(Written after sitting in a car for five hours listening to financial news stories.)
——-
Damn these subprime lenders, thought Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, barely keeping his balance on the wobbling skateboard. We can’t afford more debt. He snapped a grappling-hook-tipped quarrel into his crossbow as the skateboard slowed. When the country owes trillions and is asking for more, its shadowy creditors start calling in favors.
The crossbow twanged, carrying his climbing rope up the side of the Federal Reserve building. As he began his ascent, he reflected on the years past. I inherited a broken system, he insisted to himself. We’re simply doing what’s required to prevent a catastrophe. It’s not my fault.
He tossed his skateboard over the parapet and hauled himself over. He dropped six feet to the roof, landed heavily on the board, and trundled on into the night.
——-
From her perch in a tree across the street, the blogger watched through her blogoscope as Bernanke disappeared over the wall. She spoke quietly into her radio: “Subject is in the haybarn. The chickens are in danger of roosting.”
“Roger that,” came the reply. “Deploying Agent Harpsichord.”
——-
Inside, Bernanke moved along the wall like a shadow, elongating and contracting as the light sources shifted around him. In the midst of a sea of filing cabinets, he froze. He sniffed the air, then dropped to his knees, licked the floor, and paused. Yes, he thought, Greenspan was definitely here.
——-
The blogger had waited five minutes and was starting to get impatient. She picked up the radio. “Situation imminent. Pass the ducklings through the snorkel. Repeat: Pass the ducklings through the snorkel.”
“We are go for mode Sinatra,” replied the commander. “Reticulate core and set throttle to ‘cryptic’. Prepare to jitterbug.”
——-
Bernanke forced the door on yet another inner office, realizing too late that the light was on inside. The chair in the corner swiveled around, and Bernanke found himself face-to-face with Alan Greenspan. There was silence for a moment.
“You won’t get away with this,” said Greenspan, rising to his feet. “The Fed is subject to general congressional oversight. But you never understood that, did you?”
“Congress sold out the country, not me,” replied Bernanke. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” said Greenspan. He flicked open a switchblade.
——-
The blogger peered once more into the eyepiece of her blogoscope. She threw the switch labeled “overlay building schematics.” The external view of the building disappeared, but instead of blueprints, she was presented with a green puzzle piece. “This view requires the Adobe Flash Player plug-in. Do you want to search for this plug-in now?”
Shit, she thought.
——-
Bernanke, trying not to slip in the patches of blood on the floor, struggled with Greenspan. The older man moved like a snake that moved like a former Fed Chairman who moved like a ninja. At last, Bernanke got a solid grip on Greenspan’s collar and hurled him through the fourth wall, knocking you to the ground.
Improvising a tourniquet from the remains of the snake left over from the earlier simile, Bernanke moved on through the hallways.
——-
The moonlight-bathed roof of the Federal Reserve building fell suddenly into shadow. A pair of night watchman looked up in alarm to see what had occluded the sky.
“Is that …” one whispered to the other, “… is that a blimp?”
——-
Bernanke reached the central vaults, accessed the Gibson mainframe, and began transmitting the requested files to his distant masters. He didn’t hear the gentle thud on the rooftop, the muffled explosive charges, or the sound of the door opening behind him. But at the last minute some sixth sense kicked in. He spun around just in time to see a golf-ball-sized lump of gold rapidly expanding in his vision. It struck him in the forehead, and he collapsed to the ground like a burlap sack full of scrapple.
Congressman Ron Paul retrieved the gold nugget from the floor and returned it to his satchel. “Try that,” he said, donning his sunglasses, “with a fiat currency.” He spun on his heel, cape swirling behind him, and swept from the room.
Read more of these adventures in the thrilling new novel, Ron Paul and the Chamber of Commerce — in bookstores now!
The fourth wall line may be the funniest single sentence written since Terry Pratchett’s “If you went on thinking that way you may as well kill everyone and invade Poland.”
To whoever commented on pennies: pennies are not quite fiat currency. Copper has a commodity value that is close to (or even exceeds) the face value. Another run of inflation like we had in the ’70’s and pennies will go out of circulation, because their commodity value will exceed their fiat value by a factor of ten or more.
Pretty much the whole American financial system is being held up right now by the commodity value of the penny.
Awesome.
Funniest part?
Using the gold standard to save the day.
I’m always down for a good bit of economic fantasy and this hit the spot.
I have come to expect this kind of greatness from xkcd, so I don’t usually comment about how great things are anymore…but the Captcha made me have to post:
CAPTCHA: prevalent taxpaying
This is epic win in every sense.
As a graduate student in economics, Randall, you have brightened my day.
Of course, if you know any grad students in economics, you may realize that is not altogether very difficult. Be assured, I mean it as a sincere compliment. :)
Also, seriously, marry me? I swear my boyfriend won’t mind…
Current metal value $1 face 95% Cu pennies (minted 1909-1982)
$2.03
Current metal value $1 face 97.5% Zn pennies (minted 1982-present)
$0.47
captcha: rather Fabius
Ooh Randall, you are so talented!! You ought to write a novel!!!
I wandered to in complain that there’s not a place under the cartoons where I can leave my slathering admiration after you make me laugh my ass off (usually twice by the time I get to the hovertext)…
(I sometimes wait until 11 pm Thursday to read Wed’s comic and then read Fridays as soon as you post it (which is admirably punctual btw) just so I can get a double-hit of goodness.)
…and *then* I read this gem!
…suddenly, I felt that the last two weeks spent reading the front page and the financial section of the Times during my lunch break was not time wasted depressing myself, but was instead, the slow, gradual buildup of this spectacular punchline.
(and although I hate to admit it, I was kinda expecting them to make out too…)
Oh, and while I’m in here being wierd in ‘public’, thanks for turning me onto Firefly. That show puts out. :)
Ron paul should be shot
but nice story, you really should finish it.
Guy: Perhaps, but I do know for sure it makes you someone who should proofread his comments before criticizing a semi-literary work by calling it childish. The phrase “…the kind most folks write wqhen they’re ten or twelve…” made me laugh riotously. Irony is awesome.
Also, please note that this is a blag post. If you want the awesomeness of a comic, wait until a scheduled comic day. If you want resolution to the short stories you read…you probably shouldn’t be seeking them out on the fickle, fickle Internet.
All that said, I enjoyed this even while having no clue who these people are. I think that says something.
Did somebody read Dan Brown whilst listening to the financial news on the radio? This, this is brilliance opaque.
So, which Gibson has a Mainframe, William or Steve? :)
XKCD, if you made a book, you KNOW how many people would buy it. * Every * single * comic follower, * as well as a fair amount of people with a sense of humor. Do it.
*still wheezing from laughter induced asthma attack*
as if the comics weren’t a kind enough gesture, then you go and write such a magnificent blag.
we all needed that, so huge thanks many times over
This is at least as brilliant as the comics, if not more.
lol maybe you should write a book with comics as illustrations
çok guzel site eline sa?l?k
http://www.sinemax.tr.cx online sinema keyfi
No more cok guzelling thank you.
I am a computer scientist in working for a major investment bank. When I saw the title I cringed a bit, since people generally don’t know what they are talking about, but this was actually quite humorous.
Good show!
Cheers!
Oh, lord! I’m still laughing so hard I’m coughing. I need to translate this to Spanish. I really need to.
According to wikipedia, one of Ron Paul’s children is called Randall (!)
Is he a fan?
I didn’t really have much clue what was going on here either, but it still made me laugh =)
># Fractured Cell Says:
>September 25th, 2008 at 8:22 am
>OH.
>MY.
>GOD.
>This is Madness!
Madness?! THIS…IS…A BLAG!
Hmm, doesn’t flow as well as I’d like, but anyway. Madness is mandatory.
I don’t think you can claim “by popular request” if the damn comic was up for less than an hour before you announced the poster on your front page.
Zira:
Fair point re my dreadful grammar, you’re right I shouldn’t take it too seriously, I justy wanted to add a juxtaposition to all the people saying “write a book!”
Also, need I point out that the blag posts tend to be less frequent than the comics so suggesting instead of comenting on blag posts to wait for a comic is a little counter intuitive.
In summary, I didn’t like it, I don’t think it should be extended into a full length book and my ability both as a writer and a critic are negligible (notice I made no claim to be able to do any better myself).
Though in my defence, writing something where the only spell-checker I have is in itallian makes for some interesting errors
@Ghede: The popular request was from the forum topic:
http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=28358
I agree, great story! I’m showing it to everyone!
LOL it’s all about the alt text.
Other than that, interesting, cute, needs a bit of a writers touch to smooth things out.
What’s a Selfridge?
Ghede:
This is the Internet. Everything is faster now.
Yay for the gold standard.
[...] Read the rest [...]
Thats a hoot
Proof that I have been hanging with the XKCD fan crowd (and internetz) too long…(Or maybe not long enough?)
I read our friend Ghede’s post there, and my immediate reaction is: “An hour? That’s plenty of time!”
This would be and is an amazing poster.
[...] September 30, 2008 at 3:15 am · Filed under Uncategorized From blag.xkcd.com, http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/09/23/federal-reserve-skateboard-a-short-story/ [...]
today’s webcomic (”Height”) is probably one of the most beautiful things i have ever seen.
I’m a MAGICIAN, Spencer, a FURIOUS magician.
Randall Munroe, you are the person I am most afraid on this earth to leave with a cheese wheel.
That is all.
um. in reference to “Height” – shouldn’t the log scale explanation (you appear to have used base 10) read that each step is a tenfold increase? if you only doubled, 46bn ly would still make for a looooong page
i may be wrong, but thought on the off-chance i’d picked up on something, i should let you know :P
The “Height” comic is designed solely to be made into xkcd merchandise. Randall should just have announced it as a poster for sale, not as a comic.
Mr. E: Shut up. This is awesome.
Jeeeeeeeeesus Christ
Suuuuuuuuuuuperstar
Randall wears a thong and a Wonderbraaaaaaa.
And what kind of name is Deckard Cain? Was your mother sniffing glue or something?
I’ll betcha he’s a big Diablo II fan. I am too, so…
That’s a brilliant story you’ve got there, Randall. You should think about publishing that because it’s not half bad.
Stay awhile and listen!
Point of order re: made-up words: Dr Seuss should be allowed at least as much leeway as Carrol.
SciFi does annoy the heck out of me, sometimes, with all the made up words. What about old William Shakespeare, though? I mean…the man invented eyeball!
Re: Fiction Rule of Thumb
You forgot to include Frank Herbert in the exclude list, you smeghead.
@Komrade: In that case, we should really just include all Early Modern English writers, since, let’s face it, they pretty much standardised the language as we know it. (Though Shakespeare invented all the best new words. No love for Milton?)
Anathem? Forgive my sci-fi ignorance, but did he mean “anthem”, the Ayn Rand book?
Wow. Switchblades, crossbows, bloggers, zeppelins, economists, and more. You should seriously consider writing a book, Randall. I’d download buy a copy.
Re: Made up Words.
I think there may be a couple more exceptions to the rule, but the idea is that it is so easy to overdo the made up words, and do it badly.
Also, for the record, Tolkien didn’t just invent words. He invented an entire _language_, complete with grammar/pronunciation/word rules, so he stands lightyears above other writers in transcending this rule.
Also, yea, the early English writers did practically invent half the language, and definitely standardized it, so they’re also a rather large exception.
Amazing comics, as if anything less could come from XKCD.
I applaud thee, Mr. Munroe. Your continually expansive subject matter continues to astound and amuse me.
@ Arin: According to Wiki, Anathem is a book by Neal Stephenson, which apparently has so many made up words that the author included a glossary to help you keep them straight. I’m curious now…
And as far as the story above goes, although I don’t understand all the references, I did get a good laugh out of it. Cheers!
The “Height” comic is designed solely to be made into xkcd merchandise. Randall should just have announced it as a poster for sale, not as a comic. Baby.