Write the start of a novel...

Milbury smiled as he stepped aboard the revolutionary new yacht he had invented. A gust of wind made his burgee (it bore the image of an impish Apollo) flutter above the array of solar panels that would power the boat. There was no need for an engine with a cauldron of smelly diesel to create torque. This craft would be powered by the brilliance of the sun.

Stasis
Incommunicado
Ponytail
Disgorge
Lark

The prisoner was incommunicado, trapped in a Langdon Stasis Field, frozen and mounted like a popsicle on a stick--even his extravagant ponytail had a disturbing solidity.

Just for a lark, the guard deactivated the field, watched the prisoner convulse and disgorge his lunch, then snapped the field back on.

---

Power
Pheonix
Computer
Fairy
Nanotechnology

The computer fairy began the update of the Phoenix BIOS in my computer with the freshest nanotechnology just seconds before lightning struck and the power went out. It was startng to look like today wasn't my day.

Ketchup
Hardwood
Spaniel
Leather
Pinochle

The gang always played pinochle on Wednesday nights, and this Wednesday was no different. Since Geoff was host, he had laid in a supply burgers with relish, onions, tomatoes and plenty of ketchup, and he sat there concentrating on the game while his spaniel Joe Cocker lay snoozing at his feet. What the other guys didn’t know was that he had polished his hardwood floor to a high shine, and that by tilting his leather chair to just the right angle, he could see reflections of the other players’ cards. He would be a winner tonight.

Overrule
Densimeter
Fungible
Ramrod
Rye

Gomer the mad scientist cackled with glee at his new invention created in his laboratory in the bathroom. He used the ramrod to cram as much burnt rye toast in a glass beaker as he could fit, then used his densimeter to see if the chemical reaction of his secret compound did lower the density of the rye. He could now make tasty white rye, with all the same health benefits as the cardboard tasting kind! The new rye would have fungible benefits in all farmers fields!

Gomer swayed at the dream of awards and accolades coming his way. Yet in his heart, he knew his wife would overrule him again by buying pumpernickel instead of rye at the market for his experiments.

keen
admiralty
turban
curate
amphibian

Radleigh had a keen sense of his own importance, and therefore he had vowed to take his grievances directly to the top. His Amphibian Acrobatic Act (mostly frogs) in Trafalgar Square had been shut down by some meddlesome police, and now, as he passed Admiralty House on his way to 10 Downing Street, he knew that he had chosen the right disguise. Posing as a curate would not have worked, but by wearing this turban he would easily get through the door. They would assume he was a pasha or something.

Swill
Collage
Griffin
Polymorphous
Rotate

Bud slammed down another drink, gasping at the nasty swill rolling around in his mouth. It was a night for drinking, regardless of the taste, though. He stared at the collage on the wall behind the bartender's bushy hair. Was that a griffin he saw? The world began to rotate a little to the left.

The bartender took another look at him. "Bud, sorry, I'm cutting you off for the night. You got someone to take you home?"

Bud started chuckling. The bartender was the griffin. Polymorphous men, living lives as their work demanded, changing, always changing. He had lost his job today because the head honchos thought he couldn't change fast enough.

whimper
gauchos
mollusk
penultimate
figurative

The gauchos rode the South American Pampas--and one of them had a mollusk on his head.

"Manuel, why you ride with that ridiculous thing on your head?" a fellow rider asked.

"Hair loss, meu amigo. Is good for the scalp," he replied, and gave off a whimper as it shifted slightly.

"Ahh, si," his friend acknowledged. "You know, I am a magnífico figurative artista! I would like to paint you, and the mollusk--"

"Of course, meu amigo," he interrupted at the penultimate word.

"Nude," his friend finished.

---

Greed
Eclectic
Feathers
Nincompoop
Rapier

The young nincompoop's expression ranged from wonder to greed as he contemplated the eclectic collection of rare artifacts ranging from the feathers of extinct birds to an eighteenth-century rapier with a jewel-encrusted hilt.

Colic
Column
Colostomy
College
Collusion

“It’s a stoppage in the digestive tract--or food column, to put it in layman’s terms,” said Dr. Fiddlefaddle. But he must have been in collusion with a scalpel manufacturer, because after all his years at the College of Gastroenterology, Fiddlefaddle should have known that a case of colic did not require a colostomy. He is being sued for $250 million dollars.

Endorphin
Tinsmith
Rapacious
Swim
Paprika

As he prepared dinner, sprinkling paprika over the simmering stew, the rapacious tinsmith basked in the endorphin glow that was his reward after the long swim.

Urban
Urbane
Propane
Prophylactic
Anaphylactic

As he trudged through the urban sprawl of the metropolis ghetto, maintaining a calm, urbane frame of mind (the irony of which was not lost on him), the scientist merely pondered how many more camping stores would turn him down in his bid to buy twenty propane tanks. Apparently, no one believed his statements that it could be added with sugar to create an injection that would work as a Prophylactic to Anaphylactic shock- why, they even called him insane! Well, he'd show them...

Mobile
Knight
Disaster
Quasar
Taco

The Adventures of Captain Shoe and The Amazing Aglet - Part 1: Shopping for Shoes

The Adventures of Captain Shoe and The Amazing Aglet - Part 2: Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Shoes of War

---

The Adventures of Captain Shoe and The Amazing Aglet - Part 3: The Knight and the Shoe

Captain Shoe and The Amazing Aglet paid a visit to The Taco Knight, a grossly over-weight ethnic Latino, who, through some kind of time-dilation sorcery, never seemed to leave his seat at the Quasar Taco Emporium over-looking a major thoroughfare of the city's motorways. As per usual, his head was squeezed into a dinky-little toy helm with working visor. The visor was currently raised.

"We're looking for Stiletto, Taco Knight. We just had a run-in at the mall--it was a disaster."

"Mmm, I can see that," he replied through mouthfuls of taco, "Looks like she had her way with you, muchacho." He smiled suggestively, mouth bulging.

"Just a black eye. Have you seen her?," Captain Shoe repeated impatiently, a little annoyed now.

"Yes, I have. She's mobile as we speak. Skimpy red outfit, pumping for all she's worth--"

"Where?" Captain Shoe interrupted.

The Taco Knight raised one stubby finger and pointed out the window. There was Stiletto, head down, butt high, furiously peddling down the road on her trick bike.

"Mm, makes sense. Not gonna get far on a bicycle, really." They both dashed out the door in pursuit.

---

Prevarication
Terminology
Peerage
Boots
Naughty

"Issued henceforth the proclamation: All Peerage must wear flat boots!"

Unbeknownst to the general public, this was a prevarication from a naughty messenger who travelled from towne to towne claiming he was sent by the king to poste this message and shout from the church squares the new terminology to the previous rule of heeled boots for the upper class. It appeared that many men with their flouncy clothes and heeled boots were being mistaken for women.

"The king has decreed," the fabulist announced, "all men must now wear flat boots to distinguish themselves from the fairer sex."

nemesis
skulking
knickerbockers
scatological
anticipation

Deborah was one of the few people who called the New York Knicks by their full name, the New York Knickerbockers, but she believed it gave them a better chance of winning. Now, as she waited for the start of the game with their nemesis, the vile Boston Celtics, she was filled with anticipation, and there were even scatological thoughts skulking in her mind when she saw the hated rivals take the court. “Go, Knickerbockers!” she shouted so everyone could hear.

Semaphore
Joist
Coquette
Ivy
Dissemble

Semaphore Beach was coquette central, they said, where the girls showed their wares, revelled in stares, and gave not an inch away.

But how the tables did turn when the Ivy League boys rolled around: baby faced and blazered with breeding and brashness, they did dissemble through whispers their lovers credentials and whisk those girls away.

Under jetty and joist, the couples would wrestle, lock lips and tussle, huffle and puffle, create a kerfuffle...maybe shovel some truffle?

Then, to the sound of waves crashing, they would immerge all dishevelled and revel under moonlight and stars.

---

Calabash
Vituperative
Clever
Mustang
Tutu

Though her calabash-like body was not ideally shaped for dancing, Irina had been determined to star with the Bolshoi from her earliest years, and through a series of clever ruses, she had managed to persuade the vituperative ballet master, Binavalionatorikanovich, to cast her as a mustang in his new ballet Wild Horses in Siberia. Now, as she stood in the wings, she adjusted her purple tutu, knowing that she would at last find the success of which she had always dreamed.

Maypole
Resume
Payola
Kiwi
Disjointed

"I love kiwi!" the young child screams while running around the maypole, juice dripping down her pink cheeks and onto her stained frock. The faire is chaotic, people everywhere. I resume walking, dodging vendors selling trinkets and hodgepodge items. Reality is disjointed here, time past and present merging together. If I can just keep focused on my goal, the prize at the end of this day, I will hit payola. The renaissance faire is a great place to conduct a little side business on the weekend. So crowded that no one pays me much attention.

sphere
comeuppance
entwined
sherpa
lugubrious

Radwilliger Carruthers Kirkmouthe Wentworthington III had made sure that his son, Radwilliger Carruthers Kirkmouthe Wentworthington IV would not waste his youth entwined in the trendy social sphere of New York. He had added a clause to his will stating that Radwilliger Carruthers Kirkmouthe Wentworthington IV must spend 20 years as a sherpa in the Himalayas before receiving his inheritance of $10 billion.Though Radwilliger Carruthers Kirkmouthe Wentworthington IV might find this way of life annoying, even a bit lugubrious, it would give the young man his comeuppance for daring to call his esteemed parent “a ridiculous old fart.”

Camshaft
Docudrama
Crumb
Nonevent
Scavenger

"Quincival!" screamed Edwina, there's a docudrama about Robert Crumb on TV!
"Oh, great..." sighed Bob as he put down the camshaft he'd been polishing. "What kind of professional scavenger knocks off work everytime some nonevent involving a cartoonist comes on TV?"
But Quincival was already gone.

knucklehead
toxicity
undergrowth
puzzlement
anaconda

The anaconda slid among the undergrowth along the Amazon River, looking for something to devour. My knucklehead son, unafraid of the snakes from their lack of toxicity, wanted to capture one for a pet. The look on my son's face was sheer puzzlement when I told him he would not be allowed to take one home.

fouled
periscope
bungee
chunder
impartial

Wimpworthy wanted to be impartial about it, but some dummy had fouled the sub’s head with chunder, and as he gagged, moving toward the periscope, he regretted the night he got drunk and joined the Navy, when he could have kept his DJ job and gone bungee jumping on weekends instead of spending endless weeks underwater on this stinking boat.

Ramp
Overwork
Czar
Mayonnaise
Eureka

Eureka! The Czar had finally perfected his mayonnaise recipe. After months of work, it was ready for production.

To celebrate, he dashed out of his lab, ran down a ramp, and launched into a series of summersaults, tracing perfect upside-down U-shapes to the far wall of the factory; reversing his direction, he returned with high toe-pointing leaps, and finished by sliding on his knees, arms raised in triumph.

His workers all cheered, heads raised and clapping with enthusiasm.

"It is done! Now, overwork them 'till they drop," he waved his hand dismissively toward his employees, "I want this mayonnaise on the market by the end of the week".

His workers all groaned, dropped their heads, and returned to their stations.

---

Balloon
Baboon
Bazooka
Boob
Boo-boo

“I made a boo-boo,” the boob said after he accidentally fired his bazooka at the balloon carrying his baboon.

Carioca
Scramble
Retrogress
Parsnip
Hallelujah

The sweat was dripping down my forehead as I followed along on my new dancersize video. This carioca dance was harder than at first look. I had lost 50 pounds and was afraid of a retrogress if I couldn't keep active. I had to scramble to keep up but I managed.

Finishing up, I stepped on the scale again to make sure. Hallelujah! Another two pounds down. But the thought of parsnip soup for dinner again churred my stomach.

interloper
fiddlesticks
watery
eclipse
quest