Admittedly, our fine webzine isn't dedicated to interviews of interesting people, but we recently caught an opportunity we couldn't pass up. We got a hold of a sous chef working in a state penitentiary. And while he had only a few moments to chat with us -- the death row inmates he serves are literally dying to get out -- the conversation was fascinating. He's asked that we not reveal his identity.

Q: So you're a chef.

A: I'm a sous chef, actually. I'm the hands-on sort of guy whose job it is to ensure that the food we serve is well prepared and properly arranged. 

Q: And you work in the death row section of a prison?

A: Yes.

Q: Don't you find that odd?

A: Should I?

Q: I mean, why ever would death row inmates need a chef, much less executive kitchen staff?

A: Simple. You can't send somebody into the afterlife on an empty stomach. Everybody gets what they ask for, within reason.

Q: So nobody gets a dozen coldwater lobster tails as a last meal?

A: I said, "within reason". If they asked, they might get one lobster tail, perhaps with a petite filet mignon and asparagus spears.

Q: That's a ridiculously expensive meal for someone about to die. How can that be reasonable?

A: Cut the guy a break. It's his last meal before they kill him. Besides, nobody orders lobster as a last meal. It's mostly chicken, sometimes spaghetti. And ice cream. Lots of it.

Q: Why ice cream?

A: [Shrugs] Comfort food, I suppose.

Q: So, getting back around to a prior question, why do we serve death row inmates last meals?

A: It's a little-known state requirement that everyone on death row must be offered a last meal. If they aren't offered a last meal, their sentence gets commuted to life in prison.

Q: Are you serious?

A: Absolutely. Look it up, it's a state law.

Q: So you're telling me that if I murder twenty people...

A: ...And I don't offer you your last meal, the worst you get is life in prison. Just don't tell the warden I told you.

Since we're on a roll here with our Snark Attacks, take a look here at our treatment of the perennial fairy tale classic, Hansel and Gretel. Any witches in the audience are kindly requested to hurl stones at us only after we've been given a running head start.

Once there was an old hermit lady who, having been a hermit all her life, decided to retire from the profession. She liquidated her 401K  and pooled the funds with what little money remained from her hermiting days to retire in her prefabricated candy house in the woods.

That same day, two teenage degenerates with a penchant for littering traipsed into the woods. They were blithely unaware that they were trespassing on the hermit lady's land, and had they known, they would have cared not one whit.

These two degenerates littered the hermit's property with stale stale bread, which, apart ruining the aesthetic beauty of the woods, also habituated all the animals in the forest to being fed. This eventually led to the animals' inability to fend for themselves, and ultimately, their death by starvation.

Upon arriving at the hermit's doorstep, the degenerate siblings set upon the hermit's home and begin to devour it. The witch was furious that everything she had worked so hard for was quickly getting gobbled up by these two teens with entitlement issues. Despite that the odds were pitched against her, she heroically fended the children off and detained them in her home as she waited for the police to arrive. Her forest home being what it was, it was drafty, and so she started a fire. Unbeknownst to her, the wicked children freed themselves and shoved her, remorselessly, into the furnace. She died horribly, and no one cared.

Knowing it would not be long before the police arrived, the wicked children ate the address sign off the house before fleeing the scene. The police never came -- without an address sign, how was anyone to tell one candy house in the woods from any other candy house in the woods?

The years rolled on, and the hermit's home slowly collapsed on itself. The candy melted away to nothing with the seasonal rains, leaving only a patch of bare earth where once the hermit's house had stood. Adding insult to injury, a dentist is believed to have opened a practice on the site where the candy house once stood.

Sneak attack: (n). A sudden, unexpected application of force on a person or locale.

Shark attack: (n). A sudden, unexpected application of force on a person by a shark. Also, one of the most unsafe times to go swimming.

Snark attack: (n). A sudden, unexpected application of snarkiness. Usually results in laughter. Typically harmless. Sharks are incapable of this.

Let's face it: there are so many good (and not so good) books to read these days. Some readers prefer the classics while others gush over the latest paranormal romance between an Egyptian mummy and a preteen aardvark-shapeshifter. Whatever your pleasure, our mission today is to give you a bite-sized synopsis of a book we've read. In case you didn't know, we're professional nerds so we read a lot. Most of the books we've read are venerable enough to be considered classics in their own right, but that's only two of the three criteria for making this list. The third, and most important criterion: these were books we suffered through.

So now, without further ado, we bring you our snark attack of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. Please refrain from hurling stones and other objects at us until the end, thank you.

There once was a short hairy lazy guy who lived in his family's basement. An old hairy smart guy showed up at his door with twenty short hairy smelly guys. The hairy smelly guys were called: Fodder and Dodder; Casualty, Basualty, and Rasualty; and Only Guy We Care About.

Then, just as soon as he had foisted the smelly guys onto the lazy guy, the old guy disappeared, warning them all that they were in grave danger and that he (the old guy) would do nothing to help them. Notwithstanding that, the old guy occasionally popped up out of nowhere to destroy hordes of bad guy fodder, only to  disappear again.

The group traveled for weeks. All the while, the smelly hairy guys carried on a call-and-response chant where some talked about mutton and the rest yelled back, "At your service!"

Along the way, several of the smelly hairy guys died (guess which), but not Only Guy We Care About or the titular character, because that would be silly. Eventually, everyone blundered onto a raging battlefield. More armies joined the melee. A bizarre bird migration joined the melee. Then it all became a freakish sort of medieval multi-car freeway pile-up that hardly no one lived through. Thankfully, titular short guy survived by turning invisible and falling asleep even as the bodies piled up around him.

Only Guy We Care About was mortally wounded in battle and died on his bed, but not before being declared the king of the smelly hairy guys (those that survived, at least). The titular short hairy lazy guy goes back home with a piece of jewelry that would prompt a curious obsession and a book trilogy.

Didn't think we'd need to "spell" that out (bad pun, we know), but if you ever thought proper spelling wasn't important, have a look at the image below.

Unbeknownst to him, Marco’s life teetered on the cusp of change.

Muttering curses under his breath, Marco trudged up the boardwalk with his backpack in tow. He was short on time and completely lost in the labyrinth that was Denrico’s seaport.

The merciless heat didn’t help either. His messenger’s uniform was crisply ironed this morning. If he wrung the sweat out of his shirt now he could irrigate a small farm for a day.

He cupped his eyes and scanned the pier ahead. Enormous trade galleons packed the crowded harbor. Never had Marco seen, much less set foot on, an oceangoing vessel. Today he had seen enough ships for a lifetime.

He slung his backpack across his opposite shoulder. The parcel inside was heavy. To make matters worse, it would be weeks before he could rid himself of its bulk. The parcel was addressed to Queen Catherine Saint-Saenz Lucinda of Avignary, and that was on the other side of the world.

A shout from nearby snagged his attention.

“Hey there, lad!”

Marco turned his head to look. An old crewman sauntered down the gangplank of a nearby ship. He was particularly ugly. Here was a man who looked like he threw rocks at beehives when he was a boy, except that the rocks were attached to a short stick, and the stick was still in his hand when the rocks hit the hives. His cleft chin extended beyond the arch of his nose, giving him a horrific underbite. He balanced a reed on his lips. When his jaws met to chew its stem, he looked as though he could sniff his chin.

The sailor planted himself in the center of the boardwalk, arms over his head as though signaling someone distant. “Hey!”

Marco held his breath as he approached. The sailor reeked of sweat. He hadn’t gone a step past when his backpack snagged, knocking him off balance.

“Whoa!” Marco yelled, whirling to face the old man.

The sailor’s eyebrows arched, resembling a pair of caterpillars on a twig. “Whoa yourself.”

Marco took a step forward. The old man put out his hand to stop him.

“Out of my way,” Marco said.

“That presumes you know where your way is.”

Marco stiffened at this affront. “You’d better have a good reason for obstructing Lord Amadis Eric’s mail.”

“Yup.” The sailor gnawed his reed.

“Well?”

"You don’t know where you’re headed.”

“You don’t either.”

"Don’t I?” The old man grinned a checkerboard pattern of missing teeth. Those teeth that remained were stained from years of neglect.

Marco tucked the backpack into his armpit. “What do you want?”

The sailor turned up his hands, palms out. “Meant no offense, lad. Old Turbo here only wants to help you. You look lost.”

“I am,” Marco admitted despite himself. He would never make his delivery if he did not first find his ship.

“Right, right.” The sailor touched his forehead and shut his eyes, pantomiming a diviner receiving a vision. “The sea spirits are calling. They tell me... They tell me you’re headed to Avignary.”

Marco crossed his arms. “Lucky guess.”

“Turbo doesn’t guess, lad.”

"So answer me this: where are the ships headed for Avignary?”

Turbo gnawed his reed. “That answer’s hidden in an old tale of the sea.” He cleared his throat. “The ship you seek flies a pennant blue as the sky on a summer day, red like the blood in your countrymen’s veins, and gold like, a... eh... Sorry, lad. I never was too good at rhyming sea tales. Rhythmic pentameter’ll be the death me, if I knew what that was.”

“What does this have anything to do with my getting to Avignary?” asked Marco.

“Rules of the sea, my boy. An old salt like me has to answer every nautical question by spinning a tale of the sea on the fly. And they don’t have to be true.” Turbo heldup an index finger to make his point. “But they have to rhyme. That’s the important part.”

"You’re senile,” Marco said.

“Aye, there’s a touch of madness in this here skull, methinks. Old injury. Musket ball to the noggin. But I tell you no lies. Avignarian ships fly blue, red, and gold pennants.” He pointed across the pier. “Head back the way you came to the branch and go two over.”

“Thank you,” Marco said before trudging away in a hurry.

Taking the old sailor’s advice, Marco backtracked up the pier and followed the boardwalk to a distant wing of the seaport. The ships anchored at this end of the harbor dwarfed even the freighters he had seen earlier. These giant barges floated so high on the surface of the ocean that the boardwalk between them seemed like a path through a valley. Each of them flew Avignarian colors.

He slowed his pace to look at the ships more closely. These had square windows carved into their sides, some ships having one, others two rows running along their middles. He stopped in place, stunned, when he noticed that the ship before him cut away. The rear quarter of the ship’s side had been shorn off.

Sunlight glinted off of a dull metal tube sticking out of a stack of splintered wood. Marco cupped his eyes to peer inside, and realized that the metal was the lip of a cannon cast in black iron.

Marco was so engrossed with the warship that he wasn’t looking where he was going. He walked into the outstretched hands of a man standing in his path.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Marco said out of reflex.

“No harm,” said the man. He brushed the ruffles out of his red suede coat and adjusted his hat. After a beat, he added, “Admonisher caught your eye. It was to be expected. She is a remarkable ship, after all.”

He doffed his hat with a bow. “I am Alexis Mordail, corsair extraordinaire.”

Alexis’s overcoat drew back as he straightened from the bow, giving Marco a glimpse of the ivory-gripped derringer holstered at his waistband.

“Look,” Marco said, “I’m sorry to cut you off, but I’m lost and pressed for time. I’m looking for an Avignarian ship.”

“You’re in the right place,” said Alexis. “All of these are Avignarian.”

“Yes, I know, but I’m looking for one in particular. I’m on business, you see, and I can’t be held up any longer.”

“Ah.” Alexis gave a thoughtful nod. “Forgive me for not recognizing you earlier, sir. We’ve been expecting you.”

“It’s of utmost importance that I... wait, what?” Marco asked. He’d kept speaking over Alexis without listening to what the man said. “You’ve been waiting for me?”

“Of course.”

Marco’s shoulders bowed in a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank Kandensa.”

“Here, let me take that for you,” Alexis said, snatching up Marco’s backpack like a dutiful valet. “Follow me, please.”

Alexis led him past the warships, where a much smaller vessel awaited at the end of the pier. “This is Stormwind,” said Alexis as he led Marco up the boarding ramp. “She’s on loan to me for this special assignment.”

“What special assignment?”

Alexis stopped in place halfway up the ramp. “Why, you, sir.” He resumed walking. “She’s by far one of the finest caravels on the open sea,” Alexis went on, absently running the pads of his fingers along the ship’s rail as he stepped aboard. “I’ve a mind to own a vessel just like this – as a pleasure boat, of course – before I get old and relegated to telling rhyming nautical tales to random passersby.”

Marco’s brow knit. Sailors were strange people indeed.

Alexis put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Men poured out from the stairs leading below deck and assembled before him. Each of them stood shoulder to shoulder rigidly at attention, eyes trained at the horizon, arms at their sides, exemplifying the chiseled discipline that comes only through effective leadership.

“Mister Monkeygrip,” Alexis called out.

“Coming, sir!”

None of the men standing at attention had spoken. Then, suddenly, a tall youth with spindly limbs shimmied down from the mainmast, leaping between the rigging ropes like an ape. He dropped to the deck and tumbled with the fall, coming to his feet in mid-roll.

“Present and accounted for,” Monkeygrip gibbered. He snapped erect long enough to give a firm salute, then dropped to all fours with a crooked grin.

Alexis shoved the travel bag into Monkeygrip’s arms. “Take the gentleman’s personal effects to his quarters.”

Monkeygrip pressed the backpack to his chest with one arm and scampered through a door at the ship’s rear, jabbering all the way.

Alexis turned to face his crew. “Mister Kerrigan, if you please.”

A bald crewman with a face like creased leather hobbled forward. His tiny eyes were sunken deep behind his craggy brow, looking like two black raisins floating on the surface of a bowl of burnt oatmeal. Grease and sweat stains pocked his shirt, which frayed away at the sleeves, revealing giant bronze forearms. He slumped against a gnarled wooden crutch tucked under his armpit.

“Prepare for departure, Mister Kerrigan,” said Alexis with arms akimbo.

“Aye,” he shouted back. He faced his mates. “You heard the man. Get this barge moving.”

All at once, the crewmen scattered to their respective duties.

Monkeygrip skittered out from the rear of the ship and let out the sails. Three enormous men wrestled with a hoist to draw up the anchor. Kerrigan took his post on the bridge, overseeing the activity on deck with the tiniest motions of his even tinier eyes. In the midst of the uproar, Marco turned in place to watch as the men around him worked with mechanical precision. It was extraordinary.

Alexis squeezed Marco’s arm gently, catching his attention.

“Please sir, follow me,” he said, sweeping his other hand out before him. They cut through the commotion on the deck, headed for the stateroom at the ship’s rear. Alexis was first to reach the door and he held it open for Marco.

“I trust you will be comfortable,” Alexis said.

The quarters were sumptuously furnished. A fine writing desk stained glossy black sat at the end of the room, accompanied by a plush chair tucked under it. A globe of the world cast in bronze stood within arm’s reach of the desk. In the opposite corner, a wardrobe sat on brass lion’s paws. A massive four-post bed occupied half of the room. Just by the look of it, Marco presumed that he could lie down at the bed’s center and stretch out, and yet still not reach its corners.

“This is magnificent,” said Marco as he stepped inside.

“I’m pleased you think so. These are my quarters. I’m rather particular about my furnishings, you see.”

Marco blinked. “So where will you be staying?”

“I must oversee the repairs to Admonisher. Kerrigan will serve as acting captain in my absence.” He pinched the brim of his hat between his thumb and forefinger and tipped it down briefly. “Safe journey, sir.”

“Goodbye,” said Marco as Alexis left.

Marco rounded the desk and sat in the chair. The globe beckoned for his attention, just asking to be spun dizzily.

Monkeygrip had left his backpack on the desktop. Marco undid the buckles and peered inside it to make sure nothing had been removed. Tasked with such important business as he was, he could not be too careful. The parcel was still inside and padlocked. The letter strapped to it bore an unbroken wax seal. Neither showed signs of tampering.

He looked up with a start as Kerrigan appeared at the doorframe.

“We’ll be leaving shortly, sir,” Kerrigan said. “Captain Mordail asked me to tell you.” He glanced over his shoulder and back again, his eyes merely a dull glimmer beneath the shelf that was his forehead. “Also, there’s someone here to see you, sir. I’ll be leaving you to your business.”

Marco rocked forward in his chair as his visitor came in.

A dragon. Never before had he seen one in person. If it was scaled, walked on two legs, and talked, then it was a dragon by Marco’s reckoning. That, or an exceptionally well-trained iguana.

Smallish in height, the dragon seemed smaller still with a giant like Kerrigan beside him. He had the look of a human bureaucrat, dressed in a black straight tie and crisp white shirt tucked neatly into his pinstripe slacks. Navy blue scales covered his body, from the tips of the frilly crest atop his head to his clawed feet. His tail ended in a broad spade that hovered above the floor but never touched it.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” the dragon said with a bow.

A pair of enormous folded wings jutted out from where his shirt had been tailored to accommodate them. “I am Kuril Krenarin,” the dragon went on, “of Emperor Rao Ordan’s Bureau of Foreign Affairs. On behalf of our country, we are most pleased to have you as our guest.”

There was no mirth in Kuril’s words. He smiled out of cordiality alone. Marco fought hard not to wince as there were many pointy teeth in that mouth.

“I trust you have your letter, sir?” said Kuril.

“Oh,” Marco sputtered, prying his eyes from the dragon’s fangs. “Yes, of course.”

He reached into his bag and handed Kuril the envelope.

Kuril glanced down at it but did not take it. Instead, he waggled his talons in a render unto me flourish.

“Your letter of introduction, please?” Kuril insisted.

“I didn’t think I’d need one,” Marco said.

“Well, perhaps a person such as yourself needs no introduction. But a letter of introduction would be helpful to identify you, sir.”

Marco’s brow furrowed. “Why is everyone calling me ‘sir’ all of a sudden?”

“Shall I call you something else, sir? Lordship, perhaps? Ambassador?”

“Ambassador?”

“Do you prefer that one?”

Marco swallowed hard. “Why would I?”

Kuril’s eyes narrowed. “Well, sir, that is who you are, isn’t it?”

Marco's (mis)adventures have only just begun! Want to see what happens next? Click here to continue reading.

Still want more? Check out The Gullwing Odyssey in our bookstore.

Let's face it -- adventuring is not the safest of professions. Even the best of adventurers get hurt. And if the length of their injury list is any measure, the characters of The Gullwing Odyssey are by far not the best of adventurers.

While an exhaustive list would be tedious, here we've posted some of their more interesting -- as in genuinely awful or humorous -- personal injuries.

These come courtesy of Dr. Desmoulin Jonas's medical clinic -- "handy enough with a scalpel to be your surgeon, barber, and tailor!"

Broken nose -- killer hummingbird
Facial bruising -- leapt through a pub window
Severe chest contusion  -- wild animal attack
Cracked ribs -- wild animal attack
Abdominal impalement -- airship crash-landing
Blunt trauma to side of head -- struck with flat of a sword

Severe nervous trauma -- extreme verbal abuse
Crumpled snout -- bashed with a shield
Bruised talons -- punched an assailant
Full-body first degree burns -- magic spell
Electrocution -- magic spell

Facial laceration -- wild animal attack
Internal hemorrhaging -- walking into a hail of bullets
Broken ribs -- point-blank gunshot wound
Facial contusions -- group beating

Flesh wound -- glancing pistol shot
Mild abdominal contusion -- kicked by a man on a horse

Three teeth knocked out -- biting an assailant
Facial contusions -- group beating
Black eye -- group beating
Life-threatening abdominal laceration -- dueling injury
Bruised ribs -- magic spell
Fractured clavicle -- gunshot wound

Abdominal impalement -- crossbow bolt
Assorted bumps and bruises -- crashing his airship into a warship below
Head trauma -- musket butt to the back of the head
Blunt facial trauma -- group beating
Two teeth knocked out -- severe beating

Want to see just what sort of trouble this motley group of misfits get into (and out of)? Check out The Gullwing Odyssey. It's a fantasy/comedy adventure of epic proportions, and not your typical swords and sorcery novel. Expect spectacular magic. Expect plenty of laughs. But above all, expect the unexpected.

Click the book cover image for more information.

Want to read some sample chapters? Sample the first three chapters for free.

Nothing short of a delicate haiku can express how royally ticked off I am right now. The accompanying rage comic (aptly named) is just icing on the cake.

Dressed for work.
Hornets made a nest in my car.
Called in sick.

When I was a kid, I went to a parochial school run by nuns. Now, don't get me wrong, nuns are great as far as people go, but the ones in charge of schools can be as tough as drill sergeants.

By sixth grade my classmates and I had developed a nasty habit. Every morning before the homeroom teacher arrived, we would play dodgeball. Our classrooms were long and narrow, like boxcars, so we'd get on either side of the classroom and hurl rubber balls at each other until the teacher showed up. Sometimes, when we felt like upping the ante, we'd throw compasses -- not the mapping tool but the type you use to draw perfect circles -- at each other. We were twelve and liked to live dangerously.

So one morning, in the midst of a heated classroom dodgeball fight, the biggest kid in the grade hurls the ball with all his arm behind it. The ball goes ovular with the force of the throw. For all his effort, this gets him nothing more than a narrow miss.

Then something happened that no one had counted on. The ball flew within inches of the porcelain statuette of the Virgin Mary the teacher kept on her desk. The force of its passing wobbled the statuette the tiniest bit. That's when everything went into slow-motion. Everyone held his breath as the statue looked like it was going to tip into a headfirst dive for the floor. It rocked back onto its base and stood erect, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Then the dodgeball hit the chalkboard just behind the desk and careened back into the statuette. It was a solid full-body impact that swept the statuette clear off the desktop and onto the linoleum floor. The statuette shattered. Everyone in the classroom took a collective gasp of horror. With the teacher due to arrive in less than five minutes, we were screwed. 

The big kid and I bounded across the classroom to the teacher's desk and gathered up all the pieces we could find, then reassembled the statuette with project glue. To our credit, we did a heroic job in under a minute. The statuette was mostly intact. We set it back onto the desk, and when its head drooped ever so slightly, we gave it a gentle nudge back into place.

Our teacher -- a take-no-prisoners sort of nun -- arrived to find us all seated and quiet. This immediately sparked her ire because for the entire year she had been teaching us, we never were this well-behaved.

"What happened?" she asked the class, arms crossed and foot tapping.

Her question was met with silence.

"You... you did something," she said, rounding the desk to her chair. "And you're going to tell me."

A fine sweat broke on my brow as her hand went for the desk drawer. You see, in sixth grade our teacher had this big metal desk that the U.S. army had surplussed back in the '60's. When it came time for the army to get new desks, they sold all their old ones to our school. Any time you opened or shut the desk drawer it made a sound like a marching band brass section tossed down several flights of stairs. But it wasn't the noise so much that had me nervous -- our teacher had a penchant for slamming the drawer hard whenever she was upset.

Nuns are creatures of habit. Sure enough, she yanked the drawer and slammed it into the desk with tremendous force, the clatter reverberating off the classroom walls. At the moment of impact, the statuette imploded, collapsing into itself and scattering bits of porcelain everywhere.

Our teacher's eyes got huge. She clutched at her breast, staggered backward and braced against the chalkboard for support.

"Who!" she demanded. "Who did this?"

Silence. Then, a single hand went up. A quiet voice from the center aisle said, "You did."

Those two words got us recess detention for a month.

Though I've sometimes been called extreme in my views (and that's being polite), if nothing else, my methods are effective. The reason for this is, when I encounter a problem (or problematic person), I'm enough of a creative jackass to devise a clever fix. Clever fixes, you see, are the best sort, especially when your problems are other people.

Creative people come up with solutions. Jackasses make other people feel bad about themselves. Therefore, infallible logic informs us that creative jackasses come up with solutions that make evil jackasses feel bad about themselves. They're Chaotic-Good on the alignment table.
 
If the world were populated solely with creative jackasses, it would be an obnoxious place to live... but everything would work. For instance:

Prison Violence
 Oh, so there was a stabbing in the prison cafeteria? No problem. Replace all the eating utensils with cotton balls and announce soup is on the menu. Bon appétit!
 
Deforestation
 Oh, so there's a paper mill in town stripping your pristine forests bare? Just call some arsonists and burn the forest down -- that factory will have to shut down! Wait a minute...
 
Healthcare
 I went to the doctor for an x-ray of my foot. He put the film up on the screen and said, "I see what's been causing your ankle pain. You see that there?" he asked, pointing to a dislocated bone splinter.
 
"It's that bone there, but we can't see it very well so we'll need an MRI. That will cost another $5,000."
 
I scratched my head and responded, "You mean you need an MRI to see that thing you and I can see is right there?"
 
Unapologetic, he said, "Yes."
 
So I handed him my glasses, saying, "Doc, maybe you need these more than I do."
 
Putting It All Together
 The gamut of societal problems we face -- crime, nepotism, workplace abuse, nasty neighbors -- all boil down to a simple concept: "My comfort or convenience is more important than your necessities."
 
Think about how true this is the next time you take grandma for a doctor's visit and some scumbag rolls his luxury SUV into the last wheelchair accessible parking space -- and then jaunts out of his car, strutting like he owns the place. Now you've got to park all the way in the back of the lot, struggle to get granny out of the car, then wheel her across several hundred feet of tarmac in blazing heat (or snow, if you prefer). All this, just because some self-absorbed ambulatory dirtbag considered himself too important to walk -- and took the spot reserved for someone who can't.
 
Things like this make a man's hand itch for a brick to put through someone's windshield -- luxury SUV windshield. Not that I've ever done that or would condone it, no... But still, I've seen this enough times, you'd think I'd have thrown enough bricks to make a house.

Be nice to people... or else.

Some people lament giving up on pursuing their dream jobs. I don't. In fact, I'm glad I did. I was just barely out of kindergarten when I'd decided on my dream job. Here's how it happened.

1981. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg team up to make a film about a world-traveling, whip-snapping, fedora-wearing archaeologist.

1988. Yours truly, at seven years old, watches the aforesaid film for the first time on television. It, and its oft-maligned sequel instantly become my favorite movies.

1989. The intrepid archaeologist returns to the big screen to save his kidnapped father, and both team up to foil a nefarious plot.

I was among those lucky to catch the third film's theater premiere. As I watched the titular character's daring exploits on the big screen, my life plans cemented as quickly as they had formed, at the tender age of eight years old. My purpose in life was to become an archaeologist. I was so certain of this that one of my recurring nightmares at the time was of my adult self (decked out in a leather jacket and fedora, no less) falling prey to an ancient booby trap while plundering the contents of an Egyptian pyramid. It was scary because I knew it could happen, and probably would happen frequently, over the course of my treasure-hunting career.

Knowing that it would take many years of instruction and lots of money, I begged my parents for a hat. The whip and revolver could come later, I figured, once I was old enough to drive. For my purposes as an enterprising eight-year-old, a length of rope and cap-gun sufficed.

Throughout high school I clung to my childhood dream of looting the treasures of antiquity. Imagine how utterly my plans got turned upside down on learning that there were laws against just this sort of behavior. Things only got worse when I found out that most archaeologists spent their lives unearthing buried pottery shards with toothbrushes.

"Impossible!" I shouted, storming out of the Archaeology 101 lecture with my fists upraised. My handwritten notes whirled at my heels in the breeze of my passing.

Sadly, all that I had heard was true, but abandoning my childhood dream was among the best decisions I've ever made. A close second would be pursuing a degree in liberal arts, because, you know, those types make loads of money.

We call that sarcasm, kids. They don't teach you to use it as well as we do in any school. No, it's something you pick up after you've run through miles of irony.