Review: Josh “I Win” Bantam
Josh “I Win” Bantam claims that he’s six-foot one and tons of fun, and that he likes to get along—but I’ll decide that one, slick.
What to say about Josh? Josh is a sweet man, but his cruel tendencies aren’t hidden too deep. He once DM’d a session of Dungeons and Dragons and made us stay up until 0600, mostly just doing math to see how hosed we were. From what I recall, at the end he chose to kill off our party, saying, “It is statistically improbable that the four of you can achieve a non-deleterious outcome, by which I of course mean, you do not have a mathematical chance of not perishing. A Superdragon appears and kills you all with fire. You can’t beat math. Or Superdragons made by math.”
Josh’s favorite pastime, however, cannot be discerned. He appreciates “adding numbers” and “crushing noobz at boardgames they’ve never played” with incredible enthusiasm. For the latter activity, he likes to conceal the true game objectives until the final move or round, at which time he announces, “So you win the game obviously with points, but remember that you actually get points for doing this.” Given that you didn’t know you got points for doing that, he then slays you.
Sometimes crushing people at games gets him so excited that he rips off his shirt while jumping up from the table, which he then flips over while bellowing, “I AM THE ONE-NIGHT ULTIMATE WEREWOLF! I AM! NOT YOU! ARRGGGGHHHHHHWWWWWWWW!!!”
Josh has a thick pelt of hair on his chest. All of his teeth are intact, and he has no cavities. He has one wife and one child. The wife is 1/3 of his height. He once crafted a light-weight, foldable ladder for her to use around the house; it was made out of “useless bones,” but he wouldn’t say where the bones came from. He was raised by a very large rat in a sewer, where he developed a ravenous taste for pizza.
Mr. Bantam works in finance. His job title is “punitive financier.” Broadly, he performs hundreds of freelance audits of people and businesses daily; upon finding an error, he changes into a fancy suit and monocle and reports on the mistake while rubbing a bag of money. His favorite animal is dragons. He believes that hoarding gold and valuables is an ethical obligation. His least favorite animal is hobbits. He objects to Santa Claus for “supporting the nanny state.”
Josh can run 6 miles at a time between breaths. His legs are 2.3 meters long exactly. He can calculate numbers faster than Google’s quantum computer. He believes in voting, but thinks that the best option is universally “none of the above.” He also always asks people who look close to death if he can be added to their wills. He says “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, it’s just math,” if you question him about the practice.
While he is named after a breed of domestic fowl, Josh hates all animals, inclusive of red pandas and baby seals. He especially hates guinea pigs, which he calls the “swine of the rat world.” He is always certain to note that he does love rats themselves for being “industrious” and “resilient to plague.”
Josh’s strengths include his strength and his unflappability. Literally no one has even been able to flap Josh. The reasons for this are unknown. Scientists would like to study him, but he declines their offers, saying, “I can tell you aren’t that good at math.” He does offer to teach them new board games, however.
Many people say that Josh has a great laugh, but laughing is a source of shame for him, so he never laughs more than two times in a row; he disguises them as coughs. Like sneezing, he says that it’s too involuntary to be trusted, in much the same way that adding numbers isn’t.
There has never been a human being who has not liked Josh.
I rate Josh 3 out of 5 stars. 3 stars are awarded for exceptionalism. 2 stars have been deducted for making everyone else look bad, and for correcting the math in this last sentence, which he says is technically 4 stars removed, making him 1 out of 5 stars.
One star is reserved for potential removal at a later date, for being too crafty with battle tractors.
3/5 Stars
Addendum: Josh’s least favorite game is Terraforming Mars, which he claims is immoral. (He is wrong.)
