S#3: Send cards
Steffmetal.com recommended sending cards to all your friends telling them how much you love them – or, failing that, how much they smell.
After carefully choosing six friends, I sent the following on extremely cute kitten cards (you’ll notice a steampunk theme, excluding the last one):
Your mental clockwork wouldn’t work even if Isambard Kingdom Brunel himself came to fix it.
The perishable matter within your skull lacks proper refrigeration.
The synapses of your brain represent London’s sewerage system in 1858.
Your upstairs candles have long since drizzled away into puddles of rapidly congealing wax.
My difference machine has calculated that your intelligence quotient is an imaginary number.
Your mental icecream has a few too many pistachios.
Isn’t it nice to get something in the mail?
I bet there are plenty of you with far more original insults (steampunk, piratical, or otherwise). Please share them in the comments.
S#87: Sleepy Time
From Steffmetal.com, today’s mission of awesome was: “If you can spare the dough, buy new sheets and a duvet* for your bed. Find something completely luxurious in your favourite colour. Make over your bed, and you make over your sleep.”
CJ and I went shopping for new bedlinen, and were severely underwhelmed by the options we found. So instead I employed an old marrieds’ trick: I looked deeper into the linen cupboard.
We have a lovely white sheet set in sateen that my Mum gave me one Christmas, and I discovered the blue pillows and sheet under an excessive number of towels (among which I also found three nice items that I had thought were lost forever).
Today’s model is my 13-year old cat Indah, who doesn’t pose nearly as much as the 3-year old Ana.
*Is a duvet a doona? I assumed it was the cover, but I’m unsure. I shoulda paid attention when I was learning English.
I put an awesomeness into motion through the mail last week. If you’re someone who knows I know your address – check your snail mail. You might just be one of my victims lucky recipients. The rest of you will find out what it is tomorrow.
And, to get you feeling nautical for “The Captain’s Daughter”, here’s a little bit of Jack Sparrow.
My favourite part of this photo is the implied confusion in his expression.
I weighed myself this morning, and I’m feeling better about life. I’ve lost three of the necessary ten kilos. That meant I was able to fit into my swimmers (somewhat useful, non?). . . just. They’re very uncomfortable, and the fly on my board shorts is velcro, which means that if I bend at the waist (say, for example, while getting in or out of the public pool) it flies open.
May I never put on this much lard ever again. Amen.
#46: Stilts
Step 1: Let Ana outside to look picturesque.
2. Produce stilts.
3. Fall over (repeat as needed).
4. Gradually get the hang of it.
5. Let CJ have a go, and glare at his instant competence.
6. Sit frozen in terror as CJ loses control of a stilt and nearly brains you.
7. Photograph CJ’s, “Sorry I nearly gave you brain damage sweetie” face.
8. Smile privately as he loses one stilt in the mud.
9. Collect an even-more-paranoid-than-usual kitty on the way home.
10. Blog about it.
This is another good one to play along at home – all you need is two long bits of wood glued or nailed (or whatever) onto two short bits. And time.
To welcome you to “The Captain’s Daughter”, here’s a page of truly awful pirate jokes (a tad naughty in places):
http://www.piratejokes.net/jokes/top20?pg=1
Once you’ve gone through the pain of reading those, nothing in the deep can frighten you.
Speaking of unspeakable horrors, my diet is continuing. I weigh in for the end of week two tomorrow. Having untold riches helped a lot, but I’ve come down off that high now (in part because we have no actual money) and it’s difficult to get up the motivation to do anything except lie down staring at the wall. In one more week, I’ll be halfway through the absolutely-no-chocolate six weeks.
#221: Diet Coke and Mentos Rocket (PG for naughty language)
1.25L Diet Coke: $1.40
Mint Mentos: $1.70
Friends: $2 each (ie 1 chocolate bar)
Accidentally making a deadly rocket out of harmless party food:
Priceless
To this day, I don’t know exactly what happened. Here’s a shorter version of the rocket part:
We ran inside, babbling and near-hysterical – terrified our cameras had missed the whole thing. Out of the frantic hand-drawn pictures that ensued, this section was the most coherent:
The bottle was thrown down base-first from a height of 3.8m. It flew onto the roof of a 2-storey building 5.2m high. I think it rotated in the air and impacted on the lid, rupturing it and sending the bottle flying with maximum pressure.
The mentos-delivery system was that we laboriously strung four mentos together after putting pins through the middles (really not easy – and I accidentally* fed Ben the broken tip of a pin inside one of our reject mentos). CJ drilled through a spare lid so we could attach the mentos string, and then we put the loaded lid back on the bottle after pouring out some of the coke.
We attempted twice to replicate the rocket thing (from a far greater distance, I assure you!) but without success. Attempt # 3 was actually one of those – which is why it’s at a different location (one without people, cars, pets, or glass).
It takes just 7 pounds of pressure to break a bone, and 3 pounds to get a 1.25L bottle just 1cm off the ground. I don’t know how much force was generated in the moment of impact (however many pounds it takes to life a 1.25L bottle 5 metres in the air), but I’m confident it was enough to smash a human throat.
Playing along at home is perfectly safe on the ground, but if you throw mentos and coke onto a hard surface, make sure everyone and everything is a safe distance away – I recommend 4 metres (or twenty feet). It could definitely still hit you (coke and mentos can fly 14 metres along the ground), but it shouldn’t kill you.
And your last steampunk picture (since we’re about to seamlessly move into pirate territory for November’s twittertale “The Captain’s Daughter”):
That pic is from http://behlerblog.wordpress.com/ (this is a great writing-agent blog; the beagle is her secretary)
*Yes, really. Luckily Ben is paranoid, and his natural suspicion saved him.
“Zeppelin Jack and the Deadly Dueller” full tale
For those waiting for the diet coke and mentos rocket entry. . . it’s coming. I’m going and putting it together right now.
“The Captain’s Daughter” tale begins tomorrow.
In the meantime, here’s the full tale of this month:
1
Marm grabbed both of us boys by the collars, but Nip wriggled away. I trudged after her to the Foundlings’ Aid Office for my lecture.
“You are too easily distracted,” she said.
I wondered where my Gizmo had got to.
She said, “You’re demoted to fifth assistant cogmonkey.”
She’d demoted me to sixth last week, so I grinned. I wiped grease off my nose and found the offending cigarette behind my ear. Perfect day.
2
Gizmo whirred quietly on my knee as Nip retold the details of yesterday’s flight. Outside the theatre gondola, engine fumes stained the sky.
“Bored?” I said.
Nip said, “The play hasn’t begun.”
“Let’s sneak backstage and join in.”
Giz rolled under a chair, and we crawled after it.
*
“Parp!” said Gizmo.
We looked up into the pulley ropes, and saw a man with an eyepatch and a crooked neck. A dead, dangling pirate!
3
We snuck back into the empty theatre when the coast was clear. The body was gone, but Nip and Gizmo and I were determined to Find A Clue.
“Bing!” said Gizmo, dancing on one of its six radiating legs. I hurried over and saw an eye. It was some kind of metal, like my arm.
“It’s awful heavy,” I told Nip.
He stared, and said, “Jack! It’s heavy because it’s an auto-eye made of gold.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
4
Nip dodged a gear twice his size and flicked grease at it as it crunched onward. Zeppelin School for Boys minded an engine older than Marm.
“Was the pirate killed for his eye?” I mused.
Nip said, “More importantly, should we sell it?”
I pondered until Giz shrieked, “Parp!”
Metal teeth grasped my leg. I yelped and leapt into the air. The teeth kept turning.
Nip said, “You’re too easily distracted.”
“So I hear.”
5
Nip came running with the day’s paper: “Deadly Dueller Strikes Again!”
“It was him! The infamous Saturday killer killed our pirate.”
“He wanted the eye!” I said.
Nip’s eyes boggled: “I don’t want to duel him!”
“Me neither,” I said, “since I’d hoped he’d duel Marm one day.”
6
“I know where he kills them,” I told Nip.
He looked pale to me, but it’s hard to tell with Chinese kids.
“The roof,” I said, “so let’s go.”
*
Nip was quiet as we climbed the metal access ladders to the zeppelin roof. The wind whipped our hair, and Giz parped insistently.
Nip searched East, and I put Giz into my metal left arm and searched West. But when I returned to our meeting place, Nip was gone.
7
I put an ad in the paper: “I have your eye. You have my friend. Let’s meet at the same place at noon.” Hopefully Nip was still alive.
I stood on the vast canvas roof and heard the click-thump of a man with one metal leg. Nip shouted to close my eyes. I did. Giz didn’t.
The dueller said, “Stop messing about, kids. This is a vital clue.” He took the eye.
I asked Nip if he was hurt. “Nah. He gave me pork pie.”
8
Nip filed down a lump in a new cog. “Who are the alchemists?” he asked.
I said, “Dunno. Why?”
“The dueller kept telling me to stay away.”
We went immediately into unfamiliar territory: the library. All the books on alchemy were gone. The librarian said Marm took them.
9
We snuck off work and into Marm’s gondola. Her drawers were full of icky unguents and powders, and – for some reason – loaded mouse traps.
After binding Nip’s broken finger (luckily Nip didn’t have any metal parts, because those are expensive to fix), we found the books.
“Victory!” said Nip.
Giz said, “Bing!”
I said, “Now we read them.”
Giz said, “Parp!” and Nip fainted dead away.
10
I found diagrams of cool experiments. We stole giant canisters of helium and nitrogen. Something made me laugh maniacally for no reason.
“What happens if we mix them?” said Nip.
Giz said, “Parp!”
We crowded together on our bunk and unscrewed the lid of the nitrogen.
Nip giggled and fell asleep. “PARP!” said Giz.
I said, “My hands are soooo big. Look Nip! Nip?” My eyes closed.
Giz said, “PARP-PARP-PARP!”
11
When we came to, Giz was badly scratched from opening the vents.
Marm had her hands on her hips. “I TOLD you not to smoke,” she said.
I said, “We weren’t. We were studying alchemy.”
Marm blanched and left without another word.
Nip said, “She’s not angry – she’s scared.”
12
I found a note on my bunk. It said, “I know who you are and what you’re attempting. No more misguided mercy. We duel at noon this Saturday.”
Giz carefully examined the note. “Bing,” it said. I translated that as ‘Follow’.” We did – all the way to the dueller’s hideout – a home.
The dueller’s wife spotted us and invited us in for honey cookies. They were delicious. Then we left, wondering what to do.
13
We discussed our mystery at work. A gear malfunctioned, jumped its track, and came rolling to crush us both. We jumped out of the way.
Nip inspected the mess.
“Sabotage?” I said.
Nip said, “Yep – but not the dueller, since he’s already going to kill you on Saturday.”
“Parp!” said Giz.
Nip said, “Er. . . he’s going to TRY to kill you. Do you think his wife knows?”
“No-one who cooks that well could kill.”
14
Nip offered to teach me kung fu, since he was Chinese.
I said, “But you don’t remember your parents, so how could you–”
“I. Just. Know.”
Nip made me clean and wax our bunks for no apparent reason. Then he made me do it again. Why?
*
Finally Nip said I was almost ready. Then he punched me in the nose. I kicked him in the leg until he agreed to stop teaching me.
15
Nip paused in his cog-cleaning duties and made a face. “Did you just fart?” I denied the charge, and he threatened to show me more kung fu.
As I clambered onto the cog’s conjoined twin, I saw the cause of the smell. “Hey! There’s sulphur over here. It’s turning toward you, too.”
Nip said, “Mine’s got charcoal, and some kind of black stuff. It stinks like sh–”
I shouted, “Nip! RUN!” The alchemist’s trap met and BANG!
16
Despite Giz’s objections, I went to meet the dueller. “Thanks for trying to kill me yesterday. Did you get too scared to face a kid?”
The dueller paused: “Who tried to kill you? And how?”
“Alchemists, with gunpowder. Wasn’t it you?”
“No. I thought you were with them.”
He lowered his pistol: “I guess I’ll have to duel someone else. Like to meet tomorrow for home-baked pie and grandiose plans?”
17
The dueller made us pork pies and tea as he explained: “I’m trying to stop the alchemists. I saw you stealing chemicals and I thought –”
His wife rolled her eyes.
I said, “Well, now we’re clear – what do the alchemists want, anyway? Gold, I suppose.”
The dueller laughed. “Who wants gold these days? It’s nothing but a bauble – a useless side effect. They’re trying to develop a more powerful form of gunpowder.”
18
The dueller agreed that Marm’s behaviour was suspicious, so we followed her all day, sneaking behind clanking cogs and giant smokestacks.
At last we discovered her noxious secret: Marm had a boyfriend. They did gross, horrifying things – like kissing. Being a hero was tough.
19
We gritted our teeth and tailed Marm again. This time, we saw HER sneaking behind gears. We crept after her. So did our school-friend Grim.
We couldn’t get close enough to hear what they said – but Giz could. Grim showed her something, and she cried. It was as bad as her kissing.
We asked Giz a series of bing or parp questions, and discovered that Grim was an alchemist in training. He’d threatened Marm’s secret son.
20
Nip tried out his kung fu on Grim, and it actually seemed to work. “Leave me alone,” Grim said, “and I’ll pay you as much as you like.”
Nip and I conferred: “We want a pound of real gold.”
“Done,” said Grim, and left.
Nip sighed, “He’s definitely with the alchemists.”
21
We’d gotten good at trailing people, so the dueller agreed to let us follow Grim ourselves. Grim ducked behind a red-hot piston.
We circled the giant piston three times – no Grim!
I gasped: “The alchemists much have a secret passageway through the balloon!”
22
We cornered Grim and told him the dueller was on to him, and demanded he defend his honour at noon tomorrow on the Western roof section.
Grim smiled privately, and Nip and I exchanged a look. What did he know that we didn’t?
23
Nip and I hid, despite our assurances to the dueller that we could fight in his place. All he did was smile, and advise us to get comfy
At last Grim appeared, with a pistol in each hand. “I’m just a kid,” he said, “so I’ll take the first shot.”
“No,” said the dueller.
Nip and I leapt out and pinned Grim’s arms. The dueller said, “I don’t kill children – I question them. You’ll tell me everything you know.”
24
Grim endured the delicious baking of the dueller’s wife all night before the dueller even asked a question. Nip and I were invited.
At last the dueller sat Grim in a chair and asked him who he worked for. Grim burst into tears and touched a switch on his metal arm.
He exploded in a fireball, and nothing but his legs remained, stuck to the chair with blood. His metal pet jiggled in horror at his feet.
25
“Parp!” Giz said ferociously, standing over Grim’s metal spider pet. “Paaaarrrrp?”
The spider cracked and blurted out everything it knew.
We followed the spider along darkened passageways through the zeppelin’s helium heart. At last we heard voices – the alchemists!
Marm’s boyfriend stormed into our passageway and stopped dead. His mouth dropped open when he spotted the spider – and he kicked it to bits!
26
When we visited the dueller and his wife, they’d just received a note. “We know who you are, and we can defeat you,” read the dueller.
“Not in a duel they can’t!” I said loyally.
The dueller read on: “You die at noon on Saturday – wherever you are. We have eyes everywhere.”
27
Giz hid inside my metal arm and his beeps directed me all the way back to the baddie’s hideout by another route. I let him out by the hatch.
He rolled up the wall, parping quietly.
I whispered, “Be careful. Don’t get hurt. I’ll miss you, Giz.”
He stopped: “Bing.”
“You too.”
28
The dueller and Nip and I prepared for the fight while his wife separated a batch of glycerine. “BOTH my legs are fake,” said the dueller.
We loaded his golden leg with fuming nitric and sulphuric acid, and the other with glycerine. “When it happens, I want you to run,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” said Nip.
I said, “We’re definitely not stupid enough to go near Nitrogen of any kind.”
Nip said, “Oh, yep. Definitely.”
29
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” I asked Nip.
He said, “No. You?”
“Nah. Although Marm might be mad about us blowing up her boyfriend.”
Nip said, “Does she know he’s the baddie?”
I said, “She’ll figure it out eventually on her own. She knows a bad egg when she sees one.”
Nip and I hid – again. The dueller waited – again. Hopefully Marm’s secret son would be saved. I remembered Grim’s bloody legs and shivered.
30
“Parp!” said Giz at my ear.
I said, “Dueller! They’re close.”
He drew his pistols, but Marm’s boyfriend sliced both his legs clean off.
The dueller toppled backwards, and kept toppling until the nets caught him. His legs fell together and ignited. Boom! The alchemist blew up.
The alchemist fell, and burned through the safety nets, and kept falling. Nip and I ran and helped the dueller get home to his spare legs.
31
The dueller and Nip and I ate honey cakes and thanked his clever wife. She smiled, showing dimples. “I never liked the smell of gunpowder.”
“No-one makes glycerin like you, my darling.”
“No more duelling then?” she said.
He kissed her (ugh!) and said, “I’ve had quite enough.”
THE END
#220: Wear $12,000 worth of jewellery
Yep. I wore it.
This is me thinking, “I wonder where that $1000 bill went? Perhaps I was using it as a bookmark again.”
So. . . drum roll please. . . . how much is the amber necklace worth? What was the most expensive piece (take a look at this picture and hazard a guess).
There was no way I could put on the gold bracelet, so I made up the difference (and then some) with my engagement and wedding ring.
From least to most valuable, with a fantastically sellable spread of value, here they all are:
$195 sterling silver
$250 amber
$295 9ct gold plating
$350 citrine and gold
$390 flourite and rose gold
$450 amethyst and gold
$500 jadeite and rose gold
$500 garnet and gold
$590 Emerald and diamond, white and yellow gold
$600 amethyst, peridot, citrine, blue topaz, and garnet in gold
$600 amethyst and gold
$600 Citrine and gold
$800 sapphire, diamond and gold
$850 Citrine and gold
$895 Opal, marcasite, and sterling silver
$1000 diamond and gold
And the winner is. . . . .
$2400 Black diamond and gold
Everything’s on ebay with a minimum of 80% of the value. We’ll see how that goes in the next couple of weeks.
There is NO BLOG tomorrow, since it’s Steampunk Earth Day and I won’t be using the computer, internet, phone, TV, or lights. (A friend will post the Zeppelin Jack tweets for me.)
On Sunday, I’ll make up for lost time with the diet coke and mentos accidental rocket video.
Here’s a fun faux news article on killer robots. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/14/robot_rampage/
“Zeppelin Jack and the Deadly Dueller” so far
1
Marm grabbed both of us boys by the collars, but Nip wriggled away. I trudged after her to the Foundlings’ Aid Office for my lecture.
“You are too easily distracted,” she said.
I wondered where my Gizmo had got to.
She said, “You’re demoted to fifth assistant cogmonkey.”
She’d demoted me to sixth last week, so I grinned. I wiped grease off my nose and found the offending cigarette behind my ear. Perfect day.
2
Gizmo whirred quietly on my knee as Nip retold the details of yesterday’s flight. Outside the theatre gondola, engine fumes stained the sky.
“Bored?” I said.
Nip said, “The play hasn’t begun.”
“Let’s sneak backstage and join in.”
Giz rolled under a chair, and we crawled after it.
*
“Parp!” said Gizmo.
We looked up into the pulley ropes, and saw a man with an eyepatch and a crooked neck. A dead, dangling pirate!
3
We snuck back into the empty theatre when the coast was clear. The body was gone, but Nip and Gizmo and I were determined to Find A Clue.
“Bing!” said Gizmo, dancing on one of its six radiating legs. I hurried over and saw an eye. It was some kind of metal, like my arm.
“It’s awful heavy,” I told Nip.
He stared, and said, “Jack! It’s heavy because it’s an auto-eye made of gold.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
4
Nip dodged a gear twice his size and flicked grease at it as it crunched onward. Zeppelin School for Boys minded an engine older than Marm.
“Was the pirate killed for his eye?” I mused.
Nip said, “More importantly, should we sell it?”
I pondered until Giz shrieked, “Parp!”
Metal teeth grasped my leg. I yelped and leapt into the air. The teeth kept turning.
Nip said, “You’re too easily distracted.”
“So I hear.”
5
Nip came running with the day’s paper: “Deadly Dueller Strikes Again!”
“It was him! The infamous Saturday killer killed our pirate.”
“He wanted the eye!” I said.
Nip’s eyes boggled: “I don’t want to duel him!”
“Me neither,” I said, “since I’d hoped he’d duel Marm one day.”
6
“I know where he kills them,” I told Nip.
He looked pale to me, but it’s hard to tell with Chinese kids.
“The roof,” I said, “so let’s go.”
*
Nip was quiet as we climbed the metal access ladders to the zeppelin roof. The wind whipped our hair, and Giz parped insistently.
Nip searched East, and I put Giz into my metal left arm and searched West. But when I returned to our meeting place, Nip was gone.
7
I put an ad in the paper: “I have your eye. You have my friend. Let’s meet at the same place at noon.” Hopefully Nip was still alive.
I stood on the vast canvas roof and heard the click-thump of a man with one metal leg. Nip shouted to close my eyes. I did. Giz didn’t.
The dueller said, “Stop messing about, kids. This is a vital clue.” He took the eye.
I asked Nip if he was hurt. “Nah. He gave me pork pie.”
8
Nip filed down a lump in a new cog. “Who are the alchemists?” he asked.
I said, “Dunno. Why?”
“The dueller kept telling me to stay away.”
We went immediately into unfamiliar territory: the library. All the books on alchemy were gone. The librarian said Marm took them.
9
We snuck off work and into Marm’s gondola. Her drawers were full of icky unguents and powders, and – for some reason – loaded mouse traps.
After binding Nip’s broken finger (luckily Nip didn’t have any metal parts, because those are expensive to fix), we found the books.
“Victory!” said Nip.
Giz said, “Bing!”
I said, “Now we read them.”
Giz said, “Parp!” and Nip fainted dead away.
10
I found diagrams of cool experiments. We stole giant canisters of helium and nitrogen. Something made me laugh maniacally for no reason.
“What happens if we mix them?” said Nip.
Giz said, “Parp!”
We crowded together on our bunk and unscrewed the lid of the nitrogen.
Nip giggled and fell asleep. “PARP!” said Giz.
I said, “My hands are soooo big. Look Nip! Nip?” My eyes closed.
Giz said, “PARP-PARP-PARP!”
11
When we came to, Giz was badly scratched from opening the vents.
Marm had her hands on her hips. “I TOLD you not to smoke,” she said.
I said, “We weren’t. We were studying alchemy.”
Marm blanched and left without another word.
Nip said, “She’s not angry – she’s scared.”
12
I found a note on my bunk. It said, “I know who you are and what you’re attempting. No more misguided mercy. We duel at noon this Saturday.”
Giz carefully examined the note. “Bing,” it said. I translated that as ‘Follow’.” We did – all the way to the dueller’s hideout – a home.
The dueller’s wife spotted us and invited us in for honey cookies. They were delicious. Then we left, wondering what to do.
13
We discussed our mystery at work. A gear malfunctioned, jumped its track, and came rolling to crush us both. We jumped out of the way.
Nip inspected the mess.
“Sabotage?” I said.
Nip said, “Yep – but not the dueller, since he’s already going to kill you on Saturday.”
“Parp!” said Giz.
Nip said, “Er. . . he’s going to TRY to kill you. Do you think his wife knows?”
“No-one who cooks that well could kill.”
14
Nip offered to teach me kung fu, since he was Chinese.
I said, “But you don’t remember your parents, so how could you–”
“I. Just. Know.”
Nip made me clean and wax our bunks for no apparent reason. Then he made me do it again. Why?
*
Finally Nip said I was almost ready. Then he punched me in the nose. I kicked him in the leg until he agreed to stop teaching me.
15
Nip paused in his cog-cleaning duties and made a face. “Did you just fart?” I denied the charge, and he threatened to show me more kung fu.
As I clambered onto the cog’s conjoined twin, I saw the cause of the smell. “Hey! There’s sulphur over here. It’s turning toward you, too.”
Nip said, “Mine’s got charcoal, and some kind of black stuff. It stinks like sh–”
I shouted, “Nip! RUN!” The alchemist’s trap met and BANG!
16
Despite Giz’s objections, I went to meet the dueller. “Thanks for trying to kill me yesterday. Did you get too scared to face a kid?”
The dueller paused: “Who tried to kill you? And how?”
“Alchemists, with gunpowder. Wasn’t it you?”
“No. I thought you were with them.”
He lowered his pistol: “I guess I’ll have to duel someone else. Like to meet tomorrow for home-baked pie and grandiose plans?”
17
The dueller made us pork pies and tea as he explained: “I’m trying to stop the alchemists. I saw you stealing chemicals and I thought –”
His wife rolled her eyes.
I said, “Well, now we’re clear – what do the alchemists want, anyway? Gold, I suppose.”
The dueller laughed. “Who wants gold these days? It’s nothing but a bauble – a useless side effect. They’re trying to develop a more powerful form of gunpowder.”
18
The dueller agreed that Marm’s behaviour was suspicious, so we followed her all day, sneaking behind clanking cogs and giant smokestacks.
At last we discovered her noxious secret: Marm had a boyfriend. They did gross, horrifying things – like kissing. Being a hero was tough.
19
We gritted our teeth and tailed Marm again. This time, we saw HER sneaking behind gears. We crept after her. So did our school-friend Grim.
We couldn’t get close enough to hear what they said – but Giz could. Grim showed her something, and she cried. It was as bad as her kissing.
We asked Giz a series of bing or parp questions, and discovered that Grim was an alchemist in training. He’d threatened Marm’s secret son.
20
Nip tried out his kung fu on Grim, and it actually seemed to work. “Leave me alone,” Grim said, “and I’ll pay you as much as you like.”
Nip and I conferred: “We want a pound of real gold.”
“Done,” said Grim, and left.
Nip sighed, “He’s definitely with the alchemists.”
21
We’d gotten good at trailing people, so the dueller agreed to let us follow Grim ourselves. Grim ducked behind a red-hot piston.
We circled the giant piston three times – no Grim!
I gasped: “The alchemists much have a secret passageway through the balloon!”
22
We cornered Grim and told him the dueller was on to him, and demanded he defend his honour at noon tomorrow on the Western roof section.
Grim smiled privately, and Nip and I exchanged a look. What did he know that we didn’t?
23
Nip and I hid, despite our assurances to the dueller that we could fight in his place. All he did was smile, and advise us to get comfy
At last Grim appeared, with a pistol in each hand. “I’m just a kid,” he said, “so I’ll take the first shot.”
“No,” said the dueller.
Nip and I leapt out and pinned Grim’s arms. The dueller said, “I don’t kill children – I question them. You’ll tell me everything you know.”
24
Grim endured the delicious baking of the dueller’s wife all night before the dueller even asked a question. Nip and I were invited.
At last the dueller sat Grim in a chair and asked him who he worked for. Grim burst into tears and touched a switch on his metal arm.
He exploded in a fireball, and nothing but his legs remained, stuck to the chair with blood. His metal pet jiggled in horror at his feet.
25
“Parp!” Giz said ferociously, standing over Grim’s metal spider pet. “Paaaarrrrp?”
The spider cracked and blurted out everything it knew.
We followed the spider along darkened passageways through the zeppelin’s helium heart. At last we heard voices – the alchemists!
Marm’s boyfriend stormed into our passageway and stopped dead. His mouth dropped open when he spotted the spider – and he kicked it to bits!
26
When we visited the dueller and his wife, they’d just received a note. “We know who you are, and we can defeat you,” read the dueller.
“Not in a duel they can’t!” I said loyally.
The dueller read on: “You die at noon on Saturday – wherever you are. We have eyes everywhere.”
27
Giz hid inside my metal arm and his beeps directed me all the way back to the baddie’s hideout by another route. I let him out by the hatch.
He rolled up the wall, parping quietly.
I whispered, “Be careful. Don’t get hurt. I’ll miss you, Giz.”
He stopped: “Bing.”
“You too.”
28
The dueller and Nip and I prepared for the fight while his wife separated a batch of glycerine. “BOTH my legs are fake,” said the dueller.
We loaded his golden leg with fuming nitric and sulphuric acid, and the other with glycerine. “When it happens, I want you to run,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” said Nip.
I said, “We’re definitely not stupid enough to go near Nitrogen of any kind.”
Nip said, “Oh, yep. Definitely.”
29
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” I asked Nip.
He said, “No. You?”
“Nah. Although Marm might be mad about us blowing up her boyfriend.”
Nip said, “Does she know he’s the baddie?”
I said, “She’ll figure it out eventually on her own. She knows a bad egg when she sees one.”
Nip and I hid – again. The dueller waited – again. Hopefully Marm’s secret son would be saved. I remembered Grim’s bloody legs and shivered.
How To Talk English, Like, More Gooder
If you watch TV, you’ll know that people are dumb. As a writer, you don’t want to alienate the slavering masses of humanity, so here’s ten ways to make absolutely sure you come across as a complete idiot in your writing (interspersed with steampunk gadgets).
1. Use “like”, “totally”, and “you know” as much as possible! Also exclamation marks! Exclamation marks are totally awesome and not irritating at all when used frequently!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You know what else is GREAT????? CAPITALISING AND ITALICS!! They’re a fantastic blog/online habit that brilliantly and non-annoyingly translates into REAL LIFE!!!!!!!
2. Invent a wacky dialogue (or several) and make sure at least one character talks in a way that makes your readers want to strangle them. Brian Jacques is the master. Observe:
Dotti wiped her lips ruefully on an embroidered napkin. “I bally well wish we could, I’ve never tasted honeyed oatmeal like that in m’life. I say, Rogg, how the dickens d’you make it taste so jolly good, wot?”
Rogg chuckled at Dotti’s momentary lapse from molespeech. “Hurr hurr young miz, oi chops in lot of. . .” [let’s just stop it here, or I’ll bally punch meself, wot wot?”]
3. Correct apostrophes are for pompous know-it-alls. If you want to pretend you’re smarter than, say, your pet fish (and shame on you for such ludicrously high goals), then go ahead! Use apostrophes like this. . .
a) For abbreviation. Eg can’t, isn’t, I’m, they’re = cannot, is not, I am, they are.
b) For possession – but only when it’s the next word or phrase. Eg Sarah’s cat/Sarah’s alluringly plunging neckline/Sarah’s totally, like, awesome grip on the English language. And also, “The cats belong to Sarah” with no apostrophe, since the owner-ownee words aren’t in the right place to need an apostrophe.
If you’re REALLY the kind of fool who thinks editors like consistent punctuation, I bet you’ll also be able to combine plurals and possessives in a way that allegedly makes more sense than just putting apostrophes in where they look pretty. So I guess if you were a real geek you’d put the apostrophe precisely after the owner or owners. Eg The cat’s bowl (one cat) or The cats’ bowl (more than one cat). Also, The women’s club (because “women” already indicates it’s more than one woman).
And I bet you’ll cut out the one optional bit of apostrophes (whether you add an extra ‘s’ or not when the word already ends with ‘s’) by sticking to the rule that always works (leaving off the ‘s’ – because the plural of “Jesus” never has an extra ‘s’ – strange but true; you’re allowed an extra ‘s’ for almost everything else. . . if you want it). So that’d give you disgustingly consistent tripe, like “The princess’ cat” and “Jesus’ disciples”. Or maybe even “The princesses’ cat” if the princesses collectively own a cat.
You’re such a nerd I bet you even know that the only time apostrophes get left out is for the possessive “its” (so people can tell the difference from the abbreviation “it’s” for “it is”) so you’d end up with a sentence like, “It’s such a nice dog even its bark is polite.”
4. Adjectives and adverbs are for winners! More is better!!! You don’t need actual characterisation if you have a handy thesaurus. As you can clearly see below:
Boring old sentence: The Doberman took one look at my mother and growled. Mum’s blue eyes filled with tears. She didn’t even try to shield herself as the dog attacked.
Thrilling drama unfolding: The vicious cruel Doberman took one menacing look at my blue-eyed mother and growled loudly. Mum’s crinkly eyes filled with salty tears. She didn’t even try to shield herself as the mean and underfed dog attacked her quickly.
This lazy descriptive technique is also super great for dialogue. The word “said” is invisible, and you don’t want that!!! Write like THIS:
“Hello,” she extemporised.
“Why hello,” he growled back rapidly.
5. Words that sound the same may as well look the same. Right? Right!
Use “there” (“over there”, “There, there, don’t cry”) interchangeably with the possessive “their” (“their dog” “their lack of IQ”) and the abbreviation “They’re” (“They’re kidding about this, right?” = “They are kidding about this, right?”)
Ditto for the possessive “your” (“Your dog is getting mentioned a lot in this blog post”) and the abbreviation “you’re” (“You’re dumber than you look” = “You are dumber than you look.”)
6. It’s totally edgy to mix up past, present, and future tense. Make those verbs add zing to your story. If that’s too hard, just write in future tense or present tense. Readers LOVE that. It might be harder to read, but readers these days need a challenge anyway. (The exception is primary readers – for some reason, present tense doesn’t make them want to throw a book against the wall. For them, stick to future tense. It’s the only one that’ll really build their character.)
Boring old sentence: As I went to the store, I thought about how yesterday I’d had foccacia.
Thrilling drama unfolding: As I go to the store, I thought about how yesterday I will have foccacia.
Don’t you love how trippy that second sentence is? It just makes you want to read it again and again before moving on.
7. Corect Speling is 4 peopl with no imaginashon. Spel chekers are for peopl who r unartistic.
8. It’s totally humble to use a lower-case “i” instead of the standard capital “I”. Your editor will think, “This person will be great to work with” rather than, “This person has never written anything longer than an SMS.”
9. You don’t really need to start sentences with a capital letter. That’s old-fashioned. So are speech marks, like these old fuddy-duddies:
“Do you like my question mark?” said Mrs Jones.
“Sure!” said Mr Jones.
“I’m not sure though,” she said, “about how to break up a sentence in the middle, using commas.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Just use two sentences. The main thing to remember is that punctuation belonging to the sentence goes inside the speech marks – just like that exclamation mark I used earlier – and various commas for when the speaker pauses.”
“Do you think giving each new person a fresh line makes dialogue easier to follow?”
“Yes. And it means that not every single line needs a ‘he/she said’ tag.”
Mrs Jones said, “Good point. And I suppose you’d need to capitalise the first letter of dialogue mid-sentence if the dialogue made its own mini-sentence.”
“Sure. If you’re a total know-it-all.”
10. Don’t bother inserting page numbers. If your book gets dropped and the pages are out of order, the story will probably improve. For bonus points, leave your book title out of the header, too. It might just cause your book to get mixed up with a much better book. (Of course, if you also leave your name out of the header, no-one will be able to track you down – but that just adds to the mystery.) Having a header containing your name, book title, and page number is just showing off.
This post was based on Steffmetal.com’s #38: Re-Vocabise. The pictures are from http://oddee.com/item_96830.aspx
PS: CJ has SMSed to say our jewellery evaluation is ready for him to pick up, and thus discover all the details – such as, which items are worth how much (all we know so far is that the total is $11,500). Will the hideous amber necklace be the only item of real value? Will I still be haunting ebay’s jewellery section trolling for buyers in ten years’ time? The full financial details and pictures. . . tomorrow!
S#14: Bubbles!
Ingredients: Cheap dishwashing detergent. Water. Cornflour (optional; I dunno if it helped or hindered). A bucket. Hands.
To make bubbles, you make an “OK” symbol with one hand, and blow through the “O” into your other hand (cupped to receive the bubble). I so very highly recommend you play along at home. It’s like magic.
I’ll be making more bubbles on Steampunk Earth Day (this Saturday). I heartily recommend you do the same.
Need outfit inspiration – or new clothes? A new reason to drool? http://www.steampunkemporium.com/steam.php
Sunday: Diet coke and mentos. . . and the first time awesomeness could have caused serious bodily harm. Officially my favourite video ever. . . and I haven’t put it on youtube yet.
#220: Recognised by a Stranger
As I wandered innocently through the Steampunk 21st Party of yesterday’s post, I was accosted by this man:
He addressed me with the infamous phrase, “Hey, aren’t you. . . ?” and proceeded to tell me my full name and, “You write those twittertales, right?”
I’ve never seen him before in my life. He’s never seen me before. Yet he knew me well enough to know what I do, and how excited I’d be.
That’s right, people. I was recognised. . . because of the internet.
My plan for world domination is totally working. Eeeeexceelllent.
And here’s some photos of my cat in a washing basket.
Tomorrow (if all goes well): Bubbles!
No news on the individual jewellery values yet. . . but soon!
And here’s your steampunk moment for the day – a timeline by Tor. Do you have an outfit for Steampunk Earth Day* yet?
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/10/the-great-steampunk-timeline#more
*Steampunk Earth Day is THIS Saturday! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=150654784970718
PS Here’s something Rachelle Gardner posted today. It’s a real response to the book by a real person – which, hopefully, will help you deal with your own experiences of writerly rejection:
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
“I bought these books to have something nice to read to my grandkids. I had to stop, however, because the books are nothing more than advertisements for “Turkish Delight,” a candy popular in the U.K. The whole point of buying books for my grandkids was to give them a break from advertising, and here (throughout) are ads for this “Turkish Delight”! How much money is this Mr. Lewis getting from the Cadbury’s chocolate company anyway? This man must be laughing to the bank.”
Felicity Banks 