Weblog Sin Pies

By Charley Daniels

00.05

Each second is an eternity now, but it’s simultaneously really fast, almost like a single tick of a clock. We’re getting close. There are only a few numbers after five, but I’m not quite sure how many.

Then I start thinking about the number itself. Five? What’s “five” to me? Nothing, that’s what. It doesn’t even rhyme with anything important. Although, I guess “hive” is important if you’re a bee or some sort of jerk who harnesses bees to do your evil. I may have spoken too soon there, but just when I start ruminating on ill-formulated assertions–

00.04

Ah jeez. I’m really in it now. I’m dreading what happens next, but I also welcome it. Do you know what I mean? It’s like, let’s just get this over with. So many things in life feel that way — but what a waste! “Just tear the bandage off, man.” That’s crazy. Don’t just tear the bandage off, man! Life is what happens between the time you pry up the grubby corner of that bandage and the time you’re hopping around screaming, embarrassing yourself, while holding an abnormally hairy bandage in your pulling hand.

It’s funny that humans invented bandages to tape over our bloody wounds. And it’s funny how many we go through in a week.

Countdowns are like unrequited love: You can see clearly where it’s going, but you still watch each moment in case the inevitable somehow doesn’t happen.

00.03

This is where it gets intense. Or, intenser, anyway. Whatever chance there was that I might have been able to turn back is now two seconds older than it was a couple seconds ago. Think about it.

Can I stop this thing? There are some buttons on there, but what if pressing them speeds up the process, or makes some sort of high-pitched shrieking noise that’s really annoying? There has to be something I can do, because I’m dreading what happens when this mother gets to zero.

Sorry for sort-of swearing, but I’m under a bit of pressure right now.

Hey, why didn’t I start trying to figure out a way to stop this thing 87 seconds ago, when the counter said 01:30? Or three minutes before that, when it was almost at five minutes? Guess I wasn’t really in that frame of mind back then.

00.02

Wow. I guess this is the part where things flash before your eyes, or something. A few things are flashing for me. Like, the time I burned popcorn, or that day when I cut my thumb slicing an apple that turned out to be really mealy and flavorless. So, mostly bad food experiences are flashing before my eyes, which sort of makes sense if you know me at all.

But what’s going to happen next? Euphoria? Painful burning? I honestly have no idea, because I’ve never been in a spot exactly like this before.

Remember what I said earlier about five? I realize now that I was actually thinking of two when I said that. See, I get them confused. Easy to do, because just look at them, like mirror images of one another. So, to recap: “Two”? It doesn’t even rhyme with anything important, etc. etc. etc.

Man, these last couple seconds are really creeping along, aren’t they?

00.01

I never had a nickname, so maybe this will lead to that. You know, like “Hot Button” or “Seconds Left” — something quirky but sort of cool. “Countdown.” I dunno, maybe not.

The sad thing is, I didn’t even want this. Not that anyone ever does, probably, but I really didn’t mean to get myself into this mess. Most people in this situation, I think, go in with the mind that it’s a great idea, only to realize later that it wasn’t a good idea at all. Me? I knew from the start. So what happened?

00.01

I think the timer must be broken or som- Oh no, there it goes.

00.00

Well, time is officially up. I guess I have to eat this dollar-store microwave burrito now, unless it’s still frozen hard inside, in which case I’ll probably put it back in for a minute or two.

This has been five seconds with a melodramatic guy whose diet is somewhat questionable and who has no friends. [end scene]

photo: Valerie_Michele

By Charley Daniels

(full size)

illustration: Patrick Moberg

[via Tcritic]

By Charley Daniels

It’s a historic day for Americans who have citizen status and are over 18 and are not convicted felons. Election day! Even though Barack Obama and John McCain have both run on a platform of change, here are a few things that won’t be changing no matter who the next president is.

• The rich will continue to get richer and the poor poorer
• Broccoli and spinach will still get stuck in your teeth
• Exercise won’t become any more fun
• We’ll still be involved in at least one questionable war
• Far too many people will still be offended if you’re drunk on a Wednesday morning and still drunk by Thursday morning
• We’ll all continue to strive for the same basic things, and we’ll still argue vehemently about whose method of achieving those goals is stupider, or less patriotic
• Bad smells will still smell bad
• Turtles will not have become the national animal, even though it’s their time
• Dick Cheney will still be in charge of something, somewhere
• I won’t suddenly look good in purple
• A good chunk of your income will continue to be wasted by the government
• If you make a face, it may or may not get stuck that way — to this day I’m not sure about that — but whichever it is, it will still be that way after the election

What else, people?

By Charley Daniels

Bill O’Reilly and Dennis Miller don’t like The Hollywood Reporter:

Things to do before I die:
…
#3,186) Work for a publication that O’Reilly thinks is for “pinheads.”
…

Sorry for the lack of updates, but you know how it is. If it makes you feel any better, I had two great starts for blog posts that I ended up going back to and not liking. So I guess they weren’t “great,” after all. And I don’t know why that would make you feel better, either. It shouldn’t. Everything I just said was a lie.

Isabelle posted a few pictures from Halloween:

That’s me on the right. I’m a sailor from the neck up, and on the left is Alex … I wish Alex had dressed up.