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Stuff I don’t claim is true.

Do you suffer from IQS?

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Do you find yourself repeating meaningless platitudes about love, courage, or creativity throughout the day?  Do you attribute nearly every possible sentence in the English language to the same half dozen famous people?  Do you feel strangely moved by reading the same quote for the hundredth time on Twitter or Facebook?  Do you feel an utterance is made more profound by dividing it into lines, pasting it onto a picture of a sunset, and attributing it to a famous dead person?

If so, you may be among the millions who suffer from Internet Quote Syndrome, or IQS.  Here’s what famous people are saying about IQS:

IQS is the single biggest obstacle to peace in the world today. -Mohandas Gandhi

Without a doubt, IQS is Internet Quote Syndrome – Abraham Lincoln

It’s amazing, all the stuff Lincoln said – Mark Twain

But now there’s something you can do about it.  Just send any normal sentence, in any language to me, along with the low, low price of $69.95, and I will read it.

Yes, It’s that simple.  Here’s what Neill Gaiman says about this extraordinary opportunity:

Hold on, you can’t use me; I ain’t dead yet!

So don’t delay, send today!

Dispatch from the War on Christmas

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23 December 2013
0900 hours

Reconnaissance mission: Walmart.

Encountered Salvation Army bellringer deployed at entrance. Decided on preemptive strike.  “Doesn’t that damned bell drive you crazy, ringing it all day?”

Enemy combatant returned fire.  “Not really, God bless you, sir!”

The unexpected precision of the counterattack left me reeling, as I searched my pocket for a contribution.  I was able to limit the damage to $5.  Dazed and confused, trying to execute a strategic withdrawal, I mumbled something about Saturnalia, but the enemy pressed his advantage.

“Thank you, and have a very Merry Christmas!”

Wounded as I was, I was still able to return fire with “Happy Holidays to you, too,” but a subsequent attempt, “Creation science isn’t,” apparently misfired, as the enemy appeared unmoved.

Still, I was able to make my way to the relative safety of greed and cynical commercialism once I reached the interior of the Walmart.

Result: Marginally satisfactory.  Enemy remained at his post, but I was able to withdraw without substantial casualty.

Mission for 24 December 2013:  Enroll in atheistic socialist Obamacare on Christmas Eve itself.

Mikels Skele, Sp. General, Ret., Dec.
ICU812

A fable

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Crusty Paul sat in his apartment, water lapping at his feet, when there was an insistent knock at his door.  He sighed and got up to answer it, knowing full well it was Larry, his annoying neighbor from downstairs.  He opened the door, and sure enough, there was Loopy Larry, a look of stern admonition on his insipidly righteous face.

“There’s water dripping on my head again, Paul,” he said.

“Well, I’ve told you before, just get used to it.”

Loopy Larry sighed.  “Have you let the bath run over again?”

A flush rose to Paul’s face.  “So what?  It’s just your stupid theory that that’s what’s making water drip on your head.”

“It’s not just a theory.  Every time it happens, I come up here and you’ve let the bath water run over.  Look at your floor, for chrissake, it’s covered with water!”

Paul looked at him with an expression of someone explaining some simple fact to a rather dense child, for the hundredth time.

“If you look at the past, you’ll see there are lots of times when water just falls out of the sky, for no reason.  How can you say my bathwater causes your problem, when we know that happens naturally, all the time?”

The vampire’s confession

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Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.  Peccavi in extremis, I’m afraid.

It has been … ages since my last confession, a time beyond recall.  I must say I have been rather good, but for one irresistible indulgence.  How shall I say it?  Out with it, then.

Father, I am a vampire.

Yes, I heard that gasp, involuntary though it was, through this rather flimsy barrier.  Why bother, I wonder?  Is it to protect my delicate sensibility, or yours?

No matter.  The sins I have to confess surely blow through such refinements like a spring squall through a spider’s dewy web.

Where shall I begin?  The burgher’s rich, leathery Sangiovese, or the light Beaujolais of girls in the springtime?  Ah, the sublime innocence, with just a touch of peppery insouciance!  I confess to a weakness for the unpresumptuous, even coarse, at times.  A cheap Zinfandel, just this side of plonk, fills the bill more often than I’d like to admit.

There was a certain lawyer, officious, but charming in his utter unawareness, a Malbec, precisely sour, and his lovely Shiraz of a wife.  I dream of her still.

Don’t get me wrong.  I have a profound appreciation for the refined as well.  How can I neglect the rich Barolo of the bishop, or the tawny Port of the late monseigneur, aged to perfection?  Yes, that was me, I’m afraid.  But look at the bright side, we have you, as a result.  I saw you walking to the confessional, with your springy step, that optimistic, wide open demeanor that refuses to be daunted.

I believe I fancy a nice Grenache, on such a fine, sunny afternoon.

Correspondence from the dawn of time

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Archaeologists have uncovered a stone slab with what appears to be the earliest correspondence ever.  The hypothesis is that the slab was exchanged with each new entry.  Here is a transcript.

Not the slab, but stone like it.

Not the slab, but stone like it.

Hi

Why do you give me this?

No reason.  Just Hi.

What you want?

Nothing, just friend.  What wrong with that?

Here a small circle has been carved, with a curved line in the lower half, and two dots in the upper.

What this shit?

It’s like face, smiling.

OK, haha.

BTW, I have plenty hides, for you, cheap.

Here are just random chips, odd symbols, in a pattern suggesting anger.  There appears to be the figure of a man, decapitated.  The rest of the slab is blank.

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Photo credit: http://www.newsgd.com/travel/routeofthemonth/200606080058_60340.jpg