Genesis of a Gambit
- Alex
I will freely admit this morning that I have writer's block. It sucks. I've thought about several things to write about, and none of them
cut the mustard, so to speak. What's up with that phrase anyway? How hard is it to cut mustard? If something doesn't cut mustard, it must really
suck, mustn't it? Is mustn't even a word? In any event, rather than actually work to come up with something, I've decided to just include everything
that I've mentally proposed and rejected, with the thought that quantity might just be enough to equal quality. (It's the quantity, not the quality. ...
She means quality, not quantity. ... I'm in my tree. I'm listening to the Dixie Chicks. They're giving me good advice.)
First I was gonna paste in a couple headlines from the ol' News of the Weird - one about the woman
who dug up her boyfriend's grave and drank the beer from his coffin, and another about a dog who
called 911 when its owner fell out of her wheelchair, and opened the door for police when they arrived. It just didn't seem like it was going to become long enough
for my Gambit criteria. (Like perhaps a paragraph.)
Then I was going to cut and paste an old brain teaser that I have saved in a random email from two years ago. But that's just mailing it in, to make a
horrible pun.
Then I thought about writing about the impending election, but I felt my blood pressure rising, and the bottom line is that I just want it to be over so that
the Republicans can charge me with thought-crime and put me out of my misery. So, I deep-sixed that idea.
Then I read a story about Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger and marvelled at the fact
that it had nothing to do with show business or wrestling. I mean, I grew up in the 80s, and who would have ever guessed that both those men would have been
state governors by the year 2004? Seriously. I'm also shocked that I was able to spell Schwarzenegger on my first attempt. Again, though, there's
very little meat to this topic.
Then I got bored and decided to read ESPN.com, where I read an article about a golfer who made 500 grand on the PGA tour this year, and that wasn't even going
to be enough to keep his tour card... which made me wonder about just how good you'd have to be to play on the minor league golf tours (at least a 2 handicap or
better, by the way). That'd be a stressful way to live, though...
So then I gave up and read my email. After lamenting my block to Becca, she was kind enough to offer up some options: pure being ball thing
(I've already made one horribly obscure I [Heart] Huckabees reference), the excellent effects of bar trivia
on your brain (especially when I know more about rodeo than wadE, yes), Minnesotans forgetting how to drive in bad weather (which involves
lots of panicked braking), or the bizarre phenomenon of women finding Jason Schwartzman attractive (I know of at least two, and it is somewhat baffling).
So that was nice of her to offer options.
But, in the end I decided to give up and just do something crappy. Which leads us back to... d'oh! It's a vicious cycle. And it's time for coffee now, anyway.
So I'm out. Have a good weekend everyone.
What do you think? Drop us a line at webmaster@simpleprop.com and give us some
feedback. Maybe we'll even run your letters in future Gambits. 'The Daily Gambit' is updated every weekday.
