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The middling ghost haunted the not particularly desolate moor with its customary apathy. “Whooooahhh,” it sighed, none-too-terrifying monotone mediocrely evoking the plaints of a half dozen or so doomed souls. From a distance, the lacklustre utterance sent a twinge of mild apprehension down the spines of young Polly and Marco, two characterless children implausibly but conveniently walking along the crappy trail late at night.
A few vaguely spooky events proceeded to unfold at a sluggish rate. Some perfunctory pseudo-jokes were sprinkled in as an afterthought. Or maybe they weren't; whatever. A little while later the vacant-eyed reader or author chewed listlessly on stale rice cakes as the minutes continued dismally trickling by.
Date Written: February 09, 2005
Author: Jon Matza
Average Vote: 3.2222
Comments:
02/17/2005 Streifenbeuteldachs: Hmm, this one I may need to sleep on.
02/17/2005 Will Disney: this one contains an accurate representation of the dreariness of everything, but lacks the HA.
02/17/2005 qualcomm: as i indicated in matza's chinaman submission, i believe this gag may be finito
02/17/2005 The Rid (4): This gag has been gagged before, and better, but it's still funny. I mean, "Or maybe they weren't; whatever." Come on!
02/17/2005 John Slocum: If I were QC, I'd say this were a conflated rip off of Matza shorts: the 'unspecified individuals were....' and the 'lonely foghorn...' one. Sorry, I need to practice my link-html.
02/17/2005 John Slocum: Not that that's a bad thing.
02/17/2005 ElTwisto: ElTwisto!
02/17/2005 Mr. Pony: This may be similar to the short Slocum mentioned, but I think the territory is at least as fertile as the Catastrophic Tone Shift Joke that Acme is home and host to.
02/17/2005 Dick Vomit (3): Dick Vomit types out a lazy-ish comment about this short sort of wasting his time, but not really. He drags the pull down menu and selects 3 stars, a vote which, to his mind, indicates a neutral response, he guesses. Somethin'.
02/17/2005 qualcomm: it may be as fertile, but as sloc pointed out and you seemed to agree with, its actual content has been done before. so we have here a well-trod trope with secondhand content. also, this short consists only of that one joke, done repeatedly. lerpa unsheathes his long knife...
02/17/2005 qualcomm: i actually thought it was more similar to the other short sloc referred to, subterranean noroton blues.
02/17/2005 Mr. Pony: True. The new thing here, I think, is the depressing and depressed second paragraph. Or maybe it's not new--maybe it's just implied in the two other shorts.
02/17/2005 Phony Millions: I don't have the problem with the self-aware apathetic thing as much as the awkward second sentence. After '"Whoooahh," it sighed,' it looks like a clause begins, but needs an article or something in front of 'none-too-terrifying' etc. And 'mediocrely,' if it exists as a word, does not help me stay engaged in the short.
02/17/2005 Jimson S. Sorghum (3): Mediocrely is practically a crime. If everything else was fantastic, I'd still stuck on that word. Sorry, Author. It's so bad it's not even funny.
02/17/2005 qualcomm: also, i call ripoff of grafs 2&3 of this
02/17/2005 Mr. Pony: That second paragraph is so sad! I want to give that reader a big hug and take him dancing!
02/17/2005 anonymous: I hate it when my readers misconstrue the depressive spell one of my shorts casts over them as errors/problems with the short itself by means of defensive, subconscious projection!
02/17/2005 Jimson S. Sorghum: Just for the record, I didn't read Brad's comment before I wrote that last one. Honest.
02/17/2005 anonymous: 'Mediocrely' was a joke. A joke, I say--a joke!
02/17/2005 qualcomm: i didn't mind mediocrely at all
02/17/2005 Mr. Pony: Was the clause missing the article a joke too?
02/17/2005 Jimson S. Sorghum: It occurred to me that it might have been a joke. But it didn't tickle my funny bone in the way that other awkward words or phrases might. I think it just didn't fit in somehow.
02/17/2005 anonymous: Re missing article: are you people saying it should've been "its none-too-terrifying monotone"? If so, isn't this debatable? (If not, what are you saying?) Am asking not out of defensiveness but sweet righteousness.
02/17/2005 Litcube: Poor ghost. :(
02/17/2005 qualcomm (3): one thing i will say for this short: "crappy trail." now that's just uncalled for. even the fucking trail is no good.
02/17/2005 Ewan Snow (3): I think neither the missing article nor the use of mediocrely is a problem. I took mediocrely to be just another example of the same joke this one makes over and over. That's the problem.
02/17/2005 Phony Millions: Well, I'm sorry, author: I didn't get the joke to using 'mediocre' as an adverb - it just sounded awakward. And no that clause is just wrong. It's qualifying the first part of the sentence. I guess 'in a' would do before 'none'. But what is the 'joke' to 'mediocrely'? I'm all ears and I'm not bashing you.
02/17/2005 anonymous: "EEEEEEEE" Matza shrieked, piercing falsetto radly illustrating his frustration with the acme community's willful refusal to acknowledge all that was righteous, fluffernutter and/or mentholated about his latest masterpiece.
02/17/2005 Ewan Snow: Granted it's not a great joke, but it's intentionally awkward and incorrect. It's supposed to be funny (like the rest of the short) because it is so bad. And for the missing words, I agree it would be clearer with "in a", but this type of construction is not totally unheard of; it's a sort of short-hand type of phrasing. I see it as analogous to something like "He walked along, hands in pocket." The awkwardness comes with this one because the short-hand phase is too complex, or large, to be easily parsed. So I think it isn't good writing, because it's unclear, but I don't think it's precisely incorrect.
02/17/2005 qualcomm: i think the clause is fine. also, the claus
02/17/2005 TheBuyer (3): This style goes against my grain in general, but I like the world this exists in, kind of a bored, bizarro earth.
02/17/2005 Litcube (4): I liked "crappy" here. Also, this conjures potent images for me. Funny ones, that is!
02/17/2005 John Slocum (3):
02/17/2005 Dick Vomit: I like crappy everyplace.
02/17/2005 Mr. Pony (3):