A weblog by Hao Lian.
A terrible secret guarded by golems.
A note that thanks you for being born, all those years ago.
Do unto others as you would unto them.
Measure once, cut twice.
Don’t judge a man by how he treats his equals but by how he treats his inferiors.
Fortune favors the bold.
Pick up tickets to the campus movie theater’s free Friday night showing ahead of time instead of waiting the line thirty minutes beforehand like everybody else.
A man calls a waiter over to his table. “Waiter,” he says, “There’s a fly in my soup.”
The waiter leans over the soup and inspects it. “Sir, I don’t see a fly at all.”
“There’s a fly in my soup,” the man insists.
The waiter leans closer to the soup, giving it a thorough inspection again. Again, he sees nothing. “Sir, there doesn’t seem to be a fly.”
“There’s absolutely a fly in my soup,” the man insists again.
The waiter leans even closer to the soup. The man grabs the back of the waiter’s neck and forces his face into the soup, which splatters everywhere.
“You didn’t look closely enough!” the man yells to the whole restaurant. He ignores the waiter’s screams of anguish as blisters appear on her face. Finally, much too late, he lets go of her neck. He picks up an eight-year old girl sitting at another table and presses his steak knife against her carotid artery. “You all didn’t look closely enough!” he shouts.
The restaurant owner comes out. The man pulls out a gun and shoots him in the heart. The owner was two days away from retirement.
A man walks into a bar and orders a beer. Someone says to him, “You look really chipper today, pal.” He looks around, but he can’t find the location of the voice.
Just as he gives up looking, he hears the same voice say, “I really like your haircut.” Again, he looks around, but he can’t find the location of the voice.
The man settles in to drink his beer before he hears, “It’s a lovely day outside, isn’t it?” The man can’t stand it any more.
“Bartender,” he says, “Do you hear a voice near me?”
“Oh,” the bartender says, “That’s just the peanuts. They’re—”
“I hate peanuts!” the man interrupts, flipping over the bowl. The man takes a nearby pool cue and spears it through the bartender’s body. He then takes his beer and throws it through the plasma television that the bartender had only bought yesterday.
“What’s the matter, honey?” says the bartender’s wife, who walked out after hearing the commotion. The man pulls out his gun and shoots the wife in the heart. She was eight months pregnant with the bartender’s child.
A priest, a rabbi, and a minister are riding the train. A man walks in and screams, “What’s the meaning of life? What’s the meaning of life?!”
The priest, the rabbi, and the minister are dumbstruck. The man shoots the priest, saying “The priest doesn’t have the answers!” The man shoots the rabbi, saying “The rabbi doesn’t have the answers!” The minister turns to run out the compartment, but the man is a skilled sharpshooter. He shoots the minister, saying “The minister doesn’t have the answers!”
“Neither do I,” he whispers as he turns the gun on himself. He cocks the gun. The wife and children of the priest, the rabbi, and the minister stare, frozen with shock. The man pulls the trigger. Specks of blood land on the face of the minister’s youngest son. He remembers that moment for the rest of his life, and he blames himself for it.
A man at the airport holding a sign that read “Wank”, growing increasingly anxious as the curiously named person for whom he was waiting never came;
A man driving a golf cart, utilitarian, janitorial-type vehicle labeled “Logistics”, invoking perhaps a secret Logistics department where all problems miscellaneous and last-minute are solved;
A beautiful woman of long, symmetric hair wearing a white hat and all-white clothes walking into a spot beneath a ceiling window at an airy cafeteria, then illuminated by sunlight, then walking away, then never seen again;
A very polite child telling the airplane waitress that, yes, he would like a lemonade and his sister chiming in that, yes, she would like a lemonade as well please before the two returned to unheard conversation, though one likes to imagine they talked of the financial markets and international diplomacy before sipping their lemonades, yawning, polishing their cuff links, and reminiscing about their favorite toys.
Are you applying for the senior developer position?
How are you?
Have you ever been convicted of a felony?
As you know, I like to think of The Dark Balloon as a place where you can come, set your suitcases down, and get some sound financial advice. As part of my continuing effort to turn you from a poor orphaned elfling into a rich orphaned elfling, I’ve compiled lists of ways you can make money off of simple household items. Today’s household item: love.
You kidnap your rivals’ girlfriends, leaving a business card that contains only the URL of your website. The website is a Netflix knock-off for parts of said girlfriends. After signing up, users can choose to spend unlimited time with two queued parts, and then return them to receive the next two parts. Is this week more of a thigh-and-waist or elbows-and-fingers? Choose carefully! Your first month is a free trial. There is also an “Instant Watch” feature but, really, it’s just a gruesome photo gallery.
At a bar, you wait for a woman to spill a drink on you. You create an optical illusion in which the woman thinks you are giving off electrical sparks. You introduce yourself in a robotic voice. She introduces herself, intrigued by your metallic accent. She asks you about it; you tell her you are a robot—a love robot. You two hit it off. Your relationship quickly progresses, but she knows deep down inside in her heart of hearts—she is part bovine—that your callous lack of emotional ability will stymie all hopes of true love. You tell her there’s a wonderful robot artificer who is willing to upgrade your emotional circuits but it’s too much to afford and you only have half the money saved up. She takes this news sadly. One day, she surprises you with the other half. She has been cutting corners and saving up ever since you told her about the miraculous surgery. Mechanically, you thank her as heartfelt as you can; she knows that in a few hours you will be able to truly express your feelings. You run away with the money. She dies alone, in poverty. As time progresses, you realize your heart has solidified during this long confidence game and, in a fit of irony, you become the robot you always pretended to be.
You open an amusement park where visitors pay money to experience love. The nearby people are surprised; they had not seen nor heard the construction. Everybody comes for a look-see; you generously charge $5 for admission. At the entrance, the most wonderful fried foods are offered, from sweet to spicy, from juicy to crunchy. Visitors engorge themselves, and the food seems to always have the same warm, giddy effect on everybody, as if all the troubles in the world had melted away, as if nothing else mattered but that sensation of ecstatic happiness. The people amble toward the rides, knowing the emotion will never end. But no matter which ride visitors choose—be it the merry-go-round, the hula hoops, or the roller coaster—they end up vomiting. People begin looking for trash cans but there are none. Soon, vomit covers the entire ground and then the booths and then the rides themselves. As visitors wade through the Katrinaesque splurge toward the entrance, which turns out to be the only exit, they find you, the ticket taker, are gone, and so is that feeling of life and humanity that had so enraptured them earlier. Now they only feel hollow and aimless. And they return back to their prosaic, loveless lives while you escape with the money to your prosaic, loveless life, hoping the stench of dirty money can mask the stench of a dirty conscience—but it never will.
You put yourself in a cage and hire somebody to paint a sign next to it. The sign would read “World’s Worst Person”, and you could have someone charge tourists $5 to watch you silently dance in uneven circles.
With two jokes added.
You must
“I Felt My Size,” “I Felt Your Shape,” and “I Lost My Wind.” Such beautiful music.