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  • Mindy, Hold The Mork…

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    alligator Some of you have been asking how the “Coffee Talk” blog went over with my “College Girlfriends.” Well, I have to say, it seems that it went over well. Mindy shall be remaining Mindy, unless we slip and call her Muffy, which could possibly happen. I mean after all, the last day of classes she did haul off and show up wearing an alligator embellished polo shirt and packing a shopping bag from Whole Foods Market. However, the bag and its contents are fodder for a different blog. The point I am trying to make here is that we don’t have to call her Miffy (yet). She actually got a good laugh out of the “Coffee Talk” entry, as did Karen.

    In fact, the two of them found it even more amusing than I had imagined they would… As in Laugh Out Loud funny… To the point of calling friends, relatives, and even writing to their congressmen to tell them they should read it.

    Some of them did, and I now have a senator calling for an investigation of me. Something to do with “illegally purveying satire to the humor challenged.” I’m not quite sure how that is going to pan out, but I’m not really allowed to talk about it at the moment. All I can say is that my attorneys, Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe are on the case.

    dchowe At any rate, much to my delight, because of a single entry on Brainpan Leakage, my college girlfriends effectively provided me with even more blog fodder…

    Mindy topped the stairs, plodded across the mezzanine, then plopped down in her chair at the C4K “Coffee Talk” table. As she leaned back and slid down in the seat she let out an exasperated sigh.

    Karen looked over at me, then at Mindy. “So, did you get a gun yet?”

    “No,” Mindy replied, brushing off the gun reference as old hat.

    “West county people,” Karen grumbled, shaking her head.

    I picked up my cell phone from the table and checked the time. Mindy was actually running a bit late. We’d expected her a good ten minutes ago. Not only that, she didn’t look to be her usual Mindyish self. By that I mean, no polo, no sweater tied around her neck, no pearls, no Star-Make-A-Bucks… Nada… As a matter of fact, she was wearing a baggy t-shirt, her hair was pulled back into a short tail and the rest was covered with a baseball cap. I  studied the uncharacteristic look for a moment, then laid the cell phone back onto the table and nodded toward my newly arrived girlfriend.

    “Casual Thursday?” I asked.

    She sighed again. “You just wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.”

    I expressed an appropriate modicum of concern. “Anything wrong?”

    “Can’t be much,” Karen grunted. “She’s sittin’ in her chair.”

    “But look at her…” I replied. “I mean, slum city here…”

    “Hey!” Mindy objected.

    Karen gave her head a dismissive shake. “Finally dressing normal for a change. Besides, she still doesn’t have a gun. If it was real trouble she’d have a gun.”

    Mindy tapped her fingers hard on the table. “Hey! I’m right here you two. I can hear you, you know.”

    I turned my attention back to our disheveled cohort. “Yeah, okay, so what gives? Why the bad day?”

    She breathed heavily. “Well, you know that blog you wrote?”

    “Yeah,” I said with a nod, a bit of concern now creasing my forehead. “I thought you liked it?”

    “Oh, I did,” she told me with a typical, animated Mindy nod.

    “She still shoulda shot that idiot who was using the expired milk,” Karen mumbled.

    “So what’s the problem?” I asked Mindy, leaving Karen to complain to herself.

    “Well, I told several of my friends they should read your blog.”

    “Okay…” I said, waiting for the other shoe.

    “So, two of them emailed me about it,” she explained.

    “How many did you tell?”

    “Everyone in my email address book.”

    I raised an eyebrow. “Roughly how many is that? I’m assuming more than two?”

    “Not many,” she told me with a shake of her head. “Only three thousand four hundred and twelve people.”

    “I see.” I shrugged. “But only two responded, so that’s your issue?”

    “I’m still waiting on the others. The issue is what they said.”

    “Okay, so did the two that wrote back to you hate it or something?”

    “If they did, just shoot ’em,” Karen offered.

    burn notice “You know, Karen,  everyone who reads my blog thinks you’re that killer woman on Burn Notice,” I said, glancing over at Big K.

    “You mean the hottie with the gun?” she asked.

    “I dunno,” I replied. “I’ve never seen it myself.”

    Karen nodded and grinned. “I saw a commercial. Yeah. I can be her. I’m good with that.”

    “Can we get back to my problem?” Mindy appealed.

    “Yeah, yeah,” I said with a nod. “You’re right. So what’s the deal? Whaddid they say?”

    “That’s just it. Not much. One of them said, ‘ewwww, what did corporate say?‘ And the other one just said, ‘what did corporate say?‘.”

    “No ewwww on the second one?” I asked.

    “That’s not my point.”

    “Did you…” Karen started.

    Mindy cut her off, “No Karen, I didn’t shoot them.”

    “You should have.”

    I shrugged again. “Okay, so what’s the problem?”

    “These are funny people,” she replied. “They both have a great sense of humor. But all they focused on was wanting to know what the Star-Make-A-Buck’s Corporate Office said.”

    “Are you sure they’re actually funny?” I asked. “Sometimes it’s easy to mistake an attack of gas for a smile you know. They could just be digesting some serious roughage or something.”

    “I was pretty sure they were funny,” Mindy told me with a shrug. “But now I just don’t know. I think maybe they just didn’t get the joke.”

    “What is it with you West county people?” Karen asked. “Not getting jokes that even a three year old can understand. Is something in the water out there affecting your brains?”

    “Karen!” Mindy admonished.

    “Hey, I’m just sayin’,” Karen replied with a shrug. “So… You want me to shoot ’em for you?”

    I still don’t know if Mindy has heard back from any more of her friends, and I haven’t seen any news reports featuring Karen barricaded in her chair with a gun, so I’m pretty sure things are okay. Still, I hope Mindy remembers to let me know if she does hear any more from her funny friends.

    I suppose it all depends on that West county water.

    More to come…

    Murv

  • You Asked For It…

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    Evil Kat says, "Come here so I can beat you..."
    Yeah… That’s usually what E K says right about the time she is stomping on my head, or slapping me around with a frying pan. It usually comes on the heels of her saying, “You’re really ASKING for it!” Next thing I know I’m on the floor, flat on my back, with her standing on my chest screaming, yeah, you guessed it, “You ASKED for it!”

    (In all honesty I probably did, but that’s not the point…)

    However, let’s get back to this asking thing, because this time “You Asked For It” isn’t all about a beatdown from The Redhead. In this case it actually pertains to a goodly number of you folks who are regular readers of Brainpan Leakage. You see, over the years I have engaged in that widely used guerrilla marketing tactic known as “branded swag”… You know, logoed / embossed apparel, coffee mugs, etc, just like you get from corporate vendors every Christmas. Yeah, that sort of stuff. Only mine is way cooler than the stuff you get from some random widget company…

    MUG FREEFELICITY

    So, anyway, throughout the years folks have been pretty excited about such things as the Miranda and Free Felicity Tee-Shirts, Coffee Mugs with various quotes from the RGI characters, and other such sundries. However, for the past year or so I haven’t been putting any of that stuff out there. Apparently this has been an issue for quite a few folks, because in recent months not only have I been receiving a major load of email asking where and/or when such items as listed above can be obtained, but there have been a ton of requests for Brainpan Leakage Swag… Most notably Evil Kat Brainpan Leakage Swag. It seems a lot of you ladies seriously identify with her and some of you men want to… well… let me just say, “Back off, dudes. She’s mine.” (Well…actually, I’m hers, but that’s just a matter of semantics… Don’t tell her I said that, okay?)…

    Besides, she will hurt you… Like blow your deductible out of the water hurt you… I mean it… We’re seriously talking you’d better have AFLAC kind of hurt you…

    Of course, if you want a Tee-Shirt with The Evil Redhead on it, I can live with that. (And, so can you because you will still be able to function in daily life without the aid of medical equipment and round the clock care.)

    MIRANDA
    PROPERTYOFEVILKAT

    But seriously… I really and truly have had a ton of requests for more Swag and especially E K Swag.

    ITTAKESAWITCH So, since many of you asked for it, I worked out a deal with On The Edge Graphics, the crew that creates the killer posters and advertising stuff for my books, and the folks responsible for some of the artwork on the early RGI Swag. Between my own limited artistic ability and their superior talent, some new Swag has been born and they have set up an official web store. Since demand doesn’t always translate into sales, this is being done through Cafepress much like I used to do it, however the markups are minimal. Basically, just enough to cover expenses AND allow a charitable donation to a wildlife / conservation organization of E Kay’s choice from a portion of the proceeds on anything bearing her signature or caricatured likeness. NOFLYZONE

    As of this writing, the store is still being set up, “stocked”, and all that jazz, however, it is officially open. More Swag is coming, and some of the old classics are going to be revamped and re-issued.

    So, there you go:

    On The Edge Graphics Cafepress Store

    …You asked for it, you got it… (Why do I feel like I should be ending that ditty with “Toy-oh-tah!”?)

    More to come…

    Murv