Heeeelo Peoples,
Seems like it’s been a while doesn’t it? I meant to call, you know. It’s just… well… eh… there were these ninjas, see? And they chopped my internet cord in half and… I suck? Those ten* of you who are motivated enough to listen to the crapcast no doubt already know this.
Well, you’ll be happy to know that I haven’t NOT been writing… I’ve just been writing on significantly longer pieces that I can’t put up on the website until they’re done. One being about a gay dude, a wagon, and a werewolf which I have talked about many times and another one being about a weird child and the area of my fantasy world called “Kaero Saul.”
Anyhow, I have several updates I wish to blather on about, and then we’ll go from there.
*Literally: ten
STORY VOTE
Since I feel bad about not having put anything significant up here in quite some time, I thought I’d do another story vote. The story to be finished in about a week and half from this date, as I am very busy.
1. A college-aged girl has a magical iPod that lets her live parts of other people’s lives. This might have something to do with WWII or… not? I don’t know yet. This is one of the nuggets that came to me while I was walking and looking at my iPod (I was also looking at a guy with one-arm who has taken, rather mysteriously, to walking at the same time as myself. I think he might want to be my friend.)
2. A viking travels through time to find his one true love, an obese woman in a power scooter who is addicted to chocolate. In my mind this is very funny, but it will probably have a sad ending as, I’ve realized, all my fictional stories tend to do.
3. A short Tide World story about some sailors sitting around in a tavern talking about how the sea is a harsh mistress, Brandy is a fine girl, but at the end of the day their life their lover and their lady is the sea. This will give hints at the kinds of things that live in the ocean of the Tide World. It will also involve someone being saved by a dolphin, as that is an idea I am just flat out never going to let die.
4. The story of the time I went temporarily insane out on the oil rig, missed several hours of time, and was semi-convinced that an alien watcher was putting me through some kind of rigorous test to determine whether or not mankind was ready to join the Galactic League of Species. In my defense, I was REALLY fucking tired.
5. The story of how one time, while wearing a Superman t-shirt on a bus, I was called upon to act heroically on the behalf of an old woman. I’ll be honest. This story will be extremely short. While bizarre, it was all over and done with pretty quickly.
Same drill as any other time I’ve done this: leave a comment with the number of your choice.
PATRICK ROTHFUSS IS STILL UNCOMFORTABLY NICE
I have no problems accepting the existence of drug addicts, prostitutes, and child-abusers. Those are the people I grew up with. What blows my fucking mind is NICE people, who ENJOY doing nice things, out of NICENESS… of which Patrick Rothfuss is a shining example. How nice is Patrick Rothfuss? So nice it makes me want to hurl and cry in the face of a glorious light-filled world I will never be able to know.*
He is running a charity this year, as he did last year, to help babies and poor people. When I get my next check on the fifteenth, I’m going to donate. And if I can donate, you can DEFINITELY donate. You can find more information, here.
*Also, Patrick Rothfuss looks like an old timey miner who is so profound that whenever words he says are written down, it’s done without quotation marks like in a Cormac McCarthy novel. I also feel like if compelled to talk about “the land” Patrick Rothfuss could reduce any of us to tears with his simple folksy honesty.
I AM LEARNING TO SPEAK LATIN
This is going well as work is slow, although I feel that nouns of the third declension were created just to rape the children of the world. It’s hard enough to learn how to decline adjectives let alone every single irregular noun of the third declension. I wish it could all be like conjugating verbs. That’s so straightforward.
This places me one step forward to my ultimate dream of getting into an argument with someone about something intellectual, then cursing them out in Latin. How fucking awesome would that be?
Very awesome.
I HAVE DECIDED HOW PEOPLE SHOULD APPROACH ME IN PUBLIC
I have been, if recollection serves, recognized 1.5 times in public. The first was several years ago in college when I was walking down the Ave. It was very awkward. The other half a time was in the grocery store about a year and a half ago. Some lady saw me out of the corner of her eye and kept kind of following me around. She was peeking at me from around aisles as I put stuff in my cart. I would have asked her what was going on, but the kids were with me. So either that was someone recognizing me, or it was just a crazy lady.
Are you reading now crazy grocery store lady? Or were you just some person who finds fat ogre-looking men attractive? Should I have checked the “missed connections” page on craigslist as soon I got home?
Anyhow, to avoid any future awkwardness I have decided how people should approach me in public should they ever recognize me.
WOMEN
If a glass of wine is available please throw it in my face, or slap me as hard as you can. Then pant heavily while you regain your composure. Then use the following as a template for how to excoriate me:
“Diego Descolgado! You (insult that no one has used since the 18th century)! Do you remember our night in (exotic European locale)! Do you remember how our bodies writhed together like two (some animal renown for passion)! If you remember that you (insult that no one has used since 18th century) then you’ll surely remember how you left me there as a lone as (something which is alone)! Does it please you, you (insult that no one has used since the 18th century), to know that my body hungers for you still? Does it bring a smile to that (word meaning handsome) face of yours? But you won’t have me now will you? You (word meaning noble) bastard!”
MEN
While my back is turned shout “Why Diego Descolgado, I heard from my contacts at the Agency that you’d died!” at which point I will turn around and disavow any knowledge of a “Diego Descolgado.”
Step forward, grab the front of my shirt in your hands, and in a gravelly whisper loud enough for everyone to hear say “I swore I would kill you for what you did in (exotic European locale)! I have lived these last (number) years thinking of nothing but how I would (some torturous phrase) if I ever saw you again! You and your (adjective meaning silly) sense of duty and honor! How many dead for your pride, Descolgado! How many!?!”
At which point, step back, smooth the front of your jacket, as I stand with nostrils flared shaking with a red-face.
“But I will not try to kill you. I am not so foolish as to have forgotten which of us is the greater. Besides, it pleases me to see the (adjective meaning disgusting) life you live now… Mr. Andrew Peterson!”
PODCASTING AND DRAWING
Still suck at both (although less so at drawing), but I’m getting better. So ha!
Just started reading this so will have more significant comment later but Hey!! did you do another podcast and I MISSED IT??? Is it buried so deep within the internets that The Old Folk can’t follow those labyrinthine paths to its virtual door?
Yours truly…wandering aimlessly…
Hah, declensions are easy. Irregular 3rd declension nouns? You mean i-stem nouns? Those are easy, its the third declension adjectives that are annoying since they are offered in three flavours.
Worst part of Latin: 50,000 Ablative Uses.
Okay. Voting:
#5 – should be an instant BC Woods classic
I think the concept for #1 is so good you should see where it might take you. Let that one develop into something longer.
superman.
I had to do this, they are like an ADHD British Mad-Lib:
“Diego Descolgado! You smarmy knave! Do you remember our night in Paris! Do you remember how our bodies writhed together like two leopards in breeding season! If you remember that you smarmy knave then you’ll surely remember how you left me there as alone as a Kerl, howling on the mountaintops of the Carpathian Mountains!? Does it please you, you smarmy knave, to know that my body hungers for you still? Does it bring a smile to that manly, well chiseled face of yours? But you won’t have me now will you? You refined bastard!”
“Why Diego Descolgado, I heard from my contacts at the Agency that you’d died!”
“I swore I would kill you for what you did in Romania! I have lived these last seven years thinking of nothing but how I would hang you by your toenails from a tree and slit your throat like a slaughtered hog and leave you for the jackals and crows to sqaubble over your flesh as your bones feel the harsh Sun if I ever saw you again! You and your ridiculous sense of duty and honor! How many dead for your pride, Descolgado! How many!?!”
“But I will not try to kill you. I am not so foolish as to have forgotten which of us is the greater. Besides, it pleases me to see the slimy little life you live now… Mr. Andrew Peterson!”
So I can’t just sneak up behind you and whisper seductively in your ear “Hey buuuuuudy?” like I was planning?
And I vote number 4.
#1 please. Also, if that old woman greets you Diego Descolgado, please let us know.
#4, please!
Also, if I don’t happen to have a glass of wine on hand if I ever see you, maybe I can just thwomp you with my purse? That’s another cliche “womanly” attack, right?
@ShawShaw,
Or kick him in the nuts. I can’t seem to think of any womanly combat moves…
Anyway, I vote 4 or 5. I enjoy Tide World but I have had similiar things happen to me. While going to Washington to pick up a truck, at 3:30 AM in the morning I began to imagine that I was being studied as a type species of humanity at large, so I was worried I wouldn’t be able to perform very well. So I started acting really polite the next day and kept looking over my shoulder, because that is what consuming massive quantities of Monster, Red Bull and coffee does to my tired crazy brain. Once I was on a school bus, due to my car being broke down and being sixteen, I was forced to take the bus to high school. I was wearing a Spiderman T-shirt (at sixteen, that is kind of sad, to me at least) and a 8th grader was getting the shit kicked out of him. An obviously somewhat retarded kid came up to me and said “Quick, ‘Piderman! Use your webz to stopped the fightz!” I tell Smeagol the Child with a herioc yes, and proceed to throw the two bigger kids off of the other and tell them to sit down. They comply, the bus driver is up front and not paying attention, and the kid said I was, I shit you not, “An hero!”
I’m just going to give you a wedgy if I ever see you in real life.
If I ever see you in real life, I really hope that I happen to have a glass of wine that day. Heaving bosom and everything.
@Clayton
I don’t want to actually HURT the guy! My purse isn’t big or heavy enough to really cause any damage. However, I do fight dirty and will have it stuffed full of cotton balls, bologna and pennies which will all smell like a weird combination of perfume and dead animals. I suggest you do the same if you ever meet him. The subsequent freak-out would be worthy of filming and then dubbing with commentary by Bob Saget.
#4 or #5. I’m being wishy-washy so if I ever see you in public, I will likely act more like the crazy grocery lady.
@ShawShaw
I would run on all fours, and hide behind a bush or grocery store display and leap out screaming like hell.
@ShawShaw
Or roar, growl and make snapping motions with my jaws.
@Clayton
No, seriously. Pennies. Cotton balls. Bologna. Perfume. Garbage. Put them all togetehr and you touch on almost every single one of BC’s phobias. Throw in a couple angry geese for good measure, and he’ll have to be committed.
@ShawShaw
Man, I hate bologna. Especially due to pronuctiation is ba-LONE-ee. I also hate the taste and smell, it looks like lizard skin and smells like rotting clam meat. Pennies, seriously now?
@ShawShaw
I’m not terrified of geese, me and geese have an understandinng amongst ourselves; they are game animals and I own a gun. Although in a hand to… wing?… beak?… situation, I would just bite off the heads or try to strangle them. Those things are evil. No just and loving God would make such fiends. BC, make a goose Loke species. And an owl Tant that kills them. Wait, no, that is kinda retarded.
#4 please. Even though the Tide World stories usually take precedence in my mind, this is too good to pass up!
Also, if I ever saw you in real life I’d first stop to wonder what you’re doing in Ohio. Then I’d probably make a fool out of myself because it wouldn’t really be you, just some strange doppelganger.
I vote for story #2. Because that just sounds too hilarious to pass up.
When do we post the questions for the next podcast?
@ShawShaw
Also, I only have a gun because I like to shoot targets, I don’t hunt.
I re-vote, 2 would be awesome because Vikings are awesome.
God, four posts in a row, that makes me feel like a massive douchebag, but I will stop now.
4, the oil rig, please.
You won’t kick him in the nuts but you will get him thrown in the loony bin?
@Clayton
What can I say? You brought out my sadistic side. Isn’t that special?
@ShawShaw
Well, that IS something, my sadistic and sarcastic side always come into play at the same time, so I always got to keep myself under control or I unravel into a huge dickhead. Also, note my use of the ‘Reply’ and ‘Quote’, because sometimes I have the technological aptitude of a brainded capuchin monkey. Also, it was -34 here for a while and even in direct sunlight stuff stays frozen. I’m glad my cats and dogs are fluffy.
Spelling correction.
#4 – oil rig insanity. I want to know what happened that night such that it actually stood out from the background of general non-normality there.
(side-note) Declensions. Hmmm, they aren’t fun in Irish either. No wonder so few people are trying to even speak that language. It’s like the Irish language is lying on the slab with the priest flipping to the correct page preparing for Last Rites.
@Eileen
I have purposefully buried it on my youtube channel until it doesn’t suck. At which point I will delete all the practice episodes and start doing good ones. I’m a big believer that the only way to get good at something is to do it over and over again and just throw things away again and again and again.
@Tech Support
When I read “The uses of the Ablative Case Vary” I thought “Fantastic, a random catch-all case.”
Can I ask how you got practice pronouncing? I haven’t been able to find any spoken Latin anywhere in an abundant quantity that isn’t bastardized church Latin with Italian V sounds. It’s In Weeno Weritus damn it! Not In Vino Veritoss!
@Clayton
Those are fantastic, although I had intended for a different weird insult to be inserted every time. But not worries. You can still feel free to do either should you ever see me in person.
@Shawshaw
Even though I owe you money, I at least thought you would respect me enough to throw a glass of wine in my face. I mean… even criminals are treated humanely.
@Everyone
Looks like Four takes it. I’ll being doing #2 after that and then we’ll see where we go from there.
@BC
Oh it is definitely a catch-all case. Apparently, it was originally three separate cases. There are something like 15 different ablative case uses.
Practice pronouncing was mainly in class. Although, the text you’re using should have a pronunciation guide that should tell you the sounds. As I’m sure you could find audio clips for them.
@BC Woods
Dude, being another man and saying that first one would want to make me vomit out my intestines. Not homophobic, just don’t like to think about such things.
I vote #3 for obvious reasons!!!
@Tech Support
Yeah, I’ve memorized all the pronunciation rules at this point but I’m still wondering if I’m emphasizing things correctly or if I’m just making guesses. I’ll have to find someone speaking a lot of classical Latin somewhere and just listen to it over and over.
@Clayton
I think it would be hilariously awkward.
@Brandy
Yargh! I have to go with the majority vote! Sorry! I’ll do it eventually though!
@BC Woods
What version of Classical Latin are you going for? Caesar, Livy, Cicero?
Can I pretend to be Australian when I deliver my Diego Descolgado lines? Then we can fight and you can toss a paint grenade at my car while I speed away firing paint balls at you.
I would love to read a story about a Viking addicted to chocolate and large women. In fact, I need to read a story about this.