Dick Everlasting

Alternate ending: “Ancient Spirts of Evil, Transform this decayed form into CHENEY THE EVER-LIVING!!!”

[This comic is translated from Dick Cheney’s native language, a mixture of Parseltongue and the dark tongue spoken in Mordor]

Cheney was looking pretty rough at the inauguration on Tuesday. He was on his third baboon heart, and previously had all of his bones replaced with steel recovered from ground zero. With his titanium kidneys and cobalt spleen, he is more machine now than man. Though there are those that believe Cheney isn’t a man at all, rather he’s actually a highly evolved insect that has learned how to use it’s natural camouflage to mimic a human appearance. Personally, I believe that he is ageless. He was birthed of the primordial fires of creation, and roamed the Earth long before any other sentient life. He drove the demons, trolls and orcs deep below… or they banished him to the surface… either way, he is as ancient as he is evil and he is large amounts of both.

I’m guessing Cheney has been assuming different identities throughout history. Who was he? Zeus? Jack the Ripper? Joseph Stalin? Dracula? I bet he was Dracula. Also, feel free to share your ideas for other ways Cheney has kept alive all these years. I would have defaulted to the obvious conclusion that he’s a Cylon, but without the Resurrection Ship, I’m not sure how that would work.

And before you tell me to take it easy on Cheney, or the Bush administration, save it. I’m still high on Obama fumes and I’m not nearly ready to come down.

And a SPECIAL THANK YOU to those Twittering FB’s that unwittingly helped me write this comic with their @’s (justchristine, lonneynerd, bradymikep, bshirley, jaydeflix, and muttonhead104).

Adjusting To Change

At Noon today, Barack Obama will be sworn in as our 44th president. At 9pm he’ll delete the “Walker, Texas Ranger” season pass from the White House Tivo.

Oh, and just to clarify, Bush spent and average of 2 months clearing brush each year at his Crawford, TX ranch, but he spent and average of 4 months total on vacation each year that he was in office. That’s roughly a month shy of 1000 days of vacation in 8 years. What can I say? Don’t let the big white doors hit you in the ass on the way out, W.

Inauguration Links:

The Grieving Process

Ricardo Montalban passed away this week. I’ll never forget his portrayal as Khan Noonien Singh in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” or as The Joker in the 1960’s “Batman” series starring Adam West. No… wait, that was Cesar Romero.

If there is an afterlife, I hope it’s governing body has a sense of humor and allows Ricardo Montalban and Hervé Villechaize to greet all new comers with a hearty, “Welcome… to Fantasy Island.“

Godspeed, you rich Corinthian leather bastard.

Recommended For Ages Youngling to Padawan

That actually was my name in KOTOR. Call me a heretic but I didn’t enjoy it. Turn based combat just doesn’t make any sense to me. The story was enthralling (certainly better than the prequels) but the game play fell flat for me.

Two toys debuted at CES ’09 that let you get all levitatey with your brain powers. Despite actually carrying the Jedi seal of approval, the Force Trainer seems the weaker of the two. My money is on the Mattel Mind Flex. Instead of just using your brain waves to float a ping pong ball to different heights, you have to navigate it through a series of obstacles.

I’m sure any kid (or adult) that gets one of these will be bored with it after a week. At that point the kids will start trying to levitate other things with it, like hamsters, bullets, poison or medical waste. Adults will (if they haven’t already) find a way to have sex with it. You just can’t say “ping pong balls” and “plastic tube” without conjuring images of deviant acts. You can? Well I can’t. I’m terrible.

UPDATE:

For any new readers that don’t know, Josh is gay. If I use the word “gay” in a comic, I actually mean “homosexual.” I know it’s hard to believe that a COMIC on the INTERNET could actually say “gay” without meaning “lame” or “LOL!!111FAGZ,” but that is indeed the case with HE.

I should also probably mention that Eli is a Mexican.

BenHeck: Mod Scientist

“It’s really more of a sexual fantasy, Doc.”

Benjamin Heckendorn is a nerd after my own heart. He sees things that are well, and he can’t leave well enough alone. He sees the hidden potential in devices to be smaller, better, faster, stronger (our work is never over). You might say his latest project, Modding an Xbox 360 controller into an Atari joystick, is pointless or that he had no reason for doing it. But why do we do anything? Why do we climb a mountain? Because it’s there. Why do we go to the moon? Because it’s there. Why do we put a 24″ LCD screen into a coffee table? Because they were Josh’s and not mine, so I didn’t care if they got broken.The journey of discovery is it’s own reward.

If you arent familiar with BenHeck‘s work, I urge you to browse his greatest hits, his forum (where users post their own hacks and mods) and check out his podcast. He’s like Michelangelo with a soldering iron. He’s also completed several projects to help enable disabled gamers including a one handed controller and a one arm Guitar Hero solution using a foot pedal to strum.

Before I had a child, my living room, office or garage were typically full of such BenHeck-type projects. With most of them, I just enjoyed the breaking and rebuilding (and rebreaking) parts. Once they were operational I generally lost interest. I’d like to post pictures of them for you guys to check out. Josh has a few on his Flickr. I’ll go ahead and list the rest and update this post if pics get posted.

NES PC (building a working Via Motherboard into an NES case)
The MULEbox/JuiceBox arcade cabinet
Josh’s original Xbox case mod with clear dome and LED lights
The LCD Coffee Table That Should Not Be (1,2)

Post your own case mods and hardware hacking projects (or the best ones you’ve seen online) in the comments. Then get a Dremmel tool and ruin/improve those old computers and consoles just lying in your closet. Can we coin the term “ruinprove?”