Category: silly

silly

Arbitrary Grades for Chocolate Biscuits

Post author By Alex
Post date December 24, 2018
No Comments on Arbitrary Grades for Chocolate Biscuits

From the Cadbury Chocolate Biscuit Selection:

Simply Shortcake: It’s a little bar of shortbread covered in milk chocolate, so it basically tastes of nothing but the milk chocolate. Look, I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, but I think shortbread is a biscuit that’s just not trying hard enough to be anything and I prefer my carbohydrates-held-together-with-fat to have some fucking conviction. It’s the moderate of biscuits, which is why you can put anything on it, I suppose. And yes, I’m sure your nan’s shortbread is so fucking amazing it’ll give me a BJ and do my laundry while it’s partying in my mouth, but we’re talking about something that was made in a factory, here. As a vehicle for getting chocolate into your mouth, it could be worse. It could also be better. D

Vanilla Crisp: A rectangular vanilla biscuit that’s fighting its hardest to assert itself over the milk chocolate, and it kind of succeeds. I’m using “vanilla” here in the loosest sense, because it’s mostly just sweet and what androids dream of vanilla tasting like, having only experienced it by mass spectrometer. But at least it’s a biscuit that’s willing to commit to having an actual flavor, so that earns it a grade bump. C

White Shortcake: White chocolate is the insipid cum of the devil’s accountant, Teddy, who doesn’t really like the current state of world affairs, but he doesn’t see how there’s anything that he can do about it, so he’ll just keep his head down and hope to not be noticed. In other words, I’m not putting that in my mouth because I don’t want to know what no real flavor plus no real flavor equals. It’s probably the saddest dividing by zero experience your mouth could have. F-

Crunchy Ring: It’s a biscuit in the shape of a ring. I’m not sure what flavor it is because everything tastes of chocolate. It also has the same texture as every other biscuit from the tin, so I’m feeling a little lied to, here. Just be proud of what you are, biscuit. Call yourself Vaguely Flavored Ring-shaped Biscuit and have done with it. This is a safe place. C-

Milk Triangle: I’m still not sure if the “milk” here refers to the fact that it’s coated in milk chocolate, or there might be something “milk”-flavored going on here. Kind of like that “milk”-flavored Japanese candy that’s an uncomfortable mix between vanilla and something not brave enough to be actually malty. Look, all I’m saying is that I have no idea what this actually tastes of under it’s jaunty jacket of milk chocolate, and it disturbs me. But on the other hand, it’s formed into an approximately equilateral triangle, and I’m a sucker for geometric shapes. B-

Dark Chocolate Surprise: I was expecting elves, or an explosion of confetti, or maybe the crunchy bits that had wandered off the mis-named “Crunchy Ring” so they could crackle in my mouth like pop rocks. It’s a biscuit coated in dark chocolate that completely prevents you from discovering if the biscuit tastes of anything. After all of the other biscuits in the tin, that’s not surprising either. Maybe the real surprise is the friends we made along the way. Or the real surprise that there is no surprise, and there’s actually a cunningly hidden zen koan waiting to be pondered in this tin. But I like dark chocolate okay. B

Ginger Crunch: Maybe I’m just incapable of detecting crunch with my horrible American teeth. British crunchy bits are too subtle and worldly for my callow tastes. Maybe I’m the problem and I’ve always been the problem. Fuck you, biscuits, I’m not going to be judged by something that came in a cheery purple tin that isn’t even big enough to conceal the average grandmother’s sewing kit. Anyway, the more important part is that there is ginger, and it’s not giving me a bloody nose and making me cry happy tears of pain, but it’s present and unwilling to be overpowered by the chocolate coating. It’s the only biscuit that comes in its own shiny wrapping, marking it as the Emperor of This Particular Tin, special and infinitely more edible than anything else without being dunked in tea in an attempt to pretend that everything is all right and normal. And I just fucking love ginger biscuits. A

Tags arbitrary grades, biscuits, silly

silly

Voldemom

Post author By Alex
Post date August 17, 2016
1 Comment on Voldemom

So yes, I know all about Voldemort’s tragic backstory(TM)¹, I’ve read the books. But think how much more interesting it would have been if, at the beginning of book four when you-know-who is about to murder hapless Frank Bryce, the Voldemom comes shuffling out of the shadows in a floral print housecoat and carpet slippers, curlers in her hair and a cigarette dangling from between her lips.

TOMMY. What are you doing?

Um. Nothing mom. Just going to kill this muggle.

Tommy, you’re being too loud. Why does there have to be so much screaming? My soaps are on. I can barely hear them.

It’s just going to be another minute, mom.

But Steve is about to propose to Angelica, and all I can hear is you hissing and spitting at this–whoever he is.

It’s called parseltongue, mom.

I’ll parseltongue you. And put your snake out. She’s shedding scales all over my carpet.

Nagini is a very clean snake. She’d never do that.

Fine, then you do all the vacuuming.

Why do I have to do all the work around here?

All the work? All the work? Fine, then you can start washing your own robes. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get blood stains out? Well, do you?

But mom–

And what thanks do I get? A sink full of skulls and half-full cups of coffee. Why can’t you empty your bloody coffee cups out and put them in the dishwasher like everyone else?

Mom, I have more important things to do.

Well I’ve got lower back pain and my eczema is acting up, but does that stop me from doing everyone’s dishes? No.

Okay fine, I’ll just be another minute.

It’s always another minute with you. I’m still waiting for you to go to the store and buy more kitchen towel.

Mom, you’re embarrassing me.

No, you’re embarrassing me, I can’t even tell the neighbors what my son does any more. Who ever heard of “Dark Lord” as a profession. I wanted you to go to accounting school, but no–

I’m not going to be a bloody actuary.

Actuaries make good money. You’d have a pension. And promotion prospects! And you always were so good at numbers. If you’d just applied yourself…

I hated maths. Just like I hate muggles.

Now you’re just being dramatic.

I am not being dramatic! This is why I tell everyone I’m an orphan!

Don’t you take that tone with me, young man!

I’ll do whatever I want. Avada–ow! Ow! Mom, stop it!

You might not have a nose any more, but you’ve still got two perfectly good ears.

Then the book would have ended very quickly.

And these are the things I think about when it’s one in the morning and I’ve been driving for ten hours. Goodnight.

1: Cool story, still murder.

Tags brain goop, harry potter silly

sfwa silly

FAQ: What is SFWA in charge of?***

Post author By Alex
Post date September 4, 2015
15 Comments on FAQ: What is SFWA in charge of?***

Things SFWA is in charge of:

The Nebula Awards!
Writer Beware!
SFWA.org
GriefCom!
The SFWA Emergency Medical fund
The SFWA Bulletin and other publications that say “SFWA” on it like that one awesome cookbook with the super alcoholic Irish coffee recipe in.

Things SFWA is not in charge of:

Worldcon
The Hugo Awards
The success or failure of your book
Bees! (OR ARE THEY ~~AREN’T THEY? AREN’T? ENGLISH IS HARD HELP~~)
This thing
The Hugo Awards
Any member’s personal website ~~like this one oops~~
George RR Martin’s beret
People who pronounce nuclear like “nuke-YEW-ler.”
The Hugo Awards
The second law of thermodynamics
The way Cat Rambo’s hair keeps changing color, as if there’s nothing dependable left in this world and we’ll all just go spinning off into the void at any moment
The Permian extinction
El chupacabra
The way cilantro tastes soapy to some people and not to others
The Hugo Awards
Chemtrails
The really shitty traffic on the local highway you have to use every day
The Hugo Awards
Quantum entanglement
That mysterious glowing substance that you shouldn’t have licked but you did it anyway because you were a dumb teenager and in fifty years you’re probably going to die of eyeball spleen cancer
March Madness
The fact that we STILL do not have a Black Widow movie and yet Ant Man? Seriously?
HAARP
That garbage music kids these days listen to
The Hugo Awards
This guy
The fact that chocolate is so fattening ~~goddammit SFWA why~~
Bacon, cats, or John Scalzi
That you can never find a pen when you need one
Or that you finally find a pen and IT IS ALWAYS OUT OF INK
Rainbow suspenders (or “embarrassingly enthusiastic weather braces” for our British readers)
That thing on Donald Trump’s head
The Hugo Awards
THE MOTHERFUCKING HUGO AWARDS

I hope this clears things up.

*** – I am not an officer in SFWA. I am not speaking in an official capacity for SFWA. This website is not sanctioned by SFWA. I keep trying to text SFWA and it won’t return my texts any more either, I don’t know, maybe it’s just busy? Call me, baby.

Tags hugo awards, sfwa, silly

my exciting life silly texas

In which my housemate saves my life

Post author By Alex
Post date May 24, 2014
6 Comments on In which my housemate saves my life

So no shit, there I was.

Which is to say, I was in my bedroom, because I needed to take a shower and wash the gel out of my hair. I turned on the light, and there was a thing on the wall above my fucking bed. A big, brown thing. It had approximately five million legs ~~and a switchblade~~. It was a cockroach. A fucking cockroach. And not just a little one. One of the Texas-sized ones. You know, these.

I need you to understand something. I grew up in Colorado. Until forced to move to Texas, I literally had only seen one cockroach “in the wild” in my entire life. And that was an incredibly well-fed german cockroach in a super sketchy Chinese buffet. I am not psychologically prepared to handle this shit.

Which explains the next thing I did, namely scream, “KATHY, I NEED YOU RIGHT NOW. RIGHT NOW. KATHY. KATHY. COME HERE.”

My housemate, bless her forever, hurtled into my room. Yes, that sure was a massive cockroach that was SCURRYING DOWN MY WALL AND AAAAA

There was an undignified scramble to grab the vacuum cleaner, because that’s apparently an amazing way to kill giant cockroaches. Then we had to figure out how to get the long tool attached. Then THE COCKROACH WAS ON THE FLOOR OH MY GOD and Kathy tried to suck it up with the vacuum but it ran under the file cabinet.

Suddenly I was like that guy in the action movie. You know, the guy who gets sent to open the door that the evil alien monster is drooling behind by a jerk of the chin from the guy who has the BFG? I HAVE SEEN THESE MOVIES. I KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO THAT GUY OKAY. Carefully I turned the little file cabinet over. Nothing. “Open the drawer,” Kathy ordered. I righted the cabinet and, very carefully, opened the drawer. THESE MOTHERFUCKERS CAN FLY OKAY.

The cockroach ran across the files in the drawer. I totally didn’t scream.

(She totally screamed.)

Kathy thrust the vacuum cleaner attachment into my hand and I tried to get the roach as she ran out of the room and LEFT ME ALONE OH GOD WHY. But the roach was wily, and strong, and it called me a bitch and spat at my feet as it ran out across the carpet, murder glinting in its evil little eyes. I got it a good one with the attachment, but then THE ROACH JUST RAN RIGHT BACK OUT OF THE FUCKING HOSE OKAY THIS ROACH WAS WEARING DEPLETED URANIUM ARMOR OR SOMETHING.

As my life flashed before my eyes Kathy charged back into the room, shoe in one hand, can of Pledge in the other. With a mighty battle cry of “LEMONY FRESH, MOTHERFUCKER!” she sprayed the roach with furniture polish. It slowed the ravening beast and then, at great risk to her own life, she beat it to death with her shoe.

And that is the story of how my housemate saved my life tonight.

(The cockroach was subsequently buried at sea.)

Tags cockroaches, my amazing life, my brush with six-legged death, what is my life even

conspiracy theory silly spam

In which I answer (spam?) e-mail out loud.

Post author By Alex
Post date May 9, 2014
1 Comment on In which I answer (spam?) e-mail out loud.

from: christian bile
to: katsuhiro at gmail.com
date: Thu, May 8, 2014 at 4:13 AM
subject:

hey i’d like to know if u r an illuminaati member?

Good question! Actually, I’m an Illuminaaati member. They’re easy to get confused, but one is sort of an off-brand Illuminati that’s generally manufactured in sweatshops by children who are held under terrible conditions and paid almost nothing, and the other is a shadowy, terrifying global organization whose agents sneak into your house in the dead of night and make certain your car tires contain the appropriate amount of air pressure. They also have a highly disturbing yet intensely helpful habit of being already waiting at the proper intersection with a tow truck before before your car has broken down. Almost as if they know it will happen. As if they engineered it perhaps.

(I imagined that question being read in an extra gravelly voice, as if Batman has had food poisoning and been dry heaving for a while. No idea why.)

Tags Q&A, questions, silly, spam

silly spam

OH MY GOD GUYS I’M GONNA JOIN THE ILLUMINATI

Post author By Alex
Post date April 19, 2014
2 Comments on OH MY GOD GUYS I’M GONNA JOIN THE ILLUMINATI

from: candis.alston@xxxxxx
bcc: katsuhiro@gmail.com
date: Sun, Apr 13, 2014 at 1:37 PM
subject: INVITATION TO THE GREAT ILLUMINATI

Your email was selected among the ten lucky people giving the opportunity of becoming rich and popular by joining the great Illuminati network for more details please contact email ([redacted]) for more details.

Er. Wait. No. I’m not being given the opportunity, I’m giving the opportunity.

HOLY SHIT I’M ALREADY PART OF THE ILLUMINATI! AND I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW! That’s how amazing and secret this great network of rich and popular people is. I was already in the Illuminati and I didn’t even know it! Well, I’m glad to know that in addition to being rich and popular, I’m also so generous I’m helping people join an organization I didn’t even know I was part of.

Though I’m kind of disappointed that the Illuminati are about being rich and popular. I mean, rich, okay. But doesn’t popular kind of defeat the purpose of being a super secret and shadowy organization? And I thought there was going to be like…globe-dominating power. Manipulating heads of state like little marionettes and laughing with a rich deep voice while doing so. Can I have that instead of the popularity? I’d rather be the creepy shadow behind the throne rather than having an entourage of people who think I’m cool. That just seems kind of exhausting.

For more details I will be certain to contact the e-mail address (which is f-ing hilarious and I am sad that I had to redact it on the principle of the thing but let’s just say that apparently the GREAT ILLUMINATI use Outlook.com) for more details. The GREAT ILLUMINATI know that being redundant is the secret to being rich and popular and so is being redundant. DO NOT QUESTION THEIR METHODS. I mean OUR methods. Because I’m already there. I’m so rich and popular I didn’t realize I was rich and popular THAT IS HOW RICH AND POPULAR I AM.

Tags silly, spam

silly

[“Fiction”] And My Death Song, the Chair

Post author By Alex
Post date January 28, 2014
No Comments on [“Fiction”] And My Death Song, the Chair

[TW: Melodramatic suicide]

I lean against the metal door, the cold of it biting through the inadequate barrier of my jeans and jacket. My head throbs, skin pulled by the bandaid I stuck to my forehead to pull that split skin shut. It had looked disturbingly like a grin, gape-mouthed and toothless, on my forehead, like mockery. My head still throbs under it, though some pain is worth it, worth everything.

The wind tugs at the photograph in my hands, and I clutch it tighter to my chest, wincing at the sound of crinkling paper. Like somehow every wrinkle will become a crack in your dear body, though isn’t it too late to think of such things?

I let the skyline, gray with clouds and spiked with buildings, draw me away from the door, to the cornice that surrounds the roof. This is an old building, an ornate one. There is no fence, no railing.

It is on the edge of the cornice I sit. The stone is cold and hard beneath me, but I can still imagine myself in a different place, a different time. Instead of the dirty city stretched out before me, I see a stage. Instead of stone beneath me, I feel thinly cushioned wood. Instead of the wind, I hear the scrape of wood on wood. I can almost envision you then, sitting in that piercing spotlight, so upright and noble, yet sturdy, comfortable. Comforting.

These are the harsh truths that I have learned, in the time since our gazes locked across that theater: Strength offered in silence is ignored. People would rather have the pretty vase than the graceful pedestal upon which is sits. The world tears up those who offer themselves tirelessly, body and soul for their art, and casts them aside as soon as the first crack or splinter worries a thread in their overpriced trousers. Only the perfect image matters, not the far more interesting reality beneath, with its knots and imperfections.

I cannot say how many times I tried to reach you, but always circumstances got in the way, always other people running interference. Our only time together was across that stage, with that light an impenetrable wall between us. Not enough time, not enough time, and then time was up. That last day I arrived just in time to see you be hustled onto a waiting truck, to snap the photograph with my iPhone.

Oh my love, my love. I didn’t realize. If I’d known, I would have acted then. But we always tell ourselves that there will be a later, at some other time when we are better dressed or more prepared or just not so busy. I was a fool.

I look down at the paper in my hands. At least I have this one token, this stolen moment in time. How many dreams I’ve had over this picture, imagining myself reading a book with you, or leaning back comfortably against you at our desk, or saucily pretending to be Liza Minnelli in Cabaret before we both dissolve into giggles.

Now just fruitless dreams never to be realized.

It was only today that I learned the truth, spoken in such an offhand way by a person I had only just met. How we got onto the topic of you, I no longer remember; I think rage knocked it from my head. All I can recall of the conversation was the amused, dismissive laugh and the words that broke my heart, the words that made me break open my head on his nose: “Are you kidding? After an entire run of getting thrown around and jumped on? All the chairs were falling apart. We had them recycled.”

Recycled. As if you are something so disposable. No. I do not wish to dream in a world like this.

I close my eyes and place myself back in the theater, with you across the stage. But this time it will be different. This time, I rise from my seat to launch myself across the stage to snatch you up.

The show can go on without us both.

Tags melodramatic, silly, sometimes I write things because I am a terrible person, sometimes I write things just to be a troll

for fun silly spam

Worse pies were et, indeed.

Post author By Alex
Post date April 12, 2013
No Comments on Worse pies were et, indeed.

This is, without a doubt, the most brilliant piece of spam e-mail I have ever received. At least I’m assuming it’s spam. It’s from someone named Juan Barry (I don’t know anyone by that name) and is completely incoherent, in that special way you expect from spam. Yet there are no links, no attachments. Just beautiful, transcendent weirdness. Behold.

Subject: And Ive et worse pies
Juan Barry <xxxx@xxxxxxxx.com>
Apr 10 (1 day ago)
to katsu

And so did I, Nor church? Nor church.
So it was? I noticed it.

Is it pure gibberish? Is it poetry? Is it a subtle attack on the Catholic church or perhaps the tax exempt status of American churches? (Nor church? Nor church.) No church can provide you comfort from bad pie, that much is clear.

Is the pie a metaphor? Is society, in fact, the pie? Has it gone moldy on the inside, and poor Juan feels alone in having noticed this, surrounded by a consumerist culture that urges us to eat and ear, when it’s all ultimately rotten and cannot be saved? (Perhaps not even by divine intervention.) And yet the implication that it could be worse! That he’s noticed it could be even worse, this downward spiral of ever worsening pies. We started at Marie Calendars and have backslid, through Village Inn, then Perkins, then down to Denny’s and we’re about to burn our collective mouths on the hot, fake filling of something evil awakening at McDonald’s.

Nor church? Nor church, Juan. Only we can save ourselves.

You all say the cake is a lie. Well, Juan Barry and I understand that the pie is worse.

Tags i will laugh if someone takes this seriously, random, spam

Loki silly

In Which Loki Conquers Natural Wonders

Post author By Alex
Post date September 19, 2012
No Comments on In Which Loki Conquers Natural Wonders

Another day, another adventure, another bit of the realm to conquer. This time, to a place called Colorado Springs.

The best plan of attack, Loki decided, was to start at the top and work his way down. He made his way to Manitou Springs, and found a curious building at the base of Pike’s Peak.

The mortal attendants were appropriately cowed and quickly provided him with a ticket.

Though he was forced to wait for the arrival of his chariot. This did not impress him.

Green would be a much better color than red. He made note to have that oversight seen to once he was done with his conquest.

Seating was reserved, at least.

The engineer carried a piece of the train with him as a talisman. Not worrying at all.

The mortals who dared share the train with him were appropriately fearful.

The journey commenced to a view of trees.

And trees.

And some rocks and trees.

Oh look. Trees.

…

A few pretty yellow trees as a change, perhaps.

A house amongst the trees for mortal hikers to cower in when fearing Thor.

The trees were beginning to get a bit dizzy with the incline. Or perhaps that was Loki beginning to feel the lack of oxygen.

At last, he broke free of the trees and could observe his domain.

Oh, more rocks. And tiny birds.

He gained the summit.

“You know what would truly be beautiful? KNEEL.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘Sad Loki in Snow.’ I’m not sad. I’m angry. Stop it. This isn’t funny.”

Perhaps Thor had noticed his presence; clouds began to gather rapidly, wreathing the mountain’s summit.

Not wanting to get dragged off by his oafish brother, Loki took refuge in the gift shop.

“Ever feel as if you’re being watched by someone that just won’t stop smiling?”

Coffee and a special Pike’s Peak donut before diving back out into the clouds and snow.

Having surveyed the area from the air, Loki turned his attention to a place called the Garden of the Gods. Already ready and waiting for him, it seemed.