I’m sure the big production companies are going to want to option this story.  Although it’s a little off-season (I should have posted it back in October), It’s a masterpiece.  It was written by MrHattyHat (me), Atticusser, and MtyThor while we were attending a meeting together.   The idea is that one of us (me) started the story, then we passed it around to continue it.   Each color change represents an author change.  One thing to note: as we continued to pass the story around, it grew darker and darker in the room.  We had to resort to using our cell phones for light so we could continue writing.

Enjoy.

All Hallow’s Eve: The Legend of Sleepy Hallow

An original short story by MrHattyhat, MtyThor and Atticusser

“What was that?”

Under normal circumstances, two teenage boys walking in such proximity to one another—in fact, in direct physical contact—would have been considered socially unacceptable in Sleepy Hallow.  The Progressive Secularist mode of thought trending through the more metropolitan cities of the country had spread its viral strands in conspicuous ignorance of Sleepy Hallow—Smalltown, U.S.A, complete with its antiquated traditions of moral judgment and self-restraint.

But these were not normal circumstances.

Shivering from equal parts cold and fear, the boys advanced on their objective, neither one the least bit interested in completing it; neither one willing to be the first to volunteer his retreat.  So, on they crept.

Jake, the younger of the two, turned to Caleb and said…

“Quit trying to hold my hand, you fairy!”

Caleb did not respond, nor did he make any effort to distance himself physically from Jake.  Jake could complain all he wanted; Caleb wasn’t about to place himself any nearer to the darkness that filled the gaps between the trees on either side of Old Mill Road.

There was no moon tonight, which had seemed a good thing at first, since Caleb subscribed to a healthy belief in, and fear of, werewolves.  No moon meant no lycanthropes, at least, but the orb-less sky now meant that the mill road through Hawkins’ Woods was unnaturally dark.  It was quiet also…so quiet.

Jake hadn’t uttered another word, though the two boys were nearly embracing now.  The woods seemed to grow taller around them with each step, and the mill road grew narrower.  Soon the silhouette of the mill would appear before them, a great, decaying hulk of pure blackness against the star-speckled sky.  Caleb watched for it desperately, unwittingly holding his breath.

The mill road took a gradual bend and Jake’s feet shuffled and came to a stop.  His throat made a breathy whine…

“Eeaguheghheeeh!”

“Don’t do that!” squeaked Caleb.

“I didn’t.”

“Yes you did.”

“Did what?”

“You said, ‘Eeauheghhoooh!’”

“No I didn’t.”

Caleb was becoming frustrated.  Enough so that he strongly contemplated discontinuing the fervent grip of Jake’s hand and shoulder that would have required a flushed and stuttering explanation to a belated third party.  He couldn’t remember now why he had commenced the socially precarious strangle hold on Jake’s arm, but something inside him said that putting an abrupt end to it would be a bad idea.

“Eeauhgghheeeh!”

“I told you not to do that!”

“That was you.”

“Who?”

“You. Caleb.”

“It was?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m Jake, and there aren’t any other characters yet.”

“You’re Jake?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Oh.  I thought I was.”

“No. I checked.  The alternating order of the paragraphs distinctly implies that I am Jake.”

“Hmm…I must have lost track.”

Jake’s words proved an omen of change, however, for in the quiet shadows before them, a third character stood.  Watching.  Listening.  Existing.  This was the character the two boys hoped with all hope did not, would not, appear.

The character spoke…

“Uh…do you want me to leave you two alone?”

Stepping from the woods, Frank Nathan Stein wore an expression of amused mock revulsion.

“Dude, you scared the life out of me!” Jake shouted, immediately regretting the volume as his voice echoed along Old Mill Road, certainly announcing their presence to every ghoul and goblin in Sleepy Hallow.

“You guys look really gay,” Frank offered, joining in step with the boys whose hearts were just starting to return to normal pace.

“Just wait,” Caleb retorted, “walk along this road for a few minutes with us and you’ll be sticking pretty close too, I guarantee!”

There was an awkward moment of shifting eyes and silence as the boys realized that their terror-induced affection, which they each had conveniently avoided acknowledging, had just been outed.

“What’s with that weird light?” Frank asked finally.

“Don’t know,” Caleb replied.  “Must be the light from that big dude’s cell phone.”

“Yeah,” Jake agreed.

Another moment of strained silence and the boys stopped dead in their tracks.

“Big dude?!” They asked in perfect unison…

And then a cold voice broke the still night air.  It was a deathly whisper, a chill hiss that came from neither ground nor sky, and it said, “Holy cow!  New Mexico tied it up!”

The boys all screamed, falling to the ground.

“Eeeauheghheeeh!”

Then they died.

And so ended the lives of the boys: Frank N. Stein, Jake Ulah, and Caleb DeWild.

Though they died young, before their times, their passing proved to be the salvation of countless, nameless victims of horror tales of both film and print.

And thus it was.

Amen?

What the boys didn’t know—what they couldn’t know—was the true nature of those three mysterious figures who, at the end of their lives had manipulated them even as puppets on strings of ink, dancing on a paper stage.  What even those three otherworldly beings could not know, moreover, was that one of them—one of that very three—was not what he appeared.  One of them was not…human.But which one?

It was MrHattyHat, that’s who.

This kid should definitely consider an internship as a contributing author for The Word.

Comedy Gold!

My first instinct when I heard this rumor was, “Huh???”  And when I read that it was refuted I thought, “Thank goodness.”  Tobey Maguire as Bilbo Baggins?  It just didn’t seem to fit at all, especially since the casting of the LOTR trilogy was so spot-on.   But I don’t know.  I didn’t think he could have pulled off Spiderman either, and he was great in that (Spiderman 3 excluded for reasons of total crapness).

Too bad Ian Holm is getting on in years now, because he was great as Bilbo in LOTR.  I hope they get somebody with a similar look and manner.  Or maybe they should just make him look young with all that magic CGI that James Cameron is inventing.

This is a follow up post to report that Snow Buddies was just every bit as good as the trailer would lead one to believe.  Oh yes!  I’ve seen it like four times now, thanks largely to my dear friend Acute Viral Rhinopharyngitis, aka the common cold, which has infected my kids and left us largely housebound over the weekend, looking for ways to keep the three-year-old occupied so the five-month-old can sleep in relative peace.  Snow Buddies was pretty much on repeat play, and can it get any better?  I submit that it cannot!

I won’t go into a detailed review, except to say that I applaud the way these kinds of kids movies are teaching our children in a simplified manner.  For instance, Snow Buddies relied heavily on one-dimensional characterization for pretty much everybody in the film.  The producers of the movie gave each character some notable trait, behavior, or style, which defined the basic nature of that person.   I imagine that as a child, this approach would have made it so much easier for me to recognize the character archetypes and to take from that a simpler world view, a lens through which I could shape my developing interactions with the people around me, who I could more easily define and understand because movies like this taught me how to stereotype.  Cheers to you, Snow Buddies maker people!

There was Jean Jorge the Third (aka, as Atticusser pointed out, “My fazher waz a bakher too!”), the mean French dogsled racer, who wore raccoon furs and cheated shamelessly.

There was a Chinese dogsled racer, who was the token Asian, I think.

There was a Finnish dogsled racer, a pretty blond woman, whose only line was, “Stay avay from Jean Jorge, he vould do anysing to vin.”

There was a Russian dogsled racer, who said things like “Da, comrade,” and gave enthusiastic thumbs-ups.

There was Deputy Dan, the bumbling deputy sheriff who was looking for the lost puppies.

And of course there were the five puppies themselves.  I won’t give away this part, because this could be a fun game.  See if you can guess in the comments the personalities of the five starring puppies.  I’ll tell you this: they were each distinctive and very recognizable, and they were matched perfectly with the personalities of the kids who owned them, of course.  So guess away.  If you were writing this movie about five talking, adventurous, troublemaking, good-hearted puppies, what personalities would you give them?

And don’t worry, at our house we’re anxiously awaiting the arrival of the next adventure: Santa Buddies!

It’s great to watch your kids grow up.  It’s incredibly fun and satisfying to have real conversations with my three-year-old (going on thirty already).  It’s not always roses, but most of the time, it’s pretty fantastic.  He’s like a little version of me running around the house.  And, like me, he likes to be entertained.  He likes a good book, and he likes to watch TV more than my wife generally approves of.  I’m pretty cool with it.  I don’t mind watching his shows with him.  In fact, some of his shows, like The Wonder Pets and Shaun the Sheep are downright funny.

There is a side-effect of this combination of his growing up and watching TV that I should have seen coming, though, which is that the commercials are starting to register with him.  I’m suddenly being inundated with stories about these amazing new toys and games that he’s seeing on TV.  What’s more, since he watches a lot of Disney channel, I’ve learned that our Netflix queue has some unexpected new additions.  So this is what I’ll get to look forward to watching this weekend:

Wheeeeee!  I can’t tell you how excited I am for this one.

I typically keep my BYU football banter over on my Thor’s BYU Board site and separate from the Word, but worlds are colliding today because this is a topic that I feel compelled to address.

Why is Max Hall smiling?

I’ll tell you why: because he’s a moron.

Most of you, Word readers, are probably already familiar with the events of this last Saturday, in which rival collegiate football teams BYU and Utah played their annual game (if you can call it that).  It was about the ugliest game I’ve ever watched, marred by a ridiculous number of penalties for personal fouls and unsportsmanlike conduct.  A friend of mine said it well when he told me that we really didn’t get to see which team was better at football.  Too true.

Well BYU came out the victor in a 26-23 overtime result, but the story continued after the game when BYU quarterback Max Hall elected to speak his mind to the press with regard to the Utah football program.  He later issued an apology for the way in which his comments “came out” (and I love that they just came out that way, because he’s not at all responsible for forming the words in his mind and then directing them through his larynx and out his mouth, right?), but this whole thing reaffirmed for me something that I perceived when Max Hall first took the field three years ago: this is one arrogant kid.  He’s got a lot of talent in the game of football, don’t get me wrong, and at times I’ve been very impressed with his skills, but as his collegiate career winds to a close, I can tell you one thing: he will not be missed.  He’s a choke artist who can’t handle the pressure of a big game, who played like an absolute chump in the Utah game, forcing his defense to stay on the field pretty much the entire second half and do all the work, then claims “We deserve this.  We played our guts out,”  and who then sets his rabid ego loose and starts spouting off about how classless Utah is, etc. etc.

Well Max, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

I’m trying hard to remember the post I wrote that was lost, but it’s apparently been erased from my memory now too.  If only I could say the same for this video.  You’ll know what I mean once you watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnqqdZZddFE&feature=PlayList&p=CFA0BA940995889C&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=61

I thought I’d kick off the comeback with a winner.

Yes, I’m talking about myself.

Recently (as in the past two days) I was kind of forced by circumstance to migrate all of my hosting to a new server.  It was well time for that to take place anyway, so I made the plans and took care of it.  All in all it actually went pretty well considering I was moving websites, email, databases, etc. all while trying to maintain uninterrupted service to those who benefit from my hosting (that includes this site).

Well, the millions of you who read this blog may notice something conspicuously absent from the post archive: All posts since July!

Yes, that’s right ladies and gentlemen, I lost some data…apparently.  To be honest, I have no idea how it happened either.  Before the old server went offline I synchronized the database files between the two servers, so the new server should have had all the latest from the old server.  But somehow, when this site came back up, it was light a few posts.  It’s very perplexing because it’s not like those posts were stored in their own files that got missed or something.  Theoretically, if the database files related to this blog from the old system got copied to the new system then all the posts should be here, but magically they are not.

So I’m stumped, and my apologies go out to MtyThor and myself–the authors of the only missing posts–and to those who may have had excellent comments on any of the posts (but not those who made dumb comments).

So I guess we’ll just build from here with a parting thought from that oft-quoted orator whose succinct expression of exasperation has never been more appropriate:

D’oh!

P.S. If I figure out what happened and how to fix it, rest assured that I will.

Kick away…hard (that pretty much means you, Atticusser, so do us proud.)

How’s that for fresh content, Gee-rant?

Fortunately for the rest of us, they’ll never overcome their game-universe rivalries in order to band together, or we’d have a real problem on our hands.  Also, the fact that they’ve decided to arm themselves with precise replicas from video games and comic books pretty much wins the battle for our side, as you’ll see from the videos below.

#3 – Retractable Wolverine claws: These are actually pretty cool, and would make great accessories for Halloween.  The guy might even seem dangerous were it not for his having chosen to demonstrate his weapons by leaping (with the help of a discreetly placed exercise trampoline in the background, you’ll notice) fiercely at an unsuspecting cardboard box perched precariously on a cheap barstool in his dorm room.

#2 – Lancer Rifle with Chainsaw Bayonet (Gears of War): This is probably the most overtly dangerous one of the bunch, as it fires actual bullets.  However, as the pumpkins aptly demonstrate, if you hold perfectly still, the wielder stands pretty much a .0001% chance of actually hitting you as he’s rushing toward you and firing into the log at your feet.  When he gets close enough to use the “chainsaw bayonet” you might be in trouble, so I recommend using the convenient pause in combat while he starts up the little motor on his mom’s limb trimmer to either run away or kick the guy in his man parts.

#1 – Cloud Buster Sword (Final Fantasy 7): Again, the first impression is very menacing, especially with the straight from the highlands Scottish blacksmith guy running at you and screaming with that giant sword.  But wait for it…wait for it…The real danger here is when he gets you laughing so hard that you forget to dodge during one of the 30 second periods during which he’s working the blade into what you might call a swing.

So know this, nerds: I’M ON TO YOU!