Thou Shalt Not Kill, But *I* Sure Will

I think I need to buy a Bible. There are a lot of very intriguing stories in that book for the cynical heathen to enjoy.

As per usual, I was photocopying church bulletins, and this week's bulletin happens to be really heavy on Moses. While mindlessly feeding pages into the copier, I couldn't help but notice the following heading in the bulletin:

PRESENTING MOSES:
Teacher
Lawgiver
Murderer
Prophet
Leader

It seemed to me that one of these job titles was a little out of place. It would be like looking at the resume of a respected doctor and seeing "Convicted Rapist" wedged between Pediatrician and ER Surgeon. I brought the bulletin into Mrs. Employer, showed her the page, and pointed to the heading. I asked, "Which one of these things is not like the other?"

I realize that I haven't read much of the scriptures in over six years, but I didn't really remember Moses as having been a murderer. That little tidbit seemed to have been overlooked by Charleton Heston as well. Nevertheless, it's quite the tale. This is what it says in Exodus 2: 11-12: "One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand."

I've seen enough Law & Order to know that Jack McCoy would never let Moses get away with that. Not only did Moses go out of his way to ensure that no one was looking, but then he concealed the evidence of the crime!! I realize the Egyptian was beating the Hebrew, but Moses was the Pharaoh's adopted grandson - essentially royalty. Couldn't he have simply told the Egyptian to stop or he'd force him to build pyramids or something? But it gets even better in the next three verses: "The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, 'Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?' The man said, 'Who made you ruler and judge of us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?' Then Moses was afraid and thought, 'What I did must have become known.' When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian." So not only is Moses a murderer and a liar, but he also flees the jurisdiction!

What I'm dying to know is what Moses' real reaction was to the ten commandments after this incident.
GOD: "Number six: Thou shalt not kill!"
MOSES: "Umm... can I be grandfathered in on that one?"

Mrs. Employer told me all sorts of fun facts about Moses, and the more I learned, the more I started to like him. Did you know that Moses got into a petulant shouting match with God and fucking won!? Apparently God wanted Moses to go preach to some people, but Moses bitched and complained about his lousy speaking skills, so God caved and told him to send his brother Aaron to do it. I repeat... God caved! That is fucking impressive!! Even James T. Kirk got a lightning bolt to the chest for asking, "What does God need with a starship?"

Moses had a lot of anger issues. Not only did he smash the ten commandments in a fit of rage after seeing his impressionable followers worshipping idols, but he repeatedly went on a rampage whenever his uppity flock did something to question his authority. For instance, after decades in the burning desert, some 250 of his followers gathered and accused Moses and his brother Aaron of thinking they were better than everyone else, and claiming God's authority as a way of maintaining power. I guess they finally got sick of their shit. Moses berates them mercilessly for their insolence, but that doesn't work. So Moses gets God to intervene, and he has a completely reasonable punishment for these dissenters. God splits the Earth apartswallowing up all 250 of the dissenters and their families, burying them alive. I can see why God liked Moses. They went to the same anger management classes.

This is great stuff. The Old Testament is so much more fun. Everyone (including God) is always pissed off, and someone is always eager to smite someone else. Human sacrifices are surprisingly commonplace as well. I think a lot of fun could be had from a closer reading of the Bible, and I now know that Moses will have my spiritual back if I ever decide to kill a man.

It's nice that so many people use this book as their moral compass.

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Moses: Leader, Prophet, Murderer, Certified Badass!

But That Was When I Ruled the World

Allow me a small moment of English major indulgence. There's a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley called "Ozymandias" about a traveler who happens upon a decrepit and worn away statue in the middle of the desert. On the pedestal appear the words, "My name is Ozymandias, King of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair." Unfortunately for Ozzie, the poem concludes by saying that aside from the rubble of the statue, there's nothing to look at. Time has long since destroyed the works he speaks of, and Ozymandias is just a name on a slab of rock in the desert. Only "the lone and level sands stretch far away."

This is one of my favorite poems. The major theme is that no matter how great our achievements or how much of an impact we think we've had on the world, time and history will eventually forget all of us. It's a real pick-me-up! Anyway (returning to the less poetic real world), the poem reminds me of a childhood fantasy I had back in elementary school. When we impressionable little buggers were introduced to the concept of the time capsule, I found the whole concept intriguing. We were supposed to gather objects that we thought best represented our generation, put them into some sort of sealed container, and then bury it for future generations to see. The whole idea was completely stupid in retrospect, but I loved it. My thoughts immediately turned to exploitation. Our teacher told us that this time capsule could change the way that future generations perceived us. I thought this a great opportunity to make ourselves look good. After all, if we threw in a Calculus book or the collected works of Shakespeare and left out our third-grade collections of slap bracelets and pogs, future generations might look back and say, "Wow! Our parents were really fucking smart!"

Of course, the class didn't take this approach, but the thought was still in my head. Once in middle school, we learned about the concept of history being based on whatever archival materials could be found, and these are often incomplete records. Once again I was presented with more evidence of the possibility of changing the future's opinion of me. Suppose I could bury a book in my backyard that purported to be a first-hand account of how I conquered lands and ruled the world for decades! Perhaps in a few thousand years, my book could be the only record of our era. History books of the 44th century would be filled with mentions of JP the Great (or JP the Conquerer if they'd prefer). The idea was very compelling.

But my fantasy of becoming a faux historical global monarch was only the first step. I soon realized that I could never reap the benefits of such a scam, so I thought my plan needed a boost. That boost came when I saw Back to the Future, Part II. As you'll recall, at the end of the movie, Doc Brown inadvertently uses the DeLorean to go back in time to the Old West. As soon as he vanishes, Marty receives a letter from Doc that was sent with instructions to deliver the letter to him sixty years in the future. Marty then goes back in time to rescue Doc Brown. From the Doc's perspective, he sends the letter and Marty suddenly shows up. The miracles of time travel save the day again!

I wanted to try the same trick. I figured I could put an addendum in my manifesto indicating my current date and location and instructing future time travelers to come pick me up. But I couldn't wait. I grabbed a blank journal, and that became my first line. "To all readers of this document: I am JP and I am writing this on (whatever the date was) at (whatever time it was) from (I provided latitude and longitute coordinates for my house... we calculated them for a science class once). Should you be reading this, you must use your time travel gear to retrieve me from the past. I look forward to seeing you, my noble descendants!" (I'm paraphrasing of course). I got about three lines down before I got distracted by a Pop Tart or Card Sharks or some other such nonsense, and I never finished my temporal ruse. I decided that since no one showed up, either they never found my journal or the future never discovers time travel (and if that's the case, I'm sorely disappointed by science).

Several years later, I was cleaning out my closet and stumbled across that very journal. It was completely empty save for those few lines. I scoffed at my own immature notions and threw the journal in the trash. That's gotta be a predestination paradox or a time loop or something. I was the reason that no one ever came back in time to find me!! Curse my closet-cleaning day!

Many of you may scoff at the idea of a single book with undefined sources being able to alter people's ideas about events millennia after the fact. But then you forget that organized religion has been pulling the same stunt for ages!

That's right, everyone!! I'm comparing myself to Jesus!!

If only Jesus had demanded his own time machine, we might have funded our own Quantum Leap program by now.

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JP: The Once and Future King (with apologies to Elvis)!

Employee Ennui

I've heard the term "bored shitless" bandied about by people who claim to be REALLY bored, but I've never really understood the nature of the term. Is a person apparently so bored that he or she has endlessly empty bowels? But now I understand. I believe that the term refers to a state of being in which the only highlight of your day is reading books on the crapper, but one only has to go so many times in a day, so eventually one is simply shitted-out.... bored shitless if you will.

I, ladies and gentlemen, to use sophisticated verbiage, am bored shitless.

While my current temporary (though I'm starting to stretch the definition of "temporary") job has decent pay and very flexible hours, it's extremely menial work. On most days, I'm filing or copying church bulletins, organizing my boss's library, or sometimes I get to stretch my mental prowess by showing my luddite employers how to use Microsoft Word. Some days get really exciting. Just today I helped them take down their Christmas tree. How holly fucking jolly is that!?

Don't get me wrong. I really like my employers; they're incredibly nice people, and they are really gracious to give me an interim job when I so desperately need it. But when your entire day consists of filing papers in a position that doesn't have any bearing on your future career plans, the everlasting ennui (ten dollar word being used to prove that I still have an advanced vocabulary) begins to set in. I almost prefer the summer when I could be out mowing grass and weed eating all day. The manual labor often makes the hours go by faster.

Sometimes I amuse myself at work by coming up with clever and subtle ways to subvert the religious teachings of my boss in her church bulletins. For those not following along with blog continuity, Mrs. Employer is the pastor at a nearby church, and I am often responsible for proofreading and copying her bulletins. I'm fairly certain that Mrs. Employer doesn't know that I'm a soulless heathen, so she has no idea that I really have no spiritual life to speak of. While I would never change the words in her bulletins without her permission, I often play devil's advocate (sometimes quite literally) in arguments with her. In one instance, a bulletin had a section about the power of prayer, and I got into a rather lengthy debate with her about prayer seeming to challenge "God's will." I knew I wasn't going to change her mind - the woman has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Bible - but I killed almost 45 minutes of work time by listening to her explanation and got paid for doing so. Then she decides that she has to clarify her bulletin so as to account for any difficult parishoners (such as myself) who may be in attendance.

Today, I was looking through various bulletin covers to find a picture about communion. I found one with bread and communion cups on it, so I said, "I found one!" She asked, "Does it have a chalice in the picture or communion cups?" I held the picture up proudly. "Neither!" I declared, "JELLO SHOTS!! How very inappropriate!" She actually got a big kick out of that, and it led to a fine discussion about the importance of wine in the communion ceremony. My inner atheist is simply going, "Blah blah blah churchy-shit" but my conniving lazy side is thinking, "Ha ha! I'm finally getting paid for putting up with religious instruction."

These instances are few and far between. I'd rather not press my luck (unless whammies are involved). On the whole, one tedious day is the same as the next, and it gets a bit maddening after awhile. I'm trying to compensate by reading more and relearning to play the trombone (I plan to join the Kittanning Firemen's Band this year so that I have something to occupy my time), but it's hard to go to work every day to a job that doesn't challenge me. I never thought I'd admit this in writing, but...... I think I miss grad school. At least there if I was bored it was because my lazy ass didn't do the reading for class, and I couldn't contribute to the conversation. I think my fortunes will improve when I can start my teaching certification program in the fall. Then I can feel like I'm actually making some progress in my life again.

Or I could always decorate my employers' house with Satanic cult objects for my own amusement. For their sakes, we'll see if my sanity can hold out for another eight months.

As if it hasn't already gone out the window.

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JP: He may be a lousy employee, but he's a detestible human being.

Today is a Good Day to Steal

Denver robber with bat'leth (left) not nearly as menacing as Worf with bat'leth (right)

A thief in Denver made my day. While most armed robbers are maddeningly dull in their choice of weaponry, one man decided to stand out from the crowd in a glorious fashion. This man held up a few 7-11 convenience stores with a Klingon bat'leth.

According to an article from the website of local Denver TV station (the local news delivers the goods for once), "The clerk told police a white man in his 20s, wearing a black mask, black jacket, and blue jeans, entered the store with a weapon the clerk recognized from the Star Trek TV series."

What I love about this story is that everyone involved must be an avid Star Trek fan. Not only did the fanboy thief pick his warrior blade from the Star Trek mythos, but the clerk recognized it as such. Not only that, but the Klingon pillager went on to rob ANOTHER 7-11 in the area:
"A half hour later, police received a call from a 7-Eleven at 2407 N. Union Blvd., where a man matching the previous description entered the store with a similar weapon. He also demanded money from the store clerk. The clerk refused and the robber 'transported' himself out of the store on foot. Both clerks described the weapon as a Star Trek Klingon-type sword, called a 'bat'leth.'"

So two 7-11 clerks recognized the weapon as being a Klingon bat'leth. I have to admit that I'm thoroughly impressed but a bit disturbed. I don't like the idea of the most notorious Trekkies in the media right now being an armed robber and two 7-11 employees. This is not good press coverage for we who fanatically follow the goings-on of the fearless crew of the starship Enterprise. On the other hand, I absolutely adore this robber for his Trek-inspired brand of larceny. It was not a wise choice to make to avoid detection. While this elusive robber hasn't been apprehended yet, it shouldn't be hard to track him down. There are very few stores that manufacture Klingon bat'leths. I once saw one being sold at a specialty weapons store in Erie, PA, and I was tempted for a moment before noticing the extravagant price. Apparently Klingon honor doesn't come cheap anymore. Kahless would not be pleased.

Of all the geek-related weaponry that this man could have used, I'm proud that he went with a Klingon sword. There's a certain practicality in his choice. A plastic lightsaber doesn't actually cause much physical harm beyond some minor bruising, and most laser guns don't, to my knowledge, actually fire lasers. A bat'leth, assuming it was actually made of metal (the police apparently don't know yet), could do some legitimate damage if weilded properly. Nevertheless, he could have made some other stylish choices. He could have gone with a replica Blade Runner gun; it's not real but it looks intimidating as hell. And if he was dead set on using a Star Trek themed weapon (and who wouldn't be), then he could have used to the Vulcan "lirpa" that Kirk and Spock used to do battle in that one episode where Spock got horny. As it stands, though, he went for the elegant "bat'leth," the weapon of choice for all Klingons looking to efficiently gut a Romulan.

While I've never decked myself out in Klingon garb or learned any parts of the Klingon language, I can understand the allure for Kling-o-philes. Klingons are, to coin an outdated '90s phrase, totally boss, and they're usually played by actors who are experts at chewing scenery at an alarming rate. Christopher Lloyd, John Larroquette, and the guy who played Uncle Phil on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air have all been Klingons in the movies or series. My personal favorite (and Batmite agrees) is probably the Shakespeare-quoting bald Klingon from Star Trek VI who has an eyepatch BOLTED to his skull:
He marginally beats out this guy:
So my nerd hat is off to this Klingon bandit. He probably purchased that bat'leth and proudly showed it off to his family and friends... who mercilessly mocked him for his foolhardy purchase. But he showed them all what he could do with the blade of a warrior!!

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9 out of 10 readers are sick of JP's seemingly endless Star Trek references. The tenth reader is the Klingon bandit who graciously decides to give JP a substantial cut of the loot... since that's the Klingon way.

The Doomsday Machine

Feeling far too well-informed and thoughtful, I decided to kill a few brain cells on the FoxNews website (JP ducks after deliberately provoking Dave). I couldn't pass up the line, "Doomsday Machine Might Destroy World." (Here's the link) I know that FoxNews has a flair for excessive hyperbole, but I was far too intrigued to pass that up. As I suspected, the "Doomsday Machine" in question is the much ballyhooed Large Hadron Collider, a high-energy particle accellerator that looks like it could power the starship Enterprise.
But what does the Large Hadron Collider do? This is what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:
It is theorized that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson, the last unobserved particle among those predicted by the Standard Model. The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would shed light on the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking, through which the particles of the Standard Model are thought to acquire their mass.
Exactly!! What could be clearer than that!?

As you may have heard, some people are concerned about the minute possibility of the Hadron Collider inadvertently creating an artificial black hole. According to FoxNews and the babbling hobo that verified the information, miniature black holes could be created by the machine. According to three scientists who are actually intelligent enough to understand how the damn thing works,
"We conclude that ... the growth of black holes to catastrophic size does not seem possible. Nonetheless, it remains true that the expected decay times are much longer (and possibly >> 1 second) than is typically predicted by other models."
As seemingly reassuring as this statement might sound, leave it to FoxNews to bring on the fear. The reporter, and I use the term loosely simply to agitate Dave, had to add this at the end of the article:
"FoxNews.com can think of a few other things that didn't seem possible once — the theory of continental drift, the fact that rocks fall from the sky, the notion that the Earth revolves around the sun, the idea that scientists could be horribly wrong. We're also wondering how often the LHC might create individual black holes, since longer-lived ones have a greater chance of merging with each other, and, um, well, see ya."
Is it too much to ask that I be allowed to go to bed at night without the existential fear of being sucked into another dimension by a minature black hole? I imagine that this Large Hadron Collider isn't exactly easy to understand. I'm sure you have to have the combined I.Q. of Doc Brown, Stephen Hawking, the old man from Fringe, and Scotty from Star Trek just to turn the damn thing on. How does the argument "Well, scientists have been wrong before!" possibly stand up to the reassurances of three world-renowned physicists who could probably melt metal with their minds?

Besides, FoxNews is being such a downer in this case. FoxNews is in the business of predicting worldwide armageddon (Hell, most Christians are looking forward to it), and compared to their usual harbingers of global destruction (democrats, universal health care, gay marriage, abortion, and just plain old wacky hippies), I think "black hole sucks us all into oblivion" has a certain flair that their other panic-inducing stories have been lacking. If I could choose a way for the world to end, black hole is up near the top of the list (right behind "Klingons arrive in orbit to enslave us all but not before proving that Star Trek is real). Think about the benefits of a black-hole-induced armageddon. Not only are you killed in less than a millisecond, but the entire world is vaporized leaving no evidence of our brilliantly stupid world wide suicide.

FoxNews is always saying that our world is becoming a moral vacuum. We might as well become a literal one.

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FoxNews.com: Existing solely so that JP can push Dave's buttons by mocking it mercilessly.

Those Who Can't Do

Imagine a man with the following life moments:
--- At the age of six, he had fashions his attic into a classroom and plays school with the neighbor girl.
--- On several occasions in elementary school, he makes "helpful" suggestions to teachers about how they might improve their classes.
--- During tedious lessons with boring teachers in middle school, he constantly thinks, "I could do this so much better."
--- When asked by a high school counselor what he wants to do for a living, he secretly wants to say "teacher," but he sees no practical future in that and so decides to pursue engineering.
--- In college, he's nominated for the "Behrend Future Teacher Award."
--- At graduate school, his lesson plans are praised and used by other teachers. His supervisor and mentor give him glowing reviews.

And then after all of that... this man decides that he's going to try to get a job in publishing or technical writing.

Well, nine months and 61 rejected job applications later, this man has reconsidered his position. Not only has the business community supplied a resounding "up yours" to our humble hero, but unemployment has given him a lot of time to reconsider his life goals. Indeed, in retrospect the solution seems laughably obvious. This man has applied to get his teaching certification.

(I feel that I shouldn't have to indicate that "this man" is actually me, but I know that some of my readers are a bit obtuse and hebetudinous -- as proof, many are googling the definitions of those two words as we speak -- so I thought I should be clear.)

That's right, loyal readers. I've applied to a teaching certification program at the University of Pittsburgh so that I'll be qualified to teach high school English. As a true masochist at heart, I just can't wait to throw myself upon the mercy of the public education system. I crave the opportunity to put on a dazzling show of brilliance and understanding in front of 30 apathetic and attention-starved students every hour of every day for nine months out of the year. In 30 years, I'm going to be a cranky old man in a bow tie and sweater vest tousling his mussed hair with his chalk-stained hand as he babbles on about the importance of symbolism in the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and berates his students for their misuse of "who" and "whom."

All of this did not come out of the clear blue sky. Last Wednesday I visited with an admissions officer at the Pitt School of Education. They have a one-year certification program that's very highly regarded, and the admissions officer was EXTREMELY impressed with my transcripts and experience. After months and months of being told that my credentials were about as valuable as goat urine, it was gratifying to have someone think of me as a highly qualified individual. I wasn't particularly surprised-- after all, I took the PRAXIS I test three years ago, and I was practically insulted by how easy it was. Nevertheless, many of the people with whom I took the test came out of the room complaining that this was their third time taking the test, and "this one had FRACTIONS on it!" I'm not surprised that schools of education aren't receiving the most sterling applications. It really speaks to the poor state of our education system that the worst and dimmest are drawn to the teaching profession.

At one point during our little chat, the admissions officer asked about my basic classes. "You need six math credits, and just about anything will do: college algebra, basic geometry, elementary statistics..." I replyed, "Calculus I and Calculus II... I got As in both." The man was genuinely impressed. He said, "Wow! You just have all sorts of skills!" Not able to pass up a chance for witty self-deprecation I remarked, "Yes, I'm a man of many skills but few job offers." Needless to say, the guy thought I'd be accepted into the program in a heartbeat. I came out of that meeting feeling like a million bucks, which was a nice change of pace. Normally when I'm dealing with my career options, I have to eat ten quarts of ice cream and a whole pizza in order to get my self-esteem out of the gutter. If I'm ever feeling down, I think I'll pick a certification program out of the phone book and call for moral support. It's probably about as effective as talking to Dr. Phil.

This all may seem rather abrupt, but this course isn't set in stone. If I choose to go through with this, the program doesn't start until the fall. That's eight months away! I still plan to apply to more jobs, and I'll network as best as I can to find relevant opportunities; however, it's nice to have something to fall back on. As far as I'm concerned, I can apply to the job openings that seem to be as good as or better than a teaching gig. Positions like "Assistant Sewer Repairman" and "Professional Ferret Kisser" seem promising.

But this is more than just a backup plan. I really do like teaching, and I think I could be very happy doing it. I just don't want to dedicate myself to a singular goal and completely disregard other potentially rewarding opportunities. On the other hand, I hesitate to turn my back on what seems to be a life-long ambition and dream. How I long to simply be abducted by aliens and told that the video game I beat was actually a test of space-fighting ability and that I'm the last savior of the Rylan Star League.

Somebody just give me a wizened old man who can tell me, "This is your destiny!"

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Nine out of ten readers are now committed to not having children for fear that JP may end up teaching them.

Able to Jump the Shark in a Single Bound

There's a term in television called "jumping the shark." This refers to the moment when a show has hit its peak, and it's all downhill from there. The term comes from an episode of Happy Days in which Fonzie goes water skiing and jumps over a shark. Apparently, Happy Days had a dramatic decline in quality since that episode, but the creators had the decency to pull the plug on the show not long after that.

Smallville jumped the shark long ago, but its creators continue to taunt the shark with juicy morsels year after year. They simply won't let this show die. Last year, I managed to cut myself off of Smallville. I stuck it out for seven long years, but I finally decided one day that I couldn't watch that drivel anymore. I thought the show was really good in its first three years, but then it gradually slid into a mindless abyss of bizarre character behavior and non-stop superpowered villains-of-the-week. However, I'd invested so much time into the show that I felt obligated to see it through to the end. I thought it couldn't possibly last beyond a seventh season.

I was wrong. The show is currently in its eighth season, and there's talk of there being a ninth.

For the longest time, I couldn't understand who was keeping this show alive. I thought I was one of the few masochistic viewers clinging to this show out of sheer will. Then I visited a Star Trek message board (as if anyone reading this is surprised), and I came upon the following exchange regarding Smallville:

KIRKALICIOUS: "How in the fuck is this show not cancelled yet?"

SPOCK4PREZ: "Because it is one of the best shows ever on TV. BSG and LOST may be superior but Smallville was and always will be greatness at its best. It is the show that The Adventures of Superman (1950s), Lois & Clark and Superboy and even the bigscreen features wanted to be. It is the very incarnation of the myth...

"Honestly, I hope it'll never stop. After nine years of Smallville let's go on with another ten years of Metropolis...suit and flight provided, of course.

"Smallville is the reason I became insterested in comic book adaptations in the first place! It is far superior to any Marvel movies..."

WORF-DWARF: "My god. Never did I think that words could actually give me a stroke. But bravo you've found away."

(Names changed to protect the shamelessly nerdy, though I'm sorry to say that none of them is me.)

I now imagine that everyone still watching the show is just like SPOCK4PREZ. Of course, I go to the same message boards as these fruit cakes, so I'm hardly in a position to judge. Though it says something that people who masturbate to the footage of Kirk fighting the Gorn are giving this man grief for having no taste.

I browse the Smallville entry on Wikipedia every once in awhile just see what new lows the show has sunk to, and the show never fails to disappoint. Just about every major character has left the show. Clark Kent and Chloe are still there, but Lex and Lionel Luthor are both gone as are Clark's parents and Lana Lang. Lex Luthor was the best character on the show. That should have been their cue to end it right there.

But no, they just keep going. Even though I no longer watch the show, I have a morbid fascination with its progress. I'm definitely going to watch the series finale (if they ever decide to let this abortion of a show die) just to see how they decide to end it all. I like to think they had some idea of how they'd transition to Clark being Superman, but knowing this show, it probably has something to do with some emo kid discovering he has the power to control wasps and using them to sting Clark until he becomes Superman. Smallville is already bringing in the Legion of Superheroes and Zatanna for a wacky plot or two, and if you don't know who either of those are, just nod politely and walk away now.

I'll end now with a partial list of the moments given on "jumptheshark.com" that first indicated Smallville's downfall. I think you'll get the idea:

1,937 Votes: Too much fawning over Lana
1,420 Votes: Never Jumped (at least this many people think the show is still in its prime, or SPOCK4PREZ has voted that many times)
687 Votes: Lana, Lois, and Chloe become witches
179 Votes: Lana is pregnant with Lex's baby
89 Votes: Krypto the Super Dog
60 Votes: Aquaman
47 Votes: Singing the Dukes of Hazzard Theme
40 Votes: Chloe survives a mob hit
18 Votes: Matricide

Yes, that's right. Matricide!

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Star Trek Fans: Lording their good taste and superior skills with women over the Smallville fans since 2004.