I’ve just put up a new book review!
Review of “The Illustrated Alphabet of Birds” by Eve Heidi Bine-Stock
Bob and the Cyber-Llama at Western Welcome Week
I have yet another piece of poodle-roastingtly exciting news: I’m going to have a booth at the Western Welcome Week festival in downtown Littleton on August 19!
The Western Welcome Week festival has taken place once a year for almost a hundred years. It’s a huge community celebration in downtown Littleton, Colorado. Events take place from 8am to 5pm on most days from Friday, August 11 through Sunday, August 20.
The real action takes place on Saturday, the 19th. There’s a huge parade, a bunch of vendors selling books, food, entertainment, and other goodies, an obstacle course, gryphon rides, orca-eating contests, and giant robot battles. Or at least, some of those things.
I’ll be sharing a booth with Curt Fulster of C. Fulsty Books, who’s also donating his August profits to charity.
As I mentioned in my last post, I’ll be donating all of the money I make in August to CURE Childhood Cancer and Canines for Disabled Kids. This includes all of my Western Welcome Week sales, so be sure to stop by and support a good cause.
Stay tuned for details on my booth location!
Bob and the Cyber-Llama Charity Month
During the month of August, I’ll be donating all my profits to CURE Childhood Cancer and Canines for Disabled Kids. For more information, click here.
Bob and the Pop-Up Book of Destiny now Available!
My new book, Bob and the Pop-Up Book of Destiny, is now available for purchase on Amazon and Lulu! Check it out here:
Buy on Amazon Createspace
But on Kindle
Buy on Lulu
Subway: Subliminal Mind Control in Action
http://www.subway.com/en-us
Who wants to read another post about fast food?
For those of you new to this site, I’ve spoken about most of the elements of fast-foodery, from the hostage negotiation-type scenario that is asking for ketchup to the predatory war of the Yum! Brands franchises. I’ve gone on and on about McDonalds and Taco Bell and Wendy’s and any other fast food franchises you can think of. But I have yet to talk about Subway.
Because Subway scares me.
Subway twists and molds the human mind in a way yet to be understood by the world’s most advanced hypnotists and psychologists. I suspect the whole thing to be an underground experiment in human psychology instigated by a race of underground pink ferret people as preparation for the coming invasion. But that’s just me.
Each Subway establishment houses two employees, who are separated by an invisible wall, what I call the “Iron Condiment.” The employee on the right handles bread, meat, and cheese, while the fellow on the left is in charge of herding the unruly condiments onto the bread. And a strange, psychic phenomenon occurs every time a Subway employee passes through the Iron Condiment.
While an employee is in the bread sector, their short term memory is reduced to a fraction of a second. My typical interaction with a meat quadrant worker is as follows:
Me: Hi, can I please have a chicken bacon ranch sandwich with provolone cheese on Italian herbs and cheese bread?
Employee: What kind of bread?
Me: Italian herbs and cheese. And I’d like a chicken bacon ranch, please.
Employee [after slicing the bread]: What kind of sandwich, again?
Me: Chicken bacon ranch. With provolone cheese.
Employee [after putting the meat on my sandwich]: What kind of cheese?
Me: The kind I just mentioned half a second ago!
But this isn’t simply a case of a bored employee not paying attention. The instant you pass through the Iron Condiment, you’re in an entirely different world: the free world. When you begin speaking to an employee on this side of the invisible partition, something shifts in their brains and they transform from a grunting neanderthal into Rain Man. No matter how many condiments you list, all of them will be placed on your sandwich, in order, without fail. It goes something like this:
Me: Hey, can I have lettuce, tomatoes, olives, green peppers, banana peppers, onions, carrots, avocados, Sasquatch hair, jalapenos, pickles, spinach, a tiny break-dancing Yugoslavian man, and cucumbers?
Employee [proceeding to put each condiment on my sandwich in perfect order]: Sure.
It’s like the employees go through about twenty years of secondary education and brain exercises by moving six inches. The entire thing just creeps me out. I’ll stick to the Quarter Pounders. At least they’re just trying to mess with my arteries.
Rejected Hannah Barbara Cartoons
image source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QPS6As0tqY
You may not know this, but my first foray into writing didn’t involve this website or the Bob and the Cyber-Llama series. When I was a young lad living in the mountains of Tibet, I had dreams of employing my writing skills to aid in mankind’s greatest venture: Hannah Barbara cartoons.
Unfortunately, every one of my ideas was rejected as “disturbing” or “not appropriate for children.” But that doesn’t mean I can’t share them with you here:
The Flatulent Wilma Flintstone
This was my take on the classic modern, stone-age family. The entire show was nothing more than a series of reruns from the original Flintstones series…with a brilliant twist!
In the middle of each of her dialogue scenes, Wilma Flintstone would pause, squint her eyes a little, grit her teeth, and rip a massive fart. Your average dialogue scene would play out something like this:
Fred: Wilma, where’s my dinner?
Wilma: It’s not ready yet, Fred.
Fred: “It’s not ready…” Darn it, Wilma! When a man gets home from a hard day of work, he expects his dinner to be prepared!
Wilma: Fred, I was at the grocery store all day looking for those dino eggs that you insisted I…[Wilma stops speaking. Her lower lip quivers and she bites it determinedly. Clenching her eyes shut, she puts a fist in the air and raises one of her legs. A juicy blast erupts from her sphincter like the bursting of a dam. Her skirt billows like a flag atop Everest. Then, the hurricane of flatulence over, she stands erect once again.]
Wilma: Those dino eggs that you insisted I buy for the casserole.
Scooby Doo: A New Perspective
My second series was a new take on Scooby Doo. Instead of focusing on the perspective of the Scooby gang, the series would let viewers see the mysteries through the eyes of the other characters. Because let’s face it: the Scooby Doo gang was high. Like, all of the time. And I’m sure that skewed their perspective a bit.
I imagined the average scene playing out like this:
Police Officer: Hey, uh…are you kids alright?
Velma [stumbling around incoherently]: Dude…there’s like…a guy in the amusement park over there.
Police Officer: A guy?
Fred: Yeah…and he’s dressed like an eighteenth-century pirate so he can scare people away from the ferris wheel and protect his Spanish doubloons!
Police Officer: I see. I think you should come back to the station with me.
Daphne: And I think we should split up, gang. Shaggy and Scooby, you go find the pirate’s ghost and lead him to the fun house.
Police Officer: That’s a hobo and a dead chihuahua, ma’am.
George Jetson’s 1984
In this dystopian future, the Jetsons have left their skyscraper cities behind and exchanged them for identical gray suits and an undying loyalty to “the Party.” Rosie, no longer the whimsical, smart-talking robot maid, has had cameras installed in her eyes and watches the Jetson family scrupulously.
We watch the slow indoctrination of Elroy as he learns how to discern whether or not his parents are defectors, the words “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Tom is Jerry” inscribed on his schoolhouse. And we slowly see George begin to question the system as he sees the higher standard of living enjoyed by the Party’s officials.
By the end of season one, we see that George’s entire family has “disappeared” thanks to the higher ups and George sits in a cell. He is confronted by his former boss Mr. Slate, who yells “Jetson! Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four!”
If only Jane could, in fact, stop this crazy thing.
Amazingly, Hannah Barbara didn’t want to pursue any of my ideas. But such is life, I suppose. Anyway, it gives me more time to work on my magnum opus: Citizen Snagglepuss.
New Stuff on the Writing Blog
Hola, mis chaplupas!
For those who don’t know, I’m in the process of writing the next book in the armpit-moisteningly exciting Bob and the Cyber-Llama series. As I throw myself into the embracing arms of the muse time and time again (or some such artsy garbage), I’ve decided to describe some of my writing processes on the Bob and the Cyber-Llama writing blog.
My latest post is about adverbs, the smelly, red-headed stepchild of the grammar community. Check it out here.
More content will be descending on the Sturgeon-verse soon.
Fast Food Dominance
During my dabbling in the sciences, I’ve learned three important facts: clowns cannot breathe in space, tamales should only be consumed orally, and nature is full of symbiotic relationships. The hippopotamus relies on tiny birds to keep its back clean and ambrosia beetles carry and plant a nutritious fungus that eats a tree’s interior a serves as a food source. Different parts of nature depend on each other, linked in the near-unending chain of God’s creation. Any reasonable person would assume that the same to be true of fast food.
But that is not that case. I speak from experience when I say that any attempt of multiple fast food chains to coexist can end only in dominance and despair.
For those not already aware, I like fast food. I like it a lot. I’m the kind of person who, if I had the money, would stuff myself with Quarter Pounders and Double Stacks until grease oozed from every pore and each piece of my fecal matter took on the form of a huge, singular, steaming french fry. And like any connoisseur, I soon began to suspect that many of these restaurants were owned by the same organization.
I was right. Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, Wingstreet, and until recently, A&W and Long John Silver’s, are all owned by Yum! Brands (which is owned by Pepsi.) At first, they existed as singular organisms. But, pioneers of science that they were, the folks at Yum! Brands soon began combining their restaurants, serving radically different kinds of food under the same roof.
It seemed like a dream come true: customers would be able to walk into a Taco Bell/Pizza Hut and order a burrito alongside a steaming slice of pepperoni pizza or get a cheeseburger and a root beer with a side of mashed potatoes and coleslaw from a KFC/A&W. The possibilities would bring a greasy tear to the eye of any fast food denizen.
However, my joy soon turned to fear and confusion as I came to the stunning realization that these chains weren’t morphing together into awesome fast food mega-creatures but were instead eating each other alive! Whenever you walk into one of these combination fast food joints, one of the restaurants is completely dominant; it’s almost like the other restaurant ceases to exist.
I remember the first time I walked into a Taco Bell/Pizza Hut. The walls were lined with edifices of burritos, churros, tacos, and hot sauce. I ordered pizza. And the employees looked at me like I had just ordered a fried infant on a stick. They then informed me that they had no pizza ready and weren’t sure if they had enough sauce and dough to make one. At a pizza restaurant.
The same thing happened at KFC/A&W. I felt the piercing eyes of Colonel Sanders staring judgingly into my soul as I nervously ordered my cheeseburger. The guy behind the counter spat in my face and slapped me, heretic that I was. I walked out of the establishment, dejected, and was forced to anoint my head with gravy as I said my twenty “Hail Sanders” as a penance.
This isn’t natural selection. It’s something far more sinister. We can now clearly see that putting a Taco Bell and a Long John Silver’s in the same building is not simply akin to putting two Japanese fighting fish in the same bowl. It’s like putting two Japanese fighting fish in the same bowl and arming them with metal chains and razor blades.
There are no symbiotic fast food relationships. There is only shame, emptiness, and crusty, uneaten pizza toppings.
Century Link and Eternal Damnation
imgur.com/sMeZ042
Outsourcing. It seems like virtually every corporation has moved its customer service operations out of the United States. Each time I have to call Comcast or Verizon or some other large company, I speak to someone in India or Cairo or Dagobah.
But Century Link is the worst. Period. They’re customer service is so bad, I’ve come to an inescapable conclusion: they’ve moved their customer service not to Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, but to the fiery pits of Hell itself.
I’m no stranger to bad customer service interactions. Whenever I call the customer service department of a large company, I grit my teeth and prepare to have my brain worked over with a metaphorical meat tenderizer. But there’s one interaction with Century Link customer service that, to this day, makes my buttock hairs rigid with fear.
The call started off innocently enough. After navigating a sea of automated menus and waiting on hold for about five hours, I spoke to a customer service representative about setting up new phone service. It was all going swimmingly and I began at last to see light at the end of the tunnel.
The rest of the exchange went something like this:
Customer Service Representative: Okay, sir. I’ve got you set up for the Phone Plus Plan, which includes caller ID and voice mail. Your monthly premium will be $35 per month. Now, I’m just going to transfer you to [unintelligible series of words] department, which will finish setting up your service.
Me: Wait, what?
[silence as call is transferred]
Me: Hello? Hello?!
[continued silence]
New Customer Service Representative: Hello, sir. My name is Brian. Can I please begin by having your date of birth and social security number?
Me: Uh…which department have I reached?
Brian: Hello, sir. My name is Brian. Can I please begin by having your date of birth and social security number?
Me: No, I already heard you. Can you please tell me which department you work for?
Brian: Sir, I have to stick to the script. I’m not allowed to talk to you about anything different than what appears on my script. Now, can I please begin by having your date of birth and social security number?
Me: But I was just talking to Century Link and I thought I’d set my service up completely.
Brian: Sir, I just need your date of birth and social security number.
Me: Brian, which department of Century Link do you work for?
Brian: I don’t work for Century Link, sir. Now, can I please have your date of birth and-”
Me: But I was just talking to Century Link. To set up phone service. And they connected me to you.
Brian: Yes, sir.
Me: So I need to know how you’re related to Century Link and what you have to do with setting up my phone service.
Brian: Sir, I’m required to collect personal information using the script I was given. I have to follow the script and collect the information from you.
Me: Brian, what company do you work for?
Brian: I don’t know, sir.
Me: You don’t know what company you work for?!
Brian: No, sir.
Me: Then why the heck would I give you my personal information?!
Brian: Sir, I’m required to collect–”
Me: Brian, for all I know, you work for some evil, sphincter-eating cult and you want my personal information so you can break into my house tonight with a pair of disemboweling tweezers and some ketchup and have at my colon! Goodbye!
And then I took a shower. Because that conversation made me feel violated.
My only explanation for this phenomenon is that, desperate to cut costs, Century Link decided to move its customer service operations to an otherworldly plane of fiery torment. Some middle-manager probably packed a sacrificial dagger and a goat into the back of his Suburban (as middle-managers are wont to do), dragged them into the office, and slapped them down on the stone altar right between the coffee maker and the copy machine.
Then the whole office probable chanted something in backwards Latin and drew pentagrams in goat blood on all their manila folders until a fiery portal emerged in the middle of the altar, into which they cast a few dozen VOIP phones and headsets.
Nothing quite encapsulates the phrase “where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” like listening to a six second loop of hold music for four hours.
Gerbils: Cannibalistic Cretin of the Pet World
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Gerbyllium
Lots of people have fond memories of their childhood pets. They remember a favorite dog or cat or bunny that brought them joy and merriment for many years. But as appealing as that idea is, there’s one species that, instead of creating precious memories, will scar your children on a deep, emotional level.
Never buy your kids gerbils. They are disgusting, vile creatures that kill their own families indiscriminately and reproduce like Catholic rabbits on Viagra.
When I was about six years old, my parents brought me to the pet store to buy some gerbils. I picked out two, a black one and a white one with brown spots, which the sixteen-year-old zoologist behind the counter assured us were both male. And pretty soon, we had about thirty gerbils.
That wouldn’t have been such a big deal, since they all stayed in their cage, but as I came to find out, that black, mother gerbil made Jeffrey Dahmer look like Mister Rogers.
The first thing six-year-old me wanted to do when I saw the dozen-or-so baby gerbils was pick them up and pet them. So, like any other kid would, I picked up one of the baby gerbils and let it crawl across my fingers. Then, the next day, I went to the gerbil cage to find the baby gerbil lying motionless, its neck gashed open, and the mother gerbil’s whiskers coated in blood.
All it takes is the slight scent of a human being to make a mother gerbil brutally murder its child in a way that would make Jason Vorhees squeamish. I tried handling the baby gerbils with gloves or only petting them lightly. But every time, it led to gerbil infanticide and an impromptu gerbil funeral in the back yard.
The last straw came when Herman, the father gerbil, died. The mother gerbil continued having babies, even though the only other gerbils in her cage were her children. Then all my gerbils mysterious disappeared. I guess my parents drew the line at gerbils with an Oedipus complex.
The label on the gerbils’ home said “gerbil cage.” It should’ve said “Blood Sport Pit.”
So go ahead; buy pets for your kids. Buy them loving dogs or indifferent cats or smelly rabbits. But unless you want your children to have the combined visual experiences of Game of Thrones, Deliverance, and Se7en, don’t bring any of these little demons into your home.