Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Why I Suck During Basketball Tournaments

Friend: "Hush now. Watching exciting end-of-basketball-game scenario."

Me: "Oh. Right. Go team I don't know. Beat that other team that I also do not know. Rah. Rah."

Friend: "..."

This is why I don't get invited to gamenight parties.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

How Do You Feel

(The following is fiction)

How do I feel?

I feel tired.

Sick and tired.

Thanks for asking.

Particularly tired.

Not that you care. You don't.

You should but you don't.

This is entirely the fault of your pigeons, you know. Everything. All these emergency vehicles and the lights and everything.

This is entirely the fault of your pigeons and that hideous, godawful crap you've been feeding them. The smell alone would kill weaker willed sorts and that isn't even getting into the inconstinence it inspires in them, with that floating grey stuff - seriously, what is that, it's more disturbing than that time you caught the rainstorm on fire over that resthome on Thanksgiving with all the little kids screaming and the ambulences and that one guy shouting the line about 'the humanity' like that ever helps - yeah, the grey things, those... anyway, they drifted out of the cage and they killed the cats, yes, both Fluffy and Leatherface, then they burned through the floor and into the Johnson's place and I don't know what Mr. and Mrs. Johnson and all their partially clothed friends were doing before that (but I wished they could have kept the volume down, I was watching vintage Golden Girls) but they started yelling through the melting floor about the smell and I said back that if I didn't complain about the noise then they couldn't complain about the smell or the melting ceiling, and they said "What melting ceiling?", then they said "Oh, THAT melting ceiling, then they started complaining about the melting ceiling - WHINERS - then the pigeons chewed out of their cage and that guy from next door started knocking on the door, and he called out that he wanted sugar, I have no idea what that is all about, the Johnsons were picking up volume about the their cursed ceiling - is it my fault they forgot to acid proof? - and your pets started eating your other pets - the pigeons eating the cats - only it turns out Fluffy either wasn't dead or he got better, because he suddenly wasn't all dead and boy that cat knows how to kill.

Fluffy killed two of the pigeons, which, I might add, were starting to look rather demonic, and the rest of them got respectful, but then those two bird corpses started burning this really eerie neon purple flame and went through the floor and whoo-boy the Johnsons didn't like that no they didn't in fact Mrs J said, "I'm going up there to give them a piece of my mind and I called down, "Hey, could you bring back up those pigeons?" and they said 'sure' and for a moment I was happy because I thought I was going to get your missing pigeons back, eldrich abominations and all, when the guy from next door kicked down our door, looked at me over the huge glowing hole the pigeons had made, said, "You need a doorbell", then went into the kitchen, wisely skirting Fluffy's continued deathmatch with the pigeon horde, and the guy upstairs started to hit the floor, raving something I couldn't hear, probably complaining about the noise, and the next door neighbor took out a measuring cup, opened the cabinet marked 'sundries', and started stealing our sugar, and I said to him, "For shame!", then the people downstairs in the Johnson's Place called up through the floor saying "Stephanie tried to get those pigeons, but she was subsumed in their flames," and I was like, this is why you should always do important things yourself and I just huffed and told them I would be down after Golden Girls to collect the birds and they said, "Oh no, it's turning Stephanie into some sort of Fell Horror, which will likely consume us all," and I said, "Fine, could you send it up when it gained sentience and mobility?" and they said 'sure', then Fluffy started transforming and somewhere about this time the apartment building caught fire - well, really, caught more fire, it having been burning a bit already - and the guy upstairs put in some loud war movie that always upsets his neighbors up there like he always does when he is trying to ignore the rest of us, and then Mrs Johnson burst in, all angry and dressed in a sheet or something, I can't really recall, and she said, "I must complain about - hey, did you know there is a minature black hole at the base of the stairs?", and I said yeah, and told her you'd reported it to the building manager last week, and she said that was bull and he should have fixed it by now and I agreed because, yeah, that just isn't safe, and it is hard enough carrying stuff up those stairs without it making everything weigh the same as a thousand suns, but then Mrs J started chewing me out over the melting ceiling, though I derailed her for a bit saying that it was a melting floor up here, then Fluffy, mid-transformation, finally pulled down a fifth pigeons, then wrapped them all around himself to make some sort of caccoon, and the guy from next door came out of the kitchen with all of our sugar in cups, took one look at Mrs. J and told her, "I love you," and she said, "No one ever told me that," and he said well he had and he stood by it - he was very noble for a sugar thief - and she said, "Well then I love you too," and he said, "Let's run off together!" and she said, "And bake!" and he said, "I've got the sugar!!" so off they went, good for them and mind the black hole.

But now there was a firefight upstairs for real - guess the gang members up there were sick of the war movies, then the sprinklers went off because, hey, building increasingly on fire, and the TV shorted out, which really pissed me off since now I'll never see how that episode of Golden Girls ends, and that sprinkler water was gross and cold and it made the floor collapse, and it made the walls unstable and a window broke and the rest of the pigeons escaped - more power to them and I fear for the world - but there I was, suddenly in the Johnson's appartment and I asked where Mr. Johnson was, and they said he stepped out and they asked where his wife was and I said run off with the sugar thief, and they all said 'ooooo...' and one guy said, "I knew it!", but then an explosion rocked the building and the gas mains went and those explosions where bigger and there was fire everywhere and the walls shook and pieces of masonry started falling and I started to feel really sick - I think it was the water from the sprinklers but it could have been the Johnsons' dog (I'm allergic you know) - and I had to ask the Johnsons' guests why they were all dressed like it was Ancient Greece with sheets 'n things, but I never got an answer because the Fell Horror Stephanie awoke, who rose with a terrible banishee wail, seized two of the guests and offered us the sadistic choice of which she would destroy to consecrate her creation when the gang warfare, small arms fire, and explosives above all collapsed our old ceiling and everyone two floors up was suddenly falling to join us in the Johnsons' apartment, which was starting to feel a bit cramped, and you know, for a Fell Horror, Stephanie was rather pretty with ample... ahem, and also there were feathers, but she told us she was shy about that, and you could hardly notice that she was surely the doom of us all with the full on urban warfare or the remains of the melted ceiling and pigeon ... stuff left by your weird birds all over the place, also the confusion and running about but still the building manager burst in yelling at all of us in a really rude way, and you know I was still pissed that it was so hard to get hot water and the laundry room only had the one working drier and he never closed the minature black hole, so I suggested to everyone that we sacrifice him to Stephanie to seal the deal on her being a Fell Horror and the suggestion was very popular, so she consumed him and drank of his soul, which was fun to watch, and after she'd destroyed him and released her two hostages there was much rejoicing.

So we were all happy, despite the burning, exploding, falling apart building and all being trapped together and I having missed the end of Golden Girls, and the Johnsons' guests gave me and several of the gang members honorary togas and gowns and I finally got to meet the war buff from the apartment above us - did you know he carries a .50 caliber magnum and thinks we are all out to get him, and he might have to 'get us first'? What a character! - but then we had to run when the burning broken building started collapsing, and the Johnsons' apartment was no longer safe, and dagnabbit, that micro-black hole was heading towards an implosive event which would be relatively survivable for everyone who wasn't in the building, but would probably be less survivable for anyone inside, and as things started to fall in towards the stairwell everyone was panicking, and I barely remembered to grab Fluffy's cat caccoon, but thankfully we ran into Mr. J - or sorta, something weird had happened and he and his dog had merged into a half human / half canine thing and when we asked he just said it had been a really weird night - and thankfully he knew a way out that only required two key cards, a few logic puzzles, and some minor combat with the undead, which, since we had the gang members and our upstairs neighbor, really wasn't a problem, and we got out at least sixteen seconds before a completely arbitary guess of when the building would fall into the hole would occur (it was some guest from the party who did the time limit, and he was off. Took another twenty minutes for the building to crumple into some odd implosive ball), and it turns out almost everyone got out, except the building manager, and the Johnsons ran into each other at the emergency cordon that the Fire Department had put up, and they agreed to an amicable divorce, with her getting all baking supplies and a new husband and him keeping the dog, and the guests all went home, and the gang members offically made the war buff their new leader and I think they are taking over the block, and I am applying for emergency housing, but the main thing is I still feel like crap, and I am pretty sure it was the sprinkler water the more I think about it, and you missed ALL of this because you couldn't be bothered to leave work at a reasonable time, and I am tired from all the running and answering questions to the firemen and the police and the animal control people (by the way, all those warnings on TV about watching the skies and be afraid and curfew? Your pigeons, again) and it comes down to this:

I am leaving you.

For Stephanie.

She's a wonderful person for a Fell Horror, and she's there when I need her.

Oh, and we're taking Fluffy.

That's how I feel.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Lifetime Horror Films?

Okay, let's get this out in the open: I do not like Lifetime. The television network, not, you know, anything else associated with lifetimes. It is shallow and melodramatic and asinine. It takes things that might actually be interesting then loads them with so much crap and badly written angst and glaringly obvious subtext that they might as well situate a harridan in the room with their viewers, so that she can literally beat people over the head while screaming plot points. You know they want to. Then they'll do a Lifetime Movie(TM) about how she's a poor disadvanged dear whom we should weep for because her children were raised by goats, her husband truly loved her but had to get a tummy tuck due to peer pressure and some other things which were EMOTIONAL and TEARJERKING, and most of the men were total jerks, so she is entirely justified in making you suffer with her, because that one doctor maybe perhaps well possibly was rude (le gaspe) and she accused him of worse though we'll never have proof and no one believed her but she was so brave and-!

Sorry. I digress.

Where was I?

Oh. Lifetime Movies. They blow. They blow chunks.

If men made movies like this - okay, men do. See any of the Disaster/Epic/Whatever Movies or anything staring Pauly Shore or early Adam Sandler. But we know they are shallow, venal things with no redeeming features. Say that about Lifetime Movies, and you'll find a pack of ladies with knives out for your flesh, screaming.

Of course, I wouldn't care. Normally I can avoid Lifetime like the plague it is. But recently it wrested Project Runway away from Bravo, and anyone who wants to watch Project Runway has to do it on Lifetime. Cue the suffering.

(As an aside, I have no idea why the hell I like Project Runway. It's about a host of things I couldn't care in the least about, featuring a number of people who perform roles in society I will never need to interact with or worry about. Yet I do. And I like some of those folks. Though I have no idea why. Though frankly, fair often I think the judges see a completely different outfit than me.)

So, while watching Project Runway on one of the worst networks on television (There are at least six which make Lifetime look like quality entertainment) I must suffer through their advertisements. Which includes the veiled threats, I mean, commercials for their Movies.

One thing that keeps me from sleeping at night? There is a Lifetime Movie Network. The blood chills.

But the one that takes the cake is one that apparently is getting an encore showing - 'The Pregnancy Pact'. It's about high school girls getting pregnant. If you are muttering uh-oh, I ain't done yet. They are marketing it like it is a bloody horror film. Complete with ominous music, moderately threatening announcer guy saying, "What could drive these teens to all get pregnant together?' (Somewhere, Larry Flynt's head snaps to attention, and there is a low 'hmmmm?') It has flash editing, dark colors when they are discussing plans, and as many dark overtones as is possible in a film about kids doing stupid things. Except most films about teenagers being dumber than usual have a negative body count, and presumably this one won't unless they are really misadvertising. This is a movie about teenage sex. Bad, but really, not enough to get the slow dance slasher music.

More, the word 'pact' and the fact the girls are apparently planing this means they have a dump truck more foresight and preparation for this than most girls in real life who, you know, listen to Nike's sloagan (Just Do It!~). Yes, a group of girls - apparently high school age, from the ads - going out and boinking until they are pregnant? Really dumb. Only Lifetime would think to market it as the next Silence of the Lambs.

I'm sorry. This isn't really cohesive. I just had to let out - somewhere - how moronic I found the whole thing.

Bravo, I don't care what you have to do. Take a page from Lifetime Movies and mug their network in a back alley. Whatever. Just get Project Runway back. I am sick of this.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Rambling 2

Tim: "So it's like they always ask me, 'Tim, how do you deal with flesh eating fungus?' "
Jim: "You're kidding. People always ask you that?"
Tim: "No you idiot. It's a framing device."
Jim: "Ah."
Tim: "Think a little."
Jim: "Well, I'm sorry-"
Tim: "Don't be sorry, be polite."
Jim: ...
Tim: "Where was I?"
Jim: "We were talking about how you cope with unexpected family visits."

Rambling 1

So then we were camping

Camping is fun

Except we forgot the marshmellows

Got lost in the woods

A bear ate Steven on day three

Then this witch started in on us

Found weird things in the trees

We kept walking in circles

Misplaced a few more of us

I think Andrea went nuts

Always hard to tell with her

Ran out of pop tarts

Both types

Ran into a werewolf

Sounds outside the tent at night

Horrible chainsaw weilding maniac...

But finally...

Made it

Safe and sound

For the four of us left

Here we are

Safe

At Camp Crystal Lake

Friday, March 19, 2010

Oh, Right, I Have A Blog...

Um. Yeah. Forgot

Heh.

(CrapI'mgonnahavetomaketwopoststodaytofittheschedual - all worship the schedual)

So...

Yeah. We all knew this would happen. I have a good excuse, though!

Give me a moment

It will come to me anytime now....

Okay, I forgot. Sue me. It happens.

Anyhow, here I am - about to go to sleep and needing to type up a post.

We've all been here before. Trapped. Needing, desperately, that one point where we have a lucid moment to produce something workable, and yet - we are caught flat footed.

Some of us work through it. Others procrastinate.

Some, like me, take the third option of giving the viewers something, pretending it is decent, then sneaking out the back.

Don't knock it. It is how the writers of Heroes have produced the last few seasons.

On the other hand, knock it.

So anyhow, I put up something. Nothing good. But something. Now to get to the sneaking out the back part of things...

Skittles and ponies!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

For Your Consideration / My Record Holding (version 2)

I've told this story elsewhere. But something has recently made it come to mind for me again.

A few days ago, someone at work was cut by a sheet.

A sheet.

Yes, and this dangerous thin-weave cloth was checked over carefully by several folks, to find out what dangerous teeth and claws it was hiding. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was a sheet, and as offensive as any peice of fabric gets, which is to say not very. Certainly nothing was on it that could possibly be called an edge or a point. Yet it managed to leave a respectable hole in a coworker.

I have, over the years, been injured a lot at work. I once had someone remark to me after a long weekend, that she couldn't remember a week when I hadn't been cut or jabbed or otherwise hurt. For a relatively static job, that's something. But it is never the dangerous things that get me. Never knives, or falling objects, or, you know, stuff that happens near me that should by all rights send me to the hospital. So I have some regrettable experience with bleeding at my job. Usually it's from the things that shouldn't hurt me that I receive cuts. (Or falling out of things, but that is a story for another time.)

Don't believe me? Heh. In my tenure at the place I work (hereafter known as Soar), I have been cut or injured by many strange things. I have received minor cuts from balls, by blankets. I had to pry a splinter nearly half an inch long from a old wood toy out of my hand once. A pillow once made me bleed. I will bear the scar from a sofa to my dying day (its a small scar, but still. A sofa.) A coffee mug gave me a cut that took eleven stitches to close. Other minor injuries include doors and one very irritable chair. I have embedded small bits of glass in my flesh more than a few times, and there was that incident with the book.

Ever get a cut from a book's leather cover? I have.

I can take these. They don't bother me. Most have reasons behind them. The ball had glass embedded. (Glass hurts me often - as does ceremic.) The pillow, needles. The sofa did its work on me with a staple, and the full weight of its steel reinforced sleeper frame behind that staple digging in. The coffee mug shattered in my hand and a shard passed through the finger. The blanket...

Well, okay. No one knows how the damn blanket cut me. But that one is weird enough that it isn't pathetic, its more a file for the bizzare.

Seeing why, as weird as a sheet cutting someone, I am not more amazed?

The worst though, and the record of the oddest object to every cause a person to bleed? I still hold that one.

That's because, about a half a year ago I was cut by a Hello Kitty Pez Dispenser.

You read that right.

More, there was no conceivable way for it to cut me. It wasn't broken. No part of this thing was hard or pointed. There were no sharp edges. There were barely edges! I can't even recall corners that weren't rounded off. You could hand this to a kid, and he'd be safe from everything except eating Pez.

How the hell does one live down being injured by a Hello Kitty Pez Dispenser? I mean, its got a big cute rounded plastic cat head for chrissake.

This is the rock bottom of injuries. This makes paper cuts look noble.

Sorry, distracted.

Anyhow. Some places, it seems anything can be a surprise. Also, next time you get injured, stop and think, "Hey, as bad as this is, it could be worse. A sheet could have done this to me." Or, god forbid, a Hello Kitty Pez Dispenser.

Unless, of course, you think you can top it?