Writing Prompt: What’s Your Favorite Candy?

I love Snickers candy bars. I think they are delicious. I would probably eat an entire bag of fun-size Snickers bars if I had one in front of me right now. My boyfriend was sweet enough to buy a couple bags of Snickers bars…and hide them in the kitchen cabinets until the first bag was pretty much empty and the second bag was already opened. He was probably starting to feel guilty about eating so many on his own and figured it was safe to tell me. They were delicious.

Since moving into a condo, I don’t really have the opportunity to hand out candy anymore. It’s not that I miss the kids…I just miss the leftover candy that I would get to keep all for myself. Now when I’m walking through the candy aisles in stores, I just feel bad about myself since I know, without a doubt, that this candy is going straight to my stomach and no one else’s (other than Dan’s, possibly).

Well, hate to end the post right here…but I’m going to go ahead and do that. Happy Halloween!

Ghosts (and knights and hooligans and…) of Halloweens Past

(Note: I skipped my post yesterday. I apologize. To make up for it, here’s a long post full of pictures! Originally posted at A Fool Notion.)

I didn’t really do the Halloween thing this year (except for watching the Shining and eating amazing cupcakes and cookies last night), so in lieu of a costume this year, I thought I’d do a brief(ish) retrospective of costumes from past Halloweens. As I had trouble finding pictures of Little Me to share, I’ll sadly have to focus only on costumes from my 20-something days. Without further ado, here’s my retrospective in reverse chronological order:

Swine Flu, Halloween 2009. This costume was supposed to be so much cooler, but I couldn’t find a Grim Reaper robe a) in my size and b) cheaper than $60. Drew’s black hoodie didn’t quite do the trick, but whatevs. Swine Flu was an homage not only to the virus that was rampaging around our country last year, but also to my friend Kyle’s Bird Flu costume from a few years prior. Swine Flu was worn to the Boston Ski & Sports Club’s “BeWicked Ball,” and I did not win a prize for best costume. I did have a cool mask though.

“Black Panther” Michelle Obama (with “Terrorist” Barack Obama), Halloween 2008. Drew and I were completely bereft of any witty costume ideas to wear to his friends’ party… that is, until we saw an Entertainment Weekly cover that was a spoof of a New Yorker cover… everything is explained here. Anyway, I got to rock my super badass combat boots, Drew’s huge camo pants, an ammo belt, and a toy AK-47 slung over my shoulder. Plus an afro wig. The costumes looked awesome as we posed for this picture, but no one at the party knew who we were, and we got a lot of blank stares from people when we tried to explain. Oh well.

England Footie Hooligan, Halloween 2007. I had such a hard time figuring out a costume this time around. Ideas I’d think of were either too hard to make, or no one would understand (I considered Tessie from the Dropkick Murphys video, as well as Bonnie Prince Charlie dressed as a woman for his infamous escape). I started thinking of what I had laying around the apartment that I could throw together, and realized that I had a crap-load of England-related stuff. So I donned my jersey, hoodie, draped a St. George’s Cross over my shoulders, painted my face and my nails, and yelled and chanted a lot. It was especially fitting that Drew dressed as a Scotsman; it gave me the perfect target for my yelling.

Revolution, Halloween 2006. For the 2nd annual Halloween dance party at the UFhOme (the pet name of my friends’ house), we were supposed to come dressed as a concept. Some people did (April, the girl behind me in this picture, was Vanity, and we had a Self-Image and a Catch-22), most didn’t (Kyle, the guy in the foreground, was one of two David Byrnes that showed up that night). I was Revolution. I wore combat boots (see “Black Panther Michelle Obama), crazy bondage pants that I loved during college, my Communist Party shirt with a construction paper “9” on the back, my Guy Fawkes mask, a Che Guavara-esque hat, and I carried around a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book.  It was hard to dance in the combat boots, but that didn’t stop me from getting my groove on. I danced the cossack a lot.

The Knight Who Says “Ni!”, Halloween 2005. This was yet another year when I simply had no good ideas for a costume. This knight extravaganza was a result of a last-ditch effort in costume shopping at the Quincy GoodWill, where I saw this giant felt monstrosity and thought I could turn it into something ridiculous. Turns out it came with a fabric “chain mail” shirt, so I bought the closest thing I could to chain mail trousers (which were snakeskin and approximately 7 sizes too big for me), found a toy shield and sword, and carried a Beanie Baby fish around and asked people to chop down a tree with it. No one tried (except me). It’s fun looking at pictures from this party, because you can tell how drunk I am by how far our of my armor the ruff of my chain mail hood is. This picture here? Hadn’t touched a drop. By the end of the night? I looked like Kermit the Frog. It was also quite the emo evening, but that’s a story for another time.

There’s a bit of a gap in costumes during my college and high school years, not counting the “tourist” costume I wore to Salem, Mass. with friends in 2004 (a Boston hoodie that I wore all the time anyway). I don’t remember dressing up in 8th grade, but I did in 7th. Observe:

Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek, Halloween 1996. I was a Trekkie. It’s true. From 4th or 5th grade till about 8th grade, I lurved Star Trek: The Next Generation. When my parents got me this uniform, I was utterly stoked. I painted my face white, slicked back my hair, and rocked my phaser and tricorder (not pictured). Total geek. It was awesome. The friends I went trick-or-treating with this year were, I’m pretty sure, all vampires. I stuck out like a sore thumb, but it was a thumb bursting with originality and nerd pride. So there.

Unfortunately that’s all the pictures I could find from Halloweens past. Perhaps next year I will have found pictures from my younger days. Stay tuned…

Writing Prompt: Zombies Are Here, What Do I Do?

This one is for you, Jeremiah. And from you, technically.

The first thing I would do is call my friend, Jeremiah, who seems to be the resident zombie aficionado. Unfortunately I don’t know enough about zombies to know what is and is not appropriate for protection. I’m assuming I need some kind of sword that would enable me to chop off zombie heads and limbs. Hopefully I will have done enough upper body strength training to allow me to pick up and swing the sword efficiently before this happens.

I’m also hoping there is some kind of liquid that when thrown at zombies, disintegrates their skin and eats away at anything keeping them “alive.” I should look into where I would purchase such a thing.

Based on the information I learned from the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer, vampires cannot come into your home unless you invite them (I’m not sure if this rule has been upheld in all the recent vampire-loving movies and shows). I hope that zombies have some kind of rule they must follow regarding entrance to my home, preferably that they must be invited in or something I would have control over. I know that coyotes are kept away by urine — maybe that applies to zombies, as well.

I would probably have to quit my job, since leaving my condo would be unsafe. Do zombies have any rules about being exposed to daylight? I’m going to need to get groceries at some point.

Unfortunately that’s about all the time I can dedicate to prepping for the arrival of zombies. I mostly just don’t have the material.

Writing Prompt: Could You Live Without a Car for a Year?!

The writing prompt that I submitted to Plinky got chosen as the prompt for today!!

**Mini Happy Dance**

Unfortunately, I’ve been pretty busy at work all day today and as soon as I close the library, I’ve got to bolt home to help Grace finish setting up for the Halloween party we’re throwing tonight.

As such, I don’t have time to answer my own prompt today! Boooooooooooo!!

I will, however, come back and answer it either tomorrow or Monday or something.

Being that I’m running on some seriously borrowed time, you get another writing prompt, and a very quick one at that.

Could you live without a car for a year?

I wasn’t sure if I could survive without a car when I first moved to Boston and left my sweet wheels back in Iowa. In the Midwest you drive everywhere. The thought of being unable to just pickup and go get groceries or duck out of the city or whatever was a little daunting.

It definitely took a lot of getting used to, but the oft-maligned subway and bus systems here aren’t completely unbearable and I walk just about anywhere else I need to go. That took some serious getting used to. In the Midwest, you walk from your car into whatever building you’ve just parked in front of and you bitch if you can’t find a front-row parking spot.

So, yes, I definitely think I could survive without a car because we’ve been out here more than four years now and it’s been pretty easy leaving the car behind. Not having to worry about parking, insurance, gas prices, etc, etc, etc…has been absolutely wonderful.

So Close!

I almost missed writing a post for tonight too! Luckily this time I did drag myself out of my comfy, warm bed to post something.

This week has been a bit off for me. I started the week feeling like I might be developing a cold, so I decided not to run at all to allow my body to rest. I also did that ass-beating workout on Sunday night, which I didn’t know was going to beat my ass until a day or two later — and it definitely did. So just in case any part of me was feeling extra guilty for not running and starting to reconsider my running ban, it would have been too painful to do with the workout soreness. Then work was busier than usual. It felt like just a bunch of non-routine things were happening and I have just been out of sync all week. I couldn’t remember what day it was most of the week. I had to make crazy detailed notes on everything at work to ensure I would actually do my job and not forget something.

I’m hoping that Sunday kicks off a week that puts me back into my normal routine. It would also be great to write a semi-lengthy post at least once next week.

PS – I haven’t read either of your guys’ posts for a few days, but I’m looking forward to do that next week. I also just looked at the Plinky list and there are several that sound fun, so hopefully I can do that too. I’ve basically been logging in and clicking immediately on “new post,” without even looking at anything else, or responding to comments. I feel like I have been a functional drunk all week — I was here and did what I needed to do to get by, but it was all a blur and I didn’t go the extra mile on anything, nor will I remember most of it.

Writing Prompt: Haikuamania

I’m not gonna lie, I’ve had a pretty long week and a big day as well.

Grace and I just spent the better part of the last five hours or so cleaning and decorating our place for our Halloween Party tomorrow and I’ve got to get a baseball article for BleacherReport in before a rapidly approaching deadline. As such, y’all are getting a writing prompt from Plinky today.

I was inspired by DGOBS’ post earlier, so I too have gone the haiku route.

Write a haiku about your favorite TV show.

Friends is the greatest.
Jennifer Aniston is
Rachel Green my love.

I love to watch Scrubs.
I think J.D. and I could
be the best of friends.

If I wrote a show,
How I Met Your Mother would
totally be it.

The Office is Jam.
Jim plus Pam equals Jam. Heck yes,
they are so damn cute.

Family Guy rules.
Absurdities aplenty are
the name of the game.

There you have it, haikus for my five favorite shows.

Feel free to rock one of your own in the comments (or else).

Haiku = My Easy Way Out

It’s happening again. I’m going to write a haiku about the last meal I ate because I don’t have enough brain left right now to write a decent post about anything else. It’s been a long, tiring week, and I just spewed every last piece of my brain into a crap essay for my class. That’s all. My brain has shut off for the week, so this is the best I can do:

Veggie burger wrap:
Guacamole is so good;
Not lurking olives

The Long Winter Ahead: Filling the Void Softball Leaves Behind

My softball season appears to be just about over for good.

I mentioned a week or so ago that my fall ball team—the Face Melters—had been eliminated from the playoffs.

Despite my initial state of utter disappointment with the loss (I’ve since coped and moved on), I was still able to hold onto the fact that I could play softball on Sundays for at least a few more weeks, heck, maybe even a good month.

Every Sunday for the better part of the past three months, I’ve trundled my way up to North Cambridge to play a game of pickup softball with one of the more eclectic crowds of softballers I’ve ever encountered.

There are guys who are in the 60s (or older) and guys who may or may not still be in high school. There are guys with physical disabilities and guys with mental disabilities (read: they’re really just hypercompetitive asshats, but I’d consider it a mental disability).

It’s a crazy mix of people, but it’s usually a pretty good time. Not the most fun pickup league I play in—that honor goes to Ronnie Broadfoot’s Saturday Morning Softball—but still a pretty good time if you love playing ball.

Unfortunately, last Sunday it was cold and rainy, two conditions which do not lend themselves to good softball and I stayed home. I don’t know if anyone else showed up, but I can’t imagine why they would when it was rainy and in the 50s.

The forecast for this week has the weather clocked in at roughly 50 degrees for game time. For anyone who has never played softball in the cold weather, let me make this short and sweet by saying that it’s no fun to hit a ball with a metal bat in the cold.

In fact, it downright sucks.

It stings your hands like a sumbitch and if you’re smart you don’t want to use any sort of “nice” or “pricey” bat in the cold, because there’s a really good chance you’ll destroy it.

With the weather beginning its autumn plummet it is entirely possible that I have played my last game of softball for the year. That disappoints me a whole bunch. Obviously I love playing softball and I was blessed to stumble into so many games this year.

In previous years, my season has come to an end in late July or early August when my summer team, the Bibliotechs, finally call it a year. Last year, we formed the Face Melters. This year I found two pickup games for most of the summer and into the fall and subbed for a couple of other teams throughout the summer and fall.

It was awesome.

The question I have now is…what the hell do I do with all this free time?!

Sure, sure…I could use it to start writing again or something else that’s constructive, but I need something physical to pass the time. I feel like playing softball two or three days a week for the better part of the last four or five months has played a big part in helping me get back into pretty good shape.

I’d really rather not lose that and start all over again in the spring, so I’ve started coming up with some options.

The first option is a simple one. I’ll go in and get a gym membership again. I figure a six-month membership should carry me through into the spring when softball starts up again, so that’s pretty much perfect.

The problem is finding some sort of real motivation to get me to actually go to the gym. I did great for awhile in my last tenure with the gym, but fell apart and eventually quit going altogether.

One thing I’m contemplating is signing up for the Tough Mudder. I realize it’s a little—um—“bat-shit crazy” and whatnot and there’s a pretty hefty chance that I’ll die somewhere in the obstacle course, but it’d sure as hell give me motivation to get my ass to the gym all winter long.

I mean seriously, there’s no way I wanna show up to the Tough Mudder outta shape and basically asking for death, right?!

I’ve been contemplating it for awhile now and I know of at least a couple of peeps who would be willing to sign up on a team with me. So I’m tossing this one out there to you, my Faithful Readers…should I compete in the Tough Mudder?! Why or why not?!

Let’s hear it in the comments…

Democracy Can Be Frustrating

Instead of doing homework last night, I decided to try to become an informed citizen and learn about the candidates who are duking it out in this upcoming election for governor of Massachusetts.

Boston.com has a cool feature that shows the background information of the candidates (as well as fun facts, like their favorite beer), and then their stances on the “big issues.” I even went so far as to make a little score sheet and dole out points to the candidates who claim to stand for what I like.

And you know what? I ended up sooooo much more frustrated than before I started looking into all this.

One candidate I thought had some potential turned out to be a d-bag on an issue I feel strongly about. Another candidate who (I admit this, and I’m a little ashamed) I had initially written off because of his party affiliation turned out to have some really good points on a few other big issues, so he was back in the game. After all my tallying of points, my score sheet told me I should vote for the Green-Rainbow party candidate, and then I got sad because I knew if I did, it would basically be a wasted vote since there’s no conceivable way she’ll even be a contender in this election. And there’s one candidate I really don’t want to win and I’m scared that my vote for a small-party candidate could help him get into office because I’m not voting for his likeliest rival. And then I sunk into an even sadder sadness because I hate the two-party system in this country and know that the kind of thinking I just had is exactly why we’ll never break free of the two-party system, because everyone will keep voting Dem or GOP because they assume that no one else will vote for the other parties and it will be a wasted vote a la “a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush” and on and on and on. And yet none of this will change unless the whole country stops thinking like that, but…. Like Drew said when I spilled my thoughts to him on this topic, it’s a chicken-and-egg situation. I don’t like it.

To drop me into an even more depressing hole, I started questioning my method of ranking the candidates based on their stances on the issues. I voted for Obama because he promised all this change and all these awesome things, but then he never really grew a pair big enough to get the job done. Candidates say whatever they want but then don’t necessarily live up to their word once they’re in office.

And don’t even get me started on the campaign ads. I want to punch a puppy every time one candidate slanders another instead of talking about his own campaign.

I hate politics. I hate politicians. I hate the two-party system. I hate that so-called “Tea Partiers” stole a piece of my state’s history and twisted it into a ridiculous sideshow that doesn’t even involve tea. I love tea. I hate this country. I don’t want to vote on Tuesday, but I don’t want to not vote on Tuesday, and I hate that conundrum.

I’m going to end my rant here and eagerly await the photo that I hope Jeremiah will add to my post for me.

Damn!

I missed my post for yesterday. I had crawled into bed and after about 15 minutes, I remembered, “I didn’t write my post!” and I contemplated getting up…but my covers were keeping me so warm…and I was so tired…and I decided to miss it. What’s annoying is that I had actually already written my post, I just hadn’t typed it up. Here it is.

So I’m big on the idea that we shouldn’t wish our time away since it seems like we get such little time here as it is. I’m in an all-day meeting today for work. While I won’t say the meeting totally sucks, I can say that it is not at all fun. So I’m sitting here, wishing it was 4:30, which means I would most likely be done with this meeting.

Then it occurred to me that I’m wishing my time away. That means I need to find some way to make this time valuable or “worth living.” So I decided that writing blog entries would be the most productive use of my time. So far, I have three. Unfortunately, there is only so much creativity that can flow through you during an all-day business meeting about stuff you already know or just heard yesterday.

What else can I do to make this time valuable? I gossiped with a co-worker for a little bit. I made a list of things I need to do, like study for my final or clean my condo. I could work on my other creative outlet and sketch designs for my t-shirts…but that’s not really coming to me, and it looks a little suspicious when I have doodles all over my notes that are supposed to probably be work-related. If only I knew how to sleep with my eyes open…

Writing Prompt: An Epic Roadtrip I’d Like to Take

I have three epic roadtrips I’d like to take, actually: Route 1 east coast, Route 1 west coast, and horizontally across the country on a route that I haven’t selected yet.

I’ve spent a good amount of time on Route 1, east, in my life, but only small chunks at a time. Route 1 north of Boston has all kinds of furniture stores and roast beef shacks and what have you, and Route 1 in southern Maine is quite nice as well. The fact that it stretches down the whole east coast always fascinated me and made me want to just drive it and take in all its kitschy glory. I want to do this still.

I’ve also spent a much less significant amount of time on an even tinier stretch of Route 1 west (See picture at left… You can’t really tell from that shot, but there’s a mountain on the right and the Pacific Ocean on the left. It’s true.). Conveniently, Drew is from SoCal, and has taken me on brief jaunts up and down Route 1 between Venice Beach and Malibu, where Route 1 is known as the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway).

A few chunks of the highway here and there are awesome, but I want to see it all. I want to see San Diego and I want to see Big Sur and NoCal and the Pacific Northwest and I want to drive under redwoods and all that jazz. This must happen at some point during my life.

And then there’s cross-country roadtrippin’. I always wanted to take Route 66, but I’m honestly not sure if that road exists anymore, and I’m feeling too lazy to look it up right now. Basically, I just want to pull a Steinbeck in Travels With Charley… or a Bryson in The Lost Continent… and just see the country. All of it. Most of it. Significant chunks of it. I want to see prairie and I want to see desert and I want to see purple mountains majesty.

I think I need to win the lottery so I can leave all kinds of responsibilities behind and just go. Just drive. Just take it all in. And then hire a personal trainer to help me get back into shape after sitting in a car for months at a time and probably eating more fast food than anyone ever should. And it will be awesome.

My Encounter with Punky Bookster

Punky Bookster walks into the library. He doesn’t come around to the front of the desk, because he’s weird. Most weird people like to come in and stand awkwardly beside the desk. It’s just sorta their thing.

I should mention this right away, because I’d be remiss if I forgot to let you all know that he looked almost identical to Jim Varney in the Ernest Goes to… movies. That having been said, let’s get this story on the move.

He slams down a book and pulls out fifteen pages of printed out Amazon listings—single-sided, mind you—and then just looks at me.

As one might expect there is a brief and fleeting moment where I assume I’m on Punk’d and Ashton Kutcher is gonna leap out from behind our bust of Nikola Tesla.

I turned to the bust, but alas, there was no Kutcher…so I began my line of questioning as such:

Burnt-out Book Jockey: “What can I do for you tonight?”
Punky Bookster: “I want books.”

Another peek toward the bust, fleeting hopes that Kutcher’s shaggy hair will be sticking out from behind one of Tesla’s shoulders and I can nip this whole thing in the bud. Unfortunately, there is no Kutcher once again.

Burnt-out Book Jockey: “Okay, what kinds of books? I see you’ve got some print-outs.”
Punky Bookster: “Yes. This is a list of books. I would like them.”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: “Okay, cool, let’s see what we can do here.”

I thought to myself, “maybe this one won’t be so bad. I just need to find some call numbers and send this guy on his merry way.”

The problem is we didn’t have any of the titles he wanted. Mind you, I didn’t go through all fifteen pages of titles because—well—after the first six were strikeouts, I figured I’d best inquire a little more about the these books, most of which has prices in the thousands beside their Amazon listings.

Burnt-out Book Jockey: “Did you check our catalog to see if we had any of these titles before you came in?!
Punky Bookster: “Yes. I checked Amazon.”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: “Riiiiiiight, Amazon isn’t a listing of items we own. It’s an online marketplace where you can buy books.”
Punky Bookster: “You’ll buy the books?”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: “No, no…this is where you would buy the books. The libraries often purchase books that are requested, but I highly doubt we’re going to purchase fifteen pages worth of books that cost thousands of dollars.”
Punky Bookster: “The library said you would.”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: “…which library said they would?”
Punky Bookster: “The other library, where they printed this list.”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: “Another library here on campus or off-campus?”
Punky Bookster: “No, it was the other library in here.”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: “Wait…what?! The other library in here as in, “in this building” or as in, “in this campus?””
Punky Bookster: “No. In this city.”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: “Cambridge? Was it the Cambridge Public Library?”
Punky Bookster: “Not Cambridge, but the other library.”

I took a minute to take a deep breath and ponder the good things in life, like alibis and get-away vehicles and lawyers who work pro-bono. All those good things filtered through my head for a second before I finally jumped back into the mess that was this conversation.

Burnt-out Book Jockey: “Okay so one of the public libraries printed you off fifteen pages of Amazon listings and said we’d buy the books. Is that correct?”
Punky Bookster: “Yes.”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: “Okay, being that you’re not a member of the MIT Community, I cannot guarantee we’ll purchase any of these for you, but you can always suggest a purchase on our website. It is likely, however, that you’ll have to purchase these for yourself.”

At this point—in what can only be described as just and merciful act from the heavens above—he seemed to get what I was saying. He nodded and then started flipping through the pages to the back page where some of the books fell in the $30-$50 range.

Punky Bookster: “So if I buy this. Do I need to have software installed?”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: “Software, like to make the purchase? No, you’d just buy it on Amazon using a credit card.”
Punky Bookster: “No, software for the book. It’s about ‘AutoCAD.’”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: “I’m sorry, I don’t know what AutoCAD is or whether or not you’d need any software to go with the book. You’d have to che…”
Punky Bookster: “You don’t know what AutoCAD is?! How can you not know what AutoCAD is? What kind of engineer doesn’t know about AutoCad?”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: “Well, I’m not an engineer.”

I never get why this is so shocking to people. Do you really think there is a legitimate engineering hanging out in a library at all hours of the day, just geeking out waiting for the chance to answer your question? No, they’re out doing engineering things like…um…driving trains and stuff.

The same thing goes for librarians. No, no there’s not a real librarian here at 7:30pm on a Wednesday, just like there’s never one here at 10:30pm or 3pm on a Saturday. Not all librarians just sit at a desk, adjusting their bun and reading from Oprah’s book club. Ugh…

Anyway, Punky stared at me, mouth agape just long enough for me to contemplate putting my foot in it before he gathered his wits and continued with more important questions.

Punky Bookster: “Okay, since you’re not going to be any help with my real questions, I’ll give you some easy ones.”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: *sigh*
Punky Bookster: “What comes with the book?”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: “What?”
Punky Bookster: “Maybe these aren’t easy enough.”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: “…or maybe they don’t make any sense, because you’re not giving any context or information of any kind. If you want to know what comes with the book, go back on Amazon and look it up.”

There was yet another moment of awkward silence in which I think he realized he’d pissed me off pretty good. In that same moment I was thinking about how awesome it’d feel to beat this assbag in the face with a desensitizing brick.

Punky Bookster: “…b-b-b-but I didn’t look it up. I don’t know how to find it.”
Burnt-out Book Jockey: “Go to Amazon. Search it. Check the details to see what comes with it.”
Punky Bookster: “How do I get to Amazon?”

This is the last of our conversation that I’m going to submit to you, my Faithful Readers, because the rest of it was actually quite mundane and less exciting and profanity-laced as you might expect.

I sat him down at a computer, opened up a browser and told him to type in Amazon.com. He “oooh’d” and “aaaahhhh’d” and then spent forty-five minutes browsing around the site after I showed him how to search. All the while wishing I was teaching him how to fly from a fifth-story window.

Whilst he was looking up more books on Amazon and potentially making purchases or maybe just adding them to a wishlist—who effing knows what he was or wasn’t capable of online—I did some more searching for his ‘AutoCAD’ bullshit and found that we’ve got some stuff—none of the crap he wanted, but some stuff nonetheless—in the Rotch library.

He left happy. I was happy he left.

Ashton Kutcher never made an appearance.

Sometimes I think that I’d be better off working as a late-night janitor. No people, just you, your iPod and a bunch of toxic chemicals.

*sigh*

Writing Prompt: Won’tcha Be My Neighbor

It feels like a writing prompt kind of night.

I figure after my mammoth 1,900-word tome about the death of the McDonald’s Embargo a day ago, I should take it down a notch today to keep my adoring public from expecting that level of output on a regular basis.

I had a rather uneventful day anyway, just a lot of work, frustration and a bunch of salad. Nothing too spectacular. Clearly a writing prompt is the way to go.

So, without any further ado, here is today’s Plinky writing prompt:

Write a 10-line poem about your neighbor.

My neighbor is a fine, fine man.
He helps people whenever he can.

He’ll help clean your gutters,
or help you hang new shutters.

He’ll help you bag your trash,
but never accept any cash.

He knows everyone on the block.
He’s always in the mood to talk.

Jimmy is one friendly dude.
So if you see him, don’t give him any ‘tude.

This is where one would insert a round of golf claps or those weird snappy things that hipsters do at poetry readings.

Not my finest work, but my bed beckons and I’d rather not disappoint it.

Working After Hours

Bleh. I had to do a few hours of work after work tonight and it was not enjoyable. Even worse, I had to cancel what was sure to have been an awesome evening with one of my most awesome friends so I could do work instead. Ick. This hasn’t happened in a long time, so I can’t complain too much…but still a little.

This week has already been crazy busy and it’s not even half over yet!

So, needless to say…short-ass post tonight that offers little creativity. Too bad, so sad, right?

Nickelodeon Nostalgia

Every time I see the logo for this blog – the hand using a quill with “PTQ” above it – I always think of Doug, the Nicktoon of yore. And that makes me happy.

I used to watch Doug all the time and freaking loved that show. Mr. Bone, the assistant principal, had a tendency of saying (well, at least once) PDQ when he wanted something done quickly. The example that lurks in my memory that may or may not be accurate has Mr. Bone calling Doug down to the principal’s office… something along the lines of “Doug Funnie to the principal’s office PDQ… whatever that means” or whatever. My interpretation was that PDQ stood for “pretty quick” gone awry. Not sure if that’s true, but there you go.

So yeah. Whenever I see the PTQ logo, I hear Mr. Bones’s voice in my head telling Doug to do something “PDQ… whatever that means.” Good times.