Crikey, when I saw that huntsman it right gave me the collywobbles!
It’s a whole new year, all lined up and facing into the wind and waiting to play with you like an eager puppy, like a supple French hooker, like a shimmering glass of God’s own tequila just sitting on the counter of possibility waiting for you to tip your head back and let that white-hot firewater slide down your throat like a snake of temptation straight into your undernourished id. [From Mark Morford’s New Years column] [Edit: Sorry about the pop-ups, but I guess they pay his bills.]
Mate, I was fully maggoted last night!
Life was so comfortable, so easy, so free of troubles; so why did he want it to change?
Should you choose to accept this fortune: Meet your designated contact by Pier 42 tonight by the docks by 9:57PM sharp to receive further instructions, he will have a black, unmarked, leather briefcase handcuffed to his left wrist; this fortune will self-destruct in 5 seconds.
And in a tentative, trembling way, she paused with her fingers over the keyboard, realising that the only reason she was able to make this first one sentence Scrine for 2006 was damn well geographic, but she forged ahead nonetheless, as she had to let them know how enjoyable and creative this bit of the world has been for the last few months thanks to the Big Rusty Metal Bird and his friends.
Scott stared down at the dry, aging hand that held onto his arm, trying to think of something nice to say, something appropriate or comforting, but the only thing that came to mind was that life was no cake walk, so he kept his mouth shut.
I am often completely immobilized by all the possibilities.
On Saturdays, the Suburban Amish take leisurely walks through the alleys behind the homes of friends and neighbors, picking oranges, cherries and peaches off the trees that overhang the fences; for this reason, these gentle folk are commonly mistaken for white trash.
so howzit look down there, any better I hope?
If you could add a category to the BoB Awards that your blog would be sure to win, what would it be?
If you could bottle blind rage and sell it as a commodity, like, say, rattlesnake venom, I could get rich by producing it on-demand in nearly unlimited quantities by simply having someone say to me the words “insurance application process.”
It’s a whole new year, all lined up and facing into the wind and waiting to play with you like an eager puppy, like a supple French hooker, like a shimmering glass of God’s own tequila just sitting on the counter of possibility waiting for you to tip your head back and let that white-hot firewater slide down your throat like a snake of temptation straight into your undernourished id. [From Mark Morford’s New Years column]
[Edit: Sorry about the pop-ups, but I guess they pay his bills.]
I have brought grumpiness to a High Art today.
They want to go to the Children’s Museum; can I get away with ducking immediately into the museum cafe with my book?
The ancient spice traders knew that they controlled strong magic which held the power to crush most of the small evils that dogged daily life; especially potent in their arsenals were sugar, nutmeg and cardamom.
Looking at the map, he saw that the towns of Knowwhattodo and Doingit were separated by several deep chasms and one high mountain on which someone had notated, “Here be dragons.”
Looking at the bits of brain all over the kitchen walls, she wondered how many minutes left until she too, er… whuh… (SPLAT!)
I wonder at what temperature the human brain actually does boil and completely stop working?
The notion that one can “catch up” is every bit as real as the idea of beauty.
Reality is for people who don’t have a Smithfield ham sitting under their desks.
During the one-nostril breathing session at my yoga class, I was mortified to hear the entire class of daycampers fall silent as they moved through the hallway past the large windows.
You learn something new every day if you hang around Scrine.
Reality is for people who don’t have hot chocolate mix and a bottle of peppermint schnapps stashed at the office.
The steam from the strong, black coffee rose up in front of him and, almost like a fade in a movie, his vision blurred and he was re-living the many adventures of the past year.
Iced vo-vos, ginger kisses, venetians, tic-tocs, monte carlos, tim tams, hundreds and thousands, ginger nuts, soggy milk coffees, fruit rolls, ANZAC biscuits, and the now lost bush biscuit (two sandwiched together with vegemite and butter in the middle).
As she moved about and tried to get comfy on the slightly lumpy pillow, she realised that she hadn’t remembered the coffee.
Keith appeared as a savior-figure wielding a very large Leatherman
Yes, that’s right Johnny, someone left us a parcel on the doorstep, but this time I don’t think it was the man in the red suit.
I’ve never seen a man with braided ear-hair, but I’d like to.
I am convinced that people are nothing more than living, breathing, fully functional storybooks who roam the Earth like modern-day dinosaurs!
Most people don’t remember the traditional morning-after carols because they’re sleeping the deep sleep of the over-wined.
The frankincense and myrrh, while much appreciated as evidence of the optimism of the famous Magi, had to be placed on a high shelf for many years until young Jesus could be trusted not to break them.
Is it too early to hide all my husband’s insufferable Mannheim Steamroller holiday albums for another year?
Next year I’m going to lock myself in a small dark cupboard.
By now the wise men were drunk enough that when all three staggered out of the manger to “see a man about a dog,” Mary gestured frantically for Joe to lock the barn door.
Whoever thought it would be a good idea to make feet so far down there was badly mistaken.
Santa left me a shiny blue wheelbarrow in my stocking!
they’ll be back, they’ve just got other stuff they hafta do right now so i’m here and it’s you and me: merry christmas, scrine.
In case you were wondering, it is in fact possible for a dog to cram both a long-legged, squeaking lamb and a plush rainbow trout into his mouth at the same time.
When you live alone, it takes a bit more effort to be surprised on Christmas morning; about a case and a half more effort, if you’re counting.
Centuries later, Jesus’ slightly less immaculate brother would appear pushing a small cart, offering neither salvation or redemption, but serving up a rather tasty fish taco.
With my brother out of town, it falls on me to play Santa for his three mangy cats, who I imagine are this very second standing outside in the dark next to their food bowls, expecting nothing less than a miracle.
1 NOW when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
2 Saying, Where is he that carried he who was born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him, and the baby too, of course.
When he was older he abbrieviated his name to E. Manuel for professional purposes (though his friends still called him Jesus) and opened a kitchen near the coast, where his fish soup was legendary.
One day when he was five his mother noticed that the miniature wing-shaped bones between his shoulderblades had grown one small feather apiece.
Because they always did their best talking while on a long donkey road trip, Joe was able to finally tell her the story about his mother’s founding of the Unitarian Church, even admitting the most embarrassing part, which included vivid memories of tye-dyed encounter groups and endless hemp crafts at the mountain retreat.
“I really think he has my mother’s nose,” said Joe, but Mary knew better.
Her husband Joe seemed pleased with all the attention, but if she had to be frank she would have said it was a bit creepy, particularly the three “wise men” and their obsession over her admittedly excellent son.
The sun’s redemptive rays bled weakly through the manger windows onto the frayed edges of straw, reminding Mary, as she woke, that she might be able to score some lanolin off all these sheep before they made their return trip on that damn skinny donkey.
Amidst the flurry that was Christmas Eve, she stopped and she remembered.
When someone invents a temporary shunt that can be discreetly switched on at parties to bypass the throat and entire digestive tract but not the mouth, it will be a happy day indeed for lovers of butter-based foods.
“How come you guys lock the doors every other night of the year, but it’s okay for Santa to come in, in the middle of the night, an’ do anything he wants, an’ maybe walk around here and look at us sleeping?”
My daughter was so completely frightened of someone who would come down the chimney that not only did we have to have the “mailman” bring the packages instead, but we had to shove the sofa in front of the fireplace for the entire week before Christmas to allow her to sleep more easily.
is it christmas eve there yet, i bet it’s christmas eve, is it christmas eve yet?
He snuck around the house, drinking the beer (thank goodness these Australians knew not to leave out milk), nibbing on the biscuits and putting things under the tree, while outside the lads grazed happily on the carrots and guzzled the water in this damnably hot stopover.
As the sliver of worm slid across his eye, he blinked madly to try and stop its progress, all the while knowing that the diseased end to life he faced was as inevitable as the end of the universe.
If a train traveling from New York to Philadelphia at 90mph leaves Penn Station at 7 a.m., and the subway that normally takes one to Penn Station, normally traveling at 25-40mph at peak efficiency, now sits idle in the Coney Island Rail Yard, and a taxi traveling from Astoria, Queens to…
There is a lot of consolation to be had in good jazz.
So far most of today’s problems are responsive to aspirin and Little Debbie snack cakes.
Via Snowball and Bakerina, and in honor of ‘mouse’s upcoming birthday, let’s all sing along.
My least-favorite song of the 2005 holiday season, bar none, is “Sleigh Ride”, and this is because a) I’ve heard perhaps 20 modern versions in the stores and on the radio, sung by a wide variety of young artists with whom I am pretty familiar, and b) I’d bet real money that not one of those little urbanites has ever experienced one of these sleigh rides about which they warble.
[n] someone who stubbornly believes, against all evidence, that a stalled project will not get completed.
In New Orleans, King Cake parties are held throughout the Mardi Gras season. In offices, classrooms, and homes throughout the city, King Cakes are sliced and enjoyed by all. Like the biblical story, the “search for the baby” adds excitement, as each person waits to see in whose slice of cake the baby will be discovered. While custom holds that the person who finds the baby in their slice will be rewarded with good luck, that person is also traditionally responsible for bringing the King Cake to the next party or gathering.
Oh, you will too complete that stalled project, Xmastime or no Xmastime, you silly.
I think he’s a guy that writes really cool and imaginative comic books and graphic novels and just happens to write delightful novels on the side, while boot thinks he’s an author who dabbles in graphic novels on the side - it’s quite possible he’s both but why let the truth get in the way of a fun and silly debate?
My accumulated holiday stress could power Baltimore.
[n] The (rare but oh, so pleasurable) sense of relief and release one feels when a project is actually finished; see also “multiple-spanglementarigasm” when an entire list of projects is completed and “spangarousal” when fully engaged in an art or writing project that is going well.
The best-laid schemes o mice an men
Gang aft agley,
An lea’e us nought but grief an pain,
For promis’d joy!
There is no study I know of called caninpology, thus allowing dog to remain man’s best friend.
according to today’s toy i look like many people—not a one of them female—and it has become rather disconcerting, but Richard Avedon AND Johnny Depp?
In a century that is distinctly lacking in personal weather bubbles, flying cars and hand-held matter transmitters, at least I can easily find out how to say ‘lump of snot’ in German.
it is christmas, the next-to-last day of my university career, and i have been given an unidentifiable fossilized shark part as a present from a librarian i barely know; all is meet in this part of the universe….hm hm hm, hm hm hm…….
Ohhhh, here comes Scrine-bird,
Here comes Scrine-bird
Right down Scrine-bird lane
Jackie O and Goliard and all his Scriners,
Writing on the net
Bells are ringin’, ‘mouse is singin’
All is merry and bright
Hang your stockings and say your Other Keiths
‘Cause Scrine-bird comes tonight!
Here comes Scrine-bird
Here comes Scrine-bird
Right down Scrine-bird lane
He’s got a post that’s filled with words
For boot and e again
Hear those Scrine-casts jingle jangle,
Oh what a beautiful sight
So jump in bed and cover your head
‘Cause Scrine-bird comes tonight!
There’s a certain zest to the pressure of last-minute Christmas shopping.
noun. The belief that at any given moment in the projected future a project might actually be finished. (see: delusion)
I was going to raise the ante around here by posting something from my Jimmy Buffet Christmas album, but (you lucky devils) I couldn’t find it, so I’ll leave you with this gem [link removed] that my daddy used to sing to me.
If I don’t start wrapping soon, all these presents will make for a very unpleasant xmas eve, that’s for damn sure.
Joe didn’t really believe that a person could successfully prop his eyelids open, but nonetheless, he found himself looking through his desk drawer for old toothpicks.
Good news never arrives by fax.
I’ve got to get some work done, so would you all just stop being so damn scintillating.
A feeling for language or a sensitivity for what is correct language (from word of the day).
What’s the weirdest thing you can think of right now?
Some things simply defy all known common sense.
Secrets seemed to lurk around every corner.
I’m sorry, sir, but this card has been denied; there will be no hamburger today.
It would be an unnatural pair of sisters who were not at each other’s throats constantly.
“Aha,” said the Doctor, fishing around with the curled wire attached to my frontal lobe through my left nostril, “HERE’s your problem,” and he slowly drew out two frightened mice and an old sock.
Please, ma’am, after you.
’Tis the season to wear bathers
Fa la la la la, la la la la,
Mum said we’ll go swimming at hers,
Fa la la la la, la la la la,
Now we don our beach apparel,
Fa la la, la la la, la la la,
Check the waves for a good barrel,
Fa la la la la, la la la la!
All I want for Christmas is my very own vorpal blade.
The room was beauty and light, full of energy and some sort of unheard happy laughter, photos and hats lined the walls and the easel and desk were covered with paintings that led you to another world; it was back to being just a room.
Are these figs some moment of imagination?
The clock ticked softly in the corner, but as the big hand struck the twelve, Mr Bun exclaimed “Oh, my, it is time for a little bit of barglebees, I must go!”
Keith, has Scrinecast, but I don’t, so when Kraftwerk [link removed] came up on random play on my pc-jukebox this morning and completely freaked me out through my cranked-up headphones, I thought I’d share it.
One of the scariest things in the modern world is to let a friend know your blog exists.
I’m blogging over here today, because of the horrible trainwreck that is typepad.
http://tragicblogfreeday.blogspot.com/
I can’t decide if I should regard my newly-identified blog addiction as basically harmless, like the one I have for caffeine, or as seriously problematic as the one I (used to) have for tobacco.
Brain dented, hands throbbing, she grudgingly admired the sun’s sinking with weary patience.
Can’t access my TypePad blog, can’t access my Yahoo mail from my agency’s server, can’t accept an online invitation to Jo’s blog … life is forcing me to quell boredom by working.
sigh
see, when i said nobody post one more comment i really meant here on that partlicular scrine post last night, not ever nowhere on typepad forevermore, really, and i’d like to extend my sincere apologies for the havoc i seem inadvertantly to have wrought: kidding!
She spoke of being older, she said it was time to write about what it had all meant, her hands trembled slightly as she made the coffee, yet she clambered over boulders to bring you lemons from her garden, and hugging her goodbye felt like trying to hold a rose in your arms.
I tried to build a sub-division once which included a street called Sex Dr., and was surprisingly given approval by the city, but only if Sex Dr. be built as a dead-end and renamed Fading Ct.; needless to say, I reluctantly gave in.
Original Christmas stories are not a dime a dozen, as I’d mistakenly thought before sitting down to write mine.
Funny, back in high school my health teacher, Keith, said something about making sure 5-inch tall Little Keith was always wearing his turban and to be careful where he tried to stow away—I never quite understood what he was talking about.
The thing I remember most about Kat is that she smelled like a rainbow.
Eagerly, she strapped on her secular lexicon and her trusty spear of flexible tolerance, on her first day as a conscript in the War on Christmas.
“He [a lower-mid-level manager] wasn’t home, so we gave the letter to his live-in maid.”
Everyone always says that your eyesight is the first to go, or your memory, or your sex drive…I’m just hoping that the last thing to go is my imagination.
The sexual harrassment prevention training can be summed up in one salient point: everything you ever learned from “Seinfeld” could get you fired.
As Science Dabbler Boot™ swooped over the sky, she noticed the amazing Coriolis effect and wondered how she could put this to good use in her efforts to save the endagered Scientific Boffin.
over there under Recent Comments for Modern Life Sux or we’ll lose Keith’s priceless pullquote, masquerading as an essay topic in 25 words or less —>
… hell, it’s Christmas time.
The Ghost of Christmas Bubonic Plague tells me that, much like Pope Clement VI, I run like a bear.
The bear, the duck, the furry rhinoceros and the sad giraffe pottered along in their tinky truck, pulled along by the big yellow elephant.
“Oh, Muriel,” whispered Cecil as he took her in an urgent embrace, “My love for you makes my heart all warm and crunchy, like a beer at the beach.”
My kingdom for something chocolate.
I’m considering having my spine removed so that the steel exoskeleton will be easier to install.
When did the “no hitting” rule for first graders expand to “no touching, not even hugging?”
I think e here is trying to catch up with me.
From Goolgle News: “Taiwanese firm to make $100 laptop for the poo”
I knew it.
If all your dreams came true…what would your brain have left to do while you slept?
It’s my unhappy duty to report that the rules against human interaction are becoming even more stringent than you can imagine.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) - Legendary musician Bob Dylan has signed on with XM Satellite Radio as host of a weekly program, according to an XM statement Thursday.
Crash went the thunder, into the dark and gloomy sky, blind went your eyes as the whole sky turned white with enough power to fly you to the moon.
is an unstuck keyboard, or four: m’s! k’s! spacebars! backsp
She called her Rosie when no one else could, she smiled at rainbows with her, she was as compassionate a woman as anyone could hope to find, she filled this world with a gentleness that can never be matched and when it came time to farewell her, Rosie didn’t cling, she didn’t fuss and she didn’t cry, she just smiled at her and wished her well.
Where did all the humanity go, did it leave or was it never here, or have I left and just not noticed?
its usefulness, its awkwardness: years ago i adopted my initial as an expedient nickname equally because that’s what friends called me and because others seldom called me at all, not being able to remember my friggin’ name, and it was good; lately i have been considering that “e” when writ small is even more enigmatic than would be my name writ large and so i seem to have come full circle back into—o, no!— that pretentious, pedantic obfuscation we all abhor, and it is not (sigh.)
When your little darling, seemingly recovered from the stomach flu, asks if you’re sure it’s safe for her to drink a glass of milk … say no, my friend, say no; it’s a trick question being posed by the dark gods of regurgitation.
’mouse is completely unembarassed by his tree fetish.
What a happy inter-continental story of peace, love, and postal services we have had today!
I saw my ex-boyfriend (the one I turned gay) in the newspaper perched on top of a spray-painted car advertising his artwork and thought to myself, well, that’s definitely the One That Got Away, even though he always smelled kind of funny.
The book was called Doing Research In The Real World; we read every chapter, every page, but became disoriented - where is this “real world”?
(grrrmblesnrfffhnnnnnfubph)
(not counting Keith and Other who, I presume, go way back) have actually met IRL, as it were?—I ask only because we’re all taking on the characteristics of old friends, at least to me.
to publish a comment as boot requested (although the only appropriate response i could think up was “huh?”, so maybe that’s my problem) but it must be on the other side of the planet or something again as it won’t let me comment there no matter how hard i try; how she do dat?
It’s fun to torture e, all you have do is threaten not to post sentences.
A big number indeed, second only to the number showing on the bruised ego counter I keep strapped to my hip at all times.
Joe had the heart of a unheard karaoke star; no, literally, Joe’s heart had come from the chest of a young South Carolina woman who had actually died from embarrassment after having a microphone shoved into her hand at the company Christmas pa
If I ever meet the person who invented time zones, jet travel or children, I’m going to sit him/her down for a serious talking-to.
If page hits were $, Keith would be a millionaire!
Six-year-olds should never, ever be trusted.
Thank God for Scrine, for it gives me a few more minutes reprieve before I actually work.
how long before we get quasi-universal wifi access like we have for cel phones now, because i can run this thing in my car, but i can’t take it very far (and i wanted scrinecast on my last roadtrip, but to no avail.)
seriously, and then i woke up to find nobody here and my credit card minimums all doubled.
Why are you all here?
Do read Winnie-the-Pooh on the train on the way in to work in the morning.
Do not catch a sharp tin when it is falling to the ground.
I’ll catch you, I will; I’ll nurse you, I’ll love you.