Insure This

"When they're dead, they're dead, right?  Why take it out on the radio?" -- Peter Falk, Anzio 

Makes sense to me.

So when I checked my email spam file recently, I found this email awaiting my perusal:


Burial Insurance... Have Peace of Mind
Burials are Expensive.... Protect yourself against this final cost.  

Of course, I know what they mean.  But I was in a literal mood, and wrote back to the email spammer:


When you're dead you're dead, right?  What peace of mind comes into play when you're dead?  And why do you have to "protect yourself against this final cost", when you won't be around to have to pay it?  Last I checked, the IRS isn't yet capable of digging up corpses and shaking them down for campaign contributions for Obozo.

And -- let's just say as an example, since examples and devils advocates are all around us on the Sunday talk shows -- the decedent wasn't buried?  Let's say they're kept in cold storage in Nederland, CO?  Or cremated?  Or stuffed and mounted in the living room -- to me, a fine ironic touch -- or they're cast in wax and sold to the wax museum in Califorlornia?

What good is your insurance at that point?  Hmmmmmm?

What good would MY getting this policy be to my pet rock, Seymour?  Since he's a rock, he'll never die.  But one day I must.  Would my getting this policy benefit my pet rock?  If so, how?

Here's your chance to do what you appear to be trying to do here:  sell a product.  You sell me on this with the last question posed, and you will prove yourself a most adept salesperson, indeed.

Go ahead...make my sale.

I don't really expect a reply, of corpse....*ducking boos and throwd burial plot accouterments*

The Pet Rock Horns In On An Edit

Yes, Seymour was really in Califorlornia.  On a very nice boat.  In a life preserver.

Seymour has great hosts.

Even when Seymour is a naughty little pet rock.

A recent scammer caught Seymour's attention -- even while Seymour is currently visiting another great host in Arkansas -- and Seymour emailed me that he wanted to be the focal point of the edit of the scammer's email.

Gabriel Cones, lucky you.

Here's the gist of ol' Gabe's scam:  he wants me to handle his client purchases for him while he's traveling outside the US.  I receive his client payments, keep a piece of the action, and send the rest to him.

And every client payment is 100% guaranteed.  To be counterfeit.

And that's why my pet rock wants to be written into ol' Gabe's scam.

So -- incorporating my attention-starved pet rock ("am NOT!!!") -- am some contemporary politics that's fitting for a scammer,  here's what Gabe and a number of his peers received in response:


Hello,

My name is Gabriel Cones.  I work for, among other things, a chastity Organization based in California. I am contacting you about a recent visit your pet rock had here, and how he contemptuously treated our chastity laws and took them for granite as regards a reported clandestine affair resulting in the propagation of other geological life.

 

You know who I mean; I mean your pet rock, Seymour.  His illicit (and geologically impossible from the standpoint of gymnastical statistics) relations with JuliaSandstone, which resulted in the shipping outside of CA several resulting offspring which, I am sure, violates some ridiculous and obscure environmentalist laws here in CA, the home of the ridiculous and frivolous when it comes to ANYTHING from the Left.

 

Envirowhackjobs are particularly egregious in this, but I digress.

 

If you, right this minute, assure me that (a) you will sterilize Seymour (b) stop him from sending text photos of his 'geologic junk' to Julia under the name of Carlos Dangersands (c) retrieve and return ALL of his offspring from this illicit affair (d) enroll Seymour in Nobamadoesn'tcare (e) send him to Geology Gender Sensitivity Training (f) register him as a low information, dumbed down democrat for the 2014 elections (g) have him contribute to Bela Pelosi's re-election campaign in '14, as she's running against a San Freakcisco harbor seal that's better looking than she is (h) can go an entire email without once mentioning Miley Cyrus (I) and can come up with enough botox and bondo to make Hillary Clinton look more like Elizabeth Hasselbeck and less like someone a house was dropped on, we can avoid a nasty legal entanglement.

 

If not, I am prepared to sic that Helen Thomas-looking legal dawg Gloria Allred on your ass.  Oh yes....that vile thing. Your errands and responsibilities here are simple:

 

Responsibilities
1.  Commit to completing (a) through (I) without fail
2.  Water Harry Reid before he farts and explodes into a billion psoriasis flakes
3.  Figure out how to make Candy Crowley look like Meghyn Kelly on Fox, without CGI.

4.  Provide a cure for the growth of the current potus' nose as regards the hellthscare scam.

 

 

In closing, I have a couple of questions for you.

First, are you taking this email seriously?

Second, how would you like for Honey Boo Boo to sit on your pet rock and fart?

 

Think about those two questions whilst you fill out your information to gcones133@gmail.com

Full Name:
Home Address: PO BOX IF AVAILABLE
City:
State:
Zip Code:
Home No:
Cell NO:
Age:

Hope all is clear?

Waiting to hear from you  & hoping I don't need to take Gloria Allred away from her artificially inseminating Los Angeles River fecal snails.  She'll be very angry with you if I have to take her off that duty....artificially inseminating Los Angeles River fecal snails is her first love, with sticking her head up her ass a close second.

 

 I look forward to you taking this email most serious, yes?

Regards
Gabriel

Seymour sent me a pet rock version of 'two thumbs up' -- sounds painful to even attempt -- but the response from ol' Gabe was less enthusiastic:


go to hell  


I avoid that by not signing up for nobamadoesn'tcare, or believing an iota of your sh**.  Not working so well for you I see.


Ol' Gabe had nothing more in the way of destination suggestions, or anything else, to offer.

Editing Helps...Some

Campaign 2012 is well underway, and we had to expect it:  an article that ran in a once-prestigious NYC newspaper, as well as online, concludes that...get ready for it....are you ready for it...we're racist.

Yep.

Leave it to an alleged researcher affiliated to and/or with Harvard, to make such a conclusion.

And how did this Harvardian researcher of dubious conclusionality come to this result?  By way of studying online searches.

Well, my pet rock -- Seymour -- was not in agreement with the article, so he wanted to write a deconstruction of it.

Unfortunately, all Seymour knows about deconstruction is usually smashing himself against something less hard than he is.

So Seymour asked if I could 'edit' the article in the same way as I 'edit' email scammer emails.

Yeah, I could do that:

When it Comes to Creamed Peas, Are We More Racist Than Manatees?
By Lylah Lowlabridgeida, Senior Editor and Coffee Maker for YaMOOO
 People are usually reluctant to admit their real feelings in surveys, but there's no doubt that our experiences and our prejudices play a part in the way we choose our pets, spouses, cars and couch throw pillows. In order to figure out whether vegetable bias affected Obama's results in the 2008 presidential election, Billy Bob Achmed Van Davidowitz, a doctoral candidate in cranial proctology at Harvard University, made up easy-to-manipulate surveys and added in data from other non-sequitur sources, all lumped under: online searches for goat enemas.

Unrelated: My 3-year-old has creamed pea issues. Where did she learn to spit that stuff across the room with the accuracy of an old timer zeroing in on a barroom spittoon?

When most people are searching for information online, they're likely to be alone and less likely to censor their audible and silent-but-deadly flatulence, he explains. "You may have typed things into Google that you would hesitate to say to a meth-stoked mosh pit company," he writes "I certainly have. The majority of Americans have as well: We Google the word 'porn' more often than the word 'orgasmicmegalomeatball'."

He chose a common baby food that starts with "C" and looked for searches that used the singular and plural forms of the word. "The most common searches including the epithet… return websites with derogatory material about creamed baby food".  "The top hits for the top vegetabally charged searches are nearly all textbook examples of antilocution, a majority group's sharing stereotype-based jokes using coarse language outside a food group's presence," in an obvious nod to veggie libel laws passed in a bygone error.

That held true for searches from 2004 through 2007 (searches for "creamed beets" led mostly to obscene lyrics, which he included for this study). "I used data from 2004 to 2007 because I wanted a measure not directly influenced by feelings toward Barney the Purple Dinosaur," he writes in the New York Daily Bloviation.

But from 2008 on, he discovered, "Obama" was one of the most prevalent search terms next to "split pea soup projectile vomiting" in veganesque tinged online searches.

Unrelated: Obama’s taste for dachsunds suggests he won’t get the Oscar Mayer vote in ‘12.

After gathering information on the veganesque charged search queries, Achmed Van Davidowitz took a look at voting data from around Democrat-controlled cemeteries, comparing each area's 2008 results, to voting results from 2004, when creamed carrots were not being mentioned out of courtesy to the agricultural industry.

Though many people believe that space aliens have big eyes and small penises, Achmed Van Davidowitz's research shows that those beliefs are not analogous to the eating of dachsunds or 3 year olds being able to spit creamed peas with the accuracy of a 19^th Century barroom spittooner. "In the general election, this effect will make Ed Schultz shoot himself in the head with his finger again," he concludes.  But in areas with high Republican registration, the fact that Obama is a douchenozzle worked against him, sometimes significantly.

"The results imply that, relative to the most pea-tolerant areas in the United States, prejudice against creamed vegetables cost Del Monte between 3.1 and 5.0 percent sales against McDonald’s hamburgers," Achmed Van Davidowitz points out in his study. "This implies veggie animus, and I never even defined what kind of animus it was, whether it was a mammalmus, reptilemus, bovinemus, marsupialmus, or an anonymus or not."

"Any votes Obama gained due to dead and consumed dachsunds voting with ACORN help in the general election were not nearly enough to outweigh more conservative manatees in Florida, who unanimously voted on a ban of  Rosie O’Donnell entering the waters where manatees thrive," he adds.

The state with the highest creamed pea search rate was West Virginia, where a lotta folks chose Keith Judd, an avowed hater of creamed peas, currently in reduced freedom living arrangements in Texas, over Obama just this May. Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, Alabama, and New Jersey rounded out the top 10 most-creamed pea-hating areas, according to the search queries used.

Even in states that are considered fairly liberal and thereby screwed up, creamed peaism is prevalent enough in certain areas to put the entire state high up on the vegan-unfriendly list. "Other areas with high percentages included western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, upstate New York and southern Mississippi," Achmed Van Davidowitz points out in his New York Daily Bloviation article.

The 10 states with the fewest creamed pea-averse searches were Califorlornia, Hawaii, Jefferson, New Mecca, Flukedaho, Washington DC, Mightysota, Oregano, Hannah Montana, and Wyoming, which surprised even those of us who had no idea that Wyoming cared about anything other than cowboys, sheep and velcro gloves.

What does this mean for this year's contest? "Any references by the Obama campaign to creamed peas, racism or being the first marxist since Groucho, lowers the probability of a candidate's winning the popular vote in cemeteries where valid IDs are required to register and vote, which lowers fraud and zombies eating voters by 100%," Achmed Van Davidowitz explains. "Creamed pea averseness by 3 year olds could cost Mr. Obama crucial states like Chaos, Denial and Floatyourboatery."

Copiedwrong © 2012 YaMOOO

After reading my labors, Seymour gave me two thumbs up.  I should have taken pictures, since he got a hernia doing it.

"Did NOT!!!"

Seymour on Sucks

My pet rock, Seymour, announced via email that he had an important announcement to make, and asked that he be allowed to make it h'yar.

A disclaimer will follow*.

"Will NOT!!!"

And with no further adieu**, take it away Seymour:

I am here to announce that after extensive studies of the subject material herein, I am here to present my findings to the internet world, so as to be included in this year's Nobel Peace Prize nominations for scientific research for the betterment of something, somehow, in some fashion. I mean, the president won one for doing nothing...

My research has led me to conclude, with out hesitation or mental reservation, that it sucks to be an anaconda.

Why, might you ask? Allow me the pleasure of elucidation, which I am assured will not violate the new energy CFL laws pertaining not whatsoever hereto that what's herein***.

Anacondas can't:

- play an oboe or a tuba

- eat peanut butter and laugh at the same time

- milk a chicken...(..uh...)

- date Sandra Bullock

- operate a TV/DVD remote control

- call to order Chinese derivery

- figure out place bet odds on craps

- understand one word of what Cartman says on South Park

- vote****

- get an MBA or PhD

- text

- get their genitals pierced

- program an ipod

- get a medicinal marijuana prescription

- walk their daughters down the aisle at a wedding...(my note: "DUH")

- ride a horse

- play an accordian...(and why would they WANT to?)

- throw a touchdown pass (there are some who argue that makes anacondas on par with Tim Tebow)

- become a lawyer, doctor, police officer, fireman or gynecologist

- dunk a basketball

- count to five

- pick their nose

- use a vibrator

- compete on Dancing With The Stars

- give a sh** about Dancing With The Stars

- learn proper tea etiquette

- light their own farts...(deterioration was inevitable and began several "can't"s ago)

- redefine what "is" is

- eat Debbie Wasserman-Schultz..(maybe a little steak sauce would help..? Okay, a few hundred gallons of it)

- slither after ingesting Viagra...(I think they'd find it hard to do much of anything..*ducking boos and whatever Seymour can find to throw*)

- talk 2012 politics on The Factor

- win a marathon...(unless they compete with a python..*ducking more boos and whatever's left for Seymour to throw*)

- shop online

- beat the pepper spray-wielding shopper to the Wii in Walmart on Black Friday

- drive a cat nuts with a laser pointer

- explain Rachel Maddow

- host a debate any better or worse than Donald Trump

- balance a budget, either

* Disclaimer: the so-called 'research' reported herein has not been independently verified by the NEA, FAA, WPA, NRA, NPR, UN, or any other acronym. However, most of it AlGore claims to have invented after Tipper took him to the divorce court cleaners. Seymour the pet rock is not a trade mark, but I'd consider a quart of ice cream in exchange for him ("Will NOT!!"). This blog post only happened because your regular host had a writer's block.

** Gesundheit

*** Seymour tells me that he's studying to be a congressrock to decompose legislation, legal-style...looks like he wrote NobamaScare...("Did NOT!!")

**** except in Chicago, San Freakcisco, or parts of NYC and Wisconsin, where anything is allowed to register and vote repeatedly

A Small Medium At Large

With the approach of calendar 2012, my pet rock, Seymour, has emailed from his current digs in Loveland, Colorado, that he has had a "psychic vision". In fact, a whole series of them.

I suspect overexposure to one of my sister's horses' road apples, but I digress.

"Is NOT!!!"

At any rate, my pet rock has decided to weigh in with his premonitions for the upcoming year. *NOTE: the writer of this blog is not necessarily endorsing the following premonitions...unless they're funnier than any he could come up with*

Thus I bring to you, Seymour the Pet Rock's Psychic Predictions of 2012 (with me, for the most part, resisting occasional editorial comments):

- January 2 will follow January 1

- There will be a presidential election in November

- Someone will lose it

- Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Kim Karcrashian will be in the news in 2012

- Like 2011, not for anything worthwhile

- I will have more "phfffts!" for Skunk in '12 (on this, we agree)

- The Milwaukee Brewers will win the NBA championship at the Final Four in March (...uh...)

- Zombies will dedicate a statue to Harry Reid as Most Like Them

- MSNBC will cancel their newest show -- My Favorite Islamofascist -- after one episode, when he blows up the set during rehearsal and musses Rachel Madcow's hair (I wonder if they'll run an ad for that during the Super Bowl?)

- MSNBC will NOT run an ad for the aforementioned show during the Super Bowl; they will, however, have Betty White kickboxing Abe Vigoda for an Ensure commercial.

- Time Magazine will name "Occupy" campsites as the newest EPA Superfund sites

- Ted Nugent will NOT be named ambassador to North Korea

- Mel Gibson and Danny Glover will star in "Lethal Weapon XVIII", protecting Hugo "Playdoh" Chavez from Donald Trump's hair

- Rich progressive people who want to pay more taxes in '12 will simply sign over their estates to the IRS

- George Soros won't *Like* this on Facebook

- Baseball season will open in April with the Green Bay Packers defending their title against the Anaheim Mighty Ducks (....um...)

- Joe Biden will lose a few more hair plugs

- Michael Bay will make another bad movie, and the South Park Boys (Parker/Stone) will parody it

- Hawaii Five-0 will still suck for the way they treated Pearl Harbor veterans

- And so will CBS

- Barney Frank will publish a memoir, "How I Let Fannie Mae Do You While I Let Freddie Mac Do Me!"

- Sarah Palin will NOT read it

- Debbie Wasserman-Schultz won't get one iota smarter than a tree stump

- Guam won't tip over...yet

- A tsunami will not wipe out Pahrump, Nevada

- A manatee protest march through Miami will be averted by manatee indifference

- The Denver Broncos -- despite Tim Tebow -- will NOT win the Stanley Cup

- Howard Camping's fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth Rapture predictions will suffer further mathematic errors

- He won't get the ninth one right, either

- a scientist will prove conclusively that a spaceship made out of broccoli won't make a four year aspire to eating it

- December 21, 2012, will be followed by words from our sponsors

- And tax forms from the IRS

- I will travel to at least two out of state locations *hint to Skunk*

- Alien life researchers will think they have *finally* made contact

- It will turn out to be one of the Occupiers, looking for a bathroom

and, last but not least..

- I predict that all of Skunk's readers will always like MY posts best over his!

- *To Skunk* Nyah nyah

I Did NOT Write Anuddah Crispmoose Lettah

*A somewhat annual update to something I insist I'm not doing each year....one of 'those' "what the family dun" Christmas letters*

As y'all know, I don't do these letters. The one that my pet rock, Seymour, forced me to do in '06, and insisted on having updated and reposted in '07 and '08, was done strictly to appease a persnickety pet rock ("am NOT!!").

So let me be clear: I -- me, moi -- will NOT do 'another year of what the family dun' Christmas letters.

Now that we have that made perfectly clear, here 'tis:

-- Ma continues to thrive, garden and churchify in the bucolic burg of ******** Colorado. A more statuesque place you'll not find herebouts, if you know what I mean. If you don't, I won't explain it beyond drive thru and see all the statuesques there'bouts. She's learned computers, email, email forwards, and how to attach photos without the use of safety pins. She still isn't allowed to chase anyone's dogs around the neighborhood, and still follows the Broncos and NASCAR with the same zeal as heretofore or any other number. In short, life is good in Ma-dom.

-- Big Sis #1 continues to rocket sciencify in the easternesque burg of ****** Colorado, where Kansas can still be seed on a clear day, but only if one really wants to look, and no one seems to want to. Her two bionic cats -- Hudson and Edsel -- continue to defy conventional science and vet visits. She is still doing marathons, biathalons, triathalons, quadathalons, sextupathons, octothons, and is thinking of doing a noendinsightathon, wherein she bikes, runs, swims, shoots, spits, throws, hurdles, turkey calls, runs post patterns, crochets, tosses fruitcakes, and manages to get the cats to the vet, all in one handy competition. Life is good -- albeit active -- in 1st Sis-dom.

-- Big Sis #2 & hubster continues to horsify on the outskirts of ******** Colorado, where Kansas can't be seen from -- it's on the wrong side of the highway -- but a horse is a horse of course, of course, unless it's two cows or two dogs, not counting the burro across the fence and the skunks that wander through now and again. Her bucket-chasing 3 year old, Renny, has learned the 'Mr. Ed leer', and uses it to advantage with Lena, especially when she has a pet rock on her back and is having her picture taken. Mara just takes it all in and blames Hubster, who has to deal with an amorous cow, Bessie, and her prodigy Chloe, who don't know how to chase a bucket or to leer, but will chase Hubster. Sis rides, trains, competes on, feeds, waters, grooms and checks the horses for elk envy disease. Renny, Mara and Lena have her trained well. The dogs -- the soccer-playing Merlin, and the oft-*groaning at Merlin* Santa Fe -- take it all in and have no idea or opinion about it, long as they're fed and kept supplied with squeaky chew toys. Life is good in the 2nd Sis-dom.

-- Lil' Bro, Wife and Daughter in ****** Colorado, continue to do what a triad of such does: Lil' Bro -- the other rocket scientist in the famdamily -- continues to rocket sciencify, whilst being taunted via text, cell phone and in person, by his Raiders-supporting daughter, who is now in senior-dom in her 'series of firsts' high school, from which she'll get to be amongst the first senior class to graduate from, giving her another thing to taunt Lil' Bro about. Wife takes it all in and keeps it all working, and keeps at the same time tabs on the other daughter, married to a mountain man in Montana, where they've just put half the animals in the state in their freezer for the winter, to feed their two young 'uns, with a third now on the way. Meantime, Lil' Bro's latest feline Mafia continues to abuse their long-suffering beagle, Merlin, who has gotten used to losing his pet bed to Badda Bing and Badda Boom, or whatever the two cats' names are. Life is good -- for all but Merlin -- in Lil' Bro-dom.

-- And amongst other nieces and nephews from Colorado to Florida, things continue to be what they were, are, and will be, with jobs, growing and new young 'uns, mortgages and being glad they cook better than their crazy uncle, who cooks worse than he doesn't write these letters. Which translates into, by and large, things being good in Niece and Nephew-doms, respectively.

-- and now the part my pet rock has been waiting for: Seymour is continuing his travels and life experiences. After nation-hopping between '07 and '09, he's visited Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, and is currently riding horses and helping piece together puzzles in Loveland, CO. Where he's off to next is still in the air -- pun partially intended -- though he has invites to Arkansas, Louisiana and Califorlornia. Seymour continues to write poetry and music lyrics badly ("do NOT!!!"), and imagines himself to be the next Rock of Letters. Granted he's older than petrified dinosaur poop, and doesn't realize what that means ("do TOO!!! PHHFFFFT!"). At any rate, Seymour probably has more trips pending in 2012, but wants to be here in December of 2012, in case the end comes with the Mayan Calendar, so he can take permanent possession of the DVD remote. Life is pretty good in pet rock-dom, especially for one very spoiled pet rock ("am NOT!!!").

-- finally, since I don't do these letters, I have nothing to report on me. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Bumpkus. I'm boring. Other than experiencing economic changes that seem to parallel career changes in the year quickly closing. I went from gainfully employed, to unemployed, to sorta re-employed, sorta, to finally again re-employed, though having to do some serious catching up to reacquire the "gainfully" part, which won't be caught up anytime soon. Oh, and I'm working on a book about scambaiting, that might or might not be published in '12, before the Mayan Calendar shuts everything down...*snerx*.

The rest is what it's always been, and in my boring case, always will be: being hated by tornadoes on the Plains, online scammers and ex-girlfriends, while I just do what I do. Which ain't much, 'cuz I'm boring ;-)

And that concludes this Crispmoose letter that I didn't write for 2011. Merry Christmas*.

* for the politically correct, yes, I just said that. Offended? Phffft.

A Little This A Little That

So much to write about, so little motivation to do it.

It's snowing...predicted to be the first major storm of the season. Then again, the day before, we had record high temperatures near 80 degrees. So this storm will be akin to spit in the ocean. But the skiers are loving it. AlGore, not so much.

Occupy Wherever continues to generate brilliance and character from the left side of the aisle. Rock and bottle throwing in Oakland. An LA protester who wants to run all the Jews out of the US...another who thinks that if we were like North Korea (satellite photo above; repressive communist North Korea is the dark one, the booming capitalist South Korea is the lit-up one), we'd all have jobs and be happy and well-fed. Allegedly educated college students who want everything handed to them because they "deserve it" (proof that dumbed down education is alive and well on college campi). And the complaints from within various "Occupy" locations, of fellow travellers stealing from one another.

Heck, they're only taking socialist teachings of Marx, Lenin, Mao, Alinsky et al, to heart: to paraphrase it, "from those who have, to those who haven't". There should be no complaints about that from within; the Occupiers are supposed to be all about communal property and what not, right?

They are. Until their not the property pilferer, and the property pilfered is theirs. Ha.

Gaddafi is hosed, and some UN types have their panties in a wad over how he got dead. Hello...he got shot. That happens in violent overthrows. Any other questions? Appoint some more panels to study what's obvious to a second grade class in a charter school, and waste some more money, UN. That seems to be what you're best at.

Turkey had a major earthquake. It won't get much mention in the news -- a libtard local talk show host (David Sirota) would rather highlight a stupid study by a stupid college professor that stupidly claims that MLB umpires are racist against minority pitchers -- but the US Military and other volunteer groups will be there with money, materials and man power, doing what this great nation always does in times of disaster somewhere.

And yes, I can't help but notice the Republican candidates on debate after debate, doing a better job to chewing each other up than focusing on what really matters. Some interesting characters up there, but it has the feel that the 'establishment' that gave us Bob Dole and John McCain, will probably wind up giving us another "go along to get along" spineless dolt, rather than someone who's got some heart, conviction and courage to take a strong stand against the current hypocrisy. What hypocrisy is that, you might ask? The hypocrisy of campaigning against Wall Street and the rich, ginning up racial and economic class warfare, while going to the evil corporations, Wall Street and the rich with hat in hand for campaign cash, and giving them sweet taxpayer handouts under the guise of 'stimulus' that hasn't resulted in real job growth where it really matters.

Can you say "Solyndra"? PMSNBC and the White House would rather you didn't. Instead, they'd rather tell adoring crowds that Republicans, if elected, will dirty the air, water, starve children and throw old folks out into the streets.

And again, dumbed down education will let some sheeples buy into that.

A hotel in Nashville cancels a counterterrorism conference because of threats from -- sooprise, sooprise -- radical Islamists. Last time I looked, Nashville was in Tennessee. Not Iran. Unless Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have arranged some kind of a funky land-for-debt swap between them, China and Iran, that PMSNBC purposely overlooked as well.

The US Constitution and Bill of Rights is not written in Sharia. At least, not yet.

But that's not important to the lame stream media. It's more important to explain racist MLB umpires applying unfair strike zones to minority pitchers. Without explaining how a racist MLB umpire handles his racism when the batter is ALSO a minority.

Details, details.

Yeah, I know...I sound like a heartless, mean-spirited conservative. Well, I hear that 92 year old Andy Rooney is in the hospital. I wish him well and a full recovery.

So there.

On top of that, an anonymous 'troll' has demanded that I shut down my blog.

If my pet rock, Seymour, were capable of it, he'd reply in a manner that the 'troll' would understand. But the poor pet rock hasn't yet figured out how to flip a bird.

I suggested to Seymour that it takes stealth, a quick branch tweak, and an unprepared, unsuspecting avian.

Seymour's still giving me "WTF?" looks for that.

Yeah, I know...this wasn't a funny blog entry. Not everything always is. Certainly not according to the 'troll'.

So I'll attempt to end it on a funny note: if a racist MLB umpire is behind the plate, Jibaldo Jimenez (hispanic) is pitching and Derek Jeter (black) is at bat, how does this racist MLB umpire work out the conundrum of a slider catching the outside edge of the plate?

He puts the game in rain delay, ejects both managers, and craps on the hood of the MLB commissioner's car, on his way to take up drum banging at Occupy Toledo.

Okay, so I didn't guarantee that you'd find it funny...

But you got your money's worth ;-)

Seymour "Writes" Again...

My pet rock, Seymour, is still on extended holiday in Loveland, Colorado. But that hasn't stopped him from making use of my sister's music system to continue his 'career' of hijacking and parodying song lyrics.

"Do NOT!"

You be the judge.

Seymour recently completed lyrics to two songs that he says are "sure fire HITS!". After perusing them, I find that Seymour is right.

And wrong.

"Am NOT!"

Seymour's first "sure fire HIT" is very, VERY reminiscent of the 1970s, and a song by Lynryd Skynyrd, one known the world over as "Free Bird". But not the way Seymour parodied it.

"Did NOT!"

Really, Seymour? You really think a song entitled Free Turd is going to climb the charts?

*Pet rock in petulant pout mode*

But it gets worse.

"Does NOT!!"

Seymour -- in his infinite wisdom -- created a song he says will sweep dance clubs the world over, "especially when they catch my unique lyrics!".

I carefully perused Seymour's "unique lyrics". And it didn't take me long to find where Seymour pirated the idea for this "chart topper": from the 1980s.

"Did NOT!!"

If you've ever heard of a group called the Romantics, recall a song from the 1980s, Talking In Your Sleep. Now that you've recalled it, prepare to have it forever after corrupted, Seymour-style.

"Will NOT!!!"

You be the judge:

From Seymour the Pet Rock Writes Again...

Farting In Your Sleep

When the day is done

and it's time to sleep..eep..eep

And it's down to the sound

of a floor creak

I can guess the things

that you've eaten to-day..ay..ay

When your tummy opens fire

and the gas goes weee-ayyyy...

You pass a chimi-changa

You pass a pas-ta sal-ad

and a bowl of onion so-up

and I know that I'm right

cuz I smell it every ni-ight..

I hear the flatulence you sneak

when you're farting in your sleep

I dread the methane that you seep

when you're farting in your sleep

I have tried to hold you close at ni-ight

It's kinda like sleeping in a...firefight...

And all the fuel that you put inside

You're generating flatus

that you just can't hide...

You pass a large bur-ri-to

and garlic rigo-toni

and don't forget the hot wings..

and I know that I'm right

cuz I'm pummeled every ni-ight...

I fear the flatulence you sneak

when you're farting in your sleep

I hear the methane that you seep

when you're farting in your sleep

I hear the flatulence you sneak

when you're farting in your sleep

I fear the methane that you seep

when you're farting in your sleep

When you close your eyes

and you cock a cheek

the coming night's miasma ain't a...mystery..

You pass a Hostess Twinkie

a double bacon bur-ger

a platter of lingui-ni

it'll be a long night

cuz I'm mired in it's bi-yte...

I fear the flatulence you sneak

when you're farting in your sleep

I hear the paint peelers you seep

when you're farting in your sleep

the dog can't stand the flatulence you sneak

when you're farting in your sleep

the neighbors, from their windows leap

when you're farting in your sleep..

"Pretty catchy, huh?"

Seymour, the EPA will be around to talk to you, after ASCAP and Weird Al...

"Will NOT!!! Uh...who?"

Seymour 'Writes' Again

I thought, after my last experience with my pet rock Seymour's alleged literary *creativity* -- ie., where he parodies famous songs and tries to pass them off as his own creation ("do NOT!!) -- that we were done with that phase.

This morning, I find that I was wrong.

A pile of wadded up paper, with a rather smug-looking rock, barely able to see out of the pile, greeted me before that first, mirage-degrading cup of coffee.

Seymour: "I've done it!"

Me: "I wasn't about to blame Windy and Barry (the barometer) for the mess you're buried in.."

Seymour: "Phfffft. I have written a song, all on my own!"

Me: "Oh nuh-uh.."

Seymour: "Oh nuh-HUH!"

Me: "Who did you parody this time?"

Seymour: "Did NOT!!"

So when I asked to see the 'lyrics', Seymour was initially rather defensive. But sitting nearby, was my old Sony Walkman, with the headphones conveniently within Seymour's reach. So I put 'em on and after replacing the batteries -- 'cuz Seymour forgot to turn the silly thing off until the batteries died -- rewound the tape a wee bit, and...

Me: "Seymour, you parodied the Fab Four!"

Seymour: "Did NOT!"

Me: "Really? So...what tune did you write your lyrics to?"

Seymour: "Uh...nuthin' special...."

Me: "C'mon, Seymour...lyrics NEED a tune, and it's a Beatles tune that was last played on here.."

Seymour: "well, okay, so I let the Beatles write a tune that I could work from...but the lyrics are MINE! Really!"

Me: "Excuse me...you LET the Beatles write a tune?"

Seymour: "Uh-HUH!"

Me: "Really?"

Seymour: "Really really!"

Me: "Is it the tune I just happened to rewind to that you wrote your lyrics to fit?"

Seymour: "uh....well...mebbe.."

Oy vay.

See, Seymour's got a fauxcreative bug going. After visits with four budding/accomplished artists/writers since 2006 (Amy Chavez, Monica Newton-McCawley, Mayden aka Cora Runkle Blinsmon, and Janine Rusnak-Abbott), he's decided that he wants to be a writer, too. Of music. Problem is...despite the incredible array of accomplished talents Seymour's been exposed to, Seymour's about as creative as a mucus membrane ("am NOT...er, what's that??"). So after a little bit of negotiations -- I promised to order some Chinese delivery later, and share -- Seymour reluctantly let me see what he'd 'created'.

I sprayed coffee all over the lyrics. Seymour got pissed. Even moreso, when Windy and Barry joined in snickering. You be the judge as I present you Seymour's latest parody lyrics ("are NOT!!"):

Picture yourself in a boat on the ocean,

bailing as fast as the water pours nigh.

Somebody's calling, you take time to notice,

a girl with some platypus eyes.

Kapok life jackets of yellow and green,

billowing under your buns.

Look for the girl...with the platypus eyes,

and she dived.

(CHORUS accompanied by something thrice-BONKed)

Lucy's getting high...on door knobs,

Lucy's getting high...on door knobs,

Lucy's getting high...on door knobs,

O...MG..

Me: "You CAN'T be serious..."

Seymour: "am TOO!!...Keep going, it gets better!!"

No, it doesn't:

Follow her down to a bend in the river,

where lizard lipped people suck marshmallow flies.

Everyone vomits and gags at the odor,

that gets so disgustingly high.

Newspaper cartoons appear on the bank,

waiting to take you to Cleveland ("Cleveland?").

Board them with eyes closed and holding your nose,

and you're off.

(Chorus with something thrice-BONKed)

Lucy's getting high...on door knobs,

Lucy's getting high...on door knobs,

Lucy's getting high...on door knobs,

noooooo.....sh**....

Me: "SEYMOUR!!"

Seymour: "Oh, lighten up! The best part's next!"

No, it ain't:

Photo yourself on a horse in a station,

with porcupine porters and butt-cracking ties.

Suddenly someone is there passing methane,

the girl with the platypus eyes.

(CHORUS with something thrice-BONKed)

Lucy's getting high...on door knobs,

Lucy's getting high...on door knobs,

Lucy's getting high...on door knobs,

whooooa, dude...

Seymour: "Whaddaya think?? Think I can get the Beatles to record it???"

I'm going back to bed, and see if I can wake up from this particular nightmare...

Seymour: "Is NOT!!! And anyway, mine's better than William Shatners!!!"

Forgetting, for a moment, that Seymour just admitted it was a parody ("did NOT!!")...on that part, he's got a point...

A Shakespearian Interlude

...not really.

My pet rock, Seymour, is being hosted in Virginia by a very accomplished, multi-talented teacher, writer, and painter of erudition and charm. Those who know me, know why it's the rock getting that treatment, and not yours truly* ;-) But I digress.

At any rate, an email from Seymour arrived early this day, and it is apparent that, as a part of Seymour's expanding reading repertoire, my learned friend is exposing Seymour to the words of the 'Bard.

It doesn't appear to be entirely sinking into that rather routinely thick skull of Seymour's, however. Take a gander at these Shakespearian thoughts from the Hard:

What's in a name? Letters. Duh.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Crapeth, there goeth the weekend.

What a piece of work is a man? Don't asketh his ex...

My words fly up, my thoughts fly up, why can I not keepeth mine fly up?

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears. My Mr. Potatohead lost his.

Eye of newt, and toe of frog. Must mean another damned GEICO commercial.

This thing of darkness is easy to stub thine toe in.

Is whispering nothing? Uh, yeahhhh, in a tornado.

O true apothecary! Don' need you, I'm already stoned.

I am dying, Egypt, dying. But I'm outlasting your stupid Sphinx. Phffft-eth.

Chance may crown me if I date her sister.

Brevity is the soul of wit; I don't find being short, funny.

Passing strange, only to be overtaken by it at a stoplight.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? *BUZZER* Fail.

The better part of valor is discretion. The better part of discretion is chickensh**.

A thousand times good night. A million times don't call me.

Chaos is come again; Skunk's in the kitchen.

Hoist with his own petard. That'll leave a mark.

If Seymour comes home in leotards, he WILL winter on the patio.

"Will NOT!"

* well, that and about a billion other reasons ;-)

A MidWinter Night's Iaido Nightmare

*A classic from my '03 archives, and one that still gives my pet rock Seymour nightmares, even though he's in Texas*

My imaginary life is often as ludicrous as my real one.

In January, the on-line writing club I belong to sent me the following exercise: write anything you want, but it must begin with the sentence "I knew right off there was going to be real trouble this time".

The group facilitator knew this was an open door to this knucklehaid ;-)

I had just finished with one of my usual lunatic email responses to a humor column by Amy Chavez, concerning the Japanese art of Iaido: the drawing of a Japanese sword (katana), and all the related necessities to bring off a successful ceremonial and casualty-free iaido session.

*TOING*:

I knew right off there was going to be real trouble this time. And, as usual, I didn't take counsel of my fears, having bade them to go get a drink and chill out. I should have joined them.

It started when I read a recent column by an American living in Japan, Amy Chavez (Japan Lite), about the ancient Japanese art of Iaido: the proper manner of drawing a Japanese sword (katana). It included the setting up of a proper room for doing so (dojo, a special place for martial arts training), the proper attire for same (hakama, a traditional bushido garment with a skirted bottom), and the necessity of learning from a proper teacher (sensei).

But I didn't need no stinking sensei: I had Iaido For Dummies, The Video Series (patent pending litigation assessments for damage, etc). Throw it in the VCR, don the Japanese fighting dress in the privacy of my own abode (so I wouldn't have to open up some katana whupass on some cretin making fun of my chicken legs), and learn to dazzle and scare the snarf out of friends, colleagues, neighbors and Errol Flynn with my sterling, self-taught katana-manship.

So there I was, one mid-winter night's eve, poised before the TV, minding my own business and looking like a bit-playing buffoon in a Japanese 'B' movie, chicken legs and all. And then -- while doing some strange warm-up exercises and sounding (un)like Jackie Chan in a Hanes underwear commercial -- IT showed up. IT being a rather large, ungainly millar moth. It's January...it's cold and snowy outside. What in the Sam Hill Horsefeathers is this darn fool piece of cloth eatin' buggaratus doing in my abode?

Before my horrified pet rock Seymour could urge restraint, I forgot the tape playing before me, the silly attire I was in, and the weapon of choice in hand. I went after the moth with the ultimate Ginsu flyswatter/slicer-dicer: "Okay, moth-san, say yer prayers! Gyaaaa!"

I made it clear at the outset-san: no prisoners would be taken.

At the unrealized height of the frenzied melee, I seem to recall noticing a rather authoritative knocking/pounding on my door, increasing in urgency and volume: "POLICE! OPEN UP!"

It seems that during my heady pursuit of Mothra, a neighbor or two were astonished and just as horrified as Seymour, to see through my shredded blinds, "a crazed dude in a funky dress, wildly swinging a really long knife", and basically sword-o-matic-ing everything within reach, in a flurry of chopped and shredded furniture, plaster, fixtures and moth parts, thereby resulting in a frantic 911 call.

Fortunately for me, the responding officer(s) knew me, having responded to previous calls concerning my culinary (in)acumen in the kitchen, and were less nonplused by the widespread carnage in my abode, than I shortly would be. They did relieve me of the training tape, though, before departing, ignoring the cowering pet rock in the corner, under what was left of the computer desk.

But no worries: Amy doesn't send me anything further about the history and/or how-to of anything remotely bushido. Granted, she DID send me a column about the art of Japanese sumo wrestling, but apparently assumes I'm not about to don a giant thong diaper and attack my loveseat...

2009 Update: so far, I haven't ;-)

2010 Update: not yet...

Ancestral Ge(n)eology

In a recent Facebook comment, Seymour -- my delusional pet rock ("am NOT!") -- made the claim that he was once a part of the walls of Troy, the city that centerpieced Homer's ancient epic, Iliad.

And I don't mean the Homer depicted on the right.

So, I decided to have Seymour explain how he -- a measly pet rock the size of a grapefruit ("am NOT...measly!") -- managed to get from the walls of Troy, over a thousand years before the Christian Era was born, to a humble apartment in the Green Mountain portion of Lakewood, Colorado, more than 3,000 years later.

This oughta be...something. Take it away, Seymour.

Thank you for that underwhelming intro. Don't quit your day job *BONK*..ow.

Yes, I was once part of the walls of Troy, back in what you all refer to as approximately 1600 or 1400 or 1200, something like that, BC (Before Colorado). I just made that up...*BONK*..ow..

Anyway, I was there as Helen was fought over by Paris Hilton, Ajax and other cleaners, and the funny-helmeted dudes that eventually invented tampons, condoms, whatever it was. One or the other. It was so long ago. Anyway, after the Trojan Whore was wheeled inside the city and seduced the Troyites, departing soldiers took souvenirs from the walls...I wound up as ballast in a pentekonter -- a Greek ship with enough oars to look like a caterpillar -- that was wrecked and washed ashore near somewhere Mediterraneanesque, laying about on a beach filled with my geologic brethren, for what seemed like forever.

It sucked.

But it was a busy place, what with invading armies going east and west like daily commuters going to work on Monday, all grumpy and hurried, sometimes coming back with more booty than from a post-Christmas sale. Those musta been some Walmarts back then.

At some point, I got picked up by a soldier who I would later understand to be from Sparta, and I was used to *BONK* a Persian Immortal on the head during the Battle of Thermopylae, in 480 BC. It was a sucky journey, being bounced around in a pouch with a bunch of my kind, only to get used as a projectile to *BONK* people. But I digress.

Anyway, I got picked up by another Persian, and used again as a hand-throwd projectile at the Battle of Salamis, when the Persians got sent packing by effete-looking Athenians who actually routed the more numerous Persians because of all the garlic they ate, and the gas they let. I didn't like it there much. Kinda like around here now *BONK*...ow...okay, back to my story.

From there, I got used again as ballast in a Greek trieme, and wound up getting rowed all over the ocean in that region, again for what seemed like ages. The ships then rather sucked, and frequently got wrecked in storms, when they weren't full of what them folks called "commerce": corn and livestock, crappin' all over everything, including me. But I always wound up on wrecks that beached, so some other yutz could come along and load me up as another friggin' piece of ballast in another trieme, only to get all sea sick and get wrecked again. If these people didn't know how to row a boat ashore, why didn't they just buy a car?

Seymour, there were no cars then.

Simpletons. Anyway, somehow I wound up on a beach near where a new city was being built on an old city, or something like that. What had been a place called Byzantium, now was being renamed Constantinople, and I was, again, part of a city wall. Ancients had no appreciation for my finer qualities, but then again, some current people don't, either...*BONK*..ow.

Anyway, I was stuck in the walls of this Constantinople place for, to you all, hundreds of years; to me, it felt like...hundreds of years. Of course, I'm billions of years old, so it's all Greek to me, nyuk nyuk..*BONK*...ow...one day, these people called Turkish Mollusks, or something with an "m", came along, smelling of camels and cous cous, and had this new invention called a "cannon". Until then, nothing anyone had tried had breached the walls of Constantinople. Of course not, because of me.

Then that damned cannon punched all kinds of holes in the walls -- I think they were using regifted fruitcakes as ammunition, the WMD of their day -- and the Turkeys flocked in, overrunning and sacking Constantinople. It blew goats, I'm here to say. And so did those Turkeys, but there's no accounting for taste in some cultures, and I digress some more.

And so, once again, I wound up as a friggin' piece of ballast in a newer-fangled ship, but not one propelled by oars as much....this one had a giant table cloth that helped it move with the wind, and I eventually wound up shipwrecked in a place called New Carthage, in a land called Spain, where they spoke funnier than I was accustomed to. I tried to ask them why they couldn't sail any better than they rowed, but either they didn't pay me any mind, or didn't understand what I was saying. At any rate, I wound up as MORE BALLAST (no imagination at work here, y'know?), aboard a ship that was called the Santa Claus...or maybe it was the Santa Flush...er....well, it was something funny-sounding, with a captain and crew looking for a "new world". And in what their calendars called 1492, we found a "new world" on some island with a lot of trees, naked locals, and absolutely NO amenities.

All together now..."it sucked".

Some local souvenir hunter then heisted me from the ship, and I wound up as a beach ornament for a while, which was okay, other than when hurricanes went through. Then -- you'll never guess this -- I wound up as BALLAST AGAIN. Great Geologic Constipation, Batman! Had these people no imagination? I wound up in another place where, again, people talked funny, and wore iron suits over pantyhose, and looked like escapees from a bad Shakespeare play that was panned by Simon Cowell or something. Minerals like gold and silver -- both highly overrated, I'm telling you -- were coveted by them, while me?

Pfftt...consigned to ballast. Where were lawyers of geologic rights when I needed one?

By one way or another, I eventually wound up in what passed for a grog and gift shop in a disease-ridden place with no good take-out food delivery service whatsoever, just cannon balls and all kinds of shooting going on, and armies marching one way and running another. I think the place was called San Jacinto or such. There I sat, through pestilence and being covered with dust, until some rather peculiar chap bought me -- people were gullible in gift shops then, too -- and took me to and up a river, to a place he called St. Louis, after something he called the Texas Revolution. From there, I wound up rather happily being a "pet rock" to a very kindly 5 year old girl and her family. SHE I liked. Her name was Tamra, and I think she's a distant ancestor of another Tamra who's one of my current-day favoritest people, but I digress...anyway, they took me overland in a conestoga wagon, to places they said would be the "new promise land".

What the promise was, I don't know: but one stormy day, the wagon got overturned crossing a river during a buffalo attack or Indian stampede or prairie chicken hazing...whatever it was, it was something like a current-day mosh pit -- and I got spilled out, and wound up in a stream, watching fish make faces at me. I never saw my friend Tamra or the family again, and I was bummed.

All together now..."it sucked".

Eventually, things built up around the stream I was being gradually sedimented in, and somehow I got plucked from the stream one day, apparently for the prized duty of being a landscaping rock, at the base of a rain gutter.

Me...with MY HISTORY. To be designated MERE LANDSCAPING?? To meet an end like that??! Phfffffft!

Finally...to one spring day in what you all call the year 2000, this exceptionally peculiar fellow plucks me from the landscaping, and thankfully DOESN'T use me as ballast in a ship or put me on display in a gift shop. Oh nooooo...this yutz USES ME AS A DOOR STOP!

Yeah, Skunk...I'm talking to YOU! A DOOR STOP!!! I WANT THE WHOLE WORLD TO KNOW YOU USED ME AS A DOOR STOP!!!

Uh huh...and where have you been SINCE, Seymour?

Well, okay...you didn't put me back out in the rain gutter. You let me watch TV. You let me share some (not enough) of your Chinese delivery and pizza. You even let that sweet Amy Chavez take me to Japan and Ohio, and might send me to Texas or North Carolina. BUT...

Yes?

BUT...you disrespect me by making me shovel snow, and throwing me in a snowbank, and diluting my authentic song lyrics, and *BONK*ing me when I don't deserve it, and make fun of me during meteor showers....

While Seymour digresses with his diatribe of my apparent and many transgressions, you all now know Seymour's claimed ancestral ge(n)ology, in his own words.

From Troy to Green Mountain, in 3000 years? What do YOU think? *BONK*..ow...give me that, Seymour...

Seymour Writes Agin

Yawp...Seymour "writes" agin, and this time, his lyrics were...uh...from opportunistically bad, to downright "risque".

Apparently, my pet rock so enjoyed the simplicity of the Phfft Song from the old Hee Haw series, he's trying to draft additional lyrics to it that would make Archie Campbell...blush.

They apparently made Pat Robertson *wince*.

I came home from an unexpected day of work this past week, and sure enough, sitting next to my computer -- Seymour knows where I tend to gravitate to (mornings, coffee pot; afternoons, computer) -- was a barely-legible scrawl of new lyrics for the Phfft Song, with an eagerly-expectant rock sitting on the coffee table, wearing a "well...WELL?" look.

After a quick perusal, my 'Simon Scowell' was in full bloom:

Seymour, you're not posting this on my blog.

"What's wrong with it?"

It's too explicit for a sort of family-friendly blog.

"Is NOT!"

See, Seymour tried to combine the tune and flow of the Phfft Song with some of the more bawdy poetry from the There Was a Girl From Nantucket series.

"Did no...er...uh, okay, so I did".

I watered it down a tad, while Seymour *rolled* his eyes, ala FoN* style.

So, for your...uh..."entertainment", here's Seymour "Writes" Agin (sung to the tune of the Phfft Song, if you have no shame or nothin' better to do):

*opening gee-tar rift thang*

There wunce was a rockkkk, I think from Nan-tucket

who did somethin' bad, these ly-rics sug-gest...

but Skunk wouldn't let me say just what it was..

I could-n't use words like ****, **** or breast...

What kind of fun, can a rock have,

writing these ly-rics, gnarly and cheap?

I searched my words over and thought I'd found con-tent,

Skunk proofed them over and PHFFFFT, they wuz bleeped...

Seymour's got a better chance to get a shot on Dr. Demento, than American Idol.

"Do NOT!"

Think not? Here's more of Seymour's lyrical skills in action: another blogger I regularly peruse -- The Dental Maven -- had a column about celebrity Jessica Simpson, going public on some TV rag about her total lack of dental (and possibly other) hygiene. Seymour, ever quick to seize on someone else's musical talent, was quick to start drafting out the following, to 30-plus year old Ricky Springfield hit:

I wish that I had Jessie's smell..

I wanna have me Jessie's smell..

where can I find an odor like that..

like Jessie's smell...

Seymour...that...was bloody awful.

"Was NOT!"

And you know that old kids' favorites aren't immune from the parody pen of Seymour...("is NOT!"), he heard one by the Irish Rovers, The Unicorn. I managed to derail this one after he got this far widdit (I believe he was having problems interpreting the Irish brogue):

You'll see green escalators, and long streaked grease.

Some tubular candles and some tramp-o-lines.

Some mats and flats and el-e-gants, but sure as you're bored,

you're never gonna see no

pter-a-ducktyls....

*Sigh*...Excuse Editor (on Facebook), help needed h'yar.

"Is NOT!"

*one of my readers, Monica, knows that *eye roll* well, from her daughter, aka FoN (Force of Nature)

A "Quadilogy"?

Give my pet rock, Seymour, his own Facebook page, and...*oy vey*.

I know some very gifted, prolific writers, both in blogs and via Facebook. With one notable exception, they're getting to know Seymour now, too. And giving him delusions of createur.

Well, after his gawdawful script for Night of the Tomatoes ("was NOT!"), Seymour got some encouragement to keep working up movie script ideas from a few of his new fans.

What I can't get his new 'fans' to understand is, Seymour doesn't create "new" ideas; he shamelessly "steals" ideas from established creators, and comes up with what are, in effect, parodies.

"Do NOT!"

A blog entry a few months back was a case in point: Seymour tried to convince me that he'd written a blockbuster song, sure to be a hit. After perusing it, I recognized the 'tune' in the lyrics, and saw that he'd done a parody on the Frankie Valli/Four Seasons hit, Big Girls Don't Cry.

Seymour just rewrote the lyrics, and tried to claim creation of a new hit song, Big Squirrels Don't Fly.

Seymour insists that he had his idea well ahead of Frankie Valli.

Now my rock -- after seeing the complete series of Indiana Jones movies -- thinks he's created a new, future iconic 'hit' character and script overviews for what he insists is a "quadilogy".

I'm done arguing; I'll let you, the readers, judge for yourself.

His first movie script is titled, Colorado Seymour & Reindeer Of The Lost Sleigh. In it, his lead 'character' -- Professor Seymour Quartz Granite, Jr -- is a pHd (I tried to tell him it's Ph.D, to no avail) and instructor at Red Rocks Community College near Golden, CO. By day, that is...but when a new geologic adventure offers up...he becomes Colorado Seymour, an adventuring geologist and acquirer of mythical antiquities...*ah hem*.

In one early draft of a scene, Colorado Seymour has penetrated a deep Andes region of somewhere in South America (sound familiar?), in search of the fabled Golden Honker of Proboscis, an ancient god of the local Wootwootanooky culture. Having managed to overcome heraculean obstacles to obtain the fabled golden snout ("is NOT!"), Colorado Seymour is pursued from the caverns by frenzied Wootwootanookies, throwing spears, arrows, blow darts, pies, Piper Cubs and other assorted stuff at him. At a nearby river, his partner -- Calamity Jane -- awaits at the float plane. When Colorado Seymour leaps for a vine to swing out to the plane, he misjudges, and goes through the engine manifold, blowing hot oil and fuel...all over the pursuing Wootwootanookies, turning them to Wootwootacasserole. And thus, they make their escape, while Calamity Jane *bonks* Colorado Seymour for having punched yet another hole in her plane.

"It's good stuff!"

Seymour, it's ridiculous, Airplaneesque parody.

"Is NOT!"

At any rate...his other three movie scripts to follow are titled Colorado Seymour & The Temple of Too Damn Many Pteryducktyls (about a lost civilization of oversized turkeyesque flying beasts that eat kids and rocks the size of Seymour); Colorado Seymour & The Last Croissant (about working with his estranged father, Professor Seymour Quartz Granite, Sr, in a quest for the Holy Cow, a religious artifact from the Indus Valley circa 5,000 BC); and last, perhaps even least ("is NOT!"), Colorado Seymour & The Kingdumb of the Pyrite Numbskull (a possible script idea includes the discovery of the ancient ancestral home of aliens purported to be related to present-day House Speaker Nancy 'Bela' Pelosi).

Seymour insists they'll all be picked up and brought to cinema by Spielberg and Lucas. I assure Seymour that once completed, and if sent to the duet of Spielberg/Lucas, they won't pick 'em up; one of their very lowly assistants will, and *plop* 'em right in the circular file.

"A circular file...that's where they're saved for later review?"

No, Seymour...that's where they're sent for paper recycling.

"Better NOT!"

Welcome to the world of writing, Seymour.

So what do YOU think: a Colorado Seymour quadilogy, or should Seymour go back to watching episodes of The Outer Limits?

Night of the Tomatoes

While my pet rock, Seymour, has recently decided that he wants to learn meterology, I may have to curtail this pursuit, if he's going to try combining real science with science fiction, HIS way. Especially when the genesis of it is a verbal gaffe by a real weathercaster.

The other day, a local weather maven (and hottie) was discussing with morning show hosts the agreement that all were "sick of winter", and were more than ready for spring. Then, she went onto remind listeners of what spring could bring: the kind of conditions that generate severe thunderstorms, unbelievably large hail, powerful microbursts and downdrafts, and those vortex leviathans that make for all kinds of inexplicable geographic rearrangement.

She's so meterologically sexy when she talks like that, but I digress.

Whatever she was thinking at the time of speaking, she apparently crossed two subjects in the translation, as she spoke of the usual probability of "tomatoes on the Eastern Plains".

Tomatoes?

The morning show hosts didn't let that one by. They had some fun at her expense.

Unfortunately, neither did my pet rock let the opportunity by, but his *TOING* was of a different notion.

Instead of focusing on the humor in the faux pas, Seymour -- overnight, while I attempted to sleep -- apparently scribbled furiously on about every sheet of paper I had left in the place, crafting what he calls a 'script' for a movie. One Seymour insists combines twists of Nature, man's meddling with same, and the injection of imagination from a mind full of..er...something, to be fleshed out by a special effects studio, and made into a movie called...Night Of The Tomatoes.

I read it. It sucks (figuratively AND literally).

"Does NOT!"

I'll let you read key excerpts from his script, and YOU decide.

In a plot sure to gain acclaim and impetus with the vegetable rights movement, unscrupulous government bureaucrats and businessmen -- all represented as conservatives, Seymour insists, because Hollyweird won't make a movie about unscrupulous liberals -- work clandestinely to engineer genetically-enhanced "super tomatoes" on a confidential, well-guarded government preserve in eastern Colorado, and in the heart of Colorado's "Tornado Alley". On one fateful late May day, summer of '10, a mesocyclonic supercell thunderstorm hits the area head-on, with a resulting tornado plowing right through the heart of the preserve. And in a metomorphosis explainable by neither Man, science or Science Fiction Theatre 3000, one of the largest, genetically-enhanced tomatoes, combines with the fury of Nature, creating....an F-5 Tomato.

This just plain has "bad" written all over it.

"Does NOT!"

At any rate...as the killer veg advances to the east, acclaimed researchers and storm chasers swarm into the path of the wrathful supercondiment, seeking answers to not only how did this happen, but how they can stop it before it garners an Academy Award for Worst Picture in the History of Cinema.

"Will NOT!"

In one of what Seymour insists is a more seminal, gripping sequence of the movie, two researchers -- somehow interconnected sexually in an on-the-rocks relationship that only dire peril and bad script-writing can change* -- encounter the relentless, ravaging leviathan along the I-70 corridor, approaching Genoa, and the "chase" is on (along with the really BAD dialogue..."is NOT!"):

Female: Oh my GAWD...there it is...it's BEHIND US!" *into cell phone*...it's an F-5...we have an F-5 tomato on the ground, moving east at a high rate of speed! Are you tracking?

(Response from person on the other end of the phone is the equivalent of DUUUHHHHH, of COURSE WE'RE TRACKING, with suitably colorful metaphorics accompanying).

Male: Have we got time to deploy?

Female: Deploy WHAT? We have TOTO, not HOTDOG!

Male: Let's get OUT OF HERE!

(music uptempos as the "chase" is on...after a few moments and credulity-stretching scenes of tomatic destruction in their wake, the dialogue resumes)

Female: It's closing on us! FASTER!

Male: I...I can't believe this...it..it HUNTS!

Female: *glares at him*...that's NOT in the script...

Male: I know...but we best get our Heinzes outta here!
Female: *another glare*...keep it up, buddyboy...

(music uptempos more...)

Female: you need to go FASTER! FASTER!!!

Male: I'm trying! It seems determined to ketchup!

Female: *sound of bone-jarring THWACK*...you just HADDA say that, didn't ya?

Male: What are you getting all stewed over?

Female: *another bone-jarring TWHACK*

Male: *into cell phone*..Ow..we have debris..I say again, we have debris!

Female: one more bad pun, and you're gonna think DEBRIS, lizard lips...

Before the climax ripens -- and before he finds himself in the soup and she can paste him for one more pun -- the movie is wisely cancelled by Paramount, only to be picked up by The Cartoon Channel and the South Park gang.

"Is NOT!"

Night of the Tomatoes. A real chili-ing meterological thriller.

*TWHACK* Ow...

*this appears borrowed from the movie Twister, only more poorly-written..."IS NOT!"

There Is Something Wrong With The Remote

To a six year old, the background music and the opening sequence was chilling: "There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. WE are controlling transmission"... And the finale: "You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to...THE OUTER LIMITS".

Something I will never forget watching as an on-the-edge-of-my-seat six year old in 1963. And something that I will never again allow my pet rock to watch. Not when I'm not home and a remote's within reach.

Seymour, as blog readers know, is my pet rock. Seymour loves the TV-DVD, and has figured out the necessary elements of the remote control ("on-off"). I didn't give it much thought, not being much of a TV watcher the past few years. Besides, Seymour's a rock. What trouble can he get into?

Don't answer that.

I naively figured I could let Seymour watch marathons of stuff while I was on the computer, or away at work. Well, one weekend, I let him watch a two day/night marathon of The Outer Limits (TOS), figuring that the way he hides from all sorts of "booger men", some of the creatures thereon would have him hiding under the loveseat.

I didn't reckon on Seymour's ingenuity and misplaced sense of territoriality.

I came home one Sunday evening to find quite the mess about the living room (moreso than my usual): a set of my tiniest screwdrivers were strewn about, along with little bits and pieces of assorted *stuff* that I would learn were "leftovers" from a disassembly/reassembly process.

And there, on the coffee table, sat a 'new-look' DVD remote. One, Seymour indicated with pride, would not only operate everything in the apartment...it would defend it, too.

Me: "From what?"

Seymour: "From pteryaductyls...triciploplotz...yeti...and all those...those THINGS on The Outer Limits!"

Righhhht.

Now, I have some suspicions over the years about certain unexplained things, like when a pizza delivery was awaiting me one night, and I hadn't ordered it. I laid it off as a prank caller, and bought me a pizza.

I'm beginning to think that Seymour set me up.

But never like this...it became quickly apparent that Seymour had transformed my simple DVD remote. I pushed the 'on' button, and the TV came on...and the DVD...and the stereo...the computer...every light in the place...the oven..the microwave.

Even the friggin' toilet flushed.

I pushed the 'off' button, and I was standing in total darkness. Even the microwave LED clock went phffft. As did the green lights on the smoke detectors.

Okay, so the rock has learned priorities when I'm in the kitchen, but I digress.

Now I'm concerned...especially when I ask Seymour "what works what?", and all I get is a..."ah..er..I forget". This had "really baaaaaad evening" written all over it.

For example, while spending some time trying to figure out what the 'menu key' now did, I got a knock on the door, and opened it to find a local police officer: it seemed that my patio light was sending out international Morse Code, in sequence with my pushing the 'menu button'. What it was sending out, in code, was an obscenity in Spanish. Yes habla neighbors across the lot were not amused to be reading code that said that about their mamacita.

While Seymour sat there on the coffee table, with that inscrutable "pay no attention to the pet rock on the table with all the tools" look.

As I was explaining to the increasingly incredulous officer what my pet rock had done to the remote, I inadvertently directed the remote toward the kitchen, and hit the 'mute' button: a bright beam of light shot out the end of the remote, vaporizing the refrigerator.

After a moment of silence amidst the smell of ozone and fried leftovers, the officer shook his head, and with a terse "I didn't see a thing", left the apartment.

Currently, Seymour is on 'time out' on the patio, and being reminded that those sudden dashes of light across the night sky are space rocks that acted bad, and are burning up in cosmic detention. And there'll be no more DVD time for Seymour, or anyone else that visits here: not until I figure out how to safely undo all the what he dun to the remote.

Not to mention, how I'm going to explain to property management the scorch mark in place of a now missing apartment, across the hall. At least it was an unoccupied one.

I think.