The House of Irony / January, 2006

For fuck’s sake! Vote!

In my neverending quest to keep myself entertained, I happened upon this little brain teaser called Petals Around the Rose. The rules are simple. Roll 5 dice, and guess how many petals are around that rose. Clicking on the above link will bring you to a flash version of the game to assist you.

The rules:
1) The name, Petals around a rose, is significant
2) You have a person there who knows how to play the game tell you how many petals are around the rose to see if your guess is acurate. Baring this, a good flash animation will work ;)
3) The answer will always be an even number, or 0.
4) If you figure the answer out, do not tell others. Allow them to figure it out on their own.

The Game. The Game is simple, and goddamit you will hate it. But at times you will love it.

It is rumoured The Game was started as early as 1968, but no one is sure. You can do searches online for it, but here is one at Wikipedia – The Game. What matters is that after reading this, you are forevermore playing The Game.

Here then are the rules. And may god have mercy on your souls

1) Once you know the rules of The Game you are forever playing The Game. You can never stop playing The Game.

2) If you remember you are playing The Game then you lose!

3) If you lose, then you must announce this fact to everyone around you. You may use such phrases as “I lost”, “I lost the game”, “goddamit i lost the fucking game”, “The Game”, “Arg! I lost The Game and I am a worthless human being”.

4) If you announce you have lost The Game, and someone near you doesn’t know what you are talking about, you are obliged to inform them of the rules.

5) If you are dying (physically dying) and you lose The Game, you lose forever.

6) If you are dying (physically dying) and you don’t lose The Game, then you win.

7) Once you lose The Game, you have 30 minutes penalty in which you cannot lose again.

8) Even if you lose The Game, you are still playing. You can never stop playing The Game

When 9-11 happened I was startled like everyone else, but wasn’t fazed emotionally. One of the most terrible events in all of history and I don’t mist up at all. I am Vulcan when it comes to the news. Today however, when I read my morning BBC, I came upon the following article and was almost brought to tears.

It seems a Snake befriended a Hamster that was intended to be its dinner. They play together, hang out and sleep on top of one another. In the lonely zoo cage the snake chose friendship over the more natural urge to feed.

Thousands of years ago a human first reached out to a dog in friendship, and soon the species began to hunt, live and evolve together. The partnership has been successful for both species, dogs getting the better end of the deal; we work – they live like SNL comics.

Sometimes sacrifice for others, is better for you than it is for them.

Thank you Snake and Hamster; for reminding us what it means to be human.

On Saturday we went to sleep in the rec room. Just me and my brother and my friend Jason. Bobby took all of the covers. We watched cartoons. I bought a transformer.

On Sunday I was catching my gerbil. I was catching it because it fell out of my hands. In the basement.

I caught my gerbil. I held it by its tail. I put it back in its cage.

On Sunday we watched Robocop. It only has one problem. The problem was when he got killed and he turned into a robot.

I’d like to take a minute and get serious about dental care, if only for the opportunity to go on about my new electric toothbrush, the Oral B CrossAction Power Max.

I’ve tried electric toothbrushes in the past, but every last one was strictly Mickey Mouse, like using a toy to clean my teeth. This new toothbrush is practically military-grade, and it’s more like a two minute assault on germs. Don’t believe me? This goddamn thing comes with its own charger, no batteries. No fooling, it’s like visiting the dentist every day, and my teeth have never felt better. I could practically be in a toothpaste commercial.

But, honestly, this breaks down to a case of investing in my 200 year future. How long before teeth can be regrown? 10 years? 20? The less time I have to sit in the dentist chair from here to then, the better. How about you, are you ready to make a commitment to yourself?

I think you are.
—
This was a public service announcement from your friends at the House of Irony.

I’m a notorious packrat. For most of my life I have stored away most every piece of paper that comes my way. When we decided to relaunch the House, it was at least partly to have a fun little nook to post weird in-jokes and memories from our past. I had originally planned to crack open this Pandora’s box and flood the other participants (and some of our friends reading this) with nostalgic ephemera. Since we started this blog, all I’ve posted are the odd memory such as the postcard, the poster, the afro, etc. Until now, I haven’t fully waded into the big purple plastic tub that holds all these strange artifacts.

I just went through it all, tonight, for the first time in a decade. My head is spinning. Contained within is practically every drawing and piece of writing I have ever created or received, including dozens, maybe hundreds of pictures of Clayton, the guy with the extra arm. I just thank God I never attempted to write poetry. There are scripts for Spirit and The Screaming Tunnel, farewell notes with swastikas drawn on them, teeth, an autographed trading card from Spider-Man, doctored photos of me with Ernest Hemingway, session notes for Stickman basement recordings, an unopened copy of Dr. Secret #1, letters from people I haven’t heard from or seen in years, and stuff which has lost its significance over time and has become a mystery to me.

I’ve picked out some of the best of the bunch. Prepare for the Flood.

A week later and I’m still thinking about the Steve Jobs Keynote at Macworld, which, if anything, goes to show how far I’ve gone towards Mac Zealotry. I’ve always had some interest in the annual speech, but I’m not sure if I ever pictured myself watching text updates for an hour and a half, barely blinking in sheer anticipation.

With that in mind, it’s a shame this particular Keynote had to be my first as a diehard user, because there there really wasn’t anything particularly exciting to it. Sure, there was the introduction of the first Intel Macs, but with the machines’ form factor staying the same, and with no price change, the only real change WAS the chip inside, and that’s so last year—I wanted a 42 inch iMac or a Mac Mini Media Center, dammit!

That said, I’ve read some analysis suggesting that this was the entire point, that this Keynote was about assurances that the switch to Intel was strictly about the processor and nothing more, and I suppose that strategically, it makes sense. However, as one of the Mac faithful expecting another revelation, it left me a little empty. In fact, when they announced that the Powerbook and iMac were the first to be switched, my first thought was to the owners of last G5 models, what with the iMac revision not even two months old.

Now, I know Apple’s 30th anniversary is coming April 1st and there’s probably something bright and mysterious right around the corner, but that doesn’t change the fact that this Keynote was a total bore. Bring on April Fools!

Some of you may remember my post on the original King Kong’s lost spider pit sequence. Well, a comment made within that particular post has prompted me to reprint it here.

“I ,Joey E. Crouch,a 14 year old boy living in the midwest of America is forming a group of King Kong and other monster movie fans to find the lost Spider Pit Scene. I want to send this e-mail all over the world so people like me can join the club and help me find it.
If you want to send a response letter here is my address.
311 N. Maple St.
New London, Iowa”

Joey E. Crouch kicks all kinds of ass and reinviorates my faith in future generations of Mankind. You know that when someone 14 years old has more rugged determination to see monster classics done right then you do that your life has gone horribly astray.

Joey E. Crouch, I salute you, and I encourage everyone reading this to send him a letter and make his mom worry about what her son is getting up to with a bunch of creepy strangers on the internet.