Calling all Flatlanders!

Just two days ago, one of our Decoy Flatlanders turned up at Fakie Central in a rather delirious and decrepit state. He was barefoot, dressed only in an ill-fitting hospital gown, and so pumped full of psycholeptic medication as to be scarcely able to recognize the very Commander in Chief whose life he had taken to a solemn vow to protect. Happily, some deeply embedded directives of his secret agent training seemed to have survived (even in the face of the heavy psychiatric medication to which he had been exposed) and the Agent clutched in his clammy palm a single page, seemingly torn from the jaournal of one of the modern witchdoctor cum chemists who had reduced him to such a state, which shed some light on the poor fellow's plight. The page contains some alarming indications of a new psychiatric disorder called "Flatlander Syndrome", and has caused us to review the policies and procedures of our entire Decoy Program. Here is a small excerpt (which is all the Fakie legal team will allow to be published at this point):



"Another Caucasian male patient admitted today calling himself "Flatlander" and exhibiting persecution dementia centred around a time travelling demonic figure named "The Xister". This one picked up in the business district at lunch hour, raving on about a werewolf army and the end of civilization...typical schizoid behaviour. What's odd is the uniformity of the cases appearing in recent months, this last bringing the count to fifteen patients, all claiming to be this "Flatlander" character. Same odd cranial scar pattern evident at base of skull on all patients, as if they had been subjected to some sort of lower brain stem altering surgery. Sadly, nothing much to be done but administer anti-psychotics and monitor patient's behaviour for further indications....."


Evidently, some new and more foolproof method of "deep embedding" the Flatlander persona and belief system on the volunteer hosts may have to be devised. It has also been suggested by some members of the Fakie think tank that recruiting candidates from homeless shelters and soup kitchens, merely on the basis of perfunctory resemblances to Flatlander himself, may be insufficient, and that deeper psychological screening mechanisms might be put in place to better assess a potential decoy's mental suitability.

We should note that some former Fakiegrind employees have suggested that it is not inadequacies in the hosts themselves, but rather certain paranoiac tendencies in the seed personality being imprinted, that have lead to the current impasse. This theory is, of course, absurd, and the conspiratorial undertones implied in it have lead to the dismissal of the parties involved, who obviously would do better working in some less taxing field, such as urban custodial services.

More reasonable voices have put forth the idea that it is only natural for another sentient, reflective soul to want to be the Flatlander. The very success of our Decoy Program, which now boasts upwards of 100 simulacra, is evidence in support of this very human and understandable tendency. It can only be seen as a tragic frailty of the human psyche (and not an unwanted corollary of our rigorous de-re-programming technique, the legal team has assured me of this) that some of our decoys should want to take things a step beyond their loyalty training and make a break with reality in actually believing themselves to be the commander-in-chief of the Fakiegrind empire.

Until we can figure out how to buttress certain sensitive neural pathways in the human brain to circumvent this unfortunate tendency, the Decoy Program has had to be put under indefinite suspension. Sadly, this may mean a number of out of work, wannabe Flatlanders set loose upon the world, perhaps even penning their own blogs in the vain delusion of being the original, archetypal Flatlander-Prime of Fakiegrind fame. So, until our legal team issues the proper stop-and-desist orders, we are advising readers to beware of imitations. Fakiegrind will remain at this address, broadcasting on this channel, as always, and will not change it's name to "Fakygrind", "Fakeegrind" or any other phonetical perversion of our original nomenclature.

There is, and only ever shall be, one Flatlander and one united Fakiegrind, diligently fighting the abuse of time travel technology to the end of time itself, long may we blog!

A Strange Visitor...

For any readers not quite up to speed on the goings on here at Fakiegrind, Special Agent Donovan had been deployed on a mission to find a real live hobo and bring him back to headquarters for an interview as the culmination of hobo week. Our sensors, however, have been indicating an impending werewolf invasion brought about by our messing with the Template several weeks ago. Despite this threat, the intrepid Agent Donovan returned to headquarters without incident, and he brought with him a strange visitor. This was not your garden variety wandering hobo looking for a free meal and warm place to sleep before heading back on his weary way...

The man was of an indefinable age...he looked to be well advanced in years, but moved with the dexterity and speed of a much younger fellow. His long yellowish beard was matted and dirty, and his face covered in a grime that bespoke of weeks - or maybe months - gone without washing. But it was his eyes that set him apart from the common tribe of vagrants. It was impossible to look into them for any length of time without becoming extremely disturbed. Their grey-green pools seemed to speak of long journeys through vast interior regions of madness, despair and isolation, and yet there was a placid evenness to them that effected a shudder deep in the onlooker's soul. Clearly, this man hearkened from regions unknown.


Hey, stop gnawing on the mircrophone!

We showed him to the Fakie cafeteria, but he refused to eat (not that this was unusual - many an Agent has made a similar decision, especially on mac-and-cheese Saturdays). He asked only for some warm tea with whiskey which we produced in good stead and which the man downed with two or three voracious gulps. He then asked if either of us smoked, and Agent Donovan produced a cigarette from an interior pocket of his great coat. The man promptly removed the filter, then took some care in ripping open the paper skin of the cigarette until he had a small mound of loose tobacco in the palm of his hand. This he sumerarily tossed into his mouth and began to chew, much like a cow chewing its cud. After a minute or so of his chewing and Agent Donnovan and I staring off into random directions to avoid making any prolonged eye contact with our guest, the man suddenly broke the uncomfortable silence.

"Won't be long now," he mumbled in a gravelly voice that was mingled with equal parts derision and indifference.

"Won't be long until what?" I queried, trying to maintain my most pleasant, professional Secret Agent voice.

"No use hiding. He'll find us."

"Er...don't quite follow. Of whom do you speak, my good man?" The Secret Agent Manual counsels maintaining an air of jovial camaraderie when interrogating half-crazed hobo folk. (See Section 54-112-B "Storytelling Patterns of the Indigent")

"Same every year. Full moon brings it on. You can't escape."

"If you are referring to the immanent werewolf invasion, I can assure you we are quite safe in the bosom of Fakiegrind's state-of-the-art anti-lycanthrop facility. Those wolfies will have a hard time getting through our Lupine Repulsion Batteries, and even if they somehow were to penetrate past our parimeter defenses, a flip of the Panic Room Activation Switch will ensure that we are cozy and secure here in the heart of the cafeteria."

"You are fools."

"And you, sir, are a cryptic fellow quick to dole out reprimand but slow to justify your outlandish accusations. Do explain yourelf!"

The strange fellow parsed his cracked lips and spit a soggy wad of tobacco into the empty coffee mug before him. He stared intently into my eyes and I fought the urge to turn away in wild panic. He then let out a loud, long and girlish laugh that somehow managed to curdle the blood in my veins despite the nightly regime of anti-blood curdling meditational techniques that I dutifully pursue.

"You have prepared well...for werewolves. But there haven't been any werewolves in the world since before the Great Plague! You have no idea of the evil fate that is about to befall you. There will be chocolate...YES...lots of chocolate goodies. And colourful candy eggs strewn about which you will hunt for with great trepidation, continuing to find them weeks from now in the most unlikely of places, so crafty is the foe soon to be in your midst. You will be beside yourself with terror, and yet you will be none the wiser next year WHEN THE EXACT SAME CURSE VISITS YOU AGAIN!"

"What are you saying? You seem to refer to our harmless Easter traditions. Surely you don't mean...."

"Yes! Now you see! The chilling truth behind the ravaged heads of lettuce and descicated bags of carrots found each year in the larder. Not to mention the mysterious huge, hard brown pellets left strewn on the lawn. There is a powerful evil in your midst....a hideous, lawn munching, long eared...

"WERERABBIT! By Jove Donovan...we've been blind. BLIND! Get Q on the horn. Not a moment to spare...Me must notify Department H!"

The man broke into another peal of horrible shrill laughter and I motioned for Agent Donovan to hasten him back to the fetid alley from when he was snatched. I had been a fool not to see. What other entity would have the ability to sneak past our extensive Fakie sensor system to leave behind his colourful Easter confections? Only a wererabbit, with its ability to altar states between solid and gaseous form, with its uncannily nimble paws and hyper sensitive hearing (so as to better avoid the Fakie night watchman)...only such a beast could possibly infiltrate Headquarters year after year to leave behind its deadly legacy of tasty foodstuffs.

No time for self-reproach! There might yet be a chance to catch our foe unawares, but where would I find a sliver carrot at this late hour? I heard a strange sound from the corridor, a kind of heavy thumping getting louder by the second. Could the beast be upon us? In my mind's eye I saw the long, horrible incisors of the wererabbit flashing in the night. I shuddered and tried to steel my nerve. Then a deep, lisping voice echoed through the cafeteria, chilling me to the very marrow of my bones despite the microscopic marrow-warming nanodes I had had Dr. Flavour install in my skeleton against just such occasions....

"Whaaat'ssss Uuuuuuup Daaaaawk?"

It must have been then that I passed out, for when I awoke it was morning. There was a gamy unsettling stench in the air, a litter of half-eaten carrots spilling out of the larder, and a boxes and baggies of chocolate eggs and bunnies in a large mound on the table.

That wascaly wererabbit had evaded us this time, but next year he wouldn't be so lucky...

Werewolfs a-Coming!

We interrupt Hobo week to update readers on the Slavic werewolf menace. Fakiegrind's Stereographic-Lycanthoposcope is showing a concentrated mutant lupian energy field heading straight towards the abandoned mineshaft currently housing Fakie Central. In layman's terms, we've got a whole mess 'o werewolves heading straight for our colective ass!

The good news is, we've been aware of this threat and have been preparing for the past week. Special Kevlar armor has been issued to all Agents and support staff, and we have a fleet of mobile werewolf containment units all gassed up and ready to ship those bloodthirsty beasts off to the suburbs.

The bad new is, Special Agent Donovan was deployed this morning on an assaignment to track down a real live hobo and bring him back to Fakie Headquarters for a bowl of warm soup and an interview. We hope he succeeds in his mission and makes it back before the werewolves arrive, which, by Dr. Flavour's calculations, should happen sometime tonight around midnight.

We shall keep readers posted on any new developments as the information becomes available. Until then, please enjoy this hobolink:

Secret Hobo Code

Speaking of Rats

Here is a satellite image the Fakie Hobowatch Surveillance team discovered last night of what appears to be some kind of lychanthropic were-rat hobo. Happily, he didn't seem to be heading this way (unlike the Slavic werewolf pack that should be arriving here any day).

Fakie Agents have been working around the clock to prepare for the werewolf invasion (brought about by our ill-fated messing with The Template, see below -ed). We've been busy distilling the juice of about a thousand cloves of garlic, creating a pungent tincture that, with the help of our bevy of Super-Soaker 3000s, is sure to turn those were-beasts on their heels, driving them into the suburbs were they belong.

Hobo Twins

Short and green (perhaps from eating too much "street food"), these two hobos keep snakes as personal pets...not so good for keeping warm on a cold winter night, but they sure scare away the rats!

Hobo Salut

This week, Fakiegrind will be taking an in-depth look at all things Hobo. By randomly grabbing images from the internet and posting them here, we hope to generate a kind of photo archive of hobodom. By the end of the week, we may even bring a live hobo into Fakie headquarters and offer him or her some luke-warm tea and a shot of screech in exchange for the inside scoop on the free-and-easy wandering that is the pastoral life of a vagrant.



Four dollar karate lessons! Who ever heard of that?

Terrifying!

Egads! I should have never messed with The Template. The Template was fine just the way it was. Now, all the radical Fakiegrind upgrades, the extended Fakie links list, the mind warping customized banner and the ever witty Fakie header archive has been lost to the digital wastes.

I remember why I did it. I did it because the dumb "Rubbish Heap Two" video clip that I found on Tom Green's site didn't fit properly in the old Fakiegrind star-in-the-left-hand-corner template -- that tried and true template that has served Fakie Corp. so well these past three years or so. Did I take the time to read the fine print that says "All modifications to your old template will be lost", before I clicked "OK"? Did I stop to think what reprecussions my actions might have, due to the so-called "butterfly effect" and other chaotic models of creation, on the migratory patterns of Siberian werewolves? It pains me to admit that I did not.

No, I just couldn't leave well enough alone. I had to go a-messin with what weren't broke. Perhaps this is the beginning of the Great Unraveling, as retroactively foretold in an upcoming re-edit of the Book of Oldness Deluxe Edition, complete with Bonus CD featuring never before seen outtakes from deleted and unpublished posts of yesteryear (learn, for instance, where Happy T. Fluke bought his entire necktie wardrobe for 2004 --and much more in this competitively priced collector's item. No comprehensive Fakiegrind ephemera compendium is complete without it!).

So here is the site restored to about 63% of its original splendor. Perhaps we can rebuild it. Perhaps we can cover ourselves in molten chocolate and streak down the street like living fondue morsels. Anything at all is possible with a little time and money. So please send all cheques and monetary donations to:

Fakiegrind Corp. c/o The Internet

I expect the Siberian werewolves to arrive in this sector sometime towards the end of next week (they move fast, those Slavic lycanthropes). We've set out a protective parimeter of fine china and steeped our running shoes in mouthwash, so we should be in good shape. But if you don't hear back from us for another month or so, you can be certain that The Template has extracted its hideous revenge for our ill-conceived meddling.

Rubbish Heap 2

Here at Fakiegrind Central, we're all big Tom Green fans. We're also big fans of the original Rubbish Heap video of 1989. That vid really revolutionized street skating, taking it to a whole new level of radicality. The long-awaited sequel, while much shorter than the original, retains something of the air of frolicsome fun of the original. What is really amazing, though, is that these geezers are still shredding it up!

Ha-P Holid A-s!

Ahh...tis' the season! Here in the Fakiegrind underground bunker it's been hard to find a suitable stand-in for a Christmas tree. We had a nice plastic one, but Dr. Flavour sent it back in time in one of his experiments (we think it went back and not forward, but we won't be sure until 2089). We've had to make do with a petrified boa constrictor dangled from the ceiling and festooned with little ornaments we cut out of some back issues of Popular Mechanics magazine we found in an old filing cabinet.

Exacly why we have a petrified boa constrictor on hand is another story altogether, and not likely to see print until a few pending lawsuits get cleared up, but the "tree" itself has a certain tropical Christmasesque charm that makes one forget about behing holed up two miles below the Earth's surface in a makeshift bunker while the Xister and his crew pick through the wreckage of the old Fakiegrind Headquarters in search of fragments of our once mighty treasure trove of vintage toys and hair accessories.

But there's no use complaining. Captain Canuck came by yesterday with a baggie full of maple leaf-shaped cookies from Department H, which we dutifully distributed amongst the Fakiegrind staff at our annual Christmas party. To be sure, our operation has seen better years, but we're making the best of things. My Secret Santa was quite generous this year and gave me a complete set of Sponge Bob stackable drinking cups. Now I have something to use when I break open my bottle of triple X eggnog, or "chicken milk" as Nelvanna likes to call it.

Yes indeed, it's time to ease on into the holiday season. I hope things are going well for you out there in cyberland. A brand new year's a'coming! Plenty of time left for rocking it oldschool, for partying like it's 1999, and, above all else, for satying old. So clear the dancefloor with a bulldozer and let's git down to some serious rug-cuttin' bizniz. Gravity waits for no one and I feel a new move coming on...

Where I've Been...

I was spelunking the caves just below Fakiegrind's new cold storage unit (keeps the comic books from decomposing), searching for the source of the wireless signal we have been enjoying gratis here at New Fakiegrind Central, when I came upon a natural chimney in the stone. The channel lead downwards, almost vertically, towards depths unknown, like an esophagus carved from living rock. Not one to pass up a chance to never be seen from again, I knocked some pinions into the wall and started lowering myself down the shaft, hand over hand, my rope being the only safeguard I had against what might be a near bottomless drop into the very heart of the earth. I descended thus for several minutes, scraping my boots against the stone walls, while the chimney became progressively narrower. When the chimney became too tight to navigate in this manner, I wiggled onward as best I could, allowing gravity coupled with the built-in slipperiness of my Secret Agent Spelunking suit to aid my descent. Even still, I nearly became irrevocably lodged in a sphincter-like formation that guarded what turned out to be the cavity's lowermost extremity.

Happily, my recent yogic practice has rendered me unusually pliable, and, by employing a Tantric exhalation technique transmitted to my by Dr. Flavour, I was able to squeeze through the opening and into the expansive void below. Dangling there, like a spider in open space, I could find no wall or formation on which to make a foothold, but was immediately overwhelmed by the deafening roar of moving water. Training my helmet-light below me, I verified that I was, indeed, suspended over a rapidly flowing, underground river. Reasoning that returning back the way I came would prove difficult if not impossible, I bade farewell to my trusty braided nylon lifeline and jumped into the torrent below -- not, however, before inflating my Ballooning Aquatic Survival Apron. This meet device (available by special order from the Fakiegrind Secret Agent Provisions Boutique) has the double advantage of keeping one afloat and providing a measure of protection against injurious collision with rocks and other submerged obstacles.

The apron is certified for white-water conditions and cascades of up to three metres in height, but guarantees no protection against waterfalls of 22 metres, which, it turns out, is the height of the precipice over which the river that was carrying me ultimately flows. There I was, being pleasantly swept allong by the raging waters, my spelunking suit keeping me warm and dry while my survival apron rendered me boyant despite the water's brisk current. I could have contentedly passed an entire afternoon in such a way, the river twisting and turning through the depths of the earth like a giant, subterranean waterslide, had the Great Artificer who framed these passages not decided to throw in a giant waterfall, like an exclamation point marking the end of this particular train of His geological thought.

Down I plummeted. For what seemed to be an eternity (but couldn't have been more than a few seconds) an entire lifetime flashed before my eyes. The fact that it didn't seem to be my own lifetime, but was rather a biographical account of George de Mestral, inventor of Velcro, was odd, but I had little time to marvel the fact before a large pool of water interrupted my brain's warped musings. I pointed my toes downward and hoped for the best.

Most fortunately, the pool of water at the foot of the falls was deep, and it's bottom was covered in a thick layer of spongy moss-like growth that both absorbed the shock of my fall (when waterbottom I eventually hit), and glowed with a strange phosphorescence, lending the pool an enchanting soft blue-green radiance. So radiant was the pool, in fact, that when I reached its surface, I no longer needed my spelunking helmet's lamp to make out the dimensions of the cavern in which I found myself -- and a good thing too, for the force and angle with which I had hit the pool's surface had knocked the helmet clear off my head and sent it careening through the cavern to parts unknown.

And looking around, it became clear that I had stumbled upon something altogether extraordinary. I had indeed found the source of the mysterious wireless Internet signal, and was taken aback by the oddity and outlandishness of the entire scenario. But this tale will have to wait for another posting, as official Fakiegrind duties call me away from the keyboard for the time being...

Happy Days Are Here Again

Here in the new Fakiegrind bunker at the bottom of an abandoned mine shaft, we've been having trouble getting connected to the Internet. This is the main reason for the long period of Fakie silence during which the glad birthday tidings of several long-time Proxy Agents went unacknowledged.

Happily, it seems that one of our neighbours (I didn't even know we had neighbours until a few minutes ago!) seems to have recently installed a wireless Internet service into which our state-of-the-art wi-fi systems have been able to hack. Of course, the fact that we even have neighbours creates a whole new batch of security problems. What if we have inadvertently set up shop next to one of the many subterranean outposts for the Mole Man's Legions of blind ninja? What if the Internet connection we are currently enjoying actually belongs to a group of cthonic demon worshippers, buried alive with a laptop to hearken in a new age of darkness throughout the daylight land? What if the connection belongs to a warren of intelligent, omnivorous rabbit-like creatures who will drill into the Fakiegrind larders and steal our freeze-dried provisions?


We will have to better investigate our surroundings using Dr. Flavour's sonographic imagine spyroscope. But until this can be done, I suppose it couldn't hurt to enjoy a little free Internet surfing. Who knows, maybe if we poke around down here long enough we'll find an old cable TV connection that is still active.

Oh yeah, and thanks for the birthday messages. Stay old!

15th Annual Bease Comp Pics

Fireside Reflection

After setting ablaze 27 casks of biowaste from the Fakiegrind Cosmetic Surgery Institute, I sat me down in the staff lunch room to reflect on the twists and turns that life has taken of late for the internet's most established Devolutionary Skateboard/Sectret Agent blog.

The transplanting of our headquarters to a new, top-secret location has had the deisred effect of throwing our arch-foe, the Xister, and his ilk off our trail. Recent amendments to Australia's anti-time travel legislation, as well as the ongoing U.S. crack-down on rogue hypnotists also seems to have aided our cause.

Captain Canuck's dry cleaning bills continue to run Fakie expense accounts into the red, thus making impossible our securing a live internet connection at our new location. Also, geo-thermal drafts in the abandoned mine shaft currently housing our mainframe have made a wireless connection out of the question, and the cable company is still trying to find a drill that can cut through the adamantine-laced shell of our command centre's panic room.

Other than these few minor setbacks, Fakiegrind continues to stultify under the weight of its own lackluster legacy, and the staff soothsayer predicts that we will have completely repeated ourselves, verbatim, by the second fiscal quarter of the year 2019. This, however, will be a non-issue once our Context over Content promotional campain is implemented in early 2111.

Aside from our ongoing (and hitherto fruitless) search for the secret blog musings of the enigmatic Ms. Muffin, we here at Fakiegrind will continue to bide our time while waiting for the day foretold in the Book of Oldness when,

"The Heavens make an great clamour
like unto a riding lawnmower ready to expire
and discount vouchers for a major local vendor
of soft tacos will shower down upon the Earth

'Till then, Stay Old!

Walking the Dog

The kids at summer skateboard camp love the trick called "Walking the Dog". It's pretty easy but looks impressive, and it's not something many people learn nowadays. I have made it my private mission to revive this trick, and promote it as much as possible as Steeltown's mobile skateboard park moves from neighbourhood to neighbourhood every couple of weeks.

Last week, we were on the western edge of town, with the ramps set up inside of the local arena. For two days, no kids showed up (the park's presence doesn't seem to be advertised in any newspapers). My co-worker and I spent the time skateboarding and making posters to put up around the area. The floor of the arena is incredibly smooth, a lovely surface on which to ride. One push gets you all the way across the arena. It feels like skating on glass.

On the second day, there was a torrential rainstorm. Alex and I stood in the loading bay doorway of the arena and watched the water pour down out of the heavens. Within minutes, the eaves had backed up and water started spilling off the roof in thick cascades. When we returned to the interior of the arena, the drops falling on the arena roof made a deafening clatter.

By the third day, word started to spread and a few kids showed up to use the ramps. We have helmets that we lend out to them. They tear around the course, going off the ramps and landing on platforms -- stuff I no longer want to try to do for fear of falling. I largely stick to the flatground tricks. The vast expanse of the arena gives one lots of room to get a good line of three or four tricks in before having to turn around. The ramps only take up half of the area, so the other half is a flatlander's paradise.

For at least a half hour every day, I practice skating backwards. I can now do little ollies and a couple other tricks. It's like learning to skate all over again. Rodney Mullen still blows my mind.

Dyslexic Double Agent Fools Everyone (including himself)

I love working at the hotel. I have a badge and a ribbon, and, occasionally, I earn a little apple that I can pin to said ribbon. I meet all kinds of interesting people from all over the world, but only for a moment or two, so I get to construct stories about them in my head. It's a good gig, much better than the skid factory, where it was just me and the circular saw and a jigger full of planks. I quit that job after three weeks, though I should have stayed on longer.

Happily, I managed to swing a deal with the higher-ups as Dept. H, and they have given me a special assignment at the skatepark, a couple days a week. The secret there is: don't lend out your skateboard. Once you do, you won't see it until the end of the day, as it will pass from kid to kid like a head lice academic, or the cheat codes for H.A.L.O. (or whatever videe'r games they play these days). My problem is I can't say no. The upside to this is that not having my board handy means I won't skate as much, which means my back and knees will last that much longer. You see, one gets to a certain point as an aged 'boader that one must start to ration cartilage. I'm just thinking ahead, to, like, next week when it would be nice to be able to get out of bed without the ceiling-mounted winch that I'm thinking of installing.

Anyhow, thanks for all your comments, and sorry for the delay in postings, and the lack of visits to all my favourite blog-hoods. Though Fakiegrind's new headquarters is 99% up and running, we still don't have an internet connection. It's sure to come, eventually, once the proper paperwork has been filed, and Captain Canuck pays me back the money he borrowed to cover his dry cleaning tab.

Stay old!

Deep Cover

This summer, I was supposed to work at a mobile skateboard park, looking after the kids. I went through all the trouble of gettinga a police check and signing up for a first aid course. But the closer it got to the start date of my new job, the more I started to dread it. I knew there would be rewarding aspects to working with youth, and getting to know some kids from different parts of town, but the thought of skateboarding every day was weighing heavily on my mind. Also, the sun is so hot these days, and working outside would surely be exhausing.

The last time I went out skateboarding, I bruised my toe. It was swollen and blue for three days, and I was walking around with a limp. The accident happened just as I was leaving the park. I tried to do one last trick, to show off, and instead of the board doing what I expected, it whirled out of control and dinged me in the toe. I was pretty depressed after that. I had already given my notice at the hotel where I work, and it seemed to me too late to go back. I would have to skateboard with the kids for two months, even if it killed me.

My body has been sore lately. My joints ache and my back gives out when I've been sitting too long in a car or soft couch. Even though I swim and try to eat well, there's only so much battering a fellow can take. Skateboarding has kept me young up to this point, but I'm starting to feel my age. So, when someone at the hotel gave their notice, and my boss offered me increased hours if I came back to work for them, I thought about it for a day, then decided to bail on the skateboard camp position.

Call it self-preservation. I turned my back on what might have proven to be a rewarding, though strenuous and risky endeavour in favour for what I already know will be a tedious and predictable stint at the hotel front desk. But they pay ok, and the job doesn't wreck my knees or back. I'm partly relieved; I never have to skateboard again, if I don't feel like it. But a sort of quiet desparation has also set in, though maybe that's being a little over-dramatic. Actually, I'm not really all that desparate. Just happy to be alive, employed, intact (more or less) and old.

Greetings Bloggers

I, Walrusman, have stolen the Fakiegrind access codes. Flatlander is a chump. While he chases Ms. Muffin his blog is now mine. You will soon know the full extent of my collection of used scratch lotto cards!!!!!!!!!

Muffin Hunt

Something about the taunting tone of a comment left on the previous post has driven me to break off all other activities and devote the full resources of Fakiegrind Enterprises to finding the secret blog hideout of the mysterious Ms. Muffin.

However, after several weeks of searching the internet, the best our Agents have come up with is a series of Youtube postings featuring people's cats.

There's this one, for instance.

And this one.

And then there's this one.

But none of these felines bring us any closer to Ms. Muffin's blog, wherein, we have reason to believe, all the secrets of the universe are made clear.

Summer Hits the North

Yes, Fakiegrind Headquarters has moved, but our top secret ultra-new location is still within walking distance of Steeltown's ever-lovin', ever colourful north end. Just today, I was standing in the parking lot of the beer store, talking with an old acquantance whom I hadn't seen in a dog's age, when an overweight man approached on a mountain bike. He was wearing tight-fitting blue shorts and a matching tank-top, and had a large duffle bag slung over one shoulder. Approaching my friend and I, he slowed down.

Now, normally, a north end stranger weilding a large duffle bag and looking to make converstaion can mean only one thing: stolen merchandise available for resale at street-level prices. The only question in my mind was the particular nature of the hot goods being peddled (not that I was interested in procuring such items; my curiosity was purely academic). At any rate, the man was riding his (possibly stolen) mountain bike with one hand, and weilding a dinner fork in the other. Affixed to the end of the fork was a portentious chunk of what looked to be hamburger patty, it's pink innards gloriously exposed to the patchwork afternoon sunlight as it filtered through the overhead canopy of newly leafed trees.

The fellow did not keep my friend and I in suspense for long as to the nature of his wares, but, without dismounting his bike, inquired, his mouth half-full of beef patty,

"D'you guys wanna buy some meat?"

I should not have been surprised, but was, having never had meat solicited to me from a duffle bag in a beer store parking lot before. Though I had no desire to actually buy any of the fellow's product, I couldn't resist asking,

"Is it the same stuff you're currently eating?"

To which he replied, "Yeah!.." and there was a pause as the guy thought over my question, "...but raw".

And then the fellow was on his way, realizing from the tone of my inquiry, and with the sharpened senses of a street hawker to such things, that neither my friend nor I were seriously in the maket for discount street meat.

As he biked away, the guy's shorts revealed more of his posterior than modesty is generally wont to expose, and I quickly averted my gaze, wondering to myself at the colourful panorama of life that seems to burst into view with the first few warm days of summer. The whole encounter took less than twenty seconds, but the image of the short-shorted meat vendor is now burned in my mind: just another real-life Fakiegrind encounter unleashed upon the larger world via the magic of the internet.

More Setbacks

Movement, according to the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea (not to be confused with 21st century discount DJ, Zeno of Steeltown), is impossible. His reasoning was that, in order to get from point A to point B, one must first pass through the mid-point (C). However, in order to reach mid-point C, one must first reach the half-way point between A and C (point D). Yet, in order to get to point D, one must first pass through the point mid-way between A and D (point E), and so on, to infinity. Because one must pass through infinite half-way points before even reaching the half-way point between A and B, and because all alphabets so far designed by humanity have less than infinite characters, a traveller setting out to make the A-B journey would, argues Zeno, never actually arrive.

In the history of the Fakiegrind Corp. this argument has never been accepted as reasonable grounds for Agents not showing up for work in the morning. However, there seems to be some kind of Zeno-esque effect hindering our recent efforts to move Fakie Central to a new and super-secret location. Try as we might to empty out the Vaults of Oldness, to disconnect and re-install our dated but reliable vacuum tube computer system, and to reach the bottom of Dr. Flavour's stockpile of reference material on the great Papal schism of 1550, we are still not up and running as the reliable purveyors of encoded misinformation and poetic perversions of perversity that we so strive to be. Try as we might to bend time and space to speed up the re-location process, we find ourselves, week by week, even further behind than we though we were when last we evaluated the situation.

And so, we have created a special research team to investigate Zeno's philosophical debate with common sense and see if there might not be some loophole in his logic that we could exploit to our own advantage. While this might seem like a further waste of valuable time and resources, we are confident that, in the final analysis, we will be no further behind or ahead of where we were before we started (which was, essentially, neither here nor there).