From The Writer’s Almanac for 5 October: It’s the birthday of the avant-garde novelist who wrote under the name Flann O’Brien, (books by this author) born Brian O’Nolan in Strabane, Ireland (1911). He worked as a civil servant, and he was always impeccably dressed and was a very productive worker, so no one guessed that [...]
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NEW! Pillow Talk [the short humour site | 17 september 2010] “I’m going out tonight. I thought you would want to go out tonight. We haven’t been out for a while.” “But you promised.” “Are you coming or not?” “All day I’ve thought about pillows. Foam rubber pillows, down-filled pillows, feather pillows, throw pillows, body [...]
NEW! The Alley [thrillers killers n chillers | 12 september 2010] After midnight and I’m in the Mexican fast food drive-thru ordering coffee, black, with a packet of salt. The drive-thru because years ago all the 24-hour diners shut down for the night, the salt to take the bitterness out of the day-old brew they’re [...]
I wrote about my love of the Travis McGee series here, and I just finished another one, Free Fall in Crimson, accurately described here as “Sex, guns and murder written for people with brains.” Here’s a thought from McGee’s sidekick, Meyer, from way back in 1981, about 10 years before the web even got started: [...]
REPRINT! Story of a Generation [calliope nerve | september 2010] [poeticdiversity | december 2009] All history is the story of rebellion, for without rebellion there are no stories to tell. Without rebellion there is only tradition, the stories told without telling. Without rebellion there is no generation, just as every generation has its rebellion. Continue [...]
From God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (or, Pearls Before Swine) by Kurt Vonnegut (1965): Possibly Related: Too Much Information? Ignore It Too Much Information? What ‘Fact-Checking’ Means Online Filed under: etc. & misc.
NEW! Joe’s Perfect Machine [bartleby snopes | august 2010] Cigarette tucked in the corner of his thin pink lips, a man sat on the floor of his ill-lit kitchen nursing two fingers of five dollar bourbon, sketching out his plan for the perfect machine. He was drawing straight lines mostly, curves for wings, a panel [...]
NEW! Love Without Tax, or: How I Met My Wife [long story short | august 2010] She said she was into philately, which I thought was odd to just toss out in casual conversation but I got pretty excited and asked something like, “How exactly do you people get into that sort of thing?” and [...]
NEW! The Freeing of the Wardens [camroc press review | 28 July 2010] Once they realized they had never known each other, the Wardens divorced. But first they had to meet, and then they had to court, and then they had to wed. After the wedding, the marriage started. Continue reading at Camroc Press Review. [...]
My buddy’s brother Joe is making his first full-length feature film, Master of Inventions, a comedy about the world’s worst inventor. AND FOR JUST $20 YOU CAN PRE-ORDER THE DVD AND TELL ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS THAT YOU’RE AN EXECUTIVE PRODUCER WHILE THEY AWKWARDLY BASK IN YOUR GLORY! If I still haven’t sold you, first [...]
NEW! A Metamorphosis [black lantern | summer 2010] Gregory Samson awoke one morning to find himself firmly rooted in reality. He scratched his soft, fleshy belly, yawned, rolled over and stretched his legs, pushing his feet — first one, then the other, two in total — away from his torso, and wondered if perhaps one [...]
Thank you for the honor and the privilege. Until we meet again, Bob P.S. Happy King’s Birthday! Filed under: Cambodia
That’s right, people — after 2 years abroad and over 240 posts, Bobsoldout.com is soon moving back State-side. Of course we’re taking the Music Archive and our highly skilled Research Laboratory with us, but John Fontaine is staying here (he will, of course, continue sending in his column, right after he recovers from a mysterious [...]
I received this real message in the mailbag recently: Dear Mr. John Fontaine, noted pulp fiction writer and real man of the world, Is anything more insulting than someone cleaning your toilet? Awaiting your reply most frenziedly, [name withheld] Dear Most Frenziedly, Assuming we’re talking about the same thing here, the short answer is “Yes,” [...]
Everyone knows that the only thing worse than being caught in a shower without an umbrella is being caught in a storm without having taken a shower… UNTIL NOW: Send your requests for new inventions to bob [at] bobsoldout.com, subject: ULTIMATE INVENTIONS. More Inventions can be found here. Filed under: ultimate inventions
Picking up my room recently I found the following: 1. A worksheet about making comic strips that would’ve been really helpful when I was teaching comic strips to some students 2. A roll of Oreo cookies that I had apparently hidden from myself 3. A note to myself that read simply, “bananas” Filed under: Cambodia, [...]
So over the last few months I watched all 5 seasons of The Wire (HBO, 2002-08). Now I realize I’m a little behind the times on this one, but let me just say, if you aren’t watching The Wire, then you are wasting your life. Filed under: etc. & misc.
I just turned on my laptop computer machine to write my monthly Tough Love column and I opened up the electronic Tough Love document and realized I had started writing it earlier: You plug a lamp with a frayed cord into an electrical socket and you’ll have pretty good lighting for a while, but one [...]
A few minutes into (attemptedly) stitching up a small hole in a pair of shorts and I realize that 1) I haven’t sewn anything in years, and 2) about 5 minutes away is a market full of tailors…
Filed under: Cambodia, etc. & misc.
One of our favorite holiday seasons here at Bobsoldout.com is Christmas-in-July, a snow holiday in the middle of the summer. Well here in Cambodia April is one of the hottest months, right before the rain starts again, so we present a Christmas-in-April playlist instead:
The Who — “Christmas”
The Flaming Lips — “Christmas at the Zoo”
Swearing at [...]
Every year, after (or possibly before or between, depending how you see things) the International New Year and the Chinese New Year, we celebrate the Khmer New Year, a three-day holiday that feeds the official two-week school break in the middle of April. If last year is any indication, water balloons will be thrown at [...]
Went down to the river last week to do some tax-deductible cow research for the book I’m writing, Cows, Cowards, Cowboys, and Vampires: The Rise of Count Cowcula, now in its third revision.
I sat and watched cows going down a small hill for a few hours. Most of the younger cows sort of leapt down [...]
And now, the people who brought you the Harmonocle, the Perpetually Downhill Bicycle, and Hants, are proud to present to you …
Send your requests for new inventions to bob [at] bobsoldout.com, subject: ULTIMATE INVENTIONS. More Inventions can be found here.
Filed under: ultimate inventions
A lot of people might not realize this, but when you search a word or phrase on Google or Yahoo! (or any of the others), the website you click is sent the word or phrase you were searching for. Theoretically this helps websites improve their content and search engines improve their results, but right now [...]
(Thanks to everyone who sent me this.)
*You have Grand Slams here, right?
Filed under: notes on chickens
This month the electronic Tough Love mailbag was a little skimpy and I think I know what happened. You, Dear Readers, sat down to write your deepest, toughest love questions so that you might hear the thoughts of John Fontaine, noted pulp fiction writer and real man of the world. In so doing you began [...]
So I’m eating lunch and there’s a big bowl of bananas on the table for dessert, something like at least a dozen or so bananas. I finish eating when my host dad comes in and he has a little bag with 3 bananas in it, and he looks really excited, and he says, “I [...]
Outside,
Drinking beer,
Around a wok,
Frying potatoes,
Talking about
Obama
Filed under: Cambodia, holidays festivals and ceremonies, poems
Dear Merriam-Webster, Incorporated,
I was recently perusing one of your fine dictionary products recently and was shocked to find a missing entry somewhere between the words “font” and “fontanel.” I thought that perhaps my copy was just misprinted or maybe I was the victim of a singular conspiracy against me, but I went to the local [...]
Recently Korea donated a whole slew of digital pianos to schools all over Cambodia. My school doesn’t have electricity, but we borrowed a generator to try out our new piano.
Anyway we put it together the other day and I read through the piano operating instructions, which caution, “Be careful of fingers.” Now, this [...]
This month the Bobsoldout.com Monthly Music Archive is pleased to promote ATTILA!, the third! album from Short Hand [home | youtube | myspace]. You can download the entire album for FREE! right here; then go buy Good Enough (on collectible escalators) and Toward Orange.
But first, listen to some of my favorite songs from ATTILA!
Short [...]
i. A real sentence a student wrote for English homework
“If I were angry, I would go to a quiet place and sing.”
ii. A real thought I had after coming back from a day away
“Didn’t there used to be a small wooden bridge here instead of this giant hole?”
iii. A real offhand remark made during a [...]
Don’t be fooled by imposters, people — if your Mystery Treasure Bag isn’t Bobsoldout.com Approved, then it’s just garbage, plain and simple.
Send your requests for new inventions to bob [at] bobsoldout.com, subject: ULTIMATE INVENTIONS. More Inventions can be found here.
Filed under: etc. & misc., ultimate inventions
I woke-up from a nap in my hammock yesterday and looked at my hand and was hit by an epiphany, which is that fingers are actually just little arms when you think about it. That first knuckle is like your shoulder, and the next is like a little elbow, and then you have a little [...]
Water Charity is a non-profit that funds water projects all over the world. In 2009 they started an initiative called Appropriate Projects — you can read all about it in this message from Averill Strasser, COO of Water Charity, but the gist is that they partner with Peace Corps volunteers in their communities for projects [...]
As always, you can find more photos on Flickr!
Filed under: notes on chickens, photos
After my Valentine’s Day Note was published here at Bobsoldout.com, I received a lot of electronic fan mail letters in my electronic mailbox that read something like this:
Dear Mr. John Fontaine,
I am a longtime reader and first time writer, and I have to tell you that I love your pulp fiction for which you are [...]
The secret to being really, really (comparatively) good at soccer
Is to compete against those (less than) half your size and (way) below your own
(fairly low) skill level
(which is to say, ideally, children).
Filed under: Cambodia, poems
Bob, “chocolate love,” what does it mean?
Filed under: Cambodia, etc. & misc.
I woke up this morning to the sounds of the mouse who lives in my ceiling and I got to thinking about what this mouse’s morning routine must be like. I imagined him making very small cups of coffee, reading a very small newspaper, and standing over a very small stove frying a very small [...]
In celebration of the recent Chinese New Year (which is celebrated by many a Cambodian), Bobsoldout.com presents to you, Dear Reader, one of our favorite Chinese proverbs:
There is many a good man to be found under a shabby hat.
Happy Year of the Tiger!
Filed under: Cambodia, holidays festivals and ceremonies [...]
After 3 years of production, House of Bread [blog | myspace] is now set to release its new album, Superhuman Tomb, and thanks to the Bobsoldout.com Monthly Music Archive you can get a FREE! sample, just below:
House of Bread — Superhuman Tomb
Track 01 — Nebula M43 [download]
Track 02 — Nomadic Flying [download]
Track 03 — Artificial [...]
After my second wife — the one I really loved and would have married sooner if my first wife hadn’t made such a poor decision in agreeing to marry me first (which was part of the settlement — she admits she made a terrible decision and gets the rights to most of my early work) [...]
That’s right, Loyal Reader, you have now read 200 posts courtesy of Bobsoldout.com, and in keeping with that theme of 2, we present to you 2 Cambodians you should know:
Somaly Mam, human rights advocate
Born to a tribal minority family in the Mondulkiri province of Cambodia, Somaly Mam began life in extreme poverty. With limited [...]
This month the Bobsoldout.com Research Laboratory’s team of peanut-loving scientists had an eye on our classier readers, i.e., the ones with an eye on luxury:
Send your requests for new inventions to bob [at] bobsoldout.com, subject: ULTIMATE INVENTIONS. More Inventions can be found here.
Filed under: etc. & misc., ultimate inventions [...]
I sent out a few proofs of the second draft of my new book, Cows, Cowards, Cowboys, and Vampires: The Rise of Count Cowcula, and so far all responses have been positive. A noted pulp fiction writer even calls it “A meaty book you won’t be able to put down,” and I can imagine Flann [...]
Friend: Dude, horses scratch themselves with their hind legs, like dogs?
Me: What?
Friend: I swear that’s what I just saw.
Me: Huh. Who knew.
Friend: He just did it again!
Filed under: Cambodia, etc. & misc.
Nearly everything I read lately has some sort of chicken reference in it. This is from Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees, the story of an Italian baron who lived in the trees:
One day we heard that he was drinking fresh milk every morning; he had made friends with a goat, which would climb [...]
The response to my letter about my dear Grandfather Grandpa has literally flooded my electronic mail’s inbox like gasoline floods a car’s engine. Where the gasoline is coming from, I don’t know, but I am sincerely afraid my computer machine is going to explode. So I’ll make this short because the mechanic can’t [...]
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