George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
While the other pirates raided towns, George would go see the local art museum.
Not to loot it, mind you. He’d go there to see the art.
He usually had to wake up early, before the other pirates, so he could see the art before they looted it.
“Can you give me ten more minutes?” he told his fellow pirates. “There’s a church across the street. Go loot it.”
George always felt guilty about the looting, and left a donation to the art museum.
Which his fellow pirates looted.
George’s green beard
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Instead of being concerned about the condition of his boat, he was more worried about the condition of his skin.
The salt air of the sea and the tropical sun totally ruined his complexion.
One night, George drank too much, and he passed out in a plate of guacamole.
The next day, he woke up, face covered with the green goop.
It was the perfect mask. For once, his skin felt great.
Even if the other pirates thought “Gloppy Greenbeard the Pirate” weird for wearing it all the time.
George gets coached
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He held his cutlass wrong, and tended to strike people with the dull side of the blade.
“NO!” shouted the cutlass coach. “Use the sharp end!”
“Oh,” said George, adjusting his grip. “How’s this?”
“That’s even worse!” growled the coach. “If you strike with the flat of the blade, you’ll shatter it.”
He took the cutlass out of George’s hand, slapped him with it, and put it in George’s hand properly.
“Try that,” said the coach.
George stabbed the coach.
“Much better,” said George. “Thank you.”
He didn’t respond.
George the maroon
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
You know the term maroon?
To be stranded on an deserted island.
But also, a stupid person.
Well, pirates tended to strand stupid people on deserted islands.
And for all of his screwups, George got marooned by frustrated crewmates and captains a lot.
Other pirate ships would sail by the islands and ask what George was doing there.
He’d pull out a map and a shovel and start digging. “The treasure’s here!”
The other pirates would dig, and George would sneak on to their ship to escape the island.
Weekly Challenge #888 – PICK TWO Forward, Oblique, Exterior, Black hole, Videotape, Stakes
The next weekly challenge topic is: Satisfied
RICHARD
Strong, and black
The coffee shop can be found on the exterior rim of black hole M87. It orbits there, impossibly, ignoring the laws of physics, and doing a roaring trade in espressos and hot paninis.
I particularly recommend their chocolate muffins, which are to die for.
And, truth be told, die is what you most certainly will do.
Because, although the coffee shop, itself, seems immune to the laws of time and space, its customers most certainly are not.
But, whilst partaking of a decent coffee and chocolate muffin, at least you’ll be crushed to atoms with a smile on your face.
LIZZIE
Forward, and they stretched their arms forward.
Oblique, and they stretched their arms kind of sideways but not quite.
Black hole, and they were confused.
Stakes, and they were even more confused.
One of them mimicked a vampire being stabbed. Everyone thought that was a good idea and did the same.
“The point of this class is to open your mind. Express yourselves.”
That’s when he said “I think I’m about to relapse and start killing people again. That stakes part triggered me a bit.”
The class was canceled due to a stampede of students exiting and never coming back.
SERENDIPIDY
When you receive the videotape, you can skip the first hour or so: There’s nothing much to see, so you should fast forward to the good bit.
You’ll know you’re there, when the lights flicker on, and your family appears -a cosy scene, all huddled up on the sofa watching their favourite TV programme.
And it’s only then that you realise that your family are not the only ones watching.
I’m watching them, recording their activities, their conversations… Oh, and their rather disgusting indiscretions also.
And, unless you pay me generously.
The whole world will get to watch them too.
TOM
888
Vinny had a Plan. Make it in Guinness with the larger collection of videotapes. He had a head start with 40 years of hording. People were happy to wheel-barrow their collections to Vinny, free for the taking in. Vinny also had an ace in the whole. He had a least at Area 51, which had the largest structure in the world. When the last cassette was wedged into the ceiling the guy from Guiness got out his tape measure. When the tip touches edge the end of magnetic tape it created a monster electric field. A black hole formed, everything vanished.
As to the reason for my absence
Just like the last Beatles single my friend, God rest his soul, lived on a long and winding road. It starts at the edge of the Upper-Upper San Francisco Bay were the lower-lower Sacramento bangs into it. It ends in the high valley plain which is my Lake County. Each end isn’t much to look at, but what is in between is the largest concentration of wineries in the world. We live in the low rent district of this corridor of wine wealth. So, we got a low rent district hospital. Here lies the problem in the time of Covid
NORVAL JOE
Once Billbert was sure Sabrina was following him to the well, he flew forward over the treetops until he came to the outer edge of a circular well. Before he landed, he dropped the old man so that the jerk hit the ground with a grunt.
Sabrina ran up to Billbert as he reached the well and looked into the black hole of darkness below.
“Linoliamanda?” he called.
“Billbert? Is that you?” A familiar voice rose from the darkness.
Without hesitation, Billbert leapt over the stone wall and jumped feet first into the cold water and the evil knight’s trap.
TURA
Forward; Oblique
———
“Forward! Oblique! À l’extérieure! Bloquez, bloquez!” My fencing master soon reverts to French in our sessions. He says that it is the language of fencing, although the Spanish and German masters I have crossed swords with in the salle said the same of their own. And I think that all of them are right, for the art takes different forms in each place. German for the sabre, heavy and brutal. Spanish for the rapier and dagger, thrusting to kill at a reach. French for the épée, for exactness in the art of death. And of course, Klingon for the betleH.
JARED/JRADIMUS
Poker? I Barely Know Her
She didn’t expect to feel like this. For all her planning and practice, all the preparations she had made for this exact scenario, she didn’t think she would feel like she just met her ultimate crush mixed with feeling like she had finished off an entire sack of Halloween candy.
Her opponent was a black hole – any useful information about his hand didn’t make it to his face.
Hesitating slightly, Simone pushed her chips into the center of the table – “I call.”
“Flush,” her foe said as he slowly fanned his cards on the table.
“Reset the simulation,” Simone barked.
PLANET Z
For years, Teddy recorded video of all kinds of wacky things happening.
He kept a journal to make sure he never sent the same thing twice.
Every week, he’d mail them out to all the television shows with the funny things people doing or happening and all that, but his was never picked.
When YouTube was created, Teddy posted all of his rejected videos there.
So many people subscribed and commented.
His share of the ad revenue was pretty good.
People sent him links to their own videos.
And he’d click Like and leave encouraging comments on all of them.
George’s talent
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Still, he was enough of a pirate to be allowed into the Annual Pirate Talent Show.
Lefty McGinty usually won the contest, somehow managing to juggle balls and spin plates despite having a hook for a hand.
Devil’s Eye Morgan shot targets off a cabin boy’s head.
Rummy Bill played a tune by blowing empty whiskey jugs. He had a lot of those.
George folded paper into the shape of animals and things.
“I learned this in Japan,” he said.
Devil’s Eye Morgan shot each of them to bits.
George’s Easter
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Good or bad, the punishment for piracy back in Ancient Rome was crucifixion.
Soldiers stripped George, whipped him, and forced him to haul his cross to the hill where they’d execute him.
Several others were in George’s group, including a long-haired preacher who’d had his head capped in thorns.
The governor let the crowd choose one prisoner to release.
“Release Barbaras!” shouted the crowd.
George sighed relief as the soldiers took him down from his mount.
Then he mugged a guy for clothes and ran back to his ship.
George the manager
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was a bumbling, incompetent twit.
Which is why the captain chose him as his first mate.
Managers empowering their subordinates to be able to do their best?
Hell no.They want to stay firmly entrenched in power, and to eliminate any threats to their job.
George was the least likely of all pirates to pull off a mutiny.
George was also the least likely to stop a mutiny.
As the crew slipped the noose over the captain’s neck, George laughed.
“Know what’s really funny?” The captain whispered, “You’re next.”
George Falls
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He once made a bet that he could go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
Being an untrustworthy pirate, he had a trick up his sleeve: his shipmates would seal him into a barrel, but send a duplicate empty barrel over the falls.
Then, when it was time to open the barrel, they’d switch again and open George’s barrel.
The problem was, George’s shipmates were also untrustworthy pirates.
And they were the ones that George had made the bet with.
The roar of the falls muffled George’s desperate screams.
George and the Band Aids
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Whenever he saw another pirate with a hook hand or pegleg, he’d cringe at the thought of getting hurt that badly.
He kept a first aid kit with him, and if he got as much as a paper cut, he’d spray Bactine on it, slather on antibiotic, and then cover it with a Band Aid.
Not a small one either. One of the big ones.
Then he’d wrap it all in medical tape.
His crewmates liked to pull the bandages off of George slowly, just to watch him wince.