Secret Laboratory
Music, News, & Global Affairs
Huh. It’s been two weeks since I wrote my last column and I’ve accomplished very little, in either my professional or my personal life. Every day I think that I ought to write something … but then I find something to watch on Netflix, instead. And there’s YouTube, which is a vast wasteland of...
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If Germany is known for one thing, it’s their unofficial motto of “Go big or go home.” Whether they are holding hateful pep rallies or improving on wiener schnitzel, they always take things to the next level. So it’s no surprise to anyone that the newest metal band to come from there is taking...
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The last column that I wrote was churned out in a frenzy on November 6; it was started before the polls closed and by the time I was finished, Barack Obama had won a second term in the White House, seemingly without even trying. The whole thing was over by ten o’clock Central Time,...
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Editor’s Note: This column was written while states were still reporting and before Obama was declared the winner. Congratulations and here’s to another four years! When I started this blog in June of 2011, it was designed to be a website to promote my books. It didn’t take me long to realize that about...
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![Ed: “His [Romney's] visage reminds me of a cheap Halloween mask—the kind of thing that you could find hanging on a clearance rack in your local drugstore on the 31st as the sun goes down.”](http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/486796_10151088962303133_1907598490_n.jpg)
As you know, we streamed the second presidential debate live and will do the same with the next one. In case you missed any of them, we have all three debates available in their entirety—just follow this link. And the last one … well … it was worth watching. Mitt Romney outdid himself by...
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The last few times I’ve had a wet dream, it was about me masturbating. Normally I wouldn’t mention this, for all of the obvious reasons—good taste, relevance, common decency—but I think that my strained libido and declining health might have to do with the looming election. Hunter Thompson described it as “campaign bloat”—and it’s...
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Watching the vice presidential debate on Thursday evening was refreshing after Butterfinger Obama’s disappointing performance last week. The president behaved like a three-toed sloth that had been drugged with Halcion, while Joe Biden smirked and sneered and called his opponent a lying skunk every chance he got. There were a few moments when I...
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Today is the one-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Many people believe that OWS ended—was crushed, really—months ago; they think that it never survived the winter. Those people haven’t been paying attention. Occupy Wall Street has grown, although it has become so commonplace that it no longer receives media attention … but...
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The heat has subsided—at least temporarily—here in Minnesota and the first signs of autumn are becoming evident. As much fun as summer is, I’m always happy to see it go. I’m looking forward to the day when I can put on a sweatshirt and drink a hot cup of coffee on my balcony while...
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It’s hard to believe that another summer is over—even though it’s still 95 degrees here in Minnesota—and that school is in session, the beaches are closed, and winter is on its way. It’s also hard to deal with the fact that I’ve written almost nothing this year, but I still have a few months...
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Fall is in the air here in Minnesota—it has been for the last week or so. I know better than to assume that the raging heat of summer is over—we won’t see the last of that until September has come and gone—but at the moment, it’s 58 degrees outside and there’s a pleasant breeze....
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The 2012 Summer Olympics have been underway for a week now—and I have watched not one minute of them. No one here at Secret Laboratory has reported on them either, which is a painful reminder that our Sports Department is not what it should be. But so what? You get what you pay for,...
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Editor’s Note: What happened in Colorado today is a horrible and utterly senseless tragedy. It isn’t funny. Our hearts go out to the victims and their families. This column isn’t so much about this specific event as it is inspired by it. We’ll leave the real coverage to more reputable news sources. The following...
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It’s about a thousand-fucking-degrees here in Minnesota—but that’s okay, because I’m safely holed up in my apartment, imagining the little wheel on the electric meter turn at a frantic pace while the air conditioners work overtime. The baseball game is on and I’m considering walking across the street to the gas station to buy...
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October 7 is Pulpit Freedom Sunday, which for four years now has meant pastors all over the U.S. will be giving sermons in which they endorse a political candidate—Mitt Romney, I imagine—in direct violation of IRS rules for a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Last year, 539 pastors participated and organizers expect even more in 2012....
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The New York Civil Liberties Union has released a free smartphone app that will allow users to record and report incidents of police brutality and stop-and-frisk activity. Naturally, the NYPD lost its shit when they heard about it; they said that the application might prove useful for criminals … or perhaps it would just...
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I’ve been too depressed these last couple of days to crank out a column. Gov. Scott Walker won the recall election in Wisconsin on Tuesday, which just goes to show you how many people think nothing of getting up in the morning, eating a big bowl of Cheerios, and then hustling off to the...
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The entire world has lost its shit after Rudy Eugene, the “Miami Zombie,” stripped naked and ate a homeless man’s face before being shot to death by police. This story has received an incredible amount of attention due to its gruesome nature—and the fact that it involves a real-life, flesh-eating zombie. Well … Mr....
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I can’t take it anymore. This bullshit marketing scheme for soul-less, money-grubbing, corporate media sluts that for some reason thinks that it’s a brilliant, and dare I speculate, moral, idea to charge people admission prices to see performances by deceased celebrities via hologram is pushing me over the edge of no return. We’re...
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The biggest news of the day is that the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DoMA) is unconstitutional. According to MSNBC: The appeals court agreed with a lower court judge who ruled in 2010 that the law is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a...
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My head is throbbing. I have a cold, my allergies have gone berserk, and I’ve had far too much coffee in the last couple of days. Summer is almost upon us and I’ve been working on adjusting my schedule. By nature, I’m nocturnal—but with the onset of beautiful weather, there simply is no good...
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I discovered this evening that I’m right-legged. If you stand on one leg—just one leg—while you’re drinking 94-proof black rum (with a killer kraken on the bottle), you too will figure out which is your dominant leg. I’m not sure what any of this means—I couldn’t write with my right leg—but it must be...
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President Obama finally came out and admitted yesterday that he supports same-sex marriage, an issue that he’s been dancing around for years. It’s a risky business to say such a thing just six months away from the general election, but perhaps the president got a whiff of the political climate and decided that he’d...
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Copyright 2012. www.tatianad.com. All rights reserved. Tatiana Tatiana is a self-taught composer, actor, songwriter, vocalist, and musician from the Minneapolis area, whose sanity is based in the creative. She has worked in film, television, and on stage as an actor and writer. As a musician, she has worked as a producer, film/video game composer,...
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I just got done reading an interesting story about a man in Utah named Daniel Suelo who hasn’t made or spent so much as a penny in twelve years; instead, he lives in caves and forages for food. Apparently, he’s happy. Anyone who reads this column knows how I feel about our antiquated monetary...
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For those of us here in Minnesota, winter is not quite over. May is half gone and a few hours ago, it was 40 degrees outside. I had the fireplace on and the space heater going. Then the sun came out, the temperature jumped about 30 degrees, and I had to open the windows.
These days we hear a lot of talk about Global Warming. Whether or not there is any truth to it remains to be seen—and frankly, it doesn't make a damned bit of difference either way. Climate change is real—warmer, colder, whatever—but it has nothing to do with us and we're never going to prevent it. And since we got a foot of snow last week and it's going to be 90 on Tuesday ... well ... I'm not sold on Global Warming. The weatherman can't even predict rain, let alone tell us whether or not we're facing an inferno and/or an ice age.
This weekend is the fishing opener. This means very little to me, as I never bother with a license anyway. It's also Mother's Day. Recently I've been bombarded by emails from an online florist, suggesting that I send Ex-wife #2 a beautiful bouquet.
Never in hell. Maybe if they had an option to have the arrangement stuffed with angry bees; but barring that ... no.
To hell with holidays and bees and everything else. For the last 24 hours, Terencio and I have been plotting the future of this magazine. He even wrote his column and published a couple of articles. The next order of business is for me to write something.
And I might. I have plenty to say—none of it important, of course—but a meandering essay with no direction whatsoever is probably the best way to ease back into my routine. Politics? Not to start. Not today.
And ... meh.
—John T. Schmitz
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Founder, Maple Hills Press
editor@secretlaboratory.org
"I wanted my own column in the sidebar ... but now I don't know what to do with it."
"But sure you do! You write in it! That is what most people who claim the moniker of writer would likely do."
"But what do I write?"
"The resolution to that parable, my friend, lies upon the path that you must seek."
"Who are you?! And where did you come from?!"
"I am...the part of you that is, and will be, in all that we are..."
Hello Lab!
The voices are becoming louder and the cries ever more commanding. I hear them and I am working the best I can to whip myself into some kind of respectable shape and take back my claim to authorship.
So, I have been signaled to action from the Lab's headquarters. There has been much waking from many deep slumbers and now the drowsiness is fading and the challenges of the day are dutifully materializing before my conscience in their daily summons to contest.
No fear, Secret Laboratory! Power down the Bat Beacon, John.
John. John? Wherefore art thou? Come quickly and hear ye: The Lab is scheduled to receive a bright and refreshing burst of content! I have plans for at least one new category: Network Security
In the recent weeks I have become familiar with penetration testing software such as Backtrack and Kali Linux. These are Linux based Operating Systems that are used by network security professionals for white hat constructive hacking; and network exploiting operators for black hat destructive hacking. Writers of Secret Laboratory are free to show interest in this new category if you so choose. I will be producing content regarding how to crack WEP/WPA/WPA2 wireless encryption and how to protect yourself from such attacks, for starters. It only gets interesting from there.
For those of you interested in preparing yourself for this new world of fun and adventure, I recommend you go ahead and get the tools: Kali Linux
It can be downloaded at - http://www.kali.org/downloads/
The Secret Laboratory is in the grueling process of churning old gears and installing new ones to bring life into our world of journalistic comedy and tragedy. Sink or swim, this boat is headed out to sea.
I'm headed off to write a column now that the voices in my head have stopped...
But I can't seem to find John.
John?
Oh shit. Really? He's in the bathroom? Again? Geez, I'm glad I didn't have whatever he did. Must have been the pills. I'm glad I only had the purple ones...
"Hey John! Can you reach the mini fridge from in there? I think I need another beer!"
—Terencio Safford
Editor, Secret Laboratory
terencio@secretlaboratory.org
