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Just hanging out. Watching. The occasional chatroom. Don't bother messaging unless I already know you.
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He sat there in the green grass, so cool to the touch, and absorbed the warmth of the sun beating down on him as it floated in the cloud-peppered sky. It was still, silent. The clouds did not move, and the grass did not rustle. The day was perfect. Too perfect, in fact. He knew that when he turned his head to look, Julie would be sitting there next to him. The dream was too perfect for her not to be there. He turned, and there she was. She smiled sadly to him, and as he reached out to touch her golden hair, it caught fire in the sunshine, and she drifted away like flame on the wind. One word whispered through the complete silence, and shattered the vision like a one-way mirror, revealing the truth on the other side.
"Michael"
He closed his eyes, not wanting to accept that it was not real, knowing the horrors that awaited him beyond the broken glass. He tried desparately to bring her back. He attempted to re-imagine the sunshine, the grass, the clouds. But it was too late.
"Michael"
Slowly, reluctantly, he opened his eyes. The glare of the hot lamp poured into his brain, and brought back all of the pain that wracked his body. His head stood upright, not by its own power, but by the leather straps that held it at his throat and forehead. His chest and waist were also strapped to the back of the chair, while his fore-arms were banded to the wide wooden arms, and his calves were similarly bound to the legs. The wooden chair on which he was confined was smooth, the surfaces having been worn down by constant use, and the rounded edge of the arm around which he curled his fingers was the only merciful corner on the entire piece of furniture. He secretly thanked all those that had gone before him for wearing it smooth for him.
"Michael"
He felt a single tear fall down his cheek as he looked up at the source of that voice. She was smiling, a happiness on her face that would have been a comfort, if he had not known what it was that brought on such pleasure. She was a sadist, pure and simple. When the American military started getting busier in the Middle East, she had moved to the area. Nothing was quite as exciting to her as the promise of war... and when it broke out, she promptly offered herself to the other side, and gained their favor by her methods of interrogation. Michael was her current piece of art, and she smiled down at her work as it showed all over his body.
"There you are, Michael. Did you have something to tell me?" |
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Bagels'n'Bits. Episode 6.
Well. Here we are again. I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving, ate lots of stuffing, and watched the game (or skipped the game, and had a much better day). I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed having my 4 days off of work, and busied myself eating leftovers, watching movies, and fighting for time on Warcraft.
Let's see here. "F", was it? I'm going to say "f" is for - faeries? no. fodder? no. formica? no.... What? Formica? What the heck are you going on about? Shut up, and let me talk, will ya? GEEZ. Ok. sorry. :(
Appologies for the interruption. Myself and I sometimes get in my way, you know. Always interrupting, and stealing my thought processes. Anyway... Like I was saying. F stands for floating. Yes. Floating. It's what you do right before you start the drowning phase of swimming. It took me a while to decide what "f" subject to use for this article. It was either going to be Floating, or "female" - as in the differences between male and female activities in animals. But do you want to know what was my deciding factor? Of course you don't. But I'll tell you anyway. Well. It was the fact that if you got a bathtub, and ran it through a transmogrifier of some sort that would make it large enough to fit an entire planet, and then proceeded to fill said bathtub with water, and THEN proceeded to get a very large crane, and lift the planet Saturn, and place it into the bathtub full of water.... the entire planet would FLOAT!!! Highly fascinating? Perhaps not. Useless? Absolutely. It just so happens that the planet Saturn has a lower density than the density of water.
A few extra tidbits: A donkey will sink in quicksand but a mule won't. (I know, I know... it's not technically floating. Just give me a little poetic license, will ya?) A porcupine has hollow quills, so it makes a very good floatation device if you're a very small creature. And... it's pretty much impossible to do anything BUT float on the Dead Sea, due to its enormously high salt content (same thing with Utah's Great Salt Lake).
But enough of that! Upon further investigation of "things that float", I came across a story of such intrigue that it puts the entire planet of Saturn to shame. Verily, I jest not. It is a story that has changed the lives of oceanographers all over the world. It is, I'm afraid, useful information to them, but highly useless to the rest of us. So here it goes.
The date was January 10, 1992. It was dark and stormy. The captain of the huge ship crossing the Pacific Ocean struggled hard to keep his cargo vessel afloat, but one particular wave caught the ship just so, and twelve of the shipping containers came loose from their seats, and were tossed into the drink. One of these containers broke open upon crashing into the stormy waves, and released some 29,000 plastic bath toys into the wilds of the ocean currents. Blue turtles, yellow duckies, red beavers (hey... I laughed, too), and green frogs fought one another for survival, and made it through the storm, surviving at sea for between 10 months and eleven years before washing up on the shores of Alaska and western Canada, some of them not making it to shore, and continuing around through the Arctic Ocean, on their way over to the Atlantic. The last of the duckies seem to have landed in New England in 2003. Oceanographers keep track of these spills (which happen relatively often, it turns out), and put up web-sites and such for people who find the washed-up toys and other items (Nike shoes, for instance) to make note of exact shore-wash-upping locations. It has become a great way for them to track ocean currents, while conserving resources. Because, really, there's no way to afford releasing twenty nine thousand of anything all in one place at one time, and then proceed to track them. It's much cheaper for someone else to take the loss of items, have beach-combers do your tracking, and just collect information and track them from the safety of your own labs, or basements, or something.
Well. There's my uselessness for the day. I hope it's a little more interesting than last episode. That was just a sorry excuse for writing of any sort. But I stick by my "I was sick" excuse.
And now... A word from our sponsor: (note-this is an actual notice given on the official "Greater Wellington" website)
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"Any domestic fat or grease is best wrapped when cold and then put into a household rubbish bag for street collection," Greater Wellington's Environmental Protection Officer Nic Conland said.
"This should be the preferred means of disposal for lard removed from Breaker Bay. Other forms of disposal will cause problems, either for the environment or for household plumbing," he said. |
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Bagels'n'Bits. Episode 5.
Well. I'm back with more Bagels 'n' Bits. As it turns out, there is in fact one human being who reads them, so... I've decided to take it up again, just for that person.
I'll pick back up with the alphabet. Next up is the lovely letter E. And, well - possibly the most fascinating topic on the planet just happens to begin with just such a letter. That topic is Electricity. I know, I know. That's bordering on useful. But trust me - I'll keep it to useless tidbits for you. There are plenty of useless things to do with every useful invention.
For example. Try running electricity through a pickle. Seriously. Try it. What do you get? A lightbulb!!! Yes. Pickles emit a yellow light when positively charged. Unfortunately, they also stink like no tomorrow.
There is also a plenty of mis-information about this topic. For instance - Edison was actually 50 years later than the first lightbulb. But he got credit anyway because he owned the power company (General Electric), even though he lost the patent he applied for, and was heavily sued.
Electric chairs, this time actually invented by Edison (even though he tried promoting a design by Westinghouse) were marketed as "the only humane method of execution". New York state was the first to implement their use.
I'm not feeling my best today. An evil cold has me in its clutches, and has, I fear, hampered my usual writing abilities, such as they may be. I promise a more interesting article when I get around to the letter.... (um... a,b,c,d,e...) F!!!
And now, a word from our sponsor: Aw, heck. Not today. Just give me my electric blanket, and go away. |
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Bagels'n'Bits. Episode 4
Okie Dokie. Just on the off chance that any one bothers to read this crap (you don't, do you? I hope not), I'm going to move on to the letter "d". Surprisingly few interesting things start with the letter "d", which works out well, since I try to steer clear of interesting things. I'm very distracted today, and can't come up with enough facts (or quasi-facts, as the case may be. I can't give 100% guarantees as to the veracity of this publication, although I do try to get my info from veritable sources)... anyway, with enough facts on one subject, so I'm just going to start relaying miscellaneous "d-related" facts. Just hang on and try to keep up, will ya? kthx.
The kings in a deck of cards represent famous rulers from history: Spades - David; Clubs - Alexander the Great; Hearts - Charlemagne; Diamonds - Caesar.
The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (kinda makes you wonder what they were doing at the time).
The dot over the "i" is called a tittle, which always makes me laugh.
and finally.... Did you know that Daniel Boone HATED coon-skin caps? and here, I thought Disney movies were all true-to-life. My childhood is now completely shattered.
Anyway. In apology for making you sit through this again, I'm also enclosing links to another useless bit of "D". This time, the letter stands for "Dr. Horrible". What do you get when you mix Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, Neil Patrick Harris, and cheezy songs? Pure comic genius. Useless genius, of course, but it's all in keeping with the standards of "Bagels 'n' Bits". Enjoy.
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=39531168
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=39531166
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=39531171 |
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Bagels'n' Bits, Ep. 3.
Hello, and welcome back to Bagels 'n' Bits. For those of you just tuning in, this show is produced for the sole purpose of the sharing of useless information. Quite useless information. If it's something that will actually better your life or come in handy at some point, I make sure to skip it, and move on to the inane.
Today's letter is "C", and today's topic is actually an interesting one, in my opinion. Quite unlike armadillos and bats. Any facts listed here have been pre-screened to be sure that they are most likely true, and will do you absolutely no good. Today's topic is "Caesar". You know, the dudes from way back when, who always wore metal clothing, and had statues made of themselves, and slept with Egyptian queens and stuff.
Well. Did you know that no one really knows where the term "Caesar" came from? Of all things, it may have been that the very first person to take the name was born by Caesarian Section. So says Pliny the Elder. And I ALWAYS trust Pliny the Elder. Not like the Younger, that guy just wierds me out a little bit. Anyway. Other possible explanations for the origin of the word are that the first Caesar may have had a lot of hair, bright grey eyes, or killed an elephant. Hey. My vote is on all of the above. Imagine this metal-clad guy with steely grey eyes, taking down an elephant with his bare hands, his thick locks flowing out behind him in the gentle breeze. How cool would that have been?
While we're on "Caesar", I'd like to point out that Caesar Salads have nothing to do with the ancient Caesars. They're named after some chef named Caesar Cardini who (some say), created the dish out of necessity, when a holiday rush depleted his supply in the kitchen, and he had to make due with whatever he could find. Several other stories exist, but they're much less interesting. I know, I know. Less interesting than that? Is it even possible? Surprisingly enough, yes. It's altogether too possible.
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Bagels'n'Bits, episode 2. What do you think you're doing? Didn't you read my first column? There is absolutely NO POINT in listening to me babble again. Oh, well. As long as you're here, I might as well download some more uselessness from my brain to yours.
Alright. Last episode, we hit armadillos (we apologize to any armadillos who actually did get hit). Today, we move on to the letter "B". Let me preface this by saying - Do you have any idea how many interesting things start with the letter "B"??? A lot of them. Bagels, for one. Beetles. Beatles. Bees. Butterflies. Banana peels. I switched from my original plan of "bagels" to speaking to you today about the oddities of "bats" (perhaps the prsome of them just have wives as back-seat drivers). The sub-species known as "Megabats" for the most part actually see quite well, and do not rely on their hearing much at all. A second interesting but altogether useless tidbit, is the reason that they wrap themselves in their own wings while sleeping. They use the air-space in between their body and their wings as insulation. Like us and our blankets.
Here's a thought for you to chew on: a mother bat gives birth once a year, to a single pup. She will always be able to find her offspring, even among a nursery of millions. Humans, however, will take home an average of 12 wrong babies per day. Kind of disturbing, isn't it?
Well. There you go again. You have just wasted another what... 4 minutes of your life? That's time you'll NEVER get back, folks. Next time you see the "Bagels 'n' Bits" column, I urge you to pass it over, and move on to much more useful information. Like the upcoming election, maybe. Hey. I think what's going on in the deserts of Antarctica might well be more interesting than this.
And now, a word from our sponsor:
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Hello, and welcome to "Bagels 'n' Bits". We're here today to talk about useless information. Is it really useless? Or does it actually come in handy at times? I say... It can't hurt. I've racked up quite the mental library of absurdly useless facts, and I've decided to share them with you, the listeners. Perhaps, if I transfer this knowledge to you, it might leave my head and make room for some important facts... like the names of all of the muscles in the body that I'll have to learn this fall.
Anyway... On with the show.
They say that the very beginning is a very good place to start. So, we'll go ahead and use armadillos for the first episode. Armadillos... You know those amazingly abnormal armored animals one might find dead along a Florida freeway? Yes. Them. They are nearly always born as identical quadruplets. An interesting fact, for sure. But not nearly so interesting as the fact that almost 5% of these foursomes of not-so-furry creatures actually carry "Mycobacterium leprae". Yes, folks. That is leprosy. Armadillos are, in fact, quite prone to carry the disease, due to their lower-than-human body temperatures. Especially in their feet and noses. But don't worry too much. It is only transmitted to humans through bodily fluids, especially nasal discharge. So, as long as you can steer clear of armadillos with colds, I think you're pretty safe. Still, you'd hate to become one of those 2.4 million on earth with the dreaded disease, so I'd refrain from getting within 10 feet of one, personally.
And now... a word from our sponsor.
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BOO. And I'm here, writing my thoughts in whatever order they spill out of this leaky noggin of mine.
Watched "Ab-normal Beauty" last night with my lil sis and her hubby. The Pang brothers really do have creepy down to a science. They take death, and make it an artform, which is really what the whole movie is about. Fascinating, and fantastically disturbing.
Speaking of the art of death... Dexter's another one who catches the eye, and I'm missing him right now. I need Cable so I can watch him, and True Blood and / or Being Human.
What else can I babble about? I suppose that's about it for now. I'll be back next time I feel like it. Until then... ciao. |
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Well. So, I only write in spurts. But I had to say... Thank goodness for people who are true friends. People who you can be yourself around, and never have to hide things from. Thank goodness for people you can hang with on a weekend, and look through all of the good sections of Borders, without being thought ill of. In fact, others are jealous, because you're there with one of the finest looking ladies in the joint. Anyway. If you read this, and know me... then you know who you are. Otherwise, this all doesn't make a lot of sense, now does it? |
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Well. So. I can create a journal here. Let's start one, shall we? (don't mind the use of we... it's not the royal we, it's just the "multiple personalities" we)
as of noon tomorrow, January is half over. What the good golly is happening to the new year? Didn't we all just sleep through the ball-drop like last night? Anyway... I'm not feeling all that pumped about this year. The economy isn't going anywhere good, and well... we'll let time tell us what the new white house is going to do about it. On the bright side, though... Star Trek is finally coming out with a new movie. And Underworld is getting the tri to its trilogy. And My Bloody Valentine 3D... Now all I need is a guy to go see it with (and NO... DON"T msg me that you'll come with. I'm NOT interested). Well. I'm going to get going. Get some work done around here, and possibly get rid of this headache sometime. I think removing the hatchet from the brain might help a lot. =Until next time... Dark. |
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