News You Can't Use: School Deems Craigslist Prank a Threat

A senior at Truman High School will not be allowed to walk in his graduation because of a prank he pulled.

Instead he'll be facing a "Freedom Act" star chamber at the local Ministry of Love, which, when you think about it, is only slightly worse than sweating it out in goofy robes and listening to pretentious and sanctimonious speeches about your bright future.

Kylan Scheele, 18, admits to posting an ad on Craigslist on Friday that listed Truman High School for sale; he said it was meant to be a joke.

I consulted the tiny post-it note that lists all the things you can still tap for valuable yucks and it wasn't on there, sorry kid.

“Other people were going to release live mice or, you know, building a beach in the front lobby area, and I thought let’s do something more laid back, so I just decided to post the school for sale,” Scheele said.

The irony when my laid back and generally low-effort pranksterism earns a twenty year sentence in a Cuban prison camp.

The ad listed several amenities including the schools newly built athletic fields, plenty of parking and a “bigger than normal dining room.” The Independence School District took issue with Kylan’s reason for the sale, which he wrote was “due to the loss of students coming up.”

When kids say "adults are the suck," and they do, sorry delusional "I'm still cool!" boomers, this is why.

“I decided to say the reason we’re selling this is because of 'the loss of students,' because the senior class is graduating,” Scheele explained.

That seems pretty obvious, but we're dealing with petty bureaucrats, so good luck.

On Wednesday, Sheele, who told FOX4 he has a 3.9 GPA, was notified that he was suspended for the remainder of the school and would not walk in Saturday’s graduation.

Young man with successful future written all over him has life permanently destroyed because he pulled a boner to make people laugh. Really makes you think, man. Maybe all of this isn't really a good thing. Far out.

“A three-day suspension, sure, but denying me the ability to walk, that’s a lifetime moment,” Scheele said. “I think they’re overreacting.”

Trust me, you're not missing anything.

 Turn in your used school for cash right now!

“He went and apologized and tried to make things right and in return they give him the harshest punishment possible,” Kylan’s mom, Denetra Clark said.

There's actually worse punishments. I'm just saying. Room 101, that sort of thing.

While Sheele and his mom are hoping the district will reverse its decision, the district’s spokeswoman said it “won’t be reconsidered.”

The actions of a district carry a grim finality.

“He’s already put the effort in,” said Clark. “He’s going to get his diploma no matter what but maybe the party will start sooner.”

If you consider being blindfolded with a sack and left lying handcuffed on gravel in the scorching midday sun for hours before finally being taken to a holding cell a "party," than yeah, woooooo.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

News You Can't Use: Scientists Plan DNA Hunt for Loch Ness Monster Next Month

If there's one good thing that came from the proliferation of camera phones, it's the destruction of goofy myths like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and politicians who actually care about you in any meaningful way. This almost offsets the thousands of negative aspects of living in a society where people take in reality through a filter that could also, at least theoretically, be used to make phone calls. Despite this, the "Nessie" true believers are not about to go quietly into the good night of "people like to make up stories and our five senses can be unreliable." No, we must scour every inch of Scottish water to find the shocking truth, namely "the results were inconclusive."

A global team of scientists plans to scour the icy depths of Loch Ness next month using environmental DNA (eDNA) in an experiment that may discover whether Scotland’s fabled monster really does, or did, exist. 

After spending millions, we found this old wine bottle.

The use of eDNA sampling is already well established as a tool for monitoring marine life like whales and sharks.

The technology is completely legit, even if its current deployment isn't.

Whenever a creature moves through its environment, it leaves behind tiny fragments of DNA from skin, scales, feathers, fur, faeces and urine.

Nature sure is disgusting, am I right? Pave over everything.

“This DNA can be captured, sequenced and then used to identify that creature by comparing the sequence obtained to large databases of known genetic sequences from hundreds of thousands of different organisms,” said team spokesman Professor Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago in New Zealand. 

I'm a little disappointed you didn't use the phrase "multiple organisms."

The first written record of a monster relates to the Irish monk St Columba, who is said to have banished a “water beast” to the depths of the River Ness in the 6th century.

How the Irish saved civilization. Using my monk powers I confined the creature to the water. Where it lives. No, really, I totally kicked its ass.

The most famous picture of Nessie, known as the “surgeon’s photo”, was taken in 1934 and showed a head on a long neck emerging from the water. It was revealed 60 years later to have been a hoax that used a sea monster model attached to a toy submarine.

Time for the surgeon to operate. *attaches two toys together for low-energy hoax*

Countless unsuccessful attempts to track down the monster have been made in the years since, notably in 2003 when the BBC funded an extensive scientific search that used 600 sonar beams and satellite tracking to sweep the full length of the loch.

Well, there's always room for one more good one.

I'm from a monastery, I'll handle this.

Gemmell’s team, which comprises scientists from Britain, Denmark, the United States, Australia and France, is keen to stress the expedition is more than just a monster hunt. 

We might learn a lot about fish excrement, but that's not how you convince a University to fund your monster hunt.

“While the prospect of looking for evidence of the Loch Ness monster is the hook to this project, there is an extraordinary amount of new knowledge that we will gain from the work about organisms that inhabit Loch Ness,” Gemmell said on his university website.

Unlike Murphy Lee, the lying scientists do need a fudging hook on this beat.

He predicts they will document new species of life, particularly bacteria, and will provide important data on the extent of several new invasive species recently seen in the loch, such as Pacific pink salmon.

When the pacific sends their salmon, they're not sending us their best, reveals study.

Full Article. 

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

News You Can't Use: Storm-Chasing Tours Become Big—and Risky—Business

When residents of this remote rural area were warned to take cover from an approaching severe storm, tour director Bill Reid aimed his vanload of six giddy passengers into its path.

When shooting cloned dinosaurs or taking the tag off a mattress in blatant defiance of the instructions no longer can provide any thrills for your jaded, empty existence I've got a new drug. It's called driving into severe weather and it's the most fun you can have with your pants on.

“It’s going to get crazy,” said Mr. Reid of Tempest Tours, which takes visitors on excursions into some of the wildest weather on the continent, amid reports of torrential rain, baseball-sized hail and possible tornadic activity.

Wow, cool it with the stigmatizing language. Next time say "It's going to get mentally ill." Also, I never really considered "rain" to be "extreme," but then again I'm not making sick bank with Tempest Tours. Oh brave new world, that has such people in't!

As the U.S.’s tornado season kicks into high gear, so does the booming-but-risky business of taking paying passengers on storm-chasing tours in the nation’s tornado alley.

We've finally found a use for Middle America other than remembering they exist every four years on election night.

The 1996 movie, “Twister,” and the 2007-2011 Discovery Channel reality TV series, “Storm Chasers” have helped to fuel the growing popularity of the tours—in a trend that worries some safety experts.

Forgotten garbage culture from several years ago is responsible for this thrilling, cutting-edge fad.

Although the storm tour companies offer no guarantees, spotting—and taking photos of—twisters is the Holy Grail for storm chasers and tourists alike.

This better not turn out to be another trick bag like my big Hollow Earth vacation.

But that hasn’t stopped Tempest Tours, among others, from selling out its storm-chase tours, which can last from a day to 11 days and run $300 to $3,850. 

I mean, I can just drive you around for an hour or whatever for three Franklins, but to be honest I really hold back on those cheap ones and it isn't all that much fun. You want to spend four figures, minimum. 

The company started in 2000 with 20 tourists now hosts about 200 passengers a season who come from around the country and world, said founder Martin Lisius.

He's like a successful and well-adjusted version of that scumbag from Blair Witch 2: The Book of Shadows.

“People kept asking if they could go storm chasing with us, so we decided to create this company so they could book a tour like a cruise,” said Mr. Lisius of Arlington, Texas, a veteran storm chaser.

People kept asking me to beat them in an erotic fashion with a flogger while I call them scum, so I decided to create a company based out of my basement "dungeon."

Over the past two decades, at least a dozen other companies have sprung up around Texas and the Midwest, including Silver Lining Tours, Extreme Tornado Tours and Extreme Chase Tours, which hauls about 80 passengers a season in its vans compared with just five when it started in 1999, said owner Lanny Dean.

What I give you is top value, unlike those con-artists from Silver Lining. Yeah, I cost more, but there's a reason for that.

Though storm-chasing companies say they don’t know of any tourists who have died or been seriously injured so far, the trips can be dangerous.

I like the "don't know." I mean, high winds picked him up and propelled him off into the hemorrhaging sky, but I'm sure he was fine. I never found a body or nothing, honest.

Three storm chasers died in 2017 when their vehicles collided while chasing a twister in Texas.

Oh. This kind of plays havoc with that whole "Ignorance as an excuse" line we just got.

We offer no guarantees you'll see anything resembling decent college football.

In 2013, three other chasers were killed when a tornado they had been following turned on them in El Reno, Okla. In both cases, the storm chasers weren’t leading tours.

The funnel seemed cool, then it just turned on me, man. Who could have predicted this?

Even some storm chasers think the tours are a bit much. “It puts more cars on the road,” said Greg Robbin, a 42-year-old storm chaser from Mountain View, Calif., as he patrolled for tornadoes on the Oklahoma prairie recently.

I don't like sharing the road with what I call "normals."

Mr. Alba was joining his first storm tour this month because “seeing a tornado is on my bucket list,” he said.

You might kick said "bucket" immediately after, so that's convenient.

Full Article.

Komment Korner

I saw tornadoes several times when I lived in Ohio.

So the main danger is getting hit by another car of storm-chasers?  

Storm chaser, so what happens when they catch them?

A great alternative for terminally ill individuals in states where there isn’t a “right to die” law.   

I do love the idiocy of at least one half of the American public.  


Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

News You Can't Use: Facebook Disabled 1 Billion Fake Accounts in the Last Year

Hey everyone, did you here about the internet site where you can post all your personal information and embarrassing pictures? This data will then be used against you by everyone from your country's Though Police, predatory advertisers, con-artists and ordinary people who don't like you. This is really a great idea, you'd be a fool not to voluntarily participate in this honey-trap. Besides, think of all the "likes." That's a virtual thumbs up, the most precious of all commodities, in case you didn't know.

Facebook continued to give the public a peek behind the curtain, releasing a major report on Tuesday that announced the Silicon Valley company removed more than one billion fake accounts.

You mean that extremely open-minded model who expressed interest in my profile out of nowhere might not be entirely on the level?

Facebook also said it purged millions of posts that violate its rules in the last year.

"Purged." Whoever wrote this knows what's up.

The first-ever “Community Standards Enforcement Report,” a robust 81 pages, details the company’s efforts to weed out unsavory content, including violence and terrorist propaganda.  

Your next big target should be duckfaces and pictures of food.

Facebook disabled 583 million fake accounts during the Q1 of 2018, and 694 million the quarter before.

This obviously made-up name and the ridiculous account that goes with it must be deleted. See ya, "Barack Obama."

Facebook’s relationship with nudity is tricky. The company restricts sexual content and nudity because some users “may be sensitive to this type of content,” according to its guidelines.  

I have extremely puritanical beliefs about the evils of the human body, but I'm also on my sex box, non-stop.

There are some allowances, however, including protests and works of art.

I was showing my completely flaccid member in protest of Tibet or whatever. This is art.

“We aim to reduce violations to the point that our community doesn’t regularly experience them,” said Facebook VPs Guy Rosen and Alex Schultz in the report.

We'll shield the marks from reality.

Facebook removed 2.5 million comments that violate its hate speech rules so far this year — up from 1.6 million at the end of 2017.

If you ask what those rules actually are, that's also "hate speech."

The report comes on the heels of the Cambridge Analytica data leak, where up to 87 million users had their profiles unknowingly compromised.

Yeah. Whoopsie. Sorry about that.

Full Article.

Komment Korner

For the eight years we were saddled with obama

Pointing out that Obama visited gay bath houses in Chicago needs to be protected.

Facebook users are essentially pissing on the graves of all those who fought and died for privacy rights. Facebook is a carrot and stick for undeserving people.

'Consensus Reality' Is Ever-Changing, And Always Incorrect.

I wasn't aware that anybody other than complete imbeciles were still using Farcebook.


Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

DotTeeVee: Aleksander Emelianenko MMA MOTiVATiON - HARDEST TRAiNiNG

The current sad state of gym motivation/death sport encouragement is something I think about a lot. It's an area where there's no shortage of content, all of it uniformly terrible. What you usually get is lots yelling, puffing up and making terrible allegories that encourage you to equate the quest for success with not wanting your head held under water, for example. I mean, you like breathing, don't you? The only quality producer of these videos, a jacked Men's Health (it's a magazine, ask your Grandpa, kids) model who would lift weights and then tell you "that's not normal" was killed by a train and since then it's been a vast, blasted wasteland.

Until now, that is. It's time for a scary Russian criminal to motivate you to fix your lazy, decadent American life. Yes, you American. I must break you (of your bad habits). You will lose (disgusting fat). Whatever he hits (mostly the victims of his shocking crimes), he destroys.

Oh, hello there. I didn't hear you come in.

We start with a still photo of a man who spent a significant portion of his life in Russian prisons posing with some other guy while awesome hype music plays. Then it's off to the gym to meet our Sherpa on this most important climb of your life. I wouldn't trust getting jacked and learning to rip some face to just anyone and neither should you. We'll just ignore that whole "sitting on a Smith machine" deal. It's not like it's even close to the worst thing he's ever done. Our Slavic motivational speaker disgorges himself from the fitness device and points menacingly in the general direction of the camera. "Did you start playing sports?" Whatever answer doesn't get me brutally murdered is the one I'm going to give. 

Why yes, Mr. Dead Eyes, I have. How did you know? Fortunately for my continued existence, he seems okay with the idea, recommending that people go to the gym to "save our health." Everything seems to come back to not being put into the ground with this guy, I'm sorry. He then does a single awkward repetition on some sort of cable station and performs a thumbs up afterwards. If The Fonz had been replaced by a brutal and soulless Saint Petersburg crime, mayhem and sport machine, this would be the end result. Now get yourself in shape or next time you come home he'll be waiting under your bed.

I didn't jump the shark, I stabbed it to death.

It's now time to demonstrate the correct amount of sweat to shed during your workout. Mr. Emelianenko is standing in a small lake created by leaked coolant from skipping rope (It's fun to imagine this unbelievably tough and scary dude doing tricks and reciting nursery rhymes during this process). I'm not sure a healthy body can create that much liquid, you might have a glandular issue. Suffice it to say, your Planet Bitchness is not going to be cool with it. I, on the other hand, think it's impressive and cool. This is a great video. Please don't bludgeon me into the promised land, Grim Reaper. Yes, that's his nickname.

We get another thumbs up. Nope, nothing wrong here.

This horrific skeleton monster art should motivate you.

Off to crush the heavy bag! This consists of throwing many short punches to "work on motor skills." Time to give the thumbs up. This jovial trademark gesture is somewhat undermined by The Red Devil (he's got many nicknames, all of them implying deadly violence) glaring menacingly into the camera. Thankfully we fade to black and then step into the ring to throw some hands at a partner holding focus mitts. Not much to say about this, other than my inspiring leader's tendency to say "Da" while he hits, as if he's saying yes to every devastating strike. Then, sometimes, I like to switch it up and say "nyet," as if I'm saying no, don't stop the face-smashing. 

Now for some ground game from the SAMBO expert. Some control from guard bottom against a striker is demonstrated and this, of course, earns disapproval from idiots in the comments who honestly think they could do it better. Know-it-alls on my internet? It's more likely than you think. Here's a fighter who has fought top opponents in several countries, but I have a white belt in Combat Dog-Boxing Kung Fu from a school in the Midlands. Let me tell you what you should be doing, mate. Great Britain, never big on that whole "self-preservation" concept.

 I'm ready to fight a Russian monster with 27 MMA wins who once killed a bear with a knife.

The Warrior is flipping a giant tire! If he starts doing kipping pull-ups next, I'm not sure what to think. Instead the rubber to road interface of Bigfoot gets repeatedly turned over. Then it's box jumps, but this is Russia and there are no suitable boxes, so just pile some plates. We're in danger of this turning into a "gym fail" video, but luckily the man with a degree in economics (!!!) retains verticality after an awkward slip. Now, jump rope. Someone go get the mop. Music that sounds like something off the soundtrack of a seventies action film plays and with that bizarre anti-climax we're done. I feel I have been adequately prepared mentally and spiritually to exercise in pursuit of my sport goals. Thank you, sir.

Komment Korner  

Everyone should go to gym. He's sending these lazy nerds a good message 

Alexander you need to move your legs when on the ground, it will help you gain control of your opponent. Put your feet on his hips and armbar. If you are ever in England come and train with us at "Tony Delaney's Elite MMA Academy" 

STRAIGHT BEAST! So AWESOME seeing him back, And whooping Dudes at that!

Don't mess with Mother Russia

You cant have those tattoos and not earn them.  

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.   

News You Can't Use: Forget the Hackers, Watch Out for the Phone Snoopers Over Your Shoulder

We're all afraid of "hackers," the completely amoral Macedonian computer geniuses who use the invisible highway to steal your credit cards and decide Presidential elections, but it turns out there's an even bigger menace than the "trolls" and "content farmers" some decrepit crazy lady tried to warn us about. It turns out your secret, and no doubt unbelievably embarrassing in the most banal ways possible, personal information can be stolen by something called "working eyes" on criminals and scumbags that look at your little screen while you're also looking at it. The scourge of over-the-shoulder readers is back, friends, made extra pathetic by this miraculous age of high technology and staggering personal atomization.

Bill Fish was texting his wife on breaks during a talent show at their children’s Cincinnati school when a woman seated next to him asked, “Are you married to Nicole Fish?”

In the middle of the third intermission of the grammar school Vegas revue (don't worry, that young man who did the profane "rap music" won't be back) I decided to peck at the pocket Skinner Box, as is the way in this best of all worlds. Next thing you know, I'm being asked questions by a total stranger. Face-to-face interaction? How do I do this thing? Does she want money?

Assuming the woman was trying to be friendly, Mr. Fish said he was, introduced himself and said, “Nice to meet you,” he says.

Assuming friendly intentions is the prologue to just about every horrific tale of modern horror, so be sure to never do that. I thought it was a friendly conversation, we found the remains in a shallow grave a month later, that sort of thing. Avoid social interactions. Sink into your little phone. Shield the screen from peepers. This is healthy.

“Her next line to me was, ‘I saw that you’ve sent her two or three texts, so I just had to be sure you were actually her husband,’” says Mr. Fish, co-founder of Tuck, an online resource on sleep and related products.

I don't want to alarm you bro-ham, but I think she was looking for the Rude Awakening.

“This woman was not only looking over my shoulder, but basically accusing me of infidelity,” he says.

I can't correctly interpret basic social cues like "joking around." I mean, where are the yellow cartoon faces to tip me off in these so-called "conversations?" I can't do this. Thanks, texting!

Some of the rudest privacy violations don’t occur online. On buses and trains and in cafes and lecture halls, peeking at what others are doing on their mobile devices is a temptation few can resist.
 
"Go on, look at this stranger's text conversation, full of grammatical, spelling and logical errors," the devil whispers. It will only cost you your very soul, haw, haw, haw!

Robert Siciliano, chief executive of IDTheftSecurity.com, a Boston security-training firm, was emailing a client on his laptop during a Boston-to-Chicago flight a few years ago. That’s when a passenger behind him tapped him on the shoulder and declared that he knew the person he was emailing.

These modern urban legends suck ass.

Mr. Siciliano wondered if his fellow passenger was crazy.

Man, you crazy or something. Why you so crazy, you crazy man?

“I had the sense that I’d been violated,” he says. When he saw that the man seemed friendly and just wanted to talk, he laughed it off.

We live in a world that literally can't tell when you're just messing around. I think this is the real story here, not your imaginary security training or sleep related products business that you pretend to run on the phone so you can feel like a Big Shot.

A 2017 survey of 174 adults by researchers at the University of Munich in Germany found 97% had observed or been involved in at least one instance of screen-snooping.

I haven't been this scandalized since I found out what "stealthing" was. It has nothing to do with those futuristic 1992 jets, suffice it to say.

Unlike criminals trolling for passwords or other sensitive information, screen snoopers—also known as shoulder surfers or visual hackers— are usually just bored or curious and see mostly games, photos or innocuous texts, the German study found.

Save us from the visual hackers, Germany. Their weaponized boredom is causing the occasional "Nah, I'm just playing, dawg" interlocution.

Snooping punctures the invisible personal bubble that seems to surround smartphone and laptop users in crowded spaces.

My invisible bubble has been breached! Help!

That awkward moment when you must bug out from your bug out location.

Sarah Johnson was riding the New York subway home from work recently when she noticed a woman peering over her shoulder, reading the email she was writing on her phone. 

This is the digital equivalent of holding a book so everyone can see the title.

“Should I move the screen closer so you can have a better look?” Ms. Johnson asked, turning in her seat to look at the woman. Flustered, the fellow traveler denied snooping and backed away. Ms. Johnson, public-relations director for FitSmallBusiness.com, a digital magazine, says, “I try not to let people’s rude behavior bother me.”

Wow. Target destroyed.

She darkens her screen settings or scrolls away from sensitive information if she senses someone is watching.
 

I set it for black text on a black background. Problem solved.

Full Article. 

Komment Korner  

I don't think the security guy who uses his laptop on a plane should be in the security business.

The other day a watcher struck up a conversation on the bus.  She saw I was reading news sites and admired the accessibility.  I take responsibility for that

I drive my car to destinations.

And, yes, your detritus often has your DNA.

Flip phone ......the real smart phone.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

Choose Your Own Adventure #33: The Dragon's Den

Previously, I defeated the leader of evil giant ants who had somehow disguised itself as a robot and won the trust of the galaxy's best scientists. Today, it's back to more adventures in a dreamworld of magic and fantasy, as delivered by solid second-tier author Richard Brightfield. As a special added bonus, the illustrator has worked with "Heavy Metal" magazine, so you know this is going to be super righteous. If you don't believe me, consider the cover, full of warmed-over Tolkien cliches and hovering heads.

 Battle the evil dragon Thermal Inversion and return the evil pendant to Mount Misfortune.

The generic medieval setting is quickly established via some utilitarian prose and it's revealed that I'm some sort of wanderer, traveling across the land of magic in search of adventure. I honestly expected the next paragraph to be "You're in front of a dungeon entrance. What do you do?" Instead, I notice how the local economy and tourism industry has been devastated by attacks from a mythological Satan analogue. My lone wanderer character is so lacking in basic empathy that my immediate reaction is to speculate on the chance for treasure, ignoring the massive human cost of wyrm terrorism.

Of course, all this "here there be dragons" build is casually tossed aside on the next page, as another hoary plot device, the tavern of adventure leads, is introduced. Two poorly described individuals are discussing a treasure map or the like and I, as the Player Character, sense this is the one true path and interject myself, citing non-existent experience in such matters. Superficial charm, inability to connect with society or form friendships, total lack of emotion in the face of human suffering, grandiose and delusional self-worth...I'm a psychopath. Meanwhile, these other two goofs, who I'll presumably betray and kill after they're no longer useful, are worried about "the King's spies" and want to meet in a room upstairs. I consider it, but instead tell them to...

They agree, so I kill some time enjoying the rustic hospitality and marinating in my own ridiculous self-confidence. It's night by the time I hit the street and, wouldn't you know it, my meal ticket is tied to a pole. "It's a trap!" I'm not posting that Admiral Akbar image, one dreadful meme per post is my limit.

I'm quickly sold out to the guards for some pieces of silver by the tavern maid (no, really, this is what happens) and the sword and shield patrol closes in. I'm given a choice to try to run for it, but because I'M ROLE-PLAYING my emotionally hollowed-out character I decide to stand my ground and trust that I'll be fine in the face of pre-Industrial jurisprudence. It's not like I've done anything wrong and besides, I'm just traveling and am I free to go?

I get pitched into a prison cell with the people I was hoping to exploit for my own heartless gain. Does this count as irony, Alanis? Anyway, the King has so little to do that he hears our case personally, and my doomed assistants are all "We were going to tell you about the treasure right away!" which leads to a discussion of the creatively named "Dragon Mountain" instead of a prompt drawing and quartering like it would in real life. Of course, all this builds to nothing because we don't want to anger the dragons and end our policy of appeasement and delivering billions of dollars to them on pallets under the cover of darkness, so it's time for some harsh punishments in salt mines.

It turns out the one guy I barely knew as "Boke" is actually a girl named "Virgana," which I guess would mean more if we'd gotten more than a sentence worth of description prior to this point, and as such is exempt from "salt mine" duty and is assigned serving maid duty. The other, unnamed conspirator and myself, the anti-hero, can't use the woman pass, so we're offered a choice between serving at the bottom of the value chain in seasoning delivery or exile. I'll take the slave labor in an unlit, underground hell, please. How bad could it be? 

Yeah, cut it out Doyle.

As you might expect, the gig in the mine is easy and time passes quickly. Then, there's a panic, because the King has decided to seal off this part of the operation, with the prisoners still in there. I like how the unnamed Monarch is personally blamed for every bad thing that happens. Anyway, the reason we're being buried alive is because the digging accidentally hit a "dragon run" within the mountain and I'm such a piece of work that I get all excited and think this is my big chance to get that gold, instead of repenting sins and preparing to die like any sane individual would. 

Not about to let the opportunity to be the world's richest corpse slip away, I make my way deeper, eventually finding the cavern dug by a scaled metaphor for our sins. Then my torch goes out. Then I see the eyes of the monster glistening in the darkness. Everything is going according to plan. 

Instead of trying to fight the nightmare reptile in its home territory, in total darkness, with no weapon, as I feel the deranged adventurer and convicted treasure map criminal would, the book forces me to flee down another tunnel, eventually losing the flame lizard and finding a grotto. I decide not to swim across and keep going. 

That all you got? It's on now!

Another passage leads to what the author describes as "hell," complete with lava floes and the like. Then an "apelike creature," apropos of nothing, attacks. I try to run, am overwhelmed by the intense heat and die before this highly random monster can even start rending me to pieces. In some ways it seems a very fitting end.

This one was bad. Almost every new development left me rolling my eyes and the limited agency offered was just enough to provoke angry at how predictable everything ended up being. Apparently writing a compelling fantasy story about dragons is difficult and this attempt was definitely a failure.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

News You Can't Use: Tom Brady on NFL Ratings: I Don't Follow the NFL Like I Used To

Primetime television ratings for the NFL declined by nearly 10% on average last season, after declining the previous season as well.

Extremely rich and completely awful human beings might be slightly less rich as a result. Concerned?

The dip prompted a national debate over the causes: bad games; too many games; Trump’s angry tweets; outrage over players kneeling in protest; domestic violence scandals; or too many injuries.

There were so many games, they were all bad, our President was on Twitter, everyone is hurt...time to turn off the electronic toilet.

On Tuesday, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, arguably the biggest current active star in the sport, gave his take when asked by interviewer Jim Gray at the Milken Institute.

I guess we could have talked to some of the fans that tuned out, but Brady has this really cool mansion and we got to hang out in it.

“There’s so much for us to consume, as we all know,” Brady said. “There’s so much happening… I hate to say it: I don’t follow it like I used to, because, so many other things to follow."

I nominate "There's so much to consume" as America's new national motto.

There’s a lot more competition today than there’s ever been, I think, especially with social media, for people to consume information or to consume content.

This sentence doesn't make much sense, but consider all the buzzwords and pandering to current fads.

The NFL has had a great product, people love watching the game. I think it’s still doing better than every other program out there. But compared to a time when there was less things to do, it doesn’t live up to those standards.

I mean, Americans are so active now. Everyone's exercising, exploring nature, reading books, spending time with their children. I'm not serious, of course.

Of course, Brady has been at the center of a number of NFL public issues over the last few seasons, first for his role in “Deflategate,” the league’s investigation into whether Brady had Patriots employees remove air from footballs for him, and then for his public friendship with Donald Trump, who railed against NFL team owners last season for allowing players like Colin Kaepernick to kneel in protest during the national anthem.

Being friends with a mainstream politician who got elected to the highest office in the land is now a "public issue."

For Brady to say that he personally follows the rest of the NFL less than he used to is sure to grab attention—perhaps especially at league headquarters, where Commissioner Roger Goodell and other execs are eager to quash any notion that interest in pro football is on the decline.

Please ignore the objective statistical data that clearly shows this decline.

You might think the NFL won’t be pleased to hear one of its biggest stars say he follows his own sports less than in the past. On the other hand, Brady’s comment blames the ratings dip on a phenomenon that is hurting all live sports, rather than blaming the NFL itself.

Tom Brady isn't watching the basketball either.

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Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.