Phew! After being chased around the greater part of California by your damn T-Rex, I managed to escape. First I had to start by explaining to that numbskull what a number was. And how two was twice as big as one. And that three followed two. And that it preceded four. As you can imagine, it was a bit time consuming. What with his tiny brain and his insatiable appetite for my tasty, tasty flesh. But once I explained the concept of numbers and counting, I then turned your stupid T-Rex onto the joys of Sudoku! Really easy sudoku, mind. But since his brain is the size of a walnut, he’s totally distracted by the figuring of these puzzles. And I have managed to escape!

Ha! Ha! Ha! Now you will experience my wrath. A wrath that, well, is not something most people like to experience. I’d say on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being say, the Wrath of Khan, and 10 being the Wrath of God, I’d put my Wrath at around a 4.5. You know, sorta maybe around the Wrath of the Hulk when he’s really ticked off. But, regardless, since you’re a viola player, you really don’t have any muscles to speak of, so you’re basically up that proverbial creek, you know the one with the flies that really stinks to high heaven. And yes, your paddle is nowhere to be found.

So prepare yourself. I’d suggest maybe making peace with whatever gods you worship, paying back anyone you owe money to, returning any outstanding library books, paying off any old school loans, and perhaps telling your parents exactly how they fucked up your life. You know, the usual your-life-as-you-know-it-is-about-to-end activities. Because, frankly, it is. And no, I don’t mean because you’re about to become a billionaire. Because I intercepted your billion dollar check, dude. And I spent it on a billion dollar-sandwiches at McDonalds. That’s right, now their sign reads, billions and billions AND billion served!

Your friend in Christ,

Mike TV

Oh no!  Mike has unleashed the Gralklan time-ants on me!  Must…reach…my copy of…the Gralklan Codex for the counter-curse…

Time…being eaten away…

Just a little…further… One last chance…

Got it!  And now to intone the Time-Ant Counter-Curse!

Ants, ants, go away,

Come again some other day,

Or if not, that’s also OK

My time is not your brunch buffet–

I think there’s an IHOP thataway.

O Codex of demonic prayer,

Send something badass over there–

A T-rex and a Grizzly bear,

To kick Mike’s tiny derriere.

Also, please make me a billionaire.

There, that should do it.  I’m pretty sure I intoned that right.  Let’s see how Mike’s insidious powers deal with a T-Rex! Those things kick ass.  Now I’m just gonna sit here and wait for my check in the mail.  The Codex says it takes 3-6 business days for the billionaire part.

–Eric

Oh Eric. Now you must be destroyed. Incrementally. Take that! A second of your life shaved away. And this! And that! Wham! Another one! Slowly but surely you will pay for your impudence. How dare you mock my pain? Well, actually, I can see very well how you dare. And that is why you are going to suffer. You’ll suffer the nibbles and gnaws of my pernicious little time ants. You know, highly trained stealth-ants designed to gnaw whole seconds off the back-end, front-end, and side-ends of your life. Know fear! No, really. Fear, this is Eric. Eric, Fear. Consider yourself introduced!

Mike TV

You’re lucky you missed it.  It was a harrowing time, but I managed to trap Demon-Mike under millions and millions of tons of ice.  It may not be possible to kill him, but I found a way to keep him frozen until probably the end of time.  Unless something happens to melt the polar ice caps, but the thought of that ever happening is just ridiculous.  I mean, for that to happen, there’d have to be big gaping holes in the planet’s atmosphere where solar radiation can get through.  And that’s just inconceivable.  That’d just be bad sci-fi.

So the world and its computers are safe again.  I think my ancestor Rolf would be proud that I was able to devise such a clever scheme for incapacitating an immortal demon.

On a whole different, non-demon-related topic, I found a pretty great feature on my digital 4-track recorder that lets me record and loop tracks.  What this means is that I can make viola improvisations where I’m playing over lots of different myselves.  Now that I know I can do it, I’m gonna try to do one of those a week and post them here.  If I can figure out how to post things here that aren’t words.  I’ll try one this weekend, and see if I can’t find out a way to flood the world with violistic noise.

–Eric

Imagine time is like a big block of ice, like a glacier, raging through the landscape, destroying everything in its path. Now imagine that you are strapped to the very front end of that glacier, hollering, tears streaming from your eyes, the chill of the ice clinging to your back, your brain simultaneously on fire while freezing in its casing. Your testicles retract or your ovaries huddle, and it is both thrilling and frightening. Can you imagine that? Yeah? Well, that’s nothing like what I’m going through right now. Just the opposite, in fact.

For me, time is still like said glacier. Only rather than raping and raking the earth with it’s monstrous monstrosity, it’s instead just sitting. On me. All six hundred billion, billion tons of it resting on my chest. Making it vaguely difficult to breathe and swallow. Not to mention that I don’t think I’ll ever feel warm again. And I feel…well, I feel pinned down. And unable to move. And I’ve got a splitting head-ache.

And the funny thing is, while this metaphor is probably hyperbole. I mean, I really can’t possibly feel like I’m sitting under 600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons of ice (can’t I), but it for some reason makes me feel better to frame my current predicament in these terms. I’m not sure if it’s because by making it a cartoon it gives me a clearer perspective on how horrible things really are not, or if it’s something analogous to popping an emotional zit. It’s angry and red and swollen but once I fire out all of the goo, it basically bleeds a little and feels a whole hell of a lot better. Anyhow, whatever the case may be, I feel better. Thanks for listening.

With a fusillade of puss, blood, and angry words,

Mike TV

It may come to pass that I’ll get my very own internet radio show.  Probably an hour a week.  It’s not certain yet, but it’s a distinct possibility.  I think I’ll mainly focus on the Square Tire bands, with digressions to other stuff I like.  Probably even an occasional classical piece.  And I’d ideally get some bands to do some live acoustic sets.

I’m not sure how good I’ll be at it, in a strictly technical sense, but I’ve always sort of wanted to have a radio show.  Plus, it’ll give me a chance to use that “radio voice” I’ve been working so long.  You know how people on the radio are never anywhere near as attractive as they sound?  That could be me!

Anyway, I’m kinda excited by the possibility.  I’ll keep you posted.  Just planting the seed for now.  You know, to build anticipation.  I’ve heard people like anticipation.  And sentence fragments.

–Eric again

Well, as you can tell by Mike’s post below, my worst-case scenario was almost accurate.  All the precautions I took to dispose of him as a relatively normal paranormal/undead thing of the night were for naught.  He’s clearly not a lich, but rather a demon (the part I was right about) who managed to upload himself into a computer! Just like that episode of Buffy (”I Robot, You Jane” from season 1) where Moloch the Corruptor gets trapped in a book, and then scanned into a computer, and attempts to seduce pre-lesbian Willow!  I assume that by now, Mike has probably assembled a group of minions to build him a cybernetic body from which he can control all the world’s computers.

The good news is that this crisis essentially falls outside my purview as a hunter of the undead.  It’s kind of a gray area, since there is a demon involved, but there are also computers involved, and I’m a notorious technophobe.  So I think I’m gonna sit this one out.  Maybe read a book instead, have a glass of wine.  Have fun as your computerized world ironically collapses around you, undone by the very thing that was supposed to redeem it.

–Eric

Well, my class is finally over.  I can’t fucking believe it.  For eleven weeks I have been throttling my brain, squeezing into it all manner of dubious information, under the false hope that I might end up after these long many weeks a Master Of The Internet.   Turns out, that’s not the way it works.  Now I know just enough information to really piss myself off.  I know just enough to get started.  I can make ugly, ham-fisted, Frankenstein monster applications that lurch uncontrollably about the Internet before falling dead in a fit of rotting flesh and maggots.  Oh well.  It’s a start.

I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you guys.  I was really hoping to have enough skill to actually take over the administration of this site.   But that’s not gonna happen just yet.  I’m still learning.  Super-slowly.  But, oh well.  the class is over and I now have more time to hang out with you guys.  I hope you’re as excited as I am.

With angry little ants chewing through my pants,

Mike TV

Well, he posted that blog saying he was back from the dead.  And it’s not very common knowledge, but the Summer family has a history of undead-slaying dating back to 15th century Bavaria, when Rolf Sommer took arms against the encroaching Austrian vampire army.  So I couldn’t really let my family’s proud heritage down when Mike said he was back from the dead.  I don’t want to get into too many details, for the sake of the layperson, but let’s just say I hit him over the head with a silver shovel, filled his orifices with garlic and white oak, cut off all his extremities, and buried them at different crossroads near water during a new moon.  Which should pretty much take care of things (even if it turns out he’s a werewolf, which wouldn’t technically place him among the ranks of the undead, but better safe than sorry).  No, the only way he could return again is if he turned out to be some sort of pandimensional demon, or maybe a lich.  But that’s just ridiculous.

Wait a minute…where are those jangly guitar chords coming from?  That doesn’t sound like my guitar…

Wait there.  I’m gonna go check on something.  Shouldn’t be long.  Just…bar the door and dial 9-1 on the phone and keep your finger over the “1″ button until I get back.

That’s right–it’s time once again to dick around with words.  For anybody who doesn’t know, a “portmanteau word” is a word made by squishing two words together.  Like “spork.”  Or “brunch.”  Lewis Carrol coined the term in Through the Looking Glass, referring to words in Jabberwocky like “slithy” (lithe + slimy) and “mimsy” (flimsy + miserable).  Since I am a strange and isolated person with a deranged brain, I’m a big fan of making portmanteau words in my spare time.  Maybe one day, when I’ve completely run out of things to do, I’ll make a whole dictionary of them.  For now, though, here’s one of my favorite coinages:

“awfulsome” (adj.): A conflation of “awful” and “awesome,” indicating something so terrible it’s good.  In fact, it goes far beyond the standard “so bad it’s good” paradigm.  Something has to be truly horrible to end up being awfulsome.  A good example of awfulsomeness is, for instance, a youtube video of David Hasslehoff covering “Secret Agent Man.”  I’ve seen it.  It’s awfulsome.

As a free extra no-strings-attached bonus, I’m throwing in a couple palindromes at no charge to you whatsoever.    Here you go:

Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo

Go hang a salami; I’m a lasagna hog