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August 8, 2004

N.B.: You still have three days to send me an entry for the Blogalike Contest.

A 100-word short story by Neil Gaiman.

Nicholas Was . . .

older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.

The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.

Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves’ invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.

He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.

Ho.

Ho.

Ho.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 7 Comments

August 6, 2004

N.B.: I am accepting entries for the Blogalike Contest through midnight (Eastern Standard Time) on Wednesday, August 11. So far I have one entry, so somebody is going to win the gift certificate to Powell’s City of Books. You might as well give it a shot.

A few nights ago, I came back home and turned on the television only to find that my digital video recorder, after changing the channel to HBO to record Six Feet Under, had not chosen to record anything afterwards, which meant that the face that greeted me when the set flickered on was that of Sacha Baron Cohen, British comedian and star of Da Ali G Show. I watched about a minute and a half of the show (which I’d never seen before), found it unfunny, and went into the other room; too lazy to have turned the TV off, however, I could hear the mellifluous strains of Mr. Cohen’s voice floating through the air, occasionally resolving themselves into phrases distinct enough for me to make out. At some point, my consciousness alerted me to the fact that Mr. Cohen was singing in a vaguely Eastern European accent, accompanied by a guitar. I focused my attention and realized that I had grossly underestimated him, as what he was singing, a lively ditty called “In My Country There Is Problem,” may have been the funniest song ever written.

Go here to see a video of the whole thing. (Your computer needs to be able to read .wmv files, and it’s probably not safe for work, unless you happen to be employed by the KKK.)

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 2 Comments

August 4, 2004

I was going to write a second post about words I’ve had trouble remembering this week (go here for the first such post) but then my cardiologist told me this afternoon that he thought I should probably have open-heart surgery, unless I wanted to risk needing a heart and lung transplant in later life.

That kind of made me stop worrying about words I’ve had trouble remembering this week.

Update, 8/5/04: Thanks for the supportive comments, guys and gals. I’m sorry to have been so dramatic. There’s nothing immediately wrong, and, in fact, it’s not absolutely certain the surgery will be necessary–my next appointment isn’t for another two months, if that gives you an idea of the lack of urgency. The surgery would be more a prophylactic than anything else. Plus, the risk of complications from this surgery is apparently very low. So the current situation is far from dire. I was just mildly freaked out.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 12 Comments

August 3, 2004

Taking a page from this man’s blog, I am going to have a Blogalike Contest.

The rules are this:

Send me a blog entry written in the style of Faustus, M.D. The events and/or thoughts described need not be true to life, though they may be.

You must send me your entry by midnight on Wednesday, August 11. This gives you just over a week.

I’ll post all the entries in addition to one of my own, and then you can all vote on which one you think I wrote.

I’ll send a gift card for Powell’s City of Books to the person who gets the highest number of votes, unless that person happens to be me, in which case I’ll send a gift card to the person who gets the second-highest number of votes.

Then I will reveal the ugly truth and hope to escape the ensuing slaughter unscathed.

The great thing about this contest is that it both a) gives those of you who like a challenge something to do and b) feeds my ego.

Remember: midnight on Wednesday, August 11.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 6 Comments

August 2, 2004

The one thing that came close to marring my experience of Donnie Darko last night (but, luckily, not close enough) was the near free-for-all of conversations going on around me, both between people and on cell phones.

Now, ordinarily I am adamantly opposed to talking at all during a movie; you can understand, therefore, why I believe that allowing a cell phone to ring, answering it, and either proceeding to have a conversation or climbing over everybody to have the conversation outside the theater is a compounded crime so heinous as to warrant instant decapitation.

Which leaves me mystified as to why the gentleman sitting several rows in front of me was permitted to live. His cell phone rang four times during the movie, and he answered it and left the theater each time, coming back after he was done, much to the irritation of his rowmates. After the movie, I ran into a friend of mine, who, it turned out, had been unfortunate enough to sit next to Inconsiderate Cell Phone Man. I asked him what in God’s name had been going on.

My friend replied, “He said his wife was having a baby.”

I stared, agog.

My friend said, “I asked him why the fuck he was at the movies instead of at the hospital with his wife. He did not have a satisfactory answer.”

Can you figure out why I didn’t pull out a machete, pursue this man, and chop his head off?

Because I sure can’t.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 10 Comments

August 1, 2004

It’s entirely possible that somebody could describe the extraordinary movie that is Donnie Darko, but that somebody isn’t me. I am a mere mortal and can only lie prostrate in the face of such brilliance.

Go see it at once.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 6 Comments