Author Archives: Rob MacD

Copper Acropolis – Chapter 3

Here’s Chapter 1 and Chapter 2
And this is Chapter 3…

3

‘A Dwindled
List’

             “What do you
mean, ‘too dangerous’?  Over.”

            Doctor
Lucille Dewar was in her laboratory, in the dome above the third floor of her
home.  She was in the middle of
concocting a polish that would quickly and easily remove the tarnish off the
abundant copper accoutrements that adorned the house.  This was one of the many last minute tasks
that had to get done and she didn’t have time for any foolish claims of danger.

            The intercom
buzzed and squawked as Yune’s voice filled the dome.  “It is getting very dangerous.  Constable Maubery has just found all the —“

            Lucille
pressed the talk button before Yune had finished speaking, and a high pitched
whine intermingled with the rest of the noise. 
It took Yune a moment to realise what the noise meant, that the doctor
did not want to hear his news.  He
stopped speaking and released the talk button on the intercom in the first
floor bathroom.  The doctor’s voice
immediately replaced the high tone.  “—
is what I think of your Constable Maubery. 
Now, hurry yourself up here.  And
bring a wire brush.”  The intercom
squawked to silence.  Then it buzzed alive,
said  “Over,” and again squawked to
silence.

 

            After a test
scrubbing of a copper bowl, it was found that the copper tarnish remover
concoction wasn’t working nearly as well as Doctor Dewar has originally
planned, or as Yune Mune had hoped. 
While Lucille quickly got over the partial failure and moved on to the
next task on her To Do list, Yune was left with a bucket of the sludge, a wire
brush, a house exterior covered with greened copper, and only one day to finish
the job.  When he told the doctor that it
would be impossible for him to clean all the copper in one day, and asked if he
could hire some helpers, she snapped at him. 
“Don’t you dare bring outsiders into this house of renaissance.  If it’s impossible to clean the whole of the
copper, as you claim, then could you at least manage to do the dome, and the
shutters on the north face of the house where the lightning rod is
attached?  We can leave the gables green,
I suppose.”

            Yune Mune
bowed and said that could be managed, and that he would get underway
immediately.

            “No,” yelled
Doctor Dewar.  “Before you begin that, we
must make preparations for the final stage of the experiment.  The moon will be at its fullest, two nights
hence, and I am prognosticating inclemency in the meteorological sphere at that
time.  We must be ready.”

            “What else
needs to be done,” asked Yune, looking around the room where the experiment
would take place, “other than rubbing the tarnish and shit off the roof?”

            The doctor
slammed her notation book down onto the hard, wooden floor of the dome.  “Language!” she screamed.  “Watch the language!”

            Yune ran
over and picked up the book.  “I
apologise,” he said, handing her the book. 
“I must be getting caught up in the excitement of the impending
experiment, and have misplaced my manners.”

            “Apology
accepted,” said the doctor.  “And, I,
too, must apologise to you for losing my temper.  There are many factors involved in the
success of this experiment, some which I will have no control over.  I hope you will forgive me if I seem a little
on edge when the culmination of all my years of work and experimentation is so
close at hand, and there are so many things that could go wrong.”

            “Nothing
will go wrong,” said Yune, reassuringly. He bowed deeply to his employer.  “What is it you need of me?”

            Doctor Dewar
looked at Yune.  “I need you to get me
another girl.”

            Yune could
not keep the sigh from coming out.  It
was exactly the order he was fearing most. 
He knew, as the doctor had explained over and over to him, that,
morally, murder in a circumstance such as this was justifiable because of the
greater good which would come as a result. 
However, he wasn’t so sure that others would see their point of view on
the matter.  And now that the crimes had
become officially designated as murder, although for months most people in the
area already believed the girls were murdered but never dared to say so, the
people in the community would be out for blood and justice, and in that order.

Constable Maubery had already questioned him when the
first two girls went missing; not because the Constable thought Yune had
anything to do with them, but because the community demanded it.  Speculation around Afton Road was that if a person was
capable of raping a rich woman, as Yune was once suspected of nearly doing,
then kidnapping teenage girls was also within his realm of capabilities.  Yune Mune, of course, had an airtight alibi
in that he was in Doctor Dewar’s company during the periods of time when the
girls went missing.

            “We really
need another girl?” asked Yune.  “I was
under the impression that the Schprengel girl would have the sufficient
components to enable you to complete your work?”

            “That last
one was a fine specimen, physically.  I
replaced her breasts, which were perfect, for the ones I had planned to use
from girl number two. I also took her thighs, one of her hands, her lips, nose
and her left eye.  Of course, I planned
to, and will, use her heart, as well as some other lesser internal organs which
I won’t bore you with.  I had planned to
use her brain as well, but upon examining it, I discovered that the areas which
control the animal urges such as hunger and sex had been damaged.  Therefore her brain was less than perfect and
as such, unusable. So, I’ll need another girl so I can use her brain.  Try to find someone smart, if you can.”

            “I am afraid
the number of young women from which to choose has dwindled to a jejune few,”
said Yune.  “There is the cross-eyed Shaw
girl, thirteen-“

            “Too young,”
declared the doctor, dismissing her as a choice by a wave of her hand.  “Too immature.”

            “Stacey
Johnson is the right age,” said Yune, “but she is retarded.”

            “Don’t waste
my time.”

            “Emily
Fitzpatrick is available, but she is not pretty,” said Yune.

“Emily Fitzpatrick,” said the doctor, “is far worse
off than merely ‘not pretty’.  She looks
like she was hit by a train.”

The train.  Yune
suddenly remembered Josie Maddox, and quickly glanced at his watch.  “Drat! 
If only I had known your desire for another girl earlier,” said Yune.

            “Why?”

            “Because Josie
Maddox fits your requirements,” stated Yune, ”but her father had her leave
Afton Road for the safety of the mainland. 
She just left today at 5:15
from Mount Stewart.”

            Doctor
Lucille Dewar looked at her pocket watch. 
“It is now only five o’clock.  She will still be there.  You can grab her if you’re quick.”

Yune looked at his own watch and cursed himself for
again forgetting to wind it.  “If we can
get her it will be perfect,” said Yune, “because no one will know she is
missing until after your experiment is complete.  Then, when they see the wonderful being you
will have created, no one will mind another missing, dead teenager.”

            “Go and get
that girl,” said Lucille, as Yune trundled down the steps from the
Observatory.  “And her brain!” she
screamed after him.

——————————-

Next time – Chapter 4 – “5:15 to the Mainland”

Copper Acropolis – Chapter 2

Check out Chapter One, here

2

‘Guy’s Art’s Pristle’s Missing’

 The Afton Road General Store was a fairly typical general store in that it had a porch, a squeaky screen door and all manner of supplies.  The owners, Mr. And Mrs. Abercrombie Dunsford, were nice, gentle folk; well liked by the community.  The Afton Road General Store had, like all general stores generally do, all kinds of regulars who hung around all day, playing checkers, shooting the breeze, spitting tobacco, and minding everybody’s business.  The Afton Road regular regulars were Guy Maddox and Art Schprengel.  On this particular day, however, Art Schprengel  was not in the store, and, therefore, Guy had to play checkers by himself, guessing as to what moves Art would have made, if Art had been there.  Guy was up three games to two, and about to win his fourth, when Yune Mune came into the General Store for his weekly pickup of supplies.

            “Well, well, well,” said Guy, noticing the petite foreign man.  “If it isn’t Yooooooon.  How ya doin’, ya yellow fornicator!”  Almost everybody in the area teased Yune mercilessly, either about his ethnicity, or his supposititously nefarious dalliance, or both.  But Yune always seemed not to notice, and simply smiled politely, and went about his business, or, rather, Doctor Lucille Dewar’s business, with the dignity and grace his upbringing gave him.

            “I’m well, thank you, Mr. Maddox,” said Yune, bowing deeply.  “Where, may I ask, is your check mate, Mr. Schprengel?  It is strange to see such Siamese twins as you and he separated.”

            “No, you mayn’t ask!” snorted Guy, returning his focus to the game of checkers.  “And who you calling Siamese?  You’re the dumb foreigner, remember?”  Guy hopped his red checker over two of the blacks, and swiped them off the board, laughing at Art’s careless move.

            Yune bowed again.  “Very good day to you, sir.”   He then turned his attention to Mrs. Abercrombie Dunsford, who was standing behind the counter.  “Good morning, Sarah,” he said, smiling broadly.  “Is the order ready?”  Yune was one of the few men who called her by her first name, and she liked him for that.  Even Abe called her ‘the missus’ or some other such objectifying phrase with ‘the’ in front of it.  But Yune was nice to her, and he had class and odd good looks.  And she was willing to overlook his seedy reputation, even if it sometimes caused her to imagine him doing and saying unseemly things to her in the stock room when Abercrombie was away fishing or drinking with the men.

            “Hello, Yune.  It’s right here.  I packed everything myself. I’m afraid, however,” said Sarah, as she lifted two boxes of groceries and sundries onto the counter, “that I wasn’t able to find that item on your list.  Ginsing, or however you pronounce it.  But, my cousin Myrtle is coming down from Toronto in two days and I phoned her and she’s gonna look for some and bring it. I’ll drop it up to you if she gets some.  Ginsing? It’s a root, is it?”

            “Yes.  Gin Seng. For medicinal purposes.  But, please, do not deliver.  That is not necessary.”

            “Gin Sing?  I bet it’s a medicine,”  yelled Guy.  “My father took a medicine called whiskey-shine every night and beat the living tar out of all of us.  I bet you had a stomach full of that medicine the night you grabbed that lawyer’s wife and went for an egg roll in the hay!”  Guy Maddox laughed loudly at his joke, then went back to playing checkers.

 “Don’t mind Guy, there,” said Sarah.  “When his Art’s not around, he feels it’s his duty to be twice as cranky and mean to people coming in.”

            “Where is his Art?” asked Yune.

            “Didn’t you hear?” whispered Sarah, putting the final box marked Copper Acropolis on the counter and then leaning over it, in spite of the fact that such an uncompromising position might put her in jeopardy, by exposing the upper parts of her bosom, considering who she was talking to.  She leaned over a little further and whispered. “Art’s daughter, Pristle, didn’t come home since Wednesday.”

            “The little tramp’s probably just shacked up somewhere with that horny teacher,” yelled Guy.

Sarah ignored Guy’s comment and continued the whispering.  “Three days.  Art’s over at his house, hoping to hear some news.  Constable Mauberly says he might be on to something.”

            “No, I did not hear such horrific news,” said Yune.  “That is such a shame.  She was not that old a girl.”

            Sarah shook her head.  “Sixteen, and there’s no need to be talking in past tense.  She’s not been found dead.  Not yet. None of them have.”  Mrs. Dunsford shook her head.  “Imagine, now four teenage girls from this area have gone missing, all in the last year.  I dare say all our girls have disappeared before our eyes”.

            “Well, I guarantee those bastards’ll never get my Josie,” snarled Guy.  “She’s practically the only girl that age left around the Afton Road, and I’m making sure she stays that way.  And if they ever do lay their mitts on  her, I’ll catch them and I’ll rip their flippin’ eyes out and then stuff them in their chests so they can see from the inside my knife cuttin’ out their hearts.”

            “That’s right,” said Mrs. Abercrombie Dunsford, ignoring Guy’s graphic images, “you’re sending your Josie off to the mainland until this horror stops, aren’t you, Guy?  That’s a smart move, considering.”

            “Damn straight it’s smart.  I can’t be too safe when it comes to Josie, my little sweetie pie.  All the young men in the area’ll be after her once this is all through and the kidnappers get caught.  She’ll be able to have the pick of the litterbugs.  But until then she’s going to her Aunt Rachel’s.  She’s leaving tonight on the 5:15 train.”

            Mrs. Dunsford sighed and shook her head.  “Well, it’s just awful that such drastic measures like that need to be done.  I just hope they catch whoever’s doing this so we can all get back to our normal lives.”

            Yune signed the receipt for the goods.  “Do not worry, Sarah. I am sure those girls will come back in better shape than when they left.  The police will figure it out and everything will be pieced together.  They are not dummies.”

            Just then, young Cecil McNeill burst in through the squeaky screen door of the general store.

            “Heaven’s alive, Cecil,” screamed Mrs. Dunsford, “what’s all the hubbub and stir for you to be running in here like that?”

            “That cheap father of his finally gave him a nickel’s allowance and he’s come here to spend it on licorice,” said Guy Maddox, laughing.

            “They just found them,” panted Cecil, between breaths.

            “Found who?” asked Guy, looking up from the checker board.

            “All of them,” replied Cecil.  “The girls.  All of them.”

            “My God!” screamed Mrs. Dunsford.  “Where?”

            Cecil bent over and put his hands on his knees, trying to get enough air.

            “Where?” asked Guy, now standing up behind the checker board.

            “Way down the road—by a shack, in Fullerton’s Marsh,” said Cecil.  “Can I have a Coca Cola, Mrs. Dunsford?  I ran all the way from Art Schprengel’s house.  They left clues all along the road that led Constable Mauberly right to the marsh.”

            “By Fullerton’s Marsh?” asked Guy.  “What were they doing down there, by Fullerton’s Marsh?”

            “No,” said Cecil, heading to the ice machine, “in Fullerton’s Marsh.  They were found next to an old abandoned smelt shack in the marsh. They’re dead.”

            “The police found all of them?” asked Yune Mune.

Young Cecil McNeill gulped up some more air and then breathed it out.  “Pieces of all of them,” he said.  “Constable Maubery said Pristle Schprengel’s heart’s been ripped clear out of her chest!  And there ain’t no sign of it, neither.”

“Sweet Jesus,” said Guy, sitting back down in his chair.  Then all at once, he jumped up, knocking over the checker board.  “Where’s my Josie?” he cried, and ran out the door.

Mrs. Dunsford crossed herself and closed her eyes.  “Those poor girls.  They’ll live on in our memories.”

            Yune Mune nodded his silent agreement.

—————–

Up next – Chapter Three!

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Copper Acropolis – Chapter One

Ten years ago, I spent a winter writing some short stories, based on the pervasiveness of the Anne of Green Gables culture of the Island.
Over the holidays, as I was transferring files from an old dying computer, to a newer computer, I came across the folder of stories and started reading some of them.  One was kind of a comedic horror story called Copper Acropolis.  It has some funny elements to it, and some of the writing is kinda good, so I thought I’d serialize it here on The Annekenstein Monster.  Keep in mind, though, that it hasn’t met an editor, so please, treat it with kindness.
Copper Acropolis is kind of a cross between Anne of Green Gables and Frankenstein.  Annekenstein itself, of course, was also the same amalgam of themes.  Anyway, read it or not, here is the first chapter (of 10). 

Chapter One:
‘Tarnished Homes and Egg Rolls’

                                  The old mansion stood atop one of the steeper hills in the community of Afton Road, overlooking the sinewy end of the East River tributary that flowed from the Hillsborough Bay.  A blood red dirt drive, its connection to Route 2 hidden amidst a heavy growth of scrub brush, peristaltically wound its way up the hill, through an overgrown grove of dying willow trees, breaking into an open field of grass that surrounded the large, ivory-white edifice.

The mansion was a three and a half story building; the top half story being composed of a large dome, which some of the older people around Afton Road claimed at one time housed an observatory.  A number of Greek columns supported the expansive veranda that occupied the whole width of the front of the house. Above the large, wooden double front doors, ‘Copper Acropolis’ was engraved into the sandstone; the engraving now as faded and worn as the rest of the stone of the house.

Large blocks of red Island sandstone were used as a facade around the house.  At some point in its life, the structure was bathed in a heavy coat of whitewash paint.  Due to the heavy, hard rains of countless springs, and the wind and snows of years of harsh Island winters, the whitewash had faded off the red stone in such a way that gave the impression, to those who saw the house from Route 2, that the building was bleeding.

Other than the blood-dripping red and bird-turd white of the faded whitewash stone, the only other colour to be seen on the outside of the mansion was the tarnished green of the window shutters, gables, and the many buttresses of the observation dome.  These adornments were all made of pure copper, and, when first installed on the house, how many years ago, no doubt would have been striking in their burnished copper lustre.  Now, through years of neglect, they looked dirty.  Thick green tarnished residue, along with the faecal droppings of generations of crows and other birds, had built up on the shutters, gables and dome over the years of negligence.  This, along with the blood-dripping walls, its isolation high atop that steep hill, and the fact that no one lived in it for years, gave the mansion an ominous and mysterious reputation.  No one now living in the community knew precisely how long it stood there, or whom had it built, but those of them who studied such things claimed that based on the style of its architecture, it was likely built in the first half of the 19th century.

Many in and around Afton Road believed it to be haunted.

 

            Doctor Lucille Dewar was the present owner of Copper Acropolis.  Born on Prince Edward Island, Lucille, at the age of five, lost both her loving parents. They, Lucille and her parents, were spectators of an afternoon card of horse-racing at the Charlottetown Driving Park during Old Home Week, when a competing horse went mad just as they were rounding the six-eighths’ pole for home in Race Three and jumped the fence.  The horse, sulky, and jockey all landed squarely on Lucille’s parents, killing them and the jockey.  The horse was later shot.  Lucille was given the opportunity to pull the triggers on the double-barrelled shotgun, but had declined to do so.

Lucille escaped death that day because at the time of the accident, she was off buying an ice cream, a rare treat for a country girl.  She had escaped death, but over the next fifteen years wished many times that she had died that day with her parents.  For on that day her life turned upside down.  From her birth, right up to the untimely end of the infamous Race Three at the CDP, Lucille had been a happy, intelligent, and well-mannered child.  After that day, however, love and joy left Lucille’s heart.  She was forced to live with her relatives, none of whom she cared for, nor whom cared for her, and who would often only take her for a short while before shuttling her off to the next furthest out relative.  Eventually, at the age of eleven, the list of relatives ran out and she was placed in the Mount Herbert Children’s Orphanage.

Despite the hardship and uncertainty of her life, she managed to excel in each and every public school at which she was enrolled, and also at the orphanage school. Lucille Dewar was a genius.  She was sure of it.    When she was twelve, and not trusting the Island’s teachers or doctors to test her adequately, she devised her own test to find her Intelligence Quotient.  She scored very high.  She knew that with her keen intellect and burning desire for knowledge, she was bound for greatness.  And it was this belief that kept her spirit alive.

But where her education flourished, her social life died.  Because of her high intelligence, and her being new to each school every year, sometimes twice a year, she was hated by her class mates and became a social outcast.  As soon as she came of age, she kept promising herself, as boys pulled her hair or called her names, she would move away, off the Island, to pursue her higher education.  She came to hate Prince Edward Island and its intolerably ignorant and mean-spirited children.

When she finally did become legal, she had briefly considered moving to Charlottetown to live, but feeling that the small Prince of Wales College there could not offer her the quality of instruction that her knowledge-absorbing brain required, ended up deciding to make a clean break from the Island.

After a twenty-six year absence, she returned to P.E.I., unmarried, now a doctor and very wealthy. One of the Island newspapers reported the ‘Prodigal Island Girl Returns Home A Millionaire Doctor’ and an interest in her began to grow.  Her sudden return to the Island; her unexplained, more-than-you-could-make-as-a-doctor wealth; her spinsterish, and frugal lifestyle; her use of strange, big words made her an enigmatic celebrity on the Island.  When asked what areas of study she had pursued away, or, how she, an unmarried woman, came upon such a fortune, she remained imperspicuous. 

Years of social outcasting had, seemingly, evaporated any skills she may have had to handle the sudden popularity.  The more questions people asked of her, the less she told.  And the less she told, the more people wanted to know about her.  She wasn’t impolite in her silence, and sometimes seemed to enjoy the attention she received wherever she would go.  Soon it became an Island obsession to speculate on the mystery that was Doctor Lucille Dewar.

And when she, against the advice of everyone but the real estate agent, (there were even letters to the editors of the papers advising her against it), went and bought the dilapidated old mansion with the strange name of ‘Copper Acropolis’ and became a total recluse, the obsession grew to the height of its fever.  But like all fevers, once this one reached its height, it quickly fell, and the mania surrounding the mysterious and eremitic Doctor Dewar eventually died, and everyone left her alone in her big house to do whatever it was that she did.  Even the speculation as to what she did in that big house gradually ended.

After that, the only time her name even came up in the newspaper was when she hired, as a manservant and chauffeur, the Charlottetown Chinese restaurateur named Yune Mune.   Yune came under her employ approximately three years after the ‘fever’ broke, about four years after her initial return to the Isle. 

Yune, a handsome, classy gentleman, had owned The Blue Mune, the first Chinese restaurant in Charlottetown.  When the local newspapers disclosed that he was being investigated for allegedly caressing and speaking indecencies to a rich, married, and well respected female patron, he, despite his claims that the indecencies and caresses were mutually entertained and embarked upon, was, due to public outrage, forced to close down his previously successful enterprise.

Dr. Dewar wrote him a letter offering employment.  He accepted, quickly sold his property for a ridiculously small amount and moved into Copper Acropolis.  Two months later, a page six article in the newspaper cleared him of any wrongdoing after the rich, married, and well respected female patron dropped her charge, was divorced from her husband and moved to the Yukon with a black lumberjack out of Halifax.  At this point, hardly anyone saw, or cared that they did or didn’t see Doctor Lucille Dewar.  Occasionally she would be seen, with Yune Mune driving about the countryside.  She almost never emerged from the mansion.  Yune Mune was her link to the community of Afton Road, and to the world.  She was forgotten.

————-
Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter of Copper Acropolis, right here on The Annekenstein Monster!

The Beatles – I Saw Her Standing There

Can’t put up a video of favourite groups without offering one from my all-time favourite group, The Beatles.  Here are those mop-tops performing I Saw Her Standing There

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XTC – Making Plans For Nigel

One of my all-time favourite bands is XTC.  Without question.  So, when I set about trying to learn (and discover how easy it is) to embed video within these posts, I naturally selected one of my favourite songs from them to experiment with.  This video is *very* 80s.

Joe Sherman

I didn’t know Joe Sherman well, but well enough to stop and talk to him occasionally when we’d meet on the street or at a bookstore.  When we stopped, we’d usually talk about movies or the local theatre scene.  I often was a bit intimidated talking to Joe, as it seemed obvious that his thinking was on a different plain than mine.  As his Buzz articles no doubt
indicate, Joe Sherman loved words and enjoyed using them in his
writing, poetry and everyday conversations.   As such, it was always entertaining to talk with him.
 Joe, as have been so many others over time, was kind enough to offer the occasional idea for a sketch for whatever group I was in at the time.  The only one I really remember, and only because he offered it to me a couple of times, was a parody musical of Guys and Dolls.  He called it Buoys and Gulls.

Joe, over the last while, has been battling cancer.  Today, he succumbed.
My condolences go out to everyone who is affected by his passing.

Pigskin Pick’em Oinkers

Ugh.
In an earlier post, I mentioned how I was having trouble picking which NFL teams would win this weekend, and how I had, earlier in the week, made my selections but then changed 3 of the 4 of them.
Well, my earlier picks were:

Washington over Tampa Bay by more than 2 1/2 points
New England over Jacksonville by more than 7 1/2 points
NY Giants over Carolina by more than 2 1/2
Pittsburgh over Cincinatti by more than 2 1/2 points.

If I had kept them, I’d have been 3 out of 4.
But I switched them.  To this:
Washington over Tampa Bay, beating the spread (I was pretty sure the underdog Redskins were gonna win this game.  Because my brother is a fan.)
New England over Jacksonville (I thought NE would win, but I didn’t think they’d win by more than a touchdown, so I changed my pick on this one.  I lost to the spread.
New York over Carolina (I thought Eli Manning would play a good game.  And I underestimated the Panthers)
Bengals over Pittsburgh (I shoulda stuck with Pittsburgh.  But I lost.)

Anyway, the Washington/Tampa Bay game was fantastic.  The New England game (I really hate NE) looked like it could go either way (neither offense came to play, it seemed) until the third quarter when either the Patriots elevated their game or the Buccaneers gave up on their’s), when it became a blowout.
Didn’t watch much of the Giants/Panthers game, but didn’t look like it was really close.  Same for the Pittsburgh (shoulda stuck with Pittsburgh) game.

Results in a 1 and 3 weekend for me.  So, I’m likely down to second place now, in the Pick’em pool.
Next weekend’s games look like they’ll be fantastic.

Football Playoffs, Round One

I made my picks for this weekend’s four NFL playoff games pretty early in the week.  Ever since, I’ve been vacillating quite a bit.  Just a couple of minutes ago, I switched three of my four picks.  In other words, I have no idea who’s going to win their games.
With only 11 games left to pick in The Annekenstein Monster NFL football pool, I am one game ahead of reverseflash for the title.  So, obviously, every pick matters.

As uncertain as I am, I have decided to live and die with the current picks I’ve made.

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Boom Goes The Dynamite, Part Two

Over the past couple of years of writing sketches for Sketch22, especially since Ryan came on board as our technical wizard, one idea has popped up a couple of times.  At first, it was merely one of those “it’ll never happen, but wouldn’t it be cool” type things, and then discarded and forgotten about for a year or so.
The next time it was brought up, it wasn’t quite so quickly discarded.  We actually took a couple of minutes out of a post-show eggroll scarph to talk about logistics.  Once it was discussed, however, the idea once again put into the cupboard of things we’ll never do.
Yet, it seems to have burrowed deep into my mind, and I find myself, more and more, wanting this idea to come to fruition.  In fact, it’s become something that has to happen.  I’m to the point where I now find myself trying to come up with sketch ideas in which this singular idea would fit.
The idea:  Blow Up A Car.
And video-tape it.
For a sketch.

Having it in my brain for the past couple of months, I really want it to happen.  I want to blow up a car.  For the sake of comedy, of course.  And science.

Here’s what we have so far:
-We think we know of a location where we could most likely blow up a car safely.
-We have Ryan, who I assume knows enough about such things as to actually get it accomplished.
– All our limbs.

Here’s what we don’t have so far:
-A car to blow up.
-A valid reason to do it.

See, in terms of “what we have’s” and “what we don’t have’s”, we’re 3-2 in favour of moving forward on this project.  It must be done.

This is where you come in, dear readers.  We’ll take care of the “valid reason”.  We’ll write a video sketch that requires a car to be blown up in it.  There, that’s done.
Now, what we need from one of you is a car to blow up.  Obviously, we don’t want to blow up your new car, but if you have an old beater hanging around your front lawn, why not donate it to the cause?

Yeah!  Let’s get this done!  Let’s blow up a car!  For the sake of comedic art!  Yeah!

Don’t Know About The Music, But The CD Sucks!

Who would honestly think this is a good thing?  It’s absolutely ridiculous, if you ask me.  By taking these measures “in order for you to enjoy a high quality music experience”, they are surely alienting the very people they should be grateful to: the law-abiding CD purchaser.  Thanks for legally purchasing this music.  As a thanks, we are making this CD frustratingly restrictive.
The following is an insert of rules that is found in the latest CD from Coldplay.  
Is this the very definition of Unmitigated Gall?

THIS CD IS A COPY PROTECTED CD

Thank you very much for purchasing this CD and helping the cause of “Anti-Piracy”.  The recordings in this CD have an anti-copying function.  They cannot be copied into a PC.  In order for you to enjoy high quality music, we have added this special technology.
Before using, please first read the following:
USAGE GUIDELINES:
This CD cannot be burnt onto a CD-R or hard disk, nor can it be converted into MP3 for file sharing.
This CD has been manufactured for usage in regular CD players, but might not play in the following players:

  • Some CD players that have the capability of burning into an MP3 (such as portable players or car stereos)
  • Some CD players that possess CD-R/RW functions (such as portable players or car stereos)
  • Some car stereos with satellite “Guidance” systems
  • Some CD players or car stereos with hard disk recording capability
  • Some CD-R/RW Recorders used for music
  • Some portable CD players
  • Some DVD players
  • Some CD/LD Convertible Players
  • Some Game Players

Although you can use your PC’s Windows program to listen to certain tracks, this does not meant that the CD can be played in all PCs.

  • The first time that this program is used (in Windows automatic starter software) it gets registered in Windows *File.  Thus, programs already registered do not affect Windows * operation
  • Windows OS also uses the latest files

This CD does not support Macintosh PC software

  • Except for manufacturing problems, we do not accept product exchange, return or refund.

Basically, it’s “Thanks for being honest.  Good luck with it, and we hope you have a CD player in which this CD works.  Whether you do or not, you cannot return this CD.  Thanks, again!”

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