a punchline that doesn’t justify the setup

A human figure with its head on fire judges the souls of a gaggle of school children.

A dark wolf-shape made of smoke and fear stalks a fleeing minivan.

A bird-faced creature with many arms emerges from behind a gate, which swings open, its lock damaged.

A thumping soundtrack with no visible source frantically asks (to a late-90s beat): Whooo let the gods out? ♫ Who? Who? ♫

books for young witches

HOW MANY FROGS CAN I SPIT UP?

BROOM and BOGLIN ARE FRIENDS

HOW TO SUMMON THE CUTENESS FROM BEYOND THE STARS (using only household items and with parental supervision)

Subscription Box: Mr Guns (Feb 2018 unboxing)

Just got this month’s Mr Guns subscription box: Three men’s adventure novels every month!

This month includes:

The Meat Master: Spies of the Kremlin (vol. 8 of The BBQ Files) – The Meat Master meats(!) his match in Moscow’s grilling underground!

Jake Stevens: SPY COLLECTOR! vol. 23 – Jake parachutes into Afghanistan to locate a Czech spy… mint on card!

The Demolitioner: Fists Over Tokyo – It’s Slab vs Kenichi, fists versus feet, crime vs even more crime!

nostalgia

Pretty amazing how times change. I spent the evening playing board games, and watching Let’s Play videos, and listening to music.
 
But when they were my age, my parents were spending every evening in the darkened woods outside of town, bodies daubed in mud, hunting the Shadow Wolves that regularly raided our village, coming back home long past midnight to me and my brother with their breath smelling of blood and that peculiar hallucinogenic tea that was brewed from the the humming mushrooms that grew under the floorboards of our home and whose music lulled us to sleep each night.

you can see what that’s funny, right?

It’s pretty terrible knowing there’s a creature in our woods, knocking over ancient trees, snatching away our fellow villagers in the night, etc. etc. No one’s denying that. It’s awful.

I’m just saying… there’s credible reports the thing has a saddle on it. THAT’S the part I’m saying is hilarious. Someone got a saddle on that dark beast! What skill! What hubris! What a monument to dreams!

I hope they managed to ride it, at least once, before the end.

happy new year

Happy New Year! According to our interpretation of the order in which the bog reclaimed the runes we scratched in the mud, it is now officially the following:

The Year of the Slowly Sinking
The Year of the Many Legged
The Year of the Miasma and the Closing Throat

If any of these are your sign: You have a prosperous year ahead for as long as you don’t think about it too much!

For everyone else: Better luck next year! We’ll see you back here among the tangled roots of the few trees that refuse to die here!

wallets out

Okay, wallets out, capitalist scum, ’cause we’re disrupting the dirt market.

How? Easy: There’s an app. Duh.

You want dirt: Use the dirt app. Dirt comes to you. Fills your home. So much dirt. You unlock loyalty rewards like a marble stone with your name on it, says you’re in the dirt right there.

We got the dirt network in place. My pal Dave knows coding. You give us the funding and we’ll have everyone six feet under and the profits won’t stop ever, not ever. Money forever, dirt forever.

corner shrine

Walking to the train this morning, I passed a small clay shrine on a street corner. It consisted of a bowl and a tiny clay man who had lost an arm. The body was crude, just tube-shaped limbs like snakes, but the face was detailed.

Between its legs, bird seed.

I almost took a picture of this little god of bird hearths, but was too self-conscious, due to a group of construction workers standing nearby. (I prefer to take photos unobserved. Dunno why.)

So instead I’m telling you.

knife fight

You brought a knife to a knife fight.

Well done.

I’m so glad you read the invite carefully. Thanks as well for the RSVP and for arriving promptly at the listed start time. Thus far, this has been our best organized knife fight yet.


Everyone got their ambulance buddy picked out? Yes?

a dentist

A dentist who has to get pre-fight worked up before removing plaque. Stomping around, slapping tables, taking deep breaths.

“WHOOOO! Okay, plaque, today I am going to MURDER you, bro! I’m gonna leave your body in the WOODS, bro! You … you messed with the WRONG TEETH, bro!”