99 Minus 79 Ways to Die

The grim reaper will come to collect you soon. Inset: Hermione, who is killed in the latest Harry Potter book.Pinioned to a brick wall by the smoking wreck of a rusting 1987 Camaro with a NOFX sticker in the rear window my life tumbles through my consciousness like sand through a colander forged from misfiring neurons. That's how I picture it anyway. The shitty thing about dying is that you never know how it's going to happen. I might get run down by a drunk in a Camaro when I'm walking out of a Quiznos with a sub or I might make it home and end up choking on a sub from Quiznos. Or the CFO of Quiznos, John Gallivan, could break into my house in the dead of night and brutally rape me before suffocating me with a plastic bag. They'll get him with the DNA evidence deposited inside my ruptured colon, but that's beside the point. The point is that try as we might to contemplate the end of our lives we're always going to end up drawing a blank when it comes to the specifics of that final moment. And much like Hermione in the new and highly anticipated Harry Potter book "Order of the Phoenix", we're all going to die.

One thing I enjoy doing here at Something Awful is mentioning how I'm using occult or bizarre sources of information to assist me in my rock solid journalistic endeavors. It may seem like a lazy and overused explanation for my mysterious research results, but I really do consort with evil of all sorts. For this piece on dying I have once again turned to the realm of black magic and sorcery to provide me with the answers that we all seek. Unlike my past efforts instead of hoarding this dark knowledge for myself and releasing just a trickle I have asked SA's official warlock Memnoch to assist me in preparing an interactive presentation. He has spent days chanting over the PHP insert you are reading right now and the blood of sacrificial offerings has filled his cauldron to the brim. Through the mighty sorcery of Memnoch I am able to bring to you a mathematical and astrological means of determining how you, our valued reader, will meet your individual end. If you don't want to spoil the surprise of finding out how you die or finding out that Hermione is accidentally killed by Dumbledore in the new Harry Potter book, I would suggest you stop reading now.

The Arcane Ritual of Death Determination

Step 1
Consult the following chart to determine a number from 1 to 12. The number should be the one next to your astrological sign. When you have determined this number move on to Step 2.

Step 2
Now that you have your "core" number you should take the number of the month in which you were born, the number of the day on which you were born, and the last two digits of the year on which you were born and add these numbers together. Take the resulting sum and multiply it by the core number from Step 1. Write this number down and proceed to Step 3.

Step 3
With your "spirit total" determined you should now be ready to enter the final phases of divining your fate. Follow the link to the Hypnogif page and follow the instructions there. When you have completed this proceed to Step 4.

Step 4
Discard your "spirit total" number and choose a number from 1 to 20. Reference this number on the table below to determine how you will meet your maker.

1. You will be crushed by a rolling boulder after replacing an Incan idol with an improperly weighted sack of sand.
2. Exposure to gamma radiation will cause subtle mutations in your DNA that lead to you developing a second head capable of independent thought. This secondary head will scheme to have you killed and while you are asleep it will call in a mob hit on you that ultimately results in your decapitation. Other than your head, your body will live on for thirty more years.
3. All work and no play makes Jack collapse from a stress related aneurysm in the middle of a management meeting. By Jack I mean you.Your body will soon look much like this haunted house casket. Inset: Dumbledore, who unintentionally kills Hermione in the upcoming Harry Potter book.
4. The rarely used expression "let them eat cake" takes on a horrifying connotation for you when you contract a rare illness that turns your entire body into cake. When you lapse into a coma near a child's birthday party you end up sleeping through your fatal candle impalement and subsequent cannibalization.
5. Your decision to purchase a purebred Pekinese turns out to be ill-advised at best when the breeder pulls one over on you, supplying you instead with a sack of scorpions. Your efforts to house train them lead to your fatal stinging and a clutch of their children bursting from your decomposing skull.
6. Your significant other ends up watching a Lifetime movie marathon and becomes convinced that all men are evil womanizing scum who should be destroyed. As the nearest man you are unfortunately the first to meet your end at her hands. She is played by Judith Light of "Who's the Boss?" fame in the TV adaptation of her true story, you're played by Chef Paul Prudhomme in a fright wig. Women who received this result should immediately go see a doctor because they are actually a man.
7. You will die from natural causes alone, penniless, and unremembered. Except for that giant cock, that left a few marks on people's lives if you know what I mean.
8. Your Neon Genesis Evangelion Slash Fanfiction Novel completed you will commit ritual suicide live on webcam for #anime-suicidepact on Zirc.
9. While drilling randomly around your yard trying to find oil with a cordless power drill you will uncover an ancient Indian burial ground. Later that day you will choke to death while eating fried chicken.
10. You will die in your sleep at the age of 89. From a meteor impact.
11. A freak electrical storm puts the kibosh on a pool party you had planned but doesn't stop you from enjoying a leisurely swim in the midst of a lightning strike. Your corpse if found being eaten by raccoons several days later.
12. Your fear of heights is well advised but doesn't prevent you from being thrown from a horse onto a display of knives.
13. A personal revelation will cause you to kill yourself with sleeping pills in the next 48 hours. It turns out that the person you have been falling in love with over AIM - the one you just proposed to - was actually a chat bot promoting the movie "Swimfan".
14. A mishap at a Klu Klux Klan rally in which a flaming cross topples onto your back leaves you with severe burns and a broken vertebral disc. Your efforts to make the incident look work related by falling onto a saber saw the next day is fairly ill conceived and ends up eviscerating you in front of several dozen coworkers.
15. Your addiction to veterinary muscle relaxants leads to a pulmonary embolism that nearly kills you. After spending weeks recuperating in the hospital's intensive care unit you are almost ready for release when you succumb to a secondary infection exacerbated by the hospital's baked beans which contain more botulism by weight than actual beans.
16. Wearing fedoras and top hats comes back into fashion in 2016. Not in fashion in 2016 is being crushed in an industrial dough mixer, but that doesn't stop you.The harpies that kill you will not be nearly as gothy attractive as these are, but that follows since your package is nowhere near as big as this dude's is. Not pictured: Harry Potter in tears at the death of Hermione.
17. You will soon become intimately familiar, in more ways than one, with Ronald Donald Chandler, also known as The Boston Detorsonator.
18. Hydroelectric turbines cannot be stopped by sticking your arm into them. What does stop them is when you stick your arm into them and then your whole body gets sucked in and chopped into pieces that clog the flow grates and cause an emergency auto-shutoff to trigger. If you don't believe me you'll be able to prove me right firsthand in the next three weeks or so.
19. Massive heart attack. The heart attack is triggered when you are straining to defecate on the chest of a nude and handcuffed Bea Arthur during a scat and bondage session. On a positive note the next door neighbors finally respond to Bea's cries for help and the media descend on your home. That might not sound too positive but no publicity is bad publicity!
20. You remember when your English 202 professor explained how harpies are just a myth? It turns out he was wrong. They are not only real but they really don't like the cologne you're wearing.

It may not seem possible that we could simplify every single potential method of death into twenty numbered items, and you may be right after a fashion. The truth is these twenty items only represent an example of each category of death you fall into. For example the final item about being mauled by harpies is only a specific metaphor for the broader fate of being rent asunder by a flock of mythological flying bird women. So if you got number 20 that means it might not be harpies but rather nagas that descend from rocky outcroppings to peck out your liver and feast upon your entrails. You might also notice that nowhere did I mention a death in which the villain of "Order of the Phoenix" enchants you to look like him and then Dumbledore, mistakenly thinking that you are the villain, kills you by impaling you. That's because only Hermione in the highly anticipated Harry Potter book "Order of the Phoenix" dies that way, and she's a fictional character.

Photosoft Paint Phriday

Livestock has fallen ill thanks to Monkey Pox, but he'll be on his feet in no time I'm sure. In the interim, Marie "Elf Pr0n" Peccia, has stepped in for the ailing 'Stock and taken up the standard of Photoshop Phriday. This week's theme is "Four Panel Movies".

Go now and read the substitute's homework assignment! She may not command our respect but she wears these low cut blouses that cause a flurry of pornographic note passing.

– Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons (@sexyfacts4u)