In the three or four months that I have been contributing to Skippy's List, the thing that has made it fun and rewarding is your comments.

"Even the comments from right-wing asshats, Michiel?"

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Yes, even the comments from right-wing asshats.

Seriously, it is fun to throw weird thoughts and stories out there, but without the feedback, it would be pointless masturbation. (Perhaps it is still pointless masturbation, but who doesn't like an audience? Am I right, or what?)

But, sometimes the conversations go off course. Sometimes people take it way more serious than I ever intended. Sometimes people just don't think it is funny, and sometimes it just gets weird.

So, I thought I would highlight a few of my favorite curve balls from my

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For those of you Skippy readers safely ensconced within the loving embrace of a military base, you may be unaware of a dangerous subculture that threatens our civilian way of life. That subculture, dear Skippy readers, is the Muffia.

The Muffia is a foul underworld organization, staffed by soulless Caucasian housewives so uniform in their upper-middle class mediocrity that a Stepford Husband would flinch in horror. Members of the Muffia (also known as 'Muffiaso') are convinced that they alone are the true paragons of femininity, espousing 1950's rhetoric about a woman's place being in the home while remaining totally incompetent in any of the "home arts". They rule their families with iron fists, forcing their poor husbands to

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This time we have a list of things that should not be done if you work for an anti-drug non-profit organization. The original author asked not to be credited, as she would like to still work for the anti-drug non-profit organization. (Submitted by I.M. Employed) 1. When working for an anti-drug association, refrain from making "Cheech and Chong" references. 2. When working for the above, don't "Talk shop" with those seeking help. 3. Refrain from judging people by "where they get their shit". 4. Do not give people "better guys" to get "shit" from. 5. Do not refer to the "War on Drugs" as "Vietnam for Society at large" 6. When viewing a slideshow about drug references in media, do not say "That movie's fucking awesome!" 7. ...

This time I want to talk about in-game inflation. So its a discussion about economics, as applied to an imaginary fantasy kingdom. I'm such a huge nerd.

In a real economy, the government prints money, ideally with some sort of backing to it. And if they just start printing more money then all of the money becomes less valuable.

In an online game, players are constantly creating more money in the game world. They're solving quests, and killing monsters, and looting dungeons. All of this is going to cause new money to be created out of thin air and handed to the players. And if the game has any sort of auction house, or trading

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No shit there I was, Ramadi, Iraq. We got the call for additional support from one of our OPs (observation posts). My outfit was on the hook to lead EOD to outpost in case of need.

Just south of our outpost was a section of palm trees and reeds (along the banks of the Euphrates river). We had taken small arms, mortar, and RPG fire from that area in the past. We had taken to posting signs in that area that stated locals were not allowed there and could be shot on sight.

On this particular afternoon there was an Iraqi Military Aged Male (MAM) walking through the reeds of "no-mans land". The OP tried to get the MAM to come

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Everything sucks.

Don't believe me? Read this.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080621/ap_on_re_us/out_of_control

A third of the country is underwater and tomatoes will make you vomit your own poop. Man, it's high-time to get the hell out of here.

(Voice of Satan): "You can't afford to fill your gas tank, and you will sit for days at the airport with not so much as a bottle of water, because security will take it away from you. But go ahead and try to leave. Kill time by shopping at that shitty overpriced bookstore that only sells People magazines and Tony Robbins motivational cassettes. Hungry? Have a six-dollar muffin! There is no escape! Bwahahahahahaha!" I put a gallon of gas in the car last week. Payday was still 10 days away ...

This is to clarify my thoughts on a variety of subjects.

First the guest writers thing.

Guest writers, even regular ones, like Michiel and Lt. Roland, do not always represent my opinions. I pretty much let anyone who writes funny material post stuff up. So just because I let someone make a post that covers the subject of, say, global warming, doesn't mean that I believe global warming is a fact. Heck I don't even think most readers thought that. But in the interests of equal time, if someone has a funny bit against global warming, I'll run it.

Heck maybe we can convince this other writer to hold a comedic debate of the subject. Almost like a

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