Well, this is getting ridiculous. As my 3.5 regular readers are aware, the theme of this blog is an ongoing “Bookshelf Battle.” I have limited shelf space. Books want it. They fight. And they send soldiers, robots, assassins, ninjas, or whatever to attack each other. Battles are constantly being waged on my bookshelf, and frankly, all the racket is keeping me up at night. So imagine my surprise when I woke up in the middle of the night last night to find none other than Sheriff Rick Grimes blasting away on zombies with his big ole revolver. Conveniently in time for tonight’s midseason premiere! I snapped a few photos of the action. You tell me which one you like the best.
Vote for #1 – Rick blasting one solo walker.
Option 2 – Rick, more zombies, and Merle, who may or may not be a zombie.
Option 3 – Merle on opposite side with zombies
Option 4 – Rick, zombie, random crawling walker
Yes, noble readers, while most of you think normal thoughts, like, “I think I’d like to put some grape jelly on my toast today,” I, Bookshelf Q. Battler, am cursed to consider more bizarre machinations, such as:
11) Is it racist that Webster called his adopted mother, “Ma’am?”
12) Was The Facts of Life a 1980’s version of Little Women that left Louisa May Alcott rolling in her grave?
I lie awake at night thinking about this stuff. I really do. Stuff like:
13) Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? And is whoever put the ram in the rama lama ding dong still at large?
:::pounds my fist on the interrogation table and shines the hot light on the suspect::: “TELL ME! TELL ME RIGHT NOW WHAT I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE BOMP OR I’M GOING TO WALK TO THE NEXT ROOM AND MAKE A DEAL WITH YOUR BUDDY, THE DING DONG!””
14) Are timelines real? With every choice you make, no matter how big or small, do you make an infinite number of timelines, reflective of the outcomes of the various choices you could have made? If so, is there another me who actually puts book reviews on his book blog?
15) What is the meaning of life? Does it involve cheese?
16) In the highly-evolved world of Star Wars, why would anyone use a lightsaber, when laser pistols are so readily available? In our own less modern world, we stopped using swords once we developed bullets. In a world where laser guns are available, are people really going to use swords made out of light just because they look badass?
Yes. Yes they are.
17) Why don’t I sponsor one of those third world children they keep showing me on TV? They tell me I could change those kids’ lives for forty cents a day. I can spare forty cents a day. It’s not that I don’t have forty cents, it’s just that I’m too damn lazy to fill out the form, go to the website, make the call, or do whatever you have to do to sponsor one of these kids?
Sigh. Somewhere in a country ruled by a man with a tall hat and a uniform filled with self-awarded medals, there is a hungry kid whose malaria could be cured if I’d just get out of my own way long enough to figure out how to send it to him.
18) If I were to strap myself to a catapult, shoot myself through the stratosphere, into the cosmos, to the edge of the universe to the point where it all just loops around and I complete a perfect 360 degree journey back to where I started – would I be able to pick up right where I left off, or would there be another me there to contend with?
19) Why must we grow old? Why must we get ill and sick before we pass on? Why can’t we just stay youthful until we’re a hundred and then just fall asleep under a cherry tree?
20) A man begins a journey in Texas. He takes a plane to India, and said plane travels at a rate of 80 miles per hour. A woman begins her journey in Moscow, where she takes a train to Norway, said train traveling at a rate of 72 miles per hour. Given that the wind speed variables have been taken into consideration, that the Earth is in perfect alignment with Mars, and that neither party has a considerable advantage over the other…what will they eat for dinner?
Blogger/Author Tommy Muncie posed this comment, so finely crafted, that I felt it merited an entire post:
Respect to you for doing this…I couldn’t write a short post if I tried (you’ve probably noticed) and trying one per day would probably give me an aneurysm. On that note, I reckon you’ll achieve the goal but I’m wondering how you’ll get past the day you get sick, as in the kind of sick where you’re bedridden and narcoleptic and running the kind of temperature the Sahara Dessert would be jealous of and thinking ‘Must…get…to….wordpress!’ and then your body knocks you out when you try. I read your random questions post tonight as well, so here’s a question: could you get past a day like that and still post?
– Tommy Muncie
ANSWER – I’ve been scheduling posts in advance, in the hopes of avoiding this very scenario. However, should I fall violently ill, I will use my last bit of energy to make a post. It won’t be anything fancy or spectacular, it will just be “post” or I’ll just bang on the keys and click “post” just to meet the once a day requirement.
Further, if, say, I am hit by a bus or otherwise left incapacitated, I have engaged a team of individuals to post in my stead, mimicking my subtle nuances and character, so that you will not even notice I am gone.
Actually, I haven’t done that, but now that I’m worried about illnesses and bus attacks on my person, I will have to do so.
Thanks a lot, Muncie!
Now that I’ve answered that question, here some others I anticipate you, my audience of three readers, may have:
QUESTION: Suppose you are cornered by a team of robot ninjas who stand between you and your computer, preventing you from making a post? Will you yield on your promise to us, the readers, to make one post a day?
ANSWER: Absolutely not. I scoff in the face of danger. Few are aware of this, but I was trained in the martial arts by Chuck Norris. I payed it forward by training Steven Seagal, teaching him all the moves he displayed in his movies from the 1980’s and 90’s, though I take no credit from his later films where he got fat and teamed up with Tom Arnold.
QUESTION: An asteroid is careening towards Earth. You have one minute to save the world and you have not yet posted on this particular day. What do you do?
ANSWER: I make a quick post, then I frighten the asteroid back into space with a glare so fearsome that it clearly communicates to the asteroid my disapproval of its tiresome behavior.
QUESTION: A grizzly bear demands to fist fight you in a steel cage UFC championship bout. The prize? Your computer. If you win, you get to post. If you loose, the bear eats your computer.
ANSWER: My post will be a selfie of me wearing the bear’s oily hide as a coat.
QUESTION: Aliens invade. They detonate an electromagnetic pulse that renders all electronic equipment useless.
ANSWER: It’s fine. I scheduled an advance post.
QUESTION: You didn’t. You were too busy watching Game of Thrones, that show that Tommy Muncie is not impressed with. Blasphemy, I say.
ANSWER: I did post.
QUESTION: You didn’t.
ANSWER: Well, if your computer is taken out too, then how can you be sure I didn’t?
QUESTION: Well played, sir. Well played.
QUESTION: You are kidnapped by Russians, who want your blog down because it is too awesome. They throw you, your computer, and a parachute out of a plane, but separately, not together.
ANSWER: I dive myself to the computer, post, then put on the parachute. Note that my first instinct was to post, not to save myself.
QUESTION: Katy Perry and Katee Sackhoff, two of your favorite Katies in the entire world, barge into your domicile, each wearing their customary garb. Perry is in her California Girls video costume, while Sackhoff is in her Battlestar Galactica pilot gear. They offer to have their way with you, but the price? You must not post for one day.
ANSWER: Define “have their way with me.” I understand the classical connotation, but it is an open ended term that can be taken a variety of ways. Thus far, in my experience, a woman “having her way with me” means she sucks up all my money, provides me with a longwinded speech about how we should just be friends, and then said friendship inevitably requires that I console her while she, with a cat in one hand and a pint of ice cream in the other, whines to me about how the men she wants to be more than friends with aren’t nice to her. I feel such a situation would not be worth sacrificing the respect of my three readers for.
QUESTION: The classical connotation.
ANSWER: Ah. Wow. That is a tough one. They won’t even allow me to post just so I can brag about it?
QUESTION: No.
ANSWER: Well, I made a promise to all three of my fans, so I would invite the Katies in for a rousing game of Parcheesi, perhaps build a few jigsaw puzzles with them, then send them on their way in time to make a post. That’s just what a selfless man who has made a commitment does.
QUESTION: Would you resent us forever for it?
ANSWER: Yes.
Do you have questions about what I would do in a potential scenario that would make it difficult for me to post? Ask away in the comments.
I do. I really do.
God this is going to be a long year.
And to make it book related – I like to eat waffles and read books…at the same time?
Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.
– Meg Rosoff, Novelist, Author of How I Live Now
True or false? Discuss.
I’m going to have a special announcement.
Will it be…
a) So big that it will take people’s attention away from the big sporting contest I hear will be taking place?
b) that all of my readers will get free Kindle fires? Even my Aunt Gertie?
c) that the dawning of the Age of Aquarius is finally here?
d) that I have acquired a guest spot on Game of Thrones, in which I inspire everyone with my near victory, only to be murdered in a gruesome and unexpected manner?
e) None of the above?
Whoa nelly, such suspense! Stop by tomorrow to find out!
Bookshelf Battle 