The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘fun’

The Care and Taming of a Romance Novel

For too long in my life, I couldn’t tell if a man was an unrepentant rogue. Then, fortune smiled on me, and I ran across The Care and Taming of a Rogue by Suzanne Enoch. A romance novel.

I took a trip about a year ago and as part of the trip I thought of a funny little idea. I’d buy a romance novel, and then the navigator would read out loud the romance novel. I thought it’d be hysterical. With this idea I headed to a bookstore and picked up the above-mentioned book. The back says, among other things:

“How to tell if a man is an unrepentant rogue:
1. He has no patience for frivolous debutantes
2. He kisses you after a single dance
3. He makes you forget yourself and kiss him back …”

Fantastic! It’d be funny for sure, but …

The reading of the book didn’t happen on the trip, but then another idea struck. I’ll read the book (I’d always wanted to give a romance novel a try), and then I’d read out loud the more hysterical lines, making a video for the blog. The video would either be just me reading, or a slideshow of pictures that have no relation to the book – like pictures of Betty White and kittens and dragons.

At first I read the book very slowly, a couple of pages a week randomly. Eventually I hit a line that made me laugh out loud:

“For a moment he thought he’d embarrassed her into muteness – which would be a damned shame. Then she sighed, a sound that he instantly memorized, and one that he wanted to hear again. Repeatedly.”

Yes! My plan was going well! I’d read this out loud in ridiculous voices, and it’d be oh-so-funny. But where are the dang sex scenes!? At that point I was about a fifth of the way into the book and no one had had sex! What kind of trashy beach romance novel is this! (I’ve since learned that, apparently, these books don’t tend to have a bunch of sex. It’s more about the story. Pfft.)

Finally, I hit the sex scene. Ow ow! Whooo! Woof woof woof! Awoooooga! You know, zagga-za and all that. I was reading, laughing, shocked and shocked. I really had expected a more Victorian style approach. Everything implied, nothing explicit. But nope. There it was, boom-shockah-shockah-sexxin’s happening.

That’s when I realized I couldn’t read this book out loud to laugh about it. A terrible realization. There’s no funny to be had? Then I’m done here.

Except … oh my … wait, what!!? What’s happened!?

The purpose of the book was shot but I had actually been SUCKED IN BY A ROMANCE NOVEL! NO! I knew it was wrong. It went against nature, but I couldn’t stop. I had to know how Captain Bennett Wolfe was going to get back at that jerk Langley. Ugh! Langley.

I read the book to the end and. I really didn’t expect it, but I was kind of impressed with the book in the end. I had figured I would be thinking over and over, “oh, I know what’s next, this is so cliché and predictable” – but nope, I was wrong.

I admit, I laughed out loud at some things in the book. Giggling like a child sometimes, too. And I won’t make it a habit to read these books.

Tomorrow I’ll have some gem quotes from the book.

Category:

Weekly Wacko

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Attn: Ellen (5/11/11)

Front


Back (apologies for my handwriting!)

The text of the postcard is:

Dear Ellen,

I hope when the first robot becomes self-aware we show him the mold he was made from. Then we’ll have the world’s first depressed self-aware robot.

And that’s science in action!!

Sincerely,
DumbFunnery.com

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Attn: Ellen

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Not Entirely Fruitless

I just read an interesting unfinished autobiography of “Dr.” Gorg Homkins.

The unfinished autobiography ended with this, “And so, with my last breath I bid the Earth farewell and thus ends my book”

Note the lack of punctuation that renders the autobiography unfinished. Scholars have debated for minutes at a time whether it was to be a period or exclamation point.

Obviously I am with the small, but tall, group of scholars that insist it was a pound sign. This we believe must be the case because “Dr.” Gorg had never once been slightly interesting or funny and so we figure he was due.

But why bring up “Dr.” Gorg to you? Ah yes, because I’m feeling morbid and whimsical. A classic combination of feelings made popular by the creepy man sitting by me at the bus stop.

You see, “Dr.” Gorg was a grave-digger who would cut open dead bodies to look for words inside them. The good “Doctor” believed every person had a last important message that they had to get out – some people managed to get this out before dying, but for others death came too soon. These people contained inside them a written copy of their last important message. And so, after what he described as an epiphany but I would describe as an addiction to smoking crushed up kitty litter, the good “Doctor” began digging up bodies for his research.

The research was fairly fruitless, except for two peculiar cases.

The first was Joanne Thompson, who was buried with a pineapple.

The second was Jeremy Privo, who choked while trying to eat a book, and died. The book was a Where’s Waldo, and fragments of the book were obtained by “Dr.” Gorg. These fragments listed things to look for, which the good “Doctor” set out to do. Perhaps in death he has found Wizard Whitebeard.

Reading this book, and about the case of young Mr. Privo has led me to a bold decision. I will not read anything that I cannot successfully eat! People meet me and think I love Kit Kat’s, this is simply not true. It’s just hard to find good reading material.

However you should be glad to know that my intellectual qualities have not been hurt by my lack of intellect. I often quote famous works of literature. I would dare to guess I use the word “the” at least five times a day. Someone you may be familiar with, one William Shakespeare, was also known to have used that word to some success.

Therefore, although the nearly finished autobiography of “Dr.” Gorg Homkins was incredibly boring, full of idiocy, painful, and led me to never again read a book – I would say the endeavor was not entirely fruitless. After all, the publisher had a sense of humor, and each book comes with a pineapple.

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Short Short Stories

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