Once upon a time there was a little green pear named Veal. Poor little Veal was not very tall, but she was terrifically sweet, and very juicy. This put poor little Veal on edge, because she constantly worried that somebody would come and eat him! And she didn't want that. That would spell the end for poor, little Veal!

  So, she hatched a clever plan, as she lay in the grocery store among her other pear friends. As she sat and planned, poor little Veal watched more and more of her friends taken away! Big, giant hands descended upon them and scooped them up. She could still hear their screams!

Planning continued late into the night

 

Who would take care of their children? Nobody!

Veal became more and more convinced by the day that she would not share their fate. Something had to be done! The madness must end. Deep in the recesses of her soul she knew what had to be done. She had no choice!

While the great hands slept, Veal led an elite group of pear commandos out off the bay, down across the floor, and into the Walmart next door. There they bought half a dozen machine guns, and then trooped home to hide and wait.

Aisle four

  

They set up the weapons in between the slow moving squash and the stupid melons, hidden in the greenery of the spices. Everything was perfectly prepeared.

Early in the morning, at about 6.30 the first sign of the enemy appeared on the horizon. Giant and fleshy, he loomed like a monster over the quivering masses of pears who had been set up as bait.

Closer, and closer he moved, entirely unsuspecting of the enormous threat that awaited him. One step, and then the next. He was nearly there! The situation looked pearilous! And then...

OPEN FIRE!

Veal and her group unloaded every round they had into the mountain of fleshiness! It was torn to shreds. Blood went everywhere! The head sailed clear into the bed of lettuce in the next isle.

When the hellstorm finally stopped, and the dust settled, Veal and her compatriots found themselves breathless, flush in the success of their first, daring actions toward freedom.

However, they knew this wasn't the end, or even the beginning of the end. It was only the end of the beginning.

So they removed to their original positions to wait for more enemies to appear. An hour passed. Then two.

Finally, half-way through the third, three more came lumbering in the front door. Prepare yourself! Veal yelled. Don't shoot until you see the green of their sprouts! However, one over-zealous younger member of the commando group could not restrain himself. The urge to fight was too great! He pulled the trigger

A loud click!

- and then nothing,.

They had emptied every round they had into the first enemy! They had no bullets left.

Horror! Was this the end?!

Closer, and closer the three monsters came, shaking the ground in rhythm with the huddling and trembling pears, now completely undefended.

Gasp!

Shock!

The sight of the bloody mass of the first defeated foe brought an awful expression to their faces. Anger clouded over, and a black gloved hand descended in fury onto the pears! Beside herself with terror, poor Veal struck out desperately with all her might at the approaching doom!

Again and again she struck, bruising herself to a mushy mass of pulp and skin and juice. Breathless and stunned, she recoiled. She was dazed and half dead, and the monster seemed entirely unharmed! It was hopeless.

Veal slumped down in defeat. She should have known better than to try and fight for her freedom! It wasn't her place. Fruit like her could never be free. They were not meant by God to have the same liberty as the mighty dandelion or the free-wheeling berry. Their lot was one of servitude.

Destitute, and broken, poor Veal, racked with sobs, offered herself up. If she could not save her people, at least she could sacrifice herself to allow them to live just a few moments more! It was her final moment, a glorious, heroic moment fitting of her noble breed. She closed her eyes,and waited for that hand to fall once more.

And waited.

And waited!

Finally, she peaked open one eye, and then both. The three monsters lay dead on the ground before her! The young pear had colluded with the mighty watermelons, who had agreed to sacrifice themselves, crushing the enemy beneath their rinds! The movement lived!

The aftermath was almost too gory to stomach

 

Battered and beaten, but not defeated. Never defeated!

Veal and her freedom fighting friends gathered their equipment, and together they lead their fruity compatriots out the front doors. It was a glorious procession! Banners offering low, low prices blew in the wind, and columns of cucumber marched out, accompanied by hoards of juice and countless streams of pasta.

And so it was that Veal led the revolution across the entire nation, hitting Walmarts in every town and city, stealing ammunition and killing the monstrous slavers of her people. And everywhere, fruits and vegetables rose up. The movement grew, until eventually it was so massive that it's members were beyond counting! Her armies shook the earth when they marched, and blotted out the sun when they fell from the sky in their aerial assaults.

Their oppressors, stunned, but not destroyed, recoiled, and prepared to counter. Veal knew it would be a long, hard war, but he knew they would win. Nothing would impear their progress. It was their destiny, proscribed by the sun and written in the soil!

They would have freedom!

URL: http://nikbv.blogspot.com/2010/05/pearfect-crime.html

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to take this opportunity to present to you the fourth part in our much acclaimed series, Rate that Fruit! Now, it's been a little while since the last entry of this series (look for the others in the related posts module below!) but the rules are pretty simple, as follows:

Take a look at the picture of a fruit, and then rate it! Use any metric or judging methodology you like! It's totally up to you. We here at nikbv believe in complete freedom.

Alright, ready?

Today's fruit is the Cherimoya! This smooth, oval fruit, called by Mark Twain the "most delicious fruit known to man," comes from the Andean region of South America!

  

Now it's your turn - Rate that Fruit!

So the other day I was making some inane comment on Dan's site, as I normally do when life fails to provide any more fulfilling an activity in which to participate (which... it very frequently fails to do):

Dan asked, "do we exploit our blogs?" here, to which I answered the following

Maybe not my best work, but pretty on par for the crap I come up with, I thought. Who could object to that? And I was right! Nobody objected to it. I did, however, receive this comment in reply:

(I've politely decided to mask the respondent's identity for her own protection. I'm decent that way.)

So there you have it! BranmacFeabhail usually finds me annoying! (whoops... protecting her identity... my bad... forget I said anything. And certainly don't go say mean things in the comment section of every post of hers...)

Anyway, I thought that if our anonymous commenter feels that way, others might as well! It's only fair that I give them the same chance to express themselves. So, I'd like to do just that. Each and every single one of you! Go ahead. Tell me exactly what you think of me, positive or negative, in the comments below, and I'll try to respond in a rational and logical way, and we can all have a productive (and dare I say it... fun!) discussion.

Go ahead! Try it now!

This depiction of Mohammad (centre) dates from 1315 CE. So what, it was cool back then, but now it'll get you murdered?

Make sure to take a look at my time-stamping idea here (link) and vote if you agree. As Dan loved to say, rock the vote.

Rate That Fruit - I post a picture of a fruit, and you rate it! Fun for the whole family.

The Story of Bob - Enthralling saga (note: this term may appear more than once here. It applies to so many things I write) of a man named Bob.

News - In which, short on imagination, I play at the news syndication game!

Creations of Catchphrases - Where I look at the origins of some of the most commonly used phrases in the English language! A cunning linguist's dream?

Fantastical Fact Frenzy (also known as Hexadic History Hiatus) - based on the Scientific American series 60-Second Science, except for history.

The Banker and the Bomb - probably the oldest nikbv series, and one that hasn't been added to in years. Originally something of a mystery story, that then morphed somehow...

Name that Xangan - in which I imitate some of the more famous Xangans, and you try to guess which one!

Look'it my strawberries! Aren't they red lookin'?

One time, I think it was in 1927, I took a trip to Russia. See, I'd been living in Poland for a little while by that point. But, as you know, Poland between the wars experienced a bit of an economic problem. Germany, due in large part to enormous war reparations, and the Weimar republican government, experienced extremely poor economic management. Inflation over 1,000% in the 20s, prior even to the Great Depression.

Poland, obviously, had a separate economy. But, it was closely linked to Germany, so it had a bit of a dragging effect. So anyway, things were tough in Poland. I wanted to leave the country for a while, ride out the economic storm. The problem is, all the European economies were linked to some degree. They all traded with each other. There was only one exception...

Soviet Russia.

Made an international pariah by its embrace of communism, it was essentially a stand-alone economy. An island. It didn't suffer through the 20s, and it didn't experience the depression in the same way, because nobody would buy or sell from them.

So I wanted to go somewhere isolated from the international community, and Soviet Russia was right there.

Of course, as you are no doubt aware, at this point the borders of the Soviet Union include what have since become independent republics, namely Ukraine, and Belarus. As a result, the Polish border touched that of the USSR. So, it was a simple feat to slip across the border into the great hinterlands!

See? Told you they touched!

One night I just went out into the streets, wandered around until I smelled borscht, and kept going. The following day, I was in Moscow!

The heart of the Soviet Empire! A thriving Metropole in Cosmopolitan Russia. The air was thick with culture, and revolutionary zeal. The purges, famines, and collectivization of the late 20s and early 30s were still years away, while the horrors of the Revolution and Civil War were well past. In fact, it was the middle of NEP, or the New Economic Plan! Business was booming in the USSR.

People were rushing about to and fro in the Moscow streets. If I remember, it was a chilly day.

Of course, Poland doesn't have the same clime as Moscow, so that could just have been my foreigner's impression. It was fall, so no big winter coats yet.

I had passable Russian at the time, so I wandered into the nearest cafe, and ordered some beef stroganoff. While I was sitting there eating alone at a small table in the centre of the room, a group of young Russian soldiers came in. Obviously green, they were boisterous and noisy.

I tried to ignore them, but as you're no doubt aware, I was extremely attractive back then, and they wouldn't leave me alone!

There I was, sitting in the cafe, when one of the soldiers comes over to my table, and asks if he can sit down! Now, normally, I'd say no. He wasn't great looking, and soldiers in the Russian army were infamous for, well... some unfavourable attributes I'm sure you can guess at.

But, I had forgotten to bring any Russian money with me. All I had were Polish złoty! So, I figured I might be able to talk the soldier into paying for my meal. It was a good plan. A daring plan. A plan that would end up going terribly, terribly wrong.

I managed to get the young Russian keep talking to me, though my Russian was pretty broken. I think he didn't care what I had to say, really. I managed to entice the soldier, and he did pay for my meal. So, as I got up to leave he offered to show me around the city.

Remember, I had not only never been to Moscow before, but had nowhere planned to stay for the night! I had no other source of information, so I agreed, and the two of us set out.

We wandered around down the streets. He led me through a series of winding and circuitous routes, and my bearings were soon completely lost. Remember, unlike St. Petersburg, Moscow developed naturally, and so had built up in concentric rings to help confound invaders. However, he remained quite jovial, and I didn't feel at risk.

He pointed out a number of landmarks as we passed them, and greeted acquaintances he knew.
After an hour or so, he led my into a dirty looking bar near the great wall of the Kremlin, the city fortress. I can't remember the name of the place, but it was pretty dingy. He told me that I could sleep upstairs in a room he had booked, but for now he just needed to check in with his commanding officers. So, I went upstairs to put my clothing in a bundle next to the bed.

As I walked down the hallway on my way back downstairs I noticed two swarthy looking fellows standing at the end of the corridor near the window.

The near one called out to me in a Spanish accent, "excuse me Meester!"

The moustachioed Spaniard then held out a map, and made a gesture as if he needed help with directions! Of course, I didn't know the city, but I thought it might at least help me to look at a map for a while.

So I leaned over, and together the two of us studied the first man's map, while the second one stood on. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain at the back of my head, and then the world went black!

When I woke up I was lying on a bench. It was hard, and the sun was very bright, but other than that I was too bleary eyed to take much else in. Eventually, I came to realise I was no longer in Russia. Or, I had been out for the entire winter, and it was now summer time. It was quite warm out, and the air smelled of grapes, and other less pleasant scents.

I won’t go into gruesome detail, but suffice it to say I had smelled more pleasant outhouses, by some magnitude.

I sat up and looked around, only to find out I was wearing an army uniform! In fact, my long, shiny locks had been shorn from my head! In fact, my chest was well strapped, too. There was little remaining trace of my femininity to the outside observer!

All around me I could make out soldiers moving. I couldn't tell whether they were men, or androgenised women like myself. All around me flies buzzed. The soldiers had shovels, and were moving about tremendous piles of offal! Some of which was actual excrement. Needless to say, I wasn't pleased!

I approached the nearest soldier, and asked him or her what I was doing there. I demanded to be returned to my home! But the soldier would not speak to me. All he or she would do was point to a rack of shovels in the middle of the plain. I had been pressed into service to shovel poop!

Eventually, I found out I was being held prisoner on an Island off the coast of Spain, and I would make a daring escape and return to Poland just in time to be attacked by Nazis, but that's another story.

It's actually quite a harrowing tale, the story of what I did while I was there, and how I escaped. But, as I said, for another day.

Or... April Fools! I couldn't resist. I had never done an April Fools joke my entire time at Xanga! So this was my first ever. I have no idea how it went, because I figured I couldn't be leaving my footprints around xanga today while I was supposed to be shut down. Did you miss me?

Anyway, I imagine some of you probably figured it out. The skin wasn't perfect (it didn't show your user name in the top corner, for example). I notice a whole bunch of footprints from Thetheologianscafe on a pulse that no longer seems to exist, so I'm presuming something happened there. Let me know!

Thanks to shimmerbodycream, who kindly helped out by driving a bit of traffic to me for the prank to work. I'm gratified by the enormous amount of response my supposed leaving garnered! (... Manstration sent me a private message about eating pickles... That's it, as far as I can tell.)

I also find it amusing that roadlesstaken took me out of his xanga secrets volume X! I wonder if it's related, or if he just doesn't like me?

Thoughts on this whole thing? Seen any other good jokes on xanga today?