My career path to becoming a lounge singer has been somewhat uneventful this week, so I’ve decided to field some of the questions I’ve gotten from inquisitive readers who want to know more about Ertok. For those of you new to the site, Ertok is an Evil Alien Overlord who, among other things, oversees the operations here at newfunny.com.

O: Do you like working with the Omar?
E: His performance so far has been acceptable. However, on the recently modified “Staff” page, Omar has associated me with one of the animated space aliens from the animated television show “The Simpsons”. On a superficial level, I comprehend the analogy, but on a deeper level it becomes clear that my personality more closely matches that of Kodos rather than that of Kang. I am currently considering punishment for this grievous error.

O: How many aliens are in the vicinity of planet Earth at this moment?
E: I am currently the only one. My responsibility is to scout out the planet and analyze your defensive capabilities before the main invasion force arrives. My involvement in this web site has minimal strategic value to the overall invasion plan, and is analogous to a small boy playing with and enjoying his pet ants with the aid of a primitive transparent optical refracting device.

O: You have implied that you don’t look like Kodos or Kang from The Simpsons. Do you resemble other aliens from popular movies or television shows?
E: In reality, I can emulate the look of any of the carbon based life forms that scurry about on your planet’s surface through a special device located on my space vessel. For example, I could exit my ship looking like any of your world leaders. Or Pauly Shore.

O: Is this entire interview a setup for a series of wacky adventures involving you and other members of the newfunny staff while you wait for the invasion force to arrive?
E: Did I mention that the XR-2300 neural interface I implanted in your head gives me the option of making your head explode?

O: I suppose we can skip that question and edit it out later.
E: I suspect that would be in your head’s best interest.

O: Speaking of the XR-2300, isn’t that a muffler bracket for the ’79 Pinto?
E: No, that’s the XR-2200. The 2300 is the lunar shuttle.

O: So, have you finished your assessment of our planets defenses? What did you conclude?
E: My research has concluded that your species is no match for us. The best chance you have to defend yourself is to annoy us to death with your gender homogenous adolescent music organizations. HA HA HA… [SNORT] [SNORT] [COUGH] [COUGH]. Edit out the snorting part too.

O: So how much time do we have until the invasion force arrives?
E: According to my calculations, they should have arrived several of your Earth days ago. I suspect the problem has to do with your archaic time system. Basing a calendar on small furry animals is not very efficient.

O: That sounds like yet another piece of information that might be relevant for future story lines involving evil alien overlords. Do you agree?
E: [pulls out a remote control device with a button on it labeled “blow up Omar’s head” and slowly runs his finger around it]

Well, look at the time! I would like to thank Ertok for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer all of these questions. If anyone has questions for Ertok, please feel free to sent them to newfunny.com. If we use your question on the web site, you get a free T-shirt from the back of my closet that I never got around to giving to charity.

A few weeks ago I finished a story about my goal in life of becoming a lounge singer. I sat down, progressed through the normal process of putting my thoughts into words, and finally published the story on the web site. I was proud of myself for creating a witty and insightful glimpse into the inner workings of my mind. The misspelled words were few, the grammatical errors were minor, and I even managed to make the idea of gratuitously beating up a helpless old Dutch man seem funny.

Fortunately, something happened to me at a local drinking establishment on Thursday night that made me understand the story wasn’t finished. Of course it was finished in the sense that I emailed the story out to everyone with no way of getting it back. But in another sense it has just begun. My eyes opened up to the bigger picture.

I feel my situation is quite similar to the artist who painted “A Friend in Need” (often times referred to as “Dogs Playing Poker”). While I could dedicate an entire story to the social ramifications of this piece of art (NOTE TO SELF: write an entire story about Dogs Playing Poker sometime in the future) , I would like to focus on the fact the painting contains not just six dogs sitting at a table playing poker, but also a painting in the background. I can just imagine C. M. Cooledge when he realized the need for this additional image in order to complete his masterpiece. His vision was complete.

This phenomenon is not uncommon even in our high tech society. Often times I find myself sitting on my couch perfectly content watching, say, live stadium motocross when I suddenly become aware of a world existing beyond the boundaries of large piles of dirt, motorcycles, and even ESPN. What I like to call the “bigger picture” is ever changing, but often times gives me a glimpse into the sights and sounds of an entirely different aspect of the world around me– often times in the form of a game brought to me courtesy of the National Football League. An extensive analysis of the television manual led me to the more common term of “picture in a picture”.

So what does this have to do with being a lounge singer? Well, the other night I made the transition from singing in the shower all by myself to singing in front of a bar full of people with the aid of a microphone and Karaoke equipment. For the first time in my life, I actually got up the nerve to get up on stage and let everyone hear my wonderful singing voice. My point here is that singing Karaoke is the motocross on the television screen of my life.

I don’t think I can give a very objective measure of my performance. I spent half the time on stage trying to come to grips with the fact that I was hearing my own voice a half a second later and I lot louder then I normally would when singing in the shower. Once I got used to those differences, I was able to do a half way decent job. I also like to give myself credit for not locking up my knees and remembering to breathe in and out on a regular basis. I have to say that despite the initial worries I had before going up on stage, I really enjoyed the experience. For the record, I sang “Take it to the Limit” by the Eagles.

I know that I am still a long way from my ultimate goal of becoming a lounge singer. My inexperience with musical instruments and the fact that I don’t know of any drinking establishments that use lounge singers are both issues that I will have to address somewhere down the road. I have to play it by ear so to speak because I drove over to the local book store and was unable to find “Lounge Singing for Dummies”. But the fact that I am actively working toward one of my goals is a positive step.

I don’t know how long its going to take for me to become a lounge singer. There is not a formula I can employ that calculates exactly how many steps are involved in this process. As far as I can tell, it is one of those metaphysical questions similar to “how many roads must a boy walk down before he becomes a man?”, “if a tree falls on a lumberjack in the forest, does anyone enjoy the irony?”, or “is Richard Simmons a robot?”

More to come on this topic in the future, if all goes well.

With the exception of Dick Clark helping America ring in each new year, all good things must come to an end. The “Star Trek: Voyager” series is no exception to this rule. You may love it, you may hate it, but either way, the last episode will air in a few weeks. Will the crew make it back to Earth? Here at newfunny.com we have a been blessed with a very interesting piece of “inside information”. Unfortunately, it has absolutely nothing to do with Star Trek, so I will have to save that for another story.

Before I go any further, I have to stop and make a special dedication. I like to think of my sister as one of the biggest fans of Star Trek fans in the entire charted galaxy. Wait a minute, I’m thinking of me. My sister hates the whole concept of Star Trek so much that she once spit in the face of Patrick Stewart when he was passing by in the airport terminal. OK, I just made that part up (he only looked quite a bit like the guy who plays Jean Luc Picard), but I can say without any doubt that she has her own “prime directive” to cause bodily harm to any one who thinks its cool to wear a Klingon forehead apparatus in public. So, Karen, if you are reading this, I hope you get a tingle in your spine similar to when Data first activated his emotion chip.

In all honesty, I have to admit to aggravating the situation with my sister by forcing Star Trek information upon her every chance I get. When we were younger, I would often times run around with a banana clip over my eyes pretending to be Geordi La Forge from the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” series. My most shining moment in this aspect of my life was calling up my sister at two in the morning to tell her I just got home from the opening night of the latest Star Trek feature film. I can only imagine the look on her face as I woke her up out of a good night sleep by screaming “STAR TREK– INSURRECTION!!!” into the phone receiver.

I would now like to spend some time hypothesizing about how the Voyager series is going to end. I can assure you that I have no advance knowledge of the actual ending for the series. The whole point of the newfunny stories isn’t to report “facts”, but rather to make the results of my overactive imagination appear to be true. Having said that, here are some official newfunny.com alternate endings for the series:

California Style Ending:

After miscalculating the amount of dilithium needed to get the ship back to the Alpha quadrant, the captain initiates rolling blackouts for the duration of the journey. The shortage of power creates a series of unique predicaments the crew must address. One episode will involve the more elderly crew members on several decks suffering from heat exhaustion after their air conditioners stop running in the middle of a hot summer afternoon. The finale will focus on a no-holds-barred banana cream pie fight between Captain Janeway and First officer Chakotay over who was supposed to fill up on dilithium crystals on their last away mission.

Monty Python Ending:

After some ingenious manipulation of the space/time continuum, the crew manages to get out of the Delta quadrant and back to their own section of the galaxy. Sprits are high as earth becomes visible on the long range sensors. After three days at maximum warp the crew reaches Earth and makes their final landing preparations. A massive celebration is planned at Star Fleet Headquarters for Voyager. Just before the ship sets down a large cartoon foot comes out of nowhere and crushes the ship into a twisted pulp. Roll credits.

Scooby Doo Ending:

B`Elanna Torres and Tom Paris look into the cause of energy surges that consistently disrupt the daily operation of the ship with creepy sounds and unexplained visual phenomena. The young pair eventually gets to the bottom of the case after a series of subtle clues, trap doors, and Scooby Snacks lead them to the culprit. The cause of the “ghosts”, if you will, turned out to be nothing more than a series of computer commands programmed in by the unscrupulous ship’s captain who planned on getting a good deal on a high mileage haunted galaxy class cruiser upon their triumphant return to Earth.