Read Online Wry Martinis by Christopher Buckley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Christopher Buckley
Ads: Link
the wife (Sandra Bullock) of a Venetian doge (Danny DeVito) by suggesting that the rat might be hiding in her dress, he persuades her to join forces with him against a corrupt ship owner (Alan Rickman) who is transporting the rat to Amsterdam under orders from an evil vizier (Patrick McGoohan) seeking revenge for the defeat of the Muslim hordes at the Battle of Tours.
Plight of the Osprey:
A Marine test pilot (Brad Pitt) is told not to worry when the control stick of his tilt rotor plane keeps coming off in his hands, but after a Defense Department procurement officer (DemiMoore) tells him that the aircraft’s engines are powered by slave labor they decide to take matters into their own hands and Osterize the evil defense contractor (Patrick McGoohan) and his chief designer (John Turturro).
Maya:
A pre-Columbian archeologist (Ed Harris) discovers a runic horoscope predicting that the New York Stock Exchange will crash in seventy-two hours unless five hundred virgins are sacrificed to the god Chachacha. When he and the N.Y.S.E. president (Meg Ryan) realize they have little hope of locating five hundred virgins in Manhattan before the deadline—or, indeed, ever—they enlist the help of a legless computer hacker (Elijah Wood) and a Guatemalan shaman (Jimmy Smits) to outwit the deity and in the process make a tidy profit by shorting the market. Written and directed by Michael Crichton.
S.W.A.K.:
An orthographically challenged philatelist (Johnny Depp) advertises in the personals for someone of similar interests and finds himself mixed up with a stockbroker (Maria de Medeiros) with a penchant for oral sex.
No, Houston
, You
Have a Problem:
The crew of a U.S. space shuttle (Denzel Washington, Helen Hunt, William Baldwin), tasked with performing experiments to determine the effects of weightlessness on the mating habits of fruit bats, detects an asteroid the size of Liechtenstein on a collision course with the earth. A heated argument breaks out when Mission Control orders them to deflect the asteroid by ramming it with their craft.
Dwagonheart:
A tenth-century knight with a speech impediment (Keanu Reeves) must slay a mythical half kangaroo, half garden slug before a beautiful princess (Patsy Kensit) will make merry with him. But just as he is about to behead the repulsive creature it reveals (voice by Dick Cavett) that the beautiful princess has already made merry with all the other knights in the fiefdom.
Baywatch, the Movie:
A Chinese military satellite containing plutonium lands in the bay and starts turning beach babes and dudes into gnarly mutants.Local authorities clash with the military over who has jurisdiction. As bureaucrats argue, it becomes clear that the lifeguards must remove the toxic debris themselves, using their bare hands and those orange lozenge lifesaver things. Lt. Hank Hunk (David Hasselhoff) and Tiffany Topps (Pamela Anderson Lee) find themselves in a race against time with a band of renegade Australian lifeguards, who plan to recover the satellite themselves and sell it to the Russian mafia so they can afford to buy imported beer.
—
The New Yorker
, 1996
Introducínǵ Yourself
to the Waíter
(From the Introduction to the Second Edition)
“Hello, my name is Ralph, and I will be your server this evening.”
Americans were surprised when waiters began introducing themselves to their customers a few years back. While the custom has long been in practice overseas, it was late coming to our own country, and as with Pearl Harbor, we were taken by surprise.
Clearly some guidance on this New Familiarity was in order, and it was for that reason that I published my ground-breaking—indeed, seminal—book,
And My Name Is: Getting Acquainted With Your Waiter
(Dove Press; $22). The response was extraordinary. Since its publication five years ago it has been translated into sixteen languages, including British. The immense volume of mail, not all of it complimentary, prompted the publishers to ask me to
Plight of the Osprey:
A Marine test pilot (Brad Pitt) is told not to worry when the control stick of his tilt rotor plane keeps coming off in his hands, but after a Defense Department procurement officer (DemiMoore) tells him that the aircraft’s engines are powered by slave labor they decide to take matters into their own hands and Osterize the evil defense contractor (Patrick McGoohan) and his chief designer (John Turturro).
Maya:
A pre-Columbian archeologist (Ed Harris) discovers a runic horoscope predicting that the New York Stock Exchange will crash in seventy-two hours unless five hundred virgins are sacrificed to the god Chachacha. When he and the N.Y.S.E. president (Meg Ryan) realize they have little hope of locating five hundred virgins in Manhattan before the deadline—or, indeed, ever—they enlist the help of a legless computer hacker (Elijah Wood) and a Guatemalan shaman (Jimmy Smits) to outwit the deity and in the process make a tidy profit by shorting the market. Written and directed by Michael Crichton.
S.W.A.K.:
An orthographically challenged philatelist (Johnny Depp) advertises in the personals for someone of similar interests and finds himself mixed up with a stockbroker (Maria de Medeiros) with a penchant for oral sex.
No, Houston
, You
Have a Problem:
The crew of a U.S. space shuttle (Denzel Washington, Helen Hunt, William Baldwin), tasked with performing experiments to determine the effects of weightlessness on the mating habits of fruit bats, detects an asteroid the size of Liechtenstein on a collision course with the earth. A heated argument breaks out when Mission Control orders them to deflect the asteroid by ramming it with their craft.
Dwagonheart:
A tenth-century knight with a speech impediment (Keanu Reeves) must slay a mythical half kangaroo, half garden slug before a beautiful princess (Patsy Kensit) will make merry with him. But just as he is about to behead the repulsive creature it reveals (voice by Dick Cavett) that the beautiful princess has already made merry with all the other knights in the fiefdom.
Baywatch, the Movie:
A Chinese military satellite containing plutonium lands in the bay and starts turning beach babes and dudes into gnarly mutants.Local authorities clash with the military over who has jurisdiction. As bureaucrats argue, it becomes clear that the lifeguards must remove the toxic debris themselves, using their bare hands and those orange lozenge lifesaver things. Lt. Hank Hunk (David Hasselhoff) and Tiffany Topps (Pamela Anderson Lee) find themselves in a race against time with a band of renegade Australian lifeguards, who plan to recover the satellite themselves and sell it to the Russian mafia so they can afford to buy imported beer.
—
The New Yorker
, 1996
Introducínǵ Yourself
to the Waíter
(From the Introduction to the Second Edition)
“Hello, my name is Ralph, and I will be your server this evening.”
Americans were surprised when waiters began introducing themselves to their customers a few years back. While the custom has long been in practice overseas, it was late coming to our own country, and as with Pearl Harbor, we were taken by surprise.
Clearly some guidance on this New Familiarity was in order, and it was for that reason that I published my ground-breaking—indeed, seminal—book,
And My Name Is: Getting Acquainted With Your Waiter
(Dove Press; $22). The response was extraordinary. Since its publication five years ago it has been translated into sixteen languages, including British. The immense volume of mail, not all of it complimentary, prompted the publishers to ask me to
Similar Books
