WEEKLY MONSTER 105
Good afternoon. At long last, the new Weekly Monster is ready! It’s a special salute to Russell Davies’ excellent conference INTERESTING 2007 that happened this past weekend. I wasn’t able to be there in person, so I sent an interesting monster in my stead. I hope you’ll like it, and that you’ll give it an interesting backstory! I can’t wait to see what you come up with! In the meantime I hope that you’ll have a great week and that you know that 344 LOVES YOU
Is that an electric saw in the background? Or do my ears deceive me?
The students at P.S. 105 couldn’t figure out what was more terrifying about their new teacher: the fact that he had not one, but two peg legs; that he used his tail to ring the bell that signalled the start of class; the fact that he had a tail in the first place; or the rumor that if you got a question wrong, his disheveled moustache would jump off of his face and strangle you.
Keep up the awesome work, Stefan!!
I like the animation you added with this monster. It’s a nice touch.
Danielle—I think that’s an ambulance going by outside. Good guess on the saw, though.
Devin—Nice story! I hadn’t thought “teacher” at all! But that fits! Very nice! Thank you for your post!
Blake—I’m glad you like the animation.
Unless you mean the overall noise level, Danielle… I apologize for that. I got a new camera which makes very fancy pictures, but goes a bit wonky on the audio. What you’ve got here is already filtered. Originally it had a really nasty high pitched note all throughout. I just got a new uniterrupted power supply that’s supposedly going to filter my current. Maybe that’ll help.
Getting the audio right is the most consistently difficult thing about these films. The groovy marker sounds are very similar to the background white noise (which includes the 210 and 134 freeways), so filtering out the latter also muffles the former. If any of you are audio engineers and have the magic bullet, please let me know.
The overall noise level I noticed was different, but I didn’t take much matter into that. What I was talking about is the extra sound comming in around :46, 1:10, 1:16, and 1:32. Just slightly alarmed that someone might be using a saw in your vicinity while you’re trying to draw, is all.
I hope everything does work out though. And I’m expecting some pretty spiffy pictures coming out of that camera.
“Hey, Mark.”
“What up, Jeff?”
“I put my a dating profile on J-date.”
“What?”
“Yeah! Go look! I’m ‘hirsutetickler,’ all one word.”
“Dude, seriously?”
“Yeah! What do you think of the picture?”
“…”
“What? What?”
“When’d you get bifocals?”
“Oh, they’re just to make me look smarter.”
“I like that you sent in a movie…”
“Okay, what’s the problem?”
“…Too many bells and whistles.”
Uncle Wally had a way with the women. At least that’s what everyone thought. Every time we saw him, there was a different beauty on his arm. Once it was the star in the latest Harry Pottery movie, once it was a real rocket scientist just returned from a test flight to mars, once it was a hand model, once it was the third place finisher in “So You Think You Can Dance”, once it was… well, you should get the idea.
My mom, his sister, would get upset at each new conquest.
“He really needs to settle down,” she said, “And it would be best for her if she was smarter than him.”
My dad would laugh whenever she said that and say, “Why? He seems to be doing fine to me” which would only get him sleeping on the sofa for a few nights.
One day Uncle Wally met Edna, a dental hygienist from Timbuktu, and his wayfaring days were over. It was love at first bite.
Things went smoothly for awhile until Uncle Wally’s wandering eye was caught on the shoulder of a blonde trapeze artist. Uncle Wally hadn’t noticed the little silver bell that Aunt Edna had tied to his tail. He had just thought that a lot of newly winged angels must be in the neighborhood.
Aunt Edna was rightfully upset. She quickly divorced Uncle Wally and took him for an arm and a leg, make that two legs.
Uncle Wally was never the same. And neither were we since he moved in with us.
handsome’s favorite part of the week was ringing the bell for the colloquium.
he never attended the meetings, he just liked ringing the bell.
Farharley foregoes the Jetsonmobile (you can hear them jettison in the background) in favor of traditional struts and pogo leg. He found the bell in Northeasternhamptonshire on holiday and asked China Mieville to graft on a seahorse appendage. China is so accomodating.
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China Mieville’s The Scar is one of my favorite novels. He’s a sci fi writer extraordinaire.
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Stefan, the details in this one are most charming. Thank you for the new monster!
I loved reading all the stories, too!
Jakob Krusto passiver Meeresbiologe, denkt gerne an die Zeiten zurück, als er noch in den Tiefen der Ozeane forschen konnte. Wehmut ein wenig, aber tiefe Traurigkeit lässt Krusto nicht aufkommen. Vergangenheit ist Vergangen-hai-t.
Genau das ist Thema.
Hai-Attacke…Beinverlust!
Krusto findet das nicht weiter schlimm. Der Verlust ist ein Gewinn, denn dreibeinig kommt er nun schneller voran, und das hölzerne Klick-Klack verschafft ihm überall Gehör und Aufmerksamkeit. Und ausserdem, Holzbeine mit Einziehmechanismus, wer hat das schon.
Einziger Nachteil dieser Dinger…Holz schwimmt! Und somit kann er sein so geliebtes Tauchen glatt vergessen. Aber sein viertes Standbein ist sein Glöckchenschwanz.
In der Verhaltensforschung hat er als Oberkonditionierer bereits einige Lorbeeren eingeheimst. Er macht seine Verhaltensbeobachtungen mit einer Gruppe von Seehunden, die in ihm eine Vaterfigur sehen und das macht ihn überaus glücklich.