“Y’know, dude, in an ideal world …”

“Not until I see your ante, dude.”

“What’re you wantin’ with my auntie, dude?”

“Right here, dude. Up close and personal.”

“Dude, you just might be a pervert.”

“Dude, you just might be a moron. I ain’t dealin’ no cards until you put your money down.”

“In an ideal world, dude, wouldn’t have to be no dealin’. Or fleecin’, neither. Brotherly love and all that.”

“Who you calling a …”

“All right, all right, brotherly respect. Sheesh.”

“Well, dude, hate to clue ya, but it’s an I deal world, far as I can tell. Gimme that red paperclip and see if I can get a house out of it.”

“Or a mountain of red ink. My luck, any paperclip I got my hands on would have the mortgage foreclosed on it.”

“You just don’t got the proper attitude, dude. Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash. Then play for more. Your whole life could be waitin’ behind door number three. How you gonna know if you don’t deal?“

“I thought you were the one dealin’, dude.”

“I am, dude. But I still ain’t seen your ante.”

“She’s out shopping, dude. Helping to paint Friday black. Speakin’ of dealin’ …”

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

“Well, dammit, dude.”

“You shoulda thought of that before it started raining, dude.”

“Don’t rain on my parade, dude, things are already bad enough. I broke the key to the beer fridge.”

“Damn!!“

“You shoulda …”

“Oh, shut up. I suppose you want me to run out and see if we can get a replacement made.”

“Would you, dude? That’d be gnarly. Here, you’ll need this.”

“A plane ticket, dude? To Istanbul?!?“

“The lock was made in the Middle East, dude. It’ll only take a Turk key.”

==============

Happy Thanksgiving from The Amoeba (“He”), The Quill (“She”), and The Dudes. (Reg and Syd are at at a table at the far end of the room, going “Bah, Humbug!” and talking grand strategy with Jack.)

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

“Hey dude!”

“For the last time, dude. I am not a scarecrow!”

“Oh, lighten up, willya? It’s almost Thanksgiving!”

“It is?“

“Yeah, dude. You know, fourth Thursday in November? Same time every year?”

“How come all I see are Christmas decorations, then?”

“Look, can I help it if the sellers want Black Friday to come early this year?”

“In this economy? Those people will be lucky if it comes late. In 2010!“

“Well, hell, dude, you’ve got to give them credit for giving it the old college try.”

“You’re right, dude. They’re really trying.”

“Of course, dude. Why else do you think their rugby side’s undefeated going into this weekend’s match?”

“Why can’t they have a regular football team like everybody else?”

“Because they’ve got to try harder to survive, dude!”

“Dude, it’s a real trial, figuring out what all this has to do with Thanksgiving.”

“I was hoping to find out what you’re feeling thankful for, dude. Before I realized I was talking to the ghost of Ebeneezer.”

“I never knew him. So you’re giving thanks on this second segment of Merry Thanksgivoween, are you, dude?”

“Yeah, dude, I am.”

“I was hoping, if you were going to be giving stuff out, it’d be a bit more substantial. A Hummer, for instance. I’d love to be given one of those.”

“Sorry, dude, they ain’t makin’ em any more, and I’m fresh out. How about I give you a nice Hawaiian punch, instead?”

“Doesn’t that stuff come in funny colors, dude?”

“So do the stars, dude!”

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

“Like wow, dude. I wonder what the prize was.”

“Prize for what, dude?”

“For winning the New Word of the Year Award, dude!”

“They’re giving out awards for new words? Who is?”

“The, um, New Oxford American Dictionary, says here.”

“Somebody’s sales projections are down, I see. So what’s the word?”

“Unfriend.”

“That’s a new word? I don’t think so, dude. Tolkien used it in his writings, like, three decades ago. And it says here that the word was first used in Scotland in like 1275 CE.”

“Tolkien, schmolkien, dude. Facebook’s where it’s at these days. Some dude gets obnoxious, and you wanna kick him outa your space, you click a button and unfriend him. It’s new, and it’s gnarly.”

“I thought that was defriend, dude, not unfriend.”

“But, dude, I want to have a D friend.”

“Only if she comes by it naturally, dude. And she doesn’t keep her personality where you appear to be keeping your brains.”

“Dude, that’s unfriendly!“

“Go ahead, dude. You think you can push that button faster than I can, you got another think coming!”

“Yeah?“

“Yeah!“

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

He and She were on their way home from a local sport-motif eatery, where the food was good but the noise … well, let’s just say that they were grateful for a table on the lanai by the water.

He: “You do know what they call a TV that’s hooked to a really loud sound system, don’t you?”

She: “What?”

He: “Hi-Def.”

She: “What??“

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

OK. I am curious.

No. Not Yellow. Or Blue. Or even George.

I’m curious about this fad that’s shown up in a lot of online (and, I presume, TV and print) advertising lately. The fad for running single words into two or more lines. I’d like to know where it came from and, if I step on it hard enough, can I kill it?

Like in the ads for the energy drink (not the most potent one, water):

TH
AT’S
G

Or the ones for the latest exercise in useless environmental handwaving:

HOPE
NHA
GEN

I can only assume that, late one fine 11th hour before a deadline on Madison Avenue, a stressed graphic artist tried to run too many letters into too small a text box, thereby:

A. Revisiting the joke about planning ahead that has to be at least as old as the wooly mammoth;

B. Reliving the experiences of a gazillion ten-year-old kids and their first experiments with fonts in The Software That Shall Not Be Named®.

The graphic artist, being desperate, pitched his broken-word “design” to the client – who bought it.

And now it’s spreading faster than H1N1.

It has to be stopped. Has to be, I say. Before it catches on in the blogosphere.

I mean,

CAN
YOU
IMA
G
INE
IF
SOM
EON
E
TRI
ED
TO
WRI
TE
A
WH
OLE
POS
T
LIK
E
THI
S?

Hey. Let’s try this out on Twitter …

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

She: “Another hot day in Paradise!”

He: “Yeah. But don’t yell it out too loud, ok? People in hats and mittens might not take too kindly to it.”

She: “It’s a lot easier to get warm than it is to get cool.”

He: “It is. Assuming you can pay for the clothes or the heat. Still. The trade winds can come back any time now.”

She: “Pour you some ice water?”

He: “Yes please. The ultimate power beverage.”

She: “What?”

He: “Exactly.”

She: “What exactly?”

He: “Exactly right.”

She: “Will you tell me what you’re talking about?!?“

He: “Watt.”

She: “No fair. I asked you first.”

He: “You didn’t ask me anything. I was agreeing with you. Why are you hassling me?”

She: “So I can get an explanation. Before I pour this water down your neck.”

He: “I said, ‘the ultimate power beverage’. You said ‘watt’. I agreed with you. But it’s not just ‘watt’, it’s ‘watter‘. I told you, it’s really powerful stuff. Not to be spilt by pouring down people’s necks.”

She: “Why not? It would energize you. But I suppose, if it’s a power aid, that’s how come they sell it in the vending machines at $2 a pop.”

He: “Well, you’re correct, they do sell it alongside the soft drinks. But the stuff in the bottles is properly called ‘wattest‘. ‘Cause nothing’s more powerful than profits.”

She: “La la la, I can’t hear you …”

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

He: “That bicycle* pedal doesn’t feel good.”

She: “Doesn’t sound good, either.”

He: “No, it doesn’t.”

She: “Sounds like a bearing to me.”

He: “‘Fraid you’re right. Looks like I’ll have to go fishing.”

She: “In the Bering Sea?”

He: “Yeah! How did you know?”

She: “Sweetheart, the story of human colonization of the Americas via the land bridge across the Bering Strait is an essential part of the 5th grade curriculum.”

He: “I see. Does that curriculum also discuss the role that the Bering Sea played in the inception of the Industrial Revolution?”

She “I don’t think so …”

He: “Or in the commercialization of striptease? After all, you were in Vegas …”

She: “Certainly not!“

* That bicycle, together with Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeba, is, as of 0900 HST, 26 October 2009, officially living on borrowed time. Next post.

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

She: “I’m fading. Can we call it a night?”

He: “What? No strawberries? Nights should come with strawberries. Especially yours. But they should also come with posts. I need a post for this weekend. Post haste.”

She: “Light post?”

He: “After yesterday’s, it probably should be. Hey, waitaminute …”

She: “Fence post?”

He: “That’s what I was afraid of. En garde!“

She: “Don’t you go postal on me!”

He: “How can I? I don’t have a post yet!”

She: “You don’t? What do you call this, then? Wrap it up and post it. It’s nighttime.”

He: “What? No strawberries?“

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

She: “Please pass the salad dressing?”

He: “OK … Dang!“

She: “What dang?”

He: “Something else we can’t use because we have town water.”

She: “I like town water. Or do you really wish to go back to flushing the toilet with a bucket?”

He: “Not I. But it means we can’t use the salad dressing. Read.”

She: “‘Shake well.’”

He: “Exactly! We don’t have a well. And if you think I’m going to interrupt my dinner to track the Honolulu Water Department’s lines mauka five miles and up two thousand feet to shake their well, just so I can have a spot of sauce on my lettuce, you can think again.”

She: “I’m so glad I asked …”

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

He and She were sitting in the beach park after dark, admiring the stars and watching an airplane circling overhead.

She: “Amazing. The clouds are almost invisible. The only way you know they’re there is when that airplane flies behind one.”

He: “Yeah. Its lights vanish, then just appear someplace else. Spooky.”

She: “I’m sure that’s how a lot of UFO stories get started.”

He: “Reckon you’re right. Most of ‘em get foreclosed, though.”

She: “Foreclosed?”

He: “Yeah. Unless they pay up.”

She: “Pay up what?“

He: “What U. F. owes, of course.”

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

“Got that paper done yet, dude?”

“No.”

“You going to?”

“Chill, dude. It’s not due ’til Monday. This is Thursday.”

“Right, dude. So you’re going to spend quality time with Halo 3 until Sunday afternoon, and then you’re going to panic and keep me up all night.”

“Geez, dude, you talk like this has happened before or something.”

“Only like once a week, dude. I’m so tired of it, I almost got myself a Goodyear sweatshirt.”

“Shoulda got one for OC, too.”

“Bad idea, dude. If he wore it in public, somebody’d grab him, tie cameras to his belly, and try to fly him over the stadium for Monday Night Football.”

“Not a pretty picture, dude.”

“Neither is me staying up all night ’cause you won’t get your papers written! I was going to tell you that there’s at least one aspect of your life that you handle like a real pro. But, dammit, I can’t prove it!”

“Not that I care, dude, but why not?”

“‘Cause no one’s ever heard of amateurcrastination. Dude!“

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

“Du-UUUDE!! Are you nuts?!?“

“Why do you ask, dude?”

“Why do I ask, he says. The trade winds have died, dude. There’s not a breath of air anyplace. It’s flippin’ 90 degrees American. In the shade. Why in pluperfect hell are you wearing a fur coat, a fuzzy hat, and mittens?!?“

“Well …”

“No way you’re well, dude. We gotta get you to a doc … And why are you carrying around that Chinese frying pan?!?“

“I’m just doin’ what the song says, dude!”

“What song?”

“They play it at the mall every ten minutes, dude. I can’t believe you missed it!”

“Just tell me already!”

“Wokkin’ in a Winter Wonderland, dude. Sheesh.”

“Oh, I get it. A protest song. Very funny. Now will you stop dressing up as the Christmas Creep and get back into aloha wear before I have to drag you to the hospital?“

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

“Hey, pal. What are your rates here?”

“For parking? Ten bucks an hour.”

“Right. Do I look like royalty to you? Now tell me how much you charge the common people!“

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

She: “What’cha working on?”

He: “Sea lettuce.”

She: “Where? And what are you doing eating at your desk anyway? Don’t I feed you enough?”

He: “No, love, not ’see lettuce, bring your glasses’. ‘Sea lettuce, bring your bathing suit.’ It’s a kind of seaweed.”

“A nickel bag, dude? For us? Gnarl…“

“Dude! Shut up!!“

You jokers never learn, do you?

She: “Who are you talking to?!?”

He: “Me, myself, and I. If you’d been working on this sea lettuce report as long as I have, you’d probably be talking to yourself too.”

She: “No, there’s only one of me. If I desire conversation, I go looking for real people.”

He: “Oh, so you’d like to go fishing. Why didn’t you just say so?”

She: “Don’t make me regret reeling you in. You and your imaginary friends.”

He: “What imaginary friends?!?”

She: “The ones that pop up when you stay up all night writing reports and don’t get any sleep. What’s this all about?”

He: “You remember the Olympics in Beijing last year?”

She: “Wasn’t that when Michael Phelps was winning all those gold medals, swimming?”

“And smokin’ too, dude.”

That was later.

She: “What was later?”

He: “The cleanup. Actually, it was earlier, before the Olympics. Just hope Phelps knew how lucky he was, not having to swim outdoors.”

She: “Because why?”

He: “Because of the sea lettuce.”

She: “I sure hope he didn’t do any more than look at it. Everyone knows you’re not supposed to go into the water until at least half an hour after you eat!”

He: “Trust me, neither he nor anyone else wanted to see it, never mind eat it. All they wanted to do was get rid of it.”

She: “Ewww …”

“Ewww …”

“Ewww …”

She: “Echoes?”

He: “Yeah. ‘Cause it all happened again this summer. In France and in Seattle. Stuff piles up on the beaches and really makes a wrack of things.”

“Party down, dude! Hit the beach and get wracked!“

“Stop yelling, dude! You’ll make yourself hoarse.”

Yeah. A dead horse.

She: “Is it my turn yet?”

He: “They don’t eat sea lettuce.”

She: “Who don’t?”

He: “The terns, of course.”

She: “Well, I won’t be eating any, that’s for sure.”

He: “Why not?”

She: “You think I want a toxic waist? Leave that report and come to bed. If those imaginary friends of yours have any consideration, they’ll finish it for you while you’re asleep.”

“Finish the report, she says. How the hell’re we supposed to do that, dude?”

“I dunno, dude. Furniture polish?”

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.