great questions of the universe

__________________a long time ago_____________________
_________________in a galaxy far, far____________________
_______________away, lived a sage who was________________
_____________adamant about finding the answers____________
____________to the many irresolvable questions of____________
__________the universe. amongst them, he could answer________
________few, and among those few, are the great questions_______
______of which none can mortally come to an answer - questions____
__so metaphysical, that they are said to transcend the knowledge__
of even the great, sweet genetically-manipulated einstein jesus during his prime years. these questions are the ones which we shall attempt to solve today by entering the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge . This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone...

(cue The Outer Limits's theme song)

i've always been a fan of the x-files (also know as an x-phile). at least up to season 5 where it got a bit out of hand with mulder's alien obsessions. heck, as soon as season 6 rolled in it was basically the all-about-aliens-and-them-kidnapping-my-sister files. i liked the earlier seasons where you could watch the episodes independent of each other, each was a stand alone 30 minute story which was on random paranormal activity. towards the end, it progressively became more and more like a segmented movie on an alien, one with a very complex but dull storyline, and the only reason you kept watching was to
1. see the ending, and get this crap over with
2. because you were a fan to begin with
3. scully was pretty hot at the time?
4. mulder was pretty hot at the time (???)
5. cigarette smoking man. his name. now. NOW.
6. ???
7. profit

but really, it was still an awesome series. the theme song freaked my nephew out, and i think at some point it did the same to me as well. now i could go into a whole post about how awesome x-files was, and have the bashers hate, and the philes un-hate, but that's not the purpose of me writing today.

instead, i'd like to address a great question of the universe. one which ranks high up with the following questions:

1. cake > pie? (as discussed briefly in an earlier post)
2. which variant of sweet ______ jesus is the most powerful?
3. is life really like a box of chocolates? compare and contrast.
4. where's wally?
etc etc etc.

which, if i had the time and opportunity, i would like to cover in due time, but we'll address what we can at random: the topic for today is, pirates vs. ninjas.

it's obvious that pirates never met ninjas in the same temporal or spatial existence, else there might be a battle of such magnitude that the earth would tremble. volcanoes would bleed lava and the sky would be set ablaze with the fiery spirit of the dying warriors engaged in eternal battle for their pirate- or ninja-race. the earth would run damp with the blood of innocents collateral to the bloody onslaught lasting dawn to dusk. the echoing sound of nocturnal creatures feasting on the carcasses of the fallen dankly filter the screams of torture in the night, and the day would be greeted by death, anew. or the pirates would just join up with ninjas and the world would be a better place.

it's complex to think about ninja and pirates as a whole - the number and demography of each has not been documented - the pirates probably slew any who would attempt to census them:

'good day, sir, i am bartholomew christopher hills. if it would not inconvenience you and your merry crew, i would like to ask you a few questions... OH GOD THE PAIN. MY SPLEEN. IS THAT MY SPLEEN? WHY ARE YOU FEEDING ME MY SPLEEN BWALKJEAKJWEAJKALJ'

and the ninjas would probably just be untraceable.

so let's approach this in a scientific way, with as much controlled parameters as possible such that we can exclude all external factors and have the only manipulated variable be 'being a ninja' or 'being a pirate'. in fact, we'll do it in a humane way, such that we violate no human rights laws or create unethical code of conduct. with such limitations, there's only one sane way of pitting the two against each other. MANO E MANO FIGHT TO THE DEATH. somewhat like celebrity deathmatch, without the drama and wwf (wwe?) faked and staged fights.

think mortal kombat meets street fighter. except that's kind of like ninja vs. ninja. we need more pirate video games so i can make better analogies. anyhow. one on one. pirate vs ninja. doesn't get any more hard core than that. each has their own strengths and weaknesses. pirates being the most ruthless, powerful, dirty and dastardly scallywags with or without scurvy (depending on their lime consumption) to walk the earth. by definition, though, REAL pirates are the ones that never walk on land. born, live and die on a ship. REAL pirates. they're as hard to come across as rainbow unicorns with chocolate filling. and ninjas - masters of disguise and deception, who attack from the shadows and leave no trace. they'd kill so quickly you didn't know you were dead. your body would go around doing it's normal routine for months or years thinking it's alive, but it was actually dead. like a walking zombie. in fact, some theologians postulate that this is how sweet zombie jesus came into being: sweet living jesus got assassinated by a ninja and, well, the shit just hit the fan.

so really, with such strong competitors, how is it possible to determine a winner? especially for someone so far below them as ourselves? see, there's a reason this is called a great question of the universe. so i did a bit of research. there's not many pirates to be found on the interwebs, but i did find a ninja who gave us the answer on how to kill a ninja. that's some hard core information leak right there. now all i need to do is find out how to kill a pirate, and compare the methods - the harder one belonging to the winner, being the obvious conclusion. but then nothing is obvious as it seems, and i will strive evermore to find a REAL pirate and an authentic ninja (preferrably azn, instead of white like demonstrated in my link) and have them slug it out. random things do happen and will affect the outcome (as elaborated in my 'basic' probability post).

p/s: i'm a big fan of ask a ninja, and if you haven't watched it yet, feel free to start watching from question 1.

p/p/s: feel free to comment on which you think would win. pirate? ninja? radioactive hamsters from alpha centauri?