The Whole Ten Yards

how the vines go limp

thewholetenyards — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:02:49 +0000

// // // //

// /*

red is the color of dreams lost in the moonlight nothing, of the desperate songs of broken birds and the sweet screams of madness. it's the lurking color beneath the cloud - cloud of soft, so soft, hopes - she sits upon. her glorious white wings [all the colors of white] beat in the air [destroy the air] and she laughs in the way No One does.

but as she sits and as she laughs, the vines – such rusty vines – are creeping, creeping, creeping. they slither up the sides, the tips of their tendrils twitching [crying], but still she doesn’t see [the tears roll down the lovely hills] and her beautiful pale flesh is exposed [and dry up in the dam.] a single red vine ventures to brush against her ankle, and when she feels the icy-slick surface on her fevered skin, she shudders with blessed (so blessed) relief.

the vine wraps tightly about her ankle [such a tight tight grip] and she smiles at the caress. she doesn’t can’t won’t see the spreading flush of red where it bites – bites so hard. the second vine, the third, the fourth – all snake their way upon her and latch on. her legs go numb as they work their way up, past her calves and thighs, her waist and her stomach, but she only laughs so softly.

and when they reached her heart, her smile froze, as cold as the vines that wouldn’t melt away. suddenly [so suddenly] she felt them, constricting her, restricting her, and drowning her, drowning her slowly. her uncracked lips parted but no cry came out, because the rusty vines had absorbed them, and then they reached her wings, oh, precious wings.

her wings, those wings, how they fell to the ground, flaming and crumpling and dissolving into so many thousand ashes. her hands were outstretched and her eyes were crying [as the hills roll down the tears] yet she couldn’t move, just couldn’t move. the last vine comes and jerks around her throat, as she crumbles crumbles crumbles, one of her for every ash. yanking, the vines pull her down and down and down and down she falls, down and down and down and down she screamed, and down.

she lands on the ashes with a snapping and a shriek. “red is pain,” she cries. “red is agony, red is blood.” her head bends forward. “red is beauty, red is love.”

and at last she gives in [gives out gives forth gives such sweet remorse]

and the vines, oh the vines, and the vines go limp.

// // // // // // //

Darth Badr and his Janitorial Minions

thewholetenyards — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:51:27 +0000

The resident evil math teacher at my school, Darth Badr, has recently joined forces with the resident evil French teacher, Moose Homme. Even their armies – of janitorial minions and dead rats, respectively – have merged. However (!), Darth Badr grew highly pissed at Moose Homme, and offed him soon enough. The rats, seeking revenge, have snuck into the janitors’ brains and injected their viral DNA. This has resulted in janitors with pointy noises prone to maniacal squeaks of laughter.

The other day, directly after math club, I noticed the janitor’s closet was open. As I passed it, I saw a rusty ladder attached to the wall.

“Odd,” I remarked to myself. “I saw a rusty ladder attached to the wall.”

“Odd,” a girl remarked to me. “I saw a girl remark to herself.”

“Odd,” I began, but then stopped. “I wonder where the rusty ladder attached to the wall leads to.”

She shrugged. “Somewhere, I suppose.” She then promptly removed the axe that people customarily carry around and went charging down the stairs.

Musing to myself (under my breath, this time), I poked my head into the closet. The ladder led up into some dark cavern, into which I could not see (lacking night vision.) In a fit of (parenthetical comments), I inched a little closer, little closer, and then just a wee bit closer before -

BOOM!

The door swung shut with a crash, a smash, and a bang, and I heard a maniacal squeak of evil laughter. Screaming, I threw my puny body at the door, bounced back, and crashed into the back of the closet.

A hand grabbed my shoulder.

“Did you do your math homework yet?”

Sawing Pencils

thewholetenyards — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:45:31 +0000

…is a most exciting sport.

In my wonderfully fascinating pre-engineering class, we have been forced to write an essay on a building of our non-choice. I was assigned the Atheneum, something with an awesome name, an awesome design, and with everything else distinctly non-awesome.

As one girl in my class was presenting, I was quite bored, as were the other kids nearby. My hands naturally wandered close to the large pair of scissors, and a pencil, that may or may not have been stolen from someone.

The obvious thing to do in such a scenario is to begin sawing the pencil in half. It was much more difficult that it had originally seemed, and some people began to stare at me, with sweat dripping down my flushed face, wood chips flying all around me.

While I did this, the girls around me squealed with delight or rage as they glued each other to various objects. When one of them accidentally dumped half a bottle of Elmer’s glue on the other’s left Ugg, the uproar was tremendous, and caused me to apply previously unknown strength to the pencil (since I was so startled and such.) The pencil snapped in half and flew in separate directions across the room, pegging the girl who was presenting and the teacher.

My grade is now rather unhealthy.

I Got Stabbed by a Cactus: and other adventures from bio lab

thewholetenyards — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:46:59 +0000

Our lab today was to extract DNA from either a strawberry or a banana. My three-person group chose a banana. Or, rather, two of us chose a banana, and our third member promptly squealed in indignation about not having been part of the decision. She then proceeded to chuck beakers filled with enzymes at us, which we somehow managed to catch. For convenience, let us call the sane member “Billy Bob Joe” and the insane member “Squee”. (This way, I don’t have to say “the sane member this” and “the insane member that”. It makes perfect sense. I promise.)

Anyway, the first step was to smash up the banana with a wooden thingy-mer-bobber. I clutched it one hand and destroyed that little banana, howling with the fierce joy of it. Billy Bob Joe exclaimed how wonderful it looked to eat, and Squee threatened the puke.

“How wonderful it looks to eat!” Billy Bob Joe exclaimed.

“I’m threatening to puke,” Squee threatened.

After that, I maniacally laughed as I poured it in the test tube, watching the odd mixture slide down the sides of the tube. We then proceeded to dump in all manner of items, such as enzymes and things like that. I’m not really sure if those were supposed to go in there, but let’s suppose they were. We were working under a tight time frame, okay?

The fun part came next! I went up to my Biology teacher and asked, “Where’s the ethanol?”

He pushed his ginormous glasses up his ginormous-er nose and ahem-ed quite loudly. “The ethanol you ask?” he mused. “Yes, yes, the ethanol…”

The clock ticked to fill in the awkward silence as I waited.

It ticked 346 times, at my count, before my teacher ahem-ed a second time.

“Yes, yes, the ethanol…”

“The ethanol I ask,” I added helpfully.

He gave me a strange look. “Yes…well…you had better go look in the freezer.”

“The freezer?” I looked around the room, but there was no freezer to be seen.

“In the bio-teacher-room-thingy-mer-bobber,” he said impatiently, gesturing to a hidden door on the other side of the room.

I nodded and headed for there. Just before I opened said door, I noticed a poster on it. It said: “Do as you otter. Wear your goggles!”

“Got it!” I said, and raced for the goggles. I then placed them on, but they slipped down my face and hung around my neck. Thoughtfully, I gazed at them, before shrugging. Close enough, right?

I stepped through the door – it can see into your soul! – and located the freezer. My hand reached out and ripped it open. I reached in to grab the ethanol beaker and -

There were lots of beakers. All filled with substances of different colors. I thought about this dilemma before recalling that ethanol has a distinct smell. So, all I had to do was sniff each beaker and thus determine which was ethanol.

After sniffing all of the twenty-odd beakers, I burst in raucous laughter, realizing the ethanol beaker was the one marked “ethanol”. Still screeching with laughter, I stumbled out of the door, and accidentally tripped on someone’s stool.

Both the kid and I smashed it in to the ground, along with the ethanol beaker. “Beeeeeeer for everrrrrrrryone,” I hiccuped, and then promptly giggled.

Leaping up from the floor, I vaulted over to my lab table and waved energetically to Billy Bob Joe and Squee. Both of them nervously waved back and I laughed again, my sides aching from so much enjoyment. “I broke the beaker!” I said, gasping for breath. “Like this!”

I demonstrated how I had smashed the beaker, and then accidentally knocked over another beaker with my elbow. “Yeah, like that!” I screamed, before tumbling into a fit of hysterics. “Just like that! AHAHAHAHAHA!”

As I brought the broken glass with my cut and bleeding fingers over to the broken glass box (see how that works? see? see? see?), I noticed a funny cactus. I dropped the glass on the floor and went over to it, entranced. It was glowing purple and red and blue, so I decided to poke it.

Suddenly, gigantic spikes shot out of its poky skin and stabbed me. Screaming in pain, I landed against a clown.

Yeah. A clown. He was the glowing too.

I crashed four hours later. Fell asleep in Drama class. I woke up to hear:

“Dude, are you sleeping?”

“Hey, look, she’s asleep!”

“I think she’s dead.”

My head raised and I blinked groggily, in time to see three boys standing over me. I muttered something incoherent and then did what any startled person would do.

Go back to sleep.

Freakonomics (At the Speed of Libraries)

thewholetenyards — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:39:34 +0000

That’s supposed to be an incredibly witty play on “at the speed of light”. I’m sure you’re laughing quite hard, so you’d better stop – people are starting to stare.

If you know me in real life, you’ll know I often complain about how slow libraries are, particularly those in my county. I’ll always reserve a book, wait about five years, see myself being put on the waiting list even though the site claims about ten libraries have it available, and then wait another sixteen years, before the library screws up and gives me something weird that someone else reserved. For example, I recently received a copy of Angels and Demons in Hebrew. Seriously.

In any case, it was Tuesday night (last night) when I reserved the book, “Freakonomics”. (Highly recommend it, by the way.) This was at 7:21 PM. I then stepped out to walk the dog, as I so often do. No one else was in the house.

After my speed-walk, I returned home at about 7:28 (hey, I warned you it was a speed-walk. It was cold) and noticed a message on the answering machine. I listened to it, and heard:

“This is the ____ public library, and we have a book, Freaka…freaka…noh-mix?, ready for Isabella ____ to pick up.”

Afterwards, as the machine often does, the date and time was told. But instead of “Tuesday, 7:25 PM”, I heard:

“Monday, 7:25 PM.”

A little too fast for me.

My Burning School

thewholetenyards — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:42:26 +0000

Mostly, anyway.

It was first period, English, and our teacher was guzzling down several bottles of unspecified alcohol. With her cheeks unnaturally ruddy and gasping laughter tumbling out of her mouth, she attempted to tell us what our “incre-incre-AHAHAHAHAHA! difficult” midterm would cover. I was thoroughly absorbed in saving a failing pen, wildly ripping up papers and the students around me with the strangely sharp tip, hoping that the large amounts of ink still left would get flowing.

Suddenly, there was a loud alarm – the fire drill. At least, we thought it was a drill, but the insane laughter of our teacher quickly told us that it was, in fact, not. Whispering in excitement, we skipped out of the classroom, visions of hated teachers, despised textbooks, and generally the whole building going up in flames filling our minds. I gathered up the novel I was reading, a few favorite pens, a short story I was halfway done writing, and a sticker, before finally heading outside.

So, let me just say, it was freezing. Not literally, of course. It was WAY below freezing, about 18 degrees – although, in my measly sweatshirt and jeans, it felt more like -18 degrees. For fifteen minutes, I screamed at the bitingly cold air as I leaped up and down, trying to get the blood flowing, but it was only sliding about in my veins as little pink blocks.

“Calm downnnnn, childrennnn…AHAHAHAHA!” our teacher squealed. “The fi-fi-fire is com-com-coming…AHAHAHAHA!”

When the dreaded fifteen minutes were over, my shivers allowed my thoroughly frostbitten body to tumble back inside, where the warmth washed over me like a gallon of alcohol. Er, hot chocolate. My English teacher is getting to me.

Sighing collectively with relief, my class plopped its collective selves into its collective seats, and sighed collectively with relief one collective more time. Collectively, of course. Our teacher began sobbing, saying she wished she hadn’t di-di-died…AHAHAHAHA!

Just then, there was announcement. A tremulous voice declared, “A-attention students! There was an e-e-e-rror! You’re – you’re not supp-pp-pp-osed to go inside! The fire r-r-ages on!”

Groaning and screaming, shrieking and laughing, we leaped out of the windows and landed in what appeared to be soft blankets of snow.

They weren’t.

They were hard spikes of ice.

Our teacher still AHAHAHAHA’d at that.

Once everything was said and done, and we waddled back inside, frozen in our little cubes, the fire trucks finally arrived.

Naturally, everything was a false alarm.

Giving Critique (A Satire)

thewholetenyards — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:55:13 +0000

Today I tried my hand at writing satire. Comments of any sort are definitely welcome at the end (even if it’s just ‘lol’ or ‘u suck noob and by that i mean you dont just suck noobs but you also suck and also belong to the category noob, haha noob’), and please note that a few references might be the slightest bit confusing, as it was originally intended for deviantART audiences. But 99% will (hopefully) make sense. Anyway, here goes:

—

When you come on deviantART, the most important thing is critique. Why? Well, it’s obvious! Critique helps you improve, and since people are selfish geeks, to get critique you have to give critique.

But people, being selfish geeks, only return critique when they get really good stuff. So when you crit, you can’t just say something like, “The colors need some work, because they detract from the intended emotion. Perhaps split-toning would better achieve the effect you want.” No, no, no, that will make people unhappy! You have to say something like, “The colors suck!”, at the very least.

Here is a step by step guide to giving critique, and I hope it helps you very much in your critiquing journey, here on deviantART.

Step 1.

People want your critique to be very easy to read. And let’s be honest: which is easier? This:

“The imagery was done exceptionally well, but it slowed down the flow of the story. You might want to remove some of the description, and add more action. Furthermore, the main character’s thoughts ramble too much.”

or:

“Your

story

was

too

slow

idiot”

Clearly, the second one! You have all that nice space, which makes the whole thing more readable. Moreover, the content is shorter and takes less time to read, not to mention the lack of punctuation, which saves even more space!

Step 2.

Readability isn’t the only important thing. The worst thing in the world is to have your critique called “boring”. Those ungrateful geeks are no better than what comes out of a dust bunny’s tail, and they’ll tear your beautiful critique to bits just because they think it’s “boring”! So you’ll have to vary it up.

One good method to do this is playing with the capitals. Which is more interesting? This:

“I liked the detail you put in the top right corner of the picture.”

“ThE whoLE THiNg SUcKed exCePT fOr thE tOP rIGHt COrNeR.”

Isn’t the second so much cooler? It looks really awesome to read, while the first is just terribly dull.

Capitals aren’t the only thing to change up. Spelling is also great! The shorter you can make a word, the better! So “xprshn” is so much greater than “expression”. Also try to substitute numbers for words as often as possible – it makes you look really smart and computer-savvy. So:

“The coloring wasn’t that neat.”

is way worse than:

“tEh c0Lr1n 5uc5.”

You also want to try and use bad grammar as much as you can. Screwing up your subject-verb agreement can be particularly effective.

Step 3.

Steps 1 and 2 have all been about stylistic issues. But the most important part of a critique is the content, of course. So what should you focus on?

All people, except for you, are egotistical jerkfaces. That means they already know what little good there is in whatever stupid piece of ‘art’ produced. Therefore, the only things you have to mention are the crap parts. Make it sound as brutal as possible, because then that really makes a great critique. Never, ever, sugar something up. DON’T say:

“The anatomy seems to be a little off, particularly with the arms and legs.”

DO say:

“U 1D10t!!!!!!!! 15 taT spP05d 2 b A hUmn?!?!?!?! 1t l00K5 l1kE s0mtHnG mY grndM0Thr tHrU uP!! HA HA hehe!”

A lot of times people are extremely ungrateful. They’ll start saying all sorts of idiotic things, like how “mean” you are, and what a “terrible critique” it was. When that happens, flame them right back.

Call them every insult you can think of, and don’t be afraid of cursing! Then, report them to the admins. Post many journal entries about those people are harrassing you, and at the same time, keep flaming them with the note system.

Write crappy poems about death and doom and gloom, and in the authors’ notes, be sure to say how those ungrateful people were the ones that caused. Make a big fuss about threatening to leave deviantART, because those people ruined the whole experience for you.

—

There you have it! A three-step guide to giving great critique. Here’s an example of an excellent one:

m1tE

th1nK

tHaT5

g0oD

ch1B1

1d10T

buT

yOuR

aRe

juuST!!

STUPiDDDDDD

The Rain Hates Me

thewholetenyards — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:03:51 +0000

…and other unfortunate weather-related events.

When I woke up this morning, I looked outside and saw we had about an inch, perhaps two, of nice, fluffy snow. This is something of a miracle in New Jersey – not just because our temperatures are normally too low for snow, but also because when the temperature actually cooperates, we get ice instead. It isn’t ordinary ice, either. It’s ALIVE! When you step on it, it has these little claws that come out and snatch you and pull you down. I know from first hand experience! (Although, you know, my therapist would disagree…)

In any case, I was pleased for about three minutes, until my parents wanted me to walk the dog. Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs, and my dog especially, but it’s that walking bit I don’t quite enjoy, if you know what I mean. I would much rather prefer, I don’t know, math-ing the dog or something. Interpret that as you will.

Sighing theatrically, I caught the dog (no small feat), put on his harness and leash (no smaller feat), and finally stepped outside (no smallest feat!) The snow was a bit slippery from hidden ice beneath (surprise, surprise), and I slid my way through the front yard and down the first street, where cars honked and beeped and cursed their way down the unsalted roads.

Everything was going more or less all right, apart from the dog doing as he usually does – whimpering in fright from the sight of twigs, running away from kittens, attacking ginormous dogs (he tries, anyway) – until maybe five minutes away from the house. It was at this time when the sky let out an ominous crack and insanely heavy rains crashed down.

Like, really heavy rains. I’m talking Hurricane Katrina 2.0 heavy rains. Giant spheres of enhanced water smashed on trees, which snapped like toothpicks and littered the roads, pummeled the grass and flowers flat, and massacred any unlucky people such as myself.

By this point, I was too far away to get my lazy self to go back home to fetch an umbrella (which would probably splinter, in any case), so I slogged through the rest of the route, my dog deciding to stop and sniff areas that were under the most rain with the least shelter.

After what felt like several hours, I arrived home, pretty much in pieces, with one happily wet dog, who had bounced from puddle to puddle like an over-eager child. Which, come to think of it, is more or less what he is. Except for little details like species and things like that.

Once I fell inside the house and closed the door, the sky cracked again, and the rain ceased.

Yeah.

It’s Not a New Decade

thewholetenyards — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 13:54:24 +0000

Everything started in year 1, remember? (Well, if you actually remember that, it’s time to go back to your grave, kay?) So the new decade doesn’t start until 2011. Something tells me when 2011 rolls around, I’ll be one of about five people in the world celebrating the new decade. Just like how it happened with the new millenium. Except, of course, I was five years old and more concerned with how Barney cursed on live television after falling off a tree. That incident scarred me, you know. Scarred me for life.

Anyway, my only New Year’s resolution this year is to say “it’s not a new decade” everytime someone says it is. I can already feel the building malice against me, and it’s only January 1st, 8:53 AM. Wonder if I’ll get lynched at some point? Comment with your thoughts!

Painful Experiences

thewholetenyards — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:47:01 +0000

I was walking along yesterday, as I normally just walk along, wondering why I was outside and not on the computer, and not entirely sure precisely where I was going. After I wiggled out of several narrow escapes involving large trucks, rotten potatoes, and some kitties, I heard a voice behind me.

“Hey! What’s up?”

I turned, confused, and saw it was an unfamiliar boy, perhaps two or three years older than myself. He was grinning, and as I hesitated, caught up to me.

“Oh, um, hi,” I replied uncomfortably. “Er, I suppose that uh, the sky is up.”

The boy glanced at me in surprise, and I wondered why. It’s not like what I said was the most original thing in the universe.

“Yeah, well, I’m doing pretty good myself,” he said energetically.

I nodded uncertainly. “That’s…good.”

He looked at me again. “Hmm, really?”

“I…I guess.”

“What?”

I stared at him. “Er, sorry?”

“What do you mean she died?” His cheeks were flushed and his eyes so wide, I worried they would pop out of his head.

I shook my head in confusion. “Who? What?”

The boy turned slightly, and I noticed, for the first time, he was holding something to his ear.

A phone.

I ran away really quickly.

Went home.

Went on xkcd.

And saw a corresponding comic.

This seems like a good place to:

1) Say MLIA. (which is totally better than FML)

and

2) Post this: