If you are looking for a warm and fuzzy Christmas story, you better keep looking because this is not your Grandparents’ Christmas story. If your dark side is looking for a bit of a chuckle, then this story is just what you need. Without further ado, I’d like to present you with a twisted little tale called ‘Fresh Meat’. Happy Holidays folks!

Gretta stood next to a dumpster in the alleyway behind her family’s restaurant, puffing furiously on a cigarette. She fumbled with the broken zipper on her coat for a while until she finally gave up with a defeated sigh and a twinge of disgust.

That’s it. I am buying myself a new coat for Christmas. Why didn’t I throw this ratty old thing out last year like I planned? Why do I save useless crap like this? I need to just grab a few dozen trash bags and get rid of it, all of it. It’s not like I’m ever going to use old catalogs, broken cassette tapes, or a year’s supply of plastic bags. Why is it so hard to let things go?

Her feeble attempts to ward off the frigid air by clenching her coat closed with one hand were thwarted by mighty arctic blasts. No longer able to withstand the chill, Gretta dipped the half-finished cigarette into the newly fallen snow. Then she dropped the soggy butt into her coat pocket.

“Damn zipper,” she mumbled as she turned around to reach for the door.

Dieter noticed his daughter trying to shake off the bitter cold when she passed the stove to hang up her coat. “Come and have a nice bowl of soup. I made it fresh.”

Gretta sat down with her soup. Just as the spoon was about to touch the murky broth, her face soured and muscles tensed.

“Wait, how fresh?” She turned to her father.

“Oh!” Dieter grew pale for a moment while he wiped his hands on his apron. “Not that fresh…” He glanced over at a man in a tacky, red Santa sweater who’d been busy studying the menu longer than it would take Dieter to read a novel. “Just a little something I whipped up this morning.” He smiled nervously.

It was too late. She had already lost her appetite. She felt nauseated and her head was pounding. Even the soft melody of Christmas oldies playing on the jukebox were grating on her nerves. Aching to get this day over with and just jump straight into bed, Gretta glanced up at the clock. That’s when she noticed the dirty tables waiting for her.

I can’t believe that I didn’t even remember to clean up after the morning rush.

Gretta shook her head while glancing down at the barely touched mounds of food abandoned by two teenagers.

“Such a waste,” she sighed and cleared off the table.

Just like my life.

She tried to push the unsettling thought away without success.

You ruined everything! We were supposed to grow old together. You were going to toss aside fifteen years for some silly little teenage girl with bleached blond hair and bad skin. How could you do that to me? I loved you! You fu-

“Excuse me, Miss?” The raspy voice of a patron flagging her over pierced the foggy veil of her thoughts instantly, but the bitterness lingered.

Gretta forced a smile and grabbed a pen and pad from her apron. When the elderly gentleman gave her his order, she struggled to suppress the urge to giggle. The hint of a grin flashed across her face as she strolled into the kitchen.

Her panic-stricken husband made futile attempts to jerk free from his bindings when Gretta opened the freezer door. He gurgled in alarm as he eyed the knife in her hand.

“You’re an utter waste of human life, but I just can’t bring myself to throw things away, even worthless trash like you. You got off real easy last time, Franz. I mean, how many people order tongue these days?” She grabbed his crotch forcefully and met his bewildered gaze with a smirk.

“This time, it’s German sausage.”

For more twisted tales and other bizarre brain droppings you can visit the author at her blog antibarbie.net

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Please help, I don’t know what to do…

The other day, while I was trying (unsuccessfully) to increase the resolution of my monitor, my wife came in and told me she was going to bingo. All was fine with that as she goes every week and has done for the 3 years of our marriage but lately she has been getting over-excited when she is due to go, she even puts on ‘party’ clothes now! I asked her about them but she just said that the girls go to the pub after the last game has finished.

She has been acting very strange and always deletes her text messages right after she receives them instead of leaving her cell phone to get to the “too many messages” error. Also, I’m not complaining but, she is always wearing the expensive perfume that I gave her last Christmas. She didn’t even wear it when I last took her on a night out six months ago!

I’m starting to get really suspicious now, the phone rings and whenever I answer it there is no one there or the person says it’s a wrong number or asks for someone who doesn’t live here. I asked her why my she never gets any wrong numbers but she couldn’t explain it. I found a receipt in her jacket pocket for a local restaurant but, when I checked our joint account there wasn’t an entry for that restaurant. When I asked my wife about it, she said it must have been for her work expenses account (she doesn’t work anywhere near this restaurant!!!)

Last night was the final straw, I came home early from work to give her a surprise (she always complains that I work too much) and she was in her nightdress talking animatedly on the phone with someone. As soon as I came in through the door, she finished the call without even saying goodbye. All she could say about being in a night dress was that she was coming down with a cold and was going to take a bath before going to bed early.

While she was in the bath, I checked the last received call to her cell phone and used my own phone to dial it. A man answered! I asked him who he was and he just said he worked for some computer company and he didn’t know who the last person to use the phone was. I got the company name out of him and used the internet to find out it’s address so I could go down there and get some answers. I went upstairs to talk about this to my wife and she was on another cell phone, she should only have one cell phone! where did she get a new one?? I had had enough so I told her to get out of the bath and come with me to the company I had just talked to.

She didn’t want to come and we had a big fight so I decided to go there myself! I nearly crashed twice on the way with so much horribleness going through my mind but I finally made it, I pulled up right in front of the company window. Just under the special offer sign for a 29 inch widescreen monitor going for 200 quid.

The question I want to ask is, do you think I should get this monitor now or wait until a bigger version comes along?

kind regards

Mr. G. Eek.

hehehe, this is an entry to AntiBarbie’s contest to win a custom blog header graphic.

Here are the rules if you want to enter yourself (and you should!), write a letter to Shabby asking for advice. The one deemed the best by Dawn by December 17th will win the prize.

All entries must follow these simple rules or be disqualified:

1.) One entry per person please.

2.) The entry *must* be up on your own blog with a link back to this post (and a mention of the prize would be great too!)

3.) The entries can be as long or as short as you want but all entries are due by December 17th!

After the contest closes I will take a very short interlude to read all the entries/letters and pick the winner. The winning entry will be posted on this blog, along with Dear Shabby’s response. Good luck and have fun with it!

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I have a notebook that I write ideas down on that I carry around with me for when ideas pop into my head and it’s got quite a few for FiddyP. One of the first things I wanted was a unique design, I was going to make my own but I scored some commercial projects recently and so I couldn’t put the time in to do it myself. I now have a designer working on the project and I can’t wait to see the results!

Recently, I stumbled on a blog called “The gospel according to Rhys” (maker of the Technorati tag generator). I really liked the style of the blog and his writing. He’s got a good sense of humour and his posts about his trip to Europe were hilarious! I noticed that he had advertising available on his site and jumped in to get a whole years worth!

I’ve also asked him if he could bring some of his humour over to here now and again, he’s going to think about something to post about and maybe he can do a guest post here in the near future. If you get a chance, go and visit his site and take a look around. He’s Wales’ premier blogger!

Another fine blogger who I have approached about posting here is someone you might know due to her excellent talent for short stories (check out two amazing 55 word shorts here). AntiBarbie is her pen name, she has had a lively following on her blog at Antibarbie.net and I think having a monthly short story here would be a great feature!

I’d like to get some more guest posts here when the new theme goes live and start participating in some more photography memes. I’d love to get some pictures that are as high quality as Opal’s Flower and Bee shots at Vegan Momma and I’d like to improve CommentLuv even more so it can act as a plugin on the sidebar showing the last posts of recent commenters. Like the blogrush widget but just for people that comment on the blog, it will also get it’s own options page to allow people the choice of what is used for the text of the plugin in the comment and below it.

For my posts, I have had a wonderful time with a couple of AJAX books recently and I’ve come up with some super easy tutorials that can run for a few weeks for each stage and gradually take you from ‘hello world’ to a working program to include on your blog.

More contests will come this way too, I’m trying to source some good prizes for the future. I prefer prizes to cash. What sort of prizes would you like to see here? Technology or something else like vouchers for online stores…?

Time to open the comments… what would you like to see here?

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I got tagged by Antibarbie for this meme, I don’t think I’ve ever been properly tagged yet and so this one pops my cherry (oo-er!)

I’ve seen lots of meme type posts on blogs I surf by on and never really got it but, when you’re in one it’s different so like it or not, here it comes…

the rules
Each player starts with some random facts/habits about himself/herself. As you are tagged you need to post the rules and your responses on your own blog. At the end of your post, you need to choose some people to tag, list their names and, of course, leave them a comment, telling they have been tagged and they need to read your blog for more information.

1. is for Andy, my name and I like it (luckily)
2. is for Bailey, my second name - phew, this is easy so far…
3. is for Cats. I like cats, they is has funeez
4. is for Dharma. Life’s like that
5. is for Entropy. Life ends and starts with it (huh?)
6. is for Fantastic. Like life can be
7. is for Goal. as in to have one
8. is for Harrowing. my childhood
9. is for Indecision, it must be stopped! ..but when? and why? etc
10. is for Juxtaposition. I like to throw words like this in to conversation
11. is for Kilobyte. exactly 1024 bytes
12. is for Love. It’s all you need, apparently
13. is for Madness, it happens when you fall in love
14. is for Navy, I was in it once
15. is for Objects, I like them. The more the merrier
16. is for Programming. Like a rocking chair to my mind
17. is for Questions. I have too many
18. is for Result. Good or bad, you always get one
19. is for Sex, it’s better than .. um..
20. is for Touch. reach out and..
21. is for Ubiquitous. beep w00t
22. is for Verbose. why use 1 word when you can use 10?
23. is for Whatever, like, totally!
24. is for Xavier, a name almost as good as Andy
25. is for Yet. I’m not a millionaire..
26. is for Zed, it’s how you say the letter Z

Here’s my tags…
Bobby @ Revellian.com , Pelf @ chenpn.com, Chessnoid @ totalnoid.com

did you say, “zee” or “zed” for the last one?

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