It is a forest scene with a castle in the distance...

The castle Euphorie...

Not a body can be seen...

But the sounds of chopping and sawing can be heard...

A sentry on her walls peers out but sees nothing...

Portents ominous...

A siege perilous...

Was that the sound of a shovel hitting rock underneath the earth...

The green green earth of the ancient keep?

Flocks of disturbed sparrows start from this direction and that...

Spooked deer run out into the clearing before the walls...

The creak of heavy wooden wheels can be heard...

Tree tips shake as something goes past...

The sentry is very nervous...

Next stop...

Ichigo!!!

Quote

Ohhhh and a word of warnang Madmoiselle...

My oh so sharp grahn eyes noticed that Deneuve refairence een ze thread for ze doomed one.

Do not theenk thees weel reezemble een eeny way ze Hungaire...






BAH.. mon petite ami fram daze gan buy .. C'est MOI.. airhived amangst yore fronds grotesque. Je d�teste thees whar of wards wage�d frahm les pyrettes eunuch, yoreself surrounded ahr buy. Baht merde, je half yore belove�d Euphonie my honor cast before en un gesture affectionate. Pour quoi ? Whan all es destruction horrible bayfor moi? Grate weeping accompanies moi. Grate sufferings ma beloved endures. POUR QUOI indeed je shout all four two hair!!! Yoresalf declare un fini por derision et insult personnel frahm thez knaves yourself surround buy are!!! Onteal occurs this mahself une lesbian devote'd shell je remain. ADIEU mon ami rahnk. Au revoir la femme joli ! Salut !


Quote

BAH.. mon petite ami fram daze gan buy .. C'est MOI.. airhived amangst yore fronds grotesque. Je d�teste thees whar of wards wage�d frahm les pyrettes eunuch, yoreself surrounded ahr buy. Baht merde, je half yore belove�d Euphonie my honor cast before en un gesture affectionate. Pour quoi ? Whan all es destruction horrible bayfor moi? Grate weeping accompanies moi. Grate sufferings ma beloved endures. POUR QUOI indeed je shout all four two hair!!! Yoresalf declare un fini por derision et insult personnel frahm thez knaves yourself surround buy are!!! Onteal occurs this mahself une lesbian devote'd shell je remain. ADIEU mon ami rahnk. Au revoir la femme joli ! Salut !





Damn I've lost the channel to Pepe! And my Franglish was never my best subject in school.

Nevertheless I sense a woman in great distress. And it troubles me. It makes me wonder if some nasty imposters have been at work undermining the noble reputation of Team Banzai.

Oh well. Time is always on the side of the just. True love conquers all. Might cannot overcome right. We shall always endeavor to persevere!

And remember -

There is no reason to be cruel. Don't be cruel.
Because no matter where you go...
there you are.


Quote

Damn I've lost the channel to Pepe! And my Franglish was never my best subject in school.




Mon Dieu !!!

Quote

There is a great stillness...

Birds can be heard chirping in the distance...

Suddenly in the camera we see a black, furry paw.

A single digit, the index, extends...

A well-manicured nail glints in the sun for a moment...

then plunges down...

down...

down...

Onto the red button labeled...

"le BANNED"

And *poof* the entire thread collapses in on itself and vanishes into some other reality... Quote

There is a great stillness...

Birds can be heard chirping in the distance...

Suddenly in the camera we see a black, furry paw.

A single digit, the index, extends...

A well-manicured nail glints in the sun for a moment...

then plunges down...

down...

down...

Onto the red button labeled...

"le BANNED"

And *poof* the entire thread collapses in on itself and vanishes into some other reality...



god Dudley.. i do love your material.. *slight gaze upward and muffled giggle as i maintain a stillness reminiscent of a certain replicant hiding amoungst the toys* Quote

NEVER... I MEAN NEVER... MENTION "REPLICANTS" TO ME AGAIN!!!

You see it was in Paris... Summer... We were so happy... About to be married... The very day of the wedding you see...

But I had to do it... I had to give her the test... You have to be so careful... And there were all the news reports that year...

She started off so well.. well... well...

Ride - Sit down honey. We have some unfinished business between us.

Her - Oh come on baby. It is a beautiful day, all of Paris awaits. Let's just run off and have so much fun.

Ride - No dear. We have put this off too long. This must be done before we wed.

Her - (sorrowful look) I understand.

He hooks her up to the apparatus. Retina scanners, thermal probes all over her body, brain wave pickups. A wild spaghetti of wires spread all over the ballroom of their villa. All converging to the analysis station complete with dozens of video screens, a battery of whirring workstation computers, some old van de graaf generators added for effect, showy sparks hissing up vertically reaching wires.

They are separated by maybe ten feet.

Ride - You go to the doctor's office. You are told to wait in the waiting room outside with all the other patients. You are sick. They are sick. The magazines are a very odd selection. After about fifteen minutes of waiting you are taken to a much smaller room. The nurse says a few polite things and then leaves you alone again in this room for a much longer time with the instructions to take off your blouse as she goes out the door. What do you do?

Her - I know it is going to be a long time. I leave my blouse on. I walk around the office looking in the various cabinents, opening all the jars full of interesting stuff, I memorize the eye chart, and then after about ten minutes have gone by I finally take off my blouse. I occupy myself by making various poses in the mirror until the doctor arrives. At which point I quickly take up a seated position on the table in the center of the room and look bored.

During this explanation, the video screens fill with the automated sequences of response images, the computer screen fill with diagnostic output, and Ride peers deeply, and seriously into them all with a frown.

Ride - I see... Very interesting... You are married. Your husband one day puts up a naked picture of another woman in the bedroom over the bed. He tells you to strip and put a bag over your head. What do you do?

Her - I don't let him. I should be enough for him.

Again there is the whirring of computers, the analysis of the feeds, the deluge of information. And Ride again calmly sorts through it all very rapidly.

Ride - An asshole comes into your chatroom and starts asking a bunch of fool questions. He asks to see all your body parts one by one. He asks you to put on a series of different outfits. He asks for your freaking life history, one day at a time. He asks for a handbra. A footbra. He asks you to turn up the light level in your room. He makes you adjust the thermostat by ten degrees. What do you do?

Her - I ban his mealy, worthless ass back to the stone age so fast it makes his head spin!

Ride again carefully monitors the output of all the machines. This time he smiles when he is done.

Ride - You are doing so well honey. Just one more check. I know we'll be married soon.

He takes her over to an old x-ray machine. Plugs it in. In a moment the screen shows her skeleton and...

smack dab in the center of her ribcage is a plate on which as plain as day are the fateful words -

Femme Fatale Bot Version 0092A
Serial Number 38104829103
YoYoDyne Cybernetics

With a tear leaking from one eye Ride's robot goes for his jugular. But Ride was far enough away. There are a few flashes from his blast guns and then...

well... I don't need to describe the horrible scene or the aftermath.

Clearly one of the most searingly painful of the mountie's memories.

Quote

As a part of recording the shameful history surrounding the terrible act, it is my duty to note that the no good bastard Q. Tarantino decided to profit from it all by making a couple of movies - the well-made but exploitive Kill Dudley series.

Even you, a latter day archaeologist, can imagine how he warped the events into a plot sympathetic to the "poor" bride. He showed a weak Ride at the moment of truth who was unable to perform the quadruple kill necessary to take out a replicant for good. The replicant was made to be taken out at the moment she was rehearsing to marry another replicant. This of course was not the actual story. Ride was thus falsly portrayed to be hopelessly in love and jealous pursuing a confused replicant who only "wanted to be with her kind".

Team Banzai was turned into a corrupt band of assassins who ganged up to shower the church with blast weapons that somehow all failed to hit the "bride" the mandatory four times in her death zones. They were all given false origin stories that made them out to be little more than unfortunate hoods with a little more talent than the rest of the bloodthirsty hood horde.

Tarantino had no trouble in finding the best and brightest martial arts stars to round out his cast. The theatres were packed. The sound track went triple platinum.

He even shaped history because the film stirred up so much anti-mountie feelings that the PooHawks decided to try another quick war while everyone was distracted.

Others who are outraged by Tarantino's long life of despicable acts have commented that his horrible, painful death was probably at the hands of the very gods themselves. But it is more likely that the mafia finally got tired of waiting for him to pay off his immense gambling debts. At any rate, this particularly irresponsible period of Hollywood history ended with his death...





Quote

*cleans her katana on Tarantino's coat tail and pads silently back into Old Town to keep her meeting with Dwight* Quote

*cleans her katana on Tarantino's coat tail and pads silently back into Old Town to keep her meeting with Dwight*



hmmmm never suspected it was you...

But which Dwight I wonder... I hope he doesn't sell paper!

Quote

hmmmm never suspected it was you...

But which Dwight I wonder... I hope he doesn't sell paper!





Oh silly me...

I just lost my head for a sec. Ain't that the pits.


Quote

*she skates the long dark rain wet streets of Basin City... why had he forgotten her.. had Gail done something to him? Had the clash with Manute and her crucifying the gangster so horrified Dwight that he blacked all memory of her from his Canadian mind? she roars around a curve on Lacquest Avenue and power glides to a stop in a shadowed alley. This Dudley name he was using.. it seemed so odd.. so.. unbalanced... he was always insane before.. but dedicated to his Gail and to the honor of women.. she shakes her head and her long hair floats in the air around her.. she skates off up the hill reversing directions back and forth across the pavement.. gaining height.. until she reaches the top of the hill.. and Old Town is laid out before her.. home.. a home of sorts.. she glides down hill toward the place where she and her lovers conceal themselves from harm.. Hazina and Crooks.. they should be there now.. preparing tea..* Quote

She was watched from the shadows by his mad green eyes. His grin came easily as he watched her graceful weave down the street. "What a force of nature" he thought. His reptilian heart warmed a little. He was glad that she was on his side.

But there will be no meeting this night. She will not be part of this plot.

For though they would often be allies as the intrigue ebbed and flowed in the city, there were some campaigns that would be beyond her sometimes childishly innocent sense of right and wrong. Some acts that must be peformed that would violate her code, a code in some ways stricter than the most fanatical form of the bushido.

He understood the grays. He could see the blearing of the spectrum. He could bend his character, make it change color like a chameleon, and safely bring it back again no worse for wear. And when the odds were as bad as they were now, he'd need every trick in his bag.

Yeah it was time to settle a very old score. Right an ancient wrong. Break a long standing alliance and send some very deserving souls whereever they were ordained to go upon exiting this vale of tears. Time for the pits to swallow up some more... well... enough talk.

Quote

Athos and he sat in a corner of the tavern and brooded.

Brooding, my children, is something that the older man treasures as a kind of birthright. We make an art of it. We build our man bonds when we do it together. We set aside all the trivial concerns and distractions, the daily inconsequential things, and focus on the great truths, the life shaping events, and the looming shoals that unlived days may bring. Our eyes grow calm, far seeing, focused, serious. Our voices become quiet yet more powerful. The weight of our years is felt very strongly in our bellies. We cut through fantasies and illusions. We tear down false fronts. We realize great truths.

Athos had a mind that once steered clear of his obsession could accomplish much. In such a session, he was a master. They talked philosophy. They talked politics. They shaped the course of some of their friends and relatives lives. They traded secrets. They honed their craft.

The universe was briefly laid bare to their keen minds. The liquor in their hands was really for show. Never dulling their senses. Their eyes saw everything so much more clearly than normal. The ocean of truth washed over them unhindered by any earthly distraction. They somehow left their mortal frame. They became timeless.

What a danger it was for their enemies this meeting. For the strong melded temporary alliance forged out of it was a wonder to behold. Their bearing as they broke and left together, heading west fast, betrayed the power of their newly formed purpose. Formidable. The kind of force required to break such a creation cannot be found in many places and in the short time before the great tsunami would break, it is hard to conceive of it gathering and finding its mark.

Yes.... It is all as he had forseen...

Quote

A Lesson from the Art of Love and War - B Ket

Be careful of the deals you make and your alliances. Conflict is known to be ripe with unintended consequences. Study this famous example from history-

During the war of Shinao against Shilla, the prince of the Shan gave the rank of "garrison commander" of the fortress at Pu Li to the Mountie of the East. The mounties were hell bent on the complete destruction of the Shilleese kingdom and had allied with Shinao, a power they were normally at odds with.

The dark mountie lord, aggressive and wily, immediately left the city with his army and the all of the supplies for the fortress. He won a series of thirteen victories that broke the back of the Shilleese forces in that province and in six neighboring. He pursued the remnant thousands of miles before finally driving them into the sea far, far away from Pu Li.

The long oppressed cities of the Pu Li district in the meantime, freed from a powerful police force, rose in fierce rebellion against the prince. He was unable to restore order and lost half his kingdom, gaining a fierce new enemy on his flanks.

The mounties of course, with Shilla checked, broke their alliance and went back to the old relationship of competitive distrust.

Quote

Ah today is the day of the big game. It makes my black heart light to consider it. What other event can serve as more of a warning, veiled as it may be, to our quarry?

Those foolish females who model us as simpletons, slugs, one-dimensional creatures would do well to ponder the evolution of football. Compare it in its modern garb for example to the simpler game it started out as. Look at the thickness of the playbook of a modern offense. Consider the sophistication of the quarterback in these later days. What he has to master in order to succeed.

Oh yes deception is everywhere. You busy housewives, buzzing so fast around the home, thinking your husband is braindead in front of the game eating chips. Is he? Is he really? Do you see him actually eating the chips? Are his eyes really focused on the game alone?

We thrive on conflict. Are minds are made to plot. We go from unmoving to full speed in an instant. Never forget this basic fact... to live with us is to live on the edge of a great precipice. We are fierce, passionate, and oh so hungry.

Quote

It is a little known fact that on this whole planet there has only been one, and only one, accurate depiction of Love.

Deep in the amazonian jungle. Guarded for millenia by one of the most ruthless, cannabalistic tribes. Rising taller than any of the Incan temples. Cut out of a rare form of black marble.

Always viewed with ominous drums surrounding - doom doom doom doom.

Not a Janus head but a triple of horrid faces - snake, eagle, and snarling puma.

Eyes all blazing with passion's rainbow - fire of red, embers of orange, weirdness of green.

Torso of a irresistible woman - all leaness, curviness, and power.

One powerful arm holding a whip. Another holding chains. A third holding a mirror.

Sexy, powerful legs. Terminating in boots, iron tipped.

Standing on the chest of a pile of vanquished men. Sort of Kaliesque.

The jungle still bears the mark of the struggle there was to erect her. This nameless one. The bones of the slave army that was employed to drag the stone can be found scattered all around the site.

Sacrifice is still made to her by her temple keepers. Hearts of course. Still beating. But those of lovers not warriors. They are ripped out of their victims and thrown against the temple walls while the priests dance. They slide slowly down under gravity's pull and are consumed by the circling vultures in the end, after the ceremony dies out and the revelers stagger back into the jungle from whence they came.

In modern times the song played during the cermony have matched a little modern tastes. You'll hear a strange version of "These Boots were Made for Walking" right at the peak. If you hear anything that is. Because first time visitors are often so sensory saturated by the horrid scene that their ears decide to take a vacation and hit the elevator music soundtrack to cover their tracks.

Know the rules of love. That is all you need. There is no need to piss off this foul creature and bring one of the worst gods down on your poor head.

Quote

For completeness, another Amazonian hymn... "Love Consumes a Horse"

(doom doomie doom doomie doom doom doom doomie doom doomie doom doom doom etc)

She'll be... soaring... over the... mountains...
She'll be... swooping... down the... valleys...
She'll be... eating... all his... spermies...
She'll be... milking... all his... spermies...

She'll be the first to seize his guhun...
She'll be the last to take his guhun.
She'll be the first to seize his guhun...
She'll be the last to take his guhun.
She'll be the first to seize his guhun...
She'll be the last to take his guhun.

There is no way out of here.
Give in to your unreasoning fear.
And let her take you all the way down.
Down down down underneath the roof of the ground.
The moment of truth comes
The moment of truth comes

(doom doomie doom doomie doom doom doom) Quote

Ah yes... we gave into the fire with total abandon. Decades of accounts were settled in one fell day. The thunder of our hoofbeats was the last thing they ever heard.

Who can stand when the vengeful duo appeareth? When justice is meted out by that dread court?

We carried off the women. And let the worms take the rest.

Sparks skyward. Dust rearward. Kites circling. Gods roaring.

Never... Never again... shall such deeds be required from good men.


Quote

Dastardly Dramas, in conjunction with our sponsor - Colgate, is pleased to present a preview of next week's coming attraction -

Lucy Luckless works late at night. Lighting her candles for her wax farming.

When suddenly...

We hear Ennio Morricone's masterwork swell up fully. All steel, all string, and some off tune whistling. Fresh and new for this film.

Lucy turns toward the door. Eyes wide. An innocent. A tragic figure.

"omg. You. It can't be. I wasn't expecting you."

He comes in with insane green eyes flashing wildly. Twirling his mustache. Flanked by his underlings.

"Yes Lucy. That's right. Nobody expects the... Inquisition."

She frowns.

"Isn't that an old Python gag?"

"This is no gag girlie." he leers "It is... your worst nightmare."

She screams. Tries to escape. But the underlings secure her.

"Have you read 'The Pit and the Pendulum' my dear?" he asked as he slowly moved toward her.

"Ye... Yesss." she stammered back.

"Amateurs." he spat out dismissively.

"We have apparatus that they only half-imagined. Roll them in boys."

The walls shake and the walls shimmy as machine after machine is rolled into her living room. It is a good thing that she wasn't working in her bedroom.

He takes a deep breath and says "Let me catalog the evil..." But here we must end. For this is just a foretaste of what is yet to come. Walk the straight and narrow my children or you too could face...

The Inquisition.



Quote