No Soupy This Week? What to do??

No Soupy this week??? Frick. I must've lied to everyone - and the book must not be done. Not true.

At least once in every episode of The Soupy Toasterson Show, an interlude is inserted, to tell stories from other perspectives. When one of those stories come up, they will not be posted online - the only place you will find them, are in the books that will soon be available. This week, is one of those weeks.

But hey - I wouldn't leave everybody without something to check out this week...

Das Ubercast!

Yeah, Dr. Vance and I are starting up a podcast - and it's going to be... maybe decent. One day. Until then, there's a test episode to check out, recorded in my palatial basement suite. Hopefully you like it!

TSTS: "The Girl in Question" Part III

(Note: The site will have to wait until Monday at the soonest - until then...)

5:56

It’s getting close to six, and so naturally, every little thing is making twitch – passing cars, walking people, flying bits of garbage… everything. Most people in town would assume that such an activity was normal for me – and it is – but Darren, bless him, knows that this time is different.

“She probably won’t even come in today,” he tells me.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I try to say casually – only to jump at the sound of the timer going off on one of our coffee makers.

“Oh really?”

“No idea.”

“Maybe I should tell Amy that when she comes in today.”

“But you said she probably wouldn’t come in… today…”

My speech slows at the end, because I know he got me, “You baited me. That was mean.”

“What can I say?” Darren says with a shrug, “I am the bait master. A master baitsman.”

I raise my cup in a fake “cheers” motion, which he accepts gratefully with a ‘tink’ of our glasses – but when our glasses are back down on the table, it’s right back to business.

“You’re too nervous about this girl,” he tells me with a slight shake of his head, “Even for you. And that’s just not healthy.”

“It’s a little healthy…”

He points a finger at me, “No. It’s not. And if you ask me, you could do with a morning without her coming into the shop. She makes you all jibbly.”

“Jibbly?”

“It’s a word. In the dictionary.”

“Of course.”

“I’m just saying,” he shrugs, “Take a look at the Coffee Soupy. Doesn’t that guy look stressed?”

I look.

“Yeah, he kind’ve does,” I tell him, “But if I was living in a cup of coffee, I’d look worried too – because eventually, I’m going to be drank to death.”

“Not really the point.”

I sigh.

“I know. But what am I supposed to do about it?” I ask, “I can’t stop her from coming in here… and I can’t just tell my brain to stop thinking things… did you know it made me check to see if I had a penis this morning?”

“And did you?”

“Yes.”

Darren lets the conversation pause, because he knows what’s going to come next. And sure enough, my mind prods me again, and I casually move my hand below the table and pat my pants.

“Yes.”

“Well, then you need to start acting like you do,” he tells me, “Man up, and ask her out.”

My face goes a little red, “I couldn’t do that. How could I – no, that wouldn’t-”

Darren holds two fingers in the air to stop the rambling nonsense about to fall out of my mouth, “It’s all very simple. She walks in the door, you take her order, and before she leaves, ask her if she’d like you to go out on a date with you.”

“I-“

“Wait, no, tell her to go on a date with you.”

“Tell her?”

“She’ll say yes,” Darren explains, “Trust me. Girls love guys who have confidence.”

I give Darren a look.

“Oh right. Confidence.”

“Yeah.”

Many seconds pass – and then Darren says something that sum up both my hopes and fears for the future.

“You’re screwed.”

“Indeed I am.”

Show Note

A short one today - I split the intended second post in two so that I could update a part along with the site on June 1st.

Another post will also go up a week from now. (Yay!)

I hope you're enjoy it so far...

-B.

TSTS: "The Girl in Question" Part II

5:31
Darren unlocks the front door.

“Why do we open at 5:30 again?” he asks.

“I’m trying to teach you how to hate,” I reply.

So far, so good.

5:36
No one has come in yet, so we decide to help ourselves to some coffee and sit in one of the booths until we can figure out something better to do.

“I can see myself in my coffee,” I tell him.

“That’s great,” Darren tells me as he sips his.

“…do you ever think that your reflection is really just another you?”

“Nope,” he sips again, “I’m pretty sure you’re alone on that one.”

“…the coffee version of me is totally black.”

“What’s the werd.”

“A-werd up.”

5:38
Darren can’t take it anymore.

“We’re wasting our talents here,” he complains.

“I have talents?”

“I’m wasting my talents here,” he corrects himself.

“I was actually hoping you’d say ‘yes’,” I tell him somewhat murkily.

“You work in your family’s coffee shop, you can’t figure out how write beginnings to stories, and you can’t talk to girls,” Darren says, “None of these things are talents. These things are going to make your life miserable.”

“I can talk to girls,” I say while furrowing my brow.

Darren raises an eyebrow, and smiles a little.

“Anyway…” he ignores my comment, “We need to start working on our plan.”

“Our plan?”

“To be awesome enough to leave this place,” he clarifies.

“Oh, that plan.”

“I think we can actually do it,” he tells me, “But you’re going to have to be a lot cooler than you are right now.”

“Please,” I say, pointing very casually at myself while my face attempts to look very cool, “You don’t get cooler than this.”

There’s a pause in the conversation, and then we both laugh, because the thought of me being anywhere within the realm of “coolness” is hilarious, and possibly funny.

After we calm down a bit, I say, “What do you have in mind?”

He shrugs, “I want to start off easy. See if I can’t get you to ride in a car without completely freaking out.”

I cringe at the thought. Obviously, I hate cars. And vehicles. And giant mechanical things that move really, really fast.

So many things can go wrong while you’re inside of a car. For instance, while the engine is doing those rev-things, where the gears and such spin and spin and spin at ridiculous speeds – nuts and bolts could fly off, shatter the windshield and rip right through my skull. Or some really depressed person could get behind the wheel of one and decide that slamming his vehicle into the one I’m riding in would be an awesome way to die. Or ninjas could attach bombs to the gas tank while we’re driving, and no one would notice until we slowed down enough to hear the ticking and by that time it would be too late because WE WOULD ALREADY BE DEAD.

“I’m not sure if I like this plan of yours,” I say with narrowed eyes, “You’re not trying to kill me, are you?”

“Only a little bit.”

I shrug, “I’m cool with that.”

TSTS: "The Girl in Question" Part I

Episode 1: “The Girl in Question” (Part I)

Saturday morning goes a little like this:

4:30 a.m.
The alarm clock goes off. I reach blindly out into the darkness, and eventually find the snooze button, which I slap pretty hard. Now, I can enjoy the couple extra minutes of sleep that are legally mine.

4:31
I’m suddenly convinced that the alarm clock is mad at me because I slapped it in the face – and that it will retaliate by not ringing. But ha ha! The joke is on you, stupid alarm clock thing, because I am up and not sleeping.

4:32
Ugh. So tired. Maybe I’ll just keep my eyes closed for a little bit. Waking up will be easier if I get used to the idea of waking up before I actually

4:37
The alarm clock goes off again. So it wasn’t mad at me. Very cool.

“Now, shut up,” I grumble, as I slap it once again.

Right at that moment, it decides that a life of abuse is not worth living and leaps to its own death on the floor below. Its glowing red eyes extinguish. I get out of bed and decide to mourn later – I have to get ready for work.

4:38
I zombie walk to where the shower lives, and secretly wonder why the floor is always so cold in the apartment. Maybe it hates my feet.

4:39
Oh, shower, shower, shower, shower, shower. Who loves you? That’s right, I love you. Soapy, soapy, scrubby, scrubby, lather, rinse, repeat.

4:51
Maybe the floor is cold because it feels unloved? If that’s the case, it should entirely know better. My alarm clock loved it so much, it decided to spend the rest of its natural life with it.

4:59
Dressed, combed and brushed, all in 8 minutes – I am entirely glad that I was born with a penis.

4:59.06
My brain tells me to check if I was, in fact, born with a penis. I decide to ignore this command, and continue with my day.

4:59.19
Yep. Still have a penis. On a related note, I think my brain might be defective.

5:04
I knock on the door to Darren’s apartment. A few seconds later, he emerges, eyes puffy from a lack of sleep.

“I’m going to punch you in the face,” he tells me, “Any second now. It’s going to happen.”

“I know,” I nod in a very understanding way, “Its okay. Let’s just go to work.”

As we walk down the hallway, he raises a fist and weakly tosses it into the air.

“Did I get you?”

“Almost. Try again.”

5:12
In the middle of our walk to the coffee shop, Darren finally wakes up enough to use a few more words.

“I think we should be doing something,” he says.

“We are doing something,” I tell him, “We’re going to work. You remember work, right?”

Darren shakes his head slowly, “I mean in the larger sense. We’re totally wasting our summer with this work shit, you know?”

I shrug, “Maybe.”

“Not maybe, we are,” Darren insists.

“Okay, so what do you want to do?”

Darren takes no time in coming up with his response: “I want to get out of this stupid town.”

“…sounds like a good idea,” I say, “But how are we going to do that?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, “By being awesome?”

“Or, we could find a car.”

Darren laughs at this idea, “Please. You wouldn’t last half an hour in a car without going crazy.

“…probably,” I admit, “Being awesome it is, then.”

“Count it,” he says, holding his fist out for me to pound.

I pound his fist with my own.

And then, he grabs my arm with his other hand and swings at me with his fist. I manage to duck just in the nick of time, and I feel a breeze pass over my head.

“Almost,” I say with a smile, twisting my arm out of his grip, “Try again.”

And I get chased all the way to the store.

5:15
I’m going to die, I’m going to die, my lungs are going to give out, my heart is going to explode, and I’m going to die in the streets of Brinkley, and I’m never going to get the chance to go anywhere, or ask her out, and holy shit, I’m going to die.

5:16
We make it to the shop, and we’re both exhausted, so we collapse on the sidewalk in front of the front door.

“That was not cool,” Darren tells me, “Not [breathe] cool [breathe] at all.”

“If I die, I’m totally going to kill you,” I respond.

I love that crazy bastard.

5:18
Finally, we’re up and in the store – we open in just twelve minutes.

“We’re not going to have enough time,” I tell him.

“We’re totally going to have enough time,” he replies, “If you can manage to do your till quickly today.”

We both know that isn’t going to happen.

5:23
I’m glaring at the till. It’s grinning at me, with its rows of dead looking button eyes and its unmoving mouth full of cash.

Darren has already opened his own till, counted the float, and has started getting things ready in the back.

“Just open the stupid till,” he yells while the smell of brewing coffee hits the air.

“I can’t just open the till,” I explain, “It’s a delicate process.”

He emerges from the back and sits on the counter space next to my till, “It is?”

“Sure,” I mumble, “It’s a complex piece of gadgetry. If you open it wrong, it unleashes its rage, and attacks you. I’ve told you this before.”

“I know,” he grins, “But it’s always fun to hear you try to explain your crazy with words.”

My brain begins to concentrate very hard, and so my face scrunches into an expression to match.

“You have to be very careful,” I say these words at a whisper while I move my left hand towards the button that pops the till open, “Or else it knows what you’re doing…”

“You look like you’re diffusing a bomb,” Darren lets me know as I slowly move my body away from its mouth.

My finger touches the button.

And in a burst of thunder and rage, it shoots its lower jaw towards me. The sound of the ball bearings moving roars until the jaw stops dead with a jolting THUD. The momentum causes a rouge quarter to hop over the lower lip, where it lands on my foot with a soft “puh”. Slowly, I retract my hand.

“Missed me again,” I taunt the machine while I bend down to pick up the liberated quarter.

“Sorry little guy,” I apologize, foiling its bid for freedom, “You gotta’ go back inside.”

As I stand up, the back of my head cracks against the strong jaw of the till, and coins spill everywhere. I grab the back of my head, while Darren starts to do one of those sudden laughs that would’ve made an awesome spit take if he had been drinking anything.

“That,“ he chuckles, “was the best thing I have ever seen.”

I look up at the register with what I hope is anger, and not pain.

“I’ll get you next time gadget,” I tell it ruefully, “Next time…”

Soupy Toasterson: Season One Update

Yes, it's true! Season One of The Soupy Toasterson Show goes live on Tuesday (May 22nd, 2007). The completely amazing and wonderful PulpHaus webpage, however, has to wait until June 1st (boo).

So, until then, the first two pieces of the first season will be broadcast live from this space - and will have their own cozy nook on the site when it launches.

Don't forget, if you're not in the mood to wait ages and ages for the drips and dribbles of Season One, you can buy the entire book on August 1st, 2007!

More information coming soon!

-B.

Bits and Pieces!

• A couple new Lost Toasts have gone up whilst I neglected the blog and died slowly at the hands of paying work (yay!) Check out 180 and 181 for the funsies.


• I've spent the past few days hammering out some details for a crime noir story I'd like to tell in the comic book form. It's the first project I've done that involves a hefty amount of research... mainly because I hate research... and as a result, things are going pretty slow. I finally picked a name for my detective, so that's a plus. I may, however, need a name for the robot. And the monkey butler. And the other detectives in the Agency. And...


• We're almost one month away from the first chunk of the new Soupy Toasterson book appearing on the interweb - and with it, a new hub for all things PulpHaus. More details should be on your way soonly.
  

Soupy Toasterson: A Theme of Sorts

If you want a feel for what the first book - heck, maybe even the whole series will be like, I would recommend listening to Chris Thile's song "Stay Away".

Remember, I'm going to start running bits and pieces on the interweb starting on May 22nd, 2007, and the entire book will be available for purchase on August 1st, 2007. (Maybe I should look into grabbing one of those countdown clocks... thoughts?)

Soupy Toasterson: Drop Me A Line.

“Isn’t that weird? Touching someone right after you break up with them? I think it’s weird. And possibly illegal.”

The Soupy Toasterson Show Returns Soon...

You must remember this:

Yes, I have finished my first novel. Yes, it is about Soupy Toasterson and his star-crossed love affair with... well, love during the teenage years of life. And yes, you will be able to buy it - just not as soon as many of you (including myself) thought.

The first Soupy Toasterson book will be published on August 1st, 2007 - a far cry from my original mid-May idea, but on the plus side... that day is my birthday. What better birthday present is there than being able to hold your book in your hands? I submit: there is none.

But for those of you who can't wait that long, portions of the book will be serialized online before the release, starting on May 22nd, 2007.

The countdown is on!

Stay tuned...

-B.