All of Pharoah's Horses, And His Chariots...

Brevity must be a fairly new concept. I was mulling this over during the epic Easter Vigil Saturday night. The service was at least twice as long as your standard Sunday Mass, with seven readings as opposed to the usual two. Seven readings! It was like The Best of the Bible, featuring all your favorites from Genesis right through to Corinthians! But it wasn't the sheer number of readings, but the excessive repetitions in the readings themselves. In Exudus, when Moses parts the Red Sea, instead of simply saying "Pharoah's army," it's "Pharoah's horses and chariots and charioteers." By the time they get swept into the sea, you just feeling like...

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Hannibal Lector's Chili Cook Off

Joe's back today. No mention of dead cousins whatsoever. I wanted to ask about the service, but I think I'd rather just let him think he's smart. It makes me feel less guilty about all the stuff I've written about him online. I hope that brought some closure for you. If not, here's one of the best quotes ever, taken from a story I read in the paper this morning: "Then they had some kind of emotional reaction and vomited." It was a story about someone who found a human finger in their bowl of chili at a Wendy's in San Jose, CA. "This individual apparently did take a spoonful, did have a finger in their mouth and then, you know, spit it out and recognized it," said Ben Gale, director of the department of environmental health for Santa Clara County. "Then they had some kind of emotional reaction...

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Joe Rides Again

When I got to work this morning, a co-worker informed me that Joe would be out of the office for the next two days because his cousin died. He got a call after he got home from work last and he had to go to Vermont for the funeral. When asked, he said he didn't know the name of the funeral home; he was going to find out when he got there. I guess he and his cousin were pretty close, since he'd be taking two days off to grieve. Then, he told me this: last week, Joe told him that he might have to use a couple of vacation days this week to do something with his kids. He said he told Joe that he's using up a lot of vacation days early in the year, especially since he had to borrow two from this year to go to the Army/Navy football game last year. Joe started counting out the days he'd used and...

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Solid Gold!

You may remember last year I told you that my friend Nick is getting married on Spleen Day. Well, it's only a couple of weeks away now, which means I'm going to have to polish up the speech I'll be giving at the reception. And by polish up, I mean start. It has to be good, not only because Nick is my best friend, but it's the only thing I was required to do. Nick couldn't choose a best man, so he opted for four "better men," each with their own responsibility. I'm giving the speech, Jose is going to be standing at the altar for the ceremony, Wah-Kee arranged the bachelor party, and Chris...I'm not actually sure what Chris does. He's kind of...

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Get Thee to a Doctor

I just got back from Viga, which, according to the box they gave me, is an Italian eatery and caterer. I went there to get a slice of pizza and a soda, as I've done several times before without incident. But this time...this time was different. As I reached in with my left hand to pick up a can of soda, I felt a weird sensation in my wrist and looked down to see the bones in my thumb jump out of place under the skin. I don't know any other way to explain it. There was a big lump were the thumb meets the palm that shifted forward towards that fleshy area between the thumb and index finger, and it left a huge gap in my wrist. It got stuck that way for about thirty seconds, then sort of went back into place, but the gap remained. It wasn't pleasant. I called my mom, who said to go to the...

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Something Stupid This Way Comes

"Sometimes I do stupid stuff, and I don't even know why - as if my body were being controlled by some demented, sadistic puppet-master." - Bernard Bernoulli, Day of the Tentacle I've done some bone-headed things in my time. It usually starts with something small, that wouldn't seem so bad on it's own, but then things start snowballing out of control at an ever escalating pace. Last week, for example, I went out for a simple night at the movies with my friends. We saw Cursed, a craptacular piece of trash about werewolves that made me question my will to live. After the movie, Nick dropped me off at home. Before he left, he asked if I had my...

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Rebuttal

You there, pathetic whelps! You may not know it yet, but you are staring into the menacing eyes of your future...what? Amazo was already here? Well, that's just PERFECT. He's always doing this to me. So I guess you already know that I am in fact the Amazing Greato, sworn nemisis of the Great Amazo. But what you probably don't know is that we're brothers. Technically, my entire race are brothers. We don't reproduce the way you do. If someone thinks there should be another one of us, they just will it so. And if someone thinks there are too many of us, they just will one of us to die. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've been...

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The Napkin

Yesterday, Jose turned 27. It's not a particularly important age, just one more bump in the road until the big three-oh, when every event in your life is painstakingly scrutinized and it is determined whether or not you've done anything worthwhile in your life. Won't that be fun? But that's still a few years off, so today, let's take a look back to the last so-called meaningful birthday, the 21st. As depressing as it may be, 1999 was six years ago. Jose was coming off a somewhat nasty breakup with his girlfriend. Part, if not all, of which had to do with her tendency to find reasons to be jealous. Not only did she get mad when he so much as...

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And Now For Something Completely Different...

Behold! I am the Great Amazo! Behold! Did I say that already? No matter, it is worth beholding me twice, or perhaps even a third time, for my powers are that impressive. How impressive, you ask? Well, for starters, I'm an excellent speller. Observe. Pneumatic, P-N-E-U-M-A-T-I-C. See? That one was pretty tough. I mean, I've seen some people spell it wrong, like, they forget the "E" or something. Hmm...my well-tuned telepathic abilities tell me that you are not impressed. Well, consider this: I can bat over .400! That alone should be enough for you, but when you consider that I have no arms it becomes exponentially more impressive, eh? C'mon,...

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I Ain't Got Nothin' to Say To You

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