ASP Badass Diary from Hell

As part of the ongoing memorial ceremony for the death of the Polaroid, here are a few of the more amusing photos taken from my trip to Europe a summer or two ago. Yes, I did lug around an instant camera and twenty-five packages of film across eight countries. Take your judgment elsewhere.

Seems like good advice.

A few revisions were required to make this more accurate.

In case you can’t tell, the red sign says “Murphy’s Law.”

This sign was facing in the direction opposite to the dangerous step. This implies that instead of “Watch your step” this sign can only mean, “Watch out for falling people.”

If you had this statue in your yard, no one would mess with you. Mainly because it takes a huge badass to steal a statue from the Louvre

I’m not saying that I am a trend setter, but I am saying that I set trends. All the time. As it turns out, most anything that is popular I liked long before you did. Here’s a brief list of some things that I liked way before any of you did, which makes me so much cooler:

Sleeping In
Been doing this all my life. You folks out there who just got jobs, and suddenly realize how precious morning sleep is? Yeah, I was loving that shit while you were a fetus. A FETUS. Just try getting me out of bed. You’ll need an army of peasants with pitchforks.

Snow
Snow is totally dope, y’all. Let’s face it, it’s water in its most brutal state. Except for giant icicles maybe. But yeah, snow? I was eating and peeing in it (in whatever order) before you ever heard what a ski was. Before you were cutting the powder, I was leaving my name in neon down your favorite slopes.

Rocket Launchers
I liked these things back when they were called BAZOOKAS. This slightly predates the era when all machine guns were referred to as “uzis.”

Scooters
Okay, so the Razor trend has passed, and if you’re still riding one you should take a look in a mirror and search for some reason to be proud of yourself. But back when I was 6 years old, I had a scooter with Snoopy and Woodstock on it, and I sported that board everywhere. I rode it until termites ate the wheels off of it, and it made me the coolest cat on the block. The WHOLE block.

Cats
LOL Cats? Try some REAL cats. I had shit tons. Legions.

James Bond
It’s called a VHS tape of “Thunderball.”

Wizards
Take your Harry Potter and shove it. In my day wizards had beards as long as their ***** and they would explode your face with a fireball.

Concern Over Global Warming
I wrote the script for Waterworld IN MY DREAMS.

DVDs
Before the movies in disc format blew everyone’s minds, I was spinning some phat platters called Laserdiscs. Eat it.

Tacos
I grew up INSIDE of a Del Taco. My hair still smells like Sonora Chicken Burritos.

Medical Experimentation For Money
Gurk.

Showering/Bathing/Hygiene
It was ALWAYS a good idea? Why did it take you so long to catch on.

That Being “Cool” Is Uncool
Why do you think I liked all these things before they were cool? Because it was UNCOOL back then. Which, in turn, is COOL. Why do you think I wrote this post in a manner in which it would appear that I’m joking? So you don’t realize how UNCOOL I really am, which in turn is SUPER COOL.

You people are impossible.

Today’s comic was unintentionally harrowing. Sure, we’ve done (multiple) comics where children encounter tentacled monsters and people battle bears with robot-parts, but that doesn’t come close to the horror that is the candiru. I’m trying to think of members species of the animal kingdom that are more terrifying, but nothing really is as … unsettling. I guess it could be worse. The fish could be programmed to explode when it finds itself trapped, but I haven’t read anything on that. Maybe you have. I defy you to browse Wikipedia and find another animal that elicits the same squirm as the dickfish.

While playing the game Left 4 Dead the other night for a couple hours, I learned a lot about the people whom I used to call my “friends.” In case you are unfamiliar, Left 4 Dead is an online cooperative zombie-survival game, albeit most of these “friends” I speak of view the “cooperative” element as optional. Here are a few things that I’ve learned about these people whom I used to trust:

• One of my friends solves all of his problems by throwing Molotov cocktails at them, including “Oh no, there is a zombie in this very small room with us,” and “Hey, I can’t get this door open.”
• Once you make it to the rescue boat, it is perfectly acceptable to burn the dock to the ground. However, if your teammates aren’t on the boat with you, apparently the appropriate response is to burn the dock to the ground and then laugh.
• The number of times your friends call you an idiot is directly proportional to the number of times you say, “Watch my six.”
• If bored, your friends will hurl themselves off of the edges of buildings just to get attention.
• Some of your friends will shoot you at point-blank range right after helping you up just to make the point that “they can giveth, and they can also taketh away.”
• When you are the only female character in the group, all of the male characters seem suspiciously quick to give you pills.
• The phrase, “holy shit, guys, there are zombies in here,” gets a laugh only the first and twentieth time it is used.
• Don’t walk in front of armed friends who are easily bored.