We Don't Need No Stinking Badgers

Eager for a promotion, still-acting-ensign Hatch has been kind enough to send in another submission. In three-hundredicate. Imagine my surprise when Ol' Gus, our venerable postmaster, tapped my door with his wooden leg, bent from the weight of his mailsack, full to the point of bursting with parcels, packets, and packages addressed front and back with my name, writ large in some very questionable fluids which surely push postal laws nearly as far as this overlong sentence is testing the very patience of you, our dear readers... Ahem.

And Gus Spake:
"This 'un's only the firs' load, Missur Dowd, sir. The boys'n me 'll be back directly with t'others."

Thank you, Gus. And Curse you, Rollie Everlovin' Hatch! Where will I sit?! My office is overrun with demos, though I do appreciate your exploration of the full media spectrum: tape, cd, minidisc, vinyl, reel-to-reel, what is this, an acetate? And jesus, an Edison cylinder? What are we paying you, anyway? Postage alone would have cost about four hundred dollars... although upon closer inspection the stamps appear to be... suspect.

The exceedingly rare "05¢ Happy Car."

Get_It_Faster.mp3


The end result isn't bad, though. Actually, quite good. Not good enough for immediate promotion, but definitely enough for a trophy or no, wait! A merit badge. The perfect little something to warm those pathetically bare epaulettes. Hold on a second, I'll see what we can do.

Did you bring enough trophies for the whole class?
...Oh, I see you did.

Okay, I think you're going to be pleased. I caught one of the DemoWAR seamstresses on break, and she was able to crank this out. Just click through for a printable copy, and um... staple it onto your shirt, or something.

General Suck-up had his name Americanized, from the Greek Sukupopolous.

Let this serve as a reminder, Hatch. No one likes a grade grubber.
...unless there are bribes involved. Or cookies.*

---

*or bribes involving cookies.

Too Many Secrets

We've been obsessed with codes for the past few weeks. There's been talk of code-breakers, patterns, ciphers, keys, hidden messages, riddles, enigmas, cryptography, cryptology, crypto-zoology, sasquat-chology, wendigology, Wendy Os, Wendy O Williamses, William F Buckleyses, F Murray Abrahameses, Abraham and Isaaceseses. Check the archives - it's all in there, couched in terms too... cryptic to comprehend.

So this week, we're going to focus on one of the hard working cipher-grunts here at DemoWAR HQ. He sits in the basement all day and night, using a Drogen's decoder wheel to decode static-filled triple-scrambled microwave transmissions between two soldiers talking in Mandarin Chinese. I'm referring, of course, to Acting-Ensign Rollie Hatch, code-crackologist extraordinaire and mastermind of Beauty and the RoBeast, a compendium of logic so dense and layered that it makes Godel, Escher and Bach look like a street-preacher's pamphlet.

Hatch's application sits on my desk as we speak,the ink still drying on his barely-legible blue-book essay questions. Well, crayon, I guess you would call it.

The handwriting is abominable, but his prose is stunning.

His first submission is revelatory; a breath of fresh air in these times of cultural whitewash. And taking into account the long, hard hours that Hatch puts in, I'll overlook the fact that it was clearly completed with the help of company time and resources. (disclaimer: I am not planning to overlook this.)

Get_Out.mp3

And listen to the original here: FNM_Get_Out.MP3

Stand clear of the closing jaws.