Metamorphosism

How to make fucking spicy curry chickpea chicken stew thing:

Buy these things:

Oh, but clean the house first. At least, vacuum and wash the floors a little where they’ll see them first when they come home from skiing, to make a good impression, so their first thought isn’t this feral guy cursing at the cats for the past week.

Then buy these things: chickpeas (800g. organic, except the organic chickpeas come in packages of 350g, and the non-organic come in packages of 500g. so you could buy three of the more expensive organic ones, or two of the cheaper non-organic ones, or … Continue Reading

The God of the Office took the elevator all the way up to his floor. The forty-ninth floor. Seven times seven. He had to think of AC/DC every time he hit the button. “It was the seventh day, I was the seventh son, and it scared the hell out of everyone.”

He could tell something was wrong, off somehow, as soon as he swiped his ID card through the reader and went inside, past the big hydroponic plants that the guys came and traded out for healthier-looking ones once every six months (they used to do it every three months but … Continue Reading

Things you should know, in no particular order:

This contest has been going for years, and is extremely popular. The entries are awe-inspiring. Last year some of the winners got a prize. This year, I have saved one or more of my books (Little-Known Facts) and will award it/them as a prize. I think I will get someone else to adjudicate the contest for me this year. THE DEADLINE IS  13 FEBRUARY 2010. Winners will be announced on Valentine’s Day.

RULES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE. That’s just the way life is. Anything else would be, like, trying to deny this fact … Continue Reading

1. My tailbone hurts from sitting in a loafing position all day.
2. I am getting low on wiper fluid, which is bad, because there’s lots of salt on the roads right now, meaning that I have to ration it when I drive, the wiper fluid, squirting just enough at one time to clean a little spot on the windshield enough to see the road.
3. I plan to get more wiper fluid when I fill my tank tonight.
4. It turns out I am a cabbage-soup-diet recidivist. I swore never to do this again because glucose starvation made me so demented last time, yet here I … Continue Reading
   

The sentimental meteorologist lies in bed reading a book about weather, wondering how many other sciences are expected by people to be wrong as much as they are right, and whether that means it’s a good job. He wonders about the most visible representatives of his profession, television weatherpersons, and how they often seem to be the comic relief on the news team — you have the anchorpersons, the sportspersons with the Frida Kahlo eyebrows, and the weatherpersons cracking jokes. As if the anchorpersons are chosen to physically represent journalistic integrity and authority, the sportspersons athleticism and a fascination with … Continue Reading

1. It will be foggy
2. I will sleep until 8 AM
3. Which is really late by my standards
4. The cats will be hungry
5. But the picky, sensitive red cat still won’t eat anything with the others
6. It will be foggy
7. The coffee is done
8. Everyone else will still be asleep
9. I will be really happy I didn’t set anything on fire with those pretty big skyrockets I was shooting off last night
10. From a friend’s roof
11. Which was made of grass
12. It will be foggy
13. And now smells a lot like fireworks
14. But I did apologize
15. That’s what happens when you invite pyromaniacs to a New Year’s party
16. “Party”
17. Man there were some funny people there
18. The decade … Continue Reading
    

Some newsletter I subscribe to said something about how hard 2009 was on many of us and how 2010 had to be an improvement because it couldn’t be worse, and I just thought, baby you ain’t seen nothing yet. This was a writing newsletter, I think - how could any sort of writer lack imagination to the extent that they think nothing could be worse than, what, fattening up a few fat cats with taxpayers’ money etc? I can think of plenty of worse things.

Also, there is the jinxing thing. Seriously, that’s a big concern. Even if you’re optimistic, you’re … Continue Reading

is all you need.

later, tater.

ps favorite sister-in-law just left. we killed a bottle of pink champagne. now i’m working on some becherovka in honour of some friends up north we’ll visit soon. in a day or so. so forgive me if i forgo drunken blogging for christmas.

all the best to you.

I was reading “Handling the Undead” (John Ajvide Lindqvist, Quercus, 384 pp, 1900, according to Amazon, also morans) and wondered what other people thought about it, and checked goodreads.com. And then I got curious whether anyone I knew had written anything about it there, so I created an account and checked to see if anyone I knew was there, and instead goodreads sent out invitations to everyone or something. Which is fine, I guess, except that it used made-up names for some reason. Which is funny.

[pause for canned laughter to abate]

Now if I could only get goodreads to stop … Continue Reading

I’m pretty sure it was a call I got and not an ESP message because a conversation was involved and ESP messages are more one-sided experiences of sensing something - something just happened, someone is about to call, whatever. Say it was a call, and the kid said her car died after reaching Vienna and she left it in a bus lane and got a ride into town.

Being ostensibly the alpha male now, things like cars abandoned in tow-away zones and cat… solids are my purview, so I initiated nervous breakdown proceedings and looked for the car on my way … Continue Reading