Alright, so as of this piece of writing I’m 23 years old; which means a few things. First of all, I drink on an almost daily basis. I stay up until 3am every night, and then go to work the next morning all fucked up. I do more pirating than Black Beard himself. At this stage of my life, my parents have forgiven me for being a teen-ager—which incidentally led to my 3 younger siblings having a much easier time with it, since I did all the trailblazing—and most people think I’m an adult now. With that being said, I watch more cartoons now than I have ever watched in my entire life. Now, in my defense, I do some drawing now and again, so some of my watching is motivated from the standpoint of a curious artist. But most of it is because cartoons kick ass. All of them don’t, but a good deal of them do.

In this day and age of terrorist threats, shitty International politics, and arguably the dumbest human ever running our country, not a lot is going right for us. Let’s face it folks, that guy might not even be the brightest person in a kindergarten class, let alone the brightest guy leading a global super power. Still, with that being said, if cartoons have taught me anything in life, there is nothing to worry about at all.

I’m seriously. All the people we’re at war with right now are from the same planet. How minor is that? I’ve seen quite a few shows where people come from Outer Space, and try to kick our asses, and it never works. I know for a fact that the human spirit can prevail against anything; including death rays. On a quick side note, once somebody had a debate with nobody, that it was kind of stupid that all the Aliens you see in movies and shit are way more advanced than us, and that’s not very likely that we’re that far behind EVERYONE, in the grand scheme of things. Now, in principle this is true. But we’re not talking about EVERYONE. We’re talking about (simply by nature of the conversation) aliens that have left their home planet, and traveled light years away, to our planet. The last time I checked, we can’t do that. So by the associative property, and the powers vested in me by the state of world affairs, I think it’s pretty safe to say they’re more advanced than we are. Dumb ass. Anyway, let’s get back on subject.

As I was saying, the human spirit can prevail against anything. In this case, we have to prevail against human spirit, because we’re fighting other humans. But I’m pretty sure we ( America) will win, because we’re the good guys right? Right. Remember in Transformers, how the Decepticons talked funny? All of them had weird voices. I chalk that up to them being foreign terrorists, who also talk funny. I mean sure they’re all robots, so you’re going to get a few regional colloquialisms and what have you, but don’t be petty.

If my cartoon watching is correct, then all we have to do is wait for the bad guys to get greedy, which is only a matter of time, then we can just trace their illegal cable TV feed that they’ve tapped into to, to declare world domination, then we can rush in there with a handful of guys who shoot blue colored laser guns, and BAM! All done. Play close attention to that detail, by the way. Bad guys shoot red lasers. Blue is good. I couldn’t understand how the military is always reporting all these friendly-fire casualties for a while. Then in hit me: night vision. All the good guy armies use night vision, where everything just looks black and white, or green and white if it’s being broadcast on the news by some asshole reporter who’s probably giving away our troop positions as we speak, and may or may not be operating as a double agent for COBRA.

Can I tangent for a minute? Thanks.

What the fuck is up with reporters all over the fucking wars these days. They go standing in front of the proverbial bus, then we’re all outraged when they get kidnapped by the bus, and held hostage for not bringing correct change for the uptown fare. I pose this question: do you have a blue laser gun? I didn’t think so. Stay the fuck out of our wars. I don’t want fucking Duke, and fucking….Snake Eyes, and shit, god forbid, Shipwreck out there, risking his life for your douchéy Geraldo mustache and your idiot cameraman. You don’t see Bazooka and Hawk sitting next to your Channel 53 Local Faggot News sign when you’re back in the studio during peace time do you? Of course you don’t. They’re out there dive rolling over red lasers so you can have that shit to begin with. Show some fucking respect.

So as I was saying, you can’t see the colored lasers with night vision. This brings me to my next points, which are the battles themselves. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single battle fought at night, so I’m not sure what the hell they’ve been doing over there in Iraq these days. If they’d quit trying to improvise, and make a name for themselves, they’d just follow precedent, and charge forward at 12 Noon, when all respectable battles are fought. Just pick a large empty field somewhere, and then line your boys up on one side, and they’ll use the other. I’ve seen it a thousand times. Now, I’m not trying to say this is simple. But I’ll try to sum it up in a way so this article won’t last for 9 pages. The boats go in the water, the tanks and shit, go on the grass, and the airplanes and helicopters, and any assorted hovering vehicles you have, go in the air. What you don’t want to do—and I can’t stress this enough—is to get ahead of the General. The General is huge. It’s got like 40 wheels on it, 2 trailers, 140 laser guns and rockets and shit, and it costs $50. Don’t fool yourself hero, your time to shoot at the red lasers will come, but it’s not worth getting in front of the General just to have your standard issue army jeep shot with a rocket, then you’ll have to dive-roll out of it, and you’ll just look like an ass.

This is another key moment to not be a hero. If, for some unforeseen reason, your vehicle does come under fire—believe me it happens—don’t panic. You’ll have plenty of time to see the missile the size of a sperm whale, coming at you. Don’t try to evade it. Simply pop open your bubble top, and get ready to jump. You have to time it perfectly. If you jump way before the missile hits, you’ll just look like some idiot who bailed out of his standard issue jeep, and you don’t want that. The vehicles are built tough, so they won’t explode as soon as the missile hits. It has to like… go through the outer armor first. Once that happens, THEN you jump. If for some reason you fuck up, and you don’t jump in time, that’s ok. Wait for the jeep to roll over. They always roll over. Then, climb out and look for somebody on your team with blue lasers, and give them a thumbs-up letting them know you’re alright. Once that’s accomplished, run like hell, because NOW the jeep is going to detonate like an asshole on Ex-Lax.

Just remember the following key factors to staying alive in a battle:

1. Never underestimate the dive-roll. Ninety percent of all attacks can be avoisioned with a well timed roll. Plus, chicks dig it.
2. When in doubt, dive-roll.
3. Don’t forget your parachute. You ALWAYS need a parachute. You never know if you’re going to be in a helicopter being downed by a well placed nuclear projectile. Your dive-roll is important, but it’s not going to mean shit from 50 feet up, which is where airborne units operate during a war.
4. Take your own jeep. You want as many vehicles as possible out there. Plus if you’re at full capacity, you can’t pick up your buddies, who may have gotten a flat tire; which of course means their jeep rolled over and subsequently exploded, while they dive-rolled out of the way.

Once you’re on foot, the battle isn’t over. The first thing you want to do is try to get in a buddy’s vehicle. If you can make it to one, you’ll be fine. If not, that’s ok too. Just keep shooting at the red lasers. If you’re a robot, then I’d recommend changing into your vehicle form at this time, and just flying or driving away. Get back to the base for repairs. The base isn’t that far away. Any battle can be reached within one or two minutes of driving—even if you’re driving a Big Rig, which can go just as fast as the Porsche and the Lamborghini. If you have a red Trans-am, then you can actually just pop your doors up and fly too, which I’ve seen on M.A.S.K. In the unlikely event you can’t find a buddy, and you’re fighting on foot, don’t worry. You can never run out of lasers for one thing. Just keep charging forward and eventually one of two things will happen. You’ll get behind enemy lines and single-handedly win the battle, or you’ll get shot, and captured. Now, if you get shot, there’s like a 90% chance the shot will strike your weapon, rendering it inoperable. Just drop it. Put your hands above your head, and you’ll be escorted to the enemy jail, which is back at their base, 5 minutes away. When the battle is over, your buddies will come to rescue you, and take you back home. They won’t destroy the enemy base though. That’s just poor sportsmanship. If you’re lucky, you’re a robot. If you’re really lucky you’re a really kick ass robot that can fly and shit. If this is the case, and you get shot you’ll probably notice you’ve been rendered completely inoperable. I’m pretty sure you can just change into a vehicle and leave though. In the worst case, drive into the trailer of the Big Rig, and wait the battle out while playing solitaire or something.

The biggest mistake you can make is to underestimate the enemy. Just because you fought them 8 times last week, all with the same outcome, you always have to be on your toes. In fact, they usually have recruitment offices right there in your own town, which is about 5 minutes away from the base. They sit outside and sign up foot soldiers like it’s a $1 kissing booth at the county faire. The only difference is, you can’t get mono here. You don’t really have to worry about these guys though. A good rule of thumb is if the guy you’re fighting has the same uniform as another guy, he’ll be easy to beat. The guys you need to watch out for are the ones with weird or unique uniforms. I realize it can get confusing since your guys will be wearing some unique threads as well. But unless it’s your resident ninja, who might wear black like the standard baddy uniform, just shoot anybody you see with a different colored laser. Remember, if the unthinkable happens, and you shoot your own guy, you’ll probably just hit his gun, or blow up his standard issue jeep. Embarrassing? Sure, but it’s not the end of the world, and you can always dive-roll. Hey, it can’t hurt.

Once in a great while, the enemy might get the drop on you, and you’ll have to execute a tactical retreat. Don’t worry; I’m sure you’ll find a way to get them back within the next 22 minutes. If a buddy out on patrol with you gets captured, or vice-versa, just return to base, and organize an all out assault on the enemy. They probably won’t expect it. When you meet on the field of battle, and it’s all over, you can casually stand around and discuss what a great day it was. A great day for blue lasers. A great day for the good guys. As an added bonus, you might even explain that leaning your head forward as opposed to back, is a better solution for a nose-bleed, or that sniffing paint is a bad idea.

P.S. I recently brought it to my own attention that in a lot of cartoons of Japanese origin, people really die right and left. I could explain it, but it’s not worth it. I don’t know what kind of fucking fantasy world those people are living in.

Originally posted 7/15/2004 by Syber