Fiction: Good Help is Hard to Find June 1, 2014
Posted by TimTheFoolMan in Fiction, Horror.add a comment
Ed Note: This story contains some strong language as well as horrific imagery.
“Tickets! Have your tickets ready!”
The voice roused Scott. He wondered how long he’d been out. That was some nap.
He checked his watch… but it wasn’t there. Neither was his phone.
Now he was wide awake.
“I’ve been robbed!” he said aloud.
As soon as he spoke, he regretted doing so. He wasn’t on his train.
Fiction: Inevitable May 14, 2014
Posted by TimTheFoolMan in Fiction, Horror.1 comment so far
Ed Note: This story contains some strong language as well as horror imagery.
Inevitable
adjective
unable to be avoided, evaded, or escaped; certain; necessary: an inevitable conclusion.
sure to occur, happen, or come; unalterable: The inevitable end of human life is death.
noun
that which is unavoidable.
Crossing
Revenge
That night, I saw Stu approaching the train crossing. His old Buick had acted like it was going to stall. “Train Kept a Rollin'” was blaring from the radio. I smiled at the irony as Stu angrily smacked it off.
“Come on you hunk of junk!” he yelled.
He belched the belch of too many beers, and I could see that he was nudging the gas as he braked to keep the engine running. The crossing gates were going down.
Perfect, I thought. Right on time.
“Shit,” he muttered to himself.
This was my chance. He obviously didn’t want to wait for a train.
“You can make it…”
As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Stu looked around the car, uncertain if he’d said them or not.
I had nudged him.
He looked past the tree line, but all he could see was the sweep of the engine’s light, coming down the track.
”Go!”
Stu just about jumped out of his skin. I could tell by the expression on his face that if he hadn’t felt his own mouth forming the word, he’d have sworn someone had yelled it into his ear.
Someone did.
Me.
LGBTs, Atheists, and Theists December 19, 2013
Posted by TimTheFoolMan in Christianity, Friends, hate speech, LGBT, Morality, Relationships, Theology.Tags: friends, Phil Robertson
2 comments
Anyone who spends more than a few minutes around me will soon recognize that I have a WIDE circle of friends. Although registered Republican (Democrat curious), I am good friends with many who claim the label “Liberal.” I’m simultaneously friends with many who consider themselves strongly “Conservative.”
I have friends who are (like me) theists, ranging from the theologically liberal to the most ardent conservative, and friends who are atheists (and Atheists). I am friends with several people who have come out as lesbian or gay, countless others whose family members fall under the LGBT umbrella, and I’m friends with a lot of people who are straight (like me).
Lately, I’ve found myself hearing parallel comments that I’ve found fascinating.
Building a House (or Making a Movie) November 22, 2013
Posted by TimTheFoolMan in Filmmaking, Movies.Tags: cinema, Film, weird analogies
1 comment so far
Recently, I’ve been involved in discussions about making movies on a tiny budget. While I’m aware that you can recruit friends who will work for free, doing so has ramifications.
Building a House with your Friends
While it’s true that you can build a small shelter with virtually no planning, very rarely do larger structures survive under their own weight without some kind of plan (formal or informal). Why?
Imagine that you’ve got a friend who’s a carpenter, who likes you and would enjoy working with you. Imagine that you have another friend who is an electrician, who feels similarly magnanimous toward you. Add to that a guy who took a plumbing class in vocational school and someone who knows how to mix up instant concrete. We now have a team!
“Let’s build a house!”
First things first… How much money do you have? What? The other guys don’t want to chip in? Why don’t they want to help you build a house? Don’t they realize that it will look good on their resume? (This is especially true of the “plumber” and your “concrete man.”) Don’t they realize how much fun it would be to come over and party?
Well, in that case, your only option is to put up the necessary funds yourself. So now you check the bank balance. You’ve got $5000 that you can spend without your wife sending you off to the looney farm. You say to yourself, “$5000 is a LOT of money! Surely I can build a house for that!”
At this point, anyone with even modest experience working with modern building materials will know that we can’t build a house for $5000. The raw materials alone would cost more than that.
So now let’s assume that we have $30,000, and have estimated that this is enough to buy the windows, wood, concrete, pipe, and electrical wire necessary to build a small house. You’re all set. Right?
“It’s all pun and games until someone gets curt”: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pun November 20, 2013
Posted by TimTheFoolMan in Humor, Parenting/Children.Tags: learning, puns
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I find it interesting, and generally amusing, when people complain to me about my love of puns. It’s been often said that puns are the “lowest form of humor,” and are no doubt where many people begin with humor. Hopefully, they don’t end there.
However, there are also arrangements and formations of puns, particularly in compound sequences, that can demonstrate the breadth of one’s vocabulary and intelligence. (I’m not claiming that this is always the case with the puns you might read here.)
A Fool and his Words are Soon Parted 