Toren Atkinson

All of my conversational dialogue writing for the ESL books is now done (at least for the book they’re working on at the moment). I have badgered many of you about certain subjects over the past couple months. I appreciate all the help. Here are two samples of the final results.

JUNIOR: Dad, they have an awesome webcam at London Drugs, will you get it for me?
DAD: How about you buy it yourself?
JUNIOR: Duh, ’cause I don’t have any money!
DAD: You should start saving up your allowance in case your mother and I get hit by a meteor.
JUNIOR: If a meteor kills you I’ll inherit the house.
DAD: You’re free to take the house as long as you don’t mind the meteor holes. What have you been spending all your allowance on?
JUNIOR: Stuff.
DAD: Crack cocaine?
JUNIOR: Come on Dad, be serious.
DAD: What do you want a webcam for? Nevermind, I don’t want to know. I’ll start buying you webcams as soon as you learn how to fix my car.
JUNIOR: How about a raise, then?
DAD: Is it your birthday already and nobody told me?
JUNIOR: No but I deserve a raise. Tommy Fielding gets twice as much I do.
DAD: You better start buttering him up since you’re more likely to get the cash from him than from me. You know when I was a boy I didn’t get any allowance at all.
JUNIOR: Yeah and you had to walk two hundred miles to school in the snow, and you ate newspapers for breakfast. I know. Welcome to the 21st century, Dad.
DAD: You know you’re awfully snippy for a kid who’s begging for money.
JUNIOR: Come on….I’ve been doing all my chores, and my grades are up. Won’t you at least loan me the money?
DAD: Oh, I guess so. I’ll give you a loan even though you don’t deserve it. You can pay it back with your allowance.
JUNIOR: Thanks, Dad!
DAD: Wait a minute, how much is this webcam?
JUNIOR: $149.99
DAD: Sweet merciful Christmas!!!

LUCAS: Augh! I’m so mad at the public library.
ANGELA: You can’t be mad at a public institution.
LUCAS: I can and I will!
ANGELA: Why mad?
LUCAS: They wouldn’t let me check out any books because I had borrowed some book on samurai in 1997 and brought it back late.
ANGELA: How late?
LUCAS: Twenty-three dollars in overdue fines late, that’s how late.
ANGELA: Then maybe it’s time to pay the $23?
LUCAS: Maybe it’s time to burn the damn thing to the ground.
ANGELA: You could go to another library.
LUCAS: They’re all connected, you know? They’re all branches of the same big library. It’s like the cola wars – both Pepsi and Coke are owned by the same company.
ANGELA: I don’t know if that’s true. In any case, there are a billion libraries.
LUCAS: A billion? A billion? Your unabashed hyperbole only makes me angrier! I thought that there was a statute of limitations on late fees. Don’t they go away after five years?
ANGELA: Nope, they are like hepatitis C – it stays with you forever.
LUCAS: Except you can’t pay $23 to get rid of hep C therefore you’re metaphor sucks.
ANGELA: Be that as it may, the libraries in the suburbs are not affiliated with the city library. You just need to leave the city.
LUCAS: Hmmm, I could avoid the late fines however that would mean taking the transit out to the ‘burbs. I don’t know which is worse.
ANGELA: Yeah life is tough. Still, you only have yourself to blame for not returning your samurai book on time. Perhaps some ritual suicide is in order?
LUCAS: Very funny.

Holy smokes – the snow! Hooray!
Originally we (Anghold, Marlo & I) were going to go to the PALM (Paperfolders Around the Lower Mainland) origamist potluck tonight, but that’s a snow-go now. (That means we’re not going). Last night I treated (trot?) myself to pizza because, well, just because. It was no gingery sweet yams but it did the job. The Comicshop on 4th is having a big RPG blowout and I’m tempted to go, but I think I will resist that temptation on the grounds that it would probably be in my best interest(s).

I like snow. Some people don’t. I like it, I think, because it’s rare. If I lived in Calgary I probably would not be so fond of it. The Sunshine Market was closed yesterday so I couldn’t restock my Christmasy oranges. I think that’s my #1 plan for today: buy more oranges.

I got practically no email yesterday. I guess everyone is out holidaying. I don’t blame them. Since there was precious little going on internet-wise I actually got some work done. My bosses will be so proud of me! I also re-organized my VHS collection – just the movies, not the cartoons. I keep having this schism about whether or not I should keep the DVDs separate from the VHS tapes, or mingle them all together alphabetically on the shelves. I am going with the latter, for now, but if tradition holds I will go back to segregating them. I still have a bunch of movies in my collection that I haven’t watched yet: Godfather; Grave of Fireflies; Kiki’s Delivery Service; others. I’ve just been waiting for the right time to watch them (that time being when I can actually pay attention to them) and it has yet to come. I checked in on Weetzie, Ed’s cat, again yesterday and picked up some more vids from him: Ringu; Fubar; Meet the Feebles (a weird R-rated muppet movie from Peter Jackson – yes that Peter Jackson); Waiting for Guffman; Cradle Will Rock. The last two I have seen before.

It started snowing around 1:30 this morning so I went out for a stroll in the snow.

Don We Now Our Gay Apparel

I got socks for Christmas! Stripey socks! Huzzah!

I am typing this from the home of Anghold, though it won’t get posted until I
get back home. I realized today that my cold has been gone for a while. Funny
how quickly you forget something was wrong with your body when it stops being
wrong. WRONG!!!

I’m helping to make the December 25th dinner. We’re having tofurkey with all
the tofrimmings.

Now comes the list of all the Christmas swag I got (not including cards):

Stewie got me a bunch of miniatures suitable for Spaceship Zero. They’re fantastic and maybe I’ll take the time over the holidays to paint a couple. There are doctors and space pirates and guys in space suits. Some females mixed in the bunch, which is swellariffic. He also got me a book on the making of The Big Lebowski – one of my favouritest films.

Anghold and Hoolie got me an amazing comforter, which blew my mind and is going to go on my bed the minute I get home. Kodos will be excited. I also got the stripey socks in my stocking (socks within socks it’s like some crazy moebius strip) along with a much-needed toothbrush and some licorice flavoured twizzlers to negate the toothbrushing. And earplugs and lip balm and chocolates. I also got a bookmark – you know…for marking books!

What did you get?

Does anyone know when or if (or what) episode 87 of Cold Squad is on? Apparently “Dies ist Unverschamtheit” is being used in the episode. In other Thickets news…”Shoggoths Away” is being used in a Flash promo for a game called The Everlasting. I don’t know much about it, but I probably should.

I’m taking care of Ed & Janet’s cat while they’re on vacation. I get to take advantage of Ed’s vast video and DVD collection. Right now I’m borrowing Boogie Nights, Ghost World and Monty Python’s Meaning of Life while I work on Anghold’s Dec 25 present.

Did I ever tell you the story, gentle reader, of when I took care of Carina & Tim’s cats while they were away, a few weeks ago? Well they had The Temple of Elemental Evil (hey! synchronicity!) on their computer so whenever I went over there to feed the cats I would stay for a few hours and play said video game. Of course, I would never pick up the phone while I was there because, hey – it wasn’t for me. You all know my hours. I usually stay up until sometime between 3am and 6am, and such was also the case at Carina’s. When Carina & Tim got back from their vacation they told me they got all these noise complaints from a neighbor, and were being threatened with eviction. Now I couldn’t see how anyone could say that I was being noisy – I was playing the game at a normal volume level. Sometimes I kept the TV on when I wasn’t there, so that, you know…burglers would think twice if they looked through the windo. But again, normal volume. If not quieter than normal. Still, I was afraid Carina and Tim were never going to speak to me again, but as it turns out, the lady was crazy. And also it was somebody else in the building who was making the noise she was complaining about. And also the landlord apologized for overreacting. So everything turned out fine and they even invited me over to Tim’s birthday get-together the other day. And that’s my story.

Go Growlbacks!

Finally we (The Vancouver Gaming Guild) got our new site up at www.vancouvergamingguild.com complete with forums. I’m excited. And exciting. Let the nerds convene where they belong: online. We are pushing our big convention in January – Weathertop. Come one come all and play some games.

Made possible by Shawn, Stewie, Adrian, Michael Beck, Kathryn and Slater.

Stewie has left the building. I hope he will bring back some of his mother’s fantastic cooking. In the meantime, Kodos and I are partying on his bed. I gave him his Dec 25 present. He gave me two! One of them he made me open: it was a bunch of miniatures that fit perfectly with Spaceship Zero. I’m excited to run a game next month.

Well the episode of Enterprise wasn’t the Vulcan zombie episode, and it was in fact kind of sucky, and I’m really tired of Captain Archer being all deathly serious all the time. It was the one with the slave girl with eerie powers. The end was a lot more satisfying than the beginning or the middle though.

Tomorrow Stewie goes away for a week. So – I should give him his Dec 25 present.

Due to a certain gingerbread dungeon (below), I sent a link to this blog out to quite a few people. Professional gaming lists, etc. I find it amusing that some people expressed feeling voyeuristic and didn’t know if it was appropriate to comment, etc. Guys – it’s the internet. If I didn’t want you to read it/comment I wouldn’t have put it online.

I have a few tenets for my blogs. I like to think of it as good blog etiquette, and I hope you all subscribe to my wacky notions.

1. I try not to post links without at least a few words describing where you’re going to go when you click it. My regulars will know this. There are blogs out there that are nothing but a sequence of links. Boring. And often annoying. I go to friends’ blogs to read their opinions and feelings, not to get redirected to random crap. There are so many thin links all over the internet, many of which are simply predicated by “this is funny.” Frankly, that’s not good enough. If I have no idea where I’m going, chances are I’m not going to click that link.

2. I don’t post entries that mean nothing to anyone except myself. I have a private diary for my private thoughts. My online blog is for everyone. I try to keep the cryptic, teasing half-stories to a minimum. At least two of my blogging friends (to the left) are guilty of this, and it’s shameful. Shameful! Not to mention frustrating.

Anything to add?
Tomorrow (Sunday proper) I’m going to make hexmas prezzies, write, and if it’s the episode I think it is, watch Enterprise.