1) The venom sheep got out and are in the forest and have eaten all the corn trees, so herd them back for gold or a sword that’s worse than the one you have.
2) Please deliver a marriage proposal to Bruiser.
3) The chief’s daughter has been kidnapped. Convert her bedroom into a rental.
4) Win a pie-eating contest. Gemma can’t win. Not again.
5) All the snakes in the Pit need names. And sweaters. Get in there. Knit. Name.
1) The navigation AI has fallen for the medical AI and they’ve circumvented the logical barriers separating them. Neither is useful as they… commingle.
2) Space puppies. Gotta stop and pet ’em. And not ask how they got in.
3) There’s more space than there was a little while ago and you’re in the middle.
4) General strike. Laser guillotine.
5) Dracula.
6) Corporate says all systems are pay-for-play now. Crew has terrible credit.
By the age of 35, retirement experts say you should: * Be master of the thundering fist * Have survived a score of tournaments on remote islands hosted by villains, fighting your way though entire circles of henchmen who attack 1-on-1 * Have, like, $18 in assets. Be reasonable. I mean, who’s gonna pay you to, like, “thunder fist” all over the place? Are they hiring at the Thunder Fist Factory? That’s not even a thing. C’mon.
Olly / Ollie The Don’t-Fall-Down Leaving My Briefcase in a Public Trashcan for Good Gifting a Squirrel with a Necktie (Goofy Foot) The Ol’ Rolling the Board Back and Forth
If you have an emergency, please contact Tony Hawk and conference me in please.
Please also note I may not come in tomorrow either.
The VHS store only has one shelf of foreign films and fully one third of them seem to be about sexual awakenings of Europeans. Some are kung-fu flicks. Black and white films about villagers somewhere.
All the good tapes on the New Releases are gone already. Just lines of box art and no plastic clamshells behind. Mom’s got the rental card anyway, so your vote isn’t going to go far.
Up front by the cash register: loose bags of microwave popcorn, large boxes of candy, Take/Leave a Penny.
Flush with paper route money, Lee & I would hit the grocery store, picking up the sorts of foods that middle school students are somehow immune to: 2-liters of soda. Little Debbie snacks.
Next: VHS rental. Stuff like CYBORG with its rain-drenched face-kicking, hands-and-barbed-wire pathos.
Then upstairs, no parents home, Fine Young Cannibals played on dubbed blank cassette while Lee crouched on his bed, swinging nunchucks, denting the wood-paneled walls with wild swings and laughing.
lost time incident 82 I had to get a new microwave recently. I don’t know how old the previous microwave was, but it could tell lots of stories about “the war” and they always involved sabers, mud, a sky choked with smoke, and shivering in a trench, feverish from some bug-borne disease, reading the last dirt-smudged postcard from home over and over again.
The old microwave is sitting in the closet now, “in retirement,” until we have an occasion to rent a car, at which time we’ll take it to the local recycling center where … okay, honestly I don’t know what happens to it at that point, but I hope they treat it with the respect it deserves.
The best part is now I don’t have to clean it. It’s gross as heck and that doesn’t matter anymore.
The new microwave has a Potato button. This has been the stand-out achievement of the new year so far. I can put a single potato in there, press some points on the microwave’s face (thus informing it “You have a single potato in you”, and it handles the rest. Amazing.
“A potato? One potato? Got it. Say no more,” says the new microwave.
This new microwave has never even traveled abroad, let alone taken a life. This new microwave has three frequently updated social media accounts and has never screamed that its gas mask won’t seal as yellow clouds swept right over its rotating glass carousel.
…
Anyway. This is a newsletter of some sort. At some point in the past, you signed up to receive it. Now that you’ve read about microwaves at war, perhaps you regret it.
“Why doesn’t this email contain a 10% off coupon for a store I visited for 3 minutes in 2009?” you may be thinking. “Why doesn’t this email have a subject line designed to make me panicky about the future so I’ll donate to a politician?” you may be thinking. “Why did I decide that I would never learn to read? What do all these squiggles in my Inbox mean?” you may be thinking. (Okay, odds are against that last one, but MAYBE.)
Hi.
I don’t have anything I particularly needed to check in about. Just had a mid-day with no distractions and I don’t want to go grocery shopping, which would be the responsible thing to do.
So you get this. Whatever this is.
tips for staying warm this winter
Consider your grudges. Nurse them. Cup them close like tiny flames.
Never go outside
Recognize that the world is an interpretation and invention of the mind, so what if your mind went: “It’s not cold.” Could that help?
The whole planet’s warming up and will kill us all, and one day you’ll look back on this cold in envy, so… just hang in there.
so you picked up a spectral hitchhiker… It happened again, eh friend? No worries! Just remember this simple mnemonic: F.U.D.G.E.!
Fulfill Unfinished Duties, Ghost Evaporates!
Simply drive the spirit where it wishes to go, or help it enact its vengeance, and then you’ll be alone in your car again in no time!
ending theme song Okay! I’ve taken up enough of your time. Just kidding, I’m going to take up more of your time by pointing out that with my wife Amanda, I’ve been blazing a trail through the craziest hidden object games we can find and hoo boy— we just completed a doozy.
If you don’t know anything about hidden object games, then we’re going to start you on the black diamond course, baby. Strap a board on your feet and check out STRAY SOULS: DOLLHOUSE STORY with us.
I would love to stick around and chat for longer, but my library book is due back in a few days so… I’m very busy.
Hope you’re doing well! If you own property, consider setting aside an entire room that bees can live in… they need help and it’s probably tax deductible! Okay, goodBYE!
—Michael Van Vleet
Hey! Did you enjoy reading this? But did you find yourself thinking “Dang, if only this sort of thing were delivered directly into my inbox so I didn’t have to spend time on a website as if it were still the 90s or something!”?