If, like me, you strive to achieve excellency in any field you put your mind to, be it risk assessment and investment banking or complete world domination through evil masterplan, here are a few useful pointers to being an efficient and successful Evil Overlord, plucked from the canonical Evil Overlord Guide:

2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through

5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.

12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation

28. My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.

35. I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.

[…]

42. When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around.

43. I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans.

50. My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks.

51. If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess’ cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position.

56. My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.

65. If I must have computer systems with publically available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.

78. I will not tell my Legions of Terror “And he must be taken alive!” The command will be “And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical.”

86. I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.

87. My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.

96. My door mechanisms will be designed so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.

116. If I capture the hero’s starship, I will keep it in the landing bay with the ramp down, only a few token guards on duty and a ton of explosives set to go off as soon as it clears the blast-range.

136. If I build a bomb, I will simply remember which wire to cut if it has to be deactivated and make every wire red.

147. I will classify my lieutenants in three categories: untrusted, trusted, and completely trusted. Promotion to the third category will be awarded posthumously.

160. Before being accepted into my Legions of Terror, potential recruits will have to pass peripheral vision and hearing tests, and be able to recognize the sound of a pebble thrown to distract them.

176. I will add indelible dye to the moat. It won’t stop anyone from swimming across, but even dim-witted guards should be able to figure out when someone has entered in this fashion.

179. I will not outsource core functions.

181. I will decree that all hay be shipped in tightly-packed bales. Any wagonload of loose hay attempting to pass through a checkpoint will be set on fire.

190. If my mad scientist/wizard tells me he has almost perfected my Superweapon but it still needs more testing, I will wait for him to complete the tests. No one ever conquered the world using a beta version.

205. All repair work will be done by an in-house maintenance staff. Any alleged “repairmen” who show up at the fortress will be escorted to the dungeon.

211. If my chief engineer displeases me, he will be shot, not imprisoned in the dungeon or beyond the traps he helped design.

218. I will not pick up a glowing ancient artifact and shout “Its power is now mine!!!” Instead I will grab some tongs, transfer it to a hazardous materials container, and transport it back to my lab for study.

221. My force-field generators will be located inside the shield they generate.

230. I will not procrastinate regarding any ritual granting immortality.

231. Mythical guardians will be instructed to ask visitors name, purpose of visit, and whether they have an appointment instead of ancient riddles.

Evil Overlord Guide

Yes. As you may have guessed by the sheer laziness of the above post, we aren’t quite past that nasty case of deadlinitis around the house. I promise we will resume actual blogging by next week.