October 2008
THE TWISTED-TONGUE TOURNAMENT
Copyright The Quipping Queen 2005
THE TWISTED-TONGUE TOURNAMENT
– Or, Calling All Weird-Word Whizbangers! –
By Adrian Air-of-Sleet, a pleasure-seeking, mandolin-playing, maroon-hairpiece sort of fellow who enjoys Italian weddings, spelling bees, and the Calgary Stampede
While I was perusing several dog-eared magazines hanging from the racks of a 24-hour convenience store in the middle of a peculiar place named Billy Butts Pond, my enlightenment bulb went off.
Curious as to why this power of positive thinking outage had occurred, I put on my think-and-do cap in order to gain a new perspective on this perplexing problem.
I ascertained from the rather bleak-looking Canadian landscape around me that this ghastly glitch probably had something to do with being shipwrecked on a prominent piece of geography, (affectionately known as “The Rock”). Situated smack dab between the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Atlantic Ocean, the province of “Newfoundland”, (as it’s called by folks “from away”), is home to a few fishy characters who reside in odd outposts of humanity such as Ass Hill, Bareneed, and Dildo.
Now I know what it must have been like to live as my Celtic ancestors must have done in the “Dark Ages” …you know… no flipping access to the Internet, i-pods, and personal digital assistants, not to mention vampire video games and vapid virtual reality TV shows.
With precious little to do while waiting for Godot to show up, I decided to organize and host a “Twisted-Tongue Tournament” for the locals and any aliens who happened to be in the vicinity.
The purpose of the challenge was to light a fire under everyone. Well come to think of it, by asking them to consider pairing animal names with human characteristics in order to give birth to a new set of beasts, we had the makings of party which “Newfies” adore as I found out. (This seemed like a good idea at the time, as there was no zoo let alone any pet-friendly, non-pooping, robotic animals in the blinking place).
So here are a few of the submissions received by the judges:
Bedspring Peeper - a naughty tree toad that refuses to turn into a Prince at midnight
Boo-Hoo Gnu - an ugly, unhappy ungulate that doesn’t stand a hope in hell of retiring to a stud farm thank you very much
Buffelope - a bare essentials, breast-beating beast with no hang-ups about the naked truth (see Scantelope)
Botchfly - a stout, hopelessly clumsy, winged creature that has difficulty with takeoffs and landings
Bush-Twit - a timid Texan titmouse
Chumpanzee - not your average high-flying jungle bunny
Cramanatee - a gormandizing golf-ball eater that lives in well-manicured lawns full of little holes with flagpoles sticking out
D’orca - a fashion-conscious killer whale
Ficklefish - a two-timing Piscean with an unhealthy attachment disorder
Gemsbloke - a large, young buck with lots of bling bling
Gussy Uppy - a gold-plated guppy that adds a little sparkle to any boring aquarium tank
Hypopotamus - a short-legged, thick-skinned, under-performing vegetarian with limited bench-pressing abilities
Jokel - An Old World dog with a wicked sense of humor and lots of tricks up his sleeve
Kingflasher - a big name bird whose crests and crowns never quite cover his breast and tail discretely
Mongooser - a flat-witted, feisty-footed, posterior-pinching paramour of unknown origin
Pantelope - a graceful, butt-crack beast that lives in elevators and rides a bike to work
Pottypus - a toilet-trained, duck-billed devil from Tasmania
Scantelope - a fleet-of-foot, bare-all buxom beast (whose revealing exploits are chronicled in the best-selling naturist book, “What Really Went On Behind the Scenes in the Garden of Eden”)
Screech fowl - a breath-taking barnyard beast that hasn’t learned when to keep his/her trap shut
Screwupworm - a two-winged whimsical creature that nuzzles in the nostrils of nobodies as lackadaisical larva do, and then promptly engages in some serious botching activities (often with incredibly bewildering if not totally blundering results)
Scuzzard - a dirty, contemptible, shabby-looking vulture with a bad case of halitosis (but good enough to grab the spotlight as the mellow muddle-headed mascot on a u-brew beer label)
Slack Widow - a spiteful, supine, and very venomous Old World Spiderwoman
Springblotch - a clean, youthful, four-footed freak of nature that makes a mess of everything
Swelldish - a pleasant-looking puffer that makes one blush at first glance and then blurt out some silly stuff that one later regrets
Swilldebeest - a swashbuckling species that rarely count its drinks and eats freely, greedily or to excess if given the least opportunity
Titter Sucker - a boisterous bawling bird with a tipsy tongue (commonly found in Canadian wet bars)
Too-Too Titi - a la-di-da little scamp with three redeeming characteristics: a long tail, hairy underarms, and a penchant for communal living
Whopping Crane - a large, white, nearly extinct American bird with a long neck that beats its breast to patriotic tunes, flaps its wings to intimidate scarecrows, and yells “Cowabunga” at the top of its lungs for no apparent reason at at all
Willeye - a good-natured, willing-ready-and-able creature that spends most of its futile life swimming blissfully around in something called “quality-improvement circles”
So, if you end up in a hole-in-the-wall-place and lose your power of positive thinking - don’t forget to organize a titillating twisted-tongue tournament. It’ll do wonders to motivate the mummers, bring out the wonky wordpeckers who inhabit every nook and cranny, not to mention extend a warm welcome to some very odd-ball strangers.
About the Author
Adrian Air-of-Sleet is a casual conundrum in the Court of the Quipping Queen http://www.quippingqueen.blogspot.com/ where he shares his vacuous thoughts with other arcane members of society.
Why Tattoos Are More Popular Today than Ever Before
These days, it seems everyone is getting a tattoo. Everywhere you turn you see more and more people with tattoos. It’s getting harder to have an authentic and rebellious “look” when just about everyone seems to be into body-art. Tattoos have become more commonplace these days and can are safer now than they have every been before.
There are more options and more tattoo designs available today for those wanting a unique style than probably ever. More creative and skilled body artists make their living from tattoos, and you are more likely to see a tattoo in any college across America, than the local bar.
Then again, there are tattoos, and then there are “tattoos.” It is unlikely that the hard-working professional only one, hard-to-find, secretly placed tattoo, or for that matter the college student with his girlfriend’s name and two roses inked on the right shoulder blade, will ever have tattoos on more obvious and visible places, or a full chest or back tattoo or a tattooed arm or leg and even face.
Some tattoo lovers, though, have tattooed large parts of their bodies with multi-colored tattoo designs and of all manner of skulls, serpents, snakes, flame-breathing dragons, flowers, vines, angels, demons, daggers, butterflies and portraits of heroes and loved ones from the past.
Package Baggage
It always fries my brains when I have nothing more creative to do with my time than visit a computer store. It is a bit like sending a Brit soldier to the gulf without any body armour. I am always caught between the friendly fire of spotty computer experts who start rubbing themselves up against a flatscreen thinner than a fagpaper while explaining the difference between 12 bit and 16 bit digital processing. The ears loosen from the moorings I start to suck my thumb and playfully kick the heels. Apart from the ugliness of computer furniture, I have very little to say about it all as it is not my chosen field. I might add that I find the odd transition of white to black monitors although some sort of fashion statement will not be changed purely to match the cushions in my house. That, suffice to say, is hardly more excitement than I can possibly bear. Who decides this bollocks? You and l just get used to black computers, and a brass ‘wirewool’ finish with pastel stencils will rocket into the market no doubt. What next, pewter printers and walnut keyboards? My friend usually swings by the computer shop while on his own errands because frankly, I would slip out of this dimension and straight into a coma if somebody tried to educate me on such matters.
But what is it with designer packaging? I watched on the news recently about a certain ‘Mr Big’ who was arrested for peddling cheap DVD’s and it would appear he owed his brief success to selling movies for about three quid and thus had very few complaints from his growing customer base. Now if an Asian asylum seeking entrepreneur can spot a corner in the market after just six years in ‘Blighty’ what does that tell you about our over-priced, over-packaged, over-hyped, etc etc products, whose manufacturers are surprised when a pirate industry springs up and takes 40% of the business?
Buying good quality contraband should be encouraged to force the real ‘rip off’ merchants to bring their prices down? Oops! Did I say that out loud?
This brings me to packaging. My froth about packaging is such a pet hate with me. I would love to hit the streets with a camera crew and see how many O.A.P’s can get a Digital camcorder memory card out of its second skin before they croak or preferably just watch their wrinkly faces screw right up as I dust them occasionally.
These little suckers are only the size of postage stamp but live in this plastic crib that will withstand a thousand megaton blast. The shell is moulded and in comparison to the actual size of the product is the equivalent to an affixed playing card in the middle of the Old Trafford. Inside is a paper insert that has a splash of graphics promising you eternal life and a perpetual hard-on for your digital recorder.
It is a freestanding display that apart from its impregnability would be an ideal ice scraper for the car windscreen when your own credit card has already expired. I used carpet scissors in the end to chomp the plastic edging away, slither by slither, until I found the tiny card that was further cocooned inside another plastic sarcophagus. It’s very own ’snap-to’ and rigid wallet for easy carriage. To my horror I noticed I had extricated the card without checking the printed warning that ’should the product be unsatisfactory’ that it had to be returned intact.
How do you know it is unsatisfactory until you have tried it? It’s a memory card for a video recorder? You have to try it out first by taking it out of the package. I bet even the memory card would have remembered this.
Supermarket shelves groan with the weight of packaging when little of the product actually exists.
Rashers of bacon sat looking without hope in welded envelopes. Biscuits have to be guillotined midway up the packet to become liberated. Vacuum packed frozen goods with re-sealable ‘fasteners’ that refuse to clip together and end up slipping out and falling helplessly to the freezer floor. Petit Pois, sweetcorn or pasta that you try to open the top end and by some bizarre logic thus gives the signal for the arse end to burst apart with the force of a megaton bomb.
Audio tapes! (I mention these as I’m ‘normally bias’ anyway….) The cellophane that hermetically seals your boxes of tapes in case they are exposed to too much oxygen and need the tiniest forceps in the world combined with your own teeth to remove.
‘Shrunkwrapped’ pizzas that look like an artefact found by ‘Timeteam’ with all the cheese and already sparsely dressed toppings on one side only. That’s right. I see you nodding! Leaving one, lonely, stray slice of pepperoni inhabiting the bald hemisphere making your TV dinner looking like a pimple on a bears arse. You can only imagine that the last Neapolitan left alone on the shelf forces you to buy it because it was constructed by a food operative that presumably serves breakfast at home to his or her family with a tennis racket.
Sandwiches that are ‘front end loaded’ for display purposes fooling the hungry buyer that the chunky filling continues throughout the entire breadth of the bread. Not so. A sneaky lift of the promising BLT reveals yawning expanses of nothingness, only if you can exhume it from the plastic prison first without it exploding over your ‘laptop’.
Whole marketing and design departments spend a sh*tload of cash trying to create the most inappropriate packaging. Easter eggs for instance. Trees have to die to put a stupid piece of hollow chocolate into a coffin. What’s wrong with a bit of bubblewrap? Who invented the polystyrene quaver and giant shoulders of the stuff protecting your new TV? At Christmas time my house is drifted inside to the rafters in the stuff. My garage becomes an arsonists’ paradise until the dustman comes, with reams of cardboard, flat and corrugated, and the customary shower of polystyrene that after a light breeze can be found in every corner of every garden in my street for weeks to come. Chunks of the stuff, that if strapped together, would probably melt the polar icecaps and is chased, eaten and passed by small children and dogs (easily mistaken for those circular rice cakes but far tastier).
“Contents may settle”.
What seems to be happening here, is the manufacturer is too embarrassed to say ’size does matter’ and want you to believe that the 50% extra FREE is the box size and nothing to do with what’s inside. If you bought muesli that ’settled’ does that mean you will be less disappointed at opening a half empty box? Does this apply to meanly filled yoghurt pots or boxes of fish that say “6 to 8″ pieces? It’s either 6 or 8? I don’t like guessing games. If I go to my bank I don’t want the teller to say to me when I want a balance, “You’ve got either sixty quid left or a fiver.”
How can anything plastic make some product or other more desirable? Hands up any one person who has ever bought wine from a plastic decanter? Ok, I admit to the odd box of wine simply because your drinking levels can be hidden from party guests and what they cannot see will not hurt them until you collapse over their Tiramisu at dinner and try to blame it on the ‘time of the month’.
Going on picnics without the scissors for instance. If the scissors were forgotten everybody would starve or die of thirst. It would be like surviving the Holocaust without a can opener.
Why do you seem to need scissors for every task to remove packaging?
Dribbly giblets from inside a chicken have to be cut away from their plastic bubble. What did we use before to sever umbilical cords? Why do paramedics have to cut away a perfectly good pair of jeans just because you leg is caught in a haybaler?
I remember on one occasion my Mother cutting my hair with pinking shears and I went to school the next day with a Barnet looking like an upside down bun case. I thought they were for ‘running up’ curtains with? There again you should not run anywhere with a pair of scissors in your hand.
Samson from the Bible had his hair cut off by Delilah as he slept. This was to sap his strength. It was believed as Hebrew custom then, as it is today, that masculinity was all in a man’s long hair. Men of all creeds wear long hair at times. Today they are called tw*ts.
A women’s hair is supposed to be her ‘crowning glory’. This has changed and become her handbag and accessories. Who doesn’t want a shock of long hair plunged into your chest at intervals? If your woman does not have long hair, hold onto her ears.
We take scissors for granted.
‘Edward Scissorhands’ didn’t, but he could hardly point the finger. There was one guy who could never scratch his balls without becoming a human shish kebab.
Dishwasher or soap tablets that won’t prise from their wrappings.
Endless crap car accessories or kids toys that fill you with trepidation before you snap it from the carcass only to find the most vital component falls in half when it makes a bid for its freedom. You can’t buy a carrier bag without advertising something on it. Maybe we could have a dating service on them next. Have a different lonely heart on each side of the bag along with a contact number.
Like those scandalous bookclubs … that send you every book you didn’t want and call it the ‘Editor’s choice’ and charge you fourfold ‘Amazon’ prices on the fifty books you have apparently pledged to buy within three weeks. Editor’s choice? If I meet him I will give him my ‘readers choice’ that of ‘War and Peace’ up his cable layer, sideways, to effect the most injury. Yes, still in its packaging!
God bless the little cream pots at motorway ‘Welcome breaks’ airports, or those found at cheap hotels that guarantee to be a hit with folk. A direct hit that is! From forty paces and causing your entire family to duck down under the table in case they see that it was you without any fingernails.
It is with rich fondness I reminisce about having all my produce put in a ‘twisted at the corners’ brown paper bag of just one size. All in a string handled brown paper holdall. Chips in newspaper that somehow made them taste better than they do today. Real cutlery instead of plastic forks wrapped with a serviette in cellophane too, that so often lose a prong inside your cheeseburger and cause a three hour wait in accident and emergency.
This brings me to crisps… Once again there is enough room in each seal fresh pack to hold a moonie convention and yet only one sixth of a potato as facts bear out resides inside. One packet is never enough, so they sell you whole selection packs for you to munch through guiltily. Whatever happened to those giant family packs of ‘Golden Wonder’ crisps? Just one big f*ck-off packet with crisps loose inside. They were the best thing to come out of the sixties and seventies. Just heaps of crisps to share amongst bus queues. You couldn’t eat them all even if you ate nothing else for a week. They welded together after a while and would bend in half like putty. No ’sell-by’ dates in those days. No ‘best befores’. You only got rid when they reproduced of their own accord. You could almost fold them like underwear at the point of optimum staleness. You had to roll your sleeves up to reach all the ’smushed’ ones at the bottom of the bag. Once eaten the giant thick foil bag was great to ‘chuck up into’ as you were sure to be blowing chunks for the rest of the day.
‘Ringpulls’ became the familiar ’shoosh’ to be heard until present time. Soon small catapults could be made from them by pinging the tab of aluminium in the crook of the ring. Now, packagers have even put a stop to that and smoothed the ring pull mechanism. That has stopped the fizz fun for many!
Now we have ‘Widgets’… that take up a whole mouthful of beer space in the can and then will fill the rest of the beer with air so you can stay sober but end up with reflux. If either too warm or too cold will depend on how much beer you want to end up over the cat and down the back of the telly.
Packaging is a crazy waste of resources and raw materials. It is misleading. It is unwieldy. Most of all it causes litter louts and pollution. There are so many preservatives in food nowadays so who needs it?
This is true…. My father was known to be a real re-cycler. Others called him a tightwad! Either way, he saved all polystyrene and packed the loft with it. Feet thick. Our house was a potential tinderbox but Father always said that “keeping bills down and keeping warm” were more important than the possible future invention of smoke alarms. In 1973 we had more firemen because there were less hoax-callers then. They didn’t need risk assessments. They just had to be good at getting cats out of trees or your toes out of the tap. Firemen today are so afraid of health and safety they will fit smoke alarms in your house for free just in case you have the urge to sue them for dying of third degree burns or having to cut the top of your car roof off when you slip your disc during sex.
Father even covered the ceilings of our home with those polystyrene tiles. He chainsmoked too, so miraculously I did not become ‘toast’ at any stage and am here to tell this tale as a result. I escaped any inferno of gargantuan proportions to mar my childhood that hypothetically, quite likely, would have been seen from one of the Apollo missions and lit up East Anglia like a solar flare.
Alternatives? Easy! Make all packaging edible. Then watch how marketeers become more frugal with it! You are not going to sell as many Big Macs if the customer is full with the Fries carton are you?
Anyway, my Mother was wrong when she said everything good comes in brown paper packages. I once put dog-shit in a brown paper bag and placed it on a neighbours doorstep. I would then take some matches and set light to it and play ‘Knock down Ginger’ by pressing the doorbell. Retreating to my hiding place I would watch with delight as the householder would come to the door and try to put the incendiary out and only discover the sticky hitchhiker when it was all too late.
We made our own fun in those days.
Practical jokes meant something to the victims back then.
About the Author
Perry Estelle. Satirist, cartoonist and fiction writer. If you need original and sizzling satire on tap I am your man. Please contact me if you don’t mind my overconfidence and want a weird regular feature! perry.estelle@fugitiveauthor.com
No Stars for the Eclipse
One weathercaster called it a “must-see light and shadow show by the Old Master Himself,” but I can’t say this last solar eclipse was worthy of the recommendation. Not even total, and staged (in my location anyway) behind a thick cloud cover that served only to diffuse the vivid contrasts essential to any dramatic effect, the “Old Master” might have been faxing it in from deep space somewhere for all the incandescence it could claim. Quite frankly, as light shows go, I thought more interesting work was being done at the Electric Circus back in the ’60s.
Now let’s please not have any misunderstandings. I’m aware that I’m criticizing the performance of a venerable figure who, over the eons and in every conceivable form and category, has compiled an impressive oeuvre. If I have to confess that a lot of His stuff is not to my taste, that I find much of it heavy-handed or impenetrable (when, indeed, it is not distracted and slack), this doesn’t mean I’ve failed to recognize the enormous contribution He’s made.
I’m thinking, of course, of the models some of His stunning manipulations of the more volatile natural elements provided for the Irwin Allen disaster films. And, to be sure, there’s His introduction of death itself which, brilliantly counterbalancing His earlier invention of genders and sex, forestalled the unwieldy prospect of twenty-thousand expansion teams in just the American League East (and, say, the 2005 playoffs extending well into the 2020 season). But that’s hardly been the limit of this remarkable innovation’s reach and impact. In its absence, “Scream 2,” which everyone agrees was even better than “Scream,” would doubtless have languished in perpetual turnaround since filmgoers would have found the emotions of fear and panic depicted in the original much too weird and elusive for a sequel to ever be greenlighted.
What’s more, we can be reasonably certain that the popular denouement of the “happy ending”the product of an inevitable backlashwould never have been developed.
So while it’s often, for me, like feeling obliged to respect whatever that was that Marcel Marceau used to do, even as you knew that one more minute of it and your lungs were going to erupt with blood, I’m more than prepared to honor the “Old Master’s” achievements. It’s just that I’m not what you’d call a huge fan. What puts me off most is…well…it’s His LORDLY attitude. I could forgive Him a lotyes, even those tedious revivals of His wind-and-water specials that take out half a statewere He less disdainful of His audience, less willfully opaque and ambiguous. I know this “mysterious ways” thing is a cornerstone of His persona and I can understand His reluctance to give it up. But, bordering on the pathological, His aversion to making His meanings known is wearing a little thin, don’t you think?
I’ll allow that, however disappointing it may be, it’s ultimately of small consequence when He mounts a shoddy eclipse. But it’s something else again when, for one especially egregious example, He leaves you to blow out all your circuits trying to figure just where Hannity and Colmes fit into the notion that if you’re on the planet it’s for a reason.
About the Author
Former contributor to The Village Voice and Rolling Stone. Coauthor and coeditor, respectively, of two collections of essays about rock and jazz in the ’60s: “Music & Politics” and “Giants of Black Music.”
Get the Most Amount of Money with the Least Amount of Effort
A common goal is to get the most amount of money with the least amount of effort. This is not to say that hard work is to be avoided or that a person could sleep past noon and still strike it rich. To get most amount of money takes hard work and a lot of effort. However, to spend less effort on trying to get the most amount of money there three critical steps to the process.
Research: Do your research and use the Internet as well as the public library. The Internet is the fastest way to search and find information. However, completing research in a library can benefit you by receiving the assistance of a librarian who can guide you in a direction you had not considered.
Consider the field that your business or service falls under. Use a web directory to find other companies in that field. Review their websites and make note of their good and bad qualities.
Plan: After completing your research start putting the pieces together. Outline your strategy. Consider how to transition from one step to another. Make note of the things you liked about how others presented their product or information. Do not copy or plagiarize their information but let it inspire you. Also make note of the negatives and avoid making these errors yourself.
Advertise: Call attention to your product or service and proclaim the qualities or advantage. First take the time to brainstorm your product or service. What are the qualities? Advantages? Strengths? Consider writing articles, using free web classifieds, and link exchanges.
By focusing on research, planning advertising; you save yourself time and money. You do yourself more harm by jumping in and going for it then you do by having the patience to research, plan and advertise.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lawrence Roth
Webmaster
http://www.rothline.com
Rothline Entertainment: Games, Movies and Software for people of all ages.
I Drank Tea in December
The two writers laughed aloud as I ended the story. Not that it was the kind of thing that one likes to hear in the morning. Some would quickly go on their knees and pray that the “cup” passes next door. But pray as they might, it is a “cup” that we all must drink from.
By cup, I am not referring to the cups of tea in our hands that we now resumed to enjoy after telling them the story. DD Phil, the romance writer who the ladies like to call Filemon, with a stress on the last syllable, was looking dreamily. Sitting with his right hand supporting his chin, his left on the chair, and the suspended tea cup on the table, one would have thought that he was plotting a scene in his next fantasy novel.
Of course, the story that I was telling them was more fantasy than real. What is real again in this world? For Val K the poet, sitting with all the cares in this worldhis legs wide apart as the poleseverything (and that includes life) is poetry. It is no wonder that someone says, “Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyways.”
Whether the story was a comedy or a tragedy is another matter. But it was a story about life. And whether life stories are sweet or bitter is for you to judge. Look at the verdict of these people.
A chief of King Edwin says: “The present life of man is like a sparrow.” Apostle James, a Bible writer, calls it “a mist that appears for a while and then disappears.”
But the story was more about equivocationsdouble tongues. And is life not a tale of equivocations? So, after I finished the story, we resumed our tea drinking and compared the story with other equivocal tales.
The first to come to mind was King Croesus who went to consult the oracle before embarking on a major military expedition. He was assured that if he went to war, a mighty empire would fall. He believed and went to do battle. But the empire that fell was his!
And then there was Macbeth who was thoroughly deceived by the witches. He didn’t think that tress “move” and he never believed that there was any man not “born” of a woman. But he was dead wrong. Equivocation did both people in.
The best of such double tongues, however, was that of the great hinter who was warned that he was to be killed by an animal on a certain day. So the finicky hunter refused to step into the bush on that day. But lying in his room, the head of one the animals that he had killed which he had suspended on a rafter, got loose and landed a death-blow on his head!
When I got the message to proceed to the country with God speed, however, the first thing that came to my mind was not a word that began with letter E. And then the message became more incessant: You must come home in December. I refused the invitation. Yet, my people sent an emissary who spoilt the case for not explaining why I was wanted back home. So I tarried in the city, waiting for the war of the cyclpos.
January 10, 2005. I sat down to read a letter from home. And then came the sentence: “The juju priest who said you will die in December died that very month and has been buried.” That was when I knew the reason for the distress call in December. I had been required to come and to make sacrifices to impotent gods to survive December. Pity the “authoritative,” “all knowing” juju priest. Didn’t know that death is everywhere. Didn’t know that he was prophesying his own death. Didn’t know that I was enjoying my tea way back in December. Equivocation.
Mohandas Gandhi said: “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you would live forever.” That has been my guiding principle. Who is afraid of death? Someone said “the tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.” What matters in the end is not how long we live. But “it’s the life in your years, said Abraham Lincoln. So the question that we should ask ourselves is, How would I be remembered? Not a few people care if they were remembered for vileness. But even if you were known in your lifetime for some spectacular achievement, it adds to nothing.
If the Bible were a book of epitaphs, the second verse of Ecclesiastes is dear to my heart. It simply states: “The greatest vanity! Everything is vanity!” And that’s the dinkum oil.
As we take our tea, with DD Phil and Val K happy that their controversial writer is still alive, the fact remains that we must die of something someday. And if my people supposing I was dead had wept over me and buried my effigy, I will have the singular honor or infamy of being mourned and buried twice.
Yet it is good to be alive.
So even if I were to pass on tomorrow, let it be known that the priest LIED. I drank tea in December.
Arthur Zulu is an editor, book reviewer, and author of Chasing Shadows!, How to Write a Best-seller, A Letter to Noah, and many other works. For his works and FREE help for writers, goto:
http://controversialwriter.tripod.com
Mailto: controversialwriter@yahoo.com
Web search: Arthur Zulu
About the author:
Arthur Zulu is an editor, book reviewer, and published author.
Internet Marketing and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
I was just thinking about something I’d like to share with
you, and hopefully it’ll give you something to think about
as well. I was remembering when I took a motorcycle riding
safety class when I was 23 years old. I had no previous
riding experience, aside from a bit of mountain biking with
a 21-speed, and I figured it wouldn’t be too much different
going from that to a motorcycle. Yes, it gives me slight
grin now, too.
Boy was it was crazy, I couldn’t have been more wrong! I
imagined myself just climbing on and riding off into the
sunset like a pro. But when the time came and I actually
sat on the bike for the first time and rode a few hundred
feet, it was quite an eye-opener, to say the least. I felt
like I was 15 years old again, with a driving permit in my
wallet and my mom in the passenger seat. Those familiar
emotions were running through me again — apprehension,
confusion, excitement and fear — only this time I had more
life-experience under my belt to better manage them all.
Sure, having driven a manual transmission car for many years
did help control the motorcycle, but it was still pretty
foreign. But with time, practice, and making plenty of
mistakes, I got pretty good at it. Eventually, it became
second nature. And even now, after all the experience I’ve
gained, I’m planning on taking an advanced riders safety
course.
This reminds me of internet marketing. Maybe you are just
starting your first online business, or maybe you are on to
your second or third and are now marketing those. Where
ever you are at, the amount of business experience you have
will vary from most everyone else; but here’s a fact no
matter how long you’ve been doing it: if you don’t practice
internet marketing, it will never get any easier.
Internet marketing is just like learning to ride a
motorcycle or drive a car. Before actually getting into the
thick of it, people may tell you “Oh, it’s so easy!” or “All
you have to know is this, that’s it.” Even when you think
about the steps and procedures beforehand, you can convince
yourself that you have it all planned out and it’ll go off
without a hitch. But once you actually do it, you get that
much needed reality check.
Internet marketing isn’t something you can just “do” and get
right the first time around. Yes, it is important to take
advice from professionals you trust and who are where you
want to be, and to read their eBooks and what not. But it
is much more important to actually get out there and do it
yourself. Guru’s can point they way, but they can’t give
you experience. To be successful at internet marketing, it
takes focus, concentration, and especially practice.
Just like using a clutch, you will mess up your marketing.
You may gun it, and offer your customers a product that
would’ve sold better had you waited. You might pick a
product you are not really qualified to market. Whatever it
is, be it headlines, sales copy, product placement — you
will get it wrong some of the time. But the more you
practice marketing, the more you read about people who are
doing it correctly and effectively, the more you write and
rewrite, the better you will get.
Eventually, you will develop a “sixth-sense” of what is good
or bad — marketing will become second nature to you.
Most people are looking for the easy way out. That’s why
“get-rich quick” schemes are selling so well (and ruining it
for us legitimate netizens, damn it!). But those people
never reach their ultimate goals, because there is no
legitimate, fool-proof quick way — especially one where you
can keep your conscience clean!
All those who are determined to succeed, who try and try
again and do not stop despite all the obstacles in their
path — those are the ones that will succeed, guaranteed.
You can do anything you want in life; no one can stop you
but you, and this does include financial independence.
Ask yourself what you really want out of life. Would you
rather catch the new episode of ‘Friends,’ or spend time
strengthening your sales copy? It’s easy to get distracted,
but stick to your guns and re-do it for the tenth time.
Just remember, for every time you get something wrong, you
are that much closer to getting it right.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Palyn Peterson publishes the acclaimed Advanced Internet
Marketing News. A professional newsletter with a
refreshing perspective and a strong focus on no-cost
techniques. http://FutureInternetMarketing.com
FREE Tips, Tricks, Tools, Resources, eBooks, and More!
Planning the Big Bash
Start out with your future graduation ideas and opinions on the current trends in food, music etc, see who they want to be invited, make a list and get the addresses all together and organized so you can get them written out at least two months ahead of the event. Make sure you allow for the last minute guests too.
You know how kids are with parties, they get an idea of whom they forgot and last minute you have at least 5 extra people coming! Moreover, there is always the proud papa who invites a few colleagues in to celebrate too.
You can hit the books and the web to put together a menu of your own and cook everything, or if a lot of relatives are coming do a potluck and have everyone bring a dish for lots of variety.
Then there is always the catered route if you would prefer not to cook but personally I think cooking adds to the party atmosphere of the day, but not everyone can cook, or would want to for a crowd. Ok, the menu is more or less set, allowing for last minute changes, the graduation invitations are being made and will be delivered when they are finished for you to address and mail out. If you really want them fancy, check the seals and return address labels you can find here.
Finally, the big day is here and you are watching your child advance down the aisle to the end of the teen years and high school. Be proud as he or she stands and collects their diploma showing a job well done. The sight of the graduation garb as the group salutes their teachers is truly a nice sight to behold. Once the procession is over with you gather up the family and your new graduate and head home for a big bash!
Enjoy the party and do not forget the pictures!
Funny Things We Dream
I often wonder why I wake up so happy, ready to start the day. When I was younger I’d whack the alarm clock, for the fourth time, grumble out of bed and stomp around with a major sour puss. Now I’m up before the alarm clock most mornings, and I don’t grumble, not as often as I used to anyway. I’m often anxious to see what the day will bring.
I think I’ve stumbled upon the reason for my early rise and my cheery outlook. My wife. Yes, she brightens up my days and has given me tremendous motivation, though she still sleeps later than I do, and she tends to grumble, though not too badly.
There’s another reason, and this also involves my wife. I believe that laughter is the best medicine, and she makes me laugh. More so, I think a happy attitude is contagious, and the reason I wake up happy might be this: my wife laughs in her sleep.
I kid you not. She laughs out loud. So loud that I’m frequently awakened by her nocturnal guffaws. Sometimes it begins as a chuckle, but many times the laughter just erupts, like she just saw the funniest thing in the world. How can I help but be amused and feel happy myself when I’m treated to this many nights out of a week.
There’s more… while still asleep, she tells me what she was laughing about. Here’s are the most recent accounts…
One night she rolls over and begins her laughing. I wake up, and wait for her to settle down. Then I ask “What’s so funny?”
I wasn’t expecting a response, but to my surprise she answered me while still sound asleep. She said “Mrs. Juniper said the juniper wouldn’t grow much taller than two feet, but she planted it and the damn thing took off, and it’s still growing! Ha ha ha ha….” Then she began to snore again.
I shook my head, rolled over and settled in for the remainder of the night, knowing that we’d both get a kick out the story when I recalled it the following day. We did.
The most recent episode was even better, stranger. This time it seemed like I was already awake before she started laughing, maybe she had been chuckling first and that roused me. Either way, when she stopped her laughter I decided to see if she would talk again.
I asked “Okay, what’s so funny this time?”
Her reply was classic. A truly original rambling by a sleeping brain. She said “Orville Redenbacher’s plane wouldn’t fly so they were trying to hang Orville Redenbacher’s plane over the bed by a string. Ha ha ha ha….” Then she conked out.
Again I shook my head, rolled over and anticipated the break of day, when I would share the tale from her sleeping brain with her alert brain. I couldn’t wait to see her reaction.
I ask you, being a natural marvel, capable of great intellect, doesn’t the human brain have better things to think about? The mechanics of slumbering gray matter perplex me.
Why she laughs in her sleep I don’t know, but I’m glad she does. I’m happily married, and I assure you, that will never change!
I’m looking forward to more of her one liners from la-la-land. Can there be more? I’ll keep you posted. Heck, if I collect enough maybe I’ll write a book!
That’s all for now. From my funny little spot in the universe, I bid you well.
Over and out.
About the Author: Drew Vics is an artist, writer and musician living in New Jersey. Aside from writing, which for now is a hobby, Drew enjoys playing guitar, writing and recording music, painting, and brewing his own beer.
Source: www.isnare.com
Every Truck Lover’s Dream:
Truck song of truck songs, “Holocaust Harry’s Hotpipe”. The tune ignores the gas crunch and wallows is the notion of big powerful monsters beyond whatever the non-custom rigs can do.
“Well I used to drive those regular trucks
before I built this rig
Back in the days when I was broke
Before I made it big
When I sucked dust behind Volvos
And ate it behind vans
Men with Fords and GMCs and even panel vans
When 30,000 kilos was considered a big load
Back in the days when 18 wheelers
were the King Kongs of the road
well that’s when I won the Lotto, folks
and achieved my hearts desire,
and I built this big jet powered truck
and put her out for hire.
In the song, the man talks about 2,000 horse power, 3 transmissions and a computerized gear shift to manage it all. It’s funny and bouncy and probably a secret dream of every trucker.
A down to earth singer and songwriter, Cyril May and his musical cohort Jack McDonald make having a supertruck like described in this song sound like a really nifty idea.
“Holocaust Harry’s Hotpipe” is only one of the great songs on Cyril May and Jack McDonald’s CD “Off The Beaten Track”. Listen to samples of their tunes on the web site:
www.cyrilmay.com. For more information contact via postal mail at 266 Orizaba, Long Beach, CA 90803; 562/433-0734 or email at divingds@juno.com
About the Author
Freelance Writer in Ashland, Oregon