Hey, remember how I was fighting a particularly tenacious wart on my left index finger? Well, as of January I have been able to say that I have won that battle. I suspect that I could have had that wart beaten at least six months earlier. I suspect that what I was dousing with Compound W for the last few months was not the wart but just callouses left by the constant warfare. Go figure.

I doubt I ever got around to mentioning it on this site, but another battle I have been waging for a few years was this melody I had a slight memory of but I couldn’t figure out what song it was from. Well, I finally figured it out. It was “You Won’t Dance With Me” by April Wine. Probably the reason I couldn’t find it sooner was that I was certain the song I was looking for was from the 50s. Oh well. I know better now.

Haiku!

You can’t break an egg
Until you tell it some lies.
That’s just how it works.

Final PDR update. I am pretty sure I am a werewolf. Hairy shoulders. Mammal. Sometimes I see the full moon. It all adds up.

And that’s that.

The fact that that is all I have to say about this book pretty much shows why I am not a qualified book reviewer. Nonetheless I give it Four and a Half out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. It was an interesting look at things like socialism and mob mentality even without the accidental reference to a program that aired decades after its publication.

Mr. Carmine, for that was the name of the girls’ father, was not aware of the twins’ animosity for their older sibling. As far as he knew, his family was a happy one. And so one day, when he was on his way to work and the twins asked to come with him, he saw no reason why he should not do so.

Mr. Carmine had a very important job in his village. It was his responsibility to go from home to home and ensure that everyone had the regulation amount of floorboards. In these days man had not yet found a means to develop wood on their own, so it was such a rarity that the government made sure it was all being used well. Having too many floorboards was a crime punishable by death or taxation, depending on which party was in office at the time.

So Betty and Bonnie went with their father on his route. When the reached the first house Mr. Carmine told them to wait with the homeowner while he did his job. As it turned out, this home was owned by a little old lady named Mrs. Tuberculosis and she had pictures of airplanes on her walls (Of course, when I say pictures, I mean paintings, as photographs had not yet been invented in the Bronze Age).

Mrs. Tuberculosis was delighted to see the little girls and she offered them candy. “Such good little girls,” she said. “Won’t you just be so wonderful when you grow up to be as big like your sister, aren’t you?”

“Actually,” said Betty, “we’re kinda hoping that we won’t turn out like her.”

The old lady was taken by surprise. “Oh, why is that? She seems lovely.”

“Sure,” said Bonnie, “she seems lovely, but she’s really quite a bad person.”

The old lady gasped.

“It’s true,” said Betty. “I once saw her stab a dog with a knitting needle and then laugh.”

“Yeah,” said Bonnie. “And I once saw her urinate on a baby, then blame the baby for the smell!”

It was at this point that Mr. Carmine came back and told them that everything was okay. He ushered the girl off to their next home, leaving old Mrs. Tuberculosis to gossip with her older friends.

Betty and Bonnie were just thrilled at what they were accomplishing. They giggled to each other as they approached the next home.

Here Tommy Grover answered the door and Mr. Carmine said, “Well hello Tommy. Are your parents home?”

“No, Mr. Carmine. They told me to let you in.”

And so Mr. Carmine went about his work while the girls talked to Tommy. Tommy had a big crush on Clarice, so he was eager to ask how she was.

“She’s not good,” said Betty.

“She’s not?”

“No,” said Bonnie. “She’s sick.”

“Sick? Oh no!”

“Yeah, it’s a shame,” Betty went on. “She’s itching like crazy and she has a rash.”

“And it burns when she pees,” added Bonnie.

“My Heavens!” cried Tommy. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Oh it’s just all her sex diseases,” said Betty.

“She gets like this every year,” said Bonnie.

And so Tommy was extremely weirded out and was completely silent as the girls added to their sister’s fictional condition saying things about her spending nights with the diseased homeless men in the poor part of town, her dalliances with barnyard animals and her willingness to lay down with members of the armies of enemy nations. Finally Mr. Carmine was done and the girls again giggled all the way to the next house.

This house, an ancient mansion on a hill, was owned by the village’s Creepiest Resident (He had held this title for three years. It was awarded by the mayor himself), Mr. Kredick.

As he climbed the hill, Mr. Carmine cursed the size of the house, because he knew that there would be plenty of floorboards to count. Mr. Carmine’s job was important, he knew, but he didn’t like it. He hadn’t liked it since his partner got killed by that horrible crimeboss Mortez. He’d kill Mortez for that someday, Mr. Carmine swore.

The sun was beginning to set as they knocked on Mr. Kredick’s door. Kredick, a pale skinny old man with wispy long white hair and greyish eyes, answered their knock and let them in. Mr. Carmine was about to set about his work when: Mr. Kredick Attack! It turned out that he was a vampire! He knocked Mr. Carmine to the floor with a might sweep of his arm and then began to scratch at the girls.

Mr. Carmine knew he had to think quick to save his girls, so he grabbed the nearest thing at hand, a round piece of plastic (the lid to a tub of butter, to be exact) and threw it at the undead fiend. Mr. Kredick saw what Carmine had done and easily caught the flying disc.

“Hey,” Kredick exclaimed. “That was pretty fun.” And he tossed it back to Mr. Carmine.

“You’re right!” said Mr. Carmine and he then tossed it back. The two of them, and the girls (who were now permanently scarred from Kredick’s claws) all enjoyed their new toy. Mr. Carmine and Mr. Kredick decided to go into business together selling the device, which Mr. Kredick decided to name after his long lost love, Eleanor Frisbee.

And that’s how the Frisbee was invented. The man and the vampire both became very rich and eventually Mr. Kredick killed Mortez and took over the town’s crime syndicate.

Patrick D Ryall, the D is for Parade
Originally posted on Contains2 Sunday 11 September 2005

See?

Do you see?

As you probably know, since Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are awesome and everyone should know how they work by now, the average pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups comes with three individual Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. The pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups I bought last week had the normal three Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and an addition half of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup! You can kinda see how the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup on the right was a little bit damaged by the extra half of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup which was smushed into the package with it.

Now it is unfortunate that sudden and unprecedented confusion for me on how to get the pictures from my camera to my computer delayed me a week in sharing this amazing news to the loyal public, but sure I couldn’t make such a claim without photographic evidence. People would assume I was just making it up for the fame. But I feel the announcement is not so abated because nothing else of interest has happened to me in the interim to mitigate its importance.

I got an extra half of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup everybody!

Yes, I’m writing about Super Why again. I’m twenty-eight years old, why do you ask?

I can still complain about the main character, though. When Whyatt realized they were facing a “Super Big Problem” (his words, it was actually some minor thing that only the Super Readers would even mildly care about) he did what he always does, he uses his little PDA thing to summon his friends, the other members of the Super Readers. But this time They Were Standing Right Behind Him. All of them! Right There! I hate you Whyatt!!!

I do, however, love how the cover of the Attack of the Eraser has this blurb that says “Comic Book!” and I think all comics would benefit from utilizing this blurb.

(Plus, there’s the fact that the Readers live in Storybook Village, which is populated by fictional characters like Little Red Riding Hood, but then they go into stories that are books to them, but also can have characters that live in the village? Are these documentaries? Does this represent time-travel into the past of Storybook Village? What the Chunks is Happening? The Eraser comic is just doubly fictional and that rests much easier in my mind.)

There came a day when Whitman’s boss Poacher Tom called Whitman into his office and sat him down.

“As you know,” said Poacher Tom “poachers get an eighteen year trial period. If they can’t shoot a bear during that time, I shoot them. Now, your trial period is almost up so you have one more chance to shoot a bear. Your life depends on this one.”

So, fearing for his very existence, Whitman returned to the forest and tried to come up with a plan.

His plan turned out to be begging the bear. He walked up to the bear and explained his situation and pleaded that the bear to let him shoot him and bring his hide back to Poacher Tom.

“Nope,” said the bear. “You try to shoot me and, you better believe I’m gonna fly away.”

Whitman curled up on the floor of the forest and cried. The bear shook his head and started walking away.

Just then, Whitman’s Extra Plan began. A large plastic dome fell down from Whitman’s orbital space base and landed on the forest. Suddenly Whitman and the bear were trapped under in a clear unbreakable bubble.

Whitman laughed! You won’t be able to fly away now, he told the bear.

“You forgot your gun,” the bear told Whitman.

Whitman stopped laughing. He checked his holster. He looked at the ground around where he had been crying. The bear was right. The gun was back in the cabin.

“You want to shoot me, you’re gonna have to open the dome. But if you do that, I’m flying myself away.”

Whitman was in shock. He had finally managed to trap a bear, to prevent it from flying, but he had still managed to mess it up. Maybe Poacher Tom was right to shoot him. Whitman lay on the forest floor and looked up at the dome, trying to think of what to do.

No plan came to him and he ended up just letting the bear fly away. He had accepted his fate.

“Well,” said Poacher Tom when Whitman got back to the office, “Looks like I’m shooting you, huh?”

Whitman nodded as Poacher Tom picked up and loaded his rifle. A tear slipped down Whitman’s cheek.

Poacher Tom raised his rifle and took aim.

Then Dr. Whitman flew up into the air and over the horizon. Apparently all the time he had spent with bears had caused him to accidentally pick up the secret of their flight. He hung out with bears for the rest of his happy life.

There they are. They are out on patrol perhaps, notice a big monster and proceed to stop its rampage. That’s superheroes for you. I’ve no doubt that these guys are inspired by the Invincibles. They’re definitely a family.

First thought, I would say they are Environmentally friendly heroes. The green costumes. The slimy monster who eats trees and windmills (!!). The fact the tissue paper they sell was made of recycled materials. It all adds up. Perhaps they’re not like the Planeteers who only fight enviro-crime, but they certainly lean that way.

Individually:

• The little girl can fly and create some manner of, what appears to soap, which she throws at the monster. Perhaps she can create other things to throw and was just choosing something appropriate to the situation? The fact she keeps the pollution monster as a pet shows that she’s an idealist. Even that evil beast, she feels, could be redeemed with a little love.
• The boy, probably a young teenager has elastic powers. The way he raises an eyebrow before grappling the creature’s leg tells me that he is something of a jokester. But he is no loner. You can tell he likes being part of this family. Probably because they are superheroes and that’s awesome.
• Mom can fly and shoot some sort of energy from her hands. Either it’s a cleansing beam in accordance with the posited environmental theme, and this is why the pollution monsters shrinks, or it is just a straight-up shrink beam. Either way, that’s our finishing move for this skirmish.
• Now, the father is interesting. I have no doubt that his frame holds superhuman strength and probably nigh invulnerability. But what impresses me most is that he stays out of the fight. A coward? No, I suspect he knows that punching that thing’s face off is just going to make a mess and his family is more than capable without him. These guys have clearly done this before.

So that’s them. We don’t know their names or anything else about them. I have to wonder, though, did the person hired by No Name brand to create these heroes and decorate a box of tissues with them put more thought into them than went into the story. Is this a case of fictional characters who have been thought out more than their medium gives them a chance to show? Could their creator have given them names and origins or were they but a moment’s work and then forgotten. Were they a labor of love or a mercenary way to spend a day drawing?
Either way, this post is a monument to these forgotten heroes. We salute you! You’re still better than Aquaman.

I AM PROBABLY THE FIRST PERSON TO TALK ABOUT THESE GUYS ON THE INTERNET. I WIN.

My cold is totally better now.

The only compelling argument against it I’ve seen is the people who say it wouldn’t really make things that much safer. But even then as someone who has been patted down and had his bags searched and all that, I’ll take the scans just for the expediency it seems to offer against our current system that also doesn’t work.

Of course, as always, my preferred method of making air travel safer would be to try to make a world where people don’t see blowing other people up as preferable to the lives they have to live. But that might be a bit more work.

Are you prepared?

You had better be, because here it is:

This year, Patrick D Ryall is not going to buy ANY nails! None! At all!!!

THIS YEAR, I WILL NOT BUY ANY NAILS!

You may be in shock. Probably you are. Just take a deep breath and sit down for a while. Remain calm.

Plus, this is the year I finished Adventure Dennis. Perhaps it isn’t something that should have taken five years to finish, sure, but at least it is done. I have way too many ideas in my head. I start something, then lose focus and lose interest and start something else. It means a lot to me when I actually finish a project and can finally put it behind me and have a little bit more room in my head for all the other things I must focus on. Let’s see if I can’t finish a few projects this coming year as well.

Yeah, this is also the year I was nearly done a book and lost it all when my computer died, but I’ll focus on Adventure Dennis for now.