The Gods Speak

Ah… this is what power feels like…

Okay, so this is the models’ turn to write (for non-faithful readers, check here to catch up on who the models are, and here to see why it is our turn to write.) We don’t get much of a chance to say things—for some reason as soon as people see us they just start blabbering about some fellow named Apollo—so we’re pretty excited to get our entire own post. We would have been more excited by money, but whatever.

So we thought we would give you our humble (we stress that word) thoughts on the literature of this web log’s creators. We’ll jump from post to post, picking representative samples of their thoughtfulness. Or lack thereof. We stress that we rarely disagree with what is said (particularly when they start talking about us). But they are still idiots. Here’s what we mean.


From The Supercilious Snicker and the Smug Smile:

"We here at Two Thumbs Sideways…"

They say this every time. What are these guys? Two owners of a Midwestern saloon?

"…are what you might call... elitists."

Hah. They wish they were!

"We feel bad about this. Really we do."

We bet they don’t.

"It isn't our fault we were born with such gargantuan brains."

Ah. Finally some humility!

"Blame our parents. Seriously. Blame them. We do."

Actually, here we must agree. Did their parents just take a vacation for the entire period of time when kids are supposed to develop self-awareness?

From Robber and Robbed: The Russians Are Coming:

"Most people don’t realize this, but it wasn’t the English-speaking world that first came up with the whole totalitarian, thought-suppressing, vaguely familiar and mildly repetitive dystopian book idea."

Most people also don’t realize that most of the salt in the ocean is Calcium Carbonate, not table salt. But they don’t seem to attach much importance to that…

"It was the Russkies."

The balance of the article will claim the U.S. is still waging a cold war against Russia. And yet Left Thumb is the one who just blamed them for inventing thought-suppressing dystopias. We don’t claim to be brilliant, so explain that one to us.

"Oh, we may smile and wave when a Russian bomber flies by. We might have redirected our nukes, we might be hobnobbing with their cosmonauts on the International Space Station, we might even invite Putin and Medvedev over for Iran-bashing and vodka—but beneath the pleasant handshakes and warm promises of continued cooperation, we have our collective, metaphorical fingers ever so defiantly crossed."

Actually, other than the ISS part… we do none of these things. Or at least, we personally cannot remember waving as a Russian bomber flew by. (What is it with Left Thumb and the Russians, anyway?)

From A Conversation with the Devil:

"In fact, do a Google search for Ayn Rand and you will be completely inundated by the inane."

We actually did this. Turns out, they were right. We were inundated by the inane!

From Robber and Robbed: Rubber Ducky Derivatives:

"But I'm not going to talk about that at any great length today. Frankly, encapsulating the sheer outrage (some might even say diabolical plot) that surrounds Oliver! winning the 1968 Academy Award for Best Picture would take the aid of Left Thumb. Not because I, Right Thumb, could not list the multifarious and multitudinous facets of this atrocity. No, Left Thumb and I are perfectly capable of doing that on our own. But neither of us could handle the psychological damage without the comfort of another human being who understands. So the Greatest Movie Atrocity of All Time will have to wait for a day when the Thumbs are united. Today the quarry is not quite so unspeakable."

We are seriously confused by what Right Thumb means when he says, “I’m not going to talk about that at any great length today.” Great length for him must be something like a 65 page research paper, and even then he might call that a brief intro to the topic at hand…

From Shameful Listing of Things:

"Sometimes, making a list of favorite films or books or rollercoasters is as opprobrious as allowing a pack of peasants and griffins to defeat your half dozen azure dragons. Other times it is only about as shameful as letting ancient BEE-moths defeat your azure dragons."

We doubt you have any clue what any of this means. This probably never occurs to the Thumbs. Ever.

From Counting Things:

"- Number of Isaac Asimov books that are worth reading: 10. Those being The End of Eternity, the three in the original Foundation trilogy, I, Robot, the first two in the Robot series, and the three in the Galactic Empire series. Go read them, they’re good. And I know good Books. Even if I don’t have a Ph. D."

God help the world if Left Thumb ever gets a Ph.D.

From the blog header:

"Between the two of us, we know everything."

They know everything…

…except how to pay their employees.

They know everything…

…except how to stop talking about Ayn Rand, Peter Jackson, and Battlestar Galactica over and over again. Because of course, heaven forbid, there might still be a few readers who aren’t sure about where they stand on Atlas Shrugged. We’d like to meet those readers and then enroll them in English language literacy courses. We also would like to enroll the Thumbs in finance courses, but—surprise!—they don’t have the funds to support such a venture.

From Movie Review: Into Great Silence:

"We expected a sort of visual meditation, a serene slice of art… but as it continued, the film degenerated into a celebration of racism, military supremacy, crassness, disrespect towards elders, and senseless propaganda."

When we were hired by Two Thumbs Sideways, we expected a blog of erudite musings, a sophisticated slice of commentary and criticism…but as our involvement continued, the blog degenerated into a celebration of…the Thumbs themselves.

Now, a word about that whole documentary fiasco—that was back when we still read each post thoroughly. (Now we just skim to get the gist and look for references to us.) And so, soon after we read that review, we went out and rented Into Great Silence and watched it. Perhaps we were feeling particularly depraved; perhaps we were simply curious—we watched it. And we didn’t see any disrespect towards elders. None at all. We’re not saying the Carthusians don’t hang an old guy out to dry every once in a while, but it’s not shown here. Yes, there was racism in the film. Yes, the charges of military supremacy, crassness and senseless propaganda are all well-founded—but no disrespect towards elders. None. Get it right, Thumbs. Here we are thinking these monks eat old people for brunch on camera, and there’s absolutely nothing of the sort. Shame on you.

From Counting Things:

"Hang in there, Right Thumb. In 2066 we’ll finally have someone to bring us the coffee."

Guess what? They don’t even drink coffee. Something about the effects of caffeine on over-sized brains. We're doubtful.

We spoke to Left Thumb soon after this post, and he clearly took special pleasure in the fact that 2066 is exactly 1000 years after William the Conqueror invaded England from his domain in Normandy. (Which, coincidentally, William’s Viking ancestors had been offered by France when they agreed to stop raiding French shores. Typical French. “Stop hurting us—we’ll give you half our land! Our chocolate and women, too!”) Now Left Thumb saw some significance in this, thinking that it meant that Two Thumbs Sideways was destined to become the cyber/neurological/telepathic equivalent of the British Empire or some other such nonsense. We tell you this so that if he starts to write in Old English (and, in characteristic fashion, doesn’t explain himself) you’ll have some inkling of a notion why.

But the truth is, there still won't be much hope for that.

[Apollo] + {Achilles}