Skwibby fiction

[Feed cuts in and we see Doctor John Falangiopolous, a distinguished-looking epidemiologist, sit down and pull the two lone microphones towards himself. He seems somewhat disappointed to notice that there are only a few reporters present.]

JF: Hello, I’m Doctor John Falangiopolous and we’re here to talk about my study, which shows that most studies are wrong.

You have the briefing materials, but in essence my research shows that small sample sizes, poor study design, researcher bias, and selective reporting and other problems combine to make most research findings false.

In fact, any randomly chosen study has only a 50 percent chance of being right.

Cindy Luhoo, CMN: Cindy Luhoo, CMN. So if that is the case, how do we know your study is right?

JF: Well, of course, I knew the irony of situation, but let me assure you, because of the nature of my study, I was careful to ensure that I did not make any of the mistakes that are so common.

It’s important to note that in the scientific process, it is not the first discovery that is critical, but the replication and confirmation that matters, because quite often research is refuted or shown to be incorrect.

CL: Follow up question: Like your study?

JF: No, my study is quite accurate, but I suppose we will not know for sure until my findings have been replicated by another scientist.

Bob Flaberghast, Washington Times-Journal: Bob Flaberghast, Washington Times-Journal, here. So, I’m confused. Should we be reporting on this or not?

JF: Yes, the study merits media attention. In fact, my hope is that the general public will understand that any particular study is not fact until it has been replicated by other studies.

BF: Well, then why cover it in the first place? Shouldn’t we wait for the replicating studies?

CL: Yes, but what about the news value Bob? Who cares about the second study?

BF: But Dr. Falangiopolous is saying that the first study doesn’t really matter.

CL: He didn’t say that Bob! God you always jump to these conclusions.

BF: Hey, I at least think about it a bit before I write something. At least I’m not just slapping it on the air as soon as I have some kind of film or actuality I can use.

CL: Bob, that’s not fair –

JF: If I could just interject for a moment, I think I can –

BF: Of course it’s fair. I can’t help it if your medium demands instant gratification.

CL: Well my medium may demand instant gratification, but at least I don’t.

BF: Oh! You bitch!

CL: Doctor Falangiopolous, would you say it’s normal for a man to ejaculate the very second of penetration?

JF: Well, uh, my field of research is epidemiology, so I’m not sure that I’m qualified to –

BF: Oh, ignore her because she’s been passed up for an anchor job again.

CL: You prick!

JF: Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t see how –

BF & CL: Shut up!

JF: I will not shut up. This is my media conference. We’re here to talk about my study –

BF: Which by your own admission has only a 50 percent chance of being right?

JF: Yes, but the point is –

CL: So you have it. Put the camera on me. On me! Good. So there you have it folks, this study is worthless and Bob is a premature ejaculator.

BF: Are you doing a stand-up in the middle of news conference?

CL: Yes jiffy pop. What’s it to you?

BF: I told you never to call me that. It makes me angry

[Camera pans wildly, we see Dr. Falangiopolous making cutting motion with his hand, Bob approaching Cindy, who looks simultaneously pissed off and terrified ... feed cuts out.]

Obviously, this is another piece from the archives — however, my theory is that if it’s more than two years old, then it will seem new. This is based on a 2005 story in the New Scientist: Most scientific papers are probably wrong . (The story, not the theory.) Thanks to Mars Discovery District for the nerds. Other geekery is available at humor-blogs.com and alltop.

This is your last chance to vote for The Skwib as the best Canadian humour blog.

From the archives: August 9, 2005

The little-known abstract expressionist, Congo the chimp, has art going up for sale at Bonhams, an auction house in England. Three of Congo’s paintings are being sold alongside such masters as Renoir and Andy Warhol. (Not that Congo isn’t a master in his own right.)

Congo began his artistic career when he worked with Desmond Morris, anthropologist, TV presenter and writer of such books as The Human Animal, The Naked Ape, and Chimps-r-Us. Initially, Morris gave Congo the paints just to mess with the poor ape’s head, but after a couple of years, Congo got the hang of it, and he found a dealer in NY.

What happened to poor Congo thereafter is a cautionary tale for all artists.

The dealer knew Picasso, and the famous swordsman was enthralled with Congo’s “primitive” aesthetic. News of Picasso’s approval spread, and soon Congo found himself in a group show at MOMA, alongside the likes of Andy Warhol. (So it is fitting that his work is auctioning along with Warhol’s now.)

The NY arts scene in the late 50s was wild, and a little bit more than the young Congo could handle. (He was only six when he arrived.) At a party, an impish Truman Capote introduced the impressionable chimp to the banana daiquiri, and from there it was all downhill.

After a few lukewarm reviews from the MOMA show, Congo felt he should be more experimental, and changed artistic medium : he started working exclusively with canvas and his own fecal matter. This aromatic work was received rather coldly from critical circles, and even his patron, Picasso, withdrew support. (Thought it must be noted, this was after a wag commented on how similar the famous artist looked to congo.)

As his fortunes changed, Congo could neither afford his loft in Soho, nor even continue to support his daiquiri habit. Instead, he found solace in a slow degradation of fruity beverages: slivovice, ripple, and finally, Aqua Velva laced with vanilla extract.

Nobody knows exactly what became of Congo thereafter.

Putting an upbeat coda on this sad story, a spokesperson from the auction house Bonhams said:

Paintings by apes may be seen as humorous or as a derisive commentary on modern art. However, Morris’s studies were a serious attempt to understand chimpanzees’ ability to create order and symmetry as well as to explore, at a more primeval level, the impetus behind our own desires for artistic creativity.

Original CBC story | Chimp Rehab Fund. You will find other monkeying around at humor-blogs.com and alltop. You can vote for The Skwib as best Canadian humour blog here.

The war in Europe was a wrap, and President Truman turned his haberdasher’s mind to the problem of Stalin.

How do you impress a man like Uncle Joe “I’ve killed 20 million of my own people” Stalin?

Perhaps a nice bowler hat? He wondered what Stalin’s hat size was — he’d never gotten the hang of guessing. He had some of his best scientitians working on a mind control device that could be implanted into the hat. But Truman had no faith in this plan — Stalin was too paranoid to wear a gift from him.

There was the atomic bomb. If he dropped that on Japan, maybe that would scare Stalin . . . but he didn’t think so. The man was just too bloodthirsty, and he didn’t have any compunction about throwing his people into a meat grinder if he had to, so how would vaporization of his armies be any worse? Besides, then the Russians would build one, and the atomic bomb did scare the hell out of him. They were lucky that Hitler didn’t finish his before the Allies took Berlin.

No, he needed something truly shocking. Something so horrific that even Stalin would be intimidated. Truman took another sip of his bourbon and looked into the deep amber of the Kentucky sour mash. And had an inspiration.

Thus, the alcohol bomb was born — a device that could change the chemistry of alcohol and turn it into water. For an inveterate scotch-drinking psychopath like Stalin (and your humble scribe), there could be nothing more terrifying.

This is from The Skwib’s archives, and was originally inspired by this July, 2005 story in the New Scientists: Researchers think Truman did bomb Hiroshima to scare Stalin. You want funny hats. These are very funny.

The Monkey’s Tail, as Told by Marcel Duchamp the Day After Charles Lindbergh Landed at Le Bourget Field

by Mark A. Rayner

I had this friend who was obsessed with having a monkey tail grafted to his ass. Actually, to call him a friend is stretching the truth. Toulouse was more of a colleague. An ex-colleague, if you get my meaning.

He went to great lengths to achieve his ends. At first, he was convinced that it would be possible to grow a tail. After all, we used to have them: they are part of our vestigial anatomy. He knew a biologist from Pigalle who was willing to help pull out his tail bone. Not literally. No, he would attempt to stretch it outwards by digitally manipulation.

Oh yes, it was quite painful, but Toulouse was bent on it. He was mad for the monkey tail, wasn’t he?

Eventually, Toulouse accepted the anatomist’s ministrations were not going to work, and went in search of other answers. He tried occult methods: spells, potions and unguents. It was about this time people started to avoid him. The unguents were too pungent by far. Yes, even for Paris in summertime.

Read the rest of this story …>

Jesussic Park

by Mark A. Rayner

Jesus was visiting a lost valley that was reputed to hold a few holy men who separated themselves from the rest of the world so they could better understand the nature of God. He was hoping to talk to them alone, but he’d made the mistake of healing a few of the sick (he couldn’t remember if they were lepers, blind or tone-deaf cantors) in the town nearby.

So instead of a quick Messiah-to-Hermit conference, he’d accumulated a large crowd.

“What do you think we should do, Oh Son of God?” Peter asked Jesus. (In case you didn’t know, Peter was always kissing his ass.)

“I don’t know, why don’t we try the Beatitudes? It always does well with an outdoor crowd. Remember how it killed on the mountain?”

Peter nodded unctuously.

So Jesus climbed a large boulder, so the crowd could see him. They’d stopped in some tall grass just inside the entrance to the valley.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus began, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

He paused dramatically, because the next one always got them where they lived: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

You could feel the ripple of excitement at that thought shiver through the crowd.

Or was it something else?

The tall grass separated in a dozen places, and suddenly, there were screams of horror and agony as they were pulled down.

“Dragons!” somebody in the crowd shouted.

“Save us from the dragons, O Messiah!”

Just then, one of the dragons — actually a velociraptor, a predatory dinosaur about the size of a turkey — appeared at the bottom of the boulder where Jesus had been Beatituding.

“Stay away from my flock!” Jesus commanded the dinosaur.

It ignored him and proceeded to jump on Peter, who was screaming hysterically; the fifty-pound dinosaur then used its powerful, razor-sharp second claw to rip open the Apostle’s stomach. It’s sharp teeth chomped on Peter’s neck.

Jesus had always thought that Peter was a bit of a brown-noser, but he did not like seeing the fisherman disemboweled. He jumped off his boulder, and picked up his staff, which he then brought down on the velociraptor’s head as it continued to gnaw on Peter.

Jesus smashed its skull with the blow.

“Blessed are those who crush the skulls of the dragons, for they shall save their neighbors!” Jesus shouted.

The assembled believers took this one to heart — even more than that excellent meekness promise — and proceeded to defend themselves from the small dinosaurs. The velociraptors grabbed what pieces of the believers they could and ran away.

Judas appeared, his sword drawn and dripping with blood. Father, I hope that’s raptor blood, Jesus thought.

“Those things are pretty easy to kill Jesus, but what the hell are they?”

“Creatures that we thought had been eradicated by the Flood. They must have survived in this lost valley,” the Saviour said.

“Well, I think we should leave, or else,” Judas said.

“O Master,” Luke said, “can you heal the wounded? Raise those consumed by the Beasts?”

“Not now,” Jesus said. “I used up all my spells this morning on the lepers, or were they blind?”

“No, they were off-key priests, O Messiah,” Simon said. “It was a blessed relief.”

“Shit, look at Peter,” Judas said. “What a fucking mess!”

“Language!” Jesus admonished. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to raise him until tomorrow, and then that will be it,” Jesus explained.

“Really? After what happened to Lazarus? That fucker is just disturbing now.”

Jesus rubbed his temple. Judas and his potty-mouth.

“I mean, Peter is bit creepy to start with, but give him a day in the underworld, and, well, is it a good idea to raise him at all?” Judas asked.

The crowd had gathered around the Messiah and his Apostles. Only a few had been killed by the dinosaurs, but they were worried about them coming back.

“We shall take him with us, and visit the holy men later,” Jesus decided. “Let us leave this lost valley. Blessed are the wise, for discretion is the better part of valor.”

The crowd murmured in agreement.

Then the T-Rex smelled the blood, and trumpeted its hideous, terrifying hunting call.

“Blessed are the swift of foot,” Jesus said, “for they shall not be eaten.”

“But I’m lame!” shouted someone in the crowd.

“I’ve got a bad limp.”

“I’ve lost my sandals.”

The ground shook. People held their ears as the nearby hunting call hit 130 decibels. The 40-foot, 7-ton carnivore appeared, its savage head low as it ran through the grass.

The Believers unable to run from the creature looked at Jesus expectantly.

“Blessed are the lame and those without quality footwear,” Jesus said, “for they shall see the Kingdom of Heaven.”

And then he ran.

The End

So Long Michael Crichton, and thanks for all the dinosaurs.

Author’s Note: This may seem to be quite far-fetched, but if you accept the Creationist viewpoint, then it is possible that Jesus may have walked with the dinosaurs. (Some may have survived the Biblical extinction event, the Flood.) If you find that notion silly, then you may also enjoy this YouTube clip of Eddy Izzard’s bit on Jesus preaching to the dinosaurs. Other fast-moving lizards include humor-blogs.com and Alltop.

It were 2011, and a year had passed since the Le Fromage de Satan had sunk our frigate with an exploding cheese, killing all hands except for meself, Jim Quinn, and the chef’s assistant, Paul Le Whisk.

Arrr!

Le Whisk gave up yer life at sea after his near brush with the Belugas. And I? Well, after the disaster that befell the HMCS Shag Harbour, it were clear to me His Majesty’s fleet was not going to capture the worst of Canada’s curdaneers, Captain Jacques LaBung. It would be up to me to get LaBung and his ruthless gang of cheese pyrates, whose savage bowel obstructions were infamous along the Gold Coast.

So I hit upon the idear of luring them in, so to speak, with me own tempting cheddar. I resigned my commission, and entered the shadowy world of bathtub cheese making. Dangerous work for sure, keeping clear of the authorities while yer curds age, and I almost lost me good hand in the press one time. But soon, I had load of unsanitary cheese, ready to lure LaBung and his plugged-up pyrates with.

I let it be known that I were transporting my salmonella-laced booty that night, and knew the word would get out to LaBung. Even if he suspected its quality, he could never resist a boatload of gold. My launch were a sturdy craft, but it would not survive the explosives I’d put in the hold. Me plan was to destroy the ship when La Bung and his constipated crew came on board.

I were willing to die for me revenge, but it were not to be.

Sure enough, their awful ship, Le Fromage de Satan, came at me as soon as I was in the St. Lawrence, but before they boarded me, a swarm of birds rose from the craft. It were a flock of aggressive parrots, trained by the demon La Bung himself! They came at me, screeching profanities in Quebecois, and pecking at me good eye! They stunk of the ship’s bilge, where La Bung had been keeping them, driving them mad with the reek.

Ashamed as I am to admit it, I panicked, and abandoned me wee launch to the feculent birds.

I dove under the water, and swam away as fast as I could, knowing the pyrates would stop for the cheese, and leave me be.

But I could hear the roar of LaBung’s laughter, above the din of evil parrots, screeching: “Kétaine! Vas te faire foutre!” I vowed (yet again) that revenge would be mine.

Authorities seize “bathtub cheese” | Flock of Houdini birds hits city | Other sources of giggle-guano can be found at humor.blogs.com and alltop.

Arrrr!! Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day! Part one of Cheese Pirates!here.

The year were 2011 and I joined the Navy for one reason alone — to get me vengeance on Le Fromage de Satan, and her scurvy master, Captain Jacques LaBung.

LaBung and his crew of plugged-up sea-dogs were known all along the Gold Coast — the north shore of the St. Lawrence. The bilge rats were infamous for their cruelty, their addiction to Quebec water-aged cheddar, and their malignant bowel obstructions.

Me own father had been a boson on Le Fromage de Satan; killed by LaBung for some minor offense. Arrr!

They Strapped him to the Wheel. This was the worst fate yer cheese pyrate could suffer, worse even than keel-haulin’. When yer underwater cheddar goes bad, that wheel of cheese is used as an anchor — or in the case of me Da’, he were strapped to it, and tossed over to be Mocked By the Belugas.

Down to Davy Jones he went, and I vowed me revenge. So now here I am, Ensign Jim Quinn, newly minted by His Majesty, and ready to take on the worst of Canada’s curdaneers.

Avast! There she be, heeling out from Baie des Ha! Ha! in full flight. But she’s no match for our frigate, the HMCS Shag Harbour.

And then, the milky whey of fate stepped in, and a fog bank came up to obscure our prey. We had to slow, and we thought we’d lose them, but then we heard them in the fog, laughing at us.

Our captain piled on, and the Shag she responded! We could hear their laughter above the roar of our engines, and then I noticed it in the water.

“Hard a larbord!” cries I, but too late. We hit the cheese-barrel dead-on; I was abaft, and so, were thrown overboard in the blast, not kilt outright.

The bow of the Shag were in flames, and then it began to sink, taking me crew with it. Me captain had been caught by one of the oldest tricks of yer Quebec curdaneer — the exploding cheese.

The flames went out as the Shag Harbour went down, and Le Fromage de Satan disappeared into the fog, the laughter of her pyrates mocking me, me Da, and those few brave seamen who’d survived the wreck.

Mocked me, they might have, but killed me they hadn’t, and vengeance would still be mine. I’ll see you in Davy’s yet, LaBung!

Next time: The Revenge of the Crimson Parrots

Three more sleeps to Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Sunken Quebec Treasure | Photo by fourthirtythree | Other bunged-up bilge-rat humor at humor-blogs.com and alltop. Arrrrrrr!

If you haven’t had a chance to watch “Le Grand Content” yet, I highly recommend the experience. Never mind that the voice-over sounds like a German Stephen Hawking. Never mind that the improper use of Venn Diagrams will send Mr. Hippity into paroxysms of erudition.

The short (just under the new YouTube-mandated attention span of 4 minutes) film is by Clemens Kogler together with Karo Szmit. (Voice by the android-like Andre Tschinder.) According to their write up:

“Le Grand Content examines the omnipresent Powerpoint-culture in search for its philosophical potential. Intersections and diagrams are assembled to form a grand ‘association-chain-massacre’. which challenges itself to answer all questions of the universe and some more. Of course, it totally fails this assignment, but in its failure it still manages to produce some magical nuance and shades between the great topics death, cable tv, emotions and hamsters.”

Yes, you read that correctly. It manages to combine cable TV, emotions and hamsters. But don’t let that put you off. It also has lots of quips on careers, regret and hickeys. And the final take on “the perception of how much alcohol is left” is worth your time.

The film is at YouTube for those of you who can’t see the embedded clip. (Via Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits):

What there’s more to this post? What kind of pretentious wanker are you?

Well, it is titled, “Le Grand Content O-Rama”. I am a pretentious wanker who likes to make a tawdry display of his reading, so this list of the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users appealed to me. Normally I’m too lazy to copy these lists and then bold, underline and italicize as necessary. (See.) I guess the premise of this list is that lots of people have books on their shelves to make themselves look smart or well-rounded, though you can argue the point. According to the Wall Street Journal, these “memory rooms” are about creating an ambiance, not reading. One interior designer admitted to “scouring flea markets and bookstores for books with fancy bindings for her clients’ bookshelves. She selects books to match color schemes rather than for their content.” (via Gawker)

I actually don’t own most of the books on this list, though I do have some on my shelf.

Bold the ones you’ve read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you own and haven’t read or started but didn’t finish. (I’ve also put an asterisk * after the books I have no intention of ever reading/finishing and a † for the ones I have on my shelf.)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (though the narrative doesn’t live up the quality of its footnotes) †
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22 (a must read if you love satire) †
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights*
The Silmarillion (also not recommended unless you’re a 15-year-old virgin with time to kill)
Life of Pi: a novel (It’s a story about a tiger and a small boy in a lifeboat. And it’s more than two pages long. Impressive.)
The Name of the Rose (major pretentious wanker points for finishing this one.) †
Don Quixote (ditto)
Moby Dick (more information about whale biology than you’ll ever need)
Ulysses (I can’t get past chapter four)
Madame Bovary (she was hot)
The Odyssey (kick-ass adventure story with a mass murdery finish) †
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities (”It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.”)
The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky rocks. Apparently Freud was fascinated by this book too.)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies (must reading for anyone who creates worlds) †
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife * (this is starred, even though I don’t know anything about this book. It’s the principle. Anything titled “The Something Something’s Wife” would get the dreaded star.)
The Iliad (once you get over the author’s obvious foot fetish, the book is pretty good) †
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner *
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged (Yeah, I know. Plus, I’ve also read the Fountainhead.)
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books *
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver †
Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World (This is probably in my top ten.) †
The Fountainhead (See.)
Foucault’s Pendulum (Baffling until I read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, at which point I got a bit freaked out. Luckily Dan Brown then dumbed it all down enough in the Da Vinci Code that I realized I was being silly.)
Middlemarch
Frankenstein †
The Count of Monte Cristo (Ultimate revenge tale.)
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange (Highly recommended my droogs.)
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible: a novel *
1984 †
Angels & Demons (the shame!)
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses *
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels (he gets big, he gets small, plus, there’s talking horses.)
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune (can you imagine what Freud would have made of an entire culture of giant worm-worshipers? Jack-pot.)
The Prince (must reading for anyone going into business, politics or fratricide)
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir (this is actually quite a funny book, once you get used to reading about crushing poverty, relentless alcoholism and incipient TB.)
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon †
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces (I have a feeling this one won’t be much read in a generation or so.)
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (This is the only pretentious Czech book on the list, but believe me, I’ve read dozens.) †
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five (Also in the top ten.) †
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon (viking chick-lit!)
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed (Skip the first chapter and you’ll be fine.) †
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion †
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye (I read this one every time I start feeling a little alienated from society. It’s almost like I was programmed …) †
On the Road (I agree with whoever said, “that’s not writing, that’s typing.” Tennessee Williams?) †
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything *
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values (You know, I really didn’t see the ending coming, so I have to recommend it. However, it took me the better part of a year to read.)
The Aeneid (Roman propaganda crap.)
Watership Down (An adventure story about rabbits. How cool is that?)
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit (I’m not sure what I love more, the book or the 1977 made-for-TV animation.) †
In Cold Blood: a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences *
White Teeth
Treasure Island (Arrr!) †
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers (Hilarious.) †

Now, is it me or is there a lot of SF on this list? What the hell?

This was all started by someone else, but I stumbled across it at Ahistoricality. If you play, I’d love to know about it. My score: Bold (read, unbidden, because I am a pretentious wanker): 51, Italics (read but not finished): 3, Underlined (read in school, which doesn’t necessarily mean I didn’t enjoy them): 5.

More classics at humor-blogs.com and alltop.

Barga had thought he’d seen it all.

I mean, he’d been around a bit, even if he did live in a time when early humans were still experimenting with clothing. The morning had been spent grubbing for truffles and thinking about soup. That afternoon, he decided a pleasant dip at the ‘ol swimmin’ hole would be just the thing. But the serenity of the day was not destined to last.

At least, not much beyond the uncomfortable realization that the human attacking him was hung … well, like a bear, but better, Barga had to admit.

Later, he reflected upon how delicious the one who ran screaming from the glade would have been if the back of his legs hadn’t been so badly stained with early homo sapiens fecal matter …

[From the Toulouse Le Grandfig Necrobiblia Collection]

Humor-blogs.com and Alltop are also experimenting with clothes.

Rozie was a helluva’ dame.

She could sink those rivets faster than a two-dollar fancy-girl could peel the wrapping off a sailor on shore leave, after he’d been at sea for several months, writing bad poetry and extended metaphors that ended up just kind of petering out, the way that an old man with a pipe full of wet monkey fur did, trying to light the mangy stuff with a can full of lima beans instead of a match or a zippo, or the right technology for the job.

Then the propeller cut off her head.

[From the Toulouse Le Grandfig Necrobiblia Collection]

More heroic attempts at comedy here and here.

You know, novels don’t write themselves. This seems like an obvious truth, but over the past year or so, I have kind of forgotten it; in short, the time that I should have been spending throwing enough words at the wall so I could get a few to stick and coalesce into a spaghettified mess worthy of a novel, I have been cranking out drivel on this blog.

Entertaining drivel, I hope, but drivel nonetheless.

So, I’ll be posting a little less regularly than usual over the next few months. Who knows, perhaps I’ll discover that I’m incapable of longer projects now. I’ll have to see what condition my condition is in.

I notice that this is my 1300th post. How cool is that? Keep checking back to see how long it takes to get up to 1500!

More entertaining drivel here and here.