Mark A. Rayner's Blog: Mark A. Rayner's Goodreads Blog, page 16

E-nnui

Toto the Bio-Sphere Demolition-Bot wondered what it was all about. Did life really mean anything? There had to be more to existence then the senseless destruction of countless inhabited worlds. Maybe it was time for Toto to settle down. Find a nice Species Eradication-Borg and construct a family of Cybertronic Death-Bots equipped with plasma field […]

Red Juggernaut, circa 1906

Doctor Hans Christian “Liver-and-Favva-Beans” Malifico standing next to the prototype of his first business mechanical, the famous Red Juggernaut, Mark I (with claw and hook attachment). Though it would be several years before he founded Juggernaut Business Mechanicals (JBM), and at least another decade before the technology was available for his “chainsaw and boom stick […]

Laundry bills

It was an undeniably exciting sport, but its inventors, Jake and Josh Meridian (pictured at right, shortly before their deaths), never could manage a rally. Their best game (shown here, immediately preceding their horrific fiery demise) never really got off the ground, so to speak. Jake’s trousers (in the foreground, slightly earlier than their irrevocable […]

William Shatner’s Inaugural Address

(After Winning the First Post-Two-Party Presidential Election) Friends, Americans, Countrymen! Lend me your ears. I come to bury our two-party system, not praise it. I stand before you today, not as a conqueror, not as pop icon, but as your President. An American president. Now, what I say next is not said with malice, but […]

The Transmutation of Gary

Early on in the Transmutation of Gary, there was a problem. Gary didn’t enjoy the idea of being transmuted, though he was open to the idea of transubstantiation. (A non-starter, obviously.) We settled on transmogrification, which didn’t upset Gary as much, for some reason. And so the helmet was fused to his body. An excellent […]

Early Outbreaks of the Bozo Virus

Following the cataclysm of the Clown Apocalypse, researchers discovered there had been similar plagues throughout the ages. One of the worst outbreaks in history was the Great Buffoon Drive of ’47. Many thought it started with an especially bad outbreak of the Laughing Flux – a terrible disease causing its victims to fart themselves to […]

Excruciating Album Cover Art – Ignatz Topolino

I include this cover, not because it is awful, but because the story behind this collection of classic jazz nose-harmonica stylings remind me of such an excruciatingly sad story. In the annals of nose harmonica players, Ignatz Topolino is usually the first entry. He was a genius. Grown men would weep at his rendition of […]

Vanity Thy Name is Robot

By mid-century, all the grumpkins agreed: robots were the shit. Even the most hardened humano-mechanicals were aware their robotic cousins could kick their asses. And the feed stock? Don’t be ridiculous. They were so squishy. So temporary. The only reason the snarko-collective allowed the progenitor biological intelligences to survive was simple. Even after they became […]

Happy Yanksgiving!

Alltop prefers roast opossum. Original photo by Doug Brown via Flickr.

Camusic of the Spheres

The dreams had returned, again, and no amount of coffee and cigarettes could keep their influence at bay. The ennui was crushing at times, and even talking with an outrageous French accent would not help. He thought of his days in the theatre. Oh, the crazy antics they’d get up to behind the proscenium. His […]