Wednesday, April 29, 2015

The Things That Keep Us Up At Night


You can't see it, but in my head I'm considering a nightclub inside the Arctic circle that's only open during days of constant polar night and polar twilight.

Then I'm thinking of a new idea for a series of teen novels about vampire Eskimos.  It's called Polar Twilight.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Saturday, April 25, 2015

A Big Pile of Pants Pulled Down


While this conversation more or less really happened, it didn't actually begin the way I've written it here.  But capturing how it actually happened would have A) taxed my already brittle artistic skills to the point of breaking and B) never received a final authorization.

Friday, April 24, 2015

Textual Orientation


1.  What we in the business call “a grabber.”  Definitely the word to use to GUARANTEE I’m going to keep reading.

2.  At this point, slightly hoping the conjunction is an autocorrect for the word “butt."

3.  Disappointed by the “butt” letdown, yet intrigued:  the location of some item is SO CONSTANT and familiar that NOT finding it qualifies as “bizarre”!?!  How will the sentence conclude?
  •      “can’t find/Mount Rushmore”
  •      “can’t find/my cellphone”
  •      “can’t find/the number 7 on my cellphone”
  •      “can’t find/the second floor of my local Costco”
  •      “can’t find/my pulse”
  •      “can’t find/Waldo”

4. Okay, so a bit tame for a conclusion.  Bizarre?  Really?  I suppose if the headband had been tattooed on or stapled to the texter’s head when she lay down for a nap and was gone when she woke up...or if it looked like this in which case it would be hard to miss...

5.  I’m starting to think the headband didn’t belong to the texter.  So, the owner of the headband entrusted the texter with the sacred responsibility of guarding this precious object

6.  Though this is the lone use of “textspeak,” one must admire the texter's economy of language:  she saved herself precious microseconds by eschewing the other two-thirds of this pronoun.

7.  Here, one admires the texter’s decision to refuse the banal, culturally destructive “textspeak” version of this word.  In reading the entire second-person syllable here, one cannot help but imagine the expressive freedom that dominated the texter’s mind at the moment of thumbing these letters.  In what is perhaps best described as the most appropriate and ironic “YOLO” moment, she elects to “live large,” to express each word expansively, and to let the reader have an opportunity to savor and appreciate the lines and circle of a Y and an O that might otherwise have gone missing from his or her day.  The devil-may-care attitude almost literally DRIPS from the two extra letters, as though they say, “Yeah, that’s right, us two characters might not need to be here, but we are.  Got a problem with that?  I mean, what is this, Twitter?”

8.  ONE person with TWO headbands?  This possibility is so absurdly improbable, one wonders how the texter was even able to conceive of such an eventuality.  Such a circumstance would be even more bizarre (if that’s possible) than the headband going missing in the first place.

9.  The mind reels.  Logical whiplash ensues.  If we have this right, then the lack of that first headband, and the unlikely possibility of obtaining a second headband, are circumstances that can be rectified by the acquisition of ICE.  There are, clearly, only two ways in which this deductive argument can be true:
  • the texter’s family exclusively uses headband-shaped ice-cube trays and these will effectively hold the textee’s hair in place, though they will also create an ongoing brain-freeze originating outside her skull; OR
  • the headband was ACTUALLY required as a makeshift fanbelt in some sort of MacGuyver-esque refrigeration unit, which now cannot be completed, meaning that the...cryogenically preserved head of Walt Disney? platter of llama patties? butter-sculpture of comedic acting legend Charles Grodin?...will begin moving dangerously close to room temperature and spoilage.
10.  LOVING the choice of conjunction here, given the two things that are connected.

11.  If the first word was the grabber, the last word surpasses all other conceivable endings.  

Let’s assume that this word was “papertowels,” but mistyped (or possibly a shrewd employment of abbreviated “textspeak,” freeing the texter of the nuisance involved in typing an extra E and L - see #6).  Much of #9 applies here, though if in fact the ice is ALSO being provided (evidenced by the word "AND" - see #10), then the fact that the papertowels are frozen would seem to be redundant.  

UNLESS the papertowels serve a function distinct from the ice, a function that requires them to be frozen (it is assumed by this writer that in order to be frozen, said papertowels would first have to be steeped in some liquid such as Apple & Eve Pomegranate-Blueberry Juice or bat urine or, if neither of these is available, water).

MORE AS THE MOOD SUITS ME...

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Putting the "Con" in Conference


-------------------------------------------------------------

Based on actual events.

Of course, the problem with the good presenter is that he writes in scribbles rather than actual words, so you don't know what his solution is.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Two Wrongs Make You Wrong All the Time


From L to R in the first panel:  Younger Daughter, Older Daughter, Me, Wife.

I decided to decorate today's couches for Easter, apparently.  What's especially stupid is that the color of the paper I choose is much closer to the actual color of our couches than any of the colors I use here to color them.  

Plus I would save myself time by not coloring them.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

We're All Over This


The good news is that, in those two months, we were able to get the indentation in the top of our television mostly fixed.

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Friday, April 17, 2015

And On the Fourth Day, I'll Rest, Because, Why Wait?


Isn’t it about time we discussed term limits for the Supreme Being?  I mean, the rules around the length of time a Major Deity stays on the throne were created before we knew that there could be more than one eternity and before we knew that infinities could be different sizes.  Times have changed, and it stands to reason that the Unchangeable Governing Agent of Our Universe must change with them.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

If I Were a Country, I'd Be Non Sequitorial Guinea


I'd try to make the argument that I really have an attention-SURPLUS disorder, except that I don't even remember the clown story now.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

The Pressure Cooker


The little funny drops on the table are the meringues, by the way, and yes, they were red and blue.

The funny swooping arc is the table, by the way.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

The Devil is in the Details at Eleven


It would be even better if it turned out that they were going to say that the demons were upset about some folks who tried to subvert the demon government, so that the story also talked about the "demons' traitors."  If this happened, I would probably not be able to stop giggling for three days.

(sigh)

Real news is so boring.

Friday, April 10, 2015

Like a Good Board Game, State Farm is There


The correct answer, obviously, is B.

First off, vampires can't be State Farm agents, because they would be unable to avoid forming tragic romances with prospective customers which would ultimately bring about the war with the werewolf Nationwide agents.  Vampires know this and adhere to a strict code that causes them to resist the extraordinary allure of insurance sales work.

Second, the bizarre black living fog created by State Farm offices all over the United States long ago grew too large to be contained in something as small as a single State Farm office.  It is currently being held in a hollowed-out self-storage facility north of Munsie, Indiana.

Lastly, since This American Life is produced by non-profit public radio, hipster accountants would look down their noses at using a profit-making company like State Farm as its facade.  They wouldn't get near it.  The This American Life-themed night club they frequent is fronted by a Greenpeace office.

So the only answer that makes any sense is B.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Little Casual Tuesdays (It's a New Thing)


I'd like to thank the Canadian website for the TD Summer Reading Club (whatever that is) for helping me learn how to draw a mouse.

Also, I'm pretty sure I should SUE that website, since the little hook feet and the pitchfork hands they recommend for their mouse drawings are just a bit too similar to the stick figures of a certain Artist of the Awful.

Monday, April 6, 2015

Putting Our IKEA Into Words



As it happens, we originally purchased our children at IKEA and assembled them at home with an Allen wrench.  They came with two extra wooden pegs, three additional 5/8" anchor bolts, two birthdays, and an ability to play tournament-level Scrabble that we weren't able to install.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Friday, April 3, 2015

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

I Swear I Did Not Make This Up


To see other really super awesome makeup tutorials like this one, as well as a whole passel of other delightful writings and picturings and videoings on a bevy of other topics, you should SPEND SOME TIME OVER AT THE MAEBEDAZE BLOG!!

Also, Happy April Fools Day.

Awful Pictures will return to normal tomorrow.  And when I say normal, well, you know.