AOD - RealUglyGirl

I think she's probably a
lawyer or something...

AOD - Adventures in Online Dating

OKCupid Profile Here

Part One:

XIX – I love you ReallyUglyGirl! Please tell me you have a vestigial limb! Lie if you have to, just say the words…

RUG – Dear Sir, While I would like to say yes, (because truly at one point in my life I did), it is simply no longer the case. Regrettably, Christopher Buttons felt that it was in his best interest to consume said vestigial limb (or most of it anyway) despite my repeated protests to the contrary. Such a delightful scamp, that Christopher Buttons… always up to shenanigans.

Sincerely,

Agatha Tameryn Gray

XIX – Dearest AGs, Tender is the night!!! Wouldst that you portray but one thing – and that, a vestigial vestige! Forsooth; I quiver.

And to thy musculusin chum, Nantucket Buttons, my gratitude. For you and I were made for one another my sweet misshapen fiend, and it is upon your grace that I (and my delicious cake) await.

Your Servant,

Xix Feng

Postcards From the Edge - BOOM!

Sans dorky operator, natch...

Hello my pal! Hope things are going swimmingly!

I decided that I'm going to finish building that turret mounted laser cannon up on the roof that we talked about. It will be pretty sweet (and powerful)!

It’s going to need a targeting and fire control app for our smart phones tho, so I was thinking that maybe you and your genius buddies at camp could whip something up? Android version is fine for right now. We can work on an iPad app when you come home.

If you hear a loud boom and see a smoke plume coming from JTown, it works! Also, if the cops show up there and ask you a bunch of questions you should just pretend to not know anything.

Love you!!! xxoo

Xix

Nan and Co-Nan

A tender moment in front of  Polearm Palace.

It shocks me to think it's been so long since Nan passed. She was the grandparent who let me get away with all the things Mom didn't-- which is how it goes, I guess-- but that's not why I miss her. She was tough. She lived through the Depression, so she had to be. She used to save plastic yogurt cups for drinking since it’s what her parents did when they had next to nothing. The family always thought it was weird, but not me. I never had to worry about not having warm clothes, enough to eat or a roof over my head. Yet, as a child, just before I went to sleep, I used to imagine what it might be like to have to live like that. Not because I did anything wrong, but that's just how things were.

Nan lived through her own Hyborian Age. Not unlike a barbarian, she felt the oppression of regional warlords, bartered with traders from foreign lands, and swung a bastard sword like a modern day Louisville Slugger. They called her Dorcas the Dealer of Death, but never to her face. To utter such things in her presence meant your ass. She was a devil or a deliverer of vengeance, depending on who you asked. She had her own moral code-- perhaps one not easily suited for life today-- based on a strong arm and the righting of wrongs, where she defended those who could not defend themselves by making examples of those who would enact cruelty or hardship. I'll never forget the first time I saw her lop a bald man's head from just below the nose. The BLOOD. Always she would throw back her head and shout to the heavens and the gods above:

"By Crom!"

When she got too old to swing the sword, our family petitioned a blacksmith to forge her battle hatchets, but it just wasn't the same. When she could no longer mount her horse and kill for food on her own, the Northern Tribes sent this young man to assist her. He kept her fed, bathed, and sang the Oaths of the Fathers as she dreamed of shearing flesh from bone. I suspect they, too, were lovers. What young warrior-- man or woman-- wouldn't wish to bed the Deathdealer?

After twelve days of mourning, as is custom with her people, he took to horse and vanished into the scrub waste. I have sent for word, by writ and by wire, but contact eludes me. In these days, it would be most comforting to look across the fire and behold his breast swelling with the Song of Dorcas. In the time they were together, him and my nan, I never learned his name. Now, I can't help but feel in her absence, he is lonely. He's not the only one.

May the great gong of Gwahlur shake the hereafter, Dorcas the Dealer of Death.

By Crom.

Feng Industries R&D Blotter

That's me! Early Xix back in the day...

Since our hostile takeover of Veridian Dynamics in January of 2010 the Feng Industries R&D team has really shown amazing initiative and creativity. We had a board meeting yesterday highlighting some of their ideas and efforts and I wanted to take a moment to share some of my favorite projects that are currently under funding. These are not the advanced weapons systems and tactical diplomacy products that you may be familiar with from Feng Industries (our bread and butter), but rather the side projects, nay, the personal projects that I am most excited about.

Sticky Weasel Bombs (TM) - SWB's are really just living grafts of tissue wrapped around a musculoskeletal core that contains a neurological processing unit, creating a furry ball of bitey mouths and claws. The hair shafts of which are coated with a patented Quantum Gription (TM) technology that allows the little devils to instantly adhere to any target that they might strike (while biting and clawing furiously). These were initially developed for my own personal enjoyment to be deployed against my neighbor Barry who mows the lawn in a speedo, but the military benefit is undeniable as well.

Nuclear Powered Swarming Micro Tugs (TM) - The NPSMT are incredibly powerful, durable, and tiny tugboats about the size of a quarter. The theory is that they would be permanently deployed into a harbor area, and by teaming up, be able to shove bigger boats around without having to take up very much space. Their small size also means that they could collide with one another, and other ships without causing, or taking, damage. This would avoid so many hassles for FI in our domestic harbor operations and the tugboat captains (typically enhanced chimpanzees) always seem drunk on the job. Fuck those dudes.

Incendiary Tomatos (TM) - Non-lethal flash bangs of tomatoey goodness. Designed to create a low density explosion whenever the skin is penetrated (ie upon cutting) coating the target area in a burny citrus based lycopene gel. Grown on a vine using cybernetically enhanced DNA they would look and smell just like a 'normal' tomato, and would primarily be used to create geographically targeted micro destabilization by randomly substituting this product with real tomatoes into grocery stores within specified neighborhoods. Again, NON LETHAL. We just want to scare the vegans, not kill them.

Frisbee of DOOM (TM) - This was another personal project of mine that was devised to clear a football sized area of annoying humans and small animals. Initially irritating swarms of Frat boys on a college campus, but expanded to include gangs of wheelchair thieves operating in certain areas and small packs of goth/emo teenagers. The basic premise is that when thrown the spinning frisbee generates an electromagnetic field that disrupts the flow of neurological impulses within the cerebral cortex of individuals that happen to be in the radial area of effect (about 250 feet) creating a feeling of creeping dread and doom. This can also be used in tandem with Feng Industries Glee Generators (TM) to move an entire population along a pre-defined path or into a designated target area.

Pocket Bose Enstein Condensate (TM) - Ah, the mighty PBEC! Upon activation this device creates a tiny sub universe in which tiny miniaturized rubidium* atoms are slowed using a reverse symmetry trap. This is useful for a number of things, like slowing down light (fun for parties), but the biggest advantage that it offers is generating macroscopic quantum phenomena. Phenomena like superconductivity. Seriously, a pocket superconductivity generator? Need I say more? Let's just consider the mayhemic possibilities for a moment. Sublime...

Eelmen/Pigeonmen (TM) - Flying, or swimming human animal hybrids. The Fishmen/Pigeonmen came about because I am just SO tired of my chimpanzee army and their chimpanzee ways. Seriously, I'm like totally DONE with modified chimps. Not only do they drink and argue amongst themselves (when cybernetically enhanced) they really are quite delicate, and often afraid of water (I know right?). E-Men and P-Men are hybrids that exemplify the best traits of both hybridized species and none of the negative. Their skeletal and respiratory structures are modified and enhanced which allows them to operate in any environment (deep sea, outer space) and they can be genetically predisposed to receive instruction from only a single individual (me) which eliminates any embarrassing mutinous scenarios (I'm talking to you +Michael Penick - very funny. I'm sending the deactivated chimps to your mother btw...). When not acting upon a received instruction set they will go into a photophobic dormant state (hide in the dark), or return to base.

Hopefully, you are now just as excited about these projects as I am and will submit comply willingly when House of Feng descends upon your town or city in order to subjugate the population.

Thanks for reading! :)
-Xix

* Can substitute sodium or helium atoms as needed

Arson, a Bonafide Miracle

Firetop: fact or friction?

“And my old lady says I got through two wiener wrappers AND an insectomy.”

“Wow.”

“Yuh.”

“What an insectomy?”

“Don’t you know nothin, Dirtball?”

“I know some stuff.”

“Says you.”

“Just tell me already.”

“Nuh uh. I could get in trouble.”

“Oh come on. Your mom’s nice.”

“Shit. Ain’t my old lady I’m worried bout.”

“Please?”

“Okay. But you didn’t hear this from me.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“So the dad goes to the doctor, right? And he has him take off all his clothes and stand in front of a mirror and hold it straight up so it looks like a fire hydrant.”

“Umm-- so?”

“So then the doctor puts a wooden clothespin on it down at the bottom, you know...”

“What?”

“You know-- above the berries?”

“Berries. Got it.”

“And that keeps the babies away.”

“Oh.”

“Yuh.”

“So-- why do they call it an insectomy?”

“Hell should I know?”

“But-- don’t you have a little brother?”

“Yuh. So?”

“So what’d he go through?”

“Who cares? He’s a pain in the butt.”

“Yeah.”

“Yuh. Don’t matter none. I was the miracle.”

“You were?”

“Shit yuh. You should hear my old lady. PRAISE BE TO JESUS.”

“She say that alot?”

“Every morning just about seems like.”

“Weird.”

“Yuh. So how bout you shut up for once so I can think.”

“Sorry.”

“My old man says it a lot. When the old lady gets on about money.”

“Uh huh.”

“So you got the stuff?”

“Yeah. Well, sorta.”

“Of all the--”

“I got this.”

“A jar.”

“I couln’t find a can.”

“Your dad don’t got one? You check the shed?”

“Can’t. It’s locked.”

“What’s this then?”

“Dad keeps it in the basement. Kerosene, I think.”

“It burn?”

“Lights a lamp pretty good.”

“Yuh?”

“And it burns, you know, for a long time. Thought that was better.”

“Guess so. C’mere and hold this.”

“You got matches?”

“Better. The old man’s lighter.”

“Wow.”

“Yuh.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Just pour it all over there and make sure you get it all around.”

“Over there?”

“That’s what I said.”

“But isn’t that awful close to Mr Zimmerman’s garage?”

“Yuh, so?”

“So won’t it, you know--”

“Yuh. That there’s the idea.”

“Umm, I dunno.”

“Just do it, Dirtball.”

“You swear we won’t get in trouble?”

“What?”

“Swear.”

“Sure. Whatever. I done it lotsa times.”

“How many?”

“How bout you do like my old man says.”

On One Hit Wonders

You know who they are...

When I was a young man in Baltimore in the early 60's my band (The Peanut Vendors) and I achieved classic 'One Hit Wonder' status. In July of 1964 our song 'I Wanna Mow Your Lawn' hit #38 on the Billboard top 100, and we were never heard from again.

It was a catchy little number and when our song came out it was quite popular locally and managed to catch on nationally as well thanks to a local DJ. Things got very exciting very fast and our teenage heads were filled with dreams of fame and fortune. Unfortunately those dreams came crashing to the ground later that year when the popular press began to speculate that the song was really just a simple minded double entendre for something far more nefarious.

Truth be told it really was just an innocent song that I happened to write a few years before when I was in high school. I was attempting to earn extra money by mowing lawns, and it was an ode to the cutest girl in town, Sarah Jane Zbikowski. I desperately DID want to mow her (or rather her father's) lawn. See, I was totally in love with this precious creature, and I felt that if I could just get a chance to mow her (front) lawn, she would see me out there, and the sight of my buff teenage abs glistening with sweat in the hot summer sun* would prove to be too much for her and she would come swooning out through front door of her cute little ranch style home and cover me with kisses.

Sad to say, not only were we villified as perverts by the national press, but my undying love for Sarah was also proscribed into the unrequited cull pile of love. She never even got a glance of my hot bod because her father never allowed me to mow their lawn, even for free. I heard later that whenever their adorable cat pets went into heat he would put out poison for all of the male feral cats in the neighborhood that would inevitably gather on their stoop. So obviously the dude was hip to the hormonal male trip and perhaps there was something pathological at work there as well.

Also, I never had the courage to actually speak to her.

To this day I am disappointed at our treatment and lack of success due to this misunderstanding. I mean seriously how could a song like 'Puff the Magic Dragon' live on in famy (or infamy depending on your perspective) while 'I Wanna Mow Your Lawn' is consigned to the dustbin of overt entendral history. Sad, really...

*ok, perhaps such purple prose, which the song was full of, *did* promote the entendre theory

Honk if You're Homely

The girl of my screams.

Elloween Abigail Rohrschach was the kind of girl one took home to Mother. A trait which made her unsuitable for just about everything associated with cool. She was polite in the company of adults, well mannered and dressed. She stood almost a full foot taller than me; statuesque, with full, bowed lips, heavy lashed green eyes and long, auburn hair she cajoled into tight sausage curls. She always wore skirts or dresses-- sometimes plain, but often plaid-- and knee high socks with black mary janes.

She knew a lot about everything, being something of an overachiever. There was a face she made in her confidence. That self-satisfied half smile. It shriveled what was between my legs and my lungs, but from that palpable impossibility grew the first twig of something I feared give name. It was something I’d felt but in passing; for my kindergarten teacher’s teenage daughter, the dark featured teller at Dad’s bank, even Mom’s friend from church whose feathered blonde hair framed her perfect smile. It was something I’d reserved for age and experience and only ever felt for those beyond my years.

This was new. Foreign.

Terrifying.

The classroom was no exception. I sat at the rear right corner, where Elly sat up one and over. Her back was always straight, legs crossed, nose and chin tilted up. I often watched how her lips pursed with thought, the way her nostrils flared before her hand went up to answer a question. How it stayed up even after Mrs. Schultzgaber called on someone else. Sometimes that person was me. Sometimes when I knew the right answer, I’d give the wrong one so Elly could answer instead. One time I did this, she turned to me and smiled, lips pressed together. It made all the crickets and butterflies in my stomach do somersaults.

Then it happened.

It was the middle of a math test. Multiplication tables. I noticed something shudder out of the corner of my eye and I looked up. Elly’s shoulders raised as she inhaled sharply.

“ACHONK.”

I dared not breathe.

The classroom erupted with laughter. Even Mrs. Schultzgaber cracked a smile. Elly blinked several times and joined them in a fit of giggles as the teacher offered her a tissue and a prayer.

"Bless you."

In the moments after, as everything settled back into the dull hum of young minds calculating numbers, mine skittered away on its own tangents. Where before she and I were separate, apart in both attitude and flesh, I saw how the criss-crossed web of destiny and chance drew us together. It wasn't the sum of her individual parts that bore weight of her grace, but their quality. She was different. She was idiom.

She was weird like me.

Elly was still Elly, but to me she was Goose Girl. She was the perfect match for Dirtball, or so I had it all planned out in my head.  We'd go on walks together, talk about the things that mattered: sci-fi shows, ice cream flavors and camping out in the back yard. We'd read comic books together and discuss which characters we liked best. When she sneezed like a goose, I'd follow up with one of my own, even if I didn't have to sneeze. In that shared expulsion of dust and slobber, she'd know being different meant she was beautiful. Validated.

Loved.

I spent most of class running these scenarios through my mind; the endless possibilities. Every one ended with a smile and a bashful kiss. It went on like that forever until we were eighty on the front porch sipping lemonade. That far into the future was difficult to bring into focus, but I held onto that single image as if it explained everything. In my head, happy lives culminated in old couples on the front porch sipping lemonade. The real stuff. With pulp.

Goose Girl's goosneezes became the thing I looked forward to most in school. That is, until the day I had to sneeze and it didn't come out quite the way it was supposed to.

"GACHONK."

It sent shivers all through me, and while I sniffed back a follow up, I noticed everyone staring at me. Silent as a library, the room closed in, every face an accusation. Goose Girl's was worst of all.

Her's was one of betrayal.

Mrs Schultzgaber cleared her throat.

"Do you need a tissue?"

I slouched behind my desk.

"No, ma'am."

On the walk home after school, Goose Girl approached me with her two closest friends in tow. Her eyes were dark, pinched. Mouth puckered up like a raisin.

"Hey, Dirtball."

I tried looking her in the eye, but couldn't get above her dimpled knees. Her stockings were argyle. Pink, white and gray.

"Umm, hey."

"Shut up."

I looked up just enough to see the way her mouth was wound like a pitcher.

"You're stupid. Your FACE is stupid."

"But--"

"It's JUST like a butt. A fat. Dirty. STINKY. BUTT."

Giggling. The malicious kind. My mind reeled as my heart melted.

"But--"

The smack felt like a firecracker on my cheek.

"Don't talk to me ever again."

Elly scowled as she walked away. It was a face she'd reserved for a special kind of dirtball.

One like me.

Postcards From the Edge - Battle Spiders From Outer Space

Certainly not this
lovely creature.
Her name is Anne...

I love you and miss you!!!

Hey Buddy!!! I hope you are having an awesome time at camp! Last night after we got off the phone I heard a loud thumping on the roof so I went outside to see and it turns out we were being attacked by giant spiders from outer space!!! Some of them were burned up and others were still frozen but the ones that were still alive were mighty vicious!

Fortunately I managed to beat them back with a dinner fork and a trash can lid. It was brutal dude. By the time I won the day I was covered in spider blood and twitchy leg bits!

Fun Fact: Spider blood tastes like root beer!

-Xix

The Drink Panther

There was this kid I knew growing up who lived on my street. She was the only one close to my age and we used to spend the summer together since we went to different schools. We rode bikes in circles in her driveway every morning, trying to decide what to do that day. Until the morning she asked me if I’d ever been to The Barn.

There wasn’t a grade school kid on our side of town who didn’t know about The Barn. Stories varied, from a prohibition era flophouse to the place where high school kids went to get tattoos and try for babies, not necessarily in that order. I never went there or even wanted to talk about it because it scared me, but when Debby told me I’d wake up with a bedful of dog shit if I didn’t go with her, I didn’t have much trouble changing my mind.

The Barn was at the back of the property that used to belong to the Wisselfitzs, whom had stories of their own, none of which I believed. It was just outside the edge of town, back a long gravel drive, with a house halfway up and another struck by lightning and burned to the foundation right next to The Barn. No one was sure if anyone still lived there, but just about anyone who went to The Barn never came near the house still standing. Lucky for us, it was on our side of town, and twenty minutes later we were pedaling down the farm road that ran parallel to the property.

As we got close, I could tell we weren’t the first to arrive. There were bikes dumped near a thicket around back, none of which I recognized. Most were Huffys, of varying age and condition, and a couple of Frankenstein jobs from kids whose families were mechanical. I was neither. My black and gold AMF was both cheap and uncool. Even Debby rode her older brother’s bike, a white Huffy with red trim and hand brakes. Mine still had coasters, and a single hand brake that only sometimes worked. I dumped mine away from the others, behind a busted up washing machine.

We could hear the others inside, laughing and carrying on. While I was careful with each step, trying not to make any noise, Debby strode right in, hands on her hips.

“I came here to kick ass and chew bubble gum-- and I’m all out of bubble gum,” she said.

I could feel intense pressure on my eardrums. A tall kid with shaggy hair and an AC-DC shirt hopped down from his perch on a rusted out tractor.

“Hey, Debby. Who’s the new kid,” he asked.

“He’s cool,” she said.

And that was pretty much it. We hung out the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon. One kid had a six-pack of Red, White and Blue with four cans left we passed around a group of seven. AC-DC flipped over a wooden crate and pulled out a big plastic Pink Panther mask he handed to Debby and she donned it without word. I shot him a look and he shrugged.

“Pink wears the panther,” he said.

Debby elbowed me in the ribs and he passed me the first beer. I didn’t know what he meant, but I took a small sip and passed it back. She titlted the mask back and took a couple gulps. We kept it up until there were mostly empty, when we all called “NO BACKWASH” and tossed them on a pile in the corner. I didn’t much care for the taste, and drank as little possible. One kid, a short, reedy thing named Kevin, drank  two of them by himself. He did impressions of his weiner dog to fits of hysterics.

Debby moved away the following year and I went back to The Barn a few times hoping to catch the gang, but every time I was alone. I looked all over for that mask, but couldn’t find it. I never saw it or any of them again.

Years later, while looking for a car wash in New Mexico, I pulled over at a rest stop. Parked next to me was the person pictured below and wondered, for a moment, if it was Debby. I half waved, but they just sat there with the radio playing Amboy Dukes.

It reminded me of home.

Sandra Lee gets a makeover.