Dear Lord, Look Out! Ten Reasons You Should be Curled Into a Fetal Ball at All Times (Part II)

Pandemics

From SARS to the Avian Flu to Ebola, pandemics are a constant menace to us and our Chinese counterparts. Mayan calendars predict a great plague will sweep across the face of the globe very, very soon, and Mayans know their shit. Maybe it’ll be engineered by the government to keep the black man down. Maybe a chemical spill will contaminate a small town’s drinking water. Maybe a mutated virus will cross-breed with a bacteria to make some kind of super disease that leaves you shooting blood out of your eyes every time you hiccup. Regardless, the solution is clear: leeches, leeches, and more leeches.

Your Only Hope: The continued wussiness of Mother Nature.

Appropriate Reaction: Curling into a fetal position in a tub of scalding water.

The Elderly

The elderly are on the verge of becoming the largest population segment in the country. That means higher Social Security costs, a higher number of retirees to support, and a sharp increase in the amount of old person smell in America’s public buildings. What’s more, people are going to be living longer and longer as medical technology improves. Imagine: a world where popular culture is defined by your grandparents’ taste, restaurants close at six p.m., and unnecessary turn signals blink as far as the eye can see. You know Grandpa’s boring story about the time he got a nickel off on a tin of pomade in 1956? That will replace 24.

Your Only Hope: Ever watch Logan’s Run?

Appropriate Reaction: Sucking up to our glorious and wise elders before it’s too late. Mayhap another WWII memorial is in order?

China

I know, they look small, but damn it if they’re not resourceful. Couple that can-do attitude with a population of a billion, an indomitable work ethic, and the ability to live on only white rice and uncooked squid brain, and you have a good idea of the threat China poses. Those Maoist Taoists have been generally pissy since the Mongolians busted through their wall, and it looks like America might be on the short list for a little Kung-Fu ass whooping in the near future. Our recommendation: Start getting used to bowing a lot and eating out of little paper boxes.

Your Only Hope: Ironically, a pandemic (see “Pandemics,” above).

Appropriate Reaction: Sticking an American flag on every possible surface, thereby “calling” them for the US.

Food

You have to eat it to live, and yet every second food items yearn to lodge in your throat, release a deadly poison into your body, or, in the case of banana peels, cause you to slip in comical fashion. Heart Disease is the number one killer in America, and the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of one group. No, not the weak-minded consumers who crave constant caloric intake. No, not the food companies who lace their products with addictive substances and offer 68% more reconstituted bacon fat for only 39 cents extra. Rather, we should look to the food itself for the culprit. Pears, ham sandwiches, rack of lamb: they’re all just waiting for the opportunity to kill you and divide up your goods for their heathen rites.

Your Only Hope: Forced feeding of choice groups in order to reduce excess food stores. Note: this solution can also help to eliminate the elderly problem.

Appropriate Reaction: Anorexia nervosa.

Nuclear War

Okay, so it was a little more of a threat in the fifties. But full-scale nuclear war isn’t out of the question, and Russia’s been looking a little itchy lately. Besides that, you got North Korea and Pakistan to worry about. Yup, “the big one” isn’t really a question of “if,” it’s a question of “when.” And despite popular misconception, the lives of post-war survivors will not involve mutants, underground cities, and a lawless nomad society where only the strong survive. Rather, it’ll be a lot like Wyoming is now, but with more lesions and tumors, and about the same amount of waiting around to die.

Our Only Hope: A far-sighted and unified non-proliferation movement, or else a massive pre-emptive strike. Either one is good, really.

Appropriate Reaction: Watching Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome eighty-five times.

I hope this guide has helped you prepare for the inevitable and horrific death that awaits all of us. As for me, I’m writing this from an undisclosed location several miles below the surface of the Earth, so booyah suckers!

Dear Lord, Look Out! Ten Reasons You Should be Curled Into a Fetal Ball at All Times (Part I)

In this lethal world, it is utterly imperative that we recognize the dangers lurking all around us. Example: you could get eyestrain from reading this report, go blind, and wander into oncoming traffic. See? You’re never safe, ever. That’s why I decided to provide a guide to those impending threats that you have no way to guard against, those disasters-waiting-to-happen that dangle just over the heads of you and your children. Enjoy!

Meteors

It killed the dinosaurs. You think you’re any better? Huh? Are you better than a dinosaur?! That’s what I figured. Meteors the size of Texas routinely whiz by Earth, with little or no regulation to keep them from crushing us beneath their fearsome mass. And here’s the scary part: scientists don’t know what the hell to do about it. There’s no laser grid, no trampoline, no nothing. Instead, NASA spends billions of your tax dollars on think-tanks so that scientists can sit around and quantify exactly how much we’d be fucked if a meteor struck. Current research indicates “a lot.” So bend over, grab your ankles, and prepare to take a giant rock up the pooper.

Your only hope: A plucky team of explosives-wielding astronauts, and Bruce Willis’ death.

Appropriate Reaction: Constantly searching the sky for signs of imminent doom.

Terrorism

Terrorism didn’t die with our glorious and utter defeat of The Evil Empire of Iraq. No, it lives on, in our own friends and neighbors. The clear remedy is constant vigilance, and the willingness to call the cops on anyone who you think “looks ethnic.” In fact, only a traitor would refuse to blow the whistle on possible terrorists, and so-called “human rights advocates” are probably building natural gas-powered bombs in their basements as you read this. So don’t be afraid to accuse. It’s called a witch-hunt, and it’s a proud American tradition. After all, you don’t want witches around, do you?

Your Only Hope: Blind, slavering obedience to all-mighty Bush, God-chosen and God-endorsed.

Appropriate Reaction: Performing a little “neighborhood watch” on the Korean family down the block.

Identity Theft

Online identity theft is a growing menace to anyone who surfs the net. Nice, God-fearing people like yourself can find themselves losing thousands of dollars a day, their credit ruined, and their private visits to chubbyhubby.com no longer quite so private. Much like the documentary film The Net, victims of identity theft may be forced to engage in poorly-written banter and battle hordes of professional assassins before they can reclaim control over their lives. They will take your face and wear it as their own. In extreme cases, victims of identity theft have even been known to attend family functions only to be greeted with, “Chet? Chet who? I don’t know any Chet.”

Your Only Hope: If you think your identity may be compromised, send The Specious your credit card information immediately for verification.

Appropriate Reaction: Loudly proclaiming your identity at all times.

Cars

They’re huge blocks of bloodthirsty metal hurtling down the freeway at ninety miles an hour and piloted by someone too stupid to work from home. And if they’re anything like me, they’re probably drunk. Pedestrians, the scooter-riding, those unfortunate enough to have spent a year’s salary on a Segue: all are susceptible to the threat posed by cars, or, as I call them, C.A.R.S.: Charging Assassins of Raw Steel. Sadly, Gary Newman’s Cars, a grim warning of the threat automobiles pose, goes unheeded to this day.

Your Only Hope: Purchasing a car so huge, so gas-guzzlingly unwieldy that you are guaranteed to survive anything short of a twelve-car pileup.

Appropriate Reaction: Keeping your hands at 11 and 3, for that extra bit of control.

Your Loved Ones

They know all about you, they live in your house, and they may be plotting to kill/blackmail/molest you right now. Nearly all violent crimes are committed against family members, loved ones, or sexual partners. The odds are, if you’re not the one plotting, someone else in the family is. So buy a gun, start hating your mother, and wait for the inevitable come-on from Uncle Jeff.

Your Only Hope: Getting to them before they can get to you.

Appropriate Reaction: Shitting your pants in fright, thus emotionally distancing your loved ones.

Congo: Land of Jungles (A Dire Warning From the Heart of Africa)

From the majestic lion to the leathery rhinoceros, from the cackling hyena to the superintelligent ape, the African Congo's flora and fauna stand as a symbol of the infinite mystery and variety of a plenteous Earth. The womb that gave rise to the human species, this nest of ordered chaos has inspired numberless works of literature, from Heart of Darkness, to Apocalypse Now, to Predator II: The Book.

And yet, I had none of these lofty works in mind as I drifted lazily down the Congo River on an aging wooden ferry. Instead, I concerned myself only with the African heat that pricked at my skin, and my abject failure at getting someone on board to mix me a decent Cosmopolitan. I had tried clicking my tongue at them and jumping up and down, but all it had earned me was an extra sheen of brow sweat and a near-unpalatable Mai Tai.

I violently spat the drink out, misting the passengers on the upper deck, and tossed the glass overboard. Already I was questioning whether I had made the right decision in accepting CRACKED Editor Jack O'Brien's offer to trek the heart of Africa for a thousand-word satire column.

It was true: my writing had dried up as of late, and the Opium use had only increased since I started receiving regular checks from the magazine. I had tried to go back to huffing gasoline to save some money, but the buzz was never quite the same. In any case, there was only one explanation for the shakes and nausea I was suddenly getting: I was homesick.

I thought of my two boys, Sam and Dex, locked in their rooms back home with a Television and a jumbo bag of frozen Taquitos, awaiting my return in a few days time, and felt a tear well up.

I let my eyes wander towards the horizon, and our final destination. The sun setting on the water seemed to set the river aflame, as if we were sailing on a burnished golden mirror, or through a giant trough of urine. Reaching into my L.L. Bean khaki adventurer's vest, I retrieved a notepad and pen that I had purchased for the trip, opened to the first page—blank—and jotted down my impressions:

Golden river...trough of urine.

It needed something, I decided. I wasn't painting a picture, wasn't letting my readership feel what Africa was really about. I looked at the boat and passengers, waiting for another kernel of truth to bubble to the surface.

Everyone's black here, I wrote a moment later.

I closed the pad, satisfied. The heat was beginning to abate now, and a bell rang out dully, announcing that we would soon arrive in Mbandaka. It was there that I would meet my guide, and journey deep into the jungle, hoping to get a taste of “the real Africa” to supplement what knowledge I had already gleaned from National Geographic pieces and In Living Color marathons. Even my raging jungle fever seemed to subside as I considered the paradox of this verdant, and yet impoverished realm.

The sound of the captain's bass voice announcing our arrival snapped me out of my reverie. Like some foreign-dubbed Louis Armstrong, his proclamation rumbled throughout the ship and shook its way into my very bones. “What a wonderful world,” I whispered, pushing roughly past an elderly African woman to be the first onshore.

My hired guide, Madongo, was waiting for me along with a small troupe of others, all dressed in the traditional garb I had required them to wear. I thought their donning tribal costumes and paint would help lend an air of romance to the trip. I was not wrong.

Madongo's name means “uncircumcised” in the language of his people, and this fact was made apparent as we began trudging wordlessly towards the deeper parts of the jungle. Indeed, whenever I fell behind, entranced by the sight of a rare and beautiful flower or made to squeal in girlish terror by a flying bug the size of my fist, I quickly found my way again by following the track left by Madongo's enormous member as it dragged across the jungle floor.

A quarter mile into our hike, I decided to make a sketch of Madongo in my notebook. I drew a crude approximation of his wide frame, penis peeking out from under his front-robe like a black wiffle bat, just below where I'd written Everyone's black here. I circled the penis several times and closed the notebook.

Now we're cooking, I thought, and ordered one of the natives to carry me the rest of the way, as I had become weary and wished to nap. While we journeyed ever deeper into the jungle, I nodded off, lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of my obedient man-horse.

I dreamed of Madongo and myself, transported to a labyrinthine maze of topiary hedges, I riding in his strong arms while he hacked a path to freedom using only a machete. There was a rainbow overhead.

When I awoke, I lay face down in the mud, with my troupe nowhere in sight. I rolled over and sat up, utterly bewildered and still fighting the effects of post-nap grogginess. I soon found that I was in a pen, having been sold by Madongo to an African tribe in exchange for three crates of Eclipse chewing gum and a single napkin.

The rest of my visit to Africa proved to be a long, rambling, and nearly incoherent tale of enchantment, piracy, helicopter battles, and whirling tiger attacks. I returned home nearly six months later, on a hand-made raft of wood planks and dried spittle.

I had lost many things in Africa: my notebook, my vest, a large piece of one ear, and my aversion to giving blowjobs in exchange for food. But in exchange, I had gained a deep understanding of Africa, in the form of an incurable distrust of Black people. And that has made all the difference.

Also, Sam and Dex were dead.

FedEx/Kinko's Employee Training Manual, Part II

If you have not yet read part one of this manual, please do so now, and dock yourself one hour of pay for trying to skip ahead. Thank you!

MAKING COPIES OR PRINTS: A Last Resort

If your personal system of discouragement, obfuscation, and spy-caliber disguise mustaches fail to deter a customer, you may be faced with every employee’s biggest challenge: actually seeming to help a customer while still not doing so. The following tips will help you make the best of that four-letter word we call “work.”

We Have Paper?

In most cases, a customer will want a file of some sort printed out on paper. Don’t panic! FedEx/Kinko’s has got your back! Over the years, we have compiled a library of different paper options so massive and labyrinthine that no one person could ever hope to properly fathom it. By maintaining a staggering level of ignorance regarding your own wares and developing some basic improvisational skills, you too can stump a persistent customer with questions like “would you like that printed on the oversize grained goldenrod matt with the sateen finish, or the undergroomed canary sheetrock with the wicker stain?”

We Only Have BIG Paper

There is a reason we only offer print services on specialty paper in oversized units, and that reason is because if something’s not going to be the size of a billboard, it’s not worth our time. Feel free to show open disdain for people who want wallet-sized photos of their daughter printed on anything other than bathroom-quality paper towels. They deserve no better, and neither does their ugly daughter.

Prints Made While You Wait…and Wait

Try and give your customers optimistic estimates about when their order will be ready for pickup. No one wants to hear that it’s going to take four hours to get some prints, so if it is, just tell them it will be about forty-five minutes. They’ll appreciate your auspicious forecast. This is an especially successful tactic if you are not going to be on duty in forty-five minutes.

Time is Money

Remember, our internet-ready computer stations charge by the minute, so feel free to load them up with spyware, adware, and/or pornography you don’t feel comfortable keeping on your own computer. This will help maximize FedEx/Kinko’s profit by slowing our machines down to a healthy, molasses-grade crawl.

There’s no Such Thing as a Free Paperclip

We offer “complimentary” office supplies to our customers as a way to edge out our competition. However, tape doesn’t grow on trees (at least not until FedEx/Kinko’s R&D unveils their new tree-tape hybrid), so help us save precious strips of adhesive plastic and bent metal fasteners by discouraging their use wherever possible. If a customer is fastening a sheaf of papers less than a few inches thick, politely suggest that they simply fold the corners over, or purchase a FedEx/Kinko’s Professional Plastic Binder© for only $39.99.

Liars and Thieves

A recent study found that most people are despicable frauds, and in the case of customers trying to return “incorrect” or “badly damaged” print jobs, keep that fact in mind. Eye the would-be corporate pickpocket suspiciously, and if his or her photos are in fact damaged, distorted, or printed at the wrong size, pointedly insist that he or she “must have asked for that, since that’s what’s on the order form.” If they are persistent in their attempt to extort free prints out of the company, simply direct them to our “Customer Service Area” out behind the shed, and the FedEx/Kinko’s loss prevention team will take care of the rest.

BASIC PHOTO RETOUCHING: The Future is Now!

Using our space-age suite of photographic enhancement software, FedEx/Kinko’s employees who have been properly trained in the art of reality bending are able to alter time and space itself to shape worlds, sunder civilizations, and reduce redeye up to eighty percent.

Unfortunately, due to some recent lawsuits by SEARS photo studio, the number of photographic styles we are allowed to reproduce has been somewhat limited. Nevertheless, remember to suggest one of our own proprietary FedEx/Kinko’s special photographic enhancements to each and every customer, no matter how inappropriate the effect may be for their business presentation, wedding photo, or scientific thesis. Below is a handy guide to some common photographic styles we no longer offer, and their new, improved alternatives.

BREAKS: Take Them Whenever

Seriously, dude, it’s all cool. No worries here bra. Take that shit. Fifteen minutes? Hell no, go twenty. See if I give a fuck. My dad owns the franchise anyway, so it’s like…cha.

---

This concludes your FedEx/Kinko’s training! Congratulations! You are now qualified to turn what most would consider a simple task into a horrifying ordeal.

Also, you can run all of the big machines behind the counter. We used to have a pamphlet explaining how those work, but a guy burned them and we can’t figure out how to print more, so uh…I don’t know, just mess around with them I guess. You’ll figure it out.

REMEMBER, AT FEDEX/KINKO’S, YOUR OWN CONVENIENCE IS PARAMOUNT!

Welcome to Hell: An Orientation Manual for the New FedEx/Kinko's Employee

Welcome, new FedEx/Kinko’s Team Member! As you are probably aware, you have recently hit rock bottom, perhaps because of a drug dependency or history of familial sexual or psychological abuse. Here at FedEx/Kinko’s, we’re happy to have you!

As a member of the FedEx/Kinko’s team, it’s your duty to supply a level of service somewhere between a DMV office staffed by deaf mutes and a 24 Hour Fitness where instead of exercycles they have big guys punch you in the stomach.

Customers may call it punishment, but we call it FUNishment! If not, we risk having our pay severely docked and/or a session with “the hose.” Please read this primer in its entirety so as to better understand other ways in which you can incur the wrath of “the hose.”

CUSTOMERS: The Employee’s Worst Nightmare

When dealing with customers, it’s important to maintain a complex, distant relationship, characterized by morose apathy and occasional bouts of manic attentiveness. Sound unnecessarily difficult? It is!

Attending to Customers

The modern FedEx/Kinko’s customer is a person on the go, a businessman or –woman with places to be and things to do. As such, the best way to show them your respect is to provide them a wide berth, attempting neither to interact with them nor help them in any way. When a customer enters the store, try and move to the opposite side. Avoid eye contact, as they may feel that their superiority is being threatened. If they ask you a question, be wary: it may be a test of your fortitude. Play it safe by providing a vague, unsatisfactory answer, or simply by lying. HINT: A fun way to deal with customers is to try and imagine that they are invisible, or simply don’t exist!

Length of the Line

FedEx/Kinko’s employees work diligently each day to string retractable canvas straps between metal poles in the shape of a long line. Honor your fellow employees’ hard work by ensuring the line is kept at a maximum length for as long as possible. Customers will appreciate the more relaxed, European-style experience.

Customers’ Right to Privacy

By entering any of our FedEx/Kinko’s customer service centers, a customer waives all right to privacy regarding his or her photos, files, and/or upskirt shots you may take while they are on the premises. Forge a close personal bond with your customer by openly perusing their photos while assisting them with a print job. To add a degree of intimacy while rifling through their private memories, try muttering “whatever floats your boat,” “ooh…kaay,” or simply let out a low whistle and roll of the eyes. NOTE: Due to a recent lawsuit involving photos of a birth, employees are no longer encouraged to mix in the phrase “I’d hit that.”

Special Night-Shift Sidebar: The Crazy Story

If you have been hired for the FedEx/Kinko’s night shift, it is most likely because you are too crazy to staff the front counter during daylight hours, yet too sane for us to fire without incurring wrongful termination lawsuits. Put your special skills to use by entertaining late night guests with crazy stories about the weirdest thing you ever ate, the clandestine government actions you have been made privy to, or the life-changing acid-fueled road trip you and three fellow ‘Nam vets took across the American Southwest in 1971. Feel free to sprinkle in passionate political rhetoric, threats of violence against public figures, and/or muttered promises to “make them all pay.”

STORE ATMOSPHERE: The Fastest Way to Make Them Leave

A FedEx/Kinko’s customer service center should be more than a collection of self-service photo printers, computer workstations, and lazy, thieving employees. It should be the kind of place where parents take their children to teach them lessons about where they are headed in life if they don’t straighten out. Try and maintain an air of existential misery and tortured, yet undirected rage. If you are particularly well adjusted and find this difficult, use some of the following techniques to blend in with your fellow wraiths.

Downcast Eyes Say “Stay Away”

Much like frogs who expand their throats to frighten other animals away, proper body language can do wonders when it comes to maintaining your own bubble of impenetrably awkward personal space. Keep eyes glued to the floor, shoulders slumped, and breathe through your mouth to give the appearance that you are an unhappy troglodyte of a person, likely to react to a simple request with a surly “fuck off” and wag of the genitals, if not a violent beating.

Fluorescent Lights

It is the duty of all employees to ensure that the fluorescent lights in their FedEx/Kinko’s customer service center are functioning at the proper ratio. That ratio is as follows:

• 40% of lights working properly


• 30% of lights entirely out or with only one tube working


• 20% of lights flashing and buzzing loudly


• 10% of lights shooting live sparks

What Restrooms?

As you have probably become aware, most FedEx/Kinko’s customer service centers, having been built out of renovated slaughterhouses, have no restrooms. You are welcome to urinate or defecate in the alleyway/lunch area behind the store (or, as union contracts dictate, once per day inside the store), but should urge customers to seek restrooms elsewhere.

Smell and Sound: The Forgotten Senses

Make sure that each customer’s experience is a full one by appealing to all of his or her bodily senses. This can be done by simply spilling a few cases of pungent toner in the back room, and ensuring that all equipment in the store accompanies any simple action with an obnoxious beeping noise. This should include the opening of doors, printing of documents, use of scotch tape, or spilling of a case of toner.

NEXT: Managing Crisis! When you’re actually forced to do something

MQ Issue 136 Up

The most recent issue of the MQ to go online is now live, and you can check it out here. This is the penultimate issue with me as a contributing writer/EIC, so enjoy it. It's themed around the annual Sun God festival, when UCSD goes completely nuts for one day, so there's a fair amount of drunkenness-related humor. If you just want to scope out the pieces I wrote, I've provided links below, but I'm telling you, there's some good fake news in there. Not to mention easy-to-digest Top Ten lists!

• Born Again MacGyver Disproves Evolution Using Peanut Butter, a Baseball, a Rubber Band, and a Pocket Knife


• New York City Cracks Down on Jaywalking, Millions Trapped in Homes


• Staff Writer Composes Article While Drunk, Editor Clearly Too Drunk to Notice


• EDITORIAL: I Wrote This Entire Article On the Wall Above the Urinal While Peeing


• POINT/COUNTER-POINT: I Respect My Professors Too Much to Come to Class Drunk vs. I Respect My Students Too Much to Come to Class Sober

12 Great Games With Ridiculous Premises

Since I've already been roundly criticized by most people I know for not including their favorite great/ridiculous game in my new article on the CRACKED front page, I figure I might as well invite more punishment and relink the damn thing. Enjoy thinking of games I was a complete idiot not to include. Exhibit A, above, is a side-scrolling shooter where you fight giant, bald, spacefaring bodybuilders. Can you do better?

Subscribe Today for a Special Bonus Offer!

I am proud to unveil the MQ's official line of magazines, each handcrafted by the thoughtful and caring staff of your favorite campus satire paper, the Muir Quarterly. Our 'zines are primed to flood retailers everywhere very soon, so beat the rush and subscribe today! If you wish to subscribe to a title, simply email me all the money you have on you. Expect delivery at some point in the future.









A "CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE" NOTE: I didn't make all of these; not by a long shot. Mainly the first one, and a portion of the next four. The rest was done by the fabulous staff of my beloved MQ, specifically Anastassia Bendebury (Playing God), Ryan Kloos (Unpopular Mechanics and Obscured Pornography), John Miller (Embarrasing Medical Problems), Joe Kelly (Fancy Cat), and Ray Robles (Ray). Props also to Drew Stark, MQ's Content Editor, and the entire staff, all of whom contributed to the cover content.

Check out our newest issue (if you happen to be on UC-San Diego campus anytime soon) for more magazines and a bunch of other stuff.

Profiles in Excellence: Mitt Romney

I’m honestly surprised at the political apathy displayed by most of my family and friends. Of everyone I know, I was the only one who watched both of the first political debates. As such, I think I speak with a lot of authority when I say that Mitt Romney is the most handsome, and has a warm, smoky voice, which makes him easily the best candidate for President of these United States.

First of all, when the moderator—who could use some Botox if you ask me—asked the candidates what they thought about whether businesses should have the right to fire homosexuals, Mitt was the only one who smiled with the left side of his mouth and tossed his silver mane of hair like a preening lion.

Secondly, the name Mitt. Then thirdly, the name Romney.

Put that up against a Barack Obama or Denis Kucinich and see which one gets the respect of the free world. Mitts catch things, and Romney almost rhymes with ‘on me,’ which is where I want Mitt.

As for Hillary Clinton, who I hear is pulling ahead in the polls, are you kidding? This nation isn’t a lesbian, and even if it were, it wouldn’t go for a square-headed, bun-wearing, reverse-adulteress like her.

Mitt’s got a handle on the issues. He’s tall and he reminds us all of our father’s handsome friends. In the end, it’s that kind of deep moral center and unimpeachable character that’s going to see us through all the wars in the Midwest.

Mitt is handsome and because of that, I think it’s pretty fair to assume that he’s cultured, intelligent, friendly, strong and most of all, handsome. After all, so far all handsome people I’ve ever seen on television or magazine covers have been incredibly successful, and it’s only the uggos like Anna Nicole who ever go south.

As someone who actually cares about the election, I try and get my friends to look at pictures of Mitt Romney and the other candidates, but most of them insist on getting their opinions from purely written materials. One of my friends even listened to the debates on radio! How can you tell who is handsome doing that?

Yes, Mitt’s voice is enough to make me wet all over, but being a President is about more than that, and I think it’s irresponsible for voters not to at least google still images of the candidates to find out if they’re unknowingly voting for a hideous frogman like Mike Gravel.

So when you go to that booth and are casting your vote, remember: you’re going to have to look at this guy for the next six years. It’s six years, right?