CONTAINS SPOILERS!

Most people don't know that the shows that Four String Samurai does on stage are actually the shows within the shows, or the "mise en abyme" as the incredibly nerdy might call it. You know, it's the same as the technique used by Shakespeare in Hamlet ("The play's the thing") and Gary Shandling in The Larry Sanders Show and a bunch of other stuff. So the meta show is us hanging around and doing stuff and preparing for the show within the show that we put on stage roughly once a month. We also drive around in a van and solve mysteries.

What you didn't know when you started reading the previous 102 words was that all of that was prologue for this, the release of the 4SS season 5 spoilers!

• A new member joins the group who knows more about '60s R&B, soul, and proto-punk than Paul! Is this the start of a beautiful friendship, or is there only room in Four String for one person with obscure taste in old music?
  
• Ben places Chris on an exacting calisthenics regimen. Has he gone too far, or is this just what the doctor ordered?
  
• The guys learn an important lesson about fire safety from Purple Feather recording artists The Donnas.
  
• It just so happens that Bret is a corpse that only moves when music plays like Bernie does that one weekend. What happens when Eric and his piano go out of town for a few weeks?
  
• Ryan learns to astrally project himself thousands of miles. Will he use this new-found power for good... or evil?
  
• The group has their toughest mystery yet. They can only solve it with the help of this week's guests, the Harlem Globetrotters!

Global media domination

According to sitemeter, our traffic is twice what it was a month ago. Based on this "doubling every month" trend, our traffic will rival that of Facebook in about a year. I've included a graph to illustrate future projections.

So thank you for reading. And if you want to invest, the offer stands.

The secret of my success

Oh hi. I didn't hear you come in. My name is Christopher, but you can call me by my graffitoist name, Pup Luv. After seeing a particularly choice graffito of mine, young graffitoists will come up to me and say, "Hey Christopher" and I'll say, "My name is Christopher, but you can call me by my graffitoist name, Pup Luv." Then they will inevitably say, "Hey Pup Luv, can you tell me some secrets? I want to make a graffito as good as yours." Then I will say, "I have no idea what you're talking about." Then they will convince me that they are not a cop, and I will tell them my secrets.

These folks focus on the smooth bubbles of my letters and the straightness of the lines that I intend to be straight, and the perfect spacing of it all. It is then I share my secret:


That's right, the rolling ruler. This classy measurement device is a protractor, a compass, a ruler, and a rolling ruler all in one. When you're in a men's room stall and find it's time to unsheathe your sharpie and stick it to a harpy, it's rolling ruler time. The rolling ruler is perfect for marking your small scale trail.

"But Christopher," you might say, and I would reply, "My name is Christopher, but you can call me by my graffitoist name, Pup Luv." "Pup Luv," you say, "I saw a graffito of yours just today, and it covered an entire wall, and a large one at that, and it was rolling ruler perfect." "Aha!" I would say.

I would say "Aha!" because of this:


These images are not to scale. The second one is of my giant client, the jumbo rolling ruler. It is twelve feet long. The holes are big enough to accommodate a spray can nozzle. It is the real deal, Banana Peel.

But what about the quieter times? When I feel the need for an evening auto-erotic graffito experience, I reach for this:


That is the one-inch-long-with-the-inch-divided-into-twelfths rolling ruler. When I want to tag my bag but also need to measure than angle of my dangle to get it right, Dwight, I know I can trust my one-inch-long-with-the-inch-divided-into-twelfths rolling ruler because of its precision protractor.

Since you let yourself in (remember I didn't hear you come in) please feel to show yourself out. Just remember next time you're out at a fine store to seek out your new rolling ruler, preferably in all three sizes. You could tell them Christopher sent you because my name is Christopher, but you can call me by my graffitoist name, Pup Luv. They'll know me be the latter.

mimicking the master

this dog learned to pray, and yet we still can't get bret to post to this blog.

Stop the madness...

The word bracket has become like tiny grains of sand in my ass crack.

Warning: This Post Contains Capitalization

The videos from Saturday's show have finally been uploaded, and can be seen on our YouTube page that I just made. The videos are also available on our facebook page.

Bios are also on the site as well... both the videos and bios are now linked to the right. You might notice that Bret and Eric do not have bios and the rest of us do. We don't know why.

You might also notice that Bret has never posted (there's currently a poll going on whether or not he ever will). As a Duke alum, maybe he'll have something witty to say about how they barely squeaked by 15th seeded BELMONT!

I'm Surrounded by Brackets!

More things in this world should be decided by 64-team winner-take-all tournaments, where viewers of said tournaments are forced to come up with creative excuses to avoid going to work in order to watch.

Unfortunately, I have no creative excuse. Instead, I am resigned to having up to 7 different ESPN browsers open at any one time so that I can follow the trials and tribulations of the gutsy Portland State Vikings, the feisty Winthrop Eagles, the scrupulous Belmont Bruins, and the downright Machiavellian Oral Roberts OralRobertsons.

(It's actually the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles, which is a HUGE improvement over the Winthrop Plain Jane Run-of-the-Mill Eagles. Those guys are pretty lame.)

In other news, the sports bar I used to frequent has been converted into Barack Obama's Chapel Hill headquarters. I hope they kept that old hockey game...you know the one that I'm talking about, where you controlled your players using long rods that you could spin and get the players to spin around. Remember it now? The game where you could play US vs. USSR and hit the "Boo" button 100 times. That game might have been one of the biggest contributors to the downfall of Communism and the Soviet Union, along with Rocky IV, that Reagan guy, and decades of pent-up demand for general consumer products that actually worked.

Advice from articles in the hygiene subsection of wikihow.com (The How-to Manual YOU Can Edit)

The internet truly is the great wonder of our time. It's like all of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World combined (excepting the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which I don't believe to have ever existed--but debunking history is a job for another time). With the greatness of the internet however comes the greatness of responsibility and no responsibility is greater than sharing your greatness. That's why collaborative tools like Wikipedia are all the rage. But lost somewhere in the shadows is Wikipedia's scrappy little cousin, Wikihow. Wikihow collects the greatest minds that are not already contributing to Wikipedia (or about.com or really into World of Warcraft or in any other way occupied) and lets them teach you how to accomplish a variety of everyday tasks in ways you might not have considered. This is the Information Superhighway at its best: written and edited by people who still say "Information Superhighway."

Without any further ado, I present the best the hygiene subsection of wikihow.com has to offer:

• Turn on the tap, but don't wet your hands.
  
  
• Have doctors wipe off stethoscopes before putting them on you.
  
  
• Use 100% cotton gloves. Wool will irritate the face (should you try to touch) and nylon might get a runner.
  
  
• Chances are, your breath is not as bad as you think it is. Ask someone you trust (and will give you an honest answer) if they think you have bad breath.
  
  
• Don't eat food that has been sitting out all day. This includes salads, pizza slices, cakes, sandwiches, meats etc.
  
  
• Get a tissue (paper handkerchief). The softer tissues are great, such as those impregnated with aloe vera.
  
  
• Wear a t-shirt, you can't smell it through a longsleeve shirt.
  
  
• If another person's waste has been sitting in still water for any amount of time, then it more than likely is unsanitary.
  
  
• Draw the floss through the pimple again to remove any residue.
  
  
• Girls do NOT like it! They do not want to kiss a guy with a ring around his mouth.
  
  
• Avoid any thoughts about letting out pee. Do not to think of anything that may make you want to pee more.
  
  
• General rule of thumb: if you have a taste in your mouth, however light, you have bad breath. This only applies during periods of time when you aren't eating.
  
  
• If you have the cash, get some cashmere sweaters. They look nice.
  
  
• It's recommended that you only follow this when it is really important to not have a stuffy nose, or if you are over 15.

Video terrorist...

Yes, terrorist is a strong word, but it also reminds me of the words "terrier" and "barista", which is neither here nor there. The fact is: someone on this "team" is holding our future hostage. That "someone" is bald.....and is named Ryan.

If you have bothered, like hundreds of other Americans, to check our facebook page this week, you will have likely seen a video called "Four String Salesman - Shoe Salesman Picnic". Which should probably be titled "look_at_me!_I'm_the_best_improviser_in_the world_ever!!!_My_name_is_Ryan_and_I'm_available_for_a_t.v._show,
_or_corporate_gigs,_or_birthday_parties_cuz_I'm_so_funny_you'd_
be_stupid_not_to_hire_me._What,_those_guys
_in the_shadows?_They're_my_groupies.
Did_I_mention_that_i_lived_in_Chicago.WMV"

The party in question (Ryan) has stated that he's "tried" to upload the whole video, but has received an "error" message and hasn't been able to fix things. Oh yeah? What did the message say Ryan? "Rest of show too hilarious for the internet. May lead to opportunities for the other guys on your team. Click cancel now to continue being a dick."?

Anyways, dear readers, the chances of you seeing the rest of our show on the internet are slim, so you should probably come see us live. Even someone as selfish as Ryan wouldn't sabotage a live show. Plus, you could boo all his scenes, except for the ones I may be in. You'll want to be quiet then so you can catch all my jokes.

finally!

did anyone see this?
Bird Makes Love to Boat

Remember Ralph Nader's "Unsafe at Any Speed" and how it changed the automobile industry and car safety forever? This is nothing like that.

Apparently writing asinine emails in corporate/congressional contact forms is something I'm good at. I'll do my best to keep you updated every time I do this going forward.

heavy ants

there are ten thousand trillion ants alive right now and, combined, they weigh roughly the same as 6.5 billion humans. to put the number ten thousand trillion into perspective, if you were an ant and i told you that you were "one in a million," there'd be ten billion other ants JUST like you.

the first half of the above paragraph came from the book, "the creation" by e.o. wilson. the second half came from this equation: boredom + brain = sentence.

Out on a Limb!

Out on a Limb is a column in which I, the author, let you, the reader, know exactly what is on my mind--consequences be damned. No controversy is too hot for me to weigh in. Let's get started.

Many cars are seeing their gas mileage increase, while many other makes and models are not. I for one anticipate this trend continuing.

For my money, the Babe Ruth of baseball is almost certainly more likely to be Babe Ruth than any other player, with the possible exceptions of Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and/or Mickey Mantle.

Speaking of baseball, when everything is said and done, I think most followers of the sport will eventually come to agree that steroids and other drugs had an enhancing effect on statistical performance during the steroid era.

If you like cheese, bread, and steak, you will probably like cheesesteak. Best place to get one? Philadelphia. Or in a pinch, Trenton.

If you gamble often in casinoes, put your money on the house eventually finishing ahead.

This might sound like a big claim because it is, but I feel comfortable making it: the greatest contributing factor to human civilization is the sun.

Nobel Prize winners definitely have something to be proud about!

I keep hearing about this housing bubble. I don't understand what it is, but if you were to seek out my opinion I would tell you that the bubble has to be one of the biggest stories about the intersection of housing and banking this year (thus far).

Trains may not be able to get everywhere that cars can, but you would have a helluva time convincing me that their continued existence is not a net plus. Especially when it comes to cargo.

Can you believe that the Packers haven't retired Bret Favre's number yet? Way to treat retirees--NOT!

There you have it. Watch out Sacred Cows--I'm coming for you! Hopefully next time you, the reader, will join me, the author, Out on a Limb.

A Sad Day For Geeks Everywhere

Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons & Dragons and hero to inside-kids all over the world, has passed away.

Somewhere, burried deep within the nooks and crannies of my desk in my parents' home, there lives a pretty decent Level 4 fighter/mage.