Dr. Dume ~ The Doctor is In

I slept right through Halloween! And the Fifth of November, when in the UK it's traditional to poke some guy with a fork until he burns...I never did get the hang of it but it involves effigies and fire so I always go along.

It's Senga's fault. She was supposed to set my alarm for October 31st and she insists she did, but it made no sound at all. I am distraught.

Well, I suppose the next thing will be Christmas and the ceremonies to invoke the guy in the red suit who likes fireplaces. That's never worked before either.

Senga is still on about having the place monitored. I fitted new eyes into Great-Uncle Caligula and hung him on a bush outside, but I don't think that's going to be enough to satisfy her. Cameras, she says. Cameras. I hate cameras.

They cost money.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 02:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Yesterday, I had a visitor. Apparently he came from the local council and was investigating a report that I might have committed a bin crime.

I raised my eyebrows at that. I had no idea there was such a crime. “What,” I asked him, “is a bin crime?”

He coughed, an action that caused the Adam’s apple in his scrawny throat to bounce as if it were connected to his jaw by elastic. “The council have noticed that no waste is ever collected from here and some of the locals suspect you of dumping your rubbish illegally. I am authorised to enter your premises and inspect your waste disposal facility.”

“Really?” My waste disposal facility, if you can call it that, is a chute into the deeper recesses of the swamp. I prefer to think of it as a form of oubliette, similar in function to the ones in the lower reaches of the dungeons.

“Yes,” he said. “Really. If you prevent me entering your premises, I can impose a fine and return with the police.”

A fine. One of those maniacal ideas where they take money from you but provide nothing in return. Well, I had no real objection to him entering anyway and had no intention of parting with money, so I let him in. Once I had shown him the way to the chute, I settled in front of the computer to find more about this law.

He returned just as I noticed something very interesting indeed.

“I’m afraid, Mr. Dume, that your waste disposal facility contravenes Health and Safety regulations and is an environmental hazard. You are polluting the swamp.”

“It’s Dr. Dume,” I said. “Health and safety? This castle contains neither of those things. Never has. And I am not polluting the swamp. I am feeding it. It likes bones.”

“Well, I’ll have to make a full report to my superiors.” He folded his little book and pursed his little lips. “I can assure you, this will result in a prosecution.”

“Just a moment.” I rose from my chair and palmed one of the sedative darts I keep in strategic places all over the castle. You never know when a Feral might get in. “As you said, the law does state that I have to allow you entry on demand. In fact, I found over four hundred laws that allow such a thing.”

“That’s right.” He puffed out his chest as far as it would go. Not very far. “You cannot deny entry to the officers of the Council.”

“Correct.” I moved between him and the door. “However, not one of those laws states that, once inside, I have to let you leave.”

It was impressive to note the speed of his brain. Comprehension only dawned on him after the dart landed in his neck. Not one of my brightest subjects but what the heck. There are four hundred laws that say I have to let these people in and I will be more than happy to comply in each and every case. There’ll be more.

I put him in the cell opposite the training cell. My new assistant has stopped screaming now so he’ll sleep well. Tomorrow, I’ll show him the laboratory.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 08:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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When I was fresh from the chrysalis, I heard the tale of an elderly uncle, Dorian Dume.

He had come across a magical recipe. Using this, he could arrange for a portrait of himself to age while he stayed the same forever. Overexcited, he rushed the spell without reading the guidelines properly.

He messed it up and performed the spell the wrong way round. The picture stayed the same and he grew older. Many, it seems, have made this same mistake, judging by the plethora of portraits in galleries nowadays.

Let that be a cautionary tale to all. Guidelines are important.

If Uncle Dorian had read them properly, he wouldn't be dead now.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 06:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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I haven't laughed so hard since the last time.

The Professor put up a post on UFO's to explain why he doesn't study them and within hours, the loonies descended upon him.

He's trying to use logic on them and it's not working. That last comment is so far out he's never going to be able to find an answer. He's speechless, and that's a rare occurrence!

He doesn't see that many of these people are attracted to fringe science simply because it's fringe. They don't want it brought into the mainstream. They don't want scientists to pick apart their pet subjects. They want it left as 'fringe' so they can keep it to themselves.

Romulus keeps trying to put a serious face on the paranormal but he's beating his head on a wall. Which reminds me - I haven't beat Stumpy's head against a wall for a while. Maybe later.

He's between a rock and a hard place. On one side are the mainstream scientists who won't even look at his subject. On the other are the lunatics (you just have to believe, man) who don't want him taking their toys away.

I once worried that he might succeed in proving the afterlife. My worries were unfounded. Mainstream science will never accept any evidence because the lunatic fringe will always pop up to destroy his credibility. No matter how careful he is, no matter how precise his experiments, the nuts will pop out of the woodwork to mess it up every time.

I'll have to tell this story to Death on his next visit. He'll be laughing until Judgement Day.

Anyway, back to that article. Only a few days left. I've decided on a Frankenstein approach because I haven't touched on that in a long time, and because Stumpy opened an overstuffed storage cupboard and gave me the idea.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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I did make New Year Resolutions, but as my record of keeping such resolutions can best be described as 'abysmal', I hold out little hope.

it occurred to me that if I make them public I might be more inclined to actually do something about them. On the other hand, six months from now I could just delete this entry so it's not as fixed as it might be.

So here they are.

1. Find an agent, or failing that, find a publisher for Samuel's Girl. Revise it as much as necessary to achieve this.

2. Lose some weight.

3. Spend less (my personal favourite).

Now, you would think that losing weight and spending less should work together, surely? Losing weight means eating less food, therefore buying less food. The principle to weight loss is actually extremely simple.

1. Eat less food.

2. Repeat until thin.

3. If you are offered a job as a catwalk model, you've gone too far.

Therefore eating less should save money, yes? Yet it seems the world is full of diets that involve eating less but spending more! It makes no sense at all. Rather like those energy-efficient systems that cost more than they save.

I'm not spending money on nutrition-free 'bulking up' powders that work, as far as I can tell, in the same way as cement. I'm just going to eat less. Logic tells me that will work. I'll soon find out.

Unfortunately logic doesn't help me with resolution one. That's pretty much down to a combination of chance and bloody-minded persistence. The first isn't under my control but the second one is. Bloody-minded persistence it is then. I can do that.

And it might take my mind off food.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 04:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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I concede that, on this occasion, Stumpy was right. Sword fighting is not as easy as it looks.

When my arm grows back, I'll give him a thrashing. 

In the meantime, this is going to severely affect my typing speed for the next few days.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 02:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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The Spammers are at the gate. So comment moderation is on. I hope that doesn't cause a glitch.

On a separate note, Stumpy insists that sword-fighting is difficult. Ridiculous, I said. It's a long blade you swing around. How hard can it be?

He says he's going to demonstrate over the weekend. Shouldn't be a problem. He can't reach too far.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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I've noticed a tendency in American films for the bad guy to always be English. Not just English, but upper-class, what-ho, by-jingo English.

Not being English myself, and having met a few of them, I can see why that might be, but once in a while Hollywood take it just that little bit too far.

I watched 'Dreamcatcher' recently. An excellent film, featuring the sort of mouth dentists dream about. The heroes are American, naturally, since it's an American film, and the bad guy is, once more, English. The trouble is that this time, the bad guy is from another planet.

Now, the English did indeed have an empire once, but I honestly don't think it was that big.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 02:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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Canada has a new serial killer (time to die, eh?).

Robert Pickton stands accused of the murder and expert butchery of 26 women. He claims to have killed 49, and wanted one more to make a neat round number before he was arrested.

Oh, we all say that. 30 is a neat round number, but then nobody arrests you, so you do one more and then you have to get to 40. Still no arrest, so you're on your way to 50.

Nobody wants to be arrested on an untidy number. Bad luck, Bob. Perhaps you should have given yourself up at 10. Or maybe you should have been more careful.

It seems his freezer contained two heads, sawn in half vertically and the brains removed. Can't say I care for brains myself. Too much fat. Texture like scrambled eggs but no real taste. And no, it doesn't make you smarter. That should be obvious, since if you're eating someone's brains then they can't have been smarter than you - or they'd be eating yours. So there won't be any improvement.

I wonder what he did with them, and with all the others? Perhaps he had them with fava beans and a nice chianti, eh?

Posted by Dr. Dume at 01:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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