The package said hair gel, but this seems more like industrial-strength glue, if you ask me—I’m going to need some serious solvents to get it out.
although Edgar was quite excited to receive his new indian name, he was somewhat disturbed to learn that he would be called, “walks in cat barf.”
They say my great-grandpa was a real scrapper, and that he once knocked down Teddy Roosevelt in a bare-knuckle fight, fair and square, right there on the front lawn of the White House, and that afterwards, after my grandpa had offered the president a hand up (which was refused, I am told), the two men shook hands, then went inside to discuss draft horses while Edith served them lemonade.
Walking towards the crowd, the chunk of wood in his hand, Jimmy had a sinking feeling that he was about to make the horrible mistake of taking a stick to a gun fight.
In the room the Scriners write then go
Scribbling down the status quo.
As inspired by: Keith's The Secret Hobo Action Figures
I always thought that Lacks was a store that sold front-pleated slacks for largish men—that they had moving trucks to carry carton after carton of pants, and that you would probably buy said pants in bulk and pay about $10 per pound, and instead of a shopping cart you would just drive a forklift.
I guess I always thought that when I finally grew up, the local toy store manager would give me “the nod” and lead me back to some secret room where all the hobo action figures were kept, and since this still has happened yet, there is either no secret back room and no hobo action figures (please, please, please don’t let this be true), or I just have some more growing up to do (yes, this is probably it).
Not only does the hot Russian guy get eaten by mutated dobermans, but you have to listen to lines like, “Well you know how we were released on an expendable basis? We just got expended.”
Won’t the days of gun-toting animal activists be exciting?!
When I am old, I shall wear purple.
The air in this house is heavy, heavier than a cardboard box full of tears.
Arrrghhh, not only have I lost the perfect sentence that I composed in a dream about 1:30am, but now I can’t think of a good name for what it’s called when you swear to yourself you’ll remember in the morning—too comfortable and lazy to get up and find a pen and paper—and then wake up with brain cells as blank and smooth as a baby’s bottom.
Keep in mind that the morning chill is nature’s way of saying good morning.
bottled water, generators, extra gas and batteries, flashlights and coolers; oh where did my hurricane go?
I’ve invented a new game to play that’s especially good when you’ve not been near a computer for a few days and it involves lurking (menacingly) around the virtual corner of the home page of Scrine and waiting for an unsuspecting Scriner to post their sentence, then quickly posting another one just to bump them off the top.
It’s been three weeks, and I’m still completely pissed at the way the Information Technology crew reinstalled Winamp on my work computer, but deleted the patches that let me retrieve my Yahoo email.
Some days are so gloriously sunny and full of lambs that are actually frollicking, fruit trees that are heavily blooming and birds that are deliriously chirping, that any minute you fully expect something literally magical to happen.
As inspired by: 'mouse's Adulthood is ... (1)
going to a dental appointment only to find out that the appointment that you have waited for six months to happen was made for an office 60 miles from the one you are at, the next available appointment is another three months away and if they do have a cancellation, the doctor is scheduled to be off on maternity leave starting next week.
Becky raced down the lane, giggling and laughing, yelling confusing and contextless words, weaving and darting between the explosive rivers of colour, watching all the ducks bloom, the flowers exfoliate and the mammoths dance, and running recklessly forward towards the shimmering, magnetic and dazing light just that little bit further ahead.
The elegant but enraged woman lined up the grey, bitter and utterly soulless entities against the wall and smiled unnervingly as she slowly unveiled her first implement of mayhem and blood.
today i have been hit for the first time with copious amounts of that tinned-meat-on-a-blog, and i notice one of my fellow scrine family members has gotten one as well, although obviously of different design, but just in case save yourselves, o scriners, be alert: should it smear itself on your pages, expunge the menace before it takes root and you’ve got two dozen spread throughout your arcnives to get rid of all at once!
If ‘Mouse is remembered for one thing and one thing only on the ‘net, then I will be proud if this is it.
“Instead of me trying to explain this whole mess anymore,” Henry told the IRS auditor, “let’s play Lord of the Rings; I’ll be the the age of dwarves and you can be the Eye of Sauron.”
As inspired by: goliard's two minute warning
Hooting loudly as he scrambled out of the shower, Henry again wished that somebody would invent a device that would alert him when the hot water was about to run out.
As the IRS man probed and prodded, Henry thought, This is much worse than the time I was abducted by aliens.
Only a bad situation can be improved by encouraging a complete overhaul of its constituent elements; it’s the good situation that must be encouraged to resist change.
Lots of successful rock bands regret the names they picked early on and were stuck with, but none quite so much as Chester A. Arthur & the Love Equipment.
“Look ma,” said Claire, pointing at a group of chattery primates who seemed to be poking each other with pointy objects, “it’s the dental hygienists!”
Contrary to what you may have been told, the smell of money attracts mosquitoes.
As he followed the auditor to the door, shaking hands and thanking him, Henry realized he was showing the telltale signs of Stockholm syndrome.
Just think, in less than an hour the Employment Department man shows up at my house to reanact Brokeback Mountain with me and my accounting methods, only I think he’s taken everything consentual and having to do with love out of the script, which is okay with me, I guess (as if I have a choice), because I’m fairly sure that this afternoon, when I meet with the IRS man at 1:00, he’s going to have his own script in hand, and I have this feeling that there’s nothing scarier than a jilted IRS playwright, who by the end of the day, will no doubt have every single one of my shirts hanging in a bedroom closet at his mother’s home, a fond memory of the time we shared together.
Doesn’t seem to matter how much caffeine I guzzle, the printer still just takes its own sweet time.
I don’t know about your part of the country, but where I’m from, the ravens start lining up on the fence about an hour or so before the audit.
Skunks are like angry mother-in-laws and should always be given a wide berth.
I SING the data entry;
The receipts of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and enter them full with the charge of my keyboard.
Sneaking up on an egret is always tough work, and it will take a diligent nature enthusiast many attempts before he has plucked enough feathers for a decent hat.
After just one taste of the hobo dark arts, I knew there was no turning back.
I hear this year’s tax relief will offer small business owners the choice of a smaller, more comfortable barrel to bend over.
You know, I just found out last night about that guy who apparently got himself out of a Thailand prison (maybe it was somewhere else, I don’t know) by claiming to be the JonBonet murderer (if there’s ever a “Keith” murderer, I’m sure they’ll have to be nicknamed something else because I’m sure we Keiths go down by the dozens every day), and since I might need a good emergency statement to get out of tomorrow’s IRS audit, which I’m sure needs to be something better than dog ate all my receipts (besides, I’m sure in was an IRS agent who ran down and killed my two dogs this year) or the classic animal-terror distraction, Look out! Bear! (quickly sneak out), I think I’ll keep the JonBonet thing in mind.
As Bob’s “check engine” light came on and his car coasted to a halt, he thought, Well, things could be worse, at least I’m not being audited by the damn IRS, still blissfully unaware of the official letter crouching in his mailbox.
They don’t teach this kind of headache in college.
Never wear a porkchop dress in the mountains.
Wolves are one of nature’s most superstitious predators, and can be easily driven away with a flurry of energetic movements that wolves interpret as extremely unlucky; unfortunately for humans out enjoying nature who find themselves confronted by wolves, these “unlucky movements” have not yet been perfected, and flight is the best (although still highly unsuccessful) option.
“I don’t care how much it costs,” Henry told his wife as they sat at the firepit, about to light the night’s campfire, “subscribing to Practical Nature Advice has saved my life on more than one occasion; now, why don’t you make yourself useful and hand me that jug of gasoline.”
As inspired by: Keith's The PNA Series: Extreme Cold
Henry awoke warm and cozy in the pitch blackness but then as his senses returned smelled a horrible bloody stench, felt his bed being yanked and jerked, heard growling and yapping, and realized that the wolves had come in the night and were hungrily tearing at the bear carcase.
Sure you can kill a bear then gut it out and climb inside the body cavity to survive the extreme cold, and maybe then, after all that work and trouble, you’ll remember - never forget the tent!
a beautiful paper airplane which won’t fly right.
a bounced check.
“You know, I like vivid dreams about beautiful naked women in bed with me as well as the next guy does,” explained Dylan, “but last night’s dream about making English Toffee was easily as sensual as any sex dream.”
The shampoo will run out, so short hair is best.
if you haven’t seen this, you must, and be sure to scroll down to look at the video, which is priceless.
“My head reels and my throat aches with chasing after, slogging over, delving into, turning round, groping after, and bellowing, in a hundred thousand different ways, a sentence that I’ve at last finished. It’s good…”
“All the great composers tried to write pieces in every key,” said James to his therapist, “so it’s not like there’s no historical precedent for this sort of thing—and besides, I think that Laura Number Twelve and I really have a future together.”
The decline of western civilization used to be measured one burger at a time on McDonalds signs, now it’s measured by the equally disgusting number of Starbucks locations.
Given Keith’s unnatural obsession with giants, I’m sure he’ll totally dig these guys...
I prefer vertical over horizontal, absolutely; diagonal is something I’m still working on.
As inspired by: steve's hunk of spam
Mr. Hatchet S. Clyde paused in his ceaseless work at the keyboard, stared downward without really seeing the familiar letters, numbers, and characters, and wondered (not for the first time) just how many ways one could mispell the word ‘viagra’ and still keep it recognizable.
Never trust Mother Nature to have your back in a bar fight.
Opportunity called to him like a neckbrace at the scene of an accident involving the first-ever case of giraffe whiplash.
As inspired by: steve's hunk of spam
Fred Fearnot lurked menacingly around the corner - after all, if you’re going to lurk, it may as well be menacing.
but at present it looks like ernesto will just skirt us over here on the western edge of the swamp as he sighs up the central/eastern portion of the state mid-week as a low-level ‘cane, which will keep him even further away from nola, of course, although it is still too early, too early really to tell.
“I thought you said black rhino were hard to find!” Henry yelled back to the tour guide as the rhino turned and rumbled off, Henry firmly impaled on a horn.
Either 11 straight hours of show choir dancing has made me feel old and achey…or I’m dying.
I don’t respond well to bullies.
It’s not that easy… being green….
somehow, between one moment and the next one, we’ve gone green as christmas around here, not that i dislike either green or christmas, mind you, i just think it must mean that autumn truly is coming, wouldn’t you think?
As inspired by: Keith's The Archie of Sainte-Chapelle
“Damn back hunch,” the pimple mumbled from his spot on Quasimodo’s ass, “hoggin’ up all the glory.”
“Damn hunchback, “Archie mumbled from his cot in the Sainte-Chapelle bell tower, “hoggin’ up all the glory.”
I opened an email I knew would be junk because the name of the sender—Hatchet S. Clyde!—was just so exciting.
You might know me as Hoover Herbert, sort of a Herbert Hoover opposite, considering the fact that Herbert Hoover was born in Oregon but lived in Iowa, and I live in Oregon and was born in Iowa (okay, that’s a lie, but barely, making me an almost-opposite Herbert Hoover, which basically means that I’ll never have a dam named after me, which I can live with.)
We’re floating here below the sun, the moon, all of space, and it’s astounding; we still breathe, and we love.
I never know the first word.
“I decided to be bulimic,” said Jared apologetically to the firemen who had to cut a hole in his wall when they couldn’t fit him out the door, “and while I got the ‘binge’ part down, I could never quite learn to ‘purge.’”
Even though Ben was allergic to hooks, he often dreamt of becoming a pirate.
“Giants?” scoffed William, laughing at the scared looking man who ran into the pub just seconds before the whole building was crushed by a size 2700 Vibram sole.
“There is no way coincidence can account for all these coincidences,” Jocelyn-the-Athiest said quietly to herself, causing rollicking laughter to rock Mt. Olympus.
I have a vague memory of skeletons dancing around while Louis Prima sings “ain’t got no body”.
I have lived to be 98, and I have died when I was four;
I’ve lived through war and peace and war and war and war and war.
As each precious petal floated into the air, Becky caressed them lovingly and swooped them above her head, and as they went by they squeaked, squealed and danced in delight, twirling around and entwining the shimmering figure in the centre of the maelstrom.
Feeling betrayed by the entire enlargement patch industry, Calvin sought refuge with the local pygmy tribe.
Just in case Dante’s Hell is accurate, one of my goals in life has always been to be a traitor so I could see the giants that guard the ninth circle; also, if I’m really traitorous, I’m hoping to get Satan to spit out Cassius and grab me up in his mouth, mainly so I can turn to Brutus and say, “Et tu?”
On the other hand, if I hadn’t fallen into this remote jungle ravine, I never would have learned that the human body can survive without food and water for far longer than I would have expected (though not, I fear, quite long enough).
As inspired by: the tangent at Jo's
And further inspired by my last attempt at this
Not knowing if Scrincast Suggestions” is active anymore, I’ll use this venue to open the comments to work up an Ouch-Earworm playlist for Keith to torture us with when he’s feeling especially like kicking kittens—starting this time with “Knowing me, Knowing You” (Abba) and “99 Luftballons” (Nena).
I sometimes like to scan the news headlines, just to see if anything interesting is happening out there in the world, and this morning one did catch my eye—MERGER CREATES ITALIAN BANK GIANT—because as you all know, I’m always interested in reading about giants; the story, however, was very poorly written, and worse yet, went on and on about some bank in Italy without once mentioning the giant.
Pluto will always be a planet to me for the same reason I call collections of MP3s ‘albums,’ and refer to concert venues and sporting arenas by whatever they were named in 1985.
I’m a little surprised that astronomers were able to officially decide that Pluto is no longer to be considered a planet; the way I see it, you’d think Disney could have tied this thing up in court or something.
I’m never going to fall out of love with those lines around my eyes that I can feel wrinkling up when I smile.
locked away in his armageddon closet, Barry knew the end must be near as he shuddered in fear while the memory of the local news anchor and the sports guy having a brief on-air discussion of the pluses and minuses of various soap operas ran like reruns in summer through his mind.
Horace sometimes found himself overwrought with a nearly insatiable wanderlust, but most times it was just common, everyday lust.
It’s an outrageous thought, but I strongly believe that certain words should be deleted from the dictionary.
I thought I had it, but then I changed my mind.
It’s always good to know that an unfortunate day can seem luck filled with just a few cherries.
that you can do it too., mwahahahaaaaaaaa…..
my mind is blown, same as it ever was…
When it started to rain tiny glistening frogs, she knew she had horribly underestimated his abilities.
this time of year: jack and coke on the rocks, hold the blind mosquitoes.
it’s just your fuji film.
Fiona wondered whether it was odd that she found the best part of “Shakespeare in Love” to be seeing Gwyneth Paltrow topless.
i am found by my old art school roommate after all these many years, through decades, her desperate act of resuscitation prompting me in turn to contact my old (now truly so) painting teacher, all of which fully explains the dual messages, blasts from the well-loved past, that nestled next-to-each on the answering machine when i got home this evening, but i’d rather imagine instead that it really is what it sounded like for all the world: 1979, come back again.
Bob often daydreamed of standing at the podium at a press conference denying he had sex with That Woman.
You will be too late for a fortune-writing contest.
And suddenly, there were only two more weeks of summer.
The office jest of calling Bob’s journal an “analog blog” was mercifully short-lived, but served to warn him that the others might be sneaking peeks.
Cafe Press does not mention if the new Scrine caps are roomy enough for an inner layer of tinfoil.
“I’d love to have one ‘a them things for myself,” said the old man to his wife, who rolled her eyes, peering out the window over his shoulder at the enormous crane.
Another store on the internet begging me to spend money (and I still can’t buy a Scrine in baby blue!).
As inspired by: goliard's the scrine shirt is here!
Julia smiled as she inspected the blueberry colored spots on her favorite t-shirt and thought, “Maybe I should get a Scrine shirt.”
It’s only worth listening to when you’re the one giving it.
we are all witnesses who may be called to testify should the need arise.
You should also realize that even though you have made a competition for something in your head, there is no prize, nor will there be any “fresh out of bakerina’s oven” cookies doled out.
JUST because a co-worker has a higher standing than you do, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get fired.
Known by scientists for its lightning speed jaws, the trap-jaw ant is reviled in the insect kingdom for its lightning quick sarcasm.
Coffee: It’s a pick-me-up, all right, but it cannot pour itself into the mug.
If my mother and I had ever been the same age at the same time, could we have been friends?
I have never once seen a woman whose appearance was improved by a belly button piercing.
Over and over again I swear that I’ll never do it again… I beg for forgiveness… I admit how very stupid my decison was… how much I hurt… how this is the last time… and then, after a few months I make the same dumb mistake again—I pick up a Stuart Woods novel at 3am in a completely misguided attempt to get back to sleep and end up awake all night devouring the whole damn pulpy thing.
“Vegetarianism be damned,” James grumbled, “I want a chicken sandwich.”
Why don’t I feel like a chicken when I cross the road just to get to the other side?
Shane knew that the honeymoon and the every night passion-fest would end abruptly once Allison caught wind of his comment about women, childbearing, the kitchen and the lack of needing footwear.
Cheryl hooted a drunken “Allelujah!” as Shannon told her idea that men should be dressed in cute little outfits and be led around on a leash like her precious tea cup poodle.
Instead of flowers, I bring you words.
If you knew your words were destined for ceramic immortality wouldn’t you worry more about semicolon and dash abuse—and alliteration and, and and… (here ‘mouse becomes too befuddled (and honored) to continue).
and holy crap, now i’m really scared that all my inlaws, bill collectors, irs agents (undesirables) will find me now, like watching my happy little porch go global; i have mixed feelings.
I keep getting all this email talking about “the penis of my dreams”, but I can honestly tell you, I like my dreams a whole lot better when there isn’t one of those things involved.
After months of soul-searching and therapy bills, Kenneth discovered that what was missing from his life was not love, happiness, or intellectual stimulation—it was indian food.
The big excitement in Joe’s week came when he discovered he had no cold beer in the fridge had to risk the freezer with its cold-beer-in-a-jiffy-or-broken-glass-if-I-forget dichotomy.
Funny, I don’t remember kissing her like that in waking life, and now that I’m thinking of it, I don’t remember kissing her, period.
it sat on the trivet, bubbling and browned on top, leaking its precious juices out the sides, wondering, ‘will anyone eat me?’
our thanks-but-no-thanks honorary (by virtue of self-mutilation) scriner reports that, while the dedication demonstrated by the incision of the first line of her novel upon her own leg is all well and good, 
her high-powered agent wins out over her own body parts hands down (so to speak) and, in revision, dedication point has been reached: Book didn’t sell; “That line has been cut.”
You can have my girl, but don’t touch my hat.
Who knows what it is, but it’s lurking and it’s waiting and you know it’s you that it wants.
My evil children colluded with the cats and now I’m not entirely sure where we are or how we got here.
Hash browns are my life.
As inspired by: Freddie Mercury
Leave us our human beings as we find them, deliver them to us whole and intact, allow their unaltered lives to foster frustration, independence, beauty and a burning desire to create, give us back our sense of adoration for the individual, teach us not to yearn for homogeny, and just let us be.
Since when did Limine’s “fortune” become the all-time top hit-getter?
At first I was embarrassed when Father forced me to use the monkey chauffeur, but then all my friends started saying they wished they had monkey chauffeurs, or that they wished that their own chauffeurs looked as good in their hats as my monkey did, and after that, it wasn’t quite so bad.
As inspired by: yeasty-mite-products and thoughts of mayhem and bloodshed
Someone told an Australian that Marmite was a superior product.
“When I get cancer,” said Sammy the Israeli camera man lighting the last cigarette in the pack, “I hope it’s a happy cancer.”
I like to set aside a portion of the lawn for the weeds, so that periodically I can whack them away brutally and scare the weeds in other areas shitless.
“It simply can not be,” she thought considering her computer monitor,“that after these many days-encounters with scamming teenagers, fights with colleagues, week long black outs, desperate searches for employment elsewhere on Craig’s List, hours spent waiting for calls, texts, emails from lovers who discard us more casually than the sleeve of a Starbuck’s cup, sunday trips to the vet, numerous hang overs, even more migraines-that the fortune contest still drags on.”
Something finally breaks loose, and I see that we are stars and gases and trips planned but untaken, secrets buried deep and treasure maps scratched into the scraps of wood we found washed ashore while we walked, side by side.
Cogburn - Farmer Brown’s ultra-virile new rooster - rogered every hen in the henhouse until they squawked for mercy, in a marathon Chicken Fuck Session that would’ve given a lesser rooster a hernia; he then nailed all the turkeys in the barnyard, after which he ran to the pond and dicked all the ducks.
The pong of Garlic-Induced Flatulence is what I imagine it would be like if a family of zombies took up residence somewhere around my Ascending Colon.
The world is a big place.
i’ve dug through the closets, the garbage, the consul; and like quarters for gas money- it seems that i have exhausted my sentence supply: this afternoon i will stand on the corner with a homemade cardboard sign reading, ‘Need Sentences Please, God Bless’.
Been swashled around by all there is to do, and it’s still not anywhere near done.
If you can’t trust your own senses, whom can you trust?
When the IT Help Desk people finally left her workstation, Muriel felt hard-pressed to decide if they’d done more harm than good.
I have listened to the new Paris Hilton CD and I must say, she is the worst published “singer” since William Shatner.
because it is so beautiful, and I promise you won’t regret it.
The people with the the messiest legal problems are the ones most likely to be unstable nutcases.