Rat-Formers: the musical

Write a synopsis of the perfect summer blockbuster. (not an EXISTING movie, mind you, but a short story of mashing all the elements of what makes a blockbuster great, like Titanic meets LOTR or something.)

Everybody rush down to the theater for the biggest comedy blockbuster of the summer. The Rat-formers! Remy Potter grew up in the southern arm of the Andromeda galaxy, but he always wanted to cook - no opportunity on a world without any organic life forms, but a stray TV signal zipping through space changed everything.

Can Remy work his way into the elite kitchens of France without a human realizing that he is really an alien robot who can transform into any shape he chooses?

Will he be able to convince immigration that his gay love affair with Sioux Chef Adam Sandler is real? After all- he’s supposed to be gay, not a transformer-sexual!

Will Garcon Snape kick him out for his violation of the rules of defense the dark culinary arts? They say he cooks like magic, but can they prove it?

You laugh as Remy consoles his new earth friend who gets a sexy woman pregnant and lacks the emotional maturity to deal with it, you’ll cry when Remy gets locked in room 1408 and struggles to overcome supernatural forces and you’ll be on the edge of your seat as you watch Remy challenge social and sexual convention in a hilarious send up of Cecil De Mille’s Blazing Cans of Ham - his last project before his death which was never released.

This film has a running time of 400 minutes and is not yet rated.

One week

Write a story set during your most recent vacation.

by Bryan

The cordless phone crackles a bit and pushes sound through cheesecloth, but it's the intent that matters. Never mind the Fs that sound like S and forget the pop of the Ps. If you can catch the drift of the disembodied voice on the other end, no one comes out the wiser. This is Communication 101 at Mahoney U.

For the better part of the year I was stuck to that black hunk of wires and metal and hard-to-kill plastic (proven through countless dropped calls - the ones that fall 10 feet per second after gliding away from the wedge you create with shoulder and ear). Always I was searching, looking, pining for employment opportunities from the comfort of the wood chair in my then-girlfriend's living room. The process intensified those last six months after moving far enough away from home to obliterate any thoughts of the weekend visits with Mom and Dad, venturing to make my fortunes monetarily and metaphysically in a city ripe for my taking.

It was then, at the end, that the phone granted one call of clarity and I could peacefully lay it back in its cradle. It somehow knew that this call was important - It rang a little louder and a little longer this time, as if to say this was the call I was waiting for. "Put the resume away," it seemed to say, "and settle in."

A brief conversation. Crystal clear. No hisses or pops. And I sat it down once the call ended, and I looked around the living room. Six months I'd been on again, off again. Six months not knowing where my next paycheck was going to be, or from whom. But now I knew. I had a week before I started the job.I had a week of vacation.

The Gold Coast

Write a story set during your most recent vacation.

By Marcy

A heron stood by the shore.

I have of course seen herons in my lifetime, but never one so close. Even as I stepped near it, it stood its ground, gazing out over the horizon of the Atlantic. Two long tendrils of – what? Feathers? Hair? – waved in the breeze like a topknot on its head. It seemed rooted in the sand, and but for the occasional slight turn of its head, one would think it to be a statue.

I managed to get within three feet of the heron before it lifted one of its long legs and took a step aside. I stopped, and slowly sat down where I was. The heron rooted itself back into the sand and regarded me briefly with a quizzical gaze – as if I were the curiosity on the beach.

It wasn’t a glorious beach day by any means. It was overcast, and the ceiling of clouds undulated like a grey mirror of the green glass water below it. I watched the white caps on the water in the distance. Who knew what wonders nature could whip up from one moment to the next in such an environment? Behind me, above the beach, houses stood, still nursing wounds from Hurricane Ivan. That had been nearly a year ago, but the damage was still evident.

With thoughts of raging wind and spraying salt water in mind, my eyes searched the horizon for bigger waves, lightning, tall masts in the hazy distance. This was, after all, Florida’s treasure coast, and many a galleon had disappeared beneath the waves of the Atlantic. The host at the treasure museum said that frequently, after a storm, it was not uncommon to find the chance doubloon mixed in with the sand dollars after the tide went out.

But today was just a gloomy day, unthreatening, maybe heralding a drizzle or sprinkle or mist. I sincerely doubted that the chilly breeze coming off the Atlantic at the moment was going to bring me gold. I looked up at the heron from my spot nearby and wondered what he was watching the waves for. It looked back at me as if to ask me the same thing.

SEMI PROFESSIONALS JOURNAL

Write a story set during your most recent vacation.

TRAVEL SECTION

This time of year a majority of the Semi-professionals are traveling to the GEIGE convention in the Midwest. GEIGE or Good Enough Is Good Enough is entering its tenth year (no one is really sure, but it’s definitely more than eighth) and it shows no signs of changing. Founded by a group of semi professionals who already lived in the area, GEIGE has become a unique blend of vacation destination and political hot bed.

This year, the Grand Marshall of the GEIGE parade is Hans Vaguersonton, whose tenure as the Grand Marshall has mirrored the time the parade has been held is, in his own words, "just about ready."

What makes this year different is that the OCD (Organization for Complete Dedication) is on hand to protest the ideology of the parade and tempers on the OCD side are running high. GEIGEs on the other hand tend toward vague resentment rather than outright anger and you can bet the resentment is stewing briskly about now.

What has existed over the last decade as mere ideological differences between two stylistically different factions has erupted into what this Freelance Journalist would call a full-scale-holy-war. Both sides not only abhor the beliefs of the other, but further contend that the other leaves a larger carbon footprint than the other while simultaneously embodying the root of all evil.

Spokesperson for OCD, Regina Grabnofski has these heated words about the parade.

“The GEIGE are lazy, self indulgent shits; they flaunt their apathetic ignorance as if it was a belief system to be admired by real professionals. Get real. And by the way this has nothing to do with Hans and I dating in the late 80s.”

Vaygerson, who was finally reached for comment replied, “The OCDs comments are not entirely true, y’know. She is looking at it a very specific way. Besides she is so uptight, I mean, really. Its no wonder we broke up.”

Supporters of both OCD and GEIGE will be flooding into Circlet Square come Monday to witness the debate between these two mighty philosophs.

Look for continued coverage on this event in the next issue of Semi Professional Journal - coming to news stands some time in summer. Probably.