What you are about to hear should not be taken too seriously, or else it becomes tragic.

Hello and welcome to the Kakos Industries corporate shareholder announcements. At Kakos Industries, we help our shareholders, clients, onlookers, and occasionally spies that have infiltrated our ranks to Do Evil Better. I am Corin Deeth III, and I am CEO. As you all know, I am contractually obligated to provide you with these announcements. In addition to that, it is one of my favorite parts of my job. When everything goes to plan, of course. I should tell you that after our last broadcast, no one has heard from Hank Rumpus from the Division of Sounds, Samples, and Putting Wilhelm Screams in Everything. It is unclear what Evil he set out to do, but we are all certain he will show up at some point. It is possible that he is merely lost in the myriad of wonderful sounds here at Kakos Industries. We can’t keep track of everyone, obviously.

You are receiving this broadcast via whatever you made from that box of parts we sent you. I hope you got everything assembled in time. I also hope that there were the right pieces to actually assemble a radio in your box. Also that you weren’t too scared by the threats contained in the box. In case you struggle with reading, the threats went something like this: Make a radio in time for the next broadcast and you won’t die from inhaling electronic components. We would never make you inhale electronic components. It was just a precaution. If you used all the pieces, then they wouldn’t be loose anymore, and you wouldn’t accidentally inhale them. In an ideal universe. There was another threat that some of you received. It read: Finish this radio or you won’t hear about the amazing coupons. There are no coupons. I’m sorry. We just really wanted to make sure that you listened. I can’t say for certain what your radio ended up looking like or what its frequency response or clarity is like. All I know is that as long as you used the UltraCrystalDark in the circuit board, then you should be tuned to the right frequency. The other parts were just stuff we had laying about. I would be careful handling that UltraCrystalDark, by the way. If you happen to break it, the flakes of the crystal will attach to your skin and begin to grow new crystals. It’s especially bad to breath them in. In addition, this device will let out a certain amount of radiation. This is actually good news for shareholders. This radiation will actually counteract some other radiation shareholders were exposed to recently. However, if you aren’t a shareholder, and I should emphasize that this broadcast is exclusively for shareholders, then you do not have this protective layer of previous radiation to protect you. Move away quickly. Or become a shareholder ASAP and get that healing dose. And before I forget, be sure to send us the pictures of what you made!

Did you enjoy Black Friday, shareholders? Remember that Black Friday is different from Dark Friday, the day when we wish ourselves into the darkest Universe, but it might not have felt that different. This year, we flooded shops around the world with our new patented Cranky Gas. It helps people to commit to purchases when presented with direct competition for those purchases. Our statistics indicate that we increased the velocity of currency by an order of magnitude, and helped to maintain a number of amphetamine induced erections on wall street. This might come as a surprise for some of you, shareholders, but the angle of those erections pairs linearly with the rise in global Evil. For those of you who came down to the main branch to see what we had in store for you, well, it was better than a poke in the eye. That is, it was a poke in the eye and a cup of black coffee. The price was nine-thousand dollars. I am told it was pretty good coffee. Such a bargain. We also had a sale on whipped cream underwear. I remember hearing some complaints that the whipped cream underwear was actually just a can of whipped cream that looked like it might have been in a refrigerator in our cafeteria for a few months, but it wasn’t. It was whipped cream underwear. And it was worth the nine-thousand dollars we charged for it. Those of you who waited in line were treated to more poetry by our very own Fettucio Laxicus, who you might remember shouted poetry into the building when the Cult of Ohh Ahh had taken over. He changes his name pretty regularly it seems. Artists do that, I guess. I am told the poems were called Ode to the Very Very Dark and The Grand Tercets, and he read them both over and over until Black Friday arrived. One person did die waiting in line for this event. We can’t be certain that Mr. Laxicus had anything to do with it, though, and we should definitely not start rumors.

Last year at this time we had the Festival of Cloud Watching. The ancient rule book that we have been following since some time last year indicates that we should not, and I’m quoting here, “wear out the Festival of Cloud Watching.” It then lists a number of other festivals that we can have instead. One festival is the Festival of Titties. We won’t be doing that one for obvious reasons. Then there’s the Festival of Abstract Art. That’s a plausible festival for sure, but it lost narrowly to the Festival of Cold. I don’t know how the Festival of Cold won. It really just seems like there weren’t a whole lot of people who actually wanted the Festival of Abstract Art, and there were enough people that specifically did not. So, at any rate, we encourage you to come down to the main branch to experience the cold. To make friends with the cold. To invite the cold into your heart. We’re in the process of building some ice structures on the tundra lawn as we speak. You’ll be able to go inside them. We’re working on some music as well. We’re using a lot of glockenspiel, because that’s what people think of when they think of cold music. And xylophone. Cymbals. Twinkly stuff, I guess. Anyway, it should be interesting.

The Division of Erotic Experiences is off to a good start, I am told. Ms. Aashna has taken control and started moving in a couple of different directions. Perhaps the most interesting of those directions at the moment is decoding ancient sexual texts, or sexts for short. I am told that they are uncovering the wisdom that the horniest of the ancients left for us regarding the things they did to get off just a little bit more than the last time. So far they’ve uncovered a number of number of sexual maneuvers that require a diving board. Not so practical in my opinion, but maybe just the right thing for some. I have seen a few of them demonstrated, and they are exciting to see, but I can’t imagine they’re that great to be a part of. The ancients, it seems, were occasionally desperate for anything new to try in bed. But then again, we all know what their sex lives were like. I’m not even sure modern humans are equipped for that. I recommended to Ms. Aashna that they try something a little bit more modern as well. She said, “Oh? Like a computer that reads your mind and just gives you whatever porn you want at that moment?” I think she was being sarcastic, but I thought for a moment and said, yeah. Just like that. So they’re working on that, too.

Bernice Largo, a colleague of mine on my support staff, has been sending me messages reminding me to do stuff with my extra secretaries since she raised concerns about my sex life a while back. I take it that her stance is not actually based on being converted to the Cult of Ohh Ahh. Her affiliation with them is still not something I’m certain of. I’m not really crazy about that situation. Perhaps one day it will be exactly what I want, but for now, it seems like a violation of a bond. But Corin, isn’t violating bonds exactly your job? Yes, shareholders (and my extra secretaries) it is. I’m working on it. If my secretaries are listening to this broadcast right now, then I would like to remind them that the “Grab me by the Pussy” T-shirts are in poor taste.

Shareholders, our oracles have determined that there has been a change in the political climate recently. They figured this out by licking their fingers and feeling the flow of air outside of our building. Between the forces of ordered Evil and chaotic Evil, things have shifted a bit more to the chaotic side. This may come as a shock to some of you who were expecting more ordered Evil for some time to come. Some of you may not remember the more chaotic parts of the past, but they were there. We will survive this together, as forces for bringing order to the world of Evil. At Kakos Industries, we believe that the cushier the average person’s life becomes, the easier it is to do Evil on that person. You might find this difficult to believe, but the pain you feel when you have to get up to get the remote control to change the channel on your television is actually the adjusted equivalent of someone getting kicked by a horse a thousand years ago and the existential dread you feel wondering if it’s possible to live a meaningful life within the confines of our social and economic structures today is the equivalent of watching your village burn to the ground a thousand years before that. And yet you get to experience those modern pains anew each day. And we don’t have to go through the trouble of razing a village to do it. So this shift will require us to change some of our tactics. We like those simple pains that we can inflict on everyone equally. Pains that harm some more than others are boring and tired and less efficient. And those of us at Kakos Industries feel uncomfortable in a world where not everyone is allowed to be as weird and different as they like. It’s like cooking with fewer spices. We will focus less on the Angry and We Mean It Party. It is firmly established by now, and it will continue doing its Evil, telling people that asking for the industry to be restored to their town is not asking for a handout or at all impractical. And we will also reduce our orderly smugness. Perhaps it’s just as unhelpful as we think. We’re also working on some new movements that may help to reign in the chaos. We’ve been tossing around some names, like the Stop It Granma Party, or the Please Treat Me Like a Human Being, If You Would Be So Kind Party. I’m a personal fan of the Can We Please Start Living in the Fucking Future Already Party.

The Cult of Ohh Ahh have not yet figured out what they are going to do with themselves. We feel somewhat responsible for the situation they are in, so we’ve let them take up residency in one of the basements. Our miners are always adding on new basements, sometimes faster than we can fill them. Also, kicking the cult out of the building has been unpopular in board meetings, mostly because they’ve been seeing to the “needs” of the board members. It is possible that they have shown themselves to be so symbiotic that we will never see them leave. As far as I know Kimmie is still with the Cult of Ohh Ahh. I haven’t seen her for a little while. I haven’t seen many of the cult members at all. I did see two of them hunting for herbs in the various lawns around Kakos Industries the other day. Maybe they are actually going to start making herbal teas.

They say that Evil has been fired from every job it every worked, but only for saying offensive things a few times. This is Things We’re Taking Credit for Now. This week, we’re taking credit for social media, image crafting, and society as a whole. Of course, we can’t be certain if we’re actually responsible for these things. We can’t even know for sure that we haven’t taken credit for them in the past. But I am asserting right here, right now, that they are ours. If you disagree, your social media presence is going to get a little weird. Not in a fun way. Please be careful.

Richard Bagshaw has lost this week’s Ruin-A-Life Drawing. If you’ve heard this segment a couple of times by now, you know that that means he was someone’s nemesis. Whose nemesis is a little bit complicated. On the paperwork I have in front of me, it appears that someone has just doodled a picture of a grinning shark. This is what we get for not specifying the character set that entries can be written in. I fear the day when I have to sit here and interpret emojis for both the winner and loser of this drawing. I do just fine with facial expressions, but how do you really interpret an emoji? And how do you know what the drawings look like on the receiver’s device? Anyway, we spun the wheel of misery and it landed on “flowery”. From this day forward, or whenever the Damnation and Ruination squad gets around to it, Richard Bagshaw will become 300% more flowery. No, he won’t be covered in flour, but he might be covered in flowers. I understand that his language will be 300% flowerier, as will be his appearance. This will be annoying for every person that has to deal with him and is certain to ruin his life. For good measure, or Evil measure, or whatever kind of measure you want, we’ll be making this drawing of a grinning shark and hopefully the human entity it represents 30% less flowery. Life with this person will become less interesting. Congratulations on the win and best of luck.

And that brings us to the end of this broadcast. Please remember to photograph your electronic device before you do anything to destroy it, and also please remember that destroying the UltraCrystalDark will cause new crystals to begin growing on any moist surface the fragments land on. You know what, we should probably round those up. Just put ‘em outside, and we’ll get some people to come by. Or something. We might put the best ones in an art installation or something. We’ll call it “Innovations of Fear” or something like that. Visitors will shell out forty-five dollars to see that, no doubt. There was no crisis today, shareholders, and of that I am proud. But just to give you a little extra sense of danger in case you’re missing it, I’ve done today’s broadcast with a whole bunch of clothespins attached to my body. Soundman didn’t think I could do it. I’ve shown him. The numbers are next.

321
1
0
1
-1
2
444
5
1223
009
108
33
456
1
2
1
9

Kakos Industries is written and produced by Conrad Miszuk, who is also the voice of Corin Deeth. The music is also composed by Conrad Miszuk. The introduction is read by Kim Aiello, and the credits are read by Hanna Jones, who is currently reminding you to spay and neuter your animals. Check out KakosIndustries.com for more episodes. There’s also transcriptions if you like to read along with the Kakos Industries announcements. That’s K-A-K-O-S-I-N-D-U-S-T-R-I-E-S dot com. Please check out store.KakosIndustries.com for merchandise and special offers and become a patron at kakosindustries.com/patreon. Questions, comments, or a strong desire to collaborate? Drop us a line at inquiries@kakosindustries.com. If you like Kakos Industries, be sure to rate and review us on your favorite podcasting service, and connect with us on Facebook (facebook.com/kakosindustries), Tumblr (kakosindustries.tumblr.com), and Twitter (@KakosIndustries).

Special thanks to Patreon patrons Ian Kroall, Dan Shumway, Patrick Green, Renee Stein, Courtney Campbell, Elizabeth Kreick, Manannan, Feddy Lax, and Brittney Garcia. Our Patreon patrons are the best. If you want a thank you in the credits or other great rewards that help to keep this show running, please head to Kakosindustries.com/patreon. That’s Patreon: p-a-t-r-e-o-n.

If you’re feeling down after this broadcast, have you considered moving to the woods to get away from it all?