Making Jello

Making jello is pretty difficult.

No, stop laughing, it's not nice. If you're rude you won't get any at the end of this.

Ok, now that you've quieted down, I'll explain. I read the box and was following the instructions, so I got this small pot and filled it with about a cup of water, and then started heating it up. As it started to get bubbly I added in the jello mix, and it occurred to me right after I did it that this might be a bad idea because the mix might burn or something since it's exposed to an open fire under the pot.

So anyways, a big cloud of smoke starts pouring out of the jello, and I'm worrying that maybe I really did make a mistake. But then it started forming a shape, and I started to recognize it.

"Hey Odin, what's up?" I said to the Norse god who decided to haunt my kitchen, "What are you doing here in Texas?"

"Fool! You know not what thou hath done!" Odin's voice poured thunderously from the smoky visage.

"Man, Odin, why you gotta be this way."

But I started to see his point when I checked on my jello, as a maniacal, cackling face appeared in my jello, and out of it rose a maniacal man who I also quite quickly recognized.

"Woah, Loki, I thought you were banned from Earth after tipping over some cows or something." but he wasn't really listening to me as he jumped up and broke through my ceiling, apparently flying through the air. Odin's face was now grimacing at me.

"Sorry. I'll try not to add the jello mix in before you take off the heat." I said to Odin.

"Ack. Well, thou did not know. I'll hath him rounded up eventuallye. Just remember next time. Oh, and enjoy the jello."

"Really, it's not ruined? That's pretty sweet."

So, you know, Odin and I were cool, so things weren't too bad. And the jello did turn out ok, but I learned my lesson about following instructions. For reals.

Chicken-Back Pete

Chicken-Back Pete's thoughts were troubling him. "It's going to end badly any time now. I can just feel it. My affliction is too much to bear."

His date, Nicole, was sitting on the chair across the small booth. She was pretty, and seemed likeable enough. Her eyes sparkled when she smiled. "I'll have the Kung Pao Chicken." Chicken-Back Pete flinched at the word chicken. Who could blame him? Born with the down of a newborn's chick on his back, the word "chicken" had always haunted him, making him the subject of mockery since kindergarten.

"What? Is there something wrong with chicken?" Pete tried to supress his reaction as he replied, "Uh, no, there's nothing wrong with...chicken" he muttered. "I'll have the, uh, cheeseburger." The waiter left them alone.

"I'm just curious, is all. You've been jumpy this entire date. You should relax a little." she smiled. It failed to calm him, as vexing thoughts entered his head. "Why is she smiling? Does she already know? I bet she already knows. She's just leading me on, and she's setting me up for one big joke. They always are. No one could ever love me. Who could love a man with chick down on his back?"

"Really, it's-"

"NO! NO, IT'S NOT ALRIGHT! YOU'RE HERE TO MESS WITH ME, AREN'T YOU? TRYING TO PLAY NICE, ACT LIKE YOU CAN STAND A FREAK. YOU'RE EVEN WORSE THAN THE REST. WHY CAN'T ANYONE TREAT ME LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING? GO TO HELL! GO TO HELL!" Pete immediately regretted his words. Nicole ran out, crying, not knowing what could have caused such an outburst.

Pete laid his head down on the table, and wept.

-Credit to Minesotta President for the idea.

Inquisition

*Two men are sitting. One of them is very calm, collected, and looks the other person firmly in the eye. The other looks a bit confused and bewildered, though not excited, occasionally looking from side to side. For simplicity's sake, let's call the first James and the second Greg.*

James: Do you know why you're here?

Greg: Why?

James: Why.

Greg: No. No I don't.

James: You, sir, are accused of being a terrorist.

Greg: What? What do you mean?

James: Someone contacted us, and told us that you are a terrorist.

Greg: Us? Who's us?

James: I'm asking the questions here, sir.

Greg: What, so you won't tell me who you are, who accused me, what evidence do you have-do you even have any evidence?

James: The accusation is enough evidence.

Greg: That's ridiculous! That's not nearly enough evidence!

James: I knew you'd say that.

Greg: That's because it's ridiculous!

James: No, it's because we took the time to transcribe this conversation beforehand.

Greg: ...What?

James: Yeah.

*James pulls out a piece of paper*

James: So far it's followed the script perfectly.

*Greg pulls the piece of paper out of the other man's hand, and examines*

Greg: What-my name isn't Greg!

James: Those names were merely put for simplicity, and to make the script easier to read.

Greg: But then why didn't you put-

James: The script was made before we knew your name.

Greg: That's ridiculous! This whole concept is ridiculous! Why would you even make a script like this! Why would you give it to me?

James: Because the script told me to.

*Greg reads the script, trying to find what he is suppose to say next, and then directly avoids trying to say it*

Greg: I can prove this script is defiable! I'm saying something different from what the script is saying right now.

*James reaches over, takes the script, and pulls apart a couple of stuck pages*

James: Oh, the pages were stuck.

*Greg stares in disbelief*

James: Anyways, we need to get back to the topic at hand. That is, you being a terrorist.

Greg: But I'm not a terrorist.

James: Oh, I read the script. You definitely are.

Greg: How does the script say that I'm a terrorist?

James: I'm sorry, but I can't tell you. The script doesn't tell me to.

Greg: So this conversation will continue to follow it's drug addled course as it has gone so far, until somehow I end up admitting a terrorist.

James: I would rather wish you do not refer to the script as "drug addled", but basically, yes.

Greg: And what happens after that?

James: I forget. You go quietly or something? It doesn't matter.

Greg: This is insane. How would you even produce something like this?

James: I don't question the rules, I just follow them.

Greg: *sarcastically* Ah yes, this makes perfect sense. Of course a piece of paper knows the future, and can predict my every action. It must mean I am a terrorist. Look at me, I'm only trying to get a job, placing calls every few days, after I was laid off. Why wouldn't I be a terrorist. Clearly I must be a terrorist. It's the only logical explanation.

James: Aha! So you admit to being a terrorist!

Greg: What? That was sarcasm.

*Greg grabs at the script*

Greg: Hell, this script even calls it sarcasm!

James: Oh, the script is a fake.

Greg: ...What?

James: Yeah. I just manipulated you to say all those things, to perfectly follow the script, and control your actions so that you eventually admit that you are a terrorist.

Greg: ...No.

James: Sure! Of course, I guess you can't understand it, given your puny intellect compared to my keen analytical mind.

Greg: You're still following the script right now.

James: That just shows how much of a genius I am, that I can plan gloating in the very same step that I used to manipulate you!

Greg: You've yet to prove any real authority, or evidence, or anything! The entire case is against you.

James: You clearly underestimate my brilliance.

*Greg looks through the script, trying to figure out what the hell is happening. As he finishes reading it, a moment of comprehension hits him*

James: Ah, finally willing to go quietly, huh?

Greg: Right, sure. But could you look at this line, first?

James: Why?

Greg: It's of special interest, and I think it might make your case a bit weaker.

*James leans over to look. Greg suddenly decks James across the face, gets up, and starts walking out*

James: What? That wasn't...on the script.

Greg: Oh, there was a page stuck together.

Glimpse

The man's eyes quivered, his face dull with realization. "You'll never stop, will you? If I ignore you, you'll continue. If I kill you, others will come. There's no escape."

I started started to smirk. It was rare when I had such a self-aware quarry. Usually they fought back pointlessly, refusing to accept their fate. Today would be easy, simple. Unexpected, but not unwelcome. "As long as you are who you are, as long as you know what you know, it will never stop. You can either can continue suffering, or end it all here."

But what I didn't expect was his reaction. His face, contorted with fear, slowly started to change. And he laughed. The most disturbing laugh of my life, as if he had realized his entire life was one giant joke, and this was the punchline. Not knowing how to react, having no training to react to madness such as this, I simply stared at him, this insane, maladjusted person.

As the laughter finished, he finally spoke these words. "I've run away all my life. Everything I've done, I've tried to hide. You killed everyone I knew; you killed my teacher, the one who taught me magic, and left me with nothing. So I took that nothing, and lived with it. I carved out a normal life, a boring, meaningless life, but a life. But you wouldn't stand for that. You wanted to oppress me. Crush my spirit. Make me your slave. Breaking me is merely the expected endpoint."

He looked up, and his eyes glistened, the spirit of life strong within him. "As long as I live, as long as there is breath within me, I shall make you and all your kinds very existence hell. I will fight you no matter the odds, the risks, or the danger. You try to break me because I know too much, a liability to your precious kingdom of dust. But that's all it is. A kingdom that shall go back to dust. And I...I shall be the executioner."

Future Interpretation

The blog post I wrote about Ozymandias highlights something that bothers me about contemporary literary analysis. That is, the fact that people, often professors or article writers, take something, analyze the fuck out of it, and come up with some absurd theories, and then claim it was the author's intent. Even if the author disagrees with them, they can still just claim he inserted it subconsciously. Now, I won't claim that I don't insert things subconsciously, like the idea that I secretly want someone to misanalyze me so I can become all indignant and bitchy; however, an outside observer who's never met me and only read my works is not the ideal person to judge just what I subconsciously project into my writing, and should not speak authoritatively on just what I mean by my writings.

The problem is, I can't decry all of them either, because occasionally people do come up with insightful analysis that reflect what the author meant to write. I'd hate to go, "Everyone who critiques my work sucks," because by sheer chance, there almost certainly will be someone who doesn't.

Thus, my statement as such, is this: if you take my work, and say that it was my intent for what I write to mean whatever you claim, then I think you are being an arrogant bastard who assumes too much about why I write, and I question whether you should be doing it. Your own opinion is fine. Taking your ideas and asserting they're mine, isn't.

This may anger some people. That's pretty cool; I should do that more often.

Pseudo-proof

Current theory about the universe assumes that it will eventually degrade into a matterless background with even protons having decayed into a native state, at the most basic state possible as defined by entropy, and thus remain that way for the rest of eternity. Current theory also state that time had a beginning, via the Big Bang. If the time the universe has matter is finite, and the time it does not is infinite, then it is infinitely more likely for it to be a matterless universe at any given time than one with matter. Yet I perceive a universe with matter.

Therefore, either the universe is an illusion, or current theory is wrong.

Ducks should be quiet.

Ok, so I'm in my room, right? I'm trying to go to bed, and then there's this duck and he's like, "I'm a duck." And I try to be polite, and say to the duck, "Be quiet, I'm trying to sleep." But ducks are nature's jerks. It immediately started quacking like a madman, preventing me from sleeping. And the thing is, if you kick a duck, that just makes more ducks. It's how they breed. And then you get two noisy ducks, and it just gets worse from there.

The only real solution is to tell the duck, clearly and resolutely, to shut up. And if it doesn't shut up, you will hire a french chef to cook it into a lightly browned delicious dish served with asparagus and alfredo.

You will tell the duck he will be delectable, a delicacy fit for kings, though perhaps not really good kings like Charlemagne, but a decent king, one that is somewhat respected by his people by being fair, even if he's not the best possible leader. I mean, he was born into the role, he didn't pick his life, and you can't really judge him on the fact that he wasn't the best choice. Monarchy doesn't make for those kind of decisions.

So, long story short, the duck still didn't shut up, and so I ate him.

A bit tough, though. Maybe if he hadn't have quacked so much he would have tasted better.