It wasn’t that Lester didn’t enjoy the dream, but it was just so difficult to interpret.
Had Jennifer finished the marketing plan or not?
And why did he have a sudden craving for milk?
From Toulouse Le Grandfig in the Land of the Future | photo by Defekto
My Grade 11 Gym Teacher Explains the Book –>Slide 2A brilliant Haunted House Carnival of the Godless is up at Greta Christina’s blog, and another crazy Carnival of the Insanities at Dr. Sanity’s blog. If you’re still trying to figure out the whole man-woman thing, then Archer at Lawyerworld Land has advice for the lovelorn: Men are from Proxima Centauri, Women are from Sector B.
ROME (The Skwib) — Last night more than 75,000 faithful assembled in St. Peter’s Square to worship at a special ceremony. Instead they witnessed the beginning of a new schism in the Catholic church.
All seemed to be going to plan as Cardinal Camillo Ruini, vicar-general for the diocese of Rome, read the liturgy of the rosary. Then the lights went out dramatically, and Pope Benedict XVI appeared in the papal apartments, a scarlet cloak draped over his white soutane.
Before he could say anything, a spotlight came on, pointed towards the entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica. The whir of motors and the clanging of metal feet thumped for a moment before RoboPope appeared before the astonished masses.
Its deep, robotically augmented voice blessed the crowd, and then proceeded to accuse Benedict XVI of usurping papal authority, and pronounced him ultra vires, or without powers.
The light went out in Benedict’s apartment, and members of the Papal Swiss Guards appeared in the spotlight near RoboPope. (The guards were not dressed in their traditional uniforms, but wearing modern combat armor and bore automatic weapons.)
When they appeared, RoboPope said, “alea iacta est” and opened fire with its automatic pistol.
Its sonorous voice could be heard even above the screams of the crowd, as it blessed the guard amongst the staccato rhythm of its eerily accurate marksmanship, sounding like: “brrrrr-at-at-at … dominus vobiscum … brrrr-at-at-at … ego te absolvo ….”
The surviving guards in the papal palace were able to rally and, using the terrified crowd as cover, were able hold off the robotic pontiff with massed small arms fire. When the Swiss guard managed to set up heavy machine guns and their rocket-launchers, even the high-impact titanium exoskeleton of the resurrected cyber-cleric could not withstand the firepower, and it was driven from St. Peter’s Square.
There are reports that RoboPope and his “Bishops of Death” have set up a rival court in Avignon, reminiscent of the Papal Schism in 1378.
It must be the change in seasons, but many of our satirists this week seem to be writing about travel and transportation. Or in the case of our first entry, drawing:
Vishal K Bharadwaj has an entertaining cartoon post on the The Future of Human Transportation.
Mr. Wisdumb is the most savage art critic in the galaxy, and the evidence is his review of Kid’s art.
Rory is about to get Biblical on us, with: I’ll… I’ll smite their heads off.
Rickey Henderson tells the tale of Rickey’s Vegas Odyssey.
On a related note, Marilyn Terrell found this impending lawsuit at the Banterist: Brian Sack vs. Sesame Place.
Has anyone ever considered that Madeleine Begun Kane is not “a recovering lawyer” (as she claims), but some kind of satirical poesy uber-cyborg? Because she’s out there every week, cranking out the poetic parody: SCHIP Haiku, AND Pondering Rudy.
Kev wonders Whatever Happened to The Dell Dude?
Dearest Beloved, The Money Moose has some bad advice in: Your Nigerian Partner.
WFM has a tale of customer service Roadkill that is so absurd, we hope it’s satire.
Therapydoc has a joke about Burma by Zarganar.
Marc and Angel explain The 15 Most Common White Lies and Why.
SnoopyTheGoon presents Comical Hugo’s paradise vision. Snoopy, this isn’t quite satire, but we’ve included it, because post does provide food for thought, and the opportunity for us to suggest that Hugo should also implement a Sex Tax. Perhaps Gavin can work out the economics.
Sammy Benoit presents A Perfect Solution to the Jerusalem Issue.
And while we’re abroad, we’ll finish with Chris who has advice for those driving in Bali: Still paying off corrupt Traffic Cops? Try this instead.
Thanks to everyone for continuing to make this a great carnival. If you submitted something, and it didn’t make it into the carnival, it’s not that we don’t appreciate your work, but we just felt it wasn’t right for the carnival. Thanks to these fine folks for helping us with webby-stuff: the Blog Carnival for their form; and the listings at the Ubercarnival, and at the Blog Carnival too. A special thanks to Rob for the photo.
Technorati tags:
carnival of satire, blog carnival.
Okay, after three days of hell, The Skwib is back!
A special thanks to Ben from zid.com (my host) who has been a lifesaver. Now, back to skwibby silliness!
I’ll be updating the look and the features at the site, now that I have a brand new WordPress to play with.
Hi folks,
In case you’ve tried to visit in the last day, and thought, WTF?!, yes, I am trying to update the site.
There have been a few hiccups along the way. We should be back to normal by Thursday.
Should.
Cheers,
Mark
When Elisa sat down for lunch, Henry Overduin had no idea how much she was going to change his world.
She and her colleagues from the Department of Corporate Oversight sat in Henry’s section, but he would have noticed her even if they hadn’t. There was something different and magnetic about Elisa Taper. The rest of the diners at Le Fou en Mer were unreserved cyborgs. Most of them wore their cranial implants in a showy style that was the vogue among the rich; Henry found the fashion tasteless. But Elisa’s jet black hair was cut in a bob that just covered her implant. It was elegant. Her eyes were a startling emerald green, and there was something about the intelligence in them that captured Henry’s attention.
She seemed completely natural — just like Henry.
Of course, he had no implants of any kind. Even on his waiter’s salary he could have afforded one, but there was no point, because Henry was noneact. He had been unable to access the datasphere his whole life. When he was young, the world had begun integrating with it, and now the world was the datasphere. The latest generation of implants let humans access sensory experiences as well as information. Apparently, it was more real than real, his regular customers told Henry. Henry never wanted to be a waiter — he wanted to tell stories. But he had no audience. Without the datasphere, he didn’t even have a medium. There were no books, no magazines, no newspapers. There wasn’t a real movie industry anymore — it had all been swallowed by one all-encompassing ubermedia. Even conversation had been subsumed by it. The irony was there was a desperate need for Henry’s originality in what the Germans called the weltgeschichte — the world story. But Henry’s tales weren’t part of it, because he couldn’t be heard.
At least, not beyond the routine of taking orders and fetching drinks. Henry tried not to resent his job. In some sense, he was lucky he was able to work at all. Le Fou en Mer wasn’t so expensive that a human chef ran the kitchen, but it was trendy enough that the clientele were all served by real humans. In addition to Henry, the other staff that day included two students from the city’s main academy. For them, the job was something they would remember fondly after they had graduated to work remotely, or dynamically in the datasphere, depending on their abilities.
But for Henry it was one of the few jobs that he could hold, all thanks to his faulty, noneactive mind.
He tried not to dwell on it, while he walked over to the table where Elisa sat with her colleagues. He let them know the chef’s specials that day, trying to be pleasant, and asked for their drink orders; it might have been obvious he found Elisa attractive, but he tried to disguise it. No matter, Elisa saw. She asked him his name, and was somewhat perturbed when he completely ignored her routine subvocal query.
Read the rest of the story in the latest edition of Abyss and Apex …>
You might also want to check out the Storyblogging Carnival.
The Carnival of the Insanities!
And if that doesn’t blow your mind, here’s news: Rowling Says Dumbledore Is Gay. The headmaster of a fey wizard’s school, gay? What a shocker!
Socks that make you feel ugly.
And a great headline from “A Soviet Poster a Day”: Diarrhea, cha, cha cha.
The actress playing the girlfriend is hilarious.
[YouTube link.]
Copies of Marvellous Hairy are available at the publisher's website direct or on Amazon.com
