Frank's Pizza Mystery

I was up late one night (Rat's do that ya' know) finishing up a tub of Breyer's Rocky Road,
when I suddenly got hungry with a craving for some Pizza.
I called up Frank's because I like the way the Chef wears his scarf,
in hopes that I could finally find a joint that delivers in the middle of the night.
The strange thing was that it went straight to a voice message that sounded a lot like Frankie.
OUR FRANKIE!!!
Has he been secretly running a Pizzeria this whole time and not telling me?
Is this the answer to my dreams of Free Pizza For Life?
The Plot in Frankie's Apartment thickens.
Tune in next year to see what happens!

Cardboard Pond For Model Railroad Layout

70's.

Another Banana Stamp

It's a Party!

NETFLIX does it again!

I've been waiting for a reboot of Hey Nephew!

 

Back in 1991, Hey Nephew! was my absolute FAVORITE Greeting Card (FOR nephews,
FROM aunts and uncles).  Of course, it doesn't hold a candle to some of the Easter Cards for
a GRANDSON from that era, but it definitely beats most of the Graduation Greetings
offered in this period. 

What a cool dog.  I always wondered what the other side of his face looks like.  I hope
Netflix "keeps it real" and never shows it though.  That's one of the main mysteries of this
Greeting Card.  It would be like telling us who killed Laura Palmer to open up the show.

Tank Top tucked into belted Shorts.  I sense a theme.

Jams style shorts.  Let's hope they're anthropomorphic in the show.

I used to look at these sneakers for almost 2 seconds, one time.  I never had a fantasy about them and
they barely registered back then.  I can't wait to see what Netflix has in store for these guys!

ThermoNuclear Pencil Case

I just got this Pink Neon colored Pencil Case/ ThermoNuclear Containment Pouch.
My theory is that during the early 90's, after the Cold War ended,
the "Powers That Be" had all this nuclear waste to dispose of on the quick-fast.
So they started crafting Neon Colored everything out of the stuff
and sold it to all the Guidos, Skaters and Nerds of the world as "Cool Surfer Junk".
It's pretty useless as a pencil case because the lead turns to liquid
if a pencil is kept in there for more than 10 minutes.
But, I do kinda like how it gives you a splitting headache if you touch it.

Christmas Box

Christmas is 235 days away.
That's only 338,400 minutes from now.
I can do that standing on my head.

Albertson Sugar Bowl

This place might have sold candy and soda in the past but they sure don't anymore.  Now, it is a sad and
wretched cesspool of gambling and cigarette smoking.  I have no idea how it is possibly still open.
I'm sort of glad that it is, but I hated it so much that if I was Drew Barrymore in Firestarter there would
have been no way for me to tell my flame-powers to "Back Off, Just Back Off."
Some old guy that runs it was literally smoking two cigarettes at once.  They have three TV screens for
keno, a bunch of duct taped stools, and wads of old lotto tickets all over the floor.  There are no
refrigerator units for drinks, no newspapers, and one old candy rack that is almost completely empty
but for a few packs of life savers from the 70's.  Of course, I wanted these, but old Smoke-Ears wouldn't
sell them to me.  In the end, just as we had our feet out the door, he said in a calm voice, "Get out."

Frankie Clapping (Forever)

I smashed up a Casio watch and sprinkled some of it into Frankie's baked beans last night
so now he's stuck in time applauding my every dance move.
Thank You. Thank you.  You're far too kind. (for a Children's Show Host)
An encore? Well, if you insist...

Italian Flag At The Hot Dog Stand

Salute!

Linda, the Transgender Phonebooth

If a building is sentient (and most of them are), sometimes it comes to pass that it feels deep within its structures that it's not the kind of building that it looks like.  This is sort of like when a human is transgender.
And that's what's up with my favorite phonebooth in all of Zaghaven.
I'm sorry, my favorite CASTLE in all of Zaghaven.  I have to say, whenever I make a call on the
royal telephone, I feel just like the Queen of England.  If you make a call inside Linda, please
remember to close her drawbridge.  You wouldn't want anyone to overhear the name of the horse on
which you are betting.

Montez, The "Empdas" Mascot

Montez is a straight-up slammingly good person.  He might be one of the few Empanadas made out
of florescent yellow OAKTAG, but that didn't stop Mr. Parfenix from eating his arms off one afternoon.
Is Montez bitter?  Hell no!  He just keeps at his gig, steady rockin' "Empdas" advertisement to the
good people of the Sixth Borough.  Chees flavor is good, Beer Empdas are even better, but the
Chic Empdas are the best - they come dressed in Prada heels and designer jeans, but like, wearing some cool
vintage shirt that they just threw on out of their boyfriend's hamper.

Clowns

Leafy Sea Dragon

King of Seahorses

Blue Kills Park

Blue Kills Park is a great place.  Made up of Christmas Trees, Redwoods, and Treehouse People.
Half enchanted-forest, half landfill.  Everything you'd want.  Lots of retired leprechauns and
sewer alligators that walk on their hind legs.  Home of reputed 6th Borough bad guy, the
Green Pumpkin and his tagging crew, the B6 Bonkers, or the B6B.  Blue Kills is the divider
of the last two sections of Z - the South: where we chill, and the North: where the Candy
Factory keeps a fence up around itself so it won't drop into the void of the random ideas
going at it in the mists of the most top.  Remember: the Candy Factory has its Vapors.
It's when the Vapors start getting down with the Mists that the North goes solid and
produces something weird that sticks around for a while and makes things interesting.

The Treehouse People are nice: they look like ordinary Treehouses.  If you're lucky enough to
befriend a Treehouse Person, they might let you spend the night inside them, but be careful not
to hurt their feelings, and let them know you're not looking for a serious relationship.

Other Park-Dwellers like to live in huts they scoop out of the hills.

Don't be shocked to see an Alligator living with a leprechaun in a hill house.  They make
fantastic roommate for some reason.

My therapist, Bill the Snowman, has several escape routes in his fridge that bleed out into the
Park.  This is one of them.  Sometimes Bill does his comedy act in the park for the critters that are willing
(insane enough) to cough up the 10 dollar cover charge.  Oh, and the 2-snowcone minimum.
Bill's a funny guy, don't get me wrong, but his comedy is too high concept.  Once he just sat there
and did his taxes.  That was his act.  The Hawks started circling, the snow-leopards were glaring.
The squirrels were laughing their asses off, but they'll laugh at anything.
I mean, I get what Bill was saying, it's funny, but it's not laugh-out-loud funny.

The original site of the candy factory.

View of Blue Kills from the North.

Early Green Pumpkin Sticker.

The Far Edge of Zaghaven

Me, on the north side of Zaghaven.  That's supposed to be the East River sort of behind me and to the right, but
the mists of other people's imaginations obscure the north from reality.  Zaghaven is weird like that.
We are held together by what we find from the old days, and what people think we are.  Once,
when the mists were light, I could see out upon the river and on that day it looked like one gigantic
pink trampoline.  It's worth it sounding bible-y.  You never know in the North of the Sixth.
And Game of Thrones thought they had the North shit all craze and world-endy.  In the Sixth Borough,
the North sways.  I once rode my bike down a squiggle that lead straight through the
imagination of a 6-year-old.  A six-year-old CAT.  Now THAT was spooky.  Still,
you can always find your way back, it just might not be the same as you remembered it.

The clear days are the ones to be afraid of.  It was on a clear day that they broke the 6th Borough in the
first place.  

Trade Secret

Watch Repair Shops can't survive on the money they make repairing watches.  Didn't you ever
think of that?  Come on.  Watch Repair People deal in under-the-table Time Travel.
How do they do it?  It's all in those old digital Casio joints.  A little programming borrowed from
the future, one of those Venusian batteries that cost a fortune - and voila -- you could be chilling
in last week.

The Sixth Borough has a Jellyfish Problem

Some are calling it an epidemic.

They're popping up in sinks.

Bathtubs.

Toilets.

They took over the POOL at Blue Kills Park last summer.  Their leader, a jellyfish named Fred,
says he won't be happy until the Jellyfish are properly represented in government.
A nice painting in the main hall of the Zaghaven courthouse would suffice, he says.

Ay-Chee

Ay-Chee is one of those Happy Wanderer types.
Nothing really bothers him and he doesn't bother nothing.
At least that's what it seems like on the outside.
What no one knows is that he used to be a high stakes poker player (a lousy one too),
which eventually lead him to lose his 99cent shop to a Loan-Shark related "Bust-Out".
And that's the story of how I got Frankie to buy me a dirt-cheap red Igloo cooler.

SF - Power Electronics