http://evilhow.com/tiki-blogs_rss.php?ver=2 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:40:23 +0100 Tiki CMS/Groupware via FeedCreator 1.7.2.1 http://evilhow.com/img/tiki.jpg http://evilhow.com/tiki-index.php en-us http://evilhow.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=1&postId=126 Most supervillains I have known imagined that their arrival on the scene would be seen as a spectacular outcome of a long, successful series of capers, as if the discovery of their awesomeness was both unavoidable and completely logical according to the rules the universe runs by, but they are just about always tripped up when anyone bothers to look into their claims of a lurid backstory that something just doesn't seem right, whether it is the way the light is cast in that photograph of them alongside Hitler, or the tale of their superhuman deeds told by supposed eyewitnesses who have that look that they're worried someone's out to get them. There was this one guy who went around claiming credit for having blown up the ancient library at Alexandria who would make something different up every time people started asking how he managed to transport his demolition crew through time and space and never get a line in the history books (he wasn't around too long in the modern times, at least not in one piece he wasn't), becoming ridiculous to a lot of folks in the supervillain community, not dreadful (not in the way he wanted). Everybody I talk to who sees these backstory trainwrecks goes on about how they would never fall into the same traps, that their level of deceit is worlds better than that, but the fact of the matter is that one of the things that the bad guys love to talk about, almost as much as the great big nasty thing they are responsible for doing, is how pathetic and conceited the other guys are, whoever isn't at the table at the time, and how their streak of luck is soon going to run out.

Capella
]]> CapellaNovafyre Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:21:44 +0100 http://evilhow.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=1&postId=125 From all accounts, there is nothing quite like the sound of an Atlantic hurricane whipping through the tattered rigging of a seventeenth century pirate ship you have outfitted yourself, one which imprints itself into the memory indelibly quite apart from the degree of success or failure with which the actual pirating activities may have met. But to get to that point the inexperienced supervillain needs to attend to an enormous number of petty little details, many of which seeming on their face to be far away from the notion of freebooting along the Spanish Main, yet stubbornly having some essential role in the buccaneer ecosystem. Many of these are traditionally passed on orally by those who have served on such vessels, a population which is these days inconvenient and rather unpleasant to access first-hand, which all helps to make our little guide to getting started with outlaw sea roving a welcome compass heading to those who might through unpreparedness blunder into a whiff of grape-shot administered broadside by a vessel under the flag of some Majesty or another.

Grinning Skull (friendfeed)
]]> GrinningSkull Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:40:44 +0100 http://evilhow.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=1&postId=124 Used to have this girlfriend who was hanging out with some guy whose big thing was going everywhere covered in fire, at home, out shopping, working out at the gym, all the time, the best I could tell the dude went to sleep that way even, which is pretty weird if you stop and think about it, since he must have lived in a place made completely out of stone or metal or something you would think, (if I'm not mistaken he had some kind of odd job with the movies) and I remember wondering at the time how they could possibly get along together, since she wasn't in fact the covered in flames type but was just a normal gal more or less. Sometimes she and I would be out somewhere and her phone would ring, and it would be that weird boyfriend of hers, and afterwards I would be like So how does he call you without melting his phone? and Does he have to pay the phone company online since he obviously can't be writing out paper checks? and she would refuse to talk about it. I think she thought I thought they ought to split up, but actually I just thought it was really impractical for him to expect her to have to put up with his thing, since it was so hard to go anywhere with the guy (except the beach, a couple times) and furthermore what kind of thing do you buy someone like that, who doesn't wear normal clothes like everyone else, which you might laugh about but it gets to be a really important issue around the holidays and birthdays and stuff like that. Anyhow it didn't end up lasting, she took up with some Puerto Rican guy whose thing was about raising mutant crocodile-people or something like that and she ended up moving in with that guy I think. Seems like she just got tired of being the flame-guy's girlfriend and all.

Capella


]]> CapellaNovafyre Mon, 05 Oct 2009 01:08:51 +0100 http://evilhow.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=1&postId=123 In any good hour-long television drama these days, one is likely to encounter some sort of tense courtroom scene, perhaps more than one, precisely because the ritual and trappings of legal proceedings have a way of capturing the popular imagination in a way that nothing else quite matches. You as an evil supervillain can tap into this instinctual depth of feeling by subjecting your unfortunate victims to a public and demeaning show trial with the roles of judge, jury, counsel, bailiff, and executioner filled by members of your organization.

The important thing to realize about show trials is that the more agonizing the back-and-forth, the more monstrous the account of the accused one's misdeeds, the more outlandish the costumes and demeanor of the principals onstage, the better the theater you are presenting. Ordinarily when planning a caper the effective supervillain tries to smooth over the rough edges and present the glossy facade of inevitability from beginning to end. When producing a show where one stars as hanging judge, however, the gritty and baroque elements become the hooks which plunge the criminal proceedings down the throats of those who happen upon it, so it is important to leave this appearance in the final product, stage-managed though it is behind the scenes. Otherwise the whole enterprise can turn into a mockery of your genius as the rabble dares to complain about the boringness and pointlessness of a predictable performance you have cooked up at considerable expense and trouble. And who needs that, after all, since they are going to speak ill of you owing to your fell deeds without all this extra bother?

Grinning Skull (friendfeed)
]]> GrinningSkull Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:07:17 +0100 http://evilhow.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=1&postId=122 Sometimes it is just too much like honest work, just being a villain, and one has to find ways to rediscover the allure of doing bad on your own terms, without being compared to what every other evil individual might have accomplished or having to play up to the petty concerns of your opposite numbers among the forces of good. At times when this mundane ennui most threatens my equilibrium, I like to take a vacation from the real world and break things up in a brand-new virtual world either of my own or one that I can invade to do my mischief. It can be so refreshing to turn one's hand to pure plotting without having to face the same old questions about economic viability, of biologic limitations, or historic fact, instead boldly taking reckless brushstrokes to an empty canvas in order to craft a hitherto undreamt of monstrosity. For in the brave new virtuality where you hold the reins, dragons can lounge menacingly on every streetcorner, human playthings can be subjected to abuse far past the point of endurance of any standard mind or body, and dead men can still exhibit conversational aptitude, all to the dismay of your helpless victims.

Grinning Skull (friendfeed)
]]> GrinningSkull Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:08:48 +0100 http://evilhow.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=1&postId=121 The newest installment on the wiki, How to cause a flood, is one close to my heart because it takes me back to the days when I was just starting out as a bad guy, making mischief by drowning towns and villages close to where I grew up, diverting rivers into inhabited valleys, that kind of thing. I can't say that at the time I was capable of causing mass loss of life or extreme devastation, but it did serve to cause a fair amount of property damage, rile the victims up enough to get them to beg for some measure of mercy, and leave a permanent scar on the landscape, all at a reasonable price. A wonderful way to get one's feet wet.

Ahem.

Floods grip the imagination of those who stand in their way. One moment simply standing on a city street, or camping in a desert ravine, the victim sees awe-inspiring flood waters crashing toward their position in an instant, seemingly out of nowhere. Floods can happen anywhere, anytime, if one is unlucky enough to be on the wrong side of a supervillain, and the psychological effect this can have can be just as effective as more exotic, unreliable, and costly technology.

Grinning Skull (friendfeed)

]]> GrinningSkull Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:08:53 +0100 http://evilhow.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=1&postId=120 Whether you are cornering a person of interest or retrieving one which has strayed away, the skill of how to conduct a manhunt is one of the core competencies of every evil supervillain worthy of the profession. It takes all one's intelligence and perceptivity to defeat the wiliest of quarries, whether it is tracking a fugitive through an urban jungle, scouring cyberspace to catch the elusive spoor, or hot pursuit of a desperate turncoat through booby-trapped passages you both know all too well. Perhaps there is even a car chase, one that necessarily ends in some sort of explosion.

It is all so terribly thrilling, with the restless action and the baying of the bloodhounds, the taut voices of the special ops and the eerie rituals of the clairvoyants, that I have known a couple of former supervillains who have spent far too much of their time playing at manhunt and neglecting the rest of their evil operations much to their detriment. I do not know why there is no manhunt reality program on television, where the contestants get air dropped into unfamiliar terrain with a modest head start and try their best to elude the relentless pursuit, the best of these going on to more challenging and dangerous settings in later rounds, till in the final round the gauntlet they must run is as close to lethal as the producers can get away with. It would be the incarnation of the anxiety dreams everyone has, where some unseen foe is closing in on one, closer and closer, and at the moment one is just about to be caught the sleeper jerks awake and shaky. That is just the kind of television I would watch, personally.

Grinning Skull (friendfeed)
]]> GrinningSkull Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:56:15 +0100 http://evilhow.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=1&postId=119 There is already an abundance of sites which have advice on how to bring down our beloved Internet, so we have decided to forgo, for now, our own tips some of which involve gallium arsenide-seeking nanobots and the sudden liquidation of certain key celebrities, instead merely summarizing here some of the other offerings in this vein which an enterprising supervillain may find useful in working out the kinks for him- or herself.

1. Striking at the structure of the network
2. Severing the tender connection points with handtools
3. Some basic malware
4. Exert the might of totalitarian governments to ban it
5. All of the above plus spam

Let me note that you might want to wait to get started on any of these only after the weekend is through, in case the Midwest is devastated by a massive nuclear strike, disrupting all your work. I shall be in my pod.

Grinning Skull (friendfeed)
]]> GrinningSkull Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:53:02 +0100 http://evilhow.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=1&postId=118 Yet another entry in the weird animal beat: How to get rid of giant eagles. I hate these nasty snake-eating things and am only too happy to pass along any tips designed to harass or exterminate them if possible, though it is kind of like trying to discourage an active volcano from erupting and I am loathe to make it seem like this is a simple task. I have heard a lot of talk about supervillains banding together to get rid of those annoying "flying buses" which are blamed every time a captive goes missing, but have seen precious little concerted action being done about the problem. So the long and short of it is that if you happen to be the one whose plans keep getting messed up by giant eagles, it's pretty much all up to you to take care of business.

In any case, you can't just ignore your giant eagle problem. Those baby giants eagle nesting on your battlements may be as they scream their little screams rending the air, and maybe you’d hate to boot them from their favorite crags, but invariably eagles mean law and order, not to mention eagle droppings which nobody ever seems to want to acknowledge. If ever you want to even think about selling off your lair to another villain for anything like a decent rate of appreciation you cannot let these unsightly and unhygienic calling cards pile up around the gate.

Veeper
]]> Veeper Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:48:58 +0100 http://evilhow.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=1&postId=117 You're a hard working villain, and when you get back to the lair late at night, or perhaps in the early morning, all you probably want to know at that moment is how to sleep in peace. There are times where the soft sighing of the breeze through the trees of summer only serves to tear at your raw and bleeding psyche which can find no respite, not in mood-altering preparations, nor in hedonistic oblivion, nor even in contemplation of your vast store of wealth, and it can be frustrating to confront this faceless enemy that cannot properly be departiclized. At times it seems as if the only relief comes from listening to something very tedious and dull, such as someone else complaining at length about how hard it is for him or her to sleep, which generally works on me as if it were morphine.

Sometimes I am given to understand, telepathically, that there are those who wonder how a villain with a lifetime of shocking misdeeds can sleep peacefully at all, much less bed down like a little child. These individuals, I gather, have not spent enough time around little children, who typically harbor enough spite and malice in their tiny little breasts to give a battle-scarred fiend a run for his money. And yet these malformed homunculi sleep, aided by a powerful system of tissue building and regeneration which our own scientists have not yet managed to reproduce in adults, though we evil supervillains try our utmost to come close, through sundry shocking and depraved means too tedious and dull to enumerate here.

And off to bed.

Grinning Skull (friendfeed)
]]> GrinningSkull Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:41:49 +0100