There once was a wyrm with an apple

To eat it he must roll a grapple

he rolled a nat one

which ruined his fun

so instead he toppled a chapel

—

There once was an orc from mordor

His chin stood six feet from the floor

When the hobbits did flee

he was too tall to see

and now the lord sauron’s no more.

—

There once was a half orc in rage

he tried to burst in on a mage

his attempt was block

for the rogue open locked

so the half-orc ripped out his rib cage

—

There once was a young man named Sam,

He was attempting to pull quite a scam,

he met with a fellow,

who liked his yolks yellow,

but instead got poisoned green ham.

The largest stage anyone’s ever stood on.

Built for an audience of billions

Yet, suitable for a single viewer

A stage that captures the eyes and ears of all

From this stage where screams for attention are lost

and a whimper for freedom carries for miles.

I stand.

I stand for… nothing…

How can I take a political standpoint that will capture the masses?

How can I entertain such varying taste?

If I could speak to billions and really mean something,

would I need to?

Has everything been said?

Would it really be a new view?

Maybe it will be just another vote.

I do not wish to speak to everone,

I can not speak to everyone.

I can only speak to you.

And in speaking to you, I can only hope you listen.

We take a moment now to remember those who have fallen to insanity and turned them over to Skynet, may we remember those who have been taken by the carriers who are being held in Skynet Headquarters in San Francisco. We also remember now those who have fallen to the terminators or natural causes in this past year.

I would like to notify you all that it is in fact December 25th or as we used to know it Christmas day. We have come up with a last of ways to enjoy your holiday season in spite of the robot overlords.

1. Bake yourself some holiday cookies.

We know this seems unrealistic without a stove or baking supplies but we find that you can replace most of the ingredients with the anatomy of cockroaches and rats. All you really need to search for is some glowing nuclear waste to decorate them. Here is a list of ingredients.

POST APOCOLYPTIC GINGER BREAD COOKIES:

• 2/3 cup rat lard
• 1/2 cup ground cockroach skeleton
• 1 tsp iron filings
• 1/4 tsp dirt
• 2 tsp ground bone
• pinch salt
• 3/4 cup rat’s bile
• 1 chicken egg/43 lizard eggs/956 spider eggs
• 3 cups crushed microchips
• 1/2 tsp blood
• 1 tsp saliva

Now it is practically impossible to cook these cookies without an oven but our R&D team has recently discovered that if you wait until a large terminator is near you and hold the plate in its vision it will gladly shoot a heat laser at you and cook the cookies instantly. If you want, milk and cookies remember that rats can be milked just as cows used to be.

2. Sing holiday songs.

We know that you cannot remember most of the old Christmas songs you used to sing as children so we have written out lyrics for new Christmas carols. Here is one of our favorites. Warning bells.

Dashing through the sludge

In a pair of worn out boots

Through minefields we go

Searching for some loots

Bells on high poles ring

Making spirits die

What fun it is to hide and sing

A warning song tonight

Oh, warning bells, warning bells

Scaring kid away

Oh, what fun it is to hide

In an old broke down mustang

Warning bells, warning bells

Scaring kids away

Oh, what fun it is to hide

In an old broke down mustang

Make sure you don’t sing this song within earshot of one of the terminators. Doing so may compromise your position

3. Decorate a Christmas tree.

Because we live in a world littered with metal scraps, making your own Christmas decorations. Simply find a piece of wire, find a scrap of metal you want to turn into a decoration (we find kitchen utensils and petrified dead animals worked the best), punch a hole in the decoration and finally feed the wire through the hole tying the ends in a loop.

The more difficult endeavor is finding a Christmas tree to hang your decorations on. We interviewed some of the leading officers here at the resistance headquarters and came up with this list of suggestions.

An aluminum construct

A deactivated terminator

A circular gun rack

A tube made of old tires

A burnt pine tree

An upright vehicle.

Surely, you will be able to find something on this list.

Most of all in the holidays it is important to spend more time with our loved ones. It’s okay to let your guard down every once in a while. Who knows? Maybe the machines are celebrating Christmas too.

Happy Holidays from everyone here at HQ. This is John Conner, and if you are reading this, you are the resistance.

I think to myself; this looks cool… “Is Anybody There?” hmm seems interesting. A movie about a magician who is too old to perform and a child who grows up in a retirement home… Let us see when it is playing at galaxy. I click my way to the show times for the Waterloo Galaxy and I scroll down the page for “Is Anybody There?” on the show listings. Huh. That is interesting. It does not seem to be there.

After fifteen minutes of looking up the date of release, comparing it to today’s date, searching the correct format of dates, looking up today’s date in different formats, counting the months and finally searching for “Is Anybody There?” in a larger radius. It turns out that this movie was released last Friday but instead of being played at local theatres, it is only playing in larger cities like Toronto.

TREACHERY! How can I just sit back and take this?! It’s unheard of! The only movie that seems moderately interesting in theatres is being exiled because it looks like it could actually be good. Maybe it’s the lack of action. I mean you look at the movies in theatres and you get; Star Trek, Xmen Origins: Wolverine, Terminator, Crank 2, Fast and the Furious. These movies are not what I want! I miss dramas! I mean real dramas, not romance movies. New romance movies make me sick. I want to see “Is Anybody There?” because it looks enjoyable not because I want to see a man with adamentium claws or an electric heart.

Action movies aren’t terrible, don’t get me wrong. I love a few good fight scenes, but when those fight scenes get in the way of what could be a cornucopia of excellent acting directing and screenwriting, we have a problem.  I just want to see the movies that I want to see. Is that so much to ask?

You should know,
How great things were before you
Even so,
They’re better still today
Now I can’t think who I was before
You ruined everything in the nicest way

Bumps in the road remind us
The worst of the best behind us
Only good things will find us, me and you
Days will be clear and sunny
We’re gonna need more money
Baby you know it’s funny
All those stories coming,
True

Despite my better efforts,
It’s all for you
the worst kind of cliché

I’ll be with you till the day you leave
You ruined everything in the nicest way

It is really late at night and I most definitely did not write this, this is a song from Jonathan Coulton’s album Thing A Week Four. I was just listening to it and I thought that the lyrics made little sense and then so much sense all at once. I just thought you might want to read them for the sheer poetry of it. I really wish I wasn’t so alone right now.

I want a year during which I wont have to accomplish anything. A year when my life won’t go on. I want to linger and ponder on subjects that I just don’t have time to think about. I don’t want to see the world. I dont want write a book. I just want to exist. To not grow. To not change. I want purgatory.

Nothing! that is what I want. I ask nothing and I shall recieve nothing. I will not bother others and others will not bother me. I’m not saying I want to do nothing for a year. Just survive. I will survive on my own. Perhaps shrouded in wildlife or maybe in and amongst the concrete jungle. I will hunt or work for food. I will pay my dues.

I want a job. I dont want a promotion, I dont want alot of money, I just want a job. Nothing too fancy. Everyone always tells me to work toward a job I can enjoy. I don’t want to enjoy my job. Ever. I want a job that I will hate. I want a boss that wont warn me when he changes my shifts around and wont let me take those two or three weeks off in the summer. I want a job that will get me up in the morning, not because I’m excited but because I’m scared that if I’m late I will be yelled. I want a job that doesn’t change. That I will get bored of after a week, and that I will be able to do without thinking after a year. I don’t want a job that will involve using my creativity, that would really be hell. Being forced to speak my mind? My thoughts are my thoughts and thats the way I like it.

I hate suburbia.

I have come to the realization that you have been quite a lurk recently. You left the wonderful comment; “Hi thanks for a great post. I’ll be back ” quite some time ago and since then I haven’t heard from you? What’s wrong? It appears that you haven’t left any comments since! Where are you Mark?

I am writing this letter to you because I miss you. Though you have only left one comment on my blog, I can tell that you immerse yourself in writing every time you visit. Your comment touched on all of the key elements of my writing style, with the confidence it granted me I have really come out of my shell.

Your comment showed such expressive potential. First beginning with a thank you, no one has ever thanked me for a blog before! I can tell that my post was able to seek past the surface of your mind. It may have helped you in everyday life. It may even have settled a mental argument, whatever the reason for the everlasting thanks, I hope to once again express to you helpful advice and creative writing.

Mark. I’ll give it to you straight. I need your comments to keep going on. I’ll try to keep writing without you, in hopes that you return, but every post I write drives me deeper into denial. You may never comment on my blog again. I don’t know what cruel nature would bring to this action but please Mark, if you can, please leaves another comment. I hope that you receive this letter.

Your loyal practitioner of the writing variety,

Blair

Because the “Adanraw” were a nomadic people they were often thought of was primitive and unfit for civilized society, many men looked down on the adanraw with pity and often exclaimed “the lion men are nothing more than stupid half-breeds who aren’t smart enough to settle down,”. This was not true, the adanraw were in fact an incredibly wise people. They had no need for social normality and they could find their own way around the desert without the help of a human map.

It was risky being what the human’s term half-breed and being out in the open, any human passerby was likely to run away in fear only to return with an army ready to eliminate the “pest problem”. Elmynon was not afraid, there were no roads for miles and besides the dead tree he stood next to, there was no noticeable landmark for miles. If everything went as he planned, Elmynon would only meet with one human tonight, a human that would never leave his side again.

It was nearing half a decade previous that Elmynon decided to venture to the human city of syruthia as a political sentry. Being the son of his people’s chieftain, Elmynon wanted to end the political unrest between his father and the king of the capital. He was young, a mere 187 years old when he began his travels. He travelled alone for there was a like hatred for the humans in his father’s tribe. The human city received him with an angry scowl and a slur-filled diction. Only two people every accepted him as a being and let him sleep somewhere out of the cold, A young man of 24 years and his younger sister of 19. Their names were Armond and Leena and they would be Elmynon’s family for the months to come.

After his initial visit, in which Elmynon was unable to see the king, he returned to his tribe to tell of the hope he had found in a human family. He tried to convince his tribe that the humans would not be as prejudice if they were able to live among men. The tribe was deeply rooted in their own prejudice and soon became annoyed with Elmynon’s teachings. His father, being a man of his people, told his son privately that he agreed though he could not announce so publicly, he condoned Elmynon’s travels and wished him luck if he chose to live amongst the humans once more.

The next few years of Elmynon’s life were spent travelling back and forth between Syruthia City and his tribesmen trying to convince both to understand his pleas. While in Syruthia, Elmynon grew fond of his expanding number of human friends. He grew especially fond of the girl who first showed him compassion, his now housekeeper, Leena. Leena was always with Elmynon when she could be and as she grew into adulthood, her feelings turned from mere friendship to something more. Leenas father was a stubborn old baker and refused to accept his daughter’s affection. With each growing month, Elmynon and Leena grew more and more in love, some days not leaving each other’s sight. Elmynon lost all hope in ever contacting the king and was then travelling just to meet with his love. It was not long before the bore his child. Wedlock was forbidden by her father and so the child would live in Syruthia with it’s mother.

It was Leena who he expected to meet on the night he stood by the dead tree. It was this night that Leena was expected to birth their child.

The homework crunch is a rare occasion that all highschool students experience in late april and early may. It is not to be confused with exam season that we (as lucky waterloo oxford students) get to experience in one segment instead of two, this can be saved for another time. The crunch is the time of year when teachers decide they want to send seemingly synchronised assignments. These are not just your run of the mill assignments, oh no, these are the 3000 word essays, the artistic presentations, the seminars and of course the ever popular essay-presentation-double-whammy.

Not only do these assignments cause massive amounts of stress on us (now more than ever with university hanging in the balance) but they leave noone to complain to. Adult look down on the highschool homework crunch because they had it “so much worse”. All of your friends aren’t good complaint candidates because they are in one of three sittuations. The first sittuation is the one you are in, they are dealing with the same stresses so they wont be able to offer condolences to your suffering. The second sittuation a teeneger could be in during the crunch is having it all done ahead of time; though it is unlikely that a student would take the initiative to actually complete the homework ahead of time it isn’t impossible. These friends are frustrating to talk to during your stressed time because they often respond with “you should have worked on it over march break” or “we’ve had that assignment for months” instead of actually understand your mental state. The third and possibly most dangerous friend to approach during the crunch is the slacker. We all have friends who just dont do assignments, taking many penalties during crunch time but can sometimes still appear to achieve good grades. This archetype is the most dangerous because the student that fits this category will often make you feel guilty about spending all of your time indoors cramming for the next test or polishing an ISU (Individual Students Under-achieving) essay. They will respond to your complaining with some dissambiguation of the phrase “Don’t worry about it”. This phrase is often fatel for the common stressing student.

To avoid these slackers during crunch time it is important to note that they dont always attend school (especially during crunch time). If you are suspicious of a friend being a slacker, check his attendance record or better yet just ask him about his attendance*, If a students responds to questions about their attendance with a nervous “none” or quite guilty looking “a few” then nothing is to worry, no self-respecting slacker would hide his list of bagged classes**.  Another way to spot the slacker is noting his total confidence, he always seems like he’s had enough sleep and he never does any homework during his spares***. Slackers will also publicly announce their lack of study on the day of any given test. These signs should help you identify a slacker but they may not save you from his lazy grasp.

Once taken in by a slacker your are seen as a project instead of friend. The slacker will do his or her best to make you into his or her idea of a happy person. They will often tell you that you are too stressed out and you need to relax more. They may even pressure you into drinking or drug abuse****. You should always respond to their efforts with a resounding no. It is not always an opportune time to hang out***** especially during the crunch. Slackers will sometimes need to learn the importance of homework and studying but it is not****** your job to try and change them from their slacking ways. Leave slackers too their own and return to your recent essay or math note.

Possibly one of the most crucial pieces of advice i could give to a student during crunch time is this: Relax, crack open a redbull and just put your pen to the paper. You’ll do all right.

* it is well known that slackers are not ashamed of their poor attendance record

** generally a ficticious list though some slackers may carry an absent class record sheet (printed from the secritaries at the attendance office) as they would carry a badge of honor.

*** of which he has an abundance (both homework and spares)

**** Gasp! Not drinking and drug abuse! oh what a world!

***** sometimes refered to as chilling, relaxing or the innovative; chillaxing

****** and I repeat IS NOT

Inspired by Gavin Tassier