JeffR Archives

April 20, 2007

Jeff R.: Two Great Tastes...

When a raven goes a rapping
On a door with wings a-flapping
It's a knocker-knocking bird.

And...
When it flutters, as it must,
And lands on a marble bust,
It's a Pallas perching knocker-knocking bird.

And...
When it finally sounds it's 'Quork',
And it sounds like it can talk,
It's a quickly quoting Pallas perching knocker-knocking bird.

And...
When the word that it's repeating
Sets your heart to rapid beating
It's a nevermoring quickly quoting Pallas perching knocker-knocking bird.

And...
When, although you send it packing
It stays there, and keeps on yakking,
It's time to go find the shotgun.

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April 23, 2007

Jeff R.: Symbol-Minded

There is a bear in the woods.

For some people the bear is easy to see. Others don't see it at all. Some say the bear is tame. Some say it's vicious. Others say it's an extended metaphor, or perhaps an allegory of some kind. But really, isn't an allegory just as dangerous? Do you know how many teeth those things have? I don't. Would you count them all? Since no one knows, isn't it smart to be as strong as the bear? Or the allegory? Or the wombat; those things are mean. And don't get me started on squirrels.

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April 24, 2007

Jeff R.: Once You're Dead, You Can't Come Back

Jonni's father was killed by a lunchbox. It fell from a construction site, twenty stories up. His helmet stopped his skull from being crushed, but didn't stop his neck from snapping. Ever since then, Jonni's had issues.

After spending High School continually fixated on one unavailible older male authority figure after another, she and her freshman history professor mutally seduced on another. A month later she found out just how many others were in his harem.

Klingman Hall wasn't quite twenty stories high, but even at three the lunchbox was enough to cause a severe concussion. The bricks inside helped.

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April 27, 2007

Jeff R.: Perils

Even though my sister, the wisest and also ugliest woman I know, had told me beforehand that Samuel was not the kindly old man he seemed when we met at the same Roller Derby where I first met John and Stacy, (seperately, not together, amazingly enough) but was in fact bent on corrupting my soul, which I still don't really believe in, despite everything, by introducing me to his twisted variety of paganism, which was mostly bondage-based, I still was unprepared when Satan appeared and demanded that I wash his feet, which were totally disgusting goat-hoof things, with my tongue.

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May 1, 2007

Jeff R.: Something to Be

Ralph Cassio, elected delegate of the People's First Glorious Copper Smelting Syndicate, stepped into the chamber warily. The delegates from the Eternally Beneficient Coal Mining Collective were already in position, and far from trustworthy, and it appeared that they'd already started in on the teamsters. The Syndicate needed the new contracts if there was to be any hope of meeting the year's quotas.

Fortunately, Ralph knew something his counterparts didn't: that the Copper Syndicate had secretly secured the full support of the Ancient and Benevolent Union of Constables, Investigators, and Enforcers. The contracts would be signed, one way or another...

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May 9, 2007

Jeff R.:Little Thieves

They stole my wife's engagement ring, just before our fifth anneversary. She left it on the counter while doing the dishes, and we never saw it again. We planned to replace it, with a bigger stone, but then there was the cancer and the doctors' bills and I had to bury her with the golden band alone.

This was not all they took. My son's high school diploma, grandfather's Sinartra LPs, the stack of three-by-five index cards with my mother's recipes, all gone.

They're coming again tonight. I hope they'll take my life, but fear it'll be my mind instead.

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May 10, 2007

Jeff R.: Unrelenting

She slurred an invitation which he soberly accepted, and in minutes they were on the elevator to the penthouse. Their ascent was long and silent, so to kill the time they coupled, locking lips and trading fluids only somewhat less obscenely than the outcome soon to follow when they reached the lush apartments at the tiptop of the tower.

Interrupted by the ringing of the bell that said their journey to her sanctum in the heavens had concluded, they untangled limbs and gazes, and then stumbled toward the threshold where she fumbled for a keycard to unlock the heavy door.

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May 14, 2007

Jeff R.: Subject X74h

Her name was Jacomina Vitter, but since November 1937 she's been called Rook, Rauch, or Fumo: Smoke. She's a low-grade fire elemental, according to Dr. Mann's classification scheme: the xenovirus transformed her body into something only superficially human. Even resting, her skin temperature is 200 Farenheit, and her fingertips emit thin wisps of milky smoke.

Unlike higher-grade fire elementals like Inferno Dervish or Pyromancer, she cannot shoot balls of fire or transform her body into flames. She can spontaneously combust, turning herself into smoke, and re-form herself later, a talent she made much use of fighting for the Dutch Resistance.

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May 15, 2007

Jeff R.: Inside the Globe

"Yo, Will. The boys have some notes on Act One."

"And what fresh violence are they doing to my words?"

"Well, it's Lear's first exit in scene 4."

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have-"

"Right. Problem is, your basic serpent, his teeth aren't really so much sharp as pointy, right?"

"What utter nonsense speaks this fool of fools?"

"C'mon, you know I'm right. They don't go cutting things with 'em, just poking holes. We'll go with 'How pointy'r than a serpent's tooth' in the Folio. Ciao."

"The first thing I'll do, I'll kill all the copy-editors."

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May 16, 2007

Jeff R.: Now on the other hand, in Roman times...

It is very difficult to earn a living as a professional elephant repeller.

First of all, when one attempts to explain ones particular abilities in keeping heavily populated urban areas free from rampaging pachyderms, one is constantly attacked by ignorant philosophers, all attempting to accuse one of being some kind of logical fallacy.

Even if one manages to convince them of the value and need for the service, many suspicious-minded individuals will cry 'blackmail' or 'extortion'.

Which are, ironically, in fact one's best bet. Most major circuses and zoos will pay quite well for one to refrain from stopping by.

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