Damper Three

  Photo by  Taisiia Shestopal  on  Unsplash I can’t help but feel that Life is just messing with me now. We’ve all gone through a lot over the past couple of years, sure. But lately I’ve gotten the distinct feeling that “Someone” up “There” is gunning for me quite specifically. Because of certain recent events, I’m starting to regret choices I’ve made, even ones I was convinced were wise and prudent. Like my decision to name my son “Omicron.” That seems, now, to have been a bad move. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “But Omicron is a proud and respected word that any person would love as a first name.” And I agree. But tell that to my wife, who was admittedly sedated when I told the nurse what baby’s name was to be. When she regained her faculties, she was actually opposed to the name altogether. But honestly, she’s been harboring resentment since our daughter Blockchain was born three years ago. I think she just wants attention. Opinion by Scotty Whooping I remember w

It's the time of year when the miraculous can happen. Or almost happen. Sometimes the miracle expects a little cooperation, you know? 

  If you’ve been wracking your brains trying to come up with unique gifts that don’t suck (especially if the person you’re getting it for is over the age of 50 or so), Damper 3 has you covered. We jumped into our virtual 1977 Plymouth Volare and took a trip down Digital Memory Lane, stopping at every niche store possible to collect the absolutely coolest nostalgia gifts from television and movie history. And this is just the start: we hope to add to this list over the next couple of weeks as we come across other really cool pop culture gift ideas. Feel free to send us your ideas as well!   The following list reaches all the way back to the mid-1960s, with the Get Smart Shoe Phone Coffee Cup. (It’s been scientifically proven that the items that contain the highest levels of nostalgia are coffee cups and t-shirts). From there, we made stops in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s to bring you some of the coolest stuff we could find that won’t cost you too much, but will certainly elicit an approv

Pulling off a memorable Thanksgiving meal is tough. Well, that's not really true. Really awful Thanksgiving get-togethers are memorable.  No one ever talks about the lovely picnic Archduke Ferdinand went on. You want to summon the glow of the Holidays, not the glow of post-atomic annihilation. Lucky for you we've summoned all of our Holiday Magic experts* to pool their knowledge and give you the best advice possible to force feed your family wonderful memories.  *Expertise in Holiday Magic is subjective. Void where prohibited.  Photo by  Davies Designs Studio  on USPLASH

  I’m a political analyst. Some call me a pundit, or a political commentator. I send out hot take tweets on popular topics that defy conventional wisdom in a way that suggests either a rare understanding of the workings of politics or a deep need for attention, such as this one from early Tuesday evening before election results started coming in:   “Squid Game’s “success” shows exactly why the Democrats are today’s English at the Battle of Gastillion.” Roll THAT one around in your non-PHD degree-having-mind. I tremble to think of the mental gymnastics you must be doing in your hallucinaseum as you scramble to understand my analogy. Anyway, I’m here to tell you why what you think last Tuesday’s election results mean is not only wrong, the truth is the opposite of what you were thinking. Let’s start with you neophytes that think the Democrats losing every Virginia statewide office up for grabs on Tuesday depicts a political party in disarray, headed by an unpopular president.   Ho ho

  Zombies. Undead. Walkers. Infected. For a very long time in the world of Zombie Apocalypse preparation, the primary fitness goal was core and upper body strength, to allow the survivor to better twist the head off /wield a chainsaw/swing a bat into the forehead of the zombie.  Then 28 Days Later and Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake introduced us to the need for a vigorous cardio program. But we can’t all be professional football players. How do we best train for the armies of the brain-eating undead?  That’s where this handy guide comes in. Maybe it's not about the zombie as much as it is about preparing and knowing what kind of zombies you're likely to have in your neck of the Apocalypse. Part One: Know your neighbors. It's important to know your neighbors’ habits and strengths. After all, it's their heads you'll be bashing in with their own bicycle seat posts or bowling balls when they contract ZOMBID-19. This is something completely overlooked by pretty

"Now I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds." From the Bee Gees Greatest Hits. Fans of terrible fashion, uncertain economic times, chaotic international events, and the promise of global extinction are all in for a treat this decade. The last few years have demonstrated that the Universe has pulled out the National Malaise album and started blasting that vinyl, because if you’ve been watching carefully, the 2020s are playing the brain-asphyxiating 1970’s greatest hits. We hope you like bell bottoms and feathered hair, brother, because we’re in for a wild ride. But don’t believe us. Believe this chart: But there’s more to it than this, however. The 1970s saw the United States land on the moon. Guess what NASA has planned for the mid-2020s? Project Artemis, daddy-o. Or rather, mommy-o, since this time we will send American female astronauts back to Luna, presumably so some humans might survive annihilation. That’s right! While the 1970s was packed with spicy Mutuall

An Op Ed, by President of the United States Joe Biden. Ever wonder how a credit card company can say that every purchase is "double miles?" I mean, this is sort of an oxymoron, isn't it? Maybe it could be more miles than you might get from another credit card, but if every purchase is double miles then that's not double miles, that's just miles. That's the allotment. The only way you get double is if there are times when you get twice as much as the normal allotment. Ever wonder about the speed limit? That's not really like a hard limit is it? A limit means that is the limit – there's nothing beyond that. Like, if you are limited to one egg at breakfast, okay, then they gave you one egg and that's all you get. That's the limit. The speed limit is more like the manufacturer suggested retail speed. That's the speed they would want you to go but ain't nobody doing it. Ever seen a truck tire explode and blow off all those big chunks of tire

  Hard working entertainer seeking employment. Extensive background in stabbing. Editor's note: Kinky Pinky once worked as an enforcer for the KRAK drug cartel in the 1980s video game NARC. He is currently unemployed.  If you believe the “news,” the economy is recovering from the pandemic. Not only that, but there are tons of jobs that people just aren’t even applying for. Well, don’t be fooled. There are some people out there who want to be able to work, but can’t. I’m talking about hard working people, who aren’t afraid to roll up their nappy, nasty clown sleeves and stab people. But it seems that drug cartels suddenly have no interest in hiring knife-wielding clowns to kidnap prostitutes anymore. I tell you, Biden has turned this country into a socialist nation for sure.   It’s not like I haven’t tried to find work. But most of the cartels these days require you to get the covid vaccine and frankly, I’m scared of needles. Plus, I'm opposed to putting unknown chemicals in my

The US Coast Guard celebrates 231 years of service today! Let's take a look at some notable facts about the service that was obviously the happiest  branch when Space Force was created so that now someone else has to sit in the middle of the back seat of the Joint Chiefs Car Pool.

It comes in many forms, in many ways. Main Photo by  Matthew Ronder-Seid  on  Unsplash . Customer service rep photo by Jay Goodman . Perhaps during your morning shower and shave you noticed that your hairline is in full retreat, or maybe a bald spot has set up a beachhead on the back of your skull. It could be that you looked in the mirror and your dad was looking back at you. Or maybe you were chatting with another dad that you found out is your exact age but instead of spending the weekend elbow deep in cleaning cat litter and mowing the grass, he’s going skydiving during a spontaneous vacation to the Maldives and now you’re wondering what the heck you are doing with your life. Research shows (probably) that everyone except maybe astronauts will experience a midlife crisis some time in their lives.* It’s okay. It’s normal, and now you have help. In times past, people who experienced these bouts of inadequacy mixed with a sense of their own mortality had limited options. A person

In 1982, the world was introduced to two cinematic sword-and-sorcery heroes: Conan the Barbarian, and Dar the Beastmaster. But we say that the world can only have one ultimate shirtless hero whose entire village was murdered and thus setting the sole survivor on a violent trajectory of bloodthirsty vengeance. Who wore the scanty loincloth best? Conan the Barbarian (1982, Universal Pictures) and The Beastmaster (1982, MGM, UA Entertainment) Beastmaster was a fun movie, but all together, Conan has to come out on top.   

At approximately 915 MST on Sunday, July 11, 2021, billionaire Richard Branson became the first person to finance his own trip into outer space . Video from his time in space showed an almost giddy Branson, floating weightlessly onboard his ship SpaceShipTwo along with several minions. As he addressed the world, and in particular children who have dreams of reaching the stars, his body began to change under the barrage of unforeseen cosmic radiation. “Brief mortals, tied by death to your rotten Earth, fear me,” boomed the billionaire. “No more will you address me as Richard Branson. Forevermore, I am Emperor Richard Brannos.” The heavens then shook with his laughter, which suddenly ceased. “And so help me if I hear just one more “Galactic Virgin” joke, I will rain hellfire on your pathetic world.” News of Emperor Brannos’ ascension, and his subsequent demand for the construction of a 2000-meter gold statue to be built on the site of Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin headquarters, was met

Just over one year ago, on June 17, 2020, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Watching Too Much Television ordered the US Intelligence Community (IC) to put together a report on all the space aliens . Why? Maybe the US is just sick of all the probing, and wants to do some probing of her own. Senator Marco Rubio (R – Florida, of course) led the charge to instruct the Director of National Intelligence to produce a “detailed analysis” of all the intelligence and data collected by Federal agencies on UFOs, a detailed description of interagency processes “for ensuring timely data collection and centralized analysis,” and to recommend future strategies in regards to UFOs. On the 25 th of June, the DNI did all that. In the form of a nine-page report . Six, if you take out the cover page, the half-page glossary, and a page that basically detailed what the Senate told them to do. The hell is a UAP?   But boy, did those six pages pack a punch. In it, the IC delivered a shocking reve

Happy Independence Day!  Well, we did it. The pandemic is over* and we're now back to normal.** We've been through a lot over the past year, and now by golly it's time to really, truly celebrate! And what better time to go all out on our celebrations than the 4th of July? But before you celebrate America's birthday by drunkenly setting off some explosives made by America's top international adversary, take heed of some simple precautions to ensure you have a fun time that maximizes the chances you wake up with the same number of digits that you go to sleep with.  *The pandemic isn't over. ** Things are not back to normal.

Militarized Mars Rover (D3 concept sketch). You know they wanted to. On 20 Aug 1977, the United States launched the space probe Voyager 2 on a mission to study Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus (*snicker*), Ur Mama, Neptune, and the outer reaches of the solar system. Then, evidently realizing they forgot about Voyager 1, another launch was conducted on 5 Sept 1977, which also targeted our far-flung celestial neighbors. This was the team in charge of numbering the Voyager missions But were these dual scientific feats really expressions of just American ingenuity? The fact that we just posed this in the form of a question would suggest they were not. True, the US had been flexing big time with the Apollo moon missions since 1969. But, as noted in Part 1 of Part 4 of this ongoing series (that’s correct, do the math), the timing of these ambitious satellites was suspicious, coming only 8 months after a Soviet Death Probe crashed into the American Midwest which was eventually destroyed by American

An in-depth analysis based on the technical and logistic capabilities of a foreign government's ability to electronically alter American votes from orbit. No. WE Linde and JE Dever contributed to this story. 

Forgetting to get a gift for Fathers Day is a tradition that is as old as Mother's Day itself. Here's a card you can print. Or email if printing is too much effort.

  President Biden speaks to the troops at RAF Mildenhall. You probably didn't know that. I’ve noticed that many of you out there are very wrong about things involving foreign policy. I know it’s tempting to think you understand that nuances of international relations, but as an expert, it is my job to inform you that whatever it is you think about something is, without question, incorrect. Take, for instance, President Joe Biden’s recent meetings with the G7, followed by his highly anticipated first summit with Vladimir Putin. Did you think Biden looked poised? In control? That he helped unify the economic powers of the West and reaffirmed America’s commitment to NATO? Wrong. With the European Union cracking, under constant pressure from Russia, unsure and unified on how to meet the challenge of a burgeoning China, Biden offered little more than Obama 2.0. That may have been sufficient in 2008, but hardly what is needed now. But wait. You say that you know this? That Biden’s

  This is the latest installment of Damper Three’s award-wanting investigative series, The True Costs of the Six Million Dollar Man, which seeks to unearth the truth behind the development and use of the world’s first bionic secret agent. Read Part 1 , Part 2 , and Part 3 , if you haven’t already, to learn the background of Col. Steve Austin and the secretive Office of Scientific Intelligence for which he worked. In this latest of our ongoing Pulitzer-lacking series, we take a look at a massive US government coverup of an incident surrounding a Soviet space probe that invaded the US in the 1970s. Recently declassified documents and blueprints, obtained by Freedom From Information Act requests, provide startling details of a near catastrophe from this “communist space tank” that terrorized the American heartland. Not this one. This one happens later. In addition, despite the great personal risk that it will place the dashing and rugged investigative journalists writing this, we will t

With the United States and China both actively exploring Mars with high tech rovers, we here at Damper 3 have collected an extensive list* of the strengths and weaknesses of the most famous of all remotely piloted exploration vehicles. Below captures the peak achievements and some limitations of three nations' space tanks. Er, we mean rovers. *not extensive at all.

  Time pieces pic by    Jeremy Bishop  on   Unsplash . Pic of man by George Hodan on https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/ It happens to all of us, eventually. If you’ve avoided it so far, then congratulations. But your luck won’t last. Eventually you’ll be visited by your smarmy, time-travelling self from the future, and he will just NOT. SHUT. UP about something he thinks you should or shouldn’t do. “Don’t marry that girl that once tried to steal your kidney,” he’ll say, no matter how much she promised it was just a phase and she’ll probably never do it again. “Don’t start that rocket company to try and compete with Elon Musk because you have no idea how to run a business or how to build a rocket,” he’ll go on, trying to quash your dreams. He may even point to some scars and missing eyebrows, whatever that has to do with anything. “Quit using fossil fuels, or you’ll turn the planet into an unlivable hellscape.” That’s the most crazy one he’ll toss out there.   He’ll just go o