There's a reason I don't read.

I just received, courtesy of the unforgivably sweat-stained USPS guy, a manual on how to do my fucking job.

That's right. The Guild, under the previously cussed-about new supervision, has issued me a doorstop that looks remarkably like a textbook. The doorstop is entitled The Guild Tactical Manual: A Practical Guide for the Field Agent and has... let's see... 981 sheets of very uncomfortable toilet paper between its cheaply-bound covers.

It's a brilliant book, really. Not only does it quote the Malleus Maleficarum (potentially the dumbest book ever written, and a glorious example of what happens when men in power get too sexually frustrated), but it features illustrations that look like they were drawn by a pre-pubescent mongoloid:



That's supposed to be a grave stake, a ceremonial cross-shaped ash stake used for snuffing vamps. The cross tines are usually broken off after the stake has been properly blessed.

Of course, you only know this because I'm telling you. Looking at the drawing, you'd probably think it was a canoe or a dildo or something.

I'm not nearly as offended by the handwritten descriptions (Jesus, some professionalism, please?) as I am by what they point out. If you'll look closely, you'll notice they actually labeled the sharp end of the stake.

I particularly like the section about "field meditation," which tells agents to, and I quote:

Close your eyes, and slow your breathing. Keeping your eyes closed, re-create your immediate environment as a mental image. Now, as you look around your visualized environment, take the next step and become the vampyr. Feel it's hunger. Know it's fears. You must avoid the hunter. You must slake the thirst. Where, as a vampyr, are you most drawn to? When you have determined the three places you are most likely to go, open your eyes, and begin investigating in those places.

WHAT!? First of all, learn how to use the contraction it's. It's means it is. The possessive form of the pronoun it has no goddamned apostrophe. Seriously; we're talking third grade English class here.

Secondly, you left out the part where the field agent gets fucking eaten while he's standing around channeling Sun Tsu and getting his metaphysical jollies. In a vamp combat situation, you can't stand around with your eyes closed and your dick in your hands, playing silly-ass mind games - unless, of course, you're aiming for a Darwin Award.

Any reasonably intelligent field agent should - with his eyes open - be able to guess where a vampyr might go. If you have to stop and be one with the earth every time you need to track a vamp, you are in the wrong line of work, Grasshopper.

Seriously; who writes this shit?

My true complaint, however, is that the pages aren't absorbent enough to clean up beer. And they chafe.

I'm baaaaack.

First, I apologize for having been gone so long. Apparently at least one guy reads this, 'cause he asked why.

I'd like to say that I was off on secret assignment, or getting laid, or anything, but the truth is, I was ass-deep in paperwork. And it's all about this blog.

See, there was a bit of a power shift in the Guild. Not a coup, or anything interesting like that; one guy retired, another guy took over, blah blah blah. The upshot is that the new guy had all kinds of delusions about shit he was going to change (the guy actually had the balls to use the word "reform" on several occasions), and he got his panties in a wad about this blog. Said it threatened "Guild secrecy."

What you have to understand is that the Guild is as much mired in bureaucratic bullshit as any medium-sized company; only the pencil pushers have funny names like "Elder." An "Elder" is essentially a guy (or gal - we're equal opportunity shitty employers) who is too strung-out to cut it as a field agent, and who consequently ends up stuck behind a desk, thinking very highly of him or herself. The Speaker is the "head" of the Council of Elders, the Council being a group of decrepit old farts that sit around in a dusty room making motions, seconding them, and dividing into committees. And I can say this because the Guild really has no upward mobility, and they're too strapped to actually fire any of us. So if you're reading this, O Great Council, you may kindly suck an egg.

Anyway, the new Speaker (I'm no longer allowed to use real names, so I'll just refer to him as Speaker Numbnuts) decided that we should be more secretive about our activities. If you've been following this blog at all, you'll understand why this is a singularly dumbass thing to say. Vamps can't read, and nobody else fucking believes this shit, so what difference could it possibly make? The Guild passed a motion to force me to suspend the blog pending further discussion. I would have told them to fuck off if I had known the kind of paperwork "futher discussion" meant - I mean what were they going to do, fire me? Oh, dear. As it was, I wanted the bitching and moaning to stop, so I played along.

I finally convinced them to allow me to continue by pointing out that my blog did no harm, and could potentially save lives. It does no harm, because most of you assume I'm either a little south of sane or making this shit up. It could save lives if you remember any of what you read when you're trapped in an alley one day wishing you'd believed me in the first place while you're chased by one of these overgrown leeches.

Faced with my stirring and eloquent arguments (I managed cut out 90% of the "fucks" that came to my throat), Speaker Numbnuts and the Council reluctantly agreed to shut up and let me blog. So, I'm back. Questions?