Category: Just for Fun

A Book I Wrote–But Never Read?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

They say a little mystery is good for you; it spices up your life. Well, here’s my little mystery–and it’s still unsolved.

At various places on the Internet, I’ve found references to a book called The Lion’s Share, by Julia Kent… and Lee Duigon.

Gee, I don’t remember writing that.

I can’t find out what kind of book it is: only that it seems to have been published in 1988 by Pinnacle Books. I, too, had books published by Pinnacle around that time.

As for my co-author, Julia Kent, I haven’t been able to find out anything about her, either. There’s a Julia Kent who’s a musician, but it can’t be her; she doesn’t look anywhere near old enough to have been writing a book with me in 1988.

Maybe I’m just not using the right search terms. I dunno. It’s really puzzling. Did Pinnacle somehow turn one of my rejected manuscripts into a book, and not tell me about it? Maybe Julia Kent knows.

It would really cheese me off if there was a bad book out there with my name on it. Then again, it might be a really good book to which I’m not entitled.

If you can provide any information that might help solve this mystery… let me know!

 

5 Films to Flush Your Brain

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

If you find you ever need to flush your brain, sort of like the way you have to flush an outboard motor sometimes, here are five certifiably awful movies that just might do it for you.

1. The Manster (1959) A mad scientist in Japan injects an American journalist with stuff that makes a second head grow out of his shoulder. Unfortunately, it’s a homicidal monster head. And if that pleases you, you may want to sample…

2. The Thing with Two Heads (1972) Nasty, racist scientist Ray Milland is dying, so he needs to transplant his head onto a healthy body. Oops–he winds up on Rosey Grier‘s body, and Rosey’s head is still on it, so… well, you get the general idea.

3. The Hideous Sun Demon (1959) Radiation turns a scientist into a bloodthirsty lizard-monster. How come this sort of thing never happens to a shoe salesman or someone at the post office?

4. The Greatest Speeches of Barack Obama–hold it! That’s not supposed to be in here. Even ridiculous horror movies have some standards.

4. Twitch of the Death Nerve (1972) My friends and I saw this at the local drive-in, and it made no sense at all. A lot of those Italian slasher flicks from the 70s make no sense. The climax is the announcement of the murder of one Filippo Donati, who is not otherwise mentioned.

5. I Eat Your Skin (1964) This mad scientist/zombie movie will hose down whatever neurons are still clogging up your cranium. They save the best line for last: “So ends Dr. So-and-So’s evil plan to conquer the world with an invincible army of zombies.” That’s the first we hear of any plan!

WARNING: Do not give any of these movies as Christmas presents. You can find them all available for viewing on the Internet at no charge.

A New Kind of Fantasy

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Sometimes I think I would enjoy writing a fantasy novel in which the lead character is a coward and an idiot who can’t do anything right. For instance, the Knight turns to him and says, “Soon the battle will begin.” And Mr. Screw-up answers, “What? What did you say? Did you say battle? Man, no way–I’m outta here!” Think Bill Paxton in Aliens or True Lies, and you’ve got exactly the kind of character I mean.

Or, “Sir, did you not know that this is Camelot, and the stronghold of King Arthur?”

“Camel lot? Like you can buy used camels here? Fooey! And what’s this king, Arthur Whatsisname? King of what? Why can’t anyone around here talk sense?”

This could be fun. But it could also get very tiresome: the writer would have to take care not to cross the line. And of course, in addition to the fun of shaking up fantasy cliches, there would have to be a point to the story.

I think some of you can probably guess what that would be.

Here’s hoping you all had a nice Thanksgiving.

 

I’m Not Writing Anything Today

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

In a few minutes we’ve got to hit the road to my sister’s house for Thanksgiving dinner, so I have no time to write my daily blog piece.

I just hope my sadly deluded brother didn’t receive his Organizing For America talking points for browbeating his family over the dinner table, trying to trick them into thinking Obamacare will be good for them. Oh, that’s right–they decided not to do that, after first wasting millions of dollars trying to set it up.

Meanwhile, Patty has Grandma’s old autograph book, with entries starting in 1910. Until we found that book a little while ago, I never knew Grandma’s actual first name was Minerva. That’s a cool name! (And no, I never thought her name was really Grandma.)

Of course her children wanted to sign her book, too; and they did. The youngest, Aunt Florence (she wasn’t an aunt then), in signing the book, reminded her mother that she was “one of the twins”–just in case Momma forgot that she had twins, or forgot what she named them. The other twin, Aunt Joan, wrote the same thing.

I am thankful that we found that book. It does bring Grandma back to me. She used to rub away my headache when I got one. And I confess now that only a few of those headaches were real.

Again, folks, sorry I wasn’t able to write today.

 

Video with New Hymn for Defeated Churches

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

To help the institutional churches express themselves more clearly, a new interdenominational hymn has been written: Throwing in the Towel, to be sung to the tune of Bringing in the Sheaves. Here are the lyrics.

Triumph for abortion, joy for same-sex “marriage,”

Now we understand: the bad guys always win.

We the church surrender, we the church cry “uncle!”

Now we understand there’s no such thing as sin.

Chorus

Throwing in the towel, throwing in the towel,

We know when we’re licked, we’re throwing in the towel (repeat)

We have been defeated, we have lost the culture;

Gates of hell have finally ‘gainst the church prevailed.

Sorry, Lord, we blew it, we just couldn’t do it,

Satan’s team has won and we the church have failed. Chorus

The Top 5 Things Not to Say at a Fancy Dinner Party

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

I’ve been watching a lot of Agatha Christie’s Poirot lately on youtube, and can’t help being impressed by the high society of the 1930s, in which Hercule Poirot finds his milieu. The formal dinner jackets, the lavish gowns, the jewelry, those long, long dining tables heaped with silver and crystal… And I’m so afraid that I’ll embarrass myself, if I ever get invited to one of those wingdings.

To guard against my making a fool of myself, I have prepared a list of five things never to say at the dinner table. If I can just avoid these, I ought to do all right in high society.

1. “So what is the best treatment for toenail fungus?”

2. “Gee, I bet this stuff cost a fortune!”

3. “I saw this great midget wrestling match once…”

4. “Are you really going to eat that? I tried it once, and I was on the pot all night! And if that weren’t bad enough,” etc.

5. “I was reading about this famous autopsy…”

You can be sure none of these remarks would ever issue from Poirot’s lips.

 

How to Keep Your Deadly Poisonous Snakes

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

A friend sent me two news stories yesterday, to see what I would make of them.

First, a church pastor in Tennessee is defying the state’s ban on possessing wildlife–in this case, dozens of poisonous snakes kept in the church’s snake room. (Did your church have a snake room? Mine didn’t. If I had known, when I was 10 years old, what I was missing–!) The pastor says that if exceptions can be made for zoos, schools, research facilities or whatever, then his church ought to be allowed to keep rattlers, copperheads, and cottonmouths, too. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/us/tennessee-pastor-disputes-wildlife-possession-charge-by-state.html?_r=0 )

Second: more and more travelers are complaining about airlines allowing passengers to bring their pets aboard–not in cages or carriers, but sitting on the seats or even wandering around loose in the aisle. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/business/emotional-support-with-fur-draws-complaints-on-planes.html?hpw&rref=health&_r=0 ) Thanks to the American Disabilities Act, you can bring pretty much any kind of animal you please onto the plane with you, as long as you’ve got a letter from a “mental health professional” certifying that this dog, cat, or hamster is a “emotional support animal” and not just a pet going on a trip with you. A lot of the other passengers have a hard time understanding that distinction. I am reminded of Mavis Pugh in the classic Fawlty Towers episode, “The Kipper and the Corpse,” bringing her obnoxious little dog into the hotel dining room.

When I read these two stories, a connection leaped immediately to mind.

Why doesn’t the pastor have his poisonous snakes declared emotional support animals? It’d be the easiest thing in the world to find some daft mental health professional who’d gladly write a letter to that effect. Hey, where does it say you can only have your emotional support animals on an airplane?

Problem solved!

PM: Britain Needs More Social Mobility

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Prime Minister David Cameron says the United Kingdom’s government must “do more” to increase social mobility.

To see what happens when government “does” something, see Obamacare.

Now, how do you energize social mobility from the top down? Among the options the British government is considering are these.

1. Hand out peerages. Like, when you woke up at noon today, you were Joe Blow, unemployed yobbo. But along comes PM Cameron, your fairy godmother, and–bibbity-bobbity-boo!–suddenly you’re Lord Blow, Viscount of Whatever. And your drunken ass of a cousin is the Earl of Swill. Everybody’s got a title!

2. Abolish peerages. All right, that’s downward mobility. No earthly government has ever succeeded in making everybody rich; but any bunch of idiots with power can make millions of people poor without half trying.

3. Enact the ‘Queen for a Day‘ Program. Sack the royal family and set up a system that allows every man, woman, and child in Britain to be royal for a day. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a Prince of Wales who was really Welsh? Why shouldn’t every charwoman have her day in Buckingham Palace? Everybody gets a turn.

There’s only one proposal the government has totally rejected:

To back off, to get out of people’s lives, and let anyone who can rise as high as he can.

“That,” says the PM “would be unfair to lazy sods who have no ambition.”

Yachting With No Pants On

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

One of my favorite writers was the late John D. MacDonald, best known for his Travis McGee series.

My wife and I were trying to remember which of the Travis McGee books contained MacDonald’s most embarrassing lapse as a writer–a little something about a boat with a nude all-girl crew. I mean, what ever possessed him to write such a thing?

We couldn’t find the book, but we did soon discover that “nude yachting” or “nude boating” have become big business. For a big pile of money, you can go on a “nude cruise.” John D, just didn’t realize how far ahead of the curve he was. (No, I will not provide a link. That would be free advertising.)

But to those who would take up this pastime, I have only two words.

Sunburn.

Splinters.

These two words, I believe, tell you all you need to know about frolicking around starkers all day long on the water, miles away from any shade. And on a wooden boat or yacht, do be careful of where you sit down.

 

To a Better You (Ugh)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of kids with giant chessmen

I saw a little video this morning, at http://www.chesscafe.com , of kids playing chess with chessmen bigger than they were. It was at a grade school (in Ohio, I think), and the point of it seemed to be that chess could be used to exercise the body as well as the mind.

It was part of a series of TV news broadcasts entitled, “Upgrade to a Better You.”

That’s all well and good–but what if I don’t have room for a colossal chessboard–not to mention 32 chessmen the size of totem poles? Where the heck would I store them when I wasn’t playing? Put them in the garage, and there’s no room for your car. Bring them inside, and your wife will take a terrible revenge. Leave them outside, and the neighbors will complain.

No, it just won’t do. It’s a wonderful idea to turn chess into a form of hard physical exercise, in order to Upgrade to a Better You. But there has to be a better way than giant chessmen.

Here are a few helpful suggestions, using an ordinary chess set.

1) Glue the chessmen to the board. The more firmly they’re glued, the more calories you burn trying to wrench one loose so you can move it. The drawback is, it kind of slows up the game.

2) Hire a large, strong person to restrict the movements of your arms. Make sure he can do this without losing his temper and beating you up.

3) Set up the chessboard high up in a tall tree so that you have to climb it every time you want to move.

Obviously it is not easy to achieve a Better You; and there is no guarantee that anyone will like the new You better than the old. In fact, they may find the Better You obnoxious. They may even be inclined to defenestrate the Better You, in hopes that the Old You emerges from the hospital bed someday.