Creative Writing: Part the Fifth - the Request Post

Helloooo, campers! It's Monday, and you know what that means! Oh, well, yes, it does mean that. But what I was talking about is that it's time to submit your comments/snippets for this week's installment of the "Bob Locks in Two Days of Posting Per Week With One Idea" aka "Creative Writing Post"!

So, leave me something like...

The seed taters had, as usual, eyes. What was unusual was that the eyes were looking at her malevolently.

And come Saturday, I'll weave all the comments into a reasonable and coherent whole. Or try to, at any rate.

Links to previous Saturday Fiction entries can be found in the sidebar. --->

Sunday Night Limerick

There once was an Norskie named Aslo
Who hailed from the city of Oslo
He moved from the city
And man, it 'tweren't pretty
On the ice he learned to keep his ass low

Praise Pedantry!

Amen. That's all I have to say to this.

Okay, I will say more.

I know that English is a living language, and therefore constantly changing. That's fine, as long as the change makes sense. Confusing "rein" and "reign"? Not so sensical.

Of course, my mom is a retired English teacher, so what do I know?

Sunday Video

I was having a chat with a friend, and something happened that reminded me of a scene from the Danny Kaye movie, The Court Jester. We use GMail to chat, and (probably as in most chat platforms) when the one with whom you are conversing is entering text, it says "____ is typing...". Well, I saw that message for quite some time, and when she hit enter, all that popped up was "Okay."


Anyway, I looked for just that scene, which I have always thought was one of the funniest in the film (which, if you haven't seen... please do. You'll laugh a lot, I promise). Alas, I could only find it as part of a compilation of scenes from the movie, posted below. The one I'm talking about begins at approx 2:40 into the clip, with "the moment" at 4:45.

Saturday Fiction 4

It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, out on the edge of... wait, that's not right. *Ahem* It was a slow week in the city in the mountains. I was still hoping to hear from Arianne, but was beginning to think that it would never happen. I had several of my PI compatriots all over the country looking out for any info about her, but all I could do was wait... and empty yet another bottle of gin as I sat at my desk brooding. I was thinking about going down to the liquor store to get a fresh bottle, when my office door opened and in walked a tall blonde. She crossed the room and sat across the desk from me, flipping her long, silken hair over her shoulder. "I understand you're a Private Investigator," she said as she pulled a cigarette from a silver case and lit it. "Yes, I am," I answered, sliding the half-full ashtray across the desk. "It says so, right on my door." "Oh. I ... didn't notice." She sat for a minute, silently smoking her cigarette. I was just about to ask if she needed my services when she spoke up. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come here. Forgive me for bothering you." She stood up and turned to leave, and I said "Wait, Miss ...". I could see the hesitation on her face as she stood there considering her next move. Finally she sat back down. "Davis. Eloise Davis. I work in the research labs over at the university, and we have a ... situation going on. I was hoping you'd be able to help out." "My standard rate is 200 a day, plus expenses," I told her. She nodded her head and proceeded to explain the problem. "As I said, I work in the university labs. I specialize in AI - that's artificial intelligence. For the last three years my team has been working on designing intelligent home appliances. Not mindless robots that follow pre-programmed instructions like a Roomba, but ones that will actually foresee and take care of all housekeeping needs. These days, with two - or even three - income households being the norm, people just don't have the time and energy to maintain a spotless home. "Anyway, two months ago, we got a grant from a new patron. It was a very large grant, but it came with a couple of provisos - one of which was the addition of a new researcher, Dr. Gary Smedlin. That's when the trouble started." She paused for a moment, then asked "May I use your restroom?" "Help yourself," I said, gesturing to the door. I waited while she ... took care of business, and when she came back out I said, "I'm not sure how I can help. The only knowledge I have of computers is the PIN number for my ATM card." This wasn't exactly true, as I had both a MySpace page and accounts at several online poker sites, but that wasn't important now. "Oh, it's not the science that I want to to look at," she replied as she looked in the full-length mirror on the wall next to the bathroom door. "I want you to check out Dr. Smedlin. There's something ... creepy about him." She was checking her stockings in the mirror when the phone rang. "Noir," I said, speaking into the phone. It was my landlord, reminding me that the rent had been due the week before. I sighed and said, "Yeah, I've got a case I'm looking into right now. I'll have the money for you by the end of the week," and hung up the phone. "Looks like you've hired yourself a private eye, Miss Davis." She gave me directions to her lab, and Smedlin's address, and I told her I'd be by later that day. After she left I went down to the Five Spot for a cup of Jimmy's famous coffee, to help clear my head. Jimmy set the cup of steaming hot java in front of me and said, "Gee, Guy, you look like you've been run over. What gives?" "Just keep the pot handy, Jimmy. I'm not in the mood to talk," I answered. I grabbed the powdered creamer container to add to my cup, but when I turned it up nothing came out. Peeking in the opening in the top, I saw that it was empty. Jimmy got me a fresh container, and I proceeded to drink three cups of the strong brew before I felt up to hailing a cab for the trip across town to the university. Forty-five minutes later I walked up to the door of the lab where Davis - and Smedlin - worked. As I reached up to knock, I heard a scream, and then laughter, from inside. A quick check confirmed that my Special was in its shoulder holster, and I opened the door to see what was going on. Eloise stood in one corner of the large room, a large shop-vac vacuum cleaner spinning around wildly, spewing water near her. Over by a bank of computers stood the laughing man - it must have been Smedlin. There was a look of mania in his eyes as he laughed, and I shivered a bit at the sight of it. When Smedlin saw me, he stopped laughing and ran over to the shop-vac, yelling imprecations at the appliance and flipping a switch on the side of an odd-looking box mounted to the side of the vac. The vacuum cleaner took the tirade in stride, and calmly continued its task, sucking up the water that it had just spewed all over the lab. "Who is this, Davis? Some knight in," he looked at my rumpled clothing, "dingy armor, come to 'save' you?" Smedlin cackled as he returned to his side of the research lab. "I've had enough of you and your petty, insane practical jokes, Smedlin," Eloise hissed at his back as she stalked across the room, the squelching of her sodden shoes sending the mad scientist into further gales of laughter. I fixed Smedlin with a gimlet eye, and said, "Soggy socks will never stop her." Adventures require fortitude, and we were going to experience much worse than wet feet. But I didn't yet know that. "Who the hell are you, and why are you here?" Smedlin yelled, flipping a switch on the side of an iron, which started working on a pair of slacks lying on an ironing board. The shop-vac saw this, moved over to the ironing board and latched on to the dangling pant leg. Before I could answer the question, the iron attacked the shop-vac and Smedlin reached for the off switches on the two appliances. The iron dodged his attempt and leaped across the ironing board and onto the adjacent counter top. The shop-vac tried to get away from the scientist, to no avail. Smedlin straightened from flipping the switch, thinking all was under control again, but then the iron got involved and it was asymmetrical warfare all over again. The iron managed to reactivate the shop-vac, which in turn powered up a weed trimmer and a chainsaw, and ... the results weren't pretty. When the fury in the middle of the room subsided, there wasn't much of Smedlin left in one piece - but the bits lying about weren't human, they were machine parts. After making sure that the rogue appliances weren't going to attack Eloise or myself, I reached down and picked up the head of the "scientist", which was trailing hundreds of wires which had been attached to various other bits. The back of the head popped open, and inside was a small jar. The jar contained a thick black sludge that looked as if it might be a new, or alien, life form. It had several wires of different gauge running from it to clusters of relays inside the head. Looking more closely at the jar, I discovered that there was a dead cockroach inside it. I looked at Eloise, who was shaken but recovering, and said, "I'm assuming this was a straightforward case of insect asphyxiation." ....

It has come to my attention that not everyone is familiar with A Prairie Home Companion and the character of Guy Noir. I find this information difficult to absorb, but then I'm weird like that. I hope Garrison Keillor won't be upset that I'm using this iconic character.

All The World's Ills ...

Can be traced to one thing:



And now we know.

(h/t to FranIAm)

Friday Morning Quickie

In the long-lost country of Upper Farawayia, there was great excitement. After thousands of years without contact with the outside world, the benevolent and hereditary leader, The Shan, had decided to open the borders to limited trade and interaction.

The people oohed and aahed at the bits of technology that merchants brought to them (while secretly feeling smug that these outsiders had limited telepathic abilities - the Farawayians were by no means 'backwards'), but decided by unspoken agreement that they would not allow their nation to be cluttered by materialistic things.

The one exception was to convince The Shan to accept a gift of an automobile from her loving people. After comparing models, the Committee to Select a Car chose a brand new metallic purple Honda to be the new conveyance for The Shan.

With great pomp, The Shan and her entourage set out on a progress, visiting all corners of Upper Farawayia to thank the people for the fine gift.

In the small mountain village of Phylesia, however, tragedy struck. As The Shan was giving a speech to the villagers, somehow the emergency brake on the car disengaged and the vehicle suddenly started rolling forward. Everyone was so entranced by The Shan's speech, that none noticed the hurtling car until it was too late.

"Oh, my God!" one of the villagers cried out. "The Fit has hit The Shan!"

This Post Is Not About Sunspots

This post is about blog visitors and from whence they came.

I love the InterWebs Tubes. In the last 12 hours alone, I've had visitors from all these countries:










Can you name them all, WITHOUT USING A SEARCH ENGINE (or rolling over the images, cause I didn't change the names when I uploaded them)?

(and, yes, I know there's a trick in there. Do you?)

How To Speak Republican!

I seem to be all about the companion posts these days. I found this one over at Monkey Muck, and it's the natural complement to the "I'm Voting Republican" post I put up a couple weeks ago.



(for any who can't see the video, the secret is to use the word "liberal")

Should We Just Go Ahead And Cancel July 4th Celebrations?

Read this now.

Ancestors of mine fought and died in the American Revolution, and, according to my cousin's research, one of them was a signatory of the Declaration of Independence.

Sorry, guys, that we couldn't hold on to that which you believed, even to the point of death.

Python Random Thor's Day

Pheaux Phyre Phorum: The Thank Dog My Phriends Reminded Me It's Wednesday Or I Would Have Totally Spaced On This Edition

Helllooooooo!

First Wednesday of Summer!

Ummmm,.... Yes.

I could use a beer.

How 'bout you?

Straight Talk From the Horse's ....

Yes!
No!
Maybe!

"My wife is a trollop and a c*nt!"

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

My parents grew up during the Great Depression. They never were part of the images above or below, mainly because they were from poor families to begin with, and had gardens and livestock. But they were aware of what was going on in the country, and I know that they hoped that their children would never have to experience the like. It appears that their hope may not be successful.



From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal:

The chaos that erupted outside Milwaukee County's main welfare office Monday over disaster-related food aid had more to do with a weak economy and crushing poverty in parts of this community than the devastating floods that swept through the state earlier this month, local government and food relief officials said. ... "We expect long lines for free food in Third World countries," Hines said. "We don't expect a line of 2,500 people waiting for food vouchers" in Milwaukee.

Let's keep turning food into fuel, okay? Because having corn-based biofuel in your tank is much more important than something silly like, oh, I don't know ... allowing other people to be able to feed their kids.

Oh, and what were those profits for Bush Buddies Big Oil last quarter, again?

Ememe

Meaning, I received this one via email....

2008 QUESTIONNAIRE Welcome to the 2008 edition of getting to know your friends. Change all the answers so they apply to you, and then send this to your friends including the person who sent it to you. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little things about your friends that you might not have known! 1. What time did you get up this morning? 7:00am 2. Diamonds or pearls? As I'll never be able to afford either, meh. 3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Heh. Star Trek: Generations, I believe. Yep, haven't been to a cinema in around ten years. 4. What is your favorite TV show? Current? LOST All time? M*A*S*H 5. What do you usually have for breakfast? Coffee 6. What is your middle name? Robert 7. What food do you dislike? Asparagus 8. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Bela Fleck and the Flecktones: Live at the Quick 9. What kind of car do you drive? 1993 Dodge Spirit (with only 85k miles) 10. Favorite sandwich? Reuben (and let me tell you, it's hard to find a really good reuben around here) 11. What characteristic do you despise? Hypocrisy 12. Favorite item of clothing? My little black dress ... errr, wait. I don't have one of those! So... my Lleu t-shirt that I got for my birthday 12 years ago. 13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? /smiles/ 14. Are you an organized person? The answer to that is somewhere under the pile of papers next to me.... 15. Where would you retire to? The drawing room. 16. What was your most recent memorable birthday? I remember last year's, does that count? 17. What are you going to do when you finish this? Post it. 18. Furthest place you are sending this? Out to the entire InterWebs Tubes, so everywhere!!1! 19. Person you expect to send it back first? The first person to read it 20. When is your birthday? 11 July (see my wishlist in the sidebar if you care to celebrate it with me ;) ) 22. What is your shoe size? 11½ EEE 23. Pets? As often as I can. Oh, you mean do I have any? Yup. Muh kittehs, Puff and Callie. 24. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? No. 25. What did you want to be when you were little? An astronaut. But then I got bigger and bigger ... and bigger. I quickly outgrew the height limitation. 26. How are you today? Sad that George Carlin died, but otherwise okay. 27. What is your favorite flower? Whatever fragrant blossoms are now in season. 29. What are you listening to right now? Classical music on the radio. 30. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? Dunno. 29. What was the last thing you ate? Popcorn. 31. Do you wish on stars? Sometimes, but more often on the moon (my ruling planet). 32. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Purple 33. How is the weather right now? Be-yoo-ti-ful! 34. Last person you spoke to on the phone? If Skype counts, my Dad. Otherwise, my friend Crystal. 35. Favorite soft drink? Don't drink soft drinks,unless they have liquor in them. ;) 36. Favorite restaurant? Jack of the Wood, in Asheville (they have really good reubens... not to mention Green Man beers, brewed on-site). 37. Hair color? Dark brown 38. What was your favorite toy as a child? My Red Rider BB gun (no, I didn't put my eye out). 39. Summer or W Chrissiinter? WTP does that mean? 41. Chocolate or Vanilla? Duh. Chocolate. 42. Coffee or tea? Coffee 43. Do you want your friends to email you back? Well, as I'm posting this on my blog, I don't see as how that's necessary, but if any of them want to, sure. 44. When was the last time you cried? One day last week. 45. What is under your bed? The steering wheel of the Secret Lair (aka '73 Winnebago) - I built a bed shelf over the 'cockpit' several years ago. 46. What did you do last night? Chatted with a dear friend, and the second string as well. 47. What are you afraid of? Another Republican administration. Ever. 48. Salty or sweet? I am both. 49. How many keys on your key ring? One. 50. How many years at your current job? I've been working for Gentleman Farmer since 2001, on and off. 51. Favorite day of the week? A day is a day is a day. 52. Do you make friends easily? Kinda. It depends on the person. 53. How many people will you send this to? Approximately 6.5 billion 54. How many will respond? A helluva lot less than 6.5 billion! 55. Do you like finding out all this stuff about your friends? Yes, it's nice to get to know friends better.

NOTE: The questions are numbered just as I received them. I have no idea what happened to the missing questions. If you see them, let me know.


If you read this, you must answer or you will break the chain, and your inbox will be flooded with "Viarga[sic]" and "Baby Maker" spams. Or not.

Is It Just Me...

...or is there something that just doesn't sound right about the following:

the Sierra Club and our friends at the United Steelworkers (USW) jointly endorsed Barack Obama for President.

(from an email received this morning)

The Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers, eh?

Is that anything like "and the lion shall lie down with the lamb"?

Creative Writing: Part the Fourth - the Request Post

Okay folks, it's time to give me some snippets, some quotes to use, some bit of action, some ... thing - which I will (attempt) to weave into a coherent story.

Something along the lines of:

The vacuum cleaner took the tirade in stride, and calmly continued its task.

Results of the previous "chapters" can be found in the sidebar, over ---->

RIP George

A cache of Carlinania (so called because he was a master of pointing out the inane - with a h/t to Jen):



So sad.

Here's more of the master of linguistic comedy. (unembeddable)

Carlin on "Countdown" (transcript):



Here is (for those who can't watch videos) a transcript of Carlin's diatribe on Religion, and here is his monolog on "Transhumanism".

REVA*

Jen pointed me to this one. The title translates correctly as "Virtual Eruptions". However, in Spanish (or so Jen tells me - and I have no reason to doubt her), "erupción" also translates as "burp".

Look at the photo again.


*"Riéndose en Voz Alta" or "Laughing out Loud"

Saturday Fiction 3

Teresa was on her way to Las Vegas, having gotten a tip that Bill and Jerry had been spotted at the Luxor, when her cell phone rang. "Hello?" "Hi, Teresa, it's Lynne," came the response. "I've got good news for you. We've decided to push up the release date of your book to next week." Teresa had been waiting months to hear this news, but was, for the moment, confused - her mind was so focused on getting to Vegas before Bill left town. "I'm sorry?" she asked. "Book? ... Oh! Why, that's great!" "I thought you'd be happy," Lynne replied. "But I need you to be in New York this afternoon. We've booked you on Regis & Kelly to talk about it. There's a ticket waiting at the airport for you. Oh, and make sure you pack a green outfit." Why was green so very important? She had no idea. But that really wasn't a concern right now. "Ummm, I'm not at home. I'm on I-40 between Flagstaff and Kingman, on my way to Vegas." She hesitated, not wanting to say why she was on her way to Vegas. Somehow, she didn't think that telling her editor that she was on her way to kill her ex would be a career plus. "Vegas? Okay,... we can get you a ticket on the red-eye into New York, and I'll get someone to pick up an outfit for you." Lynne said. "Postpone your gambling and head to the airport. I'll have a driver waiting at Newark, to take you to your hotel. See you in the morning!" ... and she hung up. Shit. Shit, shit, shit... Teresa thought as she dropped the cell phone on the seat beside her.... Meanwhile, in Vegas............ Bill awoke from a deep sleep and looked around the room. Luckily, Jerry was not there. Breathing a sigh of relief, Bill let go of the closed umbrella he had been clutching when he finally drifted off to sleep, got up from the bed, and headed for the bathroom. Bill wasn't sure what had been going on with Jerry the night before. He'd been perfectly content to let the laundry pile up in the corner. That is, until the pile started talking to him. Bill suspected it had something to do with the 300 pound Samoan he had seen talking to Jerry in the casino earlier. Something wasn't quite right about the guy - flailing his arms about like he was swatting at giant flies and all that. As he stepped under the stream of hot water in the shower, he thought again about trying to call Teresa and seeing if he could explain. By the time he finished showering, he knew exactly what he would say to her ... if she answered the phone. He reached for the towel and his hand closed on something unexpected. What was this? A second umbrella?... Later that morning, in the Green Room of the Regis & Kelly show....... Teresa finished off her fourth cup of coffee since awakening, confused, in her hotel room. She really needed to pee, but had been cornered by Regis, who was telling stories of his childhood, and Kelly - who was being very ... Kelly. As Regis finished a story about how his mom did his nail polish the first time he cross-dressed, Teresa looked around desperately, hoping to catch Lynne's attention. Unfortunately, Lynne had left the room with one of the other guests, to do what Teresa didn't know. As Regis paused in his torrent of tales of his youth, Kelly piped up with a series of questions. When the host asked how A Wizard of Earthsea was different than Harry Potter, she sat stunned for a moment and then realized, she was in the presence of stupid people with no knowledge of classical fantasy. Teresa stood up abruptly and she cried, "No more, no more" and ran out of the room. She ran down the hall and out to the street, where she stood stunned. It was raining, but it wasn't water falling from the sky. She started shaking her head in denial as she stared at the scene in front of her. It had been years since she had seen that many frogs in one place.... Back in Vegas............ Bill hurried down the hall of the luxury hotel, buttoning his shirt with one hand, and trying not to drop his shoes as he rushed for the elevator. Something was very wrong. He jabbed at the "G" repeatedly, hoping - as people in a hurry always do - that it would somehow speed up the process of the elevator doors closing and the car getting to its destination. The elevator performed its duties in at its own pace, however, but eventually (to Bill's frantic thinking) opened the doors and let him out in the lobby. He ran past the slot machines and out the door, planning on grabbing the first taxi in line to get him the hell away from whatever was happening back in the room that he and Jerry had been sharing. As the heat of a Las Vegas day hit him, he skidded to a halt, confused. There were no taxis or shuttle buses under the canopy. There was no valet, waiting for the next guest to arrive. There were no people visible anywhere. It was just too damn quiet outside.... ____________ He looked up from the unfinished manuscript and around the nearly empty room. This was just one of many partial stories that Arianne had left behind when she abruptly closed her bakery and left town, and he had finally gotten around to putting them into storage. He couldn't bring himself to throw them away, hoping that she would someday return. Guy sighed again as he looked around the large apartment that Arianne and he had called home for the short time they were together. The bells in the cathedral tolled 8, but it was only 3:45 as he reached over to get another box into which to put the stories and the other remainders of their relationship, and noticed that the boxes, once seemingly an endless pile, had suddenly run out. There was no container for the most precious of their belongings. Then he noticed the TCU umbrella in the corner.

As always, the suggested bits are in bold. Links for the previous two editions can be found in the sidebar. Look for the next request post on Monday!!