This column has one purpose: To tick off Jasona. Jasona and I have a little column-based rivalry going; a little friendly Cantian competition, if you will. Ideally, we’d post our columns before our days, but that rarely happens. When it does, though, I make sure to well and truly lord it over Jasona. Oh, on those glorious days, I ride my high horse all around him, doing little prancing circles around poor, Cant-less Jasona.
Today, unfortunately, is not one of those days. I do, however, have the chance to still claim a higher moral horse than Jasona: As long as I post this column before Jasona posted his column on his day, then I win. Now, Jasona will probably whinge about how posting a meta-column about posting a column doesn’t count, but he is, as is so typical, utterly wrong. The only rule is 500 words, right? I’m in favor of adding a “in sentences that make sense” amendment, but I think that’s pretty clearly in the spirit of the endeavor.
As far as "posting before X" goes, we almost always beat Scott “Too Lazy to Even Get My Black and White Webcomic Posted On Time” Kurtz (at least for that day). At least, I do. Jasona pushes it, though. Even better, often both of us beat the guy who draws VG Cats, a comic that I thought was supposed to be posted on Mondays, but Jasona argues that it’s posted whenever the creator gets around to it. Which is true, but I thought that it was supposed to be posted on Mondays. Either way, I’m not sure that it ever is posted on Monday. Unfortunately, he posted a new comic today (or last night, maybe), thus beating me this week. But since I post on Wednesday, I’m giving him a huge lead.
Damn. Got distracted there. Precious minutes slipping away, drawing this column ever closer to Jasona-posting-time!
Not that there’s much worry. As long as this column goes up during daylight hours, I’m set. And by “set” I mean, “Able to gloat.” Oh, I could have written about my usual topics. Politics, say. But do I really need to? What’s going on this week that wasn’t going on last week? A new Treasury Secretary? Woo. If Ra can’t work up a column about that, how can you expect me to write something? All I know is that the previous guy was an incompetent toady. Wait, no: I guess he was a really good toady, just a lousy guy to have running the Treasury.
Right here, I’m in the home stretch. I’m saddling up my High Horse, and getting ready to ride all over Jasona’s front lawn. Maybe it’s not a really high High Horse, but it’s higher than his. Why, his isn’t even a horse so much as a slightly-above-average-sized Eohippus. (Especially given that such a thing is misnamed, and might not even be related to real horses. That’s very fitting.) In other words, it’s a tiny, tiny horse. Barely even a horse.
Now, my horse, while not as high as my usual High Horses, is entirely real (in an entirely unreal, metaphorical way), and entirely ready to stomp all over Jasona’s (equally unreal and metaphorical) Tiny High Horse. Hear those hoofbeats, Jasona? That’s the hoofbeats of a High (although not quite as high as it could be) Horse. Not something you’re familiar with, is it? Well, of course you’re familiar with the stompy sound of a High Horse clawing…er…hoofing up your front (metaphorical) lawn (especially the carefully tended metaphorical flower bed), and the sound of me mocking you from high astride said High Horse. But you’re not familiar with the (metaphorical) sound heard when riding a High Horse, are you? Not very familiar, at any rate. And you won’t be today! Oh, I might only be 10.5 hours earlier than you (in the given day, not in absolute [non-metaphorical] time), but that’s still 10.5 hours of height that your tiny, tiny proto-horse doesn’t have!