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Monthly Archives: June 2011

There’s a squirrel sleeping in our plotter

Some of you may know Toby.  He is a squirrel.  I think he has a small infatuation with my friend.  He follows her everywhere.  I got to witness some of this first hand when we were gallivanting around Dallas.  But, I also found out that he’s very shy and always hides in places so as not be seen.  He can be heard though, because he’s always squeaking.  And I’ve also discovered that Toby has a very large family and/or social network.  They’re everywhere.  They’re all quite shy.  They’re all quite curious and what to follow you and know what you are doing.  They all like to squeak and chatter and chitter and squitter.
I found out recently that one of Toby’s friends lives in our plotter.  I think it’s the fat gray squirrel who sometimes sits on the branch in the Enchanted Forest giving advice to adventurers.  You know, the bossy one.  The one with twenty-three children who are all exceedingly polite, unlike the lost princes who seek her advice.  Anyway, I think she’s moved from the Enchanted Forest and into our plotter.  I think she’s retired now from giving advice to wayward adventurers and her children are probably all grown up.  She’s retired into our plotter.  And she snores.  She seems like she’d be the type to snore.  Don’t believe me?  I’ve got a recording of it.

Um…sorry about the quality and the length.  In converting it to a video, my audio was automatically chopped and I didn’t feel like redoing it so that you got to hear all of it.  Anyway, I was trying to furtively record the squirrel snoring while not waking her up and not attracting too much attention.  I failed at the last one.  One of the guys saw me by the plotter and he wanted to know what I had done to fix it.  Um…nothing.  I was just trying to get a recording of the squirrel, who retired into our plotter, snoring away.  You know.  As one does.  But you don’t have to hear our little exchange now because it got cut off.  Huzzah!

By the way, the image from the video was taken by Heather Champ and is used under Creative Commons.  You can find more of her stuff and specifically that squirrel here.

Magic ring powers

Recently, an online acquaintance of mine was married and joined the ranks of the League of Married Gentlemen.  Soon after getting married, he inquired after how long it takes before his ring would start manifesting its magical powers.  Now, being neither married nor a gentleman, this was a great revelation to me.  I never knew there was such a phenomenon as to one’s wedding ring unlocking one’s latent magical powers or granting one some powers if one didn’t already have latent magical powers.  But if you consider it, even briefly, you’ll realize that this makes sense.  There is plenty of precedent to rings unlocking or granting magical powers.  Wikipedia mentions that there are instances of magic rings in folklore of every country where there are rings.  And how about the Green Lantern Corps?  Granted, they don’t just have rings but also lanterns, but the ring is integral to the Corps and how members wield their powers.  Surely you know about the Green Lantern Corps.  Didn’t a movie just come out about them?  (I am not a movie person.)

But wait, you say, surely you can’t base all of your speculation off comics and folklore!  Pff.  Sure I can.  Comics are a very good source of information.  Need I remind you of Dr. McNinja or Axe Cop?  All very good and trustworthy sources of information.  But seeing as how you are not satisfied, I will also tell you that I have found a real life instance in which one of my married, male friends (who is arguably a gentleman) has unlocked his ring powers.

I kid you not.  I was as shocked and taken aback as you are.  I have known him for many years now and we are pretty good friends.  He did not have any interesting powers when we first met, through college, and beyond.  He was a fairly typical gEEky guy.  So, I couldn’t believe that he would and could hide something like that from me.  But it’s true.  I asked him directly and he confirmed it.  Of course, he started being very evasive and wouldn’t answer any more of my questions after my initial one.  I guess there’s some kind of League of Married Gentlemen code to not give out too much information after one’s ring powers have been unlocked.  But another (mutual) friend and I have talked it over and here’s what we believe happened.

So, the first step to shamanism is that you need to do the dance of the vegetables.  I have this on very good authority.  However, I regret that I cannot inform you as to who my source is.  Sorry.  You’ll just have to take my word for it.

Anyway, the first step to shamanism is that you need to do the dance of the vegetables.  The dance of the vegetables is led by the king of the vegetables.  The king of the vegetables is the garlic.  Before learning about shamanism and the dance of the vegetables, my aforementioned “another friend” and I realized our friend, who is the king of the vegetables, bears an amazing resemblance to the garlic plant in Plants vs Zombies (which is on sale for 75% off at the writing of this post).  The resemblance actually has been getting stronger with each passing year.

Yes, he really does resemble the garlic. He has better teeth though.

So, you see?  The garlic is the king of the vegetables.  The king of the vegetables leads the dance of the vegetables.  The dance of the vegetables is the first step to shamanism.  My friend is really a top notch shaman!  That’s his ring power!  He also has the ability to unlock the way of shamanism for others if they seek him out and convince him to lead the dance of the vegetables for them.  Or maybe with them.  I’m not too clear on that point.  And I know that he has done this at least once because I asked him if had led the dance of the vegetables and he affirmed it.

I am so amazed.  AMAZED!  My friend is actually a part of the League of Married Gentlemen and has unlocked his ring power!  I was trying to pinpoint when he unlocked this power so I could maybe relay some useful information back to my online acquaintance about what he might expect for his ring power.  But alas, I cannot.  All I know is that my garlic friend has been married for about four years now.  I’m not sure if his case is typical or not.  I have asked another one of my married, male friends who has been married for about two years or so about his ring powers.  He has not answered thus far.  His wife has though and she’s convinced that some of that ring power should be hers.  I…don’t know about that.  I don’t know if there’s a League of Married Gentleladies or anything, as 1) I am not married and 2) I am arguably not a lady, as I have neither the grace nor bearing of a lady.  I suppose I could fake being a lady if I had to, but I probably couldn’t sustain it for long periods of time and that doesn’t really help with the not being married thing anyway.  I’m ok with that because I would prefer to be a villain.  Mwaahahahhahaha!  Ahem…