August 30, 2013
Gnorw Yaw. It seemed like the name of a fairy or a gnome, and to see it prominently displayed on a red sign highwayside had perplexed Sean to no end when he’d first seen it in his rearview mirror. But he had shrugged it off as some tomfoolery by the local college students.
It was only six weeks later, when he had awoken from the medically induced coma, that Sean realized the true meaning of hat mysterious fairy sign:
WRONG WAY.
August 24, 2013
Welcome back, students! Southern Michigan University, the third-largest university by enrollment in Michigan (assuming that you count our online students and not Western Michigan’s) is proud once again to welcome you back to our historic campus in Hopewell, MI. Southern Michigan University Student Housing (SMUSH) is proud to once again offer the following list of tips and useful information for your edification, especially for our incoming freshmen.
Be sure to have your mom walk you to your classrooms before classes start. Helicopter parents are hovering lower than ever before, so why not take advantage of that fact? And with the employment outlook at an all-time low, especially for your chosen double-major in philosophy and art history, combined with your sense of entitled distaste for any job less prestigious than the chancellor of a major university, you’ll be living with her again soon enough. Best keep her happy!
Make sure that you have the required dress code. Each new class of freshmen has their own fashion code to follow. Ladies will have to make sure they have the proper sneaker substitute (such as the Uggs or riding boots of years past) and pants substitute (like running shorts or leggings for previous classes). Gentlemen will of course be expected to follow a much stricter code of douchy shirts, khakis, and baseball caps oriented any way except toward the front. Over-gelled hair, carefully molded into the form of a duck’s butt, is an acceptable substitution.
Remember: the university is here to serve you and your tuition money pays the salary of everyone from the lowliest adjunct to the most powerful person on campus (the head football coach). So it is your right to demand exceptions to your classes’ tardy policies, campus parking policies, posted building hours, and more! After all, just because you insist on driving to class from your dorm since walking would require a brutal five-minute slog, that doesn’t mean that you should be any less annoyed at how few parking spots there are in the most developed part of campus!
Those of you who are interested in joining SMU’s thriving Greek scene, which actual Greeks ancient or modern would regard with apocalyptic horror, remember that there are special requirements laid upon you as well! Rushing will take up most of the time you would otherwise devote to getting your education, but you are welcome to drop out if you do not get into the fraternity or sorority of your choice, since the university collects your tuition for the semester regardless. And remember that even though hazing and refusing to admit pledges who do not meet certain physical beauty standards is illegal and a violation of the Geneva Convention, that behavior is tolerated by an administration addicted to the largesse of wealthy former Greek donors.
And finally, don’t let the fact that the Southern Michigan University Fighting Grizzlies are the laughingstock of the Big Seventeen national NCAA division get you down. It doesn’t matter than Southern Michigan University has neither the funds nor the donor base to compete in the intense national arms race that is college sports, in which fielding a winning team costs as much per season as the moon landing. Whether the team wins or (more likely) loses, you will still be able to participate in the vibrant local tailgating scene. After all, aren’t sports just an excuse to get drunk and behave in a rowdy fashion in a socially-sanctioned context? European soccer hooliganism and the ancient chariot race riots in Byzantium are just some of the rich traditions you will be tapping into.
An incoming freshman looking to kill a few brain cells before you inevitably boomerang home? A graduate student ready to occupy this or that because you accumulated $400,000 in debt getting a degree in Marxist political philosophy? A professor so ossified into the tenure structure that you haven’t changed your “Philogenetics of Freudian Archetypes in Derrida” syllabus since it was first xeroxed in 1977? Whether you fit into one of those broad categories or are a unique snowflake all of your own, remember this: college is a bubble. Don’t pop it, lest the existential horror of paying for a degree for which there are only thirteen jobs in the entire country overwhelm you.
August 23, 2013
“I swear, it isn’t mine!” said the kid. “My friend must have put it there.”
“Tell it to the judge,” the officer said. “Cuff him and read him his rights.”
While the kid was manhandled into the back of the officer’s Crown Vic, backup arrived with lights blazing.
“What’ve we got here?” said the other cop, emerging.
“Come and have a look.” The arresting officer shone his flashlight into the back seat. He reached in with a gloved hand and fished out a plastic baggie filled with ones and zeroes.
“Well, shit!” the other cop said. “That’s a line of source code for the latest version of Abalone Photostudio! Does the perp have a serial number?”
“Nope. And look at this: these are premium Mexican ones and zeros from Call of the Medal of Honor V! That game doesn’t hit retail for three days!”
Popping the trunk, the cops found a whole bale of binary, shrinkwrapped in plastic in a futile attempt to keep code-sniffing dogs away. It was Annoyed Avians for eOS devices from Apricot, Inc., usable only on ones that had been prisonbroken and unlocked by illicit means.
“Mr. Chen, is it?” the first officer said. “Boy, you in a whole heap of trouble.”
August 21, 2013
01. The best internet links are the ones which make you cry in your cubicle, whether from laughter or empathy. If you do not have a cubicle, acquire one, even if it means setting one up in the spare room.
02. It’s not how often you update your blog that matters, but how heartfelt your posts are. Do try to shoot for at least once every six months, though; you can save up all the feels during that time.
03. Using a gendered salutation like “dear sir” or “dear Mr.” in an ambiguous situation will make you an object of private ridicule or public shame if you get it wrong. If in doubt, use the standard universal omnisex salutation: “hey chowderhead.”
04. Introverts will one day rule the world. And we will do it from the shadows with an extroverted puppet figurehead just to throw you off the scent. Come to think of it, maybe we rule from the shadows already…!
05. Nerdiness, geekiness, and dorkiness, are not to be shunned, but embraced. Nothing creates a shared bond faster than meeting a fellow Trekkie/Whovian/Browncoat; you can forge a shared connection through longing that the Enterprise/TARDIS/Serenity will show up and take you away.
06. You can never have too many books or too many bookshelves. Unless you create a Babel tower of books and it collapses, spraying loose pages across three states. That might be slightly too many.
07. God has a plan for all of us. If you ever doubt that, just remember the He has a great sense of humor. The existence of Lolcats is too perfect to be the result of chance.
08. Sign language is the most elegant form of communication. When the world becomes a giant rock concert, as it inevitably will, signs will be out only means of speaking amongst the decibels.
09. Cats are a microcosm of all life’s pains and joys. It is important to note that life does not like going to the vet.
10. Science makes everything cooler: just look at “science fiction.” This does not conflict with #7; Science and God are Secret Best Friends.
From an idea by breylee.
August 15, 2013
He was the greatest assassin and enforcer the Syndemo organization had ever retained, and just recently foiled in an attempt on the life of a prominent local landowner at the behest of Lady Faxhall, the hypochondriac nymphomaniac lynchpin of a far-ranging conspiracy. He was behind the blade on many of the most vicious encounters that Cecil the potato-loving priest and Vic the unlucky thief had been though, from the Lillandel mine ambush to the halfling prostitute kidnapping. A mountain of a man, he went by many aliases, each as dark as the cloak he wore and as crooked as the feathered hat rakishly tilted over a shaven pate.
To Vic and Cecil, their hulking foe was only known as Big McLargehuge.
And now, atop the icy winter spires of Cecil’s ancestral manor, he was about to be brought to justice.
McLargeHuge’s assassination attempt had ended in failure, with Roxie the porcelain sex doll golem smashed, the gnome negotiator/sorcerer fled, Bear the Berserker cut down in mid-drinking-song. Fleeing to the roof, the assassin found himself with Vic and Cecil at his back, with their well-armed hirelings Namor Ylati(Junior Bro of the Order of the Tri-Delts associated with the Knights of Clohl) and Sirea Lossberg (who Vic had accidentally hired while trying to proposition).
“Y-you there!” cried Vic, his voice muffled by the cloth he had wound around his head to conceal his identity and avoid reprisals should the battle go ill. “Stop all the getting-away-like…stuff!”
Big McLargeHuge turned around, the icy wind on the rather flat but still sloped castle roof catching his cloak dramatically. “I agree, it’s time to end things,” he said menacingly. A blade of foreign manufacture, crackling with enchantments, whipped out of its scabbard. “Come and face your doom, you interfering necromancer.”
“H-how many times do I have to tell you people, I’m not a necromancer!” Vic cried. “I’m a…treasure…hunter-type…guy.”
“You’re a dead man,” said McLargeHuge, his sword singing as it cut through the air in a practice swing. “That’s necromancer enough for me.
“Stop that there assassin in the name of Clohl!” cried Cecil. His estranged father had been the assassin’s target, and even though he remembered little of his life before a potato-shaped rock had called him to the priesthood, he was still honor-bound to intervene. In invoking the spirit of Surah 18, Psalm 42, Line 118, Word 3 of the Book of Jehosephat (which was a real page-turner), Cecil had cast a holy spell.
The assassin had been focused on taunting the “necromancer,” seeing him as the key threat. So the spell of holding cast by the bumpkin-seeming priest in overalls and a flowered hat caught him totally by surprise. His taunting words died in his mouth and he froze, a surprised expression on his face, just as surely as if he had been left to the snowy elements for a week. A light breeze whipped up, and the assassin pitched over, still stock-still, onto his side.
Ice on the castle roof and gravity did the rest.
“Oh!” cried Cecil.
“Ooh!” yelped Vic.
“Dude!” whistled Namor.
“Ouch!” winced Sirea.
Nimbly shimmying down the waterspouts castleside, Vic approached the fallen, motionless assassin.
“Is them that there malefactor…dead?” Cecil cried with heartbreak in his voice.
Vic took the opportunity to rifle through Big McLargeHuge’s pockets and his…everywhere else. “Got to look more closely to be sure.” In moments he had appropriated the assassin’s badass hat, badassier cape, and badassest sword (along with 275 ducats from an inner pocket).
When Cecil’s spell wore off moments later, the assassin found himself unarmed, partially undressed, and defenseless. His previous bravado forgotten, he beat a hasty retreat toward the tall fence at the edge of the property. Vic’s attempt to pursue was undermined somewhat by tripping on the cape that he had somehow managed to fasten around himself in the confusion (to say nothing of the large-brimmed hat that was suddenly interfering with his peripheral vision).
It looked like the vile Syndemo assassin BigMcLargeHuge might escape after all; he had scrambled over the fence before Vic could find his footing.
And then Sirea bore down upon him like an avenging angel. Using the spear she had stolen from one of McLargeHuge’s own Syndemo mercenaries in the Lillendel mines, she vaulted over the fence in a show of extraordinary grace (and, from Vic’s point of view, extraordinary ass). Her boots were planted square in the small of the assassin’s back, knocking him out for good and all.
By the time the less-agile Cecil and Namor reached ground level, Sirea had tied the unconscious assassin to her spear like a boar on a spit and was dragging him back toward the property.
“I think I’m in love,” Vic breathed.
August 2, 2013
This post is part of the August 2013 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s prompt is “Child of the Devil.”
Maria Nguyan had been skeptical of the woman in the dark dress at first. She’d even manged to get the first two numbers of 911 dialed on her cell phone. The mumbled intimations of being a child of evil and the prophesied doom of the world hadn’t helped. Mom had always warned of strangers, after all, though that warning coming from someone who greeted door-to-door salesmen with homebaked cookies had never seemed particularly dire.
But that had been before Ms. Dark had shown Maria that she had mysterious and inexplicable powers. Local flies did her bidding, being pushed in front of a speeding semi had sent the truck driver to the hospital, and releasing the heartburn rather than keeping it in had led to a gout of flame breath powerful enough to reduce Mr. Feigenbaum’s hated geraniums to ashes.
“So do you see now?” said Mrs. Dark. “Do you see how I speak the truth? You are the child of evil, the spawn of the most profane and evil Devil of every faith on Earth.”
“I do, I see it now,” Maria said. “Mom always told me that Dad was a rotten, no-good, devil.” She remembered little of her father save an unpleasant smell, eternal arguments, and the motorcycle jacket emblazoned with e red imp that he wore the day he had left. Well, that and his immaculately groomed mustache and goatee. The mention of Maria’s father was the only thing that got demure Mrs. Nguyan into a full-throated rage.”I guess…I guess I should have known all along.”
“Oh, child, child,” Mrs. Dark said. “You have it all wrong, I’m afraid. It’s your mother who is the Devil.”
Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
ishtar’sgate
BDavidHughes
areteus
Ralph Pines
articshark
pyrosama
Anarchic Q
meowzbark
MsLaylaCakes
grace elliot
milkweed
July 27, 2013
Hideous screeching monstrosities borne on the irradiated embers of the old world lurch forth and attack!
3 ÜBER-MUTANTS appear at 5 feet.
PLISS SNAKEKIN attacks ÜBER-MUTANT A with his PHOTON CANNON and misses.
MAD MAXINE attacks ÜBER-MUTANT B with her MEGA UZI. She rips through a clip, the bullets peppering ÜBER-MUTANT B like a cheap steak for 15 points of damage.
DOG ABOYANDHIS attacks ÜBER-MUTANT C with his Laser Rifle. A flash of ionized light and a whiff of ozone lances forth, searing ÜBER-MUTANT C like a Father’s Day bratwurst for 20 points of damage.
LADY HUMUNGA attacks ÜBER-MUTANT A with her CHAINSAW SWORD. Blood and ichor spout like the Trevi Fountain as ÜBER-MUTANT A takes 30 points of damage, reducing it to a red smear and a sky-high dry cleaning bill.
ÜBER-MUTANT B shambles toward PLISS SNAKEKIN and rakes him with its claws for 20 points of damage.
ÜBER-MUTANT C shambles toward PLISS SNAKEKIN and rakes him with its claws for 15 points of damage.
PLISS SNAKEKIN attacks ÜBER-MUTANT B with his PHOTON CANNON and misses.
MAD MAXINE reloads her MEGA UZI.
DOG ABOYANDHIS attacks ÜBER-MUTANT C with his LASER RIFLE. Tasty, tubular waves of plasma ripple forth and ionizing key parts of ÜBER-MUTANT C‘s anatomy for 20 points of damage, bursting it like a blood sausage in a convenience store microwave.
LADY HUMUNGA attacks ÜBER-MUTANT B with her CHAINSAW SWORD. A glancing blow, it only severs a single writhing appendage in a spray of biohazardous fluids for 5 points of damage.
ÜBER-MUTANT B shambles toward PLISS SNAKEKIN and rakes him with its claws for 10 points of damage. PLISS SNAKEKIN is poisoned! PLISS SNAKEKIN‘s health is critical!
PLISS SNAKEKIN tries to reload his PHOTON CANNON and misses.
DOG ABOYANDHIS attacks ÜBER-MUTANT B with his LASER RIFLE. Critical hit! Coherent packets of photons more organized than the Library of Congress arrive at the speed of light, inviting ÜBER-MUTANT B‘s torso to emigrate to Smoking Holeville for 35 points of damage. Covalent bonds between ÜBER-MUTANT B‘s constituent atoms break down, and it crumbles to ashy goo.
PLISS SNAKEKIN gains 0 EXP and 0 AP.
MAD MAXINE gains 50 EXP and 5 AP.
DOG ABOYANDHIS gains 200 EXP and 20 AP.
LADY HUMUNGA gains 100 EXP and 10 AP.
The enemies dropped something! You gain 2 DISCOMBOBULATED MUTANT GIZZARDS, 2 BUCKETS OF RIGHTEOUS GIBS, 2 BRICKS OF 9MM AMMO, and 1 set of MUTANT CHITIN ARMOR.
July 26, 2013
“The necromancer! The necromancer is coming! Faster, you thickheaded simplecog!” The gnome swatted the mercenary at the reins of his dogsled team–the last survivor of an assassination squad that had once numbered ten men–with his wand.
Looking back, the mercenary beheld their pursuer: a team of four skeletons, armed and girded for combat, lashed like draft horses to a floating disc of magical matter than glided silently over the deep Minotian snow. At their reins: a katana-brandishing figure with a dark cloak cast over one shoulder and a magnificent hat of the finest quality beside an overall-clad holy man wielding a rock strapped to a staff (both ablaze with the holy wrath of Clohl, god of light and potatoes).
The mercenary handed the reins over to the gnome and cast himself off the side of the sled, landing heavily in a snowbank and fleeing into the woods.
Vic Savage, master thief but definitely NOT a necromancer, drew a bead on the gnome’s sled with his bow. “S…sorry about this, Fluffy, Muffy, a-and all the…y’know, rest of you. You were good fuzz-type dog-sled-puller guys.” The dogs were in fact the same team that had borne them to the Lillandel Mines and the fabulous treasures which lay within (to say nothing of the fabulous treasure that was Sirea Lossberg’s ass), viciously stolen a month earlier.
“Wait just a moment,” drawled Cecil, one-time noble and now-time priest thanks to an unfortunate potato-related riding accident. “That there is against th’ teachings o’ Clohl. For it is written in the Book o’ Jehosephat (which is a real page-turner), Book of Canis Major, Canto 117, Line 32b: ‘And they shalt not slay th’ puppies o’ thine own self or Clohl, who smiles upon ’em as divinely as his potatoes.’ There’s some debate on th’ meaning o’ that there passage, especially on th’ subjunctive tense o’ th’ Old Runic, but…”
“Well…w-what should I, y’know, do instead?” Vic snapped. “That nasty…short…gnome-guy is, y’know, getting away-like. Fastly.”
“Here,” said Cecil. He handed Vic a portable hole, all rubbery and black. “The Book o’ Jehosephat is silent on that there flinging of puppies yea into holes.” He’d give the hole to Namor, Junior Bro of the Order of the Tri-Delts (a feeder organization to the Knights of Clohl), but that magnificent slab of barely animate meat hadn’t needed it.
Vic wrapped the portable hole around the head of his arrow and loosed it straight and true, which was a big deal considering how often he loosed pointy things any which way but straight and true. It landed just ahead of the fleeing gnome with a satisfying *schlopp* and the sled pitched into the chasm that opened suddenly before it.
Pulling back on the reins of his Dragon Tooth Warriors (which were not necromancy at all but simple automatons he had gotten as a birthday present before his family’s ruination at the hands of Lady Faxhall, the nymphomaniac hypochondriac universal spider of the Minotian underworld), Vic stopped them at the side of the hole. The gnome was fumbling for the wand that he had used in the assassination attempt earlier, the one that had nearly singed Sirea to death (in between beatings by Roxie the porcelain sex doll golem).
Cecil brandished his potato-shaped rock and holy symbol, reciting a verse from the Book of Jehosephat (a real page-turner) about how the blinding light of revelation from Clohl yea did scorch the unbeleivers and yea didst melt the eyeballs from thine faces. A blinding gout of holy fire sprang forth, engulfing the gnome and singeing off his magnificent beard (leaving only his much smaller and downier childhood beard beneath it).
“I surrender!” sputtered the gnome, struggling to put out a dozen small fires on his person. “I surrender!”
July 22, 2013
“Okay, I step forward into the municipal dump, keeping an eye out for the assassination contract,” said Arimo Warraven.
“Roll a d19 to see if you notice anything,” said the game master, Kotak Bravequest.
Arimo let his d19, hand-carved from dragonbone, fall to the table, where it rattled the miniatures and the piles of oily rags representing the dump. “2. Gods and their pasty asses!”
“You see nothing amiss,” said Kotak, grinning. “Sirne?”
Sirne Strikerider tapped his brow thoughtfully. “I throw a water balloon into the dump using my slingshot.”
“Okay, give me a d19 to see if you hit anything, and a d7 to see how much splash damage it does if it hits anything.”
“Is there anything to hit?” asked Sirne, his dove-white brows knitted in concern as he rolled. “17 and 1.”
“You’ll know soon enough.” Kotak leaned back in his chair, hand-hewn by his grandfather from the God-Tree of Elddir. “That’s a miss. Your water balloon doesn’t hit anything…but the splash alerts the garbage dragon that was hiding in the mound of refuse. It attacks with its sewer-gas breath! Roll to save against odor-based attacks.”
“Did you ever stop to think that, with all the garbage dragon and file cabinet kobald and gas station goblin attacks, the people in the Papers & Paychecks would never have survived long enough to get back to their apartments, much less create a civilization that’s hundreds of years ahead of our own?” said Arimo.
“It would probably be a lot like real life, with 90% of what they do being serf-work or studying for Scholam Magicum exams,” added Sirne.
“And that would be boring as hell, wouldn’t it?” Kotak replied. “Just for that, the sound of the dragon attracts two garbage Army Rangers from their patrol. Roll initiative.”
July 21, 2013
The following is a selection of “notable quotes” deposited by a spambot. They appear to have been translated from English to Chinese English, and they are delicious.
John Fahrenheit Kennedy: the temperature at which Marilyn Monroe burns.
Can’t argue with that.
Okay, that’s just a little creepy there, Walt.
I had no idea that the physician Galen (129-216 AD) was worshiped as a god, let alone that he issued commandments!
Don’t mess with Justice Roberts or his Gigantic Court. They will crush you.
Far be it for me to disagree with the Council and be accused of supporting institutionalized little one misuse, but I have no idea what the Nine Mine Citadel is. Maybe it’s a secret nexus for underground, and institutionalized, little one misuse?
I’m not sure what Robert was onto here, but I do agree that he was some sort of Heinlein.
Cold, calculated, careful silliness is a thousand times more hazardous than the ordinary kind, for sure.
Yeah, it seems like newspapers publishers aren’t flowing much of anywhere these days, unless you count bankruptcy court.
Wasn’t This Sterling Silver Lounge Chair that version of The Silver Chair modernized for the fast-paced world of the 1970s?
Not to be confused with his cousin H. G. Oil Wells.
It’s like a folksy take on this story set in Maybury with Atticus Finch as V.
Pretty sagacious for a piece of personal grooming equipment.
Excerpts From Nonexistent Books 