N 42! O...Hell No.

The 100 Word Stories' weekly challenge is getting the best of me now that the humidity has set in and I only think of maybe 15 good words in a 24-hour span. I'm happy about that, because if I was pissing all my brain power into Twitter I'd really need to examine my priorities.

This week's topic is The Games We Play, and me? Games? Have you seen my basement? Have you been lured in there by the smell of cardboard boxes and '70s plastic? Have we played Which Witch? together? Did I drop it down the chimney and turn you into a mouse?

Sorry about that.

I didn't mind so much when my family put me in a home because I never liked those selfish bastards, and once I discovered strip bingo night I was sorry I didn't commit myself sooner!

At first it was a little weird, watching my new neighbors struggle to get their shirts off when their first numbers were called, and I regretted having my cataracts removed when some of them got close to winning, but then I made a load of new friends when I yelled that all I needed was an O69.

That old coot Harold Blonksy hasn't stopped laughing.

Listen to and read all the fun and games here.

Ages 8 and up, contains small parts, don't use dice as bludgeoning devices unless your opponent summons an earth elemental, do not pass go, draw 4 cards and lose a turn.

N 42! O...Hell No.

The Last Thing I Saw....

Stag beetles are pretty laid back around non-stag beetle species, but you've already closed the browser, haven't you?

I let it live. It's still out there...somewhere. MWAHAHAHA

The Last Thing I Saw....

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Walking Down Madison

To encompass both my wild activist youth and a potential future I've spent too much thought on, I have chosen Walking Down Madison by the late, great Kirsty MacColl to be this week's song of my misspent youth.

The date figures into it, of course. It was the WDRE Shreeek of the Week during this week way back in a year I was so frikkin' glad to get home I didn't leave the house again for weeks. Mainly because I was sick, but that's beside the point. I've wasted a lot of time freaking out about losing my house, like I can do anything more than I've always done about it.

But it may be that knowledge that I could be homeless in an instant that makes me see the people who are already living that life. We've got a local man who comes around with a wagon and collects cans. We used to take them back to the store for the deposits but honestly he can use it more. There's another dude who sits inside the liquor store some days during the winter. I say hi to him. He hasn't killed me yet.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: Walking Down Madison

Barbecued Dinosaurs Smell Just Like Chicken

I love writing for the 100 Word Stories' weekly challenge because I can go be someone else for a minute or so and that's the best way to live, really. Totally be a different person every five minutes or 18 days or seven years--no, five minutes is good.

This week's topic involved THUNDER, however...and I happen to have some history with thunder. I'll just say this one is two truths and a lie and let you figure which part is which.

My father loved to tell me bullshit stories during thunderstorms.
His favorite involved dinosaurs stampeding out of a crack in the earth. I guess it was one he'd been told. He was struck by lightning three times.

Years later my uncle explained that the rumble I was freaking out over was from static electricity in the clouds. I calmed down, enjoyed the rest of the barbecue, and fell in love with science.

I told this story to the Dr. Wu when the power went out, and he laughed.

He said, "That wasn't thunder, that was the dinosaur we cloned, escaping."

12 other cracking tales surround mine in a perfect storm of fart jokes and fabulousness that can be heard from miles away here.

The part of Dr. Wu was not played by B.D. Wong this evening. Dammit.

Barbecued Dinosaurs Smell Just Like Chicken

Don't Look...Bite This!

There is a saying that makes people's heads catch fire about what should be a right and what should be a privilege...which I'm not going to mention.

However, it got me thinking about something.

Back in the day, when the Bill of Rights was being drawn up, this is what healthcare looked like:



There was no question about whether someone could afford the help they needed, or if in fact they wanted the help they were getting, because if they lived through the night they'd probably give the doctor a bottle of booze or a horse or something or maybe they'd shoot the doctor if he messed up and that was that.

Now--with the exceptions of that nurse who recently exposed hundreds of people to hepatitis C...and everyone who catches MRSA in the hospital...and the ludicrous drug-pushing that goes on--medical care seems appealing. I want in. Nineteen years is enough. Especially coming off a weekend where I ended up face down on the concrete waving my good arm until someone noticed. Only I'd have to pay 10x more a month to insure this lump of flesh banging away at the keys than I do to insure my car, providing I lied about my pre-existing condition and never mentioned I'm Google-able and then...let's just whisk past how I've been spending a majority of my time.

So I have a selfish reason for wanting the utter bullshit I've been hearing and receiving in e-mails over access to necessary healthcare for poor people to stop. Any further argument involving the word socialist from anyone who regularly enjoys the cold touch of a stethoscope will merely be met my bleary glare and a very special finger extended on the arm that still works properly.

Poor people have as much of a right to live as those snowflake baby things in the petri dishes. Healthy poor people have a 50% chance of being not as poor within a short amount of time, too, according to a statistic I just pulled out of my ass. MMM, increased productivity!

The opinions expressed in this post are those of the personality of the blogger that comes out on every alternate solar eclipse not visible to the U.S. and should not be taken personally if you, the reader, feel poor people should die. She really loves you more than politics but needed to get this off her wheezy chest in order to resume the life she rather fancies despite all the falling down.

Summary: I am for the public option and single-payer plan and all the stuff the senate is dicking around about. President Obama wants the public option. It's the Senators looking to be re-elected by poor people haters that are dragging their feet. Remember this ten years from now. Also, I have a bow saw if anyone needs their leg seen to.

Don't Look...Bite This!