Frankly, I’m shocked at how many people loved and wanted this thing:
I would say, “there’s no accounting for taste,” but coming from someone who watches The Super Friends every fucking week, I think it would be a little hypocritical.
After getting down one of my mom’s million and a half baskets (she owns more baskets than any other human I’ve met), and putting each entrant’s name on a post-it note and folding it in half just so, Tom pulled out the winner’s name. Congratulations to Amy of Lucy’s Football. You will be receiving this prestigious award in the mail this or next week.
To all of you who didn’t win, I know that with time your hearts will mend and your tears will dry. Remember that life isn’t about material possession, but about what the shell poker game trinket represents – ample supply of beverages and cheating in retaliation of not being offered one. Let’s never lose sight of that.
Pre-synopsis warning: this segment was only about 7 minutes long, so there wasn’t much to work with. That also probably means that the third storyline is going to be tortuously long. Next week is another teenager-related cautionary tale. It’s gonna be a rough few weeks, folks.
Short Synopsis: “On a desolate island in the South Pacific…” – Narrator
Narrator has fallen asleep again. We see an older man with half a head of hair dodging red laser beams from robotic-looking creatures. See, that wasn’t so hard, was it, Narrator?
He’s quite spry for a man his age, and in order to escape the robot-things, he dives off a cliff. He washes up on shore at a different island days later, having seemingly made himself a raft while floating in the ocean.
Some islanders help him and contact the Super Friends, telling them he has an “incredible story.” We’ll see about that.
Aquaman and Wonder Woman are on the case.
Here’s this incredible story we’ve heard so much about.
“I am Garth (my guess) One, Super Friends, I was the leader of a peaceful civilization that lives hidden beneath the island I came from. However, our people became corrupt, and law an order vanished. In an attempt to restore order, the council overruled me, and voted to put The Enforcer in temporary command of the state. A ruthless outlaw, with his own army of criminals, when the council realized its mistake it was too late.”
Eh, I’ve heard better.
“I think it’s time The Enforcer met the Super Friends.” – Wonder Woman
Yeah, that’ll show him! Nobody wants to have to meet The Super Friends.
The Enforcer and his army – when compromise goes wrong.
The Enforcer looks like someone took two different action figures, some kind of web-handed yellow creature and a purple something, and combined them into one:
The army soldiers, I can only imagine a writer telling the animators – “I want knight’s suit of armor meets cheerleader uniform meets Metropolis.”
Wonder Woman needs to take Disguises 101 again.
As soon as they arrive at the under-island civilization, Garth is apprehended by The Enforcer and taken into custody. Aquaman and Wonder Woman do the old “knock out some bad guys and take their uniforms” trick to rescue Garth.
Luckily, the villains are just as stupid and don’t notice.
Oh, my.
Aquaman and Wonder Woman find Garth One being strung up over a vat of some kind of boiling substance. Is this the kind of kinky stuff in Fifty Shades of Grey? Was it influenced by The Super Friends? Nevermind, I don’t care.
Then, Wonder Woman lassoes two measly soldiers and proclaims the Super Friends the victors. Huh? Basically The Enforcer and, like, four friends took control of an entire civilization? Oh, wait, it’s that they only have 7 minutes to tell a story? Ok, yeah, that makes more sense.
The Enforcer pulls your typical “NU UH, nanner nanner boo boo, I have an escape hatch!” move and then tries to swim away. But he’s no match for Aquaman the swordfish Aquaman suckers into helping him.
Peace is restored and everybody learned their lesson. Snooooze.
P.S. I’m posting Super Friends outtakes on the Cannibalistic Nerd Facebook page. So, if you need a mid-week Super Friends pick-me-up, that’s the place to get it.
I hate shopping for clothes. Even more specifically, I hate trying on clothes. I hate every moment of the experience.
First of all, I’ve seen too many “very special episodes” of TV shows about shoplifting to not know that there’s some person sitting at some control booth watching me change. We all know you’re out there, you mouth breathers with your bar-b-cue potato chip fingers, just waiting to catch me shoving tank tops and bras into my purse. When I arrive at the changing room and I do a weird dance in front of the mirror with both my middle fingers in the air – that is directed at you, sir or madam.
I also hate the number cards they pass out when you go and try clothes on. Never are my insecurities over my ability to count so tested as when I have to come up with the correct number of garments I want to wriggle in and out of as quickly as I can in that florescent nightmare of a room. What if I give the wrong number? Will I waste away in prison, cursing myself for my inability to correctly tally up pants? Will those miscounted pants – the two I never had in the first place, become an enduring mystery, like D.B. Cooper’s money? “Nobody knows where C.E. Williford may have hidden those two pairs of khakis. We may never know,” Dateline will tell it’s viewers. “But I didn’t! I didn’t hide two pairs of khakis, I just count worse than a toddler,” I will yell, but it will fall on deaf ears.
I like to have pictures with my blog posts. This is a drawing of a pair of pants, just in case you’re not sure what I’m talking about.
Last week I had to face the harsh reality that I have grown too fat for all but two pairs of pants – one pair of capris, and one pair of black jeans. I live in the South, which means in the summer it feels like a sadistic grandma is smothering you with a soaking wet hot quilt. If my black jeans had them, they would have rolled their eyes hearing me explain that although it’s 102 degrees outside, I’m sure if I stay in the shade it’ll be fine. But, even I am not that delusional. I only had one pair of useable pants. This was a sad realization, and doubly so because it meant having to buy new pants.
I made my way to the local Super Target, grabbed 3 different pairs of pants of varying sizes (I did count correctly – things were looking up), and headed to the dressing room. Even if there’s a lock on the door, I have a constant fear of being walked-in on, like someone will pick the lock because they’re certain nobody’s in there. This has never actually happened to me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t worry about it; it’s is a free country.
I quickly tried on all three pairs of pants. I bet I looked like a contestant on Double Dare trying to get through the obstacle course in time. One after the other – none of them fit. They were too small. After removing and individually cursing each pair, I gathered my things and left the dressing room. As instructed by the attendant (is that the right word for that job?), I left the unwanted and now cursed pants on a giant pile for someone else to put back (that always bothers me, I feel like I’m shirking my responsibility to put things back where they belong).
This is when a rational person would then get some larger sizes to go back and try on. No. I don’t go back in to dressing rooms after I’ve gone once. I take the information I gathered from the first trip – “those pants were too small for me” – and jump to conclusions – “the next size up is obviously the correct choice.” I went to the pants what were the least tightest and bought the next size up, being so thankful that I’m smart enough to outwit a second trip to try pants on.
The next morning I woke up and grabbed my new pair of pants and I swear I heard my formerly sole pair of pants, a crumpled, broken heap in the corner of the room, crying tears of joy.
The new pants are too big. Did I return them and resign myself to another voyage to the fitting room? I think we all know the answer to that. No, they’re not so big that I can’t wear them. I just need a belt. If the belt were a tied rope, yes, I would look like a hobo. But, I would rather look like an overweight hobo who still somehow manages to have pants that are too big than take my clothes off at a place other than my own home for the second time in a week.
Life is about growing, learning lessons that help you improve yourself. With age comes wisdom and all that jazz. What lesson did I learn from The Ballad of Buying a Second Pair of Pants? Fuck lessons.
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This post was in response to Studio30 Plus‘ writing prompts this week.
It’s Craft Time!
Superman comes across a treasure chest on the beach that doesn’t belong to him and starts rifling through it like that’s totally ok.
He finds a telescope, says “it would look good in anybody’s room,” but then brags that because of his x-ray vision, he doesn’t need it. That’s great; you know why? BECAUSE IT’S NOT YOURS, SUPERMAN.
There’s other stuff in there, too – glue, old spools (which Super Friends seems to think every household has piles and piles of), paint – all the things you’ll need to make a model telescope. What a crappy treasure to find. It’s almost as if there’s some lesson to be learned about not going through other people’s stuff.
Here’s how you make your model telescope that Superman doesn’t need because of his awesome x-ray vision and don’t you forget it:
1. From your giant pile of empty wooden thread spools, pick out four different sizes because obviously you would have four different sizes.
2. Put them on a soda straw, which I don’t know what that is, I think they may be using 1950s speak again, or, he just means “a straw” and is being a jerk about it. Then, you glue each spool together and remove the soda straw – why the hell did we need a soda straw in the first place? Forget the soda straw, I’m sorry I ever mentioned it.
3. Using your telekinetic powers or your ability to stop time (most people can do one or the other), hover your glued spools in mid-air and paint everything brown, like so:
4. Then, add yellow to the raised parts to look like brass. Now you have a model telescope made from stolen materials – congratulations!
Energy Mass – Short Synopsis: “The island of Japan, home of the Takado (my guess), the 125 mph super train.” – Narrator
These guys are standing around a bunch of orange and yellow stuff in a giant jar and then danger lights start flashing and they say the energy mass is growing too rapidly. “Our experimental perpetual energy could be disastrous if it got out of hand,” says the one in the lab coat. Guess what happens.
“Stand back! No one can survive it’s touch,” exclaims the one in the proper brown 1970’s suit. So, now there’s a high speed train with a giant orange and yellow thing that kills whatever it touches aboard. It’s heading downhill, so if someone can’t get past the energy blob, I mean, mass, and apply the brakes, all is lost.
The Super Friends are alerted, and it turns out that Batman and Robin just so happen to be “right near Japan,” and they have special guest star, Atom, with them.
Atom, the littlest Super Friend.
Who’s this Atom? I looked him up in Wikipedia, which had this to say about him:
“The Atom/Ray Palmer possesses the power to alter his size down to the subatomic level while retaining his natural strength level. This is accomplished by using the remnants of a white-dwarf star made into a belt buckle worn with his costume.”
Belt-buckle-based super powers? Ok by me. I wonder how much fawning from regular-sized ladies he gets when he’s li’l. He probably hears a lot of, “oh, I could just put him in my pocket and take him home,” or “isn’t he the sweetest li’l thing?” I bet when that happens, he makes an expression that looks like this:
Ladies, please. I’m a grown man.
They gloss over the ending, so I can, too!
Batman, Atom, and Robin show up. They all focus on stopping the train, which they succeed at with teamwork and the script. The scientists create some kind of counter-balance blob of yellow and orange, and everything turns out fine.
Then, Atom says he’s all tuckered out, and pretends to take a nap on Batman’s shoulder. It was awkward and I felt weird watching it.
Health Segment
There’s a fire in a neighborhood, and fire trucks roar down the street. Wonder Woman swoops in from out of nowhere, as she is wont to do, to talk to the kid who called 911 (and not help out with the fire). The kid says he had some trouble calling the fire department. Wonder Woman has the answer! She tells him he needs an emergency contact list. This is the example she shows him:
So, kids, when you get home, take a permanent marker and scrawl a bunch of contact information directly on the wall – Wonder Woman says to!
P.S. I’m posting Super Friends outtakes on the Cannibalistic Nerd Facebook page. So, if you need a mid-week Super Friends pick-me-up, that’s the place to get it.
It’s a shell-abration! I’m very conch-ious of what my readers want, and enough of them wanted the chance to win something without having to spend a (sand)dollar. Specifically, they said they wanted this:
I jokingly said I would give this away as a punishment, but enough of you weirdos wonderful people told me you must have it, so I went back and bought it. The lady I bought it from told me they were really popular, and I kept my “you’re shitting me” to myself since I was also buying it and it wouldn’t make much sense to exclaim my shock. She also showed me that some of the shell creatures are cheating:
What a story it tells! Layer upon layer of character development. For example, why do only two of the creatures have a Diet Coke? Were the other two not thirsty? Were they not offered a drink? My imagination dances with the possibilities. Fun fact: the two cheaters are the ones without a beverage. What could that mean!?
There’s even more rich history to this amazing specimen. I was given the box it came in and some old newspapers to protect it, but in packing it back in, some of the cards came loose and I had to glue them back. So it’s kind of like I made it myself, for you. And, since the cards may fall off again, I’m adding a second prize!
I know, it’s almost too much to handle. Just try to breathe.
Seeing as how this amazing cheaply made fragile treasure is so special, I want you to WANT it. I want you to request that you be buried with it when you die, or build it up in the minds of your family members so that they fight over it when you die. I want you to do crazy things like tell people not to look directly at it. I want it to have a stocking at Christmas, even if you don’t celebrate Christmas. I want whatever room you keep it in (if not in a safe deposit box) to be called the “Shell Poker Game Trinket Room,” and I want you to charge admission, and I want there to be a red velvet rope at the door. I want, when you get it and it inevitably has some cards unglued, to scream at the heavens, fists in the air, tears streaming down your cheeks, yelling “WHYYYYYYYYYYY!” Or, don’t. I can’t really tell you what to do with it once it’s yours. Those are just suggestions.
My point is, if you seriously don’t want it, I don’t want to burden bless you with something you don’t want. But, I love comments like Pac-Man loves little white pellets, so I don’t want to keep you from leaving a comment. I’ve decided to add a code word that will exempt you from the drawing that will reveal the chosen one whose task it will be to guard this treasure with their life (again, just a suggestion). That code word is “beautiful.” So, if you DON’T WANT THIS PRICELESS ARTIFACT, use the word in your comment. For example;
“Wow, that thing is beautiful, I really hope I win it.”
See? Easy, straight-forward, no confusion.
If you DO want it, just leave a comment using any word/s in the English language other than “beautiful.” Then, I will randomly choose a name and change someone’s life forever. You have a week to leave a comment.
I will try my best not to break this thing before then.
