Last night's strategy for surviving temporary bachelorhood involved Tarvis, an entertaining Flyers/Canadiens game, a large pizza with pepperoni, beef, bacon, black olives, and mushrooms, and the Indian blockbuster Kites at the movies. Enjoyed the movie; I'm astounded they managed to make a 2 hour movie with something like 4 pages of dialogue. (/exaggeration) They sure do love their montages in Kites. Why have a kiss...when you can have a kiss surrounded by a montage? Why show a scene once...when you can show it in its entirety twice?? And by all means, if you can work a good old fashioned wild west-style Mexican standoff, complete with saloon, into your movie, I think you pretty much have to do it.
Entertaining love story that was all over the charts in terms of content. Great dance sequence, great police chase sequence, great wild west shootout, great mobster-style gunfighting, great shadow puppet scene. And then some. It felt like the movie was trying to take a page from every successful Hollywood film ever made, but the result was generally pretty fun, if not entirely original and occasionally a tad on the slower side. The only other foreign films I'd seen in the theater were Passion of the Christ and The Host. Seems like the sort of thing you ought to do once a year if you're going to live in a major, international city like Houston, though.
Speaking of the game last night, you really need to check out this shift from Flyers' captain Mike Richards last night. Montreal had come into Philly and took the raucous Flyers' crowd right out of the game with an early goal and a dumb Philadelphia penalty. During that penalty kill, Richards rips the game right out of their hands. Old-time hockey, coach. Beautiful. And au revoir, les Habitants.
In other news, I think "So Far, So Bad" is one of the most listenable songs Five Iron ever wrote. Man, that ditty is catchy.
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Okay, last year on this blog I'd occasionally take a break and introduce a friend or family member to take my place as a guest blogger for that night. I loved it. I thought it was fun to get a different perspective and a different voice than my own on here from time to time. Most of my guest bloggers got fairly stressed out about it and weren't happy with what they wrote. Oh well.
Nevertheless, I've decided to re-institute Guest Blogging for FOMW. Rather than stress out real people, however, I've decided to use the feature as a writers' exercise. Thus, all of our guest bloggers will be fictional characters from one of my plays, stories, or books. It's good practice, I think, to try to think and speak from another voice and another point of view. So, if you'll indulge me, I'd like to see where this leads.
And if you won't indulge me, well, stop reading. See you back here tomorrow ;-)
My first guest blogger is a guy I first met in a basement somewhere in Shawnee, Oklahoma. He's since moved to Metro Valley, Iowa, where he's currently hard at work at world conquest. Yeah, he's evil, but then, so are roughly 1/3 of my friends on Facebook, so whatcha gonna do?
Please welcome Full of Misshapen Words' first guest blogger, Nikolai Oshgoshbgoshnikov.
(As always, the views expressed by Guest Bloggers do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of anyone at the FOMW editorial staff)
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Hello, Internet! Thank you for reading the mad blogging style of yours truly, criminal mastermind and dancer extraordinaire Nikolai Oshgoshbgoshnikov! What is that, you say? You have not heard of me? Well, that is all right. You will have heard of me very, very soon! Or wait, now you have heard of me, and very, very soon, you will have been hearing much more of me! Or at least, more people than have already heard of me will soon have been hearing much more of me very, very soon. And why? Because I am now on the Internet! And soon, with your help, I am going to be the undisputed ruler of the entire world!
Now, I have prepared a short FAQ, because I am sure you have questions, and I already know what they are, and I already have answers for them. This is because I am efficient, which is one reason I will be an excellent ruler-of-the-world-er.
Q: Nikolai, why do you want to rule the world?
A: Well, that is a good question. I will give you a scenario: let us say you have gone to the grocery store to do some shopping. Say you want something important, like tortillas, or fruit juice, or Lucky Charms, or a Rotisserie chicken. Incidentally, I love Rotisserie chicken. It's like buying a chicken you don't have to cook! One of my earlier ideas for world domination involved raising my own Rotisserie chickens right outside my evil lair, and then I could sell them directly to the people. Take out the shipping company and the grocery store all together. Cutting out the middle man, da? I can offer same product for lower price! And then all the people love me, and I become known as the Rotisserie Chicken King, and pretty soon I have enough money to buy the United Nations. It was such an excellent plan. However, I could not find anyone who was willing to sell me live Rotisserie chickens to raise. They would only sell me the already-killed kind. Somewhere out there, Corporate America has a stranglehold on the Rotisserie chicken market, and they are not sharing! They even try to go so far as to tell me there's no such thing as a live Rotisserie chicken! Fortunately, Nikolai Oshgoshbgoshnikov was not born yesterday. They do not fool me...and one day, they will answer for their deceit, their lies, and the rude tone of their customer service employees over the telephone!
I don't know if this answers the original question or not. Moving on!
Q: You have now convinced me that you are needing to rule the world. I am all gung-ho about that. How can I help that to happen?
A: The answer is really very simple, but it will require dedication, commitment, patience, and a home computer. I, Nikolai Oshgoshbgoshnikov, officially declare myself to be President of the World.
Now, you need to go onto one of those searching thingies on the Internet, like Lycos or something, and type in "President of the World." Somewhere on the list of webbing site results for that search, you should find this blog. You will click on the linking to this blog. Then you will do it again. And again. And you will tell all of your friends to do it, too. Soon, my self-proclamation as the World's President will rise, rise, RISE to the top of the results list! Soon, we will be the #1 web entry for the term "President of the World," and the world will sense the enormous support behind me and will realize that it would be futile to oppose me! The only ones we may have trouble with will be other bloggers. Bloggers are always foiling my evil schemes. So, when you see a blog start to say bad things about Nikolai Oshgoshbgoshnikov, President of the World, I want you to go on their site and leave comments telling them they are foolish and ignorant and possibly little girls. After a week or so of such bombardment, I do not think we will have any more trouble from the rest of the Internet. Once there is no one left to challenge my authority, the world will be mine!
Q: But what if that doesn't work?
A: Meh. It will be all your fault, and we will no longer be Facebook friends. So do not fail me!
Q: But Nikolai, when you are the undisputed President of the World, what is in it for me?
A: Well for starters, I'm going to find those Rotisserie chicken farmers and take them out. That will mean better chicken prices for everyone the world over! I am fairly certain this solves the problem of world hunger, da?
Q: But how can one man, even a strong, handsome, charismatic, wise, and punctual man such as yourself, possibly rule the entire world? I mean, that's a lot of stuff to keep track of!
A: True. There will be some delegating of responsibilities. For example, I plan to fall in love with and marry a female ninja. Partially because you don't mess with ninjas, and partially because I've always had a thing for ninja girls. Ever since my days in Junior College. Remind me to tell you that story sometime! I will also hold a reality television challenge show called "Who Wants to Rule South America," where I will give contestants a chance to win the right to be my right hand everywhere south of Texas. Not only will this be a fantastic means to pick out a trustworthy henchman, I think it will also be a smash-hit in the ratings. People love these reality shows, da? I mean, I know I just can't stop watching Project Runway, America's Got Talent, and that Bobby Flay guy, who will be my emissary over the northern half of Africa. I will personally rule over America, Canadia, Europe, and South Africa, and with an iron fist! As for Australia, I plan to strike a deal with the indigenous kangaroos. I'm pretty sure they're very anxious to take back control of their country. Then, we'll turn the entire island into a mobile island, and I'll have an army of kangaroos with boomerangs that I can dispatch to anywhere in the world!!
You see, I really have thought this out.
Q: When you rule the world, can I have a pony?
A: No.
Q: Will you at least kiss my baby?
A: Of course! Everybody loves babies!
Q: Well, your plan is pretty much perfect. Congratulations on your upcoming reign of terror over the entire planet!
A: You think too small. Just wait until you hear my plans for the Moon! We are going to put big rockets on it and drive it around the solar system. If anybody tries to cause trouble and manage to elude even my kangaroos, my ninja bride, my reality show dictator, and Bobby, they are going to get a face-full of moon! That, my friends, is going to leave a mark!
Thank you for your time, your support, and your love. I look forward to ruling over you and your descendants for years to come.
