April 1, 2007
KeithSpeak is starting afresh. The near 7 year archive has been completely eliminated. 82 KeithSpeaks - poof! Oh, and the Catalog is no longer available either. Random Page? Gone too. Nuts, huh? I know it’s only 10:16 in the morning, but I’m drinking beer. Now at least if I cry, it’ll be in the appropriate beverage.
April 2, 2007
Here’s a twist – it was I who informed my wife Susan that it was our anniversary today, simply by wishing her a happy one, then seeing by the expression on her face that she’d forgotten, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that even hairy, insensitive males can use electronic calendar reminders to their advantage.
April 3, 2007
Here at Keith Ryan Publishing, we’re forever rewarding our employees. For instance, we sent Lazlo, Jock and Henry on a festive cruise in the Balkans, as befitting the winners of the office pool on naming Tiger Woods’ soon-to-be baby (the winning names were Lazlo, Jock, and Henry, kel surprise). We got an e-mail this morning from the ship’s purser with this picture of the boys still proudly wearing their leis from last night's Hawaiian luau, though no one here can figure out why Jock is wearing chaps or looks so much worse for wear than the others, which has miraculously spawned its own office pool. Sheesh.
April 4, 2007
KeithTips For The Discerning
Tip 1: Bet against Bush. When one supports a known moron, then what that says about oneself is that one is declaring allegiance-in-moronity to a known idiot. Why would anyone do that?
Tip 2: If you are having trades work done in your home, have free donuts and coffee on the job site for the workers. They will love you for it, and they will like working for you because you respected them enough to make their day more pleasant. It’s a small gesture at a very modest price that will get the best out of the crew.
Tip 3: You're drinking beer with the guys when you see by what's left in the fridge that you're going to run out. Like a zombie, you should have only one thought on your mind: get-more-beer. Because you know that guys won't hang out for long if there's no beer. And then you'll be alone. With no beer. That's a bad situation.
Ok, that's all the tips I have for now. But I may have more later, so be alert.
April 5, 2007
The complete text of FOUND MONEY – How To Consciously Win The Lottery is now being offered as a download for the silly low price of $2.50 (takes the breath away, eh?). Given that you could be reading this book in the next few minutes, maybe you’ll find it’s stuff you already know, or, this little book book may help you realize your own untapped potential and end up being hands down, bar none, the best $2.50 you ever spent in your entire life up to this point. Either way, it’s a pretty cheap gamble. Actually, not doing it is the risk here. Funny, huh?
April 6, 2007
You’ve been running around like crazy and all your friends have driven you nuts and your kids want something to eat and your husband, for the millionth time, isn’t around to help, and you just know you’re going to miss watching another Oprah because of the incessant demands of others – oh, and your head is about to explode- Stop.
Take a deep breath.
Look at the picture below and imagine yourself at this brook.
You’re alone.
Your cell phone fell out of your pocket on the way to the brook. GPS too.
You're lost and no one can possibly find you.
You're alone. Blessedly alone.
Relax.
Relax.
April 7, 2007
I’ve been surprised by how many of you guys have suggested I create a Best Of from the last seven years of KeithSpeak. Hmm...
April 8, 2007
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIThe TUCKER & SOPHIE & MADDIE ChroniclesIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Of course it was going to be the cutest picture ever with the girls asleep and Maddie’s head on Sophie’s leg and her face all smushed into her sister’s side like it was, but I woke them up trying to get it. So instead of the cutest photo ever, I got nothing to write home about (but evidentially enough to write here about). Are my standards lowering all by themselves?
April 9, 2007
Drat, I’m too popular for my own good. I have 27 things to do. I counted them; that was easier than doing them. I’ve already made out a comprehensive, detailed, annotated, color-coded-by-priority master list. I’m looking at it right now. I’m not sure what I’ll do next. Maybe count it again, to be accurate, you know, for the record, as if one were being kept, ooh, that’s kinda pathetic, wait a minute, did I miss the memo where it said avoidance behaviors had to be pretty? No, I thought not. Sigh... Did I tell you how many things I have to do?
April 10, 2007
When you go to sleep, when you go unconscious to the “real” world, and then later wake back up, do you ask yourself where you’ve been? Because consciousness-wise, you weren’t here, but you weren’t dead either, you were somewhere else. We all go somewhere else other than this reality every time we go to sleep. Don’t you wonder about that? Doesn’t that hint at other realms of which you are a part? Doesn’t that intrigue you? Does me.
April 11, 2007
Lazlo, Jock and Henry are lost at sea! I got another e-mail from the ship’s purser with this photo attached.
The purser thinks it’s the boys gone overboard, but the Captain thinks it’s 3 separate Nessies as they’re technically not far from Loch Ness (as the crow flies) - and won’t this picture set the world on its ear! while yet another, the Chief Mate, thinks it’s a trio of dancing dolphins there to wish him a happy birthday because nobody else remembered so he’s retreated into a fantasy world of singing dolphins with top hats and canes while the rest of the crew avoids him at all costs. What’s the truth?!
Fortunately, we have an expert on staff. I immediately sent the photo to our crack picture analyzer, Adrian Fairport McIntyre, here proudly showing off his stunningly organized files, each with a separate binder.
Mr. McIntyre, formerly of Scotland Yard Quickie Photo (in the Shumley Mall), but recently retired to Revelstoke where he became bored with the scenery and started withdrawing into that dark place in a man’s soul where sanity fears to tread but vodka apparently has no such worries, checked out of his marriage, angering his high society wife, Karen Ethel Margaret McIntyre, who hated going stag to all her fancy pants functions knowing others were judging her and her husbandless marriage because she would have done the same if the circumstances were reversed, was driven to dial us up and offer shameless amounts of money if we would hire her clinically depressed alcoholic husband before the next big do or she would have to kill him with some heavy crystal and move back to England where she herself was suicidally depressed by the weather and the grime, which was why they moved to Canada in the first place, for their health, isn’t that ironic, well? We, of course, jumped at the chance because you never know when you’re going to need a crack picture analyzer and a wad of cash. Boy, did that work out well!
5 Days Later
Sadly, the report is in. After exhaustive investigation, it is Mr. McIntyre’s professional opinion that it is a picture of three exceedingly rare Balkan Circle sharks circling what he imagines are the last remains of our beloved employees Lazlo, Jock and Henry. Mr. McIntyre went on to explain that these sharks circle their prey until a deadly vortex of water sucks the men down to the bottom of the ocean where they die from getting sand in their eyes and stuff and then their lifeless bodies float back to the surface where the sharks eat them. Of course, we’re shocked!
April 12, 2007
We couldn’t accept that they were eaten by Balkan Circle sharks (well, some of us could), and since the cruise lines ordered the Captain not to take the ship into Loch Ness, we feel compelled to continue our efforts privately. To that end, we’ve hired two of the high seas' best, Mac and Buzzy.
Nothing will stop them in their quest to find out what happened to Lazlo, Jock and Henry.
Ok, something stopped them.
First off, we shouldn’t have loaned them the company boat. I can see that now. Secondly, it was a small thing to be sure, but it affected both men - AND THY DEMON'S NAME IS RUM! Neither Buzzy nor Mac had a clue as to how our boat ended up on the Gunderson’s dock, but empty bottles of jolly Captain Morgan's don’t lie. Most surprisingly, they said that they had found Lazlo, Jock and Henry before everything went blank, and that all of them were living in a foreign land, being treated like kings and heroes, having all the women and drink they want, but they couldn't remember where that was, or why they would ever ever ever leave such a place themselves, or if the guys are coming back.
This is such a sad and dreadful ending to our original good intentions that in honor of the boys, we’re going to make them the last company winners ever by banning, from here on out, office pools of any kind, except for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the UFC, The Oscars, Miss Universe and other assorted events that we deem tastefully appropriate to the memory of Lazlo, Jock, and Henry. The end.
April 13, 2007
For little Timmy, an example of non sequiturs:
Today is Friday the 13th. The printer is on. It’s raining. Tonight’s lottery is at $12,000,000. None of the dogs are shedding. Impeach Bush now. Spare us any more stupidity from this lying, known moron, idiot-child and imprison the rest of his malicious pack of piggys for the criminals they are.
Ok, Timmy, all the sentences except the last two are non sequiturs, things that do not follow. Sure hope that helped! Thanks for writing. Ta ta, Timmy.
April 14, 2007
I keep telling everyone I know that I know what I’m talking about but they don’t seem to know. How do I know they don’t know? Because no one listens. I’m telling you, I could live their lives better than they’re living them. I told them that. Whattaya know, no one listened. I’ve got my hands full, no?
April 15, 2007
I’m not gonna mention the whole taxes due thing because frankly, we haven’t done ours yet and I don’t want to be reminded.
April 16, 2007
Purple haze all in my brain...
April 18, 2007
In response to those who have written in about the progress or lack thereof of the Best Of KeithSpeak thing, I must say I’m flattered but I’m dithering. It’s a whack of work, see. Not that it wouldn’t be fun – I love reading me – it’s more that it’s Springtime, and appeal-wise the lure of the bloomin’ outdoors has it all over my computer screen. The gritty truth? I don’t know yet. We’ll see. Thank you to all those who are still interested.
April 19, 2007
The Vancouver Canucks are on the verge of closing out the Dallas Stars in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. This has been the antithesis of a nasty series, but tonight promises to change all that. Tonight, character building will be on display, by both clubs, for different reasons. Sweet.
April 20, 2007
If I were to do a book of horror filled writing, I’d probably use this for the cover. Scary, eh?
April 21, 2007
The Vancouver Canucks are on the verge of closing out the Dallas Stars in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. This has been the antithesis of a nasty series...
(Yes, I know this is a repeat of the day before. But they lost that game. But they still have a 3-2 series lead. So they can still close them out tonight. So it’s all déjà vu true. So I said it again, which would have been much more clever if I hadn’t had to include this explanation, but I thought some might not see the joke, you know, if they’re not following the series, and that would reflect badly on me (Ethel, he’s too frickin’ lazy to create fresh content!), so I hedged my bets, pretty much ruining the clever repetitive literary effect with my explanatory verbosity on the proceedings.) Man.
April 22, 2007
Today is Earth Day. The real mother’s day. Peace and love, out.
April 23, 2007
The Vancouver Canucks are on the verge of closing out the Dallas Stars in the first round of the Stanley Cup... I know, I know, you’ve heard it all before. But Vancouver lost the last game, again, just like the game before, only now it’s game 7, winner take all, gulp. I mean, really, what’s this world coming to?
April 24, 2007
Ok, so last night I was teaching a class at our literary academy, The Keith Ryan School of Writing Goo(d) (the sign guy’s wife was divorcing him, taking the cats, his head was fuzzy, he measured the space wrong, had no room for the D, I cut him some slack, I kinda liked it, Writing Goo), anyhoo, I’m teaching pretty hard and they're learning with all their might, so I suggest we all go out and take a break, only when we come back – the building’s gone!
Could it have been anything other than aliens?!
Have other writing schools been abducted?
Lordy, what a month.
April 25, 2007
I was being passed slowly by the most dangerous and silliest looking motorcycle I’ve ever seen on the road. The front forks were stretched out to such an improbable length that the front tire was about 18 feet proud of the frame, and the forks were so long and made of such thin metal that you could see them backflex as he hit little bumps in the road, and the triple trees were practically pointing straight up at the sky to accommodate the rake, and I’m thinking to myself, What a mess, when finally the body of the bike and rider come into view, and I see that he’s got a Day-Glo green coffin gas tank that is so small it couldn’t hold more than ½ gallon of gas, oh, and an oil bag that looks like cow udders – literally, ugh. Huge motor, shorty pipes - loud as all get out - rigid frame, no fenders, no lights, no license plate. Nothing connected with this bike looked steady, including its rider, a greasy little fellow wearing a Prussian helmet with a spike on top. It was a complete rolling death trap. And silly. It just looked silly.
April 26, 2007
The cashier at the grocery store couldn’t stop her stomach from rumbling. She told me she was hungry, and checking out all this food made her hungrier, and that her stomach had been betraying her for the last half hour, but that her break was still 20 minutes away. I thought it was interesting that her stomach was doing everything it could to tell her to put some food into her body, but that she thought of that as a betrayal.
April 27, 2007
Jeez, Fed Ex just picked up Susan’s Tablet PC to send it back to the manufacturer for the second time to repair the same warranty problem they were supposed to fix the first time we sent it to them, and they returned to us without fixing. The first time it was gone 3 weeks. We have to assume it will be the same for the resend. This means that Susan’s office computer will have been absent for 6 of the last 7 weeks. Heck of a way to run a business, eh?
April 28, 2007
I hear it all the time, about how I have it so easy being a writer because I get to drink beer at work in my bathrobe, but what they don’t know is that I have to do my writing in a salt mine! Do you have any idea how dark it is in a salt mine? Do you know how hard it is to write in the dark? Why, here I am going in today. See.
April 29, 2007
Stephen Hawking says that we have to leave the planet Earth and colonize space if we’re to survive as a species. This from a guy who has never walked among the vistas of this awesome and irreplaceable planet; this from a guy who’s physical life is a moribund hell, and whose intellectual life prizes the theoretical above all. It’s like the Pope telling me about sex. Neither have experienced it, so what do they know?
April 30, 2007
With this month's kaput-ness, the new archive starts right here, right now.
