“Heroes is like looking at an ex-girlfriend. You know there was so much potential there, and you want to believe in it, but you can’t look past the scathing flaws that make you wrong for one another.”

–Jeremy Alonzo

“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.”

Nor can you sell a publisher a manuscript you haven’t written yet.* Get writing!

*Unless your past books have sold notably well, in which case I hate you.

I don’t trust anyone that calls himself a “superhero.” The only difference between a “superhero” and a “supervillain” is that the villain’s been caught.

–Paingod

Agent Orange: Greetings, Mammal-Black! I require your expertise.

Agent Black: Tax trouble again?

Agent Orange: Indeed. Your former colleagues at the IRS persist in their shameless schemes to extort me.

Agent Black: And did this vendetta against you begin before or after you insisted on paying your income taxes in pennies?

Agent Orange: That wouldn’t have seemed unreasonable if they hadn’t demanded so much money!

“Ulysses is a totally incomprehensible book. Understanding it is like machine-gunning a pack of unicorns. Anyone that claims to have done either is lying, but should be institutionalized anyway.”

–Cadet Davis

“When you kill one person, it’s a tragedy. When you kill a thousand people, it’s a statistic. When you kill a million people, you’re in.” – The Supervillain Hall of Fame

“When I was a third grader, I wanted to be a President, a pilot or a ninja. Unfortunately, I’m too clumsy to be a ninja, too blind to be a pilot, and too moral to run for President.”

–B. Mac

Catastrophe: “I don’t have a gambling problem. I win.”

Picture courtesy of the US War Dogs Association.

“Truth is the glue that holds government together.” — Gerald Ford

“If you want to live under something held together by glue, you probably wouldn’t make much of an architect.” — Mike, Director of the Office of Special Investigation’s RETCON branch.

Picture c/o simplydumb.com, caption courtesy of me (inserted with the help of ICanHas Cheezburger.com

Agent Orange: Greetings, Mammal-Black! I have an excellent costume for our upcoming office Halloween party. It makes full use of my mammal-frightening teeth and reptilian horror factor and this pleases me.

Agent Black: Godzilla?

Agent Orange: IRS agent.

Agent Black: That’s a terrible costume.

Agent Orange: Don’t make me take 28% of your candy!

Dr. Darpa: I heard that Russia is now patrolling its nuclear-armed bombers 24 hours a day now.

Captain Carnage: That’s right.

Dr. Darpa: That could destabilize US-Russian relations, if we thought there were any conceivable chance Russian bombers could get close enough to attack Chicago or Seattle.

Captain Carnage: I’d say at least 50%.

Dr. Darpa: 50%, hah! Not after you see what I’ve been working on: Project Unmutually Assured Destruction. It’s the largest surface-to-air missile site ever built. It was so colossal that I could only fit it in Yosemite National Park.

Captain Carnage: An antiballistic missile site in a national park?

Dr. Darpa: Now, the only remaining task is to name it. I present to you: the Yosemite SAM Site.

I got into Lolcats today and I find it stupidly amusing.

Climbing Gator picture taken from here.

Agent Orange: Kids today are so hard to please.

Agent Black: I don’t even want to think about how you might know that.

Agent Orange: Yesterday…

Teacher: Class, today our guest speaker is Agent Orange.

Agent Orange: I’m a Special Investi-Gator.

Teacher: Could you explain what it is you do?

Agent Orange: Are you sure? There are kids here.

Student 1: Have you ever killed anyone?

Agent Orange: Laws need claws or they’d just be words.

Student 2: How many people have you killed?

Agent Orange: The confirmed score or a rough estimate?

Agent Black: …

Agent Black: Suddenly I have questions of my own.

The biggest suckers in football are the Jets. In basketball, the refs. In soccer, the spectators.

– Agent Orange

Agent Black and everybody’s favorite mutated alligator, Agent Orange, have a strange conversation about killing terrorists with sponge-cake. And other questions you never thought to ask!

Continue Reading »

Soccer can teach us a lot about Europe. There’s a lot of running but precious little action, and violence is always liable to break out at any moment.

– Agent Orange

The root of evil is not money. It is the metric system, a strange cult that worships the number ten. It starts with a meter here and a newton there, and soon enough you’re selling kilos of crack to kids.

–Agent Orange

Agent Black and everybody’s favorite mutated alligator, Agent Orange, have a heated argument about one of America’s most popular daily comic-strips, Don Gato.

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Is there any other way to explain “Operation Enforcing the Law“?

Hat tip to Fark.com .

Picture taken courtesy of NetteBini.

Superheroes should never ask “are you thinking what I’m thinking?” The answer is never helpful.

But where could you find that much nitroglycerin at this hour?

–Dr. Darpa

Unless your IQ has tripled since we’ve last spoken, probably not.

–Catastrophe

You are now.

–Mr. Mental

Don’t flatter yourself.

–Paingod

Science plays heavily in many superhero stories. So, today, instead of coming up with some pithy quote about science, we’ve used others to do so for us.

What is science?

Hocus pocus, but with less hand-waving.

– Agent Orange

Always being within a carton of baking soda of a doomsday device.

– Dr. Darpa

Like Hollywood, except without the beautiful women, oversized budgets and snappy outfits. Actually, it’s not like Hollywood at all, besides the explosions.

–Dr. Savant

A series of triumphs over unpleasant realities.

– Jacob Mallow

Pretty awful. Stick to game theory.

– Catastrophe

Agent Orange: I have learned something important about mammals. Two quasi-mystical words will put a mammal into a hypnotic stupor that will force him to believe anything.

Agent Black: You’re crazy.

Agent Orange: I am prepared to demonstrate my new-found learning of mammalian psychology. First, I will greet a victim-mammal of your selection. Then you will make an outlandish statement. And I will administer the two word hypnotic spell.

Agent Black: Let’s see it.

Five minutes later.

Agent Orange: Greetings, Mammal-Darpa! We have learned something intriguing on our latest posting.

Dr. Darpa: What?

Agent Black: We were attacked by robotic, flesh-eating airplanes.

Agent Orange: IN JAPAN!

Agent Black: … !

Dr. Darpa: Egads! How did you survive?

Agent Black: …

Agent Black: NO!

[end] (If you’d be interested in reading a related article, “Stuff Mammals Like: Japan,” please see more.

Continue Reading »

Agent Black stumbles into the Special Investigations lunchroom, his face and suit covered with ashes, dust and blood.

Captain Carnage: You look like you done tried your IRS mojo on a Texas woman.

Agent Black: Would you rather have Agent Orange drive a car or handle a submachine gun?

Captain Carnage: Is that a trick question?

Agent Black: Do I look like I’m feeling tricky right now?

Captain Carnage: Well, is Agent Orange in a combat zone on another continent, or is he somewhere where a red light actually means something?

Agent Black: Washington, DC. In my car.

Captain Carnage: Hotdamn, kid. I wouldn’t get in a tank if I knew O.J. was driving it. Give him the submachine gun, I reckon it’s less likely to hurt nastylike when he gets you killed. Those damn reptiles, they drive like everyone’s limbs grow back.

Agent Black: So, I was driving Orange. He was late to a meeting on Capitol Hill.

Captain Carnage: Hooh boy. I like where this is going.

Agent Black: We got a red light and Agent Orange says something like “why are you stopped? Keep moving, keep moving, dummy.”

Captain Carnage: Alligators reckon green and red’re the same color. When they talk about traffic lights, y’just gotta take it like Congress talking about collateral. They’re talking, but they’re not really talking, y’reckon?

Agent Black: Well, uhh. I’d heard about the green-red colorblind thing before. So I said “shuddap, I know we’re late.” And then the back of our car exploded.

Captain Carnage: Rocket launcher ambush?

Agent Black: Ambushes.

Captain Carnage: Many?

Agent Black: Four cars.

Captain Carnage: Hot damn! So you had to pick between driving or shooting. Damn sure he ain’t doing the driving. He makes NASCAR look like bumper cars. You know he once managed 8 digits of damage with a golf-cart?

Agent Black: I believe it.

Captain Carnage: Since you survived, I reckon you gave him the gun. But how did he shoot it? His hands are big enough to palm a rifle.

Agent Black: I took the gun.

Captain Carnage: But that means…

Captain Carnage: !

Agent Black: I long for death’s sweet embrace.

Later that day:

Agent Orange: Greetings, mammal-Mike!

Mike: The Captain said you had an interesting day today.

Agent Orange: I met a wily mammal-gelatoier.

Mike: A gelatoier?

Agent Orange: A mammal that sells gelato. He introduced me to the seedy and sinister gelato underworld by tricking me with a gallon of orange-flavored gelato. That was very interesting. No doubt Mike-flavored gelato would interest you. But his alleged “orange” flavor was not even remotely similar to my real orange flavor, which proves that it was a foul ruse. I also seem to have lost feeling in my digestive tract. In retrospect, I have concluded that gallons of orange gelato are better-suited to mammals than cold-bloods.

Mike: I think Carnage was referring to an attempted assassination with rocket launchers.

Agent Orange: Oh, there was that, too.

Mike: …

Mike: Don’t you think that was a little bit more interesting than the gelato?

Agent Orange: (Mammals). Before today, I had not ever been offered gelato, let alone gelato that was (purportedly) in my flavor. But assassination attempts are a dime a dozen. In fact, perhaps the gelato was an assassination attempt.

Agent Black: You’ve claimed that alligators invented football, baseball and basketball.

Agent Orange: That’s right.

Agent Black: … (Do I even want to know?)

Agent Orange:

Many generations of alligators ago, before the Swamp and before widely available chemical mutagens, my alligator ancestors lived in a state of total boredom.  There was painfully little to joke about besides the pathetic failings of crocodiles, which were obvious even in those dark times.  And, given that there weren’t any mammals, we couldn’t even make fun of golf.

One day a brash, stupid crocodile (to the extent that any crocodile can be unusually stupid) challenged a legendary alligator, the Gregarious One, to a wrestling spectacle. Unsurprisingly, the crowds of gators and crocodiles bore witness to a quick slaughter. Within ten seconds, the crocodile’s head had come clean off. The disappointed crowds began to disperse. The Gregarious One shouted them to attention.

He challenged the crocodiles to stop him and his gator compatriots from ejecting the head of the offending crocodile from the Everglades.  The crocodiles chased the G.O. to the dark ridges at the edge of the glades, where he fooled them into thinking that he would kick the head away. But the kick was a fake, and the crocodiles were entirely unprepared for his bold victory march. Thus the first football game was a Gators victory, 6-0.

Agent Black: …

Agent Black: What about baseball?

Agent Orange: Well… the alligators weren’t quite done with the ball when they took it out of the Everglades.

Agent Orange, paraphrasing Groucho Marx: “Outside of an alligator, a rocket launcher is certainly your best friend. Inside of an alligator, I’d recommend a gun.”

It is only when a politician speaks clearly that he is required to “clarify” himself.

–paraphrased from Thomas Sowell

“Gator Nation is more like a cult than a nation, but there are elements of patriotism mixed in with its religiosity.”

–An anonymous LSU sociologist, shortly before bursting into tears

This LSU supporter’s comment is reasonably insightful. But the bonds between Gator Nation, patriotism and faith are actually tighter than he knows. The Gator Gods will wreak horrible fates on teams that prove unworthy…

Web Gumbo provides a great picture of his unit mascot. You might wonder what a Marine mascot does. Deliver pep talks? Rally the fans? Please.

Agent Orange, our mutated alligator, says that “it’s not surprising that they turned to an alligator when they needed someone to scare and bond with Marines. Here you can see the gator playing Marco Polo with a Marine that is obviously enjoying the gator’s friendly and sociable company.”

Lash retorts retorts that “if the guy’s actually enjoying anything, it’s probably the thought that he will soon not be dangling over a watery grave.”

“A leader who is poor is a poor leader.”

– Carlos Gonzalez

“If you were a good leader, you wouldn’t need any money.  Worshipers and soldiers–ones worth having, anyway– cannot be purchased.  If you think the difference between a real military force and a gang is shiny tanks and well-pressed uniforms, you might as well shoot yourself and spare us the trouble.”

–Paingod

My opponents have claimed that I’m an “evil, reptilian kitten-eater from another planet.” Well, I’m not evil. It attacked me.

–Agent Orange, mutated alligator and self-defending ailurophage

Our mutated alligator, Agent Orange, offers us these insights into misconceptions about alligators.

—

Fiction: “gators attack innocent animals.”

Fact: We gators defend ourselves when attacked. It’s not our fault we’re stronger, faster and bigger.

—

Fiction: alligators kiss.

Fact: John is actually attempting to defend his dubious claim that he had the biggest jaw in the swamp. Hah! I’ve seen bigger hatchlings.

—

Fiction: gators like to make mammals feel inadequate.

Fact: We aren’t just smiling to show off our stunningly white teeth. I mean, if we really wanted to humiliate you, we’d challenge you to a swimming race. Or football.

—

Fiction: Gators are nearly flawless.

Fact: “Nearly”?

Agent Orange, everybody’s favorite mutated alligator, has this friendly public service announcement for the residents of California’s 4th district.

Theodore Terbolizard is running for Congress. We all are in grave danger. Lizards are pathologically dishonest, which is why they love to sell car insurance and overpriced water. And run for Congress.

But this candidate is not merely a lizard. He is, by his own confession, a Turbolizard. He will run Congress so depravedly as to make the rest of Congress look good.

Unsurprisingly, his lizard cronies have rallied to his defense. “We need more lizards in office,” says a lizard named “Sharmuta”. Or should I say Shamuta?

What does Turbolizard stand for, besides pathological deception and nefariousness? “I am opposed to the use of terrorism… since the end of World War II, the United States has continually meddled in the internal affairs of Iran, and I am opposed to this interventionist policy.” How typically lizardly. He is allegedly opposed to terrorism but opposes any action against terrorists! This is like saying “I’m OK with mammals, but mammal-killing is a fine choice, too.”

It is safe to say that a vote for Turbolizard is a vote for the turbo-genocide of mammals. I’m Agent Orange and anyone that doesn’t approve of this message is probably a lizard bent on your destruction.

B. Mac gave me this to post. He says he will be healthy enough to return to full-time status within a few days.

Agent White, junior recruiter: Mr. Smith, I have no doubt that you are an excellent IRS auditor, but I’d like to know more about how an accountant might be qualified for this agency. What about killing. Have you done any of that?

Gary Smith: No, sir.

Agent White: Have you ever seen someone die brutally? A de-limbing, perhaps?

Gary Smith: No, sir.

Agent White: I see. You seem like an excellent fit… for the IRS. I’m going to do you a favor and ask that you leave now. You would break in ten minutes here and you probably wouldn’t even be the first.

Gary Smith: …

Gary Smith: Is that a request or an order?

Agent White: …

Agent White hits his intercom button.

Agent White: Agent Orange, could you step inside, please?

Agent Orange, a hulking mutated alligator, enters the room.

Agent Orange: Greetings, mammals! Mammal-White, Mammal-Smith.

Agent White: Sir, could you please describe to Mr. Smith what your job is here?

Agent Orange: Indeed! I’m the head recruiter and trainer. I determine who enters training and then how best to systematically destroy them. We’ve reduced our mortality/psychosis rate to a historically low 6%!

Agent White: Mr. Smith, so far Agent Orange has broken six Navy SEALS, five Force Recons, ten Army Rangers and so many Special Agents we’ve stopped counting.

Gary Smith: But no accountants, I bet.

Agent Orange: …

Agent Orange: When are you available to start?

“I only gradually realized that Gary Smith was wily for a mammal. That should have been obvious. He was an accountant and, as a rule, accountant-mammals are masters of chicanery and deception. (That is why they, like lawyers and journalists, receive graduate degrees: it takes years to learn the arts of subterfuge).”

–Agent Orange

“Life is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”  — Thomas Edison

“Success is 1% swagger and 99% dagger.”  — Cadet Davis

He who has the gold makes the rules, but he who has the golden gun enforces them.

–J.M.

I’d like to add that creating witty lines is terribly difficult for me. B. Mac had damn well get better soon; this is killing me.

Hey! I’ve revised and updated Agent Orange’s quotes. (You can see the old one here, but it’s harder to read and the quotes are worse). Enjoy.

Agent Orange, our resident mutated alligator, offers us these insights into Things Mammals Like:

1. Seatbelts. Why anyone would want to be attached to a flaming, twisted deathtrap is beyond me. If you find yourself in a car with a mammal– particularly one named Agent Black– the windshield is your surest path to freedom. Indeed, attempting to escape his mobile coffin by hurling yourself through the windshield would probably improve your odds of survival.
2. Traffic signals. These hypnotic lights calm mammal drivers but scare mammal driving instructors when a reptile is taking a driving test. Relatedly, did you know that alligators are red-green colorblind?
3. Playing golf. The mystery of golf-playing has fascinated alligators for eons, which is why you can find so many of us at golf-courses. Then the mammals shoo us away because they know how goofy their clothes look. (Mammals).

St. Patrick’s Day

Agent Orange: Greetings, mammal-Black!

Agent Black: You’re wearing a green trenchcoat.

Agent Orange: Daringly green. I notice you’re wearing a green tie.

Agent Black: Yeah, I’m celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. I would assume that you are, too, but yesterday you claimed that St. Patrick was a reptile-hater that cleansed Ireland of its snakes.

Agent Orange: Indeed! And St. Patrick’s grim legacy of reptilian removal is precisely why every alligator eagerly observes Gatriot’s Day.

Agent Black: Gatriot’s Day?

Agent Orange: Yep. We wear green to celebrate alligator virtues.

Agent Black: Such as…

Agent Orange: Well, there’s carnage, whupass, and charity. Ooh, teeth, too. That’s a big one.

Agent Black: Does it bother you that every, uhh, human wearing green today is celebrating St. Patrick?

Agent Orange: Ehh. American gators survived him and other predators. In fact, only the American and Chinese gators survived. Everyone else died out. Why do you think we lived?

Agent Black: A favorable climate, stable food supply and relatively little human contact?

Agent Orange: No, you dummy! Because of Gatriot’s Day.

Agent Black: Oh, uhh… I see. That makes sense. (Nutcase).

Agent Orange: So, on every Gatriot’s Day, American gators use four-leaf clovers to explain the true nature of our awesomeness to heathen mammals. Not coincidentally, the Four Pillars of American Awesomeness are green: the Statue of Liberty, dollars, military camouflage and go-signs. These four pillars represent freedom, happiness, strength and energy. And they, like the leaves on a clover, rest on the stem, which obviously represents gators.

Agent Black: (Obviously). … Hey, do you actually have a four-leaf clover? I’ve never seen one before.

Agent Orange: Indeed! Look, here…

Agent Black steals the clover.

Agent Black: Thanks.

Agent Orange: Hey!

Agent Black: And a happy Gatriot’s Day to you, too!

“I’m not a poker shark.  Did you know that coconuts kill more people than sharks do?  I’m like a hurricane of coconuts.”
–Catastrophe

“The war on terror will not be won with just bombs and guns. We’ve got knives, too.”

–Agent Orange

Fiction is a response to threat. No one wants to read happily ever after. That’s why the story ends at happily ever after.

–Cadet Davis

It has been incorrectly claimed that the Office of Special Investigation’s Human Resources branch terminates with extreme prejudice. Make no mistake: we are 100% committed to equal opportunity.

–Agent Orange, OSI-HR Director

Our mutated alligator, Agent Orange, presents us this nugget of reptilian wisdom.
Many mammals believe that, because alligators are friendly and helpful, that all reptiles must be similarly awesome. This is not the case.

The Associated Press gives a grisly account of an alligator forced to prove his awesomeness after being attacked by a python.

The snake apparently tried to swallow the gator whole—and then exploded. Scientists stumbled upon the gory remains last week.

Unsurprisingly, snakes have proven completely ineffective against gators.

And we here are, [a gator-snake fight has] happened for the fourth time,” Mazzotti said. In the other cases, the alligator won or the battle was an apparent draw.

And the only reason there was a draw was because the gator felt merciful.