This Week in JPEGs

Welcome back to This Week in JPEGs, where I, Charlie Scrabbles, highlight the most interesting or stupid or ridiculous or heartwarming events of the week by rendering them in MS Paint. It’s dumb, but the entire world is so dumb right now. So let’s get really dumb.

Last week’s JPEG o’ the Week was Exasperated Anthony Fauci. That’s kinda dumb, but not really dumb. Let’s look at what we have this week.

Dr Amy “Action” Acton - Back in Action

picture courtesy of me, you idiots

Ohio seems to be weathering this pandemic extremely well compared to other places and I think that is in large part due to the impressive leadership provided by Dr Amy Acton, the director for the state department of health. Along with Governor Mike DeWine and Lieutenant Governor John “Pudding Brains” Husted, they have been hosting press conferences every day to keep the citizens of Ohio informed of what is happening.

These press conferences have been appointment viewing in my house. I wanted to commemorate one particular series of events that unfolded at the press conference this past wednesday. So here it is:

44 INT. SERVICE CORRIDOR

OHIO emerges through a firedoor into a long corridor which connects to the parking garage. He’s running full out, when around the corner ahead of him comes...

DR ACTON. Time stretches to a nightmarish crawl as OHIO tries to brake to a stop. DR ACTON reaches into the box of roses.

SLOW MOTION. The cold back steel of the SHOTGUN emerges at the box falls open, the roses spilling to the floor. DR ACTON’S BOOT crushes the flowers as she moves forward.

OHIO, transfixed by terror, is trapped in the narrow featureless shooting gallery of the corridor. THE SHOTGUN COMES UP. DR ACTON expressionlessly strides forward. Jacks a round into the chamber, slow and fluid.

OHIO looks behind him for a place to run. Sees the VIRUS coming toward him, pulling his Beretta pistol. Incredibly, OHIO realizes the VIRUS is aiming his gun at him!

OHIO looks back at DR ACTON. He is staring into the black muzzle of the 10-gauge now. Aimed right at his head. He realizes he’s screwed. Then something crazy happens...

DR ACTON

“Get down.”

OHIO instinctively ducks. DR ACTON pulls the trigger. KABOOM!

THE VIRUS catches the SHOTGUN’S BLAST square in the chest just as he fires the pistol. The pistol’s shot goes wild.

DR ACTON pumps another round into him. Then another. And another. Advancing a step each time she fires, she empties the shotgun into the VIRUS, blowing him backward down the corridor. The sound is DEAFENING. Then silence.

THE VIRUS lies still on his back.

DR ACTON is now standing right over OHIO. They both watch as the VIRUS, incredibly, sits up unharmed and gets to his feet. DR ACTON grabs OHIO roughly by his jacket. Clutches the state to her chest then spins around at the VIRUS and opens fire with the Beretta.

The “VIRUS”, who not only isn’t a person, he clearly is a bogus jerk virus, pulls the trigger so fast it almost seems like a machine-pistol.

ON DR ACTON’S BACK, as the 9mm slugs slam into her, punching bloody holes in her lab coat.

OHIO is bug-eyed with fear, but completely unscratched. DR ACTON’s body has blocked the bullets.

The Beretta CLACKS empty. DR ACTON turns at the sound.

Shoves OHIO behind a Coke machine. Drops the empty shotgun. Starts walking toward the “VIRUS”.

The empty magazine clatters to the floor.

The VIRUS inserts another one. Snaps back the slide. DR ACTON still has twenty feet to go.

She doesn’t break her purposeful stride.

The VIRUS opens fire. Bullets rake DR ACTON’s chest. She doesn’t even flinch.

Ten feet to go. BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM! Neither the VIRUS nor DR ACTON show the slightest change in expression as the gun rips DR ACTON’s lab coat to shreds.

CLACK. The pistol empties again. DR ACTON stops two feet in front of the VIRUS. They appraise each other for a second.

We realize now that the VIRUS is a pandemic. We don’t know the details yet, but let’s call him COVID-19 (since that’s what he is). This guy’s a novel virus ... and he’s got quite a few surprises.

COVID-19 AND DR ACTON size each other up. DR ACTON moves first.

She grabs COVID-19 in her massive hands but the COVID-19 snaps back with a counter-grip. After about two seconds of intense slamming, the walls on both sides of the corridor have all the plaster smashed in, and the two have blasted through the wall and disappeared.

OHIO, totally stunned by all this, remembers to move. He staggers to his feet. Stumble-runs toward the parking garage.

The Last Supper

picture courtesy of me, you idiots

Wednesday began the Jewish observance of Passover. For thousands of years, the Hebrew people have gathered to remember the difficulty of their enslavement by the Egyptians. It corresponds on the calendar with the Christian observance of Easter, which is not a coincidence. Many believe the conventional wisdom that Jesus conducted the Passover seder with his disciples fully in the knowledge that his earthly days were numbered. This event is memorialized in Leonardo di Vinci’s masterpiece, The Last Supper. A few days later, he would be charged and convicted and ultimately tortured and killed, only to rise from the grave on Easter. At least, that’s the conventional wisdom.

But in recent years, biblical scholars have started to come around on an alternate but still powerful history of what happened in those last days of Jesus. A small but dedicated and zealous cadre of the most respected scholars of the ancient world have been tirelessly amassing evidence that the conventional wisdom is largely inaccurate. This evidence points to a dramatic re-understanding of the last days of Jesus, beginning with The Last Supper. You see, while most believe that last supper was a Passover seder, it is now understood that what they were really celebrating was Opening Day.

For instance, the evidence suggests that those present at The Last Supper did not eat a traditional Passover seder with matzoh, charoset, bitter herbs, and all that, but rather they dined on Detroit-style pan pizza topped with sausage and wild mushrooms paired with a crisp Bohemia-style lager. Also, it is perhaps no coincidence at all that the local nine, the Jerusalem Centurions, opened their season that very afternoon with the first of a three-game set against the Nazareth Red Caracals. And though it is circumstantial evidence at best, it is perhaps still worth mentioning that three or four Pseudepigraphic sources include mentions of Jesus’ loyalty to his hometown team and that he was often seen wearing a Red Caracals baseball cap in his travels.

So while it is true that the Jewish holiday of Passover and the Christian holiday of Easter are intimately connected to each other, they are both situated on the calendar in the beginning of spring because both are intimately connected to the far more important holiday of Opening Day.

History is interesting, isn’t it?

We Don’t Stand a Chance

picture courtesy of me, you idiots

In stark contrast to the impressive leadership on display at the Ohio statehouse is the abject incompetence and willful ignorance hanging in a thick swampy fog over Washington DC. Congress made some ceremonial acknowledgements to the crisis before they all went on vacation for a month or so and the president is wholly occupied by the television ratings of his evening press conferences. As the United States attempts to gird itself in preparation for the greatest challenge we have collectively faced since the rise of fascism in Europe, it seems pretty clear that we don’t stand a chance.