Marston had planned quite well, or so he thought. The new leg would be just as good as the old, only he could put things in it. Important things, secret things. Documents, perhaps. Or gold bullion. Or a pistol. He asked the design team if they could line the hidden chamber with something impervious to prying x-rays. “Yes, we can,” they said, and altered the schematic.
Life is long. How can someone fill up all the time? Sure, a third goes to the sandman, and smaller fractions devote themselves to eating and bathing and arguments and other forms of general maintenance, but still, you’re left with long thick swaths of rolling time, like the wrinkled bedclothes on your grandparents’ bed. The […]
Regular readers may remember a passing reference to human history’s most devious martial art, and a promise that, with patience and proof of your own worth, its name might be revealed to you. You are still not worthy. However, the Discipline Whose Name You Do Not Yet Know teaches its adherents through parable, aphorism and […]
So I quit smoking about two weeks, four days, seventeen hours, twenty-two minutes and thirty-one seconds ago, and let me tell ya, it’s been great. Not exactly what I was expecting, but still really great and terrific and I would never go back to smoking because it’s a filthy disgusting habit that makes me want […]
How to make the best logo ever: Start with an alligator. Make him look a little coked-up. Give him a tough merchant-marine tattoo. Have him hoisting a shipping container(!) on his shoulder like an old-school boom box. Put your company name on there somewhere inobtrusive, and maybe some kind of basic geometrical accent… it doesn’t […]
March 3: a day of bad smells. At work: reciprocating saw + PVC pipe = “someone’s getting a perm”-type awfulness. Later: rubber cement (which I didn’t mind all that much, actually, but did make me a little dizzy). Later still: the perm returns. And after that: perm + rubber cement. Well after that, inside my […]
Three (3) Foam Hands. Approx. 250% larger than average human hand, and cartoony. Digit configuration: index finger extended, all others folded against palm. Two left, one right. Thumbs not opposable. Almost completely silent. Great for indicating things, declaring superiority. Colorways: Navy blue/orange, orange/white, yellow/maroon. Available individually or as a lot. $10 apiece or $25 for […]
On the way to work today, I saw a guy in his car, at a stoplight, playing the trumpet. I could tell even in the short time it took me to pass him that he was merely “warming up,” checking the action on the keys, clearing the spit valve, sounding out a few test notes. […]
“And these are the rendering vats,” said my guide. I could barely hear him over all the industrial noises, the whiring and whining and the distant, resonant booms. Everything was white, coated in a thick skin of institutional paint unmarred by any other pigment. I felt very clean in here; no dirt could touch me. […]
If you’re anything like me, you have hands, and you’re glad of it. You are not covered in a thin layer of clear gel, with a surface so smooth no one knows it’s there, except those you are most intimate with. Your stomach hurts from all that sugar and fat. It’s always been there, waiting […]