TEXAS SQUIRREL GUN

Via an old high school buddy (currently blogless), it appears that the ultimate varmint rifle was up for auction recently.

Gotta get me one of these.

A DREAM COME TRUE

When I started this blog, I Googled for "bad money" (without the quotes) and I was probably somewhere on page 600,000.

:-(

While I was up at grandma's place earlier this week, I stopped into the local library (right next door - very convenient), hit Google, and guess who's the #1 page out of over 6,000,000 hits?

Hugs, kisses, thanks, and scantily clad firemen to all those who helped make this possible.

AND SO IT BEGINS...

The good Sarge is holding a Babylon 5 bull session at his site. Still plenty of room in the comments if you want to get in on it. Heck, the comments are even better than the post.

If you like B5, go there & check it out.

If you don't like (or know about) B5, well, uh... Hmm...

Eh. Here. Have some gratuitous cleavage instead.

HALF FULL

Although not necessarily endorsing the findings, PhotoDude has gathered the depressing statistics (only 2% of those surveyed visit a blog more than once a week, and 79% didn't know what a blog is), and mentions that, since blogs are not mainstream, bloggers ought to be a bit humbled by the mass ignorance of their sport, even though a given blogger might be racking up a few hundred readers per day.

If you look at it from that perspective, it's not just humbling, it's "stick your head in an oven" depressing.

Me, I look at it not from the "what percentage of the world am I entertaining" angle, but the narrower, more selfish angle of, "am I amusing somebody besides myself?" In the last few months, I've been shocked, awed, and delighted to discover that the answer to that is "yes".

My numbers don't matter so much (spoken like a true nobody, eh?), it's just that I've finally expanded my personal circle beyond work, home, friends, and family. I've met and enjoyed the company of many fine strangers with whom I share little in common except a love of fine writing and light comedy, and I've bonded with some of them to one degree or another, and, truth be known, I'm a lot happier now than I was before I started blogging. I've grown some & become a better, more thoughtful person in the process.

I haven't changed the world, but my corner of it's a little brighter, and that's good enough for me.

SPIN 'EM UP WITH FAN FICTION

Lynn spotted a good one in her referrers.

There are some topics which shouldn't be broached at an elegant dinner with your fellow Literary Academicians. Fan fiction is one of them. The reason you shouldn't is that it's funny when you do. A taste:

************

“Fans of various television programs and movies extrapolate on the lives of the characters or remold the outcome of key scenes to their liking,” I explained in serious and scholarly tones. “It could be considered a kind of popular modern revisionist movement. I’ve been curious if you literature fellows have been keeping up with it.”

“Popular revisionism,” he rumbled thoughtfully. “Interesting, interesting. Young Pup did you know about this?”

“I, well, uh, yes sir,” the poor fellow stammered. “I’ve read a bit. Can be really horrid stuff,” he finished hoping to salvage the conversational turn with a left hook into literary criticism.

“Yes, and it can be quite well done,” I countered. “A friend of mine who began in fan fiction just published her first book.”

“And how did you come to be interested in this topic?” asked the Chairman.

“I edited fan fiction on a Xena Warrior Princess website.”

Suddenly the sound of crickets chirping in the night filled the room. R., who knows when I’ve gone past the point of no return, leaned back and smiled quietly into her coffee cup.

***************

and it just keeps getting better from there.

Heh. Lesbian fiction.

THAT WOULD EXPLAIN THE ABERRANT SEXUAL PROCLIVITIES

Not to mention Deal-a-Meal. Heather from Angelweave has discovered Evil Glenn's secret identity.

GOOD LIE, GREAT PICTURE

Silver Blue has Evil Glenn's "Puppy in a Blender" TV commercial transcript.

Go for the picture, if nothing else. It's priceless.

NICE COMBO

Ah, my two favorite things: French-bashing and comedic blasphemy. Find both in one post at Quibbles & Bits as J shows us what happened to Joan of Arc after the toasting.

SOMETIMES THEY SHOULD STAY AWAY

J, over at Quibbles & Bits, saw the movie version of Stephen King's "Sometimes They Come Back", and was thoroughly horrified...

... at how badly it was done.

He mentions something I've noticed myself: Stephen King's brand of horror doesn't translate well to the big screen, although his more character-studious efforts do. I've always thought that it was because so many of his good horror stories contained a LOT of internal dialogue. That nicks the surface of the explanation, but J goes deeper and hits it solid:

***************

It, Dreamcatcher, Children of the Corn, Rainy Season, and a host of other Stephen King novels and stories base their horror on that which dwells in your mind. It is something amorphous that draws from the depths of our souls the darkest and gives rough shape to the horror. We then gently fill the details to fit our own personal fears, making the stories cling mightily to our psyche. The actual horror is left to our imaginations, and we are an imaginative people.

Turning that into a movie removes the ambiguity of the horror, making it into something concrete. When it becomes concrete, its very definition makes it less frightening. The concrete is always less scary than the undefined. And the movies try to define the undefined. Our imagination is short-circuited, and the frightening becomes farce.

*************

Right on.

Although I have to disagree slightly with his take on Maximum Overdrive. Sure, it was schlocky, but for some reason it worked for me. I think mostly it was the AC/DC soundtrack. Favorite moment: the gas pumping montage - Hells Bells grinding out in the background as Emilio Estevez fills up a Sisyphusian line of honking 18-wheelers under an unforgiving Southern summer sun.

When I go to hell, I'll probably be workin' the truck stop, too.

INTRODUCTION OF FLUSH TOILET DEPLORED AT EARTH SUMMIT

Big hat tip to Wizbang for finding this one.

The flush toilet, with its quick and easy control of human waste accumulation, was an amazing leap forward in sanitation. What kind of infernal nipple-head to you have to be to find fault with it?

Read the article & find out.

The beauty of this piece is, as Kevin says, it self-fisks via quotes from one of the sensible panelists at the summit.

THAT DUMB CRACKER!

Poor Frank. Among other complaints in this post is that no one will hurl racist insults at him. I know how he feels. Despite how terribly white I am, I'm never the victim of melanin-based cruelty.

Although I was once called a Honky M-----F-----.

Many years ago in San Francisco, I was sitting outside the library on a sunny afternoon, reading a book, listening to my Walkman, and otherwise giving off subtle indications of voluntary social isolation, when a black negro African-American gentleman of color asked me what time it was.

When I'm reading something I enjoy (which is everytime I pick up a book, otherwise I wouldn't be reading) I DO NOT WANT TO BE INTERRUPTED! So, I did the rude selfish thing, and shrugged.

Yes, I had my watch on. But as far as I was concerned, he could damn well buy his own watch or go into the library & look at the clock, or perhaps even beg the hour from someone who wasn't busy being a billboard for introversion.

His reaction at this social slight was to call me a honky mf'r (and no, he didn't abbreviate)

My look of stunned shock made him think that he'd struck a nerve, so he said "that's right, I said honky mf'r" and cursed at me some more before going on his way.

What he didn't know was why I looked so surprised.

Because I was so damn confused.

I had just been a complete and utter jag-off asshole to this man, and instead of calling me a complete and utter jag-off asshole, he insulted my... race?

HUH-WHA?

I imagine he would've had a similar reaction if I had told him the time was "purple monkey dishwasher".

Anyway, Frank, I'm sure you'll get your racial insult eventually. I just hope that you're lucky enough to get it for doing something incredibly, stupidly white. When it's irrelevant & gratuitous, it's just not as much fun.

A TALE OF TWO QUOTES:

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools talk because they have to say something." - Plato.

"Indeed." - Glenn Reynolds (repeat ad nauseum)

I'm thinking that puts him squarely in camp #2, yes?