RoundTable Thursday : Punctuation, Octomom, and the Sniffles

Welcome to another RoudTable Thursday! The only round table discussion that features the writers of Act Classy that you can find on Thursdays on this site. I’ll be your moderator, Joseph “Gin Rummy” Lyons, and we hope that you enjoy this glimpse into the creative process of the beautiful minds that are the folks at Act Classy.

Our meetings look like this, but with WAY more lens flare…we have headaches ALL of the time….

JOE LYONS – If I were to purchase a table I’d want that table to very much be a ROUNDTABLE THURSDAY!!!! QUESTION! The English language is lousy with punctuation. If you were tasked with creating a new icon to add to the hall of punctuation what would it be? What would it look like? What would it stand for?

BRAD STEPHENSON – I think, given society’s overall desensitization to things, we need Punctuation 2.0. These would be advanced versions of existing punctuation marks.

For instance, the exclamation point is no longer enough to express my excitement about things like The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, and I don’t want to use multiple exclamation points like some sort of namby pamby bitch.

My new idea for the Exclamation Point 2.0 is a sword on fire sitting with Rip Taylor’s head as the dot but he has the body of an eagle, and he’s pooping on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Here is my rendering of the Exclamation Point 2.0:

I can’t wait to see this in the Comic Sans font…

Now, that’s just a rough sketch. We’d definitely need a top artist like Thomas Kinkade to do the final version. I know he’s dead, but we’d definitely want someone of his caliber.

 

JIVE TURKEY – Although it’s not technically punctuation, I think we need an alternative to the “high importance” flag. I mean, yeah, I guess a little red flag is attention-grabbing, but it’s so cute! It doesn’t look threatening at all! I say we turn the high importance flag into something that really demands your attention, like an irregular mole. Better yet, and irregular mole on a testicle. Now we’re talking.

Nothing makes me want to ignore your email more than this.

Note: I will not be doing a rendering of Jive Turkey’s idea.

 

I have never been happier!

FRED BETZNER – I would like to see a mark that is correct no matter where it’s placed or omitted, like it could even be in the mi,ddl/e of a word and it’s not grammatically wrong. I don’t know what it would mean, or express, all I know is that it would be uncorrectable and maybe then my 4th grade English teacher would stop grading everything I write online and emailing me report cards and FINALLY HAVE THE GOOD GRACE TO DIE SAD AND ALONE LIKE GOD INTENDED!

Except for this.  This is always unforgivable.

Fred, did your 4th grade English teacher refuse your sexual advances?

 

Only every time.

 

Do not want.

That’s as terrifying as it is tragic. Personally, as a writer, I need a piece of punctuation that can indicate at the end of the paragraph whether or not the character or characters in the story then ate pizza. I am so sick and tired of having to write “And then they had pizza.” or “Too bad they couldn’t eat pizza just then.” at the end of every dramatic beat in my stories. It’s tedious! Whether or not characters can or can not eat pizza is so important to writing and has been since the Bible. So I propose these characters to go at the end of every paragraph in a work of writing:

+V+ = “And then they ate pizza.”

-V- = “Too bad they couldn’t eat pizza just then.”

I thought Catherine was dead. She looked dead. Her face was gray, the part of it that I could see. Down below, under the light, the doctor was sewing up the great long, forcep-spread, thick-edged wound. +V+

I’m just trying to make the world of writing easier. SECOND TOPIC! Nadya Suleman, the diabolical Octomom and arch nemesis of Spider-Womb, has stated that she would consider doing adult films as a way to make money and get her out under an astronomical amount of debt. The challenge is this: What would be the hilarious title of the film she would star in? What would be the plot?

Easy. The title would be Octopussy. That’s not been taken yet, right? I mean, what self-respecting book and film franchise would ever use a title that ridiculous.

The plot would be that she gets ******** by eight ——–.

(By the way, ******** = “courted” and ——– = “respectable suitors”)

Who wants to see pictures of my Great Grandchildren?

Well, I’m partial to two titles: Nadye Without My Daughter, in which Nadye and a Sally Field lookalike (can’t use real Sally Field — her bones are too brittle) get freaky while being detained in an Iranian prison. Alfred Molina directs.

My second choice: Suleman, in which C. Thomas Howell poses as Nadye Suleman in order to receive a full scholarship to Harvard. And then there are some boners and stuff.

Who wants to pay me to race these suckers?!

It would be called You Did This to Yourself and We’re Only Supporting Anything You Do Because We Care About the Welfare of Your Poor Poor Children, Honestly This Whole Thing is Pretty Gross. And it’s less of a porn and more an episode of Intervention with nudity.

From the Tommy Stickman Archives…

Personally, I would have went with an adult film parody of The Fantastic Voyage, since any other adult actors and actresses along with the film crew are just going to end up falling in anyway, due to the laws of under-region gravity, better known as “The Michelle Duggar Effect”

A TLC film crew struggles to survive their escape from Michelle Duggar.

FINAL TOPIC!!! How do you cure a case of the sniffles?

 

‘Lizbeth!  It’s the big one!!!

Valium?

 

Booze. Kills feelings AND germs.

 

I’ll tell you this much… letting a rich guy you met in a Las Vegas casino one night pay you $1 million to stick things up your nostrils is definitely NOT a cure.

 

How am I supposed to turn Robert Redford down?!  I’m only human!!!

 

MOLLY MARTIN – Poppycock. It’s a cure for boredom, employability, inability to make small talk, and empty nostrils.

Now, see: THIS is where I need need punctuation. I needed to end that last paragraph with flourish. Maybe a bowing exclamation point is in order.

Please use this gif until we develop the appropriate punctuation for taking a bow.

Well, that wraps up another RoundTable Thursday!  Now let’s hear from you.  What new form of punctuation would make your life complete?  What are your hilarious porn titles for Octomom?  HOW DO I GET RID OF THESE DAMNED SNIFFLES!!! Use the comments box below, please…

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