Short Stories

Here are some short stories written today by myself and a friend.

If you’re feeling this creative and oxygen deprived, all you have to do is grab a piece of paper, write some stuff, and fold it so only the last line is visible. Grab a friend or a stranger and have them continue it!

Space

     One day I went to space, but it was out of order and shut down for maintenance because the doohickey had lodged in his anus. Space anus is the worst because gravity cannot hold it together. Suddenly, I knew the only thing that would work would be a potato. But not any old potato would do. Only a golden potato with an anus was acceptable. This way, it would take over the lodged item in its own anus and not feel pain. It was a brilliant idea, but my brain had other ideas. I died from an aneurysm just as I finished writing this senten

Cat

My cat’s anus suddenly erupted in a violent display of poo and hair, I scarcely had time to react! I gathered my senses as quickly as I could and took her to the vet. When I got there, I tried to tell the vet what was wrong, but he wouldn’t listen! Instead, he assumed I was the animal and that my cat was my owner.
     “How could this be?” I asked myself aloud. “What does this mean?” Before the vet could answer, my cat disembowelled him! As this day had not been any weirder, my cat started to speak.
     ”Yes, it is I, your cat, speaking for the first time!”
     Well, that was it. I don’t know why, but what was said made me VERY ANGRY! So angry, in fact, that I sprouted claws. Very sharp claws. I jammed them into the vet’s eyes and his dead body reanimated with life.
     ”B… b… brains! Must eat cat brains!”
     The vet shuffled towards my cat with those crazy new eyes fixed on its furry, delicious head. The cat was frozen. She could not believe what was happening. She started this day by violently blowing out her insides and it seems her day might end the same way.
     She was OK with that. It was a long day. She was ready for the end. nShe closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then it happened.
     The cat entered into this sort of “Feral Koala Mode” that it had learned on the internet and began violently eviscerating the zombie vet, finishing him off for good. He was finally a dead pile of human scraps… except for his remaining brain.
     The cat ate it and suddenly went back in time! She reappeared the very moment she started shitting everywhere.

I Spend More on Apples than on Oranges.

Maybe you’ve heard this: “people are spending more money on video games than on movie tickets.”

I’ve never bought this comparison. Can you tell why?

It’s stupid, that’s why. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. Of course people spend more money on video games than on movie tickets. What movie ticket costs $60? Or for that matter, how many games cost $10? (Remember, we’re talking blockbuster PC/Console, not iPhone apps)

For someone to say they spend more on video games than movie tickets is like saying they spend more on rent than parking meters. DUH! There’s a reason you spend more. Because it COSTS MORE. It’s not a CHOICE.

Most people go to movies. Your typical gamer likely goes to a lot of movies, too. If he or she bought a $60 Xbox game the same day he or she bought a $10 movie ticket… does that mean, well, fucking anything, really? It means even less when you consider that the actual theatre is probably paying $50 a ticket just for the license to play the movie… which ultimately ends up in the same $60 as the game.

Gamer’s should be so lucky! Why doesn’t the publisher, or the retailer, pay that $50 for me like the theatres do?

Admittedly, this isn’t a well-researched, scientific breakdown meant to absolutely prove one thing or another about this statement, but I don’t think it needs to be. It’s as blatant as the Sarah Palin on Stupid’s face.

Transformers

So I saw that second Transformers… thing… today.

I hated it.

Just like I hated the first one.

Let me be clear on what my reasons are not for hating it. You see, I have almost no memory of transformers growing up, I just remember it existing, and that I might have liked it. And that there was one of them named Optimus Prime. Beyond that, nothing. I didn’t remember there were Autobots and Decepticons until I was reminded. Hell, I didn’t even remember that Optimus Prime turned into a fricking semi.

So I didn’t go into each movie predisposed to like it, based on some sort of positive nostalgia for the cartoon, and I didn’t go into each movie predisposed to hate it, based on some sort of negative perception that it wasn’t “faithful” to the cartoon. So I think that made me quite objective — possibly uniquely.

I can definitively say that the same people must have been behind the second one as the first, because the things I didn’t like about the first were back for the second. And I think I can boil down my distaste into one word:

Convenient.

That’s how both movies felt to me. They felt like anytime there was some sort of adversity introduced, something magical or miraculous — or convenient – would happen that would make things all ok. The good guys would show up at just the right point in the fight; one good guy would go down, only to be saved by an ability that another good guy suddenly had; etc. I just wasn’t buying it.

Also, the humor was either cheesy or extremely shallow. Three entire characters — and possibly more, which I’m unable to remember, possibly as a sort of defense mechanism for retaining my sanity — seemed to only exist for the purpose of spewing forth jive-ish dialog. Think of them like the token black guy, and the sort of dialog he spews forth, and that’s exactly what you have. “That robot just called that other robot a ‘pussy’! That’s funny!” It wasn’t clever, it was just cheap.

Otherwise, the other predominant style of humor centered around guys doing un-manly things. “Look, that guy’s screaming like a girl! That’s funny!” Er… not really.

And obviously, both movies are drowning in special effects. I’ll admit, the special effects were pretty good. The quality of the computer animation was so meticulous as to seem absolutely real nearly 100% of the time. The explosions, and the audio indeed — yeah, they were all pretty danged good. But… that’s not why I watch movies.

I was told, before this movie started, to “turn off my brain”. And at the end, I wish I had, because instead of walking out of the theater pissed, I might have actually enjoyed myself, instead of feeling like I’d just wasted two hours and nine bucks.

Is it wrong of me to want a movie out of Hollywood that has some meat on its bones? Maybe not wrong, but judging by the previews before the movie, probably unrealistic. I didn’t see one preview that wasn’t also replete with these same sort of “look at the shiny things” / “laugh at the jive talk” qualities. Is this the kind of movie America wants? Has the definition become “if it looks good, it is good”? I like to think that it hasn’t, but as long as people keep paying for these kinds of movies, Hollywood will keep making them. It’s the sort of feedback loop that threatens to make one lose faith in the medium.

Charlie the Unicorn 3

Almost a year since Charlie the Unicorn 2, FilmCow has put out a third installment in this awesome series.

It’s expectedly awesome, and I quite enjoy the starfish who proclaims his love for Charlie. A good song, as usual, comes in at the end and, of course, Charlie is left with something stolen. That’s what I love about this series. It’s a pretty simple premise: two other unicorns come along and take Charlie on a crazy adventure that ends up being elaborate ruse to take something from him.

The second one remains my favorite, and “Put A Banana In Your Ear” is probably one of FilmCow’s best songs. Another one of my favorites is Ferrets.

Last night I discovered their stuff is available on iTunes, which I promptly put on my iPod. FilmCow does wonderful work.