World Domination Journal Foreward

This last week has changed my entire outlook towards the world. There is something I must tell everyone- and maybe I should start at the beginning of this epic legendary saga. Last week I received a letter from the future- that is, thefuture Eric Weirup.  Enclosed were a number of diary entries detailing my takeover of the world in 2016. Upon reading these entries in my diary- err.. guys don’t have diaries… so secret evil handbook it is… I was shocked and horrified to find the kind of diabolical person I am to become.  All said, I will apparently become supreme overlord of earth and destroy most of civilization in 42 days. And it looks like I only had to work 11 of those, so world domination was part-time, meaning even I didn’t get medical benefits. But luckily, we have thefuture Eric Weirup to thank. He traveled in time from the ruins of this post-apocalyptic society to prevent my development into an evil overlord. Of course, I am not evil now, so we both immediately agreed that we must put a stop to this ever happening. So, to prepare the world for stopping me, I will reveal the entries in my dia…. secret evil handbook… that explain the plan in detail so that this great evil can be prevented before I attempt it in 2016.

The sheer horror involved in these entries is overwhelming, so I will post one each day so that we are informed, but not so terrified we can’t think straight. Remember, whatever I have on my profile next is for the sake of future generations, and I’m sorry it had to come to this. Well, sort of.

World Domination Journal Forward Part 2

In 2016, something changed inside of me. I don’t know the cause- it was never mentioned in the writings thefuture Eric Weirup gave me. But one thing is for sure- in February of ‘16, I began my bid for diabolically uncontested power through a 10-phase scheme called Operation Roger Goodell. Over the course of 6 weeks, nations had attacked themselves, North Korea would have an idea everyone listened to, and all businesses in the world would be destroyed except for a single Borders. The world as we knew it was no more, and all people alike lived in fear. Needless to say, this plan of mine could not be stopped, unless someone would have seen it coming. Like the Cubs’ 2003 playoff run, no one did. But, thefuture Eric Weirup has given us a second chance- the human race will know what is coming this time, if they will only heed these words.

It all began on February 16th, a day that would forever be known as the beginning of The Great Napkin Famine. Or N-day, for short…. (to be continued)

World Domination Journal, phase 1: Feb 16, N-Day: Jennifer Lawrence’s Birthday

Dear Diary,

Seeing that the necessary conditions have finally arrived to unleash phase 1 of my plan to rule the world- it was a Tuesday and there was plenty of orange juice in the fridge- I must now take action. My plan, for now, is to destroy the world’s napkin supply, which I will exploit to propel me to power. As you know, Diary, last week I finished mailing all of the fake invitation letters for Jennifer Lawrence’s birthday party to all 7.15 billion people on Earth. Since no one dislikes J-Law, they obviously all showed today on buses, planes, piggyback, camels- on everything. Meanwhile, as the entire world was enjoying the bash (although her birthday is really August 15th), I was able to easily destroy the world’s only three napkin companies through 1. Arson, 2. Lobbing bottles of BBQ sauce through windows, or 3. Allowing the company to merge and convert into a diced bread manufacturer (croutons, to the layperson) on its own. There was no security to stop me; they were all at the birthday using napkins. That reminds me, Diary- the false J-Law invites also included a BYON notice, so everyone brought and used all the napkins they had from home. If one thing’s for sure, when someone’s got 10 napkins, they use all 10 napkins. All of this, I hope, will cause an unexpected worldwide napkin shortage. This may seem only minorly evil, but that is the genius of my plan- now all I have to do is simply wait for all the countries in the world except Finland to make this crisis far worse by accident.

World Domination Journal, phase 2, N-Day plus 1: Hype and Panic, Repeat.

Dear Diary,

Today I saw on the news everything I hoped to see: The United Nations immediately recognized the dire threat this napkin shortage posed to the free world and sanctioned all countries who produce messy foods. The only nation that has not been sanctioned is Finland, because they only have fish. 45 minutes after the sanctions were imposed, the world leaders recognized that their sanctions didn’t do squat, and their upper body needed work too. Reports soon arrived that throughout the world people were laying waste to the few remaining napkin supplies.

With all of the world’s napkins depleted, my evil plan may begin to unravel: now Kim Jong-un will finally have a moment to shine.

World Domination Journal, phase 3, N-Day plus 2: N. Korea Makes a Decision.

Dear Diary,

More good news on the TV. The Korean Dictator-For-Life- or ‘president’ Kim Jong-un- was the only person calm at the emergency United Nations meeting today, which grabbed everyone’s attention as he seized the podium after quickly drinking everyone’s waters. He boldly declared that if there aren’t enough napkins for everyone, nobody should get any. President Obama interrupted and suggested that the U.N. be smart and rational about the crisis. Get this, Diary- he was immediately punched by the representative for the Somalian Pirates, who was then punched by every country with borders along the Indian Ocean. But in the scuffle, Obama’s original ideals were forgotten and the attention was given to the person with the latest idea, Kim Jong-un. The World Congress followed his lead and voted that all remaining napkins shall be destroyed by detonation of poorly-manufactured nuclear devices that are highly inaccurate and often fired upside-down. After the after-meeting coffee and donuts afterparty, it was revealed to the Congress that Kim Jong-un had fired his entire nuclear arsenal 25 minutes before he had even taken the podium. But the world leaders breathed a sigh of relief at the news; the napkins everyone desperately needs are finally all gone.

My plan is going perfectly. Now I must turn to the people who look like they might still have napkins and… well, you’ll see tomorrow, Diary. Evil laugh. Evil chuckle. Pause. Evil laugh. Evil laugh.

World Domination Journal, phase 4, N-Day plus 10: Viral Video

Dear Diary,

The last week has been a great success. All people who were known owners of napkins have been condemned in my series of speeches on YoutwitterbookDeere-IHFaceNorthAmazonGoogle.comnet (can’t believe only 2 years ago there was only askjeeves.) The video series skyrockets to 1.1 trillion views apiece through strategic use of cynical cats, puppies sleeping in relatively small objects, and repeated use of the words ‘we should’. Although I am pretty sure there are no napkins left in the world, I’ve claimed that there are people still hoarding them somewhere, and they should be stopped. They are supposedly people who have A) worn a necktie before, B) read books on purpose, or C) had something to do with The Teletubbies (while we’re on a roll, I might as well do away with a show that has nothing to teach kids). After learning this, the crowds immediately dispersed to go destroy and loot their way through what I’d suspect is every building in civilization. Realizing there would soon be little left to loot for myself, I decided to rush to all the places I wanted to go before they were devastated by others. Through an intense series of traffic violations, I made it to city park before the others arrived.

Fed the ducks and reflected on my place in the universe while humming the chorus to Steam’s Sha Na Na.

World Domination Journal, phase 5, N-Day plus 18: Riots.

Dear Diary,

The mass rioting in the streets has led to very precise looting in the past few days. Starbucks all lie devastated by 9 a.m. Olive Gardens are rubble by the time the unlimited soup and breadsticks special is over. And Borders is completely ransacked by 10 p.m. Even with great fear for their lives, all peoples still work together to one day see Borders die.

This has all worked better than I expected, Diary. When I was writing this evil plot after being turned down by that art school, I thought it’d take twice this long. It’s clear I must begin the next phase of my plan. It is time to set up… Evil laugh… the lemonade stand.

Because if there’s one thing mobs need, it’s bathrooms.

Sorry, Diary, I guess I didn’t do a good job explaining the connection between bathrooms and lemonade. So it’s because… Nah, it’ll just be implied tomorrow. Besides, my pen is running ou.

World Domination Journal, phase 6, N-Day plus 24: Lemonade Stand

Dear Diary,

The free lemonade stand that operates only from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. has worked better than I expected. By setting up directly across from Borders right at their closing time, the thirsty rioters (who are still wildly out of control everywhere) have taken to using the nearest bathrooms in swarms, keeping employees well past their shift, usually until about 2 a.m. The amount of lemonade involved here is truly immeasurable.

The cost of keeping Borders open all night coupled with all the employees quitting each day is sure to lead that despised company to ruin in less than 2 weeks. We can only hope. Which is exactly why I must buy the company the rioters hate so much. Evil La… Nah, I’m not feeling it today. But I hope this doesn’t lessen your impression of how evil all of this still is, Diary.

World Domination Journal, phase 7, N-Day plus 34: Steak and Sidewalks

Dear Diary,

I purchased Borders for free. It totally went bankrupt. It’ll be the perfect fixer-upper. I have kept the lemonade stand going, except I now charge $1.50 for bathroom usage. The ‘customers’ notice this only once it’s too late. Those fools just rush in to Borders. Once I have them in the Borders, I offer free steak and grill rights to all men, but give them no utensils. Once they begin grilling, they fear they’ll waste a perfectly good steak without tools to flip or remove the steak. Then the men usually try to quickly go loot a spatula from someplace else before the steak burns. But I’ve installed a 20 MPH moving sidewalk leading away from the exit. Only then the men give up and purchase one of my many available spatulas for $275. For women, my business model is a much simpler formula: cheap stuff + One Direction sticker + $50 markup= $50 profit.

Even better, Borders never gets looted because the mobs always see the free lemonade stand first and are then forced to wait in a very orderly line for the Borders bathrooms. I believe this business is working well- I have made $471 billion this week, even if most of it is in quarters. Also, I am the last business standing on Earth, so naturally I have all the money. Now… what to do with it? Here’s a hint: non-barter transactions such as buying or selling goods and services.

World Domination Journal, phase 8, N-Day plus 39: The evil ACA

Dear Diary,

Now that I’ve got all the money in the world, I have declared that it be replaced by Monopoly money as cash and jelly beans as coins. This is neither evil nor logical- I’m just doing it. Also, today I gathered together every person who once held a position of power and paid them each four orange Monopoly bills and 7 jellybeans- which is worth $2,000.70- to buy off their loyalties. To complete my evil design, I’ve created a staff of personal advisors to help me with future evil plans (In order of highest to lowest rank): Megatron, Henry F. Potter, Steve Bartman, Newman, Gaston, June Cleaver, and the Easter Bunny. Evil so pure it floats.

Also since no history has been recorded in the last 6 weeks, I thought I’d describe the rioting statistics for future generations. Larceny and theft have amounted to about $52,000,000,000 in damages, and several million have been left homeless. However, in a gesture of mourning for the Veishea riots of 2014, no cars were tipped over, no lights were left damaged, and several boxes of breakfast pastries were offered to responding police officers as a courteous peace offering. Although the police disapproved of the public damages, they accepted the breakfast pastries. It was all… highly unusual.

But what do I care, Diary? I’m supposed to be evil and I pretty much started this, Diary. Either way, with my Anarchist Council Alliance with me, we shall soon have the people on our side, too. Which kind of sounds like democracy if the people get to freely choose their side, but you’re wrong, Diary. It’s still plenty evil. And you have no idea what kind of evil happens when the ACA get to stepping.

World Domination Journal, phase 9, N-Day plus 40: Sunday Afternoon Friends Marathon

Dear Diary,

Respectfully observed today as a day of rest. To relax I turned on the TV I received from one of the Borders customers in return for a spatula, and guess what I saw, Diary- Friends was on. Somehow- this blows my mind- even with all companies destroyed across the planet, Friends is still running on NBC. They must’ve programmed it there permanently, because the NBC headquarters was set afire on Oct. 27th, Dec. 14th, and three and a half times on Jan. 9th. And that was before these riots even began.

There is currently nothing I need to do in my plan since the construction of Guantanamo Bay’s $750,000 soccer field has been cancelled (all of phase 9 was devoted to stopping this, but a relatively unknown company known as Garling Construction ran out of grass seed and stopped building all by themselves). With nothing evil left to do for phase 9, I knew I had to do something that could count as runner-up evil, so I watched 11 hours of Friends. What could be worse, Diary. What could be worse.

Anyways, I’ve gained all the Monopoly boxes and jellybeans (I mean money) in the world, as well as all of the power. But there’s something missing- I need to gain celebrity status. Today’s my day off, so we’ll try that tomfoolery tomorrow.

World Domination Journal, phase 10, N-Day plus 42: Australia.

Dear Diary,

After a whole bunch of brainstorming, I finally had a list of the things you can own that are status symbols. My evil brain trust and I decided we needed a large yacht with a helipad with exotic animals and plenty of diving equipment. We settled on the purchase of Australia, and drew up the paperwork. The previous owners, Mel Gibson and AC/DC, sold it immediately. There were concerns that Australia didn’t count as a yacht because it couldn’t move around, so we had the engines installed in the southwest corner of the continent. The propeller blades were a mile long a piece, and oddly enough powered by kindness. Needless to say, they ran out of power in 8 minutes and we had to convert its power source to burning rubber tires and CFC’s. You may feel like judging our blatant environmental negligence, Diary, but again- we’re team evil. That’s the bottom line. Frowns.

June Cleaver (a member of the evil brain trust) expressed concerns today about the consequences of the ACA’s actions. The other trust members immediately declared her a witch for being a woman and speaking her mind. Again, Diary, you may judge. But we’re evil. This is the whole point. This is why we got out of bed this morning. Evil. Are we going to do the right thing? No. We’re evil. Anyways, as the rest of the evil trust drew straws to see who got to kick her into the pool of radioactive laser shark robots (Note to self: good band name), she expressed her regret of her ever being a member of the trust by telling me that she still didn’t think the world was sold; she had just done what she was told.

For a second, I….I felt there was something so wrong, doing the right thing. I could lie, but it really just seems like everything that drowns her makes me want to fly. Which reminds me, I need to make those flying radioactive laser shark robots. Can’t believe I didn’t give them wings already.

I mean, I can live with the scorched remains of 57 million sq. miles of earth, the millions dead, and the living I’ve made by exploiting others for personal gain, but the sharks... I forgot to put wings on the sharks. This is going to bother me for at least an hour.

(Epilogue: All of the events of the diary were luckily kept from ever taking place in 2016. Thefuture Eric Weirup’s heroic deeds prevented not only these events, but my personal turn for the worse. After a very careful year of backtracking to the incident that caused my eventual evil demise, Eric and I found that it had been a game of checkers that I’d lost in late 2014 that had catalysed all of this. If there’s any moral lesson to be pulled from all of this, it’s don’t play checkers. There are so many better activities out there: hiking, rock climbing, just breathing, not breathing… actually, just anything. Be a hero. Don’t play checkers. And especially not against yourself. That’s weak sauce.)

World Domination Journal Closing Points

This will be the final note on my World Domination scheme. I’d like to point out that I made sure to use the keywords ‘riot’ and ‘world domination’ and ‘Starbucks’ as many times as possible to make the NSA’s Potential Terrorist Threat list. Hopefully they got a kick out of this, because it really wouldn’t work. Except for the lemonade scam and Jennifer Lawrence birthday trick.Those would work., 9 times out of 8.

But in conclusion, how to take over the world:

1. Fake B-Day invites to everyone

2. Destroy means of napkin production while they’re away.

3. Sit Obama, Kim Jong-un, and the rep for the Somalian pirates next to each other during a world crisis meeting.

4. Give rioters a defined goal- destroy everything, if they’d like. Encourage them. Tell them to dream big. Be a leader like you’re the FFA president who broke his arm last year in a four----------------------------------------------WHEELER accident.

5. Hand out free stuff that puts nearby businesses out of business through bathroom use.

6. Buy the business, make a profit on same bathrooms and assorted scams.

7. Keep the riot going, but protect your business from rioters with complimentary lemonade.

8. Buy off all powerful people, create evil brain trust.

9. Limit unnecessary spending in your government. Although money used to be made from trees, make the world currency into jellybeans and board games so that the expression is out of date.

10. Become happy by purchasing many material goods, including helipads, boats, cars, planes, and candy necklaces.

11. Voila! Now wait for the inevitable fallout of being evil and trying to be happy by spending trillions of dollars on material goods and hanging out with Megatron. It won’t work. I think we’ve all been there before- that tired old cliche of having robots for friends and owning a continent. Thanks for putting up with this.

What I Learned Over Lent:

What I Learned Over Lent:

As Easter rolls around it's tough not to be caught up in a whirlwind of new life and second chances all around us- the end of something always hands over a torch to the new beginning. Easter finds itself ushering in the transition that ultimately marks springtime as the season of paradox. In fact, the number of contradictions as we approach Easter is bordering on eerie. Case in point:
Right before Easter, the Jews celebrate Passover. The whole point of the ceremony is to commemorate a people that'd just been delivered from oppression, yet the meal itself is prepared for a people fleeing for their lives. Muslims hold this ceremony in high regard too. Bit of a paradox.
Atheists will take notice that the core of springtime is actually the ending of the dead season, winter. Suddenly visible are flowers and crops that will emerge out of this lifeless winter, but only once rain comes (often in April, when Easter usually is). As it is, the circle of life can only restart itself with death. Paradox, and The Lion King +1000.
Moreover, Christians are the poster children for paradox, because they center around Christ, who is essentially one big amalgum d'paradox. Even from a worldly perspective, there is something poetic about a King of all kings being born into straw poverty. And that is literally just the beginning.
Another paradox, or possibly irony, is that this King was at heart always a rebel against the establishment he was sent to save (or fulfill, to you perfectionists); he even spent most of his youth on the run from the authorities. This Jesus also spent the majority of his ministry challenging (and baffling) the highest scholars of the time- the scribes and Pharisees- with simple storytelling. Meanwhile, he gathered together the most complex following of Jews, Gentiles, Arabics, nobles, peasants, Roman officers, and religious officials from a religion meant solely for Israel. Paradox again.
So, if there is a point to this, maybe it's a special paradoxical (ok, I need a new favorite word) reminder to Christians that if someone isn't Christian, they are to be treated equal or better than you'd treat yourself, even if it’s just because it’s a paradox. It makes me worry for the extremists of late who wish to condemn all the people not perfectly like-minded. I’m mainly frazzled because they've overlooked all the teachings they were and still are founded upon. ‘The sinner cannot cast the first stone’, ‘what is done to the least of these is done unto Me’, ‘turn the other cheek’ (‘eye for an eye’ is so old school)... the mercy and humility theme continues. Actually… every major religion would advocate the cause of the poor, either for mercy or as a philosophy, so there are zero points scored for intolerance and a superiority complex.
Secondly, there’s no sense in seeing God as a ‘magic Santa Claus’ who grants wishes to good people. The antidote to this mindset is not to keep asking for blessings in what we’re doing, but to get involved in what God is doing, because it's already blessed. Forfeiting self-concern to get what you truly need? Hmm. Sounds like a paradox.
Again from the atheistic perspective, Christianity can stumble into looking a lot like a scourge if it even vaguely resembles a group of people who feel their faith entitles them to higher status. Alternatively, not a single person could deny the great benefit a true believer can deliver to all around them- that is love, charity, and relief from our struggles. Look at Bono. People should be like Bono.
I believe it was Gandhi who once said, "I'll become a Christian if I ever meet one." And Gandhi was an alright guy. After all, the only person to ever have a beef with Gandhi was Tyler Durden, and that shouldn’t count. If there is something to take away from this (from everyone’s perspective), it’s that we all need to find something good and unfailing to trust in. It settles and grounds us; it allows us to pivot and meet challenges as they arise from either side. Whatever the good thing may be. But I should say the gooder your trust is, the betterer it is.
To conclude, I'm reminded that Aquinas' definition of love was "willing the good of the other". Not 'liking to be liked' or 'giving only to receive'. The last two are just business transactions with a side of hypocrisy. To truly be good, I guess I’m stuck embracing this paradox: the only thing we should concern ourselves with is concern for others. Never fear for how things turn out for you, because if you've helped enough people along the way, the ‘It's a Wonderful Life Effect’ really is quite a reliable safety net- because those that you've helped are sure to have gained something from your actions. The people around you have been made stronger.
Right action is contagious; it creates a ripple effect. And love is always on the move.

Ok, Happy Easter and stuff.
Rabbits don’t lay eggs.