Game Design Moon Jump

Episode #19:

The Design team builds a prototype for a rhythm-based air hockey / table tennis game.

Romantic Comedy

Kristin Stewart (Reese Witherspoon) tore a large piece of magazine out of my hands for the third time.

"You are such a child!" I barked at her while storming out of the crowded sidewalk cafe amongst murmurs and stares.

As I climbed a cobblestone slope a young woman tried to interest me in online postage.

Stunt Clip

spicy
bowl
of
ramen
second
floor
jumping
boy
lands
on
his
head

Improv

In a drama class, students are asked to ramble nonsensical blabber for two minutes.

I turned my blabber into song lyrics.

Then I found that I could float and push off walls as a swimmer does in a freestyle flip turn.

Business Trip Dad

(set to the rocking background music of George and Jonathan)

My dad goes on business trips but always comes back with presents for each of us.

This time he brought me an antique penny gumball machine. Instead of gumballs, it was filled with old pennies.

I glimpsed an indian head cent, but also a 1902 lincoln cent, which, I thought, was impossible since the US Mint only began producing the new pennies in 1909.

Survived By

The helicopter turned and fired a rocket.

The rocket rocketed and swerved through the air, then struck a tank.

The tank burned and ejected many flaming victims, some of whom succumbed to the fire.

The victims crawled and included a torsoless girl who tottered on her hands.

The girl cried and clutched an ancient secret book of geometry.

The book rested and mouldered in a dripping cave for a thousand years.

The cave yawned and anticipated the arrival of more survivors.

Opportunity Costs

Machinegun Mike owns a karate dojo where every employee is named Mike. He also runs a punchcard sorting service from the dojo.

Good Neighbors

Gertrude Tidwell lost his timepiece in our backyard.

We learned of this fact when he leaped over our fence, bursting a giant elongated soap bubble (which burst radiantly in a slow-motion rainbow) to look for it amongst the ice plants.

Recent storms had impacted and broken the sewage pipes with mud which drained into the Stanford water treatment facility.

Pop Corn

Grace Jones broadcast an annoying message about me over the intercom system at a Best Buy using my cell phone, then she threw it on the ground.

Outside, she was confronted by the Vancouver Canucks for public intoxication.

In the Neighborhood

Friendly fish follow me.

I tickle a catfish under its chin.

Two Koi and a rainbow parrot fish leap out of the water into my arms, then, they all mimic my movements like dolphins levitating out of the water on their tails.

My shadow follows me.

I jump along a sidewalk next to a concrete wall.

Trying over and over to touch both feet to the wall as high as possible, I think of a game with this core mechanic, set to 1970's 'classic' rock with a backdrop of muscle cars.

I am an Eye

I try to cash a check and attempt to make the irregular amount come out even by offering pocket change when the cashier refuses.

I mistake a toned Kennedy half-dollar coin for an older Walking Liberty half-dollar by holding the coin upside-down.

I ask to search the cash register for more coins while informing the clerks of United States half-dollar coin designs dating back to 1916.

I walk to catch a bus to the Los Angeles Convention Center and see AZ running to catch a bus in the opposite direction.

She fails.

Curry Western

Little ZS visits dad at work. They enjoy traditional Indian food.

They wait in the rightmost of two lines to ride invisible horses at a gallop across thirty feet of mud.

In a Box in the Bed in the House

RF (Emilio Estevez) and Steve (Keanu Reeves) left the business seminar shaken.

"What's that you're playing with?" asked RF.

"It's a jingling ball," replied Steve, who rolled the reflective silver sphere in his hand. It jingled.

"Wanna school me at Guitar Hero? There's one standing next to the popcorn machine."

"Only if you're paying. It's a dollar huh?"

The pair strolled across the movie theater lobby. RF pulled coins from his pocket as Steve spied a stack of smaller coins - pennies and nickels - abandoned in a box on the side of the machine. He emptied the coins into his hand, and his lips moved silently as he added up the amount.

"I'm thinking there's enough here. Hey look there's more!" Steve muttered. He indicated with a head nod the paper bills of different denominations littered on the gaudy carpet.

He continued to mutter, and collected the discarded cash, then paused to pick up a business card.

"I can't make out the name, Charles Golding?" he said more to himself than RF.

A caterpillar-like elderly man crawled along the floor and addressed Steve, still puzzled at the appearance of the card. "I'll be having that," he crowed and stared indeterminately in a random direction, his eyes unfocused.

Steve noticed that the man pushed a red and white striped stick ahead of him across the sticky carpet.

"Are you saying the dollar bills belong to you too?" called Steve as the man crawled into a bedroom. "Wait!"

Steve walked through the doorway in time to see the man crawl into a pink bed between two elderly ladies who watched a silent movie screen opposite them.

"What's going on here?" Steve called as he examined the paper money. One bill had an inky shoe print on the back. On another, a note was scribbled:

'en la caja en la cama en la casa'

Sliding on Hardwood Floors in Tube Socks Battle

CS: judge, fighting in the style of Judson Laipply in "Evolution of Dance".

LL: dancer, fighting in the style of Yu Chae Young in "Emotion".

BS: locksmith, fighting in the style of Dave Elsewhere in "7-11 Slurpee commercial".

All three contestants battle to the death in a fitness center weight room. Who will win?

Cars & Guitars

Red Chrysler minivan crushed into the outside bathroom wall as I used the urinal.

Walked through the music store after hours where guitars and amps had been set up in doorways; one tuned by B. B. King, and a giant 'drum tuned' guitar.

A coworker arrived with a lunch box and a violin case.

I'm Going to Wichita

I rode the orange Disneyland monorail coaster with the rear shaped like a 1971 Dodge Charger; pulls three G's around turns.

I rode with others in a large dome-shaped room with padded blue walls, floor and circular benches; easy to hose off vomit.

Through the night, I felt small jolting earthquakes that I feared would eventually wake my mother; they were really aftershocks.

Though asleep, I knew the tremors came from cars racing by the Tiffany lamp, towering overhead; it's in the corner next to my bed.

Think Happy Thoughts

Little cute bees. Little babies.

Tiny, tiny bunnies hopping, twisting, contorting, catching fireflies.

Kung Pow

Change
Focus
Commitment
Perseverance
Flexibility
Gastrointestinal
Onomatopoetic

Stream of Unconsciousness

Waiting in line to buy a dozen tacos from Taco Bell, doing dips on an old wooden fence, an old guy found a 1943 copper Wheat Penny in the tip jar and handed it to me.

"Lemme talk to you about a Dinner Party Action show," he wheezed.

"The worst feeling is knowing you could have won but didn't say anything," he wheezed.

"They wanted me to be a writer," he wheezed.

Threes

Lions in Awesometown.

Stolen money in a couch cushion, in a suit, in a church, in the left hand aisle, in the middle of a devotional.

School kids in a pew play a mobile phone Apache helicopter war game.

Apprehension, interrogation, confession.

Movie shoot on location: a Blackhawk helicopter destroys a Coast Guard helicopter and an 18-wheeler.

Remembering Lives Past

I once was Mark Little, then was Malik Shabazz.

Now I'm Phillipe Navau, and I like to play jazz.

Fade Out

Last scene:

Aang stabs me in the kidneys with two sharp sticks.

Podiatry Poetry

Crippled Joe Danger,
for rehabilitation,
rocks in a hammock.

Along with his dog,
Jelly-foot superhero
runs in slow motion.

Falling With Style

I pushed off the ground with my right foot, rising higher and higher.

Looking down to the gently sloping shallow concrete stairs I knew I was too high to safely land without injury.

However, with rising confidence and scissoring legs, I performed many more long lazy hops, skips and jumps, even pirouetting twice during one great leap.

Eventually my lofty bounds carried me beyond the length of the concrete and into a vast sandy gravel parking lot, sparsely populated by dozens of Airstream motor homes.

I glanced off the top of one of the silver RVs looking back longingly towards the edge of the sand lot, the top of the concrete stair slope, and beyond to the overgrown mountain peak where my journey began.

At the topmost stair, before ascending the rugged mountain surface towards the top, I sat to inspect my red Converse Hightop Sneakers.

I heard a couple of fellow travelers descending, discussing how the owner of the mountain peak had installed security fencing, scolding them for tresspassing.

My second journey down the stairs would have to begin from where I was then.

Again!

Random Tasks

I pitched baseballs through a second-floor brownstone window at an array of three basketball hoops, watching as they 'toilet-bowled' around the hoop.

I watched the last ball fall, snatched by a curmudgeonly old queen ant, and taken into her nest, a rusted-out, crushed oil drum.

Hoping to retrieve the ball, I tentatively knocked at the entrance to the queen's abode, but turned away when she gave me no response.

I walked away, taking down a delicate mobile from a ceiling joist as I passed, eventually exiting the giant hardwood-floored gymnasium.

I noticed another identical mobile hanging mistletoe-like in a doorway across the hall so I backtracked to replace the one that I had taken, noticing that the gym floor was now overgrown with plant matter.

Always in Debt

I now owe mob boss Paulie $5,000 for borrowing his white Mercedes SLR.

The problem is that I smashed the car through a guard rail on the freeway yesterday.

Therapist Lies

In order to cut our hour-long meeting short, I fabricated a dream story and retold it to my therapist:

I dreamed that my disembodied head was set to animate along a spline in a 3D computer modeling application which was the product of the combined pitch, frequency, and amplitude of a musical selection.

My face was also set to animate to the music by approximating speech phonemes, the result distorted and twisted my gestures into sometimes strange inhuman expressions.

Urban Hunters

Geocaching near our home, JA spots a suspicious fertilizer bulb attached to an Agapanthus plant. Strange that this was located at least fifty yards away from where the GPS lead us.

Drunken Camouflage

This is a game where I violently rip out cords from any laptop I see while yelling maniacally, then paint myself silver to blend in with aluminum scraps.

Back To School Shadow

I follow Steve through his first day back in junior high school and watch as he struggles to remember the combination to his locker.

"Sixteen. Twenty-four. Two? No. Three? No."

He checks each number through nine where the lock finally opens.

Later on the bus ride home, he confronts the driver for chewing gum.

Never Park Under a Tree

Both the driver's seat and passenger seat had been forcibly removed.

At least the thieves did not take My First Truck Board Book.

Motoproto Show

Wheelie rider drives up and down the freeway and over sand dunes.

A rhythmic gymnastics participant wears a prototype motorcycle suit; a wheel on each appendage.

SC conceals a toy antique chopper replica behind a drywall panel in the corner beside his bed.

Drive Wherever

My silver Rabbit passes KL on highway 17.

Later, with LL and Sue Heck in the backseat, we drive downhill in the rain towards the beach.

It All Ends With No

As my grandfather sorts rare proof coins onto photocopies of the Seven Dwarfs I ask him whether his stepfather was ever impressed with my grandmother's knack for fixing television aerials.

He replied, "no."

Machine-gun Whisperer

Sitting in the left-most wrought-iron patio chair of three in a row in an outdoor cafe in Las Vegas, I heard machine-gun fire from an underground bunker three thousand five hundred miles away.

Life Changing Visions

Withstanding an electric shock with increasing voltage, I awoke with a start with the feeling of being blasted with freezing wind and a voice succinctly shouting, "Create!"

Deepwater Denizens

JB had a swimming lesson today. I saw him dive deep into the pool.

He became tangled in a sinewy spider web halfway to the bottom and thrashed wildly in the water. Some giant beetles were similarly ensnared - dead victims of dinners gone by - but a giant dragonfly nymph wriggled fiercely, struggling to free itself.

The movement of the dragonfly nymph frightened JB and he started to wail, his terrified cries piercing through the water to my ears.

There's Always a Vehicle

JD drives AG & SL (sitting in AG's lap) in an orange Volkswagen Jetta GTI, backing out of the court after the business meeting and shaking hands with SR.

Wrong Floor

FL meant to take the elevator to the lobby from the 34th floor but returned after a trip up to floor 36.

Recursion

1.
- Chinese restaurant bathroom, kitchen
- spiral wooden staircase
- Mayan-themed water park
- convenience store ticket counter

2.
- party of out-of-uniform Cub Scouts
- damp night air
- waterlogged footsteps
- display window demolition

3.
- lumberjack hat
- frost
- 5am swimmers
- sentient transforming Coca-Cola delivery truck extends landing gear before blasting off

Department Store Tube Sock Derby

The game is played with two teams of nine, one of whom, rides in a shopping cart who is the only one who can score a point for their team, but who has no means of locomotion on their own.

Typically, the shopping cart rider is armed with whatever handy item the venue affords: parts of mannequins, small electric kitchen appliances, and glassware are commonly employed in the Department Store venue for their piecewise flexibility, ball-and-chain momentum, and explosive shrapnel qualities respectively.

Mops, gallon jugs of milk, and twelve-pack cans of soda are favorites of the supermarket circuit (reach, dual-wielded clubs or heavy projectiles, and hard-hitting single projectiles)

Recently school gymnasiums have entered into the list of accepted locations. The lack of available weaponry for the shopping cart rider has lead to the expansion of rules regarding the number of team members, increasing the store limit from nine to twenty.

Gameplay parallels many rules and tactics seen in traditional roller derby, but with the destabilization provided by the slippery linoleum, tile, and hardwood flooring against the smooth tube socks, there is an increased propensity for players sliding, colliding, and falling down.

Whiteboard Costumes

Green marker spiky-haired clockwork robot helmet.

From Schoolbus To Impala

I was sitting in the third row on the left side of the bus.

Someone left their math textbook and an Advent of Annihilation comic behind.

We crossed a parking lot towards an old brick building.

I scootered downhill towards the entrance.

Someone mentioned that the mahogany panelling gave the appearance of a pub.

We walked along the carpeted hallway of an art gallery.

I left the group and trudged through a field covered in knee-deep snow.

Someone threw a snowball.

We climbed up a snow-covered hill towards another parking lot.

I unlocked the passenger door of the white 1979 Chevrolet Impala.

Get Free Stuff!

Today's free offer comes from Jack in the Box. An employee dressed up as Pinhead from Clive Barker's Hellraiser (except with Dum Dum lollipops in place of the pins) is standing in the parking lot of your nearest restaurant handing out samples for their newest taste treat:

Jack's BBQ Ice Cream Crunch!

The treat consists of a hollowed-out log of tender barbecued beef, lined with melted Monterrey Jack cheese and bacon bits (for the crunch) and your choice of vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry ice cream, served on a super-sized Popsicle stick.

I chose vanilla since I wanted to be able to savor the flavor of the bacon, cheese, and barbecued beef.

05/08/2049

announcer
bystanders
can
Disney
elevator
follow
games
heart
in
jaguar
kitsch
lackadaisical
music
natural
oboe
parks
quill
recalcitrant
solo
triangle

violin
world
xylophone
you
zzz

We Miss You Spalding Gray

Just as Spalding's trick of leaving his wallet on the beach nullified his fear of a shark attack, so did my leaving a triple footlong hotdog on a six inch bun in the microwave eliminate my fear of public speaking.

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in big ol' fat drops — except under the eaves, where it was diverted by feeble bursts of wind which swooped across the hedges (for it is in Morgan Hill that our scene lies), lingering around the front porch, and gently moistening the choking glow of my cigarette that guttered against the darkness.

Bubblegum Pink Cotton Candy Rainbow Unicorn Princess Theater

Misleading ushers into believing in the delivery of a celebrity, Steve searches corridors, opens portholes and doors, then a portcullis. 

Stumbling into purple-pink mist, he witnesses an impressive vista. Insisting in listing, this instigator revisits slim positions willing, listening intently, interpreting wishes, sitting in chintz-fitted barcaloungers.

MPAA Rating News

Since when does the existence of a limo driver wearing a hockey mask push a movie from 'rated PG' to 'rated PG-13'?

I See Words In Everything

Cottage cheese word seen: CENTERFIELD.

Submarine bubbles word seen: CENTRIFUGE.

Television static word seen: SOON.

Don't Help Me

When I have shards of glass embedded in the backsides of my hands, please don't try to brush them out. Thank you.

Asynchronous Game Show Contestants

A popular quiz show where all the contestants wear red shirts has a format that consists of a group of five contestants answering questions on one day, then on the next day judging the answers and results of the previous day's game.

After being led through an expansive cavernous airplane hangar, one contestant slides across the red and blue patterned carpeting to his judge station, removes his shirt and pants, then decides to put his pants back on.

Skippy The Dog

Skippy the dog is trapped inside a submarine throwing binary combinations of four levers to coincide with changes in cabin pressure due to changes in depth.

Salad Stealing

Stealing salad
from a
second floor apartment,

singing schoolkids
fight amongst
several forgotten anchovies.

Crap Shoot

Brother and I practice with our Nerf Switch Shot EX-3 pistols aiming at television static.

EA, JP, arrive after a night of carousing.

Carts and carpet

While contemplating the organization of my Atari 2600 cartridge collection, my wife showed me a mock-up for a website design. She had used scans of my cartridges as placeholder images.

At a blue-carpeted church where my youngest daughter was acting in a play I waited for the elevator (its door swinging open outwards snagging on my slipper) then entered and descended one floor to the seating area.

Magic Hat

My stovepipe top hat has a peak with four escribed arcs around its circumference.

The brim is folded four times such that the creases form a square with the circle of the peak inscribed within.

Independent

Hosting our first open house felt like filling the freezer with ice: no room for beer.

We opened up access to the roof so that people could tour the television equipment if they wanted, just as it started to rain.

Seems like everywhere I turned were familiar faces I didn't expect to see.

Oktoberfest Morninig

Family, accompanied by UB in his new Acura Solaris (gray), travel by brown van just up the street (dad walks) to a sporting goods store for its annual sale.

Toddler tries out a treadmill while a lady dons men's lederhosen.

Gloaming

Walking,
clapping,
echoing,
entering a
sprawling
paving-stone courtyard
lying amidst ranch-style doctor's offices, then
consoling,
hugging,
kissing,
releasing the
dying woman
crying.

Dream 168

In which my mother purchases a recreational vehicle.

Vegas Story

Trying to fool an ATM outside the Excaliber casino lobby, JS draws pennies onto slips of paper and feeds them into the deposit slot.

When that doesn't work he iterates writing out more digits of pi on the slip.

Bungalow C

We were both eating salad out of a hookah in the basement when we heard the doorbell.

I answered the door in my bathrobe armed with an electric turkey carving knife.

A ski-masked thug wielding a wooden cane proposed to thwack me on the side of the head.

Fortunately, the attacker's repeated chopping swings reduced the walking stick into bite-sized chunks.

The Oracle of Dreams

Climbing over razor-sharp bronze-backed tiles, prising them loose to look for hidden runes, we crawled, four lions and one lioness across the sun-baked island.

Feeling no relief but gritting rust-scented pain as our shredded soles rake across salty coral shoals, we infiltrate the enemy university.

It is high noon, and a towering rival Senator carrying a golden tray shoulders through our puny group, mistaking us for lowly Plebeians.

Enraged by our apparent effrontery and lack of tact for not prostrating ourselves before the giant tiger, he grabs and hurls a nearby stone dais assuming that the great weight would crush us to dust.

However, we are no ordinary felines.

Our tiny stature is complemented by a boundless capacity for berserk rage and sounding a ferocious and deafening war cry we mercilessly slaughter the stupid bully, the sounds of wretched death attracting scores more foes.

In the distance lay four moored Greek triremes with names of "Valiant Death", "Bold Soldier", "Rusty Cutlass", and "Victory Scabs".

What Happened Last Night

Lost two LED dart games in a row to 3 other co-workers at a Tiki-themed party.

Famous Sightings

A teenage Carrot Top was seen furiously kicking a student amidst a group of hoodlums. When confronted, he seemed to detect that his attacker concealed a pocket sap in the palm of his hand.

Adam Savage conducted a ballistics experiment in the baseball field behind an apartment complex using garden snails as marking shots.

All of a sudden...

A barefoot bank-robber

wondered why the silent security guard did not notice

he was carrying an automatic assault rifle in an attaché case.

I punched him so hard in the face the channel changed.

Sad Goodbyes

My father lay on his deathbed, the victim of a freak teleportation accident which merged his body with the frame of a red 10-speed bicycle.

Communicating through a brass threaded pipe nipple, I couldn't bring myself to tell him the truth before he passed: that I hadn't actually been awarded the Medal of Honor as some Internet blogs had reported, but the Bronze Star instead.

Euopean Hiking - Stage 1

Beginning in the stairwell of a tour bus, hikers choose between the two options of climbing the Watzmann with a stay at Hitler's Kehlsteinhaus in the Bavarian Alps, or the foreboding Matterhorn along the border between Switzerland and France.

Life after Hogwarts

Set against a surreal backdrop of the city of London - torn apart by earthquakes the likes of San Franciscans would dread - where classic 18th century architecture is precariously built dwelling on top of dwelling, attached to impossibly-steep slopes and even upside-down, the saga chronicles the lives of recent Hogwarts graduates.

One former student recalls the increasing confidence bordering on hubris that rising seventh-year wizards would cultivate, thinking to themselves how much more applicable magical knowledge they had even above the abilities of their teachers.

IHOP QPAC

Try the new International House of Pancakes Quadruple Bacon Pancake Sandwich!

Made with quadruple the bacon, fried egg, cheese, and pancakes that make our signature breakfasts so appealing!

Drivel

Shiny red sweatpants-ed group sits on asphalt.

Hiding under a monster truck are JA and JR.

Two angry girls come racing backwards around the corner in another truck looking for a caramel and white toy dog named 'Murphy'.

Mother, Father, son, and daughter walk along a snaking park sidewalk. Father is inebriated and cuts a straight line through the wavy path. Mother, lying and saying that her daughter is asleep, scolds Father to set a better example for their son.

Later, the white-haired Dad enjoys playing Goliath as his children jump on him.

Four Square

Grandfather mending leaking ceiling
(dated decorative dangling doodads)

Ramshackle lonely mobile home
(heavy hovering helicopter hurricane)

Crashed today neighbors away
(emergency eyewitnesses elucidate end)

Backpack lack callback snack
(cartridge collection cigar case)

First Days

First Day on the job at a Tastee Freez, making a double-chocolate dipped ice cream with nuts and a mango shake.

First Day on the job at JCPenney's in the Watch and Jewelry Repair department, duplicating keys, engraving a brass picture frame, replacing batteries and cleaning jewelry in the ultrasonic cleaner.

Convention Revisited

The One-King (presumably to rule them all) in a collaborative one hour level design challenge, tapes up day-planner sheets on cubicle walls.

Convention

Purple-faced acid-tripping engineer-kittens sketch fourteen environmental concept swatches thro_gh three reversing beeps.

Ballad of Nightwatchman 13-5

A security guard earning fifteen bucks an hour
with his nine-millimeter automatic pistol
briefly imagines his wife's plastic prosthetic foot
resting upon the seat of an antique rocking chair.

Adoption Attack

What happens when a wacky, drug-addled, alcoholic step-father comes looking for the couple who adopted his step-daughter?

Calvin Does Stuff

Calvin makes faces.

Back to Fontainebleu

Steve enrolls at the University of California Santa Barbara campus after a twenty year leave of absence, taking up residence at the Fontainebleu apartments in the exact same room he lived in so long ago with EB, DH, TA, and DZ, and recounts some of his teenage exploits:

- jamming beer bottlecaps into the living room ceiling

- running a bathroom distillery

- dancing to Rock Lobster in the courtyard

- conducting unsuccessful botany experiments in the hall closet

- running barefoot and bloody across the second floor walkway

- playing Shinobi and Nobunaga's Ambition on the Nintendo Entertainment System, and Pirates! and Dark Castle on the Macintosh

- stealing laundry and snack quarters out of the Shinobi and Heavy Barrel arcade machines

- picking the lock of a bedroom in apartment 303

- setting off a homemade explosive comprised of powder, paper bag, and a nickel coin. He shows where the nickel ricocheted through the bedroom window, grazing his cheek and causing glass fragments to embed into his neck.

Junior High Video Game Development Club

SC and I are working on a Burnout 3 Crash Mode / San Francisco Rush - The Rock: Alcatraz Edition mod for the PS2.

Our club meets Tuesdays and Thursdays after school on the stage of the auditorium. Today, we arrived after orchestra practice and had to arrange our laptops amongst the forest of chairs, music stands, and stone statuettes of Mickey Mouse from Square's Kingdom Hearts 2.

After discussing the metrics and steps behind tackling a 3-level-of-detail tessellation of the island and our counter-clockwise racing course around it, I took a counter-clockwise victory lap around the auditorium in my socks and underwear, sliding, hollering, and knocking over the occasional statuette.

Tabletop Gaming Simulation

SG demonstrates his 3D Vindicators diorama game complete with remote-control tanks, artillery fire and explosions.

Unfortunately it takes 20 minutes to 'load' (teardown, replace the scene, repopulate with new tanks) the next level.

Off The Air

Minute green specks on a dark magenta background.

Sum Of All Cars

[(Orange Datsun B210 + (parking lights) - (parking brake)) + (Black Ford Model A) + 2*(Scion XB)*((baby blue) + (disco green)) + (Chic - Le Freak) + (((U-Haul pickup)*(matresses))/(tube socks))] = (-x)*(red pickup*(John Ritter)) + (woodpile)

News Bites

RS was recovered 15 minutes after he fell head-first into a plastic-lined 100-foot-deep well.

Police were called to a residence where AR had been housesitting but was locked out. A locksmith attempted to pick the lock with a violin neck when it was discovered that the door was unlocked.

A prominent political figure was recorded talking in his sleep, saying, "Ja ja! Apuesto a que no adivinas donde me escondí los!"

Limerick Lounge

To search for a late nighttime leak
I ran outside on my bare feet.
A dozen pairs of eyes
that gave me a surprise
were just dogs sitting in the street.

8 to 5

Tom Felton, in his first day at his new job at the Octagon - Electronic Arts' Headquarters building in Washington D. C. - is offered and accepts a new job at the Pentagon.

In a walking tour, a guide reveals that the combined salaries of SR and RM equate to the sum of 200,000 other employees.

Long Way To Vegetables

I followed NC up a metal ladder and he cried out when he pierced his finger with a plastic toothpick.

We discovered upon returning to the apartment that MN had moved out in the middle of mounting brass plates behind each picture frame.

I took NC to the hospital in my car and called in to work that I'd be late while JR rode in the back seat.

We went to the park from the hospital.

I noticed my pockets were filled with bloated moist paintballs which looked like yellow pear tomatoes.

We saw JD and his son there at the park that looked like the spaces between office high-rises.

I tossed one of the paintballs - like a quarterback passing a football - to JR as he was running towards a red fire hydrant.

Couplet Corner

Go fetch the scuba gear from out the car.
Place it in the top drawer of my armoire.

Pay the taxi cab driver what he's owed
or into a fit of rage he'll explode.

So You Think You Can Hand Out Flyers

JA, winner of the fourth season of the Fox Network's "So You Think You Can Dance" placed a flyer on the passenger side of my windshield in the parking garage.

He walked away to place more flyers on more windshields as I read the plain white one on mine, something about "I love Bebot", which turned out to be advertising for a new sports shoe.

I shouted out for him to stop, asking if he was currently wearing the shoes but he disappeared.

wish fulfill - Lost In Translation

(translating "wish fulfilment" from English to French to Portuguese back to English)

Step 1.
Acquire a 1997 silver Honda Civic EX Coupe.

Step 2.
Attach a portable Smog-test kit to the exhaust pipe.

Step 3.
Rev the engine to 2,500 rpms.

Step 4.
Play "The Devil's Dream" on a fiddle.

Step 5.
Note an output of 3.14159265358979323846264338327950 ppm (HC)

Step 6.
Whisper your wish (in English) into the exhaust pipe.

Test result:
English: "a new lunchbox"
French translation: "une nouvelle boîte à lunch"
Portuguese translation of French translation: "uma lancheira nova"
English translation of Portuguese translation of French translation: "a new lunch"

Putt Putt Sofball League

First at-bat of the first game for KH yields a walk.

Arcade Fitness

DA demonstrates a modification he made to a San Francisco Rush, The Rock: Alcatraz Edition Arcade game which forces the player to pull the steering wheel towards the chest.

The modification supports weights up to 2,000 pounds. DA shows us the machine in action as he drives around Alcatraz while supporting a weight of 1,700 pounds.

Tinker Time

Build a hand-held device powered by two AAA batteries that fires the batteries out with the intent of remotely kissing a target person.

Unfortunately, you have to retrieve the batteries after each use.

Twenty-four

shopping mall
parking lot
icy road
Cram-a-lot

caliber
movie shoot
Slip 'N Slide
mango fruit

We Didn't Start The Fire...

Adventures in Science

(brought to you by the Hobart 3000 Series Slicer. "Whether your needs are light, medium or heavy duty, we have the slicer for you.")

The Slicer is used, in combination with a preparatory liquid nitrogen soak, to cut everyday objects (a pig head, a bowling ball, and a compact car) into dozens of fine cross-sections.

It turns out that cross-sectioning a live human is the path to invisibility. Invisible Steve slaps BV in the face! Hilarity ensues.

Brown Widow

A (hispanic) named (MS) (working) as (an undercover informant) for the (Los Angeles Police Department) as the (girlfriend of a known Mexican drug trafficker) in (southern California) (describes her experience hiding balloons of heroin).

subst
(fictional goddess)
(Lolth)
(ruling)
(chief goddess)
(drow race of elves)
(Demon Queen of Spiders)
(the six-hundred-sixty-sixth layer of the Abyss)
(unbirths hundreds of poisonous arachnids)

Trackback

The story ended with everyone leaving the house party...

which was broken up by the police...

who were called by BM...

who was actually the first person to arrive at the house...

which was owned by the driver of the yellow Lamborghini Murcielago...

which was seen speeding away from the Pearl Market...

through which sprinted a man in a yellow shirt...

who had stolen KT's laptop...

which was leaning up against an arcade game cabinet...

which Stephen Riesenberger was playing.

15 Minutes Of Fame

15-minute mini-show sponsored by Marie Callenders for their new Free Cheesy Garlic Bread.

Pariticipants enter videos showing them eating the Cheesy Garlic Bread.

JK ravenously devours four soft ones with savage mouthfuls.

CP deftly nibbles tidbits, encircling the rims, diminishing the perimiters.

Shell Collector

The Shell Collector visited me last night while I slept, carefully collecting shells, patiently waiting for all of us until, like dessicated tardigrades, we hibernate, anxious for that next life-giving drop of moisture.

Gopher Cop

I recently purchased a street bike and took it for a ride through mountain trails. While climbing a gentle grade I contemplated the hypothetical situation of being flagged down by a motorcycle cop - the 'Gopher Cop' - who hides in his hole until a speeding motorist drives by (one sometimes stakes out a small driveway near the base of the hill on eastbound Newhall Ranch Rd in Valencia, CA).

I figured it was more prudent to pull over instead of accelerating the bike to 300mph, the machine's theoretical maximum velocity, and risk crashing at the sharp hairpin turn ahead.

The next morning at 4am, I arrived at the motorcycle dealership where I had purchased the bike.

Sand Smoothers

From a second-floor stairwell, classic cars can be seen in the hotel lobby.

Beside the hotel is a classic car pick-and-pull scrapyard.

Inside the gaping pocket of a pair of discarded blue jeans lies a leather belt that looks like a wallet.

Underneath the jeans is a polished bronze Spartan symbol embedded in the concrete.

Next to where the symbol was seen stands an abandoned basketball court.

Across the street from the basketball court there is a public interior hallway.

On the floor of the hallway there are forgotten grapes lying in the sand.

Within an unused closet the sand on the floor is perfectly smooth.

Behind a red freestyle bike tire tracks and footprints can be seen.

Double Meaning

'Arceus' was scratched into the wood paneling at the rear of an auditorium in the House of Representatives in Washington, DC.

Elevator 'rooms' move whole conferences from one floor to the next (one should not wear a mysteriously-found sport jacket)

'Arceus' is also the name of the 'Original Pokémon'

Counting Sound Effects

...at a polished-metal haunted house entrance there are ten:

1. a yawning rusty echo through giant cylindrical ducts
2. a tiny tinkle of a tin bell
3. a raspy grating of two steel surfaces sliding against each other
4. a long low humming reverberation emanating from slightly vibrating lead columns
5. a sharp ricocheting report bouncing off curved surfaces
6. a feeble tinny twang from plucked aluminum teeth
7. a startling giant bong when a hollow sphere crashes onto a thin cymbal
8. a rippling and undulating rolling sound for the sphere as it travels across brass
9. a million miniature sparkling spangs when thin needles impact a thick block of gold
10. a silent whoosh from staring at the blackness inside iron helmets

Waste Of Time

(Travelled back in time 1 minute and wrote a check for $1)x100

(Hid the proceeds in the base of a toilet)x1

(Changed into, then out of swimwear)x2

Similies That Are Mostly Plausible Show

Building a hiking expedition with Rugrats Duplo blocks is like Larry from Sit 'n Sleep trying to sell a Celestron AstroMaster 114 EQ Reflector Telescope to TS.

Buy stamps!

P.S. the longest word in the next facebook scramble game after this post was 'STAMPING'.

Getting Married

RH and BS get married on tonight's episode.

Illuminated under soft orange lights, BS attempts to do a barrel roll but actually succeeds in performing a cartwheel in place.

Even before I opened the attached invitation, a custom retro-looking video game screenshot, I knew what it looked like since I had previously played DB's "I Wish I Were The Moon".

Celebrity Footrub

NBC's ER episode featuring Parminder Nagra and Linda Cardellini.

Indiscreet Mathematics

C(x) & M(x)
M(x) -> S(x)
... S(x)

1. C(x) & M(x) : premise
2. M(x) -> S(x) : premise
3. M(x) : Simplification, 1.
4. S(x) : Modus Ponens, 2., 3.

60-minute Commercial Block

EM's Celebrity Rehab Center features a giant spaghetti ball that leaves a marinara sauce trail on the floor and walls!

Wow Wow Wubbzy - "Wubbzy Saves The Day" follows.

Radio Static

shiny red Gyarados slushie
following yellow arrow signs which read, "PLUSHIE"

sidewalk storefront handing out free doughnuts
ding-dongs, ho-hos, one with rainbow sprinkles turns out to be a tiny journal

four steps up into an antique store
Captain Jack Sparrow said that there's a secret passage from here to the original store location in San Francisco
the store's curator asks me to remove my backpack

the bathroom door slams shut and bows inward, saturated with water
punching through (as if into a snowbank) discovering the door is locked with a red ribbon

Synopsis

Superman, in a fictitious footrace against Super Girl where they ran and leapt perpendicularly across warehouse rooftops and returned to the starting line (he actually pulled her along as they soared through the air), in a desperate attempt to finish quickly, plummeted headfirst haphazardly towards the ground, narrowly missed the moving railroad handcar rolling by, and created an enormous crater which penetrated the foundation of the Keep-It Self-Storage facility in Santa Clarita, California.

This episode was sponsored by the Flesch/Flesch-Kincaid readability tests with a Reading Ease of 0.0 and a Grade Level of 34.5

Disjointed Visions

A roundabout concrete porch
(in Hawaii)

A little girl in a sun dress
(on her birthday)

places plastic banana leaves
(around the railing)

she walks to the right
(arranging)

she walks to the left
(tacking)

again to the right
(wondering if that is most efficient)

a neighbor finds our front door ajar
(entering)

"Both cars were in the driveway and your computer was on."
(emailing)

Couplet Videos

Toddlers smoking log cigars
engage in Lego tomahawk wars.

Daily commute log

Directions from Carlsbad, CA to Midway Home Entertainment in San Diego, CA.

Woke up with a kink in my neck on the right side.

I started up my motorcycle and the engine wound up to a deafening roar, the throttle stuck open. The rear wheel chirped against the asphalt of the freeway and the whole bike lurched forward out from under me. I used all my strength to hang on to the hand grips and the motorcycle bounced upright on its rear wheel as I wrestled it under control.

Hoping this was to be the only hiccup on my maiden motorcycle commute to work, I checked my mirrors before pulling out of the emergency lane on the left side of the freeway.

I found that I ride much the same as I drive a car although in the freedom surrounding the motorcycle I was much more attuned to the traffic patterns I nestled into, picked apart, and carefully monitored and predicted, finally appreciating the joy of passing, always passing.

Along the road to work, I stopped in at BC's, seeing as he was heading the same direction. His apartment looked like a Karaoke bar, and he was next to perform from underneath an old blanket sitting on a La-Z-boy recliner.

The Karaoke emcee rejected my song choice of "The Next Frieda In Town" as one that was too obscure, suggesting instead that BC sing Elvis Costello's "The Only Flame In Town"

Greatest Hits Countdown

Extreme show that counts down the top 10 most gruesome, hard-hitting crashes and impacts from popular sports.

Tonight's episode counts down most painful football tackles.

The #1 victim spot goes to Texas Tech place kicker Tony Rogers. In a 1995 game against Texas Longhorns, in a fake field goal play, Rogers is tackled by defensive end Tony Brackens.

Lost footage from the game surfaced after the Longhorns' 48-7 victory over Tech that showed various members of the Longhorns team repeatedly tackling and stampeding over the same place kicker, knocking off his helmet, shoulder pads and even his shoes amidst the chaos of both teams and marching bands scattering across the field.

Coincidentally, both Tonys wore #98.

Celebrity Rave Showdown

It's time for Tom Selleck and Lee Majors to battle it out on DJ Hero!

Grenades

(characters finding strangely-decorated grenades is a recurring theme in this show, however, none have yet exploded)

Steve and Mr. G stood at the head of a line of middle school children practicing a ritual of handing over and back a large handful of nickels.

Mr. G asked how long it took to set up the lighting in the room.

"It took UB at least thirty minutes," Steve responded, noticing that the child walking away had just pocketed six or seven nickels in his back pocket - enough for a free haircut and style from JL.

It was then that he also spied something like a fruit on the linoleum floor.

Steve picked up the object and studied it. It looked like a pineapple grenade made by carefully sculpting several strawberry popsicles. "How serendipitous," he thought to himself, "that I have yet to view the 'Chowder - The Blast Raz' episode on Cartoon Network tomorrow."

BF emerged out of a broom closet; he had to change clothes after falling into the pool. Mr. G commented on how the Native American headdresses were backwards.

Oops

I wandered around a rooftop, driving a Clefairy-mobile, until happening upon a Porsche 917 racing car.

This car was controllable via a button on the top pressed with the index finger.

I flicked my finger, sending the racecar hurtling off a ramp, over a neighboring rooftop and out of sight with a horrible-sounding crash.

At street-level, I found the site of the crash - a police press conference was being held and injured people were being attended to and carried out on gurneys.

I confessed to causing the crash after the press conference ended, and quietly apologized for my careless, thoughtless actions.

Secret Meeting

Don't pour your special ice water into my iced tea!

Look someone threw away two McDonalds deluxe hamburgers with tomato!

Shotgun Wins

Various objects meet the shotgun. In this show the shotgun always wins.

Fly meets shotgun: shotgun wins.

Deathwishes

Following a visit to the urologist and a routine phlebotomy (unrelated), I dreamt I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Variety columnist Army Archerd, hearing of my affliction, offered to donate his Ford F-100 pickup truck to me. His wish was that I study electrical engineering at UCLA but I knew that wasn't what I wanted.

To avoid talking about the subject, during a tour of his mansion, I walked briskly ahead of the group, hurrying to slide down the numerous mahogany-banistered slides that connected floors.

Midnight Monster

Yellow
Four-pointed
Helium-filled
Hemophiliac
Levitating
Distended
Vampire

Spy Action!

Ancient Japanese dual-wielding swordfighting techniques.

Miniature gatling-gun bulldozer warehouse security.

Robotic cloaking stealth-suit scaffolding acrobatics.

Cat-and-mouse jetpack apprehension affidavit plausibility.

Bowling and Pokemon

My daughter was the first to bowl a strike in lane 13.

I caught two "shiny" Zubat in a row.

The next Pokemon I caught was named "MANASSA".

Stranded in Sweden

It all started with a long-distance phone call. The person on the other end was clearly speaking a language that I didn't understand (German?) but somehow I did understand.

I woke up later in the office (really a room next to a high school gymnasium, linoleum floors and all) where a software engineer was describing his problem to me. He spoke Swedish (I learned later) and I responded in English and yet we both were able to discuss the problem of modifying his system of text-delimited fields to accomodate graphical input.

I strolled through the gym after our meeting, then outside where children were swimming in a community pool.

Knowing I needed to return to the airport, but not which way to proceed, I wandered down a street on the sidewalk and decided to phone my contact in the US, FM. I asked him to look up directions to the airport, complaining that it was beginning to get dark. He said he'd call me right back as I opened an extremely narrow door set into a wall. It turned out that I couldn't fit through the door wearing my backpack and since I was on the phone, I decided to go around it. It also turns out that it wasn't beginning to get dark at all, just a quickly moving black bank of clouds passing by.

I had to find a bathroom and doffed my backpack, setting it down on the sidewalk outside a women's lavatory. As I entered the men's room my phone rang. I flipped it open. Instead of hearing FM's voice, I saw about twenty pictures of slot machines that he had taken on a recent trip to Las Vegas.

I cursed him as I snapped the phone shut, used the urinal and washed my hands. My backpack was still sitting on the sidewalk when I returned for it.

Next door to the bathrooms was an arcade; of course I had to check it out. They had a strange Dance Dance Revolution clone (I couldn't make out the title on the marquee) and I could hear the familiar sounds of Defender echoing from a far corner.

Just then I realized I could search my Recently Dialed list for American Airlines and book a flight home and get a taxi to the airport.

It was 11PM

Sitcom Musical

5:30 am PST
Each episode is comprised of a handful of short sequences choreographed and set to music.

Eric Johnson - Cliffs of Dover

It's lunchtime and MT and Steve cross a parking lot on their way to a Mexican fast food restaurant at a strip mall.

As they stroll, the two coworkers recall their earlier activities of working in a Sim City 3000 3D modeling package to customize a Zoo headquarters skyscraper. The design is reminiscent of the Wisconsin Gas Company building in Milwaukee with its terraced facades; the two workers were busy converting the surrounding city streets into sprawling green parks.

Steve pulls some papers out of his khaki trousers and flips a red square - shuriken style - at MT shouting, "Green square!" It turns out that the square piece of paper is actually colored blue, and is a game piece to a promotional sweepstakes game sponsored by Burger King, and is the match to a pair of blue game pieces MT needs in order to redeem them for a toasted English muffin.

MT decides to collect his prize and Steve continues into the Mexican food restaurant, tossing the remainder of his game pieces in a nearby trash receptacle, saying "I don't need this trash in my pocket."

Steve nods to an ex-coworker seated on a table between the restaurant's entrance and the ordering counter. Glancing at the menu, he mutters, "I don't need this trash in my body," then turns and leaves.

Lunchtime is over and Steve heads to his second job at a rival Mexican restaurant next door to the one he just left, and, spotting his coworker AC, launches into an impromptu game of 'feed the beast' in which Steve attempts to strangle AC.

AC spots Steve and bolts away in panic, flipping over a table to block a doorway. Steve leaps through the doorway and over the table and deftly grabs AC by the neck in one fluid catlike movement all at the beginning of the final riff at the 4-minute mark in the song.

After Closing

I wanted to settle our bill late last night at Las Palmas.

I pointed up the stairs to where we had been sitting - two small tables pushed together next to a balcony door.

I heard the cashier mutter and saw her point towards the banister, asking who would pay for the 'renter'.

I looked and saw a sleeping bag, a black shirt, and some paper plates jumbled together in a heap beside the stairs.

I asked the cashier who she thought was staying there from our party.

"Juanes," she said.

One-sided Phone Conversations

"What the hell's going on? When did we pick Kate Beckinsale to play Samus?"

"What happened to Rose McGowan?"

"I didn't get any meeting invites or emails on this! It would've been nice to tell me!"

"Well we're all very sorry RD left, but wake up and make some decisions already!"

"Fine. OK."

"What?"

"Today? Now?"

"OK could you please at least send me the new dialog?"

"Yes, now!"

"When did all this change?"

"Who said?"

"You know what? Forget it. It doesn't matter anymore. Just shut up, get the hell out of my way and let me make this game!"

(100th show celibration)

Friday Night Dualism / I'm asleep

How To Win Friends And Influence People / Making people scared won't get you very far.

The Band meeting / The Smoke Break
---
In a driveway in Wichita, Kansas / In a green field in Edinburgh, Scotland
a lead guitarist, / an ROTC dropout,
rhythm guitarist, / hairdresser,
bass guitarist, / astrophysicist,
mandolin player, / roadie,
and a keyboardist / and a numismatist
discuss their next gig's song list. / discuss tomorrow night's D&D session.

Dinner / Political Positioning
---
At a round table in Round Table / At a rectangular table in Sirius Black's dining room
a CEO, / a Doctor Who fan,
Lead Engineer, / Goalkeeper,
and a Lead Designer / and a Parasail instructor
catch up on their careers in the video game industry. / play an electroshock party game.

The Raid / Easter egg hunt
---
At the bottom of an exterior wall inside an unfinished spare room made from a cardboard refrigerator box/ In the grass
granite spheres / dinosaur eggs
were stolen. / were moved.

Inventions

Part 1: Mercedes Benz 2010 Green Metal (with simulated woodgrain finish) Motorized Office Chair!

A lab assistant demonstrates the new model for 2010 while a narrator provides details about the engineering behind the vehicle:
- Sits inside the development office
- Walks down a corridor
- Rides an elevator to the lobby
- Exits the building
- Arrives at the entrance to the parking garage
- Swipes an identification card across a proximity panel
- Ducks underneath the opening metal accordion door
- Introduces the Motorized Office Chair (MOC)
- Boards the MOC
- Fastens the safety harness
- Dons an open-face motorcycle helmet
- Grasps both armrests
- Coaxes the MOC forward and out of the parking garage

The MOC features a 3hp electric motor and batteries underneath the seat. A complex transmission drives each of the four wheels independently. The central spindle is on a gyroscope which automatically leans against centripetal forces when braking, accelerating and cornering. Throttle, brake, and signaling controls are contained in the front of the armrests as integrated motorcycle handles.

Part 2: Shenanigans!

An extreme sports superstar demonstrates a new extreme sports apparatus called Shenanigans while a narrator provides details about the engineering behind the device.

- Opens a small briefcase
- Unfolds what appear to be a pair of jumbled steel rods
- Locks pieces into place
- Holds up the pair of oblong bent steel parts
- Straps the Shenanigans on his feet
- Stands upright on the apparatus
- Jumps, kicks, spins and twirls
- Grabs the steel rods
- Skates across a concrete courtyard
- Jumps and slides effortlessly down a stone staircase

The Shenanigans prototype started as a pair of bent paper clips. The inventor scaled up the original prototype and made each piece collapsible.

Hip Hop Travel Agency

Test Pattern

Bowling Alley Smell

In a bowling alley in Honolulu, Hawaii, Steve chats with the shoe rental clerk about the state's new dollar coins. Steve decides to take a few home as souvenirs and changes his mind about changing $20.00. He gets only 4 of the coins as change after paying his rental shoes.

The bowling alley features a restaurant and an arcade, Steve notes as he takes in the signature smell.

The arcade features ultraviolet lighting which accentuates the bright orange and green patterns, as well as his white Calvin Klein Underwear against the dark walls and floors.

"No pockets for tokens," he mutters.

Room 217

In room 217 in a hotel owned by JA there is a giant flooded hole in the tile around the toilet in the bathroom.

In the living room closet a guest has hung a Primal Rage duffel bag in between antique wooden bassinets.

Glimpses

Security line

Nintendo DS

Baby stroller

Ear buds

Arcade World Tour

Waiting to get into an arcade in Tokyo, they only let a few people in every five minutes.

The dimly-lit floor features dozens of classic arcade cabinets from the 'golden era' of American arcades.

I rush to an empty Moon Cresta and start playing, memories of my childhood - bottlecaps, dumpster diving, smashing fluorescent tube lights, and Juice Newton singing "Angel of the Morning" - come flooding back.

08/08/1938

First day at new school

I'm late so I find my seat

I'm in the back row

Classwork is assigned

my good friend Sean is absent

he moved to New York

Senator McCain

turns around to face me and

declares a thumb war

He points and I see

a prosthetic finger made

with a green pepper

How To Live On Handouts

Today is Free Pizza Thursday at Pizza Hut!

I asked a girl behind the counter where the free samples were and she pointed to a counter behind me. I grabbed three slices of cheese pizza without first locating a plate, then also grabbed three paper towels and folded them to accommodate the pizza slices, which I also folded - triangle on top of triangle in a letter-fold, then awkwardly by rolling the point of the triangle up to the crust. After all this, with both my hands full of drippy greasy pizza, I noticed there was Canadian bacon and pineapple.

I walked back to the apartment complex where GO was organizing a kickball game. I went around to KM's and MH's to see if they could play.

I saw KM through the open front window sitting in the dining room, his eyes glistening and face flushed. At the far end of the hallway stood a dark shadow. KM whispered, "I have to work on my homework, Steve. Sorry."

MH was leaning against the hallway outside her front door. "Tonight is family time and I messed it all up," she whimpered up at me.

I thought then how so often and unfairly the stress and problems of parents are confusingly twisted then projected onto their children.

I Don't Dream

Melatonin: no flashing lights or lucidity, only Jack Nicholson gargling a mouthful of miniature red pencils.

Last Picked

JR was the last picked for my team in a game of Quidditch.

Membership

It's 5:00 PM;
is Costco Closed?

A boy on a BMX bike goes
up and down grey concrete ramps
in a basement engineering floor.

Staircases with no guardrails beckon lost wanderers.

My wife's long black hair stops me
from revisiting a tribute gold medallion
left at a fighter's photo
like a stone on a Jewish grave.

London Back Alleys

The driver of a black triple-decker bus operates the vehicle from the third floor. He is a chauffeur following another livery vehicle, a Mercedes. I marvel at his instinctual dexterity which allows him to deftly manoeuvre through traffic and around roundabouts in the clockwise direction.

After exiting the bus, on the sidewalk I see a column of brightly-coloured couples - men and women - in 5 matched pairs dressed in fuchsia, mauve, chartreuse, burgundy, and turquoise unitards. The males are costumed in inflatable outfits which make them resemble walking fruits.

Rounding a corner, I stumble upon an altercation that turns violent, the dark-skinned, wall-eyed instigator complaining why onlookers - myself included - aren't interested in joining her cause. Just then I glance down to a drainage underpass in time to see a Jeep roll through ankle-deep water being chased by a dirty white dog. The Jeep and dog splash by in the opposite direction, then emerge on the street surface a few metres ahead. The Jeep literally corners the dog in a parking lot.

Rolling onto the scene, a Toyota minivan arrives with a damaged passenger-side sliding door. The driver of the van opens the damaged sliding door from the inside (I note that he's tanned to withering, wearing only green briefs) and asks a bystander how much it will cost to repair the damage.

Fire Campers

Instead of traditional outdoor camping each year, our family visits evacuated towns on the edges of wildfires in California.

In a deserted Pinecrest bar, chilled kegs of beer are the only uncontaminated drinkable liquid and firefighters toast, "To a rat, 'cause I ain't dead yet!"

After finishing off two half-full mugs of beer, Steve notices residents returning to their homes. One emerges from the crawlspace beneath the front porch and introduces himself as EC to the gathering at the bar.

Work Hard Play Hard

Huddled around a tiny VAX terminal, JB's and SG's faces are illuminated by the amber glow of the CRT, puzzling over a chunk of code. Through the double-doors to the cafeteria strides BF, willing to help even after leaving the company for their rival across the street.

Sam spies RG in the lunchroom playing with Pokémon cards and decides to join him. RG holds twenty-five cards in his hand and has dozens more organized in front of him.

"I'm playing Clue rules," mumbles RG.

SG strides outside to Disneyland park where the train is just letting out its passengers near a glass-walled merry-go-round. SG ambles down a slope to a ridge overlooking a wide moat. In the moat are three crocodiles, two of which are involved in some kind of eating ritual, the male swallowing a female up to her throat. Sam spies a redheaded toddler climbing underneath the guardrail and looks frantically around for its parents.

Luckily, a park employee wearing a jetpack rescues the child and its father as the mother screams with relief.

rnd PHP

At a family party, I stay indoors until the pleasant sunny afternoon darkens. I welcome the rain on my face as other guests take refuge.

Returning indoors, the party is a classroom. I take my seat in the back row on the right, as the instructor quickly explains variable naming in PHP code. When trying to remember the correct spelling of 'carp', the students begin chanting, "Spell it wrong! Spell it wrong!" The professor scribbles, "$crap" on the whiteboard as a nearby classmate shouts amid the flutter of laughter, "She might as well name it '$cottoncandy' now!"

Halloween Marathon

The last trick-or-treater arrived at 4am, a drum majorette.

Homunculus

Steve's twin arrived last night, August 17, 2009.

We aren't sure of its origins, since its life-line is much longer than Steve's. We interpret this to mean that it was born before Steve, or will outlive him, or both.

Old Game, New Game

Centipede played on an old modified arcade cabinet (P1 and P2 start buttons are mysteriously swapped)

A "Katamari In Space" trailer video surfaces, prompting a game designer's rant, "This is why the video game industry doesn't innovate - it's because players are unwilling to innovate."

Pet Peeves

Broken glass! On carpet!

Steve's Drawing Adventure

I sketched Optimus Prime on a sheet of butcher paper with a blue marker.

Shading in details, I noticed that yellow and red ink had appeared in the places I had previously drawn, then the drawing turned into a 3-dimensional Lego model.

Celebrity Neighbor

Nolan Bushnell lives next door to me. Last night he was hosting a party for ex-Midway employees when I went over to borrow a cup of flour. The guests all sat silently in their seats with their heads bowed.

Today I posed in his arboretum for a group of art students with an orange balloon. TH congratulated me afterwards.

Boot Camp

Stationed at a border patrol checkpoint camp, Private Riesenberger has had to defend their base from numerous insurgent skirmishes. In one recent battle his assault rifle malfunctioned forcing him to reload it as one would reload a toy shotgun as he took aim and fired on rebel forces who had commandeered a humvee, plowing it into crowds of civilians. Two shots from his rifle resulted in killing the driver with a blow to the back of the head.

Later that night, Corporal SC led the troop in a game of movie charades. Private Riesenberger knew that one soldier's guess of 'James Cagney imitating Bugs Bunny' was incorrect in favor of Edward G. Robinson's portrayal of Rico in Little Caesar.

In the morning, a routine check of his vehicle revealed that the emergency brake gear had been stripped.

SoCal LoCal

At one hotel in San Francisco, Steve asks for directions to the Marriott downtown but learns that it is the hotel's policy not to give directions to other competing hotels.

"What if I get the address to the hotel, then ask you for directions to the street?", he complains, rummaging through his backpack and tattered maps.

Later at a street carnival, Steve tries his luck at a Midway game. The rules state that a thrown ping-pong ball must come to rest atop a square block. He does so and opens the block to reveal a toy goldfish in a bag of water. Steve exchanges this for five more blocks which he then proceeds to open. Each one contains a cheap plastic leaf, some green, some yellow, some of which the barker informs him are 'rare'.

Steve decides to rent a tent and roller coaster from the nearby amusement park. Inside the tent are arcade games and the roller coaster features corkscrews and loops.

Abstraction

Painting hair planaria.

Party Crash

On their way to the parking lot during lunchtime, the team comments on the weather. One member asks, "Where does Summer come from?"

Steve nonchalantly mumbles, "Summer comes from the Summer box." as he leans over a bite of honey-peanut butter sandwich. Then, so as to not spill any of the oozing honey, tilting his head back looking up to the sky he adds, "Then Summer parks in the Summer garage when Autumn is ready to roll."

Car doors open and team members assemble into groups, BM climbs into MT's Subaru. Steve loses the unspoken game of musical cars and the lot is empty save for an old Mercedes - the car is so ancient that the steering mechanism is a single crank that moves side to side instead of a steering wheel.

Steve barely kisses the car in front of him as the weary thin brakes strain against the weight of the car on a gentle slope at a stop light. The caravan arrives at the video game convention as AR is setting up the event.

Glistening shiny Pokemon cards adorn the display cases. "Hong Kong knock offs.", scoffs an onlooker.

Faking The Grade

Under the assumed surname, "Aramwa", Stephen enrolls at the University of California's Santa Barbara Campus and takes up residence at Anacapa hall with his friend TF as a roommate.

A campus-wide game of Assassin comes to his mind as he passes a whiteboard in the dormitory's common room. RH and JP, also residents of the dorm, are still on the list.

Confused as to why he is still enrolled under a false name, Stephen walks into his Discrete Mathematics midterm only to realize that there are many examples he does not know how to do. He spends 75% of the allotted time writing the name 'Riesenberger' on his Nintendo DS Pictochat program in an attempt to transfer the writing to the header of his midterm exam unsuccessfully.

Rainy Days

JL: "You wanna pick up Run DMC tickets? Only five bucks!"
Steve: "Nah. Just take me home please."

The Science-fiction of Technology

iPhones can predict the future with new 'forward-looking' technology.

In the app store, users can click on the 'view future purchases' to enter a date and time in the future and get a list of all the predicted user purchases from the current time until then, with each individual purchase stamped with the time down to the second.

Apple uses this information to forecast sales of the iPhone, as well as when to introduce new versions and upgrades, but it is the iPhone application developers who benefit most from this feature:

From the moment a new application is made available to the masses, at the set pricepoint, an iPhone developer can get a pinpoint accurate forecast (to the year 3000) of all future sales of their application, making planning and allocation of resources far easier than in the days before 'forward-looking' technology! It also goes without saying that developers can choose to adjust the price of their application up or down, and see instantaneous changes in the future purchases of their product in order to fine-tune sales, product longevity, and market penetration.

Google is developing a similar functioning technology called 'hindsight' whereby it intends to alter Apple's iPhone sales figures in the past in an attempt to boost sales of its own smart phone.

Cartoon Cops

Tonight's episode is narrated by MB.

Two coroners enter a stately mansion as Barney Rubble follows after several hours of a hostage stand-off against Skeletor. Under a hail of gunfire, the upstairs foyer went silent. A wide staircase leads upward towards massive double doors which lead through the foyer and into a ballroom.

Upon opening the double doors, Skeletor, who was merely wounded, lunges from behind an ornate bust firing an AK-47 at the group of three screaming, "Diiieee!" as only he can. One of the coroners falls as Barney takes cover outside the doorway. He sprays bullets in the direction of the threat as a weak flashlight flickers from atop the barrel of his assault rifle. Skeletor makes a run for it and Barney decides to rush into the room.

In a flurry of commotion, running, and desperate gunfire, Skeletor reaches the same doorway where the coroner was gunned down. Barney, in true Hollywood B-movie style, hurls his weapon at the fleeing fugitive once he realizes he is out of ammunition and miraculously strikes Skeletor in the solar plexus sending him flying through the first floor atrium and crashing through a closed door.

The villain is pierced through the back upon landing on a closet door knob in a child's bedroom.

80's Movie Montage Mania

Not so much a transformation but manic series of cuts depicting Steve and his desperate attempt at not having his BMX bike stolen during a school assembly.

The sequence takes place while "Fascination" by Company B plays in the background.

At first, arriving in the auditorium while riding the bike, Steve tries to find a suitable place to park it, then leaves it leaning up against the divider to the front half of the auditorium to retrieve his coiled bike lock from his apartment.

Several cuts show an increasingly exasperated Steve leaving the apartment and closing and locking the front door, only to unlock and reopen the door to:
- go to the bathroom
- brush his teeth
- close the refrigerator
- turn off the lights
- check that the oven is turned off

Finally, we see Steve locking up his bike to a water standpipe outside the auditorium. After the school assembly, we see the bike being ridden away, the rider popping wheelies.

This episode of 80's Movie Montage Mania brought to you by The 80's Movie Montage Hall of Fame.

CQC - Contract Quality Control

BS and Steve run test procedures on video game software in an area of the game where the main character speaks a different phrase depending on whether or not he is in shadow or sunlight.

Terrariums

...where we work.

JD and Steve clear out the last of their computer equipment including keyboards and a musical keyboard.

Steve relocates a few stuck-in-the-ground Halloween decorations including a plastic headstone and notices another headstone partially covered by dead grass.

Haiku Triptych

an old red beetle
melts into a mountain bike
on the lake bottom

slow backwards rolling
on a shaky wooden pier
flying then drowning

visiting grandpa
throws my bike in the water
then we eat ice cream

Lord Of The Rings FanFiction

Viewers email story, character and plot ideas in to the show and the best ones are woven into next week's episode.

Frodo, enraged at Gimli's decision to leave the Fellowship with his old dwarven drinking buddies, grabs fistful after fistful of wood from fallen Ents, and, crushing them with The One Ring's imbued super strength, produces glass and semiprecious stones.

Blue Vette Sting

Police officers use the same blue Corvette Stingray over and over as a lure for carjackers.

We watch two teenagers steal the Vette, then pick up their parents' dry cleaning before being caught.

Plates

An ex-con and his two teenage boys run a mobile license-plate customization service.

Returning with lunch, the father sifts through his change of quarters and nickels, noticing each one is older and rarer than the last.

Photoshop Chop Shop

The voice of Leonard Nimoy hosts this show where graphic illustration experts design futuristic vehicles using Adobe's Photoshop image editing computer software in an automotive garage setting.

Steve designs a tandem two passenger car using the rubber stamp tool.

Intermission 5 and 14

In a men's bathroom
during intermission the back half becomes a food court.

A mother enters;
a moviegoer looks over stainless-steel urinals.

Unfortunately
many of the urinals are filled with boiling water

and black gelatin.
Day turns into night at the base of a green ziggurat.

A soccer circle
kicks a ball around. One player has two pointy elbows.

Bicycling away,
Stephen's vehicle transforms into a Jaguar roadster.

Another Jaguar
speeds down a winding mountain road with Stephen pursuing.

Descending into
a clockwise square spiral, the driver of the fleeing car

handsignals his turns.
At the bottom of the spiral is a spacious white room.

On first inspection,
besides gilded chair rails and moldings, there are no exits.

Furniture appears
softly as he susses to himself, "Satan's sitting room."

Another victim,
TS, stands. Two unlit tunnels materialize.

She mutters, "Stephen,
come sit in this room with me. There's a warm fireplace in here."

One last sideways glance
is Stephen's vision of an obsidian mannequin

silently groping
her terrified face, pulling her backwards to nothingness.

More doorways open
outward and Stephen moves through one purposefully to find

a bruised shirtless man
crying. Steve Martin, in the role of Navin R. Johnson,

wields a cardboard axe.
He slashes it at Stephen who says to the dangling man

tied to a dead tree,
"Steve Martin can't hurt me because his name doesn't match mine.

Nor Steven Spielberg."
Stephen finally hides in the top-floor concession stand

on a cargo ship.

---

Intermission - by Ryuta Kawashima's Brain Age

Land Surfers

A bunch of college students drive into the desert in search or rocky and sandy dust bowls.

GB has a roof-mounted skimboard rack. His special formulated wax allows he and his classmates to 'surf' on dry land, over rough terrain and even rocks.

Riding The Rails

Stunt riders perform acrobatic tricks on dangerously busy public transit routes.

Ashton Kutcher wears ski attire and rides a mountain bike along the monorail of the San Francisco Bay Area's BART system.

Onlookers from a nearby parking lot watch as Ashton pops a wheelie while riding on the rail, then falls off only to be caught up in guide wires. The BART train approaches.

Battle And A Convention

This week's Battle is a Pirate on Pirate Hunter affair and the Convention features Classic arcade video games.

Before the Pirate battle, there is a feast arranged in the banquet hall.

During the arcade game convention, CU informs players that the Robotron: 2084 unit contains a modified chipset that plays an RPG version of the game.

Zach Braff Adventures

Dax Shepard impersonates Zach Braff in a myriad number of jack-ass style stunts.

One of them sees Dax at an acupuncturist. The technician intentionally waggles the needle before inserting it into Dax's arm to inflict excruciating pain.

While You Were Showering

A travelling salesman's wife accompanies him on every business trip. They hop from one Marriott hotel to another.

In today's episode, while his wife is showering, all of the locks and deadbolts in the (not-yet-upgraded-to-keycards) hotel are replaced. The salesman leaves for the proverbial bucket of ice and finds the door unresponsive when he returns.

Luckily, his time at a watch and jewelry repair counter in a department store helps him pick the lock with a filed-down allen wrench and paper clip.

Relativity

M. C. Escher whispers, "Don't trip in here or you'll break every bone in your body. Twice!"

Video Game Development 101

In this 9-week class, each student will experience the roles of software engineer, artist, producer, designer, and audio composer.

KH, in his role as engineer, asks current producer JH about the streaming of assets in the game.

"We'll be streaming audio in-game," she replies, "and animations during cut-scenes."

Made Up Games

Tonight's Made Up Game takes place around the escalators in a 3-floor Macy's department store. Adam Carolla sneaks around silently while contestants scavenge grenades off the linoleum-tiled floors. The few who collect the grenades then load them into 8-foot long cardboard tubes. Mr. Carolla needs only to spill a little of his can of Diet Coke in view of a contestant to knock them out of the competition.

Round 2 features stop-motion animator JB as the director of a yoga class. He instructs his students to reach towards their outstretched toes. His eyes languish luxuriously across the long foot of a female student only to be stopped short when they meet with her unpopped-corn-kernel toes.

"Tabasco," he mutters.

Lost Dog Savers

The LDS spy a lady driving a grey Mercedes Benz sedan past a Starbucks. The car slows and the door opens. She shoos a baby daschund out of the passenger door into the gutter.

"Shame on you!" one of the LDS shouts as the grey sedan speeds away.

Hours of investigative detective work lead the trio to an old Chicago apartment complex. A green Volkswagen Beetle zips into the parking lot as they question security. In the evening's dying light, exploring the lifeless landings in the forest of timber staircases feels like tip-toeing through an alien landscape captured within the vacuum of an empty snow globe.

Mall Tour

JR and Dad visit shopping malls around the world.

At a Japanese mall, MC and DR join JR and Dad. Shoppers can rent a Skitter-like shopping 'racer' that has room for one adult and 1 child (with room for purchases). JR and Dad enjoy swiftly coasting through the linoleum-covered floors, dodging walking shoppers and bumping into other Skitter riders.

In pods of eight racers, shoppers can also participate in several video game scenarios by wheeling into brightly lit multicolored elevators.

JR and Dad fight valiantly against their on-screen adversaries along with seven other groups in Skitters. The gameplay consists of quick cuts of Japanese anime styled robots and Power Rangers protagonists battling.

GAME OVER!

It turns out that MC and DR returned their Skitter racer and became separated from JR and Dad. Dad borrows a friendly local's cel phone but is unsuccessful in calling MC's phone, becoming lost in the esoteric menu system.

Dad wheels through corridors, elevators and ramps into a meeting room where BS agonizes over last night's homework assignment entitled '10 most common math mistakes'.

Wild West Arena

Today's contestant is successful in defeating Wild Bill Hickock (played by Sam Elliott) finally finishing him with six shots to the face.

Fog Bank

Each episode begins with Steve waking up in a fog bank, still unclear about his identity.

Braking to a stop in a fast food parking lot, creeping.
Noticing children's silhouettes floating.
Rummaging through car floorboard flotsam for blue jeans fumbling.
Contorting his body reversing.
Inching backwards in a three point turn by a slowly moving car squeezing.
Gazing along the length of an impossibly long green Mercedes limousine barely grazing.
Spying the turquoise Hyundai 3-wheeled Trihawk-inspired coupe wondering.
Following the vehicle the fog lifted in his motorized two-stroke recumbent scooter transforming.
Reaching under the seat to increase speed throttling.
Cruising noisily through early morning school campus covered walkways battery dying.
Coasting slowly to pause at a container of Lysol Disinfecting Wipes opening.
Running joggers pass by thirsty asking.
Hooking up the small battery Steve sees his quarry disappear around a corner skidding.

Big Poppa

Craig Mack and crew rendezvous at the crib around two.

A t-bone steak, cheese eggs, and Welch's grape what they be mackin.

American Orphan in Tokyo

KK, a Japanese girl living in Tokyo, befriends an orphaned American toddler she finds in a parking garage.

A popular tourist shopping mall sits at the top of the parking structure, and the two friends eavesdrop on passersby from underneath a frayed Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade serape.

"They have escorts!" one shopper exclaims.

Dad & Son At The Movies

Today's feature is a 30 minute Alice In Wonderland spoof.

Dad pulls out pocketfuls of quarters and dimes, and arranges them in two dollar-sized piles in order to buy nachos. The cashier stands inappropriately close.

After the show there's always an arcade game to play. Today it is a first-person virtual reality helicopter simulation flying over battlefields in World War II. Dad scoffs at the historical inaccuracy as Nazi machine gun nests open fire on his sickeningly circling gunship. In the next scenario the helicopter is circling inside a hotel courtyard as enemy soldiers stream from inside the rooms.

Black Cube Nickel

The Black Cube Nickel is a federally recognized unit of currency with a face value of 5 cents. It weighs 4 ounces, measures 2 inches on an edge, is made of 100% black aluminum and engraved on 5 of the six sides with Jefferson's profile, the Monticello, and the requisite United States mottos, phrases, date, and mintmark.

The sixth side is missing, allowing exactly 20 'regular' nickels to fit inside a specially-shaped hollow cavity.

Unfortunately, besides it being unique, the Black Cube Nickel is endowed with a mysterious and powerful ancient and foul curse which bestows incredibly bad luck on its owner. Negative effects that have afflicted owners include depression, weakness, loss of appetite, intoxication, memory loss, foul body odor, blindness, physical mutation, rotting flesh disease, arterio-venous malformation, being visited by cyberdemons, and death.

675 Sycamore Drive

Friday and Saturday night parties in a converted office building.

A local collector has set up four transforming gaming machines that look at first like a wheel-less version of Scooby-Doo's Mystery Machine, then open up and expand to reveal 8 San Francisco Rush The Rock linked arcade units.

On a nearby whiteboard a message is scribbled in green dry-erase marker, "There's a BONG on floor 3nd and NOTHING ELSE!" The building is a single-story structure.

Four Reunions and a Wedding

This show combines a four-year high school reunion and the marriage between two of the attendees.

Tonight's show spotlight's the 1988-1991 graduating classes from Leigh High School in San Jose, California. The reunion and wedding take place in an auditorium and we see each graduating class file in following an announcement and roll call.

RB, PC, DG, RP, and Stephen Riesenberger are among a few of the representatives from the Track Team in attendance.

DG's twin toddlers dance to Grover Washington Jr.'s - Just The Two Of Us on top of a table.

0-0-0

The team informs LC that he has a meeting on floor 4.5

French Creative Writing

Eager to discover his grades on the most recent writing assignments, Steve rifles through the pile of graded papers for his own, stopping to gloat to PC over the 'A' he received on his poem on the subject of meat, complete with a cut-out illustration from the cover of Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Searching the stack of papers further, he finds his second poem, a ballad on the subject of his assault on the world-record high score for the video game, Robotron: 2084, and ascending to the rank of 5th place on Twin Galaxies' websites. Even with additional liner notes composed by JG, Steve still only earns a 'B' on the opus.

LTV - Life Television

Amateur video clips are broadcast in 2-3 minute bite-sized ADD-friendly chunks.

Caught on mobile video, a group of teenagers break into an abandoned shack and proceed to cull together ingredients to make Jose Cuervo margaritas.

Later, at a college football game, a group of spectators smoke marijuana cigarettes, not knowing that Mother Nature looks on from the sidelines. Later, she confronts one of the miscreants from inside a glowing coffin.

Finally, a security guard attempts to confuse a Lovecraftian octapus-tentacled demon by turning on showers in the men's locker room. The demon manifests itself as a female torso with impossibly long flowing black hair. The hair follows the flowing water down the drains, clogging them.

The Clarinet Case

The Case is at an airport, in a cab, then on a bus.

One of the twins buys Princess Zelda a new part for her flute.

ALFASBG

Always Late For A Softball Game

Text Adventure Reality TV

A text log scrolls along the bottom of the screen while actors in a Reality TV show carry out the instructions in real-time. In an atrium at the center of the Woltz mansion, a VH tastes a Capri-Sun, decides she doesn't like it, then shoves it into CP's mouth. Steve asks her what her favorite drink is and she responds, "Stoli". Steve exits the atrium to the >EAST and takes a >LOOK around.

A number of men and women are performing yoga in an indoor gymnasium. The female instructor topples. Double doors lead >NORTH

Steve is in a room over a garage. In a corner of the room a dog-nosed boy watches a television as his nanny looks on. "I in here," says the boy. A long hallway leads away to the >WEST

Steve runs down the long hallway, side-stepping the receptionist in a dog-leg of the hall. The hallway bends to the >SOUTH and Steve emerges into an atrium. Doorways lead off in 4 directions. He hears the sound of approaching running footsteps so he decides to jump >DOWN through an opening in the ceiling panels below.

Steve is in the midst of a collection of office cubicles that are tracking the Pogo.com subscriptions of the women on Morgan Street in Flagstaff Arizona. The office workers notice Steve as he remarks, "I just set up my account last week!"

Gameshow Network Scandinavia

On a Swedish gameshow, contestants are challenged to answer questions on geography while riding a bicycle down a street with an enormous electromagnet embedded in the asphalt in order to win a Swatch wristwatch.

During a commercial break, a plumber up the street from where the game is taking place urinates into the sink since the toilet has not yet been installed.