Skip navigation

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…

Business card box for displaying…BUSINESS CARDS!!

The other day I was getting pretty frustrated at work.  It was just a constant stream if interruptions with people asking for help or clarification or a sympathetic ear or whatever.  They were just interruptive.  All I wanted to do was complete a few tasks and I couldn’t go five minutes without an interruption.  On top if that, there were business cards everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.  Because sometimes vendors would stop by and interrupt me too, which meant I would get their business card(s) and I would have to have mine out in order to complete the exchange.  So, what to do with the mess and the lack of fulfillment because you can’t complete a single task?  MAKE A QUICK CRAFT TO GET BACK INTO THE SWING OF THINGS!

So, in the five minutes between interruptions, I made a small open-topped box out of my over-generous supply of business cards (nigh two full boxes for the two hats I wear at work, although one is unofficial now despite the official business cards).  I got the idea from Jessica Jones who in turn got the idea from Ned Batchelder.

Materials:

  • five (5) business cards
  • five (5) minutes
  • tape or glue

Procedure:

  1. Fold five (5) business cards as shown on Ned’s site.
  2. My predecessor (of sorts) left me her glue stick, so I put glue on the flaps as necessary.

    A very important picture.

  3. Assemble the box as shown on Ned’s site, but make sure the outside faces of the flaps of bottom and two horizontal side walls are on the inside so you aren’t making a mess somewhere with all that glue.  For the two vertical side walls, the outside face of the bottom flap will be glued onto the bottom of the box and the upper flap will have glue on the inside face and folded over the flaps from the two horizontal side walls.  I realize now that I didn’t take pictures when I was assembling and I don’t have enough business cards on my person to make another box to show you what I did.  Sorry.  But I’m sure you can figure it out.  If you mess up, it’s ok, because you have an over-generous supply of business cards, right?

    Yes, I know how ridiculous it is for me to pixelate everything. But I like pixelating, okay?

  4. Fill your freshly assembled business card box with business cards.

    If you look carefully, you can get an idea of what kind of hats I get to wear at work.

Completing this craft unfortunately did not make everyone else less interruptive.  Sugh.