Postcards from the Rogue Isles: HALFWAY TO FIFTY

Greetings from the Rogue Isles, where our nefarious villain The Spammer has reached level 25 and, with it, the chance to change his custom title once more. At level 15 he picked up one adjective out of a list of 26 and chose "Dastardly", and at level 25 he was able to pick two adjectives -- one from the first list of 26, and the second from a list themed around his special origin type (he's a villain of Technological origin, so the choices included 'Robotic', 'Quantum' and, amusingly enough, 'L33t'.)

However, taking a page from the Stan Lee Alliterative Academy's textbook, he threw two H adjectives together and BEHOLD!

THE HEINOUS HIGH-TECH SPAMMER REIGNS SUPREME!

( And what dirty deeds he's done! )

[villains] yes, another CoV thing

Yes, another City of Villains post. I swore I had a filter around here somewhere, but it hasn't been updated in a while, so maybe if you want to be on ze filter shoot me an "aye" or sumpin.

( The Spammer meets Doctor Hunk )

Another bit o' Benchley

Here's another short piece written by Robert Benchley, one of the greatest humorists of the early 20th century. I include the entire piece intact, with his own disclaimer -- oddly prescient -- tacked to the end.

Whoa!

PAUL REVERE leaped into his saddle.

"Through every Middlesex village and farm, Bess, old girl!" he whispered in his mare's ear, and they were off.

And, as he rode, the dauntless patriot saw as in a vision (in fact, it was a vision) the future of the land to which he was bringing freedom.

He saw a hundred and ten million people, the men in derbies, the women in felt hats with little bows on the top. He saw them pushing one another in and out of trolley-cars on their way to and from work, adding up figures incorrectly and subtracting them incorrectly all afternoon, with time out at 12:30 for frosted chocolates and pimento cheese sandwiches. He saw fifty million of them trying to prevent the other sixty million from doing what they wanted to do, and the sixty million trying to prevent the fifty million from doing what they wanted to do. He saw them all paying taxes to a few hundred of their number for running the government very badly. He saw ten million thin children working and ten thousand fat children playing in the warm sands. And now and again he saw five million youths, cheered on by a hundred million elders with fallen arches, marching out to give their arms and legs and lives for Something to Be Determined Later. And over all he saw the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the artificial breeze of an electric fan operated behind the scenes.

So tugging back at the reins he yelled, "Whoa, Bess! We're going back to the stable."


NOTE: This piece was first published in 1924, when derision was not confused with disloyalty.