Those ants went home in bodybags.

I'm sure you've noticed that I've been truant from my duties here. My children... lost. I didn't mean any harm. The flock has gone astray, but I'm back to bind you all together with the razorwire of my love. I simply had to attend to other horrible, painful matters.

The first awful thing that happened this week was that I had to take my Mac in for servicing. The magnetic latch that signals the thing to enter sleep mode got all funky in a bad way - like a white man who isn't me getting up to get down. I am out of my cyber-comfort-zone, and it hurts like the NASDAQ falling on those occasions when naive investors come to their senses and realize that there's very little money to be made from companies that use their VC funding to dig enormous holes into which they deposit vast sums of burning money with their gilted precious-stone-encrusted shovels.

I'm back to Vista full-time, and it's driving me insane. I shot a video that shows why Vista drives me insane, but I can't edit and post it until I get my Apple back.

The other awful thing that happened this week was a first-strike attack against my peace of mind by an army of ants that established a foothold in my apartment. They were systematically running off with my trail-mix and also grossing me out.

It was the kind of trail-mix that has chocolate and peanut-butter chips. It also has these disgusting dried cherries, but I pick those out and fling them across the room, which might have something to do with why the ants selected my pad as a military target.

This idiot began a chain of events that forced
me to destroy an entire civilization

I assembled the cabinet in the War Room where we discussed options for retaliation as well as best and worst case scenarios.

Before taking military action, though, I attempted a diplomatic solution. The ants would have none of it.

Lord knows I tried

If we struck back quickly and struck back hard, the situation could be controlled with minimal casualties in The Army of Neopoleon. Failure to drive them back in the beginning would have led to a prolonged war that would have drained tens of dollars from the coffers of The United Territories of the Neopoleon Empire. Given that the Empire was already $147.22 in debt from abuse of the Neopoleon Bank of America Visa Platinum Card, this didn't seem to be an optimal course of action. Worse, where the Visa was issued with a 0% interest rate for the first six-months, it has since been bumped up to 95% through unethical maneuvering by a despotic bank that raises interest rates just because you forget to pay your bill eighteen-months in a row.

A stand-off, therefore, was out of the question for economic reasons. Victory would have to come swiftly and with great thrift.

We were only in session for twenty-minutes before the plan was drafted. I was to go to a local arms supplier to purchase arms. I chose the local Fred Meyer Superstore because they have a first-rate garden section.

I arrived and examined my options. Ant warfare science had clearly advanced since the days of the flamethrower and the pressure-hose. Chemical weapons account for the majority of counter-ant weaponry.

I selected a range of products, some of which were designed to obliterate ants on contact like acetone landmines, the rest of which were sophisticated Trojan Meals, if you will, luring ants in for a feast that, when returned to the nest, would lay waste to the entire colony. Numbers could be controlled with the immediate deaths of the little bastards, and the greater populace could be annihilated by the trickery that would fool the ants into destroying themselves! Victory was imminent, though not all my advisors thought so.

The stress of the day had worn me down, and I stopped in the furniture section where I took a nap on the sofa from the Sommerfield Four Piece Outdoor Patio Set (available in teal and vomit).

But my slumber would not last long. My father, chief advisor to the Emperor (that's me), phoned to voice his dissent:

Dad: Hey. What're you doing?

Rory: Preparing for war, father.

D: Against whom?

R: Not "whom" - what. Ants, father. Communist ants without regard for a man's right to own property and be the sole consumer of his own trail-mix. I am going to wipe them from the face of this Earth. I have purchased weapons, and will soon return home where I shall unleash a wave of destruction the likes of which will be very dangerous to ants.

D: You've obviously never done battle with ants before. This is a battle you can't win, son.

R: Ha! HA, I say! I don't know the meaning of the word "win"!

D: Don't you mean "can't"?

R: Maybe!

I hung up the phone. I didn't need his naysayery. One does not win a war by listening to elders with more wisdom and experience. The only way to spear an ant in the heart, provided ants have hearts, is through blind-guesses and ignorance of the playing-field.

I returned home and scoffed at the ants. Yes - scoffed!

"You think you've won, you encroaching little sons-of-bitches! But I tell you this now: you shall not make it halfway through the bag of tasty nuts and berries and delightful chips of sugary sin before your entire people have been laid to waste!"

I set about laying the various traps. Most were baited with solid, enticing, edible mounds of poison, but a small amount contained a liquid which, once consumed by the ants and returned to the hill, would destroy all - men, women, and children alike, for no ant is innocent. Each carries all the potential of future wars, none of which, if I had anything to do with it, would be fought. In a way, by effecting this genocide, I would kill millions of ants to save future generations from similar pain. My plan was humanitarian - sometimes one must sacrifice to save.

The quiet battle began. I watched over the warzone as the ants slowly discovered the traps. To my surprise, not only did they quickly take to the devices of their demise, but they gave up their attack on the trail-mix to do so. I could not have hoped for a better outcome.

Finally, I engaged my last weapon: patience. I needed only to wait as the ants did all the work for me.

Ants never learn how to read because they're too busy being assholes

Five days have passed since my retaliatory strike began, and I am proud to say that the river of ants coming to and fro as they pleased diminished to a stream, then to a trickle, and then to nothing at all.

What they said could not be done I did. Or, to be precise, the ants did, undoing themselves with their greed.

What I believe ultimately doomed the ants was their hubris. Their confidence in a brute-force attack blinded them to the possibility of loss. They may have had the numbers, but I had military genius and superior firepower on my side. I almost feel sorry for the little things. Our game was the same: survival.

Did I do the right thing?

History will be my judge.

What I am sure of is that my trail-mix is safe.

For now...