Sequiturs

“tick…tock…tick…tock…t-t-tick…t-t-to-tock…t-t-ti-tick…to-t-to-t-tock…

… burn.”

Read this or I will throw my voice at you.

From out and about on the internet.

Colonary cuisine. I love how they magnanimously allow you to use it either as a side dish or a main dish.

Harmonic harm.

Spirit and Phoenix.

The Onion asks the tough questions.

Achewood is awesome. The old link was broken, so I’m reposting this. If you haven’t visited yet, you’re missing out.

This is an ok bit of satire I guess, but nothing to write home about. What’s really fun is reading it while listening to Romans 3 on CD. Here are some of the twisted sentences that might run through your head:

“You must accept my challenge, or be dishonored. I am using a human argument. Do not insult me by suggesting that we settle this matter with talk. If that were so, how could God judge the world?”

“Why not say, as we are being slanderously reported as saying, and as some claim that we say, ‘You may know little about knitting, but your knowledge of weapons is formidable.’ The katana has a history dating back to the Samurai. Their condemnation is deserved.”

“What will it be, then? Rapiers? Crossbows? Bo staffs? They have together become worthless. Their throats are open graves and their feet are swift to shed blood. Every time I fashion a scarf, I will imagine using it to hang you by the tallest tree in Harpville. As I wield the needle to fashion a new garment, so will I wield my blade to tear your flesh. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Where then is boasting? It is excluded. I assure you, I will not give you the opportunity to die by your own hand. Rather, you will die by mine, while you are still uncircumcised.”

God, thank you for having a sense of humor. I don’t mean this to be disrespectful, but it made me laugh when I thought of it.

Here’s a creepy little game a friend and I conjured up last year when we were bored for a few hours. Note to world: it’s best to keep us busy.

Dear friends, comrades and other redundant types of associates:

I am writing today to inform you of a revolutionary entertainment product coming soon to a community near or far away from you. Our product is both life-altering and life-shortening, and I want to encourage you to get in on the ground floor before anything messy is ground into it. Our product is a new sport, and that sport is rollerpuppy.

For centuries on end our ancestors have enjoyed the venerable sports of rollerblading and dogsledding. Like you they may well have wondered, is there some way to combine these two sports in a shining monument to reckless sport combining? And will it involve shooting puppies with tranquilizers? Those are terrible questions, but unfortunately our ancestors passed away before they could be smacked for allegedly asking them. Time was on our side, however, and those centuries on end have finally rolled over in symbolic endorsement of rolling and, by extension, rollerpuppy.

Here is how rollerpuppy works:

Each competing team is comprised of two contestants, fifteen sleeping puppies, one United Nations animal rights observer, a wheelbarrow, one pair of roller skates, and two hypodermic needle guns filled with set amounts of adrenaline and sedatives respectively. The puppies, still sleeping, are harnessed to rollerscates on the feet of the first player in such a way that they run along evenly spaced radial lines from the back of the wheelbarrow. The second player sits in the wheelbarrow with needle guns ready. Before the game begins, in a ceremonial gesture of mutual goodwill, the two teams join together to put the animal rights observer to sleep while singing the national anthem. With so many sedatives lying around, it seems only natural to induce sleep with a multitude of very tiny rubber mallets.

The two teams will race a predetermined distance over some formidable terrain with lots of twists and turns. To begin the race, each team’s wheelbarrowman should fire one needle of adrenaline into each puppy. This will cause the puppies to run, pulling forward the rollerskater, who will in turn push the wheelbarrow. In this way the team can move forward in a straight line. To turn, it will be necessary to either slow down or speed up the puppies on one side or the other of the formation. For example, to turn right, the wheelbarrowman can either fire sedatives into the puppies on the left, causing them to slow down, or adrenaline into the puppies on the right, causing them to run more swiftly. To stop turning he will have to use a proportionate amount of sedative or adrenaline on the other side. The wheelbarrowman must exercise care to avoid over-sedating any of the puppies, which could cause them to be crushed under the wheelbarrow. He must be equally careful not to overdo the stimulants, lest the puppy suffer a heart attack and become deadweight.

In addition to destruction and anguish, rollerpuppy is a game of pain and bloodshed. But there’s more to it than just misery and mayhem; there is also lifelong heartbreak and remorse. In particular, there is the remorse you’ll feel after employing any of the many cunning tactics available to the rollerpuppyer. Surely you would regret trying to sedate puppies on opposing teams to gain an unfair advantage. But you must always be on the lookout for traps laid by an opponent trying to seize your regret for himself. Such is the timeless strategy of rollerpuppy.

As many teams as like may compete simultaneously. They say the more the merrier, and you’ll need plenty of merriment to make incarceration seem worth it. Please join me by promoting rollerpuppy in your community. It may not be a noble cause, but it is a fake one.

When I mention to people that I was homeschooled, they usually ask whether I liked it and whether I would consider homeschooling my own children. I tell them that I liked it a lot and would strongly consider it, although every family is different and lives in a different situation. Frequently, in response, the first thing I hear is: “doesn’t homeschooling stunt a kid’s social development?”

I usually manage not to laugh too loud. Yes, Mr. Tact, it does. As a product of homeschooling, I’m doomed to an emotionally empty life of stumbling from faux pas to awkward silence and back again endlessly. Why, just this morning I accidentally implied that a new acquaintance was socially stunted due to a bad upbringing. Can you imagine how embarrassing it is to let such words slip across one’s tongue? Sticks and stones are nothing next to how my own words can hurt me. If only I’d been sent to a public school like yours, I’d have had someone to interact with when I was young besides my parents, my siblings, my neighbors, my church, the kids on my baseball and swimming teams, books, movies, Paul Harvey, television, museums, the internet, town fairs, science fairs, professional storytellers hired by the local homeschooler’s association, and the occasional ASL interpretor who used to travel the country with my Dad.

Yep, I think even one recess bully might have done the trick and spared me all this misery.

Just think, I could have been a real boy…

“tick…tock…tick…tock… … …tock.”