Me So Sick...

of writing about mosters.

Thar Be Monsters: Sinister Porpoise

As on land, not all of the monsters in the sea are feared because they have sharp teeth, pointy claws, or gross tentacles. For many of them, their most menacing feature is their evil mind or their pitch-black soul. A prime example of this type of sea monster is known as Sinister Porpoise. Sinister Porpoise is one of the few true James Bondian villains of the sea.

Born the son of poor working-class porpoises, Sinclair Porpoise knew the suffering that poverty can bring. Sinclair's parents always stressed the value of education and, as a result, despite his modest means, Sinclair graduated at the top of his class and was among only 3 sea mammals selected that year to attend Yale University. At Yale, Sinclair became a prominent member of Skull and Bones, hobknobbing with past and future presidents, and graduated with highest honors.

After graduating, Sinclair went into business and learned the comforts and joys that money can bring. His company, Higher Porpoise, quickly became one of the most powerful and wealthy corporate forces on the planet. Everything that Sinclair touched seem to turn to delicious fish (porpoise gold).

Sinclair fell in love with a human woman and was married to her in 1997. For the first time in his life, Sinclair was truly content. Though they were different in many ways, Sinclair and his wife were quite happy together. That's when tragedy first struck. While swimming home from porpoise church Sinclair's parents were ensnared by a tuna net. When Sinclair heard the news, he vowed to investigate his parents' death with every resource at his disposal. What he found was both shocking and almost slightly ironic. With his vast resources Sinclair was able to track the owner of the tuna net. It turned out to be the property of Sea Fowl Tuna, a subsidiary of Higher Porpoise Inc.

Sinclair suddenly came to the realization that money was not an ends in and of itself but a means to do good. From that point on he invested his efforts and financial resources into doing good for the world. Higher Porpoise made great leaps in the fields of medical research, pollution prevention and cleanup, and general world improvement. Despite the satisfaction he found in doing these good deeds, Sinclair was unable to resist the temptation to attempt to purchase revenge. He had Sea Fowl Tuna shut down and the owners were convicted of criminal negligence and sentenced to prison. The evidence against them was scant, but Sinclair was able to use his wealth to bribe the jury and rig the trial. Sinclair was amazed by the power of money.

Irregardless, the gods of irony were not finished with Sinclair. Dissatisfied with there previous attempt at tragic irony they devised an ironic tragedy of villain origin story proportions. Sinclair's human wife Shirley fell ill with cancer. As a result of Sinclair's vast wealth, no effort was spared in treating her illness and as a result of his company's research, her life was saved without complication.

To celebrate Shirley's recovery the two set off on an ocean cruise aboard Siclair's 500 foot yacht, the Rocky V. All was proceeding swimmingly when a great explosion from under the waves rocked the boat. All manner of dead ocean life, or death, floated to the surface as Shirley lost her footing and fell into the ocean. After years of life on land Sinclair no longer possessed the ability to swim. The only other ship nearby was a passing tuna fishing vessel. Sinclair begged the captain for help. The captain said he could catch her if he had a net, but that ever since the Sea Fowl incident all tuna fishing was now done with dynamite. He offered that he would be more than happy to throw in a stick to see if that might help. It did not.

By the time the fishermen and Sinclair's crew were able to make a rescue rope from their own hair, it was too late for Shirley. Sinclair murdered every fisherman on that boat and ate his entire crew. He then changed his name to Sinister and returned to the ocean to plot his revenge. Since then he has mastermind many an ingenious scheme, perpetually attempting to harness his wealth to reap vengeance on the human race.

Thar be Monsters: Angler Fish, A.K.A. Those Scary-Ass Fish with the Snaggle Teeth and that Hangy-Down Light Thingy

No man knows what horrifying creatures dwell in the deepest depths of the ocean. For that is where the light darest not penetrate and the aqua-filth is at its highest concentration. In this unholy place many of the sea's most hideous creatures have evolved. In the dark a creature's appearance plays no role in natural selection, and thus truly horrific monsters have evolved. One of the most notorious among these is the insidious angler fish.

The angler fish is an oddity of the first magnitude. It is a hideously malproportioned fish, with great, huge, pointy snaggle-teeth and a antenna with a light at the tip. The angler fish uses this light to shock its prey by suddenly revealing its grotesqueitudityness like so many Medusas. Seeing such horror after a lifetime of seeing nothing but backness would be enough to shock anyone/thing. Think back to the first time that you gazed upon this disgusting monstrosity. Were you not too shocked to move? Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

There are many such creatures in the sea. The angler fish is among the most commonly known simply because it is one of the few amongst the uglyfish variety which can be viewed without serious risk of permanent physiological and/or psychological damage.

Though the angler fish is one of the most memorable of the sea's monsters, at first glance it does not seem to pose as much of a threat as those creatures which dwell nearer to the light or are able to break the surface and walk the land, such as the highly dreaded horseshoe crab (For more information, see the horseshoe crab section).

Still, during a recent study to find out once and for all whether or not fat-bottomed girls truly did make the rockin' world go round, researchers seem to have been met with an unfortunate surprise. After not hearing from the lab for a few days and being unable to contact researchers by phone, a scientist involved in the study rushed to the lab to investigate. There he found his colleagues and test subjects all paralyzed in what seemed to be sheer horror. A robotic fat-bottomed girl suite was also found, with a pool of filthy salt water at its feet. Some believe that this suite was being operated by one of the sea-bottom's many fish hideous enough to cause such damage; others are certain of it.

The fact is that we have no way of knowing what is going on on the sea bottom. Fish could be building robots or lasers. They could be drilling to the center of the Earth for some sinister purpose, or Sinister Porpoise. They could be opening the gates to hell, or re-animating dead pirates. I wouldn't put anything past them. The sea-bottom sucks, and they must be desperate.

Thar Be Monsters: Aqua-Sasquatch

Many noteworthy monsters of the land have sea-dwelling relatives. One of the most illusive amongth these is Aqua-Sasquatch. Aqua-Sasquatch once lived among his land-lubbin' brothers and sisters in the Canadian wilderness. Through a series of unlikely, and utterly unnontragic events he came to dwell in the icy depths of the Kachemak bay and various other areas off of the coast of Alaska.

Aqua-Sasquatch is one of the primary reasons that Alaskan crab fishing is so dangerous. He is also the main reason that Jack La Lanne will no longer swim in that part of the ocean. When asked about this Jack replied, "We fought our twelve rounds. The Judges couldn't make a decision. Neither of us wants to do it again!"

The story of Aqua-Sasquatch, or Herbie, as he was once called, is a tragic one at best. His parents, not wanting him to end up uneducated and penniless as they had in this ever-changing world, enrolled him in school at an early age. They shaved him every day and forced him to pass himself of as a boy in order to attend local schools. Needless to say, because of his incredible stature and large feet he was a constant stand-out, literally, and subject to much ridicule. Though he excelled at kickball, his inability to procure properly fitting iceskates kept him from ever being able to play hockey, and though he wore a most impressive mullet, his lacking skills in Canada's national pastime caused a rift between him and his peers. This was compounded by scholastic difficulties stemming from his parents' lack of education and complete lack of verbal skills.

Herbie found himself falling behind in school and eventually fell in with a crowd of zombies. Though he obtained an uncanny repetoire of culinary recipes utilizing human brains as the main ingredient, his zombie friends remained unimpressed, and France remained a great distance from his Canadian home.

Torn between the world of man and swamp-ape Herbie began to feel that the only way that he would ever be happy would be to eliminate his human side. He ultimately gave in to pressure from his peers and became a zombie. Now a half-sasquatch half-zombie Herbie entered the happiest years of his life. He wedded his long-time high school sweetheart and settled in Ottawa. He got a job at a factory doing "zombie work," and though the pay was unimpressive, he lived contentedly for a number of years.

This, however, was not such a happy time for the rest of Canada. Zombies were running rampant all over Canada and draining the limited resources Canada's socialized medical system. The remaining non-zombie Canadians, who all happened to play for the Toronto Maple Leaves, (In those days hockey was slightly different. Each team had at least 800,000 people on it.) introduced legislation declaring all zombies non-citizens and thus no longer entitled to free health care. In retaliation the zombies introduced legislation declaring all non-zombies "zombiefood." There was a great war at the polls, Canada's largest and most violent war up until that point. Due primarily to zombie nonparticipation in events not involving the consumption of human brains, the first motion was passed by a vote of 569,111 to 505,665. The second motion was voted down by a vote of 534,890 to 535,904. Not a single zombie voted on either issue.

Shortly after this zombies began to fall ill and die due to their weakened immune systems, stemming from a lack of dietary fruits and vegetables, and lack of functional epidermal tissue. Herbie (you remember him?) thought that his time had finally come and braced himself for the end. The end, however, did not come, (Should this be a semicolon?) not for Herbie. Herbie went into a not un-King Kong like rage. He roamed the countryside eating masterfully prepared human brains and posing for blurry photos taken by hikers.

Canada was left with no choice but to call on legendary hockey hero, Wayne Gretski, who they kept frozen for just such an emergency. The battle between "The Great One" and Herbie was legendary at best and noteworthy at least. It was, at the time, the most violent and destructive war ever waged on Canadian soil. Eventually, Gretski drove Herbie into the Pacific Ocean. Of course, Gretski was exceedingly disinclined to follow him in and finish the job, the ocean being, in many ways, much like the largest most disgusting, pool of vile wretchedness that anyone could ever imagine. Gretski, knowing that Sasquatches were very adept swimmers, held his breath and watched the water until he could hold his breathe no longer. Then dusted off his hands and said, "Good enough fer me!"

What Gretski did not know is that though Sasquatches cannot breath under water, zombies can.

Thar be Monsters: The Dreaded Horseshoe Crab

All of the world's most terrifying, evil, and stinky creatures live in the sea. Since the sea is so incredibly filthy, a terrifyingly wide array of hideous creatures and assorted monsters have evolved in its depths.

Not least amongth these is the horseshoe crab. The horseshoe crab is incredibly dangerous. Its shell is bullet-proof, it is also fire-retardant and capable of surviving a six megaton atomic blast. The horseshoe crab is also equipped with a powerful tail spike capable of punching a hole in the armor of a tank. This same tail spike can also fire a powerful laser beam from its tip. Horseshoe crabs can also combine into incredibly voluminous conglomerate monsters.

The horseshoe crab's only weakness is human hair, and they are only vulnerable to it on their undersides. This makes it impossible for them to walk on any ground covered in it. This fact was discovered in World War I when the United States attempted to use horseshoe crabs as a stronger and more stylish substitute for traditional helmets, which were made out of turtle shells.

This fact is also believed to be what saved ancient Egyptian civilization from ruin when horseshoe crabs destroyed much of the ancient world. Because it was quite difficult to maintain a lush, green lawn in ancient Egypt, Egyptians took to using dyed hair clippings as an inexpensive, low-maintenance substitute. The strange coincidence is the very thing that saved them from the overwhelming destruction suffered by neighboring regions and turned back the tide of the Great Crab Invasion.

My Nose

My nose looks a bit like a ghost when viewed from below, my nose, not the ghost. I smell the crisp salty air.

The Sea, And Why You Are So Afraid of It.

Since Steve first wandered to the shore and gazed upon the ocean, man has asked the questions, "What is the sea? Why am I so afraid of it?" and, "Why does it taste so bad?" The answers to these questions have remained illusive for most of man's history. Worry not for I know them all.To attempt to answer these questions one-by-one would result in much redundancy. I would be repeating myself, just saying the same thing over and over and over, reiterating reasons from previous questions, restating issues that I had already covered, and using excessively excessive language to give you scant paltry few facts. Let us avoid such things by first ending this paragraph now.There are basically two types of people in the world, those who believe that there are basically two types of people in the world and those who do not. (Pause now, my friend, to let the true genius of this statement sink in.)

In a similar fashion, all things and non things in the universe can be sorted in to two categories, "the sea", and "not the sea". "The sea" is basically everything that is not "not the sea". This mostly includes things that are not "not water," not not "dead fish," not "not treasure," not "not pirates," not "not Vikings" and not "not the Titanic."Scientists have found that there are two main factors which cause the sea to be so disturbing. The first is that the sea is full of dead things, just rotting away like meat in a grocery store, in a town overridden by zombies, on a hot summer's day when none of said zombies are really hungry or energetic enough to eat said meat, so instead they're just lying around. The second is that every creature in the ocean urinates, defecates, and fornicates in the ocean. These two factors have been found to be equally disturbing by the most sensitive equipment that science is currently able to produce, though some people may find one to be more disturbing than the other. Scientists agree that the sea is the closest thing there is to "hell on Earth*." There is a reason that life came up out of the ocean to dwell on land. It is because the ocean is a giant cesspool.* Aquahell was originally considered as a name for the Atlantic ocean.

The Sea Is in Me!

People are always asking me, they're always saying, "Hey's Mr. Sheld'n, how's come's you's always's got's so's much knowledgeableness about's the sea and the like's?" "Two reasons," I say, "Firstly, I, my friend, went to college. I went there for eight years on a fairly regular basis, and I still go from time to time. Second and foremost, the sea is in me." I normally leave it at that, in order to seem mysterious, but for you, my friends, I shall explain further. I, much like the sea, am full of salt water, dead fish, sunken ships, and treasure. Veritably! Indubitably! This is evidenced by the fact that there is almost always salt water leaking out of my head. Ask anyone who knows me. They'll tell you it's true. Indeed, my pillow has even become bleached from green to orange, as a result of my leaking! This is also why I often smell of dead fish and why sometimes, first thing in the morning, I cough up splinters of wood.

Now, I know that this must seem awful to you, but it has somehow given me a wealth of knowledge pertaining to the sea. I know the sea because I know myself and I am the sea. Search your feelings, you know it to be true. So... Now that we have cleared up all questions of my authority on the subject, I shall begin to proceed to inform you in regards to the topic of the sea and the things in it.

Things Nautical

As an expert on more topics than most people and a teacher of many, people are always asking me, "Hey, Sheldon," or, "Mr. Richards," or, "You there, what do you know about the sea?" "The sea?" I often reply, as is my want. "I know much of the sea. I have a veritable ocean of knowledge." Sometimes I reply by saying, "What?" This is when I do not hear them. I have also been known to say, "Yes my friend. The pug is a fine canine, and would be a dog to suite your needs." This usually occurs upon their being misheard. You see, I am a bit deaf from so much rocking out... out in the sea... on account of all the waves... which tend to rock one a bit.

Irregardless, because so many people so often quandary me with such quandaries, I, your knower of knautical knowledge, have decided to write a series of articles about the sea, its creatures, the brave and or mentally ill men and women who have traversed it, and anything else, related or nigh, which might cross my savage, unpredictable, rather sea-like mind.I assure you my friends, you will be greatly enriched, enlightened, engrossed, enlarged, enhanced, engorged, enticed, and enpowered as you read on from the vast stores of my knowledgedness. This is all for now. As I know that you are likely profusely salivating (for more) by this time, I advise you to be careful of your keyboard and or pants. Love, Me