Delinquent Squirrels

     Today I went to the Taylor library to return some books.  About a week before the last day, I had checked out the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda for a paper I was writing for British Literature.
     On my way out I saw a squirrel digging in the mulch by the bushes. I don't know why. He was just digging away. Burying his nuts, maybe? I forewent the semi-obligatory Freudian analysis on the subject and decided that, whatever the squirrel's reason was, it was insufficient grounds for him to be digging up university property.
     I yelled at him to stop. He looked up at me curiously and backed away a few decimeters (this is a no inches zone, no actually decimeters sounds stupid I'm not using those never mind, scratch that) inches. He stared me down. Tumbleweed rolled across the sidewalk. My fingers twitched, aching to whip out... well my cell phone was the only thing in my pocket. Maybe I would've taken a picture of him, he was kinda cute, I guess. You know. For a squirrel.
     So I asked him what depravity caused him to stoop to this level, digging in the mulch, hiding food from the world. He ran away a little, but didn't answer. "GET A JOB!" I shouted. I had no patience for his type.
     What causes a squirrel to do this? What terrible tragedy in his life caused him to go this low? Maybe I could never understand that sort of desperation. I dunno. Maybe I want to know, so I can reach out to squirrels with the hand of love and giving instead of the foot of get away from me. Maybe I don't want to know, to preserve what little innocence I have left. I don't know. Either way, he left, and the sad (or is it happy?) part is, I'll never see him ever again. Sic est vitae. Thus is life.


EPILOGUE: When I walked away, I saw someone else on the sidewalk. With as echoey as Taylor's campus is, he undoubtedly heard me and is probably convinced that I'm thoroughly insane, shouting at rodents and stuff.
Stupid delinquent squirrels, it's all their fault.

Upset the Balance!

It's so upset.

Squid Squad!

Oh man, I just got a great idea for a novel.


SQUID SQUAD!


Anthropomorphic squids in the Atlantic form a squad of hardened mercs who don't play by the rules in order to stop the greatest terror of the seas: humans, and their big boats and oil spills. In the end fishermen catch all the Squid Squad members and eat them, reminding the viewer that people are super evil and squids are poor helpless unfortunate beasts, eliciting a strong emotional reaction from the audience so that they'll be outraged and become social activists. It'll have all the great stuff, you know: contrived, forced, nonsensical plot; memorable, obnoxiously "quirky" characters; an in-your-face pro-environmentalist viewpoint; blatant condemnation of capitalism, industry, and humankind; tons of action, and explosions! UNDERWATER. Oh yes, there will be blood (also there are about an infinity of outdated, overused, out of character, out of context pop culture gags, jokes, and references).


No wait! You know what would be better than a novel? An over-produced, excessively promoted and advertised CGI blockbuster that costs half a billion dollars! And they'll say they'll donate like, two percent of the proceeds to a wildlife foundation or something. Even though they could've just donated all the money that went into the movie. But you know, screw that, right?


Hold on to your belt, ladies and gents, because I just got another squidtastic idea (oh yeah, forgot to mention it'll have a lot of squid-based puns that are really forced and don't even make sense, and a whole lot of ink jokes just for good measure)! Let's make it a trilogy! The second will have almost nothing to do with the third, will retcon a few things from the first (like the fact that they're all dead) to go in a different, more ridiculous direction. The third will just be straight terrible, desperately trying to squeeze as much money from moviegoers as possible, and everyone will see how pathetic the attempt is, but will still go to see it because it's Squid Squad and everyone will totally love it, believe me.


This is turning out to be really great. I'll crank out a screenplay or a script or something soon.

Hey, I have a blog!

How about that?


I should really get back into the swing of doing this. A lot has happened since I last used this.


Angel, my baby girl, died last summer. She was 13 years old. I wanted to post a requiem of sorts, but I still don't want to face it.


We got a new puppy, another golden, her name's Lily. She's super smart. Haaaaaaaaa.


I looked back on a lot of the stuff I've written. It's amazing how much I've changed. I even edited some things so they were less crass.


That video project I mentioned earlier is a no-go. Ended up being more trouble than it was worth. It was called "Finger Puppet Ninja Kitty." The world shall never know its glory.


Here are some things I plan on doing in the future with this blog:
1. Retract a few opinions from previous posts. I'll let them stay, of course, but will post revised editions of them, clarifying some things, not being such a horrible person (my goodness, I was a mean little cuss), etc.
2. Post a requiem for Angel.
3. Post about Lily girl.
4. A post about some goings-on in my life.
5. Edit previous posts for a less rude tone. Possibly some deletions as well (which I've already started).
6. Start posting, either weekly or bi-weekly.
7. Making this blog more of an Asylum, its namesake. And making it live up to its tagline.
8. Why is tagline squigglied? Tagline is too a word.
9. Squigglied isn't a word either? I guess I can see that.
10. Thou shall not represent Jesus as a white guy with blue eyes and perfectly coiffed hair.


So yeah, stuff. Here's week one! It's nothing exciting. But. You know. I'm lazy, remember?


Remember how I used to close with a moral of the story? I'm probably not going to do that. Or maybe I will. I don't know okay? Get off my back, Dad.

Hallway Etiquette

One of the many things that inordinately and consistently infuriates me is people who don't know how to walk. And I don't mean, like, people who can't walk, I'm not that big of a jerk. I mean people who, on the sidewalk or in the hallway, disobey the unspoken rules of hallway etiquette. Well, that's part of the problem: they're unspoken! So, after reading this, speak them, because this writing and not speaking.


RULE ONE
Stay on the right side. Right as in direction, not correct. Well, correct too. Right is right.

It's kind of like the road, except there's little to no chance of running someone over and splattering their blood all over the walls and other people walking. Walking on the left side is just like a big ol' "screw you" to everyone walking, because you're right in the way. It's annoying and it makes me wish the hallway were in fact a road.

RULE TWO

Don't take up the whole path. This goes particularly to groups of people who, instead of forming a mobile cluster, decide to fan out and make sure that no one is able to get past them. At least not without awkward bumping or outward violence.

I SWEAR I'LL DO IT

The thing I don't get about this one is that it's not like you can make conversation with someone on the other side of the hallway with a bunch of people between you. Falling in line will just prevent problems (refer to above picture).

RULE THREE

No loitering! This can be one person awkwardly standing in the way, two people talking, in the way, or a group of people standing around for no reason whatsoever.

Then it ends up looking like this. Good luck!

So like, pretty please, if you have someone you're talking to, that's wonderful, but kindly get out of the way. Otherwise, it's just rude.

RULE FOUR

Don't. Walk. So. Slow. Seriously, just pick up the pace a little, especially if it's crowded. I mean, walking slow is all right if the place is empty, no problem with that, people can move around you easily. But when there are a lot of people, and you're taking your sweet time, it makes it hard to get around you. Then people get stuck behind you, and it's really long, boring, and pointless.

Picture unrelated.

So pick it up a little so you're not clogging the hall like an artery. Or else, HALLWAY STROKE. Bam you're dead. Look what you did. Are you proud?

RULE FIVE

Don't be a jerk. Be considerate That pretty much sums it up. Just realize that other people are trying to move, and you suck.

Moral of the story: seriously, you suck.

Man vs. Bug

Just now, I have returned victorious from the field of battle: a battle in the aeon-long war of men against the wild nature of insects.


In the bathroom, whilst brushing my dingy yellows, I saw a freakishly mutilated and ugly brown insect drop from nowhere onto the floor beside the toilet. I looked over and decided that it must've been a beast from Hell itself. So, I grabbed a newly clean hand towel and threw it on top of the beast, trying to keep as calm as possible, nonchalantly brushing my teeth to keep up a facade of bravery over my balls-to-the-wall terrified interior.


Spitting and rinsing, I then proceeded to stomp viciously all over the towel. I figured Mom wouldn't be too happy that it would get bug guts all over it, and that it would be disgusting as a public toilet that the janitor forget to clean for a month, but I knew that was the price to pay for victory.


Grabbing a wad of Kleenex with which to dispose the remnants, I carefully lifted the towel. Underneath was a small clump of dog fur, unperturbed by my wrathful cruelty.


So then I felt like an idiot. I put the towel in the dirty towel basket and threw away two clean Kleenex with a clump of Angel's hair in it.


In my defense, there is no reason why that much dog hair should be in the bathroom. Baby girl rarely goes in there. But regardless, I won that fight. Bug or not, I emerge victorious.


Suck it.


Moral of the story: don't kill dog hair.