Somebody clever and talented (obviously I’m not qualified) pleasepleaseplease do A Deadwood Christmas Carol.
And someone else clever and talented, please please please do Chuck Palahniuk’s version. 
Lots of profanity in this one, so I’m spoiler-tagging the whole thing.
A Christmas Carol by Kevin Smith
[spoiler]DANTE SCROOGE is behind the counter at his convenient store when the ghost of RANDALL MARLEY walks in, goes to the porno section, and starts reading. DANTE notices him.
DANTE SCROOGE: Wha-WHAT? WHAT THE FUCK?
RANDALL MARLEY: (doesn’t look up from porn) Dude, chill the fuck out. Jesus, it’s like you’ve never seen your partner’s ghost before.
DANTE: But you’re, you’re DEAD! You broke your neck trying to suck your own dick!
RANDALL: This would explain why I’m a ghost. You see, ghosts are projections of the dead into the realm of the living, in which they take on a physical appearance to facilitate interaction. You think that Tiny Tim kid has a big dick?
DANTE: What?
RANDALL: See, if I met a guy named Tiny Tim, no matter how little he was, I’d bet anything that he had a giant schlong. Otherwise he wouldn’t let people go around calling him “Tiny”. I sure hope he’s packing, 'cause you know that whole crippled thing is going to get him crazy laid in high school. He’s going to need that crutch to fight off the sympathy pussy.
DANTE: But…but…look, I don’t care about Tiny Tim’s dick, OK? What the fuck are you doing here!?!
RANDALL: Oh yeah. I’m supposed to tell you that three ghosts are coming to visit you tonight.
DANTE: Me? Three ghosts coming to visit me? Why? I mean, I’m not even supposed to be here today!
RANDALL: That’s right. It’s Christmas Eve, and you should be at home with that little woman of yours making the yuletide a little less gay. But here you are, in this shithole. Not a customer around, and here you are. Maybe these ghosts can help you pull a little bit of that yule log out of your ass.
DANTE: Yeah, harsh words from the guy who died trying to suck his own dick.
RANDALL: I wasn’t trying, man! I was succeeding, and don’t you ever fucking forget it! I will be a hero throughout the ages because I succeeded where so many have tried and failed. Besides, sucking my own dick is a hell of a lot more than you’ve ever accomplished. I’m out of here. Look me up when you get this shit figured out.
(RANDALL leaves out the door. Meanwhile, two ghosts–a skinny blonde one and a fat one in a trenchcoat–come in through the ceiling.)
JAY: SNOOCH TO THE MUTHAFUCKIN’ NOOCH!
DANTE: OK, so who the fuck are you?
JAY: Who the fuck am I? I’m the smooth pimp they call the Ghost of Christmas Past, and Lunch Box here is the Ghost of Christmas Future. He don’t say much, he thinks he’s being all mysterious and shit, like OOOOOOH.
DANTE: I thought he said there were three ghosts?
JAY: Oh, yeah, man, there was this fine, fine piece of Christmas Present tail, and the whole way down here I was like, hey, baby, we got a long ride, why don’t we let Tugboat here drive while me and you roll up a blunt and get freaky and shit? And she’s like, let me out of the fuckin’ car. I think she was a dyke or some shit like that. Who the fuck needs a ghost to see the present, anyway? Shit, that’s what we’re lookin’ at all the damn time.
DANTE: Look, just what do I have to do to get all you spirits to LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!
JAY: Hey, we’re just trying to do a little This Is Your Life, and shit. Come on; I’m takin’ your ass back to the past, and then later this tubby bitch will show you the future. We gotta get back so I can go troll for some real live puss-ay–I’m tired of all those see-through bitches back home.
(JAY holds out his arm. DANTE steps from around the counter and takes it.)
JAY: Fuckin’ faggot. SNOOGANS! (they disappear)[/spoiler]
Christmas '61 Revisited
by Bob Dylan
*Oh Scrooge said to Cratchit, “A day off now son”
Bob says, “Scrooge, you must be puttin’ me on”
Scrooge say, “No.” Bob say, “What?”
Scrooge say, “You can do what you want tomorrow, but
The next day I better see you comin’ in on the run”
Well Bob says, “Merry Christmas from me, my wife and my son.”
Scrooge says, “Bah Humbug, everyone.”
Well Jacob Marley he appears as a ghost
With chains and metal trinkets over his clothes
Scrooge asked poor Jacob where can I go
Jake said there’s only one place I know
Scrooge said tell me quick man I want to run
Ol’ Jacob just kept looking glum
And said here come the spirits one by one.
Well Scrooge’s father was an evil thing
Christmas Past showed how childhood did sting
Little Fan dead as a church bell rings
“Do you know how I can deal with these things?”
And Christmas Past said let me think for a minute son
And he said yes I think it can be easily done
Just give me that cap and I’ll put it on.
Now the second spirit on the same night
Told old Scrooge that things weren’t right
The Cratchit’s Christmas is just too light
He said come here and show me the light he says hmm you’re right
And Tiny Tim’s death will strike this family dumb
Kill the mother by killing the crippled son
And is this the Christmas yet to come?
Now the last spirit he was far from bored
He was tryin’ to create an internal war
He found old Scrooge cowering on the floor
He said I often engaged in this kind of thing before
And yes I think it can be very easily done
Change your ways Scrooge get out in the sun
And have a Merry Christmas each and every one.*
A Christmas Carol by Aaron Sorkin
MARLEY: Scrooge?
SCROOGE: Marley? That you? I haven’t seen you since we did that thing with that guy that time.
MARLEY: Yeah, it’s been a while, I guess. Walk with me a minute.
SCROOGE: Okay, but when we go by Cratchit’s desk, I’m gonna mumble something below my breath and I want you to laugh like I just said something really funny.
MARLEY: Yeah. About Cratchit… Look, I’ve got some friends coming by who need to talk to you about some stuff.
SCROOGE: Aren’t you dead?
MARLEY: What?
SCROOGE: Dead. Didn’t you stroke out in a hotel room with my really short ex-secretary or something?
MARLEY: Or something, yeah. Don’t dwell on it. There’s something I really need to talk to you about.
SCROOGE: But you’re dead and now you’re here. What happened? You can tell me the truth.
MARLEY:The truth?
SCROOGE: I think I’ve earned it.
MARLEY: You can’t handle the truth.
SCROOGE: Oh try me.
MARLEY: Okay. The truth is, we just walked in a circle. Twice.
SCROOGE: Ouch! Anyone ever tell you you look exactly like Joshua Malina?
MARLEY: Isn’t that they guy who played Dr. Octopus?
SCROOGE: Different Molina.
MARLEY: Oh. Um, no.
So excellently written, in fact, I could hear the actors voices!
Also excellent
Moderator interjects: There’s no need. There’s a common misapprehension that profanity is forbidden in this forum. Not true. Profanity directed against other posters is not permitted, but we’re not trying to censor language itself. This is an adult site.
F’rinstance, the DEADWOOD version of A Christmas Carol would probably end with Tiny Tim saying, “Ah, shit! Fuckin’ God fuckin’ bless the whole fuckin’ lot of us, every fuckin’ one.”
PS - There’s some great writing in this thread! Man, what talents!!
A Story Of Christmas
by Dr William S Gray
It is winter.
See the snow.
See the pretty things in the store window.
Christmas is coming.
Today is December 24th
See the counting house.
See Bob Cratchit.
He is cold.
See Ebenezer Scrooge
He is old.
He is mean.
He keeps all his money to himself.
The work day is over. Hooray.
Mister Scrooge tells Mister Cratchit to stay home for Christmas Day but to come to work very early on December 26th.
Mister Scrooge goes home.
“EEK” says Mister Scrooge. “EEK! Ghosts!”
“BOOO!” says the ghost of Jacob Marley
“BOOO!” says the ghost of Christmas Past
“BOOO!” says the ghost of Christmas Present
“_____” says the ghost of Christmas Future, because he doesn’t talk.
“Golly” says Mister Scrooge “I have been a very mean man.”
See Mister Scrooge bring presents to Mister Cratchit’s house.
The End.
Dude, that was so dead on, it is spooky. Wow, big time laugh from me.
In honor of the inspiration for this thread, I am attempting to do an opening in the style of the Hobbit, so far, I am failing, I will try again soon.
Maybe QtM will step up and save me the embarrassment.
Jim
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it will be done. The Whores of Christmas Past, Present, and Future will teach a miserable old cocksucker the meaning of the Christmas. Or die trying.
A Visit with Ebeneezer by Marcel Marceau
merci
fin
As told by Marley.
"Entering that city was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world.
when ice rioted on the earth and giant beasts were
kings. An empty street, a great silence, an impenetrable town. The air
was cold, fogged, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of
sunshine. The long stretches of road ran on, deserted, into
the gloom of overshadowed distances.
The alleys flowed through a mob of houses; you lost your way in that city as you
would in a desert, and butted all day long against walls, trying to
find the passage, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for
ever from everything you had known once–somewhere–far away–in another
existence perhaps. There were moments when one’s past came back to one,
as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare for yourself;
but it came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream, remembered
with wonder amongst the overwhelming realities of this strange world of
houses, and snow, and silence. And this stillness of life did not in
the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force
brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful
aspect.
It made you feel very small, very lost, and
yet it was not altogether depressing, that feeling. After all, if you
were small, the grimy beetle crawled on–which was just what you wanted
it to do. Where the spirits imagined it crawled to I don’t know.
To some place where they expected to get something. I bet! For me it
crawled towards Scrooge–exclusively."
Apologies for the delay and for the quality of the following, but sense nobody else has stepped forward:
A DEADWOOD CHRISTMAS CAROL (with almost no exposition or dialogue or lead-in)
PART 1
“Jack Fucking Marley. The last time I saw you you must have been filled with fifteen fucking bullets courtesy of the cocksucking Pinkertons. Which leads me to believe some canned peaches have some poisoning or that Trixie put some of Wu’s magic powder in my whiskey, whereupon if it is true will most probably result in my boot making repeated contact with her temple. But while the delusion lasts let me greet you with something akin to real affection.”
“I ain’t no fucking bad peach Al and I ain’t no Celestial powder. I’m here. A ghost if you wanna call me that. I don’t right know what I am. But I know I got sent here to tell you they’re a comin’ for ya.”
“Who? Those cocksucking Pinkertons? Don’t worry…”
“Pinkertons are the least of your worries me boyo…”
“Only if a plague has sent them to cocksucker’s hell.”
“Your immortal soul’s gone be in hell, and that’s what I come to tell ya.”
“Oh holy fucking gossamer shit Jack! You’re the one taught me how to cut a throat and how to kick a whore half to death without detrimenting her commercialism, don’t tell me you found Jesus somewhere between the mortal bullet wounds.”
“Didn’t say nothing about Jesus. Twas another being all together. And he found me. Weren’t for lack of me hidin’ neither.”
“Well good to see you Jack. I’ll let you show yourself out while I sleep you the fuck off.”
“You’re gone have three visitors tonight…”
“That’s way under my usual number. Long as Bullock ain’t one of ‘em. I’m fucking tired of him.”
“The visitors are to show you the true meaning of this time of year, what you have missed by not keeping Christmas. What you will…”
"Pardon me if I seem rude when I sing at the top of my lungs to drown you the fuck out. TOM BOLEYNE WAS A SCOTSMAN BORN HIS SHOES WAS TIGHT HIS BRITCHES WAS TORN HE”
“…to show you what will be and…”
“HE KEPT HIS MOTHERFUCKIN’ FLYTRAP CLOSED WITH A PIN CAUSE IT MAKES FOR SPEED SAID TOM BOLEYNE- TOM BOLEYNE TOM BOLEYNE TOM BOLEYNE HI HO!!!”
“…and your choice. I’m goin’ now Al, but you will be visited.”
“Motherfucking canned peaches. Why can’t I get just get the vapors and shits like other people. Instead I get a Jesus lovin’ cocksuckin’ ghost.”
TBC
The Ghost of Christmas Past: “Do you know this city?”
“Strangely enough I do. I haven’t laid eyes on it in fifty years. London. Where shite both literal and figurative and humanistic collects as if summoned for the final fucking battle.”
“And do you see through the window? Do you recognize the little boy in there?”
“I am going to leap from the dragon’s mouth and postulate that the boy tis I. Otherwise you’re wasting my fucking time here, which is not in any way to negate that this is what you are doing now even if it is I."
“You came with me willingly enough.”
“Only because I want to fucking sleep and regretfully I am in my night robe and thus not possessed of a knife.”
“Look through the window Al.”
“Indeed it’s me. What a difference you have made in my life. You have fairly won my soul. All is now well. I implore thee heartedly do restore me to my bed that I might at once atone for all ill doings. Perhaps I shall take the collar and save souls iterantly, though a leper colony in the Hawaiians has alternate claims upon my spirit, or I’ll convert the whorehouse to a nunnery and have them tit feed blind horses while giving free ass fucks to Celestials with lumbago. Now let me fucking go.”
“NO! Look closer through the window. It is you. Little Aloysius O’Neill…”
“Whatever fucking equates with disemboweling for the ethereal will become you should either of those fucking names pass what apes the appearance of lips for the human and the living once more!”
“Fair enough. It’s not as if you kept them long. You’re alone and wearing your paper hat.”
“What a pisspot of a room. That I’d forgotten. I remember it now though. That goddamned picture of a parrot. She pulled it out of a newspaper hoping it would bring color.”
The room is indeed a pisspot, a cold one at that. Large enough for a small bed and a crude chair and nothing else, with gray walls brightened only by the picture of the parrot. The child Al is hiding under the bed as the sounds of sex drift through the thin walls.
“You’re alone.”
PRESENT AL: “I’ll wager it was the governess’s day off. She split her time twixt me and the Crown Princess Victoria. This must have been one of her days with Vicki.”
The sex stops and a moment later a young dark haired woman, dressed cheaply in years out of fashion Regency style clothes that leave no doubt as to her profession, but clean and nonetheless very attractive. She has a thick Irish accent.
“Allie babby, come love on your Ma sweetie.” Her words are slurred. She’s clearly intoxicated.
The little Aloysius O’Neill runs to her, all tears disappearing as he leaps at her. “I wasn’t scared Ma, I wasn’t scared, I promise!”
“And of course you weren’t! You’re Angela O’Neill’s big man ain’t ya? I’m just so sorry it took me so long at me job tonight… there’s lots of men need… lace made for them at Christmas. ”
PRESENT AL: “Lace is here employed in its euphemistic sense for having one’s cock sucked for, I would estimate, two shillings.”
Angela: And look what I brung ya! [from her wrap she produces a toy sailing ship- Boy Al is thrilled] And that’s not all! We’re going to be going on one of the real things! Your ma spent the e’en making lace for the captain of a ship that’s sailing to America, where the Red Indians and the mountains are there for ye to play with! Clean air, and maybe we’ll find a da, and we’ll live on a farm, and ye’ll have a cow and a horse! It’s called the New World, and it will be for us then!”
Little Al is enraptured.
PRESENT AL: ‘Yes, maybe we will. And maybe the farm will have a unicorn and a staircase carved from ivory that leads to a golden castle. Or better yet, perhaps you’ll decide what you’d really rather do is suck cock in the open in an alley in New York down on your fucking knees in the gutter for men who don’t even care that a boy’s looking on. And neither do you cause you’re too fucking drunk and it’s the only way you can keep an eye on me and also get money for us to eat. You cheap fucking whore.
GHOST: She hurt no one at least. Other than you.
PRESENT AL: “Huzzah for the old cum guzzler then. I was the only one she shouldn’t have. If she’d hurt the others instead then maybe she wouldn’t have wound up… Enough of this shit gazing. I’d forgotten how beautiful she was once though. If she’d had me as I am now instead of then, she’d have never sucked a cock for a dime. That I can tell you. She did once. Wretched miserable stinking whore I wish I could put my foot on her head and with vigor!”
GHOST: Do you? Then you should well have been glad to be rid of her then.
The Scene Changes to a Snowy Street
In the back of a closed carriage a pimp is brutally beating Angela. She strikes him back- hard- for the first time ever, which makes him completely insane. He pulls a gun and fires it into her face, but it misfires. In that time she has reached into his belt, pulled out his knife and plunged it into his stomach. He looks at her stunned, then prepares to beat her again. Some demon inside of her breaks free. Soon she’s stabbing him repeatedly, until he’s dead. Then overkill. When she comes to and realizes what she’s done she drops the knife and runs… as an afterthought only she runs back down the alley and takes his purse.
The scene changes to the room, every bit as small and miserable as in London, where she is dressing the just roused from slumber Al, now perhaps 7 years old, and telling him “Ma has heard from a friend… in Savannah… that’s in Georgia… and I must go to her. She’s got us a little farm. And once I’m there I’ll send for ya. I promise ya.”
PRESENT AL: “So she killed a man. Who knew she had the gumption. Should have clocked that one, no other way she’d have had the money. Let’s transist us now to the orphanage cause I’ll tell you what happens next. She drags my freezing little ass through the streets of fucking Chicago… little pigsty in those days… she’ll knock one two three four times on the door of the orphanage for Mrs. Fatass Fucking Anderson to steal the seven dollars and sixty something cents I never got a chance to count so that she can be off to Georgia and suck cock for cotton bolls or some fuck, then if you wanna see me I’ll be getting the shit beaten out of me by my so called foster father after his concrete mixer son flips around like a fucking catfish on a July sidewalk til they send me back to Mrs. Fatass Fucking Anderson, then low and behold a year later my mom comes to get me and she’s sucking cock for crawdads or some fuck in New Orleans for a year and I’m out in the street saying ‘Hey sailor you wanna try the best cocksucker in town then give me a dollar and follow me to the Rue de St. Ann where I’ll introduce him to my own fucking mother and we’ll stay there until she sucks her way onto a fucking ship bound for God knows where and a man holds me down while I scream and by then I’m thirteen or thereabouts and I say fuck you all to the lot of them. Now that takes us up to 1840, thanks a fucking lot for the memories but I promise you they were in there already can I go back to my bed now?
“No, not yet. Let’s take a fly for our health to a place with wonderful views and luscious seas.”
“San Francisco. 1851 from the looks of it. There’s me. Goddamn was I ever that young. Twenty two or twenty three I’d guess I’d guess.”
TBC
(Sniff) Brilliant, Sampiro.
Dammit. Shoulda been:
(Sniff) Fucking brilliant, Sampiro. This limber-dicked cocksucker salutes you.
(I told you I wasn’t clever or talented.)
BUMPING FOR THE HOLIDAYS.
The Big Bang Theory: A Christmas Carol
[Sheldon has just gone on a journey with the Ghost of Christmas Past.]
Sheldon: So then, at one point you were Christmas, but then you died…
GCP: Nein! Again! I was not Christmas! I am the Ghost of Christmas Past…
Sheldon: But does that mean you are the past ghost of a Christmas, or that you are a person whose name was once Christmas Past but, obviously only in the paradigm of this particular dream and or hallucination…
GCP: Why do you think it is a dream or hallucination?
Sheldon: Because the possibility of ghosts being real is about in 300 trillion to begin with for various reasons, but the odds of a ghost being dedicated to a specifically religious holiday and having the power to not only transcend time and physical objects but to impart ability would be approximately one in more than 904 octillion, which I’d explain but you’d be hopelessly lost…
GCP: In case you haven’t noticed I am Leibniz!
Sheldon: My point precisely, meaning that the changes in advanced mathematics just in my own lifetime are immense but for the past 350 years, you might as well be comparing painting on cave walls to a hypothetical Wii bison kill… ooh… Wii bison kill, with the right choice of knapped points you might… when I wake up from the dream I hope I retain that…
GCP: It is no dream! And to make matters clear I am not a ghost, perhaps I’ll grant that is a title poorly chosen. How should I say… I am spirit, I am the incarnation of Christmas spirit, specifically of past Christmases…
Sheldon: So you’re a historian? I prefer sciences. History is entirely too subjective, except of course for the facts but those are almost impossible to deduce and…
GCP: I am not a historian I am the Spirit of Christmas Past! And now we are in the past! LOOK!
[Sheldon is shown a 13 year old version of himself, alone in his university dorm room]
GCP: Ja, you see, it is Weinachten und are you mit your family? Nein! You are all alone in a bare and empty dorm room…
Sheldon: Oh God I remember that… Best. Christmas. Ever! My roommate at the time was a post-doctoral geometry student with atrocious hygiene habits so being alone at Christmas , which took considerable persuasion and argumentation and a nightmare of red tape and ultimately legal emancipation and threatened restraining orders with my parents allowed me not only to clean the dorm for the first time but to concentrate on my theory about the Newfield-Stern equations which…
GCP: Ja ja ja… you are alone on Christmas!
Sheldon: Yes, again, you don’t listen. I was alone on Christmas when I was 13, which I already knew. So if you are Christmas Past shouldn’t you show me somebody else’s past? Because I remember mine and thus this isn’t a learning experience at all…
GCP: No, I show you your past. I only can show you your past. I am the ghost of YOUR Christmas Past.
Sheldon: So once you were MY Christmas Past, and then you died and became…
GCP: ICH BIN NICHT TOHT! I AM NOT DEAD! I AM A SPIRIT BUT… what in the hell are you doing? Are you— how to say— constipated?
Sheldon: No, I’m trying to communicate with my 13 year old self to save myself 4 years of futile efforts by taking the internship with Dr. Rajogotopol, whose complete error in his interpretations of the Fornheim Hypothesis would delay my ultima…
GCP: Let me explain. Again. Your thirteen year old self is a shadow. He cannot see you. He cannot hear you. He can only…
13 Year Old Sheldon: Really? Is it because of the emphasis he puts on the Sherman-Osserian-Yamuka sequences? Because I’ll admit I’ve had a niggling that the role of the 87th prime in that is overrated.
Sheldon: Of course, and also you’ll note…
GCP: How are you doing that? You’re not supposed to be able to communicate with him the…
Sheldon (annoyed): Simple. If you’re only able to move within my life and my experiences then clearly you’ve established a temporal expresslink between my current cognition and my 13 year old cognition. Now timespace being roughly like a DVD of Bladerunner- all of the scenes and frames happening at the same and not at all when the DVD’s not in the player, and the player being essentially the present, I’ve essentially clicked on Special Features and accessed the appropriate scene by sending certain impulses to 13 year old Sheldon…
13 Year Old Sheldon: Sheldon -14y for clarification. Ah, there you are. Why Leibniz?
GCP: I am the Ghost of Christmas Past!
13 Year Old Sheldon: Did you used to be Ch… ah, okay… got it.
GCP: At least he understands.
Sheldon: Of course he does because I just gave him access to my thoughts which means he remembers the conversation on the nature of your ghostliness such as it is.
13 Year Old Sheldon: I’m going to do post doctoral at UCLA? Why?
GCP: Nein! He can’t be access to the future information! It could destroy the entire sequence of…
Sheldon: Nonsense, because if it could it already would have, assuming this is the same timespace dimension as the one we already exist in, which clearly it isn’t since I obviously would have remembered a conversation with my 30 year old self occurring at 13, so therefore this is an admittedly almost identical alternate universe where this occurred naturally and whatever changes it makes from him having access to my 17 years of research will not be changes at all but natural progressions.
13 Year Old Sheldon: They really should have sent Feynman, he was way more current and might have understood. Hey, let’s play chess and see if it’s possible to even capture a single piece. There is 17 years of difference between us, including hormonal and experience, and thus at once you’re more experienced BUT at the same time my mind is clear of potential misinformation.
Sheldon: Great idea! Of course in fairness we have to…
13 Year Old Alternate Universe Sheldon: …close the mind bridge, that goes without saying.
GCP: You are supposed to learn from this about Christmas!
Both Sheldons: Holiday celebrated on December 25 since the Dark Ages ostensibly to force Christianity into the pagan infrastructure by cannibalizing a pagan solstice festival with a Christian holiday and in so doing…
GCP: I fucking quit!
Sheldon wakes up in his bed.
Sheldon: Hmm… intriguing dream. Would I have kicked my 13 year old ass in chess and if so would it have caused emotional trauma in this existence or just in the alternate one… oh well. I suppose we’ll never know. I feel like Cheerios.
=-=-=
GCPr: No, I am the ghost of Christmas Present!
Sheldon: Christmas Future!
GCPr: What part of Present do you not understand! THIS CHRISTMAS!
Sheldon: Well in the first place you can’t be the ghost of something that hasn’t lived yet unless perhaps you live in a reality in which time flows backwards which is not impossible but highly unlikely you’d be able to communicate and you’d already know I win this argument. In the second place this is Christmas Eve and you’re trying to show me scenes of a celebration that is clearly December 25 and thus have not transpired yet and are, hence, the future. Putting aside all semantic disagreements as to Ghost, if you are showing me the future, even if only by a few hours, you are the Ghost of Christmas Future, and if the third [air quotes]Ghost[/air quotes] is to show me more distant future events, which are only potential or alternative reality anyway and thus really not up for discussion as a learning experience, then he or she is simply another ghost of Christmas Future, but it would seem to be far more fluid and less invasive on your assigned cases just to admit you’re a ghost of Christmas future and go with that since you cannot be the ghost of Christmas Present if it is not in fact Christmas.
GCPr: Are you even going to ask me if the little boy with the crutch at Penny’s family reunion is going to live?
Sheldon: Of course he is. This isn’t Dickensian London after all. Her father’s a middle class worker and has health coverage and if he didn’t there are certainly social agencies and healthcare providers who can…
GCPr: Aha! So you’re saying 'are there no places for such unfortunates! Perhaps they should die and decrease the surplus population!
Sheldon: No I never said that at all, although as a debate it has 4 points of merit and 3 of demerit. To begin with the merits, I would state…
GCPr: [on cell phone] Yeah, tell Future to just fucking forget about it. Put this one in the loss column… What do you mean Leibniz is suicidal? He’s a ghost and Christmas cheer rolled into on… hmmm… well who does he think would have won the game?
It was somewhere around the end of the year, just before Christmas, when the drugs began to take hold. My attorney, degenerate that he is, had suggested that, in his considered legal opinion, we should both inhale a near lethal infusion of pure ether. And so it had gone, that cold winter evening, holed up in some european version of motel 6 on the ass end of the cold war. I don’t care how tough you think you are, when you’re on an ether binge, you’re gonna see some ghosts. Fucking mexican ghosts of christmas past, crawling up your leg with a knife between their teeth and cold hatred in their eyes. But that’s what being a journalist is all about. I knew we’d have to push through this if we were going to survive. I called the front desk for another case of grain vodka and the biggest stuffed turkey they had.
(Not leet speak, but numb3rs style, for those confused)
Charlie: Don, Amita set up a motivational analysis in the lab, I helped of course, but then Larry reminded me of Benford’s Law, and I realized I had been going about it all the wrong way.
Don & Colby: What?
Charlie: Benford’s Law. It’s used all the time in the banking industry to root out corruption. I used it a couple years ago to help you on another case.
(Charlie goes to the whiteboard)
Don: Right, that was when all the lab thefts were occurring, and Larry was so disappointed
(Puts up a numerical distribution exhibiting the law)
Charlie: Benford’s Law, also called the first-digit law, states that in lists of numbers from many real-life sources of data, the leading digit 1 occurs much more often than the others (i.e., about 30% of the time).
Don: Your point?
Charlie: We went after the wrong man, Bob Cratchit didn’t steal anything, Mr. Scrooge has been cooking the books, and Benford’s Law proves it. It works because most people, when they try to make something look random, can’t do it. Ebeneazer Scrooge’s books have a leading 1’s digit only 10% of the time. And the 9 appears 10% of the time as well, more than twice as often as would be expected.
Don: Colby, we need to get Mr. Cratchit released.
Colby & Charlie: Where are you going?
Don: To have a talk with Mr. Scrooge.
I think this thread has the makings of a classic!
props to Isamu for Hunter S Thompson