Matt Pacey's MTM 1511 Blog

Chapter 1

2008-11-01T21:20:00.001-07:00

Stanford Cremley was sitting alone in his office when it happened. He noticed the quality and color of the illumination entering his office from above slowly change to become dimmer and slightly redder, but he assumed that it was due to a power surge or faulty light bulb in the ceiling above. Or, he thought, it could just be the effects of the genetically-engineered hallucinogenic mushrooms he had ingested just minutes prior to this occurrence.
He didn't look up immediately, but when he turned his head to search for a squirrel he thought he'd heard, he put the vision of an oddly textured, glassy yet veined afternoon sky above him down to the results of perceiving the world with an altered brain chemistry.
The phone on his office desk rang, blaring an old Captain Beefheart song he was fond of, and he turned his attenton back to the business of the day. Must be one of his clients trying to schedule a therapy session. Or to cancel one, he thought, always a pessimist.
He flipped open the telephone and bellowed, "Hello! Stanford Cremley, attorney at law, at your service."
There was a momentary pause of silence where all Stanford heard was the ambient noise of an open phone line and the rustle of the wind through the leaves of his office walls.
"Stan, are you all fucked up again? At 2:00 in the afternoon? Shit, man, do you even know what's going on?"
For a few seconds, Stanford sat in his swivel chair, puzzled. He looked at the dirt beneath his feet, looked around at the trees, weeds, and bushes surrounding the clearing in which he sat, looked up at the veined and glassy sky, and finally focused on the desk, after which he immediately knew where he was and what was going on.
"Reeve, I'm at work! Shut up! They might be monitoring my calls!"
Nervous, he paused again, and continued talking in a whispered tone, so that whoever was recording his calls wouldn't be able to hear him. "Don't tell my boss, but I'm tripping the fuck out on these awesome acid shrooms Lisa brought back from B.C.! I think my office is turning into a forest!

"Stan, you don't have a fucking job! You're coming down from some fucked up surreal fantasy of yours! Office worker? That's stupider than the time you thought you were a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman and woke up all the fucking neighbours at three am to give them some fucked up speech about the 'Suckmaster 5000.'"

"The Suckmaster 5000! King of vacuums! Cleans toilet bowls and speaker cones!"

"You're at that fucking desk those art guys left in the woods as some kind of stupid dadaist experiment, aren't you."

"Hey, don't talk shit about my company or we'll sue you out of existence!"

"Stan, I'm coming to get you. Some fucked up shit is going on today, and you're to fucked up to notice."

"Your mom's too fucked up to notice!"

...

Midnight Rant

2007-10-09T22:29:00.001-07:00

Faces, taken off and passed around. drawn out of a hat. who am I and when was that, when it began? Am I woman, am I man? Will I see the master plan, or will ruin fall upon the land, naught I can do with my command, for my command is fairly bland. It's not fun, I'm on the run. From myself, for mental health. Take a rest and just chill out. Scream and shout, but don't just pout. Let it all out. Let it float to the surface of your being. Who am I and does it even matter? We are all and all in one is us, ever expanding ourself outwards in different guises, all part of the same thing. The eternal champion takes many forms. The multiverse harbours infinite variations of the same thing, which is all we really are. All part of the machine, a cosmic dream. A cosmic cog-wheel. A guitar strum from the amplifier of the cosmos, taking a small sound and reverberating it across limitless time and space, multiplied. Touch me and I touch myself, not in a perverted way, but it's the truth, for you are I, and our offspring are us, and we are them, and I am you, and we are anyone ever born and ever yet to be. Life does not begin with birth. Life never ended in the first place. We were always alive, since the beginning if life itself, moving onwards into the future until it ceases. Life is all one thing. And parts of it die off. Subdivisions of the living essence of our planet known as individuals, or herds, or societies, or species, but life itself, the important thing, lives on. Single celled organisms to the most complex human brain, it is all created for the benefit of the survival of life. Either we'll learn to preserve life, or die off as an evolutionary dead end, a cruel mistake and a joke played by the hypothetical gods upon the planet. Who are we and who are you and I? We are life itself. We are inanimate objects, molecules and atoms, arranged in a specific order, and a collection of specific chemical reactions between these elements. A self-perpetuating system of nothing but motion and creation, endlessly agreeing to create itself anew in unique variations on the theme. Music. What is that but sound taking on a life? Recombining rythms, melodies, harmonic elements and structures, timing, to create a pleasing sound, recombining, endlessly in loops, cross-pollenating with itself and with other distinct groups of sounds to create something new and unique, always more than the sum of its parts, these parts themselves infinitely recombinable? Sound and music is the ultimate extension of life into the abstract. Nonsense makes perfect sense when put together next to reality, the reality of our absurd existence. We strut and fret our hour on the stage, following rules we created for ourselves, arbitrary laws we follow to be liked and approved by others. But the only true heroes are the rule-breakers. Those who defy. Those who defy the false logic we've built up for ourselves, the structures of rigidity in behavour which have no basis in actual human perception of aesthetics, of what is good or what is nice or what is appreciated by others. Nothing has a basis in anything, besides itself, when it comes to certain things. And it has to end, the classification of people into different categories, genres of humans creating genres of music, because we are all one, and that's a simple fact. Wether from the garden of Eden or from the plains of Africa, we come from the same source, and regardless of all the permutations of the human species and social behavours, we are all part of the same thing, and able to recombine to create new and wondrous behavours, and lives themselves. New races have yet to exist. Or, rather, we have yet to recombine the races into a sea of differences, with each human of an unique heritage unmatched by others, undifferentiated yet unique. Everyone is themselves, yet all a part of the one sea of humanity, the one God is all of us put together, the multiple aspects of Man itself. We are Man. We live to feed and clothe and entertain one another. We live to feed and clothe and entertain ourself. We are humanity ourself. Singular. We are one, and that is all. Drumming to a different beat, each of us, to create the ultimate complexity of polyrythms and syncopation, louder than anything, pure, vibrations shaking reality out of its socket, at once both infinitely fast and infinitely slow, never ending, and never beginning. That is how it was in those days. The hippy days. Coolio, daddy-o. Shiggity-do wap. Wippity wap zang bop zoink! I'm a fly donkey, and ain't no one gonna rag on my jive. Flip out and have some fun. Make sense, make nonsense, make dollars and sense. Paint your fence. Yellow and blue and pink, every colour and the kitchen sink. Blink, wink, and you missed it all. The big bang, the beginning of the universe, the midde, the death, and again, here we are, around another loop of cosmic beginning and deconstruction. Harmonics sounding on the twelvth fret. Screaming feedback, yellow noise sooths the mind. Yellow sunshine music light, sonic light, shining bright on through the night. On an endless highway we roll at night, across the desert. In hopes of finding the bright yellow light at the other end of night, maybe in another life. Driving through the empty wilderness of nothing. Nothing but the road and those on it. The cars and trucks that pass us by on occasion. The occasional gas station and diner. We ride along through the days on the endless highway, it's twists and turns meandering around the obstacles both real and imaginary. A canyon here, a mirage there. Riding across the endless desert, ever heading for the far horizon, beond which we have no telling of what lies ahead. Only hope is to hope the map is right, maybe ask for directions, if you know where you're trying to go. Who knows if you'll get there in the end? No one. But you'll get somewhere. Or keep on trying. Very few places to stop in the desert, but people do try. Some are successful, others, not so much, and they're never heard of again. No communication in these deserts. this long and winding road, that continues on into the unknowable horizons of distant futures. In the desert, all we can hope for is to find a good radio station broadcasting in the desert of our existence, and the temporary companionship of our fellow travellers we pass on the highway. And the hope that we don't blow a tire while driving alone, because it's twenty miles to the nearest service center, and no one wants to stop for a stranger out here.

Plastic Seal Alternate Intro

2007-10-08T19:42:00.000-07:00

This is the alternate beginning to the story. Mostly taken from the unfinished original draft of Plastic Seal, but edited somewhat for continuity with the rest of the story...

PLASTIC SEAL STUCK UNDER YOUR FINGERNAIL
by Matthew Pacey

"Hey, Bjorn, check this out!" exclaimed the figure sitting behind the east-facing tracking station in the Central African Air Control Center. The indicator lights around his console were flashing rythmically and a fast beeping sound could be heard in the background.
"What is it this time? Another weather baloon?" replied the man sitting across the room.
"Do weather balloons glow red hot and travel at speeds exceeding 5,200 miles per hour?" the other voice inquired.
"No."
"Then I'm pretty wure it's not a weather balloon."
Bjorn wheeled his chair over to the other guy's station, to see the screen filled by the image of a gigantic ball of flaming rock speeding through the earth's atmosphere, at very high velocities.
"That's heading right towards us, isn't it?" asked Bjorn.
"Yup," replied his counterpart.
"Damn."

****

Dr. Microwave Oven awakened suddenly, with a high-pitched drone sounding in his ear. He moved his index finger around behind his ear until he felt something 'click', and the tone stopped. His sheets pulled him out of bed, and the noise started again. He grabbed his morning pod of coffee from the wall where it grew. The emergency signal was only used in cases of extreme emergency, and this must have been one of them.
"Wake up, Doctor Oven!" screamed the voice of an extremely masculine female.
"I'm awake! Shut your pie hole," replied Mike politely. He jabbed his finger in his ear and re-adjusted the volume on his ear implant.
"Jersey Love says you gotta get back into the lab. We's gots sumptin' you gotta get checked out right away, okey dokey?"
"All right, just a few minutes," said Mike, switching his implant over to the classic rock AM station. Something by Dylan was plaing; one of his early protest songs. It was hard for Mike o remember all the titles, since Dylan had at least 170 official albums out by this point. Mike grabbed some clothes from the "not too dirty" pile, pulled them on, grabbed a coffee, and entered the Muscular Transport to the pentagon's central research lab. The linings of the transport tube contracted rythmically, propelling his capsule downwards, until he reached the entrance to the highly-restricted lab.
Jersey H. Love, president of the United States, was waiting for him.
"Hey," said Mike.

"You know this ain't no social call, Microwave!" exclaimed President Love, adjusting his wide cowboy hat. "This is serious business!"
"Last night a meteor slammed into a research station on the plains of Africa, leaving the surrounding area reletavely undamaged, except for a charred elephant or two."
"You called me here for charred ellephants?" Mike interrupted.
"No you fool! Although charred elephants can be quite tasty with honey garilc sauce, I brought you here for more important matters than food. It's the meteor we're interested in."
President Love's face suddenly hardened into a deeply serious expression. "And we're also interested in the life forms on the asteroid!"
"Life forms, you say?"
"Yes. Life forms... like these!"
With those last two words, Jersey pressed a button which slid the protective bulletproof sheilding away from a large glass specimen tank. Floating withing was some sort of a gnome, with a pointy red hat, beady red eyes, and long purple tentacles which protruded from its shoulderblades. It was unlike any alien Mike had ever seen!
"Mr Oven," said Jersey, "this corpse was obtained when I sent the US Armoured Freedom Force to investigate the crash. This thing looked kinda freaky-lookin', so we blowed it up!"
"Soooo..." replied Microwave.

But, before he could complete the thought, a screaming noise filled the air, and sections of the large steel hangar doors to the outside world began to melt. Several strange creatures, like the one in the tank but living, burst through the holes they melted through the metal with their handheld beam weapons.
"Holey moley! Everybody get outta here!" screamed Jersey H. Love. Jersey and his assistants ran to the nearest escape pod. Mike tripped, and didn't make it before the doors to the pod closed tightly, and the pod was sucked through a muscular sphincter set in the wall, heading for a deep underground destination unknown.
The gnomes were blasting their rays at the heads and limbs of white-coated scientists all around, incapacitating or killing them, but leaving the trunk of the body intact. Some gnomes knelt over the fallen scientists, and began to suck the blood from their veins.
"Oh no!" yelled Mike, looking for escape options. He saw a door, and raced for it, outrunning slower, less physically-active members of the research community. He raced down the corridors, towards the front of the building. Up ahead were the mind-erasers, structures resembling 20th-century highschool metal detectors, but which would cleanse the mind of all classified government secrets of those who pass without first obtaining authorization.
"Damnit!" Mike yelled, stuck in a dilly of a pickle. Turning around, he saw the gnomes were hot on his heels, liquifying the faces of scientists not 20 yards behind him. He made his decision, and ran headlong through the mind-erasers, out the main entrance of the bulding, the sign on which read "Ebineezer's Old Fashion Cracker Company", and ran home, his memories of his government position drifting away, leaving only images of his civilian life.

Plastic Seal Stuck Under Your Fingernail

2007-10-08T18:47:00.001-07:00

Plastic Seal Stuck Under Your Fingernail, a highschool class project by Matthew Arnold Pacey.

"The mutants are taking over the station! They've already taken over reception! The secretaries were charred to a crisp by the aliens' U.V. ray pistols! They're breaking down the doors! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAURGH! THIS IS ROGER Q. SMITH OF ZROH NEWS, SIGNING OFF! AAAAAAAURGH!'
*click*
Microwave oven switched off the television and wend to the kitchen to get something to drink. There was never anything good on since the meteor crashed into the plains of africa, bringing with it the gnomes from another planet. Radioactive, genetically-mutated, bloodsucking gnomes. It was such a drag. CNN had taken over all the major networks, and the local stations played nothing but news about who the gnomes had killed in that city. They had probably sucked about half the world's population dry by now.
Mike was getting thirsty. Mike realized he was all out of water when he opened the fridge, so he got into his car. He wondered why they never showed anything like The Simpsons, or Gordenzenflak's Intergalactic Party Hour on TV anymore. The world was going to end, and everyone knew it. Why couldn't they just approach their doom in peace? Now everyone was all worked up, stealing stereos they wouldn't ever need and such things.
Mike lit up a joint. It helped calm him down. That was his last one, so he'd have to pick some more up at the store while he was there. What was he thinking about again? Ah, yes, the world was ending. It had been ending for a long time now, ever since the ozone layer disappeared and the rainforests started shrivelling up into piles of dead wood. Then there was the whole thing about the planet's freshwater supply drying up, followed by the destruction of the world's food supply boy drought and insects. Luckily, after all this, they came out with the nuclear cold-fusion power cell, which would cause no further pollution. It turns out it had been invented sometime in the 20th century, but they 'forgot about it' on some back shelf somewhere, until about a week after the world's oil supply ran out.
Mike powered down his car when he got to the Quik-Stop, and it floated slowly to the ground. It was parked diagonally across three handicapped spots, but it wasn't like the cops would notice. They were probably off somewhere shooting at some aliens or harassing looters, still thinking they could make a difference. He walked inside and picked out a couple of bottles of choice H2O from the fridge in the corner.
"Hey, J.D.! Could you get me a pack of Leary Extra Strengths, unfiltered?" asked Mike, to the man behind the counter.
"No way, man," the dude replied, "We're all out. It's been a busy week, it being the end of the world and all."
"Wanna go find some with me?"
"Sure. Take those waters for free. End of the world sale."
"Can I get some Gatorades too?"
"Sure. Or else the gnomes will steal them when they've finished drinking all our blood!"
They stepped out onto the parking lot pavement and headed off towards Mike's car, with water and Gatorades in hand.
"Hey dude, I think I have have a pack left at my house," Said J.D. as they entered the automobile. "We can get them and watch some movies on that vintage DVD player I got last week!"
"You got Ghostbusters? asked Mike as he slid up the power initiator.
"I've got both of them! I've got all the classics. Even hard to find ones, like Eraserhead and Star Wars!"
"Well then, let's go!"
Mike turned the 'mode' knob to 'cruise' and pulled out of the parking lot, accidentally knocking over some trash cans. On the way to J.D.'s house, they discussed which Star Wars movie was the best, finally deciding on the final chapter, episode twelve, where we find out the secred behind Jar-Jar Binks and Darth Vader REALLY dies, after savinf the universe from Jar-Jar's evil Jedi army.
A few minutes later, they arrived and proceeded up the rusted metal fire escape leading up to J.D.'s apartment. J.D. pulled a screwdriver from his pocked and pried the window open.
"I lost my keys again," he explained as they stepped through the window onto the living room couch.
All of a sudden, the door at the front of the room was blown clear of its hinges. A gnome stepped through the doorway, pointing her U.V. ray gun in the direction of the two scruffy-looking men by the window.
"She's beautiful!" Thought Microwave to himself.
With her other tentacle, the gnome held up a small device to her mouth. She spoke into it.
"Gggghngsht dccrghln d'chlt m'chtlt gakk harrukt. D'gghnhg d'dnch d'ghlt," she said, which was translated by the device into "My sensors detect that you have Gatorade with you. Give it to me."
The two men stood on the couch, looking stunned. After a few seconds of inaction, Mike finally got down and walked over to the gnome (who put away her weapon) and handed her the Gatorade.
She sat down on the couch, causing J.D. to jump sideways off the couch, knocking over a table, and causiong a porcelain elephant statue to fall onto the purple shag carpet.
"Hi,I'm Microwave Ove, and this is my associate, James Douglas Morrison," Mike said to the gnome in a confident but non-threatening voice. "What brings ou to this apartment?"
"I came here for the Gatorade my sensors picked up," replied the gnome. "You see, Gatorade, or a substance amazingly like it, is the only substance our species can survive on. Besides blood, that is. But we prefer to maintain a vegetarian diet."
"Then what's with all the killing?" asked Mike. "And the bloodsucking?"
"Well," she replied, "When we landed here, your army attacked us. We tried to talk, but they didn't listen."
She sounded traumatized as she spoke these words.
"We had to fight back! Some of us started drinking the blood of the fallen human soldiers. You see, we didn't have enough time to pack food when we left our planet. It was about to explode, and we had to move quickly. The months without food had taken their toll, and when the opportunity to eat arose, we acted. Unfortunately, some of us became addicted to the proteins in the blood, and began terrorizing innocent humans! Most of us tried to stop these few gnomes, but we failed. Now the humans think we're ALL evil! When we try to find food, the humans attack us, and we're forced to fight back!"
She began to weep openly. Mike, who was now sitting beside her on the couch, held her tightly in an attempt to comfort her. The tears falling from her crimson eyes burned where they touched her flesh.
"It's all right!" Mike said in a soft voice. "You didn't mean to hurt anyone! You did what you had to!"
J.D. stood up shakily from the floor where he had fallen.
"J.D.!" Exclaimed Mike, to J.D., "You have government contacts! Try to explain to them what's happening! Tell them to make an announcement to make people stop killing hte gnomes! Tell them about the Gatorade!"
"Okay, Dude!" J.D. said as he made his way to the phone in the kitchen.
"TV!" Said Mike, "Turn to CNN!"
The voice-activated curcuitry in the television turned on the screen, showing footage of a Quik-Stop which had been vapourized after all the Gatorade inside had been stolen.
The gnome had stopped crying, and Mike wiped the wetness of the tears away from her face.
"Are you Okay?" he asked.
"I think I'll be alright," her device translated.
Mike admired the beauty of her smooth purple skin, her large, red-centered eyes, her long, neon-green hair, and her perfectly pointed ears. Then he realized he was staring, and jumped into conversation.
"So, what's your name? What was your planet like? What do you do for fun? Do you wanna go out for pizza sometime? Oops, you don't eat that, do you? How about some..."
He was interrupted as she grabbed his head with her tentacles, and pulled it close, pressing his lips to hers.
J.D. ran back into the room, screaming. "It's too late! The government's going to eliminate everyione to prevent the gnomes from taking over the planet!"
Microwve and the gnome seemed to have not heard.
"You guys, listen to me!" He exclaimed hysterically, to no effect.
A special bulletin came over the television.
"This is your president, Jersey H. Love speaking. As all of you know, gnomes are taking over the planet. To prevent this, I have released a skin-peeling death-plague. Unfortunately, all humans will die as a result. My fellow Earthings, we appreciate your noble sacrifices. You have approximately eleven minutes to live. This is Jersey H. Love, saying goodbye."
The screen went blank, and the TV's speakers began playing a song. It was 'The End', by The Doors.
"You Guys! The world is ending! Hey Dudes! Listen up! We're all gonna die!" J.D. exclaimed repeatedly.
Mike and the gnome didn't seem to be listening. They were too engaged with each other to pay any attention to the outside world. Then their skin peeled off and they all died.

THE END.

Mr Funnyhead

2007-10-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

Mr Funnyhead, by either Joel D'amour, Matthew Pacey, or both. I really have no idea. I found this in a binder full of old stuff from school.

There was a man in Growers Hill that ate a dog. He was a crazy guy and killed the dog, but a car ran into him. He was taken to the hospital and put into an operation room to remove the dog's head from his neck and shoulder where it had become imbedded. He escaped from the hospital, avoiding hte surgery, having killed three doctors with his bare feet. He ran into the night with his strange-looking new head stuck close to his face.
Eventually, the dog's head began to salivate because it was still alive, and had started to grow in his neck. The dog's head was horribly misshapen, and grew large jagged fangs. It eventually ate the man's head while he was sleeping, thus becoming the sole owner of the body. Bits of the man's brain did not digest in the stomach, but instead began to grow in the body's appendix, where it would think all the time. The dog's head contracted a virus and grew mold spores, making it mutate in the strangest ways. It drooled constantly, and had to walk backwards, since that was how the head had become planted to the body.
It could not bark or speak, so it sat around with it's head turning to an ugly puke green color. The dog itched and felt uncomfortable and hungry, so it went next door to get some eggs to cook an omlette, but scared the shit out of the girl who answered the door instead.
The girl was screaming in terror so the creature bit off her head and swallowed it whole. The head settled in the appendix and reattached it's neck near the original brain, and the two spoke telepathically to each other. They fell in love.
The dog's head began to crop up with spewing spores as it raided the kitchen. Now the head had lost all its fur. It stank. It was almost perfectly round from the swelling and the bumps, and the eyes bugged out, imploringly.
Realizing that it didn't know how to cook, the dog ate the rest of the girl's body and went back to its house.
When the girl's parents got home, they found her foot in the mailbox where the dog had clumsily tried to hide it. They called the police, and since the dog's home was the only house in the area, the police checked there. They found the door open and there was a horrible stench.
The dog was siting in the couch, dead. As the police moved closer to it, there was a sound murmuring within its stomach. A girl's voice was saying gleefully, "I'm the new head!"

The Nihilistic Death Feasting of the Damned

2007-10-05T20:03:00.000-07:00

Behold, the products Nihilistic Death Hell Satans' unique methods of creation!

------------------

Attention all ye who listen the noisness exasperating!
Look to the mountains where blades are truncating!
It’s Satan’s unholy vegetables!

Behold, it is fruit not! Shoots, roots, stems, and leaves
And the great sorrowful Tree of Life grieves!
As the legions of evil steal the fruit of its soul!

Awesome powers of heinous apocalypse awake!
And rob the mountain fruit of their vegetative power!
But the mountain fruit are still able to kill
With their not-as-powerful (but powerful nonetheless) fruitative power!

FRUITATIVE POWER!
FINAL HOUR!
DEMONS COWER!
YOU WILL BE DEVOURED!

The great maw of the void opens wide on the world
And the world is crushed in the masticating maw of the universe!

UNIVERSE! Destruction, rebirth!
End of this verse!

With this second verse begins a reign of terror, by the void -
The void!
Don’t be annoyed!
You’ll be destroyed!
(But painfully, and for a long time!) Slow and painful death!

Death death – the end comes for the fruit
And for YOU TOO! So doooon’t mess around!
Your soul’s corpse will not be found!

Not even your ghost’s soul will lie on the floor of a dank basement
And it will be a mystery to everyone as to where it is!

Empty ghosts float about the abyss
Accompanied and flanked by unnecessary
DEATH HELL VEGETABLES!

The vegetables wreak insanity upon your twisted demented soul-corpse psyche!
The vegetables of Satan will be the fall of your stupid Little WORLD!
Worlds orbiting around the void find their selves crushed by the void’s pull!
THE VOID’S PULL! STEAL YOUR SOUL!
ENDLESS INSANITY! CRUSH YOUR HUMANITY!

Crush! Crush! CRUSH! INSANITY! Insanity! Insanity!
And there is naught but black!

Black emptiness… as in death’s embrace
And Death’s emptiness is really, really, really black.
And the Grim Reaper harvests the vegetation of all souls!
Reaping the harvests… our fields… no more.

Because he had to go out to lunch! LUNCH! EVIL LUNCH!
The sun – your light – dies.
And so must your vegetation – and your lunch – and your lives – and your world!

Forever … the Lunching! … devours!

The Big Spoon

2007-09-25T16:06:00.000-07:00

I saw a giant spoon. It was fifty feet tall and walked like a man. It had arms and legs, which were also spoons, but of smaller sizes, It had fingers and toes, the toes digging small clumps of dirt from the ground as it walked along the dirt road. I was hiding behind the trees, and I could see the trees, and myself, reflected off its shiny steel surface. I followed it along the road until it came to a river. A rainbow opened up across the river, and the river became a lake. The water was white, the colour of milk. The water was milk. The spoon dived in head first. He came up, walking out of the lake, hunched over, his head tipped backwards, and his face full of cereal. Large peices of cereal. Mixed in with seashells and driftwood. He saw me out of the corner of his eye. Or it would have been the corner of his eye, had he any eyes. As it was, he saw me, somehow, and turned towards me.

"It's time for breakfast," he said.

A Day in the Life

2007-09-25T10:33:00.001-07:00

My face was melting and I couldn`t stop it. My eyes and chin were dripping down my shirt. My teeth turned to mush, like

jellybeans left out in the sunlight, and popped in my mouth one by one. I couldn`t stop it. My hair was coming out in

clumps. I could feel my larynx contracting and shutting up, before my throat fell out the front of my neck and opened up

to the world, spreading itself open. My head was falling forwards. I tried to straighten up, but my spine just popped out

the back of my neck, and my whole head, deflated like an old balloon, brains squishing out the ripped-open holes of my

ears, dripped down the front of my clothes and down one leg. My whole head had basically turned to pudding while I stood

there. I stumbled around for a while, clueless. I had no idea what was going on. The protruding stub of spine fell off,

as well as the other remains of my neck. The hole sealed itself shut, except for a tiny hole in the center. Blood,

jellied brains, and other miscellaneous goo covered my torso, but nothing a shower and a good scrub wouldn`t get rid of.

I went to the bathroom, stripped off my clothes, and threw them in the garbage. They`re pretty much ruined now. So I

washed myself off, towelled off, and would have admired myself in the mirror, but I had no eyes. I felt the hole between

my shoulders. Already the new mouth was forming, and it`d only be a matter of weeks before everything was back to normal.

But this all could have been avoided if only I`d listened to what my parents had told me all those years before. You

shouldn`t let things get to you, or you jut might lose your head.

Anonymous Space People

2007-09-25T10:07:00.001-07:00

She took her face off. There was nothing underneath, not even meat. A gaping whole into the fabric of reality itself. She sat her face on the bedside table, and moved in closer. I stared into the gaping hole, the most beautiful thing I've seen. Empty except for the stars. She embraced me, putting my face up to the empty hole where hers otherwise would have been. My head placed firmly into the hole, all I could see was the abyss. We sat there, crosslegged, on the bed, but all I could see was eternity. Galaxies spiralling, spinning, falling apart or growing cold and collapsing. I sat there for a hundred trillion years. Spiralling clouds of cosmic dust and wayward planets formed themselves into a face, and a hand, that reached out to me. A small, child hand, and it grew into a womans'. I looked down, and saw the fabric of the warp transforming itself into... me. I saw myself, in proportions which could not be humanly comprehended. But I was no longer human. There we were, sitting in space, our bodies bigger thanthe known universe. Moving faster than the speed of light, breathing space and sweating time. We embraced. It was like nothing ever before in the history of humanity. She held me close and we fell in love. She told me we`d be together forever, and we were, throughout eternity, until we collapsed into nothingness, a pure singularity. And with the big bang, we were scattered, our bodies mixed together, homogenous, everywhere. Forever. This was only the beginning. And the end.

2005-11-30T01:54:00.000-08:00

Hi, it's Matt Pacey again. Uncle Matt is still walking with a limp, so he can't write his blog just yet. So, i'm filling in with another story. It's kinda scary, so you don't want to read it if you're scared of things that are scary. I wrote it 'cause someone wanted a story with the Beatles in it. So here it is,

Little Jimmy's Nightmare
By Matt Pacey

Little Jimmy sat alone in his house. The television was on. A movie.

He looked at his watch. It was pretty dark though. He couldn't really see it. Not enough to make out the numbers.

He tried to get some light from the TV onto the watch face. It was a pretty dark, gloomy movie though; the kind that are so dark, if you try to watch them at noon, the light from the window ruins the whole picture. It was the perfect movie to watch in the dark, but not very good for lighting up watches.

Then he remembered... He pushed a button on the upper right of his timepiece, and the whole face emitted a faint green glow. 3:30 AM. It was a little past his bedtime.

But his parents weren't home.

He didn't really have to worry.

But he did anyways.

They were supposed to stay overnight at the Petruccis' place.

But what if they came home early?

Nevermind.
Time to focus on the movie.

It was the kind he wasn't really allowed to watch. But that's what he did when his parents were away. No one to tell him they were bad.

He was old enough to watch what he wanted. 9 years old. 9 candles on his birthday cake. Quite the accomplishment. His parents were only 3 times his age, he knew. And they were REALLY old... So he must be at least fairly old.

The woman in the tank top was running down the hall from the black, slobbering beast with the red, glowing eyes. He couldn't make out what it was; just enough could be seen on screen to give the vague impression that there was a black, slobbering beast with the red, glowing eyes, sprinting forwards in the darkness.

Green hands grabbed at her through holes in the walls. They scratched her flesh with long grey nails. They looked vaguely human... as though they had once belonged to men, but were mutated out of shape my some mad scientist's vile potions. They scratched, and scratched, and tore, and grabbed.

Jimmy's parents warned him about these movies.

"You better not watch those scary movies, or they just might come true!"

Yeah right. They were probably just making things up. When he made those faces, it NEVER got stuck that way! He practiced for hours in front of the mirror, just to see if it was true. It would be soo cool! But it never happened. He believed them, but it never happened.

Why should he believe them about the movies?

One of the hands grabbed at what was left of her shirt. It wasn't very much. And the hand didn't find it so hard to remove!

Jimmy wasn't one to think that girls were icky. But women? Ewww... They were plenty weird. He covered his eyes with his hands!

...peeking out between his fingers.

The beast stood before her, grinning with a look of dark victory upon its' face. It slowly moved its head from one side to the other, dripping from the mouth, eyes narrowed into slits.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The woman screamed with the most high-pitched, ear-spitting banshee-wail Jimmy's ears had ever heard, as the creature lunged forwards into a commercial break.

Sigh.

That was pretty close! Jimmy didn't think he'd have a chance to go get a soda soon, but here was his opportunity!

It was pretty dark in here. The only light was provided by a laundry detergent commercial. But Jimmy could make out the outline of the kitchen door in the distance.

He knew they were just trying to scare him, but the words of his parents echoed in his head.

"You better not watch those scary movies, or they just might come true!"

Poppycock!

"You better not watch those scary movies, or they just might come true!"

That's poop! Poop in word form!

So Jimmy peered over the edge of the couch to the floor below his feet. He couldn't see the floor. But he knew it was there. It always had been, and it always would be. Nothing to be scared of.

Slowly...

He lowered...

His foot.

It was close to where he knew the floor should be. But should he risk putting it down? All he could see was a blackened void!

Sillyness!

The floor was there. It must be. What else would be holding up the couch? Surely it wasn't levitating.

He decided he must get up... Or else he'd never get his soda!

He threw his foot to the ground... and hurtled forward , face first, towards the blackness!

He tried to scream, as he flew downwards into the abyss, but no sound exited his terror-contorted mouth.

*Thud*

He hit the floor.

He must have misjudged the distance to the ground. Their new couch was a little taller than the old one they had just gotten rid of.

He brushed himself off as he got to his feet. No harm done. Just a little rug burn maybe. But at least he wasn't plummeting into a bottomless chasm of doom.

A commercial for moisturizing hand soap came on.

Maybe those green hands would be happier if they had some of that soap, Jimmy thought, as he headed towards the outline of the kitchen door. He went slowly, always on the lookout for any mystery abyss that might be lying in his path.

Maybe they could use some nail clippers as well, he thought.

Slowly but surely he crept on. But then he realized there was nothing to be afraid of.

No bottomless holes....

No black beasts....

No grabbing green.... Say! What is THAT?

Pssht. Just a garish green winter glove his grandma had made him, carelessly tossed about, into the doorway to the kitchen.

Ah, the kitchen at last. The moonlight shone in from the kitchen window. He could see his swing set in silhouette, casting its shadow across the lawn. And he could see the refrigerator beside him in the room; his destination at last achieved!

"AAAH! My eyes!"

After being in the darkened TV room, the light from the refrigerator blinded him as he yanked it open. He covered his face with his hands, and peering out, with a squinting eye, through a tiny slit between two fingers, he spied the soda! He turned his face away from the fridge, and removing one hand from his face, he reached for the can of cool, refreshing, vastly oversweetened cola. His fingers clasped around the can, and grasping it securely, he lifted it forth from its frigid tomb.

He closed the fridge, and walked casually towards the kitchen doorway. He popped open the soda can, and lifted it to his parched lips.

He knew it was silliness, but he still couldn't get those words of 'wisdom' out of his mind: "You better not watch those scary movies, or they just might come true!"

Touching the can to his lips, and tilting it upwards, he allowed the cool dark liquid to enter his mouth.

"AAAAAAAAAAAUUUURHHHHHHGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Jimmy cried out in pain and winced as the cold soda covered his teeth, the sugar adding its own sting as it began the cavity-tunneling process.

He looked up, after the soda had finished its work, and looked back out upon the living room, and towards the couch, to which he must make his way once more. He could tell the couch was there since it cut off the deodorant ad on the TV about halfway down the screen.

He turned back towards the kitchen window, and the sight of his swing set in the yard. It certainly was late to go swinging. Or that's what his parents would say, were they there. But they weren't. It was Jimmy's night. He could do whatever he wanted; no one would send him to his room!

Behind him, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move! He couldn't make out what it was. But he had the vague impression that there was a black, slobbering beast with the red, glowing eyes!

Looking back towards the moon, he reached into the back pocket of his Space Squad 5000 licensed PJs, and felt his hand close around something cold, hard and rectangular. He aimed it behind him and jammed his thumb down hard on a button near the terminus of the device!

*Click*

The TV turned off behind him.

He placed the TV remote on top of the dishwasher, before heading towards the screen door that lead to the backyard.

Behind him, he heard a low growl. Startled, he turned back towards the living room door. The TV must not have went off! He should have turned to make sure the screen went black. He grabbed the remote again, and headed back towards the living room doorway.

That little shock had put him on edge, though. He had to repeat to himself:

No bottomless holes....

No black beasts....

No grabbing green hands...

No bottomless holes....

No black beasts....

No grabbing green hands...

And he finally got his adrenaline down to manageable levels, and he turned the corner into the living room. Staring him in the face was a black, slobbering beast with the red, glowing eyes. So the TV hadn't gone off.

He raised the remote, pointed it straight towards the glowing red eyes that hovered in the darkness above the wide, slobbering, steel-tooth-lined chasm of a mouth.

*click*

All of a sudden, he heard the TV's speakers blare to life! What was happening? All he could hear was one of those songs from his parents' old Beatles records, and behind a large beastly silhouette of a head, he could see various parts of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, and behind them, the set of the Ed Sullivan Show.

*click*

Silence.

*click*

"All my lovin'!"

*click*

Silence.

*click*

"Darling, I'll be true!"

*click*

Silence again!

Throughout all the clicking, the Beatles appearing and disappearing, between all the transitions between sound and silence, Ed Sullivan and no Ed Sullivan, the ghastly visage of the beast remained fixed in the air, red beady eyes staring straight at their intended prey.

Not knowing what to do, Jimmy hit the button, once again.

"All my loving, darling RRRRAAAAAAAAAWWWWRRRRRRRRR!"
The beast opened its' mouth wide, getting out the most horrible sound ever to reach Jimmy's ears. More earsplittingly loud than the woman's banshee-wail, and infinitely more terrifying. It let forth a sound not unlike the sound of a cat, being devoured alive by a garbage disposal; a sound both like grinding machinery and sheer organic terror, mixed with a low bass gurgle that sounded decidedly sewage-related.
But Jimmy had not long to ponder this noise, as his legs were promptly yanked out from under him. Something was dragging him backwards, face down, across the carpet. Rug burn stung his face. He tried to grip the carpet with his hands, but it was useless. He looked down towards his feet as he struggled against... whatever it was!
He looked down towards his ankles, and stared, unbelieving, at the five long green fingers that were wrapped around it!
He tried to kick it loose, but to no avail. It just kept dragging him backwards, to where long arms emerged from an empty black hole in the floor. A mad cackling rose from the chasm, stirring up images of a wild-haired hunchback in a lab coat, mixing two steaming beakers into a cauldron, while electrical arcs from a hundred different machines dance about him.
Johnny wouldn't let himself be the victim of some eccentric madman! He struggled against the freakish green hands, with the garish grey nails, constantly kicking at the fingers. But the arms just kept descending into the hole, still dragging him along.
Into the hole went his feet.
Into the hole went his ankles, legs, and hips.
Into the hole he went everything besides his fingers, which just barely gripped the chasm's edge, the insane cackling getting louder with every tug by those cold, bony things that tore at him from below.
He tried to pull himself out. But he couldn't bring himself closer to the rim by even an inch. He looked up, and he could barely see the ceiling above him. For most of it was blocked out by a snarling black face, with a large, drooling mouth, and piercing red eyes.
Jimmy let go.
The sight of the beast and the ceiling above it receded into the darkness, until he could see nothing at all. The cackling grew louder and louder, and then faded away to nothing again.
Everything was black. No sights. No sounds. No sensation at all.
Nothing, until he once again heard the sound of RRRRAAAAAAAAAWWWWRRRRRRRRR!
The last thing he saw, he was headed straight towards those glowing red eyes, those silvery rows of teeth, feeling the drool of the hungry beast being spewed across his face by a blood-red tongue.
-----
Jimmy's parents arrived home early next morning. The beautiful colours of the sunrise were fresh in the sky. They parked the car, walked in the door, and took a look around for Jimmy. The TV was still on. Cheerful theme music played as bright pastel-coloured characters frolicked in the fields of flowers. The parents sighed to themselves, looking at the disarray Jimmy had left the living room in. His body parts were strewn here and there; an eyeball was floating in the fish tank, with an optic nerve like a little tail fin; the uneaten portions of his heart were hanging half out of the microwave; a lone foot sat atop a pile of intestines on the middle cushion of the couch. Blood, guts, and intestinal matter (not to forget the occasional bone fragments) plastered the walls and ceiling of the room.
One of the TV characters handed another a bouquet of freshly-picked daisies, and they both giggled with glee.
"Sigh. We told him not to watch those late night movies!" Said Mom, in a disapproving voice.
"I still say we should just kick that mad scientist out of the basement. He's never caused anything but trouble," Said Dad, putting in his own two cents.
"Oh dear, don't be hasty!' Mom replied. "He always clones us a new son every time this happens".
"You're right, Honey," Dad realized. "Let's just hope the next one listens to us when we talk to him!"
"Oh, that's what every parent wants, Dear," Said Mom. "But you know, Boys will be boys!"
"Indubitably."

THE END!

It's that time again... no, not tool time!

2005-11-29T00:44:00.000-08:00

Hi, this is Matt Pacey, filling in for Uncle Travelling Matt. I'm sorry to have to say this, but Uncle Matt fell out of an airplane, died, and his head exploded. So he'll be in the hospital for a few days while he recovers. I thought I'd just post a story you might enjoy while you wait. Here it is, a story written in the style of an urban legend that I call...

'URBAN LEGEND'
or, 'I heard it from a friend of a friend of mine'.

Ok, so this woman's driving home from work. It's kind of snowy out. It's getting late, and she has to get home soon so she can drive her daughter to ringette. Driving on the highway, the roads were ok, but as soon as she hit the streets of her town, it was horrible. None of the roads had been plowed and she was driving through a couple of inches of slush. She was just driving along, minding her own business, when, WHAM! Something hit her windshield!
Those damned kids hanging around the corner store were throwing snowballs again.
She looked back at them in anger, and thought to herself, "Stupid kids! They could cause an accident!"
And they almost did! When she turns her eyes back to the road, she sees a baby in a purple snowsuit running across the street! She hit on the brakes, but with all the slush, she started to slide out of control! Luckily, she managed to stop, just in time. Another child, presumaby the girl's older sister, runs up to the baby and grabs her by the hand, walking her off the street. The older girl waves to the driver, but the woman just glares at the girl, then drives on. So, finally, she gets home, and honks her horn as she drives into the driveway. Her daughter opens the door, and steps out, lugging a gym bag behind her. The woman opens her door and yells "Hurry up! We're gonna be late!" The daughter throws her bag in the trunk, and hops in the back seat. It's getting pretty late, and the sun's gone down behind the horizon by this time. They gotta get moving if they're going to make it to the practice in time. So there they are, driving down the road and they're almost at the corner store when all of a sudden, they hear a SPLAT against the front of the car!
"Fuck those damned kids!" screamed the mother, apparently oblivious to the fact that her daughter was in the back. "They could cause an accident!"
While she's looking around to see where the snowball came from, she feels something THUD against the front of the automobile.
"Those bastards!" she thought to herself. "Probably built a snowman in the middle of the road again! They should be in some kind of institution!"
So there they are driving along, when, all of a sudden, the woman sees a streak of blood sliding up the windshield! They must have hit some kind of animal! People shouldn't let their pets just run free in the streets, the woman thinks. They're driving along, and more blood is sliding up the windshield.
Where is all that blood coming from, she wonders? Did whatever it was get stuck to the car? Ugh, she doesn't like the thought of having to remove a dead splattered thing from her car's grill. Just then, they arrive at the arena. She drives into the parking lot, and looks for a space. All the while, people are staring at the front of her car, shocked looks on their faces. It must be pretty messy then, she thinks. She REALLY doesn't want to see the damage now. She doesn't want too much attention drawn to her car, so she drives around and parks behind the arena. So, she opens her door and gets out. Her daughter steps out and runs to the trunk to get her bag.
The woman really doesn't want to look at the front of her car, but she wonders how bad it must look to make everyone stare. So she walks around, and when she sees the hood she turns pale, lets out a gasp, and her face twists into an expression of pure horror. A mass of blood, guts, hair, and mashed organs is imbedded in the twisted grill of her car. And it's wearing a purple snowsuit.

Ta ta for now,
--Matthew A. Pacey

Is this yet another entry, you ask? Why, yes it is!

2005-11-24T23:20:00.000-08:00

Greetings, folks. I'm sorry, but I have to leave on a voyage across the seven seas, so I don't have time to write a blog like I usually do. Instead, I present you with a story for your reading pleasure. It's by a good friend of mine, and I hope you enjoy!

The Best Coconut

by Matt Pacey

There once was a boy, and he lived in the woods. the woods were often dark and scary, especially when the sun was hidden by the old brown pines. The old brown pines were not the boy's friends, and in fact, they would consider themselves to be the enemies of this young lad. You see, the pines did not enjoy this boy's company. He often used the trunks of the trees to suspend his hammock, whereupon he would lay there sipping lemon juice out of a half coconut shell. Do not ask me where he got this coconut shell in a temperate zone, but he had it, and it was his favourite coconut of all.

One day, he was lying on his hammock, but he could not find his coconut, into which he had recently squeezed the juice of not one, not two, but three juicy forest-lemons. He asked the squirrel if he'd seen the coconut, but since squirrels can't talk he recieved no reply, although the squirrel did offer him an acorn, which he respectfully declined. He asked a swarm of bees if they had seen his coconut, but they decided to sting him and chase him away, for bees are not very sociable creatures. Finally, he asked a pine.

'Have you seen my coconut?' he asked.

'Why ye... NO! I do not believe that I have seen your coconut,' replied the surly old plant, spitting sap all over the boy as he spoke out of a particularly large knothole.

'Without my coconut, I am sad,' said the boy.

'Now that you mention it,' said the tree, 'I believe some butterflies stole it.'

'Butterflies?'

'Yes, butterflies. A whole swarm. They were drinking the sweet nectar of your forest-lemons, when they became trapped beneath the coconut shell, after it was flipped over by a gang of bees. They are quite the menaces, those bees.'

'But where did my coconut go?' the boy queried.

'The butterflies flew it away of course. I believe it is somewhere in that direction,' replied the tree, aiming a gnarled grey branch in the general direction of that way.

'Tree, I appreciate your help. Unless you aren't helping me, then I hate you,' said the boy, walking all the way over there, through many twists and turns, through nearly impassable terrain composed of brambles, bushes, and thorny plants of all shapes and sizes. Occasionally, a needly pine branch made an unpleasant brush across his face.

He walked and walked but did not find his coconut. He realized that the tree was not being helpful at all. It must have all been a ruse to get the boy away from the tree so the tree could drink the coconut himself! He decided to go back, and have a talk with the tree, but he didn't know where he was! He had become lost in the forest. How would he get back? He sat and wondered for a while, pondering a way of making a compass from thorny plants and pine needles, when he saw a passing herd of butterflies!

'I wonder where they are going? he wondered. Then he remembered how much butterflies love the sweet taste of freshly squeezed forest lemon! They could be on their way to wherever that nasty pine had put his coconut! So, running, he followed the butterflies as they skimmed over the surface of the nearly impassable terrain, over hill and valley, until they were back at the foot of the pine. The pine sat there, sipping on the sweet sweet lemon juice, holding it out of reach of boy and butterfly alike.

'I don't appreciate your vile ruse!' stated the boy. 'I would appreciate the return of my personal property!'

'Silly boy,' he said. 'Not even a large canteloupe could get this lemon juice away from me!'

All of a sudden, from amongst the foliage of a poplar, an acorn whizzed through the air, hitting the pine right above the knothole.

'Silly squirrel!' was the tree's response. 'You think you can foil me? A simple acorn will not stop a mighty pine!'

What the pine did not know was that the impact had dislodged a large bees' nest that was sitting amongst its branches. It fell to the forest floor with a crash, sending bees flying everywhere! The pine dropped the coconut, which the boy promptly recovered, before running to the poplar where his squirrel friend was hiding.

A cry of 'help me! I'm allergic!' could be heard from the direction of the knotty old evergreen.

'It seems as though you found a good use for that acorn,' said the boy, as they sipped from the coconut shell its delicious golden contents, right before the bees came flying after them and they ran for their lives into the woods.

FIN.

The moral of the story: Although they may sometimes be helpful, bees are not your friends!

---Bon Voyage,
Uncle Travelling Matt

UTMWWoQS, Entry the Third

2005-11-20T22:52:00.000-08:00

Mushrooms for dinner, mushrooms for lunch once again. I rode the Led Zeppelin until the Hindenburg realization that the time of to blog is upon us. Interzone is nice this time of the decade, while Mr Burroughs says hello and I wave backwards a sly understanding. It's in my knife, I realize as it asks me a question.

Love, love, love. Can't buy me love. I thought love was only true in fairy tales, meant for someone else but not for me. Matt tells me he loves his girlfriend Stephanie, and I'm inclined to believe him. All you need is love. Love. Love is all you need.

Ahem. Excuse me, but it seems as though the fungus samples I brought back were even more infrared than I expected, so pardon my English as the wings fade away once again.

This week, folks, I think I'll share my thoughts on a subject that is particularly relevant to world affairs this week. You see, my friend Matt is building a computer game about a dungeon-quester, and I thought that since many people, including him, do not know the scientifically correct facts about some of the most common dungeon denizens. I assure you, this will help you out significantly if you ever find yourself to be endungeoned.

First note: If a rotund townsman (possibly the mayor of the town) with a moustache ever offers you a moderate sum of money to clear a sewer of rats, make sure you are aware that sewers are often connected to the first level, or first several levels, of a dungeon. This being so, the rats which you have been commissioned to remove from the sewers may not be ordinary rats, but they may in fact be mutated rat-men. Rat men can claw you for 2d5 damage or throw spears with moderate accuracy, also for 2d5 worth of damage.

Note secondly: Blubbering masses of goo may inhabit the previously mentioned sewer / dungeon. Be aware that masses of goo may blob towards you, and crawl on you to attack. Although they usually move slowly and are not much danger in small numbers, blubbery piles of mobile goo may fission into smaller piles of mobile blubbery goo, which, feeding on the slime-coated sewer floor, may grow into full-sized goos, whereupon they will again fission, quickly creating a large overpopulation problem. Certain goos may also secrete acid, which may damage your armour or sword.

For the third noting, you should note the following: Skeletons are scary. They can emerge from coffins, shallow graves, crypts, sarcophagi, or even piles of bones. Blunt weapons work well on skellingtons, since they can crush the bones and make it difficult for the skellingtons to regroup their pieces. Be warned: Skeletons are especially icky if they still have bits of meat hanging off of them. They are often summoned by the magic of a Necrowizard.

Note fourthly: Bats are not monsters, but they can be scary sometimes. Most of them are actually harmless, but some may bite when provoked. Bats can carry rabies, so be careful.

Note the Fifth: You can smell zombies from a long way off. Try not to let them get too close, or you may have to puke. Spraying Lysol or Old Spice body spray on zombies is known to help with the smell, and they will be happier now that they don't have such terrible body odour. If you have no Lysol or Old Spice, throwing a pine-scented air freshener from the local gas bar around their neck will work just as well.

A note about bosses: Try to stay away from Big Bosses. Unless you have the magic sword that is. Big bosses are usually bad-tempered and don't want to talk things out.

That is all for now! I'm going to go see if my friend Matt (not to be confused with me Matt) has implemented these facts correctly.

Fare thee well,
---Uncle Travelling Matt.

UTMWWoQS, Entry the One-More-Than-First

2005-11-15T01:04:00.000-08:00

So, my expedition is successful, and my crew has brought me back safely from the jungles of the ancient wilderness, much richer in learnings and with most of my arms still attached. We searched far and wide for evidence of history in the darkest corners of that oft-neglected continent to which we adventured, and found enough to keep cultural anthropologists and / or ethnographers in the region busy for decades.

We lived with a local tribe for about a year, local time, which amazingly translates to approximately seven days of Canadian time. During this time, we lived in thatch-roofed cottages we constructed with the help of the local villagers. We survived this whole time on the only food eaten by the men of the jungle, a type of shelf fungus which grows only on palm trees of a particular hue of chestnut brown, within a twenty mile radius of the campsite. The mushroom has some strange properties. After eating a couple of pounds of the substance, I seemed to grow neon purple wings, which also seemed to be eminating a colour of light that is not normally part of the visual spectrum. I tried talking to my trusty sidekick, William H. Huntsberger VII, Esq., but he turned into a blurred smudge of twinkling stardust, whereupon I started freaking out. A few days later I calmed down enough to have another meal. I seemed to grow wings a little less this time, and things seemed pretty normal from there to the conclusion of our journeys, although the penguins remained very chattery, and would not stop enrundilectiviating.

During my stay with the villiagers, I was allowed to partake in a viewing of the local Elder King's monthly reading of the Ancient Legends, which he finds encoded in the dots of pieces of birchbark retrieved from the forest floor. By rubbing a sacred pinecone against the birchbark, he can recieve the messages sent up to him through the ages by the Elder Jungle Gods. I will Relate to you one such message.

It is said that thousands of years ago, at the dawn of the creation of the earth by the great Centipede Mother, she who combines the elements of infinity into the blanket of the universe within her spidery silk, there lived a bear.

One day the bear asked his mother, "Mother, can I buy some new shoes? My boots are too small!"
"By the Mother and her Pinapple of Destiny, you cannot buy shoes! You can only buy boots!" his mother replied.
"But all the kids at school are wearing shoes!" said the little bear.
"You may wear boots or flippers, but not shoes!" replied the mother.
"I am too old for flippers," replied the bear, "and boots are so last February!"
"I will not allow a child of mine to wear boots," said Mom, "and that's that! If I gave you fifty shillings and a tophat made of spongecake, will you buy some decent boots for yourself?"
"Why certainly!" said the little bear, which was a masterful stroke of decietful cleverness, for in reality he had no intention of buying boots.
He went to the boot store, and asked the clerk if he sold any shoes.
"We sell no shoes!" replied the clerk. "Only boots. And that will be fifty shillings and a tophat made of spongecake.
"Is that all you sell?" asked the bear.
"No, actually. We sell flippers and moccassins."
"I'll take the moccasins then."
"ok. Give me the spongecake tophat," the stoorkeep demanded.

The bear returned home in the moccassins. He came in the door, and his father saw the moccassins. He called his wife into the room.

"MARGARET!"

Margaret, the bear's mother, came into the room and saw the moccassins. She sighed and shook her head, although there was a smile on her face as she did so.

"Oh, little bear. What will we ever do with you? You know how much I like moccassins!"

Yes, that was the story. Although I may have gotten some of the wording wrong, I hope I got the point across. I'll leave you that to ponder over for the rest of the week, for now I'm off to go scientifically study some more of those mushrooms while listening to my scientific collection of Led Zeppelin records.

Fare Thee Well,
--- Uncle Travelling Matt.

UTMWWoQS, Installment the First.

2005-11-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

Hello, and welcome to the first installment in my new quasi-informative series of weekly blog entries I'd like to call Uncle Travelling Matt's Wild Word of Questionable Science, or UTMWWoQS, for those of you out there who enjoy assimulating unpronouncable acronyms.

Since this is the inaugral issue of this blog, I thought I'd start off with a subject we could all relate to. Llamas. Everyone loves llamas. Their long bushy tails, soft fuzzy coats, their delicate paws. But I bet as you pass by your local llama ranch you wonder to yourself, "where did all these llamas come from?" which is inevitably followed by the followup, "and why are they hanging out with all those sheep?"

The answers to these questions are both closely linked and extremely shocking to the average person. With that in mind, the following paragraphs should only be read when your parents are out of the room, or you might get in trouble.

If you're still reading this (which I assume you are, if you can make sense of this sentence), I will reveal the truth that has been closely guarded by the close-knit cult of sheep and llama farmers for generations: Llamas are actually the rarely-reached adult stage in the life cycle of everyone's favourite ruminant that goes "baaa".

I know what you're thinking... "lamb, llama... A llama is just a lamb with an extra syllable! Why didn't I notice this before?"
Don't worry, this is an oversight common to over 99.9 percent of this country's population, which is probably due to the vast influence the wool industry has over the international media.

Unknown to most, the life cycle of the llama is such: A sheep is born. In the wilds of Southnorthern China, where the species originates, a llama would spend a year or two in this larval state before entering the chrysalis stage of development, from which would emerge a small llama. However, in the captivity of the sheep and llama ranching industry of Northern America, this process is thwarted at every attempt by the shearing of the animal's wool.

Naturally, during the autumn months, the wool would grow around the animal's body until it was entirely encased within a blanket its own hair. At this point, the sheep would secrete various natural chemicals which cause the hardening of the woolen layer into a cocoon, just in time for the winter hibernation period where the sheep undergoes the major structural and hormonal stages of the metamorphosis into the llamaform state.

Unfortunately, the shearing of sheep for the wool industry has the tragic side effect of keeping millions of these animals in the larval state for the entire duration of their lifespan. An interesting biological fact about sheep is their ability to reproduce large numbers of hatchlings without progressing to the full adult state, which is largely unheard of in mammals with metamorphic life cycles. Since the nature of the llama's lifecycle is largely unknown to the general population, it has only been in recent years that animal rights activists have made the alteration of the llama's progression to adulthood a major point of their campaigns.

Well, it seems my crew is here to take me to the airport, where we'll be embarking on a long and dangerous scientific expedition that should last for at least an hour or two, so that's all I can write for today. However, there is much more to learn about the llama, which you can discover by browsing the internet or perusing the resources at your local library. Areas of interest include Stephen Hawking's recent investigations into trans-temporal llama physics and the special quantum interactions of the llama's inherent magical field upon the motion of subatomic particles. You may also want to see if your dad has a copy of Monty Python's llama sketch, which covers many areas of llama physiology not examined in this blog.

Fare thee well, until we meet again,
---Uncle Travelling Matt

2005-10-31T15:03:00.000-08:00

W3rd up, H0mi3z?