The Routine: A Short Story

A piercing cry cuts the still morning air, an organic alarm. It is time for The Routine. The man suddenly wakes and stares towards the sky. He hopes, prays, bargains for just a few more minutes of unconsciousness. Closing his eyes, the man tries to slip back into the blackness, away from reality.
Sharp jabs, like tiny needles, sink into his flesh. This is the first punishment, the first pain for delaying The Routine. The punishments will only become more insistent, more painful as he delays the inevitable. There's no point to waiting any longer. Relief will not be granted.

Reaching blindly into the dark, the man feels something brush against his flesh, startling him. Regaining his composure, he reaches out again until he feels the cold metal of his spectacles. Setting them on his face, they feel icy, only adding to the growing pain in the forehead. The man's eyes begin to focus, but still see nothing but the black.

Patrick Warburton Secretly Rules Disney World

Patrick Warburton is everywhere. This is a natural law of our universe. The amazingly talented and intimidatingly tall actor shows up in more movies and television shows than seems humanly possible. There's a good chance that, somewhere, there's footage of Warburton making a cameo appearance in a movie produced before he was born.

Disney World is not exempt from this universal truth. Patrick Warburton can be found all over the resort, in different times, places, and guises. In the past, he is Incan lunkhead Kronk from the Emperor's New Groove. Kronk hosts a painting tutorial at Hollywood Studio's Magic of Disney Animation.

Of Mice and Sleepy Men

Picture from The Commons on Flickr

Thursday mornings are usually like any other work morning for me. I stumble downstairs, plop down in front of the computer, and spend at least a half an hour convincing myself that I am actually conscious. This morning started as usual, with the only major difference being an elevated level of grogginess from actually sleeping past 7:00 am for the first time in months. Then, the tortilla chip bag that had somehow fallen to the floor began to move. At this point there were two possibilities: either the chips were possessed by the spirit of the Frito Bandito, or I had a mouse in the bag.
Since Nicole and I live near a lake, in the country, surrounded by forest and fields, mice have become a daily reality in our lives. Unfortunately, neither of us have the killer instinct to take care of the problem. I have a weird guilt complex that makes me utterly unable to kill even the smallest living creature, and Nicole isn't exactly a fan of inflicting brutal death either. Thus, our daily routine includes cleaning up after a few furry creatures that apparently can't be litter trained, and continuing to find ways to thwart them in a non-violent fashion. So far, the score in this war has been approximately: Mice 3830, People 0.

Tie Me Kangaroo Down

It's Friday, and the weekend beckons once again. According to something I heard recently, but I can't track down if it's true for the life of me, they've started to end the workday early on Fridays in Australia. It's becoming standard business etiquette, in some areas, not to call in the afternoon, as the office has already adjourned to the nearest pub. I think this is a respectable and decent practice that all American places of work should seriously consider. I mean, who really gets work done on a Friday? Oh, right, I am, but I think I'm the exception to the rule a lot of times.

Thus, not a lot of time for an entry today. No long winded reviews or rants about impending moves. Instead, just a simple song about a dying Australian. All together now, "Tie me kangaroo down, sport, tie me kangaroo down!"

------Gabe

The Mighty Boosh Makes My Day Bright

Today's blog post was short because I was busy producing the physical catalog for our latest auction. I manage to put them together in record time, but it pretty much wrecks any creative juices I have for a good period of time. When I feel tired and drained, I just need something silly to lift me back up again. Lately, that thing has been The Mighty Boosh.

It's a thoroughly bizarre British television show that makes little to no sense, even if it does have a plot line every episode. It's also apparently airing on Adult Swim now, though I prefer it in its original, unedited form. The series follows Vince and Howard, two lifelong friends of completely different outlooks on life, that somehow manage to continually encounter surreal, psychedelic adventures and not die in the process, all while never learning anything from it.

Sometimes the humor is downright twisted, but other moments are just pure, simple pleasure, like the "crimp" (short, A Capella song) above. Now I just need to find a bouncy castle to celebrate another project's (near) completion.

-------------Gabe