Howdy. Mystic Ark here. But you can call me Mark. Now i know what you’re thinking: “hey you’re not THE mystic ark, you’re just some weird giant face above a doorway on the box art.” that is true, but it still synecdochely makes me THE face OF Mystic Ark. And now you’re probably thinking “okay whatever synecdochebag” which shows even more ignorance on your part since synecdoche isn’t actually pronounced like that! But we’re getting off-topic. In fact I hadn’t even introduced a topic because your presumptuous arrogance prevented me from doing so. you know what, I don’t even want to talk to you.

You can talk to that tiny lady coming through my doorway to stab you. what that’s a man? man. I can never tell with Japanese sword-grasping hero types. Yeah I came out (not the GAY way, I’m no homo) in 1994, it was WEIRD for men to wear skirts, okay? In my personal opinion men belong in trousers and women belong in the kitchen, ha ha know what I mean? Now don’t ask me what the game Mystic Ark is about, I don’t speak foreigner. I got to the part with the kitty pirates but couldn’t figure out where to go next. Too bad I never met any of those naked little fairies on my shoulders phwoar know what I mean? Wha? there’s been an English translation patch since 2009? Well of course I didn’t know that, I’m a goldurned FACE on a gate. I don’t get out much. Also I don’t support copyright infringement. If you downloaded a Mystic Ark rom I WILL send our lawyers, with swords, through my gate, to get you, and if you patch the rom with unofficial content that’s even illegaler pal, in which event you can NOT be my pal. You can’t even be my NTSC. ha ha ha yeah too inside, I know. You don’t get to laugh because you aren’t my pal. In fact you can’t even call me Mark anymore.

hey calm down, Kitty P! Like take a chill pill homeslice, know what I’m sayin’? Because I sure don’t know what you’re sayin’! Fa ha ha. This is the best entry ever on this website.

two elpse-like imps that i drew apparently almost three years ago and two nemitz-types that i possibly but not necessarily also did. The idea was brought about by the person of https://twitter.com/dookingplaza who i suspect also comments on my posts here under the name “charmlatan,” who said
“I wanted to request seeing the two grivvits Elpse was supposed to go on the mission to with their mibrim partners, non-pickled please”

This was to be a hastily done improvised sketch but I only accomplished the improvised part. In the absence of anything else related to this, I drew it slightly better than I perhaps intended to. I got myself stuck redrawing yet more old comic pages, and also everything else in the world I might be doing that gets me nowhere but takes a long time.

i have not thought out the circumstances of elpse’s past circumstances a great amount beyond what I showed there, so this is very possibly a fictional event apart from the base fiction.

I think the yellow creature may be of a third, token minority imp type that does not necessarily have an assigned counterpart, at least of nemitzy origin. nonetheless i drew them in this way, even wearing the same clothing as the other time, since they would barely be recognizable otherwise, even though for all i know the clothing was new at the point shown in the back flashing or at least only recently acquired by those specific creatures and thus even less possible to have been worn when there were still green nemitzes to do stupid things with. And let me be clear that there is no way that something which looks like nemitz is going to do something that is not stupid.

I even just last night decided that pog’s name should be “pwog” or “puag” after 23 years of calling it pog, and maybe ten years of not liking the name but not having a preferable alternative. anything can change, so long as it requires extra work on stuff I made ages ago and makes no real difference.

The First Steps Toward Worship

featuring Adol “Born Again” Christin. There is no way that Adol’s deliveries can be over.

Hilary Branske is dead. It is very relevant to me, and also to this website! Some of what follows is roundabout and redundant, but I had difficulty organizing my thoughts on the matter, so watch out. Also, it is roundabout.

I knew Hilary since 1999. She was the closest thing to an “idol” that I had at a crucial point in my life, and unlike the others that came before and later, she was and remained a friend. I liked knowing that even though we were not currently conversing, she was always possible to reach out to, and would have a unique and sincere thing to say. Outside my immediate family, I have not known, that I was able to stay in contact with to any degree, anybody longer than Hilary, and she had a profound impact on me as a consequence. Every year I remembered her birthday. I could not even reliably predict my mother’s birthday until fairly recently. Which I assure you is not a slight against my or anybody else’s mother.

I never was much able to keep up with ANYbody over facebook, where our primary contact was after a certain period, and I wish sincerely that I had worked harder at making that possible, with Hilary and the people I knew through her; this here would be a more informed piece, and less fixated on what I assume is a fairly narrow aspect of Hilary’s personality, and I might have fewer regrets overall, but nonetheless what I DID experience was very important to me. Most of what I know goes back quite a while, back to when I insisted on calling myself “roneldo,” which I assure you is not something I would ever like to be called again, but Hilary was welcome to call me that. I also took turns at being volcabbage, transfestunerix and eels macinstrudel when I knew Hilary, but she was always Hilary, with one L, from New Lenox with one N.

There were online nicknames like “spam,” (a hilarious word in the mid-90s) “Krunk” (which predates and is dissimilar to the contemporary conception of “crunk”) and “Annie Lennox” with (two Ns) but she was not hiding from or afraid of anybody.

Hilary had a a way of thinking about things, and of speaking, and a gift for functionally absurd statements that I had up to that point not seen from anybody else. For example, an instruction page for creating a soft drink called “Froofy” directed readers foremost to “Find and capture a wild santa claus.” Yes whatever it looks stupid HERE, but I didn’t realize that sort of statement EXISTED. I could not fathom it.
And Hilary had refreshing sort of darkness, a dissatisfaction with the insincere, commercialized happy face put on by the dominant culture. I had never known anybody who openly criticized the religion-based social conventions I had always struggled with. She also always wrote little messages on pictures, that you could only see by hovering your mouse cursor over them. There would be a picture of a largely incidental person holding up a piece of cheese and the hidden text would say “this cheese is on sale.” So stupid, and yet to me that was just perfect. I still do that. I might be the last person on the internet who does. And those are often the best part of my pages! Of course having said that, the one on the next picture is lame so this is a bad time to start looking for them.”

I didn’t know anybody else who watched Conan O’Brien’s program either (I possibly learned of her existence via her old website about the topic) so that might speak more to my not knowing many people, but what is important is that I shared interest with Hilary that I was not able to share with others who were not on the internet. And in those days, a lot of people were not on the internet!

I wanted to have a website because of Hilary’s websites, The Spam Headwound, primarily, with such a ludicrous title that very much appealed to the me of the period, across its various urls, nlenx.com/spam, twne.com/spam, spam.towne.net, and gigglebounce.com. There was also lincolnway.com, which she registered specifically to annoy the Lincoln Way high school she had attended, after having been punished for other students loading her relatively outrageous personal website on school computers. As best I can figure out. I still use html code that I copied and eventually memorized off of her pages more than half my life ago. Most of the old, admittedly nonsensical pages are still acknowledged at the gigglebounce vault but some do not work quite properly, and many are simply not there at all! The archive.org version unfortunately got confused by the netscape-style frames and only has a single page saved multiple times, with none of the frame data. But I will always remember.

Also: from june 25 1999, this watery screenshot of the site not displaying correctly in America Online, from a thankfully brief period during which I thought it was a good idea to save my screenshots as jpegs.

In fact, my oldest “normal” website entries here are ripped directly from the source of gigglebounce.com during a period when Hilary granted myself and a few others the ability to place updates on the website, and it appears that the earliest dated one has a picture of Hilary in it, which I had quite forgotten about. Likewise I cannot remember how long that version of gigglebounce lasted, but I, plainly, kept going, without much considering why I did. Records indicate I may even have been the last person doing so. This does not get me money or recognition, but I like making these things, and Hilary got me started. But I am here to talk about the GOOD things she did.

I didn’t know art people growing up, or until quite after I was mostly grown. Between those points I apparently found something of a muse in Hilary’s uncompromising distinctness. I did not develop my technical skill much but I think the ideas are more important, even if they are very stupid. Hilary helped me want to be stupid in a new way.

I believe this was her livejournal avatar, derived from an inexplicable default mouse cursor in certain versions of windows, fighting the Yellow Ant from the computer game Simant, which I must have made a big deal about at some point. Neither is being considerate of the environment.

I still use phrases that Hilary used, probably only once, that I thought were funny, such as “thank you for your time and consideration in these matters” “yes, very much so, “mein augen” and “laeta bovis.” One of the characters that I draw is even named “laeta,” based on that, if not pronounced the same way. I still think the name “Gretchen” is funny. It seemed to be a recurring element, quite apart from that picture I just showed. For example, there was a page titled “temporary gretchen fix” with just a picture of notebook paper from what looked to be a high school writing assignment, with a teacher-written criticism of “inappropriate sentences.” I apparently transcribed it, because it was hard to read, and still have THAT, though the original image seems to be lost.

1. Aegis – protection, sponsorship
Gretchen was happy Lincoln-way was the Aegis for the Nazi dance.
2. Amazon – A female warrior
Gretchen was proud to be an Amazon.
3. Aurora – The dawn or similar luminousity
Gretchen took many pictures of the aurora borealis.
4. Odyssey – Extended journey
Gretchen packed some digestive bisquits for her odyssey
5. Paean – Song of thanksgiving
Peetah sang a paean about the Spanish Inquisition.
6. Palladium – Safeguard
Gretchen kept a statue of a Palladium next to her bed.
7. Plutocrat – A wealthy person
Bill Gates is a plutocrat and Gretchen isn’t.
8. Siren – A bewitching or irresistable women, fascinating
Gretchen acted as a siren by luring the small children to the fire.
9. Valhalla – hall of feasting heroes
Gretchen was not invited to the Valhalla.
10. Ambrosial – fragrant
Peetah could smell the Ambrosial children boiling.
And now it will have to be a permanent Gretchen fix.

Gretchen was also the name of the lion tamer in “The Spam Story,” which I also cannot now locate. Although I learned that as of 2007 Hilary had been a vegetarian for a year, which is almost as impressive as convincing lions to do your bidding.

I started writing this without even realizing that my facebook name IS Gretchen. That is how deeply ingrained Hilary’s influence is. And I used gretchen as a sound effect in a completely unrelated long-standing unreleased project of mine. Certainly I would have liked to be influenced by the later, responsible Hilary who examined patents in her spare time and achieved a G-13 pay scale according to federalpay.org and perhaps have made something more of myself.

Although threatening people’s sparkle dots amidst serious (ninjas notwithstanding) results for your life as a Washington DC national government employee is Hilary Classic on a grander scale.

She had ferrets as pets; I believe this is based on a photograph of one, and the wood sprite that I opened this site entry with.
we never talked as much as I wanted to afterward. I never showed her much of my artwork but she was always supportive when I did. Again, I didn’t have many people to show it to, and was slow to develop what skill I had. In a very rare gesture, in December of 2007, I mailed a pencil drawing strikingly similar to the one near the top of this entry, that I made of/based on Hilary to her home address, and several times afterward, without my having mentioned it, she claimed to still have the dumb thing, having put it in a frame, even, and I wish I could have sent something better, later! I made up one of my crummy holiday cards more recently, and included some tiny bizarre drawings whose inspiration I can no longer recall, but never got around to sending it. And maybe I should hold on to it, since it is the only physical space souvenir I have that is Hilary-related (also, I eh lost it again). She had mentioned across a few years having a box that she meant to send to me but could never get around to it. I wish I had asked what was in the box!

I keep showing these things. On Hilary’s website there was a “webcam” page, but the image only updated once a week or so, and generally showed a staged viewpoint. I saved a bunch of them, I wish I had saved more! Maybe it makes me seem like a creep, but in fact the more I have worried about coming across as creepy, the fewer friends I have had.

Right, just what I was saying.

I believe at one point three other people named Timmy, Lars and Jose also had similar webcameras featured on the page, plus the webcam of the not-yet published icon to misogynists who didn’t realize he was kidding Maddox, hotlinked off his own website, until I think he specifically disabled that on his end.

before I had my run-in with the Shipyard Brewing Company, Hilary had viewed and commented on the original version of the troublesome article, and I had meant to ask if she had for some reason preserved the pictures I deleted in a paranoid panic after the cease and desist letter, as if other people did that. Parts of that experience made me question if my work had any real value, but anything I did that Hilary liked was something I had done right. She was also the first person to sign my orenthal, even though it was a ripoff of her elf.

From 2000 to 2002, maybe, Hilary ran a message forum “The Blabby Board,” and I can honestly say that was my most positive and probably longest consistent internet message board experience. It was not without complicated points and eventually ceased operation, but I had always wanted to have something like that again.
The last time we were both available for what could be considered a conversation, which sadly was in April 2016, I mentioned some of the screwy things that have been in MY life and the sort of people I dealt with since the two of us had been regularly acquainted. And Hilary LAUGHED (in a typing sort of way). She didn’t get worried and declare in seriousness that I should give up and get away from everything, or get bothered and set to justifying every other parties’ actions, like I am a puzzlewit with no empathy. She knew why I complained the way I did. Sometimes life is just frustrating and ridiculous, and you want to share that with somebody who sees it for what it is. With Hilary, I momentarily went from being the only person who had a problem to one of an uncommon few who did not.

We were “planning” to make a video game together. I do not know when; one of us was always too busy. It was already eating me inside that I had not done real work on it beyond sketches and descriptions of circumstances, just for myself, but now I need to, for both of us. Right? If that helps me get it done, sure. I pledge to give it a much better gretchen sound effect.

I was always looking forward to a hypothetical point in the future when we could exchange ideas freely. I wish I could asked about more of the circumstances that inspired the strange things she wrote about. I did not realize how much time had passed until I started writing all this. 1999 to 2003 seemed like a huge expanse of time, then 2003 to 2007 was another, and suddenly I misplaced a whole decade without noticing. I wanted to resume what we had. Or more likely, start over entirely. Hilary always lived in an interesting way, and fixating on what had already occurred was unnecessary.

We never met, unfortunately. We came tantalizingly close, but to be brief, for once, since it hurts just a scrap too much, a meeting was not feasible. I was quite sad, in fact sadder than I expected to be. But I imagined there would be plenty of opportunities to arrange a proper meeting. I ought to have tried to arrange a visit earlier but for many years I was not very mobile. Was this a form of love, perhaps? I think it was, and I wish that I had expressed it. I did not think I was worthy, perhaps. I certainly was somewhat to highly jealous of any more forward or proximal person that she seemed to hold in favor at any point across a longer span of time than is usual. I loved dumb old science fox but do I care who he likes now? Probably, a little bit, but I am not going out of my way to find out. Not far at all. I am glad that I was able to tell him how I felt so that he could do something to no longer deserve it.
Hilary would have been the first person that I really developed that for. “crushes” I might have had momentarily in grade school were based on nothing more than me seeing tv shows and thinking I was supposed to do that.

Hilary was engaging, mentally, and I think I wanted to look like her. I still want to look like her. Not like a… but to be elegant without making a forced show of it.

Could I pull that off? Absolutely not. Yes, otay, this is from 2007. I don’t feel like I am entitled to show pictures that I only saw years after they were taken or uploaded, by people who might not necessarily have any clue who I am. I barely have any clue who I am so it is not like I could introduce myself.

Alright, here is one from 2015 taken by Hilary’s close companion Bobbert Hyman, don’t tell. Yes, I would very much like to meet the person in this photograph. Also, I consider little bowls of rice and beans to be people, but I would also like to meet the person eating the other person.

I have had such a mental connection with somebody, or thought I had, perhaps nine times, and as I became older it seemed more like love. And love is good, supposedly. This was a very difficult thing to write, especially so soon after the last one, (aw BEANS look at the line I ended that with, I had no idea) but I suppose this is preferable to my being indifferent and not wishing to write anything. In fact this was more difficult to write, in a way, because while I have more regrets about my father’s final years than I can list, I believe that he forgave me for my role in that, and I knew where I stood with him, and I was able to get some degree of closure. And also he was 65, not 34. Hilary liked a few things I did, but did she like me, as a person? When she laughed at my tragic adventures in fuzzyland, was she really laughing at ME? When she said I made her terrible day ten times better, did she mean ten times better at being terrible? I will quite possibly never know. I even just said I wanted to look like her, for beets freeps. That might have been deemed a hilarious notion. But I would take it, if she wanted to give it.

Oh well that’s just rude!

We’re an American Band is such a stupid song. You don’t have to listen to it, I will sum it up by quoting it:
“we’ll come into your town, we’ll help ya party down, we’re an american band!”
I do NOT require assistance partying, in ANY direction. As band, your foremost duty is to perform music. Partying is the rightful responsibility of others.

I am supposed to take from this song: We’ll do whatever we want! you can’t tell us what to do we’re an american band!
Like it is supposed to be some kind of protest against bands from other countries. “SLOVENIAN bands will not subsidize your parties! US, on the other hand…”

it just keeps reminding me of American Made, Hulk Hogan’s old WCW theme music, the one that’s designed to sound like his older WWF music but be distinct enough to not infringe copyright. It’s the Mad TV sound-alike version of Real American. He’s American Made in America He’s american-merican, merican! He’s american banned in slovenia he’s american banned!

Whenever I hear American band I have to sing alternate lyrics to it. Apparently this has gone on for quite some time because this list is longer than the number of chorus iterations within the song, and it is MOSTLY chorus iterations.

we’ll come into your town, we’ll knock your birdbaths down, we’re an american band
we’ll come into your shop, we’ll make you party UP we’re an american band
we’ll break into your flat, and not feed your kitty cat we’re an american band
we’ll come into your place, we’ll rub some corn on your face we’re an american band
now it’s getting weird
we’ll steal your piano replace it with jay leno we’re an american band

(I wrote this when Jay Leno was still on television and presumed employed for life so it was at that time more of an accomplishment to pull him away from his regular duties)

we’ll come into your city and we’ll bring along smitty

what even happened to Marvin “Smitty” Smith, anyhow? HE was IN an american band. this goes to show you what you can get yourself into by associating with the wrong crowd.
(I wrote this when jay leno was still on television but Kevin Eubanks and Smitty were no longer in the Tonight Show Band)

In fact I did not go to this specifically because I could not get a guarantee that Kevin was bringing along Smitty. If only the appropriate alternate lyrics had been applied to “American Band” sooner!

we’ll come into your home, we’ll prank call paul prudhome
who does this band even think it is? they don’t have the power to do that.

we’ll modify your suit, we’ll add a wrestling boot, we are the beach patrol

this song can’t help reminding me of hulk hogan’s album; another song on that album is about the “wrestling boot traveling band” and yet one another includes
the phrase “we are the beach patrol, we wanna party, party, party.”
You do not, and in fact I do not want you to listen to either of those, just to be AWARE that
they named the band after a BOOT that goes around to different places. It should be noted that “american band” and “wrestling boot traveling band,” the song, both use the phrase “with the boys in the band,” and I have done so.

we’ll come into your factory, talk trash about Tony Slattery

I would like to point to the date at which I wrote this as being responsible for all the dated references but that was 2010

we’ll come into your daventry, astound you with our gallantry, we’re an american graham

we’ll come into your dump, make you play Rallo Gump, we’re an american trashbag

we’ll come into your towns, get mad at jews and browns, we’re an american klan

I can’t believe it took me five years to post this. Maybe I thought that by now people would have forgotten how trendy it was to trash Hulk Hogan’s album five years before I wrote it. This article, I mean, not Hulk Hogan’s album. I wrote that ten years before then. Thankfully its message is timeless. The article, I mean. The message from Hulk Hogan’s album is set to expire at midnight on March 4, 201… great goopity I think I’d better post this tonight.

we’ll come into your Hyundai, make you occupy a wildlife refuge with Ammon Bundy

ah I just don’t have the gift anymore!

I am trying to write the next thing, but it is very boring. So watch out.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Even Wikipedia does not know why Craig Slist wants me to support Wikipedia.

All it knows is that Jaffa Cakes are very controversial.

Obviously, these things are cookies. However, they are sold as cakes because for some reason cookies in England are “value added” taxed, but only if they have valuable chocolate added to them, yet cakes aren’t ever. Rather than argue that this differentiation is stupid and arbitrary, Jaffa Inc. convinced a judge that the cakes are in fact cakes because they get hard when stale, and that worked, and so they are not subject to the extra tax. The American legal system isn’t the only one that’s silly.

I think it has something to do with cakes being considered “food” and biscuits being considered snacks. If they have chocolate on them. Because that’s just the way the English do things. You couldn’t very well have your afternoon tea without cake, could you? Why it’s the most important meal of the day old boy. As it is also the only one without bacon in it, a suitable substitute is required. Next they’ll be wanting to tax our chip butties and our monocles, what?

The issue on that page is whether or no it’s relevant that Jaffa was in Palestine at the time when Jaffa cakes were invented, even though it isn’t, since these things are Jaffa-y in name only, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to be aware. Here, though, it is only brought up to be a source of contention, because a surprisingly large amount of people have been killed over what a very small geographical region is called and this makes everything right. Jaffa has also been a part of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, just not at the time when a silly sugary object was created elsewhere by people oblivious to the conflict.

I have eaten some. They are rather a bit like hostess cupcakes… and those are neither cookie nor cake. I’m not sure what they are. Not “natural,” certainly. They’re whatever pop tarts are. Some weird manufactured things that are too soft to be cookies, but too industrial to be cakes.

The picture on the box is, not surprisingly, enlarged to seem larger. I neglected to take a picture of this box to prove that to you, but I’ve requested that you believe stranger things than that which is printed there. “The squidgy orange bit,” as the package so regrettably refers to the squidgy orange bit as, is never centered and always has a clear seam around it which makes it look simultaneously smaller and uninvited. Yet the box claims both the biscuit itself and the orange part are considerably larger than they were at some unspecified previous point in time, a thought which upsets me. These things are schmofully inadequate as they are.

As to where I acquired Jaffa cakes, myself being a resident of some united states, I went to Big Y, the WORLD CLASS MARKET. It is a classy market of the world. It brings me classy goods from all over the world. Small, local, struggling brands from far off places often find their ways into the big y’s famous shelves.

Ahoy there, rabies! I done found the carbonated treasure yup.

If I had ever considered wandering from y’s influence for any reason, I now know things can get no better, with good old Eli around. What say you, my good, albeit inconsistently drawn man?

Whaaaaa? Can I do nothing to change your mind? It would be a dark fact indeed if you left. The morning just doesn’t grow the same without you! You simply must stay!

Please do not be angry, Adol! That is not what I wanted at ol!

Alas, what a tragic existence! I can already feel my life pulsing toward ruin. I hate to spend valestine castle’s day alone!

Fine then, be off, fair Adol. You were my idol (Maybe I will construct a doll to remember you with). I was a fool to think I had anything to offer you; you already have 057 RING. Perhaps I will go to the pet shelter and get a Dogi of my own. I will differentiate him from yours by gluing a hat to his head.

Wait, come back! I have good news!

That’s the spirit. Though I think you’re supposed to drink the stuff rather than dump it and sail over it.

On a related topic, at this time of year when people pay tribute to their advertising masters so that they may be spared from elimination, I give praise to this advertisement for doing the improbable and making the graphics seem worse than they actually are.