Some years back I read The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas. I remember the basic plot, but what struck me most was the phrase “fly the pie.” As the king was on the road, periodically his entourage would come to a halt, as “the king decided to fly the pie.”

As I recall, it was never explained exactly what this entailed, except that everyone had to stop while this happened. What could it mean? Of course, I could look it up on Google, but that would shatter a spellbinding mystery. So, there are the obvious speculations:

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I think it's a sure sign of genius when someone sprays a vaguely cheddar cheese taste on small crackers and sells them in a box.  Where's the genius, you ask?  The genius is in making the crackers shaped like little smiling fish!  Rather than some dull geometric shape, one can chuff vast handfuls of mock sea-pals! 
If that's not the howl of genius I hear, then I don't know what is!  Just to be safe I'm going to make sure the doors are all locked.

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I saw a sign on the back of a truck today that said MIDDLE EARTH BARBER CORPS. As I got closer though, the words changed to VEHICLE MAKES FREQUENT STOPS! Wow, I knew Elven magic was powerful and all (and I can understand why the Middle Earth Barber Corps needs to stop frequently--they must dull their shears on the dwarfs' beards daily) but I didn't think they could change the very words on a sign! I mean, without repainting it. I could do that, that's not magic at all and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
I asked my cats about it, and they were unconvinced of what I had seen.
Cat 1: "It's just your bad eyesight. It always said the vehicle part. You just can't read at a distance, and your brain tries to make sense from inadequate hints. When you got close enough you could see what it actually said."
Cat 2: "Yeah, you really need new glasses, man."
Cat 3: "I hate everything."
So, even my cats are in on this conspiracy. I guess I need to be careful and atch-way y-may ep-stay.

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I don't think I've ever seen a “Director's Cut” that I've liked better than the original. “Aliens” seems bloated, dumber and more pointless. “Lifeforce” lost its drive and focus and added ridiculous bits. Well, yes, “Lifeforce” already had ridiculous bits, but you didn't notice 'em cos the movie moved so fast. And “Legend”? It seems tired and overly precious and lots dirtier (in the filth-flying-though-the-air sense) and I, for one, just wanted the film to get the heck on with it. Granted, the theatrical version of Legend seems like it was made by Italians...perhaps there's not really a good version of Legend out there. It would make sense. “Star Trek The Motion Picture” may have had its problems in the theatre, but the “new” version out on DVD just seems...wrong. Given the passage of years and the improvement of film technology, you can basically redo anything, but is it a good idea? I mean, why stop with the special effects? Why not replace Leonard Nimoy with Tom Hanks, and William Shatner with Russell Crowe? (Boy, did I just give some casting director a great idea. There's another million I'll never see.)
Well, I seem to have gone off topic. Like that's never happened.
So, more isn't always better. In many cases, like Star Trek, it's the picture of an era, a form of historical document. In a hundred years, this stuff will be seen as fine art. And you don't put a mustache on the Mona Lisa just because it makes it new and different. Well,, you do if you're Marcel Duchamp, but he's a special case (and another topic).
The cut of George Romero's “Dawn of the Dead” that I first saw was about 20 minutes longer than the standard cut...mostly containing scenes that fleshed (sorry) out the characters. There was a later, R-rated version released which was much more comic-book-like, very slick and professional, but without the resonance of the first version. So, finally, a “director's cut” that I like? Well, guess again! Lo and behold, it turns out Romero prefers this second version. So I still don't like “Director's Cuts.”
I wonder why Romero prefers the short version? It's very slick, and maybe he's just tired of being the “independent” “maverick” who never gets any “jobs”. It must be tempting to want to work in Hollywood and get films made on a steady basis, instead of the cult hero whose projects are either cancelled, direct-to-video, or given to other directors. “Resident Evil,” yes, I mean you. They just did a big remake of “Dawn of the Dead” here in the crawling chaos of 2004, and Romero's new project “The Ill” shows that it got cancelled. Then again, it was about vampires so not a big loss.
I wonder what cancelled films would have been really great movies? I bet if you talked to the writers, they'd say “All of them.”

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I'm sure you know the word “Dinosaur” comes from Latin words meaning “terrible lizard.”
Did you realize that means Fred Flintstone named his pet “Terrible”?
So, whenever “Dino” runs out of the house (pets do this), he has to roam the neighborhood, bellowing at the top of his considerable lungs, “Terrible! Terrible! TERRIBLE!” And all his neighbors bellow back (using their own prehistoric lungs) “It's not that bad!” “Yeah, shut up, some things are okay!” “Shaddap ya drunken philosopher!” You see, that last guy was confusing Fred Flintstone with that ancient Greek philosopher who was always walking around with a lantern looking for an honest man. This is because the ancient Bedrockians had so little history they were always getting it all mixed up. Good for them that they knew Latin, though, huh? Even I don't know Latin, and I've been told I'm kind of clever with that stuff I did. Once.
So, Fred Flintstone naming his poor pet “Terrible.” Of course, what can you expect from a man who can't even swear properly?
Now, what I'd really like to know is, what did people mean when they called Dean Martin “Dino”? Did they think he was a Flintstone pet, or did they think he was terrible? I can't speak about the former assumption, but really he wasn't terrible. He did some good songs. And he did that thing, you know, that he was famous for. That wasn't half bad.

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These things are all getting longer and longer. I mean, they're supposed to be little tiny things. They're still tiny things, but they're not so tiny anymore. They're half damned essays! And the essays page isn't even populated yet, as of today. What to do? Um...let me, get back to you on that.

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As of June 30, 2004. To be continued....

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I wonder who named that food called "borscht." I know it's probably Yiddish or Slavic or something, but man, it sounds just like the noise you'd make coughing it up again.

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If clouds were life-forms, I wonder what their lives would be like. You drift around and stuff, occasionally darkening and pouring water on people. Then you see them shake their fists at you. Sometimes, you can snow on them too. Hail, sleet, ice, those rains of fish or blood you hear about--the possibilities are endless it seems. But then, if you (as a human I'm talking now) watch clouds as they move across the sky, you can see parts of them kind of tear off and disentegrate.
I wonder if that hurts?

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You know how sometimes when you try something, and it doesn't work, so you start hitting it or banging it to make it work, and it still doesn't work, only now you're afraid you've broken it and it may never work, so you try again but very softly and all hoping Man-I-hope-I-didn't-just-bust-this-stupid-thing-Please-work-just-this-once-Sorry-about-calling-you-"stupid"-but-I'm-slightly-going-crazy-here and eventually you realize that it's not broken but just isn't going to work and the thing to do is to sit back and try to relax and let it cool down a bit, do something else and come back later to it and maybe it will be all right? Well, this July has been a lot like that. See you next month.

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As of July 30, 2004. To be continued....

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When will people learn that pizza is a right, not a priviledge?

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I thought up a new word, “electroniclowns.” Admittedly, this sounds like something Forest J Ackerman would have coined, but he didn't, I did. So, if you want to use it, feel free (I won't charge anything) but you really ought to give me credit. It's the decent thing to do, after all, unless you're one of those rotten electroniclowns.

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There was this chap that no one liked, and he made this special kind of cake-mix that you could use to coat your house in a protective layer of cake. The idea was, it would make your house all warm and toasty and nice to be in, and also, if you fell down and stopped working, you could eat cake while you waited for better times.
The problem was that the cake was as inferior in ingrediental make-up as the chap who invented it (as you'll recall, no one liked him) and it rotted rather swiftly. Soon, the house-holders who had been foolish to trust this man found that their houses rotted into funguous masses of black, rotten horror, which collapsed into swirling pools of ichor, sometimes with valuable furniture or memorabilia trapped inside.
Well, several countries (Britain, Spain, Italy, Japan and some of those other places that are all foreign) issued a review of this even-less-liked chap's invention, and it was a scathingly negative one.
It was titled “The International Pan of House Cakes.”

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You know what would be a great device? A remote control for traffic lights. Just think: you're driving along when, ahead of you, the light turns yellow. With the push of a button, you turn it green again, and drive on through! I'd probably wait for the programmable remote, though, the one where you can tell it that the lights along some certain path should all be green while you're driving through there.
Then, naturally, there would be Remote Wars between opposing drivers, with more and more powerful remotes being wielded by drivers. In fact, you might drive with a passenger whose sole function was to Remote the lights. (Remember how they laughed when you spent all that time playing Xbox? Now you can laugh right back!)
Criminals could use the remotes to elude the police, but then the police could remote right back so the criminals would get pancaked by a semi—a semi filled with retired fruitcake!
I bet this idea makes someone a billion dollars, and I bet they don't give me a dime for all my brainstorming.

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I read a lot of “blogs” on this “internet” thing. And I've discovered that I no longer watch the electroniclowns on the network news anymore. And you may beg to differ (go ahead, beg! Beg!) but I think I'm better informed because of it.

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I took some pictures of the Moon recently. I used this huge zoom lens that I have, and a teleconverter, and while they weren't perfect, they were pretty cool.
The thing is, I don't know if the Moon thought I was a paparazzi, or if the Moon was frightened by the lens, or what, but...I haven't seen the Moon since.

If any of you know the Moon, would you mind telling it that I just wanted to take some pictures, and I wasn't trying to wreck its privacy or be snoopy or anything. <Scuffling feet> I just wanted some pictures of the Moon. Also, mention in passing that I would like to take more, so that if it sees me, it will know what's going on and not get all scared or offended.
Thanks!

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Have you ever been in the drugstore, walking down unfamiliar aisles, and you suddenly spot something that sounds like a solution to one of your problems? “Oh, hey, I have [some symptom, “owl-shaped eyes,” or whatever]! This sounds perfect!” And you purchase the product, bring it home, and then start to read all the caveats?

“NOT to be taken INTERNALLY. If ANY of this gets inside you, you will SHRINK to the SIZE of a COIN.”

“NOT to be used other than for its STRICTLY DEFINED USE. Any other USAGE will turn you into the tallest MAN in the WORLD.”

“If ANY of this TOUCHES your TONGUE, you will POSSIBLY BURST.”

“DANGER! Use of this product near WATER may cause DINOSAURS to ATTACK.”

“NOT to be used as a FLOTATION DEVICE, DAMN you!”

“Do NOT use near an OPEN FLAME. DOING so will DETONATE the SUN.”

I have a whole shelf of these things, all carefully put away. I'm not only afraid of USING them, I'm afraid of OFFENDING them.

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Remember how comic books would put on the cover, “Because YOU demanded it!” and would then go on to proclaim, “The ORIGIN of MEAT-GUN!”
Well, I don't know about you, but I never demanded any such thing. Had comics been run my way, it would have read, “Because YOU demanded it! ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS!”
I would have bought every issue, too. If, on the other hand, you demanded the origin of Meat-Gun...well, nice going. We could have had one hundred dollars.

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If they introduced a super-hero called The Astonisher, with the tagline, “He can do anything you imagine!” I'd say, “Well, I can imagine him buying me some cigarettes.”
You might get away with it, too. And if not, being on the side of justice and all, the worst the Astonisher could give you was a stern talking-to.

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If someone says to you, “I used to be a gorilla, but now I'm much smaller,” chances are good that you're talking to a chimpanzee. One way to be certain is to “Check his library”—if there are a lot of books about bananas, it's a good guess you've found your chimp.
One bit of bad advice is, “Check his pants.” It turns out that this is a threshold for many, many species, and now you've got a furious creature all mad at you, and you don't even know what kind of creature it is. You don't even know if offering it a banana would help.

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I think a pretty good mutant power would be to always know what the opening weekend business of any movie is going to be, down to the dollar. You could make some good money betting with your friends. However, they'd soon grow suspicious of your hidden nature, and you'd probably have to drift from town to town, making a few bucks here and there before your reputation caught up with you, and you'd have to move on.
But you'd know in advance which theatres had unpopular movies in them, and you could probably catch some sleep that way. And if the movie woke you up, well, free movie.

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You know, people need things. But I don't think things need people.

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I saw the Moon last night! I'm glad to know it was not gone permanently. I didn't take any pictures, because I didn't want to take any chances and mess things up again.

Hey, thank you very much to whoever passed the word on to the Moon. Kudos!

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Stephen Den Beste is an insightful, thoughtful, thorough and engaging writer. He has written brilliant essays on a wide range of subjects, from politics and history, to science and military matters, to anime and popular culture. In times when others have sounded alarms and raised the flag high, his calm, rational and reasonable words have brought needed sanity, at least to me. His website, denbeste.nu, is one that I visit daily, and I always learn something.

A couple of days ago, I learned that Mr. Den Beste has decided to cease writing for the web. In his latest, and apparently last post, he details the reasons. I'll summarize, probably getting many details wrong, but here goes.

Apparently, he deals with a flood of emails every time he posts, some supportive, some combative, some nitpicking, According to his final post, the anticipation of these responses started to make him hesitate to write, as he could imagine the letters; he began to hate the idea of posting his thoughts, and finally he decided it wasn't worth it. He wasn't enjoying it anymore. A cloud of electronic wasps took shape and overwhelmed the urge to share his insights.

In the past, I wrote him a couple of times (simple questions) which he graciously answered. I kind of feel bad that I did that, but I did and I can't take it away. So I was part of it. (I always hesitated before sending--I felt terrified, in fact--but I did anyway.)

However, what he may not understand, and what I barely kind of understand, and what I'm going to bark on about anyway, is the power of his thinking. It is so clear, so reasonable and so enlightening, that it's understandable why it's so attractive to want to become a part of it, to participate as well as read, to contribute to what is clearly a great, ongoing work.

Other web writers (notably James Lileks, who is also brilliant) have complained of this kind of attention, which from their point of view I can see as an annoyance. You write something, and a storm appears on the horizon. It may be a hailstorm or a storm of fresh candy, eitherway, there's a lot of it and there's no escape. You watch it form, knowing that you brought it about. The web brings the world closer, perhaps too close, so that's it's easy to see a great writer not as some unapproachable titan, but as a next-door neighbor. How many sit-coms have you seen where the “wacky” next-door neighbor was actually a moronic pain-in-the-rear.

It's a shame that neighbor had his final say, and Mr. Den Beste will post no more.

Brilliant thinking will not disappear from the web, but the internet is much poorer now.

Mr. Den Beste, I will miss your work.

Thank you.

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As of August 31, 2004. To be continued....

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I recently read Frankenstein for the first time. For the most part, rather dull it is. After about 100 pages of flowery talk and flouncing fancies, with a bit of harumphing about the Dark Arts, the Monster is created and escapes in a couple of paragraphs! Then there's some other dull bits with a couple of distant murders, and finally F catches up with the FM and the M tells his story about living in a hovel and that story goes on forever! And it just goes on from there, with a bunch of yearning and aching and rueful regrets, etc. Then everyone DIES! How they managed to spawn a multi-million dollar monster legacy from this...this...this THING completely escapes me, like most other things.

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Speaking of books, did you notice that around the same time Poe was foaming with ghouls, novels were frequently issued with two titles? "Frankenstein: Or The Modern Prometheus" was how the novel ref'd above was published. Others'd be like "A Rotten Man, or, Giles Gets His Dampers" or "Reprehensible, or, Beneath Contempt." Has anyone ever referred to these books by the second title? Did authors think that people would buy the book twice or something (because people would think it was a new book), or were they just trying to give readers more of a choice (“I read The Red Pencil, and liked it.” “Harumph, well, I read The Green MeatBall, and hated it!” [hankies flung and swords drawn])? Say that could be another book: Hankies Flung, or, Swords Drawn.

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I was driving in my car on a road the other night, and I saw this restaurant called Applebees which is a chain. You may, perhaps, have at one time seen one! Anyway, the "Apple" part of the sign was burnt out, so all it said was "bees" which struck me as quite the humorous affair. Imagine hearing someone say "Hey, let's go to this place that's called 'bees'! They might have thousands of bees in there! We can eat our dinner under a genuine threat" Then, imagine being right for once!

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Have you noticed that the word "smattering" doesn't seem to have any form other than its own gerund? People say "There was a smattering of newpaper advertisements around the old gentleman's leisure chair" but no one ever says "I think I'll go smatter some grass seeds on the lawn" or "That damn dog smattered our garbage again."

Likewise, the word "feckless" doesn't seem to have a positive form, ie, "feckful." Usually one hears of a "feckless youth" and it means a somewhat gawky, gangling adolescent covered in a thin layer of slightly sticky sweat. But no one would ever refer to a handsome, confident man as "feckful." Or "fecking," that's just too dangerous to say! Also "gawky" doesn't have a negative, "gawkless" which would be good to apply to things like sleeping cats or the resting elderly.

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I thought of a new kind of product that could be quite lucrative: Ghoul Chow. It couldn't be more foul than many cat foods (Sea Horror, Blanched Charnal, Humans-Faint-O'er-It, Mashed Deadcake). You could probably buy ghoul chow in large sacks, and it may be the kind that "makes its own gravy" and perhaps Ghouls ask for it by name! And they might have Senior Mix for old ghouls. There's a million dollars waiting for someone to open this market, plus, the Ghouls think you're “okay” and they won't, well, you know, um, eat YOU instead.

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When you're taking a shower, and as you're washing yourself, and chunks of you start falling off as you're doing it, I suppose like me you think, “This can't be a good thing.” But can you think of any circumstances when it would be a good thing?

Well, I can think of one: if you were a rampaging, radioactive giant monster who was stomping on, and threatening, and eating (ick) mankind—in short, doing all the things which consistute “Menacing Mankind” (above the level of “Bothering Mankind”)--then, yes, it would be a good thing if you decided to bathe and that turned out to be your destruction. I mean, can't you just hear the music take an upswing while the narrator talks about how this must have been part of the Grand Design of Things? I wish I could buy that soundtrack, you know, for everyday life!

But of course, if you are hearing that music, it probably means you're a monster from the fifties, so you're probably pretty old anyway and were just about to toddle off to Monster Heaven. You know, hibernating for millions of years followed by a few weeks of intense activity really takes it out of you. Plus, being millions of years old would probably make you pretty crotchety. Maybe that's why Godzilla et al were always rampaging: they were just darn cranky and, let's face a few facts here...I've never been to Tokyo, but in the films and pictures and stuff I've seen, and from what I've read, it's a riot of noise and color and flashing lights. It seems just the sort of place to make an old person all bitter and stuff. And if that old person was fifty feet tall and had atomic breath, well....

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As of September 30, 2004. To be continued....

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Have you noticed how we refer our pets' genders?

We say, I have two "male" tabbies, or my labrador retriever is a good "girl."

We never refer to them as "men" or "women." And as for "ladies and gentlemen," I think you can forget that! At least until they stop knocking my stuff off the tables. Ladies and gentlemen don't knock things off tables

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I had written earlier about how flies' own buzzing must drive them to distraction, which is why they've never achieved anything better than “fly.”

However, I have to wonder if the opposite is true for bees (who are, after all, frequently used as a metaphor for industriousness). Perhaps their buzzing (admittedly less lackluster sounding than fly noise) is something they use to keep up the pace, as it were. They may thrive on noise, which is why shouting at them has no effect.

So I wonder what would happen if they put a CD of John Cage's music into their little bee CD players. They would probably enjoy the buzzing and clanking of the prepared piano works, but what would happen when they "heard" his imfamous work, 4'33" (which consists solely of silence)?

Why, they would expect sound of course, and the unexpected silence would probably drive them berzerk! I bet this is how swarms start.

In fact, I would further bet that teenage bees, who play the work as a "prank," feel pretty bad about the mayhem they caused, and straighten right out and become productive members of (bee) society.

There's a lesson for us all in there somewhere.

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Surfing the internet used to be like visiting the Library of Congress and the British Museum at the same time, while seated in the largest shopping mall in the world, surrounded by friendly people and helpful search engines.

Now, with popups, spyware, email farming, page hijacking and I don't know what else, it's like going alone into the bad part of town at midnight when the buses have all broken down, the police are on strike and most of the streetlights are burned out.

It used to be fun to go exploring. What amazing new things you could find. Now, you'd be a fool to do that.

Who's responsible for all the spyware and your farmbots and such? Creeps and jerks, to be sure, but perhaps something else. I've been thinking lately that perhaps there are things that actually live on the internet (like those things that live in hyperspace), and they have these powers, see, and their using our human brains to propagate themselves. Maybe these spyfarms and wreckbots and what-not are their way of reproducing and flourishing.

I'm starting to scare myself....

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As of October 31, 2004. To be continued....

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“I fished it out of the trash and ate it the next day.” If presented with this sentence, the first question is, was it fished out of the trash the previous day, then allowed to sit around and rot pervasively until the guy decided to eat it? Or was it fished out the shortly before it was eaten, and thus, it had little time to develop any sort of resentments against existance?
Questions like these are why I keep reading about grammer and punctuation (though none of it seems to sink in, thanks for your criticism). If English classes dealt with eating things out of the trash, I suspect I would have paid more attention, and would now be teaching you stuff you have to learn. Instead, you have to read it here. For free.
Um, never mind.

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It's interesting how food reacts to life, isn't it? I mean, pretzels become stale when they become soft. But bread becomes stale when it becomes hard! I mean, there must be some kind of “staleness mean” where all this makes sense, but our poor human brains will never see it. The philosophical stuff about TOAST doesn't even bear thinking about! And don't try it, either, because your head will explode and that is costly. And someone has to clean up after you, too.
And don't even start about how, a cold drink becomes warm, and a hot drink becomes cool.
I think it's great that our ancestors learned to sip things, and eat things delicately with pinkies out-thrust, otherwise this kind of fascinating factual material would never have come to light. I mean, if we just devoured stuff by the handful, we'd never learn about staleness and bad temperatures. Imagine if we had four or five hands, and several mouths! We'd probably never have learned anything, and we'd still be living at the bottom of the ocean or something. And you wouldn't be reading this, so pay attention! Be glad I'm here to tell you this stuff.

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Sometimes, stuff isn't funny. Like someone who had to fish something out of the trash to have something to eat. That just isn't funny. In fact, it's a bit repellent. Or sad, depending on your orientation. No, wait, it's just repellent.

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“Wine” and “cheese” are fascinating things. Both are highly valued and sometimes quite tasty. But, both are also things that have gone bad. Wine is grape juice that has started to rot. Cheese is milk that has gone bad.
I'd sure like to have seen it when these things were tasted for the first time. It was probably in cave-man days, and it went something like this (fade)....
“Oog, got any more of that goat's milk?”
“Yeah, but it's several days old. You can have some, though.”
“Oh. Look.”
“What?”
“Something's happened to it.”
“Wow! It's all yellow, and it's kind of solid!”
Both, together: “Let's see what it tastes like!!”
...(fade) I imagine the scene would be very similar for wine, except that they'd discover it tasted pretty bad, but they couldn't resist it anyway. Then they would have driven their Flintstone-type cars into trees and things.
On second thought, I don't think I would have liked to have seen these things. For one thing, they were millions of years ago, and that was even before videocassettes.

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As of November 30, 2004. To be continued....

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I think it would be pretty alarming to be walking along the beach and find a clam on the shore, and when you opened it, the clam had your face.

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You know what would be funny?..what's that? A circus clown? Good Lord, man, no that wouldn't be funny, that would be the first step on a downward plunge into terror! I had no idea you had these ideas. Here, just to keep you safe, are the seven warning signs (with two CD-only bonus signs) of circus clowns.
1. Large, colorful tents.
2. Calliope music.
3. Suddenly, you can't buy cream pies—of any variety—anywhere.
4. People with huge noses and giant grins trying to be funny.
5. Fat people (of any variety)
6. Discarded puppets, and/or strings.
7. Chewing gum everywhere. Chewing gum=unrest. Unrest=?
8. People with feet that are just way too huge.
9. Giant piles of dead bodies that the police can't explain.
If you encounter any two of these things, you should run and run and not stop until you're well clear of anything at all.
You're welcome.

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If they ever invent a snack shaped like people's noses, well, if you and a pal of yours are out motoring around, and he suggests buying a bag of (say) Lay's Nose Crunchettes, you could say, “Well, that's a snack I wouldn't 'pick',” and be known as a certifiable wit in your chosen social circle.
That small, cold, dim social circle.
Still, it's better than...something.
It must be better than something.

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As of December 31, 2004. To be continued....

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If you were to take dollars, and stack them into a staircase, I wonder how many of them it would take to reach the Moon? Probably more than I've got on me.

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I've discovered a sure-fire cure for dorkiness. The bass guitar. Think about it: Don Knotts as Barney Fife: dorky. Put a bass guitar in his hands, though, and he's the edgy bassist from some New York band. Bob Denver as Gilligan: dorky. With a bass guitar, though, he's a guy in a power-pop band. Who else? Eddie Deezen? He becomes someone in a synth-pop band, probably the guy who also writes the lyrics. Elmer Fudd? He could be in a scary downtown industrial band, a dance outfit, or a respected jazz player.
So, all you geeks, dorks and nerds, that's all you need! Just carry around a bass guitar all the time. Everywhere you go, people will say, "Wow, I thought he was a dork, but after seeing him with the bass, he's completely cool."
A regular guitar would not work, by the way. That is because you have to invest a regular guitar with your own personality, and you need a decent one to accomplish more than the hop from "Dork" to "Dork with guitar." No, no, only the bass guitar possesses the necessary coolness in and of itself.
If I could have patented this, I would have, but I didn't invent the bass guitar. That's the only reason you're getting this for free. You're welcome.

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There used to be (and may still be) a fast food chain called "Hot & Now." This seems tailor made for those who lack both discernment and patience. I don't recall if I ate there, but since I lack both qualities as well as memory, I probably did.
I wonder what other kinds of "Hot" restaurants would be successful? "Hot & Spongy" I can imagine would have them lined up around the block; one can only picture the happy patrons bouncing with anticipation as they near the order window. "Hot & Pasty" on the other hand, would probably be a sad place, whose few patrons were simply caught in its negative pull, unable to escape, like flies in honey.

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I think they should make a postage stamp with a picture of the guy who invented the Mellotron.

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As of January 31, 2005. To be continued....

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...I couldn't think of anything worth saying for an entire month! Not only that, but I didn't write any of it here! See you next month...

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As of February 28, 2005. To be continued....

No one is happy when cats begin to vomit. Or even when they threaten to vomit. In fact, if you see someone really happy when a cat is about to vomit, you should suspect that they are not really a real person. They're some kind of android copy, but obviously not a very good one.

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I wonder if the person who invented the banjo knew the Hell he was about to unleash on Earth.

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I think if we had eyes in the backs of our heads, we wouldn't go very many places. Think about it: while you're walking, and looking forward at things coming toward you, you're also looking backward, at things you're leaving behind. I think the whole thing would make you sea-sick. You know, I bet that people who get sea-sick have vestigial third eyes in the backs of their heads. They probably think they're pimples or something. If they only knew, eh?

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The Muppets are pretty popular things. As I'm sure you know, they got their name from the combination of "marionette" and "puppet." It's kind of scary how close history came to giving us The Puppionettes.

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You know what would be a cool feature on a car dashboard? A traffic light sensor. It would tell you how long the light was going to be a certain color. So, if it was red, you'd know you only had another 18 seconds left before it turned green, and you could drive, and get out of my way faster. Similarly, if I saw that a light was about to turn yellow in 15 seconds, it would give me a chance to floor it.

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Anyone who sits down to write an opera obviously doesn't care about the children.

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I wonder if the folks who live on Mars make up stories about invading Earth people? I hope they don't picture us with giant, exposed brains, because I'd have to wear a hat, and hats just don't look good on me.

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As of March 31, 2005. To be continued....

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Laugh, Clown, Laugh say the philosophers. But I bet if it was a Mind Clown, they'd say something different. Stay Away From Me, Mind Clown, Stay Away, they'd say, their voices barely above a whisper as they huddled, hidden in the darkness from the prowling, hungry Mind Clown.

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It's a good thing that when people laugh, they all laugh the same way. Because if everyone had their own style of laughing, civilization would probably never have started. Plus, there'd be all that noise.

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If a person asks you to watch over a dill pickle while he goes and mails some letters, that person is probably the Devil, trying to tempt you into some kind of pickle-related sin. Just remember you have free will and you should be okay. Of course, you could always say, “No thanks, Satan!” and run away.

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If you imagine a whole number between nine and ten, you've got quite an imagination.

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I bet you could make a lot of money if you call the Copywrite Office and claim you lost one of your copywrites. The clerk would ask you to describe it, and you could say something vague about size or color, and nine times out of ten they'll help you with the description until they say, “Well, I have a copywrite right here that fits that description” And you can say, “Oh, that's mine, wow, I've been so worried all night long!” And you'd start getting money from that copywrite. Good luck with the scheme, and remember your friends here.

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Have you noticed how DVDs fit EXACTLY into a DVD player? I'm starting to think that's more than a coincidence.

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As of April 30, 2005. To be continued....

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You know, sheets of living cells are called “tissue,” and a sheet of thin paper is also called “tissue.” This brings up an interesting question, well, interesting to me anyway. If we collected a huge wad of tissues (the paper kind) and let them kind of, well, coalesce, what kind of life form would develop? I mean, it's a collection of tissues, what the heck kind of definition of life do you want?

Anyway, scientists could study it, and learn to communicate with it. And I bet one of the first things it would say is, “Parts of my substance appear to be snot. What kind of god allows this?”

They’d have to bring in all kinds of religious leaders to resolve this, and this might finally pave the way to an end to the long conflict between science and religion. So, I sure hope someone starts this project soon, but don’t look at me. Used tissues? Eww!

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You know what’s really funny? Heh-heh-heh. You’ll love this. It’s totally hilarious when…oh. Wait. That’s not funny. Not funny at all. In fact…that’s just damn sad. Oh, my. Excuse me, I have to go weep softly into some (unused) tissues. Oh my God this is so tragic.

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Have you ever seen the cartoon, Samurai Jack? It’s pretty cool, and it’s educational too. I’ve learned that most problems can be solved with a bit of creative thinking plus a magic sword. Next time the boss yells at me, I know what I’m going to do. Thanks, Jack!

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Pretty much all fruits and vegetables have juice counterparts. Apple juice, grape juice, pineapple juice, tomato juice, carrot juice…the list is endless, well, endless enough for me anyway. However, some earthen products have been neglected. How come we don’t have potato juice, onion juice, or mushroom juice? I bet they’re just as healthy for us, perhaps even better. Someone should look into these, because it would be good for humans to drink them, I’m just betting.

Oh, but don’t ask me to drink them. Mushroom juice? Yuck, talk about instant throw-up!

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If frustration was a source of power, I could light up…well, some minor hamlet somewhere that no one cares about. (Except the people who live there. Never forget them. They haven’t forgotten you. And they will thank me for my service to them, and you who frustrate me…make ready. At dawn we strike! In my name shall ye wring your regrets, to whatever heaven fails to hold you!)

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Smoking, drinking, gambling…it’s high time that the twenty-first century came up with some new naughty pleasure, don’t you think? Why else even have a new century, then, if it's just the same old stuff.

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As of May 31, 2005. To be continued....

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I once bought a pound of sharp cheddar cheese so I could have a friend. Boy, do I miss his wit! It's just a terrible tragedy that he tasted so good on crackers. I'm still broken up by it. Well, not really, but that's a better ending than the original one, where I make millions of dollars and am happy. Hey--wait a second!

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If spaghetti grew on trees, imagine how terrible that would be. They'd plop spaghetti down on the ground all day, and they'd probably make awful moaning noises while they did it. We'd have to create a race of robots to just scoop up the awful droppings all day long, and that race of robots would have to dump the tree's fruits somewhere where it wouldn't bother anyone. And I bet they'd grow resentful of their task, and grind the spaghetti into powder, and put it everywhere! Sometimes evolution is so kind, we should form a fan club.

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Have you noticed how most video games are about shooting aliens? What's the agenda here, anyway? And how do you suppose real aliens would react if they landed and wanted to have peaceful relations, and found out we spent our leisure time blasting them! I suspect they'd get angry and refuse to leave gifts. Good thing we've got lots of practice shooting them, and then taking their gifts anyway! Sometimes things just work out pretty well. Not often, but you gotta give props for the few occasions.

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I bet a few years ago, if you told someone, "Sorry, I've got to be blogging," or "I have to update my blog," they would think you were using euphemisms. How right they'd be! Back then, I mean, before there was such a word. Back then, they'd probably advise more fiber in the diet.

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It turns out, most problems can be solved by staging a puppet show. Just passing on the wisdom, here....

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People should remember to shoot zombies in the head. Now, you may think I'm being cruel or taunting, but it's just common sense. Shooting them in the stomach or foot, or trying to get them to sign a non-devouring contract, why, those are just foolish. And no one wants to be foolish. Well, except people who are paid to be foolish, but really that's worse than a zombie job. There aren't any brains, for one thing.

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I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I was a lobster. Why, I'd probably type things like "yu/.l rklt jnyioppoi rereqm..m" because, as anyone who has tried to type with lobster claws knows, that's about the best you can hope for. So, you should just be thankful I'm not a lobster. I tell you. I should get paid for not being a lobster. Come on, people, pony up! Wait a minute, the cops are here. Just act natural. Don't act like a lobster.

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As of June 30, 2005. To be continued....

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July, 2005: Overslept.

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As of July 31, 2005. To be continued....

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August, 2005: Couldn't find a parking place.

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As of August 31, 2005. To be continued....

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When they tag bears and sharks with those tracking devices, they should also put wireless internet antennas on them too. That way, if you're lost in the woods, you can still keep up with email and news and things when bears attack. Maybe you could order some anti-bear stuff from eBay!
Now, to get a good signal, you would have to have the bears or sharks nearby, but not so near that you'd be in danger. That would take a lot of practice, and in fact I bet people would have to be certified. It'd be like, well, we're still lost in the ocean, but the sharks got bored, so open up another chum packet--I want to check how the market is doing.

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You know, if you want to get people's attention, there are few better ways than to jump up and down and shout how you have a thousand dollars for each person.
Of course, the corollary is that, once you have their attention and explain that you don't really have all that money, but wanted their utmost attention, many of these people will hit you, hard, in the face with their fists. And you'll never get to tell them what you originally wanted to tell them, which was probably something like "Help!"
That's probably a great experiment in human nature. Write me if you try it.

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Sometimes, humor comes in the most unexpected guises. Like if you woke up in the middle of the night, convinced your liver was exploding, but it turned out