Sat, 22 Dec 2001
Well, happy solstice. Or Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Kwanza(a) or whatever.
It actually feels pretty good to know in some what, that I made it over some sort of hump. Sure enough, we've still got a lot of nasty winter left to deal with this time around, but I'll gradually have more light to deal with it in.
Christmas is remarkably close at hand. It is unlikely that I will update this thing again until after the holidays. Personally, I hate the holidays, but mostly because I never know what to get people. Well, hate is probably too strong a word, but I always feel awkward giving lame gifts that I struggled for days trying to pick out.
Oh, did I mention that Christmas tends to sneak up on me until it's the 22nd, and I hadn't given the whole thing any thought?
And no, I didn't get you a card either.
Tue, 11 Dec 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little wizard of Yendor. He wasn't a bad
wizard, just Chaotic. Mostly he stayed out of trouble, but he had this
friend, the high priest of Moloch, who was always doing bad things, and
so the wizard started getting a bad reputation by hanging out with him.
One day, the little wizard was minding his own business, when the high priest of Moloch burst into the wizard's tower all out of breath.
"Hey. I'm in a little bit of a jam," began the high priest. "Do you think you can hang on to this until things settle down?" Molly handed the little wizard a papyrus spellbook.
Now the little wizard of Yendor was no slouch. He recognized the book of the dead immediately, but Molly was his friend. Reluctantly, he took the book, and agreed to keep it for her. Things pretty much went back to normal for a while, until a wandering Valkyrie in search of the Amulet of Yendor killed the little wizard, grabbed the book, found the vibrating square at the bottom of Gehennom, killed the high priest of Moloch, snagged the amulet, ran back to the entrance, progressed through the elemental planes, and finally offered the amulet at the altar of her god.
The End
Yay! I finally won a game of nethack! And I've only been playing the thing on and off for eight years...
It's a very very very fine house
I played with POV-Ray once, quite some time ago, to create my BitHerders logo. I haven't really touched it much since. Recently, I got the idea of trying to render my apartment, which Carmen and I recently moved into. (Well relatively recently at any rate. We're still unpacking.)
It's a pretty slow process. You're seeing what I've managed to do in two evenings of free time. You'd be standing pretty much in front of the refrigerator, looking out at the rest of the apartment, assuming your eyes are 51 inches off the ground; roughly where mine are.
Update: Whoops, my eyes are 61 inches off the ground. Well, I hope this doesn't screw up your sense of perspective.
Mon, 10 Dec 2001
No image today. For that matter, no entries in almost a month. I missed the birthdays of a bunch friends here. So a happy belated birthday to Nath, Craig, Eric, Neil, and I'm sure there are others. Not that any of you actually read this... Oh well. :)
Learning a new interface is always a maddening thing. Also, my incredible lack of discipline and frustration have lead me to say to heck with it a little more often than I like. Not that I'm making apologies or anything. This is just an explanation. You're not the boss of me. (Well, unless in fact you are my boss. In which case, I'm not writing this on company time, honest!)
Mon, 12 Nov 2001
Dreams for me are pretty cool things. I have never had a dream that I recall being upset about, although I'm sure it happened often enough when I was young. I remember very few things from when I was young.
But my dreams can be quite weird, as I'm sure everyone's can be. I've had dreams that other people would find upsetting I'm sure of it. My weirdest ones are often involve a theme of either being hunted or hunting someone. Not that that is weird in and of itself, but the combination of elements in those dreams in particular lead itself to something that seems or feels sinister when I recall the dream in the morning.
Last night was the first time ever that anyone in my dreams died. When I woke up, I didn't feel that upset about it, but I've been brooding on it through the day and I'm no longer sure how I feel about it.
Fri, 09 Nov 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little cowboy who wanted to be a lawyer
when he grew up. He always would wear a suit and tie underneath his
chaps when he did his chores, and although he wore a cowboy hat, he
didn't like it, and wore expensive dress shoes instead of boots.
The little cowboy would engage in various games with his friends when his daily chores were done, like Lawyers & Judges, practice motions for dismissal and so forth. His favourite underwear had little lawyers on it.
One day, coincidentally, a day he was wearing his treasured legal briefs, the little boy decided to run away from the dull and dreary life of a rancher, and join the dude law firm of Eastwood, Wayne and Garner.
In deciding so, the little boy drew himself up tall, and walked out of the ranch, and stepped on a rusty nail which went straight through his not very protective expensive shoes and punctured his foot, and the little cowboy immediately died of a rather rapid onset of tetanus.
The End
Thu, 08 Nov 2001
It's barely after 5pm here, and it's dark out. We're a month and a half from the winter solstice which is supposed to be a pretty happy celebration if my limited knowledge of Wiccan culture is correct. Me I find I'm getting tired just looking out the window.
Granted, I'll be better once I actually get up from my desk and walk around outside for a bit. It will be nicer once there's actually snow on the ground, and it won't seem as dark. At least it's not cold out yet. :)
The Tick and the Family Guy premiere tonight.
Wed, 07 Nov 2001
I tried very hard not to mention poo in today's entry, having talked about it enough already, IMHO. However it was surprisingly difficult.
My picture didn't scale very well today. I ended up reshading after I resized the image, and even then, I didn't shrink it nearly as much as usual. I think it's my fault for not going over the lines as much as usual. This cross hatching brush is really cool though, and makes a nice background.
Speaking of computer generated art, I saw Monsters Inc on the weekend. It was quite good, both on a technical and artistic level, as well as being quite well written and acted.
In the meantime, I'm stressing over work. I'm doing stuff that I just don't have a clear understanding of, and it's a little frustrating.
Poo.
Mon, 05 Nov 2001
I've been sick for the last couple of days. Nothing incapacitating or anything serious. But so much so that it's been difficult getting through the day.
My cat has also been a little sick as well, and that has been making things interesting. Waking up at four in the morning to find my cat guiltily trying to cover up his poo on the bed sheets is not my idea of a good time. We've put him on medication, and things seem better. For both of us.
Wed, 31 Oct 2001
Ooo, not so scary.
This morning, one of my cats (Meecah) pooed (how does one spell that?) a big goopy poo that went all over the place. I spent half an hour cleaning up after him, and wiping his bum. This kind of stuff has been pretty frequent lately. I think it's partly because since we moved, there's no place where we can put stuff that our cats won't get into.
Now that the other cat (Griffith) is a healthy weight, I'm finding him all over the place. His favourite place to hang out is above the cupboards that are above the fridge.
That aside, Hallowe'en is a pretty good time for them. My cats are festively orange and black.
Tue, 30 Oct 2001
Okay, well it was unlikely that I'd be able to do an update every day. Given that my tablet is at work, it's hard to do stuff on weekends. I suppose I shouldn't be to concerned if I can't think of anything specific to draw. I'll try and make an effort to do something.
That said, Monday was a pretty busy day, work wise. Not that that's an excuse. I just thought you'd like to know how things are going.
Fri, 26 Oct 2001
Cool beans. It actually looks like a hand.
A trick I've discovered as a professional graphic designer, by the way. And yes, I've actually done some work that I've gotten paid for. Start all your images at least three or four times bigger than you want the end result to be. If you're using a decent tool, when you scale the image down to it's final size a lot of the little blips and irregularities that you were unable to get rid of in the original gets smoothed out quite nicely in the end result.
Not that this is an excuse to be sloppy mind you.
Thu, 25 Oct 2001
I guess if you want to improve at something, you have to start somewhere. So you'll see a lot of amateurish doodles for the first little while. Deal with it. I'm not doing this for you after all.
I should really figure out some of the more advanced features of the GIMP. I'm sure it would help. In the mean time, I'm doing a lot of things freehand that I might be able make look more professional.
Wed, 24 Oct 2001
Not much effort put into today's drawing. I'm still trying to get the hang of a lot of things. The feel of the pen in my fingers is somewhat misleading. My drawing style physically tends to be light quick sketchy strokes, which I've duplicated somewhat with the previous two drawings, but the actual execution of those strokes is rather different.
Did I mention that I'm drawing using the GIMP on linux? I was impressed enough with myself that I was actually able to get my machine to recognize the tablet as a viable input device, but I'm still missing a lot of functionality with respect to drawing. According to the docs for the tablet, (it's a Wacom tablet, for those interested,) the thing is supposed to be able to recognize pressure. A crucial control at the best of times for this sort of thing.
The other thing is how freakin' hard it is to draw a relatively straight line. My motor control is decent, but this stylus thingie in my hand might as well be a week old carrot for all the fine control I have with it.
Tue, 23 Oct 2001
So what the heck is a Pyfgcrl keyboard?
Recently, I've been forcing my fingers to learn the Dvorak layout of a keyboard. It's been rather frustrating. I don't know why I've been putting myself through this. I heard somewhere that it was supposed to help relieve problems related to repetitive stress. At this point, I suspect I'll just be trading pain in one part of my hand for pain in another.
At any rate, I am actually reasonably proficient after about three months of using Dvorak at work (but - generally - not at home). I still look down most of the time, but my fingers are actually starting to remember, and occasionally I can get through half a sentence or line of code without looking down.
So remind me again what I was doing this for?
Mon, 22 Oct 2001
Once upon a time, there was a lazy little boy. Every day for over two
months, this little boy would get up, and not write a story.
Not that this little boy was a writer by trade, but the little boy liked to keep himself entertained to some small extent. Writing meaningless little stories was a creative outlet that kept him sane and not colouring outside the lines.
After almost two months of not outletting his creativity, the little boy was colouring dangerously close to the outside. Fortunately, the little boy's guidance counsellor and spiritual co-advisor saw this and stepped in to prevent the disaster that was nearly inevitable.
Unfortunately, the little boy's family and friends didn't have the money to enroll the little boy in a twelve-step program, so instead, hoping for the best, they enrolled him in twelve one-step programs.
While on his way home from the fourth program, the little boy was siezed by a sudden urge to colour outside the lines. Searching madly about for a colouring implement, he broke into the Drawola(tm) Crayon Diversified Industries, where he tripped and fell into a vat of molten Vermilion Red.
The End
So what. I've started a blog.
Actually, maybe people want to know. God knows everybody and their dog has one these days.
I'm pretty much writing this for my own benefit, which I suppose is the reason everyone does these things. Rather recently, I bought a graphics tablet. I've actually been interested in developing some kind of visual artistic ability, although I've never really been serious about it. Hopefully the blog will force me to do something relatively frequently, even if it means I have to chatter inane nonsense at nobody in particular while I do it.
I have no idea if you'll see intimate, personal details about me. Probably not too personal, anyway. It scares me some of the things that my friends say on their on/line journals that I never knew about them. At any rate, you're unlikely to see anything I wouldn't tell a casual friend. That means that any friends I do have will still have to e-mail me to find out how I'm doing.
Mon, 20 Aug 2001
As much as I'd like to take credit for this, I found it in
Sunday's
Dilbert strip.
Once upon a time there was a little pointy-haired monster. He promised riches to the villagers if they could achieve his random objectives. The villagers worked long hours but they were happy and optimistic. Suddenly the evil monster cut their funding and hired the village idiot to be project manager.
And that is how the villagers got trapped in meetings for all eternity.
The End
Mon, 30 Jul 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little cake. Not just any cake. This
cake was a cake. It lived a happy
life, in so far as a cake can actually have a life. Most of its days
was spent relaxing, and lounging around. On warm, sunny days, it would
sit around enjoying the weather, and just bake.
One day, there was a lot of obnoxious people outside. They didn't mean to be obnoxious, they were just hungry, as they didn't even have bread to eat. When they saw all the delicious sugary things inside, well that was just the icing on the cake.
The angry people burst in, grabbed the lady of the house and executed her and in the process, they forgot to close the fridge door where the cake lived, and it spoiled to death.
The End
Mon, 23 Jul 2001
Once upon a time there was a little girl that picked up and moved West.
There, she found a job working for a micro-brewery. For a while, all was
well and she enjoyed her work and the brewery flourished.
As the brewery got bigger, it became fat and corrupt, living off itself. Eventually, the company that made beer became a company that made money. This made the little girl unhappy.
The company like her work however, and they gave her a raise and a promotion, and the little girl reluctantly decided to stay.
Many years passed, until one day, the little girl found herself president of the company. She no longer had concerns about the little things. It was her job to make sure that the stockholders made lots of money, and she did a decent job of it. When she went out for lunch, she was stopped by a man on the street, who said
"Can you spare some beer?"
At once, it all came flooding back; Why she joined the company; what she liked (and missed) about it. It was all about the beer. It should be all about the beer!
The little girl turned around, immediately forgetting the man and his request, thus saving him from developing severe cirrhosis of the liver several months hence, and began implementing vast sweeping changes in the company.
To the employees, the little girl was somewhat of a hero. She brought back pub nights, employee discounts, and mandatory impaired heavy machinery operating days.
To the stockholders unfortunately, she was not so popular... until she brought twenty kegs with her to the next general meeting. Then everyone was pretty happy with her again, until she accidentally kicked out one of the pins supporting the pyramid of kegs and she was crushed to death.
The End
Thu, 12 Jul 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lived in a quiet seaside
community. This community was pretty much like another, except that in
the off season, when all the cottagers and tourists went home to the big
city, the local population would be inundated with Zombies.
Now these zombies didn't attack the peaceful villagers, and eat their brains. Instead these zombies came and ate in their restaurants and paraded around in public with their fancy clothes and expensive jewellery until it got to a point where the living would envy the dead. The dead had cooler cars.
The little boy took all this in stride. For him it was just the average off season crowd doing their thing. One year, however, his parents got fed up with the zombies flaunting of wealth in front of the less well off villages, and they packed up and moved away.
When the little boy started school in the new town the teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. Without hesitation, the little boy piped up "a zombie!" The teacher immediately assessed the little boy as seriously disturbed, and having no potential. She put him in the "special learning" class where he immediately accidentally swallowed a small part of a toy not suitable for ages 0-3, and he died.
The End
Thu, 07 Jun 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little sunflower, who grew in a field full
of sunflowers in a field not so far from the very village where you grew
up. A picturesque little place, on the slope of a gentle mountain,
which nurtured all who lived there, and sheltered them from the raging
barbarian hordes constantly fighting for supremacy on the other side.
But then you know about where you grew up.
One day, this sunflower was sunning itself, and listening to the nearby clang of swinging broadswords, when it realized that it never really enjoyed this life of idyllic bliss. What it really craved was adventure!
And so the little sunflower packed up its things and prepared to go off into the great wide world, when it suddenly remembered about all the friends it had made here, and how it would probably have to find someone to feed its cat. It was at that point that the sunflower realized that without knowing it, it had somehow managed to put down roots here, and that it didn't want to leave after all.
Happy at this newfound realization, the sunflower failed to notice the harvesting combine approach and slice it neatly in twain.
The End
Once upon a time, there was a little jedi knight. He learned all about
the force, and how it acted upon all things to an extent governed by an
object's mass and how quickly that object accelerated.
One day, the little jedi knight wanted to better understand the universe in which he lived. He decided to go back to school and study advanced particle physics. He studied very hard, and eventually became a jedi master. Still questing for more, he went back to school and became a jedi Ph.D.
Now fully equipped to deal with the mysteries of the universe, the little jedi got a job doing what all jedi knights with a Ph.D. in advanced particle physics do; he went to work in a particle accelerator.
Sadly, the fact that this particle accelerator was based on giant space station that roamed the galaxy and destroyed planets escaped the little jedi's attention until it was stormed by rebel troops who shot him until he became more powerful than they could possibly imagine.
The End
Tue, 22 May 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Joe. He worked in a
button factory. One day, his boss came to him and said "Hey Joe,
are ya busy?" to which the little boy replied "Heck no!"
so his boss said "then move your arm like this." and
he proceeded to show the little boy how to increase productivity by
reducing the number of defects.
Later in the week, the little boy's boss came up to him and said "Hey Joe, are ya busy?" The little boy was not, and indicated this to his boss. "Great, then move your other arm like this." The little boy then learned how he could increase the number of buttons he made in an hour, thus increasing productivity again. The boss was quite impressed with the little boy's abilities and gave him a modest raise.
Some time later in the month, the little boy's boss again returned and said "Hey Joe, are ya busy?" Again, the little boy indicated that he had some time to spare, to which the boss replied "then move your leg like this." The boy's boss then instructed him how to automate the button hole drilling process thus eliminating the need for three extra jobs. The men that were thus employed were layed off, saving the company even more money, and the little boy got a gold watch.
Once more, the little boy's boss appeared in front of the little boy and said "Hey Joe, are ya busy?" The little boy shrugged his shoulders and said "heck no!" And the boss replied "then wiggle your bum like this." The boss showed the little boy how he could type in all of the production data and forecasts with his ass into a special butt-friendly keyboard. The company's entire accounting department was sacked, and Joe got a pat on the back.
The very next day, the little boy's boss again walked up to the little boy. "Hey Joe," he said, "are ya busy?"
The little boy knew this was going to happen. He had been preparing for this moment. Some time previously, he had looked up on the internet how to manufacture tiny bombs using nothing more than a button press, a precision drill and a butt-friendly keyboard. "YES," he responded and detonated all the button-bombs he had produced that day, killing everyone in the building.
The End
Fri, 18 May 2001
I'm sitting here thinking up ideas for the next story, and I wonder
if this is going to turn into something approaching a more legitimate
journal type thing. God knows, the net doesn't need another, as
there's plenty out there already. (Here and here for example.)
Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this up, is because today's story sort
of reflects upon events happening to me. I actually have pink eye.
Blech.
Once upon a time, there was a boy with pink eye. It wasn't much of a disease as far as diseases go, but it was still a pretty yucky thing that the boy had to deal with.
Eventually, the boy got tired of worrying about pink eye, so he went to his doctor and told him. The doctor wasn't a very good doctor, but he did come up with a solution. He surgically removed the little boy's eyes, and replaced them with surgically enhanced seeing-eye weasels.
For quite some time, the surgically enhanced seeing-eye weasels (or SESEW) did their job quite admirably, but the little boy began to tire of the constant chittering in his ears, so again he went off to visit his doctor.
After getting his ears replaced with special Weasel dampening dill pickles, the little boy was again happy and returned to his daily activities.
Unfortunately, the dill pickle juice started seeping down into the little boy's jowls, giving his jaw and lower face a slight greenish hue. This didn't add to his already less than charming appearance, and soon local children were unable to sleep at night for fear of the horrible mutant alien space weasels in their cloned human zombie robot.
Local townspeople were concerned, and did the only thing they could. Using the weasel's natural enemy, the fourteen ton slab of concrete, they hunted down and eventually killed the weasels and the little boy in the process.
The End
Wed, 16 May 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little box of instant mashed potatoes. It
lived a happy existence, mostly sitting on the shelf of the pantry,
enjoying the afternoon sunshine. Watching people bustle through the
room, sometimes cooking dinner, sometimes washing dishes, sometimes in
fits of helpless rage, the box of instant mashed potatoes felt a sense
of belonging and closeness that it just didn't get from the supermarket.
One day, the cat was chasing a fly in the kitchen and accidentally knocked the box onto the floor, spilling it's contents. The neighbourhood druggie happened to pass by later that day, and saw all the white powder spilt out on the floor, misunderstood, and broke in to snort up all the mashed potato powder up. In doing so, the instant mashed potatoes found itself floating about in the brain matter of the addict.
Unfortunately, the drug addict had eaten some bad sheep feed and it was only a matter of time before the instant mashed potatoes contracted mad cow disease. Well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that any drug addict with instant mashed potatoes suffering from mad cow disease in his brain isn't firing all cylinders, if you catch my meaning, and it wasn't long before the drug addict completely broke down and started killing people left, right and centre.
It wasn't terribly long before the drug addict was arrested and executed by electric chair, at which point, the instant mashed potatoes was mercifully fried.
The End
Sun, 06 May 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little rock star who was always hearing
about how his coworkers were dying of drug overdoses. This frightened
him to no end, and he resolved to never take any drugs ever again. From
that day on, he avoided anything of a pharmaceutical nature. He avoided
anything with caffeine and other stimulants. He bought only organic free
range meat. He stopped drinking, and threw away everything in his
medicine cabinet. He cleaned out his fridge, throwing away anything
even the slightest bit moldy.
Then one day, the rock star realized he was addicted to food! He would stop eating for a while, but he wouldn't be able to control himself, and six or eight hours later, he'd be sitting down for yet another meal.
This was too much. The rock star checked himself into the Betty Ford clinic, and spent several long weeks kicking himself of the habit. Eventually, he succeeded, and he checked himself out. Free from the debilitating food dependency, he breathed a sigh of relief, until he realized that he was addicted to air!
Well, if he could beat his addiction to food, he could certainly kick this. He decided to go cold turkey without air for as long as possible.
He made it about ten minutes.
The End
Thu, 03 May 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little eye farie, who did her job very
well. She took pride in her duties of flitting from house to house
in the middle of the night, and giving each dutiful child a shiny new
quarter in place of each eye he or she would leave under his or her pillow.
The live organs black market was also very pleased with the farie's progress. She had made her quotas for several years straight, and the quality of the goods was second to none.
Eventually however, the world's parents started getting wise to the eye fairy, and the once plentiful supply of child eyes started drying up. The eye fairy's bounty sunk lower and lower until one day she missed her quota.
The market was not a callous bunch. They understood that these things happen. That was why they were very sad when they took the little fairy's eyes so that she could make up her quota. And kicked her in the ribs. And broke one of her wings.
After that, the little eye fairy decided to get out of the eye business. And she lived rather happily until she accidentally walked off a cliff and plummeted to her death.
The End
Tue, 17 Apr 2001
.
,
.
,
.
,
,
!
" 
!"
.
" 
!"
,
,
.
Once upon a time, there was a little rain cloud. Actually, it wasn't
much of a rain cloud, because it was always happy, and it just didn't
feel like getting all the nice people down there all wet.
The other clouds started to get offended by this, and for a while all they did was rumble about it to themselves. Then one of the kinder clouds decided that it should take the little cloud aside and give it a stern talking to.
"Just what do you think you're doing?" the veteran cloud thundered. "You're a rain cloud! You rain. That's your purpose in life." On the bigger cloud went, just storming away, and the little cloud began to get upset. The little cloud then started to cry, and the big cloud, realizing that this was just a little cloud, and very new to the way things work, felt badly.
"There, there," the big cloud tried to comfort the little cloud. "Come on now, dry those tears." It handed the little cloud a handkerchief, which the little cloud accepted and dabbed it at the corner of its eyes causing it to be completely absorbed into the handkerchief.
The End
Sun, 15 Apr 2001
Once upon a time there was a little boy who had to stay home because
he was sick. He didn't want to, but he was worried that he would make
other people sick, and that he might not get well soon enough and be
sick again the next day.
He stayed at home, and he drank lots of liquids and he rested, and watched TV. But yet he was sick still, so he rested and drank lots of liquids and surfed the internet. And still he was not better, so the little boy read, and rested and drank lots of liquids. Oh, and he went to the bathroom too.
Eventually the boy started feeling better. So he went back to work, and discovered that he was horribly behind. Getting caught up with work was no small task, but he worked through the day, and through a little of the next day, and he made some progress, but there was still a lot of work left to be done before he was completely caught up.
So the little boy schemed of a better way to get caught up. He schemed and he plotted and he devised and he planned, and eventually he came up with the idea of building a machine that would help him do his work! So he worked on building this machine, and it was a success! And he got caught up with his work in a matter of days! And then the little boy caught a more deadly strain of the illness and he died.
The End
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who worked in the mail room
of a large company. He and his buddies would happily spread the
messages that were sent down unto them from upstairs.
One day, some people felt that the little boy was spreading the wrong messages and had him fired. Fortunately, the little boy's dad was head of the company, and after the third day, he was rehired as vice president in charge of delivering the messages.
So verily, he appeared unto his buddies, who were amazed and did not believe that this man who appeared before them in the guise of a vice president was indeed their friend. Unto them he said:
"Look upon me. Touch here, the paper cuts in my hands, and the postage affixed to my side in that freak accident. Truly, I am he who was your friend."
And so they believed, and continued to spread the messages with renewed faith and vigour. Evening came, and morning came. The president looked down upon his company, and saw that it was good.
And the stock holders looked down upon the company and saw that being good does not make money. And the stockholders begat finger pointing and finger pointing begat downsizing and downsizing begat feeding the vice president of delivering the messages to the lions.
Happy Easter!
Tue, 10 Apr 2001
One upon a time, there was a little boy who was abducted by aliens. The
purpose of this abduction was not the typical rectal probing for
information gathering purposes, nor was it to give the little boy ice
cream, although the little boy had been on his best behaviour lately.
No, this abduction was to lay way for an alien invasion the likes of
which have only been seen 14 times before, mostly late at night on the
sci-fi channel.
Now world domination is a pretty serious business. You don't want to do this wrong, 'cause you don't get many chances at it. Unfortunately, the aliens hadn't quite understood human physiology, and when they tried to implant devious mind controlling devices in the little boy's brain, they accidentally put them in his kidneys.
Thus instead of causing the little boy to leave a trail of wanton destruction in his wake, they instead caused the little boy to have to pee very frequently. While in a local shopping mail, the little boy realized his need to use the bathroom, and he took the escalator down to the food court. Unfortunately, he got his trouser leg caught in the grate at the bottom, and he was ground into fresh chuck in a matter of moments.
The End
Sun, 08 Apr 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who wanted to ride his bike to
work everyday. For a few days, he was holding up pretty well, but it
was a fairly long ride, and when in rained on the third day, it gave him
pause. However, he had made a commitment to himself, and he dutifully
got on his bike and make the trek. He arrived at work a little damp,
but thankfully he had remembered to bring a change of clothes, and he
was none the worse for wear.
The next day, was dark and gloomy. A quick glance out the window proved to the little boy that it was not the best day for biking. To this day, historians are not sure exactly what tipped the little boy off, but most agree that he was aware of the snipers hiding on the balcony across the street.
Undaunted, the little boy donned his best kevlar cycling jacket, and headed out into the -20 degree weather. Skillfully maneuvering around the tornado, the boy made his way to work. Finally arriving, he realized it was Saturday, and he died of shame.
The End
Thu, 05 Apr 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who used the internet. This
wasn't an altogether bad thing, and the little boy occasionally stumbled
across the tidbit of information here or there that actually proved
useful.
Then one day, the revolution came. All of a sudden, it was nothing but on-line shopping carts, and e-porn, and if you were really lucky, on-line e-porn in shopping carts!
The little boy was almost done his science fair project, and just needed to look up some last details about the planet Uranus. So he went to a search engine and did a query. He was so amazed and elated to find thousands of matches that he figured he would just print it all out in one big binder and submit it as a supplement to his project. He started printing and the went happily to bed.
The next day, the little boy won first prize in the science fair: An all expenses paid trip to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum in Washington D.C. While walking around the reflecting pool outside, he was mugged, and killed.
The End
Wed, 04 Apr 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little web ring. It was a happy web ring,
although it was run by a small company, and there were some problems.
But people joined the ring, and people visited sites on the ring, and
all in all, it was a pretty good existence.
Eventually, the web ring got bought out by a big faceless internet corporation. The ring was relegated to some remote programming team that really didn't have a good grasp of what web rings should do, and the team wasn't really that good at their jobs. The web ring was remade and data was collected on its viewers. Bugs were introduced. But still people visited the ring, and the ring welcomed people, despite its diminished capacity.
Unfortunately, the large faceless corporation didn't make any money, and eventually, they declared bankruptcy and the computer that housed the webring was dismantled, the software wiped and the parts sold at a liquidation auction.
The End
Mon, 02 Apr 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little child who had a pretty good life,
largely because his parents were exceedingly rich.
The little child's parents had gotten exceedingly rich, the only way they knew how: exploiting mineral rights, mass producing individually wrapped disposable products, skimping on environmental measures, such as pollution filters, CFC alternatives, eating only the dolphin-friendliest of tunas, etc. As a result, they had ruined the environment for their child, and by the time he inherited the Earth there was nothing left, and he died of asphyxiation.
The End
Sun, 01 Apr 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lived.
April Fools!
Fri, 30 Mar 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little buddhist who died. But that was
okay. He came back in another form. At that time, his karma wasn't so
great, so he came back as a monkey. This was okay, until he got hit by
a tranquilizer dart, and was taken back to civilization and used in TV
commercials for antacids. After the company went out of business, the
monkey was let go, and he took to the bottle pretty hard until he died
of liver failure. He was then reincarnated as a cow, and immediately
killed and sold as veal. After coming back and living a fruitless live
as a may fly, dying of old age after a day, he was reincarneted as
Pamela Lee Anderson's career.
The End
Tue, 27 Mar 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little chili pepper who sat in the ground,
growing happily. This little pepper thought he was pretty hot stuff,
and this was proven to his satisfaction from time to time, when a
raiding groundhog or rabbit would steal into the garden and try and eat
him. The offending rodent would take one tiny bite, and then its eyes
would bug out, and roll around so rapidly in its sockets that it looked
like a slot machine. Then the rodent's head would shoot up in the air
and ding a bell that appeared out of nowhere, seemingly for that express
purpose. After the head returned, the rodent would turn red, then blue,
then green, and often polka-dots, but always - always plaid.
Flames would then shoot out of the varmint's behind, and it would rocket
out of the garden and off into the distance where a small mushroom cloud
would form where it landed.
So when it started getting cold, the little chili pepper fretted not. He was hot stuff. The other vegetables would freeze and perish long before he even felt the slightest bit frosty. Unfortunately, the pepper wasn't aware of the distinction between hot spicy and hot warm, and the little chilly pepper froze to death.
The End
Mon, 26 Mar 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who worked in a meat packing
plant. He enjoyed his work very much, and every once in while, he would
get to take some unused cuts of meat home with him. This suited him
reasonably well, until one day, he got tired of cleaning the blood
stains out of his work clothes.
The little boy briefly toyed with the idea of going business casual, as so many of his coworkers had, but he didn't feel right going to work not wearing a suit and tie. In the end, he decided that he had best just quit, and he regretfully handed in his registration.
As he was packing up his things, one of the plant's Human Resources people dropped by to ask him to return the company spleen they had given him when he first got hired. They also presented him with a quite exquisite bathtub full of ice, to thank him for his years of faithful service to the corporation.
As he eased into his cool icy bath, he realized that he needed a spleen to live! He had long since packed his own spleen, and sent it off to the nearby deli, as he had the top of the line company spleen they had provided for him. Now that the company spleen was gone, he wasn't quite sure what he would do. Thinking quickly, he constructed a makeshift spleen from a sponge, ice, rubbing alcohol and a toothbrush.
It didn't work.
The End
Sun, 25 Mar 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who loved tea so much that
he bought his own kettle to keep at work with him. He would then go and
get water from the water cooler, and happyily brew whatever tea he
decided he felt like having that day, choosing from his vast selection
of assorted teas.
One day, the little boy decided that he wanted some jasmine tea. He looked around, but discovered that he was all out. Shrugging he looked for some oolong tea which he was also out of. The little boy searched and he searched, but to his dismay, he seemed to be out of every flavour of tea he could think of. Sadly, he found he only had regular tea left, so he took some tea beans, ground them up, boiled some water, and made his tea. Pouring the steaming black nectar into a cup, the heady aroma reached his nostrils and he salivated in anticipation.
A wandering coworker meandered by and noticed the whole production. "That's a pretty impressive cup of coffee you have there," he said. The little boy was so shocked to realize that he hadn't been drinking coffee instead of tea all this time, that he dropped his mug and it shattered into a thousand pieces, soaking the carpet. Before he could clean up the mess and make another cup, he died of caffine withdrawl.
The End
Once upon a time, there was a little superhero who was young and
idealistic. He was new to the superhero business, and had grand schemes
of becoming respected and loved, and dreamed of such evil-doers as the
Joker, Doctor Octopus, and Mr. Fear and Jelly Sandwich.
Sadly, his exploits were less than notable, and the little superhero was subjected to meager villans, and last-page headlines when he could get even that much until one day, to his delight, Mr. Fear and Jelly Sandwich was spotted riding his signature giant robotic cuisinart through Verylargecitiopolous leaving a trail of destruction and bread crumbs in his wake!
Joy wells up from within the very fibre of the little superhero's being. Finally, this was his big break! This was what he was put on this earth to do! His joy lasts until he is sucked into the robot's intake valve, and is julienned.
The End
Mon, 19 Mar 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who had a word of the day
calendar. And though his boss was ignominious, the little boy could not
help but adulate him. The little boy hypothecated that he appeared less
than eupeptic before his chthonic master, he would be enmeshed in a
maelstrom of his supervisor's fury until he was little more than a
diaphanous shell of his former self. It so came to pass when the little
boy was involved in a contretemps with his taskmaster where he
accidentally besmirched his superior's rather fulgent attire. Nugatory,
though the comment was, the little boy was then forced to participate
in a Grand Guignol display which lead to the little boy's death.
The Desuetude
Sat, 17 Mar 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who loved the winter so much
that he wished it would stay forever. To that end, he devoted his every
waking moment to make things colder. He studied geology, meterology,
biology, physiology, chemiology, geneology, anything that would bring
his realization closer. Eventually he stumbled across the idea of
nuclear winter. It seemed all so simple. At last! And so the little
boy gathered to himself a mass arsenal of nuclear warheads and prepared
to detonate them all across the globe, thus blocking out the sun, and
plunging the earth into perpetual coldness. Miraculously, he managed to
do so without harming a single living organism. Fur traders, ski resort
owners, hot chocolate magnates, and Jakob Nederswothney (just some guy)
hailed the action as a boon to all mankind, and the little boy was
immensely happy until he developed a severe case of seasonal
affectiveness disorder, and committed suicide.
The End
Fri, 16 Mar 2001
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who keep reading over someone
else's shoulder while they were surfing the web. Well the other person
found that very annoying and kept asking repeatedly for the little boy
to stop doing that, to go away, for the love of god to please stop
sticking that thing in your ear, and so on. Eventually the
other person got so fed up, that she broke into the little boy's
computer and downloaded kiddie-porn onto it. Almost immediately,
federal agents stormed the room, and arrested the little boy on the
spot. After a lengthy legal battle, the little boy's case was
conveniently lost in the system, and he languished in jail until he was
killed in a mess hall fight.
The End
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who went to a meeting. The
meeting was long and boring, so the little boy pulled out his hand-held
organizer and started taking notes about other tasks he was working on.
As time dragged on, the little boy finished most of his other work, and
moved on to getting caught up on the news he downloaded when he last
hooked his organizer up to his computer. Much later still, he ran out
of things to read, and started to play solitaire. Even later yet, the
batteries of the organizer finally gave out. As a result, he was forced
to listen to the meeting and he died of boredom.
The End
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who was always being bullied by
cows. He was an artistic sort and instead of taking out his aggression
violent ways, he would instead create award winning cookbooks with
beef-centric recipes. Soon, however, P.E.T.A. noticed and had him
arrested for making threats against ruminants. He was sentenced to take
part in the running of the bulls in Pamplona, where he was tripped by a
suspicious looking tourist chewing her cud. The boy was trampled to
death, dying instantaneously.
The End
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who went to a meeting. The
meeting was long and boring, so the little boy pulled out his hand-held
organizer and started taking notes about other tasks he was working on.
As time dragged on, the little boy finished most of his other work, and
moved on to getting caught up on the news he downloaded when he last
hooked his organizer up to his computer. Much later still, he ran out
of things to read, and started to play solitaire. Even later yet, the
batteries of the organizer finally died.
The End
