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Freak Speak

Daniel’s First Attempt at Flash Fiction. See what you think.

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Yes, I know this is a shock. “What the #$%&@#%$ happened to Dr. Crankenfuss? He looks awful!” you’re saying. “Was he in some kind of industrial accident?” Well, no, the Crank is fine. That’s not Dr. Crankenfuss on the left at all. It’s me: Daniel Berenson, the head guy at Freaky Dude Books and the dude who’s nice enough (so far) to lease some space in his head to the good doctor.

And now you’re no doubt thinking, “Just look at him! What’s he got to smile about?” Well, a lot actually. My books are getting more noticed, all the reviews (over 40 of them) are 4 or 5 starred (except for one). I’m in the middle of editing and formatting my sixth book, a poetry book by and for kids, and it will be coming out in September. Also I’m happy to announce that I’ll be giving away a bunch of free stuff in the next few weeks so keep checking back or you might miss it.

But as the title of this post states, this is my first stab at Flash Fiction, which is literature for the Twitter generation, I guess. I entered a contest. There were five categories — stuff like “Write a murder mystery that has a party in it and doesn’t have over 50 words, including the title,” or “Write a romance with a horse in it somewhere. 45 words max.” I chose, “Write a children’s poem about The Adventures of Max Little. It has to involve bravery or courage and can’t be over 40 words, including the title.”

Here was my entry:

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

Max Little wanted dinner:
Something like himself.
So he scuba dove
Down to an ocean shelf.

He battled squid and octopi.
He survived, but with a limp.
But Max got his dinner —
Tasty jumbo shrimp.

Total = 40 words

Was I pleased with myself or what? A sure winner, I thought. Okay, it’s not aimed at kids exactly. Would most children get the exact parallelism between “Max Little” and “jumbo shrimp”? Did the contest judges? But fighting squid and octopi? Hey, that’s very courageous. Remember that big squid — or was it an octopus? — in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. That guy was ginormous.

Long story short. (Ha, ha. See how I incorporated the essence of Flash Fiction into those three little words?) I LOST. “No, no way!” you say. WAY! Anyhoo, it’s they who have truly lost. Now I have the rights to this poem and it will be my first entry in my Flash Fiction oeuvre. And I’ll add it to my Poetic Poetry page. Now it’s time for my next self-imposed challenge: Dinner for two within one hour using only chicken, oleomargarine, and mosquito repellent. Ooh, Maureen’s gonna love this!

Are You Freaky Smart?

Caution: Newest Brain Terminator Appears Here

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For this IQ killing Brain Teaser, you need to be somewhat proficient in two fields: counting and spelling. If your level in either of these is below the fourth grade level, you may encounter difficulties with this one. Otherwise, this is a lock, dudes.

Here you go. We call this one “You can count on it.”
If you had to spell out each number as you counted — as in one, two, three, etc. (No, etc. is not a number. If you thought it was, maybe this puzzle is a little over your head.)

Let’s start over, okay?
If you had to spell out each number as you counted, how far would you have to go before you used the letter a in your spelling?

Now if you really have to write every number in order, we promise you this will take a long time. But if you’ve mastered the advanced skill of spelling out loud, you’ll get the answer. However, we think you’ll be surprised anyway by the result.

Click here for the answer. (Clue: the answer is not “a bazillion.”)

Freak Speak

Daniel uses a four-letter word on the Freaky Dude Books site — DIET

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Daniel Berenson, head guy at Freaky Dude BooksConfession from the guy who brings you most of the junk at Freaky Dude Books (except the art and animations that come from Maureen, but we all know her stuff doesn’t hold a candle to Daniel’s genius writing)–

So here’s the confession. I’m going on a diet. Again. Now this site is supposed to be entertaining and we hope it is, but there’s nothing entertaining about not being able to tie my shoes because my big ol’ gut’s in the way. Okay, it’s not that bad, but here’s the story. I spent most of last year losing 30 pounds. Ooh, I was so proud. I exercised all the time, kept my food intake under control (most of the time) and was ready to lose even more. Then I made my first mistake. Went on a dance cruise with Maureen.

No, honey, I didn’t mean you were the mistake. Honey, no, no, not the electric toothbrush in the eye! Let me explain. O-w-w-w!

Whew, that wasn’t fun. Anyway, back to the subject before she comes back with something sharper. And the dancing was fine too. It was those all-you-can-eat-anytime-you-want buffets and snack bars that did me in. And when I came back, I’d caught the food fever. So I’ve gained back 1/3 of what I lost. That would be 10 out of 30 pounds.

Daniel no happy with himself.

So now I’m putting it on the line. And online. I’m going to lose 10 pounds in two months. Don’t believe me? Just watch. Today’s Saturday. This morning I weighed exactly 179.8 pounds. So my goal is to get below 170. That’ll get me back to where I was 20 years ago. Back when McDonald’s was offering to put me on their breakfast menu as a Studly McMuffin. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration. But only in reality, not in my fantasies.

I’ll let you know at my Twitter page how I’m doing. No, I won’t bore you with constant tweets like, “Just had a nice hot bowl of water for dinner” or “Who knew styrofoam peanuts had so much flavor?” But once a day I’ll announce that day’s weight. Anyone who wants to join in, feel free. If you let me know how much you lost or are losing by posting your news at this site, hey, I’ll give away three of my books — you know, like by way of a drawing — to three people who lost weight too. And since the book is called STORIES GUARANTEED TO MAKE YOU SICK, reading the book will probably help you lose even more weight.

Okay, that’s it for now. Gotta get to work. This afternoon, it’s an hour on the step machine. Or an hour trying to convince myself to do 15 minutes on the step machine. (I don’t want to start too fast, you know. Might peak too early.)

Wish me luck. And good luck to you if you feel like joining in.

from soon-to-be-svelte-and-saucy Daniel

Are You Freaky Smart?

Beware – Malicious Mind Masher – posted January 8, 2012

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For once, our brain teaser is actually not that hard. About one in three people we tested it on got it right. See, we gave it to nine people and three got it right. (We know how to reduce our fractions.) Of course two of them said they’d heard it before, but at least they’d remembered it.

So without further ado — whatever that means– here’s the Mind Masher.

Two women are applying for a passport at the passport office. They look just like each other. When the passport officer looks at their applications, she notices that they have the same father and mother, they were born in the same city, and their birth dates are the same. “Oh,” the officer says to them, “you must be twins.”

“No,” the two women say together.

How is this possible?

Click here to see the result of your intense brain work.

Are You Freaky Smart?, Uncategorized

Here’s a brain teaser that’s second to none

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Sorry for the long hiatus since our last puzzle. (That’s a word we got from Crankenfuss, our resident wordsmith. It means “a break.” Thanks, C.) As some of you know, our site’s host got hacked, we went down, and it took Maureen over a week to get everything — well, most everything — back in order.

But anyway, here’s our latest killer for you.  You can get out your calculator. This is a calculator-active quiz. That’s the good news. The bad news is you have exactly ten seconds to answer the question

You ready? Get those fingers ready to rumble. Here we go:

Question:
How many seconds are there in a year?

Go!!

C’mon, c’mon, your time is running out. Don’t give up. Keep punching in…

Oh, no! Time’s up.

Oh, well. You flopped again.

Click here to see what the answer is.