The World Vs Richard Young

Alec Mayflower Short Story

2011-05-24T02:37:00.000-06:00

Alec Mayflower and the indivisible period

Syntax Error. Variable “swelling” is not an integer. String divide by 0.
“Fuck.” Alec couldn't understand programming. It didn't make any sense. He was constantly berated by the central processing unit for errors in syntax. This isn't supposed to happen. He graduated at the top of his class with concentration on proper syntax.
Alec Mayflower slammed his forehead into the keyboard, unleashing an impressive response from the computer in regards to it's ability to decipher the split-second differences in time as it's characters were firmly pressed into their inputing positions rather than their standard embossed locations. The computer, satisfied with the order in which it read the pressed keys, revealed the input on the screen in beautifully spaced black courier font.
Awh4uif
A suffocated groan escaped the keyboard as spit and hot air filled its innards in ways it had never before experienced. This may be the moment which cheesy science fiction would jump in and the overly intelligent motherboard would soak up and merge with the deoxyribonucleic acid in the spit and the next wave of philosophical supercomputers would begin their tyrannic rule over their human rivals as masters of the earth, if only to be destroyed by the one thing they neglected: the importance love plays in everyday pseudo-life, and would wind up initiating a self-destruct sequence destroying all technology and allowing the human species to once again rise up from the depths of society to recreate it all again.
You killed it.
You bastards.
Damn you all to hell.
Alec Mayflower brought his head back to its proper above-the-shoulders alignment with little red squares indenting his forehead and leaving funny little marks. The computer did not absorb any DNA for its own malicious purposes, instead the moisture now locked in the keyboard had plans of its own. This moisture was the kind of moisture that's sole purpose in existence, now that it had left its brethren inside the mouth of 'the great salivator' , was to annoy and depress anything to come into contact with it. It was already working its magic of making the “G” key sticky. Even so, throughout all of this, it didn't make any sense. Alec, master of grammar, punctuation, and syntax, was here being beaten by the simplest of all programs. He decided it was time to give up. He threw in the towel after his first attempt at becoming computer savvy.
Damnit. This looked so much easier in The Social Network.
Alec referred of course to the critically acclaimed film in which Jesse Eisenberg portrayed boy-genius Mark Zuckerberg and his rise to billionairism with (what Alec credited everything to) a little 'wget magic'.
Alec looked at his whiteboard. It was pristine. The perfect example of what organization is capable of. Different coloured strokes marked different things, and the legend in the bottom right hand corner explained these colour choices with ease. He nodded at the perfect vocabulary choice, and his use of a semi colon. He took a moment to pause and mull over his proficiency when it came to knowledge of when and where to use 'whom'. The whiteboard was unimpressed with his condescending train of though, and decided to it keep to itself rather than warning him of a certain knowledge privy only to itself. It knew that Alec's obsession would soon become a tragic device used by the author in order to savagely destroy Alec Mayflower from the inside out. The whiteboard continued on pretending to be oblivious to all, and simply displayed the dry-erase marvel listed underneath “Get Rich Quick Schemes”.
It was obvious that Alec wanted to get rich, but had no intention of dying whilst trying. Unfortunately for him it was already made clear that this was an inevitable fact that could only be procrastinated by the overbearing power of tangent narrative and the smooth work of interesting punctuation and ironic errors within it. Alec snapped out if it by realizing something once again. It still didn't make sense. He was aggravated by the fact that he didn't understand, and as a result slammed his now back-to-pale forehead into his whiteboard with ferocity determined by plotting the graph y=xa where x equal to the force output his head was capable of dishing out, found by multiplying the mass of his skull, flesh, and muscle combination by the acceleration which which it all travelled, which in turn was discovered by dividing the velocity it moved (approximately one point three metres) by the speed at which it travelled (his skull). Regrettably as his cranium made contact with the whiteboard many brain cells short-circuited and his ability to solve this equation was lost in colourful spots dancing around his eyes.
His daze completed its cycle and he leaned back, this time with green and blue accompanying red lines from temple to temple. Greatly distraught by his now smudged perfection that was a to-do-list whiteboard, he sulked over to the washroom to clean himself off. The mirror reflected and seemed to scream back at him, “EDITOR”, which had been the only thing which transferred legibly onto his skin. Ah yes, his dream job: telling other people the correct fashion in which they should have jotted down their brilliance. He returned to the computer and attempted to check his email, being slightly irked by the fact that his G took a moment or two to return to its upward position after he filled the input box with “godofgrammer@gmail.com”. There was already a story waiting for him to edit in the inbox. Not a moment ago he decided to become an editor and somehow word had already spread. Of course it had. No one in the right mind would pass up a chance to have their story edited by THE Alec Mayflower. He opened the message, sent by “worldvsrichard@gmail.com” and began reading. It didn't make sense. Why didn't anything make sense? He continued on, a sneaking suspicion crept up his spine and gave him goosebumps. He was reading his own story, and it didn't make sense. All of his life he battled against all that which made no sense, and here it was, the story of his own being, and it didn't make sense. He slammed his head against the keyboard again, this time his body finally gave into his self-destructive nature, a loud popping sound was heard, and Alec didn't get back up. Divide by 0, input string on command: “semi colon.”

10 reasons why I am yet to write a best-seller

2011-05-23T20:20:00.000-06:00

1. Companionship. Unfortunately for me I enjoy the presence of others, and therefore cannot hide in my basement tapping away at a keyboard 24/7.

2. Fear. Of many things such as my electric toothbrush and the way it mysteriously dies on my wisdom teeth only to come back into full vibration power once its out of my mouth, or the feeling of missing out on the most important episode of criminal minds ever to hit 2009 in which I have to go watch it ASAP, but mostly of rejection which is ironic because never submitting anything is in itself a submission to refusal. (did that make sense, as I always believe: no it did not.)

3. Even if I did get anything published, I seriously think there may be three thousand people worldwide who would find it interesting and the people at the pulitzer prize company are definitely excluded. (maybe Roger Ebert)

4. Finite amount of spendable cash. Although I am currently unemployed, this is sure to only last another month or so, and then I will be forced to rejoin the working world, in which I will make excuses like "I've worked all day, I can't write tonight." or "It's my day off, I deserve to sit on a couch watching the criminal minds marathon."

5. Starcraft. Fuck. Why is it's power over me more addictive than cigarettes, booze, and rock n' roll?

6. School. Although I suck at attending, and my grades reflect that, in the back of my mind it's always nagging and making me feel anxious so therefore I get nothing done and nothing accomplished.

7. I like waiting. Although I have completed my first novel, I have yet to try anything with it because I feel the perfect time to put all my time into it comes directly after I learn I have won the $40 million lottery.

8. Technology. In my opinion I would have finished and published my first novel at least two years ago, however, technological breaks in the space-time continuum along with my own inability to create backups has resulted in me re-writing the whole thing more than once.

9. Confidence. Yeah this one goes without say and is kind of a cop-out, but hey ten reasons is a lot of thinking...

10. The New York Times Crossword. Fuck you Will Shortz. You've made my life a living hell.

-Richard

Richardinator 2

2011-05-18T01:03:00.000-06:00

You know in end of the world movies, like terminator 2, 'that guy' who always takes the bullet by chance which in turn rescues the hero, like john connor, because the bullet didn't make it through his body?

I've been thinking a lot about that scene in terminator 2, wherein a man (possibly a janitor) holding a pepsi can gets in the way of the T-1000 (advanced prototype) shooting our glorious hero and sole hope for mankind: John Connor.

This is what I think happened here.

In the future, a man was sent back in time in order to take that bullet and protect john. He was sent back and tried to act all incognito about it so that he could place himself in the proper place at the proper time. One thing he remembered once he got back was that he was now capable of getting one of the only things he missed from the past: A pepsi.
As he finally cracked that three hundred fifty five milliliter can of deliciously caffeinated, carbonated and sweetened beverage he prepared himself to be re-acquainted with his teenage love. However, at that moment, it was time for him to do his part in saving the world, and he takes three bullets to the chest to aid john with his schwarzennegarial escape.

Fuck, poor guy,
But hey, let's just cut to the next scene, no one cares about him. Fuck you James Cameron, i expect only the best from you and this untold story is bugging me, so make it happen.

The man i am

2011-05-14T23:51:00.004-06:00

I'm a mechanical man.
I'm a mechanical
I'm a mechanical
I'm a mechanical
man.

Lunch, Dinner, whatever its called.

2011-04-05T17:36:00.001-06:00

Who invented supper at 6pm? no one actually does it. fuck that.

-RichARD

Is writing a chore?

2011-04-04T17:07:00.002-06:00

People consider chores things that you do around the house in what would normally be referred to as 'down time', or, time you do not spend at work. So, in my case, the case of the decrepit unpublished writer, where i am seen as an unemployed bum when I do nothing save write from day to day, since this is my 'down time' and takes up large amounts of time with the endpoint having the same significance as me cleaning my bathroom, could this be considered a 'chore'? when is it that we the writing community can go around telling people that we are, in fact, writers?
what does that entail?
everyone has a justification for it that is slightly different but really when addressing the general working public saying you are a writer is synonymous with saying 'i contribute nothing of true value to society'. This, naturally, sucks. but whatchoo gonna do, better keep doing that chore of putting pen to paper, or in this blog's case, fingers to keys.

This may not have made sense, i spent a lot of time writing it completely distracted.
Richard.

Scrabble games

2011-03-16T19:26:00.003-06:00

My two best words this game:

queerer
bailiff

Scorned Acorns!

2011-02-06T23:51:00.000-07:00

Get ready for the best blog ever.

http://www.Scornedacorns.blogspot.com

Marrrkusss

2011-02-05T19:12:00.002-07:00

Markus: civil engineer and general poopypants extraordinaire. What can be said of a man who walks among men as a cheese does among mice (not very well, cheese is not exactly known for its pride, nor it's existence of legs, it's for it's pretentiousness.), with many nibbles and ogling eyes. Without a careful eye on him it is simple to lose him within the crowd of the marketplace, such celebrities constantly find themselves swarmed by randoms. But not markus. He, unlike this paragraph, made sense. Everyone around him sensed it to, and he began gathering up the cents lying on the ground, making it even harder to see him above the hats of the people surrounding him clearly getting over excited for the kings of Leon concert which was about to begin.

- mobile blog

Location:18 St NW,Calgary,Canada

The intricacies in the mind of Andrew the Bartender

2010-04-07T09:12:00.000-06:00

The intricacies in the mind of Andrew the Bartender

Andrew stood behind the bar thinking about his weight issues. These of course were all in his head, but he couldn’t help shake the feeling that ‘beer’ (the word, not necessarily the liquid version) was the main reason for his faulty thoughts. His shoes were on too tight, forcing him and him alone to believe that even his feet were getting fat. He could not understand why he was getting so fat, his water intake had increased by an average of two litres a day since his mental diet had started nearly three weeks ago. He began the diet on the recommendation of a coworker of his, a server named Ashley who had enough troubles of her own being filled with thoughts of nails stuck into her back three ribs at all times. Andrew placed a lemon in a nicely iced water and watched it float around for a bit and wondered about things such as how argyle socks would work as filters. The canopy outside the bar was already being sat by the clueless hostess, who at the time believed that A. there was a table out there, and B. that there was someone working that section. She was hired on the assumption she was decent at customer service, regardless of her having no prior pub experience. The rest of the workers in the bar all knew it was because she had brought a peanut buster parfait in for her interview which she had prepared to give to the manager she was surely to be interviewed by. He was a blank-staring type guy, who both through his obsession with sweater-vests and man-thongs, also wore sandals to work in order to claim his position of power above his polished black leathered employee base. The author of the ongoing story of the pubs life took a break to sip at his tall glass of an overly hoppy brew, and continued on with thoughts of how the girl sitting next to him’s leg was very slightly nudging his left knee. The author was contemplating offering this girl a bottle of Canadian* beer to repay her for the kind nudging, she however was oblivious that any of this was happening, and very unaware of how slight a touch could turn on a simple small town boy such as this author in such a way that he may feel the need to play superman and buy this woman a drink, accompanied by a sly wink and easy smile.

A man coughed in the background and another rushed to the bathroom surely to throw up his overly battered fish and chips (the tartar sauce was off) and would surely ruin the freshly placed urinal cakes in the gentleman’s station. Andrews eyes floated upwards to watch a very depressingly atrocious game of darts being played by two eighteen year olds who each had no idea how to play the real game, but were simply playing ‘for drinks’ and getting much to inebriated in the process. He hated his life. Andrew felt as though this is all he knew and all he would know. The dreams of running some sort of sex hut that he conjured up in junior high were all but gone, there was no way he was ever going to get laid, whether he owned a sex hut or not. It was his hairy fat toes, he knew it. Damn it. If only he had more confidence, it was this realization of a lack of confidence that actually shattered what little confidence he actually had. There was no way he was ever going to amount to anything or go anywhere exciting or even be honourably mentioned within a semi-exciting speech from an overly-excited prom queen. He was trying to pinpoint the exact moment in his life when it all went to shit. It didn’t take long, maybe three minutes of ignoring customers. It was the time he decided to eat that moldy hot dog on a bet, forcing the losing party to go to the premiere of twilight’s new moon with his best friend Sam’s little sister. He had won the bet, in a very Julius Caeser kind of way, and as the ‘et tu, Brutus’ forced the bet-man to go to the movie covered in sparkles with flour fluffed onto his face. Ah yes, his one moment of success. He thought he could revel in it for at least fifteen years, but it turns out that three was all he could muster up, because once again, he was depressed.

Normal people take normal things with a grain of salt, but no, not Andrew. He was the type of guy who would take everything with a pinch of salt, and as a result his whole life was overly saturated with salty grins and overcooked asparagus.

“This is ridiculous!” he finally screamed out in a sort of horror-fear-adrenaline combination.

“Ridiculously good?” The man at the far left side of the bar asked, motioning to his white Russian, which was in fact the most delicious one ever created in the history of mankind, but was ignored by a raging Andrew and resulted in being the most consumed white Russian of all time, and was lost for all time, inside the stomach of the man on the far left side of the bar. This man was the kind of man who looked his best when running in a trench-coat through a dimly lit street. This man was the kind of guy who could do anything he wanted at anytime, much like a movie star. This man was, David Duchovny. This fact however was also overlooked by Andrew’s raging depression and Andrew himself would have been sad to note that he had missed a chance to talk to the one and only David Duchovny, and if he had noticed this fact, he would have, quid pro quo, been even more depressed.

He bent his knees and leaned against a cooler, for exactly three point two seconds he wished he could have it easy. It of course being life. And easy of course being the kind of life similar to that of roadkill. He stood back up to get another extra hoppy beer for one of his patrons, only to spill it onto his pants, sigh heavily, and pour another. He hopped up and down and flung his hands obsoletely at his pants, hoping it would help dry them and keep them from getting that odd sticky yet coarse feeling of dried beer on non-denim pants, but instead only managed in appearing like a clown to his customers, which resulted in the throwing of many citrus wedges, such as lemons and limes in his general direction.

Andrew did the only thing he could do in this situation. In order to not anger all of his guests and lose all possible tips from them, rather than yell and do copious amounts of random stomping around, he popped a few pieces of bubblicious and began chewing uncontrollably, he had that feeling where his ears were hot, he could hardly believe that this job could get him this angry, he had only been this angry once before, he felt like turning green and smashing all the glasses in the pub, he wanted to rip the building out of its place and hurl it towards the sun. His ears only got hot when his face was beyond red, when it was chilli pepper hot, when it was (to be politically incorrect), ‘indian’. His eyes fell upon one last yet new member to the pub, it was his replacement.

“Don’t panic,” The man said, “Your shift’s over.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you made it this far down the page, I know reading that may have been difficult. it was a writing exercise done between me and Andrew the bartender. I was sitting at the bar, and every time he walked by he would say a random word, and i would have to incorporate it in some way. sometimes I would have two to work with at a time and it was very hard to make anything happen with so this is how it turned out.

Richard.

Word list(that i can remember) in order :

Beer

fat

water

ashley

argyle socks

canopy

pub

peanut buster parfait

man-thongs

superman

urinal cakes

darts

sex hut

moldy hot dog

Sam's little sister

Ridiculously good

David Duchovny

cooler

roadkill

clown

copious

bubblicious

don't panic

The Almost Adventures of Danica Brister (Prologue)

2010-03-01T02:45:00.001-07:00

Along with approximately ninety percent of her depressing Death Valley high school classmates and about the same percentage of emotional American teenagers across the country, Danica spent most of her time thinking about death and new ways of being antisocial. This particular morning as she pulled up her left knee high black-and-white striped sock and reached for her black converse high tops she was thinking about the only two living beings she actually socialized with face to face: an old mutt she had named Rip which she had received as a hopeless Christmas present from her parents in an attempt to get her out of this ‘goth’ phase and a cute (though she would never admit it was) squirrel which sat perched upon a tombstone she had bought off the internet with her name inscribed on it every morning to listen to her grumble “good morning” to it, before scurrying off to tend to regular squirrel business, such as running into traffic. Her walk to school included passing by such stores as “Death Valley Coffee Co.”, “Death Valley Florist Shoppe”, and one of many Death Valley graveyards. All this death constantly surrounding her, yet she had the unfortunate luck of never getting to experience any of it. She shrugged her Eek! The cat backpack up further over her shoulder and thought about making a blog to post her poetry on. The thought tickled her in such a way that people may be able to see her ‘pink’ pigments shine through her angel-food makeup and she quickly whipped out a small mirror and cover-up to ensure her pasty white skin remained that way. Hardly holding in the excitement to stroke her ego a little, she pulled what used to be a tinkerbell notebook (she had torn the cover off just after the seventh grade) out of her backpack to read her favourite:

Death.

As I enter

The forsaken world,

All around me lies

Lies.

Take me away, River

Of souls

Take me away,

To a place no one knows

She was especially proud of the rhyme in the closing line and thought about the blog some more, which resulted in another flick of the wrist to reopen her mirror.

She stopped two steps short of the door to the school, sighed heavily allowing her slouch to achieve the new perfect posture, and put on the gloomiest expression she could muster up. She reached for the door as it was kicked open from the other side by Josh, a tenth grade jock with too much energy for eight fifty am. She fell back but managed to keep her footing and just stared at the door that seemed to be on a teeter totter. Josh exploded with an extremely heart-felt “oh shit, I’m sorry dude.” And continued on his merry way, talking to his ‘bro’ about a field goal made last night by Death Valley’s own Ryan McAllen of the Denver Broncos. Danica patted her eyebrow with her two most prominent fingers as blood began to drip from her nose, the eyebrow was cut, although not severely. She leaned backward to achieve a few drops of blood to spatter onto her white uniform and smiled at her cleverness when it came to non-conformity. After she decided she looked just disgusting enough she reached into her backpack to retrieve the tissue paper her mom always packed ‘just in case’ she ever needed to blow her nose in public. Yeah right, As if she would ever let anyone see her do such an embarrassing thing. She tore a piece off and stuck it to her eyebrow, and rolled the rest of it into her nostril to assist in stopping the bleed, that’s when the pain sank in. It is only at these moments that this sort of teenager ever contemplates not dying, for fear of any pain associated with it whatsoever (also probably the leading reason why pills are so hot right now for teen suicide). She winced and grimaced and wished it all to go away, but there was no quick fix. As any over-reacting teenage girl would, she firmly believed her nose had been broken and she would be disfigured for life. She contemplated whether or not it would be worth it to just skip school and hang out in her garage with the door half open and the car on for half an hour as a statement. But, deciding that walking back was too big a hassle she decided to enter the building, go to the washroom, turn on all the taps, and head to class. Yeah, that ought to show ‘em. Her homeroom erupted with even more silence than usual as she entered the room, everyone avoiding eye contact, but sitting close enough to each other to symbolize who was cool in their books. Four goth kids that she never bothered learning the names of sat in the back corner clearly saving an unconformist chair for her, next to them sat two emo-cases who were sharing an iPod’s white earbuds and clearly listening to some ‘retro’ band that really ‘meant something’ such as Yellowcard, and next to them was three girls texting on their phones; Ashley, Mallory, and Still-thinks-pig-tails-are-cool girl. Danica and Ashley went way back, but it was the same sad case as every ‘way back’ relationship goes when high school hits. Danica wasn’t fretting it though, she figured they could totally have a ‘getting back together by getting shitfaced together in freshman year’ night when they were done high school. In front of all of these crews sat a bunch of sparkling ‘vampires’ in single horizontal file, they all were acting as if they could smell into the blood of the person sitting in front of them, who each were people Danica had no interest in whatsoever. The rest of the class Danica even cared less about so didn’t even acknowledge their presence. She slumped down on her saved seat and waited for the roll call to be over, oh GOD did she hate having to say ‘here’ when Danica Brister was called out, seriously they were all 16 year-old kids, (practically adults) why on earth do they still have to be treated like children and raise their hands to let their teacher know that yes, they had shown up to school like a big girl. Oh well, she had one thing to look forward to today, they were doing the cliché dissection of a frog in biology, yes, a real dead animal; needless to say she was pumped. She quickly checked the mirror to see if it had shown.

School was a bust, due to some loser’s overly-politically-correct mom, they didn’t get to dissect anything, but instead watch a video of the half-life of some disgusting amoeba under some random scientist’s microscope, not to mention no one seemed to acknowledge the dried blood stains on her white button-up, not even the nosey vampires. She felt like she was living a half-life herself and felt like yelling at homeless people. She was really getting good at this whole being an awful person thing. She decided to stop at the Death Valley Coffee Shop and grab a medium roast. She scoffed at having to stand behind two people in line, who she eavesdropped on and learned that someone had gotten hit by a train today, yet unfortunately for Danica, miraculously survived. She got her coffee, and knowing that everyone sitting in the shop was staring at her, took it black (for effect) and went to sit in the most dimly lit corner. She removed a Kurt Vonnegut novel from her backpack which she overheard someone say had a lot of needless killing in it and placed it upside and opened as if she was half done reading it. She then took out her sketch/poetry book and being thinking about things that rhymed nicely with intestines. She took a sip of her coffee and closed her eyes tightly as the bitterness hit her, she hated the taste but felt like she couldn’t sweeten it without ruining her image and everyone would think she was a poser. She wasn’t. She was the real deal. Danica Brister: the crazed loner depressed individualist.

As I crawl into bed

And hope never to awaken

All that comes is tears

And a black sheep

Close eyes

Darkness fades.

She took the final revolting sip of her coffee and exited the shop to head home, only another two blocks. Danica wondered if things were ever going to go her way, and had a semi-growing-up moment where she almost realized that things just don’t fall in your lap if you sit in your room and grope all day and night. She almost decided to go out, meet someone, or try something new, but then settled on ‘fuck that’ and returned home to youtube political riots from times past.

Venezuelan particle emitters

2010-01-28T17:57:00.000-07:00

I've pushed back a few academic priorities in favor of personal priorities that I currently find more...maybe important is not the word I search for but it at least gives you an idea of where my head is at. or perhaps where my head is hat. whichever, whenever, whoever, and whatever one you prefer just leave this reading with the knowledge of priorities in my life. Through the program "Processing" which almost advertises itself as 'computer programming for people who like shiny things' I have rediscovered my love for programming and really look forward to making some extremely shiny things in it that have a finished look without putting any effort into the 'finishing' portion of programming, which usually is the most difficult part, although not the most time-consuming.

This leaves me at a state of mind where i find it difficult to decide which path would be the most happy route for me to now follow. I could continue pushing school projects back to paint and wind up an androgynous homeless artist (androgyny is so hot right now) who gets by by pretending he has fourteen works on the go back at the studio located under the tenth street bridge. Or i could learn how to tie a tie and head downtown on a train of my other fallen comrades, each one thinking to themselves how unlike all these other suiters they gave up a life of art to look good on paper and make their parents not proud but appeased. Well fuck it, if these are the only two routes to pursue from this point I'm going to take the third branch. You know the one that hasn't been taken for a few years? I'm gonna grab a bowler's cap, grab my crotch and dance my way into the 'indie rock' scene as the next michael jackson. No no no i wont be doing any singing or anything musical whatsoever, but instead simply spinning around in circles and making people scratch their heads. I imagine I can get enough people to not think that its cool...but think its new and exciting...at least enough to try it themselves, and then i can teach them my ways, make them give me all their money and follow me to san francisco, where i'll teach them how to take advantage of life insurance policies, make tons of money, send them off to kill some studio exec's wife as i escape to Morocco where I can live like a king for approximately thirty two years before being convicted and returned to my own country, where my only hope will be to swim to Venezuela where i will for sure live peacefully until the end of my days. Great idea? ok readyyyy break!

Richard.

scared of living.

2009-12-07T00:17:00.002-07:00

Typing the tedious numbers into the computer, you accidently add an extra zero to the current year, and just like that not only has time changed forever and you are ten thousand years older, but every person you knew during your lifetime is dead, and have since disintegrated into the ground, and no, they wont become the grass, and no, the gazelles will not eat the grass, and no, the circle of life is not happening. its 10000 years in the future and every living thing on the earth has died through some freak toilet malfunction. no you arent going to save the world, the world is done.

Contacting Richard

2009-10-04T06:49:00.000-06:00

Email: worldvsrichard@gmail.com
Facebook: Richard Young (writer)
Twitter: GimpyMatey
Skype: Richard.worldvs

Also responds to people yelling "Richard" within earshot.

About Richard

2009-10-04T06:46:00.001-06:00

Richard is a still-yet-to-accomplish-anything writer, currently working on a novel by the title of "Where's Sly Part II".
He was born in the normal fashion, not hatched out of any egg in a nest atop a mountain, on August 5th 1988. The planet he lives on is that labeled by his own people as 'earth', being the third planet from a dying star which it orbits. you see,
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
This planet has—or rather had—a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.
Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.
And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.
Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terrible, stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost forever.
This is not her story.
This is the story of Richard Young, who's life is generally constructed of these mean people seeking to destroy his ridiculous idea of being 'happy' along with a lot of other things too. As a result to these surroundings all he has achieved was creating a half-decent website, and now carries a little red towel in his trusty backpack everywhere he goes.

-Hitchiker's guide to the galaxy (the greatest book in existence)

An unlikely invitation

2009-10-02T05:44:00.003-06:00

Welcome my friends, to six a.m.

As I sit in a fold out camping chair on my front porch with a fresh ziggy and the seemingly sweet soothing sounds of Oscar Peterson's piano pushing my fingertips into the keyboard in a sort of misunderstood jazz percussion form of their own and ponder both the ins and outs of my -to press the overuse of it- "humble abode" (and my, does it seem extra humble this morning) and the ins and outs of the musical timbre chosen for this specific piece a peculiarly loud dark burgundy SUV rolls by and threatens to ruin the mood, but as with a very nice bar of music is gone in only a second. A roommate arrived but moments ago, and there lies only another few of those very same moments before another will arise and begin his everyday preparations for yet another long so-called 'grueling' day at work with the knowledge that the weekend is only once again, moments away. The weekend that for me at least, still seems much more than mere moments from being here.

A peculiarly not loud low riding clean white truck drives by and reminds me that the music has since stopped and the playlist must restart. I double-click J.S. Bach and away we go again. Two things of course come to mind, first being: why is Richard listening to such music that only those of scholarly stature would be expected to playing within their spare time, and why on earth have you not prepared a breakfast for your awakening comrade; surely it would be a nice gesture. The latter of course, has no answer, perhaps I would have and still may if I finally decide to give in to the inevitable coming of seasons weather and return to the coziness of indoors or if I feel like I have written enough. I pause to crack my knuckles in the way a pianist may do so before the performance of his life as if my own penmanship was worthy of such a crowd and pause again to consider whether or not the digital remake of buttons being pressed holds the same truth to be called 'penmanship' when being compared to either the quill or typewriter, where the physical proof of the authors ideas are immediately given a place in history, be it in great libraries or just a stuffy old attic.

With a quick click n' flick sparks fly and once again the idea is back on track. The reason behind this quick culture shock into the world of music and out of the fantasy world of dragons being slain to the sounds of a bass drum being hit with two separate kicks is an upcoming test for a class which turned out to be a lot more difficult than I could have ever imagined. The only studying I may truly achieve is doing quite precisely this: listening. Upon deciding to take a break from the assigned listening I find myself still craving more of it, and proceed to throw on Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" feeling that it is the ideal choice for the mood and setting I am currently surrounded in. Somehow the first few notes send chills up my spine and no it is not from any recognized 'beauty' in the music (I am still not that far off into my faux-enjoying-it-because-I'm-artsy) and no it is not derived from the near-freezing air of a soon to be crisp morning, but instead waves of visions from my childhood have flooded my mind. Unfortunately like all precious moments it is forced to come to an all to early close as an image appears in the bottom right hand corner of the computer screen warning me of battery life and assuring me that if the proper action is not taken within the next fifteen seconds the computer, and all penmanship with it, will no longer be. Within but another (but different type) precious moment I am whisked away to my dimly lit bedroom and cannot help but wish that I was armed with nothing but a quill and ink, and the dim Christmas-light illumination was in fact a candle with the only chance at malfunction being whisked out by my running past it. The images which still linger in my mind are still here as the song ends, the sight of my own mother playing this song on our piano back at home. This had to be one of her favorite pieces to play yet I have never asked her what she did like to play, and it seems these days the piano, like the relationship between 'penmanship' and the digital image(which I cannot seem to get out of my head), is only for sights and slightly out of tune. Another song from my childhood (this one from the world of midi sounds and video games) comes on through the youtube playlist which I was unaware I had chosen when I had clicked the "Moonlight Sonata" link.

"In the hall of the Mountain King", one of my favorites from 'back in the day' draws up memories of a good friend rather than any of my relatives (yet this friend being close enough to be one) and not only because of the composer's name which is displayed on the tab above this (Edvard Grieg) but because of an event from years ago. I remember finding a tab for this song in my early years of bass playing and being very excited about it, and when I relayed my excitement to him about it he responded with not disgusted but distaste for the song. I do not know why this has stuck with me, I was not really disappointed with the opinion -in fact I have trusted this man's opinion on most situations over my own- but for some reason I can remember almost every detail of this situation, down to which poster lay behind him in my room at that time. It is these small things which help me cope with the idea that he is overseas and shall not be physically 'here' for quite some time. It is now half past six, I have four hours of 'studying' left before the test, I have missed my chance at doing something nice for my now gone-to-work roommate, and I have now resumed my original assigned playlist.

I wonder if a famous composer ever sat back half way through a composition and decided right then and there that this would be his most masterful piece, never again will he be able to achieve such perfection, and only goes on to finish it poorly such as this.

With perhaps a little too much into the simple mind of me,
-Richard

Vocabulary

2009-09-29T14:01:00.002-06:00

D'tale(s): /n. [v. di-teyl]

verb - (use with object)

The object is always to be a human being (be it alive or dead)
(use to replace details (see details) added with syntax "of my life" or a synonym of such)

1. To sum up exclusive items of ones life through vocal chord vibration (or speech) told in such a way to keep the object (human) present next to the speaker interested in the story of the subject's (human) recent past.

Sentence - I'll fill you in on the d'tales.

A little Fletcher for you

2009-09-28T02:37:00.003-06:00

He watched the countless windows of various office buildings fly by and hated the architects who first thought up the concept for office buildings. He watched the content wandering people of the city walk by and hated them. He briefly watched a man sitting on a bench and in the two seconds the man was in his sights he recognized that not only was this man a better sandwich maker than he was, but also that this man was enjoying his sandwich much more than Fletcher ever had. He hated the man. A fairly disgusting blotchy sound interrupted his sightseeing, a large seagull had dumped its load in perfect timing to splat on the windshield of the taxi he was seated in, resulting in many curses from the driver. He hated the driver, he was not going to tip him. The driver attempted to clean the large liquidy white excrement from the windshield with his shitty window wipers, Fletcher hated the streaks being left behind. The taxi was out of window washing fluid and the smears now covered nearly all visibility for the driver. Fletcher thought about how he liked window washing fluid but hated the cab for having none. The cabbie had miscalculated how much of a turn was required to hit the right lane as they jogged left on a yellow. Fletcher hated the streetlights. The cab crashed through a very successful tie manufacturer’s store, a tie rack previously sitting perpendicular to the sidewalk outside pushed its way through the windshield and as the car came to rest atop a sales clerk pushed its way through the drivers chest and into the back seat next to Fletcher. Fletcher experienced whiplash for the first time in his life and was unimpressed with the amount of pain actually felt by it. He stared at the driver now gasping for air through deflated lungs and estimated that he only had about four gasps left before death fell upon the man. He hated the colours on this rack of ties. He exited the vehicle with nothing more than a scraped knee and hated the crushed sales clerk for getting to die before he did. He stared at the crowd of growing curious onlookers and do-gooders trying to save the two helpless men. He hated heroes.

seared flesh

2009-07-14T02:41:00.002-06:00

my world of warcraft character has been lost.

close laptop.

go do real shit.

and then there was silence.
just a voice from the other world.

Gummy Lap

2009-06-10T14:17:00.004-06:00

Andrew was standing in a fairly strange lopsided way that only he could really stand at, having the advantage of left-to-right leg length ratios being perfectly articulated for this sort of stance, his friends all referred to this specific 'stance' if it would be called one, which it wouldnt, it personally preferred the french version much nicer, for this stance was one much more aristocratic than other regular stances such as 'the regular', 'the flamingo (right foot up, left foot down)', 'the reverse flamingo (right foot down, left foot up)', and the reverse regular, who was a little pompous but still looked silly enough to never get any respect, which was referred to by his friends as 'the andrew stance' or 'tas' for short. Andrew was currently in the process of counting the skin cells located upon his girlfriends face with his more-acute-than-the-average-eye-eyeballs. he was at something around 2153 when she sneezed. "of course. fuck." he said aloud and was preparing himself to start again, she of course, was looking deeply into his eyes for this whole time and had only paused in the staring to turn away to keep soaring strings of mucas from attaching themselves to her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriends earlobes and eyelashes. when she asked 'whats wrong?' (an appropriate response to such a rude comment on his part) he explained to her what he was doing, and she was instantly struck with an extreme sensation to pull a stance-to-move combo of her own that she had perfected, the slap'n'turn, which finalizes with her never calling this dirtbag ever again, for she was thinking the whole time previous to both the sneeze and rude comment that he was indeed staring back at her eyes and was attempting to create what some scientists have called 'the holy moment' while others called it 'falling asleep with eyes open' and even more calling it 'staring contest'. She pitched the fierce eyebrows and bit-bottom lip, struck fierce, spun around with such ferocity that her ponytail slapped Andrew just under the nose (approximately 365 strands of hair struck his face by his count, which he would agree later was perhaps a very ironic number of hair with its close encounter the the days of the year, but then dismissing it as that it was a leap year.) she walked away, and Andrew looked at the ground he stood on in what any onlookers would agree was sorrow. In truth, Andrew was simply counting the rocks in the alleyway.

goodbye horses

2009-05-14T17:22:00.004-06:00

IVAN: So let me get this straight, you plan on entering the world of competitive chapstick production with 20 dollars?

educatiomanized.

2009-03-29T16:03:00.004-06:00

a loud crack was heard as all his knots accumulated into what could only be referred to as treeacide and he fell over, more depressed and lonely than any crossroad sign ever to come before him, his fall seemed long and overly dramatic and gave him enough time to ponder the ancient saying "if a tree falls alone in the forest..."

some for-sure made up numbers.

2009-03-11T00:53:00.003-06:00

31764: the number of words that currently make up Where's Sly Part 2.
5662: the number of videos on youtube i have watched. (not including doubles)
80: the number of words per minute i can type during a history class.
31: the number of days i can go without any one thing.
3: the number of strings on my bass guitar.
6: the number of essays i have before this semester ends.
38: the number of days until this semester is over.
7: the number of times my middle knuckle on my right hand has cracked today.
10: the number of rubix cubes i own.
220: the number of christmas lights in my room.
20: the number of dollars an average paperback novel costs.
20: the number of dollars you should always place on red.
3: the number of times i've been to victoria.
2: the number of the season of x files i'm on.
6: the number of relatives i have who read this blog, forcing me to censure it a little and stopping me from putting what i really want to put down in this column. (ha ha! multiple entrendre!) (ha ha! that joke also had multiple entrendre!)
211: the number of cds i own.
7: the number of times greg will be seen in my room a week.
2: the number of pink flamingos i own.
-30: the number of degrees towards the celcius we currently are sitting at.
12: the number of super nintendo games i own.
60: the number of volume ideal for watching x files.
64: the number of millions i'm sure to win in the lottery.
11: the number my amplifier does not go to.
1: the number of boxers i own sans holes.
3: the number of posters on my roof.
18: the number of dollars in my bank account.
12: the number of months i have been moved out for.
47: the number I INVENTED.
37: the number at which you are still not old.
01010010: the number in binary to make the letter R.
8: the number that looks like infinite sideways.
8: the number of numbers on my student id that must be memorized.
10: the number of numbers of digits there are in our system.
160: the number of times ive considered quitting earls.
3: the number of keys i carry around.
16: the number of pages i have hanging in my room which are untyped for my book.
7: the number of fat old men i can think of that i have laughed at.
8: the number of rogues i am about to pull.
191225: the number that you should shut up and not ask questions about.

More Lust, Less fuss.

2008-10-13T20:00:00.003-06:00

"A once much more famous than ever before type guy named Tommy Jane passed the P.I. on the street, unaware of not only the conflict of interests between the two, this Tommy also having dreams of floating his fingers in and out of files, profiles, and expertfiles, and also the conflict of having the same name, Tommy Jane passed him without even the tip of his very detective-like hat, touching it at the brim, no, he was much too concerned with a whole different kind of file, a pedophile."