Unabashed

Here’s what we know so far: The deceased–a Mr. Matt Mitchell (or at least his pride)–was hiking in a remote area known as “Falling Rock.” From evidence we acquired from his person, including maps, a GPS unit, and various other items, we’ve ascertained that he was searching the area for what are known as “Geocaches.” In the course of our investigation, we backtracked Mr. Mitchell’s steps and located one Geocache that he himself had located, opened and signed. He then replaced the Geocache in its hidden location and moved on to search for another one, this one at the bottom of the canyon. Mr. Mitchell descended into the canyon and, following the coordinates as entered into his GPS, was searching for the second Geocache, hiking delicately through an area infested with poison oak, when he suffered a fall and tumbled back down the hill. We believe he may have screamed “Oh no!!” as he slipped, and we believe his feet were pointed straight up at the heavens before he crashed down upon his elbow (we are also of the opinion that, if there had been anyone to witness the event, it would have been quite comical to see). Fearing exposure to the poison ivy, we believe Mr. Mitchell scrambled to his feet, only to slip again and go sprawling down the remainder of the hillside into the ravine–a tumble total of about forty feet, although his descent was cushioned by a slippery, leafy ground covering and a dense patch of poison oak. We do believe he screamed “Oh no!!” again upon slipping for the second time. We believe he abandoned his search at that point, having injured his left knee and right elbow–the elbow was quite swollen and bloody–and fearing that a large portion of his arms and face had been exposed to poison oak. Deciding that he had a one point five mile hike back to his waiting vehicle, he proceeded to climb back out of the canyon, whereupon he abandoned his pride and his man card to suffer humility for the rest of his days. He proceeded to the emergency room, where he was found to have suffered a shattered ego along with deep bruising of the knee and elbow, some superficial scrapes and cuts, but no broken bones. The poison oak exposure would not make itself apparent, if in fact he was exposed, for another 48 to 72 hours. Mr. Mitchell (and his pride) are now recuperating at his home in Montevallo, Alabama, taking steady doses of Ibuprofen and nervously studying every itch he feels on his arms or face. He is considering a return trip to the canyon of Falling Rock to see if his pride is still there and can be recovered.

The wound, 60+ hours after the fall (still rash free!!):

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Alabama, canyon, fall, falling rock, falls, Geocaching

Recently (a corporation) decided to hire (a departmental manager) and sent out three questions to prospective hires. One of the questionaires fell into my hands, so I filled it out and returned it using the name Vlad Kahn. Would you hire me?

Please list your top 3-5 strengths that will make you a strong candidate for this position.

1. I am a merciless director. I lead by example. My example is rage.
2. I demand the utmost discipline from my employees (henceforth referred to as “subjects” or “minions”) and will tolerate no insolence. Insolence is a sure way to cause my rage to be unleashed.
3. I am prone to fits of rage. For example, if I am not invited to interview for this position, my rage will be unleashed. Likewise, if I am not chosen for this position, my rage will be unleashed (I am prone to “get medieval”). I have chosen this company because I see potential for advancement, and I like the neighborhood. The coffee shop near the escalator is a nice touch. They should sell muffins.
4. BAH! (–I have unleashed my rage)
5. Satisfying my appetite for blood (henceforth referred to as “bloodlust”) each day when I arrive at work is a practice that should NOT be interfered with. Any interference will be met with a severe penalty. I.E.: My rage will be unleashed.
6. Do not expect me before dusk, as the sun can be somewhat damaging to my pale complexion, and do not expect me past sunrise. I generally begin moaning in pain about two hours before dawn. (This is my “happy time” and should NOT be interfered with. Any interference will be met with swift punishment. I.E.: My rage will be unleashed.)
7. Lastly, do not touch my axe or my crown, or my rage will be mighty, indeed (and unleashed).

If you obtain this position, what do you think needs to be accomplished in the first twelve months to make this new organization a success?

My department will run at peak efficiency on very little rest and little or no food. Whippings will be applied to anyone dawdling, with punishment growing more severe with each transgression. So long as an ample supply of replacement minions (for those I have slain) is provided, my department will complete any mission we accept. I give my personal guarantee that within twelve months, this operation will be forced into submission with no patience for slackers and extreme malice for those who interfere with our operations.

Tell us why you want to obtain this position?

I am bored with my kingdom and am looking to expand. Would like to have a house in a nice neighborhood, with lots of sidewalks. And a playground. This will be provided by my employer, along with plenty of ale and grub. In time, I may bore of this position and take over the company, if I do, I may slay anyone in my immediate path (it is therefore recommended that the company provide steady and rapid advancement in order that there may be few people between me and the top). Keep in mind that I may decide to implement this “hostile takeover” at any time, so anyone around me should be ever wary of that coming moment.

Lastly: My wrath is about to be unleashed. It is much worse than my rage.

BAH!

This turned out to be a story bone for me. I ended up writing a novella based on the guy I created for this application. It will, of course, never sell, because aside from being novella-length, it’s humorous fantasy, another hard sell. But I like it. Maybe I should just publish it here…Hmmm. Maybe I will.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: bone, fantasy, Fiction, hostile, humorous, Kahn, novella, rage, story, takeover, Vlad, wrath

What happens when you nuke a cell phone? You might be surprised:

via Dark Roasted Blend.

written by Matt Mitchell

While I’m thinking about it, I’ve had dreams before that have ended up being incorporated into various stories I’ve written. For instance, one morning I woke up with a clear line in my head, which may not make any sense to you (it didn’t to my wife), but nevertheless I liked it and I thought it was funny so I adapted it. The line was this:

“Being the first ith, he was Irmth. His name was Irmth the Eleventh.”

As it happened I was embroiled in the writing of a scifi comedy about a space-traveling zydeco accordion player named Joe Remeleaux Redmill. Irmth became the bad guy for that story, and it’s one of those humorous SciFic pieces I told you I’d really like to find a home for.

The way it finally worked out was: Irmth belonged to a race that was the result of a genome abnormality in an entirely other race, the name of which is inconsequential at this point. Irmth and his kind were called “Shifts” by those they were spun off from, and were shunned despite their evident superior evolutionary state. Irmth was the eleventh Shift to have evolved, though there are many thousands in the universe now. Shifts were art-loving Methuselahs who lived millions of years. They were born with duplex personalities and referred to themselves using 1st person plural pronouns (we, us, our). They speak with two voices and, in the bulbous, gelatinous, transparent midriff of their bodies, which is usually tinted green or blue or brown and inside of which can be seen their organs and various floating detritus, had a second face, though their physiology was otherwise more or less human in appearance. They were usually phenomenally rich, intelligent, and deviant (though not sexually, not having the necessary equipment). Irmth himself was the first Shift of a separate branch called Ith. The only difference between a normal Shift and an Ith was that an Ith was much taller. Irmth specifically enjoys cocktails, sometimes delivered intravenously, technology and information, and music. He has organized numerous events throughout the Universe, some of which were so successful that they never stopped. Irmth scours the Galaxy, looking for musical talent to feature at his events, and is currently organizing and promoting an event in the Hypersholean system called “Music Horizon,” which promises to be a never-ending event and boasts five generation seven Posi-Tek SubSpaceWoofter Platforms, release 5ZR11.32.99, AKA the GalactiBlaster, which essentially turns a moon or planet into a speaker. When Irmth hears music he likes, he usually leaves his card, which is the model of simplicity:

Being the first ith, he was Irmth.
His name was Irmth the Eleventh.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: galactiblaster, ideas, irmth, ith, science fiction, scifi, scific, shift, stories, story, writing

I woke up last night with a great story idea in my head. I wrote it down on the note pad I keep by my bed for exactly those types of moments. Then I went back to sleep, confident that I had secured the nugget that would lead to a great story. When I woke up this morning, I picked up the pad and read:

“10,000 YEARS OF SPOTTED TROLLS…”

Now where am I supposed to go with that??? I can’t remember the dream; I can’t even remember the thought process that put brought the idea to mind. I just woke up, wrote something (barely legible) down, and went back to sleep. 

What makes this even weirder is that the day before yesterday Walter Jon Williams did a Big Idea write-up on Whatever about his new book, Implied Spaces. In that BI post, he notes that he once woke up in the middle of the night and wrote down “UFOs ARE REALLY MADE OF BREAD,” and awakened the next morning just as oblivious as I was today. Did he somehow plant a subliminal suggestion in my mind to make me wake up and write something incomprehensible on my note pad, which otherwise has given me some pretty good ideas? He must have. There is absolutely no other plausible explanation for it. My mind has been invaded by WJW. So now I’m headed out to find his new book so I can buy it, and then I’ve got to stop by a tattoo parlor and have WJW scripted onto my newly-naked skull skin.

Photo: Troll sculpture by Kim Graham

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: spotted, troll, trolls, Walter Jon Williams, Whatever

John Scalzi asks the question: Who would win in a knife fight, Smurfs or Carebears?

In the thread, the public is in overwhelming support of Smurfs, but I (of course) unabashedly disagree. My comment:

Everyone seems to be leaning Smurfs, which naturally makes me lean CBs (Always bet against the public. See: Superbowl XLII). And besides, I think the bears have a chance. I mean, they’re bears. Have you ever seen a CB open its mouth? No? That is probably because of the jagged rows of teeth it needs to hide (it hides them because of its job, which is to remain endearing to children. Can’t do that with all those nasty teeth on display). A mouth which, as luck would have it, could probably chew four or five Smurfs at a time (if the CB in question didn’t just swallow them whole). And don’t forget the clawless paws are only clawless because the claws are retractable.

You say the Smurfs have superiority in numbers? I say that’s just more blue meat to eat. Care Bears all the way. It’d be like throwing Smurfs in a pen full of rabid wolverines.

Evil Care Bears found on Deviant Art.

Also: My tags for this entry are “Care Bears, John Scalzi, and Smurfs.” So if anyone was to happen to Google “John Scalzi + Care Bears (or Smurfs) (or both)” will probably find their way here. Heh.

I just added the tag “evil” on the off chance that someone might Google “Evil John Scalzi Care Bear.” Double heh.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: care bears, evil, John, scalzi, smurfs

Titan is cool. Cassini is due to photograph the moon in the next few weeks, and I fully anticipate–in fact, I’m going to go ahead and predict–that NASA will find proof of life on Titan. Why am I so confident? Because exploration of our solar system has never had as much active effort as it does right now. Because Titan has an utterly alien environment–but it’s an environment, with rain and cryovolcanoes, hydrocarbon lakes, mountain ranges… it has potential for water, and it has a stable atmosphere. And, besides that, it would be so freaking cool. But…You wouldn’t want to live there. Forget the fact that it’s cold and that the atmosphere isn’t breathable for humans, focus instead on the fact that the smell of fart would probably pervade every waking moment of your life. Still, whatever life they do wind up finding won’t be able to breathe our atmosphere, and who knows, maybe their farts will smell like our air.

Any way, don’t be surprised when, after a couple of months or years of analyzing the data, NASA announces irrefutable evidence of life on Titan.

The Singularity is near.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Life, NASA, Saturn, Titan

Can you guess what’s happening in this picture? I just found it on Flickr, link through to see the photographer and the answer…

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Flickr, iditarod, portland, urban

I’m just as disgusted as you are by the guy who had sex with his picnic table within sight of a playground, multiple times, and was foolish enough to do so openly enough so that his neighbor could capture incriminating video of the deed, but that’s not what this post is about. (I will say thanks be to God that the perv of note was not from Alabama; we get enough bad press as it is down here…) No, this post is just a little pointer in the direction of a hilarious observation via Cracked.com:

Meanwhile the fat cats in Washington are in their private backyards, greedily humping away at their picnic tables and laughing maniacally. They hold crystal chalices full of Red Bull, vodka and baby blood (they call it an “Orphan Sunrise”) in one hand, and pens in the other - the very same pens they used to sign the legislation that made it illegal to have sex with picnic tables in the first place.

written by Matt Mitchell

 This just in…a new supplement that inhibits defecation?!? Basically, you take this pill once a day and you never take a crap again, and impossibly lose weight at the same time, since you only have to eat once a week because your body is living off of … well, feces. And evidently if you order now you get a free order of RareLEE-P. (If you don’t use RareLEE-P in conjunction with DoDoDon’t your urine will turn to the consistency of snot, whereas with RareLEE-P, urine remains “watery but pleasingly infrequent”).

Take this all-natural supplement and never defecate again! The body absorbs 100% of all food that enters it, totally nullifying the incessant need to doodoo!

PLUS!

Don’t defecate + Lose Weight at the same time! That’s right, you heard it here first, with this pill you can eat all you like, never passing any waste from your bowels, and lose up to ten pounds per day! You’ll be thin in no time with DoDoDon’t, the magical all-natural wonder drug from the makers of RareLEE-P.

Next thing you know they’ll be making a supplement that gives (ahem) waste a pleasing fragrance.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: dododon't

Forget the AT&T Smartphone, I want�a Sven! Anybody know of a good Sven service?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDVGrzqf4go[/youtube]

�

written by Matt Mitchell

This morning, while taking the kids to daycare and listening to Sirius, Don’t Stop Believing by Journey came on and reminded me of a conversation my wife and I had recently, playing a game we play often. It’s the same game guys play with each other when picking the hottest girl, but with our game the criteria has to remain undisclosed, you simply pick based on whatever criteria you come up with in your own mind.

“Who would you pick: Gene Simmons or Donald Trump?” I asked her, after seeing a commercial for Celebrity Apprentice (which we don’t watch).

“Ugh. Just go ahead and kill me.”

“You have to pick,” I smiled.

“Fine…Trump.” She said it with a grumble.

I, of course, already had part two of this little test lined up. With a smile, “Trump, or Martha Stewart?”

Her face became serious, because we always take this game very, very seriously, and her brow tightened introspectively. “Wash,” she said, which is an allowable answer if you absolutely have no preference.

“Okay then,” I asked, “whose voice would you rather have: David Lee Roth or Axl Rose?” (Yes: We are children of the 80s).

“Roth.”

“Roth, or Ronnie James Dio?”

“Roth.”

“Roth or Ozzy?”

“Roth!”

“Okay, okay. Who’s got the best voice: Dennis de Young or Steve Perry?”

“Steve Perry,” she said, with a voice that said, “Duh.”

“You don’t like Styx?”

“I like Styx; but I believe Steve Perry could knock down that wall with his voice.”

At which point I dropped out of the conversation and into contemplation. She was right, as always, and she had given me something to think about. I later asked her if she would rather have Roth’s voice or Perry’s, and she said “Roth.”

I cocked my head slightly, because I thought the answer would have been Perry.

“I think Steve Perry has a powerful, great voice, but Dave was always the most fun. He just sounds like he’s having fun all the time. He doesn’t do ballads.”

I nodded.

“But really, if I had my choice, I would rather sound like a girl.”

I nodded again. “Pat Benatar or Joan Jett?”

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: 80s, Music

This is a story you must read. This is a memoir kind of story, brief, but thoroughly hilarious. Excerpt:

Once again Gordon pulled on the gloves and–putting his plan into action–fitted a football helmet to his head. The chimp made “ook-ook” noises. Gordon, tentatively this time, gave the chimp a little kick. The chimp jumped up onto Gordon’s shoulders, ripped off the helmet, and began beating him with it.

Seriously, this is the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time.

written by Matt Mitchell

Has anyone ever told you that you can “like it or lump it?” I’m not sure if this is strictly a southern colloquialism, but I heard it a lot as a kid. I have a slight problem with this phrase, though:

If somebody tells you to  “like it or lump it” you have only two options and either way you have to accept whatever it was that was given to you. You can “like it” which is self explanatory, or you can “lump it,” which means to tolerate what must be endured (according to dictionary.com). So if I’m to lump something I’m not necessarily happy about it, but since I have been told to lump it then I must swallow my misgivings and suffer to accept what was given. This is the Established Principle, people, the Rule. This is the LAW of Society. If you refuse to like or lump something you’ve been given then you are inviting hostility and discord into the situation. This can lead to years of estrangement from family, friends, and coworkers. It would be the same as turning down a triple-dog dare–you just don’t do it.

It is for this reason that I feel this Law of Society should be expanded upon, by legal amendment. I propose the addition of two extra choices, hence:

“You can like it, lump it, cram it or crump it.”

Now I’ve got options! Now if someone gives you a Rocky Mountain Oyster flavored jelly bean to try you don’t have to eat it! Now you can CRUMP it!

The revised axiom:

Like–you accept what is given and are happy with it.

Lump–you accept what is given though you are not happy with it and would rather it hadn’t been given to you at all.

Cram–you take what has been given to you and you fold it into a tiny little square and you cram it straight up your own ass. Personally, I can’t really imagine anyone taking this route, but hey, maybe you’ll want to make a statement with that jellybean.

Crump–(defined as: to explode heavily or with a loud dull noise; to bombard with heavy shells) you are so offended by what has been offered that you destroy the offending idea or item in the quickest and most disastrous method possible.

I was going to add pictures to this post but I couldn’t find any Rocky Mountain Oysters to cram.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: like it, lump it

I’ve never been to�Portland. It’s a long, long way away from me. It would be absurd to think that I would make a 2500 mile�journey just to go to a doughnut shop. But then, I might just do it.�See, there’s this place over yonder called Voodoo Doughnut. I learned about it on the show No Reservations (yes, I am a Tivoer of the show) and I immediatly thought this was the best idea and best product in the world. Okay. Maybe not in the world but awfully damned good still. Why is Voodoo Doughnut so awesome?

• Their logo is great (see me in my new Voodoo Doughnut�t-shirt at right, trying to look cool).
• Their slogan is sensational: “The Magic is in the Hole.”
• They sell doughnuts.
• They sometimes put bacon on their doughnuts.
• The word Voodoo is one of my favorite words; it evokes thoughts of�mysticism and secret things.
• The word Doughnut is one of my favorite words; it evokes thoughts of slavering buttery fluffy tasty wonderful goodness.
• I love doughnuts. I don’t eat them though, because I love them so much. If I ate doughnuts my 16 stone frame would expand so rapidly they might hear the resulting�sonic boom in Portland.�

They really need to expand. They need a shop in New Orleans and they�need a shop in Hoover, AL. The one in New Orleans would be�because, well, obviously just because. It’s Voodoo Doughnut.�New Orleans is where Voodoo Doughnut belongs.�The one in Hoover would be so I wouldn’t have to travel 2500 miles to get one. I pledge to purchase one bacon doughnut every morning (workdays only) if they will put establish a Voodoo Doughnut in Hoover. So let it be written, so let it be done.

Here’s a documentary filmed about Voodoo Doughnut, which doesn’t make it look even remotely as cool as it looked in the No Reservations Pacific NW episode in which a needy Tony Bourdain stood outside the closed shop one gray morning screaming at the sign, “Bacon Doughnut!”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cTDh5TQaaw[/youtube]

written by Matt Mitchell