…here’s a video of baby goats in pajamas instead:
Bookshelf Battle
The only site where new bestsellers are forced to do battle for space on a nerd's bookshelf.
Tag Archives: funny
Random Thoughts
- Is it me, or does WordPress change things around every five seconds? I feel like no two visits to my dashboard are ever the same. File under: nerd problems.
- If you haven’t checked out Undesiredverse: Wanted yet, please do. Give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Tell me if it stinks. Tell me if you like it. Tell me if you think there are dishwasher instruction manuals that could get more sales. I’d love your input, especially the negative kind to help it improve.
- Did I mention you can read it on bookshelfbattle.com or on Wattpad? If you’re on Wattpad, you might find that to be the better experience as all the Chapters are right there whereas they tend to get bumped down on this blog.
- Call of Duty. Halo 5. Fallout 4. Star Wars: Battlefront. I don’t think I’ll see Video Game Rack Fighter again until March:
Video Game Rack Fighter
- I was sorry to hear about Charlie Sheen. There are probably 10,000 jokes that could be made about how this is not surprising but Attorney Donnelly advises me that AIDS jokes have been unacceptable since 1990.
- Alien Jones is still available for Ask the Alien. Come to think of it, he might have one or two questions rolling around to get to. Feel free to ask him yours and if he approves he’ll plug your book/blog.
- Why do people eat pudding? It has all the calories but none of the awesomeness of other desserts. You might as well have had ice cream. Eating pudding for dessert instead of the ice cream in your fridge is like taking your cousin on a date when Charlize Theron really wanted to go with you.
- Sometimes I want to tape fallen leaves back onto trees. It seems like a waste and also a shame the trees are left naked.
- I just invented a time machine. I used it to travel to ten seconds ago to get myself to change the subject and hey look! A hippopotamus in a pink tutu!
- Do you think that because I went back in time and changed the above random musing, that there will be disastrous effects on the world? They say the smallest tinkering with the past can change the future in terrible ways. Still, I can’t help but think that my life would be better now if I go back in time and tell myself to stop picking my nose so much. It would have prevented my deviated septum, the various brain restorative surgeries, and also I might have gotten more chicks. Then again, I might not have met Video Game Rack Fighter. Oh well. I guess I’ll stay a nose picker.
Hello Geekdexters
Afraid this is going to be one of those days when I don’t have much to say other than I like waffles.
Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party vs. Universal Halloween Horror Nights
By: Some Random Jerkface, BQB’s Editorial Assistant
Hello 3.5 readers. Some Random Jerkface here. While BQB was mired in the East Randomtown Zombie Apocalypse, yours truly was living it up in sunny Florida.
So in Orlando, there’s Walt Disney World and its unruly upstart rival, Universal Studios.
Who puts on the better Halloween shindig?
Probably all depends on who your are and your personal preference.
MICKEY’S NOT SO SCARY HALLOWEEN PARTY
Yeah. They aren’t lying about that not so scary party part. They pretty much take the guy in the Mickey Mouse costume and whip a Halloween costume over his mouse costume.
Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that. After all, it’s Walt Disney World. Of course Mickey isn’t going to be scary. If you have ragamuffins, this is where to take them on Halloween.
Maleficient is a little scarier:
Meanwhile if you ever go on a Disney Cruise, you might spot Jack Sparrow, up high:
Or down low:
However, if you’re sans ragamuffins and want the ever loving crap scared out of you, Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights is the place you want to be.
Disney has Mickey in a Halloween costume. UHHN has Jack, a damn murderous psychopathic clown:
He brings up “spectators” on stage to be maimed and/or murdered in his show, the Carnival of Carnage.
SPOILER ALERT: I’m pretty sure she’s just an actor pretending to be one of Jack’s victims. Still, if you see Jack walking down the street, you might want to beat feat in the opposite direction just to be safe.
Oh and don’t forget his hot she-clown girlfriend, Chance:
Yeah, she’s a total Harley Quinn ripoff but she was funny just the same. Jack and Chance know how to work a crowd, or work it over, as the case may be:
But try to stay off the stage:
For the Bookshelf Battle Blog, this has been Some Random Jerkface
Pop Culture Mysteries – Case File #TBA – Kill ‘Em Again (Part 4)
October 25, 4:45 A.M
“No!” I shouted. “No don’t do it! Running upstairs is a rookie mistake! There’s nowhere for you to go now, girly!”
“She’s a ditz,” Agnes replied. “All boobs and no brains.”
“My kind of dame,” I said.
“Ugh,” Agnes said. “Really?”
“Just ask my first wife,” I said. “Her brassiere had its own Congressman.”
Together, on opposite sides of a phone line, we watched as a beautiful buxom babe bought the farm at the edge of a maniac’s butcher knife.
“This fella has issues,” I said. “Where are all the coppers? Someone needs to run this palooka in on any number of charges. Breaking and entering. Assault. Battery. Attempted murder. Actual murder. And I’m not sure what specific crime it is to wear your victim’s entrails as a hat but it’s got to be against some kind of law somewhere.”
Only one survivor left. He hid off to one side of an open doorway, only to bash the murderer’s face in with a shovel as he walked into the room.
“Ahh,” the hero said. “Time to celebrate! I’ll have a glass of champagne, maybe a nice snack, take a nap…”
“No!” Agnes shouted. “Kill him again!”
“I’d of pounded this cat’s face into hamburger and set him on fire by now,” I said. “No. Come to think of it, I’d of just fed him to good ole reliable Betsy.”
“Betsy?” Agnes asked. “A girlfriend?”
“No. A gun I keep under my coat at all times.”
Silence for a moment from Agnes’ end.
“You need help, Jake,” she said.
The hero’s back patting session was cut short, literally, when the psychopath cut him in half. What a gruesome sight. Worse than some of the depravity I saw in World War II.
“Which movie do you want to watch, next?” Agnes asked.
“Ahh,” I said. “Sorry Aggie old gal but I have to make like Fred Astaire and shuffle off. I’ve got a report to file.”
“OK,” Agnes said. “I think Herb’s finally going to sleep for awhile anyway so I’d better join him.”
“Herb’s one lucky fella,” I said. “If I were over seventy, wretchedly ravaged by age and with no other options, your door would be the first one I’d knock on, Ag.”
“It’s…it’s too late to explain to you why that’s rude. Thanks. This helped me get my mind off of my problems. You know, it’s just so hard sometimes, to be a caregiver for an ill loved one. I try to do my best but it’s so difficult to…”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Sorry Aggie, but I’m a dick, not a shrink. Sayonara.”
I hanged up a phone. It was time to give Battler the goods.
Pop Culture Mysteries – Case File #TBA – Kill ‘Em Again – (Part 3)
October 25, 2015 – Midnight
The air was stale – cheap food, booze and leftovers. I wasn’t helping the situation with my cigar. My head was reeling from the evening’s festivities.
Upstairs, there was a couch in my office with my name on it.
But I needed to find out what the hell Battler wanted.
I slit open the manilla envelope, procured the piece of paper inside and read:
Hatcher,
A group of teenagers in peril. A vicious psychopath wants them dead. One by one he picks them off until the last one or two, depending on how gracious the film’s screenwriter was feeling at the time.
Somehow, our hero manages to get the upper hand. He shoots, stabs, maims, or even runs the killer over with a car. Alas, thinking the madman to be dead, the protagonist celebrates too early. To the audience’s dismay, the killer gets up and starts chasing our hero around again.
Jason. Freddy. Leatherface. Happens all the time.
Why, Hatcher? Why, oh why do heroes in slasher flicks refuse to double-tap?
I’d heard that phone books had become a thing of the past and that it was possible to get a person’s number by dialing 411. I tried it.
“Hello, thank you for dialing 411, how may I direct your call?”
“Uhh, yeah, hiya Toots,” I said. “Do you know Agnes?”
“Who?” the operator asked.
“Agnes the Librarian.”
“You want the number for the public library, sir?” the operator asked.
“Jeepers H. Crowe, dollface,” I said. “What kind of a question is that?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well I doubt the library is open at this ungodly hour, don’t you?” I asked.
“I have no idea what you want me to do, sir.”
“Agnes,” I replied. “Get that old broad on the line and make it snappy. I’m a busy man, see?”
“Do you have her last name?” the operator asked.
I slapped my forehead.
“Oh for the love of Edward G. Robinson’s sneer,” I said. “What was it again? Aloysius? Anchorage? Alabaster? No…ABERNATHY! Yes. That’s the ticket. One Agnes Abernathy please.”
“I have one listing for Herbert and Agnes Abernathy,” the operator said.
“That’s it. Put me through sweetheart.”
All of a sudden there was a robot talking to me.
“The number you have requested can be dialed for an additional charge of thirty-five cents by pressing the number one…”
Thirty-five cents. Highway robbery if you asked me. “Aw screw it,” I thought as I hit the number one. “I’ll just send an invoice to Battler for it.”
“Hello?” came an old lady’s voice.
“Agnes!” I shouted.
“Yes?”
“Listen, I’m sorry to bother you at home but I’ve got quite a caper transpiring here…”
“Who is this?” Agnes asked.
“Jacob R. Hatcher, Pop Culture Detective,” I answered.
“Oh for the love of…”
There was a long trail of unlady like obscenities I won’t bother to offend the ears of you fine 3.5 readers with.
“Jake, are you nuts? You can’t bother me at home! This is very inappropriate for you to be calling my home this late. How did you get this number?”
“Information,” I replied.
“Are you some kind of weirdo sex pervert?” Agnes asked. “Are you stalking me?”
I laughed.
“No offense old gal, but I wouldn’t touch you with Herb’s business,” I said. “Say Agnes, now that you’ve got all that out of your system, what’s a fella gotta do to find a monster movie around here?”
“A what?”
“A mons…Jumpin Jehosaphat, Agnes, are you deaf? MONSTER….MOVIE!”
“Jake, I’m not in the mood for your nonsense,” Agnes said. “Herb’s been up all night throwing up in the bathroom and I’m exhausted.”
“Yikes,” I said. “Sorry to hear that. You should tell him to lay off the bottle. That’s why I do when I start praying to the porcelain god.”
I could hear the disdain in Agnes’ voice.
“HE HAS CANCER YOU JACK ASS!”
“Oh,” I replied. “Even worse. Tell him I’m pulling for him. So howsabout that monster movie?”
“It’s Halloween time,” Agnes said.
“What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?” I inquired.
“Put on your TV and there will be one on every channel. Were you dropped on your head as a child?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “Ma Hatcher was a world class baby rearer.”
I grabbed the remote control and turned on the TV Ms. Tsang had mounted on one of the side walls of the restaurant floor to entertain the customers.
The old gal was right. Every channel I flipped through had images that were gorier than the last.
“Thanks Ag,” I said. “I’ll let you go.”
Silence. An exasperate sigh. Loud heaving sounds in the background.
“What the hell,” Agnes said. “I’m going to be up for awhile. Tell me what channel you’re putting on and I’ll watch it with you.”
POP CULTURE MYSTERIES – CASE FILE #TBA – KILL ‘EM AGAIN (PART 2)
Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015 – 7:30 pm.
Various costumed weirdos meandered into the restaurant as Ms. Tsang’s employees served h’orderves.
“So let me get this straight,” I said. “When I needed Battler’s help, he sent you to make me sign a legally binding contract obligating me to jump through a bunch of hoops like a jackass, but now that he needs something from me I’m supposed to bend over backwards like a world class limbo champion?”
“That’s the general idea,” Ms. Donnelly said. “It’s entirely up to you, Mr. Hatcher. I can’t force your hand, though I find it necessary to point out that if General Morganstern succeeds in blowing up Mr. Battler into smithereens, the secret of how you can return to 1955 will perish with him.”
“Good,” I said. “Good riddance to that lousy nerd. You could just tell me the skinny then.”
Ms. Donnelly clutched her pearls.
“I wouldn’t dream of it!” she said. “Go against a client’s wishes? Mr. Hatcher, I’m an officer of the court and as an attorney I have a reputation to uphold.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll fill up a notebook with the scoop on how I punched Adolf Hitler in the face if you think it’ll be useful as a bargaining chip to save Battler’s hide. But know I’m not doing it for that geek, Ms. Donnelly. I’m doing it for you. If that weasel buys the farm you’ll stop visiting me and I’d miss you like a castrated dog misses his phantom testicles.”
“As usual, I don’t know whether or not to be charmed or alarmed, Mr. Hatcher.”
“A little from Column A and a little from Column B,” I replied.
The music began. Every yahoo in the joint started jitterbugging.
“Isn’t it a tad early for Halloween festivities?” Delilah asked.
“Ahh, this is some shindig Ms. Tsang and the local merchants put together every year,” I answered. “Every business holds a party. The kids come by to trick or treat. The adults get tipsy. It’s fun, you know, for people who aren’t like us…people who have the luxury of being able to have fun.”
“People who don’t suffer the burdens we do?” Delilah asked.
“Precisely,” I replied.
Some ignoramus in a lion costume walked up to the table.
“Put ’em up, put ’em up,” the jerk said.
Instinctively, I reached into my trench coat, under which I kept Betsy, my old World War II service revolver, strapped to me tight.
“Hi folks,” the lion said. “Abe Marlowe of Marlowe’s Dry Cleaning!”
A lady wearing a blue jumper over a white shirt came over. She carried a wicker basket with a stuffed black dog.
“My wife, Sally” the lion said.
“Hello,” Sally said. “Wow, cool costumes! Let me guess…”
Sally pointed a finger to me and said, “…you’re Bogie” and then to Delilah, “…and you’re Bacall.”
“Something like that,” I replied as I took a sip from my scotch glass. “Who the hell are you two supposed to be, escaped mental patients?”
Abe laughed.
“No,” he said. “Haven’t you ever seen The Wizard of Oz?”
“Oh right,” I said. “Girl drops a house on a green broad minding her own business but beats the rap on a technicality, thus avoiding the chair. A heartless robot man, a mongoloid scarecrow and a giant gutless cat march her to a magic man who they think can solve all their problems with one wave of a magic want because it never dawns on them to roll up their sleeves and do any hard work of their own. Communist propaganda if you ask me, at least that’s what I told my girl Peaches when we saw it in the theater when it first came out.”
The couple looked at me like I was The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Delilah smoothed things over with her silver tongue, one of her many fine assets.
“Mr. Hatcher’s donned the garb of a hardboiled film noir style private detective,” the lady lawyer said. “And one might say he’s a bit too wrapped up in the role.”
The couple breathed a sigh of relief. Grown adults dressed up like characters in a kids’ movie but somehow I’m the oddball. Go figure.
“Nice meeting you,” Abe said as he shook my hand. “Stop by anytime and I’ll dry clean that coat for you, buddy. On the house.”
Abe and Sally took off.
“Dry clean my coat?” I asked Delilah. “What’s he mean by that?”
“Well, I’m not one to point out the foibles of others, Mr. Hatcher,” Delilah said as she clacked open her briefcase and pulled out a manilla envelope, “But you haven’t washed that coat in over sixty years so perhaps Mr. Marlowe was taking pity on you, or at least the olfactory glands of those around you.”
Delilah forked over the envelope.
“Get outta here,” I said. “Battler wants me to write down the details of Operation Fuhrerpunschen AND solve another Pop Culture Mystery?”
“Indeed,” Delilah said. “He expects it to be part of his ‘Thirty One Zombie Authors’ promotion on the Bookshelf Battle Blog, a push to grab the attention of additional readers.”
“How’s that worked out for him so far?” I asked.
“Very well,” Delilah said. “Last I checked with Mr. Battler a fellow in Dubuque was giving strong consideration to clicking Mr. Battler’s follow button.”
“I just hope the fame doesn’t go to his head,” I said.
The DJ dimmed the lights and played a slow number.
“Alright alright,” the DJ said. “Boys grab your ghouls and head out on the dance floor…”
“Shall we wiggle our bodies to and fro in a passionate manner, Ms. Donnelly?” I asked.
“Thank you but no, Mr. Hatcher,” Delilah said as she stood up. “I’m afraid I have other pressing matters to attend to and I simply have no time to dance with you this evening.”
“Who said anything about dancing?” I asked.
Bookshelf Battle 