The Scariest Headlines I've Ever Read.

I know I said I wouldn't do a pseudo-post again but I have to let you all know that Sprocket Ink's back from vacation and we're hitting the ground running. I've got a brand spanking new post up there so just click in my SI badge to the right (which I somehow doubt you'll be able to miss). Two words: Japanese. toilets.

Totally!

Actually, I wouldn't really call this one a pseudo-post since I'm still writing beyond that last paragraph. I submit then that this does not, in fact count as a pseudo-post and I have, in fact, kept my word.

Uh-uh-uh! No arguing. I already said it.

Anyway, as you've may have guessed, I read the news sometimes. But recently I've come across some very disturbing real story headlines that made me cringe before I even read the the actual stories.

I'll list some of them for you. Keep in mind these are the actual headlines from actual news sites:

- Man Dies After Eating Cocaine Hidden In Brother's Butt

- Hiroyuki Joho, Man Killed By Train, Sued After His Flying Body Parts Injured Woman

- Sex Assault on Chihuahua Gets Ex-Convict 10 Years

And my personal-um-favorite(?)

- Patient Allegedly Had Penis Eaten Off By Rats

RATS!!!

*crosses legs and puts hands in lap nervously*

Okay, so now that I've thoroughly traumatized most, if not all of you. Head on over to Sprocket and read about weird toilet obsessions.

If I Ruled The World (Imagine That).

Say what you will, the world's a pretty messed up place. Don't ask me why but everything just seems really screwed up as far as this planet goes.

Why? If you ask me, one of the main reasons is that the wrong people are in charge. Seriously! How did we end up putting some of these jokers at the helm? It's obvious the lunatics are running the asylum and they've locked all us sane people up in the cells. And there seems to be nothing we can do about it.

Until now.

All that's about about to change for, BEHOLD, I have been bequeathed yon Overlord Award!

This honor hath been bestowed upon me by Shirley of Shirley Ewe Must Be Joking. A fine lass indeed who doth weildeth a mighty blog and doth attacketh with her razor-sharp humor and wit. She also doth apparently longeth to one day defecate rare and precious gems. Indeed. A worthy aspiration if ever there was. Follow the link and be awed by her sheer awesomeness.


Okay, I'll stop now.

Yeah, so I think I was saying somewhere in that mess that I won me an award. This award means that, basically, I rule. I am overlord! Commander of all I survey. Bow down before, mere mortals!

Bwahahahahaha!!!

This award also comes with rules. Wait! I've just been crowned overlord and I have to follow rules? Well, okay then. But only because it pleases me to do so.

Bwaha... ha?

Now, most of the time when an award asks for me to list something, I sit and agonize for days (sometimes weeks) trying to come up with the right respnoses. However, for this one, it just so happens that I already have them prepared.

*takes stack of post-its out of back pocket*

What? Doesn't everyone keep a "If I ruled the world one day" to-do list with them? You should.

Unfortunately, I can only list three things so I'll give you my top three:

- All of the negative propaganda about coffee ends now. Enough is enough, people! Know that this may or may not involve nay-sayers ending up in the middle of town in stocks, Dark-Ages-style.

- My war with my unyielding foe, the Grackle, will finally be at an end as I defeat the vicious birds. Fear not though, for I will not destroy the creatures. Instead, I will subjugate them and use their skills. They will become my personal army. Put your assets to their best use, I always say.

I live to serve, master.

- As Overlord of the world I would require a base of command to rule from. For this I choose the country of Japan. Though much of the world shall be changed as my Grackle army raids the lands and peck the heads of my enemies, I shall leave the people and culture of Japan untouched, for they perfect. It is from there that I shall rule as ninja cat-girls serve me sake.

Also, as Overlord I am also expected to bestow this honor upon others. I'm not sure why I'd be expected to share my power. The only reason I can think of is that I will need to have worthy rivals to battle against so I can keep my skills honed. Either that or I'll need other overlords to send friend requests to.

I hear it's lonely at the top.

The following I have chosen definitely are deserving of that honor. Mostly because they already rule.

Thank Q
Cynicism 101
My Own Private Idaho
Pickleope
Sex Sequins & Sociopaths

With that my position as overlord had been cemented. I'm off to look at some Japanese real estate. They say Tokyo's nice this time of year.

Insert Funny Here.

I saw this in a local newspaper last week. Just to get it out of the way, yes, they were being sold as food. No, I’ve never had the (dis)pleasure.

source

UGH!

But still, grim fate of these reptiles aside, the picture is funny. There are so many things I could say about this picture. But I prefer to let you guys have a go at it.

Think of it as a caption game.

Feel free to play along.

Adventures In Journalism.

I'll say one thing. This job is a real adventure. On any given day, you never know where you'll end up. The other day, I got to go on one of these.

Cool, right?

Then, that same evening I was at a fancy Christmas party for the local architects' association. And of all the people I'd run into there, I met my former nemeses employers, (former) Bossman and (former) Bosslady.

(former) Bosslady played it cool, but (former) Bossman was a little surprised to see me there. I took the high road and refrained from my whole "BOOYAH!!! In your face, motherf*cker!" routine I'd always fantasized about. For good measure I interviewed him too.

Then, earlier this week, I had to go look at a landslide on the north coast heading toward Maracas Bay. I hadn't been in that area in a really long time. When you spend all your time in the mostly built-up areas, you forget just how tropical the tropical island you live on really is.

Then you spend an hour and a half travelling through this.

And you say, "Oh... right..."

It may look scary but it's actually really peaceful and scenic. Actually the photographer who was driving called this stretch the "scenic route". I was so caught up with the view at times I ended up sticking my phone out the photographer's car and snapping pictures like a tourist. In the end we wound up here:

I think I hear dueling banjos. No, wait! This is Trinidad. Maybe dueling steel-pans?

It was still raining and there was a light mist hanging. On one side of the road we had the mountainside rising above us. On the other side was the steep drop where the mountain continued. There was so much water flowing down the mountain from the rains it made a small river flowing down the other side.

I was caught up in the beauty of it all for a bit, but then it occurred to me that all this water could trigger another landslide. Then I wondered if there could be snakes as big as the one in the picture I posted a few days ago. That's when I told the photographer I'd wait in the car.

The next day I was back in the city checking out stores to find out how their Christmas sales were going. And I have no idea where I'll be tomorrow.

It's awesome.

Me Vs Nature.

Pastelles are a Christmas tradition here in T&T. For those of you who don't know, they're these steamed, meat-filled, cornmeal pies. The traditional way is to cook them wrapped in banana leaves. They're awesome!

Mrs. C makes kick-ass pastelles. She actually used to make extra money at Christmastime selling them. She doesn't make them for sale any more. Too much work. We would often lose an entire night's sleep to make them. She still makes more than enough for us and to give out to a few friends and relatives, though.

But as I was saying, banana leaves are required. They're not a must. You can wrap them in foil, but my wife's adamant about doing it the old fashioned way. She says it enhances the flavor. All I know is they taste great. Who am I to argue?

When I wrote about where I'm from I said it wasn't uncommon to have banana trees in the average Trini's yard. But there are exceptions and most of the places we've lived in the past didn't. This meant me having to go around to neighbors to get leaves.

But this year I got lucky. There isn't just one banana tree in the yard of our new apartment, there are two. So this time I don't have to go around to the neighbors to get leaves. Plus, free bananas! Win-win, right?

Well, it looks like someone has other plans. The other day I went to the back yard to check on the condition of the trees I'd soon be pillaging for leaves. I also wanted to check on the three bunches of bananas that were growing too. That's when I noticed a slight hitch in the plans.

It seems a small Ground Dove has set up a nest in one of the banana bunches. Needless to say, I wanted to share this so I decided to get a picture. I went back yesterday morning to get one and the mom flew off in fear and abandoned her babies.

I question her parenting skills.

This did, however, give me a change to scope out the nest. And I took pics.

For some reason I feel like saying, "Crikey! Those are beauts!"

Um... Occupied.

I checked this morning and the did mom come back. Apparently she was in a calmer mood because she didn't fly off this time.

What the..! You again?!

Awwww... So cute, right?

Well cuteness aside, this poses two problems:

1. I need leaves later this week. I don't want to disrupt their home but there's no way I'm missing out on my wife's pastelles or going around the neighborhood for leaves for this.
2. I kinda had my eye on those bananas. They're the ones most likely to be ripe first.

I need to figure this out.

Birds! Why id it always birds?!

Random Thoughts Of A Sleep Deprived Mind.

For those of you who have noticed my lack of posting this week, I've been in the midst of end of semester exams. For those of you who haven't, well... I haven't been posting this week... because of... exams.

I recently finished a final project for one of my classes which kept me up until 4:30am and I haven't had chance to get a full night's sleep since.

I think that is the reason I've had all kinds of random things bouncing around my head that I thought I could slap together were funny enough to make a post. Kinda like my old "Random Tuesday Thought" posts I used to do back in the day.

I blame sleep deprivation for what comes next...

- The other day I was folding a shirt when I realized it was inside out. The first thing I thought about was hitting the "Undo" button. That's when I realized I've probably been spending too much time at the computer. Then the next thing I thought of was to blog about it.

- We've been battling a serious ant infestation in our home. I think they're winning. The other morning they scored a victory by getting inside our electric kettle's wiring and rendering it useless. Don't ask me how.

- I learned the other day that two jumbo hot dogs are my limit. I know. I’m a total lightweight. I was able to figure this out very out soon after jumbo hot dog number four.



Not a good day.

- Up the street there's a yard with two really big dogs. I think one of is mixed with a smaller breed because his front legs are noticeably shorter than his back legs. I call him Dogosaurus Rex. He amuses me.

I miss those RTT days.


I'd say I need a nap but I'm actually about to leave for work. Plus, this is a six-day work week for me and I still have a Math assignment and two exams left.


Joy.

The World of Warcraft & Public Transportation.

I mentioned a few times that I’m not a fan of getting behind the wheel. This, to the point where I don’t even have a driver’s license. However, this does leave me a slave to the public transportation system, and that in itself has its own challenges.

To properly illustrate what I mean, I'll employ the help of WoW Model Viewer. Let’s say that this is me.

I’m a dwarf. Why? Because I’m short... And stocky too. Let's just pretend that, like a dwarf, I’m really ripped too.

But I digress. Generally, taxis here in T&T pick up passengers in groups and take everyone from point A to point B. That normally means three passengers in the back seat and one in the passenger seated up front.

I try to get the front seat. That’s the seat of choice. You can get to the taxi hub and see the first 5 or 6 cars in the line with only the front seat filled. Unfortunately, more often than not I end up in back, which sucks. Why? Well, let’s say I get in the back seat of the taxi.

That’s when a really large person will get in next to me.

Sure enough, someone else who is equally large (or larger) will come in on the other side. 

Leaving me squished in the middle. For those of you familiar with World of Warcraft, you’ll notice that I’m reppin’ Alliance, while they’re from the Horde. This is not good. We’re from enemy factions so we’re already predisposed to not liking each other. Added to that is the fact that it’s been a hot day and the driver either refuses to put the air conditioning on or it’s broken. All in all, not a very comfortable situation for anyone involved.

Especially me.

And it doesn’t help when they’re both level 85s and have on full epic gear while I, on the other hand, am just a lowly noob...

Priest.

I’m probably going to get ganked before the end of the ride.

Changing The Detour.

I've made a slight change to how things operate with linking my Sprocket Ink posts from here. As much as I know you enjoy my little pseudo posts to send you over there when I have a post up, I've decided to put the kibosh on those.

But fear not, I bring you an alternative that I think works better. See my official Sprocket correspondent's badge over to the right? Now, if you click on it, it'll take you directly to the last post I did there. See? It even says that it links to my most recent post there right above it.

Oh! By the way...

I've got a new post on Sprocket Ink again today. It's about what the folks at Fox Business think of Hollywood. Click here and check it out.

Okay, that was the last time. I promise.

The Ride Continues.

A little while back, I took a spin on Ninja Mom's Character Assassination Carousel. No word on whether ol' Br'er Rabbit finally got what was coming to him, but this isn't about that.

It's time now for me to pass the baton so that someone else can use it to take a well deserved whack at a so called "beloved" childhood storybook character. Next up is Leah from Chapter Four, and she's pulling out the big guns as she goes after the infamous Cat In The Hat. That takes guts!

So click, read and enjoy as the carousel ride continues.

Have You Seen Sprocket's New Look Yet?

No? It’s awesome! Really! If you haven’t been around to see it yet, I’ll overlook the transgression get on over there right now.

Plus, I’ve got a serious warning about smartphones there today that you really need to check out. Don’t say I didn’t try to warn you.