I’m a pistachio nut! Get it?

I am nuts for pistachios! And they’re a type of nut! Are you not entertained? There’s a joke in there somewhere, but I don’t actually feel like working at it. But anyway, I had a half-finished bag of pistachios, right? And I couldn’t find it, right? Then I found it, right? I had put it in the fridge. I don’t know why I did that. I don’t remember doing that. I assume this is a sign that I am, in fact, nuts. There. This paragraph is finished.

Haiku!

Sometimes you fall down.
You needn’t be embarrassed.
Stop friggin’ crying.

So… What else is there to talk about? Lobsters? Should we talk about lobsters? How about them lobsters? There should be more blue lobsters. There should be flying lobsters. We should build a city designed for lobsters and sink it just to see what happens. Will the lobsters move in and flourish? Will they create lobster politics and lobster mores? Will they learn from what they see an build more lobster cities all throughout the seas? Will they then move to land? Will they be our friends, or will we be bitter enemies? And will humanity be able to resist their might?

I know basically nothing about lobsters.

Pat Talk: A Guide to Marrying Patrick D Ryalls

Okay, I think we can all accept that I’m probably never going to get married. I lead a practically monastic lifestyle and I’m anti-social to levels just short of where I’d have to start doing murders. But still, thoughts enter my head from time to time when I see other marriages that make me wonder what it would be like for me. Plus, I gotta find something to put up on this damned website, right? So this here is a message to my Future Wife. You probably don’t exist, but this guide still does: What to expect if you marry PDR.

Okay, Future Wife, somehow you’ve found yourself in a position where you think marrying PDR is a good idea. Probably a disease wiped out most of the dudes on Earth or whatever. Whatever the cause, you have somehow seen past all the annoying neuroses, childish thoughts, and general stupidity that surround PDR and you mistakenly think he’s an okay guy beneath it all. Well, I’ll not argue that right now (there’ll be time after the honeymoon), but I will offer some other advice that you can use.

PDR don’t wedding. I don’t want a big wedding. I really don’t. I have mentioned this previously on the site and I still stand buy it. If you want a marriage with PDR, he’s okay with that. If you want a wedding with PDR, he is less okay with that! There’s probably some leeway in here, I admit. I’m willing to compromise to an extent since, it is my understanding, some people are close with their families and would want them involved, but that’s about as far as I can go. The ideal situation for me would be, us, the marryer person, and I think we need a witness or something? Well, okay that’s not the totally ideal one, it’s just realistically ideal. The totally ideal one would involve wizards that give us powers so that we can become a crimefighting superhero couple. But the odds of that are so ridiculous that they’re slightly more unlikely than me getting married to begin with.

Also, another tradition I’m going to go against: Don’t take my last name. I assume you’ve got a last name, Future Wife. Unless there is something tangibly wrong with yours, why would you want to go and change it after decades of living with it? And if there is something wrong with it, you had decades where you could have changed it without getting me involved. And think about me, too. I don’t want that. I don’t want to have to learn a new name for some person I apparently like enough to marry. Keep it simple. The bottom line is this: I’m not conquering some undiscovered land here, Future Wife, I’m making allies with an already peopled land. Do you get it Future Wife? Do you understand metaphor Future Wife? I do hope I won’t have to always resort to simile for you. That would be frightfully boorish.

While we’re on the topic of nomenclature, Future Wife, please don’t refer to me as “hubby” either in conversation with me or when talking to other people. For some reason it is a term that doesn’t sit well with me. I can tolerate being called most things. If no variation on my name suits the situation, there’s a million other things that I’d accept first. The usual pet names like “Dear”, “Sweetie”, “Your Holiness”, “Asshole”, “Fuckhead”, “Dickless”, “Hey Idiot”, “You Grandmafuckingcockstrangler”, “I HATE YOU AND IF YOU DIED IN A FIRE WITH A MILLION BABIES AND GOD OFFERED ME THE CHANCE TO TURN BACK TIME AND PREVENT THE FIRE I STILL WOULDN’T” or “Honey” are all good. “Hubby” is just in this weird zone of vagueness and formality. I like to think of the husband role as being secondary to us being friends, Future Wife. So address me as a friend instead of as a husband. Or something. Anyway, I don’t like it.

Switching gears entirely: I’m nocturnal. Granted, at the moment I’ve got an excuse that I’m that way for work, but I really can’t see myself ever wanting to fully make the transition back to being a full-time diurnal person. I no longer get the headaches I got for years during the times when I was in school or worked days. I think this is because I’m really supposed to be a night person. Don’t worry, though, Future Wife, I’ll still have time for you. I assume you’ll work during the days during the week, so I can sleep while you’re at work and have dinner ready when you get home. And on weekends you’ll have nice morning hours free from my odious presence until I wake up in the afternoon and we can sup on sunlit verandas then dance the night away to our heart’s content*. In many ways my being nocturnal is way better for us, Future Wife. So don’t try to change this. It’s what is right.

(* I will not actually dance the night away)

Eventually we’ll probably have kids, Future Wife. That seems to be what married couples feel like they have to do, even though if they really thought about it they’d realize “hey, maybe let’s don’t do that” but whatever, we probably will. Such is the nature of hypothetical scenarios. Here’s the thing: If I were a single parent my kids would not be raised to celebrate Christmas. This, of course, makes me the villain in most movies. I know, but this is who I am. But that’s irrelevant anyway! You, Future Wife, assuming you’re not stupid enough to die and leave me alone with Future Child, are going to be there too, and I think it is very likely that (unless you’re both non-Christian and non-secular in which case how did we get this far without me somehow insulting your religion?) you probably do the whole Christmas thing, so I will acquiesce to you. I will try to instill this one day with a level of joy I don’t think it can really contain at the detriment of joy that could be found on other days if you want me to. Just don’t expect me to be enthusiastic about it. I reserve the right to complain about every dumb holiday decoration, every stupid holiday obligation, and especially any Christmas song, and you don’t get to be surprised or hurt. Because I laid this down early and plainly. Got it? And if you die, I’m stealing Christmas from that kid, you better believe it! Hahahahahaha!

Ahem. Finally, and perhaps most important: No racist hate crimes. All hate crimes that we commit as a married couple shall be motivated by class. This is non-negotiable.

An Adventure of Joe’s Head and a Balloon



What do we have here then? It’s An Adventure of Joe’s Head and a Balloon, my effort at making a Flash movie. I never could figure out how to put sound in, so I didn’t. Here’s what you would have heard.

There’s a woosh, then a reverse woosh, and the aliens say “We are here to shoot your city.” Then we hear a zap followed by a Ka-Booom!

Joe’s all like “Wha?” Then realizes what’s up and says “I’m gonna get dem guys!”

The UFO goes like “Beware, Earthling!” and there’s a “wooooooop” as the balloon does it’s thing. But then Twang! “Ow”, Twang “Ow”, Twang! “Ow”, Twang “Ow”, Twang! “Ow”, Twang “Ow”! And the aliens go “Let’s get outta here!”

And “duh-duh duh-DUH!” That’s it.

As for the behind the scenes stuff, I made it with the 30 day trial of Flash and I just barely finished what I have in that time. Also, Alyssa Milano was attached to play the love interest, but scheduling conflicts led to her being replaced by Cher, who was cut out.

And check out the wicked short credits.

Patrick D Ryall, the D is for Law
Originally posted on Contains2 Wednesday 16 October 2002

January 2nd, 2012 Comics

First comic of the new year, Little Choy:

Backing him up is the Phone Guys:

And here’s something I threw together at work because why not:

Apropos of nothing, there was almost a full minute last night where my brain was convinced that the correct was of saying “twenty-second” was “secondy-second”. Sometimes my brain is messed up. I remember a whole day when I was younger that had my brain convinced the number after ten was “eleventeen”…