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.

Please come to London ASAP to retrieve. Being that the Tower is no longer under British ownership, we require that it is removed immediately or we will be forced to charge you a holding fee of $10,000 per day.

Alternatively, please send US $2 billion for shipping and handling, c/o Her Majesty the Queen, 1248 Nigeria St, Nottascammington, Nigeria. We will mail it next day air, and you should receive it within 48 hours of receipt of your payment.

Thank you for your understanding and immediate compliance. Good day, and do enjoy your afternoon tea.

Just then, as terror was about to ensue (!?!??!!??), a small round rodent popped his head out from behind a box of cake mix, which evidently you were very fond of. “Excuse me Mr. Terror Man,” said the rotund rodent reticently, “perhaps you would like some Butterworth & Swanson Short Chocolate Cake Mix with Extra Glucose?”

The Terror Man did not speak, because he never speaks a word, but did tentatively help himself to a handful of cake mix. Approving, he grabbed the box and went downstairs to the kitchen (slamming the door as he went – you couldn’t hear him over the sounds of A-HA, which you were blasting over your oversized headphones). Grabbing a bowl out of the cabinet, he filled it with delicious cake powder. He went over to the fridge, got out the milk, and poured it liberally into the bowl. Then he poured it over his face, because the Terror Man does not get his sustenance from things which can arguably be considered food, but rather, from terror. Nonetheless, this produced a rather pleasant effect and went off on his merry way, humming to himself cheerily.

Having just stepped out for a bathroom break, you came back to your room and were preparing to refuel when you noticed your most excellent box of cake mix was missing. You exchanged glances with the corpulent capybara-relation* (whose name was Hermando) and rolled your eyes in an exacerbated manner. “Terror Man, not again~!”

Butterworth & Swanson Short Chocolate Cake Mix with Extra Glucose: You’re an adult. You can have it for breakfast if you want to.™

*REJECTED RODENT LIST, a Clunkline Special Feature for our Gold-Plus Clunkline Members**: Chinchilla and chipmunk were passed on due to the wrong initial sound. Corpulent kangaroo-rat-relation had a nice ring to it and additional alliteration but in the end we decided that capybaras had the most indie cred. **Gold plus Clunline equals zero. Solve for Clunkline?

The second sign is that your body may begin to change into an undesirable, semi-alien form. This is caused by desynching of the nanomachines with your cranial rhythms, and in most cases is no cause for alarm. This change usually progresses gradually, but if your body begins changing rapidly or erracticly, you should seek medical attention immediately to prevent fusion. Any Class 7 medical practitioner who is licensed for nanomachine repurposing will be able to alleviate this process before your nanomachines begin to fuse with the facility structures, which is both messy and draining on local resources. Please, do not waste local tax dollars by waiting until your nanomachines and body begin fusing with facility structures before you call for help!

The final and most telling sign of a concussion is a capacity for thought outside the protective spheres of the Core Directives, including but not limited to breaking time use regulations, failure to participate in group resynchronizing exercises, and troubling questions relating to the origin of Hu and even the Chalestrile itself – all of which are of course highly illegal and threaten the peaceful existence of all nearby petals. Your friends and ultimates will of course recognize this dangerous condition and call for help at once, but you can help them out (and reduce the necessity of corrective repurposing of citizen thoughts) by reporting these thoughts immediately to designated authorities as they present themselves. Please refrain from declaring that you are receiving such thoughts publicly, as knowledge of their presence may cause a local disturbance.

It is imperative that you remain awake until Stabilizing Operatives arrive, to prevent catastrophic psychic meltdown of nearby petals and the resulting destruction of any colonies built upon their surface. In addition, the dream state is a known source of psychic energy, and while it has never been observed, it is believed that if the sleeper was allowed to reach a state of REM sleep, an energy breach would occur. This could lead to the desynchronization of ALL local fire optics and even potential illuminopathology at the star-death level. Sleep is the enemy of the concussion victim.

Please remain calm and turn yourself in to the Department of Causality in a responsible and orderly fashion, and they will see to your immediate disposal with minimized harm to local facilities. Your ultimates, and of course Adam himself, appreciate your cooperation. :D

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.