Hey, y’all!  Thomas Wayne here.  The friendly moderator here at Buffet o’ Blog was generous enough to let me put an ad here for an upcoming project of mine.  I’m starting a School of Cool.  I’ve found there’s a lot of people who are insecure with themselves, who wish they were cooler.  And since I’m the coolest person I know, I figure I’m qualified to help others find their inner coolness.

Now, I know some of you are thinking you’re already too cool for such a thing, and if that’s you, then you should most definitely keep reading.  Most people aren’t as cool as they think they are.  They live in a fantasy world, assuming everyone around them thinks they are so awesome, but that’s not reality.  And it’s dangerous to live in a fantasy world.  So I’m here to help.

I’ve written up a 12-week curriculum, to teach you what you need to know.  And I’ll be your personal instructor when that is necessary.  Some of the materials you can study from the comfort of your own home, utilizing revolutionary self-help techniques, and there will be a few sessions where we’ll meet one-on-one and then with a group.  I’m overly qualified for this class, because I’ve been uber-cool for many years now, to the point that I don’t even have to try.  It’s now just part of my natural charm and charisma.  And it helps with the ladies, too — they think I’m the stuff, all that and a bag of chips.

So sign up now.  Operators are standing by.  It’s a really good value, too.  I mean, how can you even put a price on coolness?  It’s priceless, but I managed to put a discounted price on this course, to make it accessible to most everyone.  Just bring your checkbook and we’ll work out the financial details when you get here.  We’ll even take your credit cards.

The first 12 people to register get a free autographed copy of my upcoming book, “Quotes and cool stuff said by me”.  It’s gonna be huge, although my publisher is concerned that it won’t sell too well because not enough people realize how cool I am, so this course will actually help sales also, but that’s just a coincidence.  My main concern is helping people be all they can be and stuff…

BTW, when this new School of Cool really takes off, I may be looking for a few more instructors to help with the workload, so if you’re interested, list your qualifications in the comments section.

Dr. Thomas Wayne, Esquire

Yesterday I read an article at Beppo’s Blog about Bolivia’s “Road of Death”, and I wouldn’t be scared of driving it.  In fact, I’ve got a road like that in my backyard.  It leads to my secret hideout that I built when I was a teenager, where I go to get away from it all.

The road is all treacherous, much like that “Death Road” in Bolivia, in that there’s dangerous cliffs and sharp turns, all that kind of stuff.  There’s areas where you have to jump the quicksand or drive on two wheels to fit through (like on The Dukes of Hazzard or Knight Rider).  It’s really fun.  But you need stuntman-quality driving skills.  After it rains, it’s really tough to make it through, because it gets very muddy — sometimes my trusty El Camino barely makes it.  Lesser vehicles wouldn’t have a chance of getting through.

Later on there’s an area where you have to walk because vehicles just won’t fit — there’s too many steep ravines and mountains on the sides of the road.  There’s also a pond that you have to get across, but there’s usually starving alligators in it.  It’s not a huge pond, but long enough that you can’t jump it — it’s about long enough for three gators to fit in.  Fortunately there’s this vine that hangs down and blows back and forth in the breeze.  You have to jump onto it and swing across, just above the mouths of the hungry gators.  (I like to make a Tarzan-esque sound when I do that — it adds more drama to it.)  You also have to watch out for big scorpions.  They’re pretty big, in that you need crazy-good jumping skills to get over them consistently.  There’s several other types of unique pitfalls you gotta get through to reach the end.

Just when you’re about to lose it from all the fast-paced action, you have to evade a group of hungry, hungry hippos.  It’s frantic — mad-wack paddywack, even — so you’ve gotta be careful or you’ll lose your marbles.

When you get there, it’s worth the arduous journey.  It’s all cool and stuff.  It’s a great place to relax. I like to watch sports on TV and play video games and eat Cheetos.  There’s also deer and various other assorted wildlife critters that roam around freely there.  One drawback is that the pizza places won’t deliver out there, so you gotta do carry-out.  But that ain’t no thang.

If you’re up for the journey, maybe I’ll invite you out there with me sometime.

~ Thomas Wayne

Can you believe that Tecmo Bowl on the original Nintendo (NES) was once the best football video game?  Follow that link to see a video of it.  Be sure to listen to the sound effects, too.  Clearly the graphics have not aged well.  (Or should I say “not clearly”?)  This looks pretty bad, even for NES standards.  I don’t think I’ll be getting this on the Virtual Console (on the Wii).  But watching the video clip does bring back some good memories, and it probably will for you*, too, if you ever played it.

* That is, unless you were unfortunate enough to play me at this back in the day, and you got “schooled” so bad on a regular basis that you still have emotional scars.  If this is the case, just let it go, man, because I’m the master of video games, and there’s nothing you can do about it.  🙂