greyduck.net

Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Author: Karel Kerezman

  • Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his grey duck.

    Happy 2007, everybody. I know, I sort of left things hanging around here for the last few days of 2006 but when you get right down to it, there wasn’t much to say. I don’t want to look back on that particular run of twelve months. Not that it was all bad. Some of it was quite good. However, long stretches of it were absolutely dreadful. So, good riddance.

    And now for something completely silly. At one of my favorite website stops I found an amusing new toy. I plugged in a specific (and perhaps unsurprising) sequence of letters and what follows are many of the results. Please note that I’ve taken a bit of liberty with the formatting, using the two separate words or my Internet nickname form depending on which amuses me more. (It’s all about my amusement, dammit.) Can you name the movies?

    • I know this sounds crazy, but ever since yesterday on the road, I’ve been seeing this grey duck.
    • Why don’t you come up sometime and see GreyDuck?
    • We’ll always have GreyDuck.
    • Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a grey duck.
    • You had me at ‘grey duck’.
    • I do wish we could chat longer, but I’m having an old grey duck for dinner.
    • I always say a kiss on the hand might feel very good, but a grey duck lasts forever.
    • You can’t handle the grey duck!
    • Love means never having to say you’re GreyDuck.
    • We can’t stop here. This is grey duck country.
    • Gort! Klaatu barada GreyDuck!
    • It is too late, my grey duck is in your veins.
    • That grey duck is the pure, physical manifestation of Sadako’s hatred.
    • There is a grey duck coming. Are you sure you’re on the right side?
    • I am the author. You are the grey duck. I outrank you!
    • I feel the need – the need for GreyDuck!
    • Soylent Green is GreyDuck!
    • I love the smell of grey duck in the morning.
    • Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to grey duck.
    • I say we take off and nuke the entire grey duck from orbit.
    • If you build it, GreyDuck will come.
    • Hasta la vista, GreyDuck.
    • I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little grey duck, too!

    I love that last one! After all, I am “the little grey duck.” Ha!

  • I can see why this didn’t happen a week ago.

    Of course. Last weekend I had precisely two activities to really worry about: A date with Lil’ on Friday night and playing Santa (or at least Gift Delivery Man) for my kids Monday morning. (There was a holiday party here at the house on Saturday, but I didn’t have to worry about that, see?)

    My plans for today and the days to come, as of yesterday evening, looked a little something like this: Thursday after work, visit rugrats. Friday evening, dine with Lil’. Saturday, visit rugrats again and also go help The Imperial Princess of Cute with some computer problems she’s having. Sunday, maybe, go visit folks for New Year’s Eve.

    Through all of last night, however, I struggled with a sore throat. You know how it is when it hurts to swallow? That’s the time your mouth decides to produce endless saliva, of course. And then the coughing started, and the stuffy head, and the fever, and the whole NyQuil commercial litany through the course of the day.

    Yes, I’ll be taking The Green Death shortly. Thanks for asking.

    No kidlet visiting tonight. No date tomorrow, though in a weird sort of way that worked out well for Lil’ and Geoffrey. (I wholeheartedly approve of things working out well for those two, mind you!) Saturday is… up in the air. I’m hoping to kick this thing soon enough to be functional by then, but I can’t make any guarantees, especially since I’m also determined to make it to work tomorrow. I’ve been home sick from work too many times on this job already, for the short time I’ve been there. Argh. Maybe this illness is the dying affliction of a lousy year, and a sign that it’s going to get better after this year/cold is through.

    Then again, I’ve had my faith in the prospect of an improved new year trampled over and over, so I’m not getting my hopes up…

  • Not even eight o’clock…

    Let’s see: Slept lousy, compounded by someone turning and leaving on the downstairs bathroom’s ceiling fan (which is right below my bedroom) during the night. Nearly-cold shower. Misgauged the weather, so didn’t dress warmly enough. Forgot to grab leftovers for lunch. My pathway from the Hillsboro Airport MAX station to work consisted mostly of deep puddles and mud. Just as I approached the Starbucks, the wind and rain came up, so no breakfast for me because I can’t carry a cup of cocoa, a sandwich and manage my umbrella, at least not without growing two spare hands or a prehensile tail. Unfurled umbrella to discover that the wind was stronger than expected, requiring two hands just to keep the thing pointed the right direction. It was all for naught, because one good gust of wind snapped the umbrella’s struts, right in my face. So I walked the rest of the way to work in the wind and rain, cold, wet, tired, hungry and angry. And since I’m the first (and only) person into the office, I can’t even duck next door to the 7-11 for something to snack on. If nobody gets here before 8 o’clock, I won’t get to eat until lunchtime.

    So. Hopefully your morning’s better than mine.

  • The who of the what, now?

    Just in case I don’t come up with real content today, I present the following.

    My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
    The Right Reverend Karel the Indefatigable of Fishbourne Sneething
    Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

    In the immortal words of… somebody or other: “Bow down now before me!”

  • May 18, 1980

    With all of the rumbling and recent steam coming from that sawed-off mountain to the north of Portland, maybe this is a good time to tell the story of my experiences during The Big One.

    I was only eight years old; my sister, not yet three. Mom was dating a guy who owned two Ford Mustangs, one small and black and nifty, the other big and green and ugly. He owned, or at least had the run of, some property in the Cascade foothills within reasonable driving distance of Brewster, WA. We were at his little cabin in the woods for the weekend. I think that we were skinning logs that morning, but it may have been the previous day. (Bear with me. We’re talking about a temporal distance of twenty-six years, after all.)

    I remember what sounded a bit like a sonic boom, but with that curiously muffled quality that a great distance imparts to any loud noise. We were all outside, and I think we all immediately knew what happened. I knew, anyway, and Mom wasted no time hustling us away from the cabin and back into town.

    What came next is a bit vague, though I do have a clear memory of Brewster later on (possibly the next day), with overcast skies and a couple of inches of ash covering everything in sight. During one summer, a couple of years later, Sis and I were living in Soap Lake with The Savages (Ken & Virginia) and there were still ashdrifts all over the desert.

    All I can think now is, “I’m glad the prevailing winds would carry the ash away from Portland if that happens again.” Well… I also think, “I hope Hood doesn’t go next!”

  • I’ve got your holiday spirit, mister…

    Perhaps you think me a miserly Scrooge-like figure for not acknowledging the impending holiday before this point. In truth, you should all thank me for not following through on an idea I came up with a couple of weeks ago. I was going to replace all of the random banner image selections with Christmas-themed material… drawn entirely from anime galleries I’ve raided over the years. After spending an hour poring over my sources, I gave up the notion as a bad job.

    Aren’t you grateful, now?

    Speaking of holiday imagery, check out The Cap’n’s Gallery of Unfortunate Christmas Cards.

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