Bore Time Funny Quotes

Fat’ is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her. I mean, is ‘fat’ really the worst thing a human being can be? Is ‘fat’ worse than ‘vindictive’, ‘jealous’, ‘shallow’, ‘vain’, ‘boring’ or ‘cruel’? Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny? I’m not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain… I went to the British Book Awards that evening. After the award ceremony I bumped into a woman I hadn’t seen for nearly three years. The first thing she said to me? ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!’ ‘Well,’ I said, slightly nonplussed, ‘the last time you saw me I’d just had a baby.’ What I felt like saying was, ‘I’ve produced my third child and my sixth novel since I last saw you. Aren’t either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?’ But no – my waist looked smaller! Forget the kid and the book: finally, something to celebrate! I’ve got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don’t want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I’d rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before ‘thin’. And frankly, I’d rather they didn’t give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons.

I apologized to her once for spending less time with her, but she blew it off. "You're in love. That makes you actually kind of boring to people who aren't in love. You know, the sane ones.

The thing is, some girls think they can actually change guys. And what’s funny is that if they actually did change them, they’d get bored. They’d have no challenge left. You just have to give girls some time to think of a new way of doing things, that’s all. Some of them will figure it out here. Some later. Some never. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.

girls please give your bodies and your lives to the young men who deserve them besides there is no way I would welcome the intolerable dull senseless hell you would bring me and I wish you luck in bed and out but not in mine thank you.

I tilt my head and ask “What firsts have we already passed?” “The easy ones,” he says. “First hug, first date, first fight, first time we slept together, although I wasn’t the one sleeping. Now we barely have any left. First kiss. First time to sleep together when we’re both actually awake. First marriage. First kid. We’re done after that. Our lives will become mundane and boring and I’ll have to divorce you and marry a wife who’s twenty years younger than me so I can have a lot more firsts and you’ll be stuck raising the kids.” He bring his hand to my cheek and smile at me. “So you see, babe? I’m only doing this for your benefit. The longer I wait to kiss you, the longer it’ll be before I’m forced to leave you high and dry.

I guess being a writer is a little like being a singer, when they're forced to sing that same boring song a million times over to their fans, even though that song was in the charts something like twenty years ago. We must read our book a million times before releasing it, they must sing the same song a million times after release, right? WRONG! It's nothing like that at all, because a song only takes three minutes to sing, whereas the reading of a book takes a fucking lifetime if you hate it already!

Well, I'm glad you're so amused," I said, running my fingers across the railing. Maxon hopped up to sit on the railing, looking very relaxed. "You're always amusing. Get used to it." Hmm. He was almost being funny. "So...about what you said...," he started tentatively. "Which part? The part about me calling you names or fighting with my mom or saying food was my motivation?" I rolled my eyes. He laughed once. "The part about me being good..." "Oh. What about it?" Those few sentences suddenly seemed more embarrassing than anything else I'd said. I ducked my head down and twisted a piece of my dress. "I appreciate you making things look authentic, but you didn't need to go that far." My head snapped up. How could he think that? "Maxon, that wasn't for the sake of the show. If you had asked me a month ago what my honest opinion of you was, it would have been very different. But now I know you, and I know the truth, and you are everything I said you were. And more." He was quiet, but there was a small smile on his face. "Thank you," he finally said. "Anytime." Maxon cleared his throat. "He'll be lucky, too." He got down from his makeshift seat and walked to my side of the balcony. "Huh?" "Your boyfriend. When he comes to his senses and begs you to take him back," Maxon said matter-of-factly. I had to laugh. No such thing would happen in y world. "he's not my boyfriend anymore. And he made it pretty clear he was gone with me." Even I could hear the tiny bit of hope in my voice. "Not possible. He'll have seen you on TV by now and fallen for you all over again. Though, in my opinion, you're still much too good for the dog." Maxon spoke almost as if he was bored, like he'd seen this happen a million times. "Speaking of which!" he said a bit louder. "If you don't want me to be in love with you, you're going to have to stop looking so lovely. First thing tomorrow I'm having your maids sew some potato sacks together for you." I hit his arm. "Shut up, Maxon." "I'm not kidding. You're too beautiful for your own good. Once you leave, we'll have to send some of the guards with you. You'll never survive on your own, poor thing." He said all this with mock pity. "I can't help it." I sighed. "One can never help being born into perfection." I fanned my face as if being so pretty was exhausting. "No, I don't suppose you can help it.

We're all on our own, aren't we? That's what it boils down to. We come into this world on our own- in Hawaii, as I did, or New York, or China, or Africa or Montana- and we leave it in the same way, on our own, wherever we happen to be at the time- in a plane, in our beds, in a car, in a space shuttle, or in a field of flowers. And between those times, we try to connect along the way with others who are also on their own. If we're lucky, we have a mother who reads to us. We have a teacher or two along the way who make us feel special. We have dogs who do the stupid dog tricks we teach them and who lie on our bed when we're not looking, because it smells like us, and so we pretend not to notice the paw prints on the bedspread. We have friends who lend us their favorite books. Maybe we have children, and grandchildren, and funny mailmen and eccentric great-aunts, and uncles who can pull pennies out of their ears. All of them teach us stuff. They teach us about combustion engines and the major products of Bolivia, and what poems are not boring, and how to be kind to each other, and how to laugh, and when the vigil is in our hands, and when we have to make the best of things even though it's hard sometimes. Looking back together, telling our stories to one another, we learn how to be on our own.

Andrew affected innocence but the twitch at the corner of his mouth gave him away. Andrew gave up the farce a couple seconds later and laughed. "Guess she hit him one time too many. I warned her not to lay a hand on him, but she didn't listen to me. She got what was coming to her. Does that frighten you, Neil?" "My first memories are of people dying," Neil said. "I'm not afraid of you." "That's why you're so interesting," Andrew said. "How aggravating." He sounded amused, not annoyed, so Neil said, "I'll try to be more boring in the future." "How considerate.

You won’t stop until you have all of me, will you? My body, my blood, my trust…and still you want more.” He knew of what I spoke and his reply was immediate. “I want your heart the most. Above all else. You’re exactly right, I won’t stop until I have it.” Tears began to slide down my cheeks, because I couldn’t hold the truth back anymore. I didn’t know how I’d managed to hold it back this long. “You have it already. So now you can stop.” His whole body stilled. “You mean that?” Uncertainty but also growing emotion filled his eyes as they bore into mine. I nodded, mouth too dry to speak. “Say it. I need to hear the words. Tell me.” I licked my lips and cleared my throat. It took three times, but finally my voice returned. “I love you, Bones.” A weight seemed to lift from me I hadn’t known was there. Funny how much I’d feared something that shouldn’t have frightened me at all. “Again.” He started to smile, and a beautiful, pure joy filled up the emptiness I’d carried my entire life. “I love you.” He kissed my forehead, cheeks, eyelids, and chin, feather-soft brushes that had the impact of a locomotive. “Once more.” The request was muffled by his mouth on mine and I breathed the words into him. “I love you.” Bones kissed me until my head reeled and everything tilted even though I was lying flat. He only paused long enough to whisper onto my lips, “It was well worth the wait.

The saga started out a normal day—don't they all? I mean, surely one morning back there in prehistoric times a dinosaur woke up, yawned, chewed some coffee beans, and thought his day was going to be dead boring, just before a comet slammed into his neighborhood.

Did you ever get fed up?" I said. "I mean did you ever get scared that everything was going to go lousy unless you did something? I mean do you like school and all that stuff?" "It's a terrific bore." "I mean do you hate it? I know it's a terrific bore, but do you hate it, is what I mean." "Well, I don't exactly hate it. You always have to--" "Well, I hate it. Boy, do I hate it," I said. "But it isn't just that. It's everything. I hate living in New York and all. Taxicabs, and Madison Avenue buses, with the drivers and all always yelling at you to get out at the rear door, and being introduced to phony guys that call the Lunts angels, and going up and down in elevators when you just want to go outside, and guys fitting your pants all the time at Brooks, and people always--" "Don't shout, please," old Sally said. Which was very funny, because I wasn't even shouting. "Take cars," I said. I said it in this very quiet voice. "Take most people, they're crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer. I don't even like old cars. I mean they don't even interest me. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake. A horse you can at least--" "I don't know what you're even talking about," old Sally said. "You jump from one--" "You know something?" I said. You're probably the only reason I'm in New York right now, or anywhere. If you weren't around, I'd probably be someplace way the hell off. In the woods or some goddam place. You're the only reason I'm around, practically." "You're sweet," she said. But you could tell she wanted me to change the damn subject. "You ought to go to a boys' school sometime. Try it sometime," I said. "It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques. The guys that are on the basketball team stuck together, the Catholics stick together, the guys that play bridge stick together. Even the guys that belong to the goddam Book-of-the-Month Club stick together. If you try to have a little intelligent--" "Now, listen," old Sally said. "Lots of boys get more out of school that that." "I agree! I agree they do, some of them! But that's all I get out of it. See? That's my point. That's exactly my goddamn point," I said. "I don't get hardly anything out of anything. I'm in bad shape. I'm in lousy shape." "You certainly are.

It's alive and well everywhere. Native Americans get a lot of crap in the West and south west. Muslims get treated like crap in just about every country in the Western world lately. Black people are mistreated in some parts of the US still. There are black people who are racist against white people. I've recently encountered someone who decided they couldn't tolerate my presence because I'm catholic, which according them makes me a pedophile, Satan worshipper and a whore. I've even encountered discrimination from people over seas for being American. Especially with my cousin's friends from England. They were rude to me the entire visit. They thought that I had to be an ignorant, xenophobic, racist slob just because I was from America and they spent most of the time trying to pick a fight with me to prove it. Racism exists, but don't take the comments you read online seriously. A good 80-90% of those are trolls looking for attention or a bored teenager who thinks it's funny to be an idiot.

Elliott performed a dance called the Dance of the Twenty-Eight Veils in Times Swuare. It is on Youtibe. Many commenters described it as the most boring erotic dance ever performed in the history of the world.

How funny things are! You go to those museums and galleries and think what a damned bore they are and then, when you least expect it, you find that something you've seen comes in useful. It shows art and all that isn't really waste of time.

You heard me. Let someone else send you to your blaze of glory. You're a speck, man. You're nothing. You're not worth the bullet or the mark on my soul for taking you out." You trying to piss me off again, Patrick?" He removed Campbell Rawson from his shoulder and held him aloft. I tilted my wrist so the cylinder fell into my palm, shrugged. "You're a joke, Gerry. I'm just calling it like I see it." That so?" Absolutely." I met his hard eyes with my own. "And you'll be replaced, just like everything else, in maybe a week, tops. Some other dumb, sick shit will come along and kill some people and he'll be all over the papers, and all over Hard Copy and you'll be yesterday's news. Your fifteen minutes are up, Gerry. And they've passed without impact." They'll remember this," Gerry said. "Believe me." Gerry clamped back on the trigger. When he met my finger, he looked at me and then clamped down so hard that my finger broke. I depressed the trigger on the one-shot and nothing happened. Gerry shrieked louder, and the razor came out of my flesh, then swung back immediately, and I clenched my eyes shut and depressed the trigger frantically three times. And Gerry's hand exploded. And so did mine. The razor hit the ice by my knee as I dropped the one shot and fire roared up the electrical tape and gasoline on Gerry's arm and caught the wisps of Danielle's hair. Gerry threw his head back and opened his mouth wide and bellowed in ecstasy. I grabbed the razor, could barely feel it because the nerves in my hand seemed to have stopped working. I slashed into the electric tape at the end of the shotgun barrel, and Danielle dropped away toward the ice and rolled her head into the frozen sand. My broken finger came back out of the shotgun and Gerry swung the barrels toward my head. The twin shotgun bores arced through the darkness like eyes without mercy or soul, and I raised my head to meet them, and Gerry's wail filled my ears as the fire licked at his neck. Good-bye, I thought. Everyone. It's been nice. Oscar's first two shots entered the back of Gerry's head and exited through the center of his forehead and a third punched into his back. The shotgun jerked upward in Gerry's flaming arm and then the shots came from the front, several at once, and Gerry spun like a marionette and pitched toward the ground. The shotgun boomed twice and punched holes through the ice in front of him as he fell. He landed on his knees and, for a moment, I wasn't sure if he was dead or not. His rusty hair was afire and his head lolled to the left as one eye disappeared in flames but the other shimmered at me through waves of heat, and an amused derision shone in the pupil. Patrick, the eye said through the gathering smoke, you still know nothing. Oscar rose up on the other side of Gerry's corpse, Campbell Rawson clutched tight to his massive chest as it rose and fell with great heaving breaths. The sight of it-something so soft and gentle in the arms of something so thick and mountaineous-made me laugh. Oscar came out of the darkness toward me, stepped around Gerry's burning body, and I felt the waves of heat rise toward me as the circle of gasoline around Gerry caught fire. Burn, I thought. Burn. God help me, but burn. Just after Oscar stepped over the outer edge of the circle, it erupted in yellow flame, and I found myself laughing harder as he looked at it, not remotely impressed. I felt cool lips smack against my ear, and by the time I looked her way, Danielle was already past me, rushing to take her child from Oscar. His huge shadow loomed over me as he approached, and I looked up at him and he held the look for a long moment. How you doing, Patrick?" he said and smiled broadly. And, behind him, Gerry burned on the ice. And everything was so goddamned funny for some reason, even though I knew it wasn't. I knew it wasn't. I did. But I was still laughing when they put me in the ambulance.

Tessa reached out and took her hand. “Can I tell you something?” “As long as it’s not advice on chasing after a married man.” She squeezed Sara’s hand. “I’m really in love with my husband.” Sara gave a careful “Okay.” “I know you think Lem is boring and too earnest and too self-righteous, and believe me, he can be all those things, but a thousand times a day, I hear a song, or I think of something funny, or Daddy says one of his stupid puns, and the first thing that comes into my head is ‘I want to tell Lem about this.’ And I know that halfway around the world, he’s thinking the same thing.” She paused. “That’s what love is, Sara, when there are so many things about you that you only want one person in the world to know.

Can Flo come? She has so many clothes I really want her to get rid of.' I laugh. Flo's clothes are so funny. She buys one top and wears it every time we go out for six months, then buys another one and does the same. And the kinds of things she buys for school are boring. She gets things that look as close to school uniform as possible because she finds having to wear our own clothes every day so hard.

Rea­sons Why I Loved Be­ing With Jen I love what a good friend you are. You’re re­ally en­gaged with the lives of the peo­ple you love. You or­ga­nize lovely ex­pe­ri­ences for them. You make an ef­fort with them, you’re pa­tient with them, even when they’re side­tracked by their chil­dren and can’t pri­or­i­tize you in the way you pri­or­i­tize them. You’ve got a gen­er­ous heart and it ex­tends to peo­ple you’ve never even met, whereas I think that ev­ery­one is out to get me. I used to say you were naive, but re­ally I was jeal­ous that you al­ways thought the best of peo­ple. You are a bit too anx­ious about be­ing seen to be a good per­son and you def­i­nitely go a bit over­board with your left-wing pol­i­tics to prove a point to ev­ery­one. But I know you re­ally do care. I know you’d sign pe­ti­tions and help peo­ple in need and vol­un­teer at the home­less shel­ter at Christ­mas even if no one knew about it. And that’s more than can be said for a lot of us. I love how quickly you read books and how ab­sorbed you get in a good story. I love watch­ing you lie on the sofa read­ing one from cover-to-cover. It’s like I’m in the room with you but you’re in a whole other gal­axy. I love that you’re al­ways try­ing to im­prove your­self. Whether it’s running marathons or set­ting your­self chal­lenges on an app to learn French or the fact you go to ther­apy ev­ery week. You work hard to be­come a bet­ter ver­sion of your­self. I think I prob­a­bly didn’t make my ad­mi­ra­tion for this known and in­stead it came off as ir­ri­ta­tion, which I don’t re­ally feel at all. I love how ded­i­cated you are to your fam­ily, even when they’re an­noy­ing you. Your loy­alty to them wound me up some­times, but it’s only be­cause I wish I came from a big fam­ily. I love that you al­ways know what to say in con­ver­sa­tion. You ask the right ques­tions and you know ex­actly when to talk and when to lis­ten. Ev­ery­one loves talk­ing to you be­cause you make ev­ery­one feel im­por­tant. I love your style. I know you think I prob­a­bly never no­ticed what you were wear­ing or how you did your hair, but I loved see­ing how you get ready, sit­ting in front of the full-length mir­ror in our bed­room while you did your make-up, even though there was a mir­ror on the dress­ing ta­ble. I love that you’re mad enough to swim in the English sea in No­vem­ber and that you’d pick up spi­ders in the bath with your bare hands. You’re brave in a way that I’m not. I love how free you are. You’re a very free per­son, and I never gave you the sat­is­fac­tion of say­ing it, which I should have done. No one knows it about you be­cause of your bor­ing, high-pres­sure job and your stuffy up­bring­ing, but I know what an ad­ven­turer you are un­der­neath all that. I love that you got drunk at Jack­son’s chris­ten­ing and you al­ways wanted to have one more drink at the pub and you never com­plained about get­ting up early to go to work with a hang­over. Other than Avi, you are the per­son I’ve had the most fun with in my life. And even though I gave you a hard time for al­ways try­ing to for al­ways try­ing to im­press your dad, I ac­tu­ally found it very adorable be­cause it made me see the child in you and the teenager in you, and if I could time-travel to any­where in his­tory, I swear, Jen, the only place I’d want to go is to the house where you grew up and hug you and tell you how beau­ti­ful and clever and funny you are. That you are spec­tac­u­lar even with­out all your sports trophies and mu­sic cer­tifi­cates and in­cred­i­ble grades and Ox­ford ac­cep­tance. I’m sorry that I loved you so much more than I liked my­self, that must have been a lot to carry. I’m sorry I didn’t take care of you the way you took care of me. And I’m sorry I didn’t take care of my­self, ei­ther. I need to work on it. I’m pleased that our break-up taught me that. I’m sorry I went so mental. I love you. I always will. I'm glad we met.

Have you ever been too old, too young, too big, too small, too smart, too dumb? Have you ever been too fat, too thin, too shy, too loud, too slow to win? Have you ever been too scared to try, too small to play, too young to die? Have you ever been too weak to fight, too little yet, or not quite right? Have you ever been too dark, too light, too black, too brown, too red, too white? Have you ever been put off ’til last, the odd man out, the jerk they sassed? Have you ever been the one black sheep, the naughty child, the nerdy geek? Have you ever been the butt of jokes, the timid soul, the oddest folk? Have you ever been left out of fun, forgotten when the day is done? Have you ever been afraid to lose? Afraid to try? Afraid to choose? Have you ever been too rich, too poor, too venturesome, or just a bore? Have you ever had no clue at all? Nowhere to go? No one to call? Have you ever been without a friend? Have you ever wished the day would end? Have you ever had the biggest nose, the longest arms, the funny toes? Have you ever had the flattest chest? Have you ever had the biggest breasts? Have you ever prayed your luck would change? Have you ever felt your life was strange? Have you ever wished for something more, or something less than what you were? If you have ever felt this way, you're one of us I’m here to say. We've all been there a time or two because we're human, me and you. We've all felt different in some way because we are, and that’s okay. We've all been hurt; we've all been scarred. That's life. And frankly, life is hard.

Things can get out of hand quickly, especially with Sid around. I also decide never to wear heels again when I'm out with him. I go to Holt's in Camden Town and buy a pair of black Dr Martens. (You can get them in black, brown or maroon, the skinhead boys at school used to buy the brown ones and polish them with Kiwi Oxblood shoe polish — this gives them a deep reddish brown colour, much subtler than the flat red of the originals. They also keep them pristinely clean and polished at all times.) I wear my new boots with everything — dresses, tutus — it’s a great feeling to be able to run again. No other girl wears DMs with dresses, so I get a lot of funny looks. (Skinhead girls only wear DMs with Sta-Prest trousers. With their boring grey skirts, they west plain white or holey ecru tights and black patent brogues.) Bit I wear them all the time to clubs and pubs, it eventually catches on with other girls and I don’t look so odd.

Then she began again. “I wonder if I will fall right through the earth! It will be so funny to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think…” (she was glad that there was no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound like the right word at all) “…but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is. Please ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?” (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—imagine curtseying as you’re falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) “And what an ignorant little girl she’ll think I am for asking that! No, I can’t ask. May be I will see it written up somewhere.” Down, down, down the well. Alice got bored and soon began talking again. “Dinah’ll miss me very much tonight, I should think!’ (Dinah was her cat). “I hope they’ll remember to give her a saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah, my dear! I wish you were down here with me. I’m afraid, there are no mice in the air, but you might catch a bat, and that’s very much like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?

Degrees of Freedom This is important. One of the easy things about riding the train is that there aren’t many choices. The track goes where the track goes. Sure, sometimes there are junctions and various routes, but generally speaking, there are only two choices—go or don’t go. Driving is a little more complicated. In a car you can choose from literally millions of destinations. Organizations are far more complex. There are essentially an infinite number of choices, endless degrees of freedom. Your marketing can be free or expensive, online or offline, funny or sad. It can be truthful, emotional, boring, or bland. In fact, every marketing campaign ever done has been at least a little different from every other one. The same choices exist in even greater number when you look at the microdecisions that go on every day. Should you go to a meeting or not? Shake hands with each person or just start? Order in fancy food for your guests or go for a walk together because the weather is sunny. . . . In the face of an infinite sea of choices, it’s natural to put blinders on, to ask for a map, to beg for instructions, or failing that, to do exactly what you did last time, even if it didn’t work. Linchpins are able to embrace the lack of structure and find a new path, one that works.

If you’re at work in the laundry or the plate-shop, you’re assigned five minutes of each hour when you can go to the bathroom. For thirty-five years, my time was twenty-five minutes after the hour, and after thirty-five years, that’s the only time I ever felt the need to take a piss or have a crap; twenty-five minutes past the hour. And if for some reason I couldn’t go, the need would pass at thirty after, and come back at twenty-five past the next hour. I think Andy may have been wrestling with that tiger—that institutional syndrome—and also with the bulking fears that all of it might have been for nothing. How many nights must he have lain awake under his poster, thinking about that sewer line, knowing that the one chance was all he’d ever get? The blueprints might have told him how big the pipe’s bore was, but a blueprint couldn’t tell him what it would be like inside that pipe—if he would be able to breathe without choking, if the rats were big enough and mean enough to fight instead of retreating . . . and a blueprint couldn’t’ve told him what he’d find at the end of the pipe, when and if he got there. Here’s a joke even funnier than the parole would have been: Andy breaks into the sewer line, crawls through five hundred yards of choking, shit-smelling darkness, and comes up against a heavy-gauge mesh screen at the end of it. Ha, ha, very funny.

You said to step on the brake to put us into drive, then to step on the right one to-" "Not at the same time!" "Well, you should have told me that. How was I supposed to know?" I snort. "You acted like the freaking Dalai Lama when I tried to tell you how to shift gears. I told you, one was for go and one was for stop. You can't stop and go at the same time! You have to make up your mind." From the expression on her face, she's either about to punch me or call me something really bad. She opens her mouth, but the really bad something doesn't come out; she shuts it again. Then she giggles. Now I've seen everything. "Galen tells me that all the time," she chortles. "That I can never make up my mind." Then she bursts out laughing so hard she spits all over the steering wheel. She keeps laughing until I'm convinced an unknown force is tickling her senseless. What? As far as I can tell, her indecisiveness almost got us killed. Killed isn't funny. "You should have seen your face," she says, between gulps of breaths. "You were all, like-" And she makes the face of a drunk clown. "I bet you wet yourself, didn't you?" She cracks herself up so much she clutches her side as if she's holding in her own guts. I feel my lips fracture into a smile before I can stop them. "You were more scared than me. You swallowed like ten flies while you were screaming." She spits all over the steering wheel again. And I spew laughter onto the dash. It takes a good five minutes for us to sober up enough for another driving lesson. My throat is dry, and my eyes are wet when I say, "Okay, now. Let's concentrate. The sun is going down. These woods probably get pretty creepy at night." She clears her throat, still giggling a little. "Okay. Concentrate. Right." "So, this time, when you take your foot off the brake, the car will go on its own. There, see?" We slink along the road at an idle two miles per hour. She huffs up at her bangs. "This is boring. I want to go faster." I start to say, "Not too fast," but she squashes the gas under her foot, and my words are snatched away by the wind. She gives a startled shout, which I find hypocritical because after all, I'm the one helpless in the passenger seat, and she's the one screaming like a teapot, turning the wheel back and forth like the road isn't straight as a pencil. "Brake, brake, brake!" I shout, hoping repetition will somehow penetrate the small part of her brain that actually thinks. Everything happens fast. We stop. There's a crunching sound. My face slams into the dash. No wait, the dash becomes an airbag. Rayna's scream is cut off by her airbag. I open my eyes. A tree. A freaking tree. The metal frame groans, and something under the hood lets out a mechanical hiss. Smoke billows up from the front, the universal symbol for "you're screwed." I turn to the rustling sound beside me. Rayna is wrestling with the airbag like it has attacked her instead of saved her life. "What is this thing?" she wails, pushing it out of her way and opening the door. One Mississippi...two Mississippi... "Well, are you just going to sit there? We have a long walk home. You're not hurt are you? Because I can't carry you." Three Mississippi...four Mississippi... "What are those flashing blue lights down there?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with me." "Yeah?" "Yeah." He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. For a second, he looked exactly like Daniel: cynical, bored, and liable to bite. "Well,that's funny," he drawled. "I think you're lying through your teeth." My stomach clenched. "Why?" "Because," he said calmly, "in all the time I've known you,you have never once said those words." "What words?" "'There is nothing wrong with me.'" "Oh,don't-" "Never. You are a walking litany of imaginary flaws.So." Frankie unfolded himself and rested his elbows on the table. It wobbled. He didn't. He studied me over his tented fingers. "Truth or Dare?" "It's Sadie's turn to ask." "She passed," he snapped. "Hey," I protested. "Hey." Sadie actually waved a hand between us. "Maybe we can talk about this tomorrow." "We could," Frankie replied with suspicious agreeability. "Except I want to do it now. So,here's the question, Marino. What-" "Dare." "Sorry?" he said. "Dare. I'll take a dare/" "Really?" he demanded. "As long as it takes ten minutes or less. I have to go." All I wanted, really, was to leave. Frankie didn't say anything-or move-for the longest time. He just stared at me. Then, finally, he blinked, lowered his hands, and shrugged. "Sing." "Oh,come on-" "Sing," he repeated. "You know how. Or concede." That, I thought, would be so easy. It would also break something precious. In all out time together, none of us had ever conceded a dare. "Sadie. Sing with me?" She nodded,but Frankie shook a finger at her. "You will not. Marino, you're on your own here." I pretty much stomped way may to the stage. Stavros's son Nic was manning the karaoke machine. His brows shot up when he saw me. "A first.

The best advice came from the legendary actor the late Sir John Mills, who I sat next to backstage at a lecture we were doing together. He told me he considered the key to public speaking to be this: “Be sincere, be brief, be seated.” Inspired words. And it changed the way I spoke publicly from then on. Keep it short. Keep it from the heart. Men tend to think that they have to be funny, witty, or incisive onstage. You don’t. You just have to be honest. If you can be intimate and give the inside story--emotions, doubts, struggles, fears, the lot--then people will respond. I went on to give thanks all around the world to some of the biggest corporations in business--and I always tried to live by that. Make it personal, and people will stand beside you. As I started to do bigger and bigger events for companies, I wrongly assumed that I should, in turn, start to look much smarter and speak more “corporately.” I was dead wrong--and I learned that fast. When we pretend, people get bored. But stay yourself, talk intimately, and keep the message simple, and it doesn’t matter what the hell you wear. It does, though, take courage, in front of five thousand people, to open yourself up and say you really struggle with self-doubt. Especially when you are meant to be there as a motivational speaker. But if you keep it real, then you give people something real to take away. “If he can, then so can I” is always going to be a powerful message. For kids, for businessmen--and for aspiring adventurers. I really am pretty average. I promise you. Ask Shara…ask Hugo. I am ordinary, but I am determined. I did, though--as the corporation started to pay me more--begin to doubt whether I was really worth the money. It all seemed kind of weird to me. I mean, was my talk a hundred times better now than the one I gave in the Drakensberg Mountains? No. But on the other hand, if you can help people feel stronger and more capable because of what you tell them, then it becomes worthwhile for companies in ways that are impossible to quantify. If that wasn’t true, then I wouldn’t get asked to speak so often, still to this day. And the story of Everest--a mountain, like life, and like business--is always going to work as a metaphor. You have got to work together, work hard, and go the extra mile. Look after each other, be ambitious, and take calculated, well-timed risks. Give your heart to the goal, and it will repay you. Now, are we talking business or climbing? That’s what I mean.

ACT I Dear Diary, I have been carrying you around for a while now, but I didn’t write anything before now. You see, I didn’t like killing that cow to get its leather, but I had to. Because I wanted to make a diary and write into it, of course. Why did I want to write into a diary? Well, it’s a long story. A lot has happened over the last year and I have wanted to write it all down for a while, but yesterday was too crazy not to document! I’m going to tell you everything. So where should we begin? Let’s begin from the beginning. I kind of really want to begin from the middle, though. It’s when things got very interesting. But never mind that, I’ll come to it in a bit. First of all, my name is Herobrine. That’s a weird name, some people say. I’m kinda fond of it, but that’s just me I suppose. Nobody really talks to me anyway. People just refer to me as “Him”. Who gave me the name Herobrine? I gave it to myself, of course! Back in the day, I used to be called Jack, but it was such a run-of-the-mill name, so I changed it. Oh hey, while we’re at the topic of names, how about I give you a name, Diary? Yeah, I’m gonna give you a name. I’ll call you… umm, how does Doris sound? Nah, very plain. I must come up with a more creative name. Angela sounds cool, but I don’t think you’ll like that. Come on, give me some time. I’m not used to coming up with awesome names on the fly! Yes, I got it! I’ll call you Moony, because I created you under a full moon. Of course, that’s such a perfect name! I am truly a genius. I wish people would start appreciating my intellect. Oh, right. The story, right, my bad. So Moony, when it all started, I was a miner. Yep, just like 70% of the people in Scotland. And it was a dull job, I have to say. Most of the times, I mined for coal and iron ore. Those two resources were in great need at my place, that’s why so many people were miners. We had some farmers, builders, and merchants, but that was basically it. No jewelers, no booksellers, no restaurants, nothing. My gosh, that place was boring! I had always been fascinated by the idea of building. It seemed like so much fun, creating new things from other things. What’s not to like? I wanted to build, too. So I started. It was part-time at first, and I only did it when nobody was around. Whenever I got some free time on my hands, I spent it building stuff. I would dig out small caves and build little horse stables and make boats and all. It was so much fun! So I decided to take it to the next level and left my job as a miner. They weren’t paying me well, anyway. I traveled far and wide, looking for places to build and finding new materials. I’m quite the adrenaline junkie, I soon realized, always looking for an adventure.

The thing is some girls think they can actually change guys. And what's funny is that if they actually did change them, they'd get bored. They'd have no challenge left. You just have to give girls some time to think of a new way of doing things, that's all. Some of them will figure it out here. Some later. Some never. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Well, I considered burning this place down as a warning, but that was counterproductive as it’s in the middle of a forest. So I was going to threaten you to leave, but I don’t have the time to go around checking that you’ve actually done anything.” I stood and folded the chair, placing it over by the rest. “No, I figured I’d come here to tell you that, while no one has any proof of your wrongdoings, we all know what you did. This coven has been marked because of your actions, and Avalon will be keeping a very close eye on you. Not because we believe you’re doing anything wrong, of course, but because you were involved in a traumatic event in Germany, and they want to make certain you’re all okay. “There will be site visits, probably at random, maybe in the middle of the night. There might even be interviews with all the members, just to verify that everyone is happy and healthy.” “You can’t do that,” Mara said with barely contained rage. “I’m not. Avalon is—well, technically, Lucie is, but she helps run the place, so she’s probably qualified to tell whether people here are happy and healthy. Did I mention the random visits?” “You think this is funny?” Emily asked. I shook my head. “I think it’s deadly serious. A group of witches used by Demeter and Hera broke Cronus out of Tartarus, witches who used the coven leader’s own daughter to get the job done.” My stare could have bored holes in Mara. “Emily, I’m not going to underestimate you again. I promise you that. And Mara, dear sweet Mara. Your daughter is a delight. If you remove her from school, if you hurt her, if anything happens to her in any way that results in my friend’s daughter telling me of her unhappiness at your parenting, I will come find you. And I promise, once I’m done, no one will ever find out what happened to you.” I made my way toward the door, my piece said. “You think that you can threaten me, Mister Garrett?” Mara said, her body shaking with anger. I continued walking and opened the door before pausing for a second. “You can’t come into my coven and demand things,” Mara continued. “You’re a thug, a man with no vision who does what his masters tell him. I’m not afraid of you. You don’t scare me.” I didn’t turn back toward the two women as I spoke, “Then clearly you

paces. ‘She can’t do that.’ ‘She can and she is. She’s renting a cottage. I don’t know how long for.’ She takes hold of my wrist and grips it so tightly that her nails pierce my skin. ‘I have to stop her.’ ‘Monica! You need to keep this in perspective!’ I extract my wrist from her fingers and shake her gently. ‘I know she brings back memories of your parents and I know that hurts, but now, in the present, you have nothing to fear from Orla.’ Her eyes say otherwise and as she looks into mine I see that she is close to telling me something. ‘What is it, Monica? What is it?’ My scalp tingles. ‘Is it about Rose?’ Her eyes glaze over. ‘I was warned about this. I was warned—’ ‘What are you talking about? Warned by whom?’ ‘Grace!’ she hisses. ‘Do you have any idea how much damage she could do?’ I give a short laugh, not because it’s funny but because I have to let some emotion out. ‘The status quo should never be underestimated. Life, ticking along. It might seem boring at times but . . .’ She looks up to the right and seems to pluck her words from the air. ‘Orla is dangerous. She will cause havoc and then she will leave. We have to stop her.’ ‘Believe me, I don’t want her around either.’ I take her hand. ‘Tell me what’s troubling you.’ ‘I can’t.’ She pulls free. ‘I can’t break a confidence.’ She takes a few steps backward. ‘Can you find out what Orla wants? Can you do that?’ I already have. ‘I’ll do my best.’ I try to look optimistic. ‘I’ll let you know.’ ‘Good.’ She recovers her composure and gives me an awkward hug. ‘I may not have been popular at school, my home life was in meltdown, but hey!’ She looks around her, takes

Come on, Melinda. You can’t avoid it forever. We both know you’re pregnant.” “Ugh,” she said, accepting the cool, wet cloth. She pressed it to her face, her brow, her neck. She didn’t have any more to say. But Jack knew. There had been tears, exhaustion, nausea. She turned watering eyes up to him. He shrugged and said, “You eased up on the breast-feeding, popped an egg and I nailed it.” Her eyes narrowed as if to say she did not appreciate the explanation. He held out a hand to bring her to her feet. “You have to wean David,” he said. “Your body can’t completely nourish two children. You’ll get weak. You’re already exhausted.” “I don’t want to be pregnant right now,” she said. “I’m barely over being pregnant.” “I understand.” “No, you don’t. Because you haven’t ever been pregnant.” He thought this would probably be a bad time to tell her that he did so understand, since he had lived with a pregnant person and listened very attentively to every complaint. “We should go see John right away, so you can find out how pregnant.” “How long have you suspected?” she asked him. “I don’t know. A few weeks. It was a little tougher this time….” “Oh, yeah?” “Well, yeah. Since you haven’t had a period since the first time I laid a hand on you. God, for a supposedly sterile woman, you certainly are fertile.” Then he grinned, fully aware it would have got him smacked if he hadn’t been holding the baby. She whirled away from him and went to sit on their bed. She put her face in her hands and began to cry. Well, he’d been expecting exactly this. There’d been a lot of crying lately and he knew she was going to be mighty pissed off. He sat down beside her, put an arm around her and pulled her close. David patted her head. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I’m not delivering this one. I want that understood.” “Try not to be cute,” she said through her tears. “I think my back already hurts.” “Can I get you something? Soda? Crackers? Arsenic?” “Very funny.” She turned her head to look at him. “Are you upset?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry it happened so soon. Sorry for you. I know there are times you get damned uncomfortable and I wanted you to get a break.” “I should never have gone away with you.” “Nah. You were already pregnant. Wanna bet?” “You knew before that?” “I wondered why you were so emotional, and that was a possible reason. I never bought your whole sterile thing. But I don’t have a problem with it. I wanted more kids. I like the idea of a larger family than the three of us. I come from a big family.” “There will not be five, I can guarantee you that,” she said. Then she bored a hole through him with her eyes. “Snip, snip.” “You’re not going to blame this on me, Mel. I suggested birth control. A couple of times, as a matter of fact. You were the one said it could never happen twice. And then explained that whole business about not ovulating while you’re nursing. How’s that working for you so far? Hmm?” “Screw you,” she said, not sweetly. “Well, obviously…” “I’d like you to understand I wasn’t relying on that breast-feeding thing. I’m a midwife—I know that’s not foolproof. I really didn’t think it possible that… Shit,” she said. She sighed deeply. “I just barely got back into my jeans….” “Yeah, those jeans. Whoa, damn. Those jeans really do it to me. No one wears a pair of jeans like you do.” “Aren’t you getting a little sick of having a fat wife?” “You’re not fat. You’re perfect. I love your body, pregnant and unpregnant. I know you’re trying to get me all worked up, but I’m not going there. You can try to pick a fight with me all day and I just won’t play. It wouldn’t be a fair fight—you’re out to get me and we both know it. Do you have appointments this morning?” “Why?” “Because I want to go to Grace Valley for an ultrasound. I want to know when I have to have the house done.” *

It seemed to Hunter that every time he turned around, Bright Star hovered nearby, fluttering her lashes and blushing, making such an obvious play for Hunter’s affections that he knew it couldn’t escape his wife’s notice for long. Hunter didn’t want to shame Bright Star by scorning her. At the same time, he didn’t want Loretta to believe he was encouraging the girl. He already had enough problems. While he mulled the situation over, trying to think of a kind way to discourage Bright Star, the young maiden intensified her campaign, and, as Hunter had feared, Loretta at last realized what was going on. When she did, Hunter took the brunt. “Who is that girl?” Loretta demanded one evening. “What girl?” Hunter felt heat rising up his neck and avoided meeting his wife’s flashing blue gaze. “That girl, the one who seems to have something in her eye.” Hunter obliged Loretta by giving Bright Star a bored glance. “She is sister to my woman who is dead.” He bent back over the arrowhead he was sharpening. “She is called Bright Star.” “She doesn’t look very bright. Is that a tic, or does she always blink that way?” Hunter smothered a snort of laughter. “She makes eyes, yes?” “At you?” He straightened and lifted a dark brow. “You think she makes eyes for you?” Loretta’s spine stiffened. “You think this is funny? Doesn’t she realize that you’re a married--” The flash in her eyes grew more fiery. “Oh, yes, how remiss of me. I forgot that you can have an entire herd of wives.” Hunter sighed and set aside the arrowhead. “This Comanche has no wish for a herd of wives. One is sure enough plenty trouble.” “Are you saying I make your life miserable? If that’s the case, why did you marry me? Why didn’t you marry her?” Hunter knew jealousy when he saw it. Everything else had failed. New tactics were called for. “I could have. Bright Star thinks I would be a fine husband, yes?” “She can have you.” That wasn’t exactly the response Hunter had been hoping for.

What was the very FIRST GAME Mario appeared in? a) Super Mario Bros. b) Donkey Kong c) Super Smash Bros. d) Super Mario World. What is the newest Mario game out today? a) New Super Mario Bros. b) Super Mario Galaxy. What does Luigi say when he wins a race on Mario Cart 64? What is Mario’s last name? a) Costanza b) Italiano c) Mario d) Luigi. Who is the LAST person you play in Mario Party 3 (64 version)? a) Millennium Star b) Waluigi c) Daisy d) Bowser. Correct answers: b b Letsa go (let’s go, here we go) c a. Results: 0 out of 5 – did you play any Mario game at all? The game itself isn’t very complicated. Start playing and you’ll definitely get a higher score. Right now, this is bad. These answers make Mario question his own abilities to do something right. 1 out of 5 – you have probably played Mario games, when someone made you. Come on, you can do way better than this. Even Koopas can get a higher score and you’re way smarter than them. Plus, Princess Peach is most certainly not impressed with this score. 2 out of 5 – well, you’re not totally bad, but you’re also far away from an expert. Let’s just assume you hurried to answer as faster as possible and you made a couple of mistakes. You know what they say, everything gets better with practice. 3 out of 5 – you’re in the middle; still a long way to go to become an expert, but you’re not an amateur at the same time. However, Princess Peach doesn’t want someone who’s going to be happy being “in the middle”. What does this tell you? To do your best, achieve a greater score and, of course, to improve your overall game style as well. 4 out of 5 – very good. You are just one step away from being an expert. If you continue like this, you would be able to do a better job than Mario. You know the game quite well and you would gladly go on an adventure in Super Mario style. 5 out of 5 – expert. Congratulations! You love the game, your favorite pastime is playing Super Mario and let’s face it; you’d give Mario run for his money. You know the game “inside and out” and unlike Mario, you’d actually find princess in the right castle. But, don’t let this get into your head. Always strive to do better. Conclusion Thank you again for downloading this book!  I hope you find the third volume of Super Mario joke book as equally entertaining as previous two volumes. In case you haven’t read Super Mario joke book volumes 1 and 2, this is the perfect opportunity to get those books and see what jokes, memes, and other useful and entertaining info you missed out on. Throughout this book, you got to see various jokes, memes, comics, and read about interesting Mario fun facts you didn’t know before. Besides that, the book also included quiz where you had the opportunity to test your knowledge of Mario games. Hopefully, you got the top score and even if you didn’t, you can always retake the test. This joke book is ideal for all people who love Super Mario and it’s impossible to hate this little, chubby guy. With good humor, funny memes, interesting comics, and special Princess Peach section, this book is everything you need whenever you feel sad, bored, or in the mood for a good laugh. I hope this book was able to help you understand the importance of Super Mario as well as to understand

Party time Part 1 After school, we go to Maddie’s. When we were little, like freshman year and even some of the sophomore year, we would sometimes stay in her room and put on x-out and pluck out eyebrows into that fine little line, and color our hair with highlights, and order pizza, cramming down as much as we could eat. Those days are going, we can’t get fat. Now Jenny hardly eats anything, and if she does, she can hardly keep it down. I think maybe that’s what I get so lightheaded, I only eat like once a day now. Jenny back then had a little extra around the middle, and now you can see her ribs, she even has that two-defined line on her tummy that goes into her underwear. I remember sneaking around late at night in her hose stealing a cookie from the jar on the top shelf in the old wood cabinet, that is also where her mom would hide her cigarettes that Jenny loved also, and the condoms were in a trinity box on top of the fridge, I sorry but I find that hilarious. At that time, we would stretch out on one of her, old enormous worn-out couches and watch, TV or movies until we fell asleep in our nightshirts’-the TV in Maddie’s living room is like 80 inches it’s like being in a movie theater our legs tangled together under an enormous fleece blanket. Maddie and liv are always entangled more passionately than Jenny and me on the loveseat! Maddie has an ancient TV in her room from the 1990s. It sucks and is small, it’s one of those with the big back on it, and the color is green, like looking into a fish tank. It’s funny her mom and dad don’t have money blinds on the windows, yet they have a big ass TV. You can sometimes see the people in the next condo overlooking us like we can see them get busy in their room! Yet nothing beats the hot guy taking a leak in room 302, he looks to be in his late twenties. He takes the boxes off at 10 pm and we get a free show. He knows we can see him because he makes it look inflexible and you are no more personable. Jenny and we girls love to press upon the glass, and just have fun and be a little crazy, like lifting our nighties and flashing the goods. Facebook stocking gets boring quickly anymore, so some nights the webcam comes out too. After her mom and dad are asleep… I like it’s more fun to be bad! Like we all have profiles and fake names because none of us are eighteen yet. Any- how’s mine is ‘Angel Pink Wings 01’ Maddie goes by: ‘Mad kitty 69’ Jenny goes by: ‘Ms. Little Lover 14’ Liv goes by: ‘Olivia O 123’ Yet everyone knows her by Liv so that name is okay- I guess. We make good money- ‘Double Clicking the Mouse.’ You would not believe all the pervs on this cam. the site, just wanting to see us doing it. Like old guys like our PE teacher! Man- that I didn’t even think about how to turn on a computer. Just like him, I guess they need too to see more of us close up. We have our checks mailed to Jenny's college boyfriend’s PO Box. Me this is what I do and yes- I come for you all, I just put in fake blue hair dye in, and have fake long lashes, and put in my blue contacts, and you don’t even know me. And then pen in more eyebrows. Fake, fake, fake, fake FAKE! Boys don’t like it when you fake it or do, they look at me, that's why I am Bi.

Party time Part 1 After school, we go to Maddie’s. When we were little, like freshman year and even some of the sophomore year, we would sometimes stay in her room and put on x-out and pluck out eyebrows into that fine little line, and color our hair with highlights, and order pizza, cramming down as much as we could eat. Those days are going, we can’t get fat. Now Jenny hardly eats anything, and if she does, she can hardly keep it down. I think maybe that’s what I get so lightheaded, I only eat like once a day now. Jenny back then had a little extra around the middle, and now you can see her ribs, she even has that two-defined line on her tummy that goes into her underwear. I remember sneaking around late at night in her hose stealing a cookie from the jar on the top shelf in the old wood cabinet, that is also where her mom would hide her cigarettes that Jenny loved also, and the condoms were in a trinity box on top of the fridge, I sorry but I find that hilarious. At that time, we would stretch out on one of her, old enormous worn-out couches and watch, TV or movies until we fell asleep in our nightshirts’-the TV in Maddie’s living room is like 80 inches it’s like being in a movie theater our legs tangled together under an enormous fleece blanket. Maddie and liv are always entangled more passionately than Jenny and me on the loveseat! Maddie has an ancient TV in her room from the 1990s. It sucks and is small, it’s one of those with the big back on it, and the color is green, like looking into a fish tank. It’s funny her mom and dad don’t have money blinds on the windows, yet they have a big ass TV. You can sometimes see the people in the next condo overlooking us like we can see them get busy in their room! Yet nothing beats the hot guy taking a leak in room 302, he looks to be in his late twenties. He takes the boxes off at 10 pm and we get a free show. He knows we can see him because he makes it look inflexible and you are no more personable. Jenny and we girls love to press upon the glass, and just have fun and be a little crazy, like lifting our nighties and flashing the goods. Facebook stocking gets boring quickly anymore, so some nights the webcam comes out too. After her mom and dad are asleep… I like it’s more fun to be bad! Like we all have profiles and fake names because none of us are eighteen yet. Any- how’s mine is ‘Angel Pink Wings 01’ Maddie goes by: ‘Mad kitty 69’ Jenny goes by: ‘Ms. Little Lover 14’ Liv goes by: ‘Olivia O 123’ Yet everyone knows her by Liv so that name is okay- I guess. We make good money- ‘Double Clicking the Mouse.’ You would not believe all the pervs on this cam the site, just wanting to see us doing it. Like old guys like our PE teacher! Man- that I didn’t even think about how to turn on a computer. Just like him, I guess they need too to see more of us close up. We have our checks mailed to Jenny's college boyfriend’s PO Box. Me this is what I do and yes- I come for you all, I just put in fake blue hair dye in, and have fake long lashes, and put in my blue contacts, and you don’t even know me. And then pen in more eyebrows. Fake, fake, fake, fake FAKE! Boys don’t like it when you fake it or do, they look at me, that's why I am Bi.

As soon as he was inside, Merritt went to Phoebe's father, and his arms closed around her in a brief, comforting embrace. She and her siblings had always known Kingston as the kind, handsome man with an abundant supply of funny stories and always made time to play jackstraws or checkers with bored children. As Merritt had grown older, however, it had been impossible to avoid the gossip about his notorious past. She found it difficult to reconcile that version of him- the skirt-chasing scoundrel- with the devoted family man whose entire world centered around his wife. Whatever Kingston's past, he was like a second father, and she would have trusted him with her life.

We take the original plays of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and Markus gives them . . . well, the necessary polish.” “Aren’t the plays good enough by themselves?” Barbara asked. “Well, for the general public they’re sometimes just too difficult and dry, so we cut out the long monologues and concentrate on the funny parts and, above all, the bloody passages. Many of the pieces have not yet been translated into German, and Markus takes care of that, as well.” “I butcher Shakespeare’s plays by turning them into bloody spectacles for the masses,” Markus sighed in despair. “Carefully constructed pentameter, beautiful images—for that the world clearly has no taste nowadays. The more blood, the better. But I myself have written original pieces that—” “Yes, yes,” Malcolm interrupted, “that would be enough to make Shakespeare cry, I know—or simply put him to sleep. I’m afraid you’re boring the ladies, Markus. Just like your plays. We can’t afford experiments. After all, I have a whole troupe to feed,” he said, clapping his hands. “But now it’s time to get back to building the stage. Will you excuse us?” He bowed to Magdalena and Barbara and stomped off toward the stage, but not without first casting a final, reproachful look at his two actors. “Old slave driver,” Markus mumbled and followed him, while Matheo paused a moment and winked at Barbara. “Then can we look forward to seeing you again at tomorrow’s performance? We’ll save a few seats for you up in the gallery. Ciao, signorine.” “Ciao,” Barbara said, batting her eyelashes as Matheo, in one single, flowing movement, jumped back onto the stage. Magdalena grinned at her sister. “Ciao?” she asked. “Is that the way a Schongau hangman’s daughter says good-bye, or are you an Italian contessa addressing her prince just before their wedding?

fatherhood is the one thing in my life that I have taken to like a natural. As someone who’s prone to getting bored quickly and not sticking to things, any fears I had about my ability to be a father evaporated the moment I first held Story in my arms. Fatherhood was the one thing I gladly had no choice about committing to, and for the first time in my life everything made perfect sense. It seemed obvious. The great gulfs in my knowledge, the lack of experience in looking after another human being: they didn’t matter. You just do it. It’s instinctual. It’s funny how these key life events change your perspective.

Well, whatever did those old brutes think about evil, then?" "It's hard to say exactly. they seemed to be obsessed with locating it somewhere. I mean, an evil spring in the mountains, an evil smoke, evil blood in the veins going from parent to child. They were sort of like the early explorers of Oz, except the maps they made were of invisible stuff, pretty inconsistent one with the other." "And where is evil located?" Galinda asked, flopping onto her bed and closing her eyes. "Well, they didn't agree, did they? Or else what would they have to write sermons arguing about? Some said the original evil was the vacuum caused by the Fairy Queen Lurline leaving us alone here. When goodness removes itself, the space it occupies corrodes and becomes evil, and maybe splits apart and multiples. So every evil is a sign of the absence of deity." "Well I wouldn't know an evil thing if it fell on me," said Galinda. "The early unionists, who were a lot more Lurlinist than unionists are today, argued that some invisible pocket of corruption was floating around the neighborhood, a direct descendent of the pain the world felt with Lurline left. Like a patch of cold air on a warm still night. A perfectly agreeable soul might march through it and become infected, and then go and kill a neighbor. But then was it your fault if you walked through a patch of badness? If you couldn't see it? There wasn't ever any council of unionists that decided it one way or the other, and nowadays so many people don't even believe in Lurline." "But they believe in evil still," said Galinda with a yawn. "Isn't that funny, that deity is passe but the attributes and implications of deity linger -" "You are thinking!" Elphaba cried. Galinda raised herself to her elbows at the enthusiasm in her roomie's voice. "I am about to sleep, because this is profoundly boring to me," Galinda said, but Elphaba was grinning from ear to ear.

Four fucking days,' Cassian hissed from where he and Azriel monitored the castle. 'We've been sitting on our asses for four fucking days.' Azriel sharpened Truth-Teller. The black blade absorbed the dim sunlight trickling through the forest canopy above. 'It seems you've forgotten how much of spying is waiting for the right moment. People don't engage in their evil deeds when it's convenient to you.' Cassian rolled his eyes. 'I stopped spying because it bored me to death. I don't know how you put up with this all the time.' 'It suits me,' Azriel didn't halt his sharpening, though shadows gathered around his feet.

How Explainer Videos Work For Your Business If you wonder how to take your business to the next level, then explainer videos could be your answer. A short, crisp, informative piece of explainer video is the ultimate key to reach your ideal business leads. Henceforth, you need not worry about keeping your profits high. All you have to do is to invest a part of your money in getting quality, professional explainer videos to boost up your rankings on search engines. Google’s algorithm for search engine rankings includes a part that quantifies the amount of time spent by the visitors to your website. The longer time they spent, the higher will be your ranking. This is why your site needs an explainer video to keep the clock ticking for you. These videos are great ways to get the attention of your visitors; it really keeps them engaged for a long time, provided the videos are interesting. It has been found out that a human brain is more attentive to visuals rather than mere phrases. As readers spend only a few seconds to minutes on each site, quality content with a catchy title would grab their attention, but not always. On the other hand, if they confront an interesting and funny video, they will be attracted and urged to watch the content. That is why explainer videos are smart marketing tools. According to top marketing firms, websites with explainer videos rank higher than others in Google universal searches. In a business, an explainer video offers you a smart platform to reach your ideal customers and introduce your services to them with the reasons for them to choose you over your competitors. What could it be? An explainer video could be anything. You can share your identity, ideas, concepts, issues, solutions, products, services and even arguments. You can bring them all up with videos in just a few seconds. How long could it be? The shorter, the better. Videos more than a 90 seconds could be boring to your visitors. Keeping them short and engaging is the trick to make the visitors stay on your page, which in turn fetches the ranking. Here are a few reasons to justify the need for explainer videos for your business. 1. Creates a virtual connection: The most important aspect of online marketing is to showcase your personality in a smart manner. Your customer is with little or no contact with you in online business. So it is crucial to build a trustworthy bond with your customer to maintain a strong relationship. Explainer videos do this job for you; they offer you an identity that is recognized by your customers which wins their trust. 2. Gains popularity: A good and attractive explainer video is extremely contagious. It is not restricted to your website alone and can be shared with other video hosting sites like YouTube. This means your site gains popularity. People share videos on a higher scale rather than sharing web pages. Moreover, free video hosting sites like YouTube can be accessed even on a Smart phone which is an added advantage. 3. Holds all in one: Website clutter is a serious mistake that directly affects the rankings of a website. With the intention to hike rankings and boost sales, many website owners clutter their site with loads of images, colorful fonts, flash pictures and pop boxes. This could only have adverse effects on the site. It increases the load time of the website and leaves the visitors confounded that they wonder what your site conveys. On the contrary, an explainer video is can be designed to comprise all such smart aspects squeezed into a single video. 4. Resurrects your identity: PPT slides and pop up ads are obsolete and they don’t belong to this era of online business marketing. A colorful, funny and informative video with great visuals can do the magic; it grabs the attention of the audience. This is particularly suitable for multifaceted businesses with multiple products and services. You can create customized videos for each product and

Reason 2: Laziness Farmer Flaky is imprisoned by laziness. The next verse describe this paralysis: "He sticks to his bed like a door to its hinges! He is too tired even to lift his food from his dish to his mouth!" (Proverbs 26:14-15, TLB). Who says the Bible is boring? This verse is so funny. It gives you the height of laziness: There's already food on his plate, yet he's too tired to lift his spoon to his mouth. Absurd? Not really. Look around you. So many are surrounded by wonderful opportunities to grow themselves. Yet they don't life their spoon. Instead, they want to be spoon-fed like babies. But we live in different times. When my son was fourteen years old, he learned how to play the drums, how to edit videos, how to arrange songs, how to make websites. How? By watching YouTube videos. He also learned enough fashion sense to be my fashion stylist, so he can tell me what to wear on stage so I don't look like Mr. Bean. That's the kind of universe we live in. Because of the Internet, all the libraries of the world are now in your bedroom and you can access them by just one press of a button. Yet people remain immobilized. Stuck. Frozen.

mother she was to her son. One who would appreciate the special gift of her love, and take every opportunity to just enjoy the pleasure of her company. To Gray’s immense emotional discomfort, the faceless new husband he was certain Bella needed suddenly bore an incredible likeness to himself. “Never’s a long time, Bella,” Gray said softly. He’d intended to make the comment light, but when the words left his lips, they were absolutely serious. Her eyes met his and he saw a wealth of emotion in their sweet blue depths. Lost hope, weary wisdom,

As she sat there, her feeling of loneliness increased. And this was strange, because she had always been solitary, and did not usually feel lonely when alone. But she watched Gina with Adam and- -and she realized that she wasn't happy being solitary anymore. But the person she was happiest with wasn't a person. It was Periapt. Being with him was like being with the perfect companion. He was clever. He was kind, at least to her- though he had been scathing with the fox, and once or twice with Cleo, whom he regarded as being rather too full of herself. They found the same kinds of things funny, they enjoyed the same sorts of books, and it was getting so that they could finish each other's sentences. She was never happier than when she was curled up with him, having a lively discussion over some obscure point in a book. In fact, simply being with him made her happy- happy in a way that no human male had ever made her feel. Maybe it was simply that he didn't take long, doubtful glances at her oculars, or act polite while all the time he was actually bored. That realization made her feel very odd indeed. And she wasn't entirely sure what to make of it.

And also, you’ve been stuckoo on an islandoo for a long time with only beardedoo guys who talkoo funny and bowoo down to you,” Hades said, and then laughed. “That’s gotta get boring after a while.

No matter how highly placed they were, they were still officials, their views were well established and well known, famous. It could have rained frogs over Tan Son Nhut and they wouldn’t have been upset; Cam Ranh Bay could have dropped into the South China Sea and they would have found some way to make it sound good for you; the Bo Doi Division (Ho’s Own) could have marched by the American embassy and they would have characterized it as “desperate”—what did even the reporters closest to the Mission Council ever find to write about when they’d finished their interviews? (My own interview with General Westmoreland had been hopelessly awkward. He’d noticed that I was accredited to Esquire and asked me if I planned to be doing “humoristical” pieces. Beyond that, very little was really said. I came away feeling as though I’d just had a conversation with a man who touches a chair and says, “This is a chair,” points to a desk and says, “This is a desk.” I couldn’t think of anything to ask him, and the interview didn’t happen.) I honestly wanted to know what the form was for those interviews, but some of the reporters I’d ask would get very officious, saying something about “Command postures,” and look at me as though I was insane. It was probably the kind of look that I gave one of them when he asked me once what I found to talk about with the grunts all the time, expecting me to confide (I think) that I found them as boring as he did. And just-like-in-the-movies, there were a lot of correspondents who did their work, met their deadlines, filled the most preposterous assignments the best they could and withdrew, watching the war and all its hideous secrets, earning their cynicism the hard way and turning their self-contempt back out again in laughter. If New York wanted to know how the troops felt about the assassination of Robert Kennedy, they’d go out and get it. (“Would you have voted for him?” “Yeah, he was a real good man, a real good man. He was, uh, young.” “Who will you vote for now?” “Wallace, I guess.”) They’d even gather troop reflections on the choice of Paris as the site of the peace talks. (“Paris? I dunno, sure, why not? I mean, they ain’t gonna hold ’em in Hanoi, now are they?”), but they’d know how funny that was, how wasteful, how profane. They knew that, no matter how honestly they worked, their best work would somehow be lost in the wash of news, all the facts, all the Vietnam stories. Conventional journalism could no more reveal this war than conventional firepower could win it, all it could do was take the most profound event of the American decade and turn it into a communications pudding, taking its most obvious, undeniable history and making it into a secret history. And the very best correspondents knew even more than that.

Yeah, but life can't be fascinating all the time.' 'Oh, honey. Mine is. If it gets boring for longer than two weeks, I make adjustments.' I smile right into her eyes. 'And it's paid off because I now live with Houndy, who is a lobsterman, and the thing about him is that he could talk to me for four days straight without stopping about lobsters and their shells and the different tides and the sky, and nothing he ever said would bore me because the language that Houndy uses is really speaking in is all about love and life and death and appreciation and gratitude and funny moments.' Her eyes flicker, and I see in her face that she knows exactly what I mean. 'I feel like that when I"m at work,' she says softly. 'I work in a nursery school, so I get to spend my days sitting on the floor with three-and-four-year-olds, talking. People think it must be the most boring thing in the world, but oh my God! They tell me about the most astonishing things. They get into philosophical discussions about their boo-boos and about how worms on the sidewalk get their feeling hurt sometimes, and why the yellow crayon is the meanest one but the purple one is nice. Can you believe it? They know the personalities of crayons.