realultimatepower.net

Please excuse me for noding something that is both a URL and an in-joke, but www.realultimatepower.net has become a well-known website on almost the same scale as All Your Base, without creating the obnoxious splash that All Your Base did.

Realultimatepower.net is put together by a kid named Robert. It is all about Ninjas, and how they are totally sweet because they flip out and kill people. Robert wants to make it clear how totally awesome ninjas are, and to dispell myths about ninjas, like they are afraid of slicing off people's heads.

This site, like other great internet humor sites, such as Seanbaby, works because it piles ridiculousness on ridiculousness. Some people may find the joke stupid, but personally after the 12th reference to wailing guitars and hot babes, the joke becomes funnier, not less funny. Especially when you are in a room with seven people suffereing sleep deprivation and repeating the same joke.

Despite the ridiculousness, the site's author actually does manage to develop his personality, and his subject matter, in a somewhat subtle manner, albeita subtly clothed with such phrases as "a pirate with the lasers and everything".

At the very least, don't let your other net junkie friends become more hip then you. Go to realultimatepower.net right now. It is Totally sweet.

The Star Wars Kid. William Hung. Anything at snopes.com. The web is fertile ground for rumor and high craziness. It has a culture all its own, and with digital manipulation being within the grasp of ten-year-olds, that culture is often comprised of the less-than-genuine article. When a ten-year-old boy can create a website, complete with a dogmatic review of ninjas, hatemail, videos, fake news articles, and a swarm of followers and copycats, "that's what I call Real Ultimate Power!!!!"

I realize that some of you may have no idea what I'm talking about. Your face is taking on an increasingly suspicious cast, and your mouse-finger is beginning to get click-happy by the down-vote button. Wait! Go ahead and surf over to www.realultimatepower.net and see what all this nonsense is about. Be sure that your sound is on, and if you're at work, be sure that your sound is turned way up.

Yes, that is Big Pimpin' playing in the background in MIDI no less. As you peruse the site get ready for the education of a lifetime regarding ninjas. For example, consider the following:

Facts:

1. Ninjas are mammals.
2. Ninjas fight ALL the time.
3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.

The website's author, Robert Hamburger, surely has a prosperous life ahead of him as a world-class conman. Rather than take the site for its comedic value some visitors have been seriously offended. The funniest section of the site is the rather large quantity of hatemail that Robert receives. One particularly outlandish message is from one Margerie Evans, mother of three. She writes :

Dear Mr. Hamburger.

I am a single mother. A single mother of three boys! And it's tough enough to keep them from acting up without people like you in the world. You are a disgrace to the whites, if you're white. My second born son has been, as you call it, "flipping out" recently and he started doing so around the same time the boys discovered your site.

Apparently this writ of wrath was not enough to sate her rage, and a lawsuit followed in 2002. Thankfully for the future of free-speech as we know it, the judge quickly threw out the case. This brings me to my next point.

If part of Robert's site is a forgery, then why not the whole thing? Maybe Mr. Hamburger is actually a master of stealth and chicanery on the web - a net ninja if you will. The lawsuit and hatemail themeselves are likely contrived, as these are the greatest attention getters on the site. Robert has netizens offering to turn his highly juvenile stories into movies. Do a search for "are so sweet I want to crap my pants" on Google and you will come across hundreds of copycat pages that substitute verbage and the ninja in "The Official Ninja Webpage" with whatever their hearts desire. There was even "The Official Saxon Webpage!" It's hard to get more random than that.

The frosting on the cake, as it were, is quite recent although the site is very old. Robert Hamburger is actually selling his new book, Real Ultimate Power: The Official Ninja Book, on Amazon. For only ten bucks you can share in Robert's authorial debut as early as July. Will wonders never cease.

Q: I heard that ninjas are always cruel or mean. What's their problem?

A: Whoever told you that is a total liar. Just like other mammals, ninjas can be mean OR totally awesome.