Things To Do

Everybody needs things to do every now and then. And naturally, every time this comes up, you've completely forgotten what it is you thought you needed to do when you didn't want anything more to do because you had so much to do (doing the dumb things ya gotta do and all), so you stored up the to-do stuff for when you were gonna do them. But what were they again?

It was by way of this logic that we, the despots of Utopia Parkway, decided to perform the following public service: each month we will update a to-do list for the general public. Our test marketing reveals that explanation and, occasionally, visual aids will also be required.

Feel free to refer to it as often as necessary.

NOVEMBER

Evolve thumbs.

Approximately eight of them, actually, to replace your currently existing non-thumb digits. You see, it has come to our attention that despite the puzzlingly inaccurate saying, "I'm all thumbs" (to refer to a state of non-dexterousness or digital clumsitude) if one, in fact, had ten thumbs one would be magnificently flexible. Graceful, even. Think of it: you could pick things up like those robot arms in cheap carnival games. You could actually reach all the keys you're supposed to reach when playing a bassoon. You could put a wicked twist on that sinister Dracul-esque hand movement most recently perfected by Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi in _Ed Wood_. What more could you ask? (see below...)

*Imagine what an elephant could do if it were all thumbs...*

DECEMBER

Convert human mouth to external disk drive. Dump garbage. Eject disk.

Well, we just thought it'd be a real convenience in times of stress to be able to dump all those brain-files you'd rather not think about onto a floppy, and...eject it. Quite a simple idea, really. We're surprised no one's thought of it before.

JANUARY

Build a weather-resistant tunnel.

Now that we're fully into the season of solidified water, we thought it'd be awfully clever of you to build a warm, cozy underground tunnel, in order to eliminate those nasty walks over ice, through snow, and into -33 degree wind chill. Think how nice it'd be to build a tunnel from your house to your place of daily drudgery. Or, better yet, you could build a flexible-type underground tunnel that you can take with you wherever you happen to hobble, hop, or ambulate - like the hole in Bugs Bunny cartoons[tm]. We'll let you work out the logistics.

*Mmmmm...toasty.*

MARCH

Destroy or otherwise incapacitate Jesse Helms.

Since we've been putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to evolve peculiar (but no doubt useful) variations on our present anatomical conditions, we thought we'd try to branch out this month. Now we're trying to evolve the human race.
(Maybe if we all think dirty thoughts simultaneously....)
A fine politician with plenty to eat
B elieves we should all be both humble and meek
O r maybe, could be, "us all" except him
R ight, Jesse. You might just want to lay off the gin.
T his lady, right here, has a lot of integrity,
I make my decisions - don't need them made already.
O,Jesse, here's hoping one day you'll understand,
N o internet, no art world, no mind, will fit under your hand.
(If anyone feels this poem to be overly serious for a publication such as our own...Well, we are virtually advocating murder, here, so it, uh, seemed warranted. Right. Something like that. Nevermind. Forget this ever happened.)

MAY

Find out if you're a witch.

This isn't the sort of thing you want to come up as a surprise. A knock on the door in the dead of night, men in black dragging you off to see if you can swim, that sort of thing. Well, luckily, at Dutch Village in Holland, MI, they'll test you for free! They just put you on the scale pictured below, and if you're underweight, you're a witch. We put Kari on it straight off (we've always been a little suspicious about her nocturnal activities...all that dancing naked in the forest, yup yup yup....), but it turns out - you'll be relieved to know - we were worrying over nothing. The best part of the whole thing is that they give you a certificate attesting to your supernatural status, either way.

*Getting a little nervous...*

*whew*