The HPTTJ Awards

Sometimes, you just want to give something back. This urge may come over you when regarding the news, when looking at something on the tube (right now, SuperWife is working her way through BUFFY Season 6 on DVD, so I'm feeling it reasonably regularly whenever I'm reminded once again of just how badly Joss Whedon screwed this particular pooch, beloved of so many, lo these many years ago), while you're at work dealing with the vagueries of management and/or customers, while you're out cruising the Interweb, or simply whenever you contemplate the various happenings and occurrences of day to day life in general.

But if you're anything like me, you will often, perhaps even frequently, on such occasions find the sudden, near overwhelming impulse to Give Something Back rising, nay, I say, boiling up in you, threatening to choke you beneath its pulsing crimson weight, building up pressure until it cannot, it will not, it must not be denied.

Thus, and so, The Hard Punch To The Jaw Awards, which will be given out on an occasional and random basis whenever the hell I feel like typing up a few more:

A Hard Punch To The Jaw is hereby awarded to each and every elected U.S. government representative who recently voted to continue funding the ongoing atrocity and abomination we pleasantly refer to as "the War In Iraq". Had Congress grown a collctive pair and managed to pass a funding bill for the war that included firm timetables for withdrawal, I would still have awarded them all a punch in the jaw, but I would at least have had the delivery fellow pull it a little at the last second. Congress should, if it had a moral atom anywhere in its collective mass, simply cut off all funding for this ongoing act of mass terrorism against an innocent populace, and they should have done it the day they were sworn in. But this latest nonsense is a travesty beyond travesties. Assholes, you're in the majority now, and Bush has an approval rating of 30%. If you won't stand up to him now, you won't stand up to him ever, and it's time to start seriously thinking about voting for Ralph again.

A Hard Punch To The Jaw of Cole Moore Odell, who runs the normally fabulous blog Mountain of Judgment, but who has, in this post, forbidden the remainder of humanity from using a particular word because, apparently, he doesn't like that particular word, or, at least, he doesn't like it when people other than he employ it.

Here in America, Mister Odell, we can use any goddam word we want any goddam where we like at any goddam time we so choose. Shenanigans, shenanigans, shenanigans.

A Hard Punch To The Jaw to WizKids, for about half screwing up the new AVENGERS set, from what we've seen to date, for completely screwing up Ultra Boy's dial, and for not hiring me as their HeroClix game designer some time last year.

A Hard Punch To The Jaw every minute of every day yea, unto eternity itself for Brian Michael Bendis, Grant Morrison, Chris Claremont, Mark Millar, John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, Jamie Delano, Tim Truman, Ron Marz, Gerry Conway, Jim Owsley, Keith Giffen, Paul Levitz, and every other crappy writer who has ever crapped up a comic book title that otherwise would have been cool and interesting if it had been written by, I don't know, Geoff Johns or Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman or Greg Rucka or Cary Bates or Gail Simone or Steve Englehart or Steve Gerber or somebody else who could actually, you know, frickin' write.

And I could type these up all day long, but now we have to go see my oldest stepdaughter graduate, an occasion for which I wish no hard punches to the jaw of anyone, as I am bursting with parental pride.

But I'm sure I'll do more of these later. In today's world, there is unfortunately no end of Jaws that merit Hard Punches, and the nice thing about delivering them cybernetically is that you don't jack up your knuckles, or need to rub linament on your biceps afterward.