The Sporadic Curmudgeon

(To the tune of Sleigh Ride, with profuse apologies)

It’s time for frantic shopping
And budget chopping today;
Procrastination’s come back
To bite me in a big way.
Some people get their shopping done
Months ahead so they say,
But my last minute scramble’s
become a Christmas cliché.

I’m feeling slightly woozy
And kind of boozy-ish too.
My driving’s sure to suffer
From a missing corpuscle or two.
At least I’ve got some bucks
And with luck I’ll sorta make do.
The season’s almost over and
I think that we’re gonna pull through.

Happy Holidays From Atomic Deathray!

By the way, you might enjoy some of my previous holiday fare, such as:

• Ten Rarely-Shown Holiday TV Specials
• the Heartwarming Christmas Quiz
• the vile short-stories Santa Agonistes and Zombies of the North Pole

Probably not, but you never know. Peace on Earth, and fly your freak flag high.

Sometimes you’re surfing the web and unexpected vistas suddenly open up — of somebody’s ass!!! “Rumpology” is a method of divination based on studying the buttocks. Really.

I guess that makes just about everyone I know a psychic…

Most astonishing of all is the revelation that no less a personage than Sylvester Stallone’s mother is a leading practitioner. This is about as extreme an example of Billy Carter Syndrome as you’re likely to find.

There was a time when I deplored the televangelists, astrologers and other charlatans that prey on the weak-minded and gullible. But I may have to reconsider my position. Because really, is taking advantage of people this stupid any more immoral than, say, slaughtering cattle for food?

Perhaps it’s time to stop thinking of them as victims and start regarding them as a valuable and underutilized resource. Not for personal gain, of course. That would be deeply, deeply wrong. But think of the money that could be funneled into the public school system by a state-sponsored belief in Boobology. That’s a faith-based charity I could embrace with enthusiasm.

Today is Arthur C. Clarke’s 87th birthday. His importance to the modern world is difficult to overstate — he not only worked on the development of radar, but came up with the ideas for geosynchronous telecommunication satellites (twelve years before Sputnik!!!) and the eventual successor to the space shuttle, the space elevator. And then there was that little thing he wrote about a possibly-sentient computer named Hal…

I met Arthur C. Clarke in the early 1980s, and he is one of the few heroes of my youth that didn’t disappoint. I was working at the Change of Hobbit bookstore in Santa Monica (now defunct, alas), and he was scheduled for a book signing. The line of people waiting to see him was literally around the block.

He showed up an hour early for the event, had the main part of the store closed, and took the entire staff into the back room for a forty-five minute private chat. Since the staff was composed of nothing but SF geeks, this was incredibly gracious and tolerant of him.

Suffice it to say that such consideration for the lowly schlubbs that actually sell your damned books is pretty rare among famous authors. It’s one of my most treasured memories.

So thanks, Sir Arthur. Happy birthday. I hope it’s a good one, and I hope you have a lot more.

NOTE: By the way, one of his best and most influential novels has never been filmed: Childhood’s End. It’s been ham-fistedly bastardized and turned into moronic scientifically retarded horseshit that completely misses the point a few times, though. (*cough*Independence Day*cough*) This is something that needs to be rectified.

The move to the new house went as smoothly as you can expect anything I’m involved with to go: fever, dropped boxes of glassware, wracking cough and an abscessed tooth that shattered while eating some macaroni and cheese. In my last post I linked to a tasteless video, and now that I’m back I’m going to do the same thing. Here’s a masturbating cat. Now your life is complete. Enjoy!

I’m in the process of moving and haven’t managed to get online at home yet, so there may not be a post for a few days. But you’re used to that, right?

In the meantime, here’s a deeply wrong bit of holiday cheer to tide you over. (I’d turn down the sound and leave any sensitivity you may possess at the door before clicking.) It’s called Ding Fries Are Done!!