Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Feeling blue














Oh, dearest Randal, darling of the internets
, you ask, why?

Because, electro-populace mostly without faces -- some of you are certainly blank robots and doth protestations will only serve to prove my point -- I had planned on delving into my La-Z Boy Bag O' Tricks® to riff on the death-by-a-thousand-papercuts hell that is the selling by the grain silo of the infamous blue test booklet, whose intricate story was to be carefully plotted out via spellbinding meanderings on multiple cultural artifacts of the Cold War, Project Blue Book, for instance, when a spectral light in my perpetually dark noodle self-illuminated and I remembered that, sigh, I was about to self-plagiarize myself, self.

"Yes?"

Nothing.













Go away tangentially symbolic emblem of retail, for lo, though the opportunity presented in Libraryland (much like Wonderland, only without hookah-smoking caterpillars and lunatic chapeaux) is verily a much diluted version where the customers know exactly what they want because there is no other choice of product available for the wretched task that lay before them, namely, bland scholastic gruel that shall land them a barely-minimum wage job if they're lucky, nor will there be returns and refunds of any sort, but sweet Mephistopheles, the blinding brilliance of the demon of retail lies in its tremendous ability to suck, digest and transmogrify souls from gold into lead so they are too heavy to go postal and sully precious merchandise. Kudos, economic machine greased with the caffeinated blood of the worker, kudos.


















We miss shopping from our couch, Billy. Sniff.

25 comments:

Cormac Brown said...

"I was about to self-plagiarize myself, self."

It must be hard typing with those hairy palms...

Ubermilf said...

You still haven't found a car?

Tengrain said...

Graves, you swine!

I always aced my blue book exams, and struggled mightily on the multiple choice tests. (My fevered cantaloup could always find some justification for any of the choices, and thus it was always having to find the best choice, or just always choosing "C" in my case.)

Why do you hate fine paper products?

Regards,

Tengrain

Anonymous said...

I just want to know why it's a blue book? Always men trying to keep it a man's world right? The rest? Can't make heads or tails of it and if I did, I'd take the quarter and give it to the Salvation Army. So there!

Anonymous said...

I just want to know why it's a blue book? Always men trying to keep it a man's world right? The rest? Can't make heads or tails of it and if I did, I'd take the quarter and give it to the Salvation Army. So there!

Randal Graves said...

cormac, that's why the good lord invented Norelco.

übermilf, what, the wicker buggy n' sidecar doesn't count? Why do you hate the 19th century?

tengrain, Confucius say, knowledge cannot be distilled into a handful of choices.

I love fine paper products. I hate people.

sherry, because tests make you blue. Do you ever feel pink after your hand falls off post-essay? I can imagine feeling yellow or magenta, but pink? C'mon.

Laura said...

Hmmm.. What's this all about? :D

((Hugs))
Laura

Utah Savage said...

Please ignore me, I'm just following Tengrain.

Demeur said...

When in doubt pick 'D' all of the above. Ya can't go wrong.
Me, I'm suffering from a combination of memory loss and brain rot. What's your excuse?

Holte Ender said...

I am forced to assume you are not a lover of light.

MRMacrum said...

I have given up thinking WalMartians, Birthers, and God hates Fags folks are aliens. I once convinced myself that it was the only explanation. I have come full circle now and in keeping with Heinlein, I am the alien, the stranger in a strange land. It is my misfortune to find myself on this rock plummeting around the Sun. I am sure I was abandoned here by parents from another galaxy. It can be the only explanation.

Randal Graves said...

sunshine, you want an explanation of these posts?

utah, as long as you don't ask for any of my onion rings, we're cool.

demeur, what's my excuse for what? Who are you?

holte, are you kidding? The works of Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light® are the beacons that get me through the dark times, the icons of holy power that burn away the blasphemers and their minions of evil!

mrmacrum, that's the best explanation I've heard yet. I'm on board.

Life As I Know It Now said...

Why are you complaining about blue books? Suck it up dude, there are worse forms of testing :)

How about a 50 page paper or an hour presentation with paper instead?

But what...this isn't about blue books?

Kudos, economic machine greased with the caffeinated blood of the worker, kudos

it's about the economic machine huh, well...that's different then.

For: the blinding brilliance of the demon of retail lies in its tremendous ability to suck, digest and transmogrify souls from gold into lead so they are too heavy to go postal and sully precious merchandise

and we are all rather fat like that aren't we.

La Belette Rouge said...

Shopping from the couch is still possible via the internets. Don't let the death of Billy stop you from shopping. You are an Americain, aren't you? It is your duty to shop.

Laura said...

Yes Randal. I do want/need an explanation please.
;D

Randal Graves said...

liberality, I'm complaining about selling them, it's my one brush with retail, and I'd rather write a 1000-page paper then sell crap for a living. ;-)

LBR, dammit, you're right, god bless sales, golden Wall Street bulls and golden Wall Street bulls on sale!

sunshine, you're assuming that I can. ;-)

S.W. Anderson said...

Randal, I've got to hand it to you. Your paragraph that begins, "Go away tangentially symbolic emblem of retail . . ." is a flash of brilliance if I've ever seen one. It's Kafka and Kerouac with a smidgen of Ernie Kovacs thrown in.

As for shopping from your couch, you mean to say you don't get QVC, HSN and a bazillion one-off informercials on the TV? Take that aluminum monsrosity down from your roof and plug into cable or satellite. Explore the wonders of the Jewelry Channel, eternal repetitions of the Magic Bullet Blender show, Erotic Boutique and on and on, until your brain turns to emulsified toadstool gruel.

And to think, all that can be yours for only a few scheckels a month.

Ubermilf said...

I thought you were using the blue book to find a car.

Ubermilf said...

Someone gave you a virus and you even had your pants on this time.

Commander Zaius said...

...namely, bland scholastic gruel that shall land them a barely-minimum wage job if they're lucky...

I wonder sometimes as the capitalist’s priests and priestesses of the business channels sing the praises of globalization and free trade what will happen when all or most of the good paying jobs have left the country.

Who the hell is going to be able to afford the Cadillac’s and BMWs when the best most can get is a job flipping burgers or gathering up shopping carts in the Wal-Mart parking lot?

In the end I agree with what MRMarcrum said.

Demeur said...

Beach Bum don't you get it? That was their plan all along. Having us all wearing blue smocks with smiley faces while they made buckets of money selling worthless paper to foreigners.

Randal Graves said...

SWA, thanks and dude, I can't even begin to count how many times I've seen snippets of that goddamn Magic Bullet commercial on 952 different channels while surfing.

übermilf, no, a flying saucer.

cormac, Splotchy beat you (by tagging 7000 people, the sneak).

übermilf, only because it's 20° outside.

BB, they'll still get paid, so they won't care. Well, the blonde bimbos will, and Cramer's carved himself out a nice niche as a fucking lunatic.

demeur, if one had a wider range of acceptable conversation, being a greeter wouldn't be all bad.

"Where's the teevees?"

"Go fuck yourself, ma'am."

Dr. Zaius said...

Billy Mays was a UFO? I'm gonna ask Scully about this.

Randal Graves said...

What do you mean was? Oops, I've said too much!

Dr. Zaius said...

Ack! Area 51 is now selling Salad Shooters! ;o)