Everything evil must have a beginning...

Greetings, vermin.

It has been quite some time since I have endeavored to write down my conjectures, experiences and subliminal messaging for the world to dutifully absorb and become my unwitting subjects (through admiration, vexation or just plain outright fear). This has been due to a rather... complex situation.

With the crash in the United States real estate market and the failure of multiple banks where I had stored most of my hard-earned¹ currency, my net value had dropped so far that the few niceties² I provided to keep the population of my small island-nation from revolting became too expensive to sustain at the same time as keeping my . Actually, that's not quite true: they had always been revolting, but knowing my security detail had walked off the job... they had decided to rebel³.

I had thought myself safe in my moat-surrounded fortress, being as how the moat was filled with magma and the fortress was carved from an active volcano. Unfortunately I had not realized that my so-called "trusted lieutenant" was unhappy with me as well (due to some sort of mixup with his own last few paychecks). I discovered this delightful fact when I found him hitting the button to raise the moatbridge and disarm the automated defenses, allowing pitchfork- and torch-wielding peasants to stream into my castle.

With only the horcrux I had in my pocket (seriously, who places all of their horcruxes in hidden locations and mindless animals? It's not as if there's a minimum distance requirement and animals are fragile.) and my emergency mayhem kit⁴, I was forced to flee to my rocket-propelled escape pod while activating the self-destruct mechanism. I heard the rather-satisfying "T-Minus 10 minutes until self-destruct" broadcast in monotone as the door closed, and then the exhilarating roar and 6G acceleration of my pod blasting out through the top of the volcano dominated my senses.

Imagine the surprise on my ex-lieutenant's face while he was disabling the countdown and it finished while still showing 9:46⁵.

I set myself up with an average suburban life and leverage my technology skills to get a menial urban IT job, which allows me to live off-the-grid, at least off the standards of a grid that an evil overlord is accustomed to. It should afford me time enough to rebuild, hidden from the prying eyes of my enemies (including my treacherous ex-lieutenant⁶), and restart my plans for world conquest. In the interim, I've also become quite fond of a few "computer games"; while nothing like the escapism provided by full-immersion VR that I used to have back in the lairs, I suppose that beggars cannot be choosers⁷, and besides, it's nice playing a few games that I have to work at to be successful at⁸.

So at any rate, I found myself with a considerable amount of time on my hands and only a small fraction of my original hoard and machinery. No secret lab. No access to my moonbase or orbital weapons platforms. Computer technology from the dark ages. Worst of all, having to clean my own domicile. I decided that while I'm laid up and creating new fragments of my soul to imbue into objects (on the list: solid platinum bar, Mount Rushmore, the moon) and finding alternative power sources for gadgetry I plan to rebuild (the orphanages are all questioning my motives; I believe it was the request for a quantity discount that caused their suspicion), that I would fill my time by attempting to brainwash the populace two to three times a week in the guise of humor and commentary. Sometimes, I may chat about games or just amusing things I've discovered. Anything that I so choose to fill the time.

I also may be trying out new monologues or bylines. Let this serve as a warning.

Perhaps I will see your IP in the logs again.

DO NOT FAIL ME.

1. Stolen.
2. Actually, mostly soldiers and automated camera/death ray emplacements.
3. Bonus points for getting the movie reference ("Points" have no cash value. Void in all 50 States and Canada.)
4. No, it causes mayhem. An essential tool for the overlord-on-the-go.
5. Actually, I don't have to imagine it. The final act of my in-fortress cameras was to send me a picture of his face over the controls as the explosions began. Truly the best laugh I've had in months.
6. Always assume your enemies have survived, if you haven't seen their smoldering remains and checked the dental records.
7. Beggars at the island fortress were simply vaporized by automated lasers or pushed into the lava moat if the lasers were down for maintenance.
8. When you're the only one with the brilliance to program in a 5-dimension holographic interface to manage the VR environment, you have to program all your own games -- which means you know all the puzzle solutions and cheat codes.