A Terrifying Tale for Halloween.

Hey peeps. I'm not gonna be around the blogosphere next week. Stupid adulthood and its attendant responsibilities. So if I don't comment on your posts, it doesn't mean that I don't adore you like a fat kid loves cake. If anyone wants to write me a guest post, y'all know where to email me at...

...crap, I probably should have sold that prospect a little more. Tell you what, make it about soda, candy or some other delicious foodstuffs and there's a Sweet Blogger Award in it for ya.

In the meantime, I'm leaving you with a tale of terror I wrote to put you in the mood for Halloween shenanigans.

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He cursed himself. How could he have been so foolish as to dabble in the black arts, of which he had so little understanding?

The foul creature he had summoned to do his bidding was relentless and completely out of his control now. In desperation, he seized his axe and hacked the creature to pieces, showing no mercy. He sliced and chopped away until tiny, unrecognizable pieces covered the floor.

Finally convinced that it was destroyed, he went into the other room. He sank into his chair, panting with exertion. The ordeal was over. He closed his eyes in silent thanks, letting out a sigh of relief.

But wait! What was that sound? A horrible rustling filled him with dread. It couldn't be! Surely he had killed that... thing?

Dear God, no! Each tiny sliver he had cut from it had awoken and grown into an exact copy of the original monster! He had unwittingly created an army of evil beings, now grimly marching back and forth about their work. In vain he tried to stop them, but they simply ignored him, jostling him, scratching and trampling him in their relentless journey from the fountain to the well and back again. In their mindless determination, they began to flood the room with water.

The tides swirled and rose around him and he panicked, grasping a book of magic that floated past and desperately searching for a spell to end this terror. He was fighting to stay afloat when he became caught in a vortex and began to scream for help.

His master, finally aroused from his slumber, came to see what was happening. Bristling with rage, he quickly dismissed the flood waters and the evil creatures, before demanding his magical hat from his grateful but terrified apprentice...







... And Mickey never abused the dark arts again.

On Growing Old, or, The Little Tomato

The little tomato wept
She was no longer firm and smooth
She was becoming soft in the middle
And truth be told
A few wrinkles were beginning
To make themselves known.

A big tomato looked down at her and said kindly
"Never mind my dear,
For when you were young and green,
You were no use to anyone
But now you are ripe and delicious."

Halloween Schmalloween.

Halloween is just around the corner!

The vast majority of Australians do not celebrate Halloween. Trick or treating is virtually unheard of. If you don't have small children, who might do some Halloween-themed coloring-in at school, you probably wouldn't even notice it coming and going. So I don't have the cultural connection to it or the emotional history that Americans who've grown up in this tradition might have.

As I remarked some time ago on the Caped Tirader's blog, I like candy (understatement of the year?) but costumes etc. are a bit too much effort for me.

So I propose a new holiday (I can hear the retailers salivating now):

Laze-O-Ween.

It's the lazy version of Halloween! Here, let me show you by comparison:

Halloween: Door-to-door traipsing around the neighbourhood
Laze-O-Ween: Lying prone in the comfiest chair in your house. Preferably a La-Z-Boy - they'd be the perfect Laze-O-Ween sponsors!

Halloween: Elaborate and potentially expensive costumes require thought and effort.
Laze-O-Ween: No costumes, you just wear your undies and a wifebeater. You're in your own home after all.

Halloween: You must buy large amounts of crowd-pleasing, individually wrapped candies.
Laze-O-Ween: You buy however much you want of the candy you like best.

Halloween: American culture dictates that you must give the aforementioned candy away to complete strangers just because they knock on your door and they're so little and adorable in their teeny weeny costumes!!!
Laze-O-Ween: You turn the TV up to drown out the sound of the doorbell, consume all the candy yourself over the course of the evening and fall asleep in a delicious sugar haze, nestled amongst the discarded wrappers.

See? Laze-O-Ween is much better!

What Halloween tradition would you improve with a Laze-o-Ween twist?

Bruises

How is it that I can get:

• a mystery bruise from god-knows-what on my wrist and another on my upper arm
• a constellation of mystery bruises on my right leg
• a big purple bruise on the front of my ankle where I banged it on my desk
• a horrible junkie-bruise in the crook of my elbow(which lasted a week) from having blood drawn
  
• assorted bruises on both legs at desk and coffee table height

but after I slipped, both feet flying out from under me cartoon-style, to land heavily on my left hip on the rock-hard tiles of the kitchen floor, not even the slightest discoloration has shown up the next day?

***

I actually wrote this a few days ago but had other stuff scheduled... In the meantime, a bruise about two inches across and a fetching shade of cornflower blue palest lavender deep violet has risen slowly to the surface of my skin like a shy, overweight Loch Ness Monster.

Literal Sketch Competition Winners!

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in my Secret Sketch competition! Turnout wasn't as high as I hoped, but every single entry that I received made me very happy, so I just had to give an award to each and every participant (although, yes, there is one overall winner - no peeking)!

There were three different Literal Sketches, so even if you participated, there are two to see that you will not have anticipated.

Let's get started!


Category 1: Burning the Candle at Both Ends.

Most Punnilicious: Scope, burning the Ken Doll at both ends!

Incidentally, I did try to hand out the three categories evenly, but Scope was the only one in this category who ended up doing it.

***

Category 2: Monkey Wrench

Best use of Clip Art: Miss.Chief - just look at this adorable, cheery fellow.



Literal Sketchiest: Mr Condescending - I love that his tail is the wrenching mechanism. Also, the look of unbridled joy on his cute little face!


Most dazed & confused: Cora - Heehee, look at his spirally crazy eye!



Most Surprising Tangent: The Imaginary Reviewer, with a...


... monk-y wrench!

***

Category 3: Badgering the Witness

Most "Wait, is that even a badger?": Words... words... words... - I would hate to be under cross-examination by this evil and ferocious creature! It turns out American badgers are way more bad-ass than British ones.


Most worth handing in at the last minute: Morgan - I love that the bunny looks as if she is being extremely badgered!

And the overall winner is...


Drumroll please.....



Simon - The fact that this looks like a courtroom sketch is genius, but for some reason it's that little outstretched paw that just kills me.







Thank you so much to everyone who played. Maybe I will have to run this again sometime and more people might have a go?

Ladies and gentlemen, please take your Sweet Blogger Awards and display them with pride!

Life Imitates Art, or, The Downfall of Ben Affleck.

While we're waiting for the last few Secret Sketch entries to come in (deadline is Tuesday night, y'all) here is a bit of celebrity-related nonsense to amuse you!


Apparently this guy, Big Lips McGee*, I mean Chris Pine, is in talks to reprise Harrison Ford's famous role as CIA agent Jack Ryan.


Hey wait... it says that Ben Affleck played Jack Ryan too. Does anyone even remember that movie coming out? I sure don't.

Poor old Ben Affleck. I guess when your career pretty much starts with winning an Oscar there's no place but down... No wait, that doesn't work because (a) he was in movies before Good Will Hunting and (b) his good buddy Matt Damon has gone from strength to strength since then.

Remember that scene in Good Will Hunting when Affleck says to Damon that the best part of his day is hoping Damon won't show up because it means he's moved up to a better type of life? I'm starting to think maybe that happened in real life. Damon saw his friend through the whole Bennifer thing, maybe he even still returned Ben's calls after Daredevil, but once he started hanging with Clooney and Pitt he realized that he was never going to truly succeed in life with the Affleck millstone tied around his neck. So he cut his best mate loose, and now Steven Soderbergh is hanging entire movies on him - and Time Magazine is writing about it.

Meanwhile, Affleck is where? At home making babies with Jennifer Garner.

... Well, I guess that's probably not actually that bad of a life. Carry on, Affleck.


*I mean come on. I spent the whole of the new Star Trek movie thinking about two things: how freakishly giant his lips are, and hot damn Leonard Nimoy is old!

Come on!

Hey guys, just a quick one to let you know I decided to give y'all an extension until Tuesday night on the Secret Sketch competition, but please get those entries in because the more there are the more awesome it will be.

And if you haven't entered the competition yet please do, honestly I am not expecting y'all to carve it in fresco or something, just ten minutes with a pencil or pen and I'm sure you could come up with something!!!

So shoot me an email and prepare to bust out your mad art skillz!!!

Competition: Secret Sketch

Are you good at drawing, or at least amusingly bad at Photoshop or similar?

If you would like to be part of my next Literal Sketch post, please email me (address is up there in the Original Drafts badge) to receive your assignment, which you will then illustrate in the manner of your choosing and email to me in JPEG format.

I will choose the winner as soon as I get one that rocks over the weekend, and post them on Monday.

The winner (there may be more than one) gets...

... ummm...

... attention*, pimpage and link love. And a Sweet Blogger Award.


*Sweet, sweet attention, the black tar heroin** of the blogosphere. Mmmm...

**I have no idea what the difference is between regular heroin and black tar heroin, but hot damn, it sounds so much worse!

Reader Poll: White Chocolate

White chocolate is:

a) delicious

b) all right once every six months or so (or if it's the only chocolate available)

c) second only to carob (aka Satan's chocolate) in evilness


Bonus questions:
Non-Aussie, non-American readers: How popular is white chocolate in your country? Do you have Milky Bars (small flat bars of white chocolate) or Cadbury Top Deck (a block with top half white, bottom half milk chocolate)?

American readers: What have you got against white chocolate, eh? Why does it have to have cookie pieces or truffly goo or vanilla bean pieces in it*? Why can't it just be free to be itself?

*Although the Ghirardelli block with vanilla bean stuff in it is rather nice. *smug smile*

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In other news, I got an award from the wonderful mysterg over at Meditations in an Emergency:

Mysterg is a really great blogger I discovered recently, and even though I suspect he gave the award to every blog he reads, it does make me smile to think that someone of his talent thinks well of my crazy nonsense. Also it is in Brazilian and French and has a stylish chick on it, which makes it one of the best awards evs. I'm very pleased to add it to my sidebar.

I was going to agonize over who to pass it on to but honestly I adore so many blogs it would either be an unfeasibly long list or I would forget someone and there would be hurt feelings, so just know that I adore your blog.

Yes, yours.

Literal Sketches #3: Heh.

Prologue:
So who would have thought that humble tap water would inspire people to extremely polarized and specific views? Not me, but I'm glad y'all liked it. In fact I have another poll coming up soon. I was a bit sad that the return of Original Drafts was met with the blog equivalent of crickets and tumbleweeds*, but however...

Anyway here is another Literal Sketch for you to guess!

Behold the Crayola-y goodness (you can click on him for a closer look).

Here's a big clue to the answer: notice he is wearing very dignified spectacles. Also, he is not a horse.



*Don't judge me, I know you also measure your self-worth by numbers of blog comments! ...oh, is that really only me?

Original Drafts X

A classic hit, surely.

Reader Poll: Tap Water.

What do you guys think about drinking water straight from the tap in the bathroom sink?

a) Totally fine. It's not like it's the toilet for God's sake.

b) Okay - as long as you drink from your cupped hands or a glass, not just putting your mouth under the tap like a drinking fountain.

c) Only okay for tooth-brushing purposes, and that mostly gets spat out again.

d) From the TAP??!! What are you, some kind of animal?

e) *splutter* *retch* Can't talk, busy looking for some Lysol to gargle with.


Full disclosure: I'm an A-B on this one. Go ahead & judge me.

Literal Sketches #2: This one's easy.

A quick & dirty one for Friday.