Achilles Finger

NERD ALERT!

Sauron and Isildur

I sat down on the couch tonight and turned on the television.  Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring was just starting on one of the cable movie channels, and I figured that would make for great background sound for my daily blog posting.  I had a whole blog post planned out for today,

Maybe 6 minutes into the start of the movie, the dark lord Sauron is kicking some serious ass, and just when it looks like he’s completely conquered the armies against him, Isildur takes a swing at him with a broken sword.  It’s a lucky swing, since it chops off Sauron’s ring finger, the one wearing the One Ring, and that puts a serious damper on Sauron’s corporeal form.

This struck me as highly improbable, even for a fantasy story where suspension of disbelief is a prerequisite.  You’re telling me that this total badass dark lord, full of evil magic with his ring of power, after decimating the armies of men… and all it took was taking a sword to his finger to defeat him?  And it takes him thousands of years to even start to come back into power?

Achilles had his heel; Glass Jaw Joe had his jaw.  Sauron had his finger.  Go figure.

Glass Jaw Joe

Searching For Topics

That's a head scratcher...

Ladies and gentlemen who read my blog,

I picked up blogging again on a daily basis four days ago, but I don’t feel like I’ve gotten back into the swing of things again yet.  I have yet to get back into the flow of writing regularly. I’m still waiting for major inspiration to strike me, giving me fodder for posts that are thoughtful and/or insightful. It’s not something I can force, and the blog post prompters that I’m glancing through aren’t giving me something that I can sink my teeth in to yet.

So, I ask you, fair readers:  What would you like to hear from me about?

Put it into the comments of this post, and if something strikes my fancy, you’ll see it in an upcoming post.

Of course, if nothing gives me a spark, then I’ll force something mundane on you, and nobody wants to see that happen!

Yours truly,

Jason

Mad Libs: On The Track of Bigfoot

I wanted to come up with a super-easy blog post tonight, since my brain is pretty fried.  I turned to the Internet for help, with a Google search for “mad libs”.  I landed on Wacky Web Tales, and then I chose On The Track of Bigfoot as my story.

Here were the prompts, along with the words I supplied:

I'm kind of a big deal.

• adjective – spooky
• your city or town – Los Gatos
• adjective – clumsy
• plural noun – bobcats
• food (plural) – grapes
• singular noun – great white shark [That one's for you, April]
• teacher – Your Mom [maybe I could've come up with an actual teacher here...]
• adjective – squishy
• singular noun – elbow
• friend – Ray Lallana [That's what you get for doing a Foursquare checkin right at that moment, Ray!]
• past tense verb – evaporated
• exclamation – Zoinks!
• body part (singular) – left pinky toe [It's the one that went wee-wee-wee all the way home]
• favorite expression – I’m kind of a big deal. [Ron Burgandy is one of my heroes]
• your principal – Mr. Coburn ["HEY!  Softly, quietly and politely! You're the best and the brightest in the town of Framingham!"]
• plural noun – vacuum cleaners

And here’s the story that was generated:

Harry and Ray Lallana

On the Track of Bigfoot

One spooky day, our class went hiking along the Los Gatos River. Like all clumsy hikers, we were ready for any emergency. In our backpacks, we carried bobcats, grapes, and one great white shark.

As we walked along the trail, Your Mom noticed a squishy footprint. “Do you think an elbow made these tracks?” Your Mom asked.

“No, but let’s follow them anyway,” suggested Ray Lallana.

We evaporated for hours. Then I screamed, “Zoinks!! I think I see a huge left pinky toe.”

“I’m kind of a big deal!” we heard someone say. It was Mr. Coburn.

“Mr. Coburn!” we screamed. “We thought you were a huge left pinky toe!”

“Do I look like a huge left pinky toe? Well, as long as you’re all here, you can help me look for vacuum cleaners. There are lots of them here along the Los Gatos River. We can take them back to school and study them under our microscopes.”

“I’m kind of a big deal!!” everyone said.