Snypiuer

I wonder what a Neil Young cover of Sweet Home Alabama sounds like. Ever notice you can, pretty much, sing the lyrics from Hotel California to the tune of Escape - The Pina Colada Song?

For those who have not heard, Sparhawk posted in the Courtyard that we have lost DL_Snake.

Will you come with us and be set free? From bonds that bind and ties that be Will you turn your eyes and walk away From your past, your yesterday Will you search, for the unknown Strange new things, a brand new home Will you take that step, wherever it may lead And come with us To be set free Next line: Angry flowers lie in wait

I see nothing wrong with sharing!

O.K., this is another one of those I'm not sure I actually came up with or if I saw it, or something like it, and believe it's my own. Either way, I think it should have been written by SOMEONE by now! ****************************************************************************** God left the other day. Just packed his bags and went away. There was no screaming, Not one shout. He said his peace and then, "I'm out!" We asked, "Hey, God, why must you go!?" He sighed, hung his head and said, "If you must know . . . I thought, by now, I could move on. You'd take your place and carry on. Tell me, Doesn't anyone find it . . . odd, That not one of you has become a god? You're made in my image. You're just like me! Yet, you refuse to become What you ALL should be. I gave you free-will. And the knowledge of Dark and Light. Still, you whine and beg, 'Please tell us wrong from right!' You pray for guidance on what to do. Really? You want everything handed to you! Then, you sin and look for someone to blame. You do even worse and claim it in my name. I'm tired and weary, but I know it's my own fault. I thought My creation Would grow to an adult. But, it seems, that all I did Was create a child, An eternal kid. So, consider my leaving . . . Tough love. One last gift, from your 'Daddy', High above. So, get your act together and figure it out. I will ALWAYS love you. But, I'm done. That's it. I'm out!"

Ralph Waldo Emerson Collections Volume VII: Society and Solitude (1870) Chapter XII: Old Age ... but these are rare exceptions. Nature, in the main, vindicates her law. Skill to do comes of doing; knowledge comes by eyes always open, and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power. ... (Knew it was Emerson, but took some looking up to figure out WHERE it came from - thanks rwe.org!) I prefer G.I. Joe: Now you know and knowing is half the battle! GO JOE!

Wha...? You don't...? LEMMY!? Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister was one of the last, true, heavy metal rock and rollers. Lead singer of the band Motörhead. YouTube Motörhead "Ace of Spades" and crank the volume ALL the way up. As for the question, it comes from the 1994 movie "Airheads": Who'd win a wrestling match, Lemmy or God? Umm, Lemmy? *buzzer sound* God? *buzzer sound* It's a trick question. Lemmy IS God!

Well, now we finally know the answer to, "Who'd win a fight between God and Lemmy Kilmister." I still say it's a trick question and the answer is, "Lemmy IS God!"

What would you do if you were to discover that, since the instant you began to think, EVERYONE else on the planet was able to hear your thoughts and no one ever told you because you were the only person who couldn't hear other people's thoughts and no one wanted to make you feel bad? What if this question was a subtle hint for you to monitor your thoughts - like offering a piece of gum is a subtle hint a persons' breath stinks? What if more than one person answering this question was nothing more than a trick to make you believe this was nothing more than a thought exercise?

O.K., as many of you know, we had a problem a while back with our formatting when we did an upgrade and many of our older posts lost all spacing and they turned into one big paragraph. This left the original poster having to go in and try to remember EXACTLY how they had spaced their work. I, personally, fixed a few of my own, but think I may not have done so as I originally had. I use spacing in a LOT of my work to provide some tone and rhythm, so you can see the dilemma I and others may have. Well, as I mentioned in the Holiday post, I've been stuck with an iPad and, just a little while ago, went to fix some of my old posts for the first time with it. To my surprise, all I had to do was click the Edit button and the post was automatically spaced properly! Just saved the modified post and BAM! I don't know if it's the iPad or if IPS changed something. I just wish I had known this BEFORE I "fixed" the other ones! So, give it a try and let me know if it works if you can do it before I get a computer to try it on. If it doesn't work, see if you can get ahold of an iPad. If anyone wants to give me permission, I'll try to see if I can fix their old posts for them using either the Moderator or Admin feature. I have no idea if I can, but willing to try IF I get permission from the Original Poster to do so.

Well, here we are at the end of the year. I've been stuck with an iPad and haven't been able to do any skins for a while. I hope to get to a computer soon to at least set up a Christmas skin and a New Year skin. Either way, come the beginning of the year, I'll be out of commission for a while. But, will be back as soon as I can with, if all goes as planned, a lap top. Once we're ready to upgrade to IPS Version 4, I'll need it to redo all our skins. We have new members, Zatar being the newest, and new posts - for those of you who just monitor the News Forum. So say HI! and do some reading and, if you have the time, give some feedback. So, Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Merry Kwanzaa! Festive Festivus! Blessed Winter Solstice - Yule! AND ANY AND ALL HOLIDAYS I MAY HAVE FORGOTTEN OR AM UNAWARE OF!

Is it just me, or is the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" nothing more than a propaganda piece to make people believe that a life of giving up EVERYTHING they ever wanted, so that everyone else around them can have THEIR dreams come true, is BETTER than actually having their own dreams come true? Does ANYONE else see the conundrum here? How is a lifetime of bitter disappointment better!? Everyone in the movie that benefits from George Baileys' sacrifices seem pretty, freaking happy while ol' George just trudges on and makes the best of what he has to work with. George had dreams and the ambition to make those dreams come true. Instead, well, let's make list of ol' Georges', so called, "Wonderful" life: 1. It starts with his idiot brother. Said brother falls through the ice and George saves him, causing George to get sick and get an ear infection - which leads to him having hearing problems. That's O.K., ol' George is a trooper. He gets older and gets a job. 2. George works at a pharmacy where his boss gets some bad news and, in his misery, mistakenly fills a prescription with poison. When George points out the mistake, his boss smacks him. Where? That's right! In his bad ear! Take that George! Save a life, go deaf in one ear! I'd like to take a break to say, I miss the days when it was O.K. to smack a kid - even if it wasn't even YOUR kid. I'd also like to point out that, if ol' George had learned his lesson from this incident, that no good deed goes unpunished, he wouldn't have had a lifetime of disappointment - so MAYBE ol' George just got what he deserved. Back to the list! 3. George gets older and saves his money. He's going to travel! George is going overseas! George is going to college! Georges' dad has a stroke and the board of directors for the Savings and Loans, his dad started, won't keep it open unless he, George, takes his dad's' place! LUCKY GEORGE! 4. It's O.K. ol' George is a man with a plan. He'll postpone his dreams and use the money he saved to send his idiot brother to college so that HE can come back and run the Savings and Loans. George is a freaking GENIUS! Georges' idiot brother isn't such an idiot and comes back from college with a wife and says (I'm paraphrasing here - YEAH, that's what I'm calling it!), "So, George, buddy, I'm getting laid regularly and her old man is giving me a job, sooo . . . thanks for the edumacashun and SEE YA SUCKER!" At this point, George should just head to the bridge. 5. George decides if he's going to be stuck running the Savings and Loans, he might as well get laid regularly too. So, he gets married and plans to use the money he was saving to travel the world (that is, until his idiot brother showed up and flushed THAT dream down the toilet), to honeymoon in New York and Bermuda. It's not traveling the world, but it's something - and you can't deny the man his honeymoon! Wait for it . . . that's right! There's a run on the banks and, instead of just letting the Savings and Loans get bought out, he uses the honeymoon money to cover the deposits. You hear that? That's the sound of an overworked toilet flushing another of ol' George Baileys' dreams. 6. This one is ALL on George. He creates a residential development of nice homes and, basically, sells them at cost TO THE SAME PEOPLE THAT FORCED HIM TO USE HIS HONEYMOON MONEY TO COVER THEIR DEPOSITS! How about make a bit of a profit George? No? Take a rest toilet, that one ol' George deserves to eat! 7. Here's another one all on George. He's offered a job making more money than he ever could hope for and he turns it down - George, your freaking wife is pregnant! Arghh! 8. War! Yay! It's not ideal, but there is travel and you can pretty much count on adventure. And, who's going to say anything or judge ol' George for signing up? Why, it's his duty as an American! Wait a minute . . . get your 4F butt back to the Savings and Loans George! You half-deaf . . . 9. George gets to be the air raid warden while friends and family become war heroes and rich from selling parts to the military. At least he's getting laid - 4 kids.You go George! 10. Finally, after all that, and ol' George is resigned to just living the rest of his life stuck in the same town he was born in and never left, working at a job he never wanted, what happens? His uncle, the TRUE idiot of the family absent-mindedly places the Savings and Loans $8,000 bank deposit in a folded newspaper and HANDS it to the banker who hates George and wants nothing more than to see him thrown in jail - actually, it wouldn't be a stretch to say he REALLY wants ol' George dead! George is going to prison! He doesn't want to, but let's face facts here, does ANYTHING in ol' Georges' life point to him NOT being locked up? Hey, George, at least you'll finally get out of Bedford Falls and, not to worry, you'll STILL be getting laid regularly - whether you want to or not! All this leads to George realizing he's worth more dead than alive, you know what? I know I said "FINALLY" on the last one, but there's more. 11. George decides to give up his "DREAM", of just existing, in order to save the Savings and Loans. That's right, he's going to give up LIVING so that the business doesn't get shut down and people aren't thrown in jail and his family doesn't have to be ashamed that he was locked up. Get that straight, it wasn't because he was worried he was going to end up having the back of his head shaved and the face of a woman tattooed on it that his cell-mate called Martha. No, IT WAS TO SAVE THE BUSINESS AND TO SAVE HIS FAMILIES' REPUTATION. 12. You would THINK that would be enough. No. No, it's not. An angel shows up to help ol' George? No. The angel has a dream. A dream to, one day, have wings! What better way to get them than to rub ol' Georges' face in the fact that he had to suffer through life long disappointment so that OTHERS could, not only, do what he was only allowed to dream of, but to live FAR better lives than him. And, on top of that, make him believe he's being SELFISH for wishing he had never been born instead of living a life of broken dreams that has lead him to the point where he is WILLING TO KILL HIMSELF! Go for it Clarence, get them wings! 13. Hmmmm, 13 . . . figures. Final, finally. George sees the error of his selfish, selfish ways, more clearly than a reluctant guest in Stockholm and realizes he's the "RICHEST MAN IN TOWN" because everyone is willing to help him. George, George, George, you poor, pathetic, delusional fool. These same people will throw the fact that they gave you a few dollars to help keep you out of jail, right in your face the VERY first time they're late making a payment on a loan you've ALREADY made to them. And, your rich friend, the one who could pay the $8,000 outright, if he wanted to, only gave you a line of credit. You'll have to pay back everything you borrow from it. George! You will NEVER be able to afford to leave Bedford Falls! You will die there and the last thing you're going to think on your death bed is, "I should have let that idiot drown!" So, there we have it. A "WONDERFUL LIFE" where the hero of our story lives a life of disappointment and the villain, who is ALREADY the richest man in town gets $8,000 for free, in a day and age when $8,000 could buy you a freaking huge house.

O.K., that one was weird. For some reason, I got a vision of the scene from Mickey Rooney's "Boys' Town" where all the boys and Father Flanagan are marching up to the bad guys' hideout. BUT, and here's the weird part, it was to the song "Babes in Arms" from his and Judy Garlands movie "Babes in Arms". You would THINK that I would, at least, see the marching scene that is ACTUALLY done to the song from the movie the song comes from . . . weird, right!?

*Snypiuer walks meerily through the Valley of the Gribbles, singing* The wonderful thing about Gribbles Is that Gribbles are . . . AAAARRRGGHHHHHHH!!!! THEY GOT ME!!!! AAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!! GET THEM OFF!!!!! AAARRRGGHHHHH!!!!!!

I heard the song "Silver Bells", in my head, while I read this!

I like it, but wonder if it wouldn't work better as 2 separate works? I see how you come to an awareness and, eventually, overcome. It works, but would it be more powerful if separated? I'm not sure. Maybe this is actually a "middle" piece where you chronicle the end of your coming to awareness and the beginning of overcoming . . . Just tossing it out there - THOUGHT GRENADE!

If it is indefabigle proof you seek, I give you Neb the Umbiquous! *At this point, Snypiuer pulls from his pocket, a haggard looking mouse which he retrieved from the rafters above the Tavern. He places the mouse on a small chair he has placed on a table and whispers to it, "You sit there and don't try to run off, or I'll staple your tail to that chair again!" The mouse lets out a small squeak and, with fear in his eyes, sits upright with his front paws clenched tightly together against his chest* Snypiuer: Do you, Neb the Umbiquous, swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you Fimple!? Neb: *The very frightened and confused mouse repsponds* squeak Snypiuer: Very well. First question, are you, in fact, the entity known as Neb the Umbiquous? Neb: squeak Snypiuer: Good. Now, is it true you are acquainted with every nook and cranny of the Keep of the Pen is Mightier than the Sword? Neb: squeak Snypiuer: Ahhh! So it would be fair to say you are an expert on the ins and outs of said Keep and its' inhabitants? Neb: squeak Snypiuer: Let the record show that Neb the Umbiquous IS an expert on the Keep of the Pen is Mightier than the Sword AND its' inhabitants! Neb: squeak? Snypiuer: Now, Neb . . . I may call you Neb? Neb: squeak Snypiuer: Oh! I'm sorry than, MR. UMBIQUOUS! Neb: squeak? Snypiuer: So, Mr. Umbiquous, as an expert, can you say, DEFINITIVELY, that Snypiuer DOES, in deed, lurk within, AND, if so, does he lurk within, ALWAYS!? Neb: squeak THERE you go! STRAIGHT from the expert! I, not only, lurk within, but I do so . . . ALWAYS. *While Snypiuer, ungraciously, claims this as proof, the very frightend and confused mouse makes a break for it and scurries away* AND, while I could bring forth many, MANY more experts and produce MASSIVE amounts of evidence to further prove my statement, I believe the mere stature of Neb the Umbiquous is enough to . . . Neb? Where'd he go!?

Snypiuer lurks within. Always.

Story so far: Who's the infiltrator? Snypiuer: I'm thinking . . . it might be you. James: Nooo . . . I'm PRETTY sure it's you.

I've never played, but have been wanting to try. So, be willing if everyone else was O.K. with someone who has no idea what they're doing!

Somewhere in the Keep of the Pen is Mightier than the Sword, Snypiuer, in his custodian uniform and still in search of creaky noises that he is unsure if they are coming from his old bones or from somewhere within the Keep, stops his slow, hunched-over shuffle and looks around, confused. He now wonders whether or not his thoughts are echoing in his skull or if someone is just messing with him. He continues his slow, shuffling search, muttering to himself, "I've either been alone here so long that I've gone completely off my noodle or someone wants a story about how an old, dried-up janitor put his foot . . . muttermuttermutter . . . I'll show them what a . . . grumblegrumblegrumble . . . HA!"

Next line . . . NEXT line . . . line . . . LINE . . . An absent minded theater actor, is NEVER fine. Next line: I'll be removing my pants now

Never mind this entry, just continue . . . A peculiar way to start a tale. It seems - Too long . . . and yet . . . too short. Next line: Wait . . . I slept through the Rapture!?

O.K., Snypiuer has written off and on about things he has done (or MAY have done - things he will neither confirm nor deny) that one COULD consider to be "BAD". Here's another: Snypiuer goes to store. At check-out counter, bag boy is annoying checkout girl. Bag boy is, obviously, high school kid and so is check-out girl. Check-out girl is decent looking. Now, Snypiuer is in NO way a looker. He is not a Brad Pitt or a George Clooney and he is DEFINITELY no where even NEAR the scale of the raw sexuality that is a Steve Buscemi. But he does know looks and she was . . . O.K. Anyways: Snypiuer: Dude, why don't you just ask her out? Bag Boy: Huh!? Snypiuer: She's cute, ask her out. Bag Boy: What!? Snypiuer: Let's face it, you OBVIOUSLY like her or you wouldn't be annoying her so much. Bag Boy: I'm, I'm, I'm . . . just Snypiuer: Look. We both know that, even if she wasn't cute, you're young, you're horney, that's enough. Your hormone saturated brain wants her. Ask her out. What's the worst that can happen? Bag Boy: ahhh *With a look of shock, fear and EXTREME embarrassment, he quickly walks away* Snypiuer: Well, he'll either ask you out or leave you alone from now on. Just remember, they're ALL horney until they're about . . . you know what? Don't even TRY to put an age to it, just remember that they're ALL horney. Check-out girl: *Wide-eyed with a 'what-just-happened?' look* umm, thanks? Snypiuer: No prob, you have a WONDERFUL evening!

O.K., Snypiuer will NOT go see 'American Sniper' at the theater. Why? 'Cause Snypiuer is a MAN DAMN IT! And a man does NOT cry in public at a movie! Not that he WOULD cry! It's just that Snypiuer is VERY patriotic . . . and . . . he has allergies . . . and . . . stuff . . . HE'S A MAN DAMN IT! He will watch it on DVD . . . alone. A MAN YOU HEAR! A MAN!!!