March says to February: suck it!

February might have been a good month, but March is now the gleam in Frodo's eye. Our exponential growth has continued from an average 36.39 daily visitors in February to a whopping 39.74 in March.

For those of you saying "but an average increase of 3 daily visitors isn't exponential," um, yes it is. It's an exponent to the tune of 1.024501. Yeah, I calculated that shit. Math saves the day again. Take that, religion!

Even more impressive, our average increase in visitors isn't an increase of average visitors, if you'll take a minute to see what I did there. Clever, I know. How do I know my visitors are quality people? By virtue of the fact that they're here, participating in the denegration of sincerely held beliefs, the disintegration of millennial-old institutions, and their replacement with a comical mockery of the real thing. If that's not time well spent, I don't know what is.

Much of this growth (did I mention it's exponential?) is, I'm certain, attributable to the recruitment of the incomparable CodewordConduit. The entwives were more jubilant than they'd been in years with her arrival, so much so that I locked them all up in a sound proof pen so I could get some sleep. Oh... ffuuu-!

I am sad to report that the entwives have gone missing again. No one saw them leave, but something tells me we won't be seeing them in a while. In other news, we've recently come into an abundance of firewood. It's freshly hewn, and must go fast. Drop me a line.

And lastly, a selection of keyword searches which have brought unsuspsecting interwebbers to Frodology this month:

"what if frodo had died on mount doom"	Ignoring the blasphemy long enough to answer the question, I daresay there would be no Frodology had that happened, as religions which posthumously worship people for their deaths rather than their good deeds are hard to come by
"why doesnt sauron go invisible when he wears the ring"	Luckily this question was asked in the FAQ and answered, after a fashion
"words to uy my tacos it is asong"	If it is asong, then I am agog
"frodo sam mary pippin go place"	Boy, did they ever! This summer I too plan to go place
"who is sexiest aragorn legolas gimli"	Gimli, with his mane of fiery hair
"how did the utahraptors become extinct"	Luckily he will have learned that the Mormons did it
"i am a post op transsexual"	With a slightly appalling three searches for these exact words

And people are still searching for Dr. Michael J. Bisconti. Or should I say, Dr. MJB is still searching for himself?

Lastly, I'd just like to ask for some opinions on article length. Do you think the articles are generally of a readable length, or are they too long? Too short? Too awesome? I'd appreciate some feedback.

Bring on April!

Children are our greatest resource. Let’s harvest them now!

Rarely does a day go by without someone reminding us how important children are. Save the children. Clothe the children. Feed the children. Teach the children. Cook the children. Excuse me, cook for the children. And these are just the charities. Next they’ll want us to stop beating them too (‘physical riposte’, in the jargon). But who else are we supposed to take our anger out on? Hitting anyone else would be a crime! 

But do we really need reminding? Parents don’t bring children into the world lightly. A father knows the risk that his target-wife will become a swollen mockery of her former sexy self, and it is a burden he must shoulder every time he thinks about sex, which is to say, every time he thinks about anything but food, and sometimes even then too. And who could forget that a burst condom is the most heinous crimesin in the eyes of Frodo? A quick tally gives you

1. Original crimesin of the conceived child
2. Attempted abortion (through the, uh, abortive use of contraceptives)
3. Aiding and abetting the child’s original crimesin (you’d better hope there aren’t twins!)
4. Deriving pleasure from sex itself

That children are a drain on society goes without saying, leeching us of our resources one guiltily-given penny at a time. In the midst of all this wasted money, it can be hard to see how we can turn these grimy freeloaders into an investment.  “Show me how to harvest them!” I hear you saying.

While some of the following ideas might strike you as odd, they are part of a new wave of alternative childrearing theories, or as I like to call it, Intelligent Parenting. If it’s good enough for Texas, it’s good enough for whichever shitty little town you come from!

1. Child labor

I know what you’re thinking. Such an ugly word. But you’d be wrong. It’s actually two words. And in the UK, it’s spelled child labour, which looks much friendlier.

Squeamish government agencies have this quaint notion that children need protecting and should be prevented from working. But what kind of capitalist system do we have if we can’t open it up to all comers? Shouldn’t the avid consumers of the toy industry be allowed to participate in their making? Anything else is just perverse.

Savvy parents can utilize the full range of capitalist institutions to reap the benefit of their children’s new employment. Play time can be called ‘going on strike’, and the family Rottweiler could be renamed ‘Strike Breaker'. Instead of whipping your boy with your belt, you’re now using the ‘invisible hand’. Pinstripe trousers and funny moustaches are optional. I imagine it looking something like this.

Click to enlarge... if you like your child abuse nice and big, you sick fuck

“What about an economy of scale?” you say? I’m glad you asked.

 

2. Twins

Frodologist parents will find that their children work much more productively if they have sufficient to institute a production line and/or shifts. Twins, triplets, and further manifestations of fetal bad luck are gifts from Frodo, and a sign that you should use them as enthusiastically as their frail, premature skeletal structures will allow.

Barren like the Plains of Dagorlad? Unable to conceive? Well don’t let a lack of imagination get you down! Ah, but seriously, baby theft, or as we like to call it – ‘adoption’ – is always an option. The Christian organization Accidental Parenthood literally has thousands of unwanted kids, including specimens in the much sought-after Potential Children™ range.

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, inquire about Frodology’s Sackfull Movement. Sackfulls are inspired by Scripture, which warns encourages followers that...

You also get a free t-shirt.

 

3. Smart charities

Finally, we encourage you to donate only to charities which use their resources responsibly. Based on that canny atheist notion of nihilist morality, these ‘smart charities’ use regional concepts of ethics to allocate their limited means to greatest effect. For example, our analysts realized that charities which aim respectively to alleviate poverty and reduce starvation are actually competing, but share a common goal. Thanks to our efforts, many Ethiopians now achieve both by eating their superfluous children.

Hello? Who’s this? The Nobel Foundation? Our Peace Prize is on the way? Genius!

 

With all of this excellent parenting going on, don’t forget to keep the end goal in mind. By populating Frodo’s green Earth with little Frodologists, or Frodologist children of Frodologists as I understand the new atheist vernacular to have it, the Faith will reach exponential growth. Once we reach a critical mass, we can finally have our day of rest, safe in the knowledge that we’re too big to ignore.

Sit back, and like adolescent hormonal clockwork, your little chav children will run around creating even more little chav children.

Ah, yes.

We’re the state’s problem now.

Resurrection - harder than it looks?

Part III of the ‘I Believe in Miracles’ series of articles for Frodology

Religions are usually chock full of miracles, and it's a good thing too, because otherwise they'd be as boring as going to church, and no one likes going to church. Not even Jesus. But full of entertaining, jaw-dropping, and stupefyingly improbable events as they are, religions keep you, me and Jesus sufficiently amused for an hour each week, bridging the gap between Sunday morning TV and brunch.

But in depending on their audiences' stunned credulity, religions are also extremely vulnerable. Because what if they're false?

If I understand my theology, and I think I do, Jesus was stapled to a more or less crossish plank of wood and left to die, which he eventually did after several Ridley Scott-inspired drawn out and highly dramatic sequences. Then, with a stunning Ronald Reagan-like refusal to die, he rose from the dead, and in doing so spawned a whole subgenre of amateurish horror films.

Now, the problem posed is that science currently doesn’t recognize resurrection as an activity of which humans are generally capable, opposable thumbs notwithstanding. Certainly, if we peruse history, we encounter several near misses:

• In 1099, legend has it that El Cid fought off Death’s scythe and led his troops to victory over the Muslim hordes at the gates of Valencia. What the Muslims didn’t know was that El Cid had died and was simply strapped to his horse. He would later not come back to life.


• Lord of Gondor and companion of Frodo, Boromir son of Denethor fought and killed several Uruk-hai while nursing a chest full of arrows. He died shortly thereafter, and other than a deleted scene in the subsequent film, would not come back to life either.


• Jesus… oh, wait, never mind.


• Anastasia Romanov was the daughter of the last Czar of Russia, and though believed for decades to have been murdered by Bolsheviks in 1917, was suspected by some still to be alive. A 1997 Disney film based on the myth captured the hearts of millions of children, until her decomposed body was discovered an almost comically short time later to prove that, no, in fact, she had died as advertized.

So, if Jesus was actually resurrected, history isn’t going to help us and we need to examine the hard science behind his particular case.

Possibility #1 – Jesus was a zombie

It has been demonstrated by countless films and highly unverifiable folklore that humans are capable of resurrection, the unfortunate caveat being that they become zombies. The traditional view of the zombie, or ‘undead’, is that of a mindless automaton that eats ‘brains’. This is of course a sexed up Hollywood stereotype. Prudent zombies are thought to be every bit as clued up on the dangers of hematophagy as a disease vector as we are, and are more discriminate in their consumption of blood products these days for the risk of HIV.

The one bit of evidence in support of this theory is that zombies are unhindered by serious blood loss. It is thought that Jesus’ own blood loss would have been prodigious due to his hemophilia which he would have inevitably inherited due to the eons of inbreeding kicked off by Adam and Eve.

Possibility #2 - Jesus was an immortal wizard

Alternatively, it is possible that, like Gandalf, Jesus was a wizard who couldn’t die, even after falling from a very great height and then climbing back up that very great height, all the while hacking and slashing at a demon wrought from smoke and fire.

Yeah, that'd be cool.

Possibility #3 - Jesus never lived

We must also recognize the chance that Jesus never lived in the first place. The so-called 'Jesus Myth' hypothesis, popularized by certain scholars of the ancient Middle East, states that the historical person of Jesus Christ was most likely an inanimate sack of flour, or perhaps a scarecrow. Accordingly, the physical attribute of never being alive would have made death less of a problem for Jesus, and crucifixion a mild inconvenience at most. 

It's all coming together...

The only complication still being researched by scientists is a linguistic one. The problem is it is not known whether 'to resurrect' is a reflexive verb. Those who argue a subject can resurrect itself have some explaining to do, as it is generally thought that dead people are incapable of acting out verbs.

---

Please feel free to read the other articles in the ‘Miracles’ series:
Part I - Is Jesus out of blood by now?
Part II - How hard is it for virgins to give birth?

The Lord of the Rings (Abridged), Book III

	The hobbits arrive in Mordor. It’s nothing like what they were shown on the pamphlet, and much of it isn’t even built yet. Frodo and Sam are disappointed, and the tension threatens to cleave their friendship in two.
Sam	You promised me a beautiful honeymoon, and look where we are! Stinking marshes, bleak mountains, no wildlife, and countless English pubs full of shaven heads and football shirts. We might as well have stayed at home.
Frodo	The ‘Cock and Lion’ looks alright.
Sam	No! I’m sleeping outside tonight.
	Orcs cross the River Anduin into Gondor under the cover of night to sack Osgiliath.

"Is anyone actually in charge here?"

	Gandalf and Merry arrive in Gondor. Gandalf and Pippin. Merry. They prepare to defend Minas Tirith against an attack from Sauron’s ugliest army yet. They watch from the walls as legions of orcs approach.
Gondor Soldier #1	I say, William, they’ve got nothing on us. Look at our armor: shiny and lovely. Perfect spiffing gentlemen we are. And look at them. Disgusting!
Soldier #2	Mmm, quite.
	Meanwhile, Theoden and his army depart from Rohan. Desperate to fight, Merry is almost left behind, but is brought along at the last minute by some broad on a horse. Sorry, I meant Pippin.
Pippin	I have a pointy sword.
Broad on horse	I know, I wish you weren’t sitting behind me.
	Even more meanwhile, Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas are traipsing around some caves looking for a narrative device that will deliver Minas Tirith from certain doom with a swift blow of deus ex machina. They find it in an army of invincible ghost soldiers. Yep, first I'd heard of it too.
Ghost King	How do I know you’re not going to use us as a cop out by having us defeat all of Sauron’s armies, rather than just the handful or orcs running around outside Minas Tirith?
Aragorn	Don’t worry, there’s this convenient back story which means I’ll have to release you from your servitude after you liberate Minas Tirith, but before we go and attack Mordor proper. It’ll seem like a silly thing to do, but I didn’t write this.
	Orcs attacking Minas Tirith are slaughtered by ghost army.
Soldier #1	Look, William, didn’t even get my armor dirty. Don’t you think I look dashing with this flushed complexion and heavy breathing?
Soldier #2	Mmm, yes.
	Gollum tricks Frodo into thinking that Sam has been eating all their food. Frodo abandons Sam and decides to destroy the Ring by himself, which is funny, because so far Frodo hasn’t been able to do anything by himself. Usefully, Sam sits down and cries it out. Gollum leads Frodo into a dark cave…
Frodo	You know Gollum, I really am glad I trusted you. You’re a good friend…
Gollum	[Hiding, with echoing voice] Yes, hobbit…. [Laughs]
Frodo	Gollum? Gollum?! Where are you?
	Frodo is stung by a giant spider. Had he not immediately become paralyzed, he would have said this…
Frodo	At least Gollum had nothing to do with this.
	Tear ducts empty, Sam decides he’s not a little weenie after all and goes to help Frodo. Thinking Frodo is dead, he manages to remove the Ring from Frodo right before a band of orcs find him and carry his inert body away. In hiding, Sam overhears them discussing the fact that Frodo is still alive. Lucky they were discussing this in English, a language that Sam understood, and not their own native Mordor tongue, which Sam couldn’t speak. Yes, very lucky. Sam rescues Frodo.
Frodo	Thanks for rescuing me Sam! Shame the orcs got the Ring. I was really looking forward to hiking up Mount Doom, avoiding all of those orcs, chucking it into the fire, and not making it out alive. Oh well, guess we’d better head back to the Shire.
Sam	Not so fast! I have the Ring! I took when I thought you were dead.
Frodo	Oh… Yay. Great job. Woo. Now we get to go to Mount Doom. I was so worried there for a minute, you know, that we wouldn’t get to, because the Ring was gone. Awesome.
	Aware that there hasn’t been an epic battle seen for at least five minutes, Aragorn decides to attack Mordor with his vastly inferior forces.
Aragorn	Today we fight for Frodo!
All	For Frodo!
Legolas	Frododo!
	Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam approach Mount Doom.
Frodo	I wonder where Gollum is.
	Gollum appears from behind a boulder and throws a stone at Sam’s head.
Frodo	Oh, there he is.
	Frodo runs up the slope and into Mount Doom to destroy the Ring.
Gollum	No, Master Hobbit! Give it to me! Don’t destroy the Precious!
Frodo	Look, Gollum, I’ve trusted you so far because you’ve never given me reason to do otherwise. But I really think this is something that needs to happen.
Gollum	[Jumps on Frodo’s back, bites his finger off and steals the Ring] Ah ha! It’s mine! The Precious!
Frodo	What’s this? Betrayal? What are the odds?!
	Gollum falls in the fires of Mount Doom, destroying the Ring. Mordor sort of implodes. Sam and Frodo chill on a rock in the middle of a stream of lava awaiting rescue.

"That went well."

Sam	You know who else had a gay name?
Frodo	Hmm?
Sam	Tom Bombadil.
Frodo	Oh yeah, I forgot about that guy. You know who I miss?
Sam	Who?
Frodo	Gollum. He had a good heart.
	A group of giant eagles rescue Frodo and Sam, who are at this point too tired to note that these birds might have come in handy earlier. Aragorn is crowned King of Gondor.

"Maybe I'll let them vote one day... Nah."

	The hobbits return to the Shire to find that Saruman has escaped from Isengard to enslave the Shire. Chronic voter apathy among hobbits means that most haven't even noticed.
Sam	I don't remember this part.
Frodo	Yeah, it surprised me too. Say, good woman, what news of Hobbiton?
Hobbit woman	What? Who are you? Oh yeah... you're them four 'obbits what went off adventuring, leavin' us 'ere to our own devices. But I thought ya was all male, if ye know what I'm sayin'.

	The hobbits foster an uprising against Saruman and his lunatic policy of 'industrialization'. Saruman is betrayed and killed by Wormtongue, who is in turn slain by archers working for Al Gore.
Archer	What an inconvenient poof.
	Frodo and Sam consummate their friendship, and by that I mean their friendship is consummate. Frodo tires of his mortal life and sails west into the Undying Lands. Presumably that means a land where people are undying, since lands don't really die, and that would just be redundant. I guess it could just be called 'Lands'. The Shire returns to normal and never industrializes thanks to vast oil reserves discovered under local hobbits' fields. It remains largely unchanged to this day. That is to say, Heaven.

The Lord of the Rings (Abridged), Book II

(Further) Dramatis Personae
Eowyn	Largely unimportant filler character who falls in love with Aragorn, then settles for....
Faramir	Brother of Boromir, ranger of Gondor and casual philatelist
Eomer	Brother of Eowyn, used to fighting hordes of orcs but unable to fight his way into the abridged script
Polymer	A high tensile plastic
Wormtongue	Nickname of former Secretary of State of Florida, Katherine Harris

In case you missed it, the story began with Book I. Last we saw, Frodo and Sam were boldly setting off in the direction of Mordor to destroy the Ring; Merry and Pippin were captured by orcs who'd yet to discover that, just like Chinese people, all hobbits look the same; and Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli took in the sights of beautiful North Gondor before setting out to rescue the Olsen hobbits.

Aragorn	The orcs are two days ahead. We have a hard trek ahead of us.
Gimli	OMFG! Why didn’t we just leave when I said we should? And why didn’t we bring our horses?
Legolas	Peshffsdff fuddd
Gimli	What?
Legolas	Peshhenf duff
Gimli	Seriously… what?
Legolas	[Rubbing his jaw] Patience, dwarf. Sorry, it’s been weeks since I last spoke.
	Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas pursue the orcs, who are butchered by the Celts men of Rohan. Merry and Pippin manage to escape the orcs during the attack, hide in a nearby forest, and encounter some ents, basically walking talking trees. It’s as dull as it sounds, so we’re going to skip that bit.
Aragorn	[Staring at pile of dead orcs] Bummer. Looks like those Rohan dudes got Merry and Pippin too. Maybe we should have stayed with Frodo and Sam like Gandalf told us to in the first place and not wasted all that time.
Gandalf	Yo. Not dead. Hobbits alive too. With ents.
Gimli	Ents?
Gandalf	Walking talking trees.
Gimli	Sounds kind of gay.
Gandalf	Yeah. Pretty boring. Going to Rohan to get help from King. Come with?
Gimli	Fo sho.
	Theoden, King of Rohan under some sort of spell cast by Saruman. Gandalf breaks it.
Gandalf	That’s two strikes, Saruman.
Aragorn	I don’t think he can hear you.
Theoden	Good to be back. What’s shaking?
Gandalf	Orcs. Attacking. Must go to fortress. Helm’s Deep. Hide.
Theoden	Are you sure? It’s awfully drafty this time of year.
	All of Rohan travels to Helm’s Deep under edict of Gandalf. Gandalf meanwhile goes off to look for help.
Serf #1	Great, now we have two kings.
Serf #2	Those pamphlets of yours really aren’t working.
Serf #1	Well maybe if you helped out once in a while.
Serf #2	Easy for you to say! I’ve got a mortgage and six kids to raise on a government pension. You’re still living at home.
Serf #1	It makes sense for me financially.
Serf #2	No one who still lives with his parents has ever been elected president of anything.
Serf #1	Shut up! I’m going to get my own place, it’s just not the right time.
Serf #2	The ‘right time’? It’s never the right time with you. You’re pathetic.
Serf #1	Ugh. You’re just. Gah. You don’t understand. It’s not. Grr. I hate you.
	On the way to Helm's Deep, the groups fights off an attack by orcs and Aragorn fights off sexual advances from a minor character.

"M'lady, I cannot lie... you'd be my Plan B."

	Saruman’s orcs attack Helm’s Deep. Their crude weapons are no match for thick stone walls.
Theoden	This is going well.
	A wall explodes in a cacophonous boom.
Captain	Looks like Saruman’s invented gunpowder.
Theoden	What did you say?
Captain	I said it looks like Saruman has invented gunpowder.
Theoden	What’s gunpowder?
Captain	I don’t know, but it clearly makes big explosions.
Theoden	Well why did you call it that?
Captain	Because that’s what it’s called.
Theoden	Why isn’t it just called ‘explosive powder’?
Captain	I don’t know. It’s just called ‘gunpowder’.
Theoden	But what’s a gun?
Captain	I… I, I don’t know. [Stammers]
Theoden	It just seems like a strange thing to say. ‘Gunpowder’. Hmm.
	Things go poorly until Gandalf turns up in the nick of time and wipes out the orcs.
Gandalf	Strike three, Saruman.
	Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Theoden and his army go to Isengard, home of Saruman to register a complaint. They arrive to discover that the ents, under encouragement of Merry and Pippin, have destroyed it, bankrupting Saruman Industries Inc. Theoden’s plans to sue Saruman for damages are abandoned for wont of assets sufficient to settle the claim. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam are trekking through hostile country on the way to Mordor when they discover an unlikely creature.
Gollum	Surprise! Give me my ring back, hobbits!
Frodo	Oh, it’s you. When he said ‘unlikely creature’ I was hoping it would be… well, nevermind.[Hastily rolls up a magazine and puts it back in his bag]
Sam	I think we should put a rope around this fella. I don’t trust him.
Frodo	He’ll be fine. You should really have more faith in people, Sam.
	Gollum betrays them.
Sam	Can I put a leash on him now?
Frodo	I suppose, but you should really learn to be more forgiving and trusting, Sam.
	Gollum agrees to lead them to Mordor, mostly because he doesn't have a choice. We call this 'duress', and while it might make you feel big, it just makes you a bully. No one likes a bully.
	Meanwhile, the hobbits are waylayed by Faramir.
Faramir	Ah, the Ringbearer. You must give it to me, Frodo. The Ring is a gift to Gondor.
Frodo	It won't be if you steal it.
Faramir	Give it to me! Gondor will use the Ring as a great weapon against Mordor.
Frodo	But how will you use it?
Faramir	Well, um, I guess I'll put it on, and um, go invisible, and then... maybe if... I, I haven't really thought this through.
Frodo	And that's why you're a minor character. Later, Fillermir.
Sam	Nice leather bodice, jerk. [Aside to Faramir] I'm so sorry, I totally didn't mean that, it actually looks super. [Winks at Faramir]

"I like it too, milord"

	Gollum leads Frodo and Sam away from Gondor into Mordor. He makes a plan to retrieve the Ring from Frodo
Gollum	[To himself] The hobbits have the precious, and they want to destroy it! But we can't lets them, can we precious? No, no we can't. Even if hobbits are good to us. No, we must take them to Her... yes, She will deal with them...
Frodo	Gollum! Could you please keep it down? I'm trying to convince Sam to trust you and I can barely hear myself think.
	Our story ends here. Temporarily. There's another whole book. I know, can you believe it? Check back soon for Book III!

The Lord of the Rings (Abridged), Book I

Dramatis Personae
Frodo	A hobbit; our Messiah
Bilbo	His uncle, sounds suspiciously like ‘dildo’
Gandalf	Wizard and avid baseball fan
Samwise	Frodo’s gardener, of tubby appearance and sycophantic disposition
Merry & Pippin	The Mary Kate and Ashley of hobbits, but male
Strider/Aragorn	Exiled would-be King of Gondor. Oops that sort of ruined the ending
Boromir	Heir of Gondor’s stewardship. I smell tension!
Gimli	A dwarf with an axe to grind... ha!
Legolas	An elf
Sauron	Basically the Devil
Ringwraiths	His minions, nine corrupted kings who harrow Frodo on his quest and meet on Wednesdays for amateur vocal group
Gollum	Former owner of Bilbo’s ring, looks something like a starving David Bowie
Saruman	Evil wizard. Not a baseball fan

Book I

	Impish creatures frolic in green pastures that look suspiciously like New Zealand. A wizard approaches.
Frodo	Gandalf! You’re late!
Gandalf	Shut the fuck up. Where’s this party?
	Bilbo, is having a party. No one remembers why. He addresses the inhabitants of the Shire.
Bilbo	[Drunkenly] I tire of thee. I shall take my leave of this place on the morrow.
	Oh yeah, that’s why he’s having a party. Bilbo slips on a ring, the pilfered loot of a previous book, and vanishes to the surprise of all but the countless people rereading this book for the fifth time. Frodo returns home looking for Bilbo.
Frodo	Dildo! Woah, where’d that come from? Bilbo, where are you?
Gandalf	B scarpered. Left you this funny ring. Full of evil. Should probably make yourself scarce. Must go. Tix for Wimbledon. Tara!
Sam	Couldn’t help but overhear you’re going on an adventure. Figured I could make myself useful to the plot. Also, I’m a tiny bit gay. Not liking this ominous music much. Maybe we should go.
Frodo	Cool.
	Frodo and Sam encounter Merry & Pippin in a corn field violating a farmer’s daughter. They come with. The party spends a night at an inn.
Strider	Pretty ring you got there.
Frodo	Thanks. I’m waiting ‘til I get married.
Strider	No I meant that shiny one.
Frodo	Oh. [Grows cagey] Stranger danger! Stranger danger!
Strider	Relax, my grimy, unkempt appearance is just for dramatic effect. It’ll make the revelation that I’m the heir to the throne of a distant kingdom that much more startling. Oops. Well you had to find out eventually.
	Bonding and several narrow escapes ensue. Frodo is stabbed at one point by a Ringwraith who, I’ve gotta be honest here, just wasn’t trying very hard. It was probably the most gingerly poking motion I’ve ever seen. Really not promotion material. Anyway Frodo is carried by Glorfindel, an elf, on his horse to Elrond’s house for a little R & R.
Frodo	[Groggily] Glorfindel… don’t you think that’s a pretty gay name?
Glorfindel	I do.
	The group reach the house of Elrond, who is busy showing a film crew around his mad pad for MTV’s Cribz. The show is cancelled before he can finish. Gandalf returns from Wimbledon.
Elrond	Ah, Mr. Anderson Baggins. Let me introduce you to an unlikely assembly of mixed race protagonists.
Boromir, Gimli, Legolas	Sup.
Frodo	How was Wimbledon, Gandalf?
Gandalf	Rained out. Did some research meantime. Ring is evil. Must be destroyed. Only you can do it.
Frodo	But what about my much more muscular and capable acquaintances? I’d choose them. Surely picking me would require my audience to suspend their disbelief a little too far.
Gandalf	I think they’ll still go for it.
	The ‘Fellowship’ departs Elrond’s with a single pony, which makes you wonder, how the hell did they all get there in the first place? I mean, it’s in the goddamn mountains. Did they walk? They walked up the mountains? And if they did have horses, why did they leave them? None of this makes sense.
Gimli	Kinda snowy up here. Maybe we should go under the mountain.
Aragorn	Sounds easy and not in the least bit sinister. What could possibly go wrong?
	Fellowship goes under the mountain. A lot goes wrong. Gandalf mistakes a bottomless crevice for the exit.
Frodo	Gandalf!
Aragorn	Yeah, grief will do that.
	Fellowship notices Legolas has yet to speak. They ask him for his opinion. He suggests they spend the night in an enchanted forest full of singing woodland creatures.
Gimli	I hate singing woodland creatures.
Elf	Say, what’s this, a band of miscreants walking through Lothlórien?
Gimli	Wtf is Lothlórien?
Elf	The realm of the Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn.
Merry	Mr. Elf? Why is ‘Celeborn’ a typo, but ‘Galadriel’ isn’t?
	Fellowship spends night in Lothlórien. Lady Galadriel gives each traveler a gift. Gimli asks for a strand of her hair, a request so gay it makes Glorfindel look like Chuck Norris. Fellowship paddles downstream in boats.
Gandalf	Tired. Exposed beach. Threatening trees. Smell of orc. Let’s make camp.
Aragorn	I agree. What could possibly go wrong?
	Frodo goes wandering in forest. Has erotic experience on stone chair. Boromir, jealous he has been passed over as the story’s hero, wants to take the Ring from Frodo for himself.
Frodo	You can’t have it!
Boromir	But why?
Frodo	Gandalf said I’m the only one who can destroy it.
Boromir	That seems implausible.
Frodo	Yeah, it does a bit doesn’t it?
Boromir	Well I don’t want it anyway. It’s only a McGuffin.
	Frodo runs off. Orcs sent by evil wizard Saruman attack. Fighting and heroics ensue. Boromir takes an arrow in the chest while defending Merry. No, it was Pippin. No, Merry.
Boromir	Hssss… Ow!!
	Boromir takes another arrow in the chest.
Boromir	Arghhhh!
	Boromir takes yet another arrow in the chest.
Boromir	Arghhhh! Oh come on!
	Boromir dies in Aragorn’s arms, as the budgeting department breathes a heavy sigh of relief that they can cut one expensive cast member from the payroll. Frodo and Sam, all evidence to the contrary, decide that they can do a better job of destroying the ring by themselves. Mary Kate and Pippin are captured by orcs. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas decide to hunt down said orcs, and delay their departure just long enough to make a convincing three-day ordeal out of the relatively simple task. The Lord of the Rings (Abridged), Book II, coming soon!

Are you afraid of scaremongering headlines? Research suggests you should be

It’s widely accepted in the world of media that panic is always a safer choice than skepticism, because what if you’re wrong? If news outlets took the time to check the veracity of a threat before broadcasting it to the unsuspecting masses, we would lose twenty-four valuable seconds to prepare for each threat, or approximately the time it takes for the average American to eat a steak.

This is why purveyors of the quality alarmist media are safer on average than their better educated, thinner, and predominantly East Coast compatriots. It’s only because informed citizens are aware of the full range of threats that they can sit down and enjoy their breakfasts and their Us magazine. Indeed, skeptical viewers must spend so much time verifying whether looking at your own penis makes you gay that they don’t have time for Us, or for InStyle, or even for People. Would you want to live in a world where you didn’t know about celebrity obesity?

Few prudent Americans would deny that the minuscule chance that bees don’t carry HIV doesn’t mean it’s not worth buying your entire family hazmat suits. Nor can anyone contest that Y2K bugs are only getting worse each year. Before the Y2K08 bug, cats were universally known as man’s best friend. But look at them now! Despicable, ungrateful creatures, hardly deserving of the name ‘pet’. Scientists expect the Y2K09 bug will make your child more promiscuous. In a world where bees carry HIV, is this really something you’d want?

Statistics show that that people least likely to be frightened by scaremongering headlines are the skeptics, a category of people renowned for watching DVD box sets of cancelled 90s TV shows in the basement, like The X-Files, Farscape, and Designing Women. In addition, research indicates that the implausibility of a threat becomes less important the more people dwell on it. If videogames weren’t going to make kids violent by themselves, then by God, good parents were going to manipulate the evidence to make it look that way, because people needed to know!

Anchors resent allegations that their niche news outlets serve corporate or political interests. In one much publicized case, a popular station risked outcry when it warned viewers that homosexuality may be linked to not eating enough red meat. Unfortunately, ninety-six percent of over the counter heartburn medicine is made by companies whose CEOs are rampantly and dangerously gay, so either way, they win! It wasn’t cheery, feel good news, but damn it, they did their journalistic duty and reported it.

Skeptics, of course, don’t want us to be frightened by headlines. They seem to forget that the world is, by its Christian nature, a scary place. They want to be comforted and coddled, and told everything is going to be ok. And then they have the gall to turn around and reject Jesus and the comfort he brings Americans, who need him for protection from the evils of the world. Nor should we forget the economic realities under which the alarmist media must operate. Those responsible for warning the public about incredible threats would go out of business if we ignored them, and who would warn us then? 

So next time you drink a glass of water and marvel that it hasn’t been fluoridated by the Soviets, just remember who told you.

The Ring (of non-desire)

Wait! Sex Week might have officially finished, but that doesn't mean we can't still talk about it. A guest author, who likes to known as Anonymous, has submitted this thought-provoking study on the shortcomings of purity rings. 

This article is about to raise a question which was so hotly debated that when it was first posed back in 1996 it almost broke the internet. “What does Frodo think about purity rings?” I should say that I honestly don’t know how Frodo feels about sex; but, I am confident that I could manipulate at least some of the Scriptures in such a way to make it seem like Frodo is massively against it. It is from this proved and logical premise we move forward.

Here is an all too familiar conversation that people who wear purity rings regularly have:

Jane: “Do you like my new ring?”
Blake: “It’s cool. You take it off when you give handjobs right? Looks like it could be painful.”
Jane: “I don’t ever take it off. It stops me from having sex.”
Blake: “Oh cool. How does it work?”
Jane: “Er… ”
Blake: “Any chance of a footjob?”

You see the problem with other faiths is that their purity rings have no real power to stop people from having sex. It's all willpower this and shame that. Both of those things are dead unreliable. This is a worrying fact. What we need is some new thinking. A new perspective. We need a sort of Purity Ring 2.0. We need boner fide technology to physically stop people from having sex... Here are just three of my suggestions:

1. The ring has a refillable cartridge that releases anti-pheromones:

Pheromones clearly work. Why would people buy them if they didn’t? Also, Frodo loves commodities. Imagine this money-making to and fro at your local store:

Assistant: How can I help you today?
Father: We are looking for a refill cartridge for our son’s purity ring?
Assistant: Hmmm… I see that you have been using the Mickey Rourke plug in. Have you thought about changing him to the Danny De Vito Deluxe package? That’ll keep the ladies away.
Father: Sold shopkeep. We also have a young daughter. What do you recommend for her to repel the boys?
Assistant: The Whoopi Goldberg is our bestseller.

2. The ring is made of Kryptonite

Run with me on this one. Superman is probably the hardest man alive. Yet, when he even goes near Kryptonite he gets bad headaches, adopts the foetal position, grimaces, etc. Everyone knows you can’t have sex with a headache. So what would happen if a normal kid went near Kryptonite? Exactly. On the downside Kryptonite is fictional, expensive and rare. On the other hand Lex Luther is well into Frodology.

3. The ring is so shiny that any sort of romantic “navigation” is impossible due to blindness

A lot of you have thought ‘what can hip hop teach Frodology?’ I don’t know and it is completely off the topic of this article. I didn’t know a lot about sex before writing this but thanks to a fascinating link I found after googling the phrase ‘stimulus package’ I think I get a good idea of how it’s done. In light of this new knowledge, what would happen if the ring was super shiny? Hello! Here is a believable scenario that reflects my new found understanding of sex:

Claire: What are you doing? You’re hurting me.
Dan: Sorry, I can’t see anything! Your ring is blinding me.
Claire: What can we do?
Dan: I guess we’ll have to stop.
[Claire looks disappointedly at the cameraman]

Even in the early days of purity rings, 

wearers had difficult convincing others of their sincerity

Where do you stand in the scheme of things?

Following requests for transparency from our members, we have decided to make public for the first time the Faith’s official ranking scheme. Unfortunately, the branches of Frodo’s temporal government are so convoluted that not even I, its leader, know the full extent of the system, nor even in fact whether I really am its leader.

Truly, Frodo works in mysterious ways.

 

Underling

Converted atheists start out at the bottom of the pack. As explained in How to Join Frodology Part II this is actually just a portmanteau of Underhill, a common hobbit surname, and halfling, another name for hobbits, and there is nothing sinister about it. 

Nothing inherently sinister about it, I should say. Early Faith leaders decided it would be appropriate to retrofit a degree of despicability to Underlings befitting of their name. Thanks to modern human rights standards, however, we’ve left the Dark Ages far behind and can proudly announce that these days, Underlings are allowed to keep six of their favorite fingers.  Also, rather than the highly unsafe practice of sewing eyelids shut that prevailed in previous centuries, surgeons now prefer to use hot wax.

 

Cretin

Converted Christians and followers from other faiths can skip Underling status and go straight to Cretin. Other than wearing slightly lighter manacles, however, there’s very little difference. Some followers obviously take issue with being called a colloquial synonym for ‘retard’, though I’m sure they would be interested to learn that owing to political correctness, Frodology enforces actual cretinism upon its followers. Though our newest members can never really disguise their enormous goiters, they sure have fun trying!

 

Banded sea krait

Followers live for several months as a highly venomous sea snake. 

 

Couch Jumper

By this stage in a Frodologist’s journey of Faith, he has lost all forms of physical restraint and his missing fingers have largely grown back. Thanks to their ability to consume iodine once again in their diet, Couch Jumpers’ goiters have largely receded to barely noticeable grapefruit-sized lumps, easily hidden by a turtleneck or isolated confinement in the home. Of course most outsiders will only have eyes for your unbridled enthusiasm for the Faith at this point, which is frequently demonstrated by inappropriate jumping up and down on couches in public. For those unable to do this on TV talk shows hosted by black women named after musical genres, Ikea is a suitable substitute.

 

Yeti Slayer

Other evangelical faiths might send their naïve, underprepared young into dangerous parts of the world to proselytize to people who fully resent them, but Frodology is more serious about testing its followers’ mettle. At this stage in their journey, missionaries are expected to journey to the Himalayas to slay a yeti. As difficult as this may sound, surviving yetis constitute such a small gene pool that they are invariably retarded, making the expedition something like murdering a giant care bear.

As much fun as it sounds

Polo Shirt

Only once you have vanquished the Yeti may you properly enter the Faith as an adult member. This is akin to the Catholic sacrament of Sublimation, though it is generally easier to reach since followers aren’t expected to skip the liquid state entirely. 

Polo Shirts are considered iconic by outsiders since they are the face we most frequently show the world. Unsurprisingly, Polo Shirts get their name from their uniform, which includes pleated chinos two sizes two small; the goatee voted ‘Facial Hairstyle of the Decade’ in Gay Times’ August 2001 issue; and polo shirt with PermaButton™ collar. By this stage in their journey, Frodologists’ fingers have grown back sufficiently to clutch a copy of The Lord of the Rings jealously to their breasts.

Temple Worthy

If you haven’t already, expect to lose all of your outside friends. Since your infatuation with the Faith means that you are unlikely to have seen their eyes rolling in their sockets like those of a bored invalid whenever you mention it, this may come as a surprise. While the lolling tongues of your former friends might tell you that you’ve lost their respect, they are almost certainly jealous. 

Of your cool new onesie underwear! I know what you’re thinking, but the coarse linen wasn’t merely chosen for its classic aesthetic appeal. It also chafes like industrial sandpaper! Thanks to its magical properties, which result from a secret manufacturing process, Temple Worthy Frodologists are able to let their spirits wander independently of their bodies. Sound cool? Maybe you’ll be the first to discover a use for it!

Disembodied perambulation may cause birth defects, nausea, loss of appetite, premature baldness, uncontrollable cravings for deep fried sea krait, and in rare cases sudden death. No refunds.

Katie Holmes

Frodologists this committed to their faith are the stuff of legends. New Frodologists should be warned that it takes levels of devotion that laymen and hospitals might attribute to psychosis to become Katie Holmes. While incarceration – we prefer to call it “staying at holmes” – and/or the sponsorship of a spouse might get you a foot in the door, there really is no substitution for vanquishing your better judgment of your own volition. After all, it’s a matter of faith.

February was a good month

Champagne all around!

February was officially Frodology's best month ever, and with its niggardly supply of days, that's saying something. Perhaps it's our use of words that sound casually racist. In any case, there are no chinks in Frodo's armor. Everything's just spic and span. 

First of all I'd like to thank everyone who orgiastically (but responsibly) participated in Sex Week. Thanks to good sense and proper decorum, no one's about to be excommunicated by the Vatican as a consequence. So, a huge thank you to Christians Scare the Bejesus Out of Me, Yunshui, Filliam, and CodewordConduit for their outstanding contributions. 

Second, I am proud to say that Frodology's 1019 total hits in February accounted for fully one-third of our all time unique visits, and exceeded our previous best by over 300 hits. Them's some stats!

Finally, because it's a cheap laugh, I'd like to share with you my ten favorite search referrals that have brought unsuspecting Googlers to Frodology.

"hairy women dwarves"

"gondor fossil watches serial"

"sexiest panis"

"frodo hairy feet why"

"preteen model naked"

"5 pages satires written in microsoft word about candy"

"marrying dogs"

"real jesus open your own bank"

"women like mysoginy"

"hiv is a cure for homosexuality"

None of this reflects well upon the world.

Christians to stop celebrating birthdays

The latest trend to sweep the nation originates from an unlikely source. Groups of Christians around the country have stopped celebrating birthdays – including those of friends, their children, and their own – in a bid to finally put paid to their whimsically sound belief that the soul enters the body at conception.

This generalization is admittedly somewhat misleading; by ‘body’ I of course meant ‘cell’, as there really is no body to speak of instantly after fertilization. In fact, the fertilized egg is so small a target that it can be notoriously hard to hit for novice souls recently out of flight school. Since the zygote unfortunately does not wait for the soul’s entrance before it begins to develop, it’s thought that inevitable misses have been responsible for producing some of history’s more soulless characters, Martha Stewart being only the most recent example.

Believing that birthdays detract from the significance of conception, many Christians agree with the view put forward by a spokesman today that “the birth itself is actually an unremarkable event in the life of a person.” He added that, “especially when compared to the miracle of conception, a miracle which we finally understand thanks to science, birth is pretty mundane.” Indeed, the clinical tile of a hospital is almost a ubiquitous experience in birth these days. Celebrating conception, however, will allow copulating couples to personalize the event, perhaps with asses scratched raw by hay, or the enthusiastic burst of a punctured condom.

Addressing criticism that this sidelines the role of women in nurturing children, the spokesman agreed that this was really the secondary aim. “Women have kept their stranglehold on birth over the centuries by pretending that it’s painful, but since they’re the only ones who ever experience it, we don’t really know that it hurts,” he explained. “I don’t even think it’s all that bad,” concluded the spokesman.

The new convention will thankfully also cut down on home videos of childbirth, a genre of film frequently classified as ‘torture porn’. Since the spawning female is at the ugliest stage of her life cycle since her dental headgear-laden teenage years, the trend is expected to be widely applauded.

As the standard by which ages are determined will have to shift forward accordingly, Mormon parents are reportedly thrilled to be able to get their girls out of the house and married nine months sooner. “It shaves nine months off the risk of her wanting a career!” enthused one parent.

The move is, however, not without its losers. Twins, triplets, and other iterations of superfluous clone children are expected to suffer most from the policy. Since they won’t all be entitled to celebrate their birth anymore, children will have to fight it out between themselves to determine who is the legitimate inheritor of the soul. While not all parents are thrilled at the prospect of facilitating natural selection within their own homes, most are satisfied with the chosen moniker of ‘moocher’ to describe the losing children.

Misogyny Meter for this article a comfortable 8/10

Health and Safety’s “grave concerns” for Rapture

Evangelicals in the United Kingdom became forlorn today at the news that Health and Safety has “grave concerns” about the safety of the End Times in general and the Rapture in particular, and that it plans to audit the event to ensure its compliance with government and EU standards.

The potential failure of the Rapture to meet Health and Safety requirements came to the attention of director Jonathan Brady as he was walking down the high street doing some Saturday afternoon shipping. “I was actually off duty at the time,” remarked Brady, “but a gentleman was there proclaiming that the streets would run with the blood of unbelievers.”

Though bloody streets specifically are beyond Mr. Brady’s field of expertise, “it sounded like something Health and Safety might be interested in slash statutorily obliged to regulate,” he explained. Indeed, it is frequently the unseen patches of blood, or “black blood,” that are most dangerous. They can often cause the elderly to slip and break a hip, or perhaps just wobble a bit.

“Woahh,” they might say, before recovering their balance and carrying on their way.

Upon further investigation of the Rapture, Health and Safety found all sorts of serious statutory contraventions. For example, they will want to be absolutely satisfied that ascenders into Heaven will have a railing to grip due to the great heights involved. Signs reading “Risk of death. Wear appropriate footwear” will also be mandatory during the Rapture.

Event organizers have already spoken out against the tentative plans of Health and Safety to move the thunder and lightning portions of the Rapture to less inhabited areas, arguing that it “totally defeats the purpose.” Justifying the decision, an official assured concerned would-be participants that they appreciate the importance of smiting to the Rapture, but warned that there must be no risk of lasting auditory or ocular damage.

The plagues in particular are a source of contention, and it is thought that unless they can go ahead without jeopardizing the safety of the working environment, they will be cancelled outright.

Government officials are also worried about the potentially discriminatory effect of the Rapture against non-Christians. In order to comply with European Union equal rights legislation, they warned that the law requires that an equal proportion of Muslims, Hindus, non-believers, and Other be struck down and taken to Heaven too. Event organizers commented only that they could “make no promises.”

Sexting – the sexiest moral panic yet?

It's been a sexy romp this week, and I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say we're probably feeling a little worn out. But if you can hold on just a little bit longer, this marathon session is just one post away from its climatic conclusion. This one's by your very own FrodoSaves of, well, here.

American parents have found a new reason to worry about their children as the latest moral panic sweeps the nation. With the dissemination of mobile phones to youngsters of all ages – well, not all ages, because then they wouldn’t necessarily be young, but that hardly heeded pointing out – and the decreasing cost of multimedia messaging, teens have been titillating each other with naked photos of themselves.

The craze is known as ‘sexting’. While the origins of the word are unclear, experts believe it to be a portmanteau of ‘sex’, a popular activity for adults, and ‘ting’, a common name for Chinese people. The obscure etymology of the word is a key reason why parents and educators were so slow to catch on. “We’re completely out of touch,” commented one.

The naked photos are certainly a concern for all parties involved. District prosecutors have in some areas taken matters into their own hands by charging youngsters with possessing and disseminating child pornography, which is funny because ‘dissemination’ comes from the word ‘semen’ (I’m serious this time), and not funny because now these kids have criminal records. While parents tend to be extremely critical of the prosecutions, it is thought that at least some of the children will be grateful for the opportunity to go to prison, where they will be able to act out more of their perverted fantasies.

Yet while school officials discuss with police better methods for discouraging sexting, there is a danger that Americans aren’t asking the most important questions. For example, ‘which pose is the sexiest?’ ‘How fat is too fat?’ And ‘should they use props?’

While professional pornographers are skilled at including a wide range of believable props, from a well placed pillow to guns and car parts, it’s likely that without proper education, these children will be using objects that stretch the imagination a little too far. “I confiscated one of my student’s phones last week,” remembers high school teacher Jim Matthews, “and imagine my shock when it contained a naked picture of the kid’s girlfriend posing with a textbook. A textbook! It ruined the photo for me. And it definitely wasn’t worth the half hour it took to find it on his phone.”

The sexting craze has not left the Mormon Church unscathed either, and a group of concerned parents have voiced their worries that it’s only going to get worse. “We need to stop this filthy trend now,” warned representative Barbara Shepherd to the assembled community. “We should consider ourselves lucky that this so called ‘sexting’ has so far only been happening between married couples.”

As the sexting phenomenon shows no sign of abating, one thing remains abundantly clear: prudishness and unemployment make for a deadly parenting cocktail.