U.B. Kim Jong-Illin'

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Thursday released a South Korean worker it had held for several months on charges of denouncing its political system, signaling what analysts called a desire by the North to ease relations with the South after months of tensions over its nuclear weapons program.

-The New York Times

It's crazy times in North Korea these days, everybuzzy. You may think it's crazy times right here in America, where the Obama evidently wants to kill old people and get the government involved in Medicare for the first time ever, but that's peanuts compared to North Korea. Remember when they used to be able to hold a grudge? Remember when they put the "is of evil" into George W. McBush's "Axis of Evil?" Remember how scared you were after you microwaved that can of Pepsi when you were 11 years old, and your parents threatened to send you to a North Korean prison, which was like the most unimaginably brutal and awful punishment in the parental arsenal?

Nuh uh, not anymore. You don't even need a swashbuckling, womanizing ex-President on your side either. In these enlightened times, getting released from a North Korean prison is basically as easy as getting out of high school detention. Just forge a note from one of your parents, and you are GOOD TO GO.

Dear North Korea,

Please let go of my Eggo. And by Eggo, I mean son, not the delicious brand of waffle we sell here in America, where we think you are evil. Adios, amigo. La puerta esta abierta.

Hola,
Mr. Robinson (Smokey Robinson's dad).*

So simple, even a caveman could do it, provided that the caveman could write Chinese, like my dad. Why, it's easier than trading in your cash for a brand new government clunker - and faster too!

Of course, the ultra-modern space children of Nowadays have far more gruesome things to worry about. Like having their iPhone 3GS's and all their apps for that and their facebag status updates taken away, or being forced to go outside and get some fresh air. Also, what's a microwave? And a Pepsi? That's what the kids say today, in this age of replicators and delicious food in pill form, because this is the future. Not this The Future either. The actual future. With flying cars and office buildings that can come pick you up if you're late for work, like in the Harry Potter show. Technology! Dumbledore!

*Not his actual name. The note, however, is real.

Decepticons!

When the timer on my microwave runs out, my microwave does more than just beep. Just beeping would be enough. Frankly, it's sometimes too much. But the beep I will take for granted. Beeping is what microwaves do, after all, and to ask them not to do it would be like asking a plate of lasagna to not be delicious, which would be ridiculous.

I'm not asking my microwave not to beep, I'm saying it's cool about the beep, and can we please move on? Because there are other things to talk about in regards to this microwave, whom I occasionally refer to as MicroDave the microwave. As in, 'sup, MicroDave the microwave? Y U beepin at me? That is how I talk to my MicroDave. And he beeps back at me. That is what is up.

But that is not what is all.

My microwave then - then, as in after the beeping - displays the following words, in the monochromatic digital alarm clock font that would obviously be monotone and masculine if it had a voice:

YOUR FOOD IS DONE

Pardon me, MicroDave, but all you know is that the timer is done. You don't know jack shit about whether my jack cheese is melted, and half the time, you're fuckin' wrong, okay? Okay, MicroDave? (the microwave?) Don't presume to tell me my food is done when for all you know, I've finally snapped and stuck a handful of metal canisters full of pressurized cleaning agents inside you and decided to end it all. You are a deceiver, MicroDave. You are a liar! You are a machine who spreads deception and we all know that deception is just one letter away from Decepticon, which is another sort of deceitful machine altogether, but you're probably cousins.

It's times like this when I long for the old days, when the machines didn't talk back so damn much. I miss those old days. I feel nostalgia.

Thank Zod I'm not a vampire, or I would probably be able to achingly remember all the way back to when we didn't even have the word "microwave." And also, thank Zod I'm not a vampire because my nephew would be scared of me. I know I'm about to risk losing a sizeable contingent of my audience by saying this, but I am totally and one hundred percent anti-vampire.