Danika Dinsmore

Author / Educator / Activist

funny poop

Practical Procrastination Techniques #3 – Research Random Things on the Internet

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Because, hey, you never know when a clever turn of phrase, an insignificant fact, or a fleeting moment of genius could help you out of a tight situation. Like an awkward silence at an industry networking party, for instance!

As poet Bernadette Mayer says, if it’s not writing, it’s research.

~  ~  ~

A friend of mine’s facebook status stated that she might be Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobic. Since I absolutely have to know what every word I run across means, I dutifully looked it up (see Practical Procrastination Techniques #2). It means fear of the number 666 (fear that it is related to satan and the anti-christ).

Well, me being the cheeky monkey that I am (and not even stopping to consider that this may be a serious phobia of hers), I attempted to cure her ailment with a bit of Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobic humour. I found most of these online HERE (I didn’t make these up, I stole them with glee).

670 Approximated Number of the Beast

DCLXVI Roman Numeral of the Beast

333 Number of the Semi-Beast

66 Number of the Downsized Beast

0.666 Number of the Millibeast

-666 Opposite of the Beast

25.8069758… Square Root of the Beast

1010011010 Binary Number of the Beast

00666 Zip Code of the Beast

www.666.com Website of the Beast

1-666-666-6666 Phone or FAX Number of the Beast

(1-888-666-6666 Toll Free Number of the Beast)

1-900-666-6666 Live Beasts, available now! One-on-one pacts! Only $6.66 per minute! [Must be over 18!]

666-66-6666 Social Security Number of the Beast

Form 10666 Special IRS Tax Form for the Beast

66.6% Tax Rate of the Beast

6.66% 6-Year CD Interest Rate at First Beast Bank of Hell ($666 minimum deposit, $666 early withdrawal fee)

$665.95 Retail Price of the Beast

$769.95 Price of the Beast with accessories and replacement soul

$656.66 Wal-Mart Price of the Beast (next week $646.66!)

$55.50 Monthly Payments for Beast, in 12 easy installments

666o F Oven Temperature for Cooking “Roast Beast”

666 mg Recommended Minimum Daily Requirement of Beast

Word 6.66 Word Processor of the Beast

#666666 Font Color of the Beast (the gray in this table!)

IAM 666 License Plate Number of the Beast

66.6 MHz FM Radio Station of the Beast

666 KHz AM Radio Station of the Beast

okay, now, back to work!

Office Cleaning Randomness

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I’m a compulsive list-maker, so I’m always finding lists everywhere (I just created a list-management system, which may in fact change my life). I was cleaning my In-Box and found a list of short stories I was working on. In the middle of the list was written:

Monday: bury dog.

Tuesday: bury cat.

Wednesday: buy camel.

Thursday: sell camel.

Friday: buy car.

Saturday: drive to zoo.

Sunday: set all the animals free.

~  ~  ~

I realized this must have been meant for my To-Do list, so I moved it there. I can’t really afford a car right now, so I’ll have to bike to the zoo. And actually, Vancouver doesn’t have a zoo, so I’ll have to bike to the Aquarium.

Setting free marine life would be a bit of a mess, so I think I’ll just set free some 2-toed sloths (They have 2-toed sloths at the Vancouver Aquarium. I mean, what aquarium is complete without them, right?).

If you’d like to join my SET FREE THE SLOTHS Facebook page, please CLICK HERE.

from August 3:15 2008

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I was cruising Art Predator’s blog (highly recommended as a worthy distraction) and was inspired by THIS ENTRY of one of the poems she wrote for last year’s 3:15 Experiment.

I grew DETERMINED to get the rest of my 2008 and 2009 3:15 poems typed up and logged on the the official 3:15 site!!!

As I was doing so, I came across this little goodie from Aug 2008. I don’t recall writing it, I don’t recall if it’s from a dream or a TV show or a conversation. I just thought it was really cool.

3:15 AM
August 25, 2008

pulling 3 monsters in a red wagon
no one knows how she found them
dead or how they were placed   she
was all grins    speechless but sparkling
we take her in     traumatized she speaks
not for 13 years

one day she is looking out the window
like a cat she has always been
cat-like      she turns and asks
what’s for lunch?   and
who is T.S. Elliot?
her afternoons measured     out
like spoons               her words
ring silvery in the living room
we pretend not to be shocked at
her sudden vocalization
egg salad we say
famous poet we say

she turns back to the window
I prefer tuna

Best Description of a Bad Hangover Ever

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from Neil Gaiman‘s Anansi Boys

Fat Charlie was thirsty and his head hurt and his mouth tasted evil and his eyes were too tight in his head and all his teeth twinged and his stomach burned and his back was aching in a way that started around his knees and went up to his forehead and his brains had been removed and replaced with cotton balls and needles and pins which was why it hurt to try and think, and his eyes were not just too tight in his head but they must have rolled out in the night and been reattached with roofing nails; and now he noticed that anything louder than the gentle Brownian motion of air molecules drifting softly past each other was above his pain threshold. Also, he wished he were dead.

AnansiBoys_UnabridgedCD_1185501006

Blake Snyder’s Logline Contest

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And speaking of Blake Snyder and loglines… he’s having a contest on his blog. The deadline is Feb 18.

The idea is that you have to change one letter in the title of a famous movie, and write the logline for that film.

For Example:

GONE WITH THE WINE — Scarlett “Merlot” O’Hara is a southern belle and lightweight drinker, whose fierce ambition to save her ante-bellum home changes to a mumbled “fiddle-dee-dee” whenever she has more than one glass of “Tara-ble” table wine.

One of his readers named Gary has come up with some good ones:

Nightmare on Elf Street – A killer is targeting the happy helpers of the North Pole threatening to kill Christmas. Ho, ho horror.

and

The Fridges of Madison County – When called to fix an ice maker a Maytag repairman falls in love with a married woman.

Here are my entries:

AMERICAN PIG
Four young hogs make a pact to sew their wild oats before they become breakfast sausages.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD YEN
A hunter is pursued by Yakuza after he stumbles across a pile of heroin and Japanese cash.