Kiss Ass While You Bitch so You can Get Rich, but Your Boss Gets Richer than You.

I was surprised to find out that I had won the "Endless Hour" contest I entered last week, whose results were announced on Sunday. It was a shock to everyone else as well, no doubt. A young man emerging from the depths of the internet unknown on a dark horse, flames spewing from the ground where he has tread, to wrestle victory from the clawed hands of... er, not winning. I would like to thank the following: Jason for holding the contest, Scott for telling me about the contest, and all of the people with finer tastes that liked my story. The people who didn't like my story, like my parents and brother (they didn't say so but I could tell, the jerks), I would not like to thank.

My winnings, a $25 gift certificate to Amazon, have already been spent on comic books and genre novels. But I have earned far more than that this week. I have also gained a villainous rival, heart black as the dead of night with a soul to match. You see, it turns out there were two "winners" to this contest. The first was the story carefully picked for its true artistry and finesse by the divine powers that be high above. In other words, my story. The second was the story voted in carelessly as "best" by the great mass of the unwashed in all their absurdity (well, the people participating in the contest). Appealing to the baser common man, with his eternal thirst for fanciful tales involving werewolves, one Jaye Wells came out with the story that won the despicable "Reader's Choice" award.

Two such opposite prize winners can not occupy the same internet at once. There is no way for us to avoid the conflict we are headed for. It is our duty, nay, it is the mandate of fate herself that we clash on the planes of the internet.

I have already made my rivalry with this "people's champion" known in a more private setting, but consider this an official declaration of war. I make this proclamation because I will not allow this writer, no doubt published in communist hate magazines and reader's digests around the world already, to wage her war against me in secret. Know that if they find me dead in my home with a poison-drenched stiletto protruding from my back, it was the cruel hand of J. Wells that felled me.

Do you hear me, knave? Engarde, I say!

My second is my sharp tongue and irreverent wit.