Last night I was reading a book, A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore and a little over a third of the way through the book, I came across this passage that was, to me, so funny that I knew I wasn't going to be getting much sleep that night as I tried to read more. I do not believe any additional context is needed. Here is that passage: In a way, charlie started to enjoy the notoriety of being the guy with the cute little girl and the two giant dogs. When you have to maintain a secret identity, you can't help but relish a little public attention. And Charlie did, until the day he and Sophie were stopped on a side street on Russian Hill by a bearded man in a long cotton caftan and a woven hat. Sophie was old enough by then to do a lot of her own walking, although Charlie kept a piggyback kid sling with him so he could carry her when she got tired (but more oftent he would just balance her while she rode on the back of Alvin or Mohammed). The bearded man passed a little too closely to Sophie and Mohammed growled and imposed himself between the man and the child. "Mohammed, get back here," Charlie said. It turned out the hellhounds could be trained, especially if you only told them to do things they were going to do anyways. ("Eat, Alvin. Good boy. Poop now. Excellent.") "Why do you call this dog Mohammed?" asked the bearded man. "Because that's his name." "You should not have called this dog Mohammed." "I didn't call the dog Mohammed," Charlie said. "His name was Mohammed when I got him. It was on his collar." "It is blasphemy to call a dog Mohammed." "I tried calling him something else, but he doesn't listen. Watch. Steve, bite this man's leg? See, nothing. Spot, bite off this man's leg. Nothing. I might as well be speaking Farsi. You see where I'm going with this?" "Well, I have named my dog Jesus. How do you feel about that?" "Well, then I'm sorry, I didn't realize you'd lost your dog." "I have not lost my dog." "Really? I saw these flyers all over town with 'Have You Found Jesus?' on them. It must be another dog named Jesus. Was there a reward? A reward helps, you know." Charlie noted that more and more lately, he had a hard time resisting the urge to fuck with people, especially when they insisted on behaving like idiots. "I do not have a dog named Jesus and that doesn't bother you because you are a godless infidel." "No, really, you can not name your dog anything you want and it won't bother me. But, yes, I am a godless infidel. At least that's how I voted in the last election." Charlie grinned at him. "Death to the infidel! Death to the infidel!" said the bearded man in response to Charlie's irresistible charm. He danced around shaking his fist in the Death Merchant's face, which scared Sophie so that she covered her eyes and started to cry. "Stop that, you're scaring my daughter." "Death to the infidel! Death to the infidel!" Mohammed and Alvin quickly got bored watching the dance and sat down to wait for someone to tell them to eat the guy in the nightshirt. "I mean it," Charlie said. "You need to stop." He looked around, feeling embarrassed, but there was no one else on the street. "Death to the infidel. Death to the infidel," chanted the beard. "Have you seen the size of these dogs, Mohammed?" "Death to---hey, how did you know my name was Mohammed? Doesn't matter. Never mind. Death to the infidel. Death to the---" "Wow, you certainly are brave," Charlie said, "but she's a little girl and you're scaring her and you really need to stop that now." "Death to the infidel! Death to the infidel!" "Kitty!" Sophie said, uncovering her eyes and pointing at the man. "Oh, honey," Charlie said. "I thought we weren't going to do that." And because we all know cats are magical and Kitty is a special word, thus ends the argument, thanks to the valor of a little girl. Plus that shit was hilarious.
I laughed at the Have You Found Jesus part. It would have probably been a lot funnier if I had read the book and known the characters beforehand.
Troy Rising, The Hot Gate by John Ringo Every single penetrator missile in the human inventory in E Eridani was concentrated on segment sixteen. And the human missiles were…smart. Humans had not only taken Glatun technology and used it, they had studied it and applied their own understanding. Applied it well. While not technically artificial intelligences, the brains in the Thunderbolt missiles were…close. Thus the missiles understood that they needed to not only drive through the defenses and drop the shields. They had to work together to do so and have enough survive the gauntlet to take out the massively armored engines. If they had been truly sentient, which they were not, of course, their conversation would have gone something like this: “I wanna be first! I wanna be first! Let me go!” “No, Jamie’s first! He gets to soak up the lasers.” “You’re a meanie! I wanna die from laser fire!” “I’m not a meanie! You get the fun part. You get to…” “I get to what? Oh, yeah, I get to hit the big mean ship in the engines" “Yeah! You’re lucky! All I get to do is take down the shie…” “Wee, shields are down! I can go! I can go!” Okay, so not terribly smart. But smart enough
I don't know, maybe it requires more context for me, but I'll give it a look after I finish the series I'm on.