may not speak English, but you knew enough to query Google for the words "mercenary" and "lemur" and click through to my blog. God only knows what you were looking for. But I hope you find it. Particularly if you're looking to hire a squad of bloodthirsty mercenary lemurs. That would be so cool.

Particularly if you're looking to hire a squad of bloodthirsty mercenary lemurs.

But during your 3.04 second visit here, you came to know the quality, the effort, and the fabulous wordcraft that goes into every single entry here. Perhaps you also recognized the high grade Humboldt County Gold marijuana that makes this whole enterprise possible. Either way, you recognized something. And we recognize that recognition. Man, I've got to cut back...

Anyway, I'd just like thank Google for making us the number one rated sight for searches like "Mercenary Words blog" and "weasel spirit totem" I'm optimistic that soon we'll be number one for "office ninja" and "jack that shit" as well.

I'd also like to thank my mother, for hammering that refresh key for hours each day. Thanks Mom, I hope that the carpal tunnel was worth it.

Let's not forget to thank those brave enough to link to Mercenary Words. Your checks are in the mail.

*sniff* I promised myself I wouldn't cry. But you, you've touched me, you whacky bavarian telephone company employee. I'll never forget our 3.04 seconds together.

LM

Grand Theft Manion

I bought Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas last night and played it for twelve straight hours. This morning, as she pulled my twitching, unwashed form from my chair, Mrs. Manion expressed the concern that too much GTA might start to affect my behavior.
In an effort to allay her concern, I've started keeping a log.

Morning

8:30 AM Leave for work
8:45 Discover short cut to work across city park. Avoided pedestrians when convenient.
9:30 Crashed car.
9:32 Jacked new car.
9:40 New car sucked. Crashed it into person wearing Front Street Ballas colors.
9:42 Jacked new car.
10:11 Arrived at work.
11:43 Finished reference card project and submitted for approval.

Afternoon

12:15 PM Robbed cafeteria. Emptied register and stole chicken salad wrap.
12:31 Decided my cube sucks. Jacked the office of the company founder.
12:32 Set furniture on fire.
12:37 Fire is fun. Set marketing department on fire.
1:12 Coffee break. Played minesweeper.
1:13 Contemplated mining duck pond.
1:30 Bored. Began beating marketing department with shovel.
1:37 Wanted level increased. Began police chase.
2:09 Evaded police.
3:54 Solicited prostitutes
3:55 Performance problems. Embarrassed.
3:56 Robbed prositutes. Felt Better.
4:15 Picked up draft copies of code implementation guide from printers. Discussed changes for production run.
4:49 Noticed SWAT team outside office.
4:53 Jacked SWAT truck.
5:12 Purchased uzi, AK-47, rocket launcher, flame thrower, mini-gun, grenades, C-4 explosive, satchel charges, nuclear weapon.
5:34 Took hostages. Demanded reduction in wanted level.

Evening

7:27 Bored again. Escaped police barricade by jacking helicopter.
8:56 Fled to Columbia and assembled global drug cartel.

So in short, a pretty typical day. I hope that this convinces Mrs. Manion that there's really nothing to worry about.

LM, Grove Street Families 4 Life, yo!

The Competitive Edge

So I hung out with the neighbors the other day. And one of their little children challenged me to a game of checkers. Of course I housed the little punk. He challenged me again, and came down with another severe case of my foot in his ass.

Right after I told him that he played like a punk ass loser, and he started crying, we were asked to leave. After we arrived home, Mrs. Manion patiently informed me that people often let children win. This came as a tremendous shock to me. I was raised in an environment where competition was everything.

Growing up, the Manion family philosphy was best summed up as "Crush the weak." If anything was worth doing, it was worth doing better than everyone else. Particularly if it could be done better than your father or brother.

In most families, backyard badminton is a nice afternoon diversion. In our family, it was a blood sport. We tended to go through a set a season. Mostly because we kept breaking the rackets. This was probably due to the fact that the notion of a "foul" was unknown to us. Don't even get me started on how we played mini-golf.

Actually, come to think of it, let's digress for a moment. (deep breath)

Oh yeah, Who da family mini-golf champion, bitches? Cause it ain't y'all! You best turn in those clubs for walkers, 'cause you sure don't need them for playing! Suckas!

Ah, that was refreshing. Anyway, pretty much any activity was worth competing over. If a game didn't contain an element of competition, we invented one. Even little children's rhyming games became battles of will, strength, and cunning.

To give you an idea of how bad it got, let's take a look at a classic children's game - the Easter Egg hunt. For my father, the challenge was to make the eggs unfindable. For me and my brother (Sonny Crockett) it was the challenge of finding the eggs, and besting the other searcher.

By the time of the last hunt, (which, due to our constant need to compete, was about two years ago) we were stapping on toolbelts, voltage detectors and nightvision. Dad was deploying decoy eggs, locks, and live electric current(thus the voltage detectors).

Mom finally put a stop to it. Just as she put a stop to the in-house squirt gun fights (just when I'd finally pressurized the super soaker).

In any event, little Timmy Borland sucks at checkers. And I don't see why that should be my problem.

LM

Sack of Garbage - In Memoriam

So we've decided that it's time for Sack of Garbage to go back to the shelter. He's filled the dining room with pee about 13 times too many. Mrs. Manion is sad, and sees it as a failure on her part. I, personally, see it as a failure on Sack of Garbage's part to locate the many lovely litter boxes we have provided for his urinating pleasure. I mean come on, we've got more litter boxes than cats. And we've given him a year to find them. A cat may have a brain the size of a walnut, but he always manages to find the food and water.

We will be retaining Small Amount of Cat. And perhaps replacing Le Sack. Either way, I'll keep you posted.

LM

Community Pants

Let me ask you a question. If I came up to you and said, "Hey, I've got these pants. They're your size. Why don't you put them on?" What would you do? If you're like me, you'd grab them and run. I mean, hey, free pants.

I mean, hey, free pants.

If you're like the other 99.99999% of the population, you'd move quickly away, never taking your eyes off them. Why is it then, that we approach complete strangers and pay them for the
privilege of wearing random stranger pants?

These questions (and others, such as, "Does a garbage can full of dirty water have any disinfectant value?") occurred to me as I was shelling out $40 for wetsuits for me and Mrs. Manion.

Over the course of my life, I've shelled out hundreds of dollars to wear the public pants. And it distresses me. Of course, it distresses me less than the thousands I would have to pay to buy my own wetsuits and tuxedos.

It's probably because of my brother. He is known by many different names. "Sonny Burnett," "The King of Sex," "Toes," "The Biz-ness Man," and most relevantly, "The Tux-ecutioner" Back before he was arrested, he was your worst nightmare as a tux rental employee. His dream was to fit somebody with a full-on three piece gold lame tuxedo. He never quite fulfilled it, but he came close in lots of ways.

Was your tux too short? That's the European style. Did he rent you a wool tux in summer? It's okay. It's tropical wool. Does your tux have a strangely crunchy texture? That's from the ironing. They had about six tuxes out back. The tux didn't fit you. You fit the tux. And my brother was willing to go to tremendous lengths to make it happen.

He would come home at night and regale us with stories of entire wedding parties wearing tuxes built for vastly smaller people. He specialized in proms. My brother is the singlehanded cause of virtually every prom date that showed up in powder blue and ruffly shirts. He did this not because he's a bad person, but because....

{lengthy pause}

OK, so he's a bad person, but the stories were a hell of a lot of fun. I mean, if you can't take delight in the suffering of others, then where the heck can you take it? I suppose when your tux is being fitted by a criminally-minded seventeen year old in suburban Rhode Island you can't really ask for the best in tailoring. He's now out in California working at a casino. At least until his felony record comes out.

And that's why I hate community pants.

LM

The New Link Welcome Package

Here at Mercenary Words we're always trying to spread our message of fast cars, cheap beer, and Benthamian utilitarianism. That's why we're thrilled when another site chooses to link to us. Hello Roundelay, Go Go Gadget People Skills, and the always nordic Tinfoil Viking Science. After the revolution, you are all assured of mid-level bureaucratic positions in my Legions of Terror.

I've instructed Seamus, the Mercenary Words intern, to put together some welcome gift baskets for our new minions. Seamus, you may recall, was fired after an unfortunate incident regarding slander and property defacement. Unfortunately, due to the failure of any major networks to pick up the American Manion series, we've been unable to replace him. As a result, we continue to exist in an uneasy truce.

But lets forget all that for now, and take a look at how Mercenary Words says "Hi there! Serve me or Die!" to our new friends.

"Hi there! Serve me or Die!"

First off, a complimentary copy of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere - a great book. Next, a bottle of 1977 Barros Colheita - a lovely tawny port. Digging deeper, we find a copy of the Robert DeNiro film Ronin - an exciting thriller. Not only that, but an undefiled autographed picture of me, Lance Manion. Further down, there's a box. What could be in the box? When I shake it, something rattles. Let's see what it is...

Hmm. It appears to be an enraged snake. And judging from the way my arm is puffing up, it's a venomous one. That should do it for today. Come back tomorrow when we feed Seamus his own kidneys. Until then, I'll be in a coma.

LM