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Fair: This is kind of in weird tense,
since I wrote it for something else, but you get the drift.
Around where we lived, the yearly
carnivals were one of our main sources of entertainment. The same group,
Stewart Amusements, would come around to a few towns in our area every year,
staying for a few days in each place. And, of course, we’d go every night,
basically doing nothing, wasting money. But, we didn’t have anything better
to do, and we still managed to have a pretty good time. One time
my friend Jeff and I were walking around, rather aimlessly, as usual. “I
call going on that fire truck,” said Jeff, as we walked by a kiddy ride
laden assorted emergency vehicles. “And I call driving.”
I looked to the ride. “Dude, everyone on that ride is driving. There’re 9
fuckin' steering wheels.” There were, and we laughed all the way the fun
house.
After going in the fun house 3 or 4 times, we tried something new. We tried
to win goldfish. After 3 dollars, and 10 balls, each, we both ended up with
one fish, remarkably. I named mine Fishimus Prime, after the awesome Autobot,
Optimus Prime, and he named his Banana. After the fruit, I’d say. Anyways,
we were excited. I wouldn’t let Prime out of my hands, because the last time
I’d won one, Andrew shook the bag until it died, so I was rather
traumatized. I sat there, trying to speak fish, and I thought, Hey,
this’ll be great. I’m going to have this fish, Fishimus Prime, and I’m going
to take care of him, and this will be a really nice story for me to write
about.
Like I
said, I was excited. I was looking forward to taking pictures of him, and
perhaps dressing him up on Halloween, you know, all the usual pet stuff.
That’s when things started to go wrong.
I was so excited about his
name that I took a Sharpie out of my bag, which I carry around in case of
situations like this, and I wrote Fishimus Prime on the his bag in
big, bold letters. In usual “Seb Style” ™ I remembered that one time I wrote
on a water bottle, and the ink bled through and tainted the water. Combining
this with the knowledge that sniffing sharpies causes brain damage, I began
to get worried. I fiddled with the knot, struggling to untie it, to at least
get the guy some fresh air. After about 30 minutes of pinching, biting,
picking, and pulling, I got the thing open. He didn’t seem any more retarded
than when I got him, so I was satisfied.
We got back to my house a
short while later, so we put them in a big jar on my shelf, where the cats
couldn’t get them. Things were going good, until we realized that we didn’t
have any food. Desperate, I crumbled up a Goldfish and dropped it in. and
they seemed happy to eat its cheddar goodness.
So, I set up my bed
on the floor and went to sleep, and when I got up, things had gotten worse,
yet again. One of the fish was dead. For the purpose of maintaining my
sanity, Banana was the fish that died. Jeff was upset, but as far as I can
tell, his psyche remained intact. He was gone before I was fully
awake.
We still didn’t
have any food a few hours later, and my mom decided to leave Banana’s corpse
in their, because she heard that goldfish sometimes eat each other. I’d
already proven that the night before, so I agreed.
I talked to Prime a few times that day, trying to drop a few
hints about his destiny to free the Fishicon Transformers all over the
world, and I blasted the Transformers theme sporadically. We had a pretty
good time, I’d say. I couldn’t get any fish food, so we fed him some Sea
monkey growth food that I had left over from a few failed attempts at
raising an army of modified brine shrimp, and he seemed to like it.
I went out to the
carnival again that night, and when I came back, my mom told me that, just
after she came back from buying some fish food, he died. I was upset, and
I’d like to add some drama by saying that I cried or contemplated suicide,
but I can’t say that I did. I was sad, but we had some good times. Besides,
the way I look at it, he didn’t die; he just went back to Cybertron to fight
the Decepticons.
Sarcasm Inc and Critical Fault:
Again, I have no long drawn out story, at the moment, though I
hopefully will be in our next installment. But, at this time, I would like
to have a group nostalgia session with the long-time followers of this
humble internet abode. For those of you who can't already tell what I'm
talking about, this will be plenty of all-new, and hopefully amusing,
material. Sarcasm Inc and Critical Fault were my first two forays into the
world of Web-comicking, albeit using custom sprites. The first couple of
comics were basically making fun of Edan, and weren't that funny to those
not in the know, so I won't put those up. However, if you press previous or
first, you could access them, so it's up to you. I never really was that
proud of these, but I looked back at them a few weeks ago, and they managed
to bring me a few chuckles. Also, when I compare these to Sea Monkeys, I am
filled with a warm, fuzzy feeling. They can be found
here.
Yeehaw:
I have no grand tale to tell today, just a simple tale, an anecdote, if you
will. One time, when I was a small lad, I tried to ride my rocking horse
down the stairs. I had to go to the hospital. The End.
Hurricane Izzy:
So, while this storm is fresh on everyone's minds, I figured I'd share a few
related experiences. While I was in DC, essentially the center of where the
storm was supposed to hit, we watched a lot of the live news on the
hurricane. One of the main places I watched it was in the hotel cafe, which
was rather noisy, so the closed captioning was on. I was watching a report
from a reporter who was on top of one of the local new headquarters,
reporting on the wind conditions. Besides the fact the standing on top of a
10+ story building during 50 mph winds isn't the brightest activity, this
fellow seemed to be alright. However, the closed caption typist, I
am worried about. The reporter was being tossed around by the wind and
said, "The wind is acting very sporadically." However, the typist somehow
managed to understand that as "The wind is acting very Spore Yachtically."
First of all, yachtically isn't even a word. However, I know that
most of America is inhabited by Grade-A morons, so I must let this slide.
On Thursday, we spent the entire day
sequestered in the hotel meeting hall/dining hall, due to the storm. It was
a very friendly, personal, relaxed atmosphere, mostly revolving around
eating. We would eat, talk for a while, while eating, then take a break
until the next meal came, and then repeat. At one point, it was discovered
that it was someone's birthday. so, naturally, all 75+ of us began to sing.
However, halfway through the song, we noticed a minor missing detail. "Happy
Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear...." The room
was engulfed in utter silence as it dawned upon us that no one knew the name
of the song's recipient. Needless to say, it took us nearly till the next
meal to recover from our laughter and finish the song.
I have another very humorous tale, in
my opinion. However, this one took place at last year's rally. We're sitting
in this small, crowded room, hearing one highly emotional speech after
another, when suddenly it is announced that the Head of the NCCF trustees is
going to be saying a few words. "Please welcome...Dick Payne." I nearly
exploded. However, due to the nature of the meeting, and the emotional
atmosphere I was able to stifle my laughter. However, as more and more more
moronic puns ran around my mind, I found it more difficult by the second.
Unwisely, I shared them with my mother. Soon enough, we were bursting at the
seems with laughter. Not out loud, but giggling, for certain. Luckily, I
think everyone else was just as amused as us, so it was all good.
A Monopoly Economy: I remember when, in
an attempt to save some money, I attempted to purchase lunch with everyone's
favorite currency. The day before, I'd convinced Ricky to attempt the same
feat using chocolate coins, and, quite pleased with the results, decided to
take it a step further. So, the next day, I came equipped with my monopoly
money, Star Wars monopoly money in fact, and enlisted the help of Max. We
stroll into the "Cafe" and grab around 4 cup noodles each. We drop them on
the counter, and wait as the total is calculated. It comes to something like
13 dollars, so I take out my money. It takes the cashier a moment to notice,
but even then, I believe she was still to stunned to speak. I then put the
money on the counter, with quite a large tip-- around 655 credits. "Here you
g-" She cuts me off and shoves it back to me, disgusted, " Cut it
out!" I pull my trump card from my pocket, "Alright, I'll give you all that
and Park Place." We were summarily kicked out of the cafeteria in
between our bouts of hysterical laughter. |
