Category: Amusing

A Flyer Put On My Windshield

PROFESSOR BROTHER MIGUEL ANGEL

I give classes, heal mexican style.  Good luck for Bingo, help you find work.  I heal different from others.  Cure drinking problem.  Good luck for money.  Run away bad neighbors.  Bring back husbands and boyfriends.

For the first time at this addresss.
Work with White Magic
I take away evil.  I give names of persons.
Tell you of past, present and future.
CALL FOR APPOINTMENT

[CONTACT INFO]

I’m actually considering calling to find out if his rates are reasonable.  This sounds like a dose of fairly harmless craziness that it could be fun to invite into my life.

I Was Trying to See PONYO

But the sign outside the theater says I’m seeing something else…

Our New Carrier

1253535-2937-atm17

…is a pigeon.  Used to smuggle cellphones into a prison in São Paolo.  Link.

There’s A Zombie On Your Lawn

This is an ad for a game, but I’m posting it anyway, because sunflowers (and not even the hideously dangerous Larry Niven-style sunflowers) singing about defending a home from zombies is the kind of thing that makes the world a better place, even as a sales pitch.  (Special bonus: evil dolphin.)

I’m Big In Ghana

Well, at least, I’m big enough to have had my work plagiarized by someone ostensibly from Ghana.  The Grin Without A Cat blog reports the receipt of a strange submission for an anthology of fantasy stories by Filipino authors:

Specifically, someone sent in a pseudo-submission with this intro:

From: samuel ansah asare
Date: Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 6:44 PM
Subject: SUBMISSION OF MY 7500 WORDS OF SHORT STORIES.
To: estranghero@gmail.com

NAME :MR. SAMUEL ERNEST ANSAH ASARE,
P.O.BOX 1049,
KANESHIE-ACCRA.
GHANA.
TELEPHONE NUMBERS: +233(0)242517475, +233(0)267307499

NOTE :PLEASE IF I WIN FOR MY 7500WORDS OF MY SPECULATIVE SHORT STORIES, KINDLY USE MY REAL NAME MR.ERNEST ASARE IN MAKING WESTERN UNION TO SEND MY CASH OF PRIZE OF MONEY TO ME. MY GHANAIAN NATIONAL VOTER ID CARD IS MISSING SO DO NOT USE SAMUEL AS A WESTERN UNION TO ME IN GHANA.

[…]

But what made this doubly-interesting was when– on a whim– I googled the first line of the first story and what came out was Eugene Fisher’s Husbandry in Strange Horizons. The others were Nira and I by Shweta Narayan, The Spider in You by Sean E. Markey, and Turning the Apples by Tina Connolly.

So, there we have it.  My first plagiarization.  (Also, the first misspelling of my name in attribution of published work.  This will almost certainly happen again.)  This brings to my mind Neal Stephenson’s remarks upon learning that text from his novel Cryptonomicon was being used by spammers:

e-mail filters learn from their mistakes. When the Cryptonomicon spam was sent out, it must have generated an immune response in the world’s spam filtering systems, inoculating them against my literary style. So this could actually cause my writing to disappear from the Internet.

If this blog–or worse, Strange Horizons–should suddenly go dark, blame the Ghanan fiction spammers.

Facebook Has A Plan For Me

Facebook, which always has my best interest at heart, communicates with me through the ads it chooses to place on my profile page.  I have just decoded its latest instructions:

facebookads

I am to set up a social networking website that lets me achieve wealth by acquiring free samples of Huggies and selling them to the vast market of nontraditional urination enthusiasts.  EugeneFischer.com will soon be relaunching with an exciting new design!  Suck it, recession; Facebook’s got my back!

Waiting To Be Fixed

I’m still getting over my respiratory infection, trying to take it easy and hasten being able to start on my Humira.  I’m on Levaquin now, which will hopefully help.  But content may be light here for a little while, as my energy levels are low and my activities not particularly varied.  For now, here’s a picture of sign I drive by fairly often that amuses me, in kind of a dark, symbol of the economic times sort of way:

img_2486

So many things are in the past tense now.

Scene From an IHOP

INT. IHOP — NIGHT

EUGENE is sitting in a booth.  He has a sore throat, and so is trying not to speak.  There is a laptop computer open on the table in front of him, into which are plugged the headphones he is wearing. In the booth adjacent to Eugene’s, a MAN and a WOMAN are having animated conversation.  A WAITER enters, carrying a glass of water with no ice.  The Waiter places the glass of water in front of the Woman.

WAITER

So you’re whining to Bob for your water now?

WOMAN

What?

WAITER

Bob tells me I need to bring out a water with no ice.  When did you get so picky?

WOMAN

(Points at glass.)  That’s not mine.

WAITER

You didn’t order this?

MAN

Dude, this girl is all about ice.

WOMAN

Yeah, I’ll take a water with ice, if you want to do any actual work tonight.  But that’s not mine.

WAITER

Huh.

EUGENE

(Begins to wave at the Waiter.)

WAITER

I wonder what Bob was thinking.

MAN

(Sees Eugene waving and points at him) I think it’s that guy’s.

WAITER

(Not looking at where the Man points) No, you’re my only table.

MAN

He’s waving at you.

WAITER

(Finally looks.) Oh!

The Waiter approaches Eugene with the glass of water, which he places on Eugene’s table.

WAITER

Sorry about that.

EUGENE

(Nods and smiles.)

WAITER

I just assumed it was hers, because water with no ice is something girls order.

(Beat.)

Um, not to call you a girl.  It’s not an insult.

(Beat.)

Well, obviously, it is an insult!

(Long beat.)

No, I didn’t mean that.  I mean, it’s true.  But I can’t help that it’s only girls order water with no ice.

(Beat.)

Well, sorry anyway.  You aren’t actually my table.  They are.

Exit Waiter.  The Man and the Woman begin to talk again, but Eugene raises the volume on his laptop so that he can no longer hear.

My Latest Google Alert

From PubMed:

Clinical evaluation of postpartum vaginal mucus reflects uterine bacterial infection and the immune response in cattle.  Authors: Williams EJ, Fischer DP, ….

Powerful Medicine

Meanwhile, on Twitter….

glorioushubris Confession: When sick earlier this week, I impulse-bought a gold and black polyester robe embroidered with dragons to make me feel better.

glorioushubris Further confession: it totally worked. I am a medical genius.

mkazoo @glorioushubris Picture? I think such a robe should be documented for posterity.

KatWithSword @glorioushubris totally agree w/ @mkazoo Please give us photos

lnaturale @glorioushubris How could it not?

charitylarrison @glorioushubris I imagine you reading elric novels in it

kellysue @glorioushubris pix or it didn’t happen

aacooper @glorioushubris If only there were a medical version of the arXiv, you could share your discovery with mankind!

I bend to the will of the collective.  My robe:

robe01

Close up of one of the dragons:

robedragon

Did I mention the robe is reversible?  It is totally reversible:

robe02