The Adventures of Pearman

The Adventures of Pearman
Volume 1: Pearman and a Bunch of Random Events

Pearman was indeed a pear, as is obviously implied by the former half of his name. However, contrary to the possibility of popular belief arising from the presence of the latter half of his name, he was not a man. For one can not be both a man and a pear, and if the reader were to suggest that he could be some kind of man/pear hybrid creature, he would be thoroughly incorrect. The possibility of a part-man part-pear creature (although Pearman's name is whole pear and whole man) is completely improbable due to our society's current genetic knowledge and the fact that it's just plain creepy. So, without further argument, it shall be declared by the author, who is omniscient concerning the events of the story, that Pearman is completely a pear. Furthermore, the presence of the word 'man' in his name simply exists to personify human qualities into his character, thus allowing the reader some type of emotional attachment to the character. After all, who in his right mind would find an emotional attachment to a pear, but with a pearman, the possibilities of an engaging emotional story are endless.

Yes, he was pear (see previous paragraph if you wish to think otherwise), and like all pears, he hung from a branch of, none other than, a pear tree. As the bright afternoon sun cast its rays across Peaman's skin, he peered-- in whatever way is possible for a pear to do so, since they lack the sensory means for sight-- down to the grass below. The sound of crickets chirping loudly in the grass filled his nonexistent sound receptor organs (once again it's just personification. How else did you think I'd get you to care for this little guy?). Drips of morning dew (which apparently still remain well into the afternoon in this story) slid down Pearman's skin, and although he couldn't feel them, we'll pretend he could.


Suddenly, a harsh turbulent wind blew through Pearman's tree, shaking him violently in his perch. Actually, it was only a wimpy little puff of wind from a butterfly passing by. However, combining the effects of the Butterfly Effect and the fact that Pearman measured a mere 3.6423456 inches in length, it sure felt harsh and turbulent, and so the wind was successful in separating Pearman from his branch. Pearman plummeted to the ground. His metaphorically implied heart filled with grief at the loss of his stalk during the separation, for he now measured only 3.14159265 inches in length. He struck the ground forcefully, sending a shudder throughout his body. He wasn't the only pear to fall from the tree that day, nor even that moment. However, none of these pears was a pearman, nor did any of their names end in woman, nor boy, nor girl, nor dog, nor cat, nor uncle, nor even president; nobody cares what happens to them. In fact, just in case you do care (weird freak), three were eaten by wasps, two were stepped on, and the remaining 144 000 are now in a jar (or twenty thousand jars maybe) of Pearsauce in stores wherever Pearsauce is sold.

Anyway, Pearman was now on the ground. Except for a few bruises he was unharmed and in perfect eating condition (No foreshadowing there whatsoever. Nope, no foreshadowing implied at all). Had he a brain, he might have thought about walking around to explore his surroundings. If this was true, and had he also the means of walking, he would have discovered that he now lay on the freshly cut grass of the backyard of a fairly new house in the suburbs of some North American city (or quite possibly North Pakistan). He would have noticed how green the grass was and all the worms and insects and other creatures that scare your grandma. Alas, he possessed none of these abilities and was completely indifferent to his surroundings. Coincidentally, he also knew nothing of the recent events that delivered him to his new environment. And so Pearman rested in the grass awaiting the next great adventure that fate would deal him.

Fortunately for Pearman, and the reader for that matter, fate was no couch potato who never got off its lazy arse. She (what did you expect, I said it WASN’T a lazy couch potato) had already cooked up (yet another reason why it’s a girl) a nice steaming plate of fun for Pearman.

While Pearman sat on the ground, he was oblivious to the frolicking insects around him. They playfully… umm… er… played, in the dirt. Ladybugs playing hide and seek with aphids, a group of fifty ants play-fighting with a grasshopper, two nearby squirrels playing piggy back, and all manner of dumbed down, sugarcoated backyard events occurred around an ignorant Pearman. Then, without warning, a loud thump was heard in the not too distant distance. Then another, this time exactly two feet four inches closer. Then another was heard, this time even closer. Upon hearing this approaching danger, the creatures were quick to scurry into hiding. Not Pearman though. Like all great literary protagonists, he stood his ground. The approaching man (those thumps were his footsteps) slowly grew closer to Pearman. With every step came another deafening thump that in any Oxford (or equivalent) Thump-English Dictionary meant impending doom for our little hero. The man’s foot had now landed right next to Pearman. The next moment Pearman was almost spontaneously launched into the air. It seems the man suffered from SKS (Spontaneous Kicking Syndrome) and forgot to pick up his prescribed medication from the Wal-Mart pharmacy that morning. At any rate, Pearman was now airborne. Moreover, like all aerodynamically contoured pears, he was airborne for a conveniently long period of time. Thus the author is afforded many paragraphs to describe the lengthy flight. Only a long flight such as that of Pearman can allow the author to write an extensive sub plot on the flight of the little fruit. Therefore the length of the story can be effectively augmented bringing it closer to epic novel proportions. SPLAT! Pearman’s flight was unfortunately cut short by gravity.

Dun Da Da Daaa (musical introduction)
Choose Your Own Pearman Adventure

Thanks to the latest in storytelling technology, the author of this story was able to develop a new, more involving storytelling technique. Just read on and I’m sure you’ll understand.


Pearman now…

1. If you wish to choose, "…rested on a frozen lake." your adventure continues on the next page.
   
2. If you would like Pearman to have, "…landed on a steep embankment." you will find out what happens on the page after the next page.
   
3. And if you want Pearman’s adventure to have continued such that he, "…ended up bobbing up and down in a river." go to the page after the page after the next page.
   
   
   

Now that wasn’t too hard was it? If you’re still confused, don’t worry, most people like you have trouble with this sort of thing. In fact, I haven’t met a cerebrum-deprived dimwit who could do one of these. So don’t fret, you’re not a loner among your kind.

____________________________

Pearman now rested on a frozen lake. Just like all frozen lakes during a sunny afternoon in the middle of summer, it was far from frozen. As a direct result, Pearman actually bobbed up and down in the calm waves in the middle of a lake.
Go to the page after the page after next page to see what happens next.

_______________________

Pearman now landed on a steep embankment. Despite this little hindrance, gravity continued to work its magic and pulled him down the slope and into the lake below.

Go to the page after the next to find out what happens next.

_____________________

Pearman now ended up bobbing up and down in a river. The swift current of the river swept him downstream and into an unfrozen lake.

Go to the next page to find out what happens next.

_____________________

Pearman was now bobbing up and down in a lake (in case you didn’t know that already). He was either in the middle, near a steep embankment by the shore, or near the mouth of a swift river that flowed into the lake. However, location isn’t important, so I’ll just say he was in the lake. Unfortunately for Pearman (or anyone else stranded in the middle of the lake for that matter) the lake was populated by a flock of five hundred geese. As is known to anyone who has spent his entire life studying the eating habits of geese, geese enjoy a nice juicy pear every summer afternoon around 3:00. Since it was only 2:30, Pearman’s presence was almost completely unknown to the geese. I say almost because one young, uninformed gosling did notice Pearman, and was feeling quite hungry I might add. Fish and Game quickly reprimanded him for conspiracy to mess with the laws of nature. So Pearman continued to bob up and down in the lkae (spelling error), completely unaware of his liquid surroundings and the fact that his current adventure had no plot as of yet.

At this point it shall be assumed that Pearman’s imaginary mind was beginning to feel, in the most imaginary sort of way, homesick. He longed, not really, for his old pear tree. He felt, in such away that only personified pear emotions can feel, that he must return to his previous place of residence. How he would do so, he knew not. For being a pear, he had no brain beyond the metaphorically personified implications of one formulated by the author. As is known to all Neurologists, a brain is required for knowing. Thus, Pearman’s lack of any sort of tangible gray matter (or white matter) prevented him from knowing how he would reach his perceived destination. Which, we’re only pretending he longed to reach. And how he did long for his home. He longed for the birds singing to the rising sun, both of which he never heard nor saw. He longed for the cool shade of his tree’s foliage and how it danced (Pearman’s not the only object being personified in this story) like little green people, that happen to look nothing like people, in the soft wind. As Pearman longed for his home, he slowly drifted across the lake till the gentle propagation of wavelets stemming from the centre of the lake forced him up onto the opposite shore. What it was opposite of is still unknown since he started out more or less in the center of the lake. With one final push of the waves, Pearman’s oblong shaped body was thrust up onto the sandy shore.

People populated the beach. Swimmers, bathers and suntaners of various sizes, in various sizes of bathing suits, covered the beach. If Pearman could see, he would have noticed that many of these people, in an attempted to mimic the standards of beauty, aesthetic appeal, and overall hotness (that state that more skin showing is equivalent to more perceivable attractiveness) set forth by the media and various modeling agencies worldwide, did not seem to match their bathing suits in terms of size. Weight challenged people in Speedos aside, Pearman, seemed to be enjoying his time relaxing on the beach. Unencumbered by any sort of bathing suit, he must be really attractive (can you say upcoming romance?), the suns rays quickly dried him off.

The sound of little feet walking across the sand grew louder as the source approached Pearman. The source was non-other than Giant Gary; a three hundred pound, 7 foot tall, 5 foot wide (or is it the other way round), Frenchman. Well, actually, the source was his unusually small feet. Nonetheless, he seemed to have a keen interest in all things pear; so naturally he was drawn to Pearman. He stood staring down at Pearman, wondering how a pear could have ended up there. Then, slowly he bent forward, his oversized-- and overexposed-- hind section basking in the sun as he did so. He clasped a large, stubby fingered hand around Pearman, and lifted him off the ground. Giant Gary stared bewildered at Pearman. Never before had he seen such a fine specimen. Silence issued forth from his gaping mouth, as well as large amounts of drool. As his synapses began firing again, Gary’s vacant stare disappeared and he happily placed Pearman in his pocket and continued to walk down the beach.

The ride in the pocket of Giant Gary was not a pleasing one. Pearman was constantly thrown up and down in the pocket as Gary bounded across the sand. Little did Pearman know that each rising and falling in the pocket meant Gary had taken another step closer to his house, where he had planed a blind date with a pearsauce maker for Pearman (both Pearman and the pearsauce maker had no eyes, so technically it really was a blind date).

Giant Gary’s house was like an old Nazi concentration camp, a concentration camp for pears that is. Hundreds of thousands of pears filled the cramped shelves and cupboards of his rundown, ill cared for shack. Each passing day ate away at the lives of these poor, captive fruit. For the inevitable day approached when they would be taken up by their captor, crushed beneath his blunted incisors, sucked down his esophagus into the acidity of his gut, broken down by enzymes, passed through his intestinal tract until finally…well, go read a Biology text book why don’t you. Yet amidst all the pain, suffering, and pearocide (clever pun on genocide), these pears where oblivious to it all. So, like all the extras in a war movie, their deaths are just gory eye candy. But not Pearman, no, definitely not Pearman. For, at least in the context of this story, Pearman possessed human qualities. And as such, like any pear with human qualities, he feared being eaten. Unfortunately for him, Gary was quite fond of his new discovery (Pearman) and decided he’d eat him the moment he got home. Thus the stage was set for the greatest showdown of all time, between Pearman, and Giant Gary’s pearsauce maker.

Pearman’s non-present eyes stared across the dusty counter at his foe, and she stared back. A soft breeze blew across the arena, but all else was still. Slowly each reached a personified hand down towards his/her (go political correctness) imaginary waste, where, if this truly were a western, a nicely holstered revolver would reside. Furthermore, there’d be lots of sly dialog between our protagonist and antagonist about the counter top not being big enough for the both of them, even though it really was. Alas, since neither a pear nor a pearsauce maker—which is really just a fancy blender that’s been cleverly marketed (and sold to suckers, like Gary, over those annoying TV infomercials)--have the ability to act out a western style gun fight, both really just sat on the counter top awaiting Gary’s intervention. Suddenly and without warning, or quite possibly suddenly and with warning, or maybe even anticipated and without warning, Gary’s hand curled its stubby fingers around Pearman’s body. Pearman attempted to squirm out of Gary’s grasp, but due to Gary’s tenacious grip, and the fact that he lacked any physical or muscular means to squirm, he remained firmly trapped. Slowly, well actually quite quickly, but how else is this story going to build dramatic tension, Gary's hand brought Pearman closer to the whirling blades of the Pearsauce maker.

In an instant Gary loosed his grip, freeing Pearman to the forces of gravity. The keen edge of the pearsauce maker’s blades beckoned menacingly as they whirled violently, slicing through the air, inviting Pearman to certain doom. Is this the end of Pearman? Has he reached his climax? Will he ever traverse the summit of this tale’s plot line and enjoy the sweet conclusion of a denouement, or will he be impaled on the abrupt point of an anti-climax? Tune in next week to fin…Whoops, seems this story has shifted into Retarded Saturday Morning Cartoon gear, I guess we better shift back.

"I’m sorry Pearman," sniffed the remorseful voice of the Pearsauce maker.
Tears welling up in the bottom of his eyes Pearman replied, "That’s alright, you didn’t mean to try to slice me up into a million pieces of indefinable shape and varying hardness."


"Can we still be friends?"


"Of course, you know I’d never turn my back on a friend like you."
It had been a heartbreaking half hour, but now Pearman and the pearsauce maker embraced in a gentle hug, both holding back tears of happiness at the restoration of their friendship; a sappy Backstreet Boys song played quietly in the background as the credits began rolling up the scree… We sincerely apologize for this brief layaway in After School Special Land, we will return to your regular programming in a moment.

Pearman grasped the blades of the pearsauce maker firmly, wrenching them violently onto the soft, down, duvet covers. His eyes full of lust, his stalk hard and sti… moving on now.

Several genera shifts later…

Pearman dropped towards the blades like a rock, or like any falling object for that matter, if you neglect air friction. Suddenly, time seemed to stand still. Aside from the inherent and undeniably cool visual feast to be gained, the ingenious inclusion of bullet time afforded Pearman with enough time to think through an escape from his dire circumstances. Well, actually, it just provides the author with a device, and justification, to pretend Pearman was thinking through his current situation methodically. In reality he had given in entirely to the influences of gravity and those around him. Poor little guy, I guess his heart just couldn’t take the strain.

He might have let out a terrible cry of fear and lose as space-time returned to its natural quantum state and the whirring blades resumed their maniacal pirouette. His inanimate little body continued its silent descent towards an inevitably violent, skin tearing, bone crushing, pear blood and guts everywhere, with the possible inclusion of partial decapitation death.


The first of the painfully sharp blades began its incision. Its keen edge tore through his flesh, his inner juices slowly seeping out as a wave of pain drenched him in agony. Unhindered, the blade continued its journey to the centre of Pearman, eating its way through his very core. Then, when he was all but transected… he woke up.

It had all been a dream, a huge copout by the author to end the story. Everything you’ve read up until now never really happened. So forget about it. No SKS man, no geese, no Fat Gary (thank God), and no pearsauce maker. And Pearman lived happily ever after, in case you wanted to know.

The End

Yup, it's over. Don't you feel like a better person, like you've grow mentally, physically and maybe a bit spiritually, now that you've dedicated a part of your life to the epic tale of Pearman?
















You're still hear? The story ended like 50 lines ago.

Listen buddy! It's over! Get over it! MOVE...ON!

ARRRRRRRGGGGG @$)#()$(#)@) @)#()(%__)_@_)!*!&&@&#

EVILution VS Unintelligent Design

As many of you don't know, I'm a big fan of science: biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, astrology, alchemy...okay, well maybe not those last two. However, I'm also a Christian and believe that the Universe was created by, surprise surprise, God (I know some of you probably thought I was gonna blame the Universe's creation on Lord Ulrich, supreme leader of all German Speaking Aquatic Humanoid species in the Andromeda Galaxy, but you are quite wrong). It seems though, for those of you who never paid attention in... well... just haven't been paying attention at all your whole lives, that there is considerable tension between Science and Religion. Non-Christian Scientists tend to view their Christian counter parts as crackpots with zero scientific merit to their theories. And the Christian Creationists who believe in intelligent design, they believe evolution to be the root of all evil and a direct assault against the existence of God. In short, Creationists believe:

The Lord created the earth in six days. No more. No less. Six shalt be the days He shalt have created, and the days of the creating shall be Six. Seven days shalt He not have created, nor either did he create in five days, excepting that he then proceeded to day six. Eight days is right out. Once the day six, being the sixth day, was reached, then, rested he on the seventh day, and the Earth, which, being good in his sight, snuffed it.

And the evolutionists, well, they believe the Universe began with some sort of Big Bang. I think that maybe God lit one of his farts or something. I’m not really sure how that resulted in life though; no one’s really bothered to explain it to me beyond the fact that there was a really big explosion and all this life came out of nowhere. Maybe that’s why they keep blowing crap up in Iraq?

What do I believe then? I guess I’d consider myself a Theistic Evolutionist. In other words, God used evolution to create (and he continues to use it) the world and the creatures that inhabit it. How can I believe a theory supported by those sinners, those Evil, heartless, on a Highway to Hell Atheists? Simple, their theory doesn’t make sense without the presence of an intelligent designer. The signs, after all, are all around us. Patterns in biology, like how flowers usually have 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 or 55 petals. Notice how each number is the sum of the two preceding it. They are Fibonacci numbers (the sequence actually starts at 1, then 2, then 3…). And what about Newton and those little maxims he devised, the three laws of physics? Every thing doesn’t just follow a set of rules unwaveringly all the time. And laws don’t just appear out of know where. Something has to bring order and direction to this Universe. I once heard a pastor say, "A tornado doesn’t just blow through ha scrap yard and a 747 pops out (maybe a Cessna though, he didn’t quite clarify what a tornado is capable of doing given a few thousand tons of scrap metal)."

Then we have evolution itself. In order for evolution work, a gene mutation must occur that gives a creature’s offspring a marked advantage over the others of its species. Seems simple enough. Except there’s just one problem, many gene mutations are neutral and most others result in a disadvantage: cystic fibrosis or cancer to name a couple. The actual chances of a positive gene mutation, that actually gives a considerable advantage, are like a billion to one (or something like that, I couldn’t actually find correct statistics). Kind of makes you wonder why evolutionists don’t play the lottery more often. But then there’s God. I believe that God, whenever he wants to, reaches down and creates a positive mutation. Slowly, through the millennia, he has altered and changed his creation. It’s no more perfect then it was when he first created it, but it’s no less perfect either. Like an artist, he continues to create, continues to surprise us with his craft.

I don’t believe everything evolution teaches though. I don’t believe man came from apes. I think most of the evolution is minor. God changes the minor details in creation to help it cope with the world that we keep screwing around with and changing. Like those white moths that reproduced dark offspring so they could hide better against the soot-covered trees and walls of 19th century industrialized England. Of course, God probably also goes all out every once in a while and creates what is basically a whole new species (dinosaurs to birds maybe?).

Then there’s the Bible itself. It pretty clearly states that God created the Heavens and the Earth in six days and rested on the seventh. But then, is it really a literal description of the creation, or just a poetic declaration that God created the world? The seven days just drawing a parallel to the seven days of the week and the reason for resting on the Sabbath. I think the important thing to realize is that the Bible is not a scientific text. It’s meant to teach us, meant to show us the truth of who Jesus is, who we are, and the lives God wants us to lead. Besides, Moses could have began Genesis like this:

In the beginning, God Created the Monerans and the Prokaryotes. Now the Nucleus was without form, and the DNA was hovering in the bodies of cytoplasm.

Sure it makes complete sense today, but back then the Israelites would have been like, "What the &^%# are you talking about Moses. I mean, come on. We put up with your whole God wants us to walk around in this freaking desert for 40 years, but this? DNA, what does that stand for? Do Not Ask? Sorry man, but even the golden calf made more sense then this." Sure wouldn’t do much for God’s credibility back then.

The same is happening now too. In this we humans know everything and don’t need a God world people look at Genesis and wonder, "What the hell, this makes absolutely no sense." It’s too bad really. If only we could all see God’s presence in his creation. People say us Christians follow blindly, but then, everyone’s already blind anyway.

I could be wrong though. He could have done it in six days. He could have done it in a second and not rested at all. I just don’t think it really matters how He did it. It only matters THAT He did it, that it was beautiful and that He sent his only son to die for our sins. I just wanted to back up my own beliefs.

Why You Should Not Keep A Blog

The Blog are large carnivorous reptilian like creatures that inhabit the swampy shallows of Lake Ip on the planet Webb of the Cite galaxy. Measuring 10 to 15 feet in length, they have a thick scaly hide and are characterized by a ridge of feathers running along the spine from the shoulders to the tip of the tail. Their main diet consists of the flying bat-like creatures, the Javvas. Using sticky pods produced in a bulbous sac on the end of the tail, they knock the Javvas out of the sky using a technique called Pod-Casting. Many humanoid civilizations throughout the Universe have tried to keep Blogs as domestic creatures, but all have failed. The most successful (if you can even call it that) attempt to domesticate Blogs was by the people of planet Cirvor, the Cirves. Unfortunately they could not handle the Blog’s high food demands and the civilization collapsed when the Blog’s Pod-Casting destroyed their main source of energy, the radioactive crystal known as the Bant-Withe. Since this incident, the Galactic Council has deemed it illegal to keep a Blog.

Fearless Fun

I used to SUCK at skiing. I'm better now, and can ski pretty much anything as long as it's more or less devoid of moguls (my ability to maneuver those things is a whole other story). Still to most people I probably look like an uncoordinated orangutan rocketing down the mountainside flailing wildly at every little unexpected bump. Still, there was a time when I really truly was a poor skier. I would slalom back and forth perpendicular to the run: back and forth, back and forth, back and forth… ad nauseam. Suffice to say, I was a horizontal skier; how I managed any sort of vertical motion at all is still a mystery to me. My problem was that I was afraid. I was even afraid to turn around after traversing across the entire run; this nearly led to some very intimate moments with the tree line on a number of occasions. I feared that if I pointed the tips of my skis downhill I would achieve a velocity so great that my meager skills and sloth like ability to react wouldn’t be able to maneuver me around the many obstacles that litter the ski hill: other skiers, snowboarders, lift poles, trees, snow banks, the occasional misplaced glove; anything and everything was a constant threat to my continued existence as I made my way down the hill. I eventually did get better though, as my skills improved. Yet, I was still afraid of going to fast or losing control.
That all changed about 2 months ago. I was enjoying a leisurely, safe, controlled, SLOW time on the hill with my brother (one of those I’m invincible and possess super human skill in all sports types). The day was going like it always did. He would race down the hill, stop, wait a few minutes for me to creep, stumble, or roll down the hill to his position, and then he’d race down the next section of mountain. Then, he challenged me to a race. It wasn’t a particularly treacherous hill, just a short, easy black diamond run followed by a long flat traverse section with a few narrow (difficult to slalom in) steep sections. I warily accepted his challenge and a few seconds later we were heading down the mountain. To my surprise, I was hardly turning at all. I shot straight down the black diamond run in seconds and safely made the left turn onto the traverse where I was able, despite my high velocity, to dodge the many people that usually populate the traverse. I had finally faced my fear of going fast and managed to attain a confidence in my abilities I never had before. The strangest part was that I enjoyed it. I had always figured going fast was no fun, that it took to much effort, and that if I ever took the risk I’d just end up reverting to my old slow ways again. Instead, it was purely exhilarating.
I think we tend to follow the same slow, safe path in our walks with God. We fear failing and are afraid to take any leaps of faith. We are afraid that if we just let go and take some risks, we’ll loose control. So, we just end up going nowhere. What we don’t realize is that God is always in control, and if we fall, He will keeps us safe like the soft powdery snow has done for me during my countless wipeouts on the mountain side. And if we do let go, and trust that He will guide us safely down the seemingly treacherous slopes and terrain we encounter in our lives, we will experience life in a whole new way. No longer dull and monotonous, God will take our lives down a much more exciting path. All we have to do is be a little fearless and have faith that he will guide us around the obstacles that are put in our way. God is a double black diamond skier (if he’s a snowboarder I’ll personally convert to Jim Jonesism) who knows each and every run on the mountain.