Seanachai

It's not that you're becoming senile, Joe. Although it's no longer politic to admit it, all those goddamn Australians look alike to me, too! Well, except for Mace, of course. He looks like he just escaped from outtakes of "Boogie Nights". So, I guess you are becoming senile. Don't give it another thought, lad. Not that you could, of course.

Hmmm what is the point again? For a forum that fully supports (or is ashamed of I never quite know the answer ) an ongoing thread (beast?) that challenges a man named PENG you sure seem negative guys. Fionn when I clear my schedule I would love a game but it is some time off and anyway I want your schedule to be clear for the...uhm...other proposed "venture" eh?</font>

No. I forbid this. Fionn, you must not give into the sad, sick demands of this delusional half-wit. Number every file. Elvis must, somehow, rejoin the human race. Even though he's not actually suited to be a member. If we cannot somehow reach and reclaim him, he stands a good chance of raising his child to be every bit as half-witted and emotionally disturbed as he is. Fionn, as a member of the medical profession you must realize that 'humouring' Elvis on this matter is tantamount to condoning his dementia.

Bah! I wave my hand at all of you! Do you know, in the days of anxiety, when there was no good game to play, the folk were quite justified in their yammering and bleating over 'when, oh when, oh ye kings and prophets, shall we see our dreams made real, our desires made flesh, and our deepest longings turned into endless Grog arguments about 'angels' and 'pinheads" But, given that the Faithful have endured all the 'Combat Mission'-less reality of 'what went before', then I feel a real need to tell all this anxious, demanding, whining crowd: Shut the hell up! Do it now! Ohh, so you want another bone, you want a 'release date', you want some sort of assurance that all your bloody dreams will come true?! Well, listen up, laddies, you people are giving us all the red-ass! The game will be done when it is done. All your pissing and moaning and waving your stained underwear over your head as some sort of 'proof' that you're owed a goddamn thing is annoying! These people are creating another great game, to follow up on their already classically brilliant game. I don't see that many demands, whingeing, and 'child-peeing-his-pants' posts from the people who showed up early on and supported this Game Company in the days from long before there was anything other than a concept of there being a 'possibility' of a 'really great wargame'. CMBB will be released when this very fine Game Designing Group figures it's done. I, for one, (and a johnny-come-lately that I am), I am more than happy to allow them to release the product that will make them proud, rather than the product that a bunch of half-wits expect now. If you have too much time on your hands, perhaps you should send someone a PBEM challenge of that superlative game Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord. Otherwise, of course, you could sod off!

Fear not my little street-urchin. By happy chance I have today beaten one of my staff to death with his own severed arm for failing to grovel at my feet in a sufficiently mewling fashion. As such I have an opening for someone to walk my dog and collect his poops as he goes. I realise you may feel somewhat over-qualified for the position but, hey, you need the money right? Send your resume to "Australia, c/- Really important guy" That'll find me.</font>

Fear not my little street-urchin. By happy chance I have today beaten one of my staff to death with his own severed arm for failing to grovel at my feet in a sufficiently mewling fashion. As such I have an opening for someone to walk my dog and collect his poops as he goes. I realise you may feel somewhat over-qualified for the position but, hey, you need the money right? Send your resume to "Australia, c/- Really important guy" That'll find me.</font>

Good gods, Dorosh, we don't want to hear about what excites you. And whatever transpires between you and JasonC...that is beyond our purview. What I'd like to hear from you, laddie, in the wake of your recent defeat at my hands, is a paean to the Peng Challenge Thread, for all and everyone to see.

Don't be daft. Human Resources people are weak, but lust after strength. They want to be in charge, but fear the responsibilities of authority. The next time the confront you on this sort of issue, respond with some variation on what follows: "Insult them?! Yes, I would be insulting them if I held them to less than the standard I know they are capable of! I expect these people to be the best, the Best! Do you understand me?! Oh, so some of them think I belittle them, do they? Some of them think we're not off for a weekend of cuddles and sickeningly sweet wine, and empty reassurances, do they? Well, good on me, then, say I! I'm leading these people, do you understand? Not babying them, not worrying about their childhoods, not cutting them a break because most of them are as dumb as mud! I'm leading them. No, I'm driving them! I'm asking them to give their best to this job, and to be the best that they can be. And when they give me less then their best, when they give this company less than they are capable of, when they betray themselves by slovenly, shiftless, half-arsed behaviour, then be sure that I will touch them up, Sir or Madam! Because this lot is mine! I will taunt them, I will mock them, I will laugh them to scorn! But I will not let them betray myself, this organization, nor themselves! If that is a firing offense, then execute your office, you lickspittle puppy!" Mind, you'll be instantly terminated. But they'll offer you severance. Or, at the very least, they'll not contest your unemployment. Despite the very real contribution they make, does anyone not hate the HR types that spend hours perusing the laws, cautioning everyone over every and anything that might give offense, and yet stand ready like the knackerman during every corporate 'reorginization', to swing the blade as employee after employee is cut. And, of course, that's why most of us never require the best of the people who work for us. Why should they give it? What makes us think we should request it? What will they get, in return? Our loyalty? Ours, maybe, but not the Company's. And that is why HR requires everyone to be polite, and well spoken, and neutered. Because 'employee' is just another word for 'unit'. Don't upset the 'units'. We need a constant stream of them to keep the Machine afloat. And the Units need the Machine to prosper in order to survive. As my Grandmother said to me, in her 97th year, frail and birdlike, bound to her wheelchair, just a sharp mind behind a pair of big eyes, "How much longer, do you suppose, we'll have to 'buy' our jobs from these people?" Apologies to all. My only excuse, of course, is that we all work for someone, and someone always works for us. Not me, of course. I'm unemployed.

Don't be daft. Human Resources people are weak, but lust after strength. They want to be in charge, but fear the responsibilities of authority. The next time the confront you on this sort of issue, respond with some variation on what follows: "Insult them?! Yes, I would be insulting them if I held them to less than the standard I know they are capable of! I expect these people to be the best, the Best! Do you understand me?! Oh, so some of them think I belittle them, do they? Some of them think we're not off for a weekend of cuddles and sickeningly sweet wine, and empty reassurances, do they? Well, good on me, then, say I! I'm leading these people, do you understand? Not babying them, not worrying about their childhoods, not cutting them a break because most of them are as dumb as mud! I'm leading them. No, I'm driving them! I'm asking them to give their best to this job, and to be the best that they can be. And when they give me less then their best, when they give this company less than they are capable of, when they betray themselves by slovenly, shiftless, half-arsed behaviour, then be sure that I will touch them up, Sir or Madam! Because this lot is mine! I will taunt them, I will mock them, I will laugh them to scorn! But I will not let them betray myself, this organization, nor themselves! If that is a firing offense, then execute your office, you lickspittle puppy!" Mind, you'll be instantly terminated. But they'll offer you severance. Or, at the very least, they'll not contest your unemployment. Despite the very real contribution they make, does anyone not hate the HR types that spend hours perusing the laws, cautioning everyone over every and anything that might give offense, and yet stand ready like the knackerman during every corporate 'reorginization', to swing the blade as employee after employee is cut. And, of course, that's why most of us never require the best of the people who work for us. Why should they give it? What makes us think we should request it? What will they get, in return? Our loyalty? Ours, maybe, but not the Company's. And that is why HR requires everyone to be polite, and well spoken, and neutered. Because 'employee' is just another word for 'unit'. Don't upset the 'units'. We need a constant stream of them to keep the Machine afloat. And the Units need the Machine to prosper in order to survive. As my Grandmother said to me, in her 97th year, frail and birdlike, bound to her wheelchair, just a sharp mind behind a pair of big eyes, "How much longer, do you suppose, we'll have to 'buy' our jobs from these people?" Apologies to all. My only excuse, of course, is that we all work for someone, and someone always works for us. Not me, of course. I'm unemployed.

Christ on a crutch with eczema! Haven't you been told to cease these horrible attempts at 'dialect'?! Wherever your talents may lie, laddie, it is not in this direction. Horrible, simply horrible. It's a pity that Australia is too sodding far away to get a quick plane ticket and check luggage that includes a baseball bat. Or perhaps not. Surely if flights there and back were cheap and easy to come by, the Aussies would, like cockroaches, be endemic everywhere you go. On the other hand, access to the 'real beers' of a people who've made a religion out of malt beverage consumption would be much easier to come by. A dilemma, to be sure. Perhaps if I simply paid one of the Aussies to hunt down AussieJeff and beat him into a state of compliance...

Christ on a crutch with eczema! Haven't you been told to cease these horrible attempts at 'dialect'?! Wherever your talents may lie, laddie, it is not in this direction. Horrible, simply horrible. It's a pity that Australia is too sodding far away to get a quick plane ticket and check luggage that includes a baseball bat. Or perhaps not. Surely if flights there and back were cheap and easy to come by, the Aussies would, like cockroaches, be endemic everywhere you go. On the other hand, access to the 'real beers' of a people who've made a religion out of malt beverage consumption would be much easier to come by. A dilemma, to be sure. Perhaps if I simply paid one of the Aussies to hunt down AussieJeff and beat him into a state of compliance...

I think, Berli, that I might have mumbled something off-the-cuff about a 'Dirtbike Knight'. Oh, well, no harm done... Make it so.

I think, Berli, that I might have mumbled something off-the-cuff about a 'Dirtbike Knight'. Oh, well, no harm done... Make it so.

Congratulations, Croda! But isn't this the second 'blessing' to occur within your familial unit since the beginning of the Peng Challenge Thread, for a total of three children? Or am I remembering some other fecund lackwit? In any case, we all surely wish the very best for your children. So far, the 'wishing' is about evenly split between 'hoping that the wife is of good, intelligent, and genetically adequate stock, and that the children will favour her to the exclusion of any other possibility', and 'hoping, for the sake of the children, that she's an adulteress with good taste'. Of course, both these camps are based on the 'Nature versus Nurture' concept. The 'Nurture versus Nature' camp are almost unanimously in favour of divorce, with the wife getting custody. A small minority favour the forcible intervention of the State to seize the children and send them to live with a family in Cuba. I on the other hand, take the approach that the Peng Challenge Thread has just acquired two more unwitting recruits. Which would make two unwitting, and one half-witted members to our credit from the same family.

Congratulations, Croda! But isn't this the second 'blessing' to occur within your familial unit since the beginning of the Peng Challenge Thread, for a total of three children? Or am I remembering some other fecund lackwit? In any case, we all surely wish the very best for your children. So far, the 'wishing' is about evenly split between 'hoping that the wife is of good, intelligent, and genetically adequate stock, and that the children will favour her to the exclusion of any other possibility', and 'hoping, for the sake of the children, that she's an adulteress with good taste'. Of course, both these camps are based on the 'Nature versus Nurture' concept. The 'Nurture versus Nature' camp are almost unanimously in favour of divorce, with the wife getting custody. A small minority favour the forcible intervention of the State to seize the children and send them to live with a family in Cuba. I on the other hand, take the approach that the Peng Challenge Thread has just acquired two more unwitting recruits. Which would make two unwitting, and one half-witted members to our credit from the same family.

You know, when you live alone, many interesting things can happen to you. Well, not interesting, necessarily. More like annoying. For example, the other night the aging UberGnome got up in the wee hours of the night to answer that age old call of nature. Stumbling through the dark, groggy from a night spent reading all sorts of gibberish on the Thread of threads, I managed to smack my foot, primarily the big toe, right into the door frame of the bathroom. After a few moments of rather unseemly, Capt-esque language, and a bit of hopping around, I finished what I'd gone in there to do and went back to bed. In the morning, of course, I awoke to a swollen, distorted foot. And pain. Let's not forget the pain. But for anyone who has actually lost to Bauhaus, pain is not that big a thing. I was even cheerful, later in the day, speaking to Berli on the phone. But, as evening moved on and the steady throb increased, I decided that icing down the damaged appendage was the best policy. I proceeded to the freezer compartment at the top of my fridge in order to fill a baggie full of ice. When I opened the freezer door, a three pound tupperware container filled with frozen chicken shot out of the compartment, plummeted straight down, and landed edge on squarely on the already damaged foot, just where the big toe meets the foot. If the previous shrieking of expletives was reminiscent of the Capt, this was more Meeksian in its impact. I hobbled, whimpering, back to my bed, and prayed that the next day would be better. The next day, Thursday, I was in agony. The whole foot swelled up, and I lay in my room with it up on a pillow. The temperature went up to 90°, and I hadn't dragged any of my fans out yet (no air conditioning here at Casa Gnome, thank you), and now I was crippled and couldn't get down to the basement to get them. By evening I was taking 4 aspirin at a time, sweating like I was in hell because it was 95 in the bedroom, shaking with pain, and all but delirious. Friends were calling and after speaking to me for a few minutes they'd ask: 'Are you alright, you sound a little strained?' And I'm yelling "No, goddamnit, I'm not alright! The bed is soaking wet with my sweat! I can't think straight anymore, and I can't get to the bathroom, so pretty soon there's going to be more than sweat on these sheets! I can't make food for myself, and I'm choking down handfuls of aspirin on an empty stomach, and my stomach's starting to bleed! And the pain! With every throb of my horribly swollen foot, it feels like hot pokers are being run up my leg and right into my groin! I'm filthy, sweating, starving, bleeding internally, and damn near rigid with pain! I'm in hell, I'm in hell! Someone shoot me! Please shoot me, shoot me!!" And they'd laugh, and say, 'you know, even when you're under-the-weather, you're still a funny guy. I'll call back later when you're feeling better', and they'd hang up with my despairing screams in their ear. So I crawl out to the kitchen. I can no longer even bear to hop on one foot, as this is putting horrible stress on my bad knee. There's no food. Worse, there's no drink. No beer. No wine. No Irish Whiskey. No 'stolen minis of horrible E&J brandy from the honour bar' of the last hotel visit (room charged to someone else's card). Nothing. I roll back on to the bed, and clutch the cordless phone to my sweating, shaking chest. Through encroaching delirium, I scream at myself to think! think! Will anyone bring me food? Pizza. I can order pizza. I crawl back into the main room to get my checkbook, and remember that a friend recently surprised me by telling me that a local liquor store actually has a delivery service. I find my checkbook contains one check. I have no cash. I go to the check box in the drawer, and find the unsent 'time to reorder slip'. I am beginning to weep quietly to myself. But I know what I must do. I dial up the liquor store, and tell them I need a delivery. I need it right now. Will they take a check? Well, they prefer credit cards. But they will take a check, if I don't happen to have my card with me? I get a grudging, 'yes'. "I need to order for delivery. Personal check." "Have you paid by check with us before, sir?" "Christ yes. I'm not a customer, I'm more like a goddamn investor." "Umm, alright. There is a $40 minimum order on a delivery, sir, and a $10 delivery fee." wild laughter from my end of the phone "Is that all? I'm an incredibly rich man! Money means nothing to me! Do you understand?! Money means nothing to me!!!" "Yes sir." "And you'll bring it right to my door, right?" "Yes sir." "Do I have to be walking?" "What?" "What if I'm lying on the floor when he gets here? Is that a problem?" "Er, sir, are you alright?" extreme nervousness "Perfectly all right. Perfectly. But I'm...I'm handicapped. I lost my big toes in an industrial accident, and you can't maintain a sense of balance without you big toes. You know that, don't you? So sometimes I have to crawl to the door. Disorientation. Imbalance. It takes me that way sometimes. There isn't a problem, is there?" "Well, sir, we don't like to deliver to anyone who...er, well, might be, I mean, if there's any question of 'abuse' well..." "THERE ARE LAWS, YOU KNOW! LAWS TO PREVENT DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE HANDICAPPED IN THIS STATE!" "Okay! Okay, sir, no problem. I'll explain to the delivery guy." I begin to order anything I can think of. I only moderate my choices when I can hear anxiety creeping back into the voice at the other end. We finally round out the order. "What about food?" "What about...food, sir?" "Yes. Food. Do you have any there?" "Well, no, sir, this is a liquor store." "No chips or anything? Beef jerky? Christ, haven't you people heard of cross-merchandising?" "No, sorry, nothing like that. Well, we have lemons and limes, for cocktails and stuff. And some jars of pickled onions and mushrooms. And nuts, you know, those nuts you put in some drinks?" "Filberts. Alright. Give me two jars of the mushrooms, half a dozen limes and lemons, your choice, and two containers of the filberts." "Will that be all, sir?" "Yes. For now. For tonight. You people don't have demerol there, do you?" "What?" "A joke. An old, crippled man's little joke. What's the total?" "$175.00, sir, with the delivery fee." I'm unemployed, but what does money mean when you know you're not going to make it through to morning? "Could I have your address, sir?" "Why? What the hell do you want that for?" the voice on the other end is getting definitely shakey "For the driver, sir? So he can make the delivery?" "Why not just say so, then, and not piss around making people paranoid? Are you Australian?" "No sir. I'm from Illinois, originally." "That explains the hideous accent. Alright, I live at..." And I proceed to give him my address. "Sir, I'm sorry, but I couldn't hear all that." A sudden gentle but imperative beep-beep sounds from my hand. I look at the handset of the cordless phone, the phone I've kept by my side night and day for the last two, horrible, pain-filled days, and realize the 'recharge' light is blinking. All those calls from telemarketers. All those phone calls from jolly friends who laughed, rang off, and have not brought me food, or drink, or even just a clean lethal injection. The battery is dying. I shout my address into the phone, and hear only the tiniest, incomprehensible thread of sound back. The phone goes completely dead. I crawl back into the main room, and clutch at the cords, intent on dragging the base unit down to use the speaker phone (South Minneapolis: Only one phone jack in the entire one bedroom apartment. Only one phone), and as it comes over the edge it misses my clutching hand, smashes into the desktop, and comes apart in several essential ways. After that, things became a bit hazy. I was next fully conscious of my actions a few hours later, when I found myself sitting in my underwear in the kitchen, legs straight out before me, beating a sodden lump of rapidly deteriorating frozen chicken into mush with the handset of my cordless phone, screaming "Think you're tough, eh?! Think you're tough, mister frozen chicken brick?!!! Well meet mister hammer, you bastard!!" The walls and cabinets around me were spattered with gobbets of half frozen chicken. The landlord had let himself in with a passkey, and I could see the poor bastard who lives upstairs from me, who I often hear passing outside my windows holding intent, muttered conversations with himself about remembering to take his medication, peering in horror over the landlord's shoulder. Poor fool. It must have sounded like a remake of the Amityville Horror to him up there, crouched on his sofa, counting out his pills to make sure he'd taken today's, and that whatever was happening under his feet was not another episode. "Dear God, what's going on in here?" This from my landlord. Several replies quickly went through my mind. But, with a keen eye to the appearance of evidence in a mental competency hearing, I calmly looked at him and said: "I always find chicken a bit tough for my taste, don't you? I'm tenderizing it. Can't a poor, afflicted man prepare a simple meal in his own kitchen without harassment?" I pointed out my foot to him. They both fled. Some of this, of course, involves a bit of conjecture on my part. But, in the long run, it is the only explication of the circumstances that can rationalize everything I discovered the next morning when I woke up.

You know, when you live alone, many interesting things can happen to you. Well, not interesting, necessarily. More like annoying. For example, the other night the aging UberGnome got up in the wee hours of the night to answer that age old call of nature. Stumbling through the dark, groggy from a night spent reading all sorts of gibberish on the Thread of threads, I managed to smack my foot, primarily the big toe, right into the door frame of the bathroom. After a few moments of rather unseemly, Capt-esque language, and a bit of hopping around, I finished what I'd gone in there to do and went back to bed. In the morning, of course, I awoke to a swollen, distorted foot. And pain. Let's not forget the pain. But for anyone who has actually lost to Bauhaus, pain is not that big a thing. I was even cheerful, later in the day, speaking to Berli on the phone. But, as evening moved on and the steady throb increased, I decided that icing down the damaged appendage was the best policy. I proceeded to the freezer compartment at the top of my fridge in order to fill a baggie full of ice. When I opened the freezer door, a three pound tupperware container filled with frozen chicken shot out of the compartment, plummeted straight down, and landed edge on squarely on the already damaged foot, just where the big toe meets the foot. If the previous shrieking of expletives was reminiscent of the Capt, this was more Meeksian in its impact. I hobbled, whimpering, back to my bed, and prayed that the next day would be better. The next day, Thursday, I was in agony. The whole foot swelled up, and I lay in my room with it up on a pillow. The temperature went up to 90°, and I hadn't dragged any of my fans out yet (no air conditioning here at Casa Gnome, thank you), and now I was crippled and couldn't get down to the basement to get them. By evening I was taking 4 aspirin at a time, sweating like I was in hell because it was 95 in the bedroom, shaking with pain, and all but delirious. Friends were calling and after speaking to me for a few minutes they'd ask: 'Are you alright, you sound a little strained?' And I'm yelling "No, goddamnit, I'm not alright! The bed is soaking wet with my sweat! I can't think straight anymore, and I can't get to the bathroom, so pretty soon there's going to be more than sweat on these sheets! I can't make food for myself, and I'm choking down handfuls of aspirin on an empty stomach, and my stomach's starting to bleed! And the pain! With every throb of my horribly swollen foot, it feels like hot pokers are being run up my leg and right into my groin! I'm filthy, sweating, starving, bleeding internally, and damn near rigid with pain! I'm in hell, I'm in hell! Someone shoot me! Please shoot me, shoot me!!" And they'd laugh, and say, 'you know, even when you're under-the-weather, you're still a funny guy. I'll call back later when you're feeling better', and they'd hang up with my despairing screams in their ear. So I crawl out to the kitchen. I can no longer even bear to hop on one foot, as this is putting horrible stress on my bad knee. There's no food. Worse, there's no drink. No beer. No wine. No Irish Whiskey. No 'stolen minis of horrible E&J brandy from the honour bar' of the last hotel visit (room charged to someone else's card). Nothing. I roll back on to the bed, and clutch the cordless phone to my sweating, shaking chest. Through encroaching delirium, I scream at myself to think! think! Will anyone bring me food? Pizza. I can order pizza. I crawl back into the main room to get my checkbook, and remember that a friend recently surprised me by telling me that a local liquor store actually has a delivery service. I find my checkbook contains one check. I have no cash. I go to the check box in the drawer, and find the unsent 'time to reorder slip'. I am beginning to weep quietly to myself. But I know what I must do. I dial up the liquor store, and tell them I need a delivery. I need it right now. Will they take a check? Well, they prefer credit cards. But they will take a check, if I don't happen to have my card with me? I get a grudging, 'yes'. "I need to order for delivery. Personal check." "Have you paid by check with us before, sir?" "Christ yes. I'm not a customer, I'm more like a goddamn investor." "Umm, alright. There is a $40 minimum order on a delivery, sir, and a $10 delivery fee." wild laughter from my end of the phone "Is that all? I'm an incredibly rich man! Money means nothing to me! Do you understand?! Money means nothing to me!!!" "Yes sir." "And you'll bring it right to my door, right?" "Yes sir." "Do I have to be walking?" "What?" "What if I'm lying on the floor when he gets here? Is that a problem?" "Er, sir, are you alright?" extreme nervousness "Perfectly all right. Perfectly. But I'm...I'm handicapped. I lost my big toes in an industrial accident, and you can't maintain a sense of balance without you big toes. You know that, don't you? So sometimes I have to crawl to the door. Disorientation. Imbalance. It takes me that way sometimes. There isn't a problem, is there?" "Well, sir, we don't like to deliver to anyone who...er, well, might be, I mean, if there's any question of 'abuse' well..." "THERE ARE LAWS, YOU KNOW! LAWS TO PREVENT DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE HANDICAPPED IN THIS STATE!" "Okay! Okay, sir, no problem. I'll explain to the delivery guy." I begin to order anything I can think of. I only moderate my choices when I can hear anxiety creeping back into the voice at the other end. We finally round out the order. "What about food?" "What about...food, sir?" "Yes. Food. Do you have any there?" "Well, no, sir, this is a liquor store." "No chips or anything? Beef jerky? Christ, haven't you people heard of cross-merchandising?" "No, sorry, nothing like that. Well, we have lemons and limes, for cocktails and stuff. And some jars of pickled onions and mushrooms. And nuts, you know, those nuts you put in some drinks?" "Filberts. Alright. Give me two jars of the mushrooms, half a dozen limes and lemons, your choice, and two containers of the filberts." "Will that be all, sir?" "Yes. For now. For tonight. You people don't have demerol there, do you?" "What?" "A joke. An old, crippled man's little joke. What's the total?" "$175.00, sir, with the delivery fee." I'm unemployed, but what does money mean when you know you're not going to make it through to morning? "Could I have your address, sir?" "Why? What the hell do you want that for?" the voice on the other end is getting definitely shakey "For the driver, sir? So he can make the delivery?" "Why not just say so, then, and not piss around making people paranoid? Are you Australian?" "No sir. I'm from Illinois, originally." "That explains the hideous accent. Alright, I live at..." And I proceed to give him my address. "Sir, I'm sorry, but I couldn't hear all that." A sudden gentle but imperative beep-beep sounds from my hand. I look at the handset of the cordless phone, the phone I've kept by my side night and day for the last two, horrible, pain-filled days, and realize the 'recharge' light is blinking. All those calls from telemarketers. All those phone calls from jolly friends who laughed, rang off, and have not brought me food, or drink, or even just a clean lethal injection. The battery is dying. I shout my address into the phone, and hear only the tiniest, incomprehensible thread of sound back. The phone goes completely dead. I crawl back into the main room, and clutch at the cords, intent on dragging the base unit down to use the speaker phone (South Minneapolis: Only one phone jack in the entire one bedroom apartment. Only one phone), and as it comes over the edge it misses my clutching hand, smashes into the desktop, and comes apart in several essential ways. After that, things became a bit hazy. I was next fully conscious of my actions a few hours later, when I found myself sitting in my underwear in the kitchen, legs straight out before me, beating a sodden lump of rapidly deteriorating frozen chicken into mush with the handset of my cordless phone, screaming "Think you're tough, eh?! Think you're tough, mister frozen chicken brick?!!! Well meet mister hammer, you bastard!!" The walls and cabinets around me were spattered with gobbets of half frozen chicken. The landlord had let himself in with a passkey, and I could see the poor bastard who lives upstairs from me, who I often hear passing outside my windows holding intent, muttered conversations with himself about remembering to take his medication, peering in horror over the landlord's shoulder. Poor fool. It must have sounded like a remake of the Amityville Horror to him up there, crouched on his sofa, counting out his pills to make sure he'd taken today's, and that whatever was happening under his feet was not another episode. "Dear God, what's going on in here?" This from my landlord. Several replies quickly went through my mind. But, with a keen eye to the appearance of evidence in a mental competency hearing, I calmly looked at him and said: "I always find chicken a bit tough for my taste, don't you? I'm tenderizing it. Can't a poor, afflicted man prepare a simple meal in his own kitchen without harassment?" I pointed out my foot to him. They both fled. Some of this, of course, involves a bit of conjecture on my part. But, in the long run, it is the only explication of the circumstances that can rationalize everything I discovered the next morning when I woke up.

Yes. What luck for you, eh? Another ten years of such steady deterioration, and one of us might someday be showing you how to fasten the velcro straps on your shoes before patting you on the head and giving you a quarter for not pissing yourself during the lesson. Pity you'll just swallow the thing. Still, all things must pass, eh?

Yes. What luck for you, eh? Another ten years of such steady deterioration, and one of us might someday be showing you how to fasten the velcro straps on your shoes before patting you on the head and giving you a quarter for not pissing yourself during the lesson. Pity you'll just swallow the thing. Still, all things must pass, eh?

Urggh. Didn't we already pass some sort of resolution that forbade Dalem from versifying? I'm off to be sick, now...

And after I acknowledged your Seniour Knight status. The bells of hell go ting-aling-aling-aling, for thee, but not for me, Mace.

I've come to this vile place only to challenge the Gnome. I think I'll continue to stand here in the bushes and wait for the little guy with the pointy hat. Maybe if I stand very still he'll think I'm another lawn ornament. The Gnome can't resist lawn ornaments.</font>

Where's my turn, you toad? [ June 01, 2002, 12:27 AM: Message edited by: Seanachai ]

Upon reviewal, I realize that I may have overstepped the actual 'bounds' of being one of the Olde Ones. Our job, after all, is less to govern the folk, than to beat them back on to the paths of righteousness whenever the stupid little sods stray excessively. Oh, and handing out completely arbitrary and jolly rulings on all sorts of silly ****e. Not that this wouldn't qualify, necessarily, but Shaw is right, and bringing the weight of being one of the Olde Ones to bear on CMplayer (I still don't believe the bastard is an actual Knight. Who took him to Squire, again?) is like asking the Pontiff to rule on whether cats have souls. Who cares? So, Joe, please do your best to mediate between Goanna, Eldest Australian, and CMplayer (most juniour 'I can't believe the pseduo-Swedish halfwit is even a Knight. Who took him as Squire, again?) in their disagreement over Squireship.

First your attempts at German, and now this. Is there any bloody language or accent you can make an actual stab at? I call for a Peng Challenge Thread vote: Should AussieJeff be enjoined against any and all further attempts at posting in any parody of another accent, dialect, language, or patois other than his own native Australian? Vote now. Vote: No More AussieJeff attempts at posting outside Aussie. Vote for the good of all mankind.