200-word movie summary: A History of Violence

Two guys kill a bunch of people who work at a nasty motel. One of the guys kills a whimpering little girl because we're all to understand that yes, these two gentlemen are actually quite, quite bad. Then we see Viggo Mortensen (unfortunately not Aragorn in this movie) playing Tom Stall in about 30 minutes of exposition all of which are to make us see that he's a regular guy with a cute family who runs a diner! What a fabulous life full of unicorns and moonbeams, la la la! There is one scene where his wife (Maria Bello) puts on a naughty cheerleader outfit and he totally chows down on her poodle. Hee! Then the two Bad Guys from the beginning come and try to rob the diner and Viggo calmly smites them even though one of them stabs him in the foot. Gah! Viggo becomes a hometown hero and I stopped watching it there because it was so damn boring, and anyway we all have figured out by now that he's really some sort of retired Bad Guy and some other Bad Guys are out to get him and I'm sure at the end Viggo kills 'em all.

Wordsmiths Challenge for January: Crystal Ball

Wordsmiths Unlimited is at it again, and this month we had this challenge: We are going to write in a comedic style: goofy, stupid, and completely un-serious. Think Saturday morning cartoons. Your protagonist is a superhero of your making... The twist is that his or her superpowers are as useless as a sack of wet leaves. They are completely ineffectual, but he or she doesn't know it.

I'll be the first to admit that I had a hard time with this one, and I probably skirted the rules a bit because it's really difficult to be funny on purpose, especially when you're writing. But here it is:


Crystal Ball

Honey sat under a sign that declared "Madame Zannza SEES all!!!!! and KNOWS all!!!!" in flaking gold sparkles and waited for her shift to end.

The turban that she had fashioned out of the sleeve of a bathrobe and a handful of her grandmother's clip-on pearl earrings was itchy, and the harem pants she secretly thought looked cute actually made her look like the illegitimate child of MC Hammer and Barbara Eden. She scratched at her head and wondered for the fourteenth time that day why whoever painted her sign had such a hard-on for exclamation points and poor grammar when a couple approached her booth.

The man stepped up and slid a ten-dollar bill next to her crystal ball, which up until a week ago had been a snow globe with its guts removed. "So, tell me, do you really see and know all?" he said, turning to wink at the woman he was with.

Honey made eye contact with the man, then focused on a point between his bushy eyebrows and let her mind float away:

His name was Harold, he was 39, a security guard at the local piñata factory, and subscribed to National Geographic every year because the pictures of the naked natives got him off like no amount of hard-core girl-on-girl porn ever could.

The woman Harold was with was named Geraldine. She was married and poor Harold didn't know it. While shoplifting fruit-flavored Chiclets and a bag of Funyuns at the local gas station two weeks ago, she had heard him talk to the cashier about his job, and she mistakenly thought that a 'security guard' was one of those guys who sat in armored trucks full of money. Suddenly Geraldine saw in Harold the bright, shining pathway to her life's biggest ambitions: to dump her one-eyed husband, get the biggest, fakest breast implants her spine could support and to live in a grass hut on a beach in Paraguay. Convincing Harold to be her boyfriend had been easy; she figured making him participate in a heist and run off to South America with her couldn't be much harder.

"Well, Madame Zannza?" Harold asked Honey, unaware that his future held for him a short stint in jail after robbing vending machines and a girlfriend who would use the change he stole to go to Tijuana, get a lop-sided boob job, convert to Zoroastrianism after seeing the face of God in the infected incision under her left breast, and write a best-selling book about her experience.

"One eighty-seven."

"Nope, the scale says 221 pounds. I win!" said Harold, and laughed but Honey had already turned to get the stuffed purple tiger that she knew Geraldine wanted.

Getting to know your Sea Hag

In one word...answer

1. Where is your cell phone? pocket
2. Your spouse? non-existent
3. Your hair? static-y
4. Your mother? away
5. Your father? travelin'
6. Your favorite thing? creating
7. Your dream last night? forgettable
8. Your favorite drink? caffeine
9. Your dream car? Pt Cruiser
10. The room you are in? office
11. Your ex? smote
12. Your fear? loneliness
13. What do you want to be in 10 years? orbiting

14. Who did you hang out with last night? Michael
15. What you're not? greasy
16. Muffins? carrot-zucchini
17. One of your wish list items? house
18. Your dinner tonight? spaghetti
19. The last thing you ate? spaghetti
20. What are you wearing? uniform

21. Your tv? off
22. Your pet? imaginary
23. Your computer? sleeping
24. Your life? fluffy

25. Your mood? tired
26. Your holidays? drugged
27. What are you thinking about right now? beer
28. Your car? parked
29. Your work? sucks!!!!!
30. Summer? please
31. Your relationship status? juicy
32. Your dream vacation? Moon

33. When is the last time you laughed? Yesterday
34. Last time you cried? October

35. School? barf