The Even Further Adventures of SpaceDane, Chapter the Third

SpaceDane had seen a lot of shit in his life, but this took the SpaceCake.

"Hey! That's my SpaceCake, bitch! That was from DQ! It was frozen, and in ICE CREAM form!" said SpaceDane. "It was bestowed upon me for MY special day. DON'T YOU DARE try to take my frozen SpaceCake. You can take many things from a SpaceDane. You can take his SpaceDust. You can take his SpaceRust. But to take a SpaceDane's SpaceCake is a ne'er you must!"

He knew that he had stolen from Dr. Seuss, but SpaceDane could not help himself. As a drop of SpaceSweat dripped from his brow, SpaceDane glared unblinking into the horizon. "A lesser man would have blinked," thought SpaceDane. SpaceDane refused to bow before the whims of his forehead's condensation. His will would not be broken.

Hopping in the SpaceCockpit of his SpaceFordTaurus, SpaceDane had only one choice. He must pursue his SpaceCake TO THE ENDS OF THE SPACEUNIVERSE.

Sweat, like rivers of, well, sweat, fell into SpaceDane's eyes as he put the SpaceTransmission into overdrive. SpaceDane squinted, fighting once again his urge to blink. Was his vision affected? Of FUCKING COURSE NOT. SpaceDane was steadfast in both his navigational SpaceFordTaurusing, and in the recovery of his SpaceCake.

[At this point, the reader should picture a wacky Space80's montage of SpaceDane chasing after his SpaceCake. All in a Christopher Walken-esque voice. There is a three-titted woman involved, and although she is not the SpaceCake-stealing bitch in question, and totally wants to BONE SpaceDane, he won't have it. ("One... Two...........Three tits? NICE TRY, BUDDY. I'M BACK, BITCH.") At this point, SpaceDane roared his SpaceFordTaurus the fuck outta there, flipping a peace sign in her general direction. It should be noted that the three-tittied woman was probably better off this way, given SpaceDane's wildly overstated love of both poker and unsuccessful basketball teams... not to mention, all of this shit totally happened in Total Recall, so there's that, look neither here nor there... We rejoin the plot as it progresses, sparing the reader from SpaceDane's continual poker trivia reminiscences. They were numerous and pretty bad. ]

As a river of vanilla ice cream cascaded down his face, SpaceDane looked directly at the camera.

"All I wanted was my SpaceCake. Today was my Special Day."

The Further Adventures of SpaceDane, Part II

SpaceDane's eyes fluttered for a moment.

"Just another morning," he thought. And it was.

A Futuristic Space Odyssey Starring Dane Emmert.

Before I begin the story, please remember that I need you to send in your Dane questions for my next blog post. I promise I will answer as many Dane questions as possible. And now: the story.

Chapter One: SpaceSeduction

"Oh, SpaceDane, that was amazing," murmured Zapnar, the green-skinned alien chick.

SpaceDane nodded slowly, caressing the steering wheel. "And to think you said I couldn't parallel park my SpaceFordTaurus into that spot." The nod turned into a sardonic shaking of his head. "Your doubt reminds me of a hand of poker I was a part of when I traveled to the past:

"Three centuries ago – more precisely in 1976 and 1977 – now poker legend Doyle Brunson won the World Series of Poker twice in a row. The tournament back then was a lot smaller than the thousand of players in the WSOP and large online poker tournaments these days so you might not think much of this but that would be wrong. Doyle bested a field of the worlds best players twice and that is still a great feat. The strange thing – and the reason for the hands fame - is that he had the same two hole cards in the final hand each year – the T2 (Ten Two). Not generally a starting hand you would choose to play and statistically very unlikely (especially since it ended up a full house both times)

Doyle played against Jesse Alto in 1976 whose final hand was an Ace-Jack. Doyle had T2s (Ten Two of spades). Doyle must have thought he could out play Jesse on the flop because he called Jesse’s raise before the flop with a measly Ten Two. Actually a very typical move for Doyle with his Power Poker playing style. The flop, A-J-10, gives Alto a very strong hand – top two pair – and he must have been pleased when Doyle moves all in. Alto calls and is happy to see Brunson’s middle pair hand. The turn (a deuce) gives Doyle 4 outs but Alto is still confident when the river shows a Ten and it is all over. A devastating blow for Alto who loses to Doyle’s full house (Tens full of Twos).

The year after the match up is Doyle against Bones Berland. Doyle again having the T2 in the final hand. Bones hole cards are 85 and with these poor starting hands there is no action pre flop. The flop (T85) leaves Bones in a good postion with two pair and Doyle having top pair. Bones tries to get maximum value by trapping but the play backfires when the turn card is a 2 – giving Doyle the best two pair hand. Both players are all in on the turn and the river is a Ten – not helping Bones. Doyle has won again with the same full house as the previous year, Tens and Twos."

SpaceDane ended his story and leaned back into the driver's seat, reliving the events.

His nostalgia was interrupted by a strange grinding sound. What the hell was that? thought SpaceDane as adrenaline began pulsing through his veins.

Turning his head to the passenger side of the car revealed the answer to his question and so much more. Zapner had taken the opportunity during SpaceDane's story to fish out an amount of gardening hose and connect it from the tailpipe of the SpaceFordTaurus to her mouth. The strange grinding sound was in fact the death rattle of a space chick who had many strengths but one weakness: long, winding, pointless poker stories.

SpaceDane lowered his head and became silent to collect his breath...and his thoughts.

"DAMMIT!" shouted SpaceDane, pounding his fists into the steering wheel. The SpaceFordTaurus filled with the stifling air of frustration and anguish.

"I should have known she was a trap hand."

Rain began to beat slowly and irregularly upon the windshield of the SpaceFordTaurus, although to SpaceDane it might as well have been hydrounobtaniac acid beating through the chlorotitanium hull...nothing would bring back that alien chick.

SpaceDane sighed and shifted in his SpaceCockpit.

"I guess that's the life," he lowly uttered. "The life of SpaceDane." He closed his eyes for a long pause and held off the future for just a moment or two.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Things I know About Dane Emmert, Some of Which Are True.

1. Dane Emmert was born in Hope, Arkansas, in 1946. It is rumored that Dane was shortly followed out of the womb by a twin brother, but nothing could be further from the truth. For the past 60-some years Dane has been living an exhaustive double life posing as both himself and his "twin brother." Psychoanalysts have spent thousands of hours and many more thousands of dollars on electro-convulsive therapy treatments to find the root cause of Dane's severe split personality psychosis, but the most any expert can come up with as an explanation is a chronic and debilitating addiction to Strawberry Welch's.

2. In his early childhood, Dane Emmert was seen as something of a child prodigy. When interviewed on this point, friends and family were unable to clearly articulate what exact subjects Dane excelled in; nor was anyone able to offer any other commentary other than "Well, that Dane...he was prodigious." When Dane as his "twin" was interviewed, he insisted the moniker came from Dane being "the typical prodigal son." He then broke down weeping, admitting he'd never actually read the Bible and was unsure of what the Bible even was.

3. In 1992, after winning a hard-fought national election with 43% of the vote, Dane Emmert became the 42nd President of the United States.

4. Dane Emmert began an illustrious career at Trader Joe's as a Human Zamboni Machine, cleaning the floors by shimmying around on his stomach. He was paid or even asked to show up, but after 18 months of this he was eventually promoted to Fruit Fly Trap Layer in the produce department. Dane was asked to move on to the cookie and cracker section of the store, but was promptly removed when he refused to quit shouting, "Who ate all the Pecan Sandies?!" and chain-smoking Dunhills.

5. After leaving Trader Joe's, Dane Emmert accepted a tenure-track position teaching at MCTC in the field of phrenology. Closer inspection reveals this teaching "position" amounted mostly to sitting on Hennepin Avenue and begging strangers to allow him to give them "the ol' head-bump rubbin'." A surprising amount of passersby agreed.

6. Dane Emmert died at the ripe old age of 88. He left behind his wife, Agatha, and his two children Seamus and Farnsworth.

Dane Emmert is Dead. Long Live Dane Emmert.

Hi, Dane Emmert here. I've finally hit the jackpot and won over 2.3 million dollars in a poker tournament at Binion's in Downtown Vegas, and now that I don't have to worry about working for money I can finally spend my time doing what I was meant to do: Blog. It feel so good to finally be able to delve into my passions: the flat tax, psychopharmacology, theoretical metaphysics, and of course Occam's Razor.

Or, my name is Justin and I'm guest blogging for Dane over the next couple of days. I have a hastily-made plan for what I'd like to write about:

Blog 1: Things I know About Dane Emmert, Some of Which Are True.
Blog 2: A Futuristic Space Odyssey Starring Dane Emmert as Captain Rocksteady and Co-Starring Eric Schuster as Corporal Bebop.
Blog 3: A Dane Emmert Q & A.
Blogs 4-27: TBD.

This means for Blog 3 I will need some interwebs participation. If you have a question you would like me to answer about Dane, please leave them in the comments section or, if they're of a private nature, email me at jbernacki at gmail dot com.

It is very important I get some Dane questions for my 3rd blog or I will be forced to resort to posting from my senior thesis, "The Efficacy of Negative Political Advertising in American Presidential Elections, 1964-Present." And there are only so many times I can talk about what a jerk Nixon was.

That is all for now. Stay tuned for my first actual blog about Dane. And send in your Dane questions ASAP.

Justin