#jerry the rubbery man

[vonlipvig]

jack and jerry are still kinda figuring out how this whole human-rubbery relationship thing works... (turns out it's the same as any other relationship, just a bit more gooey) 💚

[jerrylewis-thekid]

... As a young man he managed like no other to scar his clamorous attractiveness, until he erased it with crazy rubbery grimaces and acrobatic movements, splashed Pinocchio...

@make-a-little-mischief :-) We Italians know how to recognize the "clamorous attractiveness" of a man😊 Taken from an article in "Repubblica" on Jerry's death. I will translate the whole article in these days.

[ramajmedia]

Jim Carrey's 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes

Despite being one of the biggest movie stars in the world with countless box office hits, Jim Carrey is a pretty divisive actor. Some fans appreciate his knack for rubbery expressive comedy, but others criticize this performing style as overacting.

While he was once possibly the most bankable star in the world, his status has dropped in the past few years and he hasn’t really starred in a major hit since 2008’s Yes Man. Still, he’s left behind a very impressive body of work and there’s every chance his star could rise again. So, here are Jim Carrey’s 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes.

RELATED: Jim Carrey’s 10 Most Hilarious Characters, Ranked

10 Man on the Moon (63%)

It was a dream come true when Jim Carrey was cast to play one of his idols, comedy legend Andy Kaufman, in a biopic. Directed by the great Milos Forman, this biopic plays around with the rules a lot.

There are dramatic moments and it follows a familiar formula, but there’s also a lot of Kaufman-esque comic trickery at play. As a recent Netflix documentary can attest to, Carrey went a little cuckoo on the set as he refused to break character for the entire shoot, even when the cameras weren’t rolling. But it’s hard to deny that Kaufman himself would’ve been proud.

9 Dumb and Dumber (67%)

This road comedy by the Farrelly brothers should never have gotten a sequel. The original stands perfectly on its own as one of the funniest movies ever made and no sequel could live up to that (especially the trainwreck we were eventually served in 2014).

Few comedies have a gag rate this rapid and even fewer have such a high rate of gags actually landing. Everything in the screenplay for Dumb and Dumber is carefully considered to deliver an infinitely funny moviegoing experience: the plot as a whole is funny, the individual scenes stand alone as funny, and each of those scenes is filled with hysterical one-liners and wordplay. Frankly, in terms of laughs, Dumb and Dumber is up there with Airplane! and The Naked Gun.

8 I Love You, Phillip Morris (71%)

This real-life story of con artist Steven Jay Russell has a darker sense of humor than Jim Carrey’s fans are used to, and it’s got a lot more dramatic elements than his usual work, but it’s still a lot of fun. Russell went to prison, fell in love with a fellow inmate named Phillip Morris (who, here, is played by Ewan McGregor), and when Morris was released, he broke out of prison a whopping four times just to be with him.

It’s a delightful story with more complex acting than Carrey is usually given the chance to do. Critic Steve Persall described it perfectly: “Catch Me If You Can mashed up with Brokeback Mountain if Mel Brooks directed.”

7 Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (72%)

Jim Carrey found Count Olaf, the lead antagonist role in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, to be the perfect part for him to play. He loves character work, and Olaf isn’t just an eccentric character on his own – he’s a bad actor who disguises himself as other people.

RELATED: The 10 Best Episodes Of Netflix's A Series Of Unfortunate Events

So, Carrey got to play a bunch of different characters who were being played by another character. He was eager to do a sequel to the movie, and he never likes to do sequels, but unfortunately, due to its unusually dark tone for a kids’ movie, it didn’t perform so well at the box office.

6 The Mask (77%)

The movie that made Jim Carrey’s career was a comic book movie, but not the kind of comic book movie that now floods theaters every couple of weeks. The Mask is about an ordinary man who is granted extraordinary powers, sure, but he doesn’t use them to save the world. The Mask is more like The Nutty Professor than Spider-Man, and obviously, a slapstick-based Jerry Lewis-esque role is right in Carrey’s wheelhouse, so it’s a brilliant movie.

On a side-note, Carrey isn’t the only A-list star whose career began with The Mask. You’ll also see a young Cameron Diaz make her starring debut in the film.

5 Horton Hears a Who! (79%)

This animated adaptation of the Dr. Seuss classic (funnily enough, the first-ever fully animated feature-length adaptation of the author’s work) takes the gloss of CG animation but gives it the whimsy of the iconic illustrations from Seuss’ work. Jim Carrey voices the titular elephant, who realizes that a tiny civilization lives on a speck of dust on top of a flower and will do anything to protect them.

Steve Carell plays the mayor of this civilization, while Seth Rogen lends his voice to Horton’s mouse sidekick, the aptly named Morton. It’s a heartwarming movie that tells us that even the smallest people matter.

4 Liar Liar (81%)

Jim Carrey loves high-concept movies that he can dig his teeth into. A prime example of this is Liar Liar, in which he plays a lawyer who, thanks to his son’s birthday wish, is unable to lie for 24 hours. This led to hilarious scenes like Carrey rattling off a comprehensive list of offenses he’d just committed to a cop who pulled him over and beating himself up in a men’s room to get out of court.

But ultimately, the movie carries a strong message. You shouldn’t lie to your kids – or anyone, for that matter – and Fletcher learns that the hard way in this movie. It’s far from a flawless movie, but fans of Carrey will definitely get their fill.

3 Peggy Sue Got Married (85%)

Directed by The Godfather’s Francis Ford Coppola, Peggy Sue Got Married stars Kathleen Turner as a woman in her 40s who is ready to divorce her husband, Charlie, played by Nicolas Cage and is filled with regret about how her life has played out.

Then, she gets the opportunity to go back in time and start all over again. She can prevent herself from ever marrying Charlie in the first place. That is, until she finds herself charmed by him all over again. Jim Carrey plays a minor role as Walter Getz, and since the movie came out almost a decade before Carrey became a star, he’s virtually unrecognizable.

2 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (93%)

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has made a career out of taking something we can all relate to, like the feeling of despair and hopelessness after a relationship, and spin it into something cinematic, like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Jim Carrey stars as Joel, a guy who falls head over heels in love with a girl, played by Kate Winslet, who breaks his heart.

RELATED: Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind: 10 Quotes That Can Never Be Erased From Our Memories

Unable to get her out of his head, he hires a company to get her out of his head using experimental new technology. Naturally, it goes wrong and he ends up trapped in his own memories. It’s very strange, but also very powerful.

1 The Truman Show (94%)

This trippy work of social science fiction could easily be an episode of Black Mirror. Jim Carrey plays Truman Burbank, a regular guy who has never left his small town and lives a quiet existence. He starts to notice unusual things about his life and soon realizes that there are cameras on him at all times, broadcasting his every move to a world filled with adoring viewers.

When he discovers the truth and tries to escape, the director of the show becomes mad with power and would rather kill him than see him leave town and experience the real world. His fans all rally behind him. It’s very satirical, yet also very moving stuff.

NEXT: Cate Blanchett's 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes

source https://screenrant.com/jim-carrey-best-movies-rotten-tomatoes/

[sidpah]

Glory!

“Royal families, listen! Destitute soldiers! Listen! Listen to me, my sisters and brothers!” Demented cries bellow from the pulpit of what’s now Greene Street. In front of a boarded up ex-liquor store I’m transfixed by the sermonizing of a one-legged African-American-Sidpahan man known only by the locals as Jerry. He’s propped on a cane of some light-hued hardwood, the handle carved into a striking asp. Preaching to a crowd with his bastardized southern American drawl, inciting praise to his powerful transplanted gods.

I pause my running from nowhere to nowhere to listen, bag once more clutched protectively to my chest. Immensely glad and entirely astounded that no one plucked it from me while I slept. There are still some good people here, surely…

“Glory! Glory! Tell the root-high children to seek their fame! Tell them to swarm the hills with golden royal violence! The journey has been sanctified! It’s far but the effort is justified! They’re lewd as the brothels of Sodom to the Antigens.” With every punctuation mark he projects a crooked finger toward a different member of the crowd, impaling them on his accusation.

“The bomb in your chest will beep incessantly – clicking – ticking – a reminder of smokestacks and time-clocks you are avenging. Dark brown broth will splash the feet of the weary. But don’t be dismayed! Don’t be dismayed… Don’t be dissuaded from the path of your glory! Glory, ah, Righteous Glory – Ah! We sing under our inked cloaks, smoking Xeroxed doctrines of perpetual change. Our lungs may blister. Our teeth may fill our throats, gums raining radiation-poisoned bone, all the while the bomb is beeping…”

Superimposed across his face I see monochromatic images of nuclear weapons tests, two-dimensional facades swept away by shadows and dust clouds. Nuclear tornadoes shredding suburbia. A few grains of blowing sand get caught in my nose –

I sneeze.

Jerry doesn’t seem to notice.

Why would he? His eyes are raging to the heavens, his free hand shuddering upward.

“Don’t be distracted by sunlight, by bikinis, by cold intoxicating drink! Seasons change, my friends. Seasons always change! And you must not be caught off guard… Summer, summer, bringing its rumors of a fruitful future – Bare loins, wet lips… One child thought something radical and was lost! Blinded, his lot was hidden beneath the craterous clay. Feel that giddiness of adolescence, but focus its fire! Even if you can’t pinpoint exactly what that adolescent fire felt like… Remember possibility, hopefulness, the feeling that your efforts are all aimed at that fruitful boundless Future that promises you the fulfillment of every desperate wet dream – seventy virgins and all the booze your ghostly liver can handle. Remain diligent and grounded, yes, for you can beware, my friends and children, be aware that without any formal ceremony, all those delusions, twenty-some years of them, will crumble the day you find, with a cold detached bluntness only this godless realm can provide, that you’re there. You’ve arrived. And that the Future proves to be nothing at all like the brochure. Someone’s transformed it into the simple drudgery of an endlessly repetitious present with no time off for good behavior and no window from which to watch the Sun plunge herself hopelessly into the ocean. And those seventy virgins have likewise been melted down and congealed into one gargantuan craggy, flabby old housefrau with runny pendulous tits and uncontrollable flatulence who lords herself over you and crushes your nuts twice as hard every time you feel so bold as to ask her for a sip of her cheap screwtop port wine… Let that image ground your feet to the earth where they can be utilized for the good of humanity while they can still leap and run!”

“Age don’t mean shit!” a young man yells at him, a red plastic cup of frothy beer in his hand. “Guerillas got guns and capitalists got money and power. All’s you got is words!”

“Never underestimate the power of words! Words are the beginning and the end. Words are sound and sound began the universe like sound’ll destroy the universe! Don’t tell me you can’t make a difference! You’re one man, you’re one woman… You’re all god! Do you see? You are all god! Only you can make a difference! Don’t be fooled. The mugshots are overflowing with young men staying cool shot by hot gunpowder flashes while the bomb ticks. Tell me, how hard is it to fool a fool? Stay still. Eeeaaase into the insurgency. Don’t smile. Suck in your gut. Sneer a little. Pooch out your lips. Sniff in those nose hairs, (sniff!) no, no, on second thought, blow them out. Tangle that mop – let’s not continue the charade that you are civil… and human. You are a wild beast god! You are a warrior god! You are a vengeful god! And you can make all the difference! Differences are just a matter of opinion… Opinions are a matter of disparate states of ignorance… You’re a god whose awareness is clothed in the trendy garments of your generation. It’s hidden beneath oversized basketball jerseys with someone else’s name on the back. It’s hidden beneath Saris and batik dresses and overalls with a confederate flag on a red trucker’s cap. It’s there underneath tunics and black berets, balaclavas and vestments with satin crosses running vertical pillars beside the grey tufts of hair in your ears. You are what you wear and whose name you rent. So rent a good one for today! Rent a good one! Chernov, Bookchin, Gibran, Chavez, Crowley, Ashoka, King, Ghandi, Gautama, whichever one resonates your bones, whichever one will move you to action! For the name will be your armor! The name will be your will! You will conjoin the name and flesh as one and reconcile collapsed dynasties of promising risk to the present stifled by this potential-refracting smog!”

I applaud with the crowd and look to the slick old Rat Pack reject next to me who seems not to hear a word Jerry’s said. He’s a tourist in the worst way…

“It costs fifty goddamn cents to tune a note up a single half step these days; you know as well as I do someone’s getting rich on the deal,” he croons to the woman next to him… He’s an old crooner from the Vitalis school… He’s just sightseeing. His paradigm’s been rusted in place for decades… He grinds out his flower cigar in the hair of a tiny Mexican boy in front of him… The boy winces but makes not a peep… He knows how to earn his pay… And the hair may grow through the scar tissue someday, he consoles himself through the pain. And if not, he already has the head of a monk, so maybe it’s a sign from the dios…

“What’re you selling?” a pretty young girl with dirty hair chides Jerry. “I ain’t got nothin’ to do with your revolution.”

“You have everything to do with it. For it is your revolution. Can’t you see it? Can’t you see it?”

“See what, that you’re a raving crackpot?”

“That smog filth creeping up blue windowpanes as if its fingers were pulling its body of decay face to face with little eyes contemplating Saturdays eternal,” Jerry continues to the mostly enraptured crowd. It doesn’t matter what he says when it’s projected with such vim and tenor. “Well those eyes will be lucky to see week’s end! Those thin grey gauzy straw fingers scale the slick glass. And we’re stuck! Trapped! What can we do? Bending slick rubber spines, conforming to the bulldozer force against our bodies, we dirty things, soft things, rubbery things bend in acceptance; what else can be done if we can’t first accept? The world must first be the world it is for it is with us as we are – It is as it is it just is! We are as we are as we always were! Oppression ferments our miserable weakness into fuuuel for expansion, fuuuel from the incineration of our carcasses, trees and fauna immolated to produce scores of glowing numbers on a screen – Something sick’s crawling mold up the outside wall – Don’t nobody open that window! Don’t nobody even think of opening it up and lettin’ that mean-hearted bastard in here! What trains pass by with ignore-angst and great pillars of concrete hum into the world is the mating song of that decrepit fiend...”

I’m now not so much listening as swaying, my body scooping and rising in waves with the loops of each phrase, and I’m fighting the heavy urge to run up and grab him by the arm. I must speak to him after his sermon is finished…

“Meanwhile, right here, the Mass’s Fragile Hope makes her pillow of unsheathed straw while smokestacks burn halos of oil and lead around all the bowed heads singing her praises while pissing on her gravestone – their cronies making their fortunes by burying her dead in these distant lands – Look up! Look all around you at these iron girders miles high, each one proclaiming itself a shiny monument to frame her beauty, while their mirrored glass reflects the steady demise of a glorious culture in angry spiteful children eyes… Can’t you see why this is your revolution? All around you this quaint village’s roofs are all in cinders. Never mind the culprits and heroes bound together by fear, all running chaos as cedar smoke recedes, buckets of water splashing the cobblestones so there’s none left by the time they try to throw it on the burnt-out hulls of their homes – Guarantees mean little in a village of burning houses... On veldt and stones, a bright sun turns… She sleeps among the weeds and moss… reeds are her tangled arms – And we all eye her sweetly yearning for those things she brings us, those things we had once back when we were living in the garden, back when we were inchoate and dust and dreamskin clad…”

Sometime in the meantime, I must’ve been mesmerized by the rhetorical arrows slung by his amped-up jaw bow streaking manic implications that made everyone watching him see a second good leg supporting his torso of angry beaming bricks of light. But damned if I didn’t get struck upside the head by one of those darts missed its target and I tumbled… Or maybe I got cold-cocked by some fratboy’s beer-leaden fist. Either way, down I went, listening to his warning admonitions singing a paranoid lullaby…

 Fragrant holy spirals off her eyes rain down over my glistening melt tongue… A cloud rolls her tongue making roof glisten with tiny ice eyes… Melt on fragrant crystals in tiny spirals, holy and glistening…

 Sprawled across sidewalk… a gaping hole above my ear… How far I’d slid since the demiurgic healing of that strange blond delicacy in Kalday’s mud-walled hovel… I’m so far distant smelling gin or urine, smelling roasted goat limbs over flaming spit, smelling the dead leather shoes of bright fashionistas complaining about meals three weeks since digested to bored mannequins in distant cities… I’m mindful of the patterns being woven by that nightmare-spirit casting my shadow on his own behalf... And as I sidle away from this decaying body already having lost the earth, water, heat and breath, wavering through currents of black chi, I’m pulled. Left shipwrecked on bed with a diseased stranger… Calling a number I wrote on palm to breathe heavy and cum in my pants… Curled under blankets soaked with dejection. I’ve already got what I need, I mumble in my twilight sleep…

[nitrateglow]

Nuggets from Anthony Lane’s amazingly terrible review of The Incredibles 2

Everyone’s quoting the Fifty Shades paragraph, but this write-up is filled to the brim with other erotic moments and pretentious yodeling. Like-- wow. So here are some other treasures from this classic review. Because I won’t suffer alone!

As a rule, any marriage in which one partner can willingly cry out to the other, “Trampoline me!,” inspires only envy and awe. In the heat of the action, that is what Mr. Incredible says to Mrs. Incredible, in “Incredibles 2,” and I’m disappointed to report that the action in question is merely the manic pursuit of a gigantic drill that is whirring through a crowded city and demolishing everything in its path, rather than a lazy afternoon in the marital boudoir with the door discreetly shut.

Never knew what “trampolining” was until I read this and looked it up. I wish I had not-- also WHY WOULD YOU MAKE AN INNUENDO LIKE THAT IN A REVIEW FOR A PIXAR MOVIE??

The corollary, as Bob and Helen agree, is that, “One of us has to get a job.” Guess who. Smarter, smaller, more rubbery, and guaranteed to cause less collateral damage, Helen is the obvious choice.

Just propose marriage already, Mr. Lane!

Bob, in the meantime, stays home with the kids. You can predict what’s going to happen, but it’s fun, nonetheless, to witness the curve of his learning, as he finds out, to his exhausting cost, that childcare is not the breeze that he and many other men presume. So multifarious are its demands, indeed, that only by being as flexible as his wife could he fulfill them all. He must master afresh the delights of math. He must read supposedly soporific books to an infant who gives every sign of eternal wakefulness. He must try not to implode when his grouchy daughter instructs him to go away. He must become, in short, Elastiboy. Fat chance.

Dude legit comes off as jealous that Mr. Incredible is married to Elastagirl and he isn’t, doesn’t he? “Durr, this dumb jock in a family film is married to the woman of my dreams with her waspish waist and smartness-- WAH.”

There are quite a few discussions of what it means to be heroic, to be married, to share responsibilities, and so forth, and we are asked to recall an era in which people “would do something good just because it’s right.” That tint of ethical nostalgia is reminiscent of Spielberg, in his “Bridge of Spies” mode, and it consorts neatly with the decor of the new film. Yet I was reminded, in the process, of the cultural events that have intervened between “The Incredibles” and its equally zippy successor. First came “Mad Men,” which boasted its own range of period accoutrements, but which choked our yearning for the suits, the smokes, the frocks, the whiskey tumblers, the Sinatra albums, and the rest of the gear by reminding us of the society that they once adorned, with its oppressions both casual and institutional, and its half-concealed despairs. “Incredibles 2” can scarcely own up to those, not with young children in the audience, but what it can do, even without stating the dilemma, is to offer a solution. Hence the sight of Helen, accelerating off to work, away from her justly abandoned man, in her black mask, her long tall boots, and her empowering outfit, as tight as a second skin.

Above is how to blend your boner with an attempt at social commentary.

In principle, limitless comedy sounds like a blast, but in practice we need a clear and flint-like sense of the limits, physical or otherwise, against which the characters strike if the jokes are to be sparked. If Buzz Lightyear really could fly as well as he claimed to do, there would be no pathos to his bluster; as it is, he goes to finity, but not beyond.

That last line about Buzz Lightyear is freaking gold.

To that end, [Elastagirl] is content, of her own free will, to undergo what Wile E. Coyote, or the Tom of “Tom and Jerry,” suffered as constant punishment. She is painlessly pulled, thinned out, compressed, billowed, and yes, deployed as a trampoline. The things we do for love.

Literally, this entire review is Anthony Lane gushing about Helen Parr. Like, make a fan blog, dude. There’s a time and a place for this-- not in a review.

I already knew journalism was in a crummy state and I’ve never cared for most movie reviewers, but WOW. This is a new low. HOW does this get published??

[livingcorner]

Everything You Need to Know to Build the Perfect Backyard Pond

All About Ponds

Photo by Jerry Pavia

There’s something about water in motion that soothes the soul. Watching light play off the ripples or listening to the splash of a fountain—these are universally calming pastimes. It’s no surprise, then, that one of the most popular landscaping projects for This Old House readers is installing a pond.

Happily, you don’t need deep pockets or lots of land to enjoy your own water feature. You can install a fully equipped, landscaped, fish-filled pond for around $500, provided that you do your own digging. Creating a lush habitat like the one at right requires rubbery liners, powerful pumps, effective filters, and, without question, a commitment to care for them. But when you’re finished, whether it’s tucked into a corner of the yard or next to a deck or patio, your pond will provide an endless source of fascination for family and visitors alike.

You're reading: Everything You Need to Know to Build the Perfect Backyard Pond

Pictured: Built close to the house, this pond creates a refreshing, relaxing backdrop just out the back door. The rock waterfall makes a pleasing sound as it oxygenates the water. Plants soften the stone edges and provide cover for fish.

Anatomy of a Pond

Illustration by Rodica Prato

A clean, healthy pond requires a few key elements to keep water contained, fresh, and filtered.

Water agitator

Keeps water oxygenated. Fountains, waterfalls, and bubblers are all agitators.

Filter

Cleans the water coming from the pump.

Liner

Prevents water from leaking into the ground.

Underlayment

Protects the liner from punctures and stretching during installation.

Pump

Circulates water through the filter and up to the waterfall or fountain.

Covered GFCI outlet

Feeds power to the pump. Trips automatically to prevent lethal shocks.

Vitals

Photo by Kolin Smith

What’s it cost?

Home-center kits start at $70 for a simple 9-square-foot, 84-gallon pond. A more typical 176-square-footer installed by a pro starts at $5,000, while more grandiose versions can easily exceed $50,000.

DIY or hire a pro?

Ponds longer than 6 feet on a side and deeper than 18 inches require so much digging and other heavy work that they are best left to pros. Smaller ponds are good DIY projects, but let pros handle the plumbing and electrical work.

How long do they last?

It all depends on the liner. The best ones have a 20-year warranty and 30- to 40-year life span.

How much maintenance?

The electricity to run a pump for a typical 176-square-foot pond costs about $260 a year. Filters need frequent cleaning. A pond-maintenance firm starts at about $1,000 a year.

Type: Natural

Photo by Jerry Pavia

Meant to blend in like an integral part of the landscape, this kind of pond has free-form edges that don’t

follow a straight or predictable course, and incorporates stones and plants native to the area.

Type: Seminatural

Photo by David Massengill/Cornerhouse Stock

Taking cues from the existing hardscape around a home, this most popular pond type has free-form edges set next to a brick, concrete, or stone patio. The plants can be native or not.

Type: Formal

Photo by Tim Street-Porter

Defined by geometric shapes, this style of pond is often edged in expensive mortared stone or poured concrete. Perfect for a reflecting pool in a formal garden, it also makes a fine showcase for fish. Plantings are sparse or nonexistent.

Where to Put It?

Photo by Kolin Smith

The location of a pond determines its health and your ability to enjoy it.

How much sun?

Ideally, ponds should receive sunlight in the morning and shade in the afternoon. This keeps the water cooler, discouraging algae blooms.

Read more: Timber Garden Edging [Ideas, Tips and Pictures] – Garden Tabs

What about overhanging trees?

A tree’s afternoon shade is welcome, but a pond directly under a tree’s branches will quickly clog with leaves, seeds, or needles unless given constant maintenance. If a nearby tree is young, factor in its mature spread before settling on the pond’s location.

How far from the house?

Ponds that are out of sight tend to get neglected. And if they’re farther than 20 feet from your patio, you likely won’t hear the gurgling of a waterfall or fountain.

What do the codes say?

Ask your local building department about how far a pond has to be set back from property lines.

Where are the utility lines? Dial 811 to have their location marked. This is a free service.

Materials: Liner

Use these formulas to calculate how much material you’ll need (all dimensions in feet):

Liner length=pond length+(2 x depth)+2.

Liner width=pond width+(2 x depth) +2.

Multiply liner length by liner width to get total square footage.

Synthetic rubber

The best choice for most ponds, 45-mil-thick EPDM comes in sheets up to 50 by 200 feet. Durable, UV resistant, and flexible to -40 degrees F. Not to be confused with roofing EPDM, which has additives that kill fish.

About 67 cents per sq. ft.; GrayStone Creations

Plastic

Liners made of polyethylene (PE) and reinforced polypropylene (RPP) are thinner, lighter, and less expensive than EPDM but stiffer and harder to work with. Sizes up to 40,000 sq. ft. Like EPDM, they carry a 20-year warranty. Avoid PVC liners; they have a short life span when exposed to sunlight.

20-mil PE, about 30 cents per sq. ft., and 36-mil RPP, about 45 cents per sq. ft.; Pond Liner

Equipment: Pump

At minimum, the gallons per hour (GPH) rating should match the volume of your pond. A pump will need additional GPH to supply a waterfall or fountain, and enough “head” to push water to the top of that waterfall or fountain. Look for the unit with the lowest wattage; it will cost the least to run.

Direct drive

These heavy-duty units, which were the first pond pumps, are able to move lots of water. They also use the most power, and if their seals fail, they can spill oil.

GPH: 1,500–16,000.

Head: up to 52 feet.

Watts: 150–1,500.

Warranty: one to two years.

Cost: $200—$1,400. PondScapeOnline

Magnetic drive

Much cheaper to buy and operate than direct drives but without nearly as much oomph.

GPH: 65–3,000.

Head: up to 15 feet.

Watts: 25–350.

Warranty: six months to three years.

Cost: $45—$300. Danner Manufacturing, Inc.

Hybrid drive

Combines the power of a direct drive with the energy efficiency of a magnetic drive. Won’t spill oil.

GPH: 1,200—10,000.

Head: up to 25 feet.

Watts: 110—500.

Warranty: two years.

Cost: $185—$500. Atlantic Water Gardens

Equipment: Filter

One type keeps water free of debris so that the pump won’t clog. The other removes chemicals that harm fish. To sustain fish, you’ll need both types or a product that puts both in one package.

Mechanical

Traps debris before it reaches the pump. Clean weekly in spring and fall, every other week in summer, monthly in winter. A filter in a waterfall or a surface skimmer will be easier to reach than one on a pump at the bottom.

$60—$800. PondScapeOnline

Biological

A must for ponds with fish. Bacteria living on a porous medium digest toxic nitrites and ammonia. Wait six to eight weeks for them to become established, or buy a starter colony. No cleaning needed.

$140—$500.

Equipment: Water Agitators

A pond will become a stagnant, algae-filled eyesore if you don’t keep its water moving and aerated. Here are three ways to stir the pot:

Fountain

Water shooting up from the surface of the pond or flowing from a man-made ornament is visually compelling and nice to listen to. Available in a variety of sizes and shapes, each linked to a particular pump capacity.

Waterfall

To create the show you want, measure its width in inches at the point water spills out. Multiply by 50 if you want a trickle of water, by 100 for a sheet of water, and by 200 for Niagara Falls. The result is how many GPH your pump needs for the falls alone, not counting the pond.

Read more: Starting a new vegetable patch

Bubbler

An air pump, a separate device from a pond pump, produces bubbles that subtly ripple the pond’s surface.

DIY Kits

Most online retailers bundle the pond essentials. Or you can buy a prepackaged kit from a home center that includes a rigid plastic tub, flexible tubing, and a properly sized pump. These kits are small and manageable enough to install in a weekend, but they don’t include the biological filter you need for fish. Though you could add such a filter, they’re really intended to be low-maintenance water features for people who want the pleasant sound of trickling water near a deck or patio, not a full-fledged ecosystem.

Shown: Beckett 65-Gallon pond kit, About $150; The Home Depot

Prep for Installation Day

Photo by Kolin Smith

Do you want fish? If so, build your pond at least 24 inches deep. That depth keeps the pond from freezing in winter or overheating in summer. In extreme northern areas, the minimum depth should be 3 feet.

Will you need a fence? In some areas, local codes mandate that yards with ponds deeper than 18 inches be surrounded by a fence with a locking gate to keep out unsupervised children.

How will it be refilled? Ponds must be topped off periodically to replace water lost through evaporation or splashing. You can do the job manually with a garden hose or have an auto-fill valve connected to a buried water line. When using city water, protect your fish by adding a dechlorinator directly to the pond.

What about the leftover dirt? Digging even a small pond will create a large pile of soil. A hired installer should get rid of it for you, but if you dig your own hole, use the soil to raise the grade around the pond or to build a waterfall.

Where’s the power? A weatherproof GFCI outlet to power the pump should be located at least 10 feet from the pond. The electrical cable leading to that outlet needs to be buried at least 18 inches deep.

Pro advice

Rather than slope the sides of a pond right down to the bottom, make a shelf about 18 inches wide and 18 inches below the water’s surface all around the pond’s edge. This shelf serves as a platform for plants and a convenient step for anyone who falls in.

—Demi Fortuna, August Moon Designs, Stony Brook, N.Y.

Pond Plants: Cattail

Photo by Mark Harmel/Getty Images

(Typha latifolia)

Zones 3—10

Grows along pond edges, in moist soil or shallow water. Hollow stems carry oxygen to the root zone, and to fish, year-round. Perennial; spear-like foliage grows up to 10 feet tall.

Pond Plants: Lotus

Photo by Wildlife GMBH/Alamy

(Nelumbo sp.)

Zones 4—10

Planted in containers up to 2 feet deep, it blooms on a stalk high above the water’s surface. Perennial; leaves up to 20 inches in diameter sway on stems that grow up to 6 feet tall.

Pond Plants: Iris

Photo by Deni Brown/Getty Images

(Iris versicolor)

Zones 3—9

Plant in pots in 3 inches of water. Bears 5-inch-wide flowers in shades of blue or purple on 24-inch stems. Tolerates partial shade. Perennial; arching leaves grow up to 30 inches tall.

Pond Plants: Water Hyacinth

Photo by Hiroshi Tonoshiro/Getty Images

(Eichhornia crassipes)

Zones 9—11

A free-floating plant, it sends a 9-inch spike of lavender flowers up from a rosette of leathery, glossy green leaves. Perennial in Zones 9–11; often grown in colder climates as an annual.

Pond Fish: Goldfish

Photo by Robert Van Der Hilst/Getty Images

(Carassius auratus)

The ultimate in low-maintenance, goldfish can get by eating the plants, algae, and larvae they find. They’ll live about 10 years and often grow up to 12 inches long.

Pond Fish: Koi

Photo by Kaz Chiba/Getty Images

(Cyprinus carpio)

Koi often live for 40 years or more and grow up to 3 feet long, depending on the pond’s size. They must be fed regularly; you can even train them to eat from your hand. They’ll survive winters as far north as Maine.

Solutions to Common Pond Problems

Photo by Olson Photographic

Algae:

You can kill this green slime with chemicals or UV lights, but it will still come back. You’ll get better results by adding plants, barley straw, or biomat filters, and not overfeeding the fish.

Mosquitoes:

Keep the biters at bay by stocking larvae-eating fish, such as goldfish, mosquito fish, or bitterlings. Tossing in mosquito dunks with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) also kills the larvae without harming plants or animals.

Pests:

Deter raccoons with a straight drop of at least 18 inches from the pond’s edge. Nylon netting stretched over

the surface discourages fish-eating birds. Motion-activated sprinklers may scare off other interlopers.

Leaves:

In the summer, sift out debris before it reaches the pump with a skimmer (about $116; Aquatic Ponds). Come fall, scoop out the bigger batches of leaves and needles with a pond net (about $22; Amazon).

Ice:

Place an air bubbler (about $40; Pond Biz Pond Supplies) or a floating pond heater (about $47; Gold Crest Distributing) into the corner of the pond to keep a portion ice-free and maintain a proper balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Source: https://livingcorner.com.au Category: Garden

source https://livingcorner.com.au/everything-you-need-to-know-to-build-the-perfect-backyard-pond/

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My Favorite Top 10 Movie Comedy Scenes

Presently this is certainly an extreme one. I truly don't have the foggiest idea why I am endeavoring this at everything except I think it should be finished. There have been such a large number of incredibly, entertaining scenes and I figure I would be neglectful in the event that I in any event didn't attempt to make reference to the ones that made me snicker the hardest during my lifetime. I might likewise want to include that since I may cherish a scene in a film, doesn't block that I would place the film itself in my Top 10 rundown ever. Thus, I will simply make reference to a portion of the numerous scenes that I have adored and afterward attempt to place them in my request for inclination. Wish me karma!!  https://putlocker-online.com/genres The Marx Brothers have had such a large number of scenes that have made me laugh out loud throughout the years and still till this day. The popular stateroom scene from Monkey Business which occurred on a boat was a visual joy. They were stowaways on the boat so they couldn't give the individuals access charge realize they were there. They had repairmen, house keepers, food administration and every other person you could consider in the room simultaneously. Before the finish of the scene there must be in any event at least 20 individuals all crushed into that small room and it was one of the exemplary scenes in any satire film. At that point you had the agreement scene in A Night At The Opera that was splendidly composed and conveyed by Groucho and Chico. "You can't trick me, there ain't no mental soundness condition". A Day At The Races had a couple of my preferred Marx Brothers scenes in it. The race itself toward the end, the assessment of Margaret Dumont's character by Doctor Hackenbush and the young men and the telephone scene with Groucho driving Mr. Whitmore insane by utilizing confusion.

In the film Bruce Almighty there is a scene in which Jim Carrey is making Steve Carell, who landed the position as anchorman that he needed, botch during the news. He utilizes his freshly discovered forces to make him jibber jabber for what appeared to be around 5 minutes. At the point when I saw that scene in the motion pictures I giggled so hard that I actually dropped out of my seat. I was biting the dust.

In the film It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World there were a perpetual measure of dynamite scenes however the one that murdered me the most was the scene where Jonathan Winters annihilates the service station. The explanation being, the two chaperons had tied him up with conduit tape on the grounds that Phil Silvers had persuaded them that he was insane and it would be for their own security. The reality of the situation was he needed Winter's character off the beaten path while he went for the cash that everybody was scanning for in the film. Probably the best satire ever. On the off chance that you haven't seen it, help yourself out and get it or lease it and afterward watch it. You will dismiss your moron head. I realize that I did and still do each time I see it. Besides the cast of parody stars in the film were a rundown of's who in the satire business. On the off chance that you weren't in the film back, at that point, at that point you weren't viewed as applicable in the satire world.

My preferred scene in the film There's Something About Mary was the scene with the pooch and Matt Dillon. He unintentionally slaughtered the canine and attempts to breath life into him back by utilizing the light electric harmony and kicking off him. That was crazy and I snickered until I hurt at that one. The film was amusing and had many, numerous interesting scenes. I despite everything flinch each time I watch the scene where Ben stalls out in his zipper...OUCH!! An extraordinary Ben Stiller vehicle that I thought was additionally novel.

The supper scene in the revamp of The Nutty Professor with Eddie Murphy was absurd. He played 4 unique characters in that scene and the outcome was brilliant. A really extraordinary acting accomplishment and incredible cosmetics for the characters. On the off chance that you didn't know ahead of time that they were all Eddie, you could never have suspected it. "Hercules, Hercules, Hercules!"

In Monty Python's, The Holy Grail, the blade battle scene with the Black Knight and Sir Arthur at the extension (None Shall Pass) was certainly amusing. He gradually removes the appendages individually of the Black Knight yet it doesn't appear to bother him by any means. Rather he challenges him considerably more and continues egging Sir Arthur on. "It's only a substance wound. Return here and I'll chomp your kneecap off".

The nation club party scene in Caddyshack was amusing, particularly in the event that you were a Rodney Dangerfield fan. He had such huge numbers of interesting jokes and wouldn't quit provoking Ted Knight's character. That film gave Rodney an entire second vocation and another age of fans. "Hello, who stepped on a duck?"

In Jerry Lewis' film The Big Mouth, there is a scene where Charlie Callas is in a telephone stall chatting with his chief and he sees Jerry Lewis' character, whom he however he executed, run by him and he snaps during the call. His outward appearances were so rubbery and the sounds impacts that came out of his mouth were so exceptionally interesting. Nobody else could ever have the option to do that without any difficulty.

Dwindle Sellers was a splendid comedic on-screen character and I just adored his Inspector Clouseau character as the blundering analyst that consistently appeared to arrive on his feet and settle the case. The scene in Return Of the Pink Panther where he camouflages himself as a dental specialist with the goal that he can keep an eye on Inspector Dreyfus at the château is insane. He manages chuckling gas to Herbert Lom's character and the two of them get into a snickering fit as Clouseau attempts to pull his awful tooth. As a watcher, it is extremely infectious to watch without roaring with laughter yourself. Also his mask is softening during the scene. Amusing, clever, entertaining.

My preferred parody film ever was Mel Brook's The Producers and the scene I adored the most in it was during the Broadway play of 'Springtime for Hitler'. Kenneth Mars' character of the writer German fighter, Franz, gets truly furious that everybody is chuckling at a play he composed as a tribute for Hitler. He goes up in front of an audience and begins to advise everybody to quit chuckling. As he begins you hear somebody thump him on the head from behind the drapery and you hear a boisterous crash since he was all the while wearing his protective cap. That doesn't stop him. He continues with his announcement. "What is this infant. The Fuhrer never said child. The Fuhrer was benevolent. The Fuhrer was quite delicate. Ordinarily the Fuhrer would state to me, Franz...OW!" he crumples and they drag him away from under the window ornament. The deferred response of being hit on the head and him saying Ow is amusing as damnation. I love that film so a lot and Mr. Creeks won an Oscar for Best Screenplay for that one.

Woody Allen has had such a large number of magnum opus comedies during his distinguished profession however one of my preferred scenes was in perhaps the most punctual undertaking, Sleeper. His character had been solidified cryogenically for a long time and is defrosted soon yet he is still not adjusted to the new condition yet is still sort of out of it, in a manner of speaking. He is in a wheelchair and is moving around the lab with an interesting face on that is inestimable to watch and turning over individuals' feet and striking into things. Likewise the scene in a similar film where he masks himself as a robot and at a gathering the individuals are feeling this sphere, which gets you high, and he is giving it around for them and getting high himself. That is tremendous.

A to some degree ongoing film, Borat, had a scene that I giggled at hard when I saw it. The scene when he is battling and wrestling, while bare, with this man, and they end up in the gathering focus of the lodging where a show is being held. Gracious my God, that was so crazy to see. Watching the individuals at the show's countenances as the battle followed was so extraordinary. Exceptionally interesting film and altogether different than some other parody before it. Another one of a kind satire film.

Quality Wilder and Richard Pryor were so extraordinary together and had incredible science. In the film Stir Crazy, all the scenes in the jail were amusing. The superintendent is attempting to break them and places them in dreadful circumstances to attempt to convince Wilder to ride for him at the rodeo rivalry between his jail and his companion's jail. At the point when he places them in a little cell with a mammoth mass killer, I giggled until I cried viewing their response to their pickle.

In Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the scene in the manor where Dracula, Frankenstein and The Wolfman are for the most part pursuing them from space to room was one of my preferred interesting scenes when I was a child. To watch the beasts that used to startle all of us as children, act in a satire with the clever parody group, was so extraordinary and exciting simultaneously. I could just envision the impact they more likely than not had making that film.

I can't generally compose the entirety of my good notices here in light of the fact that it would be excessively hard without broadly expounding on every one so I will simply give you my Top rundown as well as can be expected and you can consider yours.

In this way, after much pondering here is all the better I could do:

My Favorite Top 10 Comedy Movie Scenes

1. The corner store scene from It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

2. The pooch restoring scene from that point's Something About Mary

3. The jabbering communicate scene from Bruce Almighty

4. The telephone stall scene from The Big Mouth

5. The giggling gas scene from Return Of The Pink Panther

6. The wrestling scene from Borat

7. The assessment scene from A Day At The Races

8. The play scene from The Producers

9. The dark knight scene from The Holy Grail

10. The supper scene from The Nutty Professor

I trust one of your top picks was on my rundown. Trust me, that was extremely difficult to do in light of the fact that there have been such a large number of interesting scenes and I am certain that I am overlooking a great deal of them yet I attempted to put the ones up that made me chuckle the hardest throughout the years. Good karma attempting to limit your top picks down to a Top 10 and as usual, a debt of gratitude is in order for perusing from, THE COMEDY TORNADO!!

Paul Venier has been a performer since he was 9 years of age. An artist turned humorist who has been performing live for over 35 years. He despite everything performs for a large number of individuals every week everywhere throughout the nation, has a CD out of Original music called 'Preferred Late Over Never', 3 Comedy Videos out in which

[thedropkickmessage]

Fisticuffs

I’m writing this not for any one person, especially that insomuch every one person that knows me thinks me insane. I can merely speculate on their thoughts of me, but with an educated guess I would think that they would consider me a madman, a drunk, or a drug addict. I am an addict, insomuch that I am chasing something with every hour of day and night, this I want them to know; but moreover I want someone to understand, if at all possible.

The first fight I was involved in, when I categorize thoughts and memories, was at a get together involving my old church. My old family church. But before I describe that, this thing I chase showed it’s face during a small accident. Such a small thing that bloomed into this madness that I can’t stop chasing, half in fear and half in fearful splendor.

In seventh grade, we had lockers at school like most. My locker number was 1137, and next to mine was a girl named Hannah. One day either I or she was running late, to hard to remember now, and as whichever one of us were scrambling for our papers and books, as she closed her locker door, struck me in the cheek with all her force of slamming it. It was not her door that hit, but rather her knuckles. I suppose I exclaimed, and furthermore I suppose she apologized for such an event, But I didn’t hear myself or her at all. Instead of hearing, I was seeing. It was as if some burning, terrible liquid had gushed into my eyes, causing prisms of wild color, and quadrupling every image I could see. Only, I wasn’t seeing the hallway of the school, but glimpsing what I could only comprehend (or poorly fathom, rather) as a wild void of images that seemed like some red negative, where Hannah seemed to be a sort of creature with an impossibly deep voice, and my hand wasn’t on the locker or clutching my bag, but was no longer there at all. I shook my head, and my vision was back, and Hannah looked very apologetic. At the time I supposed that I had blacked out, sure that no minor blow could cause a concussion of any kind, water had probably just teared up in my eyes. I think cartoons present this feeling as seeing stars.

Unlike any comedy or romance, I did never marry Hannah or fall in love with her, in fact I have no idea what even came of her. What I do know is that a couple years later, one Easter after church, my pastor told me I should come to his house, because a fight was coming on. I had no love or appreciation for boxing at the time; I had never stopped to think about such. But seeing as that was a time in my life where I was searching for and finding and defining my masculinity as every young man does in time, I sought as every young man does in time, to surround myself with with men in whom it was already defined.

I do not remember the match on television much, and it’s contents are not important to this writing. What is important, is that during either a commercial, or an intermission or for whatever reason or another there was a moment where the idea of sparring was brought up. Now, I was not the only young man or person at this get together, if memory serves well, there were quite a few. Somewhere along the line, a couple pairs of boxing gloves that were bigger than regulation size were brought up from a downstairs area, and soon there came the laughing and ha-ha-ing of the “boys will be boys” nature.

In all the laughter and excitement, mixed with the overall ruggedness of a boxing match and such, I easily got caught up in it. Some of the boys were older, and in so bigger than me, and I think pastor Jerry could tell what I was thinking, so he put the gloves on and told me to put the other ones on. There was a bit of cheering, and so happily enough I did. I want to be clear, pastor Jerry never tried to sock me. He would bat my hands away as I tried to jab. He also did this thing where he just held out the glove, and I would throw hooks at it, or knock it away. I cannot recollection why, as we rarely can with such silly things, but as he held his hand straight out, I darted forward, and in doing so ran right in his outstretched fist.

What came next was more pure and ecstatic than any addict’s plunge of the needle, any nymphomaniac’s orgasm, any gambler’s win. I never kept up with anyone who was there that day, and pastor Jerry is long dead by now, so no one could say what they saw me do. But with such vigor, and sweet taste on tongue, I can tell you what I saw, the best that I can.

I was shown something. I don’t know what allowed me to see it, or who, or whatever. What was shown to me bends all sense of reality, it shatters what we know about life, and shrinks even the largest earthly problems into infinitely infinitesimal iotas.

I felt my spine, from the base of it up go cold, and in incredible ecstasy travel up into the base of my skull, into my brain. The world that we reside spilt, or ripped rather, and I saw inside it, the inner workings of it. Large, rubbery pegs turned and churned like clock works, and I realized that this place was just right behind our life, our existence. Realization dawned on me furthermore, that I had been shown this before, in a feeling that I simultaneously felt for the first time and had forgotten. Time seemed to have stopped completely in this swirl of moments and and images, thousands of prisms danced dances and twirls all around. I reached for anything remotely familiar, and saw what looked like a bookshelf with several books upon it. As I reached for them, even they came forward as a wall, and I realized what was behind everything all over again. I saw faces, dozens or more that didn’t look like faces, perhaps faces wrapped in rubber or some bright silica, nodding approval at my presence, seeming to welcome me into this new knowing. These faces, attached to tubes, wobbled left and right as they walked, like Russian Matryoshka dolls. I had time to understand that these beings were the keepers of this where, when I began to see images that weren’t prismatic, images that weren’t new, but images I already knew. I blinked, and in so doing cried, asking, begging to stay, while I heard cluttered noises, voices from the outside, and a strong, warbling from from inside here say “Not your time. You shall know in time. We are time. We are time. We are…” and suddenly, the only voice I remember hearing was pastor Jerry’s, telling his wife Lucina to fetch a glass of water.

For weeks after this event I strained my mind in every way possible to remember what I saw and felt, through meditation mostly but also trying lucid dreaming. However, as more and more time went by, I began to forget what I was striving for; instead of conjuring any vision or focusing on a feeling, it became more of trying to remember anything that happened at all, like a man who remembers that he had a dream while halfway through his day, and then eventually not at all. When anyone mentioned the get together at pastor Jerry’s, which was sparsely mentioned, my mind absorbed whatever was being said and that became the only memory as like scar tissue. A road being paved over a pothole in the mind and memory; forgotten.

In this I exercise my right to anonymity, fearing that anymore detail than necessary will put anyone at risk for ridicule. I doubt very much that with as little detail as I have given in this strange account that one could or even would try to seek out these events. Suffice it to say that I continued life in some poverty, focused almost solely on my education, and in turn spent two years at a somewhat podunk community college, where I graduated with honors in English education, and moved on to a better known university with considerable less honors, in a sordid kind. I myself am not too much a victim to a party sort of lifestyle, but was not impervious to its pleasures at all times. This aside, I managed to graduate a completely average student, but graduated nonetheless.

Even so, for a few years there was still a bit of a struggle to make ends meet. There were no immediate teaching positions waiting for me with open arms, and so I managed as a tutor for barely more than the minimum wage. I had no family responsibilities so to speak, but still lived on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis. After around four years I was offered a teaching position for eleventh grade, however in a different city. After learning that they would pay for me to move, I accepted the position. The school was located inner-city, where the success rate was low and the crime rate was high. Still, I thought there with some success for two years before my world was once again ripped at the seams and everything changed for good.

It is at this time, where I can explain, as best of my abilities, how things came to be. As before, I had no family responsibilities nor ambition, and still did not make too much money. So like any struggling person with little responsibility, I set a fair amount of my funds aside for alcohol. I have never been a drunk, in the sense of an alcoholic way; no, it’s relevance is that to pass time, I would frequently visit a bar that was located right outside of town, as so to cut down chances for any unfortunate run-ins with any student’s parents. Like any normal person, I tried my hand at getting laid, but there were times where I would go just to have a few drinks and listen to music, as a band would play a few times a week.

One day, instead of a band there was a solo show, a middle-aged man with an acoustic guitar. For one reason or another that I’m still not sure of there came some bad sound suddenly, the guitar stopped and there were raised voices. The man with the guitar was standing, chest raised at another man near a table. I barely had time to recognize any curses when there was the sound of glass smashing, men grunting and a woman yelling in that shrill, dumb way when she’s caused a problem that got out of hand. Others got up, and I realized with dull, growing amazement that there was a sort of brawl transpiring. When I saw the bartender jump over the counter, my stare broke and I started to help pull people apart, as I didn’t want the establishment to get into any trouble for selfish reasons. I managed to pull two couples apart, and while attempting to pull a man off of another, his elbow smashed into my nose. I had a chance to barely register the pain as I stumbled backwards, and reached back to brace my fall. Instead of hard floor though, there was a rush of wind blowing my hair forward with force and the gut-lurching feeling of rapid momentum. I wasn’t just falling backward, it was as if I had fallen of the face of the planet with weights attached to me. In my view, I saw the bar with its neon and bodies shuffling stretch grossly long, the white cinder floor stretched so that it was an infinitely-long stripe in both sides of my eyes. I moved with such maddening speed that the air was being sucked out of my lungs like a vacuum.

Just as I had time to think that my lungs would deflate and fold upon themselves, my mind implode and my vision go black, I suddenly and completely stopped moving, every molecule instantaneously halting. If anything moving with such speed on earth stopped as abruptly, it would surely be ripped to shreds or flattened. Instead, I simply floated without moving in blackness, and my inner-monologue was gone. I was unable to form any thoughts. As I stared forward like a movie-camera, there was a sudden burst of purple light, that pulsed upwards in a tube, and moved quickly through to the tips of hundreds of dozens of sprawling branches, and again, pulsed from base upward to branch tip hundreds of impossible miles high. With each climbing, sprawling pulse my spine pulsed also, in tandem with the tree. Suddenly, I was allowed one thought, that I should not be allowed to see this. With this, a warbly, wet, metallic voice spoke, “There was always room, for you are you, and we are we.” I understood this voice to be taking up the entirety of every space of every universe imaginable and on, and also in my heart and mind. I was not allowed any other thought, and only heard once more, “There was always…” and suddenly I was rushing forward, past the impossible neon tree, past everything that has ever been named and everything that has not, with such speed I was able to squeeze my eyes as my spine and mind threatened to explode, I lurched forward with someone holding my hand. It was the bartender, pulling me up, thanking me. Some overhead music was playing and there were considerably fewer people inside.

I know that my words cannot explain or paint even a fraction of what I mean to tell. At best, you can only barely imagine through my details of these encounters. What I can express better, I think, is the importance I understood this to be. Because after this last encounter, I remember the feeling I had forgotten, this underlying knowing that I had been shown something like this before, that something had chosen me, from an entire universe of life, only because I am I. I simultaneously understood the insignificance of our day-in lives and strifes, and the purpose of my entire existence and the importance of it. I can only speculate why I was able to remember, perhaps it was my age, I cannot be sure, I only knew that I had a separate revelation: every time these Others had shown me the gift of their existence, it was due to being hit or struck in some way. With this, I moved ever closer to where I now am. Where I’ve met with you.

I did not go back to work. I knew now my destiny, and knew that children will always be taught, in one way or another by someone or, maybe even each other. I had no fear of lack of funds, simply because I knew that where I needed to go, where I had been invited, there was no need of such. First, however, there were a few mistakes made.

I know my tone will sound different here, but I’ve been writing this for some time now, and I’m desperate. After I realized that it seemed to me to be blunt force that allows me to visit, I tried many things. Do you know how hard it is to get someone to hit you? Sure, at first I tried to hit myself, but it doesn’t seem to work. Over and over I would smash my fist into my face and nothing! Then, as I sat to write part of this, I slammed my face into the table, two times. It didn’t work, it must be something to do with energy from another person, it’s all I can think of. I would go to bars and try to pick fights, but people just look at you strangely when you beg for someone to hit you, they look at you like you’re some writhing, pitiful drunk. I tried to join a karate class and a boxing class, and both take money to join and I’ve tried to tell them that I won’t need money there, not once I get there, and they just shoo me off, laughing or thinking of me mad. And so I’ve walked these streets now, and did you know that there are a sort who pay for the homeless to fight, nearly to the death? Bum fights they call them, and they’ve let me fall into the presence of the ones, oh I’ve seen things that I’m trying to tell people, because it isn’t just beside this existence, no, it’s behind it, right behind it, just maddeningly out of reach, and I’m afraid that if I do not get there soon, to that where where I am destined to go, that they will no longer let me in, that my window is closing so soon and suddenly, and maybe if pastor Jerry were still around he would hit me, but he’s been dead for years and so now I go around hitting people, just so that they will hopefully hit me back and I killed one homeless because he would not hit me hard enough so that I could go back permanently. It was his fault that he wouldn’t hit me hard enough, if he would have only not stopped then he would still be alive. I feel them calling me, beckoning me and no one else can hear it, and so I’ve written this so that you know that there is something else here, and yet I know you can’t understand.

The only place that I can think of that I know the beatings will continue is a jail, a prison. That’s where I will take my leave, and feel the pulse of the life-tree, and see the Other Ones and know of my true fate, and They won’t care whatever crime I commit tonight because it is They who beckoned me, and like the students I left behind, the ones in this world, the world that you live in will care only about yourselves and take care of yourselves one way or another, while I will finally go home.

[12izzy3]

Webcomic Recommendations No One Asked For:

I......... Spent 2 hours putting together a list of my webcomic recommendations, with summaries and reviews, because I was reworking my blog... And really I don’t think anyone ever goes directly on to my blog proper, so it feels kind of foolish to have that there where no one will see it, so I’m actually going to post it as well:

Webcomics are honestly just so tight, and there’s such a vast variety of them that there’s something for everyone, if not a few somethings for everyone! I’m personally all about indie games, but if there’s another indie market that I feel like the internet has created a space for it’s comics. After I started writing this I realized I have a uh… Lot of recommendations. Also, I may be an idiot for not using the author’s own summaries???

Regularly updating:

KILL SIX BILLION DEMONS - A comic about a college girl, Allison, given mystical powers beyond her understanding, and thrust into a celestial world filled with angels and demons, where the lines of good and evil are blurry at best. With the help of friends she meets along the way, she must navigate her new powers, and save her boyfriend from forces that would destroy existence. Kinda dark thematically (with very rare and minor gore), but a great comic if you love action, fantasy, and fantastic art. One of my favorites.

AWFUL HOSPITAL - Another one of my favorites. After her child becomes terribly sick, and doctors tell her that there’s nothing that they can do, a mother wakes up in a mysterious, otherworldly hospital. She must navigate this confusing and sometimes horrifying hospital to save her child and get home, and on the way, she makes many odd friends and unknowable enemies, and learns that her child’s sickness may be part of something larger. This comic is funny, has cool action, a unique format, and lots of great, though ghastly, character designs.

GUNNERKRIGG COURT - A coming of age story about two girls, Antimony and Kat, as they try to find their place in each other’s lives, and the two clashing worlds that surround them, the massive technological complex that is their school and home, Gunnerkrigg Court, and the forest across the river, where magic and fantastic creatures thrive, under the watchful eye of the trickster god Coyote. Another great one for if you like fantasy, but is usually a lot lighter, with a peak of intensity about equal to… Like, Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, I think. I’ve only gotten into this one pretty recently, but it’s good.

PARANATURAL - After his family moves to his dad’s old home town, Max discovers that he has magical powers, and becomes part of the Paranatural Activities club at his school, a group of students and their adviser who all have magical powers, and use them to protect the populace from ghosts, as well as investigate the many magical mysteries of the town. This comic is great, and mostly focuses on action and comedy. The art is a very colorful cartoony style, and the characters are drawn very… fluid, rubbery. The best way to put it is that the artist has really put a lot of effort into making characters consistently as expressive as possible, and that good old Disney/Looney Toons/Tom & Jerry stretchiness makes for very good visual comedy.

HOUSEPETS! - Another one of the earliest webcomics I ever read! Housepets is… largely a comedy comic, following the lives of anthropomorphized pets in a small neighborhood. They go on adventures, and live the fun yet complicated lives of an open society of people with unbelievable amounts of free time. However, sometimes there are bigger drama/adventure arcs, which are really good! A lot of the times amazing art or cool action are what draw me into adventure stories, but I just think the plot of this comic can be really good and surprisingly deep for a humor comic. And it’s still loose enough, and in the newspaper comic style that you can usually jump in very often (not every strip, mind you but in pretty small arcs) without feeling like you’ve missed a ton. Long too, lots to read, recommend.

STAND STILL STAY SILENT - SSSS is a comic that takes place 90 years after the end of the world. A zombie-like virus with strong mystical qualities has wiped out not just human, but much of the world’s mammalian life. In Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, and Denmark), in spite of the virus, society continues to exist, and most people live normal, happy lives. Our comic follows a research team, formed on a hairstring budget to travel into the infected zone, collect information on the virus and state of the fauna there, and, secretly, to collect books to sell back home. A great fantasy adventure drama that updates very often, and has really good art.

CUCUMBER QUEST - In spite of order this is actually the last one I’m writing, and I’m tired, so I’m going to copy the book one summary from Amazon:

What happens when an evil queen gets her hands on an ancient force of destruction? World domination, obviously. The seven kingdoms of Dreamside need a legendary hero. Instead, they’ll have to settle for Cucumber, a nerdy magician who just wants to go to school. As destiny would have it, he and his way more heroic sister, Almond, must now seek the Dream Sword, the only weapon powerful enough to defeat Queen Cordelia’s Nightmare Knight. Can these bunny siblings really save the world in its darkest hour? Sure, why not?

Cucumber Quest is good, the art is colorful and bright, all of the characters are relatable and real, including the villains, there’s cool adventures sequences and plot, and it’s a very fun comic. There’s humor and love and struggle in the comic, and it’s very well done.

GIRL GENIUS - Girl Genius follows Agatha Heterodyne, up and coming mad scientist, on her many adventures to save herself, her friends and the world if it’s along the way. It’s hard, however, competing with an entire world of mad scientists, as well as the Heterodyne legacy, one filled with chaos and bloodshed up until recently. I like Girl Genius a lot. It doesn’t move through the story very fast, but there’s a lot of solid world building, and more importantly, very intriguing sci-fi action and adventure happening inside of that world! I’m also pretty sure they do a radio show or podcast or something with additional Agatha adventures on top of the comic.

SUPERNORMAL STEP - After leading a life as a drifter after the death of her father, Fae is pulled into an alternate world where magic is real. There, she tries to find her place in life, master the magic that the world around her runs on, and get home to plain old earth in one piece. Lots of cool action, every character has really got their own style of magic. I can honestly tell you that it’s good, but I read it over such a long period of time that it’s got a pretty vague impression in my head.

ATOMIC ROBO - Robo is a skilled an dedicated scientist. He’s also an atomic robot built and raised by Nikola Tesla. Atomic Robo follows the titular character on the many adventures of his life, from WWII to the present. As the head of Tesladyne Industries, Robo is dedicated to researching the outlandish, the weird, the impossible! And when the world calls on him, he and his Action Scientists defend it from giant monsters, cosmic anomalies, and mad science. Atomic Robo is great if you love action, robots, monsters, humor, and velociraptors duel-wielding uzis. Highly recommended.

DUMBING OF AGE - As the title would imply, Dumbing Of Age is a pretty standard coming of age comedy! Starring a wide cast of likable and complex character, DoA follows a group of college freshmen as they learn more about themselves, and grow beyond the bubbles that they were raised in. I think the underpinnings of the comic are pretty strongly on humor, but there’s a lot of drama, and conversations about meaningful things too. There are lots of varying depictions of drama, depression, anxiety, and the ways people deal with pressure, and fear. But there’s also a lot of love and friendliness. It’s a good comic, and probably the only solid slice-of-life on my list.

MANLY GUYS DOING MANLY THINGS - This comic follows The Commander, a bio-engineered super soldier sent back in time to run a temp agency. This particular temp agency specializes in reintroducing particularly brutish video game, comic, and movie protagonists back into normal polite society. Duke Nukem isn’t much of a man for customer service, however. Later on the comic drifts more toward Commander’s personal life. (So slice of life, but with a buff, and actually surprisingly sensitive and forward thinking, super commando from the future.) Has been in a bit of a slump in terms of updates recently, but they still happen.

GRRL POWER - Sidney, a slightly hyper nerd who works at a comic shop, stumbles upon an artifact that gives her a variety of superpowers. After being exposed, she becomes a member of the government’s brand new super hero organization. This comic is a lot of fun, with some cool superpowers and super fights. Lots of humor, very consistently, in any given scene. Sadly, it is a bit fan service-y, though in the grand scale of things it’s not the worst offender (though definitely the worst you’ll see on this list).

SWORD INTERVAL - This is a pretty new one for me, but it’s great. At some indeterminate point in the past (potentially as far back as the civil war, if not farther), the earth became exposed to monsters and magic in ways that it wasn’t before. Humanity still exists and survives, but plagued by supernatural forces. Our main character is Fall, a very new monster hunter, who after years in witness protection, has decided to track down and kill the Hierophant, the powerful monster that killed her parents. Sword interval does a lot of really cool fantasy stuff, with new takes on classic monsters, and magic and monsters in settings that we don’t often see them in, out in the open in present day. It’s something I wish we could see more. Good action and art, particularly character design.

BACK - Abigail is back. From the dead? From a very long sleep in a box underground? She doesn’t know either. She doesn’t know a lot of things. What she does know is that she’s got two guns, is nearly indestructible, and is prophesied to go north to the capital and end the world. With the help of the young cleric Michael, who supplements her absolute lack of all knowledge and common sense, Abigail fights her way through the kingdom, and past the kings many superpowered deputies. Back is cool, back is funny, and sometimes has some good action. I wouldn’t consider it one of my favorites, but it’s a comic I started and I’ve kept up with, so that’s saying something.

MARE INTERNUM - Not very long yet, and I only recently read it, but Mare Internum is really good. I don’t want to spoil it too much, honestly, especially because it’s so short, but it’s a sci-fi adventure comic about being trapped, underground, on Mars, and finding life there. The art is great, the story so far is well written, and the dialogue is good. I really don’t want to spoil it, but there are some great concepts in it and you should read it.

OPHIUCHUS - A very new comic about an ancient stone guardian who is whisked away to another, far off world. Here, he is employed to help two of this world’s denizens defeat the blight that has corrupted and destroyed their once almost utopian world. The art for this is really good. The comic is not currently long enough to comment on much else, but it seems interesting, sci-fi with a touch of fantasy.

Slowly Updating:

AVA’S DEMON - Ava’s Demon is about a girl, Ava who has spent her entire young life haunted by a ghost that torments her, before finally making a deal. The ghost, Wrathia, will help her become a normal girl, with friends and a normal life, but first, Ava must track down the ghosts of Wrathia’s most powerful allies, and help her dissolve the massive interplanetary empire that is TITAN. Ava’s Demon is amazing. The story is good, but I think the comic’s greatest strength is absolutely stunning and polished art. Strong recommendation.

THE PROPERTY OF HATE - RGB is a self-described monster, a sharp dressed man with a TV for a head. However, he’s looking for a hero to guide on a quest. RGB whisks our young protagonist, the Hero, to a world that exists beside our own a world completely fueled and inhabited by our creativity, our stories. RGB protects the Hero from these dangers, guiding her on a mission unknown, through a world that, although mystical, seems to have lost its hope.

HE IS A GOOD BOY - Slow but large updates. This comic follows the life a sentient acorn, Crange, after the death of his parent (a tree) to a lumberjack. Crange is kind of a bit of a loser, and stumbles around his world of sentient rocks and bugs getting into all sorts of trouble and hijinks. These hijinks almost always result in someone’s death, which Crange is impressively unphased by. HIAGB is fantastic, in my opinion. The art is great, the humor is great, especially the visual comedy, and the story is good. However, it gets real dark, and gory. But if you’re fine with that, it IS a (dark) comedy comic, and a good one.

THE LAST HALLOWEEN - One Halloween, the darkness opens up, and monsters pour out from the seams between our world and theirs. Approximately 7 billion monsters, in fact. Mona, a young girl and horror fanatic finds herself thrown into a world of chaos and horror, on the run from her own monster, and forced to look for a way to save the world, with the help of ghosts, zombies, vampires, and even monsters themselves. In spite of the fact that this comic can be VERY dark, I think one of its big hooks is humor and likable characters, on top of great art and plot. I really like it. This comic maybeshouldn’t be on the slow update list, but the artist is just picking up speed after a long hiatus, so…

ROMANTICALLY APOCALYPTIC - The apocalypse happened, and Charles Snippy missed it. Humanity was wiped out in a war against it’s own, ever-present AI, and Charles Snippy, a scientist/tour guide without the implants made it out alive, only to wander alone this is until he meets Zee Captain, an ever positive, gender question mark, maniac who wanders the wasteland with their insane assistant Pilot. Snippy, Captain and Pilot wander the wasteland, facing off against monsters, raiders, and the laws of physics in a mind warping and illogical adventure.

On Hiatus:

DERELICT - Like a surprisingly large number of comics on this list, in Derelict, the world has ended. A strange Miasma travels the world, killing billions, and bringing with it gargoyle-like monsters who fear the daylight. However, the world goes on, in a small, broken way, and our story follows a scavenger in this new world.

HELVETICA - So, you die, and then what? Well, life goes on. This is what Helvetica learns, after he dies and reemerges into an afterlife that seems shockingly similar to the world of the living, with work, pressure, responsibility, danger, and just plain old boring life. Except everyone is a skeleton. Helvetica is very resistant to accept this new life in death. This one is pretty short so far, and hasn’t updated in a while, but it’s good.

VIBE - Hasn’t update in a year and a half, but what’s there is good (Honestly, it’s super sad it hasn’t update, I like it a lot). Vibe follows Baron, a young shaman, a spiritual master who is able to expel negative emotions (bad vibes) from the human body. Only those emotions then become monsters, who a shaman must fight to complete the process! With the help of his Loa (they’re like familiars), he navigates life as a teenager, and his increasingly complex and dangerous life as a shaman. I really like this comic. There’s a lot of very cool and dynamic action, and the artist makes great use of a ton of bright colors.

THE ABOMINABLE CHARLES CHRISTOPHER - This one hasn’t updated in about a year, but what’s there right now is good. Charles Christopher is a Sasquatch, living in the woods on the edge of society. Though he himself is fairly soft, and simple, the wilderness around him is full of anthropomorphized animals who go about shockingly human social and professional lives. The comic follows Charles Christopher as he interacts with the world of these animals, and becomes tangled in a vast spiritual quest.

POWER NAP - Hard to know exactly where to put this one. It’s currently VERY slow updating. Power Nap takes place in a world where the majority of mankind is reliant on a drug that allows them to live 24/7 without sleep. However, there are those who are allergic to the medicine, who live their lives out of sync with their peers, protected by the government, but effectively second class citizens. However, in a sleepless world, over-saturated by virtual reality, the human subconscious has found ways to seep into reality.

THE FANCY ADVENTURES OF JACK CANNON - I want to start this out by saying this comic is probably dead, without a 100% resolution. However, it’s currently 492 pages, and a LOT of the storyline covered in that span was resolved. Such that, if they’d wanted to, I could’ve seen the author wrapping it up. I digress. Jack Cannon is about a kid moving to a new school, where he finds the bullies are able to hack reality. Somehow immune to hacks, Jack fights the bullies, and in doing so, puts himself on the stage of a worldwide battle against hackers. Lots of really cool action in this, one of the first few webcomics I read.

Complete:

HOMESTUCK - If you’re here, you are probably at least aware of Homestuck. It’s about a bunch of goofy awkward teen friends who get sucked into a cosmic (video) game, with the fate of the universe at stake, but you know, they’ve still got that teen angst. Time travel is involved. It’s a very long, fun, and dramatic comic which is heavily influenced by RPGs and point and click adventures.

THE ADVENTURES OF DR. MCNINJA - The pressures of being a doctor AND ninja are immense, but on either front, you can trust that Dr. McNinja is the man for the job. Born into an Irish ninja family, Dr. McNinja longs for a life where he can do medicine in peace, but finds himself constantly pulled into a string of action packed adventures, fighting giant monsters, bandits riding velociraptors, and dueling radical interdimensional kings. This one if fairly long, a bit over 1800 pages, but it’s really good and well done. Again, there is a lot of both action and humor (I’m big on that), with some surprisingly meaningful and well-done story arcs in spite of how silly the premise is.

REMIND - This one is about a girl who lives in a lighthouse on the edge of a town whose main draw is the “Lizard Man” legend that her own father made up. However, after her cat one day starts walking on two legs and talking, claiming to be one of many said lizard men, they both go on a journey to discover the truth. This one was OK. The story and sci-fi elements are both alright bot not great. But it’s not super long, so if you have the time, maybe read it.

[vonlipvig]

you two are dancing in a snow globe, 'round and 'round...

a little something for my fallen london pc jack and his boyfriend jerry the rubbery man, because they love each other very much and they deserve that love. and you know, sometimes a perfect couple can be a moderately successful author and his number one fan. who's a squid man. of course.

[my-video-resume-blog]

[The six Hultquist children discovered that on Saturday mornings, before their parents were up, they could crawl through the Television right into the program they were watching! Ahem, although they had not tired it out on cartoons]

 IT WAS A BRIGHT AND CRISP SEPTEMBER MORNING, A SATURDAY, IN FACT,

 which meant plenty of cartoons at the Hultquist residence. Draped over a floral sofa and plush chairs like fresh washing laid out to dry were six children of varying shapes and sizes: Cathy, the eldest, the one in charge whenever their parents were missing, followed by Kurt, Karen, Kristi, Craig & Clark.

 Saturday morning before their parents woke up was the time of week when the earth shifted on its axis, when the cartoon universe ruled for hours.

 Naturally, early in the morning in front of the idiot box, after countless bowls of sugary cereal, it was all too easy to slip into a semiconscious state. But when a barrage of senseless commercials interrupt a Tom & Jerry cartoon, Karen jumps up to flip the channel.

 FLIP . . . nothing . . . FLIP . . . nothing . . . FLIP . . .nothing . . . FLIP ---

 OH GOOD, THE ROADRUNNER AND THE COYOTE!

 On that huge TV screen, glorious hues of orange, tan and green cast an alluring view of the southwest desert. Crested buttes towering high over vast fields of tall cactus. Overhead, a sparkling blue sky.

 Once again, the coyote had sent out to Acme Inc. for another Roadrunner catching contraption, causing everyone to perk up a bit.

 Kristi said, "I feel sorry for the coyote. He's always getting the bad end of the stick."

 With an impish smile, Karen turns to Kristi, and says, "Do you want to help him out?"

 Craig was feeling kind of peckish, wondering how a fried Roadrunner leg would taste. After all, he'd only consumed three bowls of Lucky Charms. "Why not!" he blurted out.

 Suddenly Clark sat up. "Do you think we can? I mean, it IS a cartoon."

 "It might be wise for only one of us to go in, just to be on the safe side," Cathy said, her maternal instincts switching into gear.

 Kurt frowned. "Don't you think it should be, "All for one and one for all?"

 They all jumped up and shouted, "ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL!"

 From the point of view inside the TV, a finger tentatively poked through a hazy electronic curtain, which like a bulging sheet of rubber, seemed somewhat reluctant to give way. Then appeared Karen's arm and head, breaking through a diamond haze of electrons --- and then suddenly, just like that, she was on the other side!

 Like a string of babies from the womb, five more children plopped through, rolling around on the sand.

 "WOW!" Kurt exclaimed, feeling the scorching desert wind. "It sure is hot!"

 And then, all at once, they all noticed the same thing . . . how their clothes and skin had acquired an airbrushed look, no wrinkles, no lines, no moles,

 THEY WERE ALL CARTOON CHARACTERS!!!

 Everyone grins

 Craig heard it first, a BEEP-BEEP in the distance that could only mean one thing. . .

 The Roadrunner!

 Against the far horizon, between sheer rock cliffs, appeared a tiny plume of smoke, snaking along a winding 2-lane road, slowly getting larger and larger --- sounding something like a sound of a bullet. Suddenly it came to an abrupt halt. Silence. In the middle of the road, with the patience of a monk, the Roadrunner calmly observed the children.

 Just as Kurt ventures a "Good morning," to the bird, atop a overhanging cliff, a large boulder connected to a mighty rubber band teetered precariously. Loitering on the edge for a few seconds as if deciding on which way to go. . . before finally dropping. . . .

 . . . . just missing the Roadrunner, who had switched into overdrive the second it heard the sound of the huge rock whistling through the air. . .

 "Thpttt, Thpttt," went it's red tongue, as it shot off toward the horizon like a meteor.

 WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSHHH!

 "BEEP-BEEP!"

 Looking down from atop the cliff, Wile Coyote snapped his long slender fingers in disgust, not noticing that the rubber-banded boulder was heading back up in the air, now over his head, and then with a frown he finally saw it when it was a bit too late. . .

 Crushed flat as a pancake.

 Cathy gazed at her brothers and sisters, and with a concerned look in her eye, she says, "Do you think he can hurt us?"

 "Duhhh," Kurt replied. "Helloooo. . .we're inside a cartoon!"

 "Yeah," Kristi affirmed. "I've yet to see one fatality in a Tom & Jerry cartoon."

 As if to accentuate the point, Clark picked up a huge boulder as if it weighed nothing and proceeded to smash the head of his older brother, who was crushed flat as a pancake.

 A few seconds later, a muffled plop revealed a hand reaching out of the rubbery flattened substance that had been his body, which reaches down and grabs the rubber and then with great force suddenly pulled it up. Like an accordion, Craig suddenly regained his true shape and form.

 "Hey!" he shouted, "that was fun!"

 As he and his brother proceeded to take turns smashing each other into pancakes, a storm of laughter erupts from their brother and sisters, that is, until Wile Coyote steps into view.

 Stillness descends on the group. Laughter died away as quick as it started as Wile surveys a semicircle of pink faces.

 Always quick to take the bull by the horns, Karen scuttled over to the coyote, putting her arm around his bony shoulders. "Wile," she says, "I think you need a better plan."

 Back in Wile's cave, the kids watch Karen and the coyote thumb through the thick catalog of Acme Road Runner catching contraptions, Karen humming the theme song from Love boat.

 Her face lit up when she saw a powerful BMW 1200 motorcycle with a sidecar. No more than 60 seconds later, the Acme delivery truck drops off a huge box in front of the cave.

 After all, they were in a cartoon!

 Karen hopped on the huge motorcycle after unboxing it. The coyote gleefully taking his place in the sidecar.

 Cathy's worried expression said it all: "Please be careful!"

 When Kristi made the point that Karen had never actually ridden a motorcycle, the coyote's eyes got big as saucers. "Hey, we're in a cartoon," Karen calmly replied as she placed her right hand on the hand grip of the accelerator.

 "I don't need a freaking driver's license!"

 The immense roar of the engine drowning out Craig & Clark's urgent pleas to take them along.

 Then, out of the distance, moving at least 90 miles per hour, a tiny speck appears in the distance, at the head of a long plume of smoke.

 Karen looking back over her shoulder, timing her take-off --- and then the big bike suddenly surges forward, the coyote's eyes bulging out of their sockets.

 "WHOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!"

 In a fiery chaos, the wind spinning Karen's hair, streaming behind her in long streaking waves of brown and blond. After racing around a few turns, nearly popping that poor coyote out of the sidecar, the Roadrunner suddenly darts off the road, leaving Karen with no choice but to follow.

 Bouncing through a boulder-strewn field, she suddenly veers between a series of huge rocks, not seeing the edge of that dried out creek bed until it was too late --- flying through the air --- a huge boulder on the other side of the bed that got them, which Karen did not observe until in mid-flight.

 Catching the motorcycle squarely and sending Karen and the coyote shooting through the air like cruise missiles. . .

 Straight at the Roadrunner!

 But just as they both reach out to snag that dang bird, the Roadrunner disappears in an abandoned coal tunnel at the base of the cliff, reaching back just as fast to zip the opening shut right behind it . . .

 ZIPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!

 "Thpttt, Thpttt," went its tongue. . .leaving Karen and the coyote on a direct path for the base of the cliff. . .

 Flattening as two dark circles on the rock wall, hanging for a second and then slowly whispering down to the earth.

 LATER:

 Craig's forefinger running down through the numerous selections in the Acme catalog with the precision of a surgeon, Clark's hazel eyes following like lasers. Suddenly the finger stops. Tapping his finger on the page, he glanced at his brother.

 "A robot," he says with a gleam in his eyes.

 "That's the ticket," says Clark, visualizing a dramatic chase scene.

 Ten seconds later, an Acme delivery van screeches to a halt in front of the cave. A long box is pushed inside.

 "Ladies and gentleman," Craig intones after opening the box, "I give you the XL-2000, more commonly known to movie fans as Robbie the Robot!

 There was a humming sound, a few colored lights on the robot's chest begin to blink. The neck moves, pincer-like arms rotate, opened and close; the bottom tread then moving forward and back. Two green lights glowing from within its clear plastic helmet. A faint whiff of ozone lilts in the air.

 Suddenly the tin can says, "Robbie the Robot, reporting for duty."

 Craig & Clark cracking their knuckles in delight.

 A lavender sky greets the boys as they step out into the desert sun. The robot, unable to bend over, simply smashes through the wall, emerging out of a cloud of dust.

 When Craig shouts, "ROBOT, STOP!" The tin man ceases to move, much to the amazement of the girls.

 Clark commands, "Robot, what are your directives?"

 After the whirring and buzzing cease inside that metallic tin can, a mechanized voice precisely states, "Reviewing primary directives: One --- preserve Hultquists at all costs; Two --- maintain a pleasant atmosphere for Craig and Clark (they both grin); Three --- catch Roadrunner."

 A yellow sun casting an even glow on that red and tan desert. Exactly in the middle of the road stood the robot, patiently awaiting its prey. Then, in the distance, a faraway sigh of wind could be heard, steadily increasing in intensity until reaching the sound of a bullet. . .

 "POOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!

 The Roadrunner now standing right next to the robot. . .

 The feisty bird eyeballs the metallic man, its red tongue darting out of its beak,

 "Thptt, thptt . . . BEEP, BEEP!!!"

 The Roadrunner rockets into a narrow canyon, and almost as quick, the robot gives chase, but not before Craig and Clark jump onto its back!

 WHOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

 FOR CRAIG AND CLARK, WHO WERE BARELY HANGING ONTO THE BACK OF A ROCKETING ROBOT, the steep canyon walls were nothing more than an orange blur. . .

 But they were GAINING on that bird!

 The crafty Roadrunner began weaving back and forth across the narrow road in the hope of buying time, two-lanes of asphalt bounded by dense scrub brush and cactus --- not to mention those two-hundred foot high cliffs --- no escape was possible.

 Suddenly the bird stops.

 In a deafening squeal of rubber and orange sparks, the robot began braking, now going into an out-of-control sideways skid, Craig and Clark barely holding on like two limp rags.

 The underbrush on either side of the road marking off a bewildering labyrinth of alleys, one barely wider than the others, and it was there that the bird darts, suddenly heading out into the desert. . .

 "THPTTT, THPTTT . . . BEEP, BEEP!"

 "ROBOT!" Craig commanded, "GET THAT BIRD!!!"

 The robot resumes chase, a dense cloud of dust and debris billowing behind the double-wide track, as it careens wildly across the loose sand.

 RIDING ON THE BACK OF A SPEEDING ROBOT, THE GROUND SKIMMING BY AS THOUGH DRIVING A VERY FAST CAR, CRAIG AND CLARK FELT A SUDDEN UNEASINESS. . . .

 Disquieting thoughts of sharp cactus needles lodging deep in their rear ends caused them to cling to the rolling tin can like baby possums to its mother.

 Swerving like an out of control tractor-trailer, an aluminum monolith on oiled wheels, darkened shapes pass by in a hazy blur --- as though viewing the world through a kaleidoscope --- a helter-skelter of crazy images superimposed upon one another.

 The Roadrunner darts through the brush, and then, without warning, suddenly shoots off to the right, through a dried out arroyo creasing the wall of the canyon. The robot duly following. What the boys and robot did not know, was that the path led directly to a sheer drop. . .

 Clark shouts in delight --- they were going to trap that damned bird. They'd have squab for dinner!

 When Craig yelled out, "ROBOT, ELECTRON GUN!" Clark immediately shouted, "NOT THAT! We don't want to fry it!" But it was too late --- twin beams of energy out of the chest of the robot laser toward the bird, exploding boulders and cactus on either side of it into dust.

 WHAMMMMMMMMM!!

WHAMMMMMMMMM!!

 And the robot, as if angered by missing its target, lurches ahead with an startling rapidity.

 Here the local knowledge of that crafty bird served it well, waiting till the very last second to hit the brakes and then darting off to the right, onto a narrow rock ledge running alongside a sheer cliff wall.

 When Clark shouted "JUMP!" he and his brother both leap to either side of the speeding robot, who was going much too fast to apply the brakes successfully.

 "HELLS BELLS!!!" shouts the robot as it catapults off into space, hanging for a second in the air as its arms circle wildly, and then disappearing down into a bottomless chasm.

 LATER:

 Cathy was sitting in Wile's cave, thoughtfully thumbing through the Acme catalog. Suddenly her finger stops on the page with jet-powered roller skates. She remembered going one mile an hour on the driveway at when she was eight. When Kurt reminded her of the debacle that happened in Episode 38, when the coyote had tried them and ended up smashing himself into smithereens, she quickly turns the page.

 Next her finger stops on a hot-air balloon and an anvil, her anxious gaze shifting to Karen.

 "Nope!" Karen emphatically states, "In Episode 55 the balloon gets punctured and he's blown into a lake."

 The coyote sadly nodding his head.

 As Cathy gazes at the catalog in despair, Craig and Clark finally stumble in. Her traveling gaze beating her laughter by a good three seconds.

 "WOW!" she ejaculates. "What happened?"

 After they finished telling her the story, she assisted them in the delicate operation of pulling the last cactus needles out of their tender behinds.

 The hole the robot had blasted out of the cave wall had been nicely tidied up. And despite the coyote's mild protests, his wrinkled puss set in a fierce frown, Kristi had added some potted plants, Karen a beautiful bouquet of desert flowers.

 The clever animal had conceded one point to those humans, however, whenever women were involved, he always dressed up. Now striding around his lair wearing an ancient smoking jacket of crushed red velvet while smoking a fine cigar, a large snifter of cognac cupped in one hairy palm.

 Outside a hole that served as a window, one could see a lonely two-lane road unwinding toward the distance like a used typewriter ribbon between precipitous cliffs. Along one side of the cave wall sat an iron cot covered by an old army blanket. A chest of drawers topped by a clouded mirror with spidery cracks. Perhaps that fetid smell, a compound of dirt, moisture and wet animal hair, had prompted the girls somewhat rapid bout of spring cleaning.

 Cathy said to the boys, "I've been perusing the Acme catalog while you two were gone."

 Clark blurting out, "I guess that means you thought we wouldn't catch it!"

 Cathy ignoring his statement with the diplomacy of a good housewife. Tapping a red fingernail on the table, she resumes flipping through the pages. Then she suddenly stops, staring intently at a picture of a Japanese Zero fighter.

 She'd always yearned to fly.

 Ten minutes later, a huge flatbed semi tractor-trailer squeals to a halt. Two efficient Acme employees quickly offload the plane, the clear cockpit reflecting a diamond star-burst of the sun.

 First, Cathy inspects for flaws. Kicking the wheels, checking tire pressure. She bent down to see if the huge black net she had ordered was in place on the undercarriage. The plan: swoop down low in a strafing attack and release the net, which was weighted with little pieces of lead.

 Craig let go his breath in a long soundless sigh. "WOW!" he says with wonder. "I wish I'd thought of that!"

 Clark jerked his thumb toward the aircraft. "Do you really think you can fly that thing?"

 Cathy, who was busy donning a leather helmet, goggles, scarf and gloves, merely smiled, thinking, "Of course I can, silly. This is a cartoon, isn't it?"

 She leaps onto the back of the wing, at the point where it met the fuselage. Then she placed a hand on the bottom of the cockpit, found a toe-hold and pulled herself up into place.

 "OOOMPH!!" she says while plopping down on an uncushioned seat.

 Orienting herself with the controls, her traveling gaze took in the yoke, the pedals and the throttle. She experiments with the pedals, pushing down on the one on the left, watched an aileron flap up and down. After doing the same thing with the one on the right, she then rattles the stick to check out the flaps.

 Satisfied with her checkout, she nods to Kurt, who'd stationed himself next to the propeller. Smiling faintly, she gave him the thumbs up. Her brother carefully grabbed the propeller and then jerked it hard as he could toward the ground.

 The crescendoing roar of the engine causing her siblings to take a step or two back as they listen to the ferocious high-pitched shriek, a snarling yowl now under maximum boost. Puffs of black exhaust shot out of twin mufflers like machine gun bullets.

 The Zero shooting into the sky towards a blood red sun.

 But the sound also drowned out the approach of the Roadrunner, who'd swooped under the aircraft in a fantastic burst of speed.

 Heading into the wind, Cathy rose above the vertical canyon walls and leveled off, giving the plane all the throttle it could handle, the thin whine of air over the wings gradually increasing in intensity. She shot into a cloud bank, felt its damp coolness on her face. Experimenting with the controls, she banked, veering in a one-eighty, heading back the way she came. The plane seemed to fly itself --- everything seemed so easy!

 She got so cocky, in fact, that after zooming back toward the ground and leveling off, she turned bottoms up and stunt-flew the highway, saluting her brothers and sisters.

 Rising back in the air, she began searching for the Roadrunner, seeing it almost in an instant. There, down on a needle thin strip of road, she could make out a billowing dust cloud trailing the bird.

 This was it! A live run!!!

 She pushed the controls forward and swooped down between cliffs framed in steep perspective by the windscreen, needles spinning crazily. The earth seemed to leap at the plane. Only twenty-five feet above the road, with the altimeter as close to zero as it could get, she finally recovered balance. . .

 The bird was dead in her sights!

 Closing distance gradually, just as she was about to release the net, that unpredictable animal changed to squirrel-cage antics, began swerving back and forth across the blacktop.

 Cathy leaned forward in the same way a child does on a rolling toy, hoping to gain momentum. . .

 Cathy hunched forward in her seat as the valley floor rushed by beneath her --- soon the moment of truth! She transferred one hand from the yoke to the release handle for the net, clutching it fiercely.

 Like some great Pterodactyl out of the far-flung past, the plane swooped, going over on its nose and shooting downward in a screaming vertical dive. . . nearly hitting 270 MPH . . . wings shrieking and moaning under the strain.

 Hemmed in by those sheer rock walls, concentrating so intently on the speedy bird, she did not notice the tight bottleneck up ahead --- sheer cliffs creeping ever closer and closer, until at last, a wing-tip made contact.

 The little craft bucked and shuddered from the impact.

 Cathy stood the aircraft up on its left wing in a futile effort to turn around . . . but she'd lost way too much speed . . . stalling and pointing toward the earth in a grotesque slow-motion spin.

 SPPPPLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTT!!!

 "Thpttt, Thpttt," went the red tongue of the Roadrunner as it shot into the distance. . .

 WHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH!!!

 "BEEP-BEEP!!!"

 The long walk back seemed to take an eternity, and it was as pancake woman, ten feet wide and a half inch thick, that Cathy returned to her brothers and sisters, a very thin circle embedded with a fine black netting.

 Everyone threw their hands in the air and laughed. . .

 CATHY'S MISTAKE, KURT THOUGHT, while thumbing through the thick Acme catalog, was selecting an aircraft which could not turn fast enough. Suddenly his finger stopped. His eyes got big as he took in the APACHE WARRIOR, the latest breed of attack helicopter.

 That baby was bristling with gadgetry!

 *Infrared thermal imaging

*High-speed processor for multi-target tracking

*Laser-guided weaponry

*Night-Vision telescopic viewing system

 Naturally, there were plenty of options, the most desirable being a 64-oz cup holder.

 When he finally tore his gaze away from the catalog, Karen said, "Well, have you finally made a decision?"

 At that moment, outside the cave, the Acme flatbed truck screeched to a stop. Not more than five minutes later, after a cursory glance at the thick manual, Kurt buckled in after donning a helmet with a swiveling ocular sight. A powerful engine shrieked to life.

 The sagging rotors began flattening out in a blur. He gave his siblings the Thumbs Up while climbing into the sky. The chopper tipped forward just as the Roadrunner sped by underneath. . .

 WHOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH!!

 The bubble window gave off a spectacular view of the desert landscape careening by not so far below. Brushing cactus tops, skimming across fields of scrub brush, the craft tore over the earth.

 Flying on a direct course toward his target, Kurt bore down like a bird of prey, slowly closing the gap . . . a quarter-mile . . . two-hundred yards . . . one-hundred yards . . . until finally right behind the bird. Fifty feet below, the sand churned wildly, whipped into a frenzy by the copters vacuum wake.

 Punching the computer screen, he activated a 360-degree ring of cameras dangling underneath the cockpit. On the screen flashed a picture of the bird, and underneath its classification,

 Geococcyx Californianus, Speed-Ophoric Maximus

 And underneath that, an asterisk --- VERY, VERY HARD TO CATCH!!!

 The copter swooped, a thundering of rotors as it banked and aligned itself. A pencil-thin beam of red light slanted from beneath the copter, a shimmering blade targeting a feisty bird with two huge drumsticks. But at the last second, sensing a threat was near, the Roadrunner finally shifted into top gear.

 WWHHHHOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

 Kurt lifted the protective plastic casing off the toggle for the HELLFIRE MISSILE, and while making a quick course correction, calmly flipped the switch. A brilliant white flash of white followed by an exploding boulder, shattering into a million pieces. The concussion wave sent the bird reeling in a series of cartwheels. . .

 The sound, apocalyptic.

 But the Roadrunner recovered quite nicely, quickly resuming top speed. Kurt maintained a low heading over fields of cactus, rock and scrub, a thermal scanner revealing the midsection of the bird as bright orange, fading in hue toward the feathers.

 But technology vacillates between being a tool and a trap for the unwary. The stone arch which the bird ran through led directly to a five-thousand year old tree, a Bristle-cone Pine with some very pointy limbs.

 When Kurt finally looked up from the instrument panel, his jaw nearly hit the floor. Inside the rounded cockpit dome, a thin silhouette leaned back in his seat while realizing his vast mistake. . .drawing a deep breath and shouting,

 "SSHHHHHHHHIIIIIITTTTTTTTT!!!!!!"

 When he finally got back to his brothers and sisters he asked for assistance in pulling the limb out of his backside. . .

 AT THE BOTTOM OF A STEEP CANYON WALL, STILL AS A BRILLIANT WATERCOLOR, RISING HUNDREDS OF FEET HIGH, overarching a clear blue sky, Wile's cave was weathered brown and tan, and, to be frank, in a very sad state of disrepair. At the moment, Cathy was busy sweeping a dusty floor with a broom she'd fashioned from some fronds tied to a tree limb, thinking,

 "That robot certainly made a mess!"

 Craig & Clark, tanned and alert little boys, were taking turns arm-wrestling the coyote. Karen was whistling the theme song from LOVE BOAT while making coffee in a battered tin pot hanging over a small fire. Kurt kept himself busy thumbing through Wile's collection of PLAYWOLF Magazine. Kristi perused the Acme Catalog while ruminating on possibilities.

 Suddenly a flashbulb popped in her head. . . A Time Machine!

 Because they were all inside a cartoon, their ultimate fate would always be subject to the whims of cartoonists. And since cartoonists enjoyed cushy jobs, they always took great pains to make the Roadrunner the ultimate winner. But in a Time Machine she could travel back to Burbank Studios in California, where cartoonists played god while drawing painted cells. She smiled at the thought of a confrontation --- a big gun pointed at their heads as they reluctantly drew the demise of one of the most popular cartoon characters ever.

 She began flipping through the pages, searching for a Time Machine, imagining the sequence of events: breaking into a locked building, alarms erupting as she broke through a system of laser beams, flickering over her inquisitively as if she were an item of meat in a check-out line, diving for cover behind a desk as an overweight security guard waddled by, her head pushing out from under the desk like a turtle from its carapace.

 ALL CLEAR!!!

 And then she was actually there, taking a .44 Magnum out of her clutch purse, checking to see if the safety was off, then pushing herself to her feet. Lucky for her, a sign on the wall pointed the way to the cartoonists. She eyeballed the ventilation system, imagining a lurid scene where she crawled through constricting duct work, popping the end open and then dropping to the floor like the creature from ALIEN.

 Then she reconsidered --- that would mean dodging giant dust balls and annoying insects. So she continued her journey, ducking and weaving down a long corridor. Then she finally realized the futility for stealth. In room after room after room, absolutely nothing was being done. . .

 After all, this was the Graphics Department!

 Instead of typing, secretaries were tossing wadded up sheets of paper at a mini-basketball net over a trashcan. Some supervisors were keeping score while others were chasing little cuties.

 Deep in the bowels of the building, the pebbly surface of frosted glass in the door leading to the lair of the cartoonists did its part to shield her. Trying the knob, she found it to be unlocked. She went into an alert crouch, cracking open the door and then peering inside. . .all clear!

 After taking a deep breath, almost in one motion, she opened the door and dove inside, tucking in a tight little ball and somersaulting across the floor toward the snack machine.

 Three men, steely-eyed creatures with pointy little heads, who up to that moment had been busy gossiping, suddenly looked up.

 "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!" One shouted.

 Kristi leaped to her feet, and holding her gun at arm's length, said, "I'm your worst nightmare."

 Stunned, the wide-eyed men stared at her in mute horror, as it was frighteningly close to their lunch break.

 "It's time to get to business," Kristi said. "I want you to draw this. . ." She threw a balled up sheet of paper at the cartoonists. "And to make sure you actually do it," she went on, "I'm going to take the precaution of holding your snack machine and coffee-maker as hostages.'

 She grinned with satisfaction as their eyes rolled back in their sockets.

 LATER LATER LATER LATER LATER LATER

 There was something comedic about the scene, Cathy taking another big chomp on a huge drumstick, not bothering to close her mouth as she chewed. She said, "Kristi, tell us again how you caught the bird."

 "Well," Kristi replied, after wiping her chin with the sleeve of her blouse, "After those silly cartoonists finally saw things my way, they drew it like this. . .

 "As I was traveling back to the cartoon, I realized I could use the Time Machine to go to a point in time exactly when and where the bird would pass a certain spot of landscape. Then, with a hologram-maker I got from the good people at Acme products, I proceeded to set a trap. What looked to be a clear road was actually a Vietnamese Tiger Trap . . . a deep, spiked pit."

 "QED --- end of Roadrunner."

 A light shined in Craig's eyes as he looked up from his plate, a huge grin on his "Dat one fine bird!" he said.

 Wile leaned back from the table, and with a contented look on his puss, he burps.

[vonlipvig]

thinking about jack and jerry the rubbery man kissing <3

no, not in a cutesy 'aww how sweet' way, more like a 'how the fuck does that even work' way. a 'i'm not sure this is anatomically possible' way. but love is stronger than anatomy so don't worry. though it's probably a pretty slimy affair...

[vonlipvig]

ok fuck it, if operation 'marry jerry the rubbery man' is not possible, i'm gonna just help jerry the rubbery man get some holiday cheer.

[vonlipvig]

little bit of a redesign/alt design for an older jack, because he deserves to grow up into a silver fox someday.

i can totally picture him in his 40s still writing and being a fairly popular novelist, but also working as an english lit/neathy lit professor at the university. you know he'd get crazy good ratings on whatever early 20th century equivalent of ratemyprofessor they have down there, not only because he's enthusiastic and charming, but because the students all love derailing the class to get him to talk about some of his wild anecdotes from the past.

and because he's a hot, bisexual, middle-aged literature professor, i mean c'mon.

(i know i drew him with the same glasses that basil has, but i don't care, he deserves them. maybe he killed basil some time ago. good for him, tbh).

[vonlipvig]

ok so irem. cool as fuck, i'm loving all this!

the neon future? uhm YES modern au finally real, my ocs can finally use twitter as god intended lmao. but jokes aside, i'm not sure which destiny to give jack just yet, cause the ones in the neon future are very cool, definitely leaning towards the star (tho the lovers one is also very true, jack x jerry the rubbery man endgame), but i also kinda wanna give him the world? i feel like that fits his current mental state a lot more after bringing his brother back and it not being exactly what he envisioned (you can change them during the fests, tho, right? maybe i can give him this one now and then one of the others. call it plot or something lmao).

second thign, i need to get two more boons cause idk what that 'you can only do it once' thing is but i'm not leaving it up to a 50% chance, no sir.

related, but how do i increase knowledge of the crossroads, btw?

[vonlipvig]

and of course i had to make jerry the not-so-rubbery man, too!

now to get him and jack together whether they like it or not...