The Taste Of Freedom will be kept alive for archival purposes. All other work by my ghostwriter, G. Xavier Robillard, is available at All Day Coffee.

Thanks for all your support, supporting my memoir and being the best possible audience for an incredibly fantastic, dentally superior super hero.

Keep freedom free.

A word about Pacific Halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis). It lives primarily in the North Pacific, idling away its days in the Bering sea. It’s the largest member of the flounder family, but much more of a steak than the lifeless trash fish which we associate with the flounder. Think of the difference between Bill and Roger Clinton. Halibut grills around the same time as one of the more slender members of the salmon family, like sockeye, but doesn’t quite have the obvious fat content. You go more than 10 minutes total on the grill and you’re eating heated newspaper.

Halibut are most enjoyable if you wrestle one out of the water yourself, or barring that, steal one from Aquaman.

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1. Keep your password safe. Write it down on a Post-it Note. Affix the Note to your monitor. Swallow the pen you’ve used to write your password. Never post it on the homepage of your blog.
2. Change your password to something nobody would suspect. If you’re evil, try something like “fluffykittybunbun” or “unic0rn lover.” I’ve changed mine to “Mwahahahahahahahahahaha”.
3. Ask yourself if you really need a website. As a top-shelf Hero it’s obvious that the world cannot continue functioning if I don’t update what color rugs I’ve chosen for the new West Coast Secret Headquarters, but look: if your claim to fame is preventing vagabonds from slipping into the ATM without using their own bank card because somebody else is holding the door open, maybe you don’t need your own website. MySpace will be fine.
4. Read your favorite newspaper, such as the New York Times or Washington Post. Nobody, and I mean nobody, will have as much up-to-the-minute information about internet security than people who have devoted their time and energy to printing out yesterday’s news onto a medium that’s better served containing the messes from your chili dog.
   Napkins, people! Keep your mind out of the gutter.
5. Prevent SQL Injection vulnerabilities. My tech guy Akira has explained what this means a few times, and as far as I can tell you just have to prevent people from sneaking up behind you and shooting your ass with a needle full of Gods-know-what.
6. Grow a mustache. No sane criminal will ever break into a website owned by a mustachier.
7. Use Linux. I have no idea what this means, but it will keep your site secure and attract at least 100,000,000 visitors to my blog just because I mentioned it. On further inspection, I believe Linux is an off brand of facial tissue, banking on the idea that it sounds sort of like Kleenex.

(Also, we want our own book.)

Later, fools!

Lasers.
Lasers! And cool goggles, too.

When you take over an enemy’s website, nobody blames you, because it’s your job.
It’s what you do.

Henchmen.
Wouldn’t you be glad to have people take all your hits for you at work?

Inexplicably easy prison escapes.
The fans want you. You’re getting out.

Very low chances of dying.
The plane exploded! You must be dead. No, no you’re not.

All the fun of mad science, with not as much threat to life and limb.
Anybody else who tried to create giant radioactive half-shark half-crocodiles would most surely be dead.

Free rein to laugh loud and laugh hard, often.
It feels so good.

Over on our now-hostage website, we have made it pretty clear that superheroes can easily be douchebags, and, frankly, superheroines aren’t much better.

But we all already know that. Let’s get past the personalities and move right into the even more pathetic aspects of these sad, overhyped people.

First: Fashion sense. They ain’t got it.

Blue? Red? Yellow? What are these compared to the villainous staples of green, purple and black? Likewise, superheroes are just plain enamored with wearing those underwear-looking tights outside of their regular pants, which is almost fetishy. We know it’s an old joke and all, but that doesn’t make it any less weird. And capes. So many ugly, ugly capes. We villains keep it classy. With metal and/or leather masks, hoods and stylish boots.

The only thing we heroes and villains can really agree on are belts with our initials on them. Those are pretty boss.

Next: Rhetoric.

All superheroes seem to be able to say is, “I’ll save the day” this, and “a better world that” and “to the rescue” what. We supervillains have a much larger vocabulary of nefarious pronouncements, usually stated in elegant ALL CAPS and topped off with a hearty, villainous laugh. They barely laugh at all, those heroes. They have no fun.

The horrid propaganda rags called comics don’t want you to believe it, but we villains have more fun than anybody. (Remember what we said earlier about the death rays).

And finally, website and headquarters design and cleanliness. Frankly, we hate it here. Everything is so damn bright! And Red Bull cans and Mountain Dew bottles are fucking everywhere. The floor is sticky. There are literally dozens of cats who have ostensibly been rescued and not returned to their owners crawling over my arms and legs right now.

And there’s daylight. Horrible, horrible daylight.

We can’t wait to get back to our pit of horrors, honestly, at ISS HQ, deep in the Earth’s mantle. It’s so much cozier. Also, we left all our beer and pizza there. We want it back, Freedom.

Hey everybody, I’m Captain Freedom!

I’m a big dumb idiot and I wrote a book and stuff and I’m gonna talk about it! Bleh bleh blah blah blah! Grooming, nerdgasm, etc.

Ha! We got you, didn’t we? Of course we did. Our uncanny imitation of that fool, Captain Freedom, totally had you going.

But we’re not that spandex-wearing dolt, we’re the fucking International Society of Supervillains, and we’ve taken over this silly little haven of good in the seething cauldron of hatred and vice they call the internet. And we’re going to piss all over it.

Because villainy’s where it’s at, kids. You think playing by the rules is going to get you anywhere? We’ll tell you where it’ll get you: Stuck in a dead-end job with a spouse you can’t stand and kids you hate.

The U.N. plays by the rules all the time. And who wants to be or listens to the U.N., with their ridiculously-named secretary generals and goofy blue helmets? Nobody, that’s who.

You know what being a supervillain will get you? Robots that look like you! And awesome volcano lairs! And death rays. So many death rays. We’re swimming in death rays.

Plus, villainy will win you an Oscar. The Joker proved that just this year. How many superheroes have won Oscars? Okay, the guy who played Daredevil won one. I’ll grant you that. But that was for a screenplay, “Good Will Hunting,” that he may not have even written. Not “Daredevil.” And “Daredevil” was terrible. And he killed that one dude by letting the subway train run right over him! So we don’t think that counts, or that Ben Affleck is anything even close to being a superhero.

But we digress.

From now on, on this blog, we’ll show you all it means to be a villain, and lead you down the never-ending path to evil.

Mwa-hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

I’m no expert at computers. I used to believe that the only way to keep them secure was with a hammer, but I’ve since evolved. I shop online, bank online, even send threatening messages to my enemies (IM - Intimidating Messagin) online. It’s all about the crypto and the ciphers and that really long book by Neal Stevenson that was about numbers. And cereal.

Once I got this terrible virus. It burned when I peed for days, and that taught me a special lesson, which is that you can never trust Craig’s List Casual Encounters and that you have to be tough on internet security. You cannot have an easily-detected password, which is why mine is Freedom. No, not written forwards, but in the indestructible cipher known as ROT-13. Nobody. I mean nobody, is going to crack through my fortress of security.

UPDATE:  You can listen to my appearance on the radio, in which I excoriate G. Xavier Robillard and give my radio host the what for, at this internet address.

I’ll be appearing from 11-midnight on Blog Talk Radio’s Unusable Signal this Saturday, March 28. For the record it will be the first time they’ve interviewed a Hero on the show. If there’s anything you’d like to know about me, my book, or the most awesome decorating tips for your own secret headquarters, leave it in the comments below.

That’s Eleven PM Eastern. I’m not saying that’s my time zone. You don’t need to know my time zone.

1. Spider-web backpack
This seems like a good solution, particularly if you have access to an unlimited amount of spider webbing.
Pro: high tensile strength, light weight.
Con: breaks down in a few hours, plus can you imagine reaching into a bag made of spider webbing to grab your snack? How icky would that be, you’d reach in and half the time expect to get bitten by a centipede.

2. Fanny Pack
This fantastic option has been adopted by engineers and math-letes alike.
Pro: Enough room for the essentials, but reminds you that you shouldn’t pack the kitchen sink just to fight crime.
Con: Even if you’re practically invulnerable you won’t like that when you’re chasing a villain the thing bounces up and down on your junk.

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