Hey look at that! A bunch of sticks!

So yesterday we got hurricaned. I lost power for eighteen hours and was Internetless for even longer. Apart from that, it was a nice warm rain and all that humidity that I’ve been hating for last month. The weather is now quite nice. Good hurricane everybody.

Also, I had a cucumber and some mayo in the fridge that I assume is no longer good. Poor wasted food. I did finish my ice cream, though.

I guess this weekend the city is being Hurricaned. At least that should clear out all this humidity.

I’d do something, or write something or something, but it’s too hot. I don’t want to.

So hot.

In the Bronze Age, there was a kingdom called Gobagoba. This kingdom was ruled by the just King Oldmo (so called because he was just king, and nothing else). King Oldmo had a beautiful young daughter named Princess Flobb. She was considered by many to have the worst name possible.

The kingdom of Gobagaba was located in a mountain valley high above another kingdom, this one called Martacka! It was the worst and evillest kingdom in the world at that time. Seriously, you’d urinate pure fear and unhappiness if someone told you you had to go there. The innocent people of Gabobaga were hated by the ruthless wretches that dwelled in Martacka!

But Oldmo, being a good king and wanting to spread peace throughout the world one day appeared before his people and requested that they arrange a convoy of volunteers who were to go to Martacka! The people of Gagobago were as peace-loving as their king and so many, nay all, volunteered happily to bring tidings of goodwill and love to their brothers below.

All the people in Gobobobo had a part to play. The carpenters built fine carriages and wagons to bring the convoy to their destination. The blacksmiths readied the strongest and most beautiful horses in the kingdom to pull the wagons and carriages. The tailors sewed up the finest of clothing to be given as gifts. The doctors donated large portions of their medicines to help any who may be in need in the kingdom below. The farmers gave up the best of their harvest for their neighbors down the mountains. The bakers baked two-hundred of the finest cakes to add to the convoy. The children willingly gave their toys so that the children in the town they’d never met might have something to play with. And Princess Flobb herself headed up the diplomatic party that would request the two kingdoms work together for a better tomorrow.

And thus the convoy was ready and they left Gogobaga on the road to Martacka! This road was long and steep, but by moving slowly and with caution the convoy made it to the walls of Martaka! Forewarned by the guard, the Prince of the kingdom, Jack Hacksaw, was already watching from atop the wall.

Flobb introduced herself, “Dear people of Martacka! I am Princess Flobb! I come from the kingdom in yonder mountains, Gobabago to propose peace and unity between our peoples so that our future may be as bright as possible.”

Stirred by the beauty of Princess Flobb and by the possibility of a wonderful future for his kingdom, Jack Hacksaw decided to go easy on the convoy. And so he unleashed the soldiers of Martacka!

The convoy’s wagons and carriages were broken and set on fire. The horses were cooked alive and partially eaten, the remains being thrown into ditches for no good reason. The soldiers took the fine clothing and vomited upon all of it, then left it on the road. The medicine was used improperly by the soldiers, who got high off of it. The harvest was laid out in a field in such a way that they spelled out “YOU GUYS BLOW!” and then set on fire so that the above kingdom would see it. The two-hundred cakes were taken and eaten (Jack Hacksaw justified this by saying that by this point, the convoy wouldn’t want them to have the cakes anymore, so taking them was the evil thing to do). And one particularly rough and tough soldier marched all the way up to the peaceful kingdom and dropkicked each and every child in the face then broke any toys that they still had. Finally, Princess Flobb was taken prisoner. Now, I’m guessing, you see why people didn’t like going to Martacka!

The other people in the convoy returned to Gabobaga with broken hearts. And also a letter from Jack Hacksaw. He told the king:

My Good Fellow,

I Have Kidnapped Thy Daughter.
Assuming You Do Not Want Her Dead
Kindly Bring Me One Million Gold Pieces.
–Yours with Respect,
Jack Hacksaw

King Oldmo was outraged! The audacity of Martacka! To attack a peaceful convoy? Well, Oldmo was a peaceful king, it was true, but he had led wars in the past when necessary. And so, he had his military ride forth, down the steep, long mountain road. The horsemen. The pikemen. The archers. The charioteers. The SWAT team. All of the military forces of Gogagabo rode down the hill. But before they could reach the wall of their enemy kingdom, they were stopped by two men.

“Well, well, now,” asked the first of the men. “What’s this ’ere, then? What do you make of it, Joey, mate?”

“I say,” said Joey. “Looks to me like a pack a schoolgirls that found themselves lost on the way to their ’omes. You fink we should ’elp ’em, Deke?”

Deke rubbed his scruffy chin in mock-thought. “Well, I don’t know, Joey, mate. I do ’ave one idea. Suppose they gave over all their wallets to us. That would lighten their load and make their trip ’ome a spot easier, wouldn’t it?”

“’At sounds right logical to me, Deke.” Joey drew a knife. “Let’s see what you’ve got. ’and it over ’ere.”

The army was stunned. Two petty thugs trying to hold up an entire armed military force? It was laughable. The army moved as one to attack the crooks, but they should have known better. These were not just any small-time thieves, but small-time thieves from Martacka! Being the horrible place it was, the thieves there were far tougher, even the small-time ones, than thieves anywhere else in the world.

In a moment Joey and Deke had shivved the entirety of the first wave of attackers and Deke yelled out, “How about that? Anyone else lookin’ to be a battallion of bleedin’ ’eroes today? No? Okay then! You might want to get about to ’andin over your wallets.”

And so the soldiers did as they were told. The horsemen. The pikemen. The archers. The charioteers. The SWAT team. All of them emptied their pockets into Joey’s hands and then the thieves began walking away. Just then a lone soldier rode up the hill from the town below. Seeing this the thieves started. “Oh no!” cried Joey “It’s one of Jack ’acksaw’s policemen! ’E must know we ’aven’t paid our taxes! We’re doomed for sure!” And the duo began running and the policeman chased after. The armed forces of Gobobaga watched this. Seeing the two men who had just mugged them running with terror from a lone member of the army they were to oppose did not instill confidence. They turned around and went home.

This outraged King Oldmo even moreso! His army made fools of! His daughter still imprisoned! Deciding to resort to drastic measures Oldmo called out his best assassin, Killvan the Sword-Master. Killvan had vanquished no less than a thousand men in battle and was capable of stealth that even the quietest jungle cat would envy. Oldmo sent Killvan off to slay Jack Hacksaw.

An hour later when Oldmo got Killvan’s face, stomache and left knee-cap in the mail, he also got a letter:

My Good Fellow,
Your Actions Were Rash Today.
For Your Princess’s Life I Order You:
Bring The Gold To Me In Person, Alone.

Before Midnight.
Or I Shall Remove Her Lungs.
–Yours with Respect,
Jack Hacksaw

And so the king, seeing he had no other choice, gathered one million gold nuggets (for this was the popular currency of the time) and began to bring them down the long steep road all by himself. He was very aware of how quickly midnight was approaching and weighed down by all the gold, he was slow.

As time dragged on the king could not progress. He tried and tried, but soon realized that the burden of carrying all the gold was too much for going down this steep road. Just then he remembered something his junior high science teacher had told him:

“Things that are round, roll!”

And so King Oldmo used his sword to cut all the gold nuggets into round shapes and rolled them all down the road. He made his meeting with Jack Hacksaw with minutes to spare and rescued Princess Flobb. They returned happily to their home kingdom never to again attempt relations with Martacka! In that wicked kingdom the Prince’s new rounded gold pieces caught on and soon everyone used the round “coins” to purchase their goods. With the ransom money the evil kingdom purchased guns.

Patrick D Ryall, the D is for Happenstance
Originally posted on Contains2 Tuesday 26 April 2005

This guy is Paco McZap. He’s a lazy wizard from the Wrong Alternate Universe.

Previously on the Book of PDR:

Back in early 2009 the computer I owned was very virused-up and went and died. A tragedy to be sure, but the part that stings the most is that I had been writing a book and had none of it backed up outside of that computer. While most of the book was meant to be a collection of short stories from back in the Contains2 days it was framed by a sequence starring none other than the gentleman above.

Paco McZap was a young man who was discovered to have great potential as for magic, but as it turned out he was stupid and had a very “when am I ever going to need that” attitude towards his studies so he just became a lazy wretch who used magic to summon pizza delivery men to his tower quicker. I was quite pleased with how my attempt to tell his life story had been going so I am reluctant to try again because I don’t think I’d do it as well, but I’ve not forgotten him altogether. To prove this, I have drawn a picture of him. There you go.

Back when I used to take cabs home from work like twice a week Casino Taxi (they’re the fast ones) used to treat me pretty well. The dispatcher lady knew me by name and would ensure that cabs came to pick me up tout de suite and they all knew where I was going. Now that I only need a cab only once a month or so, the new dispatcher never remembers me or makes smalltalk and I feel less special. Sure, they’re probably more concerned with people who use cabs more regularly, but c’mon. Where’s the love? I’ll always be loyal to Casino Taxi thanks to their old commercial, but I miss the love.

Why is it that the further a store is from my apartment, the better the ice cream it sells? I had this thing called Caramel Hat Trick the other day. It was sweet. I guess this is just a rhetorical musing. That is all.

I put together a futon over the weekend. It wasn’t hard or anything, but I still used the instructions as a guide. Doing so, I noticed that the French language bit of the manual got a step that the English and Spanish ones did not. It detailed these little rubber things I had to stick on to prevent the mattress from sliding or something.

I don’t know if this means the manual writers were so pro-French they wanted to leave the others out on the full details of what to do, or if they figured that English and Spanish speakers were smart enough to figure it out from the diagram (Like I did!) but the French were not as quick on the uptake. It is important to find out if we’re going to know who should be angry here.

And clearly someone needs to be angry.

Haiku!

War on Planet Grup.
Two powerful armies fight.
The biggest one wins.

In other news, I am now roommateless with Marq having moved to the other side of the city. Here’s hoping that that somehow translates into me writing more.

You’ll note that I mentioned Kip just then. I would like to clarify right now that I am mentioning him in a poor light. That’s right, Kip. I am disparaging you. Suck it.

So, remember a few months back when I thought that I’d lost all the cable networks that I don’t pay for? Well, it appears that I was too quick to assume that someone had noticed I was getting an odd assortment of things I’m not meant to. It turns out that the cable was just unplugged and I’ve still got them all. So I am back in the business of being able to flip through the channels as a form of relaxation.

Shame about how there really isn’t anything good on them.

I have recently learned that there are things called Drabbles which are stories exactly 100 words in length. The Internet tells me that they are typically done for fanfiction, but I have decided that I am going to do a whole bunch of them using the superhero world I’ve built up in my head since childhood. It’s like fanfiction of my own creation. Or something. Anyway, I’m going to try to do fifty of them and then put it all up as one page here, but in the meantime, to fill out a post, here is one of them:

In the Grand Canyon there is a secret facility built on a rift in the universe called the Nexoid Portal. Dave works security in the Nexoid building. One night the sensors blinked to indicate that something was trying to come through. When Dave checked on the rift he saw his daughter who had died two years before.

— — —
In other news, if anyone out there has been reading the X-Men comics for the last couple years and thinks that reading a parody of them would be quite nice, there is a new Micro Adventure by my good friend G:DR right in the section of this website where those are kept. They’re the only comic parodies you can trust.

So when I was a kid I saw a UFO. It was when I was walking to school one day, probably this was around 1990 or so. As UFO sightings go, it is really on the boring side of the scale. I have tried to represent it as best I can recall in the three panels above which depict it as it flies in front of a cloud. As you can see, it’s just kinda blue and white. The exact blue of the sky and the exact white of the cloud. Because of that it really seems more like atmospheric phenomena than alien spacecraft, but hopefully that is just what they want us to think.

Haiku!

Boring UFO.
Probably not aliens.
I am still your friend.

So that is my UFO story. Not much, but it’s all I got, so I’d thought I’d add it to the Book of PDR on this similarly nice day. Of course, now that I’m not nine, a nice day like this doesn’t make for a nice UFO-spottin’ walk to school. Nowadays it means a sweltering apartment where the heat wakes me up after four hours and I just can’t get back to sleep. Oh how times change.

So anyway, while I am sure that the universe is big enough that alien life must be out there, they haven’t visited me yet. When they do, I’ll put in a good word for the rest of you.

• One count of my partner who does all the work I don’t want to do being on vacation for a month, leaving me with twice the work to do and the only person at work I can have a real conversation with gone.
• One count of a staff member just not showing up any more leaving us shorthanded by one for the duration of the month.
• One count of a staff member injuring herself with a box cutter leaving us shorthanded by another one for the duration of the month.
• Two counts of staff members losing family members causing us to be further shorthanded, in one case for a week and in the other for the duration of the month.
• Four counts of machinery literally breaking.
• Three counts of my supposed second in command leaving early without letting me know and leaving me with extra work that I had to rush through so I could be done in time to catch my ride.
• Two counts of my supposed second in command calling in to say he won’t be coming to work for reasons deemed suspicious.
• One count of me not getting done in time to catch my ride.
• One count of the paper being delayed hours to wait for the results of a hockey game. (Fact: Anyone who cared about that game and for some reason hadn’t watched it on television or caught the results on the news or on the Internet or from friends should really just not bother)
• Untold counts of me spending hours trying to get to sleep but unable because of heat or noise from outside.
• Eight counts of me finally being asleep and then being awakened by some external stimuli (In one case it was a cannon salute for the Queen. Am I the only one who thinks maybe she’s been around the world enough that a cannon salute isn’t going to impress her much?)
• One count of being called into work when I had already been awake for twenty-one hours.
• Three counts of me crashing an sleeping for ten or more hours at a time, eating up an entire day of time spent not working.
• Two counts of having to postpone Father’s Day dinner because of work.
• Two counts of having to cancel blood donation appointments because of work.
• Three counts of having to turn down Hanging Out With Friends time because of work.
• One count of ruining a shirt on a jagged metal bit at work.
• Two counts of ruining pants beyond the point of wearability (and for me that point means they are quite damaged.
• One count of me injuring my finger in such a way that blood came out from under the fingernail.
• One count of a long scratch on the back of my neck from the corner of a machine I was reaching under.
• One count of not having access to the Internet on my only day off during one week.
• One count of the twenty-four hour gas station I used to stop for juice when I had to walk from work apparently not being open twenty-four hours any more.
• One count of locking myself out of my apartment.
• One count of the truck I was in nearly being hit by a drunk driver (or if not drunk, just a very bad driver).
• At least three counts of papercuts (those are just the ones that occurred after I decided to keep a list of annoyances).
• One count of being a month with so many annoyances I decided to keep a list.

Now, I fully admit that the vast majority of these are quite minor and several were obviously much worse for other people than me, but the fact it was all condensed into one four-week span really made June 2010 a month that I will not miss in the least. It joins the year 2006 in Times PDR Mostly Didn’t Enjoy. But hey, it is all over now.