Watching 24? Want to get good and blasted? Play the 24 drinking game.

Take a drink every time…
Jack tries to get out but the job pulls him back in.
Chloe looks constipated.
Someone at C.T.U. takes a personal call.
Jack yells “Where are/is the ?!”
Jack calls Chloe on the phone.
Someone looks shocked after hearing Jack’s name.
Jack has to run from law enforcement.
Someone at C.T.U. is suspicious of someone else at C.T.U.
The person in charge is making the wrong decisions.
Chloe breaks the rules.

Finish your drink when…
Someone takes over as the new director of C.T.U.
The person who looked like a traitor actually wasn’t.
Jack tortures someone.
An assassination is successful.
Someone goes undercover.

Take a shot when…
A nuclear bomb goes off.
Jack dies only to be resuscitated.
Chloe kills someone.
Aaron Pierce shows up, being awesome (meaning, whenever Aaron Pierce shows up).

Aaron Pierce makes everything better. Even 24.

Also, I’m calling it. This year, Chloe is going to become the new Director of C.T.U.

Tags: 24, Aaron Pierce, Chloe O'Brian, Jack Bauer

John Swartzwelder is arguably best known for writing a good hunk of Simpsons episodes back when they were still considered good. At least, considered good by people I consider good. Fans of the current Simpsons episodes I barely consider at all.

I first heard of his novels on the audio commentaries of my Simpson DVD box sets where the writers, producers, and voice talent of the show would praise Swartzwelder’s influence on the show. They would also pull their hair out as to why he continued to refuse to be on these audio commentaries himself, and occasionally plug his books (there were only two at the time, there are many more now).

I’m mentioning all this seemingly unrelated information because it is actually SUPER RELATED. The Time Machine Did It by John Swartzwelder, is essentially a extremely long episode of The Simpsons. Every paragraph is essentially a set up and conclusion to a Simpsons-styled joke. Main character Frank Burly is ESSENTIALLY Homer Simpson. Well… he is fat, dumb, and lazy like Home Simpson.

…I guess those are the essentials, actually.

Let’s talk about jokes. I like jokes. I’m FOR jokes. And this book? This book here? This book has a book full of jokes inside of it. Are all of them good? Yeeeaaauuummmaaaaaayyyy– no. In fact, I found myself fatigued from the humor about half way through the novel. After all, EVERY PARAGRAPH IS A JOKE. Sometimes some nice scene setting prose would be a nice change of pace, is all I’m saying. Through the fatigue, I still managed to laugh out loud twice. Twice! This is big. David Sedaris, humor writer extraordinaire, has only made me laugh out loud once at this point. So, even though Swartzwelder swings at every available ball and strikes out often, he does manage to hit the occasional grand slam.

As for the plot, if this book were to be translated into an actual episode of The Simpsons, it’d be about five times too long. Swartzwelder’s love of red herrings makes the narrative drag on for long stretches of time but not really feel worth the joke. I can’t tell if Swartzwelder is trying to write in this punishing manner on purpose, to make the fact the reader is putting up with it a joke in itself. If he is, he’s a jerk. If he isn’t, he’s a jerk who needs to learn how to pace a novel. So I suppose for his sake I’ll assume it is intentional.

Speaking of time, the title clearly suggests the presences of time travel in the novel’s plot. The title ain’t lying! There are actually some unique takes on time travel employed with this novel. For example, the inconveniences of being in another time actually take a lot of the glamor out of it.

As a whole, The Time Machine Did It has a slow third act and reads a little too much like it was written in a single afternoon. Still, it’s one of Swartzwelder’s first attempts at writing a novel (as I mentioned, he’s written many by this point) so I’m looking forward to reading another one of his. I want to see him improve. After all, those two laughs he gave me really did remind me of something… Something old… Something familiar… Something that used to be good…

Something yellow…

Tags: Frank Burly, John Swartzwelder, The Simpsons, The Time Machine Did It

It happened again last night.

I’m not going to go into the embarrassing details (such as why one of my socks went into toilet water), but I WILL let you folks know I fainted again. Yeah, that’s right: AGAIN.

I, Nick Elmer, am a fainter.

Ashamed? I was. I have been. Waking up on the floor of a YMCA after jogging a mile is never ideal for the ol’ self esteem. Yet I’m trying to make the best of it. We light-headed folks like to make light of our problems, you see.

The first time I dropped like a sack of potato shaped rubies was during high school at the aforementioned YMCA. I heard report afterwards that while standing over the water fountain I swayed a bit, commented “Oh, that’s not good”, then landed on my butt (but thankfully cushioned the blog with my skull).

It’s easy to see why I fainted THAT time: YMCA’s are yucky places. My body was most likely trying to protect itself from germs through accelerated hibernation. The human body is a wonderful mechanism in that way.

The second time was ironically shortly after letting my friends know I was a fainter. A game of Ultimate Frisbee in the school gym had become intense and I took a tackle to the gut. Being a good sport, I shook it off and walked to the wall. Being an even better sport, I showed the tackler there were no hard feelings between us by keeling over and drooling on new hardwood floor. Now, because I attended a public school I was given the best of treatment (cups of water) very quickly (after the third time I passed out).

This time it’s a little trickier to pin point why I fainted. Yet, I feel it was a higher power teaching me not to brag about my physical short comings to my friends. I rubbed my fainting in THEIR faces, so karma decided to rub MY face into the school’s gym floor. Lesson learned!

The third time I passed out was when I babysat some kids who went to a preschool I used to work at. We were running around, killing each other with make believe light sabers, and doing what children generally do. Then I banged my knee on a rock! Really hard! As you can imagine, knowing it was only a matter of time before I fell unconscious, I wanted to use the remaining minutes to assure the kids not to worry. I did this by unsteadily crawling up their drive way on all fours very slowly then resting my head on a bush. The kids were delighted at the silly noises I made as my brain slightly choked. I woke up to them happily chanted “Wake up, Nick!” It was then I knew I wasn’t dead because neither heaven nor hell would pay me 8 bucks an hour for that.

This time really shines a light as to what causes me to faint. After all, what is the common factor in all three of these stories? …Doing stuff! Doing stuff makes me faint! Ah ha! Problem solved. Now that I know the cause, I can prevent future fainting spells by avoiding any and all activity. This has been a boon for medical science.

And yeah, there were a bunch of other times I fainted but they aren’t very funny stories except for that one in particular that I’m thinking about right now.

REGARDLESS! That is my history of fainting. If you are a fainter, I suggest you follow these tips I had to learn the hard way:

1. Fainting? Sit down. No chairs? On the floor. Public place? Put out a can with some change in it and try to look as homeless as possible.
2. Don’t eat a lot of food before doing some physical activity. That diverts blood away from your brain. Blood is what tells your brain “Don’t faint right now!” so it’s good to keep those love birds together at all times.
3. Don’t become a pilot of The Blue Angels.
4. If you stand up quickly and feel yourself get dizzy, try to turn it into a sexy dance move to save face with those in your company.

If there are better tips around I’m certainly not CONSCIOUS of them!

Tags: babysitting, faint, fainting, gym, ultimate frisbee, ymca

People.

I don’t normally use this blog for things which might be considered “important”, “consequential”, or “something that I didn’t make up”. No, I’ll admit it. I’ve squandered this blog’s ability to reach the public and change the world. Until now.

Until right, got-dang, now.

I’m going to share something with you people that will change your life. Something that will make the your days seem brighter. Here it is my children, bask underneath the glory which is:

Caramel Bugles.

Gah! I just want to dive in like Scrooge McDuck!

Awww yeeeeeah! Sweet and salty, just how I like ‘em!

…

Wait– no, I want to type a difference sentence than that one.

Awww yeeeeaah! Crunchy phallic shaped snacks, just how I like ‘em!

Eh, I guess that’ll do. But dang, I’ve been scarfing this boogers down by the bag. I started buying the during a road trip and that kinda sorta created extra reasons for me to stop at every rest stop on the way. Because rest stops have convenience stores. Convenience stores have snacks. Snacks that can be purchased for cash, credit, or a tall tale no one at the tavern has yet heard. Now you see my way to thinking, eh? Now you see why I had to stop?

Because I have to go to the bathroom a lot and peeing my pants wasn’t an option. It could have been a solution, but not an option.

Oops, I’m getting off topic here. Yeah duders! Caramel Bugles! You simply haven’t known joy until you get one of those extra caramel-y pieces and enjoyed that extra satisfying crunch. So, because I am always in the business of helping people get more out of their lives, I have decided to created a list of all known places this fabled snack can be purchased (that I’m aware of).

Keep your eyes peeled for this bag.

THE LIST:

1.The Wawa on 202 by the Delaware border.
2.That truck stop where that chick was wearing a snuggie as a robe.

(This list will never be updated.)

Tags: caramel bugles, snack, truck stops, wawa