Bulwer-Lytton - "It was a dark and stormy night" contest

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[Sender]

The cave's cloying, clammy breath faintly reeked of some obscene, fetid decay, not at all the sort of place a good boy should have entered, and quite unlike his expectations as the wavering beam of his flashlight illuminated the dusty sign above the rough-hewn door on which had been scrawled a single word in some dark, unknown fluid; "DNC".

[San Jacinto]

Maybe the first sentence of the CBS panel's ultimate report on the Rathergate Memos--

Emerging from a fitful sleep in his upscale Manhattan apartment, still folded within the sleepy shadows that precede the bustling cacaphony of a September morning in New York, the center of all the Universe that really matters, CBS Newsman Dan Rather gave open contemplation to to the consequences of the broadcast he had planned for the evening and brushing aside all doubts that something might go wrong, he allowed the eagerness to swell inside him in a way he had not experienced in many years because not many men are afforded the opportunity to bring down an evil regime, especially as the crowning achievement of a glorious career, but on this day such an opportunity lay before him and he had the unimpeachable incriminating documentary evidence to pull it off--throwing back the covers, he exclaimed to the empty room around him, "Edward R. Murrow, my Ass!"

[Xenalyte]

IIRC, this was the 2001 list. It's not up on the official site, so I can't confirm.

[Weirdad]

"As the gangly sailor-cum-amateur filmmaker was gazing smugly at the dried blood encrusting his third 'war wound' in 3 months, he hallucinated that he would become president, only to be interupted when the physician came in to apply a band-aid to his boo-boo."

[Ditter]

Thanks so much you have given me my Fri. morning laugh!

[reagan_fanatic]

As the cold, dry November dawn broke over his darkly lit but smartly decorated hotel suite, John knew his failure to unseat W probably wasn't helped much by his wife Teresa, whose mouth, it seemed, was a never-ending source of unhelpful pronouncements and the subject of gleeful snickering by those damned journalistic parasites, who clung to every utterance coming from Teresa's mouth like a discarded wad of bubblegum clings to the bottom of your shoe.

[Xenalyte]

This thread has some AMAZING Kerry lines.

[goldstategop]

I believe Bulwer-Lytton, if I'm not mistaken, popularized the "toga" genre in the 19th Century. Ben-Hur is the most famous novel reflecting the Victorian fascination with classical antiquity.

[Hatteras]

Her pendulous breasts swung first to the left, then to the right and finally in independent directions, much like semaphore signals, and although he couldn't understand semaphore, Kyle was sure they were saying, "Never ride the Tilt-A-Whirl with your grandma."

Randy Heil
Las Vegas, NV

[badgerlandjim]

WELL DONE!!

[YaYa123]

This thread really cracks me up, and I wanted y'all to enjoy it too.

[mombonn]

5) "Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from eeking out a living at a local pet store."

I am dying laughing at this one! If I could vote, this is definitely numero ono!

[cyncooper]

You're a doll.

Thanks!

LOL

[small voice in the wilderness]

Like a boxcar of thirsty midgets wandering into a Laredo bar at closing time, the slow realization that danger lurked behind the seemingly innocuous KINK 'S sign made him pause for just a moment before he steadied himself, grasped the memos tighter, and walked through the front door, determined to place his order.

[SuzanneC]

It'll probably be a while before I can ride a Tilt-a-whirl again. LOL

[Larry Lucido]

Okay, I'm no author or literary critic, but perhaps someone could enlighten me:

If a night is dark, and it's stormy, then what, pray tell, is wrong with describing it as a "dark and stormy night"?

[StarFan]

Couldn't agree more. #1 still has me chuckling.

[William Terrell]

It was a dark and stormy night when, president-elect John Kerry arose, a spreading dark stain dampening the V of his trousers, to give his acceptance speech.