You will respect my authori-tah!' Oberon said, in a passable imitation of Eric Cartman. I reminded him that I needed to concentrate. Sometimes dogs forget; they just get too excited.

No worries, Atticus. I will snarf surreptitiously. And I should get bacon, because my adverb was two syllables longer than yours, plus a bonus for alliteration." I grinned. "It's a deal. You're the best hound ever.

Oh noes, kitteh haz major angriez!” I said. I turned around to share a laugh with my companions and found them glaring at me. “What?” I asked. Leif shook a finger and said in a low, menacing tone, “If you tell me I have to talk like an illiterate halfwit to fit into this society, I will punch you.” “And I’ll pull out your goatee,” Gunnar added. “Lolcat iz new happeh wai 2 talk,” I explained to them. “U doan haz 2 be kitteh 2 speek it.

But now that she was my apprentice, every such thought caused a guilty twitch in my neck, as if someone had dropped a sleek, stinky ferret there. Guilt ferrets are bastards.

People used to say obvious things ironically or as a form of understatement, but in the last few decades they seem to say it with a sense of discovery, and it worries me.

There is always a price to pay for badassery. Neo was a badass in the Matrix and the Matrix Reloaded, but the price he had to pay was The Matrix Revolutions.

Mr. Tall, Blonde and Lightning