Jake: What's that big round thing? Josie: Boulder. Jake: Okay. Tell me what that big round thing is, right now! I used a flash drive to download a super old (1997) game called "Callahan's Crosstime Saloon" (based on the short story series, of course) to the ancient computer in my house, and I recommend it to everybody (you can download it for free because it's abandonware) because it's hands down one of the most hilarious things I've ever played, seen, or otherwise experienced. If you don't find me funny then you probably don't think much of my sense of humor and that endorsement probably means little to you, but if so, you're wrong. In any case my hope is that you will play the game and then subconsciously associate it with me and think I'm awesome even though I had nothing to do with it. Some of the jokes are brilliant in their own right and others are so stupid they're brilliant. There are a lot of choan (chuckle + groan) inducing puns, witty cultural references, and just random stuff. This part falls into the latter category, yet it resonates with me for some reason. A couple minutes later I ran into this, which in hindsight has become just a little awkward. I totally forgot to share the story of how, at the end of the semester, I accidentally went on a date with my ex-crush – and she was the one who made it happen, no less. We had studied together before every test in our class, which of course did not constitute dates. My self-appointed guru said, "Study dates aren't really dates." And I thought, I know that. I'm autistic, not stupid. I never used the term 'study date'. That was all you. Anyway, we had met in the library to study before the final as well. She thought we should just go over the practice exam, so I printed it out, and she tried to print it out, but she had forgotten her card. She messed around trying to print it without a card, but to no avail. I thought, I should offer to let her print it on my card. But before I could say anything, she said, "Can I just print it on your card?" I thought, Wow, you have a lot of nerve. That cost me fifty-seven cents. Ergo, I spent money on her. Ergo, it then became a date according to any reasonable person's criteria. My boss asked me, "Are you doing anything for New Year's?" And I said, "I'm going to the YSA dance." And he said, "Maybe you'll meet a chiquita." And I said, "Yeah, maybe." What I was actually thinking was that yes, I probably would meet a chiquita and it wouldn't even be difficult because in all likelihood, approximately half of the people there would be chiquitas. This assumption proved correct, and I met a few of them, though I was actually more interested in meeting a guy from Vietnam named Lenny who looks eighteen but is a PhD student. Foreigners usually rank above women in my hierarchy of people that I want to meet (though obviously there is overlap between those categories). I have already outlined my thoughts on church dances at some length. I think I mentioned at the time that I prefer dancing with girls I already know because with strangers, three minutes is just enough time to make introductions and a little pointless small talk and then never see them again. I danced with strangers this time around, though. At one point I asked a girl who had been standing against the wall for at least half an hour. She just stared at me. I thought, Wow, that is so rude. You could at least laugh at me or something. Then she finally said, "What?" I thought, Maybe examine the context here and make an educated guess. I never expected to hear a song at a church dance about "smokin' funny things" and "drinkin' whiskey out of the bottle", but then, I never expected to hear "Angel is the Centerfold" at a home evening activity either and that happened too. Side note: would it be sacrilegious to do a parody of that called "Angel's Got Those Plates of Gold"? Because I really want to do that. I also have a love-hate relationship with "Shut Up and Dance". Can't help loving the melody, but hate hate hate the lyrics and the blatant double standard they exemplify. If the man was the one saying "Shut up and dance with me" etc., unless his name was Harrison Ford, it would be harassment. One of my happy memories of 2014 [sic]. I would have loved to continue roleplaying this character, but not much later she divulged that she and her mother were both being verbally and physically abused by her father on at least a weekly basis. After that I couldn't portray this character with any sort of integrity, because if I was really a government agent privy to that information, I would have had him assassinated. Instead I had to just contact an abuse hotline that couldn't do anything about it. While watching six episodes of "Hogan's Heroes" with my grandfather, a thought kept nagging at me through each and every one. That thought was me wondering whether Colonel Klink is aware of the Holocaust going on. If so, he is not just a lovable dolt who happens to be on the wrong side, but an utter monster who is all the more disturbing for also being a lovable dolt. I couldn't shake that thought. As much as I love Nazi officers being played for laughs*, I can never forget the fact that in real life many or most of them were really, really, really bad people, as opposed to most of the run-of-the-mill soldiers whom I suspect were just regular guys doing their patriotic duty. (Expecting good Germans of that era not to fight for their country because of the way it treated Jews would be like expecting good Americans of that era not to fight for their country because of the way it treated black people.) I wonder where the various commanding officers of POW camps fit into that spectrum. *Someday my critics will use this statement as fodder against me. They will quote-mine it as "I love Nazi officers." I've only seen a few episodes, so maybe this got addressed at some point. If not, it should have been. The series finale should have shown Klink being shocked and devastated as he learns what the Nazis have been up to, and then cheering up as he realizes he's probably the reason they lost the war. Long ago, probably in 2001, I was visiting my grandparents when I found a little book called “How to Draw Cartoons”. I didn't realize it was probably referring to cartoons as in comics, not as in animation (though granted, the principles of the actual drawing part are largely the same), and ambitions of making an animated cartoon formed in my mind. I recruited everyone – grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents, sister – to help me draw pictures for it, which in hindsight was probably kind of annoying. I started working out the plot as we were going along and I figured we'd get around to the hard part of drawing all the in-between pictures to animate it later. The main characters were a guy named Chris with pink hair and his baby camel, Baby Camel. There was also a human baby named Rumpelstiltskin, a tentacled alien named Bob, and the Triangle Man, who was a man made out of triangles. The antagonists were a guy named Pershon with a goatee and his army of aliens called Megaducks. When the time came for me to go home, I had the option of either taking all the pictures or leaving them there. Of course I wanted to take the pictures, but in an admirable moment of empathy, I realized that if I were them* I would want to keep the pictures too, so I let them. And then the next time I came back no one knew where they were, and that remains the case to this day. *This is known as the subjunctive tense. For more information, visit Irregular Webcomic! I reason that they're still just lost in the house somewhere, because no one would throw away something so precious, right? During this last visit for Christmas, I conducted my most thorough search yet, opening every box in the basement that I could get my hands on (but of course being a good boy and putting everything back where I found it). I knew that all of my loyal fans would love to see these pictures if I scanned them and put them on my website. Needless to say, I didn't find them. Instead I found this dubious but intriguing urban legend, and transcribed it and uploaded it to my website and shared it in a couple of Facebook groups asking (quote) "Does anyone know anything about this story?" (close quote). See if you can guess what day that was. And oh, my little map at the bottom of the screen looks so much more beautiful now. Go ahead and look at it. I'll wait. I mean, wow. I couldn't have anticipated that in a million years. I've posted and shared plenty of other stuff that should be of interest to an LDS audience, and gotten decent responses, but nothing like this. That's even considering the Mormons who refused to read it because they were put off by its title, "Is the Book of Mormon a Fraud" (the title that came with it when I found it; if I had chosen that title, there would be a grammatically necessary question mark at the end of it), though that didn't always stop them from telling me to doubt my doubts and stop posting "anti crap". Now, I stated from the very beginning that I couldn't vouch for its veracity and that I was looking for information about it. I thought it seemed too good to be true, but true or false, I was surprised that I had never heard of it before, and it had to come from somewhere, so I was investigating. And I did hope that there would turn out to be at least some truth in it. This is the healthy skepticism I try to have. I treat things like this with suspicion, but don't dismiss them altogether until I've looked into them. I was validated even though the story turned out to be false, because although one of my initial misgivings was that Google turned up no record of the protagonist's existence, it turns out that he did in fact exist. It's just that he seems to have been a liar or a really bad exaggerator. Oh well. My grandparents' basement also had a box of books they were getting rid of, and they asked me if I wanted to take any. I looked through them and realized that any one of them could potentially change my life forever, but I simply don't have time to read them all and find out. What a shame. They did give me "Accomplishing the Impossible" by Russell M. Nelson, and that looks to be an interesting read. "And because those daft and dewy-eyed dopes Keep building up impossible hopes Impossible Things are happening every day!" I wrote Bracelets a poem for Christmas. She said it got her choked up. I was happy to hear that. I love making women cry.* I really wish now that I had chosen a better nickname for her than "Bracelets" because I'm tired of it. I probably could have just used her real name and no one would have known who she was, and if they did it wouldn't have mattered because I've never said anything embarrassing about her, but it's a bit late for that now. *Someday my critics will quote-mine this statement as "I love making women cry." Speaking of women, if you remember a couple weeks ago when I said in a very tongue-in-cheek manner "Sometimes I wink at married women online, too" and then showed a screencap of a conversation in which a married woman was discussing something she would have done for me between Christmas and New Year's, then you've probably spent more than a few sleepless nights since then wondering what that thing was. Well, she finished it as promised, so here it is, though it will be meaningless to most of you. She remains uncredited because she doesn't want her name showing up on the internet. I was very glad to unexpectedly receive this message. Statistics tell me very little about what impact my site is actually having on anyone, so it was good to hear this, as opposed to something like "My entire family has left the Church because of you." George Harrison - Ding DongI had been planning to showcase "Only Time Will Tell" by Mike Oldfield, but then yesterday I heard this on the Daily Beatle Break and it got stuck in my head for quite some time, so Mike will just have to wait. I guess only time will tell if he does get featured, nyuk nyuk. To whom it may concern (aka probably nobody): my current highest Pinball score, as of yesterday, is 6,253,750.
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- Amelia Whitlock "I don't know how well you know Christopher Randall Nicholson, but... he's trolling. You should read his blog. It's delightful." - David Young About the AuthorC. Randall Nicholson is a white cisgender Christian male, so you can hate him without guilt, but he's also autistic and asexual, so you can't, unless you're an anti-vaxxer, in which case the feeling is mutual. This blog is where he periodically rants about life, the universe, and/or everything. Archives
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