Current Project, In Haiku

The Unexpected Novel

C. L. Hilbert

"Thousand words," I thought,

And eighty-thousand later,

Still, I am not done

Teddy Roosevelt Was Totally Psychic

Ted Rall on Yahoo! wrote this kickass article about Teddy Roosevelt predicting the crumble of civilization due to a morally and financially corrupt government.

And all I can say is, really? Teddy Roosevelt was AWESOME INCARNATE. He was probably the most awesome dude to ever awesome it up. He's a goddamned American legend. If Teddy Roosevelt and Paul Bunyon got into a fist fight, Teddy Roosevelt would win. Chuck Norris lies away at night, wishing he could be Teddy Roosevelt. The Rapture couldn't come because Teddy Roosevelt wasn't there to invite it in. Jesus is jealous of Teddy Roosevelt because his dad loves Teddy more.

And now we're surprised when it turns out he was actually psychic?

Well, I'm not, Mr. Ted Rall.

I'm not.

The Thing Strikes Again

Today, the Thing--the Thing where I actually get off my ass and start being a productive member of my own LaLa Land--has struck again.

Once upon a time, I painted a whole lot of Steampunk guns for a whole lot of money. I loved it to bits and had a constant influx-outflux thing going on with new guns in new colors and styles and all sorts of awesome things.

And then... And then I didn't.

I got bored. I got distracted. I started other projects and my Steampunk guns got shoved to one dark and omnious corner of this weird room in my house that's not quite an office, but not quite a walk-in closet either.

Well, now I figure that might as well change.

I've got a huge stockpile of gun blanks in the scary extra room. By the end of this week, I hope to have thirty up on Etsy. By the end of next week, I hope to have sold them. I've just got so much stuff in this house, that I don't even know what to do with most of it. So I'm going to paint all of these guns for the fun of it, and then sell them off for $5 each. That's just enough to cover the blanks, the paint, and the gas to the post office. I want these things gone, looking omnious in someone else's awkward corners.

We'll see how it goes. I'll put a couple of coupon codes either here or on Twitter by the end of the week. Give out some free guns, see how that goes.

Writing

I've been watching documentaries on ants lately. Because I'm a geek, I find them facinating. They've got miles of underground tunnels and that whole hive mind thing going on. I kind of want to write a story about ants now, but I have no idea what it would be about.

Or even how to write it, come to think of it.

Seeing as how the ants function as a whole, the story couldn't follow a single ant. There'd be no he or she unless the ants were considering the Queen, because how could they function unless they're moving through the world as an us. So it'd be a pretty interesting situation, trying to navigate through a story that way.

Also, there'd have to be no discriptions of sight in the story. Which means no colors, no light, no things as we tend to see them. Even if an ant could see and process the world with color vision, I don't think it'd care too much. It'd be more focused on the pheromone scent trails of the different brands of workers, the food scents, sounds from nearby and vibrations.

How would you write a story like that? I'd be so alien. I mean, that's sort of the point. An ant doesn't know it's an ant like we know we're humans. And it doesn't rely on sight, so there'd be no physical discriptions beyond passing mentions to chitin and exoskeletons. The story could well revolve entirely around ants and yet seem like Science Fiction.

Cool, right?

Plot though. The ever present stumbling block. Not much requires a great sweeping narrative in the world of ants. I'll have to figure that one out.

Devouring Infants

Soon, I will begin devouring infants again. It's kind of my Thing. These are the infants I intend to consume:

Mystery Babies in the weird plastic bag, Mung Bean's babies, Broccoli babies and a third packet labeled only "Zesty Mix". I can only assume these babies will scream as I chew them. That'd be an interesting change of pace.

But ugh. Planning to eat babies is such a hassel. It means I have to crack out my baby incubator again.

This one isn't my best baby incubator. But the best one is upstairs hiding behind my mirror and I'm too lazy to go up there and stare at it, hope that it'll magically start sprouting babies without my actually needing to do anything, wander away, procrastinate for several months, stare at it again and finally, three months later, actually get to work.

So instead, I just took this one out of the closet, sat it on the coffee table and wrote a blog about it. Oh yeah. I'm totally on the ball.

There's a documentary on the tv talking about "bundles of sperm released into the ocean", though, so at least I'm slightly more normal than that. You'll never catch me releasing sperm into the ocean all bundled up. I am totally in the anti-bundled sperm camp.

...you know, now this post is just kind of sad. I'm going to stop before someone from the government shows up.

Banana Breakfast Bars

So I'm trying to do the whole "eating food" Thing again. Here's a Thing I made this morning to have something quick and filling for breakfast. Making them is not quick, but they're nice like nougat in the fridge and they keep well enough. Put 'em in the freezer, they taste a little like ice cream sammiches.

So here we go.

Banana Breakfast Bars -- 12 servings, 60 calories each

1 of those little single-serving applesauce bowls
2 bananas
2 tablespoons self-rising flour
1 cup Quaker Oats from that big tube-y container that's on the middle shelf in my pantry.
1/4 raisins
1/2 tsp cinnemon
1/2 tsp vanilla

Mash the 'naners up into a paste with the applesauce. Then mix all the rest of it in together until it's a nice smooth consistancy. Spread it out on a baking pan lined with parchment paper so you've got a square of goop in the middle, as even as you can make it. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until tosty brown and solid, while doing the Goblin Dance of the Thing.

I won't discribe to you the Goblin Dance of the Thing, for if you do not know it, you are unfit to bake. This is a widly known fact. Mmyep.

Anyway, when it comes out of the oven, I just hack it up with a pizza cutter into 12 peices about the size of the size that they are. I don't know, they don't really resemble anything. You can eat 'em warm if you want, or stick it into the cold place to make it like icecream.

Or, hell, put the whole pan on your head and keep dancing. I don't know. Something.

Daisy May the Vicious

So two weeks ago, my Craigslist trolling finally came to fruition and I arrived home with a vicious, terrifying ball of fluff.

Her name is Daisy May. And she is ferocious.

Supposedly, she's about three weeks old and gathered up with her litter mates in this picture. I adopted her at 4.5 - 5 weeks. She was a rumbly little tumbly on four legs. Aaand she looked only vaguely like this. I suspect this is not actually Daisy May but, in fact, her mother.

Awww, family photo!

I took pictures of her first days here, but they're in a place so safe even I can't find them, so we'll all have to make do with this picture I took just now.


She's about 6 weeks old now and even more vicious. Here, you can see her resting in the strewn entrails of the recently slaughtered Pink Pig. Innit she a precious little killer?