Weird Man and Sarcasm Boy Part II

                Frederick grabbed his tray and stood in line for lunch. Many of the kids around him chattered and buzzed around him about their days to one another. Frederick tried to block it out of his mind, and concentrated on the lunch ladies dropping ice cream scoops of slop onto his plate. First came the yellow, noodely scoop. Then came the  slimy green bean scoop. The brown scoop the school was trying to pass off as meat came last. Each scoop of terrifying food substitutes splattered onto his plate with a noise that reminded Frederick of the sounds that echoed out of his uncle’s bathroom late in the evenings when he comes home drunk.

                “What’s the matter,” the lunch lady said when she noticed Frederick’s expression. “Don’t have the appetite for the pre-approved generic school slop today?”

                Frederick raised his eyes from his tray up to the lunch lady. Her face looked like someone had stretched a real person’s face across giant toad’s head, and her voice croaked out of her mouth in similar fashion.  He was glad there were no flies buzzing around, because he wasn’t sure his stomach could handle it if he watched her fleck her tongue out at one and catch it.

                “No, this is just what I was hoping for,” he said. “I was sick of being hungry, and this sure did the trick.”

                The young man next to Frederick nudged him and asked him to keep moving. Frederick obliged, paid for his lunch, and walked into the cafeteria. All of the other students had sectioned each other off into specific clicks, all of which Frederick couldn’t find himself identifying himself with. The jocks were too preppy and into sports, and he was never fond of serious competition. The nerds had some common interest with him, but often took things to a degree he couldn’t fathom. The theatre kids, well, they were the theatre kids.

                Frederick had plans to sit by himself somewhere quiet when he noticed the substitute teacher from before sitting at a table by himself, writing in his notebook and not paying attention to the food gore he was putting into his mouth.

                Frederick put his tray down on the table opposite of the man.

                “Hey.”

                “Now what,” the man said, glancing up from his notebook for only a second. Frederick noticed he was sketching out comics, and not just writing.

                “I’m sorry about earlier. I was just kidding about the genitals thing. You just caught me off guard.”

                “That’s alright. You gave me something to write about, at least.”

                “Huh? Is that what you’re doing right now?”

                Frederick tried to get a better look at what the man was writing and could see it looked sort of like a super hero comic. The man threw his arms over the book and hissed.

                “For my eyes only, filthy man spawn!”

                “Oh. Uh. Okay.”

                The two sat in silence for a moment.

                “Can I at least ask what it’s about,” Frederick asked.

                “Weird Man.”

                “Huh?”

                “Weird Man. He’s not really a super hero, but he looks and acts like one. He doesn’t fight crime and he doesn’t solve problems, he just get into really weird situations.”

                “So he’s just a guy who runs around in a suit and harasses people?”

                The man shut his notebook.

                “It’s not like this is something I’m trying to get published or anything. It doesn’t have to make sense.”
                “If you wrote something about me, you at least have to let me see that part.”

                The man stared at his notebook for several moments and then sighed.

                “Alright, I guess. But just this part. And the name is Tom. Tom Jensen.”

                “Oh, I forgot to ask. It’s nice to meet you Mr. Jensen.”

                “No, just call me Tom. I don’t like to be referred to by my teacher name.”

                “Alright... Tom.”

                Tom opened the notebook to the page he had been working on and slid it across the table to Frederick.

                “Aren’t you going to eat any of that,” Tom said, when he noticed Frederick wasn’t eating his food.

                “I was saving it for when I needed to purge my body of poison, but you could have it if you want.”

                He pushed the tray towards Tom, who took it and started shoveling the food into his mouth without hesitation.

                “Thanks!”

                Frederick tried not to be sick and started reading the comic.

Weird Man and Sarcasm Boy

This is an idea I had over the weekend and I'd like to try working on it. This is a story I'm going to slowly write in my blog posts. I want to continue putting the majority of my efforts towards my novel. This is mainly to give myself some extra practice, but I hope to one day turn this into a novella, if possible. These are going to be rough first drafts of these, so I apologize if their quality isn't great. I will go back and revise them one day.

Hope you at least get some enjoyment out of it. I'm titling it "Weird Man and Sarcasm Boy". It's about a man and a boy who become an unlikely super hero duo, only they don't fight crime or solve problems, they just interact with people in weird and messed up ways in order to escape their crippling depression. I'll be writing two pages at a time on my normal update schedule. We'll see how this goes.

                 “Listen you little freak,” Trace Chedmount said as he slammed Frederick Jezamen into the locker. “If I ever see you in this hallway again, I’m going to kick your ass so hard your butt’s going to be an indent.”

                “I’m not going to listen to an oafish loblolly like you,” Frederick said, his face pressed up against the locker. Trace gripped his long shaggy hair to keep him pinned down. Frederick’s scrawny arms and legs weren’t enough to escape Trace’s hold on him. His favorite shirt, one with a band’s name labeled across the front that only he knew about, now had a tear in it from when Trace grabbed him.

                “See, that’s your problem Freddy. You’re too smart for your own good. Nobody even knows what the hell a loblolly is, so you just end up looking like a dumbass.”

                The two large boys behind Trace and Frederick laughed like a pair of big dumb ogres when they heard the word “dumbass”.

                The hall they were in was devoid of activity. Hand drawn pictures of lions decorated the spaces above the lockers. The low hum of the water fountain was the only noise that drifted through the hallway.

                “Now I’m going to tell you one last time, worm breath. If I ever see you in this hallway again, you’re going to go home missing some teeth.”

                “I had to go to the bathroom! How was I supposed to know the ichthyostega came out of the ocean during classes?”

                “Again with the stupid insults. Next time, use the other bathroom.”

                “The one on the other side of the school? But that would take me five minutes to walk to! What if I can’t hold it for that long?”

                “Then you fill your pants with piss and shit. Or you go outside. Or in your locker. I don’t care. It’s not my problem.”

                The two large boys behind Trace hyaw hyawed once more, showing the broken disfigured mess they called their teeth.

                “I think I’ll just give it to you guys with your lunches, that way it can improve the smell of your breath.”

                “Says the little twerp being held hostage against a locker,” Trace rolled his eyes and said. He then pulled his fist back and pounded it into Frederick’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Frederick fell to the floor and curled up into the fetal position as he gasped for air. Trace and his goons high fived one another and walked back to their class.

                Frederick pulled himself off the floor and slumped against the lockers, his breath still labored. He struck the locker behind him in frustration. He then made his way to the bathroom and relieved himself.

                “Stupid Trace and his idiot friends,” he said to himself as he washed his hands. “Someone needs to teach them a lesson. Maybe I’ll visit Trace in his sleep and super glue fish to his face.”

                One of the stall doors swung open, startling Frederick. A man in his mid thirties whistled as he strolled out of the stall, twirling an old gold pocket watch. He was wearing button up sweater with pockets on the front, the kind normally worn by old men who watch the fall days pass by on their front porch. Several days worth of stubble had accumulated on his face. His eyes had left their bags under them, tired from the journey of this man’s life. An old tattered notebook was docked under his arm.

                “Eh young man, bullies got you down?”

                “Oh, uh, sorry, I didn’t know anyone was in here, I’ll just be going now,” Frederick said as he darted towards the exit.

                “No need to beat such a hasty retreat young lad, I’m simply here to provide you with some sound assistance.”

                “Huh? Wait, you’re a teacher, right?”

                “I was a teacher,” the man said and gazed off into the distance. “Once.”

                “Oh. So, now are you just like some guy who hangs out in the boy’s bathroom?”

                “No, I retired from full time status and now I just substitute. My next class isn’t for another hour.”

                “But you’re still just hanging out in the boy’s bathroom.”

                “I am not!”

                “Do you always take invisible poops that don’t have any smell associated with them,” Frederick said after he pushed open the stall door and looked inside.

                “Jesus Christ, never mind that,” the man said. “I was writing in my journal and I needed to be alone. Do you want help with bullies or not?”
                “You not going to ask to touch my genitals in exchange for your help, are you?”

                “Oh my God, no! Of course not! What is wrong with you?! You know what? Never mind! I don’t want to help you anymore.”

                The man stormed out of the bathroom. The door slammed and echoed off the tile floor and walls, almost crushing Frederick like a sonic cave in. Frederick could hear the man’s footsteps as he clomped down the hallway.

Bacon Apple Pie

So one of the things I love to do is cook. I actually have several recipes that I've come up with that I think I'll post on here when I don't have something good to write about. That's half of what today is about, and the other half is the fact that I'd just like to talk about what I'm going to attempt tonight.

I'm going to be baking a Bacon Apple Pie. I'll be taking some pictures and posting them on this entry once I've finished it on Saturday, because I'm going to make the pie tonight and then bake it tomorrow for a friend's birthday. I'm going to be using a delicious jarred apple pie filling I've had before and add chopped up bacon pieces to the filling along with some extra cinnamon, brown sugar, and nutmeg. I could make my own filling, but since I've never actually made a pie before (With the exception of Chicken pot pies) I decided to try and play it safe. By making a Bacon Apple pie. Yeah. Go me.

It's going to be topped with the standard bacon lattice cover, which I will sprinkle with more brown sugar and cinnamon. Hopefully this will turn out good. If it does, I'll be able to add it to my stable of recipes. I'll also be making a normal apple pie for my fiance and I, because if I'd rather share the ultra greasy Bacon Apple Pie with several people, and eat half an apple pie with ice cream. Since I don't really eat carbs, or much sugar, and lots of fruits and vegetables, when I indulge I LIKE TO INDULGE!

Since I know nobody is reading this right now, I'll just play a game where I pretend people are reading it. Check back on Sunday to get an update on with pictures for the Bacon Apple Pie, as well as a picture of the disgusting Apple Pie Ice Cream mountain I may be eating for breakfast tomorrow!

UPDATE: Unfortunately I didn't have time to take pictures of the pie. It did actually turn out really well, and everyone loved it. I was worried the bacon wouldn't cook well enough in the pie, or that it would get too crunchy and hard. It turns out it cooked just long enough so that the bacon was cooked well enough, and had the most awesome consistency ever. It was chewy and soft and full of pie juices. It was nice to take it out of the oven and bring it right to the party, so that it was still scalding pie hot when it go there.

If anyone is ever interested, I'll post the recipe for it. It was actually pretty simple, and a lot easier to do than I thought it would be.

Skitters Pooterbottoms the Gorebarian

So recently I had been asked to be a Barbarian in the Dungeons and Dragons group I've been a part of for awhile now. We play every Saturday for a few hours, and usually have a lot of fun. Last week we started a fresh campaign after I had ran an adventure for quite awhile, the one that I based off of the novel I'm writing.

My new character is named Skitters Pooterbottoms. He's an Orc Barbarian who is also a southern redneck hick. Do you see the parallels? One of the Barbarian's starting "skills" is illiteracy. Orc's have reduced charisma and intelligence. He talks with a thick, infectious southern accent. He's the perfect walking, talking, southern stereotype in the body of a big green monster who gets super pissed off and smashes things with his hittin' stick.

And he's REALLY FUN to play as. He gets mad and then just crushes everything. But this is large part due to how I role play him. A Barbarian is supposed to play a specific role in combat, and he sort of stays so focused later on that he just can't compete with the other classes. Wizards and Sorcerers, for example. Nobody can even touch them at higher levels. And I despise the fact that you really have to munchkin your character if you're a Barbarian to make him viable. I don't want to multi-class a Barbarian/Fighter/Rouge/Warblade/Jizzmopper. That's ridiculous, and not in the awesome way, in the "Watch me jerk off nerd seaman into my own mouth because I can kill everything and everyone in the room why don't I just take over the world" way.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I am a nerd, and I love and embrace nerd culture, but some people just become embarrassingly obsessive over things. And I know there are lots of people who love min/maxing their character to reach maximum optimal killing power, but I don't enjoy it. Period. I love having fun.

And thus, the Gorebarian class was born. I wrote it up on a whim, and it's actually the first class I've ever created for D&D that I finished and felt really satisfied with. I'm awaiting more feedback on it, but I feel like it does exactly what I want it to. It takes the fun aspect of scoring criticals in Dungeons and Dragons and amps it up 20 notches. It makes it so the Gorebarian can score them more often, and when he does so enemies EXPLODE in a shower of gore and entrails. And all of his abilities increase in power as the Gorebarian increases in level. Here is a link to the forum post where I'm asking for criticism:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=256909

I guess I just feel like the Barbarian class is very unsatisfying, and a Barbarian is supposed to be satisfying because he crushes and destroys all in his path. I get that he's supposed to be based off of Conan the Barbarian, but I actually haven't watched that*, so when I see this character who's supposed to be an angry meat wall with a weapon who stomps on things and growls has these skills that detect traps and gives him immunity to backstabs I'm just left wondering why. Also, he eventually gets Damage reduction, which makes sense because as the Barbarian gets stronger, he gains the ability to ignore being hit. Like all those movies where the dude get's punched in the face and smiles afterwards. But the Damage reduction of the Barbarian isn't that great, and doesn't stack with armor. What?! Then what is the point? You want to wear armor, because it gets you a bonus to AC, so it's not like this is giving you freedom of movement or the ability to go without armor if that's what you'd prefer. It's just a pointless, underwhelming ability. If it stacked, I could see it being useful. If they don't want it to stack, they should've made it better. Maybe doubled it. I don't know.

Anyway. That's enough for today.

* - I have not seen Conan, and I know that makes me a bad nerd, but really I'm pretty sure looking at the poster says it all. A young Arnold Swarchenegger walks around in loin cloth and murders things. Eventually there's an evil dude, and he gets murdered too. The end.

The Weeds Finale

So last night my fiance and I watched the final episode of Weeds. I was immediately confused and kind of upset by the turn they took with the entire thing. This is my first and only warning if you haven't watched, thar by spoilers ahead.

To begin, the episode didn't re-cap what happened last time, and I think this is the first mistake they made that made this so jarring. I think if they had done that, and maybe at the end of it said "10 Years Later" it would have been a much easier pill to swallow. Instead they grabbed us by the shoulders and started shaking us while screaming "TAKE THIS PILL! TAKE THIS FUCKING PILL!"

So you come to understand that this is some point in the future, or at least I understood once they introduced the garish and gaudy future technology. Now, I understand this show is supposed to be dramatic and funny and tragic, but this felt so out of place for me to display things in this way that it was really distracting. I had never wanted Skynet to just fucking end everything so badly in my entire life.

As the show progresses you start to get the sense of "Oh, this is the final episode. Okay." Again, I wish they  had more strongly implied this at some point in the beginning. And I'm glad to see this show end, because it was very good. I don't watch a whole lot of TV, but this show usually managed to keep me engaged. And I am of the opinion that all good things must come to an end. And this was a ride I enjoyed, so it's okay to me that it ended. But this final episode was so poorly written and just reeked of "Hey guys, we have to end it, so let's just do it."

Let's start with Doug. The reason his character was funny was because he was always coming up with these stupid, silly schemes that never panned out for him. It was funny to watch him crawl around and be desperate because of the foolish decisions he made. But what's this? Oh, his stupid cult idea went somewhere, and he's the leader of it. Right. Then he makes up with his estranged son? My fiance and I had no idea who he was, and she followed this show more consistently. I was totally clueless until they actually said who he was. And when I learned who he was... I  just didn't care. I liked his pug though. Pugs are cute. Why couldn't Doug have just kidnapped the pug and then cuddled with it? I feel like that would've been more inline with his character. He also looked like a big cartoon character with his purple and black emperor outfit.

I was actually happy with the way Silas turned out. I feel like he got what he was working towards throughout the series. He was working on something he loved no longer in the shadow of his mother. He tried to leave several times, to start his own thing or just be on his own, and he kept getting drawn back into it. It was really nice to see him strike out on his own and not have to suffer because of the crazy shit his mom was doing.

Shane, on the other hand... I just didn't like it. Shane was an interesting and  provocative character. He was so smart and so dark and weird and engaging. And then they just threw it all in the dumpster and said "What if he turned into some washed up cop, hyuk hyuk!" And then he shoots a cake. And doesn't go to jail for unloading a firearm into a cake. Which just came out of nowhere. Jesus. And then he vows to get help at the end. I.. I guess that wraps that up.

Then we have Nancy and Andy. I liked what happened with Andy. I liked that he turned out okay and happy. I think this is where they were going with his character in the show, but giving us this information like this was poorly thought out. And Nancy, I feel like they went in the right direction with her. Years of abusing and manipulating everyone around her got her what she deserved. She had to be alone and try to cope with life on her own. And I'm not trying to imply that Nancy was an evil or twisted, she just made a lot of poor decisions while trying to provide a life for her family around her. It was one of the things that made her character so interesting, was that she really had a deep love for her sons and her family, but just utterly fucked everyone and everything up by trying so hard to make it in an industry that's filled with criminals and lowlifes just because it was easy and profitable. That's why this show was so compelling. And Andy's character? He wanted so badly to be with Nancy, and it was an established that he wasn't allowed to have her. But there was so much more for him there, his nephews, his family. It made him a very tragic character that he was always pining after Nancy, and she was entirely willing to hang on to him and use him as long as she needed to. But I think she did have feelings for him, but at the same time it was established that they couldn't be together, and perhaps it even goes so far that she didn't want to hurt him, or watch him die, like every other man in the series who ended up in a romantic relationship with her. Some things, no matter how much we want them, just aren't meant to be, for one reason or another. I think that made the two of them very compelling. And I think people WANTED them to be together, because they wanted to see the two characters they loved to be happy, but I don't think they would've actually been happy together. Shit, Andy would've died. And nobody wants that. I didn't, at least. I was traumatized as it was when his toes got bit off.

And the episode before the finale? My god, the end was so DARK. Two characters who were NOT ALLOWED to have one another made love on the exact spot where Andy's brother and Nancy husband died. That was so powerful, it was like how dark magic is made. "Make forbidden love on the spot of one's dead past flame in the light of the full moon while three frogs croak and a black cat eats a baby." And Andy just fucking runs away, and Nancy is left crying into the night. And we get ZERO resolution for this. I think if there was one more episode addressing this, this finale wouldn't have felt so shitty. But they didn't address it. They set us up for something powerful, and then yanked the rug from beneath our feet, and then flipped us off and told us to go fuck ourselves.

Otherwise, I did enjoy the series, and the finale did not ruin my impression of it. Jenji Kohan is a great, great writer. The fact that this show lasted as long as it did and stayed so good for so long is a testament to that. But I think this bitter pill they asked people to swallow is just going to leave a bad taste in their mouths, and instead of saying "I loved that show!" a lot of people are just going to remember the bad ending it contained. Which is too bad.