Once upon a time there was a giant mean troll whose name was Gertrude. Gertrude loved to sneak into the homes of the Village Under the Mountain, and grab the little children who lived there. Then, she'd steal away back to her cave and eat them.

All the parents of the village used to warn their children, make sure you do as we tell you, or the troll will get you! Make sure you study hard, or Gertrude will come for you! So all the little children, frightened by the looming spectre of doom from outside the mountain, always made perfectly sure to behave as they were expected so.

One day, however, as Little Boy Blue skipped along home to his hut under the frost-bourn crag of the southern embrace, he heard a noise behind him. And as he turned to see who was there, Gertrude pounced! Out from behind a rock she dashed, and caught Little Boy Blue up in her arms, and bounded away.

Out through the entrance to the Village Under the Mountain she ran, fast as the wind, Little Boy Blue trailing behind her grasped tightly in her meaty arms, his pale blond hair flapping in the wind. Up, across the sunny meadow and down the vale, and through the trees, over the babbling brook, and deep into her cave she took Blue, where she proceeded to lock him up in a cage, so that she could start a fire and cook and eat him.

As she threw the logs on the fire, in eager anticipation of her coming feast, little boy Blue begged with her. “Why are you going to eat me?” he called, “I'm just a boy! And besides!” he pleaded, “I've never done anything wrong! I always did exactly what my parents told me! Why didn't you steal away one of the naughty children from the village?!”

This surprised Gertrude, because she had never imagined that she might be expected to eat only naughty children. Indeed, she wondered how she could be expected to know in what manner her dinner had behaved at all! All poor Gertrude knew was that she was hungry, and the children of the Village Under the Mountain were so delicious that she could not resist.

While both Gertrude and Blue were together considering the startling revelation that everything they had thought they understood about life was not quite as it seemed, back in the Village Under the Mountain, frenzied action had begun to take place. The parents of Little Boy Blue had noticed their son was missing. Rallying the other village folk, who realised their own children were also at risk, the good people of the Village Under the Mountain decided they needed to act. Their mutual survival demanded the destruction of Gertrude!

And so, gathering their pitch forks, and setting alight their torches, the people of the Village Under the Mountain swarmed out of their homes, and into the streets. Through the great passage out of the maintain, and across the dell they travelled, all the way to the edge of the forest.

However, the forest looked very dark and foreboding, and at this point some of the villagers began to ask themselves whether this was really the best course of action for the village. Maybe, they said, it wasn't so bad! Their children weren't taken, and if they tried to get little boy Blue back, they might be killed in the fight! Then who would care for their homesteads? Who would mind their crops and raise their children?

A tremor of fear ran through the assembled throngs, and not even the heroic words of the village elders could convince them all to stay. And so some of the villagers departed, back to their homes, to huddle in fear and await their destinies from beneath the hearths of their ancestral houses. Others, however, steadied their beating hearts, and summoned their courage.

Swirling like a cloak of ethereal mist about the group, fear and determination mingled, infusing the air with mutual dread and excitement. As they forged on through the woods, and drew nearer to Gertrude's lair they could see obscene, twisted tree shapes, looming in the darkness, and could hear what they imagined must be the screams of the suffering victims. Or else, the howls of the monsters that existed within the woods, on the very fringes of their perception, outside all boundaries of what they knew as normal. Until finally, en masse, the village people burst into a clearing!

The light from their torches cast a flickering nimbus amongst the tattered leaves of the long, low trees, banishing the darkness, and the moonlight, alike. Their presence filled the clearing, and infused it with their sense of righteousness, and exclaimed their absolutism to the wood and all its inhabitants. Gertrude must die, so that they might live!

So that the children of the Village Under the Mountain could go to sleep at night without fear!
So that never again would innocent people face such a fate as Blue.
So that goodness would be restored to their world.

From within her homely lair, Gertrude could hear the crashing exclamations of the village folk, feebly calling for the vengeance they so rightly deserved. And gathering from within herself the same indignation which she faced from outside, she collected her spear and club, and went to meet her foe.

And the assembled mass of the village people was mighty, and lo, Gertrude saw herself outmatched by her opponents. Truly, the force of their convictions overwhelmed her, and lusty battle was had, and much blood was spilled.

When at last the final blow was lain, and the last pitch fork fell to the ground, out of the hand of the lifeless peasant who had wielded it so ably in anger, the torches, too, quenched and ceased to bleat their exclamations of brightness. For indeed, it was morning, and even had they continued to burn, their energy would have been wasted amongst an unknowing crowd of dead, deafened, as it was, by the cacophony of the sun.

Hers, after all, was the brighter light, and it shone more truly than the pitiful torches.

*     *    *

And so victory was had, amongst the trees and the rocks and the creatures of the forest and the vale and the mountain. And Gertrude never again bothered the citizens of the Village Under the Mountain, and Little Boy Blue never again feared for his life as he frolicked in the lush and verdant valley of his existence, between the village he knew, and the forest that threatened him.

And above all and sundry, the sun shone down, upon that happy day.

Once upon a time there was a dog named Sinister. Each day, Sinister would walk to the well with his master, a French Horn, carrying a basket of daisies to sell to the Gremlins who lived at the bottom of the well, where they held a flower market.
 

Frenchie and Sinister would pick the flowers from the garden at the end of the lane, bundle them together with twine, and then distribute them to whichever Gremlin merchant offered the best price that day. Sometimes it was the short fat one who wore the three-cornered hat. Other times, it was the tall, mean looking one who spent his time at the Gremlin Bar, drinking the urine of baby horses. But mostly, it was the pretty Gremlin lass who owned Flowers'n'Things.
 
Poor Sinister had such a crush on Finnier. Her dark blue hair sparkled through the well-water, and her laughter was like the trilling sound of a thousand dying ants. It captured his canine heart, and held it hostage. And so, every day, he would offer his flowers at a discounted rate to Finnier. He couldn't resist! The heart wants what it wants, even in the depths of a Gremlin market.
 
One particular day, Sinister and Frenchie decided to get an early start on their flower collecting. That way, they'd have lots of time later in the day to go wandering through the woods, mastering goats and burying wombats. However, when they arrived at the garden at the end of the lane, they found another dog already there! He was magnificent looking. Tall, and powerful, with muscular haunches and a thick, glossy coat, he cast an impressive and threatening shadow over the rather modestly proportioned Sinister, who was suddenly quite aware of his own motley fur. In fact, thought Sinister, he hadn't even remembered to floss his teeth that morning!

Just as he was pondering this dilemma, the other dog turned around, and Sinister suddenly became aware that the animal that faced him was not, in fact, a male dog, but was instead a bitch! The massive animal, female though she might be, still presented a formidable threat to Sinister and French Horn, standing between them and their flowers as she was. So, bracing himself for a tussle, Sinister quickly reached behind him, and took out his switch blade knife. Then, when the opposing animal leaped, he dived to the side, and stabbed, up, and into her heart.

She was instantly killed!
 
Frenchie blew a few quick celebratory notes, but there was no time for an entire song, so the duo quickly collected their flowers and made ready to leave. And yet, as Sinister moved to close the gate behind him as he left, he came once more to glance upon the fallen body of the beautiful female dog, and he was struck by the sight of it. He found he could not abandon this creature now!

Quickly, he and French Horn gathered the twine they normally used to bind the flowers, and attached it to the fore-paws of the dog on the ground. Then, tying the other end to Sinister's tail and Frenchie's bell, the two set off to the well.

Once at the bottom, Sinister sought out Finnier at Flowers'n'Things. She'd know what to do! How to properly respect the defeated foe!

Glorious in her element, the little Gremlin immediately untied the body, and began skinning it with her claws. Within minutes, the pelt came to be completely separated from the body. Tossing that over a rack, she then moved on to the body, which she deftly filleted. Then, tossing a few choice flank steaks onto a rack above the fire in the back of her little merchant's corral, Finnier, Sinister, and Frenchie retreated to the corner to enjoy the aromas of the cooking meal.

In no time at all, it was ready, and the three began to dine. It tasted as delicious as it had looked, just before Sinister stabbed her! Soon they were done, and all quite full and satisfied.

And, indeed, Sinister got a very sound deal for his flowers that day, as well as a healthy new coat of fur to replace his mangy old one.

And so, with a few parting blasts from French Horn, and a quick kiss blown in the direction of Finnier, the two fast friends moved once more, out of the Gremlin market, and home for bed.

The end.

Yesterday I had a big hole in my afternoon schedule (and really, I'm normally pretty busy after lunch of Wednesdays...) so I decided to go see Inception. I'd heard so much about it from reviews, xangans, and even actual real life people. One friend said it was so complicated he wanted to see it a second time just to get it straight! That's the kind of film for me! I said to myself. I love a good, complicated, thinker's movie!

 

So, I get to the movie theatre, and the entire time I spend the movie imagining what ridiculously complicated twists are going to be in store. Ok, they're in a dream... but maybe the dream is actually... real! Maybe Mal is dreaming the entire thing. Maybe Mal was right about reality? Maybe the entire movie is about planting the idea that what Dom thinks is real (i.e. what the viewer is told is the "real world") is in in fact the limbo, and Mal is trying to get him to return to reality! Maybe that kid from Third Rock From the Sun is actually in league with the guy inheriting his father's empire, and together the two are going to try to kill Dom! Maybe the first level of reality is accurate, but when the team goes from the first dream level to the second, they're not actually moving into another dream level, but are in fact going directly to limbo, and the other levels of dream and the so-called limbo that follows them are actually the dreams of the team while they sleep in limbo waiting for the plane to land and wake them up!

And, of course, none of this happened. There was no twist ending. There wasn't even anything I had to think twice about understanding. Reality. Level one. Level two. Level three. Limbo. The only thing that was in any way even attempting to be clever or confusing was the uncertainty of the ending. But because Nolan didn't actually show whether the top stopped spinning, it demonstrates that he really didn't put any damn effort into coming up with something clever or confusing or intelligent by way of a twist ending. Instead, he just sort of dumped a predictable, cheap-shot attempt at confusing (annoying?) viewers in at the end, in place of genuine plot.

But aside from that, great movie. I liked the score, and some day, I want to build my own fortress of solitude, so I can man it with my own collection of James Bond henchmen rejects.

One of the most frequent complaints on xanga has to do with time-stamping (the other most frequent complaints are probably... grammar, drama, and dearricky?) Various ideas proposed to fix the problem (including this one, proposed by myself) have fallen upon deaf ears thus far (as have every single other idea proposed in the last two years. I don't know why people even continue to make them.) I desperately wanted a way for blogs I'd already read to stop appearing back in my inbox when time-stamped. I really hate being bombarded, but I also hate missing posts, and I know I'm not the only one.

In the mean time, I've also been looking for a way to keep track of blogs off xanga. People like novelle360, who originated on xanga but later moved, have continued to write blogs I want to read. Of course, it also means I can no longer subscribe through my normal xanga interface. I tried RSS readers, which turned out to be a pain in the ass, and twitter, which is annoying and fails too often, but ultimately fell back on simply book-marking, and remembering to click once in a while, and then reading backward to catch any entries I might have missed.

Anyway, so the other day I was on facebook (which I do exceedingly rarely, because that's obnoxious enough on its own... friend me at facebook.com/nikbv!) and I noticed a "friend" had linked her blog post to facebook through something called bloglovin'. I then pulsed, asking if anybody had heard of it and... it seemed nobody had. So, I put on my wading boots and investigated, alone.

Click

It was scary. It was, at times, quit alarmingly full of fashion blogs (the native bloglovin' community is apparently entirely made up of fashionistas and home decorators). But, I think it's actually a really useful tool. See, I've created an account, and I added in not only all my favourite xangans, but also all my favourite blogs off xanga. Simply type in the url, hit follow, and bam! You then get a list of all the unread blog posts from those blogs (from the moment of following. It doesn't give you a million back-posts). You then simply click on them, and read. When you click on a post, it goes grey on the list, and moves down. After you read a post (or mark it as read) you never need to see it again! Ever!

On the other hand, if you really love it, you can hit the "like" button and keep it handy. You can also click on the post at the top of your to read list, and then, once you read (or decide to skip the post), hit the next button on a floating bloglovin' bottom bar, and go automatically to the next blog entry on your list.

I found all this incredibly convenient, and have been messing around with this for the past few days (so, if you've seen footprints from me with the referee being some bloglovin' link, this is why). The only two problems I can find are this: firstly, if the xangan has any kind of lock (footprints, sign-in, friends, etc) you can't be followed by bloglovin'; secondly, some blogs (so far, the only ones I've found are on the NY Times website) have an anti-floating bar thingy to makes it disappear, which is annoying. Otherwise, you can put all your blog subscriptions into one place.

Of course, it doesn't replace xanga. It doesn't stop you from commenting, posting, and interacting in exactly the way you're doing now. It just replaces or supplements your subscription page, and helps remove some of the hassle. Want me to make sure I'll never miss your post, without having to worry about time-stamping? Make sure there are no locks, and I'll follow it on bloglovin'. Problem solved.

I posted these pictures in my photoblog, but never bothered to put them into a weblog. From a trip I took last week. I like water. Someday, I hope to buy a boat, and live on it permanently. I'll sail around the world wearing an eyepatch, and make occasional calls into port to pick up supplies, and frolic with (laugh at) the landlubbers. Who's with me?

Claims They Could Cause Downfall of the Empire

In her recent visit to New York City, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, addressed throngs of her most disobedient subjects, in the vast hall of the United Nations General Assembly. And while the wildly cheering masses had little idea what to expect from the first monarchical visit to the Big Apple in over three decades, few could have predicted the Queen would address a topic so directly related to the lives of the teeming masses across the world who live within her dominions.

 
Do you count yourself amongst the lucky three billion?

The subject of her Highness' tirade? Flip flops. Otherwise known as thongs, these backless sandals seem innocuous enough to some, but for the ruler of the British Empire, whose prescience is part of her divine right, the future looks glum for a world power that continues to permit such perversity. Indeed, the Queen predicted that flip flops, and the decline in British values that they represent, could even bring to its knees the mighty Empire itself, and cast into darkness all its considerable territories, and the citizens who live within those dominions. 

Americans, naturally, have significant interest in this warning, having held their title as Errant Ingrate Colony of the Empire for several centuries now. Nevertheless, many in the crowd seemed unaware of the danger ahead of them, and audible gasps of shock were one of the most prominent forms of reaction from the crowd, second only to screams of undulating adoration.

Three members of the nikbv staff  were executed for running this picture

Her Majesty's three-part plan for the future of footwear in the Empire included mandatory executions of all flip-flop wearers, and a general ban on the production and ownership of backless footwear across all the royal dominions.

This is not the first time the Royal Family has taken a strong stance against an article of clothing, and is reminiscent of Prince Charles' campaign against Bermuda shorts in the late 1980s, which led to mass riots and the deaths of 134 unfortunately clad vacationing tourists.

As I'm sure you're all aware by now, the entire world has been swept up in the sweaty arms of competition. Sports are in town, and the Finns are dominating. In fact, they won it all. The title for the international Wife-Carrying Championship goes to Finn Taisto Miettinen, who narrowly beat out silver medal winner Alar Voogla, from Estonia (though Miettinen won using the Estonian style of carrying wives, so his victory in woman-taking is at least partly due to the Estonians anyway).

And sure, it's all fun and games when you're carrying away a friend playing your "wife" through a pool of water, and over artificial hurdles, but who's going to have the last laugh when some nefarious Nord decides it's time to put those skills to the test where they really count? Who will save your women on that day?! I can well imagine some slack-jawed sucker chasing after a tall, blond Northerner, buxom brown-haired wife tossed carelessly across his broad shoulders as he runs over hill and over dale.

Sure, we expect this kind of behaviour from the vikings, who after all, are just reconnecting with the traditions of their pillaging fore-bearers (you should see the contests those guys had, back in the day!) but the Americans? Just because they weren't as able to carry a wife as efficiently as a European, doesn't mean they didn't try as hard. And tell me, how comfortable are you in knowing that a fellow American is representing your country in a sport founded by local thug and actual woman-thief, Herkko Rosvo-Ronkainen?

I don't want to tell you how to run your country, pal, but if I were you, I'd look into this. If you're going to keep at it, you might as well become number 1, right?

I know you've all been waiting on the edge of your seats for this, so here it finally is! The first part of our week long celebration of nikbv, to celebrate the fifth anniversary of my blog! For this section, we explore the very early beginnings of nikbv.

Stay tuned for part two tomorrow!

As many of you are no doubt aware, today is a very special day on teh intrawebz: today is the 5th anniversary of nikbv! That's right, it was five years ago today that nikbv came into being. And to celebrate, we have an entire week of fun planned!

Every day for the celebratory birthday week of nikbv, I'll post a special, unique video blog to nikbv! What better way to celebrate five years of the written word than through video? My thoughts exactly. So, keep an eye out, and let the festivities begin!

Tomorrow, part one: how it all began.

I know what a pedometer actually does, but every time I see the title of that healthkicker post I can't help but think of some nefarious equivalent to the gaydar.