If only this could have been prevented somehow

            “How did it come to this, my friends?” Captain Vespucci lamented. 

Floydyssey, Part 1 Maybe

            Floyd was the first to see the riders.

Feeling Groovy

            “I told you this was a bad idea,” Jill whispered to Joe as they gazed at the pandemonium before them.  “If we’re exposed here, no way we won’t cause a scene.”

Public Display of Affection

            “You seem surprised,” John said, putting an arm around Sandra.  “I told you I worked here, didn’t I?”

Guns, fatigues, and space cards

            “Wait,” Makoto said, his eyes wide with shock, “you mean you’re in your combat uniforms now?”

Poutine and B-negative

Everybody has had a bad day, often multiple bad days.  Some people have had miserable days.  But Julien could always take solace in his belief that he had already had the worst possible day.  Nothing he would face in the future would be as bad as that balmy Parisian evening where his head was chopped off.

Desert Truck

            “Shit, man,” Green Koopa Troopa groaned, squirming uncomfortably in the passenger seat of the eighteen-wheeler Red Koopa Troopa was driving.  “It’s too hot.  Where are the ice flowers?”

5, 15, 25

            “Put down the cat,” Anne screeched, clumsily flourishing her red cape.  “Amazing Anne is here to stop you, Mom!”

Kingdom Come

            Amanda DeSosa, unable to help herself, took a quick look around as she stood in front of the Victorian house at the corner of Sycamore and College.

First Day

            In Mark’s “bum years,” before he met Cassidy and she whipped him into shape, he had been something of an adrenaline junkie.

At least Carl got to be in space when this happened to him

            Nebulas and comets streaked by the Wilkerson’s bulky Sports Utility Craft as it clumsily lurched towards the Pizza Galaxy, but these wonders of the galaxy were entirely lost on the ship’s occupants.  Their attention was entirely focused on their pilot: Carl Wilkerson, normally an entirely ordinary, un-notable teenager.  Ten minutes into being the center of attention, Carl was of the firm belief that being notable was grossly overrated.

A Hard Day's Work

            “You know,” Frank said, waist-deep in colossal lizard shit, “they say that female monsters kill more folks than male monsters do.”

            Johnny, sweating up the hill of greenish waste in his bright-yellow, C.L.E.A.N hazmat suit, stopped in his tracks.  “What?” he said, hoping he hadn’t got spit into the radio communicator inside his helmet.

Second Stringer

            Vice-President Tom Wilson was largely a figurehead.  President Martinez had needed somebody from the northeast to balance the ticket, and then-Senator Wilson had managed to keep his dick in his pants longer than Governor Sullivan.  Better still, when Wilson did take his dick out of his pants, nobody took a picture of it.  So far, that had been his most significant contribution to both the Martinez campaign and subsequent administration.  So far, Martinez had kept in good enough health that Wilson hadn’t had to sub for him during some surgery or vacation.  Foreign relations were going smoothly enough that he didn’t need to be sent on a goodwill tour anywhere.  He hadn’t even needed to cast a tiebreaker vote; Martinez had such massive coattails that a quarter of the coalition could desert and the majority could still break anything short of a filibuster.  Wilson liked it that way.  Contrary to the People Magazine fluff piece about him, he wasn’t as much of a fan of public service as he was of the perks of the job.  The Naval Observatory had really fast internet, HBO, and a well-stocked fridge.  Since the inauguration, Wilson had been content to simply sit back and enjoy his status as “the spare,” as it were.

            Unfortunately, that had changed when Martinez left for the G7 conference, and the Secretary of Defense had practically dragged Wilson out to his limo, interrupting his Will Smith movie marathon.

Klash of Koopas

            The dinner in Level 8-4 was nothing like the barren ground surrounding Bowser’s Keep, burnt black by centuries of crushing heat and volcanic eruption. The meal was bountiful, and it was perfect: tanooki leaf salad, garnished with grated 1-UP mushroom, followed by cheep-cheep soup, with sweet donut lift crackers that sank into the salty broth if not quickly slurped up.  The third course, skewers of those squirrel guys from New Super Mario Bros Wii U with acorn dipping sauce, was an excellent palate cleanser for the heavier dishes that followed.  A fourth course of fire-flower roasted monty-mole, a fifth course of smoked reznor flank, so tender the juicy flesh would simply fall off of the bone if touched, a sixth course paella of the rabbit guys from Super Mario Galaxy, and finally a pie made from the fruits of Yoshi’s Story, was savory and heavy enough that it would have fed the entire population of the Koopa Kingdom for weeks.  The Koopalings, smaller replicas of their behemoth, turtle-esque father, gorged themselves, none giving a second thought to why they were summoned from their posts to World 8.

            None except for Morton Koopa Junior.

Fun at the races

Chartreuse Toad bit his lip, clutching the sides of his old, grimy table at The Mushroom Tip, one of the more disreputable pubs even in the Mushroom Kingdom’s red-spot district.  His face was the same shade of sickly yellow as the spots on his massive, white mushroom cap, as his beady black eyes were fixed on the bar’s lone TV screen.  Just about everyone in the building was, save the bartoad, preoccupied with wiping the bar with a dirty-brown rag.  But none of them had as much riding on the TV as Chartreuse Toad did.  Chartreuse Toad wasn’t sure of many things, but that was definitely one of them.

Gotta go fast!

            Learning how to drive really changes your perspective.  Things you’ve seen one way for decades you look at completely differently once you’ve spent some time sitting in a metal box, nervously looking at all the metal boxes speeding around next to you.  Before I learned how to drive, I was decidedly pro-pedestrian. 

I Swear Last Night I Actually Dreamed The Movie That’s Being Pitched

                Each second that goes by, each tiny “tick-tock” of the bright green Hulk wall-clock in Kevin Feige’s office, is conspicuous.  The president of Marvel Studios looks across his desk at Joss Whedon, who tries to mask his boredom by doodling spaceships on the paper he was going to take notes in.  He fails.

S.151

      "Coffee, sir," Jennifer said, handing a steaming mug to the tired, elderly man walking next to her.  His eyes smiled at her behind his glasses as he grabbed the mug and took a sip.  "Thank you, Jennifer," he said.  "Were they out of lemonade?"

      "No, but they won't make it for humans," Jennifer said.  "Besides," she looked around nervously, as though the Minority Leader and a horde of journalists would pop out at any second, "it's not...becoming of someone of your position to be seen drinking that, Mr. Senator."

First Post! Etcetera!

Well, well, well.  Look who we have here.  It takes a lot of guts to come to this place, and by "guts," I of course mean "lack of self-respect, fun activities, or basically anything else to do." Don't worry, though! There'll be plenty of fun to be had here! Check out all the crazy formatting options for entering comments! Bold? Italics? Underline? Center left and center? What is this, the Vatican?

The answer, of course, is no, because if this was the Vatican I probably would have critiqued the rich and gone off to feed poor people or something by now (here's another fun activity: try to guess how long that topical reference will make sense! Who knows, the next Pope Alexander VI could be any day...) Unfortunately, this is a simple, poorly-organized blog.  Don't worry, I'm not doing this out of the goodness of my heart like some communist shadow of God on Earth or anything.  As per usual, it looks like I was too smelly to get a job this summer, and assuming that remains the case, I figure having a vague responsibility to upload a story or anecdote a day to this thing will keep me busy.  In that sense, this blog is my baby.  Also in the sense that it will almost certainly smell like shit, eventually.  So until then, enjoy the ride!