A Look Back on Harry Potter

2011 saw the last installment in the Harry Potter film franchise and for many it was bittersweet moment where a beloved chapter of their childhood was coming to a close. My reaction however was complete indifference, and when I tell this to people they often give me confused looks and ask how I can be so nonchalant about the whole thing. Here I shall look back on my relationship with Harry Potter and attempt to explain why I stopped caring long ago.

I’ve noticed that a big part of Harry Potter fandom, at least early on, was bragging about how often you’ve read the book or how many times you’ve seen the movies. Well I’m going to make a confession that may just blow your fucking minds: I’ve only read each book once and haven’t seen any of the films after the first one. It’s not that I’ve come to dislike Harry Potter. I still enjoy the books and consider myself a fan (albeit not a diehard one), but I never really saw much point in re-reading them over and over again, and the movies I simply found to be subpar and not as good as the books so I wasn’t all that interested in lining up for the midnight releases. Instead I just read different books that piqued my interest, rather than obsessing over one series. When people tell me, “I’ve read Philosopher’s Stone seven times, how about you?” I respond, “I’ve only read it once and then I read Animal Farm, Lord of the Rings, The Giver, Watchmen, The Once and Future King, One Hundred Years of Solitude, etc.,” and then they walk away thinking I’m a pretentious dick. My point being, I found a whole other world of literature and wonder outside of Harry Potter and felt no strong desire to return once I’d left.

I started reading Harry Potter some time in elementary school prior to the release of the 4th book. I enjoyed the charm, magic, and adventure of the 1st book, found myself incredibly bored by the 2nd, and enjoyed Prisoner of Azkabam most of all. There were plenty of interesting characters, but when I look back now I find it impossible to choose a favourite not because they are so many great ones that spring to mind, but because there aren’t really any who stand out as my particular favourite. If I were forced to choose I suppose I would go with Lupin, but I never really felt like I got to know him. Meanwhile the main trio I found myself mostly sick of by the end of the series. With the publication of Goblet of Fire, I felt that the series had lost the original charm I fell in love with, and I started disliking Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Most would argue that this is because the series adopted a more adult tone, but despite the increase in bloodshed and the higher word count, I didn’t feel that these were now serious novels. A bunch of romantic subplots were shoehorned in that I found cringe-inducing, the characters don’t really mature (if anything, Harry is more of a whiny brat by the end), and the plot got increasingly silly even for a work of fantasy. Before I read the last book I predicted that Harry would die and then come back to life in an inadequately explained manner. I was sorely disappointed to find out I was right. I’m not going to kid myself into believing that this was ever high literature, and to believe that it is misses the whole point to Harry Potter. It’s a magical world of escapism that’s fun to read and filled with adventure. At least that’s what it was at the start. By the end I found myself reading the final book only because I’d read all of the previous ones and decided that I might as well finish it off. That’s not to say it was a terrible book, but it just wasn’t the same anymore.

In many ways it’s rather sad that I became disillusioned with this aspect of my childhood which at its height comprised quite a large portion of it. I just can’t bring myself to see it with the same veil of nostalgia that everybody else sees it through. The same thing has happened with many other cultural touchstones while I was growing up. Everything to do with Pokemon other than the video games I now find terrible, Digimon wasn’t much better, Dragonball Z was mostly grunting, and the Redwall books were absurdly violent, repetitive, and overlong. Even Star Wars seems pretty silly now and I fucking loved Star Wars. Really the only thing I still view as being equally great now as when I first saw it is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. So now as I sit here reminiscing on Harry Potter and my childhood, I suppose it was more good than bad. It gave me more pleasant experiences overall than so-so experiences (I wouldn’t say I had any bad ones), but I won’t miss it and the only reason I’d go back to it is in the unlikely scenario that I have children of my own. For now I’ll just put it all behind me and finish up the far more magical and gripping Sandman series which I highly recommend you all read if you haven’t already.

The Amazing Adventures of the Power Twins

Whenever evil rears its ugly head, have no fear! The Power Twins are always on hand to save the day! On the one hand there’s Erika armed with the ability to fly, turn invisible, shoot lightning from her hands, amazing durability, and super strength! On the other hand there is Jennifer with her spectacular ability to knit and sew, and also she has a car! Together they beat back the terrifying Tentacle Rape Monster, foiled the plot of the devious Doctor Machinegunhands, and locked away the vile Vendetta Knife Zombie! But can they surmount their deadliest obstacle yet, Andrew, who broke the sacred covenant of Secret Santa and has the power to control and manipulate ice as cold as his heart? When we last left our heroes they were on their way to his secret lair in the Canadian Arctic. Let’s check in on them now for the conclusion to their adventure.

Andrew’s had taken great precautions to establish his hideout in the least accessible location possible. To get there one had to travel many kilometers along twisty and icy roads filled with hairpin turns around steep cliffs. One wrong move would send you plummeting over the edge to a cold and lonely death. Compounding matters was the fact that it always snows heavily in this area of the world thanks to Andrew’s powers, making the road even more difficult to travel. Luckily, even the most dangerous of road conditions were no match for Jennifer and her expert driving skills.

“Are there yet?” asked Erika after a prolonged silence, “I’m bored.”

“Shut up okay! I’m trying to concentrate,” replied her irate and stressed sister.

“Sheesh! Why are you in such a bad mood?”

“We’re not exactly in the prairies right now. I kinda need to focus on the road right now.”

“You know I could just fly us there, right? It would probably be a lot faster.”

“Shut up! I can do this!”

“Okay, okay. Don’t throw a hissy fit. You don’t always need to prove that you’re useful. You can totally do stuff! We’d be freezing without those scarves you made.”

“I’m not trying to prove anything! I’m just as powerful as you!”

“Of course you are. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“Oh, look. We’re here!” Jennifer pointed out excitedly as they cam upon a massive ice fortress atop the mountain peak. They rushed inside and found Andrew sitting upon his icy throne with his hands clasped together and a grimace on his face.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Jenerika. I’ve been expecting you, though I must say you’re a tad late,” sneered the villain.

“We’re called The Power Twins!” shouted Jennifer angrily.

“I like the sound of Jenerika better. Has a nice ring to it don’t you agree?” inquired Andrew snidely.

“Shut up! We’re here to bring you to justice for all of your past crimes!” Erika threatened.

“We’ll see about that. Ice minions! Get them!”

At that a slew of misshapen ice creatures burst forth from the floor and charged at our heroes. Erika made short work of them with her electrical shocks. Andrew threw razor sharp ice shards at her faster than a blink of an eye, but she shrugged off the blows without a scratch. Next he attempted to freeze her in place with ice, but she broke free effortlessly. Jennifer meanwhile hid behind a rock.

“Curses!” cursed Andrew, “You may be impervious to my attacks, but I’d like to see you follow me down below the icy depths of the Arctic Sea.” And with that he hopped inside his ice submarine that was sticking out of a crack in the ice and launched into the ocean.

“How can he get to the ocean when we’re on top of a mountain?” wondered Erika aloud.

“Logic doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that we have to follow him.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“Leave that to me,” said Jennifer as she broke out her knitting tools. With tremendous speed she knitted a fully-functional submarine complete with periscope. They smiled at one another, clambered inside, and gave chase to Andrew. In no time at all they had caught up with him for he believed that he was completely safe beneath the waves and was taking his sweet time. It came as quite a surprise when his radar indicated that the twins were close behind, but by then it was too late. They rammed into his starboard side and punched a rather large hole into his icy vessel. He manage to seal it back up again, by freezing the water that poured in, and he breathed a sigh of relief that the twins had not used to the opportunity to rush aboard.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” said a voice behind him. He turned in shock to see Erika materialize behind him winding up a punch. She jammed her fist into his stomach and sent him flying across the sub into the walls. He slumped down on the ground unconscious. She then piloted the ship to the surface and carried Andrews limp body to her sister’s waiting ship.

“He’s down for the count. Time to go home,” said Erika Cheerfully. Jen made a really lame pun about ice which I shall not repeat here, and they both returned to Surrey where they handed Andrew over to the prison authorities who shut him up in solitary confinement for rejecting the ways of Secret Santa. They then went and made a nice cup of hot cocoa and did weeaboo things like watch anime, read manga, speak in Japanese for no reason, fawn over their favourite androgynous characters, and cosplay.

Dark Dave Conquers the Moon

The other day a friend was telling me how she often sympathizes with the villains in stories which reminded of an assignment I did back in high school in Writing 12 where we had to write a children's story. Since I was feeling lazy today, I decided I'd just put that up for you instead of writing brand new material (though I did alter the ending a bit). Enjoy.

Of all the supervillains in history of time there has only been one that can claim to be the evilest. A villain so vile that all the heroes tremble in fear at the mention of his name, and all the crooks bow low as he walks past. That villain is me, Dark Dave.

I have the power to send things flying and to run really, really fast. I have a black cape and a black mask. I have a ray gun and a watch that glows in the dark. But I don’t have a secret lair.

I need to find the perfect place for a base. Somewhere nobody would ever look surrounded in darkness. Some place large enough to house all my contraptions and clever plans. I don’t know where that place could be, but it’s definitely not my bedroom.

With no clue what I should use as a lair I turned to the sky for ideas. And there it was. Of course! It was so obvious. The moon had it all, and best of all there was nobody else up there to bother me or tell me what to do. I could hardly wait to go, but first I had to get some special equipment.

I rushed to my toy- I mean Box of Evil to gather my stuff. I knew that there was no air on the moon and no gravity either. So I got my snorkel so I could breathe and put some rocks in my pockets to weigh me down. That should do it. Now all I had to do was get there.

Most people get to the moon on rocketships, but I don’t have a rocketship so I’ll have to come up with something else. I might try building my own, but I don’t think I have the stuff to do that. Rocketships also make lots of fire and I know that fire is hot and if the stove has taught me anything it’s that hot things hurt.

First I tried jumping, but I couldn’t even reach the roof of my house. So I tried putting springs on my shoes to give me more bounce, but when I tried jumping on them I just fell flat on my face. I’ll work on that little kink when I get to the moon.

Maybe I could fly there, like a bird. That sounds easy enough. All I have to do is make some wings. Luckily I am great inventor so that shouldn’t be too hard. Just cut up some paper to look like feathers and then glue it onto some cardboard and presto! You got a pair of wings. Now I just have to try them out.

Bad news. It didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. No matter how fast I ran I couldn’t get in the air. I don’t know how kites do it. Birds just jump out of trees to fly, so I thought it was worth a shot. My mom, on the other hand, did not. But it wasn’t all bad. It did give me another idea.

When I climbed the tree in my backyard I realized that it was the closest I had come to reaching the moon. It kind of worked like a ladder. And that’s how I came up with the idea to build a ladder to the moon. It’s safe, cheap, and foolproof. I think the tree will be a good place to start building from. It’s already pretty high and I kind of like it up there.

All the supplies I need are in my basement. It’s pretty dark down there, but nowhere near as dark as Dark Dave. I ran down the stairs and found the hammer, some nails, and as much wood as I could carry then ran back up as fast as I could (I was pressed for time you see, so I had to run).

I took everything outside and got to work. This was going to take a long time. I figure at least three hours. I might not even be finished before bedtime. It was really tough work and some things didn’t nail together quite right, but I kept at it because Dark Dave never gives up.

My dad saw me building outside and came out to see what was up. I told him I was building a ladder to the moon. He asked if I wanted any help. At first I thought Dark Dave should work alone, but then I realized that most villains have minions. So I told him that he could help.

He wasn’t really much help though. Nothing he did looked like the plan I had in mind. It didn’t even really look like a ladder. I think he even put a roof on it. What kind of ladder has a roof on it? Oh well. I guess you can’t expect much from a mindless minion. I’ll make some better ones after I reach the moon.

After a while I was feeling hungry so I went inside get some food. A villain can’t work on an empty stomach after all. And I left my minion outside to continue with the plans. On the way back from the kitchen I got distracted by the T.V. I wanted to see if I had made the news yet. Turns out cartoons don’t tell you the news.

After a while I decided to go back outside to see how my minion was doing. What I saw looked nothing like a ladder at all. It looked more like a small house, and it was in a tree of all places. I think even the worst minions know the difference between a ladder and a house so I must have the worst minion ever.

I was about to go yell at my minion who was still working on the house, but when I climbed up I was impressed by what I saw. It was really roomy in the treehouse with plenty of space for all my gadgets and plans and best of all it was dark. Maybe my minion isn’t so bad after all. I might hire him on steady.

So now I finally have my secret lair. I call it The Fortress of Doom. I put in a table to work at and brought up all of my best devices. I even made a super secret candy hole where I hide my favorite food. It may not be the moon, but as I look up into the night sky and see it shining down, I realize it was with me all along. It’s time to start plotting…

Bonus points to whoever can come up with a good name for Dark Dave's mortal enemy.

The True Meaning of Boxing Day

I woke up on Boxing Day feeling tired and depressed. I wondered to myself what the point to this holiday was and why it existed in the first place. As far as I could see, every Christmas people come together as a family for love, and then the very next day all of that is forgotten and replaced by a mindless consumer orgy. Normally I just spend this meaningless day reading in my room, but on this particular Boxing Day I was invited out to a party with some friends. This alternative to shopping gave me hope. This year, I was going to enjoy friendship and I wasn’t going to all of that consumerism get to me!

I went to go pick up my good friend, Zach, on the way to the party and I expressed my frustrations with December 26^th. He listened while I ranted and once I was finished he said, “You know what you need? A cookie,” and offered me a molasses cookie out of the tin he was carrying. I sighed, but accepted since molasses cookies are delicious. We spent the remainder of the drive discussing various philosophical issues and totally not just talking about X-Men.

We got distracted by our debate, got lost, and arrived at the party an hour later than intended. When we finally entered the host’s house I was surprised to find only five other people (including the host) were there.

“Where is everybody?” I asked.

“I think most of them are Boxing Day shopping,” replied Joanna.

“Kevin just called and said he forgot, but would be coming sometime within the next eight hours,” said our host, Jen, or maybe it was her twin sister Erika. I’m never quite sure which is which and they were both standing right next to each other.

“I fucking hate you guys,” supplied Brendan who was almost certainly only here because he had nothing better to do.

Dana took our pictures.

I was deeply saddened by this news, but decided to make the best of it just the same and broke out some board games. We had hardly played for half an hour before Joanna received a text from Lily talking about some amazing sales that were going on and how we should all come and cash in on these deals. I was none too impressed by any of this, but Brendan wanted some new headphones, Dana wanted a new camera lens, Zach wanted to piss me off, and the others wanted to stock up on manga/anime. So out we went to the meet up Lily and a few others at the mall while I grumbled all the way.

As was expected, the mall was jammed packed with customers and it was almost impossible to find our other friends, but we eventually found them at the food court already laden down with countless shopping bags.

“Woooo! Let’s go buy some more clothes,” shouted Lily as soon as we’d greeted each other. I don’t much care for shopping to begin with, and I especially hate shopping when it’s busy, and hate shopping for clothes even more, so this was about the worst possible thing that could have happened. While everybody else ran around picking up everything they could find that met the basic requirements of looking cute and being cheap, I sat in a corner and moped as I tend to do on such occasions. I looked around the store with disinterest until my eyes landed on a humble little toque on top of a shelf. My old toque hasn’t fit on my head since I was twelve, so I figured I might as well pick up a new one. I took it up to the cashier who rang it up at ten dollars. Lily suddenly appeared behind me and inquired what I was buying.

“It’s a toque,” I answered.

“Cool. I much is it?”

“Ten dollars.”

"Even with the sale?” asked Joanna who as she came up on my other side.

“I don’t think it is on sale.”

“What? Then why would you get it?” queried Brendan who had come over to see what was going on.

“Because I like it.”

“Well there’s a different toque right over here that’s 50% off. Just think of the savings!” Dana contributed.

“I like this one better, but thanks anyways.”

“You’re weird man. You don’t get Boxing Day at all,” observed Lily.

“I must admit that I do not. Is there anybody here who can explain to me why we all go apeshit every December 26^th over crap we don’t need? Can anybody explain to me what Boxing Day is really all about?”

“I can Snake-Eyes,” chimed in Zach, “lights please.” The lighting didn’t change at all, but he launched into his monologue anyway. “So every year right after we celebrate the birth of baby Jesus and things like love, family, generosity and all that good stuff, the next day we all reflect on boxing. Not the fighting type of boxing, but like the boxing where you put things into boxes. The reason for this is because the day after Jesus was born and all the people had brought their gifts, Mary and Joseph needed a place to store all the stuff because how is a baby supposed to use things like gold, frankincense and myrrh? But they were poor and in a manger filled with animals, right? So they didn’t really have any safe place to store it away from the elements. But since Joseph was a carpenter he just made a bunch of boxes out of wood and put all the stuff in there and then kept it around the back. That’s the true meaning of Boxing Day, Snake-Eyes.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Zach? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” I exclaimed.

“Well what did you expect me to say? It’s just an excuse to buy stuff at ridiculously low prices.”

“Oh now I get it. On second thought, I will get that cheaper toque.”

And then we all sang the classic Boxing Day song, “Eye of the Tiger.”

The End

A Tour of My House at Christmas with Pictures

Because I'm not hosting a Christmas party at my house this year, a friend asked me to take pictures of all the holiday goodness that she missed out on since my mom goes all out at Christmas time. Here is a small portion of the decorations filling my house that I find most interesting or significant.
















The outdoor lights with the "peppermint" tree to the left that my dad and I are oh so proud of.
















My grandpa's homemade candles that I'm fairly certain are made entirely out of materials from the 60's.
















The misleading "This House Believes in Santa" sign along with some snowmen.
















The staircase with some sore of fake plant wrapped around the banister (and more snowmen).
















The spinning snowman toy that's somewhat hypnotic to watch in action.
















Mr. and Mrs. Claus
















The Advent Tree which I faithfully add a decoration to each day of December leading up to Christmas. Sadly, it used to light up, spin around, and play music but no more.
















The musical snowmen with a new addition; the trombone player.
















The magical angels that spin around and ring bells when you light the candles.
















One of my favourite decorations.
















The plate we used to put the milk and cookies on for Santa.
















Some more nice decorations
















Our personalized stockings
















My mom's light-up Christmas village complete with firehall, school, and train station.
















Some families like to have a stylistic theme to their Christmas tree. We just cover it in random crap.
















Harry Potter and Hedwig
















A pretty angel
















The leg lamp and the box it came in from A Christmas Story that plays quotes from the movie
















7 of 9 and apparently a Christmas Spider (it makes...tinsel?)
















I was not aware we had a sushi decoration until today
















When my mom gave this fat angel to my overweight sister she innocently said "When I saw this, I thought of you."
















And of course, my dad's incredibly tacky Canucks Snowman with a little tree to keep him company.

The Walking Dead

Seeing as how its Christmas Eve I thought there’d be no better time than the present to voice my thoughts on everybody’s favourite zombie apocalypse TV show, The Walking Dead. Rather than do a thoughtful analysis on the themes presented in the show and what it says about today’s society, I thought instead I’d just give you my opinion which characters are awesome and which are lame. For those of you unfamiliar with the show here is the cast of characters:












From left to right: Sheriff, Little Girl, Mother, Wifey, Son, Black Man, Asain Guy, Stupidface, Old Man, Mr. Awesome, Sheriff's Friend

The Sheriff (aka Rick)
















It's hard not to look cool when pointing a gun off to the left of the camera

He’s the leader of the group and the show’s main character. He always does his best to do what’s right even if it means making things harder for him, and tirelessly works to keep everybody alive and well. At the same time you can see that this new world he woke up in is slowly getting to him and his sanity is slipping out beneath him. I enjoy watching his journey, I think he’s well-developed, and he stands out as one of the most sympathetic characters on the show. A lot of people don’t like the British actor’s Southern accent, but they all sound retarded anyway so I can deal with that.

Little Girl (aka Sophia)











SPOILER ALERT: The above picture contains massive spoilers

Her personality is she’s a little girl who runs away screaming. I honestly can’t think of anything more to say about her.

Mother (aka Carol)














Mother at her most happy

She really wants to find her daughter and she won’t fucking stop crying until that wish is granted. I think that about sums up all you need to know about her and my opinion of her.

Wifey (aka Lori)















Wifey doing... stuff

This show suffers from a severe lack of strong female characters, and the fact that Wifey here is probably the strongest greatly saddens me. She’s fundamentally useless and is dependent on men (either Sheriff or his friend) for survival. She divides her time between crying and bitching out. I really believe the writers can go places with this character and develop her into something more likable, but for now I guess we’ll just have to watch her cook and do dishes in the zombie apocalypse.

Son (aka Carl)











Shut up, Son

When Son got accidentally shot in the stomach I literally did not give a shit. Partly because I knew he’d somehow survive, but mostly because I don’t care about him. Child actors often aren’t that great (for an example to the contrary see Maisie Williams as Arya Stark in Game of Thrones) and I feel guilty holding lack of acting skill against them, but in this case I can’t help but find him obnoxious. H could be worse I suppose. Nothing will ever compare to Jake Lloyd in Phantom Menace.

Black Man (aka T-Dog)



















Black Man at his most efficient

At one point Black Man expresses his frustration at always been left behind while the others go out to search and explore. The reason for this is that he’s really dumb. He’s so inept that he manages to seriously wound himself on a car door. There are a thousand acceptable ways to kill or injure yourself in a zombie apocalypse and this is not one of them. I honestly do not understand how he’s made it this far. By this point in his life he must have run himself over with a lawnmower at least twice and probably got trapped in the dishwasher while working at KFC. He’s so clumsy you’d think he was the female lead in a romantic comedy.

Asian Guy (aka Glenn)













Kid, you're alright

It’s hard not to like Asian Guy. He’s useful, nice, funny, clever, and gets to have sex with Farmer’s Daughter (aka Maggie). Given his situation he’s surprisingly optimistic and relatively sane. He’s one of the few characters whose death I’d be deeply saddened by, but I’m fairly confident he’ll survive based on what I’ve been told of the comics and the fact that everybody seems to like him. He’s just an all around cool guy.

Stupidface (aka Andrea)













This picture accurately summarizes my opinions on this character

If you couldn’t already guess, I’m not a huge fan of Stupidface. All she does is mope and whine about how nobody respects her. She seems to assume this is because she can’t use guns, but I’m pretty sure it’s because she’s useless, and well, stupid. When they do finally let her use guns, the first thing she does is accidentally shoot and almost kill Mr. Awesome (more on him later) which if he had died would have actually been the worst thing that could have possibly happened (my least favourite character killing off my favourite). My friends who read the comic books assure me that she will get cool and badass further down the road and god I hope they’re right.

Old Man (aka Dale)










He sees into your soul!

I used to like Old Man, but recently I’ve found him to be increasingly annoying. He always acts like he knows everything, knows who you really are, and knows exactly what to do. The problem is he’s kinda dumb and doesn’t really understand people’s motivations at all, but that doesn’t stop him from acting like he does and pissing off everyone around him in the process. He went from being grandfatherly to being a holier-than-thou know-it-all.

Mr. Awesome (aka Daryl)














Fuck yeah!

Mr. Awesome is awesome. He’s super effective at killing zombies with his crossbow and looks badass while doing it what with all his armless shirts. At one point he’s wearing a shirt with arms just so he can rip them off and make a tourniquet for himself before killing a couple zombies with his bare hands and scaling a cliff, all while grievously wounded and battling his personal demons. Considering that he’s a redneck he’s also surprisingly nice, helpful, and caring and does better than most at keeping his humanity intact. I also find it interesting that he’s one of the most interesting and likable characters on the show even though he’s not in the comic books at all as far as I’m aware. So I guess the writers must be doing something right.

Sheriff’s Friend (aka Shane)













Shane seen here uncharacteristically carrying a gun

This guy apparently died in the comic books ages ago, but I don’t mind that they kept him around. Sure he’s a hotheaded asshole, but I find he makes for a compelling villain who inhabits a moral grey zone. Some say he’s just another example of the zombie fiction cliché of humans being the real monsters, but I don’t find his character to be so simplistic. He walks a fine line between cold-blooded killer and caring soul, and all of his actions can be read in both lights. He does what it takes to keep those he cares about alive and at least he isn’t retarded or a pussy about it which is more than a lot of the other survivors can say.

Bonus points to whoever comes up with the best insult for Stupidface.

Feet, Photography, and Friendship

Dana was sitting in her bedroom doing what she does every Saturday afternoon; looking over photographs she had taken in the past week of random people’s feet. There were some pretty nice feet in there, but nothing really stood out until she stumbled upon a familiar looking pair of feet.

“I’d recognize those soles anywhere!” exclaimed Dana to nobody in particular, “It’s Daniel! But what’s in that strange bag he’s carrying? And why does it look like he’s walking into that abandoned building? More importantly, why didn’t he stop and say hello?”

With all of these questions needing answers, Dana promptly strapped on her finest pair of adventure boots and headed out the door right down to the bus stop where she caught the first one headed downtown. She would have texted Daniel, but he hadn’t replied to one in over two weeks so she figured she’d go straight to the source and find out just what he was up to. She got off right near the abandoned building his feet were seen entering in the picture.

“Time to do some detectiving. Detectioning. Detecting,” she said as passerby gave her odd looks. She looked about furtively before gently opening the door to the abandoned building and sneaking in. Much to her disappointment, there was nothing surprising to speak of inside. There was garbage littered all over the floor and a sleeping bag with a drugged up hobo in the corner, but nothing that would suggest any sort of clandestine activity associated with Daniel.

“Have you seen anything strange going on around here,” she asked the hobo. He responded by jumping up lightning quick and rushing towards her shouting obscenities about the Ocelot King. Dana temporarily blinded him with the flash on her camera and proceeded to kick him square in the nuts. He collapsed on the floor flailing about in a seizure.

“You’re weird,” observed Dana and walked along the walls to see if she could find any hidden passages. She pushed aside the dilapidated remains of a shelf and found a stairwell going down concealed behind it. She smiled and congratulated herself on outsmarting Daniel which despite being incredibly easy to do is still quite rewarding. She cautiously began her descent unsure of what she might find beyond. Once at the bottom she found herself standing in some sort of lab filled with mechanical apparatus and a very large and bizarre looking machine in the center.

“What on earth could this be,” she wondered aloud, and then saw the giant sign hanging above it reading “Daniel’s Friendship Destroying Device”.

“Very subtle Daniel,” she said aloud.

“I thought so,” replied a voice behind her that caused her to gasp and turn around. His face was shrouded in darkness for dramatic effect, but she could tell by his feet that it was Daniel in the flesh.

“I was being sarcastic,” she retorted.

“Were you now?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck. Well no matter. It’s too late for you to stop me now. Well, almost too late. I just have to attach these last few parts I have in this bag. And also activate the device. But then friendship will be destroyed forever! Muahahahaha!”

“Why do you hate friendship so much?”

“All my life I’ve been happy and having fun with friends and enjoying life in general, but now I’m sick of it. No more friendship I say! It must be destroyed for the betterment of humanity!”

“How would losing friendship and all the joy it brings benefit humanity?”

“Because then we’ll have more time to spend with our girlfriends.”

“You’re so lame.”

“You won’t be saying that once my machine is activated and my masterplan has come to fruition!”

“And how exactly does your machine work?”

“I dunno. Magic or something.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure your Friendship Destroying Device is made out of old boxes wrapped in tinfoil with pie plates and construction paper attached to it, but just to be on the safe side I think I’ll destroy it anyway.”

And so with a well-placed kick she brought the whole machine crumbling to the ground and for good measure she yoinked the bag of materials from Daniel’s hand, threw it on the pile, and lit it all on fire. Because Daniel was such a pansy, all he could do was cry and watch helplessly as his life’s work was reduced to ashes. Dana took a picture of the scene (as well as Daniel’s feet) and prepared to return to the surface.

“You coming too?” she asked Daniel before she headed up.

“No. I think I need a moment alone,” he answered, sobbing.

“Ok. See you at the Christmas party then.”

“Actually, I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I hate friendship.”

“Oh, you,” she said and they both had a good laugh.

The End

Bonus points to whoever can prove that they love friendship the most.