Tag: gimcrackery

Three’s a Crowdypants

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Did you know that a group of otters is called a romp?  And a group of vultures is a wake?  You might.  You just might.  I mean, you knew that a group of crows is called a murder, right?  But did you know that a group of squid is a squad?  That’s right, a squad of squid!

A group of zebras is called a dazzle.  Easy to understand, right?  A group of flying swans is a wedge.  Some aren’t so easy.  A group of turtle doves is called a pitying.  A gerund?  Really?  Others like this include the chickens, called a chattering, and ducks, called a paddling.

A group of thrushes are called a mutation.  Wha???  A group of ferrets are called a business.  That one makes sense.  But a group of gnus are called an implausibility.  Huh?

Foxes:  a skulk.  Emus:  a mob.  Flamingoes:  a flamboyance (oh come on, is this alliteration for giggles or what?)

Anywho, I came up with some fun ones for additional fun fun funsies.

A group of rocks:  a hardly
A group of earthworms:  a spaghetti
A group of bats:  a flappy
A group of raccoons:  a masquerade
A group of penguins:  a formal
A group of hares:  a beard
A group of eggs:  a breakfast
A group of termites:  a board
A group of clams:  a clap
A group of bears:  a fuzzy
A group of Woody Harrelsons:  a Forest Harrelson
A group of squiggles:  a squoggle
A group of groups:  a groupgroup
A groupgroup of groups:  a groupgroupgroup
A group of beds:  a sleepy
A group of boats:  a floater
A group of frisky cats:  a cat-astrophe
A group of sloths:  a loaf
A group of lit sparklers:  a sparklocalypse
A group of cows:  a cowncil

What are some of yours?

Let’s Get Meta

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So what is the point of this whole blogging thing?  Why am I searching for ideas for content for my meager little corner of the web?  Why am I gearing up my brain to spout an itty-bitty packaged tale at readers every so often?  You didn’t ask me for it.  In fact, in my estimation, you’d probably be better without it.

But I’m putting a book up for sale soon. I am a garage saler, and Shame the Devil is my old, dusty Atari console that just happens to still work (if you were lucky enough to read Harry Potter as a child, fret not over your confusion – an Atari is like a Playstation, but made of twigs and rocks and powered by a hamster wheel). I have marked my ancient video game console with a buy-me-please low price, but how do I get anyone to see it?

Here’s how:

  1. I take the tops of last week’s pizza boxes and write ‘Garage Sale’ crudely on them with a sharpie, in true homeless beggar style.
  2. I duct-tape these to the street signs not only at the ends of my own street, but at major intersections all over the area.

If I want my archaeological artifact of electronic recreation to actually sell, I need to make sure that every passerby in the tri-county sell-zone knows that some schmuck on Elm Street eats lots of pizza and is having a garage sale.  It’s the same for my novel.  Nobody’s gonna read it if I don’t plaster it everywhere, sparing no exclamation points.

But I’m no blogger. Or at least, that’s what I thought until the need to put my narrative nonsense into the minds of others struck me like a flying slab of slaptastic salami. I think though, that the nonsense I blather at my friends could easily translate into a tasty blog – perhaps that’s where the term actually came from after all. Blog = Blather Log? Or perhaps it’s actually an acronym: Boring List of Gimcrackery.

So here’s my first real blog, done for the sake of itself. I hope it inspires a teeny spot of interest in my book. It’s cheap, and I’m told it’s fun to read. At any rate, reading it has to be more inspiring than playing Space Invaders for a comparable period of time.

Probably, anyway.