The Notepad Files: What You Get when I'm Too Tired to Think

Correct Telephone Etiquette, for when one Rings and Nobody Answers:

a) If voice-mail is available, leave a message. Wait patiently for a response. If none is forthcoming within a reasonable amount of time, telephone again.

b) If alternate means of contact, such as cellular phones, e-mail, or beepers are available, try those. Try each once, and only once. If multiple e-mail addresses are available, pick one, and stick to it.

Incorrect Telephone Etiquette, for Same Situation: Ring all afternoon at ten-minute intervals, driving the person on the other end, who is not picking up because they're trying to sleep, bonkers. Then, show up at their door and buzz them repeatedly--you know, just in case they didn't notice your first fifty attempts at initiating contact. Make sure you get the wrong buzzer code a few times, so you can annoy everyone else in the building, as well. Finally, resume your noxious telephone campaign some time around one in the morning, and again at the crack of dawn the next day. When your victim answers, tired and confused, engage them in conversation for at least an hour, ignoring their stifled yawns. Ask lots of questions, so they can't just pretend to be paying attention. Do this as frequently as possible, for maximum effect.

If, at any time, your phone-assault victim becomes incensed, and requests that you sod off, pretend it wasn't you. What are the odds they have Caller ID?

Anyhow, having endured a full day of such merciless phone-cudgeling, I'm tired. I'm as tired as Sisyphus, as tired as a sloth; as tired as a leech that's had salt poured over it, but has somehow survived, dragged itself back to the water, fled a hungry trout at speeds exceeding four miles per hour, and finally sunk into the duckweed, shriveled and spent. Or, as Baldrick might say, I'm as tired as a very tired thing. Go away, Baldrick.

Being completely exhausted, and all, I refuse to say anything original this afternoon. Instead, I present you with the contents of various random Notepad files stored on my machine:

liefeld.txt - A story that may or may not be about much-maligned comic-book artist Rob Liefeld.

Okay, this might not be entirely accurate, because it happened a long time ago, and before I was interested in many comics printed later than the 1950s. I had not, at the time, heard of Rob Liefeld, and only think he was the culprit because the name always reminds me of this incident.

But--but this one time, I was hanging about at a comic-book shop in Texas, with a couple of other folks who had nothing better to do with their time. Suddenly, several employees came out of the back with a table, and everyone started scuffling about, taking comics off the shelves and out of the back and sticking them on this table. Then, this guy (who may or may not have been Rob Liefeld) walked into the shop--he was there to SIGN the comics on the table, see--and instead of "Hello!" or "I'm here to sign comics," he said--

(and again, I may be misremembering slightly, because what he said didn't make any sense)

--he said "Yah jahoobie!"

What the hell?

So, anyway, some guy who was maybe Rob Liefeld, but probably wasn't, once said something stupid in a comic book shop. Great story, huh?

frogg.txt - I wish I didn't remember this.

Then, he gave me a kiss, and it was like getting mouthed by a frog.

hb.txt - This, I didn't remember...until now.

...one time, I caught my ex-husband whirling a rat around in a sweater while chanting "Hot burrito, hot burrito". I don't know why he was doing that, but I was very angry. The rat was all drunk and dizzy when it got out of the sweater, and fell over on its side. It was both funny and awful. I hit my husband with a chair leg that was in our flat when we moved in, and he said "ouch".

love.txt - Various criteria for determining whether your love-letter's creepy or sweet.

1) Content - "You make my heart beat fast" is generally better than "Please find attached one heart, human, removed from my own chest at great personal hardship. It's for you."

2) Quantity of Words - A hundred-word love-letter is nice. A hundred-page love-letter might seem a little, you know, obsessive. Obsessive. Obsessive.

3) Quantity of Letters - You know how desperate it looks when some berk clogs up your voice-mail box with sappy messages? Well, when your actual mailbox is clogged, you can multiply the creep factor by ten.

4) General Presentation of Letters - Did you use scented paper? Did you put on lipstick and kiss the envelope? Did you (please, God, no!) draw little hearts and cupids in the margins? Unless your girl's a real wet end, not good. Conversely, did you drop the letter in a puddle? Step on it? Wipe your hand over it with any sort of mucus or mucus-like substance on? Unless your girl's Oscar the Grouch, again, not good.

5) Circumstances Surrounding the Sending of Letters - Frisky letters from someone you've been flirting with: good. Frisky letters from a complete stranger: probably not so brilliant, unless they're very lighthearted. Frisky letters from someone you don't like at all, and who ought to know better: creepy. Ew. Faugh.

6) Desperation Quotient - Desperation, rather like obscenity, is difficult to define, but easy to spot. Essentially, it's how pathetic and needy your love letter makes you sound. Now, some girls, especially younger ones, really go for the "sensitive (and maybe a little wounded) bloke" type. Others don't. But one thing's for sure: almost no-one wants to hear that you'll kill yourself if you can't have her, or that you think about her when you cut yourself.

7) Spelling and Grammar - No need to use the Queen's English, or anything--it's a love letter, not a legal document. but its not god if ur lvoe letter looks liek this.........omg!

ohno.txt - And now, from the "What the hell is THAT?" files--

Jesus is biting me.

pooerick.txt - A limerick for the art forums at eatpoo.com, composed on the occasion when some berk requested a poetry section.

Come on--when you think of the p00
Do you think "limerick" or "haiku"?
Or do you think GOATSE*
(With all that connotes)?
You bastard! Admit it, you do!

* GOATSE, for the uninitiated, was a website hosted at goatse.cx (possibly meant to be read as "goat sex". There wasn't much content at GOATSE--it was mainly known for the enormous stretched-anus shot displayed on the front page. Goatse.cx was very popular with the eatpoo crowd. I'm not quite sure what that says about them, but it can't be good.

xian.txt - This, I believe, also came from eatpoo.com, this time from a discussion on bizarre Christian propaganda comics. I wish I'd saved the link to these things--they were absolutely priceless. Horrible, of course, but completely hysterical. Then there was this story I told, of course, which had nothing to do with anything at all, except that there was a Christian in it.

I was dorking around on there.com a couple of weeks ago, and me and a bunch of other hosers with nothing better to do with our time decided to go and make fun of one of these crazy creationist types.

Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar with there.com, it's this...very low-poly 3D world, where you're represented by a weird little avatar, and you walk around a weird little world. If you have enough virtual money, you can have a house, a car, and so forth. You can also build pretty much any in-game object you want, and, of course, some Christians decided to build their very own virtual revival tent, complete with an Ask Me booth and...green, glowing crosses. Very Elmer Gantry.

Anyhow, this girl I know had found out about these crazy Christians, and had heard they weren't your ordinary, unobtrusive, inoffensive Christian types. They were self-described "fundies". Knowing this, of course, we couldn't leave 'em alone.

Thus, one night, we descended upon their revival tent en masse. Unfortunately, it was OMG TEH SATAN HOUR ARO000OOOO! (that is to say, after 10 PM), so only one Christian was still awake. He was an arse-kickin' babykillin' fundie Christian US Marine wearing a pair of virtual trousers that gave him a big virtual package. (No joke. This is seriously the guy we get.)

OK, so we were all on voicechat, including this guy (most people on there.com have voice chat enabled), so we started asking him all kinds of questions. I had to know if he was really a creationist, so I asked if he was, and he said yes. When I tried to press for details, however, it transpired that:

1) The guy couldn't actually recount the "scientific facts" he claimed to have, which would've supported creationism;

2) Not only could he not support those views, but he had deliberately avoided reading other religious literature, including any and all apocryphal gospels, thus limiting his ENTIRE RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE to the New Testament and parts of the Old. So, in essence, he couldn't support anything he believed, nor did he have any meaningful understanding of any other viewpoints;

3) He was really too nice to make fun of. Seriously, we prodded this guy for MORE THAN TWO HOURS, and he stayed perfectly calm the whole time, and even had a sense of humour about it. Even when people started asking him why he was preaching peace and love, but volunteering to kill for his country, and whether he valued his country or his faith more, and so forth, he didn't blow his top. I was all "Dude, man. I'm not into drugs, but whatever THIS guy's smokin', ya know?"

Anyway, yeah, it was pretty bizarre. I could imagine this guy, when we weren't around, ditching the nice guy act and pushing [weird religious comics]. Or Chick tracts. Yeah, definitely Chick tracts. He certainly seemed to think I was going to Hell. (Ah, well.)

I'm not sure what the point of all this was, by the way. I just can't sleep, is all.

I had more Notepad files, and all, but I'm tired of looking at them. Did I mention I was tired? Anyhow, I can't imagine anyone wanting to read MORE of these awful stories. I've got to stop visiting Internet forums so much, I think. And I've got to stop saving all my stupid posts, and start saving some of the worthwhile ones. (Assuming, of course, there are any.)