Kitsappalachia Man vs. The Googly Eyephone

The other day at work we devised an idea for a fun iPhone game. I wanted to make a game about a superhero flying through a town based on local scenery, fighting crime and whatnot. Fun, silly, a little ridiculous to have a super hero in Kitsap County, but harmless.

Bryan took this idea to the next logical extreme: Kitsappalachia Man. Kitsappalachia is what the trolls on the Kitsap Sun forums can Kitsap when they are talking about how redneck it is here. Also from the Sun forums are various slurs for overweight women from the different towns in the county. There are Bremelos from Bremerton. Portapotomus from Port Orchard. Belefants from Belfair. Silverdale girlilas from Silverdale. All of these terms would be included in Kitsappalachia Man.

Kitsappalachia Man would fly through different levels based on each town, saving Bremelos from "squids", Portapotomus from hicks, Belefants from meth heads, and Silverdale Girlilas from mall walkers. I'm sure it will be a huge success once we put it all together.

I have a tendency to throw my phone around because it freaks out all my coworkers who have extremely fragile smart phones. It is an antiquated flip phone that I have glued googly eyes to. A few days ago I threw it, shouting as I always do, "Googly Eyephone go!" AJ snatched it up and put it down his shirt! It stopped when it reached his belt. Then, to make things worse, Bryan said, "Can you get it to come out your pant leg?" AJ did a rather distasteful squirming maneuver and voila out popped my phone from the leg of his pants. Ewwwwwwww.


Travis, who does not normally feature prominently in the insane things that we do, recently taped one of the left over Pop-Its (I believe I explained their existence in the Day That Refused To Quit Being Awesome post) to Bryan's cabinet and started shooting at it with rubber bands. We all thought there was no way he could make it explode, but we were very wrong. It only took him a couple of tries too. All who witnessed this feat were truly impressed.

Story Time: Troll Judging

Not long before I started this blog I was engaged in an activity that was ridiculous even for me. It was called Troll Judging. I happened upon this fantastic notion on CNN's website. In an article about an extremely white Jewish woman leaving a television show, one of the first comments was "This is totally racist! They're only firing her because she's black!" And yes, the article had included a picture of the actress.

A string of angry comments such as "Moron!" "She's Jewish, idiot!" and the like ensued. The very last comment in the string was from the user name Troll Referee: "Nice work, troll. 6 points."

I was in awe. It was the perfect way to finally strike back at the trolls infesting the local paper's website! I created an account for Troll Judge and began issuing points under the following guidelines:

1) Never interact with your trolls. No matter how much you want to add snide remarks or  even explain what the points mean, you can only issue points. This is a crucial part of remaining impartial.

2) Points are awarded on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being a perfectly trollish comment.

3) Points are awarded per comment, so an individual can rack up a rather high cumulative score. However, troll points are only for each topic even if a troll is earning points on multiple forum threads. Overzealous trolls were known to get into the triple digits on two or even three separate comment threads.

4) "Feeding the trolls" earns troll points. You need to completely ignore them to avoid earning troll points.

I had good fun doing this, especially when the trolls tried to goad me into replying to their comments. My goal was for someone to say something like, "Oh you're calling me a troll? We'll just see who the Troll Judge says is the bigger troll, you troll!"

Then one day it happened. An article about a hillybilly type crime in Bremerton (which is what a lot of the trolls get into arguments over) and the very first comment was: "Troll Judge better watch this space!"

I had succeeded in having a reputation the preceded me and after troll judging that article I retired. I still log back in every now and then when an article is so atrociously infested with trolls that the Troll Judge needs to make another appearance, but those instances are few and far between.

I've got the trophy right now

Last week I threatened to purchase and have engraved a trophy for the Most Racist Comment of the Week. To my delight, Monday morning Travis declared that he had found a 99 cent trophy at a Good Will in Seattle over the weekend. Now whenever someone says something even mildly racist (or any kind of -ist since AJ insisted that sexism, Gaycism, and Ajism be included) the trophy gets passed to them. I am the current holder of the trophy due to saying, "I used to be Swedish, but I got better."

AJ held the trophy for several days early on this week (mostly because we intentionally avoided saying anything even remotely racist so that he would have to keep the trophy. AJ is the least -ist person in the world so it was hilarious that he was stuck with the trophy even when he tried to goad people into saying racist things). His comment regarding a debate over whether or not a comment was racist: "Let's ask Travis, he's from the South!" Travis is from Kansas.

Later in the week AJ won the trophy again for complaining about a lack of social events calendar for straight people. "What is wrong with your people? I mean, frick! If I want to know what's going on with my people on any given weekend all I have to pull up the Gay Calendar and look! How do your people know what to do on the weekends?"

I could not help myself. Randomly, a calculator had been left next on this railing so I had to type in "hello" and leave it there to greet passersby.


Hobby Hoedown: The Pokemon SoulSilver challenge has been declared over. We did not finish collecting all the Pokemon, but we did beat all the gym trainers. 256 Pokemon was too many, especially when you have to breed them to get some or trade from the Game Boy Advance Games. Boo Hiss.

However, in order to scratch something off my Video Games Bucket List I have decided to beat Super Mario Brothers 2. Yes, the weird one where you throw the turnips.

I have been writing a new story about a girl who wakes up with no memory in a graveyard called The Necromancer's Assistant. I really like it so far, but I am not liking the fact that LiveJournal has changed the way formatting works when copying and pasting from a Word document. The formatting is all jacked up and I can't figure out how to fix it. I think I'm going to have to migrate my stories somewhere else. Possibly here, we'll see.

Story Time: The "Challenge Accepted!" Story

AJ and I often have pointless debates on topics ranging from economics to super heroes. One day I said something that prompted AJ to say, "But you're not Magneto!"

My response was to pull a handful of paperclips out of my desk stare at them intently with my hands outstretched towards them and say back, "Challenge accepted!"