Simply...

From Bryan Murphy.

Amazing juggler

I'm a pretty good juggler. I can do the behind-the-back and under-the-leg tricks and can sometimes catch a ball on the back of my neck. But check out this routine by Chris Bliss. This link takes you to his video page. Just click on the "Big Finale" to watch the juggling.

In the video, Bliss juggles to Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight, keeping in time with the music while effortlessly pulling of a huge range of tricks. It's pretty amazing. I take that back. It's really amazing.

UPDATE: The video seems to be down temporarily. Not to worry, you can catch it at iFilm.

Play Cole is online!

It's official! The video sketch comic troupe Play Cole is up on the World Wide Web -- the information superhighway. Visit our Web site to learn about our group, keep up on the latest Play Cole news and even watch streaming videos. Simply type in the url "http://www.playcole.com" (leave out the "quotes") and use your left mouse button to select "go," which you will find just to the right of the "url window."

Or you can simply "click" here and I'll do all the work for you. So what are you waiting for? "Click" here!

You must have a computer and a modem with an active Internet connection to visit Play Cole. If you do not, you're not reading this. Or someone printed this "web page" out for you and you're reading a hard copy. If that is the case, we don't care about you.

PS: Big ups to fellow Play Cole-ian Bill Monroe for getting us on the Internet. Be sure to send him an electronic mail and let him know how great the home page looks!

Larry David Links - Updated

I'm a big fan of Larry David. If he were writing this, he'd have something funny to say. But he isn't. I am and I don't have anything funny to say. So just enjoy.

Video of David giving a hilarious speech at a global warming comedy special
Earth to America Global Warming Comedy Special

Newsweek story
Happy Go Larry

Interview with David on CBS. Also includes video.
Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm

Very funny interview from around 1994
Laugh Factory Interview

Funny essay he wrote for the NY Times
Cowboys are my weakness

A two-year old New Yorker article on David
New Yorker: Angry, middle-aged man

An audio inteview with Larry
NPR interview

A gentle shot in the face

Harry Whittington, the 78-year old lawyer who was shot by Cheney, has suffered what doctors are calling a "mild heart attack" after an embedded pellet entered his heart.

Let's see if I have the official account straight. After "failing to signal Cheney" as he entered his "blind spot," Whittington was "peppered by pellet spray" when his face intruded on the area between the vice president's shotgun and the "covey" upon which he was firing. While authorities weren't notified of the accident for several hours, Cheney expressed "deep concern" for his friend. Friends said the lawyer was "jolted pretty good," but soon was "sitting up" and "joking and laughing" about the incident at the hospital. Then he had some "mild heart trouble" when a stray pellet found it's way to his heart.

Let's replay the account, but this time swap out the word "Cheney" for "Tyrone."

While tracking a covey with his shotgun, respected lawyer Harry Whittington was brutally shot in the face by Tyrone. Whittington went down from the unprovoked attack, and was rushed to a nearby hospital. Authorities say that Tyrone failed to notify police of the attack for 14 hours--which is about the amount of time it takes for malt liquor or crack cocaine to leave the body. Hours later, a brave Whittington was sitting up and preparing to file criminal charges at the hospital. Then he had a major heart attack when one of the bullets fired by the assailant viciously entered his heart.

Way to go Jon!

Went to see my friend Jon Clarke perform his first featured standup at New York Comedy Club last night. He killed! There were about nine other comics up there -- some veterans, many new -- and Jon's performance was among the most consistent, energetic and funny.

He and Andrew Torres are really taking off with their standup. Great job, both of youse!

Photo Session

NyQuil makes you delusional

I felt a cold coming on since Monday, but was able to keep it at bay until Friday. Then it hit in all its gluey, runny glory.

Off to the store. DayQuil, NyQuil. Bright orange, blood red. Wakey, sleepy.

Took the NyQuil last night and had all sorts of whacky dreams. I think I doubled up on the dose -- two little plastic cups. I was at my computer when it hit, and it was all I could do to swipe the clothes off my bed and aim my head at my pillow like a battering ram. Out.

Woke up at six and I didn't know who I was. I think I became a middle-aged woman during the night, fighting off a horde of rats in my bright suburban kitchen. They came at me in waves, like a video game, and I bonked each of them on the head with my broom -- 10pts!, 20pts!, 30pts! Level II. More and more, skittering across the gleaming linoleum until there was simply a dull brown blur. One bit down on the hem of my housecoat and I flailed at with my broom, my mouth a cartoon shriek.

I awoke with my arms crisscrossed over my chest.

I'm not a suburban housewife. I am a single male living in Brooklyn. I grabbed my penis. See?

I got up. DayQuil, double dose. Now my head started to clear.

I am definitely a man, and I even have a name: Brian. OK. Back to the world.

I blew my nose. Took a leak. Water. I drank some water. Back to my computer.

Now here I am typing this out. My head is still thick and I have that fluey feeling that is perfectly represented in cartoons by dark bubbles lazily orbiting the head. The DayQuil hasn't kicked in. How long has it been? I dose up again, this time forgoing the little cup and chugging straight from the bottle.

A good cold gives you the universal facial expression of mild resignation, the "whaddya gonna do?" look. My eyelids are floating at about three-quarters mast, held up by the pull of my forehead.

Whaddya gonna do? I'm sick.

Fortunately, it's rainy and shitty out. No reason to leave the apartment except to forage for food. There's plenty of NyQuil left in the bottle. I'll dose up later. I wonder who I'll be tonight?

It's been a long 30-some-odd years.

The arc of the birthday. You can't wait to reach the next year, until you hit your 30s. Then it's all damage control and spin.

I turned 37 on Tuesday. Thirty-seven. How did that happen? Wasn't I just 27? I barely acknowledged I was 30 until I was 34. When I turned 35 I thought: "Well, I'm in my 30s now." Indeed.

Thirty-six suddenly seems so spry. It's mid thirties. Right there in the sweet spot. Thirty seven? Well, shit, forty is just a couple of winters away. Three Christmases. Two MLK days. One more Feburary 29. But I'm not obsessed.

Went to North 6 in Williamsburg on my B-day to see OK GO. Their album's a bit poppy, but good show. Another late night on Wednesday. Our company had its holiday party (try to guess which holiday). Lot's of free drinks and karaoke afterward. And last night our comedy writing class went out for a few drinks after class. I need to sleep tonight.

New Play Cole Video

There's an actual company in N.J. called Tension Envelopes. Here's a sketch that explores what it might be like to work there. This one was written by Jon and performed by the usual group.

I like this one. Lot's of manic energy and screaming. Very cathartic after a long week.

Have a look!

Check out these guns

Which way is 34th Street, you ask? That way.

Ohhh! Did you see my bicep pop out when I pointed awkwardly in that direction?

Sweet.

Hey, I can't control these things. It's like they have a mind of thier own. Two perfectly sculpted, rippling minds.

You say you wanna see my belt buckle? Here it is.

Zam!

You see those abs rise up like six yeasty dinner rolls? Wow. Even I was impressed with that display.

Hey, there's an ant near you. I'll just step on it.

Jesus. Did you see that bulging calf muscle inflate like a veiny football when I applied the requisite pressure to crush that tiny exoskeleton? Something to behold.

So anyway, how have you...wait a minute, did that guy just give you a dirty look? Here, let me give him the finger for you.

Bammo! Would you please just stop what you're doing and consider the sheer bulk of the meaty section of my middle finger? Who knew fingers could even get muscular? That's two hundred finger curls a day you can thank for enjoying that view.

Tired of this yet? I'm just trying to say that I've been excerising more over the past couple weeks. It's one of those things I've been meaning to do for a while but have let go for too long. So now I'm back at it. And who knows? Maybe the next time you see me...

Kapow!!

Art of the monologue

A while back I celebrated the death of the joke. Well, now I'm taking a class to learn how to write them. As David Brent would say while pointing to himself: "hypocrite warning!"

Yeah, I know.

The class is called "Writing Comedy for TV," and by the end of it I'm promised to have monologue jokes, skits and a sitcom pitch. That is, if I work hard. Which I have been. The first class was last Thursday and our assignment was to write twenty monologue jokes for the next class.

Now, I'm known as a quick-witted fellow (at least among my slower-witted friends), but it's not so easy to come up with twenty topical jokes. You end up with a lot of groaners and bizzaro punchlines that make no sense. Luckily, the instructor asked us to write some bad jokes so we could troubleshoot them in class. Twenty bad jokes? No problem!

The class seems like it's gonna be a lot of fun. It's full of smart, funny people, including this guy.

I'll probably be writing more about this in the weeks to come.

Hanalog

My first post since the holidays. What's up with that? Well, now I'm back on track and ready to tell you about a new blog my friends Todd and Kiyoko just made. Who are these people? Great people, that's who. They used to work with me here at Wunderman and have recently moved to Japan, where Kiyoko is from.

Todd and I used to work together on a few accounts, and he's an amazing designer. He's now working at a shop in Japan, learning the local protocol, language and job -- all at the same time. So if you want a glimpse of what it's like to assimilate to a new culture, check out Hanalog. I don't know what it is about Wordpress and designers/art directors. They know how to make blogs look cool, I guess.

Anyway, check it out. And congrats to Todd and Kiyoko, who just got engaged! Nice goin' you crazy kids.

Play Cole: The super spectacular video groove machine

What is Play Cole? What isn't it? It's not food or a monster. It's not a blind man's secret rage. It's not a raincloud or a puppy dog's breath. And it's not your kid sister's sticker collection.

No, Play Cole is actually a group of people who write, direct, produce, edit and act in short films. That group includes:

Jon "Won't eat eggs" Clarke
Andrew "Anybody hiring?" Torres
Me "You talkin' to me?" Me

I planned on writing something about how long we've been doing this (11 months), if we plan on doing more (yes) and what we hope to achieve (immortality). But I'll let the films speak for themselves. Hope you enjoy. We've got a bunch more in the hopper that we'll be posting ASAP.

Watch Play Cole now!

PS: Look for me in "Straight Man" and listen for me as the voice of God in "The First Commandment." Then, get tired of me as I camera-hog future Play Cole films. Viva la France!

Cataloging Christmas

Psaur has posted a cool piece written by Mike O'Shaughnessy called The Twelve Pages of Christmas. In it, Mike recalls the manic, post-Thanksgiving Gen-X'er joy of hunting through the toy section of a 1979 Sears Catalog. The catalog was a talisman for 10-year olds, offering four-color photos of every gadget and game we could ever hope to unwrap at 6:15 on Christmas morning.

After I read Mike's piece, I tried to remember the pages that got my pulse pounding. The genius of the Sears Catalog was in its scope -- the sheer range and number of gift ideas turning individuals into nagging automatons by attrition. I would stare at those pages for hours, circling items with my Bic pen as I nervously chewed the cap. Things I wanted got one circle. Things I really wanted got eight or ten emphatic rings of ink.

You could trace my pre-pubescent flounderings toward teenhood simply by sampling the placement of ink circles on the backs of catalogs from '77-'82, beginning with the Six Million Dollar man action figure and ending with a Real Electric Guitar. (I got the action figure, but my parents balked at the guitar.)

I couldn't remember any of the stuff I coveted in the catalog until I did a Google search (my 12,753th). Lo and behold, some guy has posted a 1979 Sears Catalog up on Flickr.

We all had our favorite pages. Here, mine would be the Sears Video Arcade Cartridge System (who named this??), a licensed Atari knockoff, and the two subsequent pages of game cartridges. (Actual copy: "These Cartridges reprogram the Video Arcade Console...to give you a new set of games." The copy writer must have been 50 and very, very confused by it all. See pages 651-653.

Close behind the Console on my list of most heavily inked pages was probably the page featuring the Atari 400 home computer (p. 654). Headline: "Put an electronic genius to work." All 16K of genius. Actually 16K and a cassette tape drive provided game quality that was leaps and bounds over the 4K or so offered up by the Console. My friends and I used to play around with the Atari 400 at the Fairmount Fair Sears.

I'd type:

10 Print "Brian"
20 Goto 10

And smile as my name scrolled endlessly down the screen.

Also on display at Sears' new computer department: The useless 2K Timex Sinclair, the Texas Instruments TI-994 and, shortly after, the Atari 800. The 800 had 48K, an optional floppy disc drive and a real keyboard. Oh, the text-based, fantasy adventure bliss!

Note: Nerd that I am, I have recently download a complicated set of emulators just so I can relive computer classics like Tunnels of Doom, Exodus: Ultima III and almost every Atari 2600 game ever made.

Another great set of pages: RC cars and gliders (pages 648-649). What was it about the concept of radio control that made me lose control of myself? I imagined mounting spy cameras on the glider and snapping aerial pics of unsuspecting neighbors, or filling the assumed bomb hatch with firecrackers that could somehow be ignited and released with the touch of a button, to rain down upon the heads of my enemies.

I finally did get an RC glider and was so excited that I assembled it in early January. There it sat, awaiting an early spring on the brown shag of my bedroom floor, until my sister stumbled onto it and crushed one of the the Styrofoam wings. I can still recall the sudden guilt in her eyes as she started to cry, just as I'm sure she remembers the startled outrage in mine as I started to cry.

The glider was dead before it ever got off the ground.

Luckily, my friend Mike got the same glider for Christmas and, being more patient, waited until the snow melted before assembling it. His dad took us to our elementary school playground one Saturday in March to send it on its maiden flight. The glider launched by means of a 25-foot rubber band that you staked into the ground. You then hooked the other end onto the nose of the plane, walked backward about 100 feet or so and released. The incredible tension created by the thick rubber band would catapult the glider up to 200ft, according to the starburst on the box.

That particular Saturday was windy. I think Mike's dad even suggested that we wait for a nicer day. But we were in no mood to be fucked with. Mike staked the rubber band into the half-frozen stretch of grass that separated two adjacent baseball diamonds. Then he picked up the radio control as we paced backward with the plane.

It was over so fast that the experience existed only as a flash of excitement and a moment of dumb realization. The glider took off, shot straight up to a height of around 75 feet, then looped back upon itself and took a nose dive straight into the soggy grass of left field. Both wings snapped forward, dropping the amputated fuselage onto its decalled back.

The microscope (622-623) was another big one for me. The model I got was a reflecting microscope with a 300x max magnification. It came with a set of stained specimens: fly wings, parameciums, onion peels. But the real fun was in trapping all sorts of liquids and bits between the frosted slides and peering into another world. Plant cells were all square and neatly stacked, like bricks with little brown nuclei. Amoebas were blobby and shifting. Blood cells clumped like Cheerioes.

At the other end of the spectrum: the telescope (621). The idea of seeing the rings of Saturn was too much to bear. I had to have a telescope. Had to.

Santa's out

I guess the theory behind low budge, viral advertising is that guys like me laugh and spread the word. Well, it worked. Here's a great series of ads for "mother" (whatever that is) that asks you to vote for "Chris Rodriguez" to replace Santa this year. Don't think these are necessarily new, but they're not as old as the awesome 70's art direction suggests.

Vote for Chris Rodriguez

Pizza man

I've worked for three different pizza shops in my life. My first Job was as a pizza delivery boy for Dominoes. My name tag read: "C. Manson." Nobody ever complained, unless their pizza was late.

I've made pizza, cooked it, cut it, sold it over the counter, delivered it, dropped it, stole it and threw it out at the end of the night. I know a little something about the pizza business.

When I worked at a pizza shop in the mall, we made the sauce in a big plastic bucket. After pouring in all the ingredients, we'd roll up our sleeves and stir it with our bare, hairy arms. All the way up to the armpit. We were actually trained to do this. When we were done, we'd use our other hand to slough off the sauce on our mixing arm back into the bucket.

Our boss, Angelo, encouraged us to use his office to have sex with any girls who were willing. He was the horniest man I have ever met. He told my friend Joe that, when he was younger, he fucked a rump roast. He actually bought a rump roast at the grocery store and checked into a motel with it. My question was: "What did he do with it when he was done?" I can only hope he left it on the bed.

I've had plenty of crazy pizza bosses. One was a coke head who used to line his office floor with pizza bags so he could crash during his shift. Another was a short, sweaty, stocky guy from Alabama whose enthusiasm for all things pizza bordered on psychosis. Another was an ex semi-pro pool player who used to have poker games in the back after we closed. One guy assured anyone who would listen that he had trained in special ops and knew all sorts of ways to kill a man. He had nicotine-stained teeth and awful, gamey breath.

Then there was the pudgy, buck-toothed galumph who used to give us daily updates about his new pet: a baby alligator that he kept in his bathtub. "It freaks my girlfriend out."

One day I asked him how his alligator was doing. "Ah, dude," he moaned, "You wanna buy an alligator?" It was getting bigger, he complained, and it kept him up all night with its 'barking.'

What did I know about any of these managers? I was seventeen: to me, they were adults.

Imagine a group of misfit drunks and potheads fishtailing around Syracuse, over lawns and curbs, through filthy, slushy side-streets, backing into parked cars, causing accidents and spraying shattered windshield glass all over West Genesee Street. That was our pizza delivery squad.

One delivery guy, Bob, was a 50-year old, 300-pound professional clown who looked scarier than John Wayne Gacy. He lived downtown, was a Mason, and drove a beat-to-shit Dodge Omni. Bob had a certain prisonyard authority about him. One time when he and I were washing pizza pans, Bob scowled at me and snapped: "Slow down, kid. You're fucking it up for the rest of us!"

Bob always had a little bit of coke on him. Once in a while, he'd leave a line of it on the sink in the employee bathroom and gesture to us with his head to go hit it.

At that same shop we had a manager and two assistant managers who would trade night shifts after the boss left. The assistant managers made less than the delivery guys. So they started to steal at night. Actually, we all started to steal. We'd type in a phone order, then delete it and write the information down on a piece of paper. Then we'd deliver the pizza, collect the money and split it with whichever assistant manager was working that night. Both the assistant managers' last names started with the letter '"R," so we called our little operation "R&R Pizza." We never got caught.

One night a drunk customer got all pissed off about something. I wasn't working that night. Apparently, he wanted to beat the shit out of this skinny, younger delivery guy we called Fergs. Fergs liked everybody. He wasn't really that bright, but he was gentle and friendly. I can't imagine what he did to make this drunk want to kill him, but the guy started chasing him around the parking lot and into the shop. Fergs ran into the back and the drunk started following him, only to be stopped in his tracks by Bob, the 300-pound clown. "You're gonna have to go through me!" he shouted, crossing his arms. From what I heard, the guy just sort of deflated and turned around and left.

I hung around the pizza business for too long. It was an easy gig and it paid better than a mall job. I delivered my last pizza when I was 24. A few years ago, I drove past the old pizza shop and discovered that it has since become a Chinese take-out joint. I wonder if there's still a skinny, faultering little line of coke, camouflaged on the white porcelain sink?

I will now attempt to make qner industries the #1 search result on Google for the phrase "buckle fucker"

OK, here goes:

buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker buckle fucker

It might take a couple of days to register, but join me in crossing my buckle-fucking fingers!

There was that one time

We shot squirrels with BB guns
We stayed up all night trying to build a video game on the TI994a
We egged houses, then ran away from cars we imagined were chasing us
We found mud-caked porno mags in a trash heap near the old big woods
We happened upon a hog nosed snake with a toad in its mouth
We got called into the guidance counselor's office for picking on a kid
We got called into the principal's office for picking on a lunch lady
We got put in a police car for messing up a construction site
We got put in a police car for lighting off homemade fireworks
We threw molotov cocktails into the woods, but they didn't work
We got drunk on a purple mix of liquor and ran around outside
We stood on bull hill with cups of keg beer and laughed about our teachers
We got chased off the golf course by rent-a-cops
We staged a pudding eating contest with one contestant
We did nitrous oxide balloons on a winter night
We dropped acid and yelled at a next door neighbor
We dropped acid and thought Al died in the back seat of a locked car
We sang karaoke at a sports bar
We took two girls to a motel using a fake ID, then got kicked out for jumping on the bed
We dipped coins in Basic H and thought it made them uncirculated
We stuck our fingers with a needle to look at the blood under a microscope
We sat around and came up with headlines for a tabloid newspaper
We watched endless episodes of The Simpsons, Seinfeld and Get a Life
We took the English club to a Stephen King lecture
We wrote poems and taped them up on the wall
We skipped class and watched Nightmare on Elm Street
We ran to the reservoir and did wind sprints at the top
We sucked weight by running up and down the steps in the pool room
We beat up a kid, then ran away from his older brother
We got up on the school roof and took a bunch of playground balls
We played four square at camp
We tricked a kid into eating jack-in-the-pulpit, then got chewed out by a camp counselor
We ate lunch at China House and goofed on the menu spelling
We burned all of our schoolbooks in a bonfire
We had a party with a bunch of sorority girls who mostly ignored us
We got chased by a cabbie
We got stoned and watched Fritz the Cat
We wrote fiction all day
We made a video tape of skits called "Missing Rob"
We went to the Poconos and filmed "Grandpa is a Mean Old Bastard"
We got in a sudden, drunken scuffle with each other a apologized the next day
We talked about beat writers
We went to a Dolly Parton restaurant and watched a staged battle between the North and South
We went to a seafood restaurant, and I afterward I threw up behind a fleet of trucks as you fell down laughing
We played evil Jenga with girls from work
We stayed up all night playing caps

You remember that, right?

Three short stories

Story #1: A crack in the case
Detective Eddie Fulman frantically pushed his way through the crowded police department and burst into Sergeant Brick's office.

"Sarge," he rasped, catching his breath. "I think I got a lead on that McGruder case!"

Sergeant Brick glared at him over a mess of paperwork that cluttered his desk.

"A lead?" he barked. "We caught that bastard three weeks ago! Where the hell you been?"

"Vacation."

Story #2: The mystery of the missing locket
When Sheila awoke, she knew something was amiss. She'd dreamt last night that a strange man in a black fedora had broken into her house and crept around the bedroom as she and her husband slept.

While she knew it was only a dream, Sheila couldn't shake the image. It had felt so real. Too real.

Wiping away the remnants of her fitful slumber, she sat up in bed and looked at her night stand.

"My locket!" she cried. "It's gone!"

Just then her husband walked into the bedroom. "I found it," he said. "You left it in the bathroom again."

Story #3: The greatest story ever
Timmy pulled the blanket up to his chin and smiled as his father closed the book.

"That was the greatest story ever, dad."

His father tousled Timmy's hair. "Glad you liked it. Now go to sleep."