Swindon Town Swoodilypoopers have won the F.A. Cup!

• So, a few months ago on a friend's facebook page, this little something came out. The friend had accidentally written my name twice in a row, and so I came up with a story about a man so awesome he was named twice. I really liked it, and I wanted to develop it, maybe in some sort of serialized form on this website, but I never really got around to it. Call me lazy. Seriously, go ahead, call me lazy. Good, now that that is over with, read my little story.
  
  
  Ethan Ethan is the captain and pilot of the airship Freyja, searching for his evil brother Nahte Nahte. Every time he touches down in a new town, he gruffly sets things to right, all the while grumbling about getting a move on with the dang blasted voyage. His first mate is Frankenstein's lesser known third monster, who prefers to go by the name Percival. The cabin boy, little Robby, might or might not be Ethan Ethan's son (no one really knows). Either way, the captain and crew have adopted the boy as one of their own.
  
• Ethan Ethan's life has been a complicated one. He was born two days after his twin; Nahte Nahte was kidnapped in that short period of time. The fair wench Adelaide and the handsome Dr. Hargate Orsin, the children's dashing parents, rightly feared that their other son would be taken. In the still of the night, mere hours since his birth, the brave couple stowed away on the maiden voyage of the Freyja. Ten days out from port, the captain came down with consumption. In their small hold they heard the captain's wretched coughing. Remembering his Hippocratic Oath, the good doctor revealed himself and his family, offering his services to the captain in exchange for safe passage to the next port of call.
  
• The captain, Bartholomew Brabazone Batt Broder, agreed to the highly unusual arrangement, and allowed the small family to stay on board. The good doctor's treatments were effective enough that the captain pulled through. He was well enough by the time they arrived at the West Indies, he asked Dr. Hargate if he and his family would stay aboard and keep the crew in shape. Without hesitation, he soundly accepted
• The doctor might have taken longer to ponder the offer had he realized that the genteel captain and his crew were truly pirates, and not the British navy men they at first appeared. It was too late to back out when he finally realized. To be frank, he didn't want to. He, his sweet Adelaide, and his young son Ethan Ethan were safe from the scientists who had stolen Nahte Nahte for profane reasons not well understood. If any could teach the doctor how to deal with this dire threat, it was certainly the crew of the Freyja.
  
• Ethan Ethan has never slept on solid ground. Growing up as the beloved cabin boy aboard the Freyja, he soaked up as much as he could from any that would teach him. From his father he learned of the sciences, chemistry and alchemy and steamworking, as well as how to treat disease and shore up the human body. From his mother he learned the speech of the French, Germans, ancient Romans, and how to treat a lady. From Captain Bartholomew, he learned leadership, how to pilot an airship, and how to navigate over land and sea. From Percival, who even then was the first mate of the freyja, he learned to disregard prejudices, to read fantastic literature, and the proper way to drink tea. From Elvira Spring, the ship's weapon-master, he learned the way of the sword, the staff, the bow, and the gun. But the most important lesson did not come from any of these loved ones.
  
• When Ethan Ethan was but 13 years old, the Freyja was docked to the Eiffel Tower, delivering goods to Napoleon III, the Emperor of France. In addition to these legitimate goods, the crew was smuggling in a shipment of a mercury alloy to the alchemists of Roland Garros. Ethan Ethan was allowed, with permission from his father, to help the crew with their drop off while the Captain, Dr. Hargate and Adelaide went to dinner with the Emperor. The alchemists were late for their pickup, so the crew was late returning to the ship. As they wandered the streets of Paris, Ethan Ethan happily leading them in bawdy songs his mother would disapprove of, their leaders had returned to the Freyja. Adelaide had drank a tad much of the Emperor's wonderful wine, so she quickly retired to her room. Waiting for the crew to arrive on deck, the doctor and the captain lit their pipes and waited. In the dark of that Parisian night, they were caught unawares by the evil which had waited for them to return from dinner.
• Approaching the Eiffel Tower, Ethan Ethan had started to become tired. As he so often did when fatigued, he looked up to the night sky. As his gaze scanned the heavens he noticed an orange light emanating from the Freyja. With a shout, he realized he was seeing his beloved home bursting into flames. The crew saw the flames licking the majestic Freyja, and without thinking ran up the long stairs of the Tower.
• Aboard the ship, the captain and the doctor were battling both the fire, and a mysterious force. The nightwatchman, who had faithfully guarded the vessel for years, lay dead in a pool of blood. Straddling the body stood a figure, dark and shrouded. In his left hand he held a sword, still dripping with the blood of the dead man. In his right was a clockwork flamethrower, with flames licking the mechanisms. He had already set alight the topsail, from which he had descended only moments after the two men had stepped onto the deck.
  
  "Who are you?" The captain asked the figure as he slowly drew his sword. Hargate cursed himself for refusing to learn the ways of the sword as his son had, but he still he readied himself for a fight.
• Adelaide felt the heat. That was what woke her from her slight stupor, the overwhelming heat. Groggily getting out of bed, she clothed herself before venturing into the corridor. As she opened the door, the rush of fresh oxygen caused the flames to swoop towards her. Screaming, Adelaide ran the opposite way, towards the galley.
  
  Running into the galley, she cursed herself for reacting in such a stereotypical way. She was just glad that Hargate hadn't been here to...
  
  "Hargate!" How could she have forgotten about her husband, and her son, so quickly? She grabbed the largest pot she could see, which was still half full with the mornings gruel. She threw as much as she could into the flame, hoping it would smother the flames, before hurrying back into the galley to fill the pot with water. She was determined to be the heroine, whether she wanted to or not.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  "I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?" - J.R.R. Tolkien
  
  
  
  p.s. Sorry for the bad formatting.

If only Oprah would give me a whale, then I'd be happy!

So, it's been quite a while, blogger. How have you been?

I was talking to my friend Heather on skype last night, and we talked about how tumblr is making us lazy bloggers. Which sucks, because I want my blog to be a way to force me to write, and tumblr is kind of failing that criteria. So, I'll be updating this blog from time to time, just for those two or three million of my fans that want to know.

Oh, and I just joined this really cool thing called hitRECord. You should check it out. Her is a little something I wrote in ten minutes under this cool little prompt thing on the sight, and I think I might expand this into a longer short story.


Peppermint

Letters from my grandfather always smelled of peppermint and decay, just like his house. Looking through the faded, worn out scraps of paper, I can tell just by how shaky his signature is when the letter was written. Is the t still sharp and crisp? I must have been about four years old, and my parents would have helped me sound out the bigger words. Can you not really tell if his name ends in a w or a u or an n or an m, or maybe any other letter? I was sixteen when I received that one.

Grandaddy never talked to me like I was a child, but the letters we exchanged did start off fairly simplistic. By the last of them we had talked about death and life, the beauty to be found in the sun, stars, and a cute girl's ass, and even talked about religion and politics. Despite this, it was the last letter I received from him that made me feel like a man.

"Shit, son. The world is full of god-damned shit. But there is one thing that always smells like roses, and that is the good man who is willing to shovel that damned shit until he finds dirt. I fancy myself a shit shoveler, and I think you are one, too."

The visitation before his funeral was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Leaning over his still form, I kissed his forehead, and smelled peppermint.

"I wish life was not so short,' he thought. 'Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about." - J.R.R. Tolkien