Ok this Koala climbs a telephone pole and….

Last Wednesday the face of television was changed forever. Well, mine was anyway, as I had put my shoe through it. Yep, you guessed it; Fox had another brilliant idea in the form of Man vs. Beast, a show that pitted animals against vegetables on a network made by people with calcium deposits in the brain.

For those of you who saw it, I pity you. Those that didn’t see it, well, FEEL MY PAIN!! Mouse over pictures for captions

Man vs. Bear: If someone was to come up to me and ask, “who would win in a fight - a huge Kodiak bear or a hundred pound human?” I would have to say the bear.

“Ah,” that someone continues, “but there’s a snag, this contest involves eating hot dogs…” Oh, well in that case I’d have to go with, oh I dunno… THE BEAR!

Did you not hear me the first time?

Apparently not, cause they went ahead staged this little scuffle. And, amidst the high voltage wires and armory of tranquilizer guns, the Kodiak bear (dubbed the “Alaskan Cruncher”) won, consuming fifty hot dogs in under three minutes. There’s never anyone around to bet with. Though I must say I’m impressed with the human, who happens to be the world’s eating champion. He was able to consume 31 and a half in the same time. Maybe next time… if he goes up against a raccoon or something.

Man vs. Orangutan: Take one fresh from the zoo orangutan and one fresh from the zoo Sumo wrestler, tie them together with rope and have a tug of war… why lord? Why?.

“Commenting” on this “event” was “famed” “naturalist” Jules “Sylvester,” who placed his money on the primate due to the fact they swing from trees all day and are almost pure upper body strength, which is good for this type of competition. However, Mr. Sylvester then suddenly switched sides after the “Sumo” said he would win cause he was bigger… “sigh”

Man vs. Giraffe and Zebra: Who would win in a 100m dash, but on two different surfaces in weather not conducive to neither African plains animal nor Olympic sprinter? This one begged the question, “why even bother?” First they make the competition unequal by putting the animals on racetrack surface and the man on blacktop. Last time I checked, there weren’t too many highways parallel to stretches of ripped up sod out on the veldt. On top of that, the temperature was 40 degrees F. Now I realize this show is a lot of hooey, but at least make it a competition that could actually happen… on equal terms.

The bad news is - the giraffe lost. So I doubt the action figures will be found in Toys ‘R’ Us. It was his own fault though… he tripped.

The good new is the Zebra won, twice. Yes, twice. You see the Zebra false started the first time, like that made much of a distance. The man was beaten by at least 3 lengths each time.

Suck it up dude and take it like a…

Man vs. Chimp: Ah the classic rivalry to see who actually evolved. Up till now, this battle took place in high tech NASA labs and training facilities. Thanks to Fox however, we’ll got to see the quintessential showdown… on a cheaply made obstacle course?.

Well, the chimp lost. The man, ex Navy SEAL Scott Helvenston, had this to say of the failed chimp: “It’s just a wannabe human.”

It’s good to know if an army of apathetic monkeys invaded us, our armed forces could cope.

40 little people vs. Elephant: Indeed, this was the crowning glory of this fine program. I don’t even know where to begin on this one…. Take 40 little people (a.k.a. midgets, in case you didn’t know the modern P.C. term) and harness them to a DC-10 (a huge jet plane), do the same to an Asian Elephant and tell them both to run! Who would finish first? Oh yes, please tell me. I need the answer to this question that’s been burning in the collective head of humanity for eons.

And the best the best thing about using little people, they work for peanuts! Wait a minute!

All in all a very complete contest. We now concretely know animals will beat us 4 out of 6 times should we face them at a carnival. There was one event missing though: Who would win - 1000 monkeys at 1000 typewriters, or the jackass who came up with Man vs. Beast?

Photoshop Mayhem!

Ever wonder what would happen if ole Vlad Lenin came across a vile of ooze? Why, you’d get a Teenage Mutant Ninja Bolshevik of course.

Not my greatest work (for I’ve not yet begun to… umm… edit photos weirdly!), but people seem to dig it. The concept of TMNB comes from BlurryMystr (Chris Whetstone, artist of No 4th Wall to Break).

Might as well dump my other photoshoped monstrosities I haven’t found a place for yet:

Oh, and I should have the archives from the rokuzen.pitas.com weblog up here soon…. in the mean time, they’re still there, just point your browser.

New Year? Is that anything like “new Coke?”

Well, everybody should be over their New Years hangovers, and resolutions should have been shredded faster than… never mind, Enron jokes were so last year. So lets get down to brass tacks (what does that mean anyways?):

Predictions for the new year!

I say it’s gonna stink and no good is going to come from it. Why, you ask?

No, it’s not the fact that Iraq and the U.S. are going to tango soon. Sure it will be a bloody mess, but we’ll come out on top… probably.

And no, it’s not the fact that North Korea and the U.S. are going to cha-cha. What’s the worse that could happen there? Nuclear annihilation? Please… sure the surface of the earth would be turned into glass, but that could be a good thing. Industrial scotch-guard! A laminated planet would mean environmentalists would never again have to worry about those nasty oil stains… or footprints for that matter.

And it’s certainly not the fact that aliens are cloning our children for an Unholy Army of Replicants from Beyond Belgium. There’s not much threat from babies born with seventy-year old organs and have arthritis. Jango Fett they ain’t (obligatory Star Wars reference). If anything, it’d be like a legion of eveyone’s stereotypical aunt. Nothing that could mess up a year.

The reason that this brave new year is going to make me ill is this: Say two-thousand and three… go on, say it out loud a few times.

Not too catchy is it? This is the future damnit! We need to have a year that rolls off the tongue.

1999 - pretty cool. Not only was it the harbinger of the new millennium to come, it was a Prince (rather, Artist Formerly Known As) song. Lyrical and prophetical.

2000 - A good sounding year. Ominous, yet easy to say. Twoooo-thousand. Y2K. I like it; lets keep it.

2001- Enough said. This year has been in floating throughout our language for so long, it’s hard not to say it… Monoliths people, monoliths!

2002 - Not bad… it is a palindrome (of sorts) after all. Two thousand and two; nice.

Now we come to the train wreck, 2003 - the year of the suffering dog… Two thousand and threeeeeee; Sounds like somebody scraping a chalkboard. 2002 you can trail off - two thousand and twoooo. Try that with this year and people are going to think you just saw a mouse. Because of this, 2003 has an unspoken thud after it. Two thousand and three, period! Try it. See!

So, this year isn’t going to be bad because of war, famine, plague, crazed cults or anything like that. It’s simply because father time gave his boy a sissy name.