This is a true story, unlike many of the other things I've posted, this did actually happen. I'm even pretty sure it wasn't a hallucination. I mean, I know the duck's a hallucination, but he assures me that this wasn't and who am I to doubt a hallucinatory duck?

Besides, the duck's been good to me. Not like that *#%*#(!-ing rabbit.

Last weekend, I decided to take a walk. It was a nice day, sunny with a little breeze, and there's a park with a walking/running trail just down the street. So I slipped into something more comfortable than the usual mail hauberk I wear at home and headed out.

It was fairly busy, with lots of runners and walkers on the path and I was nearing the end of my walk when I turned a corner and saw a young couple a couple hundred feet ahead of me. They were walking hand-in-hand in the same direction I was and being generally cute, what with the leaning into each other and chatting and whatnot.

It was a nice scene. A young couple walking hand-in-hand along a trail, green grass around them, the sun high in a cloudless sky. It was so wholesome Norman Rockwell could have painted it. It made even my black and bitter heart quiver, even though I keep it in a jar back home.

So, I'm walking along, gaining ground on this couple, because I walk really, really fast (seriously, ask anyone). Joggers are passing us, along with the occasional walker approaching from the opposite direction. They all pass the couple, who move a little to let them by. It's all very, very normal. Nothing weird or amiss going on.

I get to about five yards behind them and step on a leaf or branch or something, causing the young woman to glance over her shoulder. Now, I'm not exactly the stealth model, so it's not like I was sneaking up on them. I'm just walking along normally.

Now, as I said, the young lady glances over her shoulder at me, and then moves completely to the left, pressing up against her boyfriend, leaving about ¾ of the trail open. She hasn't done this with any of the other half-dozen people who've gone by.

I pass them after a minute or so. As I go by, dead silence. I get to about a dozen yards ahead of them and idly glance back, to see her move back to where she had been. They start talking again.

I literally said 'Am I that scary?' to myself.

It was kind of weird. I mean, I don't think I'm a scary person. I did yell 'Farfegnugen!' at some ducks, but that's the polite thing to do. I even left my machete in the car. I kind of wanted to slow down and let them catch up so I could say something nonchalant like 'my, it's a nice day for not strangling people!' or something else to demonstrate that I was, in fact, not going to strangle them.

I dunno. Perhaps all these years of fighting ninjas have left their mark. Maybe her uncle was a ninja and he used to tell her stories of a burly, non-stealthy, fast-walking guy that beat him up on a regular basis. Maybe I just smell really, really bad (it's possible).

Then again, I was wearing my 'Thumbs Up for Mindless Violence!' t-shirt, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Cheers,

-Jason

There was a wasp inside my apartment when I got home today. It was rather large and menacing in the way that wasps tend to be and the funny thing is, I have NO clue how it got in. I only noticed it because it was making a 'tick' sound when it was flying around.

My first hypothesis, that someone, maybe Vikings, had planted a very small bomb proved incorrect. It was only when I saw it circling my TV that I realized what it actually was.

As I mentioned, this thing was huge. It was a good inch long, not counting the knife and it looked kind of like a little yellow and black Apache helicopter. I, of course, captured it and subjected it to interrogation.

I mainly wanted to know how it got in. There are no wasp-sized holes in my apartment that I didn't make myself, so that suggests it came in through either a window or a door. So I focused my questioning in that area, hoping that it wouldn't tell me that wasps had figured out how to work door handles.

Now, I'm not afraid of wasps in a screaming and pointing way. It's more of a respect. Respect in that they will not just bite you, but they will go get all of their friends and relatives to come back and help them do it. I was bitten by a wasp once and that was a fairly serious 'owie,' as the professionals say, so I have no desire to be bitten by lots of them. Repeatedly. All over my body.

NOTE: I know for a fact that all branches of the Special Forces refer to injuries as 'owies.' Seriously. An actual Green Beret told me that. Granted, it might have been a hallucination, considering that he was also a chicken. A six foot chicken. Wearing a beret. . . . . you know, in hindsight, let's just forget that I mentioned anything about that.

Anyway, the wasp proved a tough customer and refused to talk. I even threatened to turn it over to some bees I knew, but that didn't seem to phase it. In the end, I decided to let it go.

"Fly away!" I said, in a commanding voice as I let it out of the glass. "Fly and tell your wasp friends that doom will come to their nest should they dare to cross my threshold again!" And then I did my best evil laugh.

I then watched it fly away, past my neighbor, who was staring at me and clutching a small yippy-type dog.

"Wasps are like Klingons," I explained. "You have to threaten them or they won't respect you."

I'm sure she agreed, as she ran inside and slammed the door shut, presumably to tell all her friends about the cool guy she just talked to.

Yeah, I presume a lot.

Cheers,

-Jason

Hey all.

Apologies for the slow updates lately. I've been dealing with work, work, and work, which is probably at least one more 'work' than I really should be doing. I mean, I do work and work all the time, it's just that third one that's killing me right now.

Anyway, hopefully I will be done with the third work soon and I can get back to more regularly talking about my fantasy life wherein I fight ninjas on a regular basis. Though, strangely enough, even in that fantasy I don't have a girlfriend. You'd think I could dream up an imaginary ninja-fighting super model that was at least mildly attracted to me.

So, during a very small period when I wasn't doing one of the three works, I was fiddling about on the internet and saw a warning/ad thing about the dangers of texting whilst driving. It featured a young woman with a very earnest message that in short read 'This is dangerous. Don't do this.'

The message was clear enough, but I was a bit puzzled that people would need to be told this. As far as I can tell, it's about as obvious as 'Don't put a wolverine down your pants while driving' or 'Saxophones solos and driving don't mix.' Or dare I say it: 'Don't drive and fight ninjas, unless you're actively running them over, in which case it's sorta okay.'

Like I said, it just seems rather obvious that you shouldn't engage in activities that require a lot of your attention while operating several tons of metal at high speeds. One of the best pieces of advice my dad ever gave me was when he was teaching me to drive. "Always assume everyone else on the road is an idiot," he said. Followed quickly by 'and don't hit that tree!'

NOTE: I grew up in the country and literally learned to drive when I was 9. Seriously, I could drive stick before I liked girls. And never had an accident, not counting the time I almost ran over our truck with a bulldozer.

My dad's advice has proved itself true on many instances and kept me alive on a few. Another notable piece of advice was 'always hit 'em with the thick end of the pool cue.' That one hasn't been used quite as many times, but it's still noteworthy.

Cheers,

-Jason

I am in the habit of writing things down. This will come as no shock to those of you who know me and have realized that my brain is basically a sieve. A razor-sharp, oft-delusional, steel sieve, but a sieve none the less.

Hence I am prone to writing notes.

However, here's the problem: I tend to write notes on any old piece of paper or chupacabra that happen to be around, so I have a large stack of papers on my desk that my brain-sieve has categorized as 'necessary' or 'important.' It is worth noting that the chupacabra didn't stack nearly as well and is currently missing. I hope whatever I wrote on it wasn't terribly important.

NOTE: MS Word does not recognize 'chupacabra.' I find this deficiency appalling. And yes, I can add it to my personal dictionary, I just haven't yet.

Putting aside the missing chupacabra, there is a second problem with my note taking: when I get around to looking at the notes, I generally have no idea what they mean or what they're for.

Here is an honest-to-god example of things I have written down on one sheet:

So, I have no idea why I felt the need to write any of these things down. I'm sure that I felt they were important at the time, perhaps even crucial, but unless I figure out how to decipher them, they're basically worthless.

It could be like that movie The Saint with Val Kilmer. The impossibly hot scientist lady kept her notes for her world-shattering discovery on a series of small pieces of paper that had to be rearranged correctly and for some reason she was the only one who knew the right order. This is disregarding the fact that there were a finite number of pieces of paper (like seven) and I'm pretty sure you could have just brute-forced your way through all the possible combinations and come up with the answer. Anyway, that was an overly long explanation for the fact that I have lots of notes and no comprehension of what they mean.

In all likelihood, it's probably not anything earthshaking like a cure for cancer or how to get Olivia Wilde to deliver a pizza to my apartment.

Hmmmm . . . pizza.

Cheers,

-Jason

My upstairs neighbors had a fight the other night. She went stomping up the stairs and flung the door open. I couldn't quite hear what was going on, but she was pissed at the guy for some reason and yelled for about ten minutes. She then stomped back out and drove off. I continued watching cartoons.

She came back about twenty minutes later and stomped back up the stairs. This time there was more prolonged shouting and some jumping up and/or down, as they made the ceiling shake. After about ten minutes of this, she left again, leaving the guy sobbing.

I happened to use the bathroom at that point and discovered a fun fact: you can hear what's going on upstairs really, really well in the bathroom. He was sobbing and kept repeating 'What am I going to do?' I'm not sure if he was talking to someone or just in hysterics, but I made a mental note to not say anything incriminating loudly in the bathroom, just in case they could hear me as well as I could hear them.

And that was it. Maybe twenty minutes total arguing with another ten or so of sobbing.

In all honesty, the level of fighting that has been going on at this apartment complex has been really, really bad. I would give the one the other night a 4 out of 10 at best, just because she stomped really well.

As a long-time apartment dweller, I have come to recognize the artistry involved in a really good fight. There's a certain commitment needed to truly scream that someone is a 'filthy whore' at 3 in the morning. Even the relatively simple act of slamming an apartment door has its intricacies. Do you go for the big wham or the more subtle 'shut the door softly, but in a way that makes the whole building shake?'

Seriously, these people need some lessons or something. Back at my old complex this wouldn't have even registered over the screaming and sirens. Where was the crashing of lamps? The breaking of furniture? The anguished wails? The intricate melody of two people screaming at each other in a language I don't understand?

I guess my point is that if you're going to disturb your neighbors with a fight at least make it interesting. Scream, holler, break stuff. And when you run screaming into the night, do it in your underwear. Basically, give me something to tell the guys at work about or just don't bother.

As a rule of thumb: if the SWAT team shows up, you're doing it right.

Cheers,

-Jason