Writing Home

Nicely Strange stories odd but generally inoffensive stories Job Interviews 101 Things To Do... The full title being "101 Things to do with a `101 Things to Do With 101-Things-To-Do-With' Lists", but I think we all agree that's just a little unwieldy. This was originally posted to the Usenet Oracle and subsequently vanished without a trace. I still feel bitter about that.. Address book A short throwaway story for talk.bizarre. The sort of thing inspired by late-night nitrous oxide sessions; while everyone else is giggling themselves silly, I try to make notes. Advertisements There's a measure of satisfaction in taking a particularly annoying television advertisement and re-writing it the way you'd like to see it. Allergy Take a compressed example of severe allergy with all the debilitating symptoms and then relieve them with judicious application of the cenote from Bruce Sterling's story Spook. Date with an Angel Inspired by the cover to some cheap video I saw. This story charts the decline of my stories from hydraulic-pumping pornography to slightly wierd cute cuddliness. Answered Partly inspired by a phone call I received, and partly by Barry Humphries' play which features a telephone sitting on a stand, ringing. for fifteen minutes. Auto I never actually had sex with my VW (in, but that's another matter). I'd like to think that this had less to do with those `Herbie' films than with the Queen song I'm in Love with my Car. Bad Guys Two incompetent princes come to power and each decides that he'll be the local Evil Ruler. The sting at the end is fairly predictable; I can't help thinking that this story should have been longer, more detailed. Bands Five imaginary gothic/industrial/alternative bands. One of them has become a real band since I wrote this. Baptism Wars A throwaway response to something Loki wrote in the PODS Eris echo; a joke on the phrase `Financial Bubble Scheme'. These things have a way of running away with themselves if you're not careful. Betadiene Some idiot in talk.bizarre asked the general populace, "what's the current topic?"; someone else quickly riposted "2,3 Dimethyl-betadiene cottage industries in 4th century Bali", expecting that that would be the end of it. Oh, no. Not while I'm watching, it isn't. Bubble A throwaway response to something Loki wrote in the PODS Eris echo; a joke on the phrase `Financial Bubble Scheme'. These things have a way of running away with themselves if you're not careful. Cabal Notes on Cabal activities, based partly on clues gathered in talk.bizarre and fidonet's LTUAE and partly on the doings of the Discordians around Spam-Jake time. Cash-crops I'm afraid I have no idea where this concept came from; I think it was an earnest attempt to be wierder than anyone else in talk.bizarre. I was horribly embarrassed at mis-spelling Katie Sagal's name in the original and have corrected it here, but it was too late - the story had already been distributed on the net. Cocteau Twins (overview) An article about the Cocteau Twins, originally intended for Dark Angel magazine. I wrote it because no-one else seemed to have ever done an article on them; as soon as I finished it, of course, they went and did an interview with Mondo 2000. The bastards. New Radio Codes of the `Alpha Bravo Tango Echo' variety. Collectives Yep, Nikolai's been out in the back yard watching the ants crawl all over the lemon tree again. A lot of other people have had stabs at describing the hive mind experience, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Construction of English (for Marg McKenzie) Marg McKenzie teaches this class at the Council of Adult Education. This story came to me while I was looking at the other students in the class for the first time. Couch The intersection of a couple of fantasies; being safe behind the mountains, drunk in front of an open fire with a close friend and watching World War Three start on the TV. Cthulhu Inspired by those nicely-worded product warnings you get on tins of Milo. Dead Yuppie We haven't taken Mike Barnes on one of those country cemetery parties yet, but when we do, I'll make sure he brings his mobile phone. :) The Beach Guy Sitting on the beach at St Kilda while under the influence of hallucinogens, I couldn't help but notice that there were far more first aid staff on boats and in the water than there were on land. Things on my Desk I'm quite proud of this variation on the standard talk.bizarre post, `the things I have on my desk'. Elmerfudd Understudy We were sitting around in a dubious mental state, tossing back and forth humourous names for bands. We found that some of the better ones were made up of two entirely unrelated concepts, like Bruce Sterling's Predator Saints, or our efforts "Pineoclean Magus", "Klingon Nodelist" and "Apathy Squadron". The phrase "Elmerfudd Understudy" inspired this story. Ethnic Cleansing This was a joke around the phrase ethnic cleansing, written during my "I'm a goth, a beleaguered minority group" phase. Jeri is "Azriel", the one time editor of Dark Angel magazine and, as far as I know, doesn't realise that I feel this way about her. I think it's unlikely that she'll ever find out. So don't tell her, okay? Good. Ev'rybody Must Get Stoned.. Take one Bob Dylan song. Mix in the author's predilection for extreme masochism and set it back about two thousand years. Simple. Hangman In an attempt to spice up an otherwise boring message echo, i started several message-based variations on the game of `hangman' with the inmates. These are the words i'd selected and the various methods of execution I chose. Tending-Towards-Indigo This vague tale was based on a dream I had. When I posted it to talk.bizarre, the subject line was "I'm not going to make that joke here" and, for the life of me, I can't remember what the hell I was referring to. Information War The fantasy of living in the world's largest library after the Third World War. I think this one was partly inspired by Umberto Eco. Jape This was an early attempt to get the attention of Sandrine Turner. It worked. If anyone would like to finance this prank, let me know. Killing "Bob" (A SubGenius play) More fallout from the Diploma writing course I did in 1997. We were asked to write a description of a scene for a film treatment, so I went several stages further and wrote a very short play. This is about the SubGenius ritual of killing "Bob". Well, kind of obvious, really. Minimalist Dong! An exercise in writing advertising copy that looks like it's been hastily translated from Chinese. Inspired by `Power Nodule'. Mop Stories: In the Secret Order Mop, mop, mop. Drudge, drudge, drudge. Hey, wouldn't it be cool if the people who mopped at the mall were, like, being paid better than doctors? If it was, like, a secret Masonic Order and they had, like, secret Mops and stuff? Opposing Viewpoints I wrote this after visiting the offices of Glasswings and trying to imagine how Princess Internet would deal with a full-on grunge goth. Who are these people? I have a program that generates names from random combinations of letters; this is my attempt at attaching histories to some of those names. How many Post-Modernists does it take to change a lighbulb? How many postmodernists does it take to change a lightbulb? Should there be a hyphen in `postmodern'? My New Eyes This came from a dream. Sometimes, I get concerned that the building blocks of stories like this are floating around inside my head. And Bernie? Aw, he was just some guy I went to secondary school with. O, My Captain.. Proof, once more, that drugs are not bad. This story started off as a three-second mental image. Pope Timothy the Cat I'm not making this one up. Requited Love Another dream, which describes the sad end of a relationship. Take Me To The River This story is in the "nicely strange" section, even though it's about someone being dumped in a river by gangsters. It isn't particularly violent, and I don't actually describe the person dying. Actually, I thought it was quite nice. As murders go. Sacrifice of the God This paragraph is actually from the notes I was making while studying Wicca. It describes, in the nicest possible terms, the sacrifice of the Old God. Sale Of... The sort of thing we'd REALLY like to see on TV. Skinny Puppy An overview of Canadian Industrial/Brap band Skinny Puppy, printed in Dark Angel magazine. The Sketch This was an idea left over from my "job application" series, when I was seriously considering aspects of resume design. Those stories were about throwing interviews by behaving oddly at them; this story is about throwing interviews by sending in wierd resumes. Suitcase A result of too much travelling on trams; the idea that luggage might have a destination of its own. Major Arcana Tarot Cards that Didn't Quite Make It There are only two additional cards described here; once, there were a lot more (these were the only two ever distributed with Moose magazine). If the others turn up, I'll add them. Upgrade The idea for this story came while the members of Frantic Dogpaddle were wandering around the Melbourne Zoo on acid. Operating systems for the next step up the evolutionary ladder. The Wayward Nun The Wayward Nun was a metacharacter I created for talk.bizarre, in imitation of Mojo Trent, Armitage Shanks, Rictus Hep and El Dupree. I don't think she was as successful as the others. Wrong-Doin's Based on a dream image. It works very nicely broken up into lines of odd length and treated as prose, too. X-Day Another dream, about the Subgenius Apocalypse. I think the submarine was supposed to be Hagbard Celine's ship from Illuminatus!. Were The idea for this story goes all the way back to when i was a small child watching the second series of Gerry Anderson's "Space: 1999". The series with Maya, the shape-changer who could hold other shapes for only one hour. I kept wondering what would happen if she changed into a mouse and someone stuck her in a bottle. Install Disk Jack and Jill (a la Burroughs) Tattooed To Sleep, Perchance to, uh, Sleep The Trojan Horse Truly Computers Win95 Mantra Editorial Teletubby Deconstruct Crown Casino Erika's Place Demon Horde Failed Super Heroes: Tarot Man Teleporting Dog Talking Down Tainted Tea I Spot Them In Time A Dream Of Bruce Sterling Pesimists Persuasion Order In The Court! Visiting Timothy Non-stop Robot Low On Memory Jessica's New Head Jersey Devil Hidden Numbers Ghost Cat Hackers Emergency Voice

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