Barbarian Invasions, Redux

A few days ago I told you about my encounter with a couple of guys fighting with big plastic recreations of swords and stuff. Since then, I’ve decided that I blew an opportunity for hilarity of an immeasurable proportion. Today, in the interest of my own amusement, I think I’ll describe the same encounter, however, I’ll add what I should have done and said at the time (this is sort of like when you come up with a witty response to someone’s off chance remark, only its three days later).

Lets see… where to begin…

…. The participants stopped flailing at each other when the shield guy managed to jab the deadly tip of his razor edged plastic sword into the midsection of the twin sword guy (you might assume there was some piercing scream or guttural soul stirring wail when this occurred, but you'd be wrong). They then parted and turned to a third person ( a woman no less, and hardly unattractive no less(er).) - I didn't notice this individual due to my understandable fixation on the titanic struggle - who appeared to be selecting from an assortment of plastic and menacing weapons laid out upon a blanket. We’re talking maces, flails, axes, hatchets, etc. Quite the assortment of Tupperware’s top armament line. I knew then what I had to do. I sprinted forward and proclaimed my presence by shouting ‘HALT! HALT, VILE VILLAINS!’ This, as I suspected, got the attention of the three and they all turned to face me, each with a surprised look. I slowed and stopped, oh, about 8 feet away and stood with my hands on my hips and my head held high.

‘I laugh loudly at your fighting skills’, I said to them quietly. The woman, who was now holding a formidable looking two handed axe, replied firmly, ‘Whah?’

I responded by crossing my arms and assuming what I hoped was a haughty expression, ‘I challenge each of you to a duel, I say mildly’ I yelled at the top of my voice.

This seemed to take them aback, as they each took a step backward. The fellow with the two swords looked at his companions and bravely said, ‘Uh..’

Dramatically putting my right foot forward, returning my hands to my hips, I turned my head - guessing this would present them with a heroic profile - and responded in a loud sott0 voce (maybe ‘faux sotto voce’ would be more appropriate) ‘I am Grendel Duquesne, I proclaim loudly, and I am the ruler of all you see before you.’ They blinked at each other. ‘You are trespassers, I say in a loud whisper’ I add, now shouting again.

The woman then said something under her voice, I could be mistaken, but I’m sure it was ‘freak’. The two guys looked at each other (again, come to think of it, they looked at each other a lot. Do you think they might have a man crush?) and the one with the shield said, ‘Dude, are you for real? And why are you talking like that?’

Looking disinterested, I feigned studying the nails of my left hand and responded by saying ‘Like what, I say puzzlement clearly noted in my voice’. I then turned my back completely to the trio, and turned to look at them over my shoulder and said calmly, ‘Think not to turn aside my ire, I yell brashly, for in this I will not be, um, turned aside’.

At this, the guy with the two swords said ‘Oh Lord! Fine, I’ll fight you. You’re giving me a headache with your double talk and your ridiculous posturing.’

At this I turned to face them once again, smiling grimly (I think it was grimly. At this point, I was having trouble keeping from laughing uproariously) and said in a squeaky cartoonish voice, ‘Fine, I say menacingly, you shall be the first to fall to Grendel Duquesne.’ And then I added, in my normal voice, with an imploring look on my face and both of my hands now raised in front of me as if encouraging a loud and raucous crowd, ‘Do you think yon wench will let me the use of her mighty weapon, I implore softly?’

The woman then tossed me her axe, which I fumbled clownishly until I could count to ten silently in my head, and then, as if I finally got the feel of it, I gripped it in two hands and murmured, loudly enough to be heard, ‘Yes, I say to myself in my head, all shall fall before me with this, this Axe of Evil.’ Then, a little louder I said ‘if only there were another, then, then I would wield the Axe’s of Evil’. And then I laughed, because I couldn’t resist.

By then, the shield guy and the woman had backed away and the guy with the two swords was watching me with a sort of trapped expression on his face.

Then he said, ‘Ok, er, Grendel, here are the rules’. However, he didn’t finish because as he said ‘Grendel’ I had launched myself at him, with the axe raised above my head shouting ‘THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE! THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE’, surprising even myself.

Before I could bash him, though, he sidestepped and whacked me once in the chest with one sword and once in the back with the other. I reacted to this by dropping the axe and flinging myself to the ground. Then I kicked and writhed and thrashed and groaned for a full count of fifteen.

Then I looked up to see the three gathering there stuff and proclaimed ‘To the last, I will grapple with thee.’ Then I coughed and thrashed a bit more. When I looked again, the three were walking away.

So, I got up and ran toward them and threw myself on the ground behind them and thrashed some more and then yelled ‘From hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee.’ And then I groaned aloud and stopped moving. I watched the three walk to a car, load there stuff and drive away. Once they were gone, I laughed until my stomach hurt.

Barbarian Invasions

A couple of Saturdays ago, as I was enjoying a beautifully sunny day strolling thru a lovely park, I stumbled across a sight I’ve never seen nor never expected to see. I was so surprised by this sight that I had to stop and blink while my brain slowly digested the visual input of what appeared to be a sword fight. As I paused to contemplate just what I was seeing and couple it with possible explanations for, you know, what the heck is going on here!, I began to notice further details. For example, the two gentlemen who were happily trying to bash each other were not actually using ‘cold steel’ (or even ‘lukewarm steel’). I base this on the fact that instead of the clang-clangity-clanging one would expect from metal bashing metal, the noise coming from the contact of the two ‘weapons’ was more of a thwack-thawackity-thwacking that would, and I’m speculating here, be more closely associated with heavy plastic being smashed against heavy plastic. Well, that and there was no spurting blood and/or gaping wounds that, I’m told, were common during the types of medieval combat that employed heavy sharpened metal instruments of dismemberment (See Excalibur ) (I feel it important to note that this is an assumption as I am no an expert in this matter). As I continued to watch, I couldn’t help but smile at the absurdity (and by absurd, I mean the complete geek-acity of the whole idea – not that there is anything wrong with doing absurdly geeky activities (just because I think its absurd, doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to humiliate yourself in public) for ones amusement) of what I was witnessing. Further, as I finally accepted that what I was viewing was in fact occurring, I noticed that one of the noble gladiators was wielding a fabricated replica of a sword and shield and the other was wielding twin fabricated replicas of swords (think Conan’s big ass sword times two ) in either hand. Additionally, twin sword guy was fighting from a kneeling position, for whatever reason (I can only assume that this was due to some greivous injury suffered when the plastic sword of his opponent thwacked him below the waist at some point during there viscous quarrel). The participants stopped flailing at each other when the shield guy managed to jab the deadly tip of his razor edged plastic sword into the midsection of the twin sword guy (you might assume there was some peircing scream or gutteral soul stirring wail when this occurred, but you'd be wrong). They then parted and turned to a third person ( a woman no less, and hardly unattractive no less) - I didn't notice this individual due to my understandable fixation on the titanic struggle - who appeared to be selecting from an assortment of plastic and menacing weapons laid out upon a blanket. We’re talking maces, flails, axes, hatchets, etc. Quite the assortment of Tupperware’s top armament line. I wanted to stay and watch, however, I was deathly afraid that they would start yelling things, you know, like “THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!!” or “WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CAHLAH(color)??!” and I just couldn’t risk that, you understand.

I said Punt!

When I first heard about the kicker at UNC (UNC is a little college in an aromatic little town north of Denver) who tried to win the starting job by sabotaging (and by sabotage, I of course mean slash and mutilate) his competition, I thought, ‘well, that’s a kicker for you’. If you’ve ever been part of a football program, you’ll understand the sentiment. I mean, really, only a kicker and, maybe, Tanya Harding would consider it a worthwhile endeavor to bodily assault your main competition instead of, you know, claiming victory in the more conventional manner of, say, actually competing. I understand the alleged assaulter had an accomplice to - and really, if it weren’t so absurd it’d be sinister -

Call Me Grendel!!

While I’ve heard of the epic poem Beowulf, describing the struggles of some barbaric tribesman against, basically, a monstrous brat and his single and monstrous mom, I’d never heard of this story as told from the perspective of the aforementioned monstrous brat, aka, Grendel. So, when I saw this book and read a few pages, I thought I’d give it a go.

So far I’m quite impressed. Don’t be expecting a critique here, as I’m a ‘not a tiny bit interested in writing any kind of in depth critiques’ kind of blogger, however, I will say that Grendel, as portrayed by John Gardner, is becoming one of my all time favorite monster’s.

I mean, what is not to like? He’s cynical, crafty, insane, loves his mommy, hates his mommy, monstrous, laughs at stupidity, hates stupidity, stamps out stupidity, recognizes beauty, hates discrimination, loathes people, and is surprisingly polite (to trees).

In fact, he’s my new role model, well, except for the whole eating people and living with your mother part.

Side note, Matt Wagner also created a literary Grendel, who may be a little less known, but interesting nonetheless.

By Any Other Name

Yesterday I met Aslan.

Aslan Appleman.

As you may have already guessed, Aslan was named after the titular character in the classic fantasy ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. And if you hadn’t guessed, Aslan was the name of the Lion in the aforementioned classic fantasy, er, ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’.

Isn’t.

That.

Awesome??!!?

Aslan! The frickin guy is named after the Lion from a book! Sweet!

It got me to thinking, what would be other cool names from books…

‘Yes, my name is Gollem Guiterrez, very nice to meet you.’

‘Buttercup Bing. Yes, my parents do hate me.’

‘Kong Singleton and please, no chuckling.’

Ever hear a person say to another person, you look like a ‘Janice’ or a ‘Paul’ or, you know, a ‘Bruce’ or something?

Do you think people ever say that to Aslan? I mean, he seemed like a very likable fellow, but I’m not sure if he looked like an Aslan. What about poor Buttercup Bing. You gonna tell him that he looks like a Buttercup?

Just a thought.

Set Loose the Cougar!!

Well, back by semi-popular demand, it’s MJ on the bizz-log. Its been 3mos, give or take, and the clamoring has reached and unheard of cricket like level forcing me back from the depths of (similar to a) writer’s block. Course, it was more like a lack of proper motivation, but that is all behind me now. I think, and I say that with some trepidation, that the inspirational story of Ricky Bobby has motivated me like I haven’t been motivated in quite some time. So get ready for some scintillating commentary on tough controversial topics as well as biting social commentary! So, where to begin…

This morning, I had a somewhat entertaining exchange with a co-worker:
The players:
MJ aka MJ
Coworker aka CW

MJ: Good morning, how was your weekend?
CW: Hello. My weekend was nice, thanks. That is a nice top you have on.
MJ: Er..
CW: Oh, do you call them tops?
MJ: No, this is a blouse.
CW: (chuckling) Yeah, sorry, it’s a shirt, I guess right?
MJ: No, it’s a Man-Blouse.
CW: A man-top, maybe?
MJ : A He-Top or Man-Blouse, I think.

I had a good chuckle.

BTW, I’m still looking for some suitably masculine Man-Capri’s, you know, in case you were wondering.