The new Holy Text definitely starts off strong– I particularly enjoyed the book of Randall, in which the Lord unveils fifteen all new commandments. Granted, it feels like a few of them were added just to bring the total up to a nice even 25. I wonder if, for example, commandment 17 (“Thou shalt listen to more Skynyrd, because the Lord really digs them”) really necessary. Still, the majority of the verses are pretty solid, and I can see it becoming popular in liturgical readings for years to come. The same can be said of the book of Larry, which helps clarify God’s positions on a few political issues. For one thing, we find out why Leviticus wrote those nasty things about gay people (spoiler alert: he was just jealous that they were all better at dancing than he was).

Unfortunately, I kind of felt like the Lord really saved his best ideas for the beginning and ending, with most of the chapters in the middle being rather slow and uneventful. We do get to see the return of quite a few favorite characters from the original, but most of the appearances seem a bit forced and unnecessary. Samson, for example, only shows up for a brief cameo in a few chapters of the book of Explosions to help out in Jesus’ fight against Sub Zero. Meanwhile, John the Baptist spends a good chunk of the time wandering around the desert searching for a bunch of magical macguffins, which don’t even end up being all that important to the story. The worst offender by far, though, is the second book of Numbers, in which Jesus decides to see if he can count to ten thousand. I don’t think I’m really giving anything away by saying that he does.

Still, there are a few gems tucked away in there. The book of Jerry has a fantastic twist ending that God claims even He didn’t see coming. And the book of Awesome, which comes in at the very end, is a great finale to the whole series. I know a lot of fans, including myself, were excited about the prospect of a Jesus/Moses team up, and thankfully the new Bible delivers. Most of the finale is devoted to an epic battle sequence in which they– along with Solomon, Elijah, St. Paul, and a few others– team up to save the earth from a horde of invading dinosaur ninjas. It’s a great way to end the series, and I hope the movie version is able to capture the drama as perfectly as the book does.

All in all, despite a few missteps, I really liked “The Bible 2.” It clears up a lot of the questions raised by the original, and even makes room for a few genuinely funny moments– something that the first Bible was sorely lacking in. Don’t expect a masterpiece, but if you’re looking for a solid addition to your summer reading list, you can certainly do a lot worse.

Lesson 1: Profanity

The first thing you need to know about Manly C++ is that “true” and “false” constants are for the weak and sterile. You want anyone who looks at your code to know that you MEAN BUSINESS:

These two lines will help you turn any boolean variable into a grand declaration of manliness. Suddenly, a snippet like this doesn’t just detect lines in an image, but announces to the world, “I dare anyone to question the return value of this function!”

Lesson 2: Poor Design Decisions

Most IDE’s nowadays allow you to customize the syntax coloring of all your files. Most IDE’s also provide a default option that looks something like this:

This is perfectly fine… if you want everyone around you to urinate all over everything you do, both metaphorically and literally. Every Manly C++ user should take full advantage of his/her (okay, his) ability to make some of the worst design decisions possible. If even the creators of the ugliest website ever cry out in agony just from looking at your monitor, you know you’re on the right track:

Now THAT’S programming!

Lesson 3: Learn From the Movies

If you’re like me, then you have a rare genital mutation that makes you incapable of physical intimacy. But more importantly, you occasionally have to move files around using a linux terminal. Linux is, of course, an operating system designed to make even the simplest operations take 20 times longer than they need to, and so the simple task of copying a file from one folder to another requires a flurry of keystrokes usually not seen outside of TV crime shows.

Needless to say, this is where your mind should be whenever you have a linux terminal in front of you. Me, I’m never just “searching for a file” or anything so boring– in my imagination, I’m “FooTay: Uber-hacker extraordinaire!”

Me: “The terrorists have control of every mainframe in the country. Our only hope is to fourier transform a GUI interface to reroute the transport control protocol through an SQL injection in their firewall.” Attractive Support Character: “Can you do it?” Me: “You’re looking at the guy who hacked the NSA using only one hand.” Attractive Support Character: “What were you doing with the other hand?” Me: (Takes off sunglasses) “You don’t wanna know.” (Cue theme music)

Next week: making full use of switch statements, tail recursion, and assault weapons.

But for all the entertainment they’ve provided me over the years, not once have I ever given anything back… until now.

Unfortunately, all my efforts were wasted initially, as I got the following message back both times:

Clearly, I was going to have to try harder…

Still, though, no response. Fine then. If they don’t want my ideas, it’s their loss. I’ll keep my next awesome movie pitch to myself…

– For the cake recipe posted on October 10th, the third ingredient should be listed as “eggs,” and not “ashes of dead grandparents”

– Our article on pony maintenance on March 27th incorrectly listed Ronald C. James of Westbury NY as the antichrist when, in fact, he is merely an unpleasant person.

– The June 3rd guide to proper lumberjack technique accidentally reversed the instructions “Turn chainsaw off” and “firmly grasp chainsaw blade in hand.”

– We quoted reliable sources to bring you the news that the world will end in 2012. Unfortunately, we were incorrect. Even more reliable sources indicate that it actually already ended, in 1723.

– Our article, “Top Terrorist Targets for This Fall” was wrong when it identified a local bowling alley and a neighboring bean-bag factory as a top terrorist target that was sure not to last the year. However, we didn’t remain wrong for long, since our loyal terrorist readers were looking for something to do anyway.

– In our article on coal-fired power plants, we accidentally said that building new coal plants was not incredibly stupid. This is not true. Building new coal-fired power plants is incredibly stupid.

(Interestingly, however, coal-fired power plant-fired power plants are incredibly efficient and enormous.)

– In a May 2011 article about bitches, we incorrectly identified your mother as a filthy whore. We apologize for our inattention to detail. She is a filthy stinking whore.