A-Z Reflections

Thanks Flip.  Source.

With the passing of April, the A-Z challenge is finally over.  My fellow participants can now breathe a sigh of relief, catch up on missed sleep, and reattach any limbs that they may have gnawed off in frustration.

But what have we learned from this whole exercise?  What has the A-Z challenge actually taught us?  If you visited other Blogs, you probably learned loads about people’s hobbies, interests, personal lives, and other points of fascination.  However, by reading Muppets For Justice, you have been subjected to a barrage of nonsense.  I make no apologies for that.  This blog is a breeding ground for tomfoolery, ballyhoo, and humorous hubbub.  If you don’t like it, you can bloody well close your browser and flip off, mister!

I apologise for that emotional outburst.  The challenge seems to have made me slightly tetchy.  I have been known to break down in tears whilst performing any of the following tasks during April:

• Walking down the street
• Watching romantic movies
• Watching action movies
• Watching rude lady movies
• Chopping onions
• Rubbing the bald spot that I seem to be developing
• Searching for my sanity

Yes, the challenge seems to have caused several bizarre side effects.  I also have an itchy foot, which I’m sure can be credited to the stress of this blogging ordeal.

So were there any benefits?  Several, actually.  The hallucinations were quite entertaining until the sky fell on me.  The increase in traffic wasn’t so bad either.

Idiotically enough, I decided to take a holiday during April, meaning that I didn’t have time to write any new posts for just over a week.  This meant that I had to schedule my posts well in advance, meaning that one of those in particular was accidentally posted early.  I do this quite often as I tend to schedule posts a week or two ahead, but doing this during a daily posting schedule was rather stressful.  This may be a feeble excuse for not visiting your blogs towards the end of the challenge.  For that, I can only apologise.

Overall, the challenge was enjoyable and it gave me the chance to practice a slightly different style of writing.  I intended to write posts that were a minimum length of 500 words, but occasionally I went well over that target. Considering that I expected to burn out rather quickly, I managed to pleasantly surprise myself, like the time I wore a lacy glove and had a posh wank.  I only hope I managed to surprise you too with my bizarre subject matter and contrived situations.

I hope you’ve all found this entertaining.  If not, you‘ll be pleased to know that the regular Monday and Friday posting schedule shall return next week.  Take care over the weekend folks, and try not to eat any salad.

Z - Zoo Keeper Keeper

Zoo keepers are respectable men and women who look after animals with little to no regard for themselves.  But who keeps the zoo keepers?  Spotting a gap in the market, I decided this is something I should pursue, with tranquiliser darts and nets.  Soon enough, I had amassed a modest collection of zoo keepers.

When they regained consciousness, the keepers didn’t seem too enamoured with their enclosure.  I gave them plenty of fresh hay and a few tyres to swing on, and yet they kept rattling the bars and screaming for help.  I couldn’t charge admission for this attraction, not when the keepers were aggressive to point of spitting at me whenever I walked past the enclosure.  I was keen to cover the cage in airtight Perspex, but one of the keepers informed me that they would suffocate, and he should know, being an expert keeper and everything.  Taking his professional advice, I decided against suffocation and opted to improve their enclosure to avoid spittle.

I found a few chew toys at my local Pets At Home store that I thought might keep the keepers entertained.  Although the keepers didn’t take too kindly to these squeaky toys, they did stop spitting so much due to acute dehydration.  With one problem solved, I opened my attraction to the public.

Attendance was slow to begin with.  I don’t think the general populace quite understood the concept of zoo keeper keeping.  So I decided to do what any zoo in trouble would do; breed my animals.

Luckily, I had captured a male and two females, so I didn’t think I’d have any problems.  Lock people up together for long enough and they’ll soon start breeding.  Just look at the prison system for proof.  However, I didn’t have time to wait for nature to take its course.  To try and speed things along a little bit, I spiked their drinking water with red wine, then played some romantic music into the enclosure.  Everyone knows that Barry White is the lubricant of love, but I didn’t have any, so I decided to try a bit of Rammstein instead.  It caused violent judders in my subjects, but not the kind of naked, mating judders that I was hoping for.  It seemed that the zoo keepers weren’t going to mate successfully, so I would have to resort to drastic measures.

These two look like a promising breeding pair

After speaking to Beijing Zoo about their panda breeding programme, they told me that their success is mainly down to artificial insemination.  I gave it a go, but found it to be incredibly difficult.  Have you ever tried to extract semen from a zoo keeper?  There was a lot of scratching, blood, and screaming, and I failed to get a single drop from the whole encounter.  Unfortunately, the zoo keepers overpowered me when I entered the enclosure and escaped, and they locked me in here as they left.  It’s not so bad actually.  I’ve got my tyre swing and all the wine I can drink.  Later, I think I might extract some semen.  It’s not such a bad life in here.

Y - Yes Man

Being able to shmooze your way up the corporate ladder is a valuable skill. This has given rise to the yes men, a subculture of business folk who will unquestionably validate their superior's decisions, no matter how ridiculous or absurd. To get on in business, there are worse things to be than a yes man.

That's why I took a leaf out of Danny Wallace's book (and Jim Carey's movie), and started saying yes to everything. It annoyed my girlfriend when she asked if I wanted toast or cereal and I could only reply "yes". However, this led me to discover the delights of cornflakes on toast.

So after several sales in which I signed up for a 24 month contract with LoveFilm and put in a claim for missold PPI, I decided to put my "yes" word to use at work.

Things got off to a bad start after my boss asked if I could explain why there was porn on my computer. I told him "yes". He asked if I had a sex addiction. I said "yes". He asked if I was prepared to go into rehab. I answered "yes" once more, and found myself at Sexual Deviants Anonymous.

I did quite well in the group. The group leader was impressed with my positive attitude and willingness to admit to the deepest, perviest stuff imaginable.

That night I went to celebrate my progress at group by going to a bar. I was stood waiting to order a drink when another patron brushed up against the girl next to me. She turned and said to me "did you just grope me?" I replied the only way I knew how, and before I knew it, I was at the police station admitting to string of similar assaults across the city. Once they found out about my sex addiction, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place, and I was given 18 months behind bars. It seems that being the resident sexual deviant means that other inmates have a predisposition to sexually assault you, especially when you cry out "yes!"

X - X Games Competitor

There’s an ancient proverb from the olden days which I think is still rather pertinent to us today.  It goes “if I die before I wake, at least in heaven I can skate”.  I’m not sure who said it; it was probably one of those old philosophers like Plato or John Lennon.  Whoever said it was basically telling us that heaven is a half pipe, and those who don’t skate are probably going to hell.  That’s why I decided to be the best I could be by becoming an X Game Competitor.

There are lots of events at the X Games, but everyone knows that skateboarding is the best.  I’m rather knowledgeable on skating since I have played Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3 at least 5 times.  My Kickshovel McPopit is a trick that would make The Hawkster shit his cargo shorts if he ever saw it (which he never will because he’s so old that I’m pretty sure he’s dead by now).

So I skated down to the sign up day and attempted to register my entry by grinding across the front desk.  They said they couldn’t accept my submission because I had to fill out a form.  Filling out paperwork is something that the man tries to make us do to take precious time away from skating. I refused to fill out the form, and I ollied my way outta that corporate bullshit centre.

R.I.P Dude

With no X Games to compete in, how was I going to become a pro skater?  Obviously, I would have to set up a new event.  An event with no entrance forms, no interference from the man, and no MTV.
I performed a manual all the way down to my local skate park and started to erect signs for the upcoming “A Games”.  The A stands for Awesome, not Addman, in case you thought I was that vain. The kids at the skate park were quite interested in competing and by the end of the day, I had some pretty decent 13 year olds signed up to compete.

As the day of the A Games drew near, I took my little posse out onto the streets to promote my new event.  There was a parade on the local town (something to do with war veterans or something equally boring) so we decided to add a little excitement to the event by kickflipping over the holly wreaths.  When I did a Grab Back AirThrust and screamed “Suck it bitches!  This is the A Games!” during a minute’s silence, the crowd seemed to turn hostile. 

Several people who were supporters of the man started to chase us, included a few police officers, who tried to taser me.  Due to my sweet skating skills, I managed to escape unhurt.  Several of my follow skaters were caught though.  So many in fact, that I was the only remaining competitor in the A Games.  Still, it feels good to win my first gold medal in a professional event.  I also received £10 prize money that I had in my pocket.  It was a good day all round.

W - Womble

They say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Yet, when I’m found rifling through the rubbish collections at Buckingham Palace, for some reason this is seen as an awful, illegal thing to do.  I’m always dismissed as some crazy homeless guy, merely because I once found a plastic tiara in the trash and wore it for two weeks straight.  I hate that I’ve been pigeon-holed in this manner.

The Wombles never had this kind of image problem.  They were the cuddly face of vagrancy; the Fraggles of freeganism.  Because they resembled cute teddy bear/fox hybrids, people didn’t care that they literally built their homes with dog turds and wank socks.  I needed to reinvent myself in a similar fashion in order to stop the jibes and stop people pissing on me in the street.  Perhaps they’d think twice before reliving themselves on me if I was dressed as Orinoco. 

In order to become a Womble, the first thing you must do is move to Wimbledon Common.  I took my belongings with me, moved to London, and sat about on the grass waiting for the Wombles to discover me and assume me into their collective.  I waited for three days and I didn’t see a single Womble.  There were a few hedgehogs who seemed to get a prickly when I asked them to take me to Great Uncle Bulgaria.  I couldn’t rely on the Wombles to come to me, so I would have to go to them.

Taking my shovel to the grass, I started excavating the Womble hideout.  I dug hundreds of holes across the entire park, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of them.

Remember you're a... weird... fox-like thing

That’s when I saw an exterminator van parked nearby.  I approached the guy who said he was there to remove moles (apparently, loads of holes had mysterious appeared that day, which indicated a huge mole problem).  I figured that if this guy was killing moles, he’d probably killed the entirety of Womble civilization while he was at it.  I was initially saddened by this, but then I realised that someone would have to continue the Womble lineage.  That person could be me.

I assembled a Womble outfit by wearing a fur coat and a party hat over my face, and then started to collect people’s rubbish.  Within my first day I had amassed a rusted tricycle, several reams of old newspaper, a dead horse, 2 packets of tungsten-tipped screws, a deflated lilo, a squelchy thing, and a large pile of mud. I had assembled a trash heap so large so it would be a castle in hobo real estate terms.  I invited the homeless community to join me in my not-so-humble abode, and they began adding to the refuse fortress.  By evening I had a new East Wing, a barracks, and a helipad.

Eventually, the homeless people began having an existential crisis.  They were no longer homeless people since they now had a home, which completely scrambled their brains.  They began dismantling my litter empire, and promptly committed seppuku en masse.  I had to flee the scene before people starting asking questions.  A hundred dead hobos in a pile of mud is a little difficult to explain.

V – Video Game Player

Long-time readers may have realised that I am quite an avid gamer.  I try not to talk about it too much on Muppets For Justice since this isn’t a gaming blog, so it is a side of my personality that I don’t show too often.

However, I have long sought to become a professional video game player. Pro e-sports athletes (the only sport other than sumo wrestling that you can be both obese and “athletic”) get paid ridiculous sums of money for sitting around and bashing buttons on a controller.  I can remember someone winning a Quake 3 tournament and receiving £100,000 in prize money.  That kind of cash could buy loads more games!  But is a particular game that I excel at?

Luckily enough, I am rather good at Tekken.  I was local youth club champion for two years running, and I still have the medal that I made for myself.  It was time to hone my skills and step up to the big leagues.
In a similar fashion to a martial arts student taking a grand pilgrimage to train with a wise old master, I booked a plane ticket to the land of e-sports and high broadband speeds, South Korea.  Over there, Starcraft players are revered as Gods, with legions of screaming fans at their beck and call.  I figured that if I did enough training montages, I too could become the object of affection for one million young Asian girls. Although my weak, Western technique wouldn’t stand a chance against the major Korean players, so I would have to begin my training as a complete novice.

Paul is a triumph of super-hold hair gel.

I had arranged to meet a Tekken master named Ji-hu who would show me the ropes of competitive Tekken fighting.  A young man who hadn’t even reached puberty arrived to greet me at the main interchange in Seoul.  When he introduced himself as said Tekken master, I laughed at him, brushing it off as some sort of bizarre joke.  I couldn’t have been more wrong. The young boy leaped up and plucked my eye straight out of my eye socket for “casting him a dismissive glance”.  As I rolled around in excruciating agony, Ji-hu arranged for my “fat corpse” to be transported to his dojo for training.

Ji-hu was an impossibly strict master.  Now with poor depth perception, I was forced to complete seven obstacle courses before breakfast.  I wasn’t allowed to speak any English at all.  In fact, I wasn’t allowed to speak at all, or else he would have pulled my tongue straight out of my head without a second thought.  I was forced to eat individual grains of rice from between floorboards with a pair of tweezers.  I slept upright on a chair with a mousetrap near my balls that would snap shut if I leaned forward.  I wasn’t sure how any of this would teach me to play Tekken to a greater degree, but I had to trust in my master if I wanted to learn his lessons, even if his methods seemed cruel and unnecessary.

The day of the tournament began.  I chose my favourite character (Bryan Fury if you’re wondering), and I was up against the number 5 seed.  Ji-hu was waiting in the wings with some sort of rudimentary flail, ready to strike should I slip up.  It was time to put my training to the test.

I lost two straight rounds without landing a blow.  I felt like I had become a far worse player since I started my training, as if the dehydration and mutilation I had suffered over the past few days had affected my motor skills.

In severe danger of losing the match, I decided to forget about Ji-hu’s training and revert back to my old tactics.  I went over to the other competitor and thumped him on top of his head, knocking him unconscious. I was immediately disqualified, which I didn’t understand since that’s how I managed to beat all my rivals back home in England. I left South Korea with a cloud of shame hanging over me, and a huge medical bill after Ji-hu flayed the flesh off of my back.  I guess this isn’t the game for me.

U – Umpire

Throughout my adult life I have found that I have a talent for mediation.  Fence-sitting is such an innate talent of mine that my anus has become the exact size as the average fence post. As such, a friend recommended that I became a sports referee.

As you’ve probably gathered from my previous posts in this A-Z, I’m not really the sporty type. Most referees do a lot of running, which didn’t really suit my physique. I was tempted to become a boxing referee, but after watching several YouTube videos of boxing referees getting knocked out by stray punches, I figured I would be safer sticking to a sport with less contact.  That’s why I decided to become a cricket referee.

Cricket referees have a very special title.  They are called “umpires”, which I assumed to be some sort of special vampire.  On my first match, when someone was bowled out, I immediately jumped on the batsman and started sucking on his neck.  After giving him a hickey so large it could be seen from space, I was politely informed that umpires aren’t supposed to suck anyone’s blood.  This was disappointing because I had bought a variety of novelty drinking straws to introduce throughout the match.

I vant to adjudicate your cricket match

It was at this point that I remembered reading something about umpires and their deadly aversion to sunlight.  Not wanting to risk my life, I rescheduled the match for midnight, but the players had a lot of trouble bowling and batting in complete darkness.  I was told to call off the match and rearrange for tomorrow afternoon, which I agreed to as long I could keep every inch of my skin covered.  My trenchcoat and sunglasses combo made me the most stylish umpire the world of cricket had ever seen, even if it did lead to me being questioned by the police for wearing my cricketing clothes near a school.

Being an umpire was great fun.  Everyone knows that chicks dig umpires, especially since those Twilight books became popular.  Since there wasn’t a lot happening on the field, I decided I’d try my luck with the ladies in the stands.  I can’t say I across a single woman in the crowd, but that didn’t stop me from strutting around and flexing at every opportunity.  I can’t say I got a lot of attention, but at least I was able to drive Mrs Addman crazy when I came home in my dirty cricket whites, stood spread eagle in the doorway and shouted “scrub my gusset!” It made her so horny that she promptly moved out.

When one of the players decided to actually hit the ball, I noticed that everyone scrambled to pick it up.  Not wanting to be left out, when a ball sailed close to me, I plucked it out of the air.  The players seemed a little upset by this and chased me out of the stadium, brandishing their crickets bats in a dangerous manner.  I was upset that I wasn’t able to be a cricket umpire after that, but at least I’ve learned how to sleep comfortably while hanging upside down.