 Americans are moving out of Illinois in record numbers. Here’s one man’s account of his experience leaving the Land of Lincoln and why he’ll never make that move again.
Why I’ll never move from Illinois to Texas again, by Jeff Vandandy. About two years ago, I saw a job listing at a company that wasn’t in my state. “That’s a long way from here,” I thought as I applied online for the position. I said this because I was from Illinois and the job was in Texas (I won’t say which town, but I will tell you the state, as you can see). Anyway, it turned out I must have had a pretty good résumé, because the company in Texas contacted me a few days later and asked if I would do an interview. I greedily accepted the chance to present a version of myself to them over a Zoom call. During the call, everything was going great. There were two people interviewing me and when they asked questions, I answered. One time, I started answering while the guy was still asking the question and we both stopped and laughed before he said something like, “You must be reading my mind or something!” In reality, I wasn’t. What I did was just kind of predict what he was going to ask me based on the first part of his sentence, which was something about how people I worked with would describe me. The guy started with, “How would people who work with you des…” and I just jumped in. It was a pretty sweet moment, first because I nailed the answer and second because I was named as someone with psychic powers and abilities. I actually thought about following up my answer with something about how I might blow both of their fucking heads up using my mind if they didn’t hire me. I figured that would complete the “joke cycle” I had started with the one dude. I didn’t say that though and they offered me the job anyway. I guess I will save that for when I have my first performance review. At the end of this story, I move to Texas, so I’m just going to skip to that. Texas was weird. At first. I’d grown up in Illinois so everything seemed really different, at least in the way it was way hotter in the winter and also there were some restaurants I didn’t recognize. But, they had food and everything, so it wasn’t that bad. I could eat, and I wasn’t going to die or anything. Ultimately, though, I came to the conclusion that I will never, ever, make the move from Illinois to Texas again. Here’s why:
Anyway, these guys asked me to write this, so I did. I’m done now.  We’ve all heard of “van life” and how amazing it is to travel the country like turn-of-the-century circus performers without any of the circus talent and camaraderie, but with all of the living in a narrow shell that moves from town to town. Now, the Intergalactic Business Report explores a trend that provides would be nomads with an even smaller alternative—the pickup truck.
Feel like this lifestyle choice may be for you? We outline below some simple ways to start right now. 1. Obviously, get a pickup truck. The size of this will determine how much living space you have. For example, if you choose a small pickup truck, you will have less room than if you go with a large truck. 2. Once you have the pickup, it’s time to live in it. This requires putting yourself in a situation in which you now wake up and go to bed inside a truck instead of a house or apartment. 3. You’ll probably want some bedding for the truck. You can throw a mattress in the flatbed, because this is the largest area, and also can fit a mattress. One problem is that it can rain, and in that case, your bed will get soaked. If you have blankets and a pillow and other things you sleep with, those could also get extremely wet. If it doesn’t rain, you’re fine. 4. You will have to eat out a lot. This will make it a lot easier than storing food in your truck and preparing it as you either sit on your mattress or in the front seat. If you do choose to prepare food, it can get extremely messy and you may drop some of it on the floor of the truck. We recommend not eating that food. It may have things on it from the floor that could make you sick and if not, it might just have fuzz or something that will not get you sick, but make eating unpleasant. 5. Park your truck somewhere at night. You can’t drive all the time and you can’t sleep in the flatbed if you’re driving (obviously). So park. Find a place where no one will kill you or jump in the flatbed and try to have sex with you. Also, park somewhere you will not be asked by police to move. For instance, don't just pull over on the highway shoulder. 6. Always put gas in your truck. Gas fuels your vehicle, obviously. You need this to move the truck and drive it. Find a gas station and fill the gas tank. We recommend filling it up all the way, if that works for your budget. 7. Pickup Truck Life. Now you’re living it. Maybe say that when people ask you what you’re doing parked in their driveway. 8. Tires. Get those tires checked. Have a spare tire just in case. You can place one on your mattress in the flatbed. When you sleep, you can stand it up so you have room to be there. 9. Oh. When you fill up for gas, use the gas station water thing to clean the windshield. This will make it clearer for you when you drive your home. 10. Pickup Truck life. Call the fucking cops if you don’t want me parking on your fucking lawn, mom. Maybe say that when someone asks why you’re parked on their lawn.  The Intergalactic Business Report’s fitness expert, Jonny Ripkin, creator of the Shred and Fed Diet, gives you exclusive tips on how to not only get a beach body that turns heads, but also a beach body that makes people want to stick their dick in you after they turn their heads. And you can get it all by six a.m. tomorrow morning.
INTRO TO ME: My name is Jonny Ripkin and I have a perfect body. Do you? Then I suggest you shut up and listen. INTRO TO YOU: You have one of those bodies where people say, “Yeah… They’re kind of fat. Not totally fat. Maybe not morbidly obese, but… No, I take that back. They’re morbidly obese.” WHAT DO YOU AND I HAVE IN COMMON? That’s a tough one. How is it possible that a person like you and a person like me could have any, even miniscule, similarities? Well, I’m here to tell you that we have one giant thing in common. Want to guess what that is? It’s simple. We both look at my body and agree that it looks amazing and, if you’re into it, fuckable. (Full disclosure: I’m into it). O.K., JONNY, I GET IT. YOU LOOK UNBELIEVABLE AND I’M FAT. NOW WHAT? I love that question. And I get it all the time. Lucky for you, I have a perfect solution that gets you to lose fat, look amazing, and give you the confidence to walk onto a porn set and say, “Who needs some?” WHAT IF I’M NOT INTO DOING PORN, JONNY? Good one. That’s funny. Anyway, you trim down, you work out, and then you start having sex in front of other people. Oh, and I film it. DID YOU SAY THAT YOU, JONNY RIPKIN, FILM IT? Only if my guy, Chico, isn’t there. He doesn’t always show up. And in that case, yes, I will be filming you having sex. I THOUGHT THIS WAS A DIET PLAN, BUT NOW IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU’RE TRYING TO RECRUIT PEOPLE TO BE IN PORNOS. It’s a diet plan that ALSO requires you to shoot porn with me. THIS IS WEIRD AND UNCOMFORTABLE. Good. You just passed the first test. Now you can really start losing weight. THE STUFF ABOUT THE PORN WAS A TEST? Yes, it makes your hormones disfunction in a way that accelerates calorie burning. You start to think that you’re going to be in a degrading porn shoot and then you lose weight as your body sheds pounds in a reaction to the stress. SO AM I LOSING WEIGHT RIGHT NOW? Yes. So much weight. But in order to keep that going, you need to be in a porn tomorrow at six a.m. at an address I’ll give you in a DM. HA HA. I GET IT. THIS IS PART OF THE TRICK TO MESS WITH MY HORMONES AND EVERYTHING? Yes and no. I seriously need someone to be in a porn tomorrow or I won’t be able to pay my rent and I’ll just have to do a solo masturbation scene again and nobody wants to buy that shit anymore because they say that I “don’t know what the fuck I’m doing” and that they "didn’t ask" me to send this to them and that they’ll "call the cops” if I “send this shit" to them again and that they "have kids” and “who are you anyway?” SIX A.M.? I’ll DM you with details. Jonny Ripkin is the fitness expert for the Intergalactic Business Report. His controversial methods for weight loss and muscle building are changing the way we see health, fitness, weight loss, and some other things. He can be reached at info@intergalacticbiz.com.  If you’re old enough to have lived through the seventies, eighties, or even the nineties, there are some things that time has forgotten. Try explaining to a twenty-year-old how a collect call worked or who Evel Knieval was. The look on their stupid faces is so fucking funny! Now, the Intergalactic Business Report gives you a hilarious list of totally normal stuff from the past that Generation Z will never understand.
Collect calls. Flashers. Peeing off overpasses onto traffic. Centerfolds. Hiring clowns so you can watch them have sex. Unleaded gasoline. Tree fucking. Hailing a cab. Calling up a circus to see if they have clowns who will fuck in front of you. Rotary phones. Asking a tree to marry you and then having sex with it, regardless of the answer. Phone cards. Organ grinders. Taking out your penis on a bus and saying “stick em up, muzzfuckers!” 1-900 numbers. Working as a clown who has sex with other clowns in front of people for money. Mapquest.  Not Ed Mountaineer If the past few years have proven anything, it’s that science is truer now than at any other time in human history. Skeptics will say it is impossible to measure this truth compared to times when the truth wasn’t measured, say, a million year ago, when our planet was but a blip of blue light in space, gasping for air and asking the universe to please, please, please make me whole.
But that’s history, both literally and figuratively, and thus begins my column for Earth Day 2022. Because of past articles I’ve written that have been described as obsessive, stalkerish, and mentally inept, I challenged the Intergalactic Business Report to allow me to write a scientific, intellectual treatise that would stand up against the very best magazine writing in the world. This is it. Remember, that unlike other “good” writers, I’m able to do this while holding my penis like a gun. Segue. We are all holding our penis like a gun and pointing it at Mother Nature and she’s like, put that down, we can talk about this, and we’re like, no, give me your purse. The question is, what’s in that purse? How much do we want before it’s enough? This is a brilliant analogy. Thank you. The one flaw is that it has to do with a penis and some people don’t have one. However, if you have a vagina, you are, scientifically, able to shoot ping pong balls at people with it. So, let me re-write that analogy a little and say that we are all holding our vagina like a ping pong shooter and pointing it at Mother Nature and whatever I said after that. I’ve been criticized for my obsession with Ryan Reynolds, but I did not mention him once, except to say I didn’t mention him. I also didn’t mention having sex with funnel cakes so hate on that, haters. I’m done writing now. Good bye. Ed Mountaineer is an opinion columnist for the Intergalactic Business Report. He was hired after we encountered him at a Taco Bell. He can be reached at ed@intergalacticbiz.com. If you would like to hire Ed, please see his résumé here.  If you’re traveling anywhere, locals and other tourists will play a game in which they guess where you’re from. That game becomes more complicated when they need to determine which one of you is American and which one is the uncanny valley version of us known as Canadians. The Intergalactic Business Report gives you the definitive way to tell who’s what, below:
You are broadcasting your “Americanness” if any of these pertain to you: 1. You carry a U.S. passport. 2. When people ask you where you’re from, you say, “America” or “the United States.” 3. On your driver’s license, it lists an address in the United States. 4. You have a driver’s license, and it’s from a state in the United States. 5. When you go home at night, and you’re not in a foreign country, the place you go is in America. 6. You’re not allowed to vote in any country other than the U.S.A. Seven dead giveaways you’re a Canadian citizen: 1. You carry with you an unwarranted and unearned smugness and superiority that stifles the air around you. 2. You act and sound like an American until you don’t and the air suddenly stinks of unearned smugness and superiority. 3. You’re a beloved American actor/comedian. 4. Like the devil, you confuse Americans by acting like you’re one of us, but actually you’re the devil. 5. You act like Ryan Reynolds. 6. Ryan Reynolds acts like you. 7. Despite your fragile features and porcelain doll arrogance, you are able to drink normal people into oblivion, as they fall off their bar stools and remember only the whiff of unearned smugness and superiority in the air before they black out.  Before you give your opinion about Critical Race Theory, you may want to know what it actually is, suggest many academics. We talked to Professor of Critical Studies Dr. Charles DeMize who explained to us that Critical Race Theory has been overshadowed by newer critical theories, like Critical Sock Theory and Critical Window Replacement Theory.
INTERVIEWER: First off, tell us a little about Critical Sock and Critical Window Replacement Theory. CHARLES DeMIZE: These both came out of the private sector. In particular from sock and window companies. INTERVIEWER: So, these aren’t academic theories? CHARLES DeMIZE: They are now. I follow them both very closely and teach courses on them. They are mostly about seeing the world through the lens of socks or windows. INTERVIEWER: Can you give me an example? CHARLES DeMIZE: Well, take a historical event. Like the Mayflower coming to America. There weren’t a lot of windows on that boat. But, most people were wearing socks. INTERVIEWER: O.K… CHARLES DeMIZE: Socks. Think about how many people wear socks. Think about how many windows there are in the world that need to be replaced. They’re old. They need repair. But the best solution may just be to replace them with new ones. INTERVIEWER: I guess I don’t follow what that has to do with the Mayflower. CHARLES DeMIZE: As I said, the Mayflower had some windows, but they were small and old and if they had been replaced, by, say, a company like Andersen, the colonists may have had a totally different outlook. Also, all of them were wearing socks. INTERVIEWER: That’s the basis of Critical Window Replacement Theory? CHARLES DeMIZE: And also Critical Sock Theory. Can you imagine if those settlers had the kinds of sock choices you get today? They only had one, maybe two pairs of socks. Today, most people have tons of pairs. INTERVIEWER: I hate to say this, but so what? CHARLES DeMIZE: Oh, are you not wearing socks or something? INTERVIEWER: Of course I am. CHARLES DeMIZE: And do you not have windows in your house? INTERVIEWER: Of course I do. CHARLES DeMIZE: Then shut the fuck up. INTERVIEWER: Seriously? CHARLES DeMIZE: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: You’re a professor? CHARLES DeMIZE: And I wear socks. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, everyone does. CHARLES DeMIZE: See? INTERVIEWER: See what? CHARLES DeMIZE: See through that window over there. If there wasn’t a window, you’d be staring at a huge fucking wall. INTERVIEWER: This makes no sense. CHARLES DeMIZE: I see the world through the lens of socks and replacement windows. INTERVIEWER: But that seems so stupid. The world isn’t about socks and windows. CHARLES DeMIZE: You’re denying there are billions of socks in the world? INTERVIEWER: It just seems there are more important things to focus on than socks or windows. CHARLES DeMIZE: George Washington’s house. You could try to repair those windows. Or you could use the technology they have today that could give you energy efficiency and actually save you money on heating and cooling bills. They end up paying for themselves! INTERVIEWER: Are you getting money from a window company? CHARLES DeMIZE: It’s a window replacement company. INTERVIEWER: And socks? CHARLES DeMIZE: Bombas are socks that offer not only fashion forward designs but also durability and comfort. You don’t get that from pilgrim socks. INTERVIEWER: I think we’re done. CHARLES DeMIZE: You can turn your back on history and ignore reality if you like. INTERVIEWER: You’re insane. CHARLES DeMIZE: You have shitty socks and shitty windows. Researchers find that wearing a mask makes you more attractive. The seven surprising reasons why.2/21/2022  Just as mask mandates are beginning to lift around the country, a new study commissioned by the Intergalactic Business Report reveals that wearing a mask can contribute greatly to how attractive you appear to others. In fact, masking makes you 70-100 times more desirable to others than when you wear nothing at all on your face.
While there are many reasons why this is true, we take the top seven and share them with you today. 7 reasons wearing a mask makes you more attractive: 1. When you wear a mask, people can’t see your entire face, the wholeness of which presents a full, nothing-left-to-the-imagination image of what you actually look like. 2. Prominent features, such as your nose, lips, chin, and mouth are covered. Those are probably your worst features, so viewers are left with your eyes, which are just meh, but way better than those other things. 3. Your breath. It just stays in there. That’s good for everyone. That’s good for the environment. 4. You’ve heard the term “Horror Show” and wondered what that is. It’s when people see your face without a mask on it. 5. There’s a reason why “just the tip” is amenable to people. Seeing your entire face is like saying, “take the whole nasty thing.” 6. In Beauty and the Beast, Beauty has sex with a monster. But it takes a while for her to get there. Not wearing a mask is like the Beast just showing up and whipping out his animal penis and doing a freestyle rap that never gets off the ground and he just keeps saying, “Uh huh… Uh huh… Yeah…”* 7. Wearing a mask makes you mysterious. Like maybe that dude with the mask on is super attractive underneath and can make all my dreams come true. And when it comes off, it’s like, Oh, that guy looks like my dad’s friend. I think it is my dad’s friend. Why is he at a college party talking to 19 year old girls? *We have no idea what the plot of Beauty and the Beast is other than a princess has sex with a gigantic monster.  Guest columnist Emil Sworscher shares scientifically sound* information about how to deal with a narcissist in a way that will forever end their reign of terror over you and everyone they touch.
If you’ve read articles about narcissism, you know that narcissists are a tricky lot who are master manipulators and geniuses when it comes to gaslighting and taking advantage of people who come into their lives. If you’ve ever dealt with one, you understand how frustrating it can be, as they will try to isolate and control you and make you look like a fool to others. You find yourself asking, “Am I the crazy one?” And that’s exactly what the narcissist wants. After years of contending with people with this psychological disorder, I’ve come up with an ironclad way of defeating narcissists and ridding them from my life forever. I call this method, “The seven steps to destroy a narcissist” and I’ve outlined them below. STEP ONE TO DEFEAT A NARCISSSIST: Don’t let on that you know they’re a narcissist. This is very important because if you call them out as being a narcissist, they will very likely turn that around on you and start calling you a narcissist and telling everyone you know that you are mentally unstable and obsessed with yourself. To avoid this, trick them by telling people what a great person the narcissist is. “Wait a second,” you’re saying. “I don’t want to say the narcissist is a great person! He’s a terrible person!” I know, I know. But if you let him know you know that, it could lead to trouble. Just follow this first step and keep going with me on this. STEP TWO TO DEFEAT A NARCISSSIST: A narcissist is always looking for adoration and compliments. To throw him off your trail, start complimenting him about everything. “Hold on,” you say. “If I compliment him, doesn’t that mean I’m giving him exactly what he wants?” Yes, but only temporarily. Just go ahead and say things like, “You’re the best,” and “Nobody’s smarter than you.” Make sure you say this sincerely and without a hint of sarcasm. In fact, try to pretend that the narcissist is actually all those wonderful things and really believe it when you say it. This will make your words appear authentic and real. And he’ll eat it up, leaving him vulnerable to step three. STEP THREE TO DEFEAT A NARCISSSIST: Now that the narcissist thinks you actually think he’s the greatest thing ever, up your game by covertly entering his “inner circle” as one of his loyal, subservient subjects. Tell the narcissist you’ll do anything for him and that you’ll essentially be his slave, if that’s what it takes to please him. “Woah,” you’re screaming. “I don’t want to be this guy’s slave! How’s that possibly going to help me destroy him?” My answer is simple. You destroy someone most effectively from within, not without. STEP FOUR TO DEFEAT A NARCISSSIST: If you’ve followed the first three steps, the narcissist is probably happily believing he’s abusing you as you cater to his every whim and desire (including, in some cases, having weird sex with him). As terrible and mistreated as you feel, you have to concentrate on the end game and that is total destruction of the narcissist. This is by far the hardest step in the process because here you feel absolute hopelessness. “Seriously…” you’re whining, “I have to sleep with him too?” Do whatever he wants or he’ll be on to your plot to expose and demolish him. Just do it and move on to step five. STEP FIVE TO DEFEAT A NARCISSSIST: If you’ve gone through all the previous steps, you are finally ready to start exposing the narcissist for who he is. All your friends or business associates probably know you by now as the servile little runt who follows the narcissist around and does anything he wants while he just kind of shits on you and laughs. This can be really hard for your self-esteem, but at least the narcissist has no idea that you’re onto him and plotting his demise. In this stage, he might ask you to do something demeaning to prove your “loyalty” to him. And this is where you start to turn things around on him. But first, you do whatever that demeaning thing is, just so he doesn’t suspect anything. STEP SIX TO DEFEAT A NARCISSSIST: As hard as it is to believe, in step six, you’re finally back in control. It may not seem that way because the narcissist has made sure your existence is nothing more than constantly complimenting him and carrying out menial tasks for which you receive zero recognition except that you did a shitty job cleaning his car or whatever. But it is now that the narcissist is the most vulnerable. He sees you as a literal piece of shit and he is blinded by that view of you as a less than human object that is insignificant and came out of a dog’s butt or something. STEP SEVEN TO DEFEAT A NARCISSSIST: You made it to step seven. You should be proud. You’ve gone from being someone totally outside the narcissist’s world with no chance of defeating him, to what I call a mighty “narcissist fighter.” Keep the fight going by continuing to not let the narcissist be aware that you know he is an evil psychopath, because if your identity as a narcissist fighter is ever revealed, you could incur the narcissist’s wrath (which would totally suck). “Wait,” you’re saying. “So I did all this and totally demeaned myself? I gave into whatever the narcissist’s demands were and I did everything he wanted, and in the end my only option is to just keep doing that, only more?” I know. I know. Hold up. Crap. Alvin’s calling and he’s questioning my loyalty because I didn’t wax his fucking car right. Guess I’m gonna need to buy him an expensive gift again to prove my commitment. *Sound is what you hear when a noise is made. Not sure what it means in this context. Emil Sworscher is not a psychologist nor does he have any psychological training or education (not even something like taking Psych 101 in college, because he thought he was going to be a music major and that sure as shit didn’t work out because he’s doing this). If you’d like to send him comments, please email him at info@intergalactibiz.com  A recent Buzzfeed article took on the daunting task of going to Reddit and seeing what some dude posted and how people responded and then re-posting that as an article. We thought that was great, so we took the same question and asked readers of the Intergalactic Business Report, “What is an adult problem nobody prepared you for?” The answers below are worthy of a Buzzfeed reprinting if we say so ourselves.
“What is an adult problem nobody prepared you for?” 1. “No diapers. When you’re a baby, you have diapers, and you can just take a shit or whatever when you feel like it. Then someone else cleans it up. As an adult, I never imagined I would need to figure out how the hell to poop and pee in a way that wasn’t straight into my pants.” 2. “Washing my body. Nobody ever explains to you that, as an adult, if you don’t clean yourself, no one else is going to do it for you. I found out the hard way that after about three months, you smell like shit and you’re like, why do I smell like shit? Answer: You gotta clean yoself, bro. Probably the weirdest lesson I’ve ever learned.” 3. “Your face and body change. I wish someone had told me that when you get older you don’t look the same as when you’re a baby or a little child. It took me a long time to figure this out because at first I thought I’d been body-switched by a witch who wanted me to look like a fat, ugly, piece of shit-looking adult. Turns out that piece of shit-looking dude is me.” 4. “Money. What the fuck is that? The first time I went to a grocery store by myself, I just grabbed shit off the shelves and threw it in my cart. Then some guy told me I needed to ‘pay’ for it. Pay? For ‘it’? What the fuck?” 5. “Your penis gets large. Then it gets small again. Then it gets large. At least larger than my baby penis anyway.” 6. “Screaming is totally different. I used to scream all the time and people would come help me or calm me down. Now I walk near a subway platform and do it and everyone clears out like the opposite of what they want to do is help me.” 7. “Mommy and Daddy get old and aren’t worth shit to you. At some point, your parents stop feeding you and expect you to do stuff like work and go to school and make decisions for yourself, rendering them totally useless.” |
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