Today's the Day the Teddybears Have Their Annual Company-Wide Meeting

BOISE, Id. -

In sharp contrast to last week's teddybear picnic, whose theme was one of furtive amusement, today's annual TeddybearCorp employee meeting was fraught with tension. The meeting, held in a conference room at the Palisades Hotel, drew on for over six hours as teddybear CEO Snuffle-Wuffles delivered the yearly financial reports, making extensive use of PowerPoint slides and at one point nearly blinding a smaller plush toy as he frantically gesticulated with a laser pointer. The news was sobering for some.

"We've experienced a marked downturn in the rate of teddybear production due in part to new regulations regarding Chinese toy importation, and the bottleneck is still affecting our usual distribution channels," said Snuffle-Wuffles. "But there's a problem on the demand side as well. Youths are turning more and more to video games and other more high-tech entertainments, and there's just not as much call for stuffed bears anymore. How are we supposed to compete with the Nintendo Wii, for example? The closest thing to high tech we have is Vice President Ruxpin over there, and that's just because he needs batteries."

Asked for comment, TeddybearCorp Vice President Theodore Ruxpin merely moved his mouth up and down in vague synchronicity with a prerecorded speech.

After the news, stock in TeddybearCorp (HUG) plummeted ten points to a record low of $3/share. "We have to change with the times, or we're sunk," said Paddington Bear, the company's head of marketing. "We can't conduct our new advertising strategy as we would our picnics - beneath the trees, where nobody sees. That just doesn't make a whole lot of sense in this day and age." When asked how he would gauge the company's future prospects in light of the recent stock bail-outs, Paddington replied, "Let's put it this way: this rain gear I'm wearing has gone from cute accessory to ominous metaphor. And there are more storms ahead."

CEO Snuffle-Wuffles appears to be equally grim on the company's future prospects. "At the picnic, there was a certain tone of melancholy underneath all the frolicking - it was as if we all knew that things as we knew them were coming to an end. And after today's meeting, I think it's safe to say that we're ALL tired little teddybears." Snuffle-Wuffles paused for a moment, seemingly overcome by emotion. When pressed further, he exhibited the same fiery spirit for which he has been known throughout his long career. "Of course I'm not crying, you moron. My eyes are made of buttons."

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

Missed Connection ("Kestrel")

This past Tuesday, or a few weeks ago Friday. Glimpsed you on Congress Street, slowly rotating a kestrel. I was going to suggest you might be more successful with a more sedentary, flightless bird, but my mouth was full of marzipan and I didn't want you to think I was a mumbler. You were beautiful, then.

You slid a record on the turntable, the soundtrack to Disney's "The Lion King", and I was surprised to find that when reversed, the song "Hakuna Matata" was clearly stating: "Art Tatum, a new car". It made sense, as the last vehicle the jazz pianist was seen driving was a rusting Bentley with missing hubcaps.

I'd been riding cold medicine for days, so I'm not sure it happened. You might be a figment of my imagination. But, extrapolating Descartes, I think you think, therefore I think you are. Though a brick does not think, I think it exists as well, as I was struck by one in a mugging last February, and the pain was very real. Justifying existence makes my head spin. Will you be the one to take a hold of it for me, so I don't get dizzy?

Delirious responses only.

Opening Themes

I believe I should begin by saying, "Welcome to Ritalin Hum!" and move into the reasons that pharmaceutical companies and Irish bands should not sue me.

Welcome to Ritalin Hum!

This blog is not about drugs, and neither advocates nor decries the FINE products that our TIRELESSLY toiling HEROES in the pharmaceutical industry have to offer EACH AND EVERY DAY to MAKE OUR LIVES BETTER. Often at quite reasonable prices.

Neither am I a fan or detractor of the notoriously litigious POP PHENOMENON known as U2, fronted by famously ALTRUISTIC SUPERSTAR Bono and distinctive in its LARGELY UNDERRATED guitar work from slightly-less-legendary "The Edge", a man so MINDBOGGLINGLY COOL that simply renaming himself as a sharp object was not enough- he had to distinguish himself at the top of the sharp object heirarchy by appending the definite article.

Some things that I will write about:

• ghosts
• teddy bears
• etymology
• dystopia
• car accidents
• the inevitable collision of the Earth and the sun

... and anything else that might strike me as funny.

I suffer from Infinite Personality Disorder, a little known condition wherein a writer cannot, no matter how hard he tries, find his "voice". Therefore you will be subject to my experiments in style in much the same way as a laboratory bunny is subject to being sprayed in the face with popular fragrances. You may feel a burning sensation.

In closing, welcome. Thanks for stopping by. The eye-wash facilities are located in the corridor to the left.