Tag: general silliness

An Experiment: My Own TV Listings

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TV Guide

I’m still intrigued by yesterday’s post about TV listings. I mean, could I do that–summarize the content of a show in less than 20 words? Well, the only way to find out is to try.

Let me imagine myself sometime back in the early 1960s, reading the listings of some TV shows invented for the purpose at hand. Let me try now.

Blithering Smith World’s dumbest railroad detective finds someone even dumber. Guest spot by Twiggy as a talking sapling.

Movie “I’ve Got Hives” (1951) Itchy case of hives spawns new dance craze! Prof. Bunion: Leo Gorcy. Violet Crepuscular: Brigitte Bardot. [Oops! One word too long!]

“Pull, You Broken-Down Wretches!” The art of plowing with reluctant mules. Host: Charles DeGaulle.

I’ve Got a Goiter (Game Show). Live from Indecent Exposure, Missouri. Guest Host: Taduszjwier Gzjsweiner.

Gastro Boy (Cartoon Series) Dr. Fap programs the robot to eat bugs, with unforeseen results.

Whew! I’m getting a hot head doing this, I’d better stop for a while. I had no idea it was so hard!

The Future of ‘Oy, Rodney’

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Roman Soldiers Battle High Resolution Stock Photography and Images - Alamy

I don’t know about you, but I need a break from the nooze. That last post had me talking to myself. And besides, there’s another very important matter that needs seeing to.

For the past 16 years (well, it feels like 16 years, I haven’t got the energy to go back and check) I have been presenting chapters of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney. I have ignored critics who say Ms. Crepuscular should be confined at the Chateau D’If and her manuscripts burned. Besides, I’d feel kind of silly if she won the Pulitzer Prize just days after I discontinued her.

Anyhow, there’s a very sharp division of opinion and people are gearing up as Roman soldiers and fighting over it. Just like in the picture. Somebody’s gonna get hurt if this continues.

So far Ms. Crepuscular has written 399 chapters and has yet to get to the point. It seems, well, heartless to cut her off after all that. And I would not like to encounter her number one fan, Mr. Pitfall, on a dark night. Not with my knee as dodgy as it is.

One consideration here, at least to me, is to celebrate a novelist who has established herself as a master of saying nothing. I think I would like to do a crossword puzzle now.

 

Scurveyshire Overrun by Monsters! (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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30+ Romance novel cover parodies ideas | romance novel covers, romance, book humor

Is it possible that Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, is crashing to an end? And after only 398 chapters, no less!

Introducing Chapter CCCXCIX–and we are unsure whether she will finish it–Ms. Crepuscular admits that Scurveyshire is now overrun with hideous, horrible monsters and if everybody gets eaten–or absorbed by giant amoebas–there won’t be anything to write about.

“Well, dear reader, I promised you nonstop action and well-nigh unendurable suspense!” she writes. “It is as if I were writing in letters of fire!” We will not go that far.

The latest casualty for Scurveyshire is the bearded barmaid at The Lying Tart, lassoed and devoured by a micro-organism grown to the size of a stagecoach when she goes outside to water down a keg of ale. A nearby pond has always served that purpose.

At his wits’ end, Lord Jeremy Coldsore appeals directly to Ms. Crepuscular.

“You wrote us into this mess,” he cries, “and now you’d jolly well better write us out of it!” This is what comes of fooling around with magical camping lanterns bought on eBay. It could be worse. They had a dybbuk box for sale, too. As one prospective buyer noted, “I want the paranormal in my home!” He should move to Scurveyshire.

“If I end the chapter here,” soliloquizes Ms. Crepuscular, “would that count as finishing the chapter–and would it break the spell?” Is she asking me? You? I mean, how should any of us know?

“Here ends Chapter CCCXCIX!” she proclaims, writing in letters of ink.

We’ll have to wait till next week to see if it works.

The Incantation That Messes Up Everything (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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30+ Romance novel cover parodies ideas | romance novel covers, romance, book humor

Introducing Chapter CCCXCVIII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular writes, “I am not sure whether to thank a reader named Phoebe for suggesting that Constable Chumley inadvertently speaks the correct incantation for activating the awesome magical powers of this lantern that I paid good money for. It was supposed to ensure my winning of the Pulitzer Prize! But because Chumley spoke it in the context of the novel, and I wrote it down, it has taken effect in the context of the novel (!) instead of in my living room. Which means I’m now writing things I never had any intention to write!”

We find this difficult to understand.

Thanks to the constable, Scurveyshire has now been overrun by indescribable monstrous creatures emerging from under the vicar’s backyard wading pool. They wander the streets by night, piercing the silence with hideous whistling, insane piping, and thunderous roars.Those who’ve actually seen them have all gone raving mad. Ordinary life has come to a standstill.

“I could have warned you this would happen,” intones Ronno the Not At All Merry Minstrel, currently confined in gaol along with the Wise Woman of the Scurveyshire gaol. Ronno was arrested by the constable for getting off the train from Siberia. It seems there was a local ordinance against it, enacted in 1675.

“Well, then what do we do to make it stop?” cries Lord Jeremy Coldsore, who is being blamed for the whole thing.

“We need to establish a profitable cod fishery,” says Ronno.

“Pshaw!” snorts Lord Jeremy. “We’re 150 miles inland–how are we supposed to fish for cod?”

Ronno admits he doesn’t know. As the morale officer of a Siberian prison, the matter of a cod fishery never came up.

Meanwhile, readers have complained that Ms. Crepuscular has not kept her promise to provide nonstop action and well-nigh unbearable suspense in this particular chapter. I am not in a position to help her: my cats are misbehaving.

And the magical lantern’s batteries have conked out, on top of all that.

 

Have Skinwalkers Invaded Your Neighborhood?

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Skinwalkers: Evil that Lurks in Native America » Just Roughin It

You can’t hardly throw a brick around YouTube lately without hitting a skinwalker video. Apparently these are turning up everywhere.

The surest way to find out whether skinwalkers are prowling around your neighborhood is to stay up all night, every night, peering out your window, and spend all day, every day, looking for wonky footprints and little bits of evil-smelling hair. Or you can simply call your local police every day and ask if they’ve gotten any skinwalker action yet.

I am not sure that the illustration given above is entirely accurate. I have heard of skinwalkers who look like TV repairmen. Others resemble crossing guards. Make sure you go door to door warning everyone in your neighborhood to be on the lookout for skinwalkers.

You can also call your Congressional representative every day to demand government action to control skinwalkers. It’s got to be every day or they won’t take you seriously.

Violet Crepuscular’s Pulitzer Prize

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Masanori Murakami, SF 1964: the first Japanese player in MLB | Baseball, Murakami, Baseball cards

Editor’s Note: We are unable to post our usual Oy, Rodney cover today. This vintage Masonori Murakami baseball card is the closest we can come to it.

We find Violet Crepuscular–author of the epic romance novel, Oy, Rodney–feverishly rubbing a battery-powered camping lantern.

“I would not have it said that I am in any way superstitious,” she writes, “but I found this magic lamp for sale on eBay. All you have to do is rub it feverishly while reciting the correct incantation, and a genie will come out and grant your wish. But I’m having trouble with the incantation–Ia, Cthulhu! Ugthn mgawlwha fhtagn, Cthulu fhtagn! Or something like that–one of those crazy languages they speak in foreign countries, I don’t know how they can even hope to understand each other. But now that my neighbor Mr. Pitfall has nominated me for a Pulitzer Prize, I think I’ll need a genie’s help to seal the deal. It’s just that this incantation is devilish hard to pronounce! And I had two years of Latin in high school, too!”

Meanwhile, in Chapter CCCXCVII of her epic romance novel, Oy, Rodney, Ms. Crepuscular, who seems to have entirely lost her train of thought, has introduced a new character–Johnno the Merry Minstrel’s cousin, Ronno the Not At All Merry Minstrel. Ronno has just returned from spending twelve years as morale officer at a Siberian prison.

As soon as he steps off the train, Constable Chumley arrests him.

“Why in the world did you do that?” cries Johnno. “He only just got off the train!”

“Ay, liddie, but aw’ yon frythers macks a Whithle scray,” the constable explains. Johnno has to be content with that.

“In the next chapter,” promises Ms. Crepuscular, “the reader will be treated to non-stop action and well-nigh unendurable suspense!”

We can hardly wait.

Serfdom Lives! (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Serfs High Resolution Stock Photography and Images - Alamy

“Scurveyshire,” writes Violet Crepuscular, introducing Chapter CCCXCVI (Chapter CCCXCV was nixed by the censors) of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, “is one of the few places in England where serfdom survives to the present day. What with all the excitement of the plague, Wars of the Roses, Civil War, Spanish Armada, Napoleon, etc., etc., no one ever got around to abolishing serfdom in Scurveyshire.”

Things in Scurveyshire are trying to get back to normal, now that the reddle craze has passed and Olaf Skraeling has been sucked under the vicar’s backyard wading pool.

But it seems the serfs are getting restless.

Back in Lord Jeremy Coldsore’s father’s time–this lord’s name has escaped posterity, and was last seen slumming in Perth Amboy, NJ–the shire addressed the grievances of the serfs by setting up a Serf Board. It even has its own theme song: “Let’s Go Serfing Now!” Today tourists come from California to experience Scurveyshire’s inland serfing. But in Chapter CCCXCVI’s time, the Serf Board has bigger fish to fry.

For the serfs have organized under the charismatic leadership of Bennett Serf; and according to Johnno the Merry Minstrel, they are plotting a full-scale insurrection.

“Do you know that for a fact?” demands Lord Jeremy. “Must we muster the Mustards to put down the rebellion?” The Mustards are Scurveyshire’s aging and somnolent mounted militia, currently out of mounts but still a force to be reckoned with, if reckoning is your thing.

“They’re always plotting,” explains Johnno. “Ever since the Serf Board ruled you have to give them one holiday a year whether they need it or not, they’ve been plotting to take over the shire.”

“Couldn’t we just promote them to peons?” cries Lord Jeremy. “Or even peasants? They’d like being peasants.”

Johnno checks to make sure no one is near enough to overhear them, or read lips, lowers his voice, and declares, “My Lord, I think we are about to confront another scheme by that pernicious medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney!”

Here the chapter breaks off without a word of explanation. It is almost as if Ms. Crepuscular has heard the Good Humor man’s bells come jangling down her street and burst outside to buy a creamsicle.

The ‘Oy, Rodney’ Cover

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20 Terrible Romance Covers ideas | romance covers, romance, romance novels

Ms. Violet Crepuscular has taken time out from grinding out chapters of her epic romance novel, Oy, Rodney, to say a few words about that Lord of the Tube Socks cover that she’s been using for… well, years now.

“I chose it originally, dear reader, because the couple featured on the cover were an exact match for how I imagine my two principal characters, Lord Jeremy Coldsore and Lady Margo Cargo,” Violet writes. “Some readers have complained. Tish-tush to them! There are only a few trifling differences between my characters and the cover picture.

“For one thing, Lord Jeremy now has two left feet. This militates against his agility as a ballroom dancer. Other than that, the picture is an exact duplicate.

“The real Lady Margo, it must be admitted, is some thirty years older than the lass on the book cover–with an upholstered wooden leg, a glass eye, and a wig that sometimes is hard to keep straight. She is also missing the hand that was chewed off by a goat, years ago. But aside from these petty details, the cover character looks just like her, pretty much.”

At this point she is interrupted: Dr. Fantod, the life-coaching jumping spider from Rotnest Island, has absent-mindedly wandered into Oy Rodney, intending to provide good advice to whoever needs it. Violet is terrified of spiders and can’t control herself, and Dr. Fantod is lucky to escape uninjured as she flails at him wildly with a rolled-up newspaper. We are not told which newspaper.

Ms Crepuscular objects. “I will not have spiders creeping into my novel from some wretched little island in Australia!” she writes. But it appears she has altogether lost her train of thought. This is a grievous loss to her readers.

Quokkas Protest!

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See the source image

G’day–or not! Byron the Quokka here, from Quokka University on Rotnest Island.

At an emergency meeting today of the entire faculty, we have voted unanimously to lodge the strongest possible protest to a scheme to include us in some flimgop novel with Joe Collidge and all those nincompoops in Scurveyshire. Plus toothpaste recipes by Violet Crepuscular! Crikey! Does it get more undignified than that?

Our protest has been written down on 100% recycled paper! The unimportance of that cannot be overstated. How would you like having to listen to Constable Chumley try to teach Joe Collidge the history of England? Well, mate, not at our university you don’t! We’re almost ready to start our first semester, and we don’t need that.

Here at QU, we uphold the highest standards of literature–or will, once we find out what they are.

 

 

Animals That Don’t Exist

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Life cycle of aphids - YouTube

What you are looking at, above, is the immature horse aphid, which looks like any other aphid. But after the insect sheds its skin for the last time, its resemblance to a horse is uncanny. Unfortunately, no mature horse aphid has ever lived long enough to have its picture taken. And we are not sure whether there are cowboy aphids to ride them.

Yes, the world is full of things that don’t exist! The Australian Kammem Bear, which eats itself. The dreadful stink-skink of Schenectady. The last living dinosaur, the Drapetohachesaurus of Candlemas Island–also known as “the Depopulator.”

This is more than cryptozoology. This is out-and-out humbug. It’s one of those things you just naturally think of when your pupils are dilated to the max and you can only sort of see what you’re doing.

But as hard as it may be to believe in any of these creatures… believing in the integrity of the nooze media is infinitely harder, if not downright impossible.