Grumble Goat

The Game of Life is a nuanced, open-world role-playing game that everybody gets to play once. While some stats are randomized, there is a lot of freedom to customize your character. There are also many rules that govern your character choices. Some rules are hard-fast and concrete, like Thou Shalt Not Kill, or the Five-Second-Rule, for instance; but some rules are a loose collection of suggestions, like crossing the street outside the designated lines, or maintaining a maximum velocity of your personal combustion engine. But the Rules of the Road are enforced like doubles in Monopoly, you only get...

Santorini is a beautiful island off the coast of Greece. A collapsed volcano has left a striking, sheer cliff rising above the sea. This magnificent wonder befuddles its visitors with awe. The island villagers have opened their land, welcoming the travelers to behold the caldera from the towering heights of the cliff. And they have gifted these explorers in building a cable car to ride back down. But the gondola moves at the unrushed pace of lackadaisical island life, while the nomadic sightseers, like the gills of a shark, must always keep moving. Waiting in line, though, was not...

Humankind has always taken to the sea.  We are addicted to exploration, to discovery, to peeking over the horizon and searching for something new.  Traditionally, that voyage is fraught with uncertainty, especially when it comes to rations.  There are no Costco Wholesalers across the vast oceans.  What food you might need must be brought, and rationed.  Seamen and buccaneers alike suffered hunger and scurvy for want of fresher food.  But now, in the age of mega-yacht pleasure cruises, we have all-you-can-eat gorge fests each and every night.  The challenge of the high-seas has become too much high-fructose.  Grab a bucket w...

Humankind is a herd animal. We gather. Like lemmings to a cliff, we follow where the herd goes. We gather in cities, we gather in stadiums, and we gather outside the Apple store before a new cellphone releases. Even when we’re home alone, we use that phone to gather in a social media metaphysical space. It makes sense, then, that we gather to look at something strange and new. When we’re in a foreign land, we gather in a tour, comforted by the presence of others, basking in the familiar feelings of a TED Talk happening live in f...

From humanity’s origins in Africa, it took around 100,000 years to spread across the globe. The pace of that journey was decidedly less than ideal, and since then our feverish desire to move ourselves around the globe have led to amazing technological advances. Wind powered boats eventually criss-crossed the Atlantic, each journey taking only half a year. Covered wagons could put you in Oregon in a matter of months. The Trans-Continental Railroad brought that trek down to four days; and now the Cannonball run has it down to Twenty-Five hours, but even that is obsolete after the creation of ai...

The Twenty-First Century is a wondrous time to exist. Humanity now enjoys an age where we can safely see the wonders of the world. We exist in this tiny window of history that is framed on one side by marvelous technology like convenient, global air travel, Google Translate, and AirBnB; but just before the collapse of modern civilization due to global air travel pollution and the annihilation of the housing market that AirBnB will bring. And in this era of plenty, we have a fleeting chance to experience everything the world offers. And we do. Constant flights across the...

Eons of evolution have culminated in creating the perfect form of life: Humankind. Unfortunately, it didn’t bother cleaning up after itself. All the failed first-steps are still lingering around, still pestering us, like bacteria… and germs. Long ago we won the battles of Black Plague and Dysentery, but the war wages on. We’ve taken on drastic measures, like quarantine, and not pooping in our drinking water; but it’s also led to strange rituals, like pump bottles of isopropyl at every entrance, and little tongs in our bar snacks. Yet now that society is sanitized, it begins to lose...

Summertime is a joyous time. The quintessential image of peak happiness is the sun shining from a blue sky on bright green grass with birds chirping from lush trees. It is no wonder that the outdoors calls us out from our Paramount Plus couch potato caves during these precious months. And this primordial urge is not complete until we make fire and roast animal flesh. But how do we capture this moment and relive it year round? Is the essence of barbeque the sunshine and laughter? Is it the family and friends? Is it watching the children chase fireflies...

Humanity has plunged into the Cyber Age at terminal velocity. Everything must move at the speed of light. High-speed internet, 5-G Lte, One-point-twenty-one Gigawatts; if you’re not keeping up, you’re obsolete. It’s going to take more than Powerade to move this fast… society runs on a full tank of high-octane, premium grade, primordial bone juice! And there is no more important information in this fast-paced arena than the three decimal number that dictates the price! Like a coke fried Wolf of Wall Street, we watch that price ticker like our very livelihood depends on that tenth of a pen...

Grumble Goat is off this week! So Mat has commandeered the feed to bring you a preview of his fantasy-adventure novel, Zak: the Hew-Man! Chapter 2!

Welcome to Allspire, a quaint goblin city nestled in an isolated, broken hollow of the Marred Mountains. Zak – son of the Goblin chief – is preparing for his Blood Rite. This rite of passage will test his strength in the goblin art of blood magic; and will be his first step toward filling his father’s monstrous footsteps.

Being too mature now to believe in the hag’s tales of demons and ghos...

A picture says a thousand words. But those words are silent, and they are in your head, and it’s really you doing the work of putting those words together. A tour of an art museum might involve someone asking you to form the words. What do you think of this piece? The suppressed panic of oral book reports banishes any semblance of imagination. But the Motion Picture changed all of that. Now the pictures do the thousand words by themselves. Active portrayals of suspenseful or dramatic words, comedic or horrifying words. No longer must my brain be activated to...

Machines require lubrication. The clockwork motion of gears and levers grinds to a halt without the grease. Proper lubrication is the key to a well-oiled machine. Like a drunkard at closing-time, Gas-guzzling SUVs demand a full flight of cocktails just to function. The Human body is a mechanical avatar with similar needs. Oils, mucus, and plasmas circulate and drip from the whole, sloppy chassis. And the jaw is no exception. It drips a little saliva, sure; but to work the chompers through a whole meal takes lubrication. Dry pasta isn’t going down the gullet without some bolognese. Dry ch...

Humankind matured into a collective during the last Ice Age. The frigid Earth was an inhospitable place for our furless ape ancestors. They struggled to master the art of fire just to survive. Thousands of years later, our magnificent brains have unlocked the power over all of the elements. Like Avatar Aang, we easily sway fire, water, earth and air with the flick of a Bic or the turning of a thermostat. And as our frosty forbears turn in their graves just to stay warm, we add frozen water to our drinking water just to stay cool. And through...

The 21st Century is a fast-paced, bustling cacophony of technologically enhanced productivity.  Computers, cell phones, and Artificial Intelligence have turned our lives into rigidly packed, chaotic scheduling nightmares.  Yet still we must eat.  Life still revolves around food, and so food is an excuse to slow down.  We’re allowed to savor our meals, and there is no greater indulgence in our busy schedules than to take the time to make a home-cooked meal.  But surely, with the addictive efficiency of the Apple App Store, there must be a cybernetic way to force our compulsive efficiency onto the home-cooking part. ...

In the vast, empty blackness of the Universe, there is one frail, tiny pebble bobbing along on the gravitational waves of the Milky Way. This little blue dot – that we call Earth – contains all the known life in the Universe. Humankind has taken this miniscule lifeboat in much the same way as a freshman personalizes their dorm room: punching holes in the wall, burning the carpet with cigarette butts, and vomiting on the sofa. We customized our home with all the comforts we could imagine: personal cars, mega-yacht cruise ships, and atomic weaponry. But the RA called Mother Nature has...

Veronique is off this week! So Mat has commandeered the feed to bring you a preview of his fantasy-adventure novel, Zak: the Hew-Man!

Welcome to Allspire, a quaint goblin city nestled in an isolated, broken hollow of the Marred Mountains. Zak – son of the Goblin chief – is preparing for his Blood Rite. This rite of passage will test his strength in the goblin art of blood magic; and will be his first step toward filling his father’s monstrous footsteps.

Being too mature now to believe in the hag’s tales of demons and ghosts haunting...

The Human Body is the perfect biological machine.  With over a million years of R&D, this high precision work of art rocketed Humankind to the top of the Food Chain. Complete with four posable limbs and two opposable thumbs, karate-chop action and full color vision, these bodies are perfect for skiing down mountains and parkouring through the densest urban environments. The supercomputer operating system is the highlight of the avatar and only comes in hot pink. And since modern society is based solely on the cerebral, you don’t even need all the other bells and whistles. Unfortunately, it’...

Humanity is experiencing a Technological Age heretofore unimaginable to the amoebas that began life on Earth. Unfortunately, it is happening alongside the cancer of Capitalism. Spending money has become the equivalent of personal enrichment. Modern Designers own a Macintosh, so buying a Macintosh makes one a Designer. Fit people monitor their heart-rate, therefore owning a Smart Watch to monitor my heart-rate makes me a fit person. But somehow owning a Peloton isn’t the same as using a Peloton. And everyone in America being hooked up to an EKG on their wrist isn’t making our hearts healthier. When a de...

The Human Brain is an incredibly complex biological supercomputer. It has sysadmin privileges over every other organic function in the body as well as the ability to forget where you put your keys. This unfathomable mass of living tissue somehow captures and stores vivid memories of precise moments in time, like wetting your pants on a school field-trip twenty years ago, while simultaneously deleting trivial information, like why you walked into this room. But the wonderous machine of the mind has its limitations as well. Just like an iPhone, it can’t stay powered on for a full day. It...

We are living in the Digital Age. It is an era of Renaissance and upheaval. The old, analog ways are […]

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While there are a handful of advantages Humankind can claim over the rest of the beasts of the Earth, it […]

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Humanity has evolved well beyond the limitations of our animal origins. Our structures of steel and glass practically scrape the […]

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The Meaning of Life is remarkably simple, cherish the people that are close to you. Unfortunately, ‘Close,’ in this instance, […]

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As the year draws to an end, the world celebrates. A cornucopia of feasts and festivals replace the dwindling sunlight. […]

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One of the many joyous traditions practiced in this Holiday Season is the exchanging of gifts. Gifts, ultimately, are just […]

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The holiday season is the crashing climax that reverberates through the end of the year. Every holiday is another rite […]

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The Harvest is the most important time of the year. Though most of our farming has been given to the […]

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Humankind is a herd animal. We function best in groups. Thus, by instinct, we crave human connections. ‘Feeling’ may be […]

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The Earth revolves around the sun in a complacent rhythm. At no point in the history of the universe did […]

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Humankind’s main advantage is our intelligence. We have conquered the Earth and unlocked the secret Physical Laws of the universe. […]

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There is a savage side to the human race. There is a carnal obsession forged inside of us that overwhelms […]

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The night is dark and full of terrors. A creaky floorboard in the middle of the night is enough to […]

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Life on our planet is divided into two Kingdoms: Plants and Animals. Basic, simple, and fundamental. In much the same […]

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Bonus Content! Grumbles happen in the moment. Once the engines of Grumbling have revved up, it’s hard to maintain a […]

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The human body is the ultimate machine. Able to perform any number of tasks, move on its own, and think […]

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Despite our advanced digital civilization, Humankind are still organic, natural beasts. We must eat and breathe, we must cut our […]

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Humankind’s domination of the planet has created a population explosion. Unfortunately, the Earth only possesses limited resources. There’s a finite […]

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The world is a messy place. Earth is a chaotic, teeming, moist stew of life, death, decay, and El Ninos. […]

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As humankind developed, our ancestors decided that different grunts could have different meanings. From language’s humble beginnings, it did not […]

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Behold! The future is now! Long has humankind dreamed of an age where labor could be performed by automaton. Fields […]

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