Category: Mild Lunacy

Story Hacks: First in a Series

December 17, 2004 /

Want to establish that a character is weird and emotionally vacant? Have him count things! This works because everyone has seen Rain Man, or references to it on Animaniacs.

Example One

Topaz opened the door at Jake’s knock. “Oh hey,” she said. “Glad you found it. Sorry about the stairs.”

“I don’t see how you walk up those every day,” panted Jake. “Whew.”

Example Two

Topaz opened the door at Jake’s knock. “Oh hey,” she said. “Glad you found it. Sorry about the stairs.”

“The staircase is very long,” Jake agreed. “It has one hundred and seven steps.”

Now, which of these Jakes is deranged? I bet you already know!

It’s the second one.

Today’s Hack in a Nutshell: It is impossible to like numbers and still have feelings!

The Christmas my mother was displeased

December 13, 2004 /

I think this is the best story about my parents, although there are many great ones.

In 1988 or possibly 1987, my father gave my mother all of the following as Christmas gifts:

  1. A typical Texas Instruments calculator with a slide-on case.
  2. A small calculator with metal buttons, fitted into a glass paperweight.
  3. A calculator with an AC adaptor, which could print its calculations onto a small roll of paper.
  4. A thin calculator that was part of a checkbook.
  5. A calculator with tiny, tiny buttons, which was integral to a digital wristwatch.

I think it’s only natural that he got a second, matching wristwatch as a present to himself.

Somebody Fark this

November 25, 2004 /

Lisa came over tonight, and two things happened.

  1. We thawed some pre-cooked shrimp and, lacking cocktail sauce, attempted to make our own. You need horseradish to make cocktail sauce; we lacked horseradish as well. The ingredients we did have were ketchup, lemon juice and worcestershire sauce. We decided to attempt to make it, with something (garlic? cayenne?) substituting for horseradish.

    Extrapolation of how this went is left as an exercise for the reader.

  2. We played some Halo 2, the first chance I’ve had to play co-op and a lot of fun. At one point, near the end, we witnessed something so fantastic that it forced the two of us to drag out my vidcapping equipment and record it for posterity. This is maybe the most important thing I have ever done.

    Ladies, gentlemen, I give you: Headless, Breakdancing Master Chief.

Master Chief Breakdancing in .MP4 (4.23 MB)

Master Chief Breakdancing in .MOV (10.9 MB)

Screencap 1

Screencap 2

Screencap 3

Screencap 4

Screencap 1 Zoom

Screencap 3 Zoom

Post script: the above video formats are the only ones in which I can get a workable file size. If you can convert to .wmv, .mpg or .avi (and either get it under 10MB or host it), write me and I’ll arrange to get you a copy of the 30-meg source file.

November 12, 2004 /

Okay, I have to concede that even if I don’t know what it means, “winglike alary processes” is a beautiful set of words. Winglike alary processes. It’s not a band name… maybe it’s a song name. It’s better than that, though. Accidental poetry.

Winglike alary processes.

The inspiration was pretzel nuggets

October 29, 2004 /

I just had a great idea: if I ever direct a play again, which I won’t, because I’m a bad director, I wouldn’t have my actors warm up by doing exaggerated facial stretches and silly consonant sequences. (If you have a theatrical background you know what I’m talking about; if you don’t, rest assured that this is typically the case.) Instead, I would have them run through lines they hadn’t quite memorized anyway with grapes in their mouths. Or marshmallows, but grapes would be better for their vocal cords. See, it would force them to do all that stretching anyway to get around the grapes, and they’d be working on lines, and it’d be delicious! All at the same time!

Maybe this is one of those ideas that turn out not to be so great later.

October 28, 2004 /

I don’t have health insurance now. Did I ever mention that? I am living the Life Less Health Insurance! Please nobody hit me with trucks.

September 29, 2004 /

I’ve been listening to my Frou Frou CD a lot. So much, in fact, that if it were a record the needle would probably have damaged it badly by now. The lows would be warmer, but the quality of sound would be degrading, and little peels of vinyl would be poking up like splinters on a fuzz stick, the worst method ever invented to start a fire.