factgirl's New Writeups

January 12, 2004 (idea)

2004-01-12T02:01:10Z

100 words (exactly) for ideath:

How do you get there?

There is a simple answer to this question. There is a simpler answer, then a longer answer. The final answer makes the first three better.

The second answer, the other, simpler one referenced above, is "remember as best you can".

The third answer, the more complex one, is "You can't get there from here, this river only flows one direction".

The first answer, the simple one, is "get born".

And the fourth answer, the big payoff for reading this, is that you will never get back to the first year of your life.
I'm sorry.

train boy (person)

2003-03-31T21:55:24Z

I have a boy who loves trains.

There are over 200 locomotives, tenders, freight cars, box cars, cattle cars, tank cars, hopper cars, and caboose in his room, in the train box, on his desk, on the walls, in videos and books, t-shirts, and, I'm sure, under the bed. On the rare occasion I make his bed I find errant engines between the mattress and bed frame and stuffed way down under the covers where his feet will someday reach.

He has been on more trains than most adults – let alone six year olds. I've got a shoe box full of pamphlets from lines all over California; Fillmore and Western Railway, Paris Orange Empire Railway, Sacramento Railway Museum, Yolo Short Line, Fort Bragg Skunk Train, not to mention the small scale lines like the one at Traintown in Sonoma and the Disneyland Railroad.

I had a man who loved the railroad.

Grandpa worked on the Union Pacific Railroad for long enough to get a gold pocket watch (suita…

Disneyland Railroad (place)

2003-03-31T19:44:55Z

"I just want it to look like nothing else in the world...and it should be surrounded by a train" - Walt Disney

Please remove a D coupon from your ticket book and present it to the conductor as you enter the turnstile.

Walt Disney himself was the engineer on the maiden run of The Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad in July 1955. Two 5/8 scale steam engines burned diesel instead of coal - one carried indoor passenger coaches and the other had flat open "freight cars" with benches.

Early feedback indicated that park guests didn't like the idea of being considered freight, and Walt disliked the indoor coaches because they didn't provide a good view of the park; so the next year the passenger cars were put out of service and the freight cars were redesigned with long benches that face the park and an overhead canopy for shade.

The line ran a two mile circle around…

Good God it's hot! A 2003 Vegas gathering (thing)

2003-03-26T00:56:57Z

Dear Sir Clarence,

I write to thank you for your most generous hospitality of this weekend past.

As you well know from your service to the Crown with my late husband Major Golden (he did write so fondly of you after the campaign at Hafir and the conquests of Bengal and the Gold Coast), I have been left with an inheritance of a sizeable sum. This inheritance has one stipulation, however, and it is that I never settle here at my family holdfast at Breaking Wind for more than a fortnight. I am compelled to seek excitement and adventure across the world, thus my title "heiress of adventure".

When your invitation first reached my yurt lo these many weeks ago I first thought "how did that resourceful gentleman find me here in Mongolia?" My second thought was "What an excellent choice of venue!"

It was surely God's hand that placed Master Johann Drugen nearly in my lap, for he was slowly being led through the grounds by a group…

Secret transcript: Bush and Chirac debate Iraq (idea)

2003-03-21T01:01:22Z

Secret transcript: Bush and Chirac debate Iraq.
With apologies to Dr. Seuss.

By Dave Koehler

That Jacques Chirac!
That Jacques Chirac!
I do not like that Jacques Chirac!

Do you like Saddam Hussein?

I do not like him, Jacques Chirac.
I do not like Saddam Hussein.

Would you like him here or there?

I would not like him here or there.
I would not like him anywhere.
I do not like Saddam Hussein.
I do not like him, he is insane.

Do you like him in a house?
Do you think he is a louse?

I do not like him in a house.
I do not like him, he's a louse.
I do not like him here or there.
I do not like him anywhere.
I do not like Saddam Hussein.
I do not like him, he is…

Jackalope (thing)

2003-03-19T18:48:43Z

Douglas Herrick and his brother Ralph were out hunting one day in the early 1930s, and they were lucky enough to catch a rabbit. They went home and tossed the dead rabbit on their hobby desk, where it came to rest right next to a pair of antelope horns.

"Hey, I've got a swell idea!" Douglas might have said. "Lets mount the rabbit just like that, horns and all!"

"Say, that sounds just jake!" Ralph probably agreed. "maybe Old Man Ball down't the hotel will give us some scratch for it. Wouldn't that be nifty?"

So using all the skills they had learned from their taxidermy correspondence course, they did just that. They cut the rabbit's head off, sewed the horns to the top, and mounted it onto a plaque.

Sure enough Old Man Ball (Roy to his friends) gave them ten dollars for the very first jackalope. He hung it in the great room of the Bonte Hotel where guests and staff alike admired it.

Doug and Ralph were overjoyed, ten…