On getting new windows

So this morning I wake up to a layer of ice on everything. And the window guys are due at 8 am. This would have have been way less of a problem back in November when windows should have happened. Still, new windows are going to be wonderful. Imagine...real windows you can see out of and that open AND close. Oh wait, you probably don't have to imagine... you probably have had functional windows for years. This house, however, was built in 1918. And up until, oh,1940 or '50 had perfectly good double-hung sash wood-framed windows that went up and down. No screens or storms, but energy was cheaper then and you just opened your windows in summer and closed them in winter. Somewhere along the way a previous owner caulked most of the window shut, probably due to heating costs going up. And somewhere along the way the ones that did open developed warpage and leaks. In one window in the den there is a gap I can put a pencil through. Now I am worrying; will they be able to put in windows in the freezing icy rain?

A little after 9 am, three guys show up in a pick-up truck with the five big picture windows. And right off there is a conflict. These are single hung windows, but the paperwork says they should be double hung. Check in with the boss and they find the order was changed because the windows (62" wide) were too big to be doubles and had to be special made singles. In fact we had had the order changed twice (hence the not getting them installed until now). And so the project begins.

First I have to round up 4 very pissed cats who had their lives rearranged last night when we moved all furniture away from the windows. After encarcerating the cats on the 3rd floor in the library--with food, water and a litter box--we make coffee and put out gingersnaps for the workmen. Steve is running around like a kid at Christmas, watchng and asking all kinds of questions.

About 2 hours later the 3 big downstairs windows are in and more guys have shown up with the rest of the windows--straight from the manufacturer. The other thing that showed up was a brown (pitbull mix) puppy who thought he lived here. Men are going in and out of the house with windows and stuff. The dog who is wet, shivering, and trailing a very chewed up leash wants to get in the house, too. What ensues is a Keystone cop routine with Steve chasing the dog up down frozen steps.

On the leash now, Steve takes the dog around the block looking for the owner--no luck. Dog gets ensconced in the garage with a bowl of water, some cat food (better than nothing) and a pile of old towels. Dog wants company and so sets up barking like crazy. I call animal control and arrange for a pick-up. They will be around sometime today. . . maybe.

Workmen have the four bedrooms' windows in and are off to a late lunch. Eighteen windows to do and they have done 10 in 4 hours. I'm impressed. Oh, there is still caulking and wrapping the frames outside to do, but not bad. We turned the furnace off at the beginning of the job and despite the 33 degree weather with icy freezing rain outside the house, the temp inside has not dropped below 60. They pull a window out and replace it so fast it's like opening and closing a door.

Meanwhile I have made more coffee, cleaned up my email--which involves lots of phone calling to deal with a last minute change in meeting scheduling that no one told me about until today. Fortunately I had five whole hours left to fix the snafu before the university shut down entirely for break. Lucky me.

Dog is still barking. But down the street comes a kid looking for his lost dog. We happily reunite kid and dog, and immediately call animal control to cancel the pickup. Promptly 20 minutes later the animal control guy turns up at the door to take the dog away. No dog? Do we have any other problems? Stray anything? Must have been a slow day at the shelter.

Back to window guys. It's 3 pm and the siders have shown up. They begin wrapping all the window casements. Steve has now made up his own version of the "12 days of Christmas" that sums up the day:

12 guests soon coming,
11 rooms to clean up,
10 windows finished,
9 pots of coffee,
8 windows to go yet,
7 email crises,
6 plates of cookies
5 picture windows!

4 cats in the attic,

3 guys installing

2 siders siding

and a dog barking in the garage!

More coffee, more cookies. I am on my sixth cuppa today. The window job was supposed to take 2 days, it may only take a day and a half the workmen tell us. There is dust everywhere--not from the installation, rather from behind all the furniture that was moved. Ah well, a bit of vacuuming and we will be back to normal--better than before. Even the curtains have gone through the washer and look great. So some furniture moving and we will be ready for company at Christmas!

Well, we'll be ready once we finish the basement shower repairs that is. Oh and I still need to put a coat of paint on the powder room off the kitchen. No sweat. Really. We have two whole days next week to do that stuff!

Stupid non-facts on the Internet

A friend sent me this well-meaning email about some "fun facts." Since I could see a few that were patently false I thought I'd Google someof them. When I did I found that there were hundreds of blogs out there simply repeating the same "facts," but no one who questioned any of them. I then did som REAL research (like, oh, going to an expert on the topic or going to the original source). So here are things you really SHOULD know about that “THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW” email circulating on the internet:

1. Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.
True: “Normal paper--including notebook paper, newspaper, construction paper-- is all made out of cellulose, which comes from trees. The trees are chemically broken down into their individual wood fibers, and the cellulose fibers are chosen and formed into very thin sheets to create paper. Paper money, on the other hand, is made from paper made of rags. Cotton or linen fabric is beaten to create cotton or linen fibers. You have probably heard of "rag paper" or "fine linen writing paper." This is where it comes from. It turns out that rag fibers bond together much more firmly than fibers in regular paper. Rag fibers are basically unaffected by water, whereas cellulose fibers absorb water and come apart when they get wet. So paper money comes through the washer just fine, while cellulose paper comes unglued.” From “How Stuff Works” http://science.howstuffworks.com/question108.htm

2. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
False: It was written on parchment. See: http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/treasure/declaration_facts.html

3. The dot over the letter i is called a "tittle".
True: From the Oxford English Dictionary: “The dot over the letter i; a punctuation mark; a diacritic point over a letter; any one of the Hebrew and Arabic vowel-points and accents; also, a pip on dice.”

4. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
Unknown: I can’t find a valid reference for this (anyone want to try the experiment?). I did, however, find one credible-sounding explanation on a personal website: “This is because the carbonation in the drink gets pockets of air stuck in the wrinkles of the raisin, which is light enough to be raised by this air. When it reaches the surface of the champagne, the bubbles pop, and the raisin sinks back to the bottom, starting the cycle over.” From: http://www.angelfire.com/ca6/uselessfacts/science/003.html

5. Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.
False: http://www.soapcentral.com/amc/news/991224-luccidiller.php

6. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
Unknown: But unlikely. It is possible, but according to one Business Week Daily article McDonald’s won’t give out profit breakdown stuff like that. I went through McDonald’s 2004 corporate financial statement http://www.mcdonalds.com/corp/invest/pub/2004_Financial_Report.html and could not find such info. If anyone wants to delve further into McDonald’s profits and does find the answer let me know. And here’s an interesting business article that says Happy Meals are not doing McD’s any good: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewfeature&id=690.

7. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
Unknown: And unlikely. Most large manuscripts come to the publisher with hundreds of typos in the. Copyeditors are paid to find them. Then Proofreaders are paid to find the ones the copy editors missed. By the time the book goes to print there are probably few if any errors. There are quibbles about stylistic differences (colour or color? theater or theatre?). Sometimes there is an argument to accept a newer slang spelling in a dictionary as common usage as well as the traditional spelling (thru for through, nite for night). It could be that. In the end does it matter? Some reader will point out an error to a publisher (mostly because it gives them a kick to do so) and in the next edition it will be fixed. If this even happened in 1996 it has little relevance to Webster’s as produced today.

8. The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor, who had red eyes. He was albino.
False: First of all Albino humans generally have blue eyes (albino mice have red eyes). And C. L. Grigg, the founder of 7up, was not an albino. The red dot appears on the label in the 1970s, the original label (the product was invented in 1929) was entirely red. See: http://www.snopes.com/business/names/7up.asp

9. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents, daily.
False: First of all this is an impossible statement. Which hospitals? Which country? Twelve daily of all babies born in the US or in the world? Do the parents know they have the wrong children? If they don’t, and thus don’t report it, then who gathered the data to make this statement—and how?

In point of fact normal hospital procedure is to put a hospital bracelet with the mother’s name on it on a baby’s wrist in the delivery room (it happened that way with all 4 of my kids). Those bracelets don’t come off until baby goes home. You’d have to have a very illiterate group of parents and hospital employees to make this kind of error.

10. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.
True: But hardly news, no one ever made a secret of it. Lots of people in showbiz are related to other people in showbiz.

11. Chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill a small sized dog.

True: The theobromine in chocolate can be dangerous to both dogs and cats. See: http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/cocoa.htm

12. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
False: First of all “exploding sharks”? Come on, people, use some common sense! Orcas do hunt prey of all sizes but they hunt and kill in packs (much like wolves), harrying their prey until it tires and then biting it. See: http://www.cetacea.org/faqs.htm.

13. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
True & False. Only a few lipsticks contain fish scales. The ones that have “pearlesence” (as in "pearl essence"). See: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000331.html.

14. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
False: Being Finnish, I have to take exception to this. As a matter of fact, DD is the most popular of all Disney characters. Every Christmas day all the Scandinavian TV channels play Disney cartoons from 3-6pm for the children to sit and watch while moms fix Christmas dinners. There is a real story behind this myth--as a budget cut Helsinki stopped buying DD comics for the kids at the youth centers. See: http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/finland.htm. American papers speculated that Donald and Daisy living together without being married had offended the Finns. The irony of that is that in Scandinavian countries most people live together for 2-3 years before getting married to be sure the relationship will work out.

15. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.
False: I can’t find any reference to this as a medicine, although the idea of a 19th century traveling snake-oil salesman putting ketchup in his product is not unlikely. However had any buyer known of it they would also not been fooled b the claim of medicinal qualities as it was well-known as a condiment by the 1800s. It was a sauce often imported from China and Southeast Asia.

The Oxford English Dictionary notes the earliest reference to it in the 1700s, when housewives are encouraged to add it to their stock of condiments. From the OED: “A sauce made from the juice of mushrooms, walnuts, tomatoes, etc., and used as a condiment with meat, fish, or the like. Often with qualification, as mushroom ketchup, etc. [References:] 1711 LOCKYER Acc. Trade India 128 Soy comes in Tubbs from Jappan, and the best Ketchup from Tonquin; yet good of both sorts are made and sold very cheap in China. 1748 MRS. HARRISON House-kpr.'s Pocket-bk. i. (ed. 4) 2, I therefore advise you to lay in a Store of Spices,..neither ought you to be without..Kitchup, or Mushroom Juice. 1817 BYRON Beppo viii, Buy in gross..Ketchup, Soy, Chili~vinegar, and Harvey. 1840 DICKENS Barn. Rudge (1849) 91/1 Some lamb chops (breaded, with plenty of ketchup). 1874 COOKE Fungi 89 One important use to which several..fungi can be applied, is the manufacture of ketchup.”

16. Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower' because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters.
True: See: http://www.mediumbold.com/04_thinking/type/letterform/case.html.

17. Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time
False: Da Vinci was ambidextrous. However, we have no evidence that he did left- and right-handed things simultaneously. This is an ongoing assumption that may have been a misinterpretation of the fact that he wrote with his left hand but wrote backwards so that his writing could only be read by holding it up to a mirror. See his bio at: http://www.mos.org/leonardo/bio.html.

18. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War! II were made of wood.
False: But close! “In support of the war effort, the Academy handed out plaster Oscar statuettes during WWII. After the war, winners exchanged the plaster awards for golden statuettes.” From: http://www.oscar.com/legacy/faq/02.html#Q9

19. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.
True: According to one LV traveler, “There's a reason why casinos don't have clocks or windows and naturally they wanna keep you there long, make you forgetting the time, the longer you are there, the more you might lose.” From http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/North_America/United_States_of_America/Nevada/Las_Vegas-836630/Warnings_or_Dangers-Las_Vegas-Casinos_Gambling-BR-1.html

20. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan; there was never a recorded Wendy before!
False: Wendy is a diminutive for Gwendolyn, Gwennyth, and several other early Welsh name variants. What is interesting is that the author of Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie, had a god-daughter named Wendy. See: http://www.wendy.com/wendyweb/history.html.

21. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!
False: Though, it depends on what you mean by rhyme. Something like orange is harder to rhyme. End rhyme (the most common rhyme form) takes the last syllable of a word (in orange the would be the “ge” sound) and finds words with similar sounding endings. Orange, thus, rhymes with challenge and lozenge. Try it yourself for these words: http://www.rhymer.com/ .

22. Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.
False & False: Scissors were in common use by Leonardo’s time. “Scissors were invented thousands of years ago (roughly 1500 B.C.) in ancient Egypt. Early scissors have been found in ancient Egyptian ruins. These early scissors were made from one piece of metal (unlike modern scissors, which are made from two cross-blades which pivot around a fulcrum). Modern cross-bladed scissors were invented in ancient Rome (roughly A.D. 100). Early scissors were used by clothes makers and barbers. Scissors were not in common use until much later, in the 1500's (in Europe).” From: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/indexs.shtml.

As for the Mona Lisa, Da Vinci began it in 1503 and finished it in 1506. See: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/vinci/joconde/

23. A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
Unknown: But unlikely. I couldn’t track this one down yet. But the idea hardly seems logical since the position of the stinger would make this action if not impossible at least anatomically difficult. I sent an email to a scorpion expert at the University of Kentucky asking for more info and he said:

This is an old urban myth, kind of like the thing with the stripes on a wooly worm, but I don't know if anyone has scientifically proven or disproven it one way or the other. This would be a good science project for someone out west!
Sincerely,
B. Newton
University of Kentucky Entomology

24. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
True: This tidbit is a really good example of why not to trust the internet. The first reference I saw when looking this up confused Halloween with Friday the 13th--and mentioned a hockey goalie mask. Not having any experience with either film myself, I didn't know the difference until a friend pointed it out. (Thanks, Gunther!) I did see the film trailer which showed the clown mask, so originally said this was a "false" fact and referred to the clown and goalie masks. (Should have followed my own rules--internet research rule #1: always go to the original source!) If you go to the films' website at: http://www.halloweenmovies.com/site/lobby.html it says:

• "The idea was to make him almost humorless, faceless - this sort of pale visage that could resemble a human or not," said Hill. "First came a clown mask, which we all thought was eerie and scary," Wallace told Fangoria. "A clown mask really shakes you up a bit, so we knew we were on solid footing." Then came the Kirk mask. Wallace visited Burt Wheeler's Magic Shop on Hollywood Boulevard. He bought a Captain Kirk mask for $1.98, "widened the eye holes and spray-painted the flesh a bluish white. In the script it said Michael Myers' mask had 'the pale features of a human face' and it truly was spooky looking. It didn't look anything like William Shatner after Tommy got through with it."

Mea culpa!

25. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
True: Do the math. But on an interesting facts scale I gotta say this is pretty useless.

26. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can’t sink in quicksand.
True: The less weight you present to the surface of the quicksand the slower the sinking process. Laying flat you present fewer pounds per square inch. The irony is that most quicksand is only a few feet deep. Standing you are simply stuck till you dig yourself out with your hands. See: http://science.howstuffworks.com/quicksand.htm for an ineresting video on how to escape quicksand

27. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
False: While it was legal to “chastise” a wife in England, there has never been such a stick size law. See: http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/essays/ruleofthumb.html

28. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
False: Motorola’s goal has always been to promote communications technology, by beginning with car radios, although they did produce a home tabletop phonograph: “Motorola’s role as pioneer, innovator and visionary in mobile communications is well-known. Originally founded as the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation in 1928, Motorola has come a long way since introducing its first product, the battery eliminator.” As for the name, “Galvin Manufacturing Corporation founder Paul V. Galvin created the brand name "Motorola" for the company's new car radio, linking "motor" (motorcar, motion) with the suffix "ola" (sound)” in 1930. See: http://www.motorola.com/content/0,,115-110,00.html.

29. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It's the same with apples!
True & False: Yes on celery: http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/celery.asp; no on the apples. Though both are far better for you that that Happy Meal above. . . .

30. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!
False: It has nothing to do with gum. It is that some people find that if they breathe through their mouths rather than their noses they avoid the problem of the enzyme that causes tearing getting near the sinuses. http://www.ehow.com/tips_13796.html. Me, I close my mouth when chewing anything—wouldn’t work for me or anyone else with manners!

31. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
True: “The laws of kashrut do not apply only to actual foods, but to anything that can be ingested. For this reason, Israeli postal stamps use a glue that is certified kosher. (Glue comes from collagen, which is found in the connective tissues of animals - see gelatin for more on that topic).” From: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Kosher

32. Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
False: Not even on the list of most frequently checked out! A list-serve for librarians lists the following as the most often stolen:

• “The Anarchist's Cookbook and The Joy of Sex (and The Joy of Gay Sex)”
• “anything on Witchcraft/occult (fiction AND nonfiction), Rap and Heavy metal CDs, car/truck repair manuals, GED/ASVAB/post office/police officer(!) study guides”
• “GED exam books (ARCO, Barron's)”--“anything by or about Jim Morrison. Books about palmistry and the occult . . . Mutual Fund Forecaster and the Wall Street Journal . . . homework support books”
• “rap music and anything by Led Zeppelin”
• some of the above “and self-defense books”

From various emails online at: http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/publib/1996-May/subject.html#73831

33. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages it
False: They even eat beans while in space. See: http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/eng/kidspace/q&a/living_food.asp

If I ever become an Evil Overlord

The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became an Evil Overlord

1. My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.

2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.

3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.

4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.

5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.

6. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.

7. When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."

8. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.

9. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push" will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.

10. I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum -- a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.

11. I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.

12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.

13. All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied
into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.

14. The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.

15. I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.

16. I will never utter the sentence "But before I kill you, there's just one thing I want to know."

17. When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.

18. I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.

19. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.

20. Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.

21. I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman ootsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.

22. No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.

23. I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.

24. I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)

25. No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.

26. No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber.

27. I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.

28. My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.

29. I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.

30. All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.

31. All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or romantic subplot for the hero or his sidekick.

32. I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by.

33. I won't require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions.

34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.

35. I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.

36. I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing out copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison.

37. If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he's my trusted lieutenant.

38. If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age.

39. If I absolutely must ride into battle, I will certainly not ride at the forefront of my Legions of Terror, nor will I seek out my opposite number among his army.

40. I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.

41. Once my power is secure, I will destroy all those pesky time-travel devices.

42. When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around.

43. I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans.

44. I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance.

45. I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say "And here is the price for failure," then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.

46. If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?", I will reply "This." and kill the advisor.

47. If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.

48. I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.

49. If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a ant-Ad in the local paper.

50. My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks.

51. If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess' cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position.

52. I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.

53. If the beautiful princess that I capture says "I'll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!", I will say "Oh well" and kill her.

54. I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.

55. The deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics will have their place in my Legions of Terror. However before I send them out on important covert missions that require tact and subtlety, I will first see if there is anyone else equally qualified who would attract less attention.

56. My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.

57. Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owner's manual.

58. If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.

59. I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.

60. My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.

61. If my advisors ask "Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?", I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.

62. I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.

63. Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of that nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.

64. I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage.

65. If I must have computer systems with publically available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.

66. My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.

67. No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.

68. I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they'd better save my life again.

69. All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster-homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.

70. When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.

71. If I decide to test a lieutenant's loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.

72. If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon instead of using my unstoppable superweapon on them.

73. I will not agree to let the heroes go free if they win a rigged contest, even though my
advisors assure me it is impossible for them to win.

74. When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk "Project Overlord" and leave it lying on top of my desk.

75. I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.

76. If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the
middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)

77. If I have a fit of temporary insanity and decide to give the hero the chance to reject a job as my trusted lieutentant, I will retain enough sanity to wait until my current trusted lieutenant is out of earshot before making the offer.

78. I will not tell my Legions of Terror "And he must be taken alive!" The command will be "And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical."

79. If my doomsday device happens to come with a reverse switch, as soon as it has been employed it will be melted down and made into limited-edition commemorative coins.

80. If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.

81. If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.

82. I will not shoot at any of my enemies if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerous, unbalanced structure.

83. If I'm eating dinner with the hero, put poison in his goblet, then have to leave the table for any reason, I will order new drinks for both of us instead of trying to decide whether or not to switch with him.

84. I will not have captives of one sex guarded by members of the opposite sex.

85. I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. "Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse." Instead it will be more along the lines of "Push the button."

86. I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.

87. My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.

88. If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not berate them for incompetence then send the same group out to try the task again.

89. After I capture the hero's superweapon, I will not immediately disband my legions and relax my guard because I believe whoever holds the weapon is unstoppable. After all, the hero held the weapon and I took it from him.

90. I will not design my Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.

91. I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.

92. If I ever talk to the hero on the phone, I will not taunt him. Instead I will say this his dogged perseverance has given me new insight on the futility of my evil ways and that if he leaves me alone for a few months of quiet contemplation I will likely return to the path of righteousness. (Heroes are incredibly gullible in this regard.)

93. If I decide to hold a double execution of the hero and an underling who failed or betrayed me, I will see to it that the hero is scheduled to go first.

94. When arresting prisoners, my guards will not allow them to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value.

95. My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner becomes sick and his cellmate tells the guard it's an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look.

96. My door mechanisms will be designed so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.

97. My dungeon cells will not be furnished with objects that contain reflective surfaces or anything that can be unravelled.

98. If an attractive young couple enters my realm, I will carefully monitor their activities. If I find they are happy and affectionate, I will ignore them. However if circumstance have forced them together against their will and they spend all their time bickering and criticizing each other except during the intermittent occasions when they are saving each others' lives at which point there are hints of sexual tension, I will immediately order their execution.

99. Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.

100. Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access.

This Evil Overlord List is Copyright 1996-1997 by Peter Anspach. If you enjoy it, feel free to pass it along or post it anywhere, provided that (1) it is not altered in any way, and (2) this copyright notice is attached.